Cowboys and Patriots Trash Talk

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This from the extremely good Tom Curran is right:

The Cowboys have won three of their past four after a three-game losing streak that included a humiliating defeat by the Jets (!!!!!?????). Dak Prescott last week ripped the Lions apart, going 29 of 46 for 444 yards and three touchdowns. It was the third time that Prescott has thrown for at least 400 yards in a game this season and the fifth time that he has thrown at least three touchdowns. They are 6-4. They lead the NFC East. They have gotten fat on bad teams (15 wins among the six teams they’ve beaten). But the 9-1 Patriots have scored just four offensive touchdowns in their past three games and – coming off a 17-10 win over a banged-up Philly team – they face the third consecutive challenging opponent after a relative walk in the park for the first two months of the season.

That is the best game of the week, outside of The Pack at Niners, which should be a great matchup. Will be a tough road trip for Mr. Rodgers, in the wrong neighborhood. Houston and Indy on Thursday night was good. The Texans pulled out a three point win even if, arguably, outplayed.

In the student athlete section, of course Penn State at Ohio State is the one that matters most. I’ll give the nudge to the home team in Columbus. Michigan may not be much of a favorite at Bloomington. A very late afternoon/early night, depending on time zone, is the Ducks of Oregon in Tempe to see the ASU Sun Devils. The late Saturday Pac-12 games are usually fun, though hard to see ASU beating the Quackers.

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98 replies
  1. P J Evans says:

    Even the Bay Area sportswriters expect the Niners to lose at least one of their next three games. But they started off so well, it may not hurt them (much).

    • bmaz says:

      If it was Lambeau, maybe. SF defense is tough and fast, Rodgers not going to be welcomed home. If the Pack pull it out, it will be shocking.

  2. Fran of the North says:

    bmaz, your musical taste is varied and often triggers smiles. Cowboy Song is an under appreciated gem. Perhaps one day we’ll spin tunes for one another.

    I doubt you’ve ever listened to a great station upon which I stumbled, which plays the stuff that never makes the ‘classic rock’ playlist: WXYG The Goat. Find it on your internet dial and I hope you’ll become a fan.

    What to do when two of your least favorite teams play? No one to root for in the Cowboys – Patriots match up. Best to hope for a good game with multiple lead changes.

    Best, Fran

  3. earlofhuntingdon says:

    No ringing commentary about the Catholic Bowl, BC v. Notre Dame, or the hometown rivalry in LA?

    As for football, will Arsenal beat Southampton?

  4. person1597 says:

    Will the Golden Bears climb the Tree today…or just get lost in the woods?

    Isn’t it time for the berzerkers to go hibernate, anyway?

    • Molly Pitcher says:

      My favorite t-shirt of Big Game Week has been “Voldemort went to Stanford”.

      If it wasn’t for the fact that Cal hasn’t beaten Stanford in WAY too long, and that Cal has a pretty great defense and that Stanford doesn’t have much of a run game, and that they are both playing for the bottom of the Pac 12, I would say so what. But this is Big Game and crazy always seems to happen and upset the dominant paradigm. Go Bears !!

      For real football I am looking forward to Niners v Packers. We can imagine what it would have been had Rodgers stayed home in the Bay Area instead of freezing at Lambeau. You might not realize that Rodgers grew up in and learned football in Paradise the town which burned to the ground recently. That high school has a long and storied history of football victories.

      They started last summer with 21 players in a borrowed warehouse. They ended up with 1/3 the entire population of the school on one of the teams. Most players are driving up to an hour and a half each way to make it to practice and games due to the lack of housing in Paradise still.

      Last night the Varsity continued their UNDEFEATED season with a 28-13 victory over West Valley of Cottonwood on a neutral field and with 6 starters benched after last weeks playoff game.

      From CBS Sacramento:
      ” “You look at the stands, the whole town of Paradise is here, so it’s really our only event right now, so it means everything,” senior running back Lukas Hartley said. The 28-13 win put the Bobcats into the Northern Section Division 3 Championship game next week where they could move on to a regional bowl game and then qualify for a state championship.Out of the ashes, a spark lit the fire in their hearts, fueling this magical season for the Paradise Bobcats, which will continue for at least another week.”

  5. RMD says:

    The quote,”coming off a 17-10 win over a banged-up Philly team” might give an unfamiliar fan the impression that NE played at full strength.

    I won’t list all the injured… but if you add Sanu’s ankle sprain and Brady’s gimpy throwing arm (thanks to poor pass protection) it leaves a small assortment of passing options.
    The OL isn’t doing the running game any favors neither.

    So, yeah. NE will blow them out.

  6. John Hand says:

    Check out the following SEC games this weekend. Samford at Auburn, Western Carolina at Alabama, UT Martin at Kentucky, East Tennessee at Vanderbilt, and Abilene Christian at Mississippi State. Looks more like the last Saturday in August than late November, and reminds me of Joe Louis’ “Bum of the Month Club.” Imagine paying a full-price ticket for any of these games and not feeling just a little bit like a grifter’s mark. (Except maybe ET/Vandy. which could be competitive). But what excellence should one expect from Trump country?

  8. scribe says:

    I was perusing this thread and noted the day – today is Rivalry Day. As it is, we have the Nittanies at Buckeyes, Trojans and UCLAs and so on.
    A while back, ESPN was re-running a series on why college football is the Big Deal it is, how people get bound up in the identity of being of the tribe of War Eagle or Tide, Sooner or Husker Crimson or Eli Bulldog. But that stems out of the way college football started and grew and grew. It started and grew in the colleges and universities of the East in days when travel more than a few miles was difficult and expensive.
    And so it was that Lafayette and Lehigh, two fine colleges a dozen miles apart in Eastern Pennsylvania, have played each other year in and year out since 1884. Today is their 155th meeting, at halftime, tied 7-7. Below, I’m reproducing a bit I wrote and which EW moved into the main post half a decade ago now, for Rivalry Day 2014, when those two schools played for the 150th time, the first time in over a century on neutral ground – filling Yankee Stadium.
    A side note: the star of that 150th game, RB Ross Scheuermann (who set a school single-game record of 304 yards on 45 carries and 3 TD, more than twice as many yards as the entire Lehigh team (151)) was signed as an UDFA by my Stillers the following spring. Unfortunately, he blew out his ACL in training camp and never played a down in the NFL. Such is football.
    Read and enjoy, from “Lake Effect Trash” of 11/22/14 https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/11/22/lake-effect-trash-talk/ :

    This is the weekend someone in the marketing department decided would be called “Rivalry Weekend”. And, so it is. Even though BMAz says it’s a lame weekend for college football, he’s wrong again. Many of the greatest rivalries in the college game get played today. But there is one rivalry which stands apart from the others. Today, Lafayette College and Lehigh University will play football against each other for the 150th time. That is more than any other pair of teams have played each other, anywhere, ever. This year The Game will take place at a neutral site. Yankee Stadium.

    These are two smallish Eastern colleges with campuses about a dozen miles apart in two of the small, now post-industrial, cities of Pennsylvania. The schools are justly proud of their academics and the distinction of their graduates. You can look them up, but they routinely wind up near the top of the “highly competitive” categories.

    Lehigh is a full-blown university awarding all sorts of degrees through the doctorate, but it came up as a school of engineering and the hard sciences. It was founded in the 19th century by the man in charge of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and located literally up the hill – Bethlehem’s South Mountain – from the main works and offices of the Bethlehem Steel Company. For generations there were many young men who, upon graduation, would go down the hill and into the offices of The Steel, to retire from there 40 or so years later. For the longest time, Lehigh’s teams were “the Engineers”. But, in recent years either they had an attack of the marketing department or a crisis of confidence and they wound up renaming themselves the “Mountain Hawks”.

    Lafayette is an all-undergraduate college sited on College Hill, a bluff overlooking the city of Easton and the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers. Its professors actually teach students in classes. It was founded in the first part of the 19th century. Its graduates have been more catholic in their fields of accomplishment, though business and Wall Street are strongly represented. Since time out of mind, its teams have been called the “Leopards”. In the days before the No Fun League, college football was the game and Lafayette was a national powerhouse as well as innovators. They were consensus national champions in 1896, 1921 and 1926. That’s right. Three-time national champions. In those old days, responding to the team from the University of Pennsylvania stealing their signals, Lafayette’s team invented the huddle. And, after tiring of getting banged around, one of Lafayette’s players invented the old leather football helmet. And in the late 40s when Texas’ Jim Crow would have stopped their star running back, a former Tuskegee Airman, from playing, Lafayette told the Sun Bowl to keep their bowl bid.

    The rivalry between these two colleges is and always has been intense even as they’ve gone from I-A to I-AA in football, I-A in other sports. If you haven’t experienced it from the inside it’s quite hard to describe. It extends from football through all other sports and into the work and social worlds. That whole “Roll Tide -War Eagle” bit has nothing on this. For many years, the intensity of the rivalry required The Game to be played twice – home and home – every year. Thus, today is the 150th time The Game has been played even though they only started playing in 1884. The energy behind the rivalry played out in stunts – can you build an egg launcher that can be smuggled into the game and will reach to the other side of the stadium? – violence – both were all-male schools until about 1970 and all that energy went into … something – vandalism – once, some Lehigh students put their welding skills to work and removed the balls from a larger-than-life bronze of General Lafayette. (After that and some very professionally done repairs, all outdoor statuary was boxed over for most of November. Students often repainted the boxes to look like outhouses.)

    Two schools where football players play more for the love of the game than anything else. Both schools are antipathetic toward athletic scholarships and there are no academic shortcuts. Hardly any of the players ever gets a look from the No Fun League, so today is the end of football for most of the seniors. Each school has long traditions, alumni who deeply love them and many reasons to be proud. Today is one more. For me, Yankee Stadium is too far to travel, but I might be going to a sports bar where The Game will be on CBS Sports Network.

    Raise a glass. This is what college football should be.

    Indeed.

    • Eureka says:

      This hits my senses timely, scribe, thanks for posting and re-contexting. I’ve watched some of the ESPN reruns (~ CFB:150 series), and was independently in an ancient college sports mode, looking at match-ups from the early third or so of the 20th C, drifting back to the late 1800s origins. It’s hard to find info on old teams and games much more than scores, and game dates. My grandfather played college baseball, was headed to the show until a shattered ankle. Career over (catcher — the squatting–), tho they asked him to play football and he declined (his brother did play football, so I would have been happy to find info on either one). Seems like this would require a field trip and some microfiche to learn more in any particular way.

      But evoked love-of-the-game always works, and so I enjoyed your comment.

    • Molly Pitcher says:

      It is about time. The Millennial and subsequent generations have been negligent in holding the Establishment accountable. The current dismissive catch phrase “ok Boomer” really irks me. I keep wanting to say “We stopped the Vietnam War, what have you done ?”

      I know that people will point to the internet, but I find the down side balances the upside, and the disruption to society has yet to be proved worth it.

      So, good for the demonstrators. Let’s see them do that at the Alabama – Auburn game. Then I will really be impressed.

  12. klynn says:

    Hey…
    Going OT from midwest football country.
    Columbus is seeing many local restaurants closing and a number of chain restaurants and stores closing.

    The wealth gap here is growing at an extremely fast pace.

    The economy in Ohio is making many nervous. Spe

    • P J Evans says:

      Here in L.A. I don’t know how the high-end businesses keep going. The discount stores are busy, though. (I can’t figure why supermarkets are going upscale, when most people don’t have as much money for food.)

      • klynn says:

        It has many nervous that the Ohio economy is on it’s longest recovery trend yet leaving many, many behind in that recovery. It is not sustainable.

      • scribe says:

        I won’t dispute that people don’t have as much money for food. I just wish they would spend the money they have more wisely.
        Yesterday at the supermarket I was in line immediately behind a woman whose purchase was partially subsidized by one or another government program. All well and good, but the unsubsidized part was laden with expensive, processed, brand-name convenience food. Her unsubsidized portion came to 80-some dollars.
        I had a turkey ($4.50, the 39 cent/lb Thanksgiving special which will last me a good long time), a half gallon of milk ($2.50), a tub of mushrooms ($2.29) and a couple other store-brand things, with a total tab of like $11. I got more and better nutrition in my order than did she.
        I mean, learn how to do home economics and to cook. To buy discounted or generics and turn them into something nice. Please. It’s one thing to not have money, but an entirely different thing to use unwisely what you do have.

        • Pete T says:

          Recalling way back to my late 60s high school daze it was very rare but not unheard of for guys to take Home Ec. Of course, the lady teacher was very attractive as I recall. Not that nutrition was all the rage then.

          I suppose my point is that while there may be much good nutritional info available I think that if it’s not taught and practiced then EZ wins out.

          Since my home was a mess, I have been lucky that girlfriends and their mums especially my wife and her mum and aunts were all good cooks who took the time to involve family in the process and, for the relative time, sensitive to good nutrition.

        • P J Evans says:

          She may be blowing money on a party. (Sometimes you need fun.)

          You sure don’t get much fun on a tight budget. I shop the need-to-sell-now items. It gets boring, and I doubt the subsidized stuff includes things like the stuffed mushrooms I’ll have for breakfast. Even the frozen entrees are expensive.

        • scribe says:

          There weren’t enough of the frozen breaded shrimp in her basket (one box @ 14 oz.) to even get the party started.
          This was just lousy home economics.
          Once upon a time there was at many colleges a college major called “home economics”. As I recall it from “First Man” (book version), that was even the major of Neil Armstrong’s first wife. This major, having been derided into nonexistence as an artifact of the white male patriarchal hegemon, has since been replaced by victimhood studies of all the various flavors, and independent studies majors where kids pick and choose courses and cobble together some rationale for their choices.
          Speaking of the white male patriarchy and its power structures, saw a young woman (self-described) journalist interviewed on CSPAN in the middle of last night where she was complaining about all those old white men on the panel shows yadda yadda. Has anyone ever bothered to tell those kids (like that interviewee) that the reason all those guys on the panel shows are there is that they spent the last 30 or more years wrestling their way up the ladder through the crowds of other people trying to get to the very limited number of seats on the panel shows, one story and one issue at a time.
          I mean, by way of example our EW has been at this blogging thing for well over 15 years now and has, based on intelligence, solid work performance and good journalistic practice, developed a reputation for good work, good analysis and not being a wacko such that she does get on the panel shows from time to time. She usually comes on as a “subject matter expert”, which is the step below being a regular contributor or even a regular panelist. And, in doing good work, she’s managed to cultivate a panoply of sources (and probably enemies, too) from the famous to the obscure on all manners of information pertinent to what she does. Getting to that point takes time, effort and building networks such that people will pick up the phone or open, read and maybe respond to an email, even after saying blowjob on the air. (Retrospectively, probably the best thing she ever did b/c it kept her off TV and instead developing her cred as a serious textual journalist.) Not everyone is Ronan Farrow getting handed their own show on TV out of nowhere. Speaking of which, has anyone seen Luke Russert lately?

      • CapeCodFisher says:

        The Patriots hung a cloud over the entire NFL for 20 years. New England owns the 21st century. Root for whoever you want but the best football is fought in the American northeast under our Admiral Belichick whose summer home is a boat ride away on Nantucket.

  14. punaise says:

    In hoops-land, it’s actually kind of refreshing for Warriors fans to have a bye year, so to speak. Quite a change of fortune with KD (and Iggy and Livingston) gone, Klay out for the year, now Steph out for most of the year.

    Banged up and depleted, they are still playing competitively more nights than not, while still achieving the losses that will probably get them a lottery pick without “:tanking”. (OK, let’s set aside the 48 point blowout earlier this week).

    Kevin Durant was an amazing player and gave three great years, but he’s too insecure with too much emotional baggage. Love what he did here, fine with him moving on, wish him well in Brooklyn.

  15. scribe says:

    Bucky Badger smiles wide, as the 62 yard FG attempt clears the inside of the left corner of the uprights by … less than the length of a football. To end the firsr half.

  20. Cathy says:

    Don’t know what you guys are talking about – enjoying *real* football in TX: High School Area Playoffs this wknd

  21. Eureka says:

    That was a wild Sixers-Heat game, 76ers completely drubbed them, not quite what I expected. The much anticipated return of Jimmy Buckets to Phila (he saved our (post) season last year, IMO– as not just closer but energy force and JoJo whisperer) instead became the tale of Josh Richardson meeting his old team with a season- high 32pts.

    Phila Unite!

  22. Bay State Librul says:

    Good pick referencing Tommy C. Curran, as your lead-in to the Dallas/Pats game. Curran is an astute observer of all things Patriots. As an English Major from the Liberal Arts campus of Saint Anselm, he has worked his way up from local sports writer to a straight shooter, hanging fancy free at Gillette Stadium.
    During the summer salary negotiations with Brady, he even dared to say our Patsies might be “able to pull the ripcord on Brady this coming March if they don’t think he’s worth the huge salary and he refuses a renegotiation”
    Attorney General Barr pulled the obstruction cord off from Mueller’s findings and safely landed the plane.
    Patriots fans don’t want that to happen to our GOAT.

  23. Bay State Librul says:

    Game thirteen.
    Do you see a pattern?
    Dallas: The most beloved team
    Patriots: The most hated team

    Our team is in port.
    “I’m just wild about Brady!”
    Pats by a whisker.

    1971 Dallas 44 Pats 21
    1975 Dallas 34 Pats 31
    1978 Dallas 17 Pats 10
    1981 Dallas 35 Pats 21
    1984 Dallas 20 Pats 17
    1987 Dallas 23 Pats 17 (Overtime)
    1996 Dallas 12 Pats 6

    1999 Pats 13 Dallas 6
    2003 Pats 12 Dallas 10
    2007 Pats 48 Dallas 27
    2011 Pats 20 Dallas 16
    2015 Pats 30 Dallas 16

    • CapeCodFisher says:

      Those Belichick/Parcells games were something. New England is on a 20 year rampage through the entire NFL. Don’t see any reason for it to end anytime soon.

  25. Bay State Librul says:

    The Lowell Spinners might spin no more?
    MLB has tossed out a reorganization that will plunge a knife into Class A teams.
    Check your local listings for teams that might go belly up.
    Fans take notice– the Paddle Heads from Missoula, Montana might be up Shit’s creek, and Iowa’s “Lumber Kings’ could be floored, and renamed The Lumber Liquidators.
    This is so Un-American!

    • P J Evans says:

      Considering that the players aren’t paid much, and the teams are dependent on local fans, why does MLB want to kill them? (These are mostly hours of travel from any MLB park.)

      • Bay State Librul says:

        You are right.
        In every reorg I’ve seen they want to cut overhead.
        Punish MLB and take away their Anti-Trust Exemption

      • Eureka says:

        Good question, I don’t get it but that they want to destroy fun.

        Besides a nice affordable family thing, minor league games are good non-trouble activity for tween-/teenagers, too.

        Bummer.

      • Rick Ryan says:

        I have to think it’s a counter-punch against the fact that “pay the minor leaguers!” has become something of a cause the last few years. “If you don’t like making $6000 a year, we could just get rid of the entire team…” Manfred is an ass but he’s a sharp ass. Selig was too but at least he seemed to like baseball.

    • Bay State Librul says:

      It’ll be dry in the Kraft Box, but I just returned from a coffee run and it’s pouring. I picked up two McDonald’s coffees ($2.13) threw them in the refrig to be zapped in the morning. It helps with hangovers.
      On the way, breaking news from The Scorpion Bar (WEEI), Tommy Curran just picked Dallas to win…..
      Dorsett is definitely out and Sannu may be?. Gronk is cuddling with his girl friend, remains inactive, and spoof free.
      Brady’s elbow is healing, just enough to eke out a win.
      Brady remains cranky and ready to explode.
      Enjoy the game

  27. RMD says:

    The Boston Globe, Sunday Nov 24, reports:
    “Mohamed Sanu, Phillip Dorsett both inactive for Sunday’s Patriots-Cowboys game”

    Time to get Harry and other receivers into the mix.

    Jason McCourty is inactive as well….

      • Eureka says:

        I’m switching over in a minute. Go Pats.

        We had that rain last night and I hoped it would sidle up I95 at the right time (assumption was you guys would better handle it).

  31. scribe says:

    The weather in Foxborough has been, in a word, vile.
    And this is a very hard game for me to watch. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s OK to cheer for Cheatin Bill and the Cheatertown Cheaters because they are playing the Owboys.

    At least my Stillers won.

  35. Eureka says:

    In the 17-9 loss to Seahawks, the Eagles defense played great today, damn near outstanding — I could have only asked for a TD or two from them. They sacked the elusive Wilson six times, and kept returning the ball to our offense The.Whole.Game.

    New book & lyrics for Fly Eagles Fly (not even yelled; more like non-plussedly directed at the tv ca. late Q3 or so):

    If you don’t mount an offense, you can’t have any game wins

    How can you have any game wins if you don’t mount an offense?

    Caught the late news press conference just now, supposedly Pederson et al. will figure out how to let Wentz play as Wentz did, faster freer captain RPO-ish. This, while he was clutching at his hand after the game. We’ll see how they switch the tracks of these conflicting trains in a week’s time (and if all of the next men up get the new schedule).

    • scribe says:

      Wentz is suffering from a bad case of Darryl Lamonica-itis, in that he wants to throw for 20 yards or more on each play. This, notwithstanding that his main deep threat has been out most of the year, the guys he does have either can’t run that far/fast or can’t catch if they can run and, moreover, that defenses have been giving him the short flat – 4-8 yards – for weeks now. The Cheaters did it last week – and Romo made a very pointed point on the telestrator about it – and Wentz didn’t listen. Yesterday, the commentators (third-stringers, given how the Iggles have faded in importance) made the same point and noted he needed to be taken through film study to show him on each of his plays how his receivers were o-p-e-n in the flat or on the short routes. But he wants to keep waiting for the play to develop and checking down – mechanically, it seems to me – while the pocket collapses around him and several defenders meet at the quarterback.

      Boy’s gonna get hurt doing that yet.

      He also seems to be working from a feeling of some inadequacy, as in he wants to put the team on his back and win the Super Bowl Foles won. So he’s trying to do it all himself.

      What he needs to understand is Biebs is going to Canton – long since going to Canton – on the strength of 5-8 yard dink and dunk to guys who get into the short flat and catch the ball and do all Weebles Wobble But They Don’t Fall Down. And, if they do, there are more WRs out there waiting for the gig.

      That, and it’s not out of the ordinary to repurpose a nice, big mean linebacker to fullback. Losing Develin was a huge blow to the Cheaters’ O, one they were the first to recognize. The Iggles could stand to take a page from that book, if only to give Wentz a little more backfield blocking to protect him.

      I see my Stillers benched Mason “Interception Man” Rudolph in favor the duck-calling guy (a fine art for those who’ve never tried it or seen it done, given you have to talk to the ducks and seduce them into stopping in without looking up to see them), who simply went out and won the game.

      Fine. All I want is wins, thank you very much. Right now, much to my surprise, my Stillers are in the playoffs. Needs be remembered, Ben’s first SB win came the year the Stillers were seeded sixth and had to do all their playoff winning on the road. Made for a quiet Ketchup Bottle come January, but we didn’t care because it was still a Lombardi.

      Niners look to be the real deal. There was no time for discount double-checking. They merely swarmed. Garop looked pretty good, too.

      Who says defense and a crushing ground game don’t win championships any more?

      Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.

      • Eureka says:

        Speaking of third-stringers and film, in today’s version of Why Not Both, it looks like that Romo meme is getting overplayed.

        That commenter following Romo’s line had seemed to make a good point or two in the game (specifically highlighting a bad dart to JJAW). But check out clips pulled by Dan Orlovsky today — Wentz was going for the chips, but was betrayed by shitty malpositioned receivers violating the axiom to not fool the QB. The end of Orlovsky’s brief compilation has a great review of said bad pass to JJAW, with different color than the third-stringer offered: JJAW flashes his hands, Wentz sends ball exactly there, yet JJAW is gone; Wentz panned on national TV for something clearly JJAW’s fault, not anticipable by Wentz):

        “It’s all over the tape-yall asked-here it is from the @Eagles WR and the lack of detail and the effect it has on the QB play…”
        https://twitter.com/danorlovsky7/status/1199055984938934273

        “Rewatched the @Eagles vs Seattle game. That’s the single worst game I have ever seen at the WR position when it comes to details/being where you’re supposed to be when your supposed to be there/& not fooling the QB. I try to be positive-BUT THAT WAS AWFUL. They hung their QB out”
        https://twitter.com/danorlovsky7/status/1199042434921050112

        —

        Regardless, the offense at the moment is a congealing combo platter of yikes. Formula: every additional offensive starter taken away puts more pressure on Wentz, further showcases any flaws in his game, and lands others’ flaws on his shoulders. He’s jammed up badly. Things should be a lot better next week with at least a couple of players back (opponent aside). [I’ll save commentary on BillBel and bounties and analytics and bitterly trolling Lane Johnson after his acquired head injury for another time.]

        The Eagles were — and mostly still are — trending towards solid D and ground game in their adjustment to losing WR Djax+ (and you’ll recall how well they played at Lambeau). Before the O-line was increasingly decimated these past two weeks (and addl key RBs out, besides the WRs), Wentz had adjusted better that way. He was taking the down-by-bit route pretty well, taking Ws at the sake of his QB stats too (a potential vanity issue of all QBs/ watchers that concerns me in some regards as to efficacy vs playing for the books). The broken line (+RBs/WRs) just released the kraken on the spiraling problems and really highlighted all of Wentz’s trouble spots.

        The problems are reparable with some returning personnel and dedicated coaching/coordinating, emphasis on the latters. As you know from my prior comments, we are in general agreement about Wentz.

        Glad your Stillers have secured a post-season to look forward to.

      • Eureka says:

        Your points remind me: the pressing, frazzled kid could just need more carbs or something with whatever Brady-esque diet he’s supposedly on (per the pre-season “Wentz is healthy” PR-rollout). Human variability and all (serotonin’s the popular talking-point pathway with orthorexic diet plans, but my money’s on steroidogenesis). (Tho orthorexia, period, and some personalities may mix badly in and of themselves.) Have some pancakes with breakfast, maybe, like he used to enjoy. Or, perhaps, beef ad lib. No one (out here in the commentariat streets) knows the bona fides of whatever nutritionist he’s hooked up with, too (there are nutritionists, and there are “nutritionists”). All we seem to know ‘for sure’ is that he lost some coaching staff prior to the 2018 season that had, prior, positively impacted him. Beware gurus.

        Better to emulate the Biebs and Pats in more productive ways as you’ve noted above.

        Also, I remember the press about that Steelers fan. Nice, accommodating funeral home.

    • Cathy says:

      No way. Had a (white line) fever dream this morning of a Biden Haley ticket. I guess my brain used McCain Palin as an argument that this wouldn’t be any weirder? Promptly decided I needed to recalibrate the squishy computer (with some Guinness as soon as possible) but odd that anybody anywhere would make a public case…

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