A little more proof, just in case you needed any, that a lot of people in this world just aren't that freakin' smart:
According to the AP, Herbert Alex Simpson, 30, of Philadelphia, had a grudge against two female ex-coworkers, so he did what anyone would do in that situation - he wrote threatening letters to New York Giants football coach Tom Coughlin, pretending to be those two women, and threatening Coughlin with "a living hell" if he didn't pay $20,000 to $30,000 to keep phony sexual trysts with them quiet.
I know exactly what you're thinking. This story stinks on so many levels it's not even funny, although it really is kind of funny. Even Mrs. Coughlin didn't believe that ol' Tom would have what it takes to get two other women into bed; not even ones that don't know him.
When you think of smooth-talking ladykiller types, the intense and focused Coughlin isn't exactly the guy who springs to mind. Unless the young ladies were flaunting Washington Redskins playbooks, Tom Coughlin probably would never even have noticed them in the first place.
And how, exactly, did Herbert Alex Simpson, who clearly needs to work on his reasoning skills, think his big plan was going to hurt the two women he had such a problem with? Coughlin gets the letters and goes immediately to the authorities, who have seen interviews with Coughlin and thus have no problem believing he didn't sleep with the two women. The authorities then go to the women, they say "Never seen the letters before and never slept with Coughlin" and prove it (at least the first part) by giving samples of their handwriting, and they go on with their Coughlin-less lives.
Meanwhile, the authorities ask the obvious followup question, "Who do you think might do such a thing?" and, surprisingly, both women immediately think of, you guessed it, Herbert Alex Simpson. Sheesh. Homer Simpson looks like a Mensa candidate compared to this guy.
So now, in addition to pissing off Tom Coughlin and barely inconveniencing the two women he was angry with in the first place, Herbert Alex Simpson becomes a national laughingstock. His response? He claims he "never thought the coach would get them and he never intended to harm his family."
And, really, why would he think the coach would get them? Writing the man's home address on the envelope and sticking proper postage on it hardly ever results in a letter ending up where it was sent.
Poor Hebert Alex Simpson. He is now facing a sentence of up to two years in prison and potentially a $250,000 fine. Just a wild guess here, but I'll bet Herbert Alex doesn't have that kind of money. Luckily for him, there are still 31 other NFL head coaches just waiting to be suckered like Coughlin. No doubt he is busily writing up the letters even as we speak.
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If you love fiction and have a few spare minutes, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com
Is there anyone outside of the immediate Seattle area that didn't feel like something magical was going on for the first three-and-a-half minutes of the fourth quarter in Saturday's NFC Wildcard game?
For the most of the first 45 minutes Saturday afternoon, the Redskins-Seahawks matchup looked like something out of Joe Gibbs's worst nightmare. Todd Collins, the thirteen year veteran quarterback who had been a backup for the last ten years and hadn't ever started a playoff game, was rushed, flushed, hit, knocked down, poked, prodded and filleted by a Seattle defense that gave new meaning to Washington's offensive line.
Collins, who seemed to be picking himself up off the ground all day after being harassed by pretty much everyone in a Seahawk uniform, looked like nothing so much as a guy who breaks into a junkyard by scaling the chain link fence, only to discover on the other side there are two Doberman Pinschers guarding the area that he didn't know about. He must have been asking himself, "I waited thirteen years for this?"
Seattle defensive ends Patrick Kerney and Darryl Tapp, along with linebackers Julian Peterson and Lofa Tatupu spent most of the game in the Redskin backfield, forcing Collins to rush his throws and not giving him the time to make good reads. Washington was fortunate to be down just 13-0 after three, as virtually all of the momentum had been on Seattle's side.
Early in the fourth quarter, though, Collins connected with Antwaan Randle El on a seven-yard touchdown strike to cut the Seahawks lead to 13-7, and on the ensuing Seattle drive, Laron Landry,a rookie starting at safety due to the tragic death of Sean Taylor in midseason, picked off a Matt Hasselbeck pass intended for Bobby Engram, giving Washington the ball in Seattle territory. Three plays later Collins hit Santana Moss on a thirty yard touchdown pass and improbably, incredibly, the Redskins had jumped on top 14-13.
The ensuing kickoff bounced crazily past Nate Burleson and was recovered by Washington, giving them an opportunity to put the reeling Seahawks away, maybe for good. Starting with the ball at the Seattle 15 yard line, two incomplete passes sandwiched around a Clinton Portis run for two yards set up a thirty yard Shaun Suisham chip shot field goal which he promptly missed.
After the missed opportunity, Matt Hasselbeck and the Seahawks moved smartly down the field, gaining 44 yards on just three plays, when Taylor's replacement Landry once again picked off the Seattle Pro Bowl quarterback, giving Washington the ball and the lead with less than ten minutes to play.
If Amos Alonzo Stagg had decided football games would be fifty minutes long, rather than sixty, the Redskins would have owned a Hollywood finish even the most optimistic scriptwriter would have rejected as too unbelievable. The rookie playing in place of the murdered Pro Bowl safety intercepts passes on two consecutive drives, giving the underdog visitors an unlikely victory in perhaps the noisiest stadium in the NFL with perhaps a little help from above.
Unfortunately for the Redskins, but fortunately for Seattle, Stagg long ago figured a solid hour of football was necessary, and in that final ten minutes the carriage turned into a pumpkin and the magical ride ended.
Hasselbeck found D.J. Hackett for a twenty yard touchdown pass and then hit a two point conversion, giving the Seahawks a 21-14 lead, and Collins was unable to finish off his Joe Montana impersonation, tossing two interceptions that were returned by Seattle for touchdowns and getting bulldozed at the end of the second one to add injury to insult.
The 35-14 final score looks ugly, and for much of the game it was ugly, but for just a little while the team that still lists Sean Taylor as a starting safety had everyone in America thinking miracle and believing it might actually happen.
It's finally NFL playoff time. The long, drawn out first act is over and it's time to move on to the speed round, where one bad game can mean months of regret and a team that gets hot at the right time can win it all.
There were plenty of surprises during the regular season, both pleasant ones and disappointments. The Bears, one season removed from a Super Bowl appearance, had their flaws exposed and finished just 7-9, tied with the Lions for last place in the NFC North. Likewise, the Saints, possibly the surprise of the year last year, slipped to 7-9 as well.
On the plus side of the surprise ledger, the Green Bay Packers rode their defense and the aging arm of Brett Favre to an impressive 13-3 mark and the second seed in the NFC, and in the AFC, the Cleveland Browns finished a surprising 10-6, tying Pittsburgh for first place in the North, although they fell victim to a numbers game and missed the playoffs entirely.
Now, though, the time has come to handicap the field of the twelve remaining teams as the annual tournament starts. For my money, the best way to judge a team's potential in a single-elimination format against the best of the best is to review their performance during the season against quality opposition, which I define as any team with a record better than .500, or any team that finished 9-7 or better.
This year, that group includes all the playoff teams plus the hard-luck Cleveland Browns. So, without further ado, here is each playoff team's record against quality opposition in 2007:
1) New England Patriots 7-0 (1.000)
2) Green Bay Packers 3-1 (.750)
3) Dallas Cowboys 4-2 (.667)
4) Pittsburgh Steelers 3-2 (.600)
5) Indianapolis Colts 4-3 (.571)
5) Jacksonville Jaguars 4-3 (.571)
7) San Diego Chargers 2-3 (.400)
7) Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2-3 (.400)
9) Tennessee Titans 2-4 (.333)
10) Seattle Seahawks 1-2 (.333)
11) Washington Redskins 2-5 (.286)
12) New York Giants 1-5 (.167)
A couple of things should be considered when looking at these numbers. The Colts and Cowboys both lost games against quality opponents in Week 17 who were fighting for their playoff lives, while neither team had anything but pride to play for. The value of those losses is questionable when applying the numbers to the playoffs, so if you eliminate them, the Cowboys improve to 4-1 against quality opposition, the second-best mark in the NFL, and the Colts improve to 4-2, moving them up to fourth.
Teams who should be especially concerned looking at those numbers include the Giants, who won only one game all year against a quality opponent, and the Seahawks, who played just three games all season against the best of the best, winning just one, that all the way back on September 9. The Steelers should also be hearing footsteps, as they started out 3-0 against quality opponents, before losing their last two. That, plus the injury bug which has hit Pittsburgh hard, will mean a short playoff run for the Steelers.
The second thing to consider when looking at playoff matchups is the difficulty of each team's schedule. A team that finished 10-6 with a difficult schedule should be better-prepared to face the rigors of the playoffs than a team with an identical record that played a lot of cupcakes.
To determine how tough each playoff contender's schedule was, I ranked every NFL franchise from 1 to 32 based on record. Teams with identical records were sorted by point differential, so the Bucs get ranked just ahead of the Redskins even though they both finished 9-7, by virtue of the fact that they outscored their opponents by a cumulative 64 points as opposed to only 24 for the 'Skins.
Once the teams were ranked 1-32, I went through each playoff contender's schedule game by game and added up the value of each opponent over the course of the season. The higher the final number, the more difficult the overall schedule. The results are surprising in some ways and not in others. Here are the results for each team's strength of schedule:
1) Washington Redskins 300
2) Jacksonville Jaguars 271
3) Indianapolis Colts 268
4) Tennessee Titans 267
5) New York Giants 264
6) Dallas Cowboys 258
7) New England Patriots 254
8) San Diego Chargers 248
9) Green Bay Packers 237
10) Tampa Bay Buccaneers 235
11) Pittsburgh Steelers 229
12) Seattle Seahawks 205
In terms of degree of difficulty, there is a huge difference between the schedule faced by the Washington Redskins and that faced by the Seahawks. In fact, mathematically speaking, the Redskins schedule was almost 10% tougher than any other playoff team.
But what does that mean? In one sense, you could say Washington is battle-hardened. On the other hand, having a difficult schedule isn't necessarily all that beneficial if you only go 2-5 against the best the opposition has to offer, as the 'Skins did.
By the same token, the fact that Seattle played a much easier schedule than anyone else doesn't necessarily mean they won't fare well in the playoffs - it's not their fault their schedule included a lot of cupcakes. The reason the Hawks will fall early has much more to do with the fact they only played three tough teams all year and only won once - on the very first weekend of the season.
It's an imperfect system, I know, but the best I could do, considering NORAD won't let me near their supercomputer any more after I crashed it crunching the numbers for my "What's in a Name" post. Hopefully they help you pick some winners.
Speaking of which, here are the results you can plan on for this weekend:
They say there's no such thing as bad press. Everyone's heard that particular bromide, right? "There's no such thing as bad press," meaning that if you're being written about, then you're in the news, and that's a good thing for your name recognition, your "Q Factor." I guess that's how the theory goes, anyway.
I'm not sure who came up with that and I'm not sure everyone would agree; certainly not President Bush, based on some of the stuff written about him. And before you fire off angry comments at me because I'm a crazy right-winger or a wild-eyed liberal, or however you perceive me based on that remark, I think it's fair to say that President Clinton before him would probably not have agreed with the "There's no such thing as bad press" theory, either.
But if you believe, even a little bit, that there's no such thing as bad press, then Jason Whitlock, of the Kansas City Star and Foxsports.com, must be pretty much king of the world right now, or at least king of this little corner of the world. I wonder, when he sat down to write the piece that has caused this perfect storm of outrage and self-righteousness, was that his intention?
Or was Jason Whitlock trying to do what everyone else has been trying to do (or at least should have been trying to do) since hearing of the tragic death of the Washington Redskins Sean Taylor - make sense of something that is basically senseless?
For all the whirlwind of hot air being bandied about regarding Whitlock's piece from two, polar opposite sides of an equation, with each side absolutely convinced that the other is the most dangerous thing to our civil liberties and the lifestyle we've come to know as Americans since, well, maybe since the Civil War, it becomes clear that there are still racial issues hanging like an executioner's axe over all of our heads in this country.
If you read any of my stuff you know I usually try to keep things light in this blog. We all have so many things of real importance in our lives that are worthy of our serious attention that watching and writing about sports, in my opinion, should not be taken as seriously as it is most of the time. However, it is clear that Jason Whitlock touched a nerve when he wrote his opinion about what contributed to the death of Sean Taylor - His opinion. Remember, Whitlock is a columnist who is paid to do what he did - give his opinion.
By doing so, he earned both the undying adoration and enduring hatred, depending on your position,of seemingly everyone in America, or at least everyone who reads Fox blogs. As this is written, 19 of the 20 most popular posts, based on number of comments received, are written regarding Whitlock's article. Not the death of Sean Taylor, mind you, but the opinion of one man about that death - one man who is paid to give his opinion.
I am a 48 year old white male living in one of the whitest states in America, New Hampshire. So I wouldn't even try to convince you that I have the slightest idea what Sean Taylor faced in his life as a young black man from a hardscrabble background. Likewise, I make a good living in the career I have carved out for myself, but the money I make is nothing compared to the cash Sean Taylor was raking in as a high-profile professional athlete. So again, I really can't relate to Taylor's life situation in any meaningful way.
But as a father, a son, a husband and a brother, I share a kinship with Sean Taylor, and so do you. This story is about Taylor and always was, not Whitlock and his opinion, whether you agree with it or disagree; whether you think it was the most brilliant piece of journalistic wisdom ever penned or the most vile piece of trash not worthy of the bottom of your birdcage.
Maybe, just maybe, instead of firing off posts and comments denigrating the people on the other side of the issue of race in this country, we could step back for a moment and reflect on the fact that a young man is dead - a little girl will never know her daddy. Isn't that something we can do?
Why is there all of a sudden such attention being paid to the postgame handshakes (Or non-handshakes, in some instances) of NFL head coaches?
After Eric Mangini left the New England Patriots coaching staff to take over the head coaching job in New York, the post-game brusque-fest after the first time the two teams met was scrutinized and dissected almost as thoroughly as the actual game. Belichick didn't shake Mangini's hand! They barely spoke!
Newsflash: It seems pretty apparent the two men don't like each other much, and that particular incident took place before Belichick extended an olive branch to Mangini earlier this season by graciously taking some action pics of the Jets on the sidelines and Mangini showed his appreciation by tattling to the league office.
But what's the point of that quaint post-game ritual anyway? Is it a carryover from the grainy, black-and-white early days of the NFL when players would run around in their leather helmets with no face shields, happily concussing each other, then meet at midfield after the game to congratulate one another before staggering off to the nearest watering hole to share a beer and a headache?
Today's NFL is a multi-billion dollar enterprise where the pressure to win is enormous and coaching careers and reputations can be won and lost based upon thousands of individual decisions, every single one of which is being schemed against and thwarted by the guy in the headset standing on the other side of the field. Is it really reasonable to expect a coach to shake his counterpart's hand, at least with any enthusiasm, after that guy has been spending the last three hours doing his absolute best to take food off the coach's dinner table?
And why are the head coaches the only ones who have to play nice? If they have to kiss and make up at the end of the game, wouldn't logic suggest the offensive and defensive coordinators seek each other out too, so they can share their own personal Oprah moment? Or maybe the offensive coordinator should find the opposing defensive guru, since that's the guy he's been playing chess against all day.
What other professional sport requires the opposing coaches to routinely meet after the game and make nice? Could you imagine if they had that tradition in the NHL? Just try and picture it - after fifteen exhausting minutes of slipping and sliding across the ice in their wing-tip shoes, the coaches immediately start to go at it, pulling each other's suit jacket over their heads and pummelling each other.
I understand the handshake tradition in college football, where we try to convince ourselves that "amateur" athletics is all about sportsmanship and teaching values, rather than about wins and losses and dollars and cents. But it's time to let go of the silly, anachronistic handshake ritual in the NFL. If I'm Joe Gibbs, should I really be forced to shake your hand after you squeaked by me by six touchdowns and a field goal?
Remember when you could open up the sports page and there was a pretty good chance the headlines you read would actually be about sports? Those days are long gone, and not just because people are abandoning the traditional print media in droves.
One of two things are happening in the world of sports. Either today's athletes are getting into more trouble than they used to, or their indiscretions are being more widely reported. I believe it's probably some of both.
Check out the following five headlines. What's wrong with this picture?
----------Steelers Holmes arrested for disorderly conduct. ----------NFL proposes two regular-season games outside U.S. ----------Love boat's final run? Vikings plead guilty in scandal. ----------Redskins Super Bowl hero Smith sentenced to prison. ----------Arrest report: Browns DB Droughns threw wife out door.
The stories above are the top five headlines from the NFL section of the Foxsports.com website at 4:30 p.m. eastern time on Saturday, May 27. What's wrong with that picture? It's pretty obvious, right? Of the five top NFL stories, four aren't football-related at all except for the fact that they involve current or former NFL players facing various criminal charges.
It used to be reading the sports page gave you a respite from most of the more unsavory aspects of daily life. There were the occasional stories about players behaving badly, but for the most part if it was out of season for a particular sport, the features were geared more toward the prospects for the local team this upcoming season, or whether player "A" could be expected to compete for player "B's" job. Not anymore.
Let's take a quick look at these stories individually.
----------Steelers Holmes arrested for disorderly conduct: No details available at the time, other than the fact that wide receiver and top Steeler pick Santonio Holmes signed a promissory note agreeing to appear in court after being arrested in South Beach Friday night. Nothing says "I'm ready for the NFL" quite like your first arrest.
----------Love boat's final run? Vikings plead guilty in scandal: More disorderly conduct. The details involve Vikings Fred Smoot and Bryant McKinnie, sex toys, exotic dancers, and the now-infamous Minnesota Vikings party boat cruise last October. You've probably read more than you ever wanted to know about this ill-fated nautical nonsense, and if you haven't, don't waste your time. No doubt Vikings fans wish their players would hit the field with half the gusto they displayed on Lake Minnetonka.
----------Redskins Super Bowl hero Smith sentenced to prison: Here's where the criminal activity really hits it's stride. Timmy Smith, who rushed for over 200 yards in the Washington Redskins 1988 championship win over the Denver Broncos, pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine and will begin serving a two-and-a-half year sentence in July. Prior to his arrest, Smith had been working as a detention officer in a youth services center. Now there's a man who is equipped to turn young lives around. Maybe protestors are right, and the Washington franchise should change its name. They could become the Red-Sins, in honor of Tim Smith.
----------Arrest report: Browns DB Droughns threw wife out door: Here's a guy who celebrated his recent acquittal on drunk-driving charges by allegedly throwing his wife out after she told Reuben Droughns she wanted a divorce. No, he didn't tell her to leave, he actually physically threw her out the door. Droughns faces charges of assault and harassment.Maybe someone needs to explain to this potential Mensa member that "throw her out" is an expression, not a literal concept.
There you have it. Five headlines in the NFL section of Foxsports.com, four of which involve alleged or proven criminal activity by players in the league. Now if you'll excuse me, I feel like I need to go take a shower.
Hey everyone, I know it must seem like I've dropped off the face of the earth, but it's nothing like that.
I've been busy writing - two full-length novels so far, plus over a dozen short stories - and working hard to try to get an agent. If you are curious and have a few minutes, check out my website, www.allanleve rone.com.
If you're a literary agent or if you know one, by all means contact me! In the meantime, I'll be here when I can - love this forum - and as always, thank you for checking out my blog, especially considering how many great ones you could be reading instead....
