The NFL Recap

We’re baaaaaaaack. And so is the NFL.

We’re not sure what is more eagerly awaited – the start of the NFL season, or the first recap, mocking all that is precious about the NFL… not to mention the Redskins.

For those who are new to the experience, this is my weekly rant on my favorite sport. Most of my close friends smile and nod when I ask if they’ve read the recap, with much the same look people give Tom Cruise when he asks them about psychiatry -- you know, the one that says, "Hey, can someone get the insane guy away from me?"

When last we left the NFL, the New England Patriots were busy celebrating a Super Bowl title. So of course, they opened the 2005 NFL season by systematically taking apart the Oakland Raiders 30-20. Tom Brady again descended from Mount Olympus long enough to guide the Pats home, while Randy Moss took enough time away from his “hobby” involving grass-like substances to catch a TD pass. The best news for Randy is that following his trade to Oakland , he now plays on real grass. Hey, it’s hard to smoke Astroturf.

Moss’ former team, Minnesota, spent the off-season spending money on defensive players and proclaiming themselves Super Bowl-bound. Maybe they were still confused and actually thought they could simply buy tickets to the Super Bowl – after all, their head coach, Mike Tice, was caught scalping his Super Bowl tickets in the offseason. The Vikings themselves got scalped by the Buccaneers, 24-13. This would have been the biggest upset of the day… except we forgot that the Rams were coached by Mike Martz. The Rams spent the NFC divisional playoff getting torched by special teams miscues… and returned to action yesterday and gave up another punt return TD. Great off-season work on special teams, guys. This allowed San Francisco, which hadn’t beaten a team from outside the state of Arizona since December 2003, to steal a 28-25 victory from Martz and the Rams.

In fact, perhaps we should introduce a new gambling rule, based on the lack of success by coaches named Mike. We already discussed the master of E-bay, Mike Tice. Yes, Niners coach Mike Nolan won, but he beat another Mike in Martz. Meanwhile, Seattle head coach Mike Holmgren coughed up a bad loss to Jacksonville 26-14. Holmgren's been living off the genius tag since his Packers team went to back-to-back Super Bowls, but that was back in the mid-1990's, before the scourge of reality TV appeared and subjected us to weekly helpings of Donald Trump. And Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, who hasn’t won a playoff game since we were in law school, somehow lost an opener to a Miami team quarterbacked by Gus Frerotte 34-10. Yes, that's former Redskins QB Gus Frerotte... hey , maybe he borrowed Danny Wuerffel's legendary glove. We’re not certain how Ricky Williams chose to celebrate the Dolphins win – perhaps he called Randy Moss for advice.

There was one coach named Mike who won yesterday without facing another Mike, and that was Buffalo coach Mike Mularkey… but we’re still investigating if that’s his real name. That name sounds like he’s in Witness Protection, and we all know no one lives in Buffalo voluntarily, even if they can coach the Bills to a 22-7 win over the Texans. Of course, it could be worse – you could be a Cardinals fan. Oh, wait… the Cardinals don’t have fans, which makes it easier when they somehow give up 42 points in a loss to the Giants.

We’d like to have people place bets (of course, gambling is wrong, and we’d never encourage such an activity) on whether the Bears might score 42 points all season. They somehow scored seven in their loss to the Redskins, which may be more of an indictment of the Redskins than their 6-10 mark last season. Of course, Dan Snyder and the Redskins will start selling Super Bowl tickets tomorrow morning -- it’s been so long since the Redskins made the playoffs, their fans will be forgiven for thinking that winning the first game of the season means a playoff berth. And the Redskins are tied for first place with the aforementioned Giants, as well as the Cowboys, who stole a win in San Diego 28-24 in the best game of the opening weekend. We’re not sure if Cowboys corner Aaron Glenn got away with pass interference on his game-clinching interception against the Chargers, but we all know the NFL fixes games in favor of the Cowboys.

Hey, it’s just a fact, people, just like the fact that the NFL fixed the Monday night opener to make sure the Eagles lost to the Falcons. Ejecting a key player before the game? Is this revenge for Sherman burning down Atlanta? We're relatively confident that the deficiencies of Michael Vick the passer will catch up with the Falcons, while the Eagles will right their ship and resume the T.O. soap opera this week. The real shocker of the weekend should have been the fact that the Bengals won… except that the Bengals are actually a decent team (words we never thought we'd type), and they were playing the Browns. Of course, why should we care, when most of the state of Ohio was still hung-over and upset over OSU’s loss to Texas on Saturday night? By contrast to that college thriller, this game was about as interesting as a soccer game. To be fair, it wasn’t as one-sided as the Chiefs’ 27-7 pasting of the suddenly woeful Jets, who looked like they spent the preseason practicing how to fumble the ball. Give the Jets credit -- they must have practicing fumbling a lot, as they were pretty good at it, and even added some other turnovers.

We’d talk about Pittsburgh’s 34-7 blowout over Tennessee, but we’re not sure if those were the Tennessee Titans or Middle Tennessee State or Nashville Regional High School. The Burger King commercials were more entertaining than the game, which featured some unknown guy named Willie Parker rushing for over 100 yards for the Steelers. We thought Willie Parker was a jazz musician. In any case, he made beautiful music, much like Peyton Manning, who led the Colts past the Ravens 24-7. It’s a good thing Ravens coach Brian Billick is an offensive genius, or they never would have scored seven points. Meanwhile, Green Bay lost 17-3 at Detroit. Most people acted surprised, but we aren’t – Green Bay’s head coach is named Mike.

We joke about a lot of games, but for once, no jokes. New Orleans beat Carolina 23-20. Sunday, the Saints were America’s Team. Way to go, guys.