“We’ll ground these guys up and turn ’em into itty bitty little eagle meatballs.” 

-A Pittsburgh Steelers positional coach, apparently using the same motivational speech with NFL players as he does with the pop warner team that he coaches (as heard on “Sunday Sountracks”)

-Remember when Michael Vick fumbled on the 1-yard line in the first quarter on Sunday and the Steelers recovered the ball in the end zone? You remember. Well I started to write a note about how badly Vick’s sabotaging a pretty good Eagles team. The next time I went back to that game, there was Vick fumbling the ball back to Pittsburgh once again. This Philly team is top 10 statistically in every major defensive category as well as rushing offense. But they’re 31st in points per game. If you’re the rest of this Eagles team, don’t you mutiny if Andy Reid continues to march Vick out there with the starters? He’s single-handedly keeping this team at a mediocre level. Don’t you try a guy who might hold onto the ball better than Vick and just hope that your defense and running can get the job done? It’s a schizophrenic NFC East this year where it doesn’t seem like any team is gonna be rattling off a bunch of consecutive wins. Any team can take the division, but you might not wanna continue with the guy who’s turned the ball over nine times in five games.

-Speaking of QBs in the NFC East, it was fun to visualize every Redskins fan’s reaction to seeing Kirk Cousins warming up on the sidelines after RGIII made one of the dumber plays of 2012. It was even more fun to visualize their emotional roller coaster after Cousins came in, connected on a super-long touchdown pass, then proceeded to throw two interceptions to ruin the game. Even if Andrew Luck and RGIII are equally talented, we just saw why Luck was the consensus #1 pick…he’s almost guaranteed to be healthier than Griffin over these next 10-15 years if Griffin continues plays the way most black running QBs do.

-And for fans watching the Red Zone Channel like myself, we got to see simultaneous shots of Cousins warming up for Washington and Brady Quinn warming up for Kansas City. It was edge-of-your-seat TV viewing to see which backup would ruin their team’s chances first. It was pretty much a tie.

-More QB stuff: During the 2008 season, my brothers and I nicknamed then-Detroit Lions quarterback Dan Orlovsky “Self Safety.” This is because on multiple occasions the guy would drop back to pass in his own end zone, and then when trying to escape from pressure, he would accidentally run out of the back of the end zone for a safety. Self Safety’s team went 0-16 that year. I think it’s time we come up with a nickname for the QB of the 2012 team most likely to go 0-16, the Cleveland Browns (they’re the most likely because they’re the only winless team left). And I think we should base the nickname on an incredible play Brandon Weeden made in the fourth quarter against the Giants on Sunday. Did you see this one? If not, you gotta check out his new patented “double forward pass” move. (do yourself the favor and sit through the 15-second ad before the video plays)

I just don’t know what that nickname should be so feel free to come up with one and leave it in the comments section.

-As Andrew Siciliano was bringing me in and out of football highlights on the Red Zone Channel Sunday morning, I had a very random thought….how cool is Andrew Siciliano? And how great of a spot in football-watching history does he have? He’s the guy we associate with the “new” way of watching football…the Red Zone Channel, multiple games at once, only watching the most exciting parts of each game, never seeing a commercial or a punt. The guy’s a pioneer in how I’ll view football for the rest of my life. I have lots of thoughts about Andrew Siciliano. This was just one of them.

Anyway…

-The happiest guy in the football world on Monday morning must have been Romeo Crennel. Rather than have to answer questions about his team’s ineptness in every facet of the game, all the media wants to know is what Romeo thinks of Eric Winston’s verbal attack on the Kansas City fans. If it wasn’t for Winston, Crennel might actually have to answer questions like this: “Romeo, when the Chiefs fire you in early November, which side of the family are you going to spend Thanksgiving with?” Four more turnovers for the Chiefs’ offense, out possessing the Ravens by almost 10 minutes and doing nothing with that time, and having the best running back in football—who ran for 125 yards in the first half—only get a few carries for 15 yards in the second half…I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised about the six total points. But Crennel is probably smiling and whistling his way through the Arrowhead Stadium hallways right now. Maybe he’s even taking Winston out for a nice steak dinner to thank him for deflecting the spotlight.

-Speaking of coaches who should have a lot to answer for right now, I thought about going through all the one-win and no-win teams and giving each head coach a ranking on how hot their hot seat is after five weeks. That could be fun. Pat Shurmur from Cleveland would be on a seat that’s about 85 degrees, and Aaron Kromer from New Orleans would be on an ice-cold seat considering he’s the interim interim coach and is only around for another week anyway. Maybe I’ll save this game for another week. But I never would have thought of putting any two-win teams on my hot seat temperature scale. But according to THIS ARTICLE from a local Buffalo newspaper, not only should head coach Chan Gailey be fired, but the whole coaching staff should be publicly executed.

Well, Buffalo, that was a fun playoff run. You really had all the fans and us media types going for a minute. I guess it’s back to 3rd or 4th place in the AFC East for you, huh?

-Watching Monday Night Football, I initially got a little agitated at how fired up the entire Jets team got after scoring a touchdown. It felt like I was watching the Patriots clinch a Super Bowl berth or something. Then I remembered that a Jets offensive touchdown happens about as often as the Pats make it to the Super Bowl. Then I wasn’t mad anymore.

-Despite Jon Gruden repeatedly saying on the MNF broadcast how impressed he was with the Jets, they did only score one offensive touchdown. Mark Sanchez also threw two more interceptions (and almost fumbled the ball away twice), and the offense didn’t even crack 280 total yards. So, uhh, did the Jets trade a 4th and 6th-round pick to Denver for Tebow just to have him watch Sanchez lead the Jets to the bottom of every major offensive statistic?

-As a Patriots fan, I’m hoping that when the Jets lose at home to Indy next week, falling to 2-4, Rex Ryan will finally pull the trigger and make Tebow his starting QB. That will be perfectly timed with their visit to New England the following week.

-Has anyone seen the Pistachios commercial featuring a Village People-like group singing and dancing to Y-M-C-A, only those letters are replaced with CR-A-C-K? You haven’t? Check it out:

I couldn’t decide whether to make a joke about crack in reference to a butt crack and how the Village People liked men and they’re telling you to open up a crack, or if a reference to crack in the drug sense would have been better. You decide. Either way the commercial caught me off guard.

-My first non-winning week of the season picking against the spread. Thanks to the teams who I gave way too much credit to for not covering…Green Bay, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Houston. And Molly is now 2-3 in her five picks. She may be cut off from this game real soon if she doesn’t get her shit figured out.

This week: 7-7

Season: 42-32-3