Pittsburgh - Baltimore

Offscreen: Terrel Suggs + notepad

My first game as a Steelers fan reminded me a lot of World Cup. Hear me out: it was a low scoring game with a few tantalizing drives that nothing came out of. There were two or three game changing moments that it seemed like it took forever to happen but were completely worth the wait. Fantastic buzz among bar-goers that couldn't be completely harnessed by the game itself; because most of the possession time is spent in the middle of the field, the risk of missing something while talking to your neighbor is remote. The excitement, in both World Cup and Sunday's game,  is over what may happen moreso than what's happening. 

I mean this in a good way. Feel however you may about soccer, World Cup was awesome. Only bitter people deny it; don’t be bitter. People got pregnant because of World Cup. Don’t ask me for evidence, the equation is simple enough – beer + stand around time = pregnant. In 50 year we’ll be trying to figure how to keep Social Security solvent for the South Africa World Cup generation. All of which is to say that I very much like what happens when the Steelers and the Ravens get together. 

Defensive matchups are the perfect combination of edge-of-your-seat play and what I like to call ambient football. When you’re watching ambient football, you can introduce your boyfriend to your girlfriends for the first time, make awkward attempts to include him in the conversation, and then force him out of it the moment your friends appear to be flirting with him (saw it happen). You can take fifteen minutes trying to explain to the guy in the Redskins jersey that while you admire his gangsta for staying out drinking since the 1:00 pm games, it’s not cool to cheer against the house team, especially considering how the Giants humiliated the ‘Skins earlier today (saw it happen). You also have time to harass a guy who’s minding his own business about putting ketchup on his brat instead  mustard, the of one ‘acceptable’ condiment according to some random ass rule (people should mind their own business). 

Ambient football let’s you rub against all that humanity in your midst, as long as you remember one rule: know your themes. 

Themes develop over the course of a game, especially with a team that has as many personalities as the Steelers. They’re catalyzed by a handful of moments (a big play, a bad call, a shift in strategy) and carry on.

I picked out a few from Steelers-Ravens: 

Roethlisberger. What a soldier. He began the game with a broken foot, and then they broke his nose. NBC was generous with the close-ups of blood streaming over his mouth (thanks for that), and every time they did, the expectation was that you stop what you’re doing and commiserate with your neighbor about how much of a beast the guy is. And then of course comes the Say What You Will corollary. In his weekly NFL podcast, Bill Simmons and his guest writer Salvatore ‘Cousin Sal’ Iacono aptly observed that whenever commentators talk about good football players who just happen to be criminals in their spare time, you have to insulate all compliments that you pay them by beginning with say what you will. ‘Say what you will about Roethlisberger’s off-field antics, but this guy leaves it on the field, every time. ' You get the picture. I’d say Roethlisberger, in this particular game, was as say what you will eligible as a player’s ever been.

Roethlisberger’s counterpart, Joe Flacco. After few impressive Baltimore drives that included two absolute bombs to Boldin, you had to wonder whether Flacco was becoming that dude. He’d led his team to 8-3 (maybe led is too strong – he was definitely, verifiably on the team when all eight of those wins happened). He had a nice performance during the Ravens’ win at Pittsburgh earlier in the season. If you’d considered the quarterback position Baltimore’s only missing piece, this was a game that questioned if it's missing after all. Obviously things changed by the end, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Baltimore linebacker Terrell Suggs is a ninja. I mean that literally. This fool was born in thirteenth century feudal Japan where he was trained to assassinate rival lords. He’s so fast. So relentless. I don’t remember exactly who it was who broke Roehtlisberger’s nose, but if it wasn’t Suggs, it’s only because he got there too late. This guy obviously subscribes to the Leon school of conflict management. His game is downright disrespectful.

Those were the broad themes. At Tortoise and Hare, you’re allowed to flirt and laugh and annoy, but if you’re not watching and prepared to banter about those three things, you’re only distracting us. It also sweetens the juice when you’re able to interpret the action. Take the two standout moments in this game: Late in the fourth quarter, Roethlesberger is being dragged to the ground on what would have been a game ending sack when he just shovels the ball out of bounds. It’s the kind of heady play that commentators love to gush about; in this case, however, Roethlisberger deserved every drop of praise. After being harassed and knocked down all game long, he might have resigned himself to more of the same, but instead did the one thing (in the absence of an open receiver, and there were none) that could keep the drive alive. 

The other, of course, was Polamalu’s strip-blitz. The awesomeness of Troy deciding to get his team the ball back in a cruicial moment and actually doing it aside, unless you’d heard Chris Colinsworth gush about Flacco, and stared in the face of the possibility that there might actually be another stud QB in the division, you can’t appreciate the relief that Steelers fans felt to see Flacco fuck up so royally with the game on the line. 

But who am I talking to, here? Steelers fans have been watching Pittsburgh-Baltimore games for years. They know how the flow of these things. Besides, high-scoring affairs are never far off, if that's what you're itching for. Case in point: next week’s beat down of the Bengals. See you then.

Steelers, We Choose You

The decision's made: We’re riding dirty with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the rest of the season.

You probably had a hunch that it would turn out this way, or maybe I’m just projecting my own hunch onto you. In any case, the decision wasn’t easy. I’m walking away from a lot of teams with a lot of great football yet to play.

Look at the Jets next four games, for instance:

@ Patriots (9-2)

Dolphins (6-5)

@ Steelers (8-3)

@ Bears (8-3)

You just peered into HELL, homie. You think every one of the Jets fans down at 51st State Tavern will survive that stretch? Once they finally lose on of these nail-biters, there’s going to be a riot. Who doesn’t want front seats to a bona fide riot? 

The Eagles. Michael Vick. Funny thing about Vick: he’s popular again. And I don’t mean just with black fans (but yeah –  us, for sure). Whenever I have occasion to take the temperature on his popularity, the people I talk to are, at worst, ambivalent about his success, and more often in awe of what he’s done this season and thirsty to see more. How did this happen?   The man killed dogs for entertainment.  Americans love dogs. I love dogs. And somehow the vast majority of us not only been won over by the reformed Michael Vick but accept that he may be on the verge of being the face of the NFL. 

There are several reasons this has happened.

The price Vick paid for his crimes – his freedom, his fortune, his career as he knew it – was dear enough for most.

     
 He's literally said and done everything right since his conviction – and  done so with sincerity that no one questions.

 He’s been the best player in the League this season. In fact, at age 30 he's significantly better than he was before the dog business. Maybe better isn't the word - he's evolved. Before prison, the prevailing question about Vick was can a QB with his skill set win be considered elite? Know what? Now we'll never know. His skill set has changed, expanded to include the full passing package -- short routes, bombs, play-action flicks. The threat of his running game sets up his passing, whereas it used  to be the other way around. Perhaps the best part is that neither his early critics nor his true blue fans can feel vindicated by whats happened here; he simply isn't the same player we used to prop up or knock down.

 All of which means that he’s become one of those rare talents in the NFL that you’re allowed to cheer for regardless of how you feel about his team. And given the opportunity to have my cake and eat it, too, I’m choosing to do just that. Hasta, Eagles fandom. Mr. Vick, you remain a weekly appointment.

The Bills. Bad team, incredibly gracious fans. Ultimately, the lack of postseason prospects did them in. 

The Ravens. McFadden’s in Foggy Bottom is a great venue to watch games, what with the crab cake sandwiches and its location right off the Metro. I don’t know what to say. Sometimes you catch feelings for a team, and sometimes you don’t. In this case, I didn't.

The Redskins. Eh. You know where I'm at on this. I've said my piece. I love McNabb,  but the reality of the moment is that he's a bad player being treated badly...and I don't know what to do with that. Well, yes I do: avert my gaze from the entire situation and check back in next year.

So why the Steelers?

For me, it starts with the personnel. 

Here, I'll introduce you: 

Strong Safety Troy Polamalu. He's having a down season by most measures. Still, there's only one way to describe his game, and his hair: buck wild.

Receiver Hines Ward. Veteran with an unapologetically dirty game. As much a contributor to the Steelers’ personality as any player.

Linebacker James Harrison. Another veteran with an unapologetically dirty game, except he may actually kill someone – or go broke trying. 

Ben Roethlisberger. AKA Big Ben. AKA White Mamba. AKA Ben Crotchlessberger. If anyone else has a nickname that makes light of sexual assault, the comment section’s open!

Before I make the last intro, indulge me in an aside: You know how we elected Obama, by all accounts a Gentle Scholar, and now want him to kick the Republicans’ asses up and down the street? Yeah, well. We ordered Gentle Scholar. It’s a fine dish; it just doesn’t satisfy our taste for ass-kicking. May I recommend another when the new menu rolls out? Can I? You ready for it? OK. Here it is:

NUBIAN WAR GOD!!!

HA. That's right. Coach Mike 'BLACK MANHOOD' Tomlin. When I write my non-fiction bestseller How to Enjoy a Long Tenure as an African-American Coach in the NFL Despite the Odds, the first chapter will be called the Mike Tomlin Blueprint: Win Games and Look Cold-Blooded. You see this guy? Does he look like he’s playing games? You think he'd consult the polls on a damn thing? EFF the Pew Research Center, Nubian War God's letting those tax cuts expire, and then taking a long slow whiskey piss all over your tea party. In all seriousness, Tomlin's solid. Hired as the Steelers head coach at age 35, he won the Super Bowl a year later in 2008. This season he watched as not one, not two, but three of his quarterbacks went down to injuries or suspension, and his team still ran roughshod over the AFC. Throw in Crotchlessberger's ongoing health issues and the Steelers' decimated offensive line, and it's fair to say that Tomlin's accomplished as much as any coach in the NFL this season. So yeah. Give him a look 2032, or whenever the fuck. If not him, one of the offspring he spawned while in the form of a bull.

So here we are. I’m a Steelers fan. My quarterback is an alleged rapist, my coach an evolutionary black president, and my haunt, the Tortoise & Hare bar in Crystal City, sports the motto Hop in, Crawl Out. Steelers Nation is wild. There’s no time for me to dip my toe in and test the waters, I’ve got to get wild with it, immediately. This Sunday night we play the Ravens, with whom we share the lead in the AFC North at 8-3.

It’s a crazy rivalry, from what I gather, made more interesting by the fact that it escapes national attention in most years. This isn’t a Battle of the League Darlings a la the Colts versus Patriots, and it doesn’t have the charm of Packers-Vikings or Bears-Packers (as a Midwesterner, I’ve always sensed that outsiders are drawn to the quaintness of Flyover State rivalries). 

Steelers-Ravens is a grind-it-out contest between two cities no one wants to live in, or visit, or drive through at night. It’s hard to even talk about Pittsburgh and Baltimore without a hint of eulogy. In fact, Steelers nation enjoys the league’s most expansive fan diaspora because Pittsburgh's fallen from grace; when steel production jobs dried up in the seventies and eighties, many of its residents sought greener pastures -- and to this day remain in your city, invading all your damn home games. To know the Steelers is to understand that Wounded Might is a dominant theme in its history. Which, when you think about it, should make them America's Team more than the Cowboys ever were.

That’s the bird’s-eye view of the team, with a dose of amateur sociology for good measure.  Understand that there’ll be no more of that from here on out. I’m in the thick of it now.  If next time you hear from me I’m not trying to get out from under a hangover, I didn’t do this coming Sunday Night right. I’ll get back to you around Tuesday December 7^th with the first recap of life within the Black and Gold.

Embattled Black QB's cont...

Do you remember how we were talking about the Stages of Black Quarterback Fanhood? 

Well, we’re talking about it again, as some shit’s happened.  Namely the benching of ‘Skins quarterback Donovan McNabb in the final two minutes of a road loss to the Detroit Lions. Classic 'Concerned Dad' behavior-- or is it?

The incident, now more than two weeks removed, speaks to some of the issues I attempted to address in my Embattled Black Quarterback post: the interplay between race, sports and cultural perception, the public's skepticism of black leadership, and, most importantly, our complete inability to predict how these elements will play out, particularly in a city like Washington D.C. where racial sensitivities run deep. 

Rather than re-invent the wheel, I'll link you to some of the better local coverage. 

Here’s Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon’s response to the benching. A confessed McNabb fan, he sides with the Donovan mostly on account of Shanahan’s decision to openly question the competence and intellect of the six time Pro Bowler. 

And here’s an excellent read by another Post writer, Mike Wise, who puts the McNabb benching in the context of the Redskins' long, turbulent and frankly abusive relationship with black players and D.C.’s  African-American community. 

This quote by a former ‘Skins player stuck out to me: 

"One of the reasons there's so many damn Cowboy fans in Washington is because many black fans in this area refused to support a team that would not employ an African American player for so many years," says Rick "Doc" Walker, the former Redskins tight end and a Washington media personality the past 20 years. "So they became fans of the team's arch rival. They had kids and they became Cowboy fans - and so on and so on. Hell, some of 'em have never even been to Dallas."

***

Fast forward to this past Monday night.  Questions still swirl about Coach Shanahan’s judgment and McNabb’s commitment to the game, but the Redskins have had the benefit of a bye week to pull the themselves together before facing off against their division rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles. 

Finally, there’s football to play, and off-field complications can be set aside (if only temporarily).

Only a new wrinkle emerges in the hours leading up to the game: McNabb is signed to a $78 million-five year extension by the Redskins , the same team that publicly impugned him over the last couple weeks.  It’s a head-scratcher, to say the least. He’s about to turn 34. He’s had a mediocre season. His coaches, by all accounts, don’t like him , or at least have a funny way of showing it. 

And they gave him $78 million. 

If you think the decision to extend McNabb seemed odd before the game, things got muddier after it.  The Redskins went down in a 59-28 blowout loss to the Eagles, led by Michael Vick – McNabb’s good friend, mentee and eventual replacement – who on Monday night put on one of the most dominant displays of football I’ve ever seen in my life (McNabb was once again so-so).

 To sort through the implications of this one, you have to look back a year or two.

Does this mean the Eagles were right to discard McNabb after years of pro-bowl caliber play? Possibly, although they clearly didn’t know what they had in Vick at the time. They traded McNabb, after all, to make room for Kevin Kolb, who they signed to a big contract and named the starter at the beginning of the season.

Maybe McNabb’s performance in 2010 is justification enough for the Eagles moving him. Only, true to form with the Redskins, they have neither the personnel nor the offensive schemes to give McNabb the protection he needs to thrive. Who knows how he’d have looked on the 2010 Eagles, who, with an offense significantly improved over last season, now share a lead for the Division.

Maybe the Redskins offering McNabb a contract extension was an acknowledgement of that fact. Coming off a 4-12 season, the team is a work in progress with several pieces that need time to gel. They desperately need improvements on the offensive line which has allowed McNabb, an expert scrambler, to be sacked more than any QB in the NFL not named Jay Cutler this season.  Paying McNabb what they did may have been the organization’s way of saying we’re willing to be patient with you, if you’re patient with us.

It certainly appeared that way, until you looked at the fine print of the contract.

ESPN reported Tuesday morning that of the $78 million the Redskins inked McNabb for, they'll only be on the hook for $3.75 million if they cut him after this year. So what does the contract mean, really, if it involves virtually no commitment on the part of the organization?

You want the skeptic’s take? The contract was meant to create the illusion of security; not for McNabb’s sake, but ours. The Redskins are tired of controversy. They’re tired of the local and national media tearing them apart for questionable decision after questionable decision, and they certainly didn’t want to raise the specter of racism once again – not everything they’ve been through, recently and long ago. Ignore the fine print of the contract, as most casual fans are wont to do, and it reads like a vote of confidence. A reason for fans, particularly those who took offense to the way McNabb’s benching was handled,  to shift their focus elsewhere.   

It also affords the organization an incredible amount of wriggle room. Now if McNabb’s performance doesn’t improve in the second half of the season, 16 games of sub-par play will be enough to convince Redskins nation that $78 million (a figure agreed upon after the team initiated negotiations, mind you -- the extension was their idea) is about a kajillion dollars too many for this bum.

Am I convinced that it’s all a ruse? Nope. McNabb didn’t have to sign the contract, after all.

As a professional athlete, he could have decided that D.C. isn’t a winning situation and chosen to go elsewhere. As a businessman, he could have held out for a smaller, guaranteed contract instead of signing for prodigious sums he may never see. 

And, as a man, he might have decided that whatever slights were directed his way, racial or otherwise, are too significant to overlook and flown the coop for an organization that respects his talents and his commitment to his craft.  

Look, I don’t know what McNabb should have done.  I don’t know what the Redskins should have done. And frankly, as a recent transplant to DC, I’m still trying to understand the place that McNabb’s benching (and ongoing humiliation) occupies in the city’s racial history. I think it’s all terribly interesting stuff, however, and I hope that this digression from the weekly posting schedule hasn’t been entirely tiresome.

In any case: coming your way in the next couple days will be Cowboys @ Giants - ROAD EDITION. Beltway Tribes travels to Oakland, CA to watch the game with my brother, who, for 3 hours, was the biggest Giants fan on the planet. That's right -- he had money on the game. And now it's gone. Stay tuned for the carnage... 

JETS @ LIONS

 It’s week nine. I’m at 51^st State Tavern in Foggy Bottom, a self-proclaimed ‘New York’ bar that hosts both the Giants and the Jets games.  Jets get the prime real estate on the ground floor, unless the game times are staggered as they were this week. Then the Giants fans simply replace the Jets fans  in the downstairs space, or vice versa.

We’re at the halfway point in the season, and just as teams know what they can and can’t do now, I know my limitations, too.  Before I get to the bars on Sundays, I consult Google Maps or WMATA for road or train directions.  At the beginning of the season, if my estimated trip time was 25 minutes, I gave myself 25 minutes. By midseason I know that I’m not a turn-by-turn guy. My mind is goofy.  I miss exits. I can’t resist the occasional ad-libbed short cut that almost certainly tacks an unnecessary fifteen minutes onto my commute. I get too ambitious with my parking search, passing on the safe spot that’s two blocks away from the bar in favor of the imaginary one right out front, then double back for the safe spot only to find that it’s been taken. Now anything inside a half mile radius will have to do; kick off's in two minutes.

And then, once I actually made it into the bar, my inclination would be to order the most interesting beer on tap – a porter or an IPA or some such. The more micro the brew, the mo' better. Turns out hoppy beers early in the afternoon give me a headache. These are the things you learn about yourself early on in the schedule.

 I might have also ordered some kind of burger, forgetting what I, as a food service veteran, have known my entire adult life: only the most apprentice grill cooks get assigned to the weekend day shifts.  With the exception of those much-lauded crab cake sandwiches from the Baltimore game, it was one rat ass burger after another those first four weeks. 

When after the overlong commute, the migraine and the low grade meat I got down to the business of watching the game, I figured that I didn’t have to write shit down. I'm a relatively young man with a taste for mental rigor - no problem, right? Wrong. By the time I got back to the apartment and napped off the beer and bad food, all I was left with were faint memories of the Pulitzer insights I was generating just a few hours earlier.e

 

But guess what. It’s mid-season, now. And my game is tight. Peep me in this photo. Notepad. MEDIUM BODIED beer (I go Amber at the darkest). Order of French Fries that, while absolutely terrible, only cost me $3.00. I should have time-stamped this pic so you could see it’s only the first quarter, and there I am – sitting at a GOOD table. I’m clicking on all cylinders, sensitivity to my own weaknesses. I want this W, so I prepared to get it. 

 I’m like the Jets in that regard. Forgive that bush league transition and hear me out for a second. The Jets thought they were invincible coming into the season, or at least made a real effort to project that they were. Nobody talked more ying-yang in the offseason than these guys. It struck me a little strange that a team that went 9-7 last year, and felt so insecure in their ground game (a supposed strength) that they brought in a washed up RB in LeDanian Tomlinson to shore it up, was flapping their gums.  But hey. The NFL is a talker's league. In fact that's one the best things about it.

After seven games, the Jets are 5-2. That’s solid, especially with the state of parity in the League this year. They’ve picked up quality wins against the Patriots, Vikings and Dolphins and dropped a close one against the Ravens.  Their lone  IPA-migraine was clearly last week’s game at home against the Packers: a 9-0 shut-out loss and a confirmation of what Jets fans already knew – second-year QB Mark Sanchez (16-38 passing, 0 TDs, 2 INTs) is at his best when you’re asking him to manage the game, not win it for you. 

Yes, that is a 2008 Favre Jets Jersey. I'm baffled.

Enter the Detroit Lions, this week’s opponent. A couple of posts ago I said that teams want to play the New England Patriots because the team itself is not as good as the organization’s brand. The opposite is true of the Lions. Detroit, to use a sports cliché, is dangerous (‘dangerous’ being what you call teams that you don’t want to commit to calling ‘good’). But because they still have the stink of that 0-16 season, nobody’s throwing a parade if you beat them. In fact you should probably take a Red-Eye back into town under an assumed name if you don't.

Hence the Jets fans state of distress when this game turns out to be close. 

I have to hand it to them.  I haven’t been around a more intense fan base this season. Everyone that dared claim a stool at the bar is wearing Green and White. They curse at the screen, and will not suffer judgment from any quarter over it. A family of four sitting at a corner table rolls their eyes and mutters something about the yelling being too loud, and draws death glares from no fewer than five guys, including ole' #4 pictured above. There was no more of that out of them.

 Things get ugly for the Jets quickly.When Lions Cornerback Alphonso Smith intercepts a Sanchez pass in the third quarter, I get ready to flip the script on this entire blog to accommodate a 4,000 word post on the Branch Davidian scene that looked like it would go down (did I mention these guys are intense?). Or at the very least, I would have landed an interview with the family of the one Detroit fan who inexplicably decided to show up at the bar, and was torn asunder after loud-clapping the yet another Lions touchdown. 

[As an aside, I don’t know why people do that -- go to the opponent’s bar wearing their team’s colors. I applaud the Jets fans for tolerating him with good humor, but there was a point when I just wish they'd bum rush the guy already.]

All is well in the end, however. The Jets win on an a dramatic overtime FG, raising their record to an AFC-leading 6-2 and a tie in the division with the Pats. If I ultimately decide to join these guys to ride out the season, I'll need to elevate my game yet again. Arrive earlier to grab a stool. Get my New York swagger going. Or at the very least hydrate at home so I can try the house heffeweissen, which I'm told is off the chain. 

K.C.

Clips Episode!

Everyone's favorite kind, right? In any case, we’re overdue a recap. So here it is. A rerun in new episode's clothing.

Eight weeks in, we’ve visited with six teams in our whirlwind tour of six Washington D.C. metro bars. It’s been fun. It’s been an ordeal. I’ve watched some great football and eaten some great bar food, though never in the same week, it would seem.  Rest assured this has been a blast.  

But, consider this your warning that in two weeks’ time, the tour will come to an end. Life on the road has beaten both me and my 99 Dodge Stratus down.  As every man needs a home, so must every man have a home team, and once I’ve visited with each of the last two teams on my schedule I’ll choose one team – ONE TEAM – to ride out the season (and the postseason, God-willing) with, at one Metro-accessible venue. A decision is in order, obviously, and while I can honestly tell you I have no idea which team I’ll choose, a set of criteria have finally begun to crystallize. And these are they:

Venue  

[Sidebar] Guess what – I’m unemployed. Yup, after bitching and moaning about balancing the blog with the rigors of my work-week, I am, at the moment, a full-time student. And that means two things. 

1)      I’m ready to kick it. All that junk about abstaining from beer during the games so I can stay fresh for my afternoon workload. It ain’t me. And it’s not gonna be me. No sir, not any more. I make no promises about getting plowed at 1:00 pm on a Sunday as I don’t see how that would enhance your  experience or mine, but let’s just say that the bar culture, which,  until this point, had been merely an ambient presence in my world, just got a lot more important. 

2)      I’m on a budget. If this were Oregon Trail, I’d be set to Meager Rations. In other words nothing on this Earth would set me off more at this point than showing up to a bar that advertises Game Day Specials only to find that the best they’re offering is $4.00 taps. I can’t afford it, I won’t have it, and as a practical matter, I will disqualify venues and the team they host on this basis. I’m sorry. This isn’t a game. Nobody’s floating me rent. 

Fans

When it comes to fans, I like intensity. I like commitment. I also like congeniality, humor and a heavy dose of perspective. Look, freak out when your team’s up big. Freak out when they’re getting murdered. But  in between, let’s get in a little chit chat. Come on. We got drinks and everything.

Team

I, like anyone else, prefer watching good football to bad football. And for the purposes of the blog, I’d rather run with a team that’s headed for the playoffs. That said, this project is about the ‘Tribes’ and their dwellings more than anything else, and as such, I’ll be careful not to over-penalize those whose teams happen to suck this season.

And now, a run-down of how the teams stack up so far, in order of how they appeared.

I hope that's your 'disappointed but not surprised' face, man. The writing was on the wall.

Washington Redskins The hometown team in the town nobody calls home for more than three years at a time. I liked Redskins fans perspective coming into the season and I like it now. They’re 4-4 in a Division in which no team has excelled and one has fallen completely off the map (Cowboys). Redskins nation whispers about the playoffs, but sounds more concerned about developing young talent to replace their veteran rentals (McNabb, Haynesworth). And speaking of McNabb, he’s officially ushered us into Stage 2 of Black Quarterback Fanhood. His commitment to and knowledge of the game have been brazenly questioned. Check. He was benched in favor of an inferior backup (Rex Grossman? Be serious).  Check. And now Stage 3 is knocking at the door as Redskins management has apparently been sneaking QB prospects into FedEx Arena just to ‘throw a few balls with the second unit’. Uh huh. I’d get mad if I hadn’t already been mad in advance.  

Don't be jealous, just come with me.

 Baltimore Ravens At 5-2, they’ve gotten their shit together since I checked in with them, which ought to surprise no one. Their offense is stacked, their defense (albeit long in the tooth) is resilient. This team is elite. Expectations are sky-high going forward. But MORE IMPORTANTLY… McFadden’s in Foggy Bottom has $6 dollar crab cakes sandwiches during games. I love crab cakes. I get upset if I travel North of the city and don’t get to eat a crab cake. The thought of getting to go somewhere – nay, being obligated to go somewhere – that serves crab cake sandwiches on the cheap every Sunday almost makes me forget that Ravens fans are weirdly intense. 

I'm gonna pass, bro.

 Philadelphia Eagles I’m going to be honest. They benched Michael Vick. The pre-eminent Eagles watering hole in DC is a frat bar in Georgetown. I don’t think I can do it. I’m sorry, I’ll do them the courtesy of saying ‘jury’s still out’, but on real – it isn’t. 

One more time, Jamal and his dad, finer gentleman than my crappy camera phone could ever do justice.

 Buffalo Bills GREVEEEEEEY’S! Win, lose or draw the Bills fans will always occupy a soft spot in my heart by virtue of where they hang out, Grevey’s in Falls Church, the most hospitable bar on earth. Every man’s a King at Grevey’s, and by king I mean you don’t rule shit but rather sit comfortably while they serve you their finest bread puddings. At 0-7, the team is historically bad, and if they somehow cop their first win against my Chicago Bears this Sunday, I might have to pull them from consideration. But taking in sum everything BUT the on-field product – surroundings, good people, free and abundant parking – they’d be ahead of the pack by a mile.

The Pats generate new arm flesh in the bye week, baby!

 New England Patriots I already vetoed the Eagles, didn’t I? Damn. Two vetoes would be bush. And that’s fine; I can find a way to get behind this team. Marinate on this:  a lot of the talking heads guessed  that unceremoniously dumping Randy Moss would make the Pats offense worse, and they were right. With Randy Moss, they’d averaged 36.25 points per game this season. Since the trade? Just over 25. Recipe for disaster, no? NOPE. Their defense has held the Ravens, Chargers and Vikings to 20, 20 and 18, respectively, in each of the last three weeks. Offense goes soft – defense steps up, coincidentally. How does that make sense? It doesn’t. It really doesn’t…UNTIL you remember that football is a machine sport and the Pats are an almost perfect machine. Wounded by the Moss departure, they went all Terminator and absconded into a public bathroom and used broken sink fragments to repair their bio-mechanical arm. Which is all to say, if once I plug all of their metrics into my Pick-a-Squad calculator, the Pats turn out to be the ones, there’s lots to maintain my interest there.  

Pierogis, per Google Images. I don't remember them looking so much like won tons. Huh.

 Pittsburgh Steelers Did I mention I’m from the Midwest? Dropped a Bears reference a couple paragraphs up so I could circle back on it. Catch it? No? Anyway.  I’m from there. And this past Sunday, watching the Steelers game at the Tortoise in the Hare bar in Crystal City, Arlington felt like going home. First, the menu: pierogis and kebasa and brats and tots and sauerkraut. That’s 100% Chicago right there. Also 100% Chicago were the Steelers fans, who looked like they’d eaten a lot of pierogis and brats and tots and sauerkraut, which, I promise you, is an affectionate observation on my part.  I found it oddly reassuring. The Steelers kinda play like the Bears, too – how they used to play, I mean. Hard hits that verge on head-hunting (or at least as you can come to that under the League’s new helmet to helmet rules). Strong running game. Conservative play-calling. That stuff pulls at my heart-strings. If over the course of the next two weeks I’m overwhelmed by nostalgia. Like if I don’t find another job in this cut-throat city and the proverbial wolf is at the door, believe me, the Steelers, and the Tortoise and the Hare bar, will receive strong consideration.

That’s it. Those are the teams we’ve covered. And the teams remaining are only two: the Jets and the Giants.  I’m working on renting a space for the selection party and buying bulk card stock for the invitations. Check your mail, hold your breath - the search is almost over. 

 Patriots vs. Ravens

Someone needs to trap and tag that thing on his head.

I hate Boston teams. Love to hate them, really. I love to hate that they keep winning. I love to hate Boston itself, which, in the cultural lore that I adhere to, is the most racist city in America, and deserves everything bad that ever happens to it, in the realm of sports or otherwise. If that sounds too caustic, I refer you to the definition of hate, dude.



I hate Curt Schilling’s ol’ Republican ass for the hand he had in swinging Massachusetts to the dark side.

  

Would you look at this...oooh, I can't take it!

I hate Kevin Garnett. Oooh, I hate KG. He was a mild-    mannered statesman when he was losing in Minnesota, but  oncehe won one title, ONE TITLE – bare minimum for a player of his talent to sleep at night –  in a Boston uniform, he was suddenly a junkyard dog frothing at the mouth after every layup or defensive stop.

I hate Belichick for cheating, and that mainstream sports coverage has asked us to forget as much despite the fact that this is football, not baseball. In this game, cheating is, in fact, cheating.

I hate Tom Brady’s hair. I hate that the NFL invented a rule to protect him and his dainty sensibilities from being injured on the field again.  I hate that he married Gisele, who I like to imagine he’s not even attracted to (yes, somehow he's the only one) but married out of a need to attach himself to the consensus #1 A+ Cream of the Crop supermodel because for him, winning is everything . 




I hate Boston sports, thoroughly, always and forever, but it occurs to me before I leave to watch Sunday’s Patriots vs. Ravens game at Hamilton’s Bar in Capitol hill that there may be at least a couple reasons why one could probably stand to hate Boston teams a little less …in case the spite is costing you sleep or something.

First, and I’m talking about the Patriots here, they embody what football's about.



Schilling (right) with Emperor Palpatine



Wait, what? The Pats are the devil. True, but let me explain: football isn’t a team sport so much as a machine sport. Team sports involve humans  working in concert. Chemistry matters. Personalities matter. In team sports, the team that’s been together longer usually has an advantage that’s evident in their style of play if not always the game’s outcome.

Machine sports – and I should say machine SPORT, singular, because I can’t think of another game quite like football in this regard – involve a collection of replaceable parts. With the exception of maybe three positions on the field (quarterback, left guard and a shut-down cornerback), football players are not only highly replaceable, it’s almost a given that they will be replaced for financial reasons.

Take the Patriots’ Vikings’ Randy Moss. He's up for a contract extension this season and wants more money. In fact he wants something in the range of Tom Brady money, which, you know, is called Tom Brady money for a reason (did you hear he’s married to a Gisele?), and when the Patriots had had enough of his talking about it, they traded him to Minnesota for a third round draft pick.

"Say it with me, Randy. T-O-M B-R-A-D-Y M-O-N-E-Y. You can't have it."

Only in the NFL would this not be considered absolute, mind-blowing insanity. One of the game’s top (albeit declining) receivers traded for a guy who at the moment is eating cereal in a Big Ten college dining hall.  Done and done. Put a bow on it.  And only the Patriots could have made it look this easy. Once they got rid of Moss, they simply reacquired Deion Branch,  their receiver from four years ago – a guy who was done, by most peoples’ assessment. And lo and behold, Branch has a nine catch, 98 yard day in his first game back for New England, leading Pats fans to ask “Randy who?”

This is why I like but don’t love football. I prefer games where the name on the jersey matters.  But if you love football, you ought to at least admire that the Pats have for a long time now been making the right calls as to who they can do without, and when to start doing without them.

***

The other reason why you can stop hating Boston sports quite so much?

They’re just not that good. Not any more.

Red Sox? Comatose.

Celtics? On their last leg,  with an average roster age of 55.6.

And the Patriots. OK this is where my premise gets shaky. They’re 4-1. They’re the only team in the league to average over 30 points a game through the first six weeks.  They’ve beaten a couple strong teams in Baltimore and Miami and, as discussed, have dealt with Randy Moss’ departure as well as any team could.  

But look under the hood of this thing and you’ll see that they have the 30^th ranked defense this year, which is antithetical to what Belichick teams have been about in the past. Their running game is suspect. And, most importantly, no one’s afraid of them. Teams want to play the Patriots this year. And I don’t mean that in a you have to beat the best to be the best sort of way, but rather that other teams sense that the Patriots’ brand is stronger than the actual team, and beating them is an opportunity to get respect without having to topple an actual giant. Understand that these things only last for so long.  What the Patriots are (a good, but not great, team) will eventually eclipse the lore of what the Patriots used to be (three Superbowl titles; undefeated regular season) and that, you may be surprised to find, will be a sad thing for everyone.

Take this week’s game against the Ravens. I’m at Hamilton’s, a diveish bar in Capitol Hill. Imagine my beloved Grevey’s from last week, and know that Hamilton’s is its diamtetric opposite: loud, intense, packed with Pats fans slash Hill interns, a combination so obnoxious it defies reason. But it doesn’t take long for me to see that beneath all those layers of J. Crew, these kids are nervous. As they should be. The Ravens, it turns out, are pretty good when I’m not looking. They spanked the Pats in their house in last year’s playoffs and the fans here are still a little thunderstruck by it (it was the Pats only home loss in the last three years). In fact no one relaxes until after the Ravens first play out of fear that there’d be a repeat of that playoff game, when on the first down, Ray Rice (a bad, bad man) ran 83 yards for a touchdown. Sure enough, the Ravens run on first down, only this time Rice is only good for a two yard gain. Ah. Collective sigh of relief. There's a real humility among this group, something conspicuously absent from Pats fanhood just a couple years ago.

It turns out to be a great game. A defensive battle -- which plays into the Ravens' hands, one would expect, except eventually someone has to put points on the board and the Patriots get the last word today (a game winning field goal in overtime). Hamilton's goes nuts. A guy wearing a Wes Welker jersey drums his hands on the bar for a solid fifteen seconds, looks around, pleading pathetically for others to join him. They do. Of course they do. Playoff-demons excorcised, it doesn't look like anyone's going anyhwere soon. It's a party. I love parties. If it were any other team i'd have ordered a second beer and blown off the work I'd planned for later that afternoon, but this is a Boston pah-tee (I haven't heard one Boston accent since I've been here, disappointingly), my resentment's building, and I should skeedaddle before I'm tempted to remind them that they beat a team whose quarterback went to the University of frikkin Deleware.

Anyway. The point remains: for the time being, the Patriots are gatifyingly contemptible. Enjoy it while you can for all good things, including a nice hardy hate, come to an end.













Week 5: Bills vs. Jaguars

I messed up. 

The Buffalo Bills vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars? How could I have done this to us.

In short, piss poor planning. 

I picked eight teams to cover over the course of the season: Bills, Ravens, Steelers, Patriots, Jets, Eagles, Giants and of course the Redskins.

I watched the Redskins play the Cowboys in Week One, the Ravens against the Bengals in Week Two, took a personal bye in Week Three and saw the Eagles and the 'Skins again in week four -- which, while not a bad slate of games, was the scheduling equivalent of eating the broccoli and potatoes first to build anticipation for the steak: namely the Pats, Steelers and Jets. 

HOWEVER... both the Steelers and Patriots had bye's in week 5. Now I'm left with a choice between catching the Jets vs. the Vikings, or the Bills vs. the Jaguars, two games on different planets in terms of potential for excitement. Problem is, the Jets game is on Monday night, and I don't do Monday night games. They're too much  -- the racing home from work, walking the dog, feeding it, feeding me, fighting traffic to the bar, fighting for a seat, getting home at midnight with work the next morning. To quote Danny Glover in all three Lethal Weapons, I’m too old for this shit. 

All of which is to say, I chose to watch the 0-4 Bills host to the 2-2 Jaguars, two teams no one, and I mean no one, cares about. And worse than that, you now have to read about it. 

Through internet research, I find a spot called Grevey's in Falls Church right on Highway 50. It's said to be the Bills bar in Northern Virginia and so popular that parking can be an issue. I already resent the inconvenience. It's the Bills. Of all the ways being a fan of that team is problematic, it doesn't seem fair that parking is one of them.  

The Bills room

But Grevey's is a nice place. It's got one of those we’re-the-official-headquarters-of-five-different-NFL-teams things going on, but the Buffalo fans have a large room in the back all to themselves. And despite the 0-4 start, the room nearly full, and I grab one of the empty stools at the bar.

I don't realize right away that the throwback White Sox shirt I'm wearing has the same shades of blue, red and white as the Bills uniform, so when the guy sitting to my left asks if I'm a Buffalo fan, I give him a HELL no look and immediately feel the same kind of awful as when someone asks if you're dating someone you're not attracted to, and you're all HELL no before you realize a) the person in question is perfectly nice and undeserving of that reaction, and b) who the hell are you to be giving hell no looks. 

Jamal and his dad.

Jamal (that's his name) doesn't hold it against me. A soft-spoken guy, he  briefly walks me through the roster . It’s unobtrusive commentary on a game we're both half-watching. Jamal's father is sitting to his left. They get together for the game every Sunday, usually with other New York transplants here at Grevey's, and, looking around, I can see why they come back. It's comfortable here.  It’s almost serene. The patrons, many of whom, Jamal says, are the same faces that have been showing up for years, sit with their spouses and children at round-tables in the center of a room kept just bright enough by the afternoon’s natural light.

I realize all of my previous bar visits had been so...intense...in comparison. So much yelling, so many twenty-somethings, and no families. Why do they all packed into a standing-room-only space when they could watch the game at home, or at a quieter bar, and have actual conversations....with their dads. Where is my dad? Still in China on business, I think. Why don’t I know for sure? Because, unlike Jamal,  I’m a lousy son.  I order coffee and bread pudding – it’s good here, I’d heard - and dwell on this and other bad thoughts, before realizing I’m just tired. I am really, really tired, y’all. *Cue violin*  I work a 60-hour work week, go to school and keep up with chores at the apartment (sorta), and now I’ve committed three hours of my Sunday to watching football a different bar every week (four when you add in the round-trip commute), which doesn’t sound bad until you consider that I go alone, don’t drink for a lack of a DD, and usually can’t manage to get to the bars early enough to grab a good seat, which means I end up wedged into a corner, craning to see the TV . Watching football should be a respite. It should be Grevey’s.  I wonder, finally,  if it matters how good or bad the team you follow is. If what matters is having a space and familiar people to fill it, week in, week out, over a span of years.  And if my messy scheduling was serendipity delivering me to where I belong.

SPOILER: He breaks this and every other Bills tackle like a Kit Ka

And then, I start watching the game, and realize how bad the Bills are. What on earth…They’re awful. The 0-5 record doesn’t do their kind of bad justice. Missed tackle. Missed field goal. Incomplete pass that you could tell wanted to be an interception when it grew up, and nearly became one.  What makes it worse is that the Bills aren’t rolling over – they’re playing really, really hard and are just horribly over-matched.  After Maurice Jones-Drew rattles off a 25 yard run for the Jags, stepping on three Bills players’ heads along the way, I look to Jamal for explanation.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s the defense’s reputation. Can’t stop the run, can’t get pressure on the passer.” 

But that’s ...that’s everything, Jamal. The defense is bad at everything.
 

“Yeah.”

A few plays later, they let Garrard, the Jaguars buoyant quarterback, dance to an eight yard gain on a broken play. 

“I didn’t think he could move like that,” I say to Jamal.
 

“I don’t think he can.”  

Nope.  I can’t go out like this. When the game ends mercifully in a 36-26 loss for the Bills, I say my goodbyes to Jamal and his pappy and resolve to look ahead a couple weeks to make sure I’m where I need to be. To that end, here’s a list – an actual list – to keep me organized:

Bills

Redskins

Ravens

Eagles

Patriots

Giants

Jets

Steelers

Only good games from here on out, I promise, even it means standing elbow-to-elbow with undergrads in Georgetown or showing up a half-hour early for a spot at the bar in Adams Morgan…on a Monday night. Eff it, I'll drink a Red Bull. My new motto is go where the action is, be grateful that you can get to it and sleep (or be a Bills fan) when you die.