Roller Coaster of Luck

Everything we know is wrong. Even that statement is wrong. (Before you try to figure out how both of those statements could be true, just remember that two wrongs do not make a right, okay?) The NFL never loses its ability to mystify. Or nauseate. You’re up, you’re down, you’re throwing up in your mouth. A week later you’re eating cotton candy with Megan Fox on your arm. Okay, that was a dream sequence. The vomit? That was real.

Most seasons in the NFL are about greatness; winning streaks, chasing records, Super Bowl contenders. This season seems to be all about the suck. Before their stunning win over the Eagles, Raiders DE Greg Ellis declared his team a "laughingstock." Are they alone? Who are, as Homer Simpson so eloquently put it, the suckiest sucks that ever sucked? Let’s break it down!

Buffalo Bills – The Bills proved in Week 1 they still have that rare ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They also show an alarming tendency to play to the level of their opponents (see Week 5 loss at home to the Browns and Week 6 win on the road against the Jets). They released J.P. Losman nominally to avoid a QB controversy, establishing Trent Edwards as the undisputed starting QB, downgrading their backup QB position to Ryan Fitzpatrick. I will admit that J.P. Losman over Ryan Fitzpatrick is a close call, but after Edwards suffered his second Week 6 concussion in as many seasons, the backup QB decision does bear revisiting. Their head coach is a corpse. Or the victim of some kind of voodoo zombie curse. They play a home game in Toronto, which may actually be a blessing in disguise as the good people of Buffalo only have to watch this team play in person seven times. Or maybe that’s a bad thing because there’s no chance that game will be blacked out. Hey, have you tried the wings?

Oakland Raiders – They’ve built a team that would’ve been highly competitive in the old AFL, circa 1965. Their owner is a mummy raised from the dead by tourists who thought it would be funny to put their t-shirts on their heads and read aloud from the Book of the Dead. Their head coach was under criminal investigation for assault against one of his assistant coaches (no criminal charges were filed, so, you know, still innocent). JaMarcus Russell, their starting quarterback weighs more than Zach Miller, their starting tight end. More importantly, he is the worst rated QB among all quarterbacks not named Derek Anderson. Like the Bills, the Raiders also jettisoned a solid backup, Jeff Garcia, to avoid any QB controversy, leaving them no choice but to send Russell back onto the field of play regardless of the results. (See definition of insanity.) Backing up Russell? Bruce Gradkowski, who helped get Jon Gruden fired in Tampa Bay, and Charlie Frye, playing for his third team in five years and who was run out of Cleveland in favor of the aforementioned Derek Anderson. After the big win against Philly, Richard Seymour boldly predicted a playoff berth for the 2-4-0 Raiders. Does Seymour think he’s still playing for the Patriots?

San Diego Chargers – Is there a team that talks bigger and plays smaller than the Chargers? Is there a team that has accomplished less but demands more respect than the Chargers? Norv Turner, by pulling LaDainian Tomlinson and subbing 3^rd Down specialist Darren Sproles on the 3^rd and Goal last Monday night, then running a play copyrighted by Tomlinson back in 2006, was clearly trying to outwit rookie Broncos Pigskin COO Josh McDaniels. He failed. (Turner playing Vezzini to McDaniels’ Dred Pirate Robert.) Actually, he was trying to outwit Denver’s defensive coordinator, Mike Nolan. Served. Notice given. However you rationalize it, the Chargers have once again authored an epic fail. Turner’s decision, no matter how tricksy, was more widely read as showing a lack of confidence in the emotionally fragile Tomlinson. Denver’s defensive line, assembled from spare parts in the off season, simply beat up the Chargers’ offensive line. That may, of course, say more about Denver than San Diego. HC Norv Turner inherited a talented San Diego team that had gone 14-2-0 the previous year with Marty Schottenheimer. Turner has authored 11-5-0 and 8-8-0 seasons even as Philip Rivers has turned into an all-pro caliber QB. The 2009 Chargers are on pace (Warning! Small data sample ahead!) for something in a 6-10-0 or 7-9-0. That is what New England fans call "The Pete Carroll Effect." Finally, everyone tiptoes around this but LaDainian Tomlinson is clearly on the downside of his HOF-worthy career. The Chargers should have traded him while he had max value. What would the Houston Texans have given up to bring Tomlinson "home"? At this point, San Diego might just as well line up with Rivers in the shotgun flanked by Sproles and throw the ball 70 times a game.

Cleveland Browns – Is the problem that HC Eric Mangini knew he was going to start Brady Quinn at QB but refused to give him starter reps in the preseason or is the problem that Mangini thought Brady Quinn was a starting NFL QB in the first place? It’s clear the Browns cannot hope to get anything of value in return for Quinn now. A seventh round pick? Or do you just wait for the Browns to cut Quinn before you take a look (see Carolina Panthers, below). And I wouldn’t give much more than a sixth for Derek Anderson, who apparently signed a one-year deal with the Devil that expired after his "breakout" 2007 season (29 TD Passes, yes, but 19 INT and a 82.5 Passer Rating). As for Mangini, in three short years, the bastard son of Bill Belichick has gone from "Mangenius" to "Mangina." Despite Jim Zorn’s epic fail in Washington, Mangini was tabbed the worst hire in NFL history by SI scribe Joe Posnanski and even Rolling Stone gave up a full page of advertising revenue to take a shot. (At least Mangini can look forward to the most hilarious series of Coors Light commercials, ever; forcing those annoying, aging frat boys to ride over 3,000 miles on a bus, and charging them $1,701 for a Coors Light from the cooler he keeps up front.) The apparent lack of hygiene in the Browns’ team facilities (the history of staph infections, the current flu outbreak) wouldn’t be tolerated at an interstate rest stop.

Tennessee Titans – Jeff Fisher has long been considered one of the better coaches in the NFL but in the wake of their sixth and worst loss of the season, that groupthink is being challenged. He’s had six winning seasons in his sixteen year tenure with the Oilers/Titans. His record in the playoffs is just 5-6. It’s starting to look like a lot of his recent success may have been due to former defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, now the head coach of the Lions. Fisher’s team is apparently more afraid of snow than my orange tabby, his QB of the Future is bipolar, and his sense of comic timing could use some fine-tuning. (I thought the bit was funny and I don’t think Fisher thinks of his own team as losers, except for the fact that they are 0-6-0 which means, yes, how do I put this, non-winners.) Bud Adams, the owner, who reportedly hand-picked Vince Young and refused to pay to keep Albert Haynesworth, thinks this might all be Fisher’s fault. The gorilla in the room is the notion that the Titans quit in their 59-0 loss at Foxborough. How do we even define that? It’s hard not to look like you quit in a football game that you lose 59-0, playing in snow when you only brought the cleats for field turf. What do you do with the possibility you just might become a Top 10 list on Late Night with David Letterman. Top Ten Excuses from the Tennessee Titans for their 59-0 Loss to the Patriots. Here we go… #10 – Only lost 4 games last year; thought the season was over last week!

Washington Redskins – Can anyone explain how the worst run franchise in the NFL is also its most valuable? (Okay, the Houston Texans at #3 is probably a bigger mystery.) Watching the Jim Zorn/Sherman Lewis melodrama play out has to make any reasonable person ask how Daniel Snyder could be smart enough to make $1,300,000,000 in the first place. Somehow, learning he banks his Benjamins as an amusement park operator almost makes sense. Anyway, we know Snyder went after Shanahan. Plan B was to take play-calling duties away from Zorn then Fredo him, promising not to kill him till after mama dies? That’s how you thought you would jump start the team? Of course, Zorn has long had his fans as the worst hire of all time. The quarterback situation is an unmitigated disaster. Jason Campbell is not a franchise QB and the backup, Todd Collins, is the very definition of a career backup, having spent 15 years averaging 37.5 attempts per season. Two of the last four years he hasn’t even played (2006 and 2008). I’m assuming more than a few Washington fans are thinking the same could be said of Jason Campbell. Despite Campbell’s decidedly average play as a starter, Washington made only half-hearted efforts to get Jay Cutler or Mark Sanchez. Well, they couldn’t get Cutler because there was no way McDaniels and the Broncos were going to take Campbell in return. Despite the fact Campbell is hardly a threat to beat anyone, Clinton Portis is still averaging 4.2 yards per carry and yet Washington refuses to hand him the ball on every single play. Oh, and the name of the franchise is a racial epithet. Not cool.

St. Louis Rams – Another rebuilding project… Is there an echo in here? The Rams have been rebuilding for something like a decade now. They’ve been mediocre for so long it’s almost harder to notice just how bad they are right now. They’ve lost 16 regular season games in a row and with just one winnable game left on the schedule (a road trip to Detroit) it looks like they could make it to 26 and counting by the end of the season. Marc Bulger, their starting QB, is apparently made of the same materials they hand out at office off-site team building exercises that you’re supposed to build a bridge or a free standing tower out of; straws, paper clips, construction paper and masking tape. And we all know how sturdy those bridges and free standing towers are, don’t we? Kyle Boller has already started a game in place of the Bulger and it seems likely it will not be his last. Their third quarterback’s name is Null. They have yet to score a rushing TD. I’m guessing HC Steve Spagnuolo cried like a little girl when he saw Sam Bradford go down with that shoulder injury.

Carolina Panthers – Their best player bitches after a win if he doesn’t get the football enough. That is, when Steve Smith isn’t punching out one of his own teammates. I suppose I’d buy the "boys will be boys" explanation after the first incident. After the second? You didn’t call Jerry Jones and try to work out a trade? (Or Al Davis?) They signed starting QB Jake Delhomme to a pricey extension after he authored one of the worst performances in NFL playoff history and then were shocked when he continued throwing passes to opposing DBs at an alarming rate this season. They didn’t notice his age or lifetime passer rating? I really don’t know what this means, but Delhomme is one of only three QBs who currently have a Passer Rating lower than their Completion Percentage, the others being Josh Johnson of Tampa Bay and Derek Anderson. Any statistical outlier involving Derek Anderson cannot be a good thing. Despite all of that and the fact that they have Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams as options in the backfield, they rank 20^th in rushing attempts through six weeks.

themike@wavingalien.com