Fare Thee Well John Madden

So everyone is grateful that John Madden has thrown in the towel.  Don't count me as one of them.  Madden provided three amazing contributions to the NFL every year.

The first is obvious; I'll give you a hint: "E A SPORTS IT'S IN THE GAME."  If you are a male aged 12 to I would venture as high as 30 and have any interest in video games and sports you can probably do a spot on impression of that.  John Madden has been to football video games what Jason Statham has been to cheesy action flicks.  He may not have been the first one, but right now if you asked someone to name the top name in movies involving ridiculous stunts, fast cars, and creepy women, Handsome Rob would be the first they say.  Same goes to Madden.  Techmo Football was first, but (partially thanks to a monopoly on football games purchased by EA in 2004) Madden is the first name in sports video games.

The second contribution is also obvious.  Madden is good for the greatest unintentional humor in sports.  Sadly when ABC paired him with Al Michaels they paired him with someone who took great pains to make John sound less ridiculous.  Remember the good old days when Pat Summerall was drinking in the booth to try to handle Madden's comments?  I can still remember when Madden said of Troy Aikman "here's a guy who when he puts his contacts in sees better."  Madden said the most painfully obvious things.  Plus his love of Turduken and six legged turkeys was quite humorous.

The third, seems contradictory after the last contribution.  Madden was one of the best announcers in the game.  There are very few color guys these days who actually teach you something when you watch the game.  The same hilarious telestrator doodles actually taught you something if you listened.  As far as I can tell only Chris Collinsworth and Ron Jaworski do this anywhere near the same level (and Merrill Hodge, but he does it the next day on Sportscenter).  Aikman can do it at times, but isn't consistent.  Dayrl Johnston and Tony Siragusa, or "Moose and Goose" are terrible; they just seem like they are competing for saying what I'm sure people in the know understand but they can't say it layman's terms.  That is why Madden was so great.  He said things as simply as he could. Sure sometimes it came out as completely unnecessary to say, but he was seldom wrong and often insightful on matters of strategy, technique, and play calling.  He could explain exactly how the routes ran during a play were so critical at placing the defense to allow the guy who does get the ball the best chance of success better than anyone.  So say what you will about Madden, his ability to literally coach the audience is going to be sorely missed.

Thank God for the Bears

All the talk on Thursday morning was that my beloved Redskins were trying to trade for Jay Cutler.  Obviously, they would give up Jason Campbell for Cutler.  I was horrified to hear this because anyone who is a Skins fan knows that when Dan Snyder gets an idea in his head it usually happens.  Forget the fact that they gave a defensive tackle who has played a full season once in his career (his rookie year when he only started 4 games) a $100m contract, paid a guy who got cut by the RAIDERS over $50m, and brought back a guy who they let go two years ago and was cut by the Bills on a big time contract too.  I would have been really upset if they had thrown away the 3 plus years they had invested in Campbell for the quick fix.

I thought Snyder had learned that the quick fix doesn't work.  After Deion Sanders, Steve Spurrier, and one play-off appearance I thought Dan had finally figured out that consistency and building a team and a system was the way to go.  Let's look at the facts of what would have happened in this deal.

Rewind to 2006.  With 5 games left the Broncos were leading the AFC Wild Card.  Inexplicably they benched Jake Plummer and brought in rookie Jay Cutler.  They lost 3 of the next five and missed the play-offs.  They have not made the play-offs under Cutler, who is 17-20 as a starter.  Not to mention he let trade talks get into his head.  This is not the kind of guy I want leading my team on a fourth quarter drive.

The Redskins have no reason to give up on Campbell.  Sure he hasn't taken them to the play-offs (Todd Collins did in the 2007-2008 season).  However, he has been in a new offensive system every year since his junior year at Auburn, save one year with Al Saunders.  If this were next year and his performance was still "sub-par" I wouldn't be as upset.  But the thing is, I don't think his performance has been bad.  Last year he lead a few game winning drives and showed that he was a leader and was growing as an NFL player.  Maybe he hasn't thrown as many TDs as Cutler, and has a slightly lower career passer rating.  But they have an almost identical win-loss record and Campbell has one thing Cutler doesn't: a position in the Redskins locker room.  I was not about to see the Skins give up a first rounder the next two years for pretty much the same player.  

Luckily the Bears swooped in and took Cutler before Snyder could.  I don't think he has learned that consistency wins in the NFL, but the Monsters of the Midway forced him to stick with their guy.  The best thing about all of this is that Campbell has repeatedly said he is not taking it personally; it shows he isn't going to be easily rattled.  So for now I can look forward to a Redskins season that should be pretty good.  Hopefully Zorn won't coach himself out of a job and Campbell can continue to grow.  Remember he was the last quarterback to complete an undefeated season in the SEC.