How do you say it’s over?
Playing out the season, when the reality that you have no shot is accompanied by false bravado, delusion and nauseating rah-rah crap. It happens every season. Just listen to Tom Coughlin, Rex Ryan, or any of their players. But how do they really feel? It’s a topic rarely tackled. Why would any of the NFL’s network partners look to tarnish the integrity of the game (and the league’s image) by having a former player say something like, “we mailed it in.” Credit the NFL Network’s Marshall Faulk, Michael Irvin and Kurt Warner, during a panel discussion on “GameDay” on Sunday, for being real. Irvin and Faulk are sometimes seen on a segment called “Dumb and Dumber,” but in this discussion, which also featured Warren Sapp, they were anything but.
They took viewers to the darkest side of losing. Warner came right out saying when a player knows the playoffs are a pipe dream his thoughts turn elsewhere. “Once you realize you are out of it, it’s like, “Okay, I’m good. We can take the rest of the year off,’ ” Warner said. “Just call me when it’s time for training camp so we can start the process of winning a championship.”
A player would not be speaking the truth, Faulk said, if he didn’t admit to being mentally shot with one foot on the putting green. “You have four games to play … your uniforms look different. You want to wear something different at home,” Faulk said. “I can remember a coach coming in and saying, ‘Listen our season starts today.’ I’m like, ‘You must be talking about next year.’”
There is guilt, too. Irvin flashed back to the 1997 season, when the Cowboys finished 6-10.
“I remember sitting on the field. We were losing the last game of the season to the Giants and I just cried,” Irvin said. “I couldn’t let it go. No matter what, I couldn’t turn it around and I couldn’t get the guys going." So, what is Eli Manning really feeling? The football media offers no clarity. It carries his clichés and speculates on moves needed to be made next season. Eli would never give up, never let Coughlin’s words go in one ear and out the other, right?
Guess we’ll have to wait until he retires into a studio gig to find out.
RHYMES WITH YUCK
You suck! If we worked for the Bristol Clown Community College Faculty, the S-word would be eliminated from our vocabulary. Last week, ESPN suits told their mouths they cannot use the word “suck” on the air.
So, was the crew of ESPN’s “NFL Countdown” defying, or just tweaking, the bosses when it aired a 1997 “Saturday Night Live” skit featuring panelist Mike Ditka, who at the time was coaching New Orleans? “Hey, I’m with the Saints now,” Ditka, on SNL, told a Bears freak. “… We actually suck.”
Coming out of the SNL video, Chris Berman credited Ditka for “never” pulling his punches. “Well. I’m not allowed to say that word,” Ditka said. “I know that.”
Especially if you use it in the same sentence with the words Jon Gruden or Mike Tirico.
WHERE’S BOOMER?
Coming off his command TNT performance with Charles Barkley Thursday night in Brooklyn, Marv Albert was promoting another third man — Norman Julius Esiason — to join him and Rich Gannon during the first quarter of Raiders-Jets.
“A New York area guy who has followed the Jets all his life will be joining us,” Albert said. “We’ll be hearing from Boomer a bit later. He’s rehearsing his ad-libs.” Gannon seemed to endorse the move.
Why not? Esiason, between his radio show, and other media work, just doesn’t get enough air or face time, right? Turned out NJE never was beamed into the telecast (Albert never mentioned why Norman was a no- show). Maybe NJE heard how whacked Gannon got over Oakland yanking Matt McGloin for Terrelle Pryor in the first quarter and figured he might be viewed as replacing his colleague to glom some of his yak-time.
After all, Gannon did say if he ever got the McGloin treatment, “I would have had a verbal confrontation with the coach ... It affects a quarterback’s credibility.”
An NFL analyst’s too.
STERLING SILENT
Should Mike McCarthy play it safe with Aaron Rodgers, or play him?
The topic was smoking on all the studio shows. Consider i ng his relationship w ith the Packers, NFLN’s Sterling Sharpe should be the go-to guy on this subject. Yet when Melissa Stark asked Sharpe on GameDayFirst if he had any “inside information” on Rodgers, Sharpe decided to screw viewers and play it coy.
“Of course I do,” Sharpe said. “But I’m not going to put it on television.”
Thanks for nothing. Yet we don’t blame Sharpe. We blame the suits who hired him.
POPE FORGIVES MIKE
Even though his Steelers lost to Miami, Mike Tomlin got a great night’s sleep Sunday night.
The coach’s world was righted when he heard about the Ethereal One, Mike (Sports Pope) Francesa, strolling onto the balcony Sunday morning, lifting his bottle of Diet Coke toward the heavens and saying: “I’m not going to hold it (the coach’s sideline blockade) against Mike Tomlin.”
Tomlin can now go about his business. And rejoice in knowing he too now has access to A-Rod.
CHILL OUT
Stranded and iced — in Oklahoma, Terry Bradshaw did not make it to L.A. and Fox’s pregame show, thus giving viewers a look at what a future four-man configuration will look like.
The Foxies did not bring in a fifth mouth, like FS1’s Randy Moss, because they didn’t get the word until late Saturday on TB being trapped in his own body, er, the ice storm.
This did not stop Curt (Big House) Menefee from offering Bradshaw some advice: “Go put some underwear on and get off the couch.”
ALL CLASS
Menefee has come many miles from his days of being under the thumb of James (Guitar Jimmy) Dolan when he was a cog in the Gulag’s propaganda machine.
While most NFL mouths (like Jim Nantz and the Pontiff) nominated Bobby McNair for sainthood after he axed Gary Kubiak, at least Menefee mentioned the Texans owner fired “Kubiak a few weeks after he suffered a stroke.”
And we’re supposed to believe McNair is a class act? ... NFLN’s Rich Eisen has grown a pair of onions. The conclusion is reached after watching him rip the NFL logo off the network’s demonstration field. Either he thought buried treasure was hidden under the logo — or his next NFLN contract. ... It appeared Chris Carlin, or one of his Loudmouth subs, would be looking for a new partner this week. Bill Cowher appeared to be on the verge of strangling TOPS’ Adam Schein during the “Blame Game” segment. Who do we blame? The numbskull who made the questions multiple choice.