Monday, September 11, 2006

Monday Night Madness...

Week One is officially upon and behind us. Football is back. I couldn’t be happier. Today was spent anticipating the large division rivalry that has defined our team for years and years. It’s Raider Week. For the first time in a long while we enter this game with a tremendous question at quarterback. Will he or won’t he be any good? For the last handful of months we have tossed theory after theory back and forth about this one. None of us here were worried about it. What did we find out? We found out that we are going to have to wait until the coaches are ready for us to find out…

Raider week began with a bang. Our recipe for success, LTD x 31. He managed 99 total yards in the first quarter. What? You’d think that with a rookie at the helm that the Commitment to Mediocrity coaching staff would key on LTD. Not to be. Boy Wonder did what he does and he did it well.

Now, far be it for me to be critical… yeah, that’s pretty funny, but well, everyone is going to get a “Get Foley Out of Jail Free Card” tonight, and they are not going to be subject to the midseason criticism that I would normally unleash upon them. It’s kind of difficult to be hypercritical of a game plan that nets you a 27-0 victory in the season opener. But, with all due respect (and yes that means everything from here on out is meant with the utmost disrespect) the coaches were maddening tonight. They had driven Max Colossus to baby killing in the third quarter, and I right behind him volunteering to hold the infant girl down while he bludgeoned her with a mag lite. By the time the third quarter clock was winding down, I was ready to sacrifice all small felines in my neighborhood at the expense of Marty and his ‘gameplan’. This was one of the most unsatisfying 27-0 shutouts I have ever experienced.

There were some positives. Well, a positive. The defense. The defense was miraculously vicious. Shawne the Maniac was all over the field making Aaron Brooks his bitch. Seriously, if those two were in prison, Brooks would be limping in the yard mumbling something about trading his first born for some lube. The defense got to various quarterbacks wearing Silver and Black 9 times. Nine Times? Niiiiiinnnne Times. Ridiculous. Dick Vermiel said he had never seen an offense that ‘Inept’. You have to think if that was his offense he’d be bawling like Herm Edwards will be in three weeks. Not to mention, when Error Brooks did throw the ball in a forward motion, the secondary looked prepared and professional and made plays on the ball. There were zero, zero, pass interference calls on the gang. Zero. I can’t believe I can type those words without slamming my fist into the keyboard over and over again. To top it all off, the boys were wiping their cleats off on the field all night long. It took me a while for me to figure out what they were doing. A team bonding moment? Perhaps. But, in the world of talking shit, they were wiping their feet on the doormat that is now the Oakland Raiders. Yes, they are officially to be known as the Doormats from now on. I can’t believe that they have fallen so far. It’s damned fun to watch.

The glaring issue at hand is the quarterback. When allowed to throw, all eleven times, he looked decent. He threw some great passes to McCardell, Parker and Gates. He even got himself a touchdown with not one but two throws on the same drive. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but, when you watch the team run the ball 2975 times in the third quarter, you begin to wonder what the hell is going to happen when the Doormats aren’t on the surface across from the squad. Maybe the coaches have a plan, I’ll wait and see, and revel in our 27-0 shutout of the newly crowned Doormats.

Oh, and I won another bet, this time a Doormat Faithful will be sporting a Bolt Foam Finger at the home game this season. Fortunately, I will not have to don the Doormat jersey at the same game with the aforementioned 27-0 shutout. It’s just fun to type, 27-0 SHUTOUT. Sorry.

Side note (and more on this later): We had the pleasure of meeting the girl responsible for Foley’s attempted murder. We’ll deal with her later, but it’s “rumored” that he was quite drunk. Still doesn’t add up that the off duty campus patrolman didn’t flash a badge or have available backup, but yeah, that situation is getting sorted out real soon.

Revel in this for a day, for we have a short week…I’ll sign off with my favorite word of the night…

Shutout…

2 comments:

Diego Jimbone said...

Shutout indeed! I'll say it too.

Yes, that 3rd quarter was kind of painful. But I guess it was a clock eater. Not much fun to watch, though.

Took me a while to figure out what the doormat thing was for a while. I was like "no lightswitch?" on Merriman's first big play. I guess I kind of missed that dance that I pretended not to know the meaning of. Then during the game I realized that it was a tribute to Foley. I vaguely remembered him doing that. Confirmed this mornin' by UT. Little love from his teammates. Well if playing for SF makes the D play like that, then I say play for him all year. They were ferocious!

Rivers looked great too, I thought. Short leash, but composed... which is so important.

Go Chargers!

And oh yea: SHUTOUT!

Unknown said...

I like the whole "Commitment to Excrement" thing my brother keeps saying. I am sure he didn't make it up, but it certainly is funny.