Mark Shapiro’s picture

Tuesday, October 21, 1997

Midseason trek around country sheds light on oddities of NFL

COLUMN League colored by Southern charm, Bay Area stench, Gulf
injuries

Now that the football season is halfway complete (I know, the
season is 17 weeks long, but even my anal-retentiveness knows some
limits), it’s high time for a little jaunt around the gridiron. So
hang on as we whip around the NFL, casting a critical eye on the
season thus far.

The first stop on our itinerary is San Francisco, where the team
that has been resurrected more times than Freddy Krueger is at it
again. It looked like the end for this nightmarish franchise when
Jerry Rice actually got an injury more significant than a splinter
and Steve Young got hit so hard he considered drinking a beer. The
Niners were ready to fall from the upper reaches of the league into
the dark world of the Saints.

As an aside, isn’t it interesting that a team that dresses like
a bunch of little devils is one of the premier teams in football,
while a team named after deified people is unbelievably bad? God
really does have a strange sense of humor.

All of a sudden, however, the Niners have a running game; a
bunch of games against NFC West teams, which are almost as tough as
those thugs down on Sesame Street; and the stingiest defense since
the Chicago Bears’ 4-6 Defense. Oh well, maybe their plane will
crash.

Having failed in our efforts to unseat the hated 49ers from
their perch of excellence, we now cross the Bay to simmer in some
serious mediocrity.

If Oakland is the armpit of the Bay Area, then the Raiders are
the malodorous stench therein.

Here is a team whose fans are scary enough to make Mongol hordes
wet themselves.

Here is a team that can’t keep one simple fact straight:
penalties are bad!

Here is a team whose owner is a bigger control freak than Stalin
and who thinks the franchise motto "Commitment to Excellence" still
applies.

Mr. Davis, you’re taking a pretty big step there. I think
"Commitment to Personal Hygiene" would be more appropriate.

From here we trundle over to Tennessee, where the Oilers are
playing before a fan base the size of an English 80 lecture and yet
still think it’s a good idea to build a new stadium. It just goes
to show, USC graduates really can get jobs.

By the way, Tennessee "Oilers" is a really apt nickname. It’s
almost as good as the North Dakota Brain Surgeons or the New York
Friendly People.

Staying in the Confederacy, we move up to Carolina, where
Panther quarterback Kerry Collins really is doing his best to get
rid of the ignorant Southerner stereotype.

In one night, he managed to get sloshed out of his mind; get
punched by one of his offensive lineman, who for some strange
reason didn’t appreciate the racist jokes Collins was telling; and
insult one of his receivers.

From there, he’s managed to get benched, destroy the playoff
hopes of one of the league’s up-and-coming franchises, and become
the hero of the cognoscenti of the Appalachians. Not bad for a
second-year player.

Now it’s time to rumble into Denver, where the Broncos have come
up with a new way to celebrate touchdowns (anything to get the
attention off of those uniforms). Instead of merely dancing or
dog-piling in the end zone (following the prayer, of course), the
Broncos have taken to saluting each other.

I don’t know how comfortable I am with this trend. What comes
next? Will the Broncos start goose-stepping after a sack or calling
cadence when they cabbage patch in the end zone? The prospects are
just too terrifying.

It’s only a short trip north into Cincinnati, where the Bengals
are seriously considering bringing Ken Anderson out of retirement
to quarterback the team.

Poor Jeff Blake. All the Bengals did was assemble some
outstanding receivers and a pair of first-rate running backs, and
give him the ball with the coaching staff’s blessing. The result? A
1-6 record and a quarterback trying to wipe the egg off his face.
There hasn’t been a flop this bad since Chevy’s talk show.

Because they are my favorite team, and I’m the writer, we will
conclude our merry quest by heading over to Miami, where the
Dolphins manage to keep 1,870 orthopedic surgeons busy around the
clock trying to keep this team healthy. The team has suffered more
broken bones than Evil Kenevil, undergone more operations than
Frankenstein and still managed to win more games than the
Cowboys.

Just for fun, the doctors should attach different appendages to
different players; that way, the Fins could all look like Merton
Hanks.

Shapiro is a fourth-year student and beat writer for men’s
basketball. E-mail responses to [email protected].

Mark Shapiro