Philadelphia Eagles vs. Tampa Bay Bucs (Oct. 22, 2006)

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES vs. TAMPA BAY BUCANEERERS
Week 7 – Sunday, October 22, 2006
(by PHIL RIPPA)

Game coverage starts off with good times as Brad Sham (Yup – Brad Sham is doing the play by play) make leery old man comments towards the Tampa Bay cheerleaders. It’s uncomfortable and I already know that I am going to enjoy this game. If you don’t know, Brad Sham has been broadcasting forever, a legend in Texas, has called NFL Europe, Arena and MLS games and is basically better than anyone Fox has. Fox – being Fox – makes him call a Philadelphia game. So so cruel.

The World Series has really thrown everything out of whack in terms of the announcers. The innovative Fox Network has clearly decided to make it MASH-UP!!! week. Sham is calling the game with Brian Baldinger. At first, I thought Baldy had made insensitive jokes about Marv Albert and Kenny got all indignant and refused to work with him anymore. But then I found out that Siragusa was actually the color man in Oakland (poor poor Marc and Ed) and that Dick Stockton was paired with Troy Aikman this week. Okay – per the Fox press release declaring Joe Buck King of all Media – the 2006 Fox announcer pairings are

Play by Play	Color	Sideline
Joe Buck	Troy Aikman	Pam Oliver
Dick Stockton	Daryl Johnston	Tony Sirgusa
Kenny Albert	Brian Baldinger	Chris Myers
Sam Rosen	Tim Ryan
Ron Pitts	Terry Donahue
Matt Vasgersian	J. C. Pearson	Jay Glazer

The pairings yesterday ended up being (and this is from USA Today. I can confirm three of these are correct since either I watched them or Ed did. Any mistakes will be blamed on the color coded forest killer)

Play by Play	Color	Sideline	Game
Brad Sham	Brian Baldinger		Eagles vs. Bucs
Dick Stockton	Troy Aikman	Pam Oliver	Skins vs. Colts
Kenny Albert	Daryl Johnston	Jay Glazer	Panthers vs. Bengals
Sam Rosen	Tim Ryan		Lions vs. Jets
Ron Pitts	Terry Donahue		Vikes vs. Seahawks
Matt Vasgersian	J.C. Pearson		Pack vs. Fins
Matt Devlin	Tony Siragusa		Cards vs. Raiders

The thing about these two lists is that Fox doesn’t know how to improvise. “OH GOD!!!! JOE BUCK IS AT THE WORLD SERIES!!!! AND WE HAVE AN EXTRA GAME THIS WEEK!!!! WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH ANNOUNCERS!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! WE HAVE MISPLACED PAT SUMMERALL’S PHONE NUMBER!!! WE ARE SCREWED!!!

I am shocked that they didn’t have Joe Buck call a game via remote while Ed thinks they at least thought about asking the three Buck fanboys from the Budweiser commercial.

Sadly, I will admit that I do have an interest in this game. Purely for fantasy reasons, mind you. Donovan McNabb has been carrying my team. Then there was the not so delicate dance of choosing a running back. I was choosing from Rudi Johnson, Carnell Williams, Corey Dillon and Lamont Jordan. At about 11 am – I completely flip flopped my decision, benched Dillon and Jordan and then immediately threw up in my mouth.

The hideous Washington DC market thinks that we – the viewer – want to see nothing but NFC East games. Now, this often is not a problem since I get to see a bunch of Giants games. Plus, there are a lot of good matchups. But this is one of those weeks when it sucks since the national game is the Bengals vs. Panthers. I adore the Panthers so obviously I will never see them play. Meanwhile – since DC still thinks that somehow Baltimore is part of the area – you get lots and lots and lots of Ravens games. And even worse, when the Ravens are on bye or a night game, you get the Pittsburgh games. THEY ARE RIVALS!!! LEARN TO LOVE IT!!! So the other game right now is the Steelers vs. Falcons and I will be dammed if I watch a second straight Atlanta game.

Anthony Becht is the Buccaneers starting tight end. Oh that’s right. Paul Hackett is the TB offensive coordinator. YOU WON’T TRICK ME AGAIN! I WON’T BELIEVE THIS IS THE YEAR THAT BECHT SCORES 10 TDS! Stupid Jets offense. Stupid fantasy.

Speaking of Budweiser – could they have possibly found any whiter people (other than me and Ed) to star with Jay-Z in that commercial than Danica and Junior? The only thing more awkward was how the two drivers mysteriously vanished from the commercial. It was like Budweiser could only afford to hire them for 30 seconds but they were determined to have a 60 second spot. “Ummm…. Well it’s Jay-Z and he raps. Umm… get some girls dancing. OH!! And some speed boats. I saw that in a Biggie video once. Rappers like speed boats.”

See – I can take drives like that. McNabb gets like 50 passing yards on 4 or 5 completions but it’s the wideout who coughs up the football. This is not to say that 2 TDs from McNabb would not be welcomed.

See – I can’t take drives like that. On his second carry, Cadillac breaks a nice little 6 yard game and then puts the ball on the ground. NEGATIVE POINTS ARE NOT ACCEPTIBLE!!! Oh wait – the play was challenged and overturned. Nevermind.

Reno Mahe is hurt and not returning kicks. Other Vegas cities that he… oh wait, this joke has already been done? By me? And Bill? Moving on then.

I swear to God, the Bucs cheerleaders just did the old Quad City DJs “(C’mon N Ride It) The Train” dance. Or a close approximation of it. And now all of you are singing it in your heads. Welcome to 90s Club hell.

Kill me now. HEY IT’S HOT IN FLORIDA!!! LET’S THROW CHEESE ON THE GROUND AND WATCH IT MELT!!! WE ARE FOX AND WE ARE BRILLIANT!!! (The back story to my screaming here is that Fox literally put a block of Philadelphia cream cheese and a Philly cheese steak out on some foil to show that it was hot in Florida.)

Absolutely dreadful first quarter. Turnovers. Stumbling and bumbling. No points. And the aforementioned “let’s be wacky and see how hot it is” crap. Thankfully – Sham is amusing to me and the girls are pretty.

Second quarter doesn’t start off much better. First play – McNabb throws a terrible looking shovel pass that is incomplete and would have probably have been negative yards if completed. Third play – McNabb throws it right to Ronde Barber for a TD. Oh yeah – Ronde plays for the Bucs. NEGATIVE POINTS ARE NOT ACCEPTIBLE! Grr…. 7-0 Tampa Bay.

The stretching robosapien thingy that Fox uses on the intros and outros would so get my wrath as the dumbest thing the network does during a broadcast but as we have already seen. THEY WILL PUT CHEESE OUT AND WATCH IT SUPPOSEDLY MELT.

Returning punts for Tampa Bay – Philip Buchannan who has to be thrilled that he wasn’t out of work more than 48 hours and Ike Hillard! who has to be thrilled that he isn’t dead. Man – Ike Hillard. The Giants not resigning someone worked out. OH! That reminds me - I hope Will Allen misses a tackle or gets a personal foul so I can ridicule him.

Who is Don Tollefson and why is he working the sidelines? Did he hop the stadium wall and because he had a Fox Polo shirt on they gave him a microphone? “Hmmm… Hey, Brad. Not sure who this guy is but we gave him a mic. Why not throw it to him every once in awhile? We will have him monitor the melting cheese.”

Wait a second? Dunkin Donuts has a commercial featuring They Might Be Giants???? DUNKIN DONUTS IS THE GREATEST FRANCHISE IN

AMERICA

!!! EAT IT STARBUCKS!!! WHOO-HOO!!! RIGHTY TIGHTY! LEFTY LOOSEY!!!

Sorry was a little fired up there. But I just found this out. And supposedly there are 5 different songs too. This will prevent the killing at least for a week or so.

HEY! Tim Rattay. His VETERAN LEADERSHIP was not enough to overcome the MAC lovefest. Of course – I jokingly save that only to realize that Rattay has been in the league SEVEN YEARS!!! I think that was my hip just cracking right there.

As you have all determined by now – I make horrible horrible decisions. My backup QB is Michael Vick. Vick – while having a billion problems – had three first half TDs. I also decided to not recap the Pittsburgh/Atlanta game (which I am flipping too). That’s right. The game that had like a 1000 points scored in it and countless material since… well since Nantz and Simms can’t decide who to fawn over the most. AND I lamented about not seeing the Panthers/Bengals game. Yup – no one listen to me.

Will Allen, Ike Hillard AND Matt Bryant??? Are you kidding me? Apparently the Bucs only scout NFC games played in the Meadowlands. Will Petterson’s agent must already have a deal in place. By the way, the announcers love to mention that Bryant’s long this year is a 28 yard field goal. Aww… foreshadowing.

AWESOME!!! Another McNabb TD to Ronde Barber. Finally the fantasy points start rolling in. Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound right. Let me scroll back up. Grr…. God dammit.

Yeah – that drive was much much more like it. Being down 17-0 – the Eagles need to start throwing the ball. Cheap completion points are A-Okay. Then McNabb breaks off an 8240 yard scramble. THEN McNabb shows why he is freaking great by avoiding like 19 sacks, whipping a pass to Thomas Tepah, who stumbles along the sidelines, straining his groin for the TD. (There is also the awkward moment of Tepah trying to work out his cramp with that rolly bar thingy that you would probably buy at 3 am on QVC, all why the announcers completely ignore the near 45 second shot of this.)

Ooofff… and Donovan pukes right on camera.

America

regrets eating lunch. (And

America

regrets Fox showing a replay.)

Y’all know that I make horrible decisions and have horrible tastes. But I liked Buffy and Angel and Emily Deschanel is cute so I probably should watch Bones. In the interim – the song being used in the commercial is driving me insane because I like it and have zero clue what it is called. So very unhip and so very old.

Yup – just swore very loudly when on the phone with my wife as I saw Corey Dillon had 2 touchdowns. My hate for New England grows just a little more. Plus, I got yelled at because I was watching football while talking to her.

Eagles get to within three as McNabb throws a TD to Reggie Brown. Aww… sweet sweet TDs. We have reached the portion of the game where I am no longer rooting for the Philly offense. I am rooting for TB to run out the clock. A Cadillac Williams TD to ice game would be spiffy.

TB has a six minute drive to use up a giant chunk of clock. Man, so many of those “God I love football for the little things” moments. Moment 1 - Jerome McDougle gets called for a 15 yard face mask on a sack of Gradkowski on 2^nd and 12 early in the drive. AND McDougle gets called for unsportsmanlike conduct when he kicked the official’s flag. So instead of 3^rd and 21 at the TB 27, it is 1 and 10 at the Philly 43. That one call probably costs the Eagles approximately 4 minutes and a big batch of time. I think Andy Reid will be having some choice words for him later on.

Moment #2 – in a typical overthinking decision, on 3^rd and 4 with just under three minutes left, Gruden calls a pass – that of course is incomplete. At that point, Philly had two timeouts left (and the 2 minute warning) – one timeout was used when McNabb tossed his cookies. If you run and gain no yardage you still try the field goal from the same spot and at the very worst – the Eagles have to burn a TO. God – I feel like TMQ and I hate myself for it.

Anyway, Bryant kicks a 40 yarder to push the TB lead to six points and to force the Eagles to run a two minute offense. This is no problem when you have Brian Freaking Westbrook on your team. Westbrook takes a dump off pass with 45 seconds left and goes 50 plus yards for the go ahead touchdown as possible every Buccaneer defender had a chance to tackle him and failed miserably. There is much anger in Philadelphia right now. (BTW – after all my babbling about the timeouts and clock management. The Eagles actually did that entire drive without using a TO. Of course, when you can score on a 50 yard play you rarely need to stop the clock. BTW – I have personally experienced the Brian Westbrook dagger moment. Yup – I will never forget his punt return against the Giants. Eventually – that content idea of mine will be done. Right now – I need a moment. Grr….

Holy Cow – the Bucs are seriously going to try a 62 yard field goal to win. HOLY COW!!! MATT BRYANT SERIOUSLY JUST HIT A 62 YARD FIELD GOAL TO WIN THE GAME!!! MATT FREAKING BRYANT!!! TTTTREEEEEMMEEENNNDOOOUSSS!!!!!

Yeah – now I was wish I was working blue. 62 YARDS!!! As a Giants fan – I approve this victory 999%. The only downside is, obviously, why he couldn’t have made a kick like that for the G-men. My father in law officially thinks I am crazy and is wondering when I am moving out because I am screaming at the TV and can’t really rationally explain it.

After all my worrying – I still end up cruising to a 30 point win in Fantasy. I probably should have realized that the guy I was playing was starting Gradkowski (and 2 guys who had big fat zeros in Willie Parker and Reggie Williams). Fantasy football – you fickle fickle mistress.