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"They're beatable"

Two teams continued their dominance of the competition this weekend: The Indianapolis Colts and New York Gay Football's Philip Marie (the team I play on, which I'm now dubbing the "Gay Colts"). The two teams are a combined 24-0 this season, with the latter finishing up an incredible run Sunday afternoon by winning their league championship game, 34-18.

After the REAL Colts beat Jacksonville, in Jacksonville, 26-18, Jaguars running back Fred Taylor had this to say about the Colts:

"They're a good team. I'll give them credit. They're a good team, but we beat ourselves more than them being a good team. They're beatable."

To me, "they're beatable" is just about the dumbest thing you could say. Of course every team is beatable. The game starts tied – all you have to do is outscore the other team for the next 60 minutes. The implication is, "we'll beat them." But, that's pretty hard for someone who's lost to a team twice in one season to say. Everyone is beatable, but not everyone is beaten.

Keep in mind that Taylor ran 10 times for 19 yards on Sunday. If you translated that to a quarterback rating, it would be in the negatives.

Oh, Marty

I don't know whether to pity or blame San Diego Chargers head coach Marty Schottenheimer. The guy always seems to win or lose in excruciating fashion. This week, anointed by many as the best NFL team outside the state of Indiana, his team managed to eek out a loss against the Miami Dolphins, anointed before the season by many as the worst team in the league.

You gotta love this Freudian exchange between Chris Berman and Tom Jackson last night on NFL Primetime. They were talking about how Drew Brees' 52 pass attempts weren't "Marty Schottenheimer football."

Berman: The Chargers had the ball for 40 minutes and lost.

Jackson: That's Marty Schottenheimer football.

The AFC: Haves and Have-Nots

As I looked at the standings this morning, I wondered what team might be lurking out there that could win three straight games and make the playoffs. I was SHOCKED to see that only one AFC team – the Miami Dolphins – have 5, 6 or 7 wins. That means that seven of the 16 teams in that conference are out of the playoffs with three weeks left. And I think they're all playing on Monday Night Football in December.

My Rankings

1) Indianapolis – Unless Peyton Manning goes down, they'll be my #1 even if they lose their last three games.

2) Seattle – They're the only team whose accomplishments have earned them a spot in the rankings.

And finally, flag football

We won. That's the crux of it. We won. I never would have thought it possible, but in only the league's second season, my team, Philip Marie, went 11-0.

It's just bizarre for a draft-league team to do that. A draft is supposed to even everything out, put all the teams on the same playing field. I think there are a few reasons we did so well: the leadership of our captain, players who listened to and processed every instruction, and solid talent. Lots of people have told me "you guys just have too much talent." I don't agree. Yes, we had lots of it; but, I think in every game we were smarted, had better schemes and just wanted it more, and it's those things that won us the title.

I think my favorite part of the championship game was the sideline. About 95% of the people watching the game wanted us to lose. And I can understand that. It's human to want to see the underdog succeed and the mighty fall. But, it just made me play harder. With the scored tied at 0-0, our quarterback, Alon, threw a deep ball to me in the endzone that was slightly underthrown. As I saw the ball I the air I thought, "I'm not going to let these people cheer because I didn't catch this ball." I went up, grabbed the ball from over the defender, and scored, hollering to the sideline, "not today. Not today."

After the game, there were many different reactions. My favorite was probably from a guy whose team we beat in the semifinals, 31-6.

"We want you one more time," he said. One more time? We beat them both times we played them by a combined 80-28. And he still wanted one more go-round. Love it!

Corey Johnson, who captained and quarterbacked the team we played in the finals, is always a gentleman after a loss, which I think speaks volumes. It's easy to take a win well, but to take a loss well, you have to have something deep inside you. You can tell he came of football age in a good program in Massachusetts. Whenever my team has beaten his team, he is always glowing in his praise; and when his team has beaten mine, they celebrate as gentlemen. LOL, as I'm writing this, he just sent a congratulations email. Classy.

If they make a sequel to “Brokeback Mountain,” I suggest Phil Simms and Jason Witten as the leads. Witten, like the two main characters in the movie, is a Cowboy (tight end for the Dallas Cowboys). Simms, the former Giants quarterback who played against Cowboys, is the CBS color analyst who started singing about Witten during Sunday’s Chiefs-Cowboys game. 

Witten, 6-5 and 261 pounds, had just caught a touchdown pass, and the camera focused on him sans helmet, looking sweaty and hot (in both ways). This led Simms to rhapsodize: 

Simms: “What does Bill Parcells call him? Everybody’s All-American. He’s got the looks, the blonde hair, the blue eyes.” 

Jim Nantz: “The Farmboy.” 

Simms: “You want your daughter to marry the Farmboy, that’s right, and all that stuff.” 

What was funniest is that Simms said, “He’s got the looks, the blonde hair, the blue eyes” like he was singing, and Nantz cut in quickly as if he feared what other of Witten’s body parts Simms would describe next.

I know Simms and Witten are both married. But that didn’t stop the Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger characters from taking a lot of fishing trips together, yet never catching anything.

--Go here for more of the best of Simms. 

--The Indianapolis Colts keep on rolling after their 26-18 win at Jacksonville moved them to 13-0, the fourth NFL team to reach that mark. The Colts jumped all over the Jaguars, taking a 26-3 lead with 4:19 remaining. But two late Jacksonville touchdowns made the Colts sweat. Indy needed a 12-yard pass from Peyton Manning to Dallas Clark to secure a first down late in the game and run out the clock.  

The pass came on a 3^rd-and-7 in a situation when most teams would have run the ball, forced Jacksonville to use their final timeout and then punt. But Colts coach Tony Dungy said the pass to Clark was an easy call.

"We've got who I think is the best player in the NFL," Dungy said about Manning. "We wanted to give him a chance to win the game." Said Manning: "It's called a 'trust' play. Coach Dungy made the call and I had to backpedal a little because the guy was in my face. You just trust that Dallas will be in the spot, because I couldn't really see him. " 

--The Jaguars further cemented their reputation as a dirty, trash-talking team when they committed several major penalties, including three on one series. This followed a week of brash comments by the Jags towards the Colts (“screw the Colts,” one player said).

Linebacker Mike Peterson admitted that it was the Jaguars plan to get into a “pushing match” with opponents. "We're real rowdy. We get up in your face. We may get a personal foul here and there, but hopefully it won't have an effect on the outcome of the game,'' Peterson said. This makes the Jaguars easy to dislike. 

One of the penalties came against Jags coach Jack Del Rio, who screamed obscenities at the officials after one play. "There are a lot of things said on the sideline that your children shouldn't hear," Del Rio said. I would have thought that after losing for the second time to the Colts, the Jaguars would have been humbled after Sunday's game. Think again. 

"We beat ourselves up and down -- on offense, defense and special teams," Peterson said. "We didn't spoil their streak, but we can get another shot at them. They can be beat. This team isn't too much for us. Can we beat them? Hell, yeah." I hope the Jags somehow miss the playoffs. 

--Loved this line from CBS’ Dan Dierdorf, after Colts receiver Marvin Harrison made a great move on a long touchdown against Rashean Mathis. 

“Rashean Mathis bites on the double move, and I mean bite. If he was a bass, he’d be mounted on the wall.” 

--Now that the Colts have secured home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, there is speculation as to whether Dungy will shoot for a perfect regular season or rest his starters. I say go for it, not only for the history but because the Colts have a rhythm offense and taking off, in essence, the next five weeks will do more harm than good. 

"Rest?" running back Edgerrin James said. "I'll rest when I'm through playing football. Right now, it's just a groove that we're in, and we just want to keep going." 

--Week 13 saw five playoff contenders lose in a day that scrambled the standings. The biggest beneficiaries in the AFC were the Pittsburgh Steelers, 21-9 winners over the Chicago Bears. The Steelers (8-5) really gained when the Jacksonville Jaguars (9-4), Kansas City Chiefs (8-5) and San Diego Chargers (8-5) all lost and set up a wild final three weeks. 

Of the AFC wild card contenders, the Jaguars and Chiefs are guaranteed spots if they win their final three games, based on tiebreakers. But the Steelers have an easier schedule than Kansas City, playing Minnesota, Cleveland and Detroit  (a combined 16-23) vs. the Chiefs facing the Giants, Chargers and Bengals (27-12).  

Jacksonville would have to choke to miss the playoffs, with cupcakes San Francisco (2-11), Tennessee (4-9) and Houston (1-12) remaining. The Chargers have a much tougher road, facing Indianapolis (13-0), Kansas City (8-5) and Denver (10-3). I think the Jags and Steelers get the final spots. 

--I was one of those who touted the Chargers as the league’s second-best team despite their 8-4 record heading into Sunday. I beg forgiveness following the way they laid down against Miami, 23-21. They play-calling was awful (why is Drew Brees throwing 52 passes?) and several Chargers admitted they took the Dolphins lightly. “We came out flat,” tight end Antonio Gates said, while running back LaDainian Tomlinson (totally misused Sunday) said some of his teammates acted like they had won three Super Bowls. This is not the mark of a team ready for elite status. 

--The Chargers have played 27 consecutive games, including playoffs, without losing by more than four points, the third-longest streak in NFL history. 

--I am starting to hear a lot about how dangerous the New England Patriots (8-5) will be in the playoffs, but I’m skeptical. One stat stands out: The Pats are 6-0 against teams with losing records, but 2-5 against teams with winning records. Wins the last two weeks over the awful Jets and Bills haven’t suddenly cured a suspect defense. Assuming the Pats win their division, my guess is that they’ll play Jacksonville in the wild-card round, win that game, then lose at Indianapolis.

--In the NFC, eight teams are fighting for five spots, with only Seattle (11-2) having clinched anything. It is impossible to predict the final standings, but in terms of both records and tiebreakers, the Giants, Cowboys, Buccaneers, Panthers and Bears have a leg up. Since so many of the contending teams face each other the final three weeks, this will all sort itself out. For example, the Washington Redskins (7-6) host both Dallas and the Giants, the teams ahead of them in the NFC East.  

--I know Minnesota Vikings fans are jazzed about six wins in a row, but they still don’t impress since five of these wins have been against losers and their win against the Giants (no offensive TDs) was as fluky as any I’ve seen. The Vikings play the Steelers and Bears down the stretch, and these will be truer tests. 

--Wildest ending came in the Houston Texans-Tennessee Titans game, won by the Titans, 13-10. On the kickoff following the go-ahead field goal with 12 seconds left, the Texans’ Jerome Mathis ran 50 yards to the Titans’ 26 as time expired. But a Titan had grabbed Mathis’ facemask and no game can end on a penalty like that. The ball was moved to the Titans’ 13 and Kris Brown had a 31-yard chip shot to send the game into overtime. But Kris Brown kicked like Charlie Brown, badly shanking the ball and the Titans held on. 

 "I thought we won, then I thought they brought it back. Then I thought the game was over, then I thought we were going to overtime. Then we ended up winning. It was crazy," the Titans’ Kyle Vanden Bosch said. 

--Another kicker who came up short in the clutch was Kansas City’s Lawrence Tynes, who missed a 41-yarder on the final play that would have sent the game in Dallas into overtime. The snap was low, but pro kickers need to make those.  

The 31-28 loss was bitter for the Chiefs, who kept shooting themselves in their collective feet. The worst came on Dallas’ last gasp, a fourth-down incompletion in the end zone to Jason Witten with 46 seconds left. However, Witten was clearly held by the Chiefs’ Derrick Johnson and Dallas had a first down, which they capitalized on two plays later for what proved to be the winning TD. "I was celebrating thinking it was over," a whining Chiefs safety Greg Wesley said. "Then I see a flag. I thought, 'Wow, way to give them a second chance.' ... I made a great play and they were bailed out by the referees." 

--Seattle has won its last two games by a combined 83-3. I know beating Philadelphia (minus Donovan McNabb) and San Francisco (2-11) isn’t eye-opening, but that combined score is still impressive. It will be a fascinating game if the Colts beat the Chargers next week and head to Seattle at 14-0 on Christmas Eve. 

My Top 5

1. Indianapolis (13-0): They have not trailed at any point in their last six games.
2. Cincinnati (10-3): The Bengals clinch the AFC North if they beat Detroit next week.
3. Denver (10-3): I’m still not sold on Jake Plummer.
4. Seattle (11-2): The Hawks close in on NFC home field.
5. Pittsburgh (8-5): Mud, snow, cold is Steeler heaven.