The 2004 New Orleans Saints are the only team that I have seen pack it in during the second game of the NFL season.
It's quite true. Years from now history will forget, but I won't -- the 2004 San Francisco 49ers were putting street free agents on their defensive line due to injury. For game two they started guys who weren't in camp with them, or anyone. Ken Dorsey was the quarterback in his first game for Christ's sake! If you get beat by a quarterback starting his first game, ever, it's actually indicative of a mess of failures within your organization and Dorsey, to his credit, almost did it.
The 49ers would have won the game if backup running back Jamal Robertson didn't fumble and give the Saints one more crack with the ball, and even
Yahoo didn't mention it in the recap. The Saints had given up on the season, but an unforced miscue gave them a second chance.
I can't fully explain how little they wanted to win that game. My brother said once that the team seemed like they were more interested in hitting up the strip clubs and giving each other a hotfoot than actually playing football on Sunday and it was true from the get-go. I saw them play with a lead in the third quarter once as far as I could remember, and that was today. They acted like a team that was shocked at what time the game started each week. As if they were a disorganized flag football team. Whoa, one o'clock?!! What the? Is it early this week? Sure coach, I'll get right to the game, don't take the coin flip till I get there! Where's my helmet?
I blamed the coach -- Jim Haslett -- and his co-ordinators (Mike McCarthy on the offense and Rick Venturi on the defense) and I guess I still do, a little. For years now the Saints just don't play like they got any sleep the night before or with any indication that things like shovel passes, end-arounds or screens have been around for more years than Pinback has teams. The "surprised" emoticon would best express what they had going on all year.
Now? Who knows. If the NFL expanded to seven playoff teams the Saints would be in, as they would the last few years. But why do I get the sense that they'd play just hard enough to be #8 in that case?
Two teams made it this year at 8-8 and it really burns me that my mediocre team wasn't good enough to be one of them, especially since we beat one of them outright (the Rams). As bad as things are in New Orleans I'd hate to have to wish that my Super Bowl draught would end with Mike Fucking Tice at the helm. Jesus Christ, the fastest person who has ever played the game is on your team and he also has the best hands and you're losing to Washington? Really? With Ramsey and Betts? This is a playoff football team! I may actually wager against them next week because it would be the best way to demonstrate how incompetent I think he is. I would like to make money, personally, due to how bad he is at his job.
Did I mention that if his shitty team had defeated the laughable, Arrington-and-Portis-less Redskins the Saints would be in the playoffs? I meant to.
I don't even blame former Saints kicker Doug Brien for missing the 90 yarder the Jets had him try, which again would have put us in the playoffs. The way that Haslett cut him I wouldn't have blamed him if, rather than kick the ball, he simply took off his pants, revealed "FUCK" on leftie and "HASLETT" on rightie and allowed the Rams special teams to take the ball from the holder and run it back to the end zone, ending the game that way. I sort of credit Herman Edwards for not just taking his guys off the field when they had nothing to play for, but fuck, Brien's range is about 30 yards and a tie would have been just as good. Punt it -- THAT'S WHY YOU PLAY THE GAMES!!! (I am quoting what he said when asked about his playoff chances a couple years ago during his press conference meltdown. That is what I am doing.)
Anyway. Another complete waste of time. Another $180 down the drain for the ticket and another YEAR before there's any chance of playoff football for me and the Saitns winning a Super Bowl in my lifetime just got the tiniest bit more unlikely and unbelievable with the passage of time and I am slightly less able to enjoy things like I could at the start of the season and by "things" I mean anything and ...
Ah, fuck it, Brooks to Horn is the nicest tandem I've ever seen in my life and Charles Grant put in the most dominating season of defensive end in the Saints' history. We fix this offensive line and play a little better in the first quarter, we're right in the mix for that seventh spot next year, which I totally hear they're going to expand to.
The 2004 New Orleans Saints are the only team that I have seen pack it in during the second game of the NFL season.
It's quite true. Years from now history will forget, but I won't -- the 2004 San Francisco 49ers were putting street free agents on their defensive line due to injury. For game two they started guys who weren't in camp with them, or anyone. Ken Dorsey was the quarterback in his first game for Christ's sake! If you get beat by a quarterback starting his first game, ever, it's actually indicative of a mess of failures within your organization and Dorsey, to his credit, almost did it.
The 49ers would have won the game if backup running back Jamal Robertson didn't fumble and give the Saints one more crack with the ball, and even [url=http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/recap?gid=20040919018]Yahoo[/url] didn't mention it in the recap. The Saints had given up on the season, but an unforced miscue gave them a second chance.
I can't fully explain how little they wanted to win that game. My brother said once that the team seemed like they were more interested in hitting up the strip clubs and giving each other a hotfoot than actually playing football on Sunday and it was true from the get-go. I saw them play with a lead in the third quarter once as far as I could remember, and that was today. They acted like a team that was shocked at what time the game started each week. As if they were a disorganized flag football team. Whoa, one o'clock?!! What the? Is it early this week? Sure coach, I'll get right to the game, don't take the coin flip till I get there! Where's my helmet?
I blamed the coach -- Jim Haslett -- and his co-ordinators (Mike McCarthy on the offense and Rick Venturi on the defense) and I guess I still do, a little. For years now the Saints just don't play like they got any sleep the night before or with any indication that things like shovel passes, end-arounds or screens have been around for more years than Pinback has teams. The "surprised" emoticon would best express what they had going on all year.
Now? Who knows. If the NFL expanded to seven playoff teams the Saints would be in, as they would the last few years. But why do I get the sense that they'd play just hard enough to be #8 in that case?
Two teams made it this year at 8-8 and it really burns me that my mediocre team wasn't good enough to be one of them, especially since we beat one of them outright (the Rams). As bad as things are in New Orleans I'd hate to have to wish that my Super Bowl draught would end with Mike Fucking Tice at the helm. Jesus Christ, the fastest person who has ever played the game is on your team and he also has the best hands and you're losing to Washington? Really? With Ramsey and Betts? This is a playoff football team! I may actually wager against them next week because it would be the best way to demonstrate how incompetent I think he is. I would like to make money, personally, due to how bad he is at his job.
Did I mention that if his shitty team had defeated the laughable, Arrington-and-Portis-less Redskins the Saints would be in the playoffs? I meant to.
I don't even blame former Saints kicker Doug Brien for missing the 90 yarder the Jets had him try, which again would have put us in the playoffs. The way that Haslett cut him I wouldn't have blamed him if, rather than kick the ball, he simply took off his pants, revealed "FUCK" on leftie and "HASLETT" on rightie and allowed the Rams special teams to take the ball from the holder and run it back to the end zone, ending the game that way. I sort of credit Herman Edwards for not just taking his guys off the field when they had nothing to play for, but fuck, Brien's range is about 30 yards and a tie would have been just as good. Punt it -- THAT'S WHY YOU PLAY THE GAMES!!! (I am quoting what he said when asked about his playoff chances a couple years ago during his press conference meltdown. That is what I am doing.)
Anyway. Another complete waste of time. Another $180 down the drain for the ticket and another YEAR before there's any chance of playoff football for me and the Saitns winning a Super Bowl in my lifetime just got the tiniest bit more unlikely and unbelievable with the passage of time and I am slightly less able to enjoy things like I could at the start of the season and by "things" I mean anything and ...
Ah, fuck it, Brooks to Horn is the nicest tandem I've ever seen in my life and Charles Grant put in the most dominating season of defensive end in the Saints' history. We fix this offensive line and play a little better in the first quarter, we're right in the mix for that seventh spot next year, which I totally hear they're going to expand to.