up, down (mostly down)
21 November 2006
I think this weekend was the very definition of "up and down."
The Up
I like visiting Boston, but there is nothing relaxing about it. If anything, it’s more like a weekend-long physical challenge than a vacation. And if you’ve been reading as of late, a physical challenge is about the last thing I’m ready for. The word I’d use to best describe me over the past two or three weeks: tired. Runner-up: jaundiced.
(Long story short, when I was drunk last weekend I ate a bunch of tacks. I think I messed something up in there pretty bad. Or I just have hepatitis. Whatever – I’ll figure this out after the holidays.)
Though I was greatly looking forward to it, I knew this weekend would be difficult. The main event of the weekend was a BC football game, a game which started at noon. This meant tailgating would begin at 9am. Since my friends and I don’t have the presence of mind (or the willpower) to take it easy on the night before an early game, I figured we would be hurting come morning.
And I was right. We were out until 2am on Friday night and when that alarm went off at 8am, I contemplated blowing the whole thing off, turning over, and spending the next several hours lying on my buddy Bill’s futon, wondering how often his naked ass is on it. But since was the last BC home football game of the season, I sucked it up, showered and soon was tailgating.
And then I made miracles happen.
My friend Meg used to rock this concept called a "glorious day." It’s a pretty simple concept: spend one day, one whole day from morning until night, getting bombed for no reason. Basically you just clock in and go to work. Obviously, it’s a travesty that she has not yet won the Nobel Prize for coming up with this idea.
And while Saturday wasn’t a glorious day because there was a reason for the drinking (the BC game), it was glorious in just about every other way. As a matter of fact, it was probably one of the top ten performances of my life. I drank from 9am until after the bars closed at 2am. Seventeen fucking hours - straight through, no breaks, no nap, no dinner, not even really any food. There was not a ten minute stretch of time in those 17 hours that I did not have an alcohol beverage of some kind in my hand. This is not an exaggeration.
And it’s not as though anything incredible or story-worthy happened. It was a workman-like performance: "I’m here to get fucked up and that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t need to eat or even talk to anyone, as long as I have my booze." Magical.
I did have a little help in the form of five well-placed (sugar free) red bulls throughout the day, which provided a nice lil’ kick in the ass to keep the party going. But that’s not cheating. And it could have been worse. It’s not like I was huffing or anything. Or at least it’s not like I was huffing a lot.
And I realize that this might sound a little scary and/or sad – that I’m reveling in the fact that I got completely bombed without anything exciting happening. But I don’t care. Sometimes one needs little tests to prove his worth, little reminders that he was once and is still capable of great things. That is exactly how I feel about Saturday. And I have no qualms about this.
Then there was Sunday.
The Down
To paraphrase Jerry Maguire, I’m not going to do what you think I’m going to do, which is flip out and maybe tear my own beard hair out. Not on here anyway, since I already did that yesterday and it made me tired.
Instead, a few issues about the Eagles’ game before I get to the big one:
- When a team makes fundamental mistakes (i.e. tackling, dropping passes, penalties, bad snaps, etc), it is the fault of the coach. These players are, in the parlance of our times, grown-ass men. They did not make it to the NFL without knowing how to tackle, how to catch, how to not commit fouls. It is the job of the coaching staff to whip them into shape, so that errors like these don’t happen. This staff is not doing their job.
- I can not say this enough: the Eagles have the largest offensive line in the league but can not convert on a 3rd and 3 or under on the ground. That is kind of a big problem. Worse, there is no obvious solution (is it that Westbrook is just too small? Are they a bunch of 330 pounds pansies on the line?).
- Teams that can not stop the run are teams that do not win championships. I don’t have the energy to get too into it, but think about it on the most basic level: running plays eat time off the clock, they keep defensives honest, and they are not reliant on one person (meaning if your QB isn’t "feeling it", which is the case for McNabb 20% of the time, the team can still move the ball). Also, as someone who has played professional football for years, I can tell you that when a defense is getting run on, it’s demoralizing. It’s one thing to get lucky and complete an 84 yard bomb for a TD; it’s another to get your mouth smashed for 5 yards a carry, over and over again on long, sustained drives. If you can’t stop the run, you can’t win. The Titans had over 200 yards rushing – three minutes into the second half. Not very good.
But of course, none of this matters now.
I am destroyed by the events of Sunday’s Eagles game. There is no other way to say it. It is disconcerting that this season is now lost. But what is more damning is that the window for an Eagles championship may potentially be closed. Donovan McNabb will be 30 on Saturday. He has eight to twelve months of recovery on the knee which he throws off. Oh, and not to mention that his greatness, while no longer based on his running, is still in large part because of his mobility and elusiveness. So that might be a problem with the knee.
Now we have (I’m assuming) Jeff Garcia coming in as a backup. Better than Mike McMahon? Sure. Better than Koy Detmer/AJ Feeley? We’ll see. Optimists will point out that Garcia is a three-time Pro Bowler. But Jeff Garcia is a Pro Bowler like I was once one of People’s "50 Hottest Bachelors" - they further away we get from it, the more we ask ourselves "Did that really happen? My god, that must have been a mistake or some sort. That just doesn’t seem right at all."
(By the way, my apologies again to Katie and Lisa, who didn’t know me, didn’t read this site, and didn’t know what I look like, but were dragged out to hang out with me by a friend who I do know on the assurance/based on the incentive, "But he was one of People’s "50 Hottest Bachelors!’" The poor girls figured they’d get a night on the town with a good-looking guy. What a mistake. I will take to my grave the look of disappointment on their faces when they met me and saw what I actually look like. The closet analogy I can think of is you as a virgin getting a handjob from Jenny McCarthy in her prime, only to have her stop just before you’re finished and pull off a mask to reveal that she’s really your dad in disguise: abject and unfathomable horror, shock, and sadness – and whole lot of nausea. A small part of Katie and Lisa died when they saw me and were so profoundly let down, and for this I will never forgive myself. Know this, Katie and Lisa. Know this.)
The problem is that the Eagles’ offense thrives (or rather, thrived) on the big pass play. No one in the NFL throws the deep ball better than Donovan McNabb. Now we have Jeff Garcia, who can throw the football maybe 10 yards farther than I can. Even in the prime of his career, his was known for his weak arm. Now he’s 36 and has played in seven games in the last two years. Hmmm…
But again, none of it matters. Optimists will point out that we’re only one game out of the division lead, while rational people will say: at Indy, Carolina, away at the NFC East, Atlanta. Before, I would have been happy with 3-3 in that stretch. In order to make the playoffs, we need at least 4-2. Realistically, I say we go 2-4. You know, if we’re lucky.
The good news is that my Sundays have just gotten a whole lot less stressful. I will still continue to watch Eagles games of course, but it’s different now. The McNabb-led 2006 Eagles seduced me into thinking that they could be a very good team. I don’t think I will be able to say the same about the McNabb-less 2006 Eagles.
(But who knows? God really, really owes us. Big time.)
The Up
I like visiting Boston, but there is nothing relaxing about it. If anything, it’s more like a weekend-long physical challenge than a vacation. And if you’ve been reading as of late, a physical challenge is about the last thing I’m ready for. The word I’d use to best describe me over the past two or three weeks: tired. Runner-up: jaundiced.
(Long story short, when I was drunk last weekend I ate a bunch of tacks. I think I messed something up in there pretty bad. Or I just have hepatitis. Whatever – I’ll figure this out after the holidays.)
Though I was greatly looking forward to it, I knew this weekend would be difficult. The main event of the weekend was a BC football game, a game which started at noon. This meant tailgating would begin at 9am. Since my friends and I don’t have the presence of mind (or the willpower) to take it easy on the night before an early game, I figured we would be hurting come morning.
And I was right. We were out until 2am on Friday night and when that alarm went off at 8am, I contemplated blowing the whole thing off, turning over, and spending the next several hours lying on my buddy Bill’s futon, wondering how often his naked ass is on it. But since was the last BC home football game of the season, I sucked it up, showered and soon was tailgating.
And then I made miracles happen.
My friend Meg used to rock this concept called a "glorious day." It’s a pretty simple concept: spend one day, one whole day from morning until night, getting bombed for no reason. Basically you just clock in and go to work. Obviously, it’s a travesty that she has not yet won the Nobel Prize for coming up with this idea.
And while Saturday wasn’t a glorious day because there was a reason for the drinking (the BC game), it was glorious in just about every other way. As a matter of fact, it was probably one of the top ten performances of my life. I drank from 9am until after the bars closed at 2am. Seventeen fucking hours - straight through, no breaks, no nap, no dinner, not even really any food. There was not a ten minute stretch of time in those 17 hours that I did not have an alcohol beverage of some kind in my hand. This is not an exaggeration.
And it’s not as though anything incredible or story-worthy happened. It was a workman-like performance: "I’m here to get fucked up and that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t need to eat or even talk to anyone, as long as I have my booze." Magical.
I did have a little help in the form of five well-placed (sugar free) red bulls throughout the day, which provided a nice lil’ kick in the ass to keep the party going. But that’s not cheating. And it could have been worse. It’s not like I was huffing or anything. Or at least it’s not like I was huffing a lot.
And I realize that this might sound a little scary and/or sad – that I’m reveling in the fact that I got completely bombed without anything exciting happening. But I don’t care. Sometimes one needs little tests to prove his worth, little reminders that he was once and is still capable of great things. That is exactly how I feel about Saturday. And I have no qualms about this.
Then there was Sunday.
The Down
To paraphrase Jerry Maguire, I’m not going to do what you think I’m going to do, which is flip out and maybe tear my own beard hair out. Not on here anyway, since I already did that yesterday and it made me tired.
Instead, a few issues about the Eagles’ game before I get to the big one:
- When a team makes fundamental mistakes (i.e. tackling, dropping passes, penalties, bad snaps, etc), it is the fault of the coach. These players are, in the parlance of our times, grown-ass men. They did not make it to the NFL without knowing how to tackle, how to catch, how to not commit fouls. It is the job of the coaching staff to whip them into shape, so that errors like these don’t happen. This staff is not doing their job.
- I can not say this enough: the Eagles have the largest offensive line in the league but can not convert on a 3rd and 3 or under on the ground. That is kind of a big problem. Worse, there is no obvious solution (is it that Westbrook is just too small? Are they a bunch of 330 pounds pansies on the line?).
- Teams that can not stop the run are teams that do not win championships. I don’t have the energy to get too into it, but think about it on the most basic level: running plays eat time off the clock, they keep defensives honest, and they are not reliant on one person (meaning if your QB isn’t "feeling it", which is the case for McNabb 20% of the time, the team can still move the ball). Also, as someone who has played professional football for years, I can tell you that when a defense is getting run on, it’s demoralizing. It’s one thing to get lucky and complete an 84 yard bomb for a TD; it’s another to get your mouth smashed for 5 yards a carry, over and over again on long, sustained drives. If you can’t stop the run, you can’t win. The Titans had over 200 yards rushing – three minutes into the second half. Not very good.
But of course, none of this matters now.
I am destroyed by the events of Sunday’s Eagles game. There is no other way to say it. It is disconcerting that this season is now lost. But what is more damning is that the window for an Eagles championship may potentially be closed. Donovan McNabb will be 30 on Saturday. He has eight to twelve months of recovery on the knee which he throws off. Oh, and not to mention that his greatness, while no longer based on his running, is still in large part because of his mobility and elusiveness. So that might be a problem with the knee.
Now we have (I’m assuming) Jeff Garcia coming in as a backup. Better than Mike McMahon? Sure. Better than Koy Detmer/AJ Feeley? We’ll see. Optimists will point out that Garcia is a three-time Pro Bowler. But Jeff Garcia is a Pro Bowler like I was once one of People’s "50 Hottest Bachelors" - they further away we get from it, the more we ask ourselves "Did that really happen? My god, that must have been a mistake or some sort. That just doesn’t seem right at all."
(By the way, my apologies again to Katie and Lisa, who didn’t know me, didn’t read this site, and didn’t know what I look like, but were dragged out to hang out with me by a friend who I do know on the assurance/based on the incentive, "But he was one of People’s "50 Hottest Bachelors!’" The poor girls figured they’d get a night on the town with a good-looking guy. What a mistake. I will take to my grave the look of disappointment on their faces when they met me and saw what I actually look like. The closet analogy I can think of is you as a virgin getting a handjob from Jenny McCarthy in her prime, only to have her stop just before you’re finished and pull off a mask to reveal that she’s really your dad in disguise: abject and unfathomable horror, shock, and sadness – and whole lot of nausea. A small part of Katie and Lisa died when they saw me and were so profoundly let down, and for this I will never forgive myself. Know this, Katie and Lisa. Know this.)
The problem is that the Eagles’ offense thrives (or rather, thrived) on the big pass play. No one in the NFL throws the deep ball better than Donovan McNabb. Now we have Jeff Garcia, who can throw the football maybe 10 yards farther than I can. Even in the prime of his career, his was known for his weak arm. Now he’s 36 and has played in seven games in the last two years. Hmmm…
But again, none of it matters. Optimists will point out that we’re only one game out of the division lead, while rational people will say: at Indy, Carolina, away at the NFC East, Atlanta. Before, I would have been happy with 3-3 in that stretch. In order to make the playoffs, we need at least 4-2. Realistically, I say we go 2-4. You know, if we’re lucky.
The good news is that my Sundays have just gotten a whole lot less stressful. I will still continue to watch Eagles games of course, but it’s different now. The McNabb-led 2006 Eagles seduced me into thinking that they could be a very good team. I don’t think I will be able to say the same about the McNabb-less 2006 Eagles.
(But who knows? God really, really owes us. Big time.)
