If your cable system doesn’t carry the NFL Network, you’re not so much missing out on football as you are on laughs — the kind we laugh when people think we’re not smart enough to know what they’re up to.
The NFL Network is often like watching a guy on the subway trying to unload a hot watch. You don’t know whether to feel sorry for him or tell him to get lost.
After Thursday’s NFLN telecast of Colts-Jaguars, a graphic noted that Peyton Manning also had a big game last year vs. Jacksonville on a Thursday night. Studio host Rich Eisen, who, before he became NFLN’s Prof. Harold Hill, made wisecracks on ESPN, sounded serious while saying this about Manning:
“He likes to play in Jacksonville on Thursday Night Football on NFL Network.”
Yes sireee! Gimmee two pounds — no, make it three — of NFL Network!
Next came a live chat with Colts’ tight end Dallas Clark. That, too, took a comically desperate turn toward NFLN, which last night had Cowboys-Saints. Clark seems like a nice guy, too nice to be exploited for an NFLN promo, but that seemed to be the intent when studio panelist Steve Mariucci asked Clark which Colt would “host the get-together, Saturday night, to watch the Saints?”
“I’ll probably be Christmas shopping,” said Clark. Bzzzzz, wrong answer.
Moments later, Eisen said, “Last year Peyton Manning, in all intents and purposes, solidified his MVP trophy is this game on NFL Network.”
That was it for me. Heck, if I want to watch an infomercial I can watch ESPN.
* There’s 1:39 left, Thursday, Jaguars, down four, have the ball, second and six, at the Indianapois 44.
On NFLN, Matt Millen says, “The Jags are in a tough spot. They know they have to score the six, but they don’t want to score too fast.” Come on, they’re at the 44, not the 1-yard line!
Hard sell on tickets just schilly
The Jets, Giants, Yankees and Mets have attached such absurd prices and conditions to their tickets that the sell begins to take on the oily feel of a boiler room operation.
Last year, a fellow we know bought the Mets’ “Saturday Plan,” which was a bogus title because it included five must-buy weeknight games and excluded two Saturday games. But being the first season in a new park, he bit. He wishes he hadn’t. Blocked view seats, expensive, unwanted games.
Just after Thanksgiving, he received a mailed notice that if he doesn’t renew his tickets by paying half the total by Dec. 18, they’re gone. He loses. The renewal request read like a tacit threat, as if people were lined up to take his place. So hurry, hurry, hurry! But he wasn’t renewing.
In the days following, he received an e-mail anda phone call from the Mets, urging him to renew. Apparently, his last season’s tickets are so much in demand that the Mets will not take his “No” for an answer.
* Last Sunday, NBC’s Al Michaels noted that the Giants’ haven’t been scoring in the first quarter, “but Eli [Manning], once he gets into the second quarter, really heats up.”
Fact is, almost all NFL offenses, year after year, “heat up” in the second quarter. That’s primarily because the second quarter begins where the first quarter ends, thus it can begin first-and-goal-from-the six or with a punt from the back of the end zone. The first quarter is more likely to start with the offense 70-80 yards away.
Last year just three of 32 teams scored more in the first quarter than the second. Overall, 1,204 more points were scored in the second than the first. Annually, that’s typical. Also, time outs are more likely to be called late in the second quarter than at any time in the first. Have a nice day.
Knight rips Cal, but not on ESPN
So ESPN hires Bobby Knight, but he saves his good stuff – ripping Kentucky for hiring John Calipari — for off the air. . . . According to sources, Mike Francesa’s long-awaited new partner has been on the job for the last three weeks but he hasn’t yet been able to get a word in . . .
* Jerry Manuel has invited Mark Sanchez to spring training to teach the Mets how to keep running to first rather than give themselves up early. . . . Chris Henry and Pacman Jones were teammates at West Virginia. Incidentally, if any Bengal other than Chad Ochocinco insisted on wearing Henry’s jersey today, you’d figure it was an act based in sincerity as opposed to one of exploitation for added attention.
* If Howie Rose called a Mets game and an Islanders game on the same day for a month, he still would be the most prepared man in either house. . . . While many Jersey politicians are busy taking bribes or being indicted, is there not one to ask this in public: Why is a perfectly good NFL stadium being knocked down for a new one?
* As long as TV is now posting graphics providing “QB Hurries” and “QB Pressures,” reader Keith Cavet wants to know the all-time NFL hurry leader and who has the most career pressures? “For that matter, what about defenders who affect the play but fall short of a hurry or a pressure? Could there not be a category for ‘QB Worries’ or ‘Concerns’?”
* Just as it defied logic that Roger Clemens would allow anyone but a doctor to inject him with any substance, it’s similarly illogical that Tiger Woods would have a doctor, unlicensed to practice in the U.S. (and recently arrested for drug possession), to several times travel from Canada to Florida to treat him following knee surgery.