McNabb traded to Redskins

Let me begin by saying I have long believed Donovan McNabb would never lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl win. I remember, as he began what would be his final Eagles Super Bowl drive, telling everyone in the room “this is going to end in a pick,” which of course it did as Asante Samuel executed a classic McNabb interception, that back breaking ball at a receiver’s knees that no one in a Philly jersey had a cheesesteak’s chance at a fat farm of catching.

Such was life with McNabb. He threw so few picks, but they were always devastating knock the wind out of you haymakers. He could pad his numbers against bad teams, and struggle, almost valiantly, against good ones. Under his stewardship the Eagles’ offense was that of a classic ‘tweener team – they (mostly) throttled the teams they should beat, and suffered heartbreaking, if not always foregone, loses to the teams whose defenses could actually play.

Trading him within the division for a 2nd round pick and either a 3rd or 4th rounder next year feels, upon first glance, like an insult. For the Redskins, it is a steal – no one available at the 37th slot in the draft will touch McNabb this year. For the Eagles, only time will tell (I wonder about trading him within the division, even though I imagine if the Eagles’ brass thought McNabb could stuff two games down their throat, they would have thought enough of him to keep him). They have, over the past decade, drafted reasonably well. For this moment, this trade brings into full relief what I love, and hate, about the Eagles management, and it is the same feature – they never forget the NFL is a business first and foremost.

I love that Philly runs their roster from the Bill Walsh School of “I’d rather get rid of a player a year too early than a year too late.” And let’s be clear – the Eagles are not a Super Bowl threat in the coming season. Their defense is thin and soft on a good day, and they have so few good days.

I love that they manage the salary cap so well and always have room to make a move. But I hate, HATE, that they never make that move. After signing Terrell Owens and Javon Kearse as free agents (and going to the Super Bowl), Philly has carried itself in the free agent market like a kid who got burned playing with fire. Sure, TO was a media disaster here and on other teams (forget for a moment that he is, unarguably, a damn good receiver). And sure, Kearse got horribly hurt and never fully came back. Let me reiterate – they made a few moves and went to the SUPER BOWL. That’s the damn goal.

I don’t disagree with trading McNabb. I think getting something for an aging veteran makes sense given the middling state of the team (their receivers are awesome, their D is suspect, and O-line flat out stinks). I agreed with releasing Westbrook. I agreed with releasing Dawkins and Douglas and Taylor and Vincent and even Runyan.

Of course, those players were all released, and had the option, should a team be interested, in choosing their new home. Donovan is exiled to a team mired in the same rebuilding the Eagles stand on the precipice of – hardly a reward for years of a sold out stadium and prime time TV games. Maybe, if Favre was not doing his annual roster dance, McNabb could have landed in Minnesota. It is always the maybes, what ifs, when it comes to McNabb.

What if New England had gotten busted for their video tape scheme earlier? What if Taylor and Vincent and Dawkins had been able to play a few more years? What is Westbrook had been healthier and emerged as the Marshall Faulk he was touted as? What if Jim Johnson had lived a few more years? What if Philly had done something about the sorry state of their receiving core (this is the saddest element of the trade – the Eagles finally have good receivers and now, now, they send McNabb packing)?

Five NFC Championship games, McNabb’s defining stat, places this Eagles team somewhere below the Vikings and Bills near miss dynasties (they at least lost Super Bowls). Did he perform well enough to be in the Hall? Well, his career isn’t over yet, but I don’t see that ring coming with Washington, who is years from a division championship, if not a Super Bowl. His stats are strong, even if his ring fingers are light. Having watched almost all of his games, he never inspired fear in an opponent or confidence in a fan. He was a solid B+ quarterback who spent most of his time with sub-standard receivers. I can’t think of a way to spin that so it would sound better read off a Canton plaque.

And you care why, exactly?

Much as I am enjoying casually watching the NBC late night TV debacle, I would like to take a moment to clear up a few things. Before doing so, I offer the following disclaimers:

I have not seen Jay Leno’s current show, and do not plan to do so.

I have only seen Conan’s Tonight Show twice, and it was fine. No better, no worse.

I have not regularly watched late night TV in years, and when I did it was via DVR the next day, and it was Letterman.

So, all that being said, let’s get a few things straight:

First, if you got a promotion you were promised, and proceeded to generate roughly half the revenue of your predecessor, your ass would get fired, too.

Second, I have long thought Conan was pretty funny and Jay Leno was not, but the reality is Jay plays to the Heartland and Conan plays to the coasts (where the brain is), and the coasts watch TV on DVR or online. Conan is nowhere as accessible (read: bland) a comic as Jay and really has to dull down his act for Tonight. Really, this was never going to work.

Third, after watching a number of online Conan “support” groups pop up, I arrived at the following question: Seriously, who gives a shit? Conan brings in roughly 3 million viewers a night. I have no idea what that comes out to in terms of ratings points or ad rates, but I do know it is less than 1% of the U.S. population, so it ain’t like he’s setting the world on fire.

Fourth, go back to my first point and then understand this, if you failed at your job and were being pushed out, Conan wouldn’t give a shit about you.

Five, don’t hand me this “sanctity of The Tonight Show” crap (based on the show’s ratings even when Leno was the host, the vast majority of people do not watch it). I’ve long been a believer that sanctity and tradition are a fancy way of saying you are too lazy to change something. And let’s not go applying sanctity to this. It’s a fucking TV show, not Parliament. It’s a long running TV show, even an occasionally amusing TV show, but at the end of the day it’s still just a fucking TV show.

Maintain perspective. If you are upset Conan may not be on at 11:35 PM because you like watching Conan at 11:35 PM, so be it, but be upset because it screws with your schedule (and watching Conan at 11:35 PM is actually part of your schedule). Don’t be upset because you think Jay Leno is a dick (if you’re reading this odds are you’ve never met the man), or because think you could run NBC better than Jeff Zucker (you could not, specifically because you know nothing about the actual business of TV).

Conan will be fine. Before this (and after) he will still be rich and talented. You, the TV viewer, will also be fine. The only people who will not be fine are people who have shares of GE, NBC’s parent company (which will soon become Comcast), and they only until NBC either starts putting on better shows or finds a way to bring in a bigger audience for the good shows it has.

What happens between Jay and Conan’s shows will be a business decision, and much as we all like to anonymously post and tout ourselves as experts, it is not a business decision we are qualified to judge.

I Am The Luckiest Man Alive, or, My Hallmark To The Home Warranty

First, to those of you who played against Tom Brady in fantasy football this weekend, my condolences. And to those of you who actually played against Tom Brady this weekend, Ah - HAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!

I loath the Cowboys.

In some 18+ years of published writing (if we are counting the high school paper as 'published' [and we are]) I have never been able to come up with good titles or headlines (see above). Part of what stymies my literary production is starting down that 'title' field. I just look at it, can't think of anything, and the inaction crushes my will. I wonder if I can move that field to the bottom. Hey, Google, can we get on those guys with his $600+ Google shares working on that?

(Am I the only person kicking himself for missing the Google IPO? That's a rhetorical question - I am nowhere near flexible enough to kick myself. And I have the body age assessment from the gym to prove it.)

I

So Sunday night, I came home to find the house stiflingly hot. Since the temperature outside was around 45 degrees, I was immediately concerned. My fears were almost immediately realized when I found that our 23 year old HVAC unit was churning like crazy, but no air was coming out of the vents. Uh oh.

INTERLUDE 1 - RESPONSES TO COMMENTS FROM LAST POST: 1) EShine requested my including an "-sshole of the Day" in today's post. After much thought, as I sit here watching the baseball game, I am going to have to go with Tim McCarver, who could also be described as "-sshole on any day ending in 'y'". 2) Clarifying my remarks, my wife said she did not give me a dirty look. Look, anyone who knows me knows I get rough 100 dirty looks a day. I think I know what one looks like, and that was a dirty look, dear.

II

Having had this problem once before, when something inside the decrepit beast had frozen solid, I called the heat & air company and explained I had no air coming out, and I had this problem before. The women asked me a series of regular maintenance questions, and I tried to make it sound like I ever did any of those thing. She knew I was full of it but played along. She then asked if I regularly changed the filter (I don't) and when I had last done it (I hadn't). I told her recently, but I could not remember exactly when.

"You know you should do it every 30 days, right?"

"It has been slightly more than 30 days."

"How much more?"

"I can't be sure. I'd have to consult my notes."

Silence.

Giving up, she asked if I still had my home warranty, which I told her I did. She told me to call them, and I started going over with her my story, verbally barfing up all my "maintenance" and the previous frozen block incident.

"Sir, just tell them the heat doesn't work. Don't say anything other than that."

INTERLUDE 2 - ME AND MY MUSTANG: One rainy night in college, I ran up against a curb and scratched the living hell out of my passenger side rims. They looked awful, which was a particular sin on an otherwise gorgeous car, kind of like all those tattoos on Amy Winehouse. Unlike the tattoos, there was no alcohol involved in my accident. But I digress.

Sometime after that, I got in an accident, and while the estimate was being done my insurance company listed the rims as a repair item, and I, in the one idiot monk moment of my life, blurted out, "That damage was from a different accident." And years later, when the lease ended on the car, I had to pay for those rims. To this day I consider it an idiot tax. I was not about to make the same mistake again.

III

The warranty guy answered, and I said, "The heat doesn't work."

"Sir, can I get your policy number?"

"The heat doesn't work."

"I see. I can pull up your information from the caller ID. Is this a new problem?"

"The heat doesn't work."

"Sir, you realize heat is an element and neither works nor doesn't work, it simply is. Do you mean the heatER doesn't work?"

Even though I did not have a periodic table handy and was fairly sure he was wrong, I gave him this one. "The heater doesn't work."

Desperate to get me off the phone, he opened a claim and formally dispatched the heating company to my house.

INTERLUDE 3 - RANDOM THOUGHT FROM EARLIER IN THE DAY WHEN I WAS LISTENING TO THE NEW ERIC CLAPTON DISC: You know how Eric Clapton used to be referred to as "The fifth Beatle?" Is he now "The third Beatle?"

IV

I ran into a fraternity brother at Home Despot on the way home. We did the "haven't seen you in a while dance," and he said, "I am just running in here to get baby proofing supplies. My wife and I thinking Jake will be walking soon and we want to make he has a safe environment to find his legs in. You?"

"I'm buying HVAC filters to make it look like I perform regular maintenance before the technician arrives."

"Won't they be able to tell it's a brand new filter?"

"I am going to drag it through the dirt and pull a few of the matted hair balls off the cat and stick them in the there."

See, my mind works fast enough to create a filter lie illusion, but I can't be bothered to actually change the filter. What a waste of a brain.

INTERLUDE 4 - SUPER AGENT? MORE LIKE LEX LUTHOR AGENT: Dude, Dice-K has completely failed to live up to the hype, much like every other Scott Boras client who has ever taken a breath. When are GMs going to learn that any guy Boras slums for is going to have a ROI relatively equal to the return on stock in Chevy. I love how Boras is famous for his 200 page client dossiers he send to GMs. Here, tonight, right now, I will give you the shortest book ever written: "Boras Clients Currently Wearing World Series Rings." Number of pages: 0. This guy is the second biggest problem in baseball, right behind Don Fehr, the born into incredible wealth union leader. Where's the Unabomber when the need him?

V

The heating guy took one look at the machine and said, "Man this thing is ancient. Who was the original owner of this house, Moses?" (I thought this was hilarious).

He did his thing and determined the coils and thermostat were dead. This is a time when most guys nod their heads and try to match technical wits with the expert, and ultimately embarrass themselves. Not me. Me, I said, "Can you open this jar of nuts? I can't get this open."

He could, in fact, open the nuts.

He explained the system was so old parts were no longer made for it, so the interior system would have to be replaced. "If you had just called us out of the phone book, this would be a $7,400 repair."

I lost interest in the nuts. "How much is it for people with a home warranty?"

He did some quick math. "$2,100."

Score.

INTERLUDE 5 - ESPN: THE WORLDWIDE LEADER IN SHITTY COMMERCIALS: I love ESPN, but I just want to be clear - there will never come a time when I order a battery powered knife off of TV. Or from anywhere, for that matter. I also will not be selecting a local hardware store based on the recommendation of a mascot who looks like something out of a child molester catalog. I'd like to stab that guy with the battery knife, were it I were not boycotting said knife.

VI

The only downside to the repair is the 23 year old exterior unit cannot be replaced at our uber-warranty-discount until it fails, so says the heating guy. "What would it take to fail?" I asked.

He eyed me up and said, "If someone took an ice pick to that, they would be able to tell."

Got it, I thought. No ice pick. I may have to rethink my position on the battery knife.

Random Thoughts During Sox - Indians game

I am going to try this blogging thing, beginning with my random thoughts while watching the second game of the Red Sox – Indians ALCS. Which is American League Championship Series. Which is professional baseball. Get out from under your rock.

I can’t make up my mind about Curt Schilling. On the one hand, he has awesome post season stats. On the other, while I’ve never met the man, he’s widely regarded as a jerk. So, my opinion of the man is being influenced, if not determined, by what other people (whom I have also never met) have allegedly said in the press. When I think about it like that, Curt, you’re a hell of a player. That’s all I have.

This mouse pad on my Dell laptop is way too sensitive.

I cannot stand these baseball playoffs commercials with Dane Cook. I wish someone would spike him. And I’d like to volunteer for the job. And for those of you who know me, I am not a volunteer type, so that should tell you how I feel about Dane on TV, which is sad, because I really enjoyed about 44% of his Retaliation album.

I have been hearing about J.D. Drew, and all his talent, and his lack of heart, for years, and you know what? This guy never looks like he is having a good time. I’m willing to bet, somewhere out there, there is a father (who sucked at baseball) who pushed his kid like crazy to be good at baseball, and made his kid the most miserable millionaire not named Lindsey Lohan. And somewhere, there is therapist who could put his kids through college spending years and J.D.’s payments to ultimately get him where I just did. J.D. – this one’s on the house pal. Remember who loves ya.

Damn Dell mouse pad screws me again. I tell ya, if I had paid for this computer I would be pissed. Pissed.

Add Chevy to the list of companies with shitty commercials.

I heard once that Tiger Woods bench presses over 400 lbs. I told this to a co-worker, now in his early 50s, and he was incredulous, saying, “I used to really work out, and I never got much over 300 lbs.” to which I replied, “Well, I guess that settles it. You couldn’t bench 400 lbs., so I guess there’s no chance a world class athlete with a work ethic that puts in the 99^th percentile of human beings could.” What a dipshit.

I hate that Claritin-D is now behind the pharmacy counter. What a pain in the ass. The terrorists haven't won, but maybe the meth addicts have. This is bullshit.

I remember watching Coco Crisp play single-A ball locally and thinking, "This guy can't hit." And now he plays for the Boston Red Sox, and you know what? I still think this guy can't hit. You know why? Because he can't.

Kevin Youklis has the strangest grip on the bat I have ever seen. His top hand barely touches the handle. How this guy hits I have no idea. Of course, I have always been a lousy hitter, so we could say hitting in general is a mystery to me. Except where Coco Crisp is concerned. He flat out cannot hit. Believe me, I have been a non-hitter for twenty four years. I am an expert in non-hitting.

The Indians just walked in a run. I think I have seen that at least four times this post season. If that doesn't prove Major League Baseball has expanded beyond the number of major league level players available, I don't know what does. You take Colorado, Arizona, Florida and Tampa Bay (good as two of those teams are and Florida has been) out of the league and Coco Crisp is waiting tables somewhere. And the only winner in the current situation: the restaurant, because you look at Crisp and just know he would screw up your order. I asked for onion rings, not fries. How hard is that?

I should watch myself. I'll bet Coco Crisp could kick my ass.

Travis Hafner looks like he's either Vin Diesel's younger, dumber brother or escaped from a zoo. I guess he could be both. (This thought, which I had during the first inning, was what finally got me to start with the blog).

Hafner could definitely kick my ass. So could Vin Diesel. Even though he's like 5' 2". But it's a tall 5' 2".

I am so happy the Yankees got knocked out of the playoffs. Not because I don't like their players. I think every kid playing should aspire to be Derek Jeter, he's all heart, even though he is wildly overrated defensively, mostly because of the blown call where he allegedly threw Jeremy Giambi out (the replay shows Giambi was safe by more than a full second). I like Alex Rodriguez, although he could not be less suited to play for the Yankees than he is. Awesome player, simply awesome, certainly the best I have seen. But, like another Yankee, Roger Maris, he's boring, and Yankee fans do not suffer the boring. Borish, absolutely, but never boring. No, it's their fans. Not the local fans. The out of town fans, the ones near me, who never lived in New York, who've never been to New York. The posers who think claiming Yankee fan status says something about them. It does, it says you are a front runner, and, in 2007, a loser. Enjoy.

It is almost 10 PM, and my wife and I are about to go to bed, she to sleep, me to continue watching the game and continue Colbert's book, which is amusing but making no permanent impression on me. I will eventually drift off, and then be awaken numerous times by the baby crying, the sheets being fought over, and my inability to breathe since the meth addicts have driven my over the counter meds behind the counter. And, for the record, yes, it too much of a pain to go ask the pharmacist. And it is a waste of her time. And yes, every pharmacist in my area is a woman. So, single guys, consider pharmacy school. Looks like a target rich environment.

My wife just asked what I was doing and I told her I was working on the blog and see gave me the dirtiest look. This should be fun.