Upon Further Review...

Hear ye, hear ye... the new baby has arrived.   

A seven-pound, 13-ounce beautiful baby boy.

Everyone is happy and healthy and VERY tired.   More on that in future blogs.

For now I have called on a friend to give his thoughts on a different type of labor situation.  Enjoy!

Sir Bacon

Last Wednesday the Cowboys and defending Super Bowl Champion Giants opened the NFL’s 93^rd Season, kicking off week one which featured 32 teams, playing 16 games by nearly 1700 players.

Usually these 1,700 players would be accompanied by over 100 of the best officials in the game.  Not this year.

Because of a labor impasse, the normal NFL Officials were replaced by a hodgepodge of zebras who showed during the pre-season they aren’t quite yet ready for Prime Time. Or Game Time. Or any time other than a Time Out - and not to stop the clock but to stand in the corner after they messed up.

A few weeks ago the Buffalo Bills downed a punt at the opponent’s 4-yard line in a pre-season game. Or so they thought. For reasons no one can explain, the official on the play ruled the ball was downed in the end zone and it was a touchback and spotted the ball at the 20-yard line. The Bills challenged the play on replay and won, but what would have happened if they had no challenges left and this was a real game?

When it comes to officiating I am biased – I admit it. I have been officiating games of some sort for over 30 years. I started doing Little League games before I could drive and for the last 10 years I have done High School Basketball.

Before that I did Youth Leagues for a handful of years. I did over 1,000 Youth Games before I did one High School Game. I thought I was pretty good and I was – or so I thought.
Looking back 10+ years later – YIKES! I am a much better official now and my rating proves it as does the level of games I do. 

I worked my way “up the ladder” to the point where my assignor can trust me in big games because he has seen me handle stressful situations. I honed my craft and worked to get better. 

These replacement officials haven’t had that training.
The last time replacement officials were used the NFL was able to get officials from the top college football conference.

This time they are not. 

Now we are getting officials from lower level conferences and that is not good. The biggest difference in the college and pro game is speed. Lower level college games are played at 33 RPM (Kiddies – ask your parents about this one). BCS Conference games are played at 45 RPM. The NFL is played at 78 RPM and that is a huge difference. The difference in RPM from 33 to 78 might not seem like much but it is.

One of the replacement NFL Officials comes from the Lingerie Football League. Fans don’t pay admission to LFL games – they pay a cover charge, have a 2-drink minimum and must be 21 to enter and then face the wrath of their wife when they get home.

Yesterday this official was focused on the tight end of the nubile tight end wearing a G-string thong and fishnet stockings (perhaps hoping that he can get called for illegal use of the hands).

Today he is in the NFL, face-to-face with 300-pound players whose bodies resemble a vending machine with a neck and legs. 

Officiating is the only profession where those involved are expected to be perfect from Day One – and then improve from there. What we are seeing now is officials who hope to be right most of the time and realize “Big Brother” (Instant Replay) can bail them out if/when they mess up. Officials need two eyes to see a play and not one eye on a play and another eye focused upstairs to a replay official.

The NFL is a $9 BILLION a year entity. What the Officials are asking for monetarily is peanuts compared to what the NFL generates in a day, let alone a year. 

There is a saying in golf that you can’t win a tourney on the first 18 holes but you can lose one. Everyone seems to focus all their attention on the last few games of the NFL season as being most important, but the games played in September are every bit as important as those in December. The chances of a blown officials’ call changing the outcome of a game is very real and that one bad call might cost your team a playoff spot and the chance to win the Super Bowl.

The Golden Rule in life asks people to treat others as they would treat themselves. In business – The Golden Rule states “He who has the Gold makes the rules.” In the NFL the Owners have the Gold while the Officials interpret the rules. The Owners need to realize Gold is priceless – Fools Gold is worthless. Right now the Owners have “Fools Gold” for Officials and unless something is done to bring the “real” ones back ASAP the NFL might see their Gold be nothing more than Cubic Zirconium.

Head Games

Sean Pamphilon and I are friends.

Ok, facebook friends.

But we worked for the same company.

In the same department.

Twice.

And while we were never quite BFFs, we always got along.

And I always respected his work.

But I never respected him more than I did a few weeks ago.

That’s when Sean did something most people would never even consider.

He did the right thing.

Oh, there are many people who would disagree.

Including a close friend of mine.

When I asked this friend what he thought of Sean Pamphilon.

He said “who?”

“You know, the guy who released the audio tape.”

The audio tape of New Orleans Saints assistant coach Gregg Williams threatening every bone in the 49ers body.

“Oh that guy,” he said.  “He just did it for the attention.”

“Have you heard the tape?” I asked, with a protective miff in my voice.

“No.”

“Well I think you should.”

That’s when I paraphrased some of the things I heard on the tape.

Exact quotes have never been my thing.

I told him that this was not your typical rah-rah, go get ‘em football speech.

No Gipper here.

This was Gregg Williams going for the throat.

Actually the head.

• "We've got to do everything in the world to make sure we kill Frank Gore's head. We want him running sideways. We want his head sideways."
• "Kill the head and the body will die. Kill the head and the body will die."
• "Every single one of you, before you get off the pile, affect the head. Early, affect the head. Continue to touch and affect the head."
• "We need to find out in the first two series of the game, the little wide receiver, No. 10, about his concussion. We need to f****n put a lick on him."

Those are exact quotes.  The cleanest ones.

There were so many F bombs on that tape, I thought I was listening to a voice mail from Alec Baldwin.

At the time of this meeting, Sean Pamphilon was directing a documentary on former Saints player Steve Gleason.

Gleason is dealing with a disease called ALS (perhaps better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

As part of that documentary, Pamphilon was recording that Saints team meeting.

A meeting that took place the night before their January 2012 playoff game in San Francisco.

Williams knew the cameras were there.

But I guess he didn’t care.

I’m sure he does now.

You see Gregg Williams is done.

Done as a football coach.

At least for now.

And hopefully forever.

Like Happy Days is for Henry Winkler.

Gregg Williams is BountyGate.

A role that he will never outlive.

You see Gregg Williams was the ring-leader in a big bucks bounty program.

A program that paid Saints players cold hard cash to physically harm the players on the other team.

Knock Brett Favre out of the game.

Pick up your 10 grand.

Amputate his leg.

That’s worth 20.

When the NFL learned of this practice they approached the Saints.

And the like an eight-year-old with his hand stuck in the cookie jar, the Saints lied.

“Who dat?”  

“Me?”  

“I would never deliver such opprobrious conduct.”

Ok, that’s me paraphrasing again.

But upon further investigation, the NFL found more smoking guns than an NRA convention.

Guilty!

Guilty as could be.

And within a few weeks the NFL marched seven Saints (and former Saints) off the field.

Head Coach Sean Payton was suspended for the entire 2012 season.

Without pay.

As was linebacker Jonathan Vilma.

The team got fined $500 grand.   And lost a draft pick.

As for Williams.

He skipped out on New Orleans like he was George Bush.

Taking a new job with the St. Louis Rams.

But the NFL hunted him down and promptly suspended him too.

Indefinitely.

According to dictionary.com, indefinitely means unlimited.

In the NFL, indefinitely means forever.

As it should.

Williams was suspended on March 21.

Two weeks later Sean Pamphilon released the tape.

Pamphilon said his conscience would no longer allow him to sit on the sideline without the world knowing what he knew.

You see Pamphilon didn’t technically own the tape.

The Gleason family did.

And they wanted no part of this.

You know, what happens in the locker room where guys are being paid to end the career of other players.

Stays in the locker room where guys are being paid to end the career of other players.

Fortunately Pamphilon didn’t feel the same.

In a 5,735 word blog he posted on April 4th, Pamphilon explained why he did it.

If it weren’t for the fact I feel deeply that parents of children playing football MUST pay attention to the influence of men who will sacrifice their kids for W’s, I would not have written this.

Ok, that’s only 36 of those 5,735 words, but it pretty much sums up how Pamphilon was feeling.

He did it for the kids.

He did it for the parents.

He did it for the good of a game that he has been “a religious fan for 35 years.”

Pamphilon touched on a series of subjects in that blog.

Including Gregg Williams.

He was ordering his players to maim in as many ways possible.  Plain and simple.  He was the only one in the room willing to go into his pocket to reward it.

He spoke about Jonathan Vilma.

Vilma couldn’t have been classier.  If Jonathan Vilma ever paid a man $10,000 to hurt another man, I need a cancelled check or a verified cash payment by two witnesses.  If the Jonathan Vilma I met did what whoever leaked this crap says he did, you could cut his jersey in tiny pieces, put it in a cereal bowl and feed it to me slowly, while selling it on pay-per-view. 

Pamphilon also spoke about Dave Duerson.

Who?

Dave Duerson.

A guy who never played for the Saints.

But he did play in the NFL.

For 11 years.

He went to the Pro Bowl four times.

And won two Super Bowls.

Dave Duerson was a very good NFL player.

Was.

He died on February 17, 2011.

A self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Suicide.

Before he pulled the trigger, the 50-year-old sent a text.

To his family.

He told them he wanted his brain used for research.

Research of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

CTE.

The “progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of brain trauma.”

A disease linked to depression.

In order to preserve his brain, Duerson shot himself in the chest.

Two months later, neurologists at Boston University confirmed what Duerson had thought all along.

He had in fact suffered from this disease which had been linked to concussions.

Duerson wasn’t the first.

And he certainly won’t be the last.

The list of NFL players who have suffered concussions is too long for this blog.

It’s even too long for Sean Pamphilon’s blog.

In just the last two seasons, there have been nearly 400 concussions in NFL games.

That’s more than one every two games.

Odds of seeing Tim Tebow complete a pass are lower than that.

Now there has never been a football player alive who hasn’t been aware of the dangers of the game.

And there has never been a parent in the crowd who didn’t fear for the safety of their child.

And there has never been a paycheck uncashed because the game was too risky.

Junior Seau cashed a paycheck for 20 years.

Unheard of for an NFL player.

A quick google search will show that other than those wussy kickers, the average life of an NFL player is like three years.

Seau destroyed those odds.

Like he destroyed quarterbacks.

Playing in 12 consecutive Pro Bowls.

But it came with a price.

When asked if Junior ever played through concussions his ex-wife Gina said, “of course he had.”

“He always bounced back and kept on playing.  He’s a warrior.  That didn’t stop him.”

“I don’t know what football player hasn’t.  It’s not ballet.”

We will never know for sure what was going through the head of Junior Seau when he fired the gun on Wednesday.

But we do know it wasn’t a bullet.

That's because Seau shot himself in the chest.

Just like Dave Duerson.

Adding to a problem that may change the NFL forever.

A much bigger problem than anything Sean Pamphilon ever did.

Girl Scout's Honor

Sunday was Championship Day in the NFL.

For you.

Sunday was Opening Day in the Neighborhood.

For me.

The first day my eight-year-old daughter was permitted to sell her Girl Scout cookies.

The first request came in Saturday night.

“Daddy?”

Twinkle in the eyes, flash of the pearly whites.

“Can you take me around tomorrow to sell Girl Scout cookies?”

TOMORROW???

TOMORROW IS CHAMPIONSHIP SUNDAY!!!

ARE YOU KIDDING???

I said.

To myself.

But as required, I responded with “sure, sweetie.”

Realizing that the rest of the neighborhood was doing what I had hoped to be doing.

We took off just before kickoff of game one.

I figured we’d put in a couple of hours.

And get home for the two-minute warning.

We are pretty new to our neighborhood and I don’t really know many of the neighbors.

So I wasn’t too concerned about asking friends for money.

But I gotta be honest, I’m not a big fan of that.

But just to be sure, instead of walking door-to-door, next to our door, we headed across the boulevard.

It took three or four homes for somebody to answer.

But when they did, they couldn’t turn down the cookies.

Or they couldn’t turn down my daughter.

Whatever.

The bottom line is the first home bought four boxes, immediately.

And they got those four boxes, immediately.

You see this year, them Girl Scout people smartened up.

Instead of making you order cookies.

And waiting a month for them to arrive.

This year we had the boxes with us.

Now unfortunately we didn’t have one of them giant wheel barrels to make this an easier project.

So instead I packed a bunch of boxes in a rolling suitcase.

And a bunch more in an ice cooler.

We must’ve been a sight for sore eyes.

But we had a goal here.

And that goal was to sell 70 boxes.

70 boxes at $3.50 a piece.

And if my daughter sells those 70 boxes.

Or $245 worth of cookies.

She gets .... a patch.

A real-life patch.

Really?

Really!

Who’s running this scam, the Fox News Channel?

Ok scam might be a little harsh.

But $245 gets you a patch?

In this economy?

Not even a Snuggie... or ShamWow?

But hey, the more cookies we sell.

The more cookies WE don’t have to buy.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Girl Scout cookies.

Who doesn’t?

I love them all.

No favorites here.

Ok, toy gun to my head....

The coconut encrusted Samoas.

Or maybe the frozen Thin Mints.

Or the peanut buttery Do-Si-Dos.

Ok, no favorites here.

And the same could be said for our neighbors.

They didn’t really care what they were getting.

They were just happy to be getting them.

Now!

The biggest challenge we had wasn’t selling the cookies.

But it was getting people to answer the door.

You see my daughter learned a new word on Sunday.

Soliciting.

As in NO SOLICITING.

The hardest part for us was finding a neighbor who was home.

And didn’t mind being bothered.

As a good role model, I respected every single house who didn’t want us there.

Even if I didn’t want to.

But after a while it became quite annoying.

I would say two out of every four homes didn’t want us there.

Close to 45%.

But thankfully the rest of the hood made up for them.

A Tagalong here.

A Savannah Smile there.

Trefoils.

Dulce de Leche.

Thank U Berry Munch.

We had ‘em all.

And were selling them all.

At least we were on our way to selling them all.

When trouble showed up.

Trouble in the form of a mom and her mini-van.

With a big smile on her face, Mrs. Buzzkill greeted us.

“Hey, you may not want to sell these over here.”

Big Smile.

“We have 12 Girl Scouts on this street.”

Twinkle twinkle.

“Oh that was so nice of her,” my daughter said.

At which point I paused.

And informed her that the Girl Scout Nazi was kicking us out of her neighborhood.

“Oh.”

So we packed up our boxes and headed home.

The good news is we made it home in time for the fourth quarter.

The bad news is we only sold 37 boxes.

Barely enough to get half a patch.

Oops, He Did It Again

This Friday I will be having lunch at a Mexican restaurant.

1:00pm.

I don’t usually plan that far ahead.

But this Friday has been on my calendar for six months.

Unfortunately.

Friday is the day that I will be paying off a debt.

You see at the beginning of the NFL season I made a bet with a friend.

If my Raiders won the AFC West, he would buy me lunch.

If his Broncos won the AFC West, I would buy him lunch.

If neither team won the West.

Which seemed the most likely at the time.

We would go Dutch.

Well, we’d go Mexican, but each of us would pay.

Five games into the season, the Raiders had a winning record.

The Broncos had just one win.

Thanks to Tim Tebow that feels like a million years ago.

If you need me to recap what Tebow has done over the last 12 weeks, you’ve probably already stopped reading this blog.

The bottom line is Tebow and the rest of the Broncos will be playing a game next weekend.

While 24 other teams will not.

Including the Raiders.

Call it luck.

Call it faith.

Call it laith.

Call it fu...

Call it whatever you want, but Tim Tebow is a playoff winning quarterback.

Period.

And because of it he’s 250 geez richer.

You see Tebow gets a quarter mil for every playoff game the Broncos win.

As long as he played in most of it.

That’s on top of the eight mil he already got during the year.

So even with all the criticism he gets, don’t feel too bad for young Timmy.

But still.

Everybody but his mother thinks that he’s a joke.

Did you watch the halftime show?

The Broncos were winning 20-6.

You would’ve thought they were losing by 9000.

These ex-jock super geniuses gave Tebow exactly zero credit for leading this game.

Well Shannon Sharpe might’ve given Tebow credit, but I can’t understand a word he says.

By the end of the first half, Tebow had thrown for one touchdown.

And run for another.

The first Broncos quarterback (not named Elway) to do that in a playoff game.

But instead of praising Tebow, CBS expert Norman Esiason said...

“But can he do it again in the second half?”

Now this is the same Norman who averaged 150 passing yards in his six career playoff games.

Tebow did that in the first half of his.

In fact, he threw for 185 yards before the break.

In double fact, Tebow completed four passes of at least 30 yards in the second quarter.

That’s the first time in NFL Playoff History.

HIS-TOR-Y.

That a quarterback has done that in one quarter.

Tom Brady didn’t do it.

Peyton Manning didn’t do it.

Dan Marino didn’t do it.

And Norman Esiason certainly didn’t do it.

But instead of praising Tebow, Norman was still trying to tear him down.

And it wasn’t the first time.

Just five months ago Norman said this about Tebow:

“He can’t play.  He can’t throw.  I’m not here to insult him.”

REALLY?

“The reality is he was a great college football player... but he’s not an NFL quarterback right now.”

HOW ABOUT NOW NORMAN!

“Just because he’s God-fearing and a great person off the field... doesn’t mean his game is going to translate to the NFL.”

TELL THAT TO KURT WARNER.

“If he wanted to marry my daughter, I’d be happy as hell.  But I wouldn’t want him to be my starting quarterback.”

TOO BAD.

For a few nervous moments in the second half, it looked like Norman and the rest of the CBS crew might get their way.

But it was a fumble by Tebow’s teammate, Willis McGahee.

And not a turnover by Tebow that turned this game around.

But even with the Steelers coming back, it was Tebow’s arm that sent the Broncos fans home with a smile.

And sent the Steelers home for the rest of the winter.

A 15-yard strike, which turned into an 80-yard touchdown.

An 80-yard overtime game winning playoff touchdown. 

Tim Tebow stood toe-to-toe with the great Ben Roethlisberger Sunday afternoon in Denver.

And he beat him.

Well Tim's Broncos beat Ben’s Steelers.

But you get the point.

You can blame it on Ben’s overinflated left ankle.

Or the Steelers overinflated list of injuries.

Or the altitude.

Or the horoscope.

Or the whatever you want.

Bottom line.

Broncos-29, Steelers-23.

And this is a Raiders fan talking.

And believe you me this was a painful game to watch.

My heart said screw the Broncos.

My head said, RUN FOREST RUN.

The last thing I want to see is the Broncos win.

Especially with a team that uses more smoke and mirrors than shoulder pads.

Honestly, I’m not even sure this Broncos team could beat Alabama.

But what I do know is that they beat the Steelers.

And next week, they have a chance to beat the Patriots.

Ok, they have NO chance to beat the Patriots.

Or do they?