The NFL is frustrating (a lament after an Eagles loss)

NFL football is absolutely the best sport in the world to watch, even if you’re not a die-hard fan of the teams playing.

But it is also the most frustrating sport to watch if you are.

Why? Because too often it does not come down to who’s the better team, or who performs best on a given Sunday, or who has the stronger will to win (or any of those phrases commentators like to throw out).

No, too often it comes down to dumb luck.

In Sunday’s second Eagles-Cowboys matchup of the season in Philadelphia, the former division-leading team and their fast-paced (no, strike-quickly) offence desperately wanted the ball first, so they could put points on the board as soon as possible (and duplicate what they did on Thanksgiving in Dallas) and thus put the Boys in desperate mode right of the bat.

Lucky them, they won the opening coin toss (a 50-50 flip of which there is no more direct embodiment of luck in sports). They chose to take the ball (as opposed to deferring, which has become a very curious trend in the NFL, but a topic for another day).

But that good luck flipped completely around when the ball, kicked short, didn’t bounce forward as expected and Josh Huff was unable to get to it and Dallas was able to recover in what was essentially a successfully unintentional onside kick (something I don’t recall ever seeing before).

Please, please, please don’t try to argue that it was a great play by Dallas, or that it was what they planned, or that they saw some flaw in the way the Eagles lined up for the kick. The ball took a lucky bounce, and Dallas was lucky to land on it (just like is the case pretty much ANY time a fumble occurs).

It was dumb luck that the Cowboys got the ball first in the Eagles’ red zone and scored, just as it was dumb luck that late in the game after the Eagles had more than gotten back into the game and Brent Celek made a nice catch and fought for a first down, that when the ball was punched out of his arm while he was lying horizontally on top of a defender who was lying horizontally on the ground, that no part of his body that is deemed to be the part of a body that causes a player to be ruled down by contact whence touching the ground was not actually itself touching the ground. (A little wordy, yeah, but all that to say that even when logic should dictate you're down, a whole bunch of lucky or unlucky factors come into play.)

I’d even argue that it is lucky that the referees called pass interferences penalties that allowed Dallas to extend drives and score TDs on their first three, while they missed others (I’m not saying the referees were biased or that the calls went more the Cowboys’ way, just that pass interference – which may be the most frustrating thing about watching the NFL – is not always a fair representation of what is actually happening on the field and more about the exact angle of where the referee happens to be standing on a given play. Ie. Referee calls = luck.

It’s also bad luck for the Eagles that Nick Foles, who started the season 5-2 behind a patchwork offensive line, broke his collarbone and that his replacement Mark Sanchez, who had an offensive line restored with Pro Bowlers, went 3-3 in his starts and was unable to keep his team in first place, just as it was bad luck for Cardinals that Carson Palmer blew out his knee when his team was looking in such good shape for a big post-season run (déjà vu for him going back to his Bengals days). Arizona actually clinched a playoff spot with the Eagles-Cowboys result, but does anyone really think they have a shot at becoming the first team to win the Super Bowl at home this February as they head into their matchup with the Seahawks with the 3rd-stringer and possibly 4th-string quarterback preparing to go under centre?

As a poker player, I know that “luck” is part of the game if you’re talking about any given turn of the card. But if you play long enough, the luck evens out and it becomes all about the skill.

That’s just a mathematical fact, but the trouble is, in a sport where the season is just 16 games, it’s often not enough for the luck to balance out. Luck plays too high a role, and it’s hard to swallow.

Now, as an Eagles fan, it’s perhaps ironic that I’m hoping for another type of “Luck” to play in our favour next week, when the Colts visit Dallas. I need their star QB Andrew Luck to lead Indianapolis to a win, and then for the Eagles to NOT get unlucky against two inferior teams in Washington and New York.

Then maybe I can return to the excruciating practice of watching my team try to land on the right side of luck in the one-and-done post-season of the NFL.

Oh, to be a football fan.

On the day that Mark Sanchez prepares to face the Green Bay Packers, I've looked back at some of the reactions to his first start with the Eagles in place of the injured Nick Foles and hearing them has me thinking people might be getting just a little carried away with his 300-yard, two-touchdown, so-called "mistake-free" performance. And I wonder if people are suffering from short-term memory.

I've heard some calling him things like the "new" Mark Sanchez and it immediately makes me scoff.

Now before I continue, let me just say, I have nothing against Sanchez. In fact, I like him. I like his attitude, his competitiveness and many of his skills, and he displayed a lot of that on Monday night, in primetime, in front of the unforgiving Philadelphia sports fans, no less, in his first start in a couple years for a team with high expectations this year.

But may I remind people that Sanchez has one of the worst career completion percentages for an established starter at just over 55 per cent -- and last Monday night he actually had a Cmp% WORSE than that (54). And that was against a bad Carolina Panthers that turned the ball over to him five times.

Sanchez committed no turnovers himself? Technically that's correct, but the player who committed the most turnovers of any player from 2009-2012 (the period when he was the Jets starter) with 89 (69 INTs, 20 fumbles lost) wasn't exactly sure-handed as he bobbled a couple of snaps and fumbled twice (he fortunately quickly picked them up) and if not for a toe on the sideline he would have registered his third interception in seven quarters under center for his new team.

Also, it really should be noted that his near touchdown pass to Brent Celek that led to a McCoy 1-yard run into the end zone would have been an easy score for tight end (who had already established plenty of separation) if it was not underthrown by Sanchez (just like the deep one to Maclin last week that had everyone gaga from the get-go).

I'm not saying he played badly – he actually played very well, and was nearly flawless on one long scoring drive in which he also showed the type of mobility that the Eagles will never get with Foles. But what I am saying is he is exactly what he'd always been with formerly defensively-focused Jets. Give him some support – and five turnovers along with two return TDs certainly qualifies – and he'll look good. But he will never be the kind of quarterback that can shine over long stretches like Foles did last year en route to one of the best QB seasons in NFL history.

And any time anyone mentions that Sanchez played better than Foles in the preseason it makes me cringe. Even my 13-year-old son is quick to say that Sanchez got to play against all the backups, while Foles was playing against starters and had nothing to prove while Sanchez did. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison, and I can't believe it carries any weight with anyone.

Am I being too nitpicky on Sanchez? Maybe. It was a very respectable debut as starting QB for the Eagles, but let's see how he does against the Packers at Lambeau. But if he plods along and the Eagles keep winning while he does nothing particularly special, I just can't believe the Eagles would be ready to move on from a guy in Foles who has shown the ability to be completely mistake-free over long stretches, and to put up truly spectacular performances – like the record-tying, seven touchdown gem against the Raiders last year – for a guy who has already had four seasons to prove himself and failed. That would truly be putting all your eggs in one Sanchez.

Oh and by the way, in an example of apropos timing, Sanchez was the No. 10 "Quarterback Tease" on an episode of NFL's Top 10 this week on the NFL Network (defined as a QB who did "just enough to get a team to commit to him thinking he'll lead their team to the promised land, and then completely disappoint.") That's a perfect description of what Sanchez did with the Jets! Are the Eagles about to make the same mistake?

I certainly hope not.

Returning after a long hiatus

It has been over six years since my last post here. I took a hiatus because I was blogging in my day job and just didn't feel like splitting my time/creative juices. But I am now in a new job with less writing and more managing/analysis. And something that is happening with my favourite football team that just has me needing an outlet again. We'll see if this gets me going on a semi-regular basis again...

Okay so here are my thoughts on a couple of Oscar-nominated movies I saw recently (one in theatre, one on DVD).

First, I'll talk about There Will Be Blood, which I rented the day it came out. This movie runs a fine line between being a masterpiece and being unwatchable. Why do I say that? Two reasons: Pacing and music.

Why is it that directors hoping to garner the Academy's attention feel the need to stretch a movie over two-and-a-half hours? While the length on its own isn't necessarily a problem (though I really feel movies are ideal in length between 1h45min and 2h15min at most) it's about pacing. In general it was pretty good, but there were sequences that were longer than they needed to be. This movie could have been cut down to 2h15.

But what really made it unbearable, at least for me, was the use of piercing music that ran for what seemed like five-minute stretches. No dialogue, just action with this music in the background. I understand why it was used, to set the tone and for dramatic effect. But all I can say is I'm glad I didn't watch this in the theatre. I actually fast-forwarded some of these points and just took care to notice if any characters' mouths were moving so I knew if I was actually missing any dialogue.

The point is, that stuff was unnecessary and actually put me off to the point where I won't ever watch the movie again. Which is unfortunate, because Daniel Day-Lewis was spectacular, as I knew he would be. He was really the only reason I wanted to see the movie at all. I loved him in Gangs of New York, and he was great in The Last of the Mohicans too. (I haven't seen his other movies, except for Ghandi. He was in Ghandi. I was surprised to hear it too. But he played one of the South African street toughs in the scene where Ben Kingsley talks about the meaning of "Turn the other cheek." Great scene, and when I pictured it in my mind, I realized it was a much younger Daniel Day-Lewis. He was 25 at the time.)

Anyway, back to There Will Be Blood, Day-Lewis was his usual compelling, utterly-quotable self. I love the Milkshake scene (if you haven't seen it, you have to - check it out on YouTube, and then check out the SNL parody). Also, the Salvation scene (better known as "I have abandoned my child!")

My only concern was that his character was a little bit too much like Bill The Butcher, his character from Gangs of New York, in that he is vicious without good reason. He has a goal/mission, but he kills people not so much in support of that mission, but more just because they annoy him.

I don't think that's a huge coincidence that his character is similar. Day-Lewis doesn't do many movies, and only accepts roles if he really likes the script. I just wonder how many screenwriters out there are developing scripts strictly tailored to Day-Lewis.

The other thing was that one of the taglines for this movie was "When Ambition Meets Faith." That's a little misleading - it makes it sound like Day-Lewis's character has a spiritual journey. That's not it all - instead he clashes with people of faith. That aspect of the movie was very interesting (spoilers coming). The question of whether his son's loss of hearing in the movie is due to the fact that he wouldn't bless the oil drilling, whether God let it happen, caused it to happen, or if He could heal him. And then you watch as the young preacher in the movie tries to challenge Day-Lewis and convert him to faith but then ends up being the one actually challenged. (spoilers over)

In the end, the movie was a little disappointing, because there was no element of redemption. Day-Lewis didn't really learn anything. And he's actually, from my view, just a bad person from beginning to end.

And there lies a common element with No Country For Old Men, which I saw in the theatre early on. This is another story about a real bad-ass guy, from beginning to end. No story of redemption, just a ruthless killer who takes out people in a matter-of-fact way. The difference here, he kills to accomplish his goal, getting his money.

This movie was very stylistic, and had some quotable scenes in it too, such as the "coin-flip" scene which is also in the above SNL parody. One of the main reasons I wanted to see this was because of Tommy Lee Jones, who was fantastic as always. This is a movie I would - and probably will - watch again. The pacing was great, acting superb and I don't remember any problems with the music. :)

And best of all, it was 2 hours flat. I just wasn't a big fan of the ending. But I won't spoil this one.

Here we go again… my picks for the year’s four majors. Why am I even bothering, seeing as I haven’t blogged for a year, it’s quite likely nobody will read this, and I’ve got a blog now in my day job? Tradition, I guess. And I’ve got other stuff to say too…

In the Masters, I like Vijay Singh. He’s come really close to winning this year. His putting has held him back a little bit, but he knows the course well, and knows how to win there of course. He can bomb it, and he’ll need it. I see him coming through this week.

In the U.S. Open, Tiger Woods in pretty much a no-brainer. It’s being held at Torrey Pines, the site of the Buick Invitational, which he has won four straight times, including this year, not to mention five out of the past six years and six times in his career. Also, it has been too long since he’s won one of these Opens, not since 2002. The drought ends this year.

In the British Open, it’s time for Adam Scott to finally step up and win a major. He’s got too much talent not to get it done. His putting tends to let him down – okay not quite like Sergio Garcia, who came up just short last year – but I don’t see it as being key to winning this one this year. At Royal Birkdale, as with any Open Championship, the key is staying in the fairway, and putting the ball in the right spots. Scott will get it done.

Finally, in the PGA Championship, as much as it pains me, I’ve got to go with Tiger again. The way he’s playing this year and lately, winning only two of the four majors would be a disappointment. He’ll close out the year with a vengeance.

I left it until quite late this year, but here is my annual tradition... golf major predictions. The theme for 2007 will be redemption.

And the winners of the four majors this year:

Masters - Tiger Woods. He will redeem himself for not winning the Masters last year. This is is favourite tournament, and while this pick is not very original, he's just playing as good as ever. So, the back and forth between Tiger and Phil at the green jacket ceremony continues as they have alternated as winners since 2004 inclusive.

U.S. Open - Phil Mickelson. He will redeem himself for last year's debacle, and earn his first Open.

(British) Open Championship - Colin Montgomerie. He will redeem himself for years of close calls (especially last year's U.S. Open and the 2005 British) and finally be a major champion, and finally give Europe another major.

PGA Championship - Chris DiMarco. He will redeem himself for two consecutive second-place finishes at majors (the 2004 PGA Championship - which Vijay Singh won - and the 2005 Masters, which Tiger memorably won over DiMarco in a playoff, which was also the second Masters in a row in which DiMarco was in the final group.) He may not be playing the best right now, but I see him having his breakthrough tournament in the same way as David Toms, Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel.

As a bonus, I will pick one darkhorse to win any of the majors. (But I will only count this as a correct prediction if he wins the PGA Championship, since I would give that tourney his best chance.) And that's Tim Clark. He's been really solid at major championships, and the PGA is the one tournament where anything can happen.

That's it. We'll see how these pan out. (Hey for the first time in a while I didn't pick Mike Weir! But I'll still pull for him.)

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In February, I wrote a blog recently about the two episodes of Law & Order "ripped from the headlines" about Ted Haggard. I found it surprising that two of the three series had episodes on the same theme. Well now they've gone one more to complete the trifecta. On a recent episode of SVU they went along the same route, this one featuring Tim Daly as the preacher. But this one had a twist. I won't ruin it, in case people still plan on watching it online or over the summer. But let's just say that theing are not what they seem with this one.

In addition to the twist, this episode was also more heavy on the religious "commentary." Benson said she blamed religion for the pastor's family's problems, because that's what caused him to do certain things to "convince" himself he wasn't gay. But one thing I love about L&O is it's never heavy-handed on one side of a debate. Stabler countered what she was saying. L&O always stimulates good discussion on a spiritual, religious or moral topic, but doesn't force one particular opinion.

Last night, Law & Order: Criminal Intent continued its long-standing tradition of having comedic television actors guest star in roles you wouldn't ever expect: in dramatic - and sometimes chilling - roles as the either the killer or at least some disturbed character.

Tom Arnold guest starred as a televangelist caught up in a homosexual scandal. He of course gained fame for his role on Roseanne, and more recently was the joker host (isn't he always a joker) of the Best Damn Sports Show Period.

The list of such actors to make guest appearances on CI is long:

Stephen Colbert (then of The Daily Show, now of The Colbert Report)
Darrell Hammond (of Saturday Night Live)
Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser of course)
Bronson Pinchot AND Mark Linn-Baker (Perfect Strangers) on separate episodes
Richard Kind (Spin City)
Michael Gross (Family Ties)
Fran Drescher (The Nanny)

In addition, there have also been many well-known movie actors to appear on the show (ones who have done both comedy and drama, but are typically known best as comedic actors/actresses).

Whoopi Goldberg (CI)
Liza Minnelli (CI)
Rip Torn (CI)
Brent Spiner (CI)

And this pattern is not exclusive to CI, but can also be found on SVU and L&O, with two recent and most notable examples:

Martin Short (SVU)
Chevy Chase (L&O)

Chevy Chase played a character which was a takeoff of the Mel Gibson drunk driving incident in which he went off on Jews (being responsible for all the wars, etc).

I wonder why Law & Order does this, especially on a dramatically intense show like Criminal Intent. I understand having guest stars (to draw viewers, add a dynamic, etc). And often such guest stars have had experience in both drama and comedy. But it was so weird seeing Stephen Colbert (in the height of his role as a hilarious reporter on The Daily Show) playing a psychotic killer in a serious drama. Or Darrell Hammond, seemingly better suited for his Bill Clinton impersonations than for that of a sleazy manipulator (no, he did not play Clinton on CI). And seeing Martin Short and Chevy Chase on those very heavy roles was strange indeed.

For the most part it was good, I just find it interesting that most of the guest stars aren't those who are more dramatic actors by nature.
Oh, one more thing, last night's episode also continued in another even longer-standing tradition (which dates back to the original series) of doing "ripped-from-the-headlines" stories for their episodes. This time, of course playing off the recent story of preacher Ted Haggard, who recently admitted to having relations with a gay hooker. What's strange here is that this is the same storyline that the previous episode of L&O playef off. Typically, they don't do that (have both shows use the same "ripped-headline" from which to build the episode's storyline. Oh well.

Finally, the episode also continued in yet another tradition of using religious or spiritual storylines. But that is the subject of another blog entry.

The Colts have beaten the Bears in the Super Bowl, so I must come out and say this, without humility: I correctly predicted this... way back in the pre-season. Yes, no kidding, I predicted the Colts to beat the Bears in the Super Bowl.

Okay, so picking the Colts to win was not exactly a stroke of genius. And the Bears had a very good year last year. But according to Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN (whose column I read religiously), people in the media correctly predicting the Super Bowl winner and loser (or anything in the NFL for that matter) have been few and far between. Check out his column on bad predictions here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/070213

As for my seemingly amazing prediction, unfortunately I don't have any proof for any doubters out there (what, you won't just take my word for it?)

The only thing I can offer is this. For my day job at Sportsnet.ca, I helped to create division-by-division previews in the pre-season, which also included predictions. My co-worker and I each did predictions (though I only did mine because I didn't realize he had done his, and since he did his first, we went with his). They can be found here:

http://www2.sportsnet.ca/football/nfl/division_previews.php

For the most part, I agreed with his. I think pretty much the only difference was that I had the Bears in the Super Bowl while he had the Panthers (which wasn't a bad prediction at all, I considered them, but I just thought that it was going to be the Bears year this time).

Maybe next time around, we'll have side-by-side predictions with bylines - I wasn't the big "columnist" then that I am now - check out my blog for the site:

http://www2.sportsnet.ca/blogs/NFL_Fours/2007/02/05/super_bowl_wrap/

And yes, I went a little against the tide on Rex Grossman. But he did make a bad throw at a bad time.

By the way, I was also the top prognosticator in the weekly picks (against the spread) section on our website:

http://www2.sportsnet.ca/football/nfl/picks/2006/21

For anyone wondering I wasn't the one who picked the Super Bowl game itself, it was because of a deal with Sudbury Todd that whoever correctly picked the Championship game by the better margin would get to pick the Super Bowl. We were both right (even though more people were picking the Saints and Patriots), but his margin was greater. For the record, I would have picked the Colts to win by 7.

Okay enough self-promotion. Wait, this is my blog. What else should it be for?

I saw Deja Vu not too long ago and got to do a movie review for it. This is what I wrote:

Denzel Washington (known for such sports movies as Remember the Titans and Hurricane) plays a detective trying to get to the bottom of who is responsible for an explosion that claimed the lives of hundreds of people on a boat in New Orleans. He plays the role of the ambitious, dedicated detective called to the scene to investigate. He goes along the usual path of evidence gathering, until he's asked to join an elite – and secret – task force just assembled for which this disaster is its first task.

It is here where the script unveils its central plot device, a high-tech "surveillance" system, which is eventually revealed not to be a surveillance system at all, but a way to digitally recreate images from anywhere exactly four days and six hours in the past, provided it falls within the "target area." Nevermind how this is possible - there's an explanation involving wormholes or "Einstein-Rosen bridges" and folding time on itself, the fact is the characters can use knowledge of the present to try to look in the right places in the past to find clues for the future.

Of course, it doesn't end there, as Washington figures out that they can do more than just "look" into the past – they can actually manipulate the past and even send back objects, and indeed himself – hence travel back in time to try to change the past and attempt to avert the disaster.

While watching this movie, you'll get that sense that you've seen this before. That's because it's been done before. The plot develops similarly to a number of movies involving time travel, most notably 12 Monkeys. And like so many others, it suffers from the inevitable paradoxes inherent in most stories in which a character travels back in time. (He goes back in time to stop an event – but if the event does not occur, he has no reason to travel back in time.)

Another thing that will seem familiar, but in a good way, is the fact that it's a typical Jerry Bruckheimer movie, with elaborate and entertaining action scenes, though not much in character development. And it has a certain style to it that's typical of a Tony Scott-directed picture, and it was the first movie shot in New Orleans post-Katrina.

There are some original aspects, in terms of the technology employed, which leads to one especially fun highway chase scene – a Bruckheimer special, but with a twist. Washington, while employing some time-shifting goggles has to navigate a highway both in the past and present – you have to see it to understand.

One major disappointment was the absence of the very thing that made the prospect of the movie so intriguing: an alternate theory on deja vu. I was waiting for a scene in which a character - preferably Washington's – has a moment in which he senses that "phenomenon" of deja vu, but we later learn that it is not just a trick of the mind, but something entirely different, where you go "wow" because it's explained by technology or the results of time travel. Sadly, such a scene is lacking.

Also lacking was a good explanation of why the antagonist, played by Jim Caviezel, does what he does. Caviezel plays a callous, yet troubled terrorist. It's amazing that the man who played a compassionate Jesus in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ could play such a cool, stone-faced killer, but he does it with precision and a certain degree of mystery. Unfortunately, mystery around his motives remains.

One line in the movie, which is prominent in the trailer, delivered by Caviezel is "You think you know what's coming? You have no idea." As entertaining as the movie was, it would have been nice to have found out what he was talking about.

Despite a couple disappointments, overall it was an entertaining movie and worth the $12 to go see on the big screen.