Whipped Cream Difficulties

We give up. As a matter of fact, we surrender.

Okay. That was a cheap trick. Sorry. This week’s TMQ after the jump…

Why is NFL and college football scoring up dramatically? Three reasons: “the fad for hurry-up tactics and rules changes designed to encourage pass completions”, and “New safety rules favor offense.” 395 words down.

But. TMQ seems to attribute this to the new rules against helmet-to-helmet hits.

The arrival of strict rules against targeting the head was an essential football reform. N.F.L. defenders are now elaborately coached not to aim for the helmet, while defenders from the universities of Michigan and Washington were among those ejected for deliberate helmet-to-helmet hits in the weekend’s N.C.A.A. action.

Okay. So you can still block, you can still tackle, you just can’t hit someone in the helmet with your helmet. We’re not completely convinced by TMQ’s argument, such as it is, that the helmet-helmet rule accounts for the scoring increase.

Sweet: Denver. Sour: Seattle. Mixed: New England – Indianapolis. Stats.

You know, Gregg, if you’re going to put out a BOLO, it might be helpful if you included the name of the team your BOLO subject is playing for. (This is ignoring the minor detail that TMQ’s BOLO item is already stale.)

(Marcell Dareus plays for the Buffalo Bills. You’re welcome.)

In Marvel’s Avengers movies, S.H.I.E.L.D. has a flying aircraft carrier that uses four downward-facing fans. How big would the fans need to be to lift an actual aircraft carrier?

You know who would be a great person to ask this question of? Randall Munroe. Seriously. We are a little surprised he hasn’t already considered this question, but a quick Google search turns up no evidence of such. However, it does turn up this “Wired” article that makes a noble stab at an answer.

Steve Sarkisian just got the heave-ho at U.S.C.: He’d appeared in public seeming to be drunk, but the real issue may be that boosters were in an uproar over the Trojans merely being 12-6 with the whistle around his neck.

No, Gregg, we’re pretty sure that the real issue was that he showed up impaired, in public (allegedly including at games and team meetings) multiple times. We’ve said before, and we’ll say again: we don’t take any pleasure in Sarkisian’s firing, and we hope he gets the help he needs. But TMQ seems to us to be minimizing the gravity of the situation to make a frankly stupid point:

…that football-factory programs have such incredible built-in advantages in recruiting power and gimmick schedules that an orangutan should be able to lead one to bowl eligibility.

(And by the way, USC and South Carolina both have poor player graduation rates.)

“…there are only four possible undefeated pairings left, and three happen in Denver.” We’re not sure at this point whether to root for a 19-0 season (which will force the retirement of TMQ’s 1972 Miami Dolphins item), or to root for no undefeated pairings (which will probably cause TMQ to attempt to run his 1972 Miami Dolphins item, and we’ll be very interested in seeing how the NYT handles something that’s provably false in Easterbrook’s column).

Stanford! “How come N.F.L. teams don’t have dancing trees?” We have no joke here: we just want to plug Stanford Mixed Company, and especially their album “Tree Museum” (which has a fantastic cover of Garbage’s “When I Grow Up”).

Punt blocking. Bad punting (plus TMQ anthropomorphizing the 4th Down Bot. Again.)

The 500 Club. The Saints and the Colts both played aggressively. (And what was the result? Well, the Saints won and are now 2-4. The Colts still lost, but at least they kept the score close?)

“Adventures in Officiating”: Golden Tate.

…is a ball being bobbled in the end zone a touchdown or not? As with the Dez Bryant play last season, N.F.L. officials continue to say the catch/no catch rule is whatever they claim it is case-by-case. The league needs to fix the catch/no catch rule so that it’s clear and enforced in a consistent manner.

Da (Baylor) Bears. The Bills (and Rex Ryan) stink. Washington & Jefferson 66, Bethany of West Virginia 42.

“Chip Kelly Skedaddle Watch”, a new running item. Joy. We don’t know what to root for: Chip Kelly taking a college coaching job (in any case, we suspect that’s not going to happen before the end of the season), or a meteor strike. (The disadvantage of the latter is that TMQ could use it as evidence he was right about the need for a planetary defense system.)

And that’s a wrap. No promises for next week; we’ll just have to see how things work out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2015 at 11:38 am and is filed under Firings, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.