Oh dear god, here we go again

Pax Arcana

Ah, autumn. The leaves crunching underfoot. The blazing kaleidescope of color. The annual Pax Arcana Apple and Fondue Festival.

Honestly, is there a better time of year than…

Oh no. Not again.

Hi guys. Gregg Easterbrook here. Just, you know, wanted to say hello, and wish you all a happy football season. I’ll be holding down my corner of the Internet again at TMQ, but this year I promise not to bait you with ludicrous arguments about why Bill Belichick is worse than Nixon or purple is really blue or some other such nonsense.

OK. Thanks for that, but I find that kind of hard to believe since you were such a royal pecksniff last season. You remember when your own ombudsperson called you out for being such a douche?

I do. That was worse than when science fiction movies include scenes of laser beams in space. You can’t see laser beams in space! There’s no dust particles for the light to bounce off !

Jesus Christ.

Wait. Don’t go yet. At least read my AFC preview article, in which I slam Brett Favre for pretending to be a team player while all the time ensuring that he is at the center of attention. Look, it’s right here…

Last season the Packers were 13-4, and they came within an overtime of going to the Super Bowl. How many Green Bay players from that team can you name, other than Favre? His constant media antics had the effect of denying recognition to his teammates. In June, Tom Pelissero of the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported, “There is a substantial faction of younger players who are eager to play with Aaron Rodgers. Favre is at least a decade older than all but six guys on the roster. He dressed in his own locker room. He had minimal social interaction with teammates. Rodgers is one of the guys, and plenty of them are pulling for him.” He dressed in his own locker room? In the past few seasons, Favre has been all about Favre, as if his teammates didn’t exist. A man who wanted to maximize his own celebrity and income, at the expense of his teammates, would behave in that manner. That’s what the Jets now have, and that’s why his trade value was lower than Taylor’s.

Hmmmm. Not bad. We could have used that perspective during ESPN’s ceaseless rush to chronicle every bowel movement and jock scratch Favre participated in during that month or so.

Maybe we were a bit hard on you last year, Gregg.

Wait. What’s this?

What’s what?

This. This right here. What’s this?

Oh, that’s nothing. You wouldn’t really be interested in that. Why don’t you close your browser now and…

Here’s a question: Would the Patriots’ players and coaches exchange their 2007 season with the 2007 season of the Giants? Of course, in public, to a man, they’d say, “Forget the records we set, we’d rather have won the Super Bowl.” But my guess is that they’d rather have their 2007 season, oh-so-incomplete as it was, than the Giants’ trophy. Twenty years from now, football purists will be hard-pressed to remember much about the 2007 Giants. The 2007 Patriots, on the other hand, will never be forgotten. The first 16-0 regular season; the highest-scoring team in football history; more touchdown passes than Buffalo, Miami, Minnesota and San Francisco combined; 39 seconds shy of perfection. In terms of memory power, New England’s accomplishments exceeded what the Giants did, even if Jersey/A got to stand in the confetti shower on the sliding tray in Arizona. All New England needed to do was stop a third-and-11 snap with 45 seconds showing, and the word “perfect” would have shimmered into view. The snap was not stopped, because nobody’s ever been 19-0 and most likely nobody ever will be. But to come so close — that will not be forgotten.

Are you fucking serious with this?

I’m so ashamed…

Have defenses begun to solve the shotgun spread? [TMQ]