UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Unlike the subject of this blog entry, I never officially retired from blogging, and therefore, I am NOT a flip-flopper!

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

- Raise your hand if you are surprised by the announcement that the Diva Favre show is scheduled to re-re-re-re-launch this NFL season.

(If your hand is raised…really?  You didn’t see this coming?)

Hooray!  We NFL fans are going to get YET ANOTHER year of the Diva Favre Show, complete with a horrible, season-ending performance in the playoffs, a teary-eyed post-game press conference, hints about retirement, live updates as he flies home to Hattiesburg, and the eventual announcement that he will, finally, hang up his cleats for the last time.

All of this will happen over a 24 hour period; never mind what’s going to happen once the offseason begins.  ESPN might as well park a trailer outside Favre’s Hattiesburg house right now, and offer fans a 24-hour live feed ASAP.

(Brett Favre is stepping outside!  He’s gonna announce a comeback!  No, wait…he just grabbed the newspaper sitting on his doorstep.)

Question #1:  Why now?  Why not wait until Week 3?  Let’s say the Vikings are stumbling after a humbling defeat at the hands of the Lions (!!!) and a narrow victory against San Francisco.  Imagine Favre standing in Vikings’ owner Zygi Wilf’s press box, during a fourth quarter time out, announcing his return to the league!

(It’ll probably sound something like this.)

Why Week 3?  Look at the schedule:  a revenge game vs. GB, a guaranteed win @ STL, two toughies vs BAL and @PIT, and the “Screw You, Green Bay” game.

If Minnesota wins vs. GB, imagine how much more inflated Favre’s ego will get.  See!  See!  Look at me!   I’m not done!  Why’d you guys make me retire, Green Bay? Couple that with the win @ STL, and even if Minnesota loses the next two games—it wouldn’t be his fault if they lost those two games, after all—Favre’s got another revenge game against GB after that.

Hell, why not go all the way and retire after the Vikings’ bye week, only to return, Trevor Hoffman style (do you think he’d loan Favre “Hell’s Bells”?) for the season finale vs. the NY Giants?

Who wouldn’t watch THAT soap opera?  Even I…might.

Question Answer #2:  $12 million.

Question:  How much money is clearly burning a hole in Zygi Wilf’s pockets if he thinks a fragile, 39 going on 40 year old, flip-flopping, attention-starved, interception machine is going to be the difference between a Division Round elimination and a Super Bowl berth?

(I’ll take “Stupid Proclamations” for $200, Alex.  Gosh I miss blogging.)

How is a past-his-prime QB with a rotator cuff tear going to put Minnesota over the top?  Bernard Berrian’s a nice player, but look at the rest of that WR roster.  Unless Percy Harvin turns into Calvin Johnson…yuck.  And what if his shoulder flares up again?

(Tangent:  Quote of the year, so far:

Lance Briggs: On Favre constantly changing his mind.

“I hope he changes his mind when he’s going to throw the ball away, and throws it into coverage…”

Winner!)

Question #3:  What does The Diva Favre Show, Season 3, have planned to top the drama of the first two seasons?  Teary-eyed press conferences and one-on-one interviews are so 2007.  Lying right in front of all of America, or at least those watching his act, is too boring.  A rose ceremony, Bachelor-style?  Nah, too obvious and not exciting enough.

(I doubt this would happen, but the thought did cross my mind.  A tandem press conference announcing the re-re-returns of Diva Favre AND John Madden!

*shudder*

And for the record, I am not, in any way, comparing Diva Favre to John Madden.)

Here’s my idea for the Season 3 finale:  The Brett Favre Dating Game.  Now, we know that Favre wouldn’t want to play for a doormat, and teams with championship aspirations already—NE, BAL, IND, PHI, TEN, etc., and apologies if I left out an obvious team—wouldn’t have interest in him, so let’s eliminate those teams.  Next, we’ll make Favre submit a list of teams he’d like to play for (I guess that will eliminate Green Bay).  We’ll then take these two lists, and all the teams that are on both lists will be invited to the taping of The Brett Favre Dating Game.

On the show, each team will be represented by an anonymous team staffer.  Chuck Woolrey—Chris Mortenson if Woolrey’s not available—will allow Diva Favre to ask each staffer one question, and after the last question is posed, Favre will have a commercial break to decide which team he’d like to date.

After the date—training camp, I guess—we’ll invite Favre and his date back on to the show and see if he’ll be willing to go on a second date.  My bet:  he’ll dump whichever team he picked and sign with Carolina…in Week 9.

Now tell me, who wouldn’t watch this?  I certainly would, just to see Favre do that stupid kiss and wave at the end of each show.

Later.

Tags: adrian peterson, brett favre, diva favre, minnesota vikings, the brett favre dating game, the diva favre show by Peter
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On with it!

- How unfortunate that the great Chargers-Broncos game had to be marred by a terrible call by veteran official/guns of steel owner Ed Hochuli?  We should be talking about Broncos’ coach Mike Shanahan’s decision to go for the win (awesome, for the record, and I’m sure ESPN’S TMQ is going to make mention of Shanahan’s non-chicken decision!).  We should be talking about Darren Sproles and Brandon Marshall and rookie Eddie Royal’s TD and 2pt conversion hauls.

Instead, we’re talking about Ed Hochuli’s blown call, and so will I.

!) Let’s get this one out of the way now:  Hochuli got it wrong.  There’s no way that Cutler’s fumble wasn’t a fumble.  Sure, Hochuli had a bad angle on the play; he was standing behind Cutler, and might have been his angle blocked by Cutler’s left shoulder).  If that were true, though, then why bother blowing the whistle?  Let the play go, and then allow the replay official to demand a review of the play.

2) That being said, why can’t the play be completely reviewed?  Who is going to argue that the Chargers could not have recovered the fumble (and, of course, they actually did!)?  We saw indisputable evidence that the Chargers recovered the fumble, so why can’t the play be completely reversed?

I hope the NFL looks to reverse the “inadvertent whistle” rule, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence like we had here.

3) Charger fans, please stop with the “That call screwed us out of the game!” whining!  Had you guys not gone down 21-3 early in the game, you might not have been in the position to lose on a bad call by a referee.  How about stopping Brandon Marshall?  How about stopping Tony Scheffler?  I know!  How about stopping Eddie Royal ONCE?

What a strange season so far.  San Diego, Jacksonville, and Minnesota are 0-2; Arizona (???), Carolina (!!!), and Buffalo are 2-0; and the Colts should be 0-2.

- Speaking of the Colts, how are they NOT 0-2?  Adrian Peterson ran all over them in Sunday’s game, and yet all Minnesota could manage was five field goals?  You had a chance to bury the Colts early, and all you could muster was five field goals?

Even still, it took a furious rally—a huge reception/lateral, three tries at a TD dive, a fourth quarter TD, a 2pt conversion dive, a GREAT special teams play, and a game-winner by Adam Vinatieri—to pull this one out.

(Tangent:  Why is it that I’ve seen the replay of the Anthony Gonzalez flip to Reggie Wayne twenty times, but I’ve only seen the replay of the fourth-quarter, downed-at-the-one punt by the Colts’ special teams once?  If that punt goes into the end zone, who knows what might have happened?

Then again, who is surprised that a non-SportsCenter-worthy play was, arguably, the key to the game?)

And has anyone seen the Colts’ running game?  Yikes.

- So I guess the great Brett Favre isn’t enough to beat a Tom Brady-less Pats team, and I guess the Pats might be OK after all.  That pick Favre threw looked like vintage Brett Favre, if by “vintage,” I mean 2004-2006 and 2007 NFC Championship Favre.  And Matt Cassel is fitting the role of Trent Dilfer just fine, isn’t he?

Speaking of Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers doesn’t look half-bad, does he?  Granted, his second game came against the Detroit Lions, but still?  Dare I say that Rodgers looks almost better than Favre did last year?  I can’t wait for next Sunday night’s game:  Cowboys at Packers.  Whoa.

Other random thoughts:

- I guess Philly really is that good, even though they lost to the Cowboys tonight.

Speaking of Philly v Dallas…who opened the floodgates to all this scoring?  Philly and Dallas combined for 78 points.  San Diego and Denver combined for 77 points.  Green Bay scored 24 points in five minutes.  Freaking San Francisco and Seattle combined for 63 points!  Was this the NFL in 2008 or Tecmo Super Bowl?

I wonder what the over/under lines are going to look like for next week’s games, especially Dallas at Green Bay?  Sixty points?  Eighty?

- On the other end of that spectrum, I was actually kinda surprised that Pittsburgh and Cleveland managed 16 total points.  I was thinking it was going to be a weird, 9-8 game or something like that :P.

- I guess Kurt Warner’s not done.  Same with Jake Delhomme.  Vince Young might very well be, though.  Carson Palmer looks lost.  Marc Bulger might want to think about early retirement.

- Speaking of the Rams…they look absolutely awful, and as much as I would love to see a team finish 0-16, I can see the Rams backing into a victory against either San Francisco or an injury-ravaged Seattle team.  Kansas City might be able to do it, but they have games against Atlanta and Miami, so I don’t like their chances.  Cincinnati’s offense is too talented to go winless, as is Cleveland’s offense (besides, they play each other twice), and the same can be said for Jacksonville and San Diego.

I guess no one’s going winless this year.

Fantasy football thoughts to come next time.

Tags: aaron rodgers, adrian peterson, brandon marshall, brett favre, darren sproles, denver broncos, ed hochuli, high scoring, indianapolis colts, matt cassel, mike shanahan, san diego chargers, winless teams by Peter
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