This Is How Canadians Play Football

Can anyone imagine an NFL game ending this way, as this one did in Canada last week? Hell, can anyone imagine an NFL touchdown being scored this way, let alone a game-winning one being this anti-climactic? Granted, the Montreal Alouettes (which are a dainty type of bird; larks in English) won the game on the road against the Toronto Argonauts (who are a group of mythical boatmen; not exactly sure why football players would have to be good at rowing), but something tells me the crowd isn't all quiet because their team has just lost. They're probably just as confused as us.

Tennessee: Meet Your Iceberg

"That is how you sabotage your own season, ladies and gentlemen."

You had to think one team had to do it, and it ended up being the Tennessee Titans, who took the plunge into the Atlantic's icy depths on Wednesday and claimed the recently waived Randy Moss from the Minnesota Vikings.

In the wake of the potential costly loss to injury of wide receiver Kenny Britt, the Titans could not restrain themselves from apparently putting their 5-3 season at risk.

Moss's talent is undeniable. He is a six-time Pro Bowler and he did win offensive-rookie-of-the-year honours back in 1998, which makes one wonder if this isn't just the Titans' way of reliving the past and rekindling an unrequited love affair that budded back in the 1998 NFL draft when the Titans - then the Oilers - opted to go with future bust Kevin Dyson instead. Moss went to the Vikings five picks later.

While Moss can be considered a relative bargain at $3.34 million for the last eight games of the season, so can a gorgeous prostitute practically giving it away for $20 per hour... until you find out about the STD she gave you as a going-away present. And that's what this waiver claim will most likely boil down to, the transmission of a disease, in this case cancer in the locker room.

If his being traded away for close to nothing from the New England Patriots wasn't a big enough hint, his being waived by the Vikings just one month later should have been. And the fact that the Titans, despite ranking 23rd in the league's waiver system, were able to get him should send up huge red flags. That they were the only team at all to put in a claim for him should send them straight to the hospital for a blood test as a pre-emptive strike in their fight against what they've most certainly and ignorantly contracted.

So the Titans as a result can suffer the dubious distinction of being the first team to go through three name changes in just 13 years, from the Houston Oilers to the Tennessee Oilers in 1997, then to the Tennessee Titans in 1999, and now to the Tennessee Titanic.

Caught On Camera: GetReal #1

Maybe McNabb Would Have Stayed in the Game if His Last Name Was Shanahan

"... And that's how we lost the game against the Lions!"

The obvious takeaway from the Washington Redskins employing both Mike Shanahan and his son Kyle aside, it would be unfair to assume that there is any sort of wrongdoing going on within the organization. In fact, if Shanahan is guilty of one thing, it's the furthest thing away from nepotism, as evidenced by his need to go against the grain, take out Donovan McNabb, and put in crappy back-up-quarterback Rex Grossman in the dying minutes of Sunday's 37-25 loss to the Detroit Lions.

I mean, here's a coach not going with his team's established starting quarterback, a six-time Pro Bowler, and putting in a has-been/never was (it's hard to tell with Grossman; he did lead the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl), who played under the offensive coordinator the year before, supposedly had this great understanding of his two-minute offense to the point of never having actually run one under him during a game... one with a brutal  career win-probability-added in clutch situations of -0.93 (meaning he's been horrible when he's had to run a two-minute offense before). What's so nepotic about that? If anyone's guilty of favouritism, it's clearly that offensive coordinator. All Shanahan needs to do from here on out is do a better of job of selecting his coaching staff. Oh, wait...

Obviously, son Kyle has built up his career almost by himself and he should be given credit for accomplishing as much as he has up to this point in his career. However, the stench emanating from the move to take out McNabb late in that loss is foul to say the least.

The excuses that have come out of the Shanahans' mouths the past few days have ranged from the questionable to the idiotic. For example, the questionable: that nagging hamstring injuries have hampered McNabb's cardiovascular endurance to the point that it was necessary to put in a cold back-up QB in a high-pressure situation that led to a costly fumble. And the idiotic: that McNabb had been informed beforehand that he might be benched if he was deemed to be struggling.

McNabb was 17 for 30 for 210 yards, with one touchdown and one interception... definitely not great stats, but nothing bad enough to justify a benching that late in a game. The one stat that jumps out at you are the six times he got sacked, leading to the obvious conclusion that he was not necessarily the one to blame for his mediocre game, that the team as a whole was. And, on the off chance (the) Shanahan(s) really did think he was struggling, the time to take him out of the game would have been at any time before the Redskins lost the lead with three minutes left to play. Instead, Grossman got put in with 1:50 left.

Even questions about McNabb's work ethic have entered into the picture, with Washington reportedly becoming disenchanted with his lack of one, but the younger Shanahan has gone on record as saying that McNabb has "perfect work habits".

With former Los Angeles Raiders QB JaMarcus Russell joining the Redskins for a workout, this is clearly becoming one of the most intriguing scandals in the NFL this season, which is saying a lot considering Brett Favre's third leg is still making headlines despite his playing on only one last week.

There's also a "he said, he said" element here, with McNabb refuting ever being told that he might be taken out of the game. And what's worse for the Shanahans is that in denying it's ever happened he still seems to be  his usual self: a team player, an overall stand-up guy, and never one to want to start a ruckus. He even went so far as to say "[the] Coach makes his decisions", in declining to criticize Shanahan. Entering this season, McNabb even had kind words to say about Kyle on the radio:

Forced to choose who to believe, fans would no doubt go for the seemingly slighted, likeable all-star quarterback over the father-and-son duo that can't even seem to get their own stories straight. 

As such, it's clear that this is just the beginning. Likely the beginning of the end of McNabb's time in Washington, but a beginning nonetheless. It can only get better (or worse depending on your vantage point) from here on out.

The Ultimate Randy Moss Remix Video

Yup, I think that pretty much sums up Mr. Randy Moss all right.

Waiving Goodbye to Moss and all the Drama... oh, Wait, the Vikings still Have Favre

The old adage says that a rolling stone gathers no moss. The new adage goes: Randy Moss must have been stoned out of his mind when he delivered his post-game press conference on Sunday.

His comments go far beyond ones uttered out of innocent nostalgia. It’s really as if he’s trying to apologize to a scorned lover and the press conference is his big romantic gesture that is sure to win her back at the end of some sappy romantic comedy.

Come on, Bill Belichick, take him back. You know you want to. He’s come to terms with who he is, don’t you know? He’s ready to change... only that he acted as he did means that he hasn’t and he’s the same old Randy Moss that fake-mooned the crowd at Lambeau Field once upon a time... brazen, way too into himself, and admittedly somewhat entertaining, no matter what commentator Joe Buck has stuck up his butt.

Despite his rant directed at the NFL and the media, despite his clearly having an ego the size of Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress’s forehead, Moss being waived on Monday was as big a shock as him and his New England Patriots losing to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl three seasons ago. Several factors play into this reasoning:

There’s the fact that he’s a six-time pro bowler that, all things considered, was performing relatively well in his four games back with Minnesota. There’s also the fact that the Vikings only acquired him in early October from the Patriots, meaning he was with the team less than one month before the organization had had enough of him. Finally, there’s also the fact that Minnesota traded him away in 2005, meaning they knew what they were getting and that, if the trade wasn’t some weird masochistic cry for attention by a team so desperate to lose that they decided to start a 41-year-old quarterback with a broken ankle, I don’t know what is.

Even with him getting fined $25,000 by the league on Friday, one had to assume that everything was kosher as he stepped up to the podium on Sunday after the Patriots dispatched his now-former-Vikings teammates. Even as he started speaking. Even when he mistook the word axe for the word ask. Even when he mistook the word ask for the word answer.

Boy did he surprise us. Shame on us for not expecting the real Randy Moss to show up and reveal his true controversial colours... apparently red, white, and blue, with his man-crush on Belichick clearly knowing no bounds.

In truth, the earlier mentioned proverb refers to people who refuse to stay in the same place too long for fear of getting attached, gaining responsibilities, and, in general, bettering themselves. I can think of no better proverb to describe Moss as he seems incapable of learning or willing to learn from his simplest mistakes. What’s sadder is that neither do we, because undoubtedly fans of every other team in the NFL are now hoping that Moss ends up there.

Childress has been under fire recently for his decisions revolving around the old-man wonder Brett Favre and now Moss, but, rest assured, he and the Vikings made the right decision to waive him, just as the next coach will have made the right decision in letting him go the next time around and so on and so forth. History has a nasty way of repeating itself.

So, was Moss stoned? Well, he does have a history of indulging in illegal contraband, so to speak... which would explain a whole lot.

"What team wouldn't want me???"

A Succop Way to Remain Winless on the Season

Apparently, the NFL isn't just a league in which almost anything goes on the field. Almost anything is allowed just off of it as well. Player arrests and transgression aside, there's also a degree of cheapness on the part of coaches on the sidelines that somehow got mixed in with the widely accepted "do anything to win" mentality.

On Sunday, the Buffalo Bills' were victimized by said ugliness when the Kansas City Chiefs called a time-out just prior to Rian Lindell kicking the game-winning 53-yard field goal. As a result, Lindell had to kick it again, and, about as easily predicted as the Bills' chances at making the playoffs this year, he missed. Now, that isn't because Lindell is a bad kicker. It's just that the chances of making a 53-yarder, let alone two, are about as slim as an anorexic just before she treats herself to her one meal of the day of a peanut and a leaf of lettuce. And Kansas City's time-out? It wasn't called to go over some last-second strategy as to how to avoid getting humiliated by the last winless team in the league... that WAS the strategy and it worked perfectly, with the Chiefs' Ryan Succop kicking the game-winner on his second chance of overtime. He had earlier missed a 39-yarder.

Now it isn't as if this "calling a time-out before the kick so the kicker has to kick the kick a second time and think about it all over again" strategy is new. In fact, it's been done to death. The first time you see it, like William Hung on American Idol, it's charming and seems genius. With each passing time it occurs, it gets increasingly grating to the the point that you wonder why hasn't this person been shot yet? Obviously I can't officially condone violence on all the coaches who have stooped so low as to try their hand at this brand of larceny, so at the very least this type of torture, especially for fans of the team blessed with the field-goal opportunity, should be made illegal... and Hung still shot. Just kidding. But it is still realllllly annoying. Case in point: