Summer is the time of grilling. There is no better way to spend a summer evening than sitting on a porch drinking a cold beer and grilling meat. At least until football starts. Then you can drink beer, eat grilled meat and watch football.
While eating grilled meats is one of the great joys in life, there is one part of the summer ritual that might be even better. The first whiff of the meat starting to near completion on the grill. The smell of ribs or barbecued chicken smoke coming off of a grill is one of the great things in life. And one of the 189 reasons I could never be a vegetarian. The smell coming off a grill is so dense and rich it is, as my 5-year old niece might say, like lunch for your nose. It also represents anticipation.
An old Jerry Seinfeld joke was about how being ‘next’ in a line is the greatest, how it might be better than actually reaching the end of the line. You are the envy of everyone standing behind you and you aren’t yet forced to deal without whatever nuisance awaits you (DMV, grocery store clerk, passport control). It all comes down to anticipation. You are close enough that whatever you are waiting for is nearly there yet you aren’t thrown into the mix just yet.
Which is exactly what the first weekend of pre-season games is to the football season. It represents our first taste of football after a long, hot summer in the purgatory known as baseball season. It isn’t quite the real thing, but it is the best reminder yet that the season is about to start.
While it is human tendency to overreact to the first pre-season games, we should all bear in mind how little pre-season has to do with the regular season. Remember last year when Kyle Orton threw 3 interceptions in his first game and then didn’t throw another until week #6?Not only are starters only playing portions of a game but you have players learning a new system after the draft or an off-season trade. Anyone expect that if the Colts and 49ers play in the regular season the 49ers would again win 37-17?
But, there are also things that can be learned if you look closely enough. So, after sitting through at least portions of 4 games over the weekend, here is what I learned:
- Let’s start with the Broncos. First and foremost, if anyone mentions the possibility of anyone other than Kyle Orton starting at quarterback for the Broncos this season, that person should be immediately dismissed as a complete moron and probably kicked in the nuts as hard as possible to reduce the chances of him reproducing. If that was a quarterback competition for the Broncos, then Brady Quinn and Tim Tebow were Angola and Croatia while Kyle was the 1992 Dream Team . Orton was poised and showed a strong arm leading the first string offense to 2 touchdowns against the Bengals starting defense. Brady Quinn was what he has been since he entered the league – lost. I have never thought much of him, and last night’s display (against Bengal back-ups) re-enforced that opinion. A pick-six and a couple three-and-outs.
- As for Tebow, well I think we can put away the Messiah name plate for now. He also looked like what he is: a rookie trying to learn to play a new system. He completed some short passes when he didn’t need to sit back and read the defense, he struggled when blitzed, and when all else failed plowed over some dude that won’t be a Bengal in three weeks for a meaningless touchdown on the final play of the game. On the bright side, he did throw a nice deep pass that was dropped by Matt Willis but that throw as with others showed the throwing motion he spent the off-season trying to get rid of. Not a good sign.
- As I tweeted though, at least he has a bunch of fat UF girls now cheering for the Broncos.
- In short, he is a raw rookie trying to refine his passing motion while also learning how to become a pro quarterback and read more complicated defenses being played by better athletes than he has played against. You know, exactly what he is. He isn’t a God. He isn’t a The Greatest Player Ever. He isn’t even the best rookie on the Broncos. He is just a guy with a freaky, obsessive following that more than overshadows his actual skill. Sort of like Justin Bieber without the cool hair.
- If you are a Bronco fan, forget about OLASTT and focus on issues that could actually impact the team this year: the running game. Both for and against. The first string Broncos offense almost didn’t even try to run. Presumably (by which I mean hopefully) that was due to all of their best running backs being out of action rather than an admission that there will be no running game this year. A 5th string running back behind a patchwork of journey men and rookies on the offensive line isn’t the best indication of what the Broncos could be. At least let’s hope not. I don’t care how good Orton looked, he can’t be asked to lead the Great Show on Grass this season.
- On the other side of the ball, the Bengals moved the ball between the twenties pretty easily in the first quarter, especially on the ground. For a defense that went out and got a bunch of huge run stuffing linemen, they sure gave up a few runs right up the middle early. If it wasn’t for a Herculean effort by Champ Bailey on 2 deflections and a tackle, the Bengals would have done a little better in the first string battles than losing 14-0.
- Moving on to other games, I watched a doubleheader of mediocrity on Saturday night. First, the Bucs and Dolphins played in a bog and played like whatever creatures live in a bog. Two bad offenses were not helped by the muddy infield at Buffett-is-a-sell-out Stadium. If this was a scouting game for my fantasy team, the best I can say is that I really hope I don’t draft any players from either of these teams. Let’s just say that Brian Hartline was one of the starting receivers for the Dolphins. Do you need to know any more than that?
- The second half of the doubleheader was the Seahawks and Titans from my second hometown. This was mostly a back-up fest, outside of an opening drive in which the Titans marched down the field against the Seahawk defense, scoring nearly as easily as a team playing the Mariners. On the positive side, for the Seahawks Matt Hasselbeck didn’t get hurt. On the negative, Julius Jones didn’t get hurt.
- Probably the biggest news for the Seahawks was the competent play of big off-season acquisition Charlie Whitehurst, probably the 2nd biggest career back-up pick-up in the NFL this spring (Brady Quinn finally wins something!). Whitehurst played fine; he put up some stats and scored 2 touchdowns against the Titans back-ups. Which is great, I am sure Seahawk fans are thrilled. They will be decidedly less thrilled however if Whitehurst is asked to play that much in any regular season game.
- On Friday night, I watched bits and pieces of the Redskins trouncing of the Bills. This was notable for 2 reasons. The first is that the Redskins featured former Bronco Ryan Torain at running back. Who always looked really promising in preseason at Dove Valley and would then suffer a devastating season-ending injury. I’m pretty sure he made it through this game in one piece thought. The other note was the dominance of the Redskins. Of course, I remember the first pre-season game of another Redskins head coach when he destroyed an opponent and the Steve Spurrier era didn’t exactly turn out so great for Skins fans.
So what did we learn, if anything this weekend?
Well, we learned that football is so near we can almost smell it.
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