SCOTT JACOBS

Pop the corks Miami!  Your perfect run lives on another year.  With the Titans falling, and falling hard today34-13 to the all of a sudden red hot New York football Jets, every team in the NFL officially has at least one blemish on their record.  Brett Favre, who was a calm cool 25-32 for 224 yards, two scores, and one pick did everything he needed to, and New York (a year after a miserable 4-12 season) doubled their 2007 win total to eight, with five games left to play.  New York wanted to win, and they wanted to win now, and the move to acquire Favre, and the big money they spent on free agents has really paid off.  They maintained their one game lead in the AFC East over the Patriots, but the Jets proved with their win in Nashville that they may be a Super Bowl contender.  I didn’t think that was possible earlier in the year, but now?  Well, the Jets are well on their way to the post-season, and with a little help, could get a first round bye.

And with Tennessee’s loss, comes the end of a Thanksgiving tussle that could’ve been epically awful.  The Titans failed to extend their record to 11-0, and with it, ended any hope that we could see an 11-0 team play an 0-11 team on national television Thanksgiving Day.  The Lions did their part today, blowing a 17-0 lead at home to Tampa Bay, and getting practically run off the field the rest of the way in a 38-20 laugher.  The Lions were within four after halftime, but were run off the field in the second half, as the Bucs outscored Detroit 17-3.  Ford Field sounded like a ghost-town.  Faint sounds of boos echoed throughout the game, but it’s as if the Motown support has left the building.  The Lions are 0-11, and practically sprinting to a 0-16 ending.  Rumors have run rampant that the Lions could actually fail to sell out their annual Turkey Day nightmare, which would create a blackout in Detroit.  But would that be a bad thing?  Probably not.  Afterall, the Lions are just atrocious.  The Dolphins were bad last year en route to their 0-13 start, but they were in most of their games.  The Lions?  Well, in their last two home games, Detroit has been outscored by 42!  Ouch.

So that means that this year’s Turkey Day lineup may be the lamest ever.  In addition to the Titans-Lions game, the later game is Seattle-Dallas.  Hope springs eternal though that the Cardinals-Eagles game on NFL Network will provide some fireworks.  Afterall, the Eagles are now a .500 team with a tie, and their season is over with a loss at home to Arizona.

SCOTT JACOBS

Today the Lions looked like a high school team.  Seriously!  They wore their throwback Lion blue jerseys with silver numbers, a silver plain helmet, and plain silver pants.  And then they took the field and played like one too.  The Lions were lambasted once again on Sunday, as they lost at home 38-14 to the Jaguars.  The loss dropped the pathetic, atrocious, undeniably worst team in the NFL Lions to a depressing 0-9.  They may be celebrating their 75th anniversary, but this year has been nothing but a nightmare.

Meanwhile, the Titans kept rolling along, as they went into Soldier Field and beat a good Bears team 21-14.  The tough, hard-nosed Titans known for their great defense, and phenomenol running game, only got one part of that today, as the Bears shut down Tennessee’s Thunder, and their Lightning, holding Tennessee to just 20 yards on the ground.  But have no fear Tennessee said, as Kerry Collins had his best game of the season with 289 yards and 2 touchdowns.  So even when you shut down Tennessee’s awesome ground game you still can’t beat ‘em.  They may not be flashy, they may not be dynamic, but the Titans improved to a sterling 9-0 with the win, and inched us one step closer to an epically awesome…

Perfect-Winless showcase!

We almost got it last year when the Dolphins started out 0-13 and the Patriots 13-0, but Miami won their 14th game, right before they were due to fly to New England, so that became moot.  This year, things look different.  The Titans are a road win at Jacksonville and a home win over the Jets away from doing their part to get to 11-0.  The Lions are a road loss at Carolina and a home loss to Tampa Bay away from sliding to 0-11.  Thus, the possibility increases that that on CBS’s annual Thanksgiving showcase, we will get the perfect versus the atrocious.  On national TV while everyone chows down on their Thanksgiving lunch.  Detroit, are you ready to give up that Turkey day home game yet?

I for one will be rooting for it.

11-0 Titans versus 0-11 Lions on National TV?

Now that would be awesome.  And maybe, just maybe, the NFL would come to their senses, and end this aggravating Lions tradition. Because the only tradition the Lions have is losing.

SCOTT JACOBS

Hey guys! Welcome back to the program. Consider our two day hiatus away from your computer a re-examination, to make sure we were seeing things correctly. We had to get our contact prescription corrected so we could re-read the NFL standings. And we needed new glasses so we could make sure we read right that Tampa Bay is hosting the ALCS. And can the NFC West really be that bad? Well, actually that one’s kind of easy: yes.

So before you jump over a car, stick around as we make our way through the sports world seemingly with our beer googles on. It’s the only way to make sense of the madness.

Titantic shocker
So the Tennessee Titans are now 5-0 after coming back in Crabcake nation to defeat the Baltimore Ravens 13-10. The Titans being 5-0 is a surprise. A huge one infact, but it’s not the team that has us even more amazed. It’s 12,345 year old Kerry Collins, who has come out of nowhere to manage this team to a perfect record. Vince Young is no longer the golden boy, in fact, he’s now the problem child, and Tennessee’s number three draft choice from the 2005 draft looks like a bigger bust every day. So, when Tennessee made him the franchise quarterback, they hardly expected an old, ‘washed up’ quarterback to take his place, and lead the team to the best start in franchise history. Okay, so he hasn’t really led them persay, but he’s done everything to get out of that ferocious defense’s way.

Collins has done nothing mind-blowing. In fact he isn’t doing anythig even good. His completion percentage is 27th in the league. When it comes to yards per game, Collins is 28th! So what’s been working? How about an offensive line that has given up just one sack since Collins has taken the field. It’s tops in the league.

The Titans may have beaten the Ravens on Sunday, but they sure looked like the 2000 Ravens on Sunday. That Ravens team, by some considered to be the greatest defense ever, was one of the most dominant units to ever take the field, but its hard to overlook what Tennessee’s relentless D is doing to opposing teams in 08. Okay, so it’s only a sample size (a mere five games) but the Titans are allowing just 11.2 points a game. They’re giving up just 4.2 yards a play, which is good for fourth best in the NFL. Tennessee is fifth in yards allowed.

That team is really good folks. I mean, that defense is really good. But the Titans are doing exactly enough to get the job done week in and week out. And unlike college football, where there are no polls, the Titans are winning, margin of victory be damned.

LCS Coverage from coast to uh, coast
We’ve got you covered with viewpoints from all four cities competing for a chance to win a World Series.

Starting in Tampa Bay, where the Rays expect another dramatic set of games, similar to the ones the two teams played in the regular season, in which the Rays won the season series 10 games to 8. And in case you were wondering, those days of free tickets in Tampa Bay are long over.

We take our act to Boston, where the Red Sox are the new Yankees. People just expect Boston to win now. That’s funny, before 2004, they were dying for a ring. Now, they expect one (every year).

In Los Angeles thank Don Mattingly for the Dodgers resurgence. Well, that Manny fellow is pretty good too.

In the City of Brotherly Love, they’re shifting gears and showing some love to (not Santa silly) Mets management. Without them, none of this could be possible.

Giant Start
The Giants look like the best team in the league right now, and if the playoffs started today, they’d be the favorites to win them all. Wait a minute, the defending champs, looking better then the defending champs? Does that happen? Well, not really, but then again, it’s not often a 10-6 team beats a 16-0 team to win the Super Bowl. So maybe if the Giants go undefeated they’ll get the respect they fell they deserve. Or maybe not.

Arizona and the Woeful west
Finally, we shift our attention to the NFC West where the erratic 3-2 Cardinals lead.

Arizona is the only team with a winning record in the west, and it’s their division to win. Seriously, do you want it? You want it? No. Take it Arizona. And if they beat Dallas (odds are better that one of the presidential candidates will say “that one”) then they should just be handed the crown. But seriously, what is up with Arizona and the west. The NL West was awful, and now the NFC West is following in its undesirable footsteps. Look people, throw us a freaking bone here. Everybody’s looking. Please, you’re embarrassing us.

It was evident during the Ohio State-Texas game quite a few years ago that Vince Young took all the credit for the Longhorns success and no blame for their failures. It was evident that he didn’t have the abilities to be an NFL quarterback. His rookie year, he just ran the ball but didn’t have his passing fundamentals down.

Now it’s starting to hurt him.

He’s been bad this year. He was 12/22 with 110 yards and a TD and 2 INTs before getting injured in week one vs Jacksonville when he got injured, then he said this:

Merril Hoge commented that Young is “a baby, a soft baby.”

In an interview, Hoge went on to confirm everything I thought about Young. He even said that some colleges were reluctant to recruit Young because of how much of a crybaby he was.

Below the fold is a video National Lampoon made of Vince Young calling a suicide hotline.