Looking over the hysterical records, the last real TMQ watch we did was December 11, 2018. So it has been very close to five years. We’re not even sure we remember how to do this.
But a gift is a gift, a promise is a promise, and after the jump, this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback (which you won’t be able to read in its entirety unless you subscribe to “All Predictions Wrong”, which is the actual title of Gregg Easterbrook’s Substack) after the jump…
Christmas Creep is back. And Easterbook is upset that “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” aired Monday night. After Thanksgiving. During the Christmas season. Also, strained analogy comparing David Tepper and Comet (the reindeer). TMQ may have a point about Comet’s stupidity directed at Rudolph, but then again, Comet never went 1-10 as far as we know.
Also: Coach Cashiering Creep. Easterbrook thinks “Black Monday” (or, as we call it, “Bloody Monday“) is going to come early this year.
It’s going to happen before Christmas: lots more coaches fired.
We saw speculation elsewhere that as many as ten NFL coaches may get fired this season. Also, David Tepper is a bad person. Also, Easterbrook still uses AutoText.
This month midseason firing of offensive coordinators actually worked. Buffalo, mired in a scoring slump, fired its offensive coordinator and promptly posted 32 points then 34 points, against stout defenses.
And they’re 6-6, couldn’t hold off the Eagles in overtime, and their next game is against Kansas City, who is not a pushover. (However, Buffalo is currently ESPN’s favorite to win this game.)
Possible coach firing candidates: Ron Rivera, Brandon Staley (“No team has spent more to get less this season than LA/B. The Chargers are the Gal Gadot of the NFL – look great, huge costs, modest results.” That sounds familiar.), Brian Daboll, Matt Eberflus, Robert Saleh, Kevin O’Connell.
Also, Jack of the River and the football gods are back! Though Jack of the River is only a guest appearance. Unless he picks up another job this season.
Officiating during the Pniladelphia-Buffalo game was bad. We did not see any of it, so we hesitate to comment on the quality of the officiating. But bad officiating has been a long time TMQ trope, and one that we think (based on what we see and read elsewhere) is justified.
But why does TMQ think the officiating in this game was so bad? “The Parking Lot Theory of Officiating”. Or, in brief: Philadelphia was playing at home. If the calls had gone against the Eagles…well, these are the people who threw batteries at Santa Claus.
In college football news, after rounds of ridiculous litigation, 11-1 James Madison University, a probationary member of D1, was deemed bowl-eligible after all – because there aren’t enough eligible schools to fill out this year’s 41 big-division bowl games.
We have no joke here. We just like saying “Charlie Tuna Oceanographic University“.
TMQ continues to seek corporate sponsors for my proposed Fiasco Bowl.
We will offer $5 for naming rights. “The Low Fat Heavy Industries Fiasco Bowl” has a nice ring to it. Heck, we might even go up to $10.
The Jets and Giants are bad. Which reminds us: jimmymcnulty, have you considered applying for a coaching job with one of those teams? Based off what we see in the NYPost comments section, we think you’d be a vast improvement.
Going for it on 4th down. Sell your fakes. Stats. “The football gods chortled.” There’s a cure for that now.
Sweet: Eagles against Bills. Sour: Carolina against Tennessee. Mixed: Auburn-Alabama. “How in tarnation did Alabama score a touchdown on fourth-and-31?” TMQ says because Auburn only rushed two. We say defensive incompetence. Pretty much the same thing?
Chicken-(salad) kicking: THE Ohio State.
Hell’s Sports Bar has re-opened.
…the Cardinals organization used a quirk of NFL broadcast rules to prevent most of Arizona from seeing Chiefs-Raiders
“Quirk”? Isn’t that the way NFL coverage has worked since…we were a child, mumble mumble years ago? Quirk?
Bad college officiating. 250 words on AI and cryptocurrency.
An intelligence agency for some reason keeps the AI aboard a dirigible at 40,000 feet. The dirigible is filled with hydrogen, not helium, so of course explodes in an action scene.
It doesn’t know there is so much helium government is trying to get rid of the stuff.
From what we’ve heard, the reasons for selling off the national helium reserve are more political. Then again, from a truly libertarian point of view, why should the government be running a national helium reserve to begin with?
More chicken-(salad) kicking: New England.
Useful reminder:
Flying Elvii note: Mac Jones finished with a 27.8 passer rating. In the NFL’s decimal-place pseudo-scientific system, if every pass a quarterback attempts clangs to the ground incomplete, he gets a 39.6 rating.
More bad officiating: let’s kick Philadelphia-Buffalo around some more. Baltimore-Chargers. Houston-Jacksonville.
The NFL underperforms compared to the S&P 500. The NFL performs better, ratings-wise, then all other television.
The Grey Cup. Viewer mail: Ohio also suffers from high-school playoff expansion. That’s the fax, Jack.
“Single Worst Play of the Season – So Far”: the Jets hail mary. You know, the one Miami intercepted and ran back for a 99-yard touchdown. Yeah, that was pretty bad (we think: we didn’t actually see it). But wasn’t there a Bengals-Steelers play where a bunch of guys just stood around, totally oblivious to the live ball on the field?
And that’s a wrap for this week, folks. Tune in next week, when we wonder: what happened to the cheerleader photos?