Current humans please make sure and watch the movie The Robber. It's about a German bank robber who is also a marathon runner. It is based on actual events, as is Football. Apparently you can do things by just running. I said in early weeks that running is nothing, a quarterback, on the other hand, defines success. Being wrong is like being right, just before... Which is swell because then one has the advantage of being two things. Rightness is one way, monotonous, abstract, simple. Being wrong is enlivening and risky, sexy. I had the privilege of thinking about football incorrectly, a lens offering a game that did not actually exist but was no less captivating (for me). Now after today, a day in which running affirmed itself as a tool for success, I am offered the game anew. Thank you 49ers, Jets, Dolphins and Texans. The man who won the New York Marathon today, Geoffrey Mutai a Kenyan, ran it in just over two hours. Twenty six miles over five boroughs: no bank robberies.
In the NFL, a competent defense is a requisite but unlike basketball, it does not win games. -- I've got to mention about basketball briefly here. The ultimatum the players' union faces that will make or break this 2011 season is shocking. Not shocking because any one party is wrong about what they want, in a way neither are right, but two sides agreeing to sacrifice plenty of money in a depressed economy, coming off the most popular season ever, with nothing else to do is just damn shocking. I will miss Lebron and Kobe and Dirk and Monta, the punks. Good luck, fellas. -- Anyway defense is an ingredient used at choice moments during big games when a team needs to get its offense back out there to score. Defense isn't the meat. Don't listen to your Pop Warner coaches young men, not only because they are part time history teachers and plumbers, but because they're also molesters. Today an example: the Patriots Giants game stuck 0-0 at the half. Seemingly a good defensive battle until four straight 4th quarter scoring drives that gave the Giants a win as much determined by clock management as anything else. Clearer - the defenses shutout Thomas Brady and E. Manning in the first half but ultimately those two quarterbacks drove down the field at will until time ran out on Brady, when the Patriots just happened to be losing - it may as well just have a been 30 minute game.
The teams mentioned above do have good defenses, specifically the Jets and 49ers, but the reason a meal is successful is good meat. And the meat is the ground game by some of the better teams in the NFL. Last week I suspected this to be true but today confirmed it. Some facts: Tim Tebow (you flaming, big nippled, bloody lipped, piece of candy, you) rushed for over 100 yards and barely threw for that. His fellow Bronco, running back Willis McGahee, rushed for 163. The Broncos are a poor team but are getting better since dropping the passing game in favor of the run. The Falcons are supposed to be a good team. They hit a rough patch in the beginning of the season relying on Matt Ryan, then turned to their caboose of a running back, Michael Turner, and are since 3-0 with wins over the Panthers and the Lions (two passing oriented big scoring teams). More, the winless Dolphins came close to victory last week and today achieved it. The reinvigorated Reggie Bush, fresh off his divorce from Kim Kardashian, was the reason for the near win last week and the win today. He is running hard and cutting precisely, as he did at USC. The Texans, a very good team, with a strictly average quarterback rely on Arian Foster. Today he rushed for 124 yards on just 19 carries. Lastly the 49ers, a top three team in the NFL with maybe a bottom three quarterback in Schmalex Smith. Frank Gore chips away at defenses, stiffening the pace, tightening the drag and finally snapping the line with a large run or two in the second half. This has been the pattern of the steaming 49ers, now 7-1, best in the West, great on the ground.
This is boring post, and apparently style = content today. What I find interesting from all this running though is when in a few weeks some of these passing cyclopes will face the running infantries, who will prevail. A 49ers Packers game next week would be excellent. Not happening, but the Patriots are coming down to NYC to mess around with the Jets. That could be something. If not something, it will be two gorgeous quarterbacks in the same place. Tebow will be watching... Next week I will be damn funny. Today I wanted to join the marathon, rob banks and be a German. Everyone says they can write jokes: thank god being cool will never be hip.
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