Check it out! GetReal #5

"Not on My Turf" Says the Bigger Bird on the Street

This latest Atlanta Falcons victory was brought to you by the colour White, as in wide-receiver Roddy White, who was questionable for Thursday's game against the Baltimore Ravens, but still ended up scoring the game-winning touchdown with 20 seconds left, leading the Falcons to a 26-21 victory in Atlanta. What makes the win even more special is that the Ravens scored to pull ahead with just 1:05 remaining in the game, before Atlanta QB Matt Ryan's strike to White less than one minute later.

The Falcons now have the best record in the NFC, with the Ravens tied for the most wins in the AFC. It's probably too early to call this a Super Bowl preview, but, needless to say, it was a game between two very good teams.  Educational as well, what with all the late scoring and everything. The Count would be proud. Meanwhile, Raven Todd Heap, who had scored his team's late TD, just looks like a grouch (in the first vid).

New Video: GetReal #4

Is this the Man that Will Save the Cowboys' Season?

Dallas Cowboys interim head coach Jason Garrett

The answer to the above question is two-fold. Maybe, but only if he actually takes over for Jon Kitna at quarterback. And, even then, probably not, considering the 1-7 Dallas Cowboys are so far out of the playoff race Big D has turned into a small dot in the distance relative to their NFC East rivals. When the dysfunctional family that is the Washington Redskins is a full three games up on you, times are bad to say the least.

And if the Redskins with their coaching tandem of Mike and Kyle Shanahan are the epitome of dysfunction, the Cowboys, who just let go of Wade Phillips on Monday, are a broken home, broken beyond all recognition relative to the team they were that won the division last year, relative to the dynasty that has won five Super Bowls in its history. Think some twisted version of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, with Tony Romo being the glass and all the other players in this production making up all the different characters you would come to expect in the comedy of errors this tragedy has become: 

Owner Jerry Jones can play the part of a philandering husband, who lies through his teeth when asked if are any other women in his life, giving his wife (Phillips) a kiss of death in the process, saying that "you've always been the only one for me", only to eventually reveal that he's fallen out of love with her. Garrett is the young son pushed into taking on more responsibility as the team's new interim coach. And the Cowboys cheerleaders? They're just the window dressing to help distract passing-by neighbours from realizing that there's an actual problem. I know it's wrong to objectify women, but, in my defense, they make it really hard not to.

So bad has it gotten that even the team's marketing department can't even do the simplest thing right, like keep the team's website operational. The day before Phillips's firing was announced, the DallasCowboys.com domain was left unrenewed prompting visitors to the site the day of to see something like this instead of the team's home page:

It's as if the team just decided that avoiding the issue of Phillips's termination altogether was the best way to approach it... all the while hoping that the problem would disappear. In a way, Phillips's leaving does just that, with Garrett having waited in the wings since the end of the 2007 season, when Jones gave him a $3-million-per-year contract to prevent him from pursuing head-coaching opportunities elsewhere.

With Phillips riding into the proverbial sunset, his time has finally come, and it couldn't have come soon enough... up until the point the Cowboys decided to make this season a total disaster.

Another Reason Why the NFL is the "No Fun League": Plays like This Never Happen

I long for the day when some NFL offensive coordinator has the testicular fortitude to call for the same play. Admittedly it would never work and it would ultimately cost him his job, but, man, would it be entertaining to see it attempted. The Statue of Liberty play be damned, this is perhaps the best trick play ever.

Blood, Spit, and Tears Shed on the Battlefield... Allegedly

Calling being spit in the face "the worst thing you can do to a man", Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder has apparently never been hit in his privates, but that's a story for another day. The topic du jour is his crying out against allegedly being the unwanted recipient of some of Baltimore fullback Le'Ron McClain's bodily fluids during Sunday's 26-10 Ravens victory.

Now, in his defense, Crowder has a reason to be angry. Being spit in the face is a show of great disrespect and if Crowder's allegations are true then McClain can likely expect to be slapped in his face in turn by some disciplinary action on the part of the league, but the trick is proving it, because at the end of the day it all comes down to the impossible task of catching one of the two men in a lie.

Let's assume Crowder is not lying, because anyone that starts spouting his mouth off to that degree after a game is either telling the truth or delusional to the point that he might as well be, because there's just no reasoning with psychotics. So, how can anybody possibly prove that McClain spit in his face? Video evidence only shows Crowder wipe his eye as if he was spit in the face, but really that could be anything: an itch, spittle from trash talking, a raindrop materizlizing out of thin air at such an angle to hit Crowder in the face, anything. It really doesn't prove a whole lot. And McClain certainly won't come clean if he is guilty, because, apparently, as indicated earlier, in a league in which quarterback Joe Theismann suffered a compound fracture of the most disgusting variety and concussion-causing helmet-on-helmet hits have become the norm, spitting on someone is the most heinous thing ever. Just putitng it in some perspective, is all.

There is little denying that McClain should get the book thrown at him if he is discovered to be guilty, but until that time comes, if it ever does, the league has other things to worry about. An in-depth investigation can only go on for so long before the inevitable conclusion is discovered: eyeshields for everyone! I'm sure wipers of some sort could be added on relatively easily, for those times Crowder would rather get hit in the groin.

Tom Brady's Golden Locks versus Randy Moss's 'Fro and Beard

ESPN's Kenny Mayne's in-depth investigation as to why Randy Moss got traded to the Minnesota Vikings in the first place. Makes so much sense, why didn't anyone think of it before? It sure beats my initial hypothesis that Moss was just a selfish player that always wanted the ball. This newly discovered rationale does bring up one burning question, though: If hair grooming was the reason Moss was traded to the Vikings (Brady's head hair versus Moss's face hair), just what kind of hair grooming debate did he get into with Brett Favre? I shudder to think.