I’m playing in two fantasy football leagues this year, one with people at work, the other Radley Balko’s league. I’m currently 4-1 in The Agitator, and I’m in the lead 112.53 to 108.58. 112 is a great, great score (possibly a record), so I should be happy. But my opponent is one Robbie Gould field goal and extra point from beating me.

Plus, in my other league, I’m currently tied at 79 (which is a decent score), and the other guy still has a Tatum Bell and Jason Elam scoring points. Suck.

In real football: I predict that this year’s Super Bowl will be the Denver Broncos vs. the Chicago Bears, with the Bears winning.

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I’m (at best) a casual hockey fan. So, who should I root for? I’m drawn to the Oilers simply because Colby Cosh is a big fan. I’m drawn to the Hurricanes only because they’re the team of my birthplace (to be fair, they were still the Hartford Whalers when I was born, but they moved to Raleigh before I left). So… help me out here.

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Colby Cosh offers some perspective on the appropriate punishment for Todd Bertuzzi. If you’re outside Colorado (or, apparently, Canada) you might not have seen the horrific footage of Bertuzzi assaulting Steve Moore (no relation). Needless to say, Denver sports radio (to which I’m addicted, oddly enough, since I’m not really a big sports fan) is talking about nothing else, and probably every third caller suggests that Bertuzzi be suspended for as long as Moore is unable to play.

I agree with Cosh that this is excessive. A full year and seven million in salary, plus whatever the inevitable lawsuit is settled for, seems pretty good to me. But it was his last point that caught my eye.

Fourth: is it morally proper to impose an extreme penalty on Bertuzzi for an action he might have been directly ordered to take (in order to protect a teammate)? The evidence suggests he was, and that’s something we might want to think about here. I realize it’s redolent of “I vas only folloving orders”, but nobody is proposing any career sanction against Crawford.

I’m guessing that by “career sanction” Cosh means a career ending suspension since I’ve heard plenty of people wish for a fine or suspension for the coach (and GM Brian Burke for that matter). But I haven’t heard anyone say why that would be such a good idea.

Why do professional leagues punish players who behave badly? Primarily, I think, to prevent the similar behavior in the future. But I don’t think punishing the player in this case will really change anything, and Cosh agrees when he says, “The league has already established a precedent (McSorley) for one-year unpaid suspensions. These facts didn’t save Steve Moore’s vertebrae,” and also, “It’s simply not true that implementing strict liability of this sort is going to end hot-headed, foolish actions, any more than the hanging of pig thieves in 18th-century England ended pig theft.” But pig thievery and hockey sucker punches seem to be apples and oranges to me. Bertuzzi clearly snapped and punched Moore out of frustration and anger, but it sure seems likely that Marc Crawford either encouraged that anger or, best case, didn’t do anything to calm anyone down. Nobody encouraged the pig theives.

So maybe we should be asking for a long, long suspension for Marc Crawford, and a hefty fine against the Canuck organization. Seems clear to me that at least some premeditated vengeance could be avoided if clubs and coaches knew they’d be penalized for their players’ actions.

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I guess all those prognosticators that said Manning couldn’t run his offense in Kansas City (noise and all that) were wrong, huh? I probably shouldn’t talk, I was wrong about that Patriots/Titans game. Of course, I probably shouldn’t follow any more of Easterbrook’s immutable laws, now that I know he thought Bush’s turkey was fake.

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Did ya’ll watch the Panthers’ game? If not, it was a good one. I only saw parts of it, I was in a bar playing trivia, but I saw all the overtime from my couch.

I thought I was gonna hyperventilate, especially when Kasey hit that kick, then had to try again from five yards further out. Of course, they tried to ice him, then the Panthers ran two running plays, then they tried to ice him again, then he missed. Then we had to watch Wilkins (who had a great game, five fieldgoals and he managed to catch his own onside kick. How often does that happen?) miss a 51 yarder, the Rams had a defensive stop, the Panthers got an interception, and finally the Panthers scored on the first snap of the second overtime. Whew.

Now I’m catching the end of what looks like a very cold game in New England. The Titans are gonna win, of course. Their head coach is wearing a headband and a turtleneck, while Bilicheck is wearing a balaclava and an Arctic expedition coat with the hood up. As TMQ says, Cold Coach = Victory!

Update: And the cheerleaders seem to be wearing coats, wool hats, and scarves (scarves!). The Patriots are in for a beating.

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I’m watching the Wolfpack beat up on Kansas, even though it was TMQ’s top bowl outrage:

This Year’s Bowl Outrage

You won’t want to miss the Tangerine Bowl, pitting 7-5 North Carolina State versus 6-6 Kansas. The Music City and San Francisco bowls each pairs two squads at 7-5. Yet Northern Illinois, 10-2 and victor over No. 23 Maryland, received no bowl bid. Fourteen teams having five or more losses made bowls this year, and four teams withsix losses (Cal, Kansas, Northwestern and UCLA) got bowl bids, while 10-2 Northern Illinois stays home. Yes, bowls are about money and ratings, but this is ridiculous.

Currently State has scored a touchdown on each of their three posessions, and they’re leading twenty-one to seven.

Update: Well, State failed to score on one possession, but Philip Rivers is 21 of 24 for over 250 yards and 3 touchdowns. Of course, when they said to Coach Amato, “Well, you must have nothing to complain about,” he went nuts. “Those two penalties at the goal line! We should have at least three more points!” That was the one Wolfpack possession where they failed to score, the penalties put them at second and nineteen. The score is 28 to 10 at the half.

Update the second: Rivers now has fifteen straight completions and more touchdowns (4) than incompletes (3).

Third update: Rivers now has five touchdown passes and five incompletions, 30 of 35 for 384 yards. Why wasn’t this guy at the Heisman announcement? Oh yea, because they lost in overtime to both Ohio State and FSU. 49 to 26.

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It looks as if my hometown Broncos are going to give the Chiefs a 45 to 21 pasting. They haven’t kicked to Dante Hall much all game (his return for a touchdown was the game winner the last time). Instead they’ve been punting it out of bounds and kicking out of the endzone. He had one return for 61 yards, but he also had one for only 14.

At this point, not even Hall can spark enough of a comeback to keep Kansas City at only one loss. Yay!

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Wow! Oklahoma just got their ass handed to them by K-State. No one predicted that they could lose this badly… except for TMQ. Just after OU gave Texas A&M a 77 to zero whipping Gregg Easterbrook said, “The football gods take a dim view of this sort of thing, and will exact vengeance. Unless they immediately engage in some act of humility, the Sooners can kiss the national championship goodbye.”

He retracted that statement the following Tuesday, but he should have stood firm. Oklahoma did not humble themselves, and now, with results of the human polls pending, they may be out of the BCS bowls entirely.

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King Kaufman has an interesting interview of Gregg Easterbrook up at Salon. He discusses several concerns I expressed earlier, including the seeming conflict of interest caused by Easterbrook writing about the NFL for the NFL. He says he’ll probably not be able to criticize the owners (he’s made a habit of referring to Redskins’ owner Dan Snyder as Lord Valdemort) or mention his unhappiness with the DirecTV Sunday Ticket monopoly. That’s too bad, but it’s certainly understandable.

Oh, and here’s this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback. This amazing stat is mentioned: “Tiki Barber has lost more fumbles since the start of the 2002 season (11) than Jerry Rice has lost in his entire 19-year career (10).” Ten lost fumbles in nineteen years! Beth and I agree, Jerry Rice is not only the best wide receiver and the best offensive player ever, he’s the best player at any position, period, in history.

And just in time for the holidays, the TMQ book is a great little gift for any football lover.

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TMQ has surfaced permanently, and it’s at about the last place I expected (besides ESPN hiring him back). I’m really surprised that the actual NFL would hire him, as often as Easterbrook criticizes the league, its rules, its teevee programming choices, and especially its member teams’ names and uniforms. Will he have to tone down that rhetoric, or will he do it himself as a reaction to the last debacle?

Anyway, hurrah for the NFL, and thank the football gods he’s back. Here’s the new TMQ.

Update: Oh, and I just knew this would make the column when I was watching the miserable Broncos/Bears matchup.

Shanahan: greatcoat.
Jauron: light fleece pullover.
Cold coach equals win!
– Liam Feldman

That’s football haiku sent in by a reader, a TMQ exclusive.

(Link via Off Wing Opinion)

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