Well, maybe "confessions" isn't the right word.  But it's a dark tale nonetheless.  Read it and be warned.

     They say you have to hit bottom before you can start the long climb up.  I'm not sure, but I may have found the depth beneath which I can no longer sink.  Maybe my epiphany came from watching the Kotex Panty Liner Why Should I Really Care Bowl between Mississippi State and UCF, a contest that seemed less a football game than a historical re-enactment of a long-forgotten era.  Namely, the time before the forward pass.

Maybe it was during the cavalcade of futility and blandness as the Indianapolis Fighting Sorgis, playing with nothing at stake, nearly held off the playof####esperate Tennessee Titans.  But at some point in this past few days, I had my moment of clarity and realization: I just love watching football - good football, bad football, day games, night games, Central Freaking Michigan against Purdue.  My name is John, and I am an addict.  And I see no need to rise above that.  In fact, I think I'm proud of it.  So I'm going to wallow in the filth of my sporting complacency and enjoy my debased self. 

 Not quite sure how my face got cropped out of this picture, but I was there, and I remain.  And while I'm here, I think it's about time I see a few changes from the rest of you.

     First, let's just end the charade about bowls versus playoffs in college football.  I know all the dumb arguments for bowls, so save it.  The tradition?  Yeah, so is this, but most of us eventually move on from that to this

and eventually, inevitably, to internet porn.  It's the Circle of Life, dammit.  Grow up and get with the program.  The extra burden on our "scholar-athletes" from the couple of extra games involved in a plus-four or plus-eight playoff?  Sorry, but our nation's universities lost their credibility on that one when they allowed a twelfth game, then an exception for a thirteenth for teams playing the Kickoff Classic.  College football players are today's equivalent of Roman gladiators, unpaid endurers of pain for our entertainment.  A select few may earn their freedom in the form of actual paychecks from the NFL one day, but for the rest this is bloodsport and public spectacle, not higher education.  And the argument that it reduces the urgency and meaning of the regular season?  You seriously cannot find me a less meaningful game than Minnesota/Iowa this November.  Ooh, it made the Hawkeyes bowl eligible!  Oops, lost to Western Michigan the next week.  You also cannot tell me that having a playoff at the end of the season is going to make Ohio State hate Michigan or Auburn despise Alabama one iota less.  If the only way to get in is by winning a conference championship, the urgency is still there, with the added bonus of being able to distill all of the tedious my-conference-is-better-than-yours arguments into a couple of games each year.  End the charade.  Playoff.  Now.  TCU and Houston can still play in some erectile-dysfunction-sponsored bowl, while everyone else can figure out who really is the best team.

     Next topic.  We all talk about steroids.  I'm tired of it.  For crying out loud, does Ed Hochuli

get tested?  Don't tell me you don't see some 'roid rage behind some of those penalty calls.  And you have to admit that there is a certain similarity between the near-aneurysmal, veins-bulging, my-chin-can-break-blocks-of-solid-granite photo in the middle and recent Sylvester Stallone.  If you're going to be one-sided about it, why should I care?  And why should I care about steroids in baseball?  I didn't hear a peep out of any of you "purists" when a solid majority of baseball players took advantage of LASIK surgery to improve their vision and, presumably, their batting averages.  I'm sure that since LASIK only involves natural medicinal herbs and Native American healing dances, it doesn't fall into the same category as steroids, right?  Shut up.  Now.  You make all of us dumber and less rational by harping on one while ignoring the other.

     Next: you nerds holding up signs at games with the televising network's name "cleverly" included in some slogan supporting your team.  Not only was it not that clever the first time it was done, not only does it call attention to your undone fly and general lack of a reason for existence ("but I was on TV, dude!"), but it's just plain past its sell-by date.  My own sign:

                              sign-waving crEtins

                                               
                                                    Slurp

                                               
                                              Sal Paolantonio's

                                               
                                                goNads

     We trudge onward.  Excelsior, or something.  How about instant-replay challenges of an "incorrect" ball spot?  How can you pick one arbitrary play to challenge the accuracy of something that is essentially arbitrary on every single play of the game?  Yeah, I'd still be mad if it was my  team that got shafted on an obvious bad spot, but the pretension to micromeasurement is a bit much to take when the aforementioned Hochuli heaves his massive arms into the air to demonstrate, by an inch of space between his muscled fingertips, the exact distance (correct to the nanometer) required for a first down.

     Kill the commercial.  No, I mean it.  I'm all with $8 Beers and the essential evil/unconstitutionality of the touchdown-extra point-commercial-kickoff-commercial sequence, but I think he stops short of the real solution.  Eliminate all commercials not directly related to halftime or timeouts.  Instead, sell advertising space directly on the players' uniforms like soccer teams do.  Oh, the "purists" will squeal.  The sanctity of the uniform, and all that.  Take one look at the Bengals, or any of the various monstrosities sported by the Oregon Ducks.  Tell me you can take those any lower.  No cheating by drinking a lot to get "uniform beer-goggles."  It's time.  Kill the commercial.  You could even stretch the rules elsewhere to accommodate - for instance, Joe Horn's end-zone cell-phone celebration would be allowable if arranged beforehand with Verizon Wireless as an advertising buy.  That, of course, would require Joe getting back into the end zone, but one thing at a time here.

     Can we get some kind of federal oversight over football commentators as well?  Specifically, I'd like to see some kind of system in place to implement proportional penalties for certain mis-uses of the microphone when talking about football.  To wit:

• Using the word "athlete," "athleticism," or any derivative of the terms to describe a defensive/offensive lineman with more than 3 inches' worth of belly clearing his belt
• Any use of the word "genius"
• Trying to coin your own nickname for a player (I'm looking at you, Merrill Hoge)
• Especially if it's a dumb nickname
• Calling any player "underrated"; if you really want to be interesting, insightful, and bold, tell me who's overrated.  And let us see the film footage when the player comes to discuss it with you later.
• Any use of any microphone by Joe Buck will be considered an offense of the highest nature, under penalty of having his mouth surgically sealed, then being stripped naked and tied to a pole while a crowd of steroid-enhanced five-year-olds play testicle pinata with Wiffle-bats (link shamelessly lifted from $8 Beers).

     OK, I think I'm finished.  I think I've made a lot of progress today in accepting my condition, and I hope the rest of you have gained some insight into how you need to re-order your lives and actions to accommodate it.  If you feel compelled to tell me that I need to change anything related to my addiction, I will give any suggestions you offer all attention due them - roughly the same attention I will give anything my wife says about taking out garbage, shoveling snow, cleaning the house, walking the dogs, or anything else during the Tennessee-Wisconsin game.  Thank you, goodnight, and go Volunteers.

and then I thought better of it.  A few random musings from the addled mind of a football junkie in mid-season heaven:

I can't remember a year in college football when so many teams had a legitimate claim to being the number two team in the country - and when all of those teams had such major flaws.  Meanwhile, for all of the doubts about its strength of schedule, Ohio State keeps playing it low-key:

They're not sexy, exciting, or even mildly entertaining.  But they win.  Week in and week out.  The Michigan game will be an interesting test if the Wolverines can get completely healthy, but I'm not sure I see an upset.

Bill Belichick may be the most hated figure in football  

but Bill Callahan isn't far behind.  It's a good thing Nebraska wears red - the blood doesn't show quite as much that way.  Meanwhile, somehow Charlie Weis holds a get-out-of-jail-free card given by Notre Dame fans who have suddenly discovered patience.

Three minutes o####ood college football game is worth three seasons of baseball.  The NBA exchange rate?  Go away, sir, your money is no good here.

Colts-Patriots didn't tell us anything we didn't already know.  Brady and Moss are really, really good.  Marvin Harrison is a difference-maker.  And these are the two best teams in the NFL.

For all the fawning about the Packers and "Good Brett" Favre, he's really the same guy.  Schizo Brett, I mean.  He's had a lot of gift-wrapped picks dropped, and eventually that luck runs out.  Hopefully in the playoffs against my Saints.

The beautiful sound you're hearing from Los Angeles, Chicago and Philly?

Millions of Eagles, Bears and Trojans fans finally, blessedly, shutting up.  Expect the same in Dallas in February.

Are we seriously considering Hawaii and Boise State as real football teams? When your signature wins are over Idaho and Southern Miss, respectively, it begins to look

a bit like you're getting off easy compared to

what the big boys are dealing with.

Les Miles and Pete Carroll look increasingly like two mediocre coaches bailed out by good talent.  Take it from a Tennessee fan: I know this song by heart. 

AFC superiority ain't what it's cracked up to be.  Season record so far: AFC, 20 wins; NFC, 19.

If Oregon runs the table, I don't know how you can argue that LSU is the more deserving championship-game team.  Memo to Tiger fans: when defense is your calling card,

 makes a stronger case than.

Thank God Boston College lost.  I'm not sure my eardrums could have survived the Boston braying that would have ensued had the Red Sox, Eagles and Patriots all won their respective titles.  Remind me never to take BC seriously.  Ever.

Except when they play Notre Dame.

I watched a bit of the Patriots' demolition of the Redskins on Sunday, the latest in a series of dismemberments by Bill Belichick and his crew.  I can't say that I was surprised, as the Redskins still look like they are a year or two away from being legitimate contenders.  Nor can I say that I am quite as riled up as a lot of the sports world seems to be

about the Patriots' continuing efforts to give the scoreboard operator an aneurysm, long after the game's outcome had been decided.  Was it poor sportsmanship?  Of course.  In everyday life, we have an expression for the kind of person who does this: we call him an

 He is the guywho tells homeless people to "get a job."  He is the one who can't shut up about how much money he makes, what kind of car he drives, how important he is   He is the person for whom success is not enough - to fully realize that success requires him also to make others acknowledge just how superior he is.  This is usually the hallmark of a deeply insecure and arguably sociopathic person (Bill in his Unabomber outfits certainly seems to be dressing the part).

But this is professional sports, you say - the entire point is in proving your superiority to the other team.  You are completely correct.  That first five touchdowns probably proved that.  If not, then the sixth must have provided another, less subtle hint:

But after that, what is the point in more points?  The Redskins were a beaten team, the Patriots had proven their superiority in every facet of the game, so we could just take a knee and go home, right?  Well, Bill had other ideas.

So now I've spent a lot of time talking about what a dingleberry Belichick is, right after saying I wasn't that riled up about it.  Oh well, I suppose I have to get back to what was going to be my original point, which is this:

It's not just that he's a jerk, it's that he's a bad coach.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Oh, he does X's and O's as well as anyone has the last few decades.  But he's letting his man-with-a-small-wiener syndrome make him do things that a good coach doesn't do.  Like leave his stars exposed to injury, long after games have been decided.  Like build up incentive for other teams to take New England down.  Like deprive his backups of useful game experience.  Has everyone here forgotten that the Pats' backup QB, Matt Cassel, has never taken a meaningful snap in an NFL game?  Does anyone remember that he never took one in college, either?  Give Belichick credit for at least putting him on the field in the closing minutes of the Redskins game.  But to have Brady on the field with the score 38-0 just doesn't make any sense.  He's getting a pass on this from all of the sports commentators out there at the moment, but what do you think will happen if Tom Terrific separates his shoulder or blows out his knee on a meaningless fourth-quarter drive in a rout?  What if a frustrated team decides to make a dive for Moss's knees instead of just making a tackle?  I don't want this to happen - I don't like the Patriots, but I like watching these guys play, because they do it well.  I'm just stating the obvious, which is that Belichick is taking a needless risk, in the name of I don't know what, and eventually it's going to get one of his key players hurt.  Do you think the pundits, or the New England homers who currently defend him, will call Belichick a "genius" then? 

Funny thing, karma.  Your actions tend to pack a bigger wallop when they double back on you.

So I've heard something the past couple of days that I haven't heard in several weeks.  Something about a team...somewhere down south...New Orleans, I think.  Yeah, that's it.  The Saints.  Somebody mentioning that they had a pulse.  A couple even saying that they still had a chance at the division.

Now, I like a feel-good story as much as anybody.  And when somebody comes to town handing out presents, I'll be the first in line - whether he looks like this

or like this

The problem is that the NFL, no matter what you might believe from its feel-good ads, is not by nature a charity organization.  It is, by and large, more like an episode of Wild Kingdom - a weekly survey of the interaction between various forms of life, from the majestic and terrifying lion and tiger, to the teeming herds of seemingly identical wildebeests.  In general, most prefer not to be the wildebeest.

There's the rub.  Teams generally fall into one category or the other.  You either eat grass, or you eat the others on the scene.  A particularly big wildebeest may claim first grazing rights or whatever passes for privilege in those parts, but in the end he will eventually be someone else's lunch.  And I can't yet say that these Saints look like the carnivores of last year.

Just look at the numbers against the Falcons.  The hated Dirty Birds outgained the Saints, held the ball for 11 more minutes, and held a +1 turnover differential.  If not for an injury to Byron Leftwich, it is likely the outcome would have been much different.  Even without him, the Falcons had multiple opportunities to win this game, failing less due to the Saints' skill than to their own ineptitude.  The botched shotgun mis-snap alone (leading to a 19-yard loss and killing a Falcon drive) would take its place in the pantheon of sports infamy

if it weren't in such a sloppy, inconsequential game between bottom-dwellers.

So no, I'm not convinced.  The Saints still haven't shown that they can run the ball effectively without Deuce McAllister - having to pass on third-and-one doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the ground game.  They still struggle to get pressure on the quarterback without large-scale blitzing (which good quarterbacks will eventually turn into big plays if you do it too much), and they still show a propensity for spectacularly stupid penalties and other mistakes.  All season long, Devery Henderson has regarded the ball as if it was contaminated with plutonium, but in this game he caught a long touchdown pass - to be immediately followed by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and instant field position for Atlanta.  The offensive line, the most pleasant surprise of last year, is playing disorganized and inconsistent ball.  And I'm still convinced that a mysterious stranger somehow snuck into the locker room wearing a Drew Brees mask and is parading around in the #9 jersey.

There are bright spots.  Reggie Bush is finally showing signs of learning how to run in the NFL (don't be fooled by the low average - he had several big running plays called back due to penalties).  Marques Colston seemed to emerge from his previous funk, and Lance Moore is looking more and more like a real gem.  If Henderson can get his gloves lined with something other than concrete, this could still be a receiving corps to reckon with (assuming Dranny Bruerffel isn't either on his back or short-arming potential scoring passes).  But this defense still isn't going to win a lot of games on its own, so the offense needs to figure out its issues pretty quickly - Atlanta hardly constitutes a true test for an NFL offense.

There is still time to get to respectability.  But it's still a long way off, and the Saints better have something better in their gameplan next week than waiting for Santa Claus.

Five elephants, really.  In watching the damn-near-unwatchable dismantling of my Saints by the Colts the other night. it occurred to me how thin is the line between NFL success and failure, and how little attention people normally pay to where that line is.  And the line, in this case, is exactly that - the offensive and defensive lines of the New Orleans Saints.

There were a few people last year who noticed the combination of good breaks and pixie dust that turned what had previously been a mediocre offensive line into a good one, but for the most part commentators focused on the flash - the skill-position players who emerged (or re-emerged) to lead a high-powered offense.  A few people remarked about the guy from freakin' Bloomsburg University showing up as a rookie (big goofy glasses and all) in the starting lineup of an NFL team, but not many really commented on how Deuce McAllister suddenly had some actual holes through which to run.  A few caught the unexpected turn in the straight-up Bentley-for-Faine trade in which the Saints unexpectedly caught the better end of the deal and the Browns continued their abysmal luck.  But  I didn't hear any commentator try to explain, or even note the existence of, the new cohesion with which the line played.  Simply put, they played as a unit.

This is the dirty little secret of line play, especially on offense, in the NFL.  For all of the talk about big names when they change teams, a player can only be understood in context.  Steve Hutchinson didn't magically change things when he went to Minnesota.  Nor, by re-signing with Seattle, did Walter Jones guarantee Shaun Alexander another huge season.  The job an individual lineman does is determined in part by the quality of the guy(s) next to him, and to an even bigger extent by how well they communicate.  A guy like Jones can be an All-Pro caliber talent, but still have a miserable year, if he's next to a guy who doesn't slide to help out with an overload, who doesn't quickly let him know when that extra rusher's coming.  Likewise, a guy like Jahri Evans (who appears to be the real deal, as best I can tell) can plug right in as a rookie and do well if he works well with the guys around him.  What happened last season for the Saints was the emergence of that mysterious intangible group-mind among the linemen that (I think) allowed them to play above their collective talent level for most of the season.

And if I had to take one biggest concern away from the opener in Indy, it wouldn't be Jason David - I think the kid's going to be all right, especially after seeing how he faced up to getting torched when he talked to the press.  It's the way the offensive line turned into a sieve against what for most of last year was not a very good defense.  Perhaps it was the mystical power of Bob Sanders and his Dreadlocks From Iowa that pulled things together, but the O-line didn't show much cohesion either in pass blocking (understandable against some pretty good pass rushers), or in grinding it out against defenders who are undersized across the board.  The Saints' defensive struggles went about as expected - when matched up against a superb tactician and executor like Manning, you keep your guys back and avoid big plays.  But in that context, the Colts' offensive line opened up big holes and established the run.  When the Saints tried to counter with blitzes, Manning did what Manning does and lit them up for their impertinence.

I expected the Saints' defense to continue to be the weak link this year, and I expected the Colts to win this game.  But the essence of the team's hopes - an offense that last year seemed to be able to score almost at will, and which promised to do the same this year - was absent on Thursday night.  And the foundation of that offense, the offensive line, appeared confused and indecisive - a situation that must be remedied if the team is to have any chance of living up to the suddenly lofty expectations of its fans this year.

I'm sure I'll catch some flak for saying this, but I just can't buy into the hype about the Patriots' off-season signings; specifically, I have a feeling that by midseason the position they worked the hardest to upgrade will be just as suspect, if not worse, than before.  Yes, I'm talking about the wide receivers.

I guess I'm wasting breath if I say not to get your panties in a bunch at this idea, but make some effort to untwist them knickers anyway.  Before you go quoting me a bunch of tired statistics from days of yore when Randy Moss was a game-changing receiver and Donte Stallworth was posting mind-bending numbers at the NFL combine, give this your consideration:

The Pats just cut their top receiver from last year.  Reche Caldwell wasn't going to make anyone push Jerry Rice's bust in Canton to the side to make room, but aside from a couple of big drops in the playoffs he was a consistent producer.  Take into account that he played in all 16 regular-season games and that he improved as the year went on (515 of his 760 yards, 3 of his 4 touchdowns in the last half of the season), and he doesn't look half bad - especially when you consider those numbers came with a quarterback who is known to spread the ball among his receivers as well as anyone in the league.

So what, right?  There's megawatts of star power coming in, making Caldwell expendable.  No sweat.  Well, let's see...

Randy Moss.  Insert joke here.  His history is well-documented, and he is the ultimate "me" player coming onto the ultimate "we" team.  Big deal, you say - Belichick and Brady can keep him under control.  Well, the truth is that I'm less concerned about his attitude than his wheels.  Word before was that he was already losing a step compared to the Randy Moss of old (no surprise - he's 30 years old).  Add to that a hamstring injury, and you have a recipe for trouble.  "But he says it's feeling a lot better," you say.  Yeah, that's the problem with hamstrings.  They take forever to heal, and they have this unfortunate way of seeming better when they're really not, only to pop the next time a player accelerates hard.  Don't be surprised if this becomes a recurring story.

Speaking of which, don't pin too much of your hopes on Donte Stallworth, the Sultan of Strain.  His hammies have been bad since day 1 in the league, as I can attest from many years of high optimism and subsequent dashed hopes as a Saints fan.  He teases but doesn't deliver, and you can go ahead and mark your calendar for his date on the injured list about two-thirds of the way through the season.  Add to that the fact that he was becoming known as something of a "me" player while on the Saints, and you have a potentially bad chemical reaction brewing with Moss.  The day he goes on IR may turn out to be a happy one for the Pats organization in retrospect (especially if it occurs early enough).

And Kelley Washington?  Please.  When was the last time he was a meaningful contributor?  Oh yeah, when he was at Tennessee as a sophomore.  And he's remembered in Knoxville as much for his attitude as for his talent.  There seems to be a trend developing here, don't you think?

Mark my words, the Patriots may roll Yahtzee on all of these signings and have a truly devastating receiving corps; but if I were a betting man, my money would be on hearing whispers around deadline time that the Pats are looking for a legitimate receiver to keep teams from double-teaming Wes Welker.