No connection between Broncos loss and Tim Tebow - Doc's bark for January 14, 2013

The echo of the final gun hadn’t even faded and already fools among football fans and members of the media were broaching the most irrelevant and uniformed “point of analysis” regarding the double-overtime game between the Baltimore Ravens and Denver Broncos, won by the Ravens, in Denver, 38-35...

Tim Tebow won his first playoff game for the Broncos and Peyton Manning didn’t.

Ah yes... a divisional playoff game for the ages, the fourth-longest in NFL history, 76 minutes and 42 seconds, played in single-digit wind chill weather, where both teams combined for 73 points, 51 first downs, 877 yards of total offense, 18 accepted penalties, six touchdown scoring plays of 30 yards or more, and only four turnovers... was somehow all about Tim Tebow no longer being the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos, replaced by some undeserving schmoe named Peyton Manning.

Shame on you all... from Tim Tebow’s brother Peter, who tweeted “am I the only one in Denver who’s happy right now?” to dimwits on ESPN who dared to ask if the Broncos could’ve won if Tebow was quarterback, to all the local sportscasters and newspaper writers in New York (see above back page from January 13th New York Daily News) who felt it necessary to compare the Tebow-led Broncos of 2011 with the Manning-led Broncos of 2012. First, there’s simply no comparison. Second, by invoking Tebow’s name regarding a game he had absolutely nothing to do with, all of these foolish people clearly demonstrate how little they respect professional football and NFL history and how hell-bent they are to create controversies where none should exist.  This isn’t being a provocateur. It’s being a blockhead in love with the sound of your own voice and inane ideas.

Let me spare all those fools the time and trouble... Tim Tebow’s role with the 2011 Broncos is completely irrelevant to the 2012 Broncos. Period. Exclamation point. Done. The Broncos ownership, front office and coaching staff no longer considers Tebow relevant. Why is anyone wasting time on this non-story?

If any remote connection exists between last year’s 29-23 overtime wild card playoff win over the Pittsburgh Steelers and Saturday evening’s double overtime loss, it lies with the old adage: what goes around, comes around.  If Tebowphiles truly watched the Ravens-Broncos game, they would’ve seen the Ravens give the Broncos a taste of their own medicine: taking full advantage of a dysfunctional defensive secondary.

Yes... The Broncos beat the Steelers last year because the Steelers secondary was depleted by injuries and free safety Ryan Clark’s inability to play in Denver’s high altitude due to Sickle Cell trait. The Steelers secondary was fraught with communication problems and coverage lapses and the Broncos took advantage of those issues to the tune of 316 yards passing on just ten completions, the final one being an 80-yard touchdown pass from Tebow to receiver Demaryius Thomas (note: a wide-open Thomas ran the final 65 yards after catching a medium-range Tebow pass).

This time around, it was the Broncos defensive secondary that got repeatedly burned for large pass plays.

Before we focus on Saturday’s game, let’s take one final look back at the 2011 “Tebow victory.” Two teams battled into overtime, the game tied up after a late big-play touchdown pass by the VISITING team (Ben Roethlisberger to Jericho Cotchery, 31 yards) after the Broncos failed to hold their lead (the Broncos were ahead 20-6 at halftime, and led 23-13 early in the fourth quarter), a game featuring 847 total yards in combined offense, lots of big plays and few penalties or turnovers.

Do we see enough similarity to bridge forward to Saturday and rule out the “Tebow factor”?  Both games took place in Denver (although last year’s wild-card game was in more mild weather conditions) pitting two teams with decent defenses, and yet neither game necessarily gave either defense bragging rights.  Both games ended up being very high scoring relative to expectations. Both games ended up having a lot of offensive yardage. Both games went into overtime because the Broncos defense couldn’t protect a lead in the final minutes of regulation.

Sometimes a defense simply needs to bend but don’t break. It didn’t work for the Broncos defensive secondary Saturday evening. It bent and broke. Why? Denver’s defensive backs failed to cover Baltimore’s receivers just as poorly as Pittsburgh’s defensive backs failed last year. There comes a point where defensive backs can’t worry about whether they should be in man or zone coverage. The objective must be keeping pass receivers out of the end zone and offensive touchdowns off the scoreboard. The Steelers failed last year as Tebow only completed 10 of 21 passes. The Broncos failed Saturday as Joe Flacco completing 18 of 34. Sometimes it doesn’t require more than 50 percent passing to defeat a vulnerable secondary.

Did Peyton Manning have a vintage game? No, and he never really needed to. The Ravens defense kept Manning’s receivers covered tight all game long and Manning still managed to complete 28 of 43 passes for 290 yards. Manning took what the Ravens defense gave him and achieved moderate-range gains en route to three touchdown passes.  Not bad for a 37-year-old quarterback completing his first full season after four neck surgeries and playing in weather he normally doesn’t fare well in.  Add in punt and kickoff returns for touchdowns by Trindon Holliday and there was no reason why 35 points shouldn’t have held up to win the game.  Yes, the Broncos offense played sloppy at times, and inopportune penalties (mostly attributable to poor officiating) combined with Manning’s turnovers didn’t help, but the Broncos defense should not have given up 324 yards passing and touchdown passes from Flacco of 32, 59 and 70 yards — especially the 70-yard one, on third and three, with 31 seconds left in regulation and the Ravens not having any timeouts left.

That’s how the Broncos “lost” Saturday’s game... And there’s nothing Tim Tebow could’ve done to change that. Never wind about Manning’s overtime interception. Never mind about Fox’s decision to have Manning take a knee at the Denver 20 and run out the final 31 seconds with two timeouts in hand.

For all the post-mortem wailing and whining by fans and pundits, let’s go to the critical moments — the actual genesis —  where Denver lost a playoff game they should’ve won. With 3:16 left in the fourth quarter, Flacco threw an incomplete pass on fourth down and five yards to go, and the Ravens turned the ball over on downs to the Broncos (leading 35-28) at the Denver 31-yard-line.  Four Denver running plays later, the Broncos faced third and seven from their 47 at the two-minute warning. Baltimore was out of time outs and Denver was going into a 5-10 mile-per-hour wind.  The Broncos called a running play off right guard. Ronnie Hillman gained nothing. Now it was fourth down, clock running. Britton Colquitt punted the ball with 1:15 left. Jacoby Jones fair-caught Colquitt’s punt at the Baltimore 23. First and 77 yards to go for the Ravens with 1:15 on the clock and no time outs. In theory, the Ravens should’ve died a slow death nowhere close to the Broncos goal line.

Sometimes theory blows up in your face. It blew up big-time on the Broncos.

When questioned by the media after the game, Fox said “when you lose, everything’s questioned.” That’s quite true, but perhaps questioning everything after losing is necessary because we don’t take the time to really question anything after winning.  If Fox, his coaching staff, or members of the Denver media had raised certain questions while the Broncos enjoyed an eleven-game winning streak entering the playoffs, perhaps theory wouldn’t have blown up so incredibly during the final two minutes of regulation and the Broncos might be preparing for the AFC Championship Game at home this coming Sunday.

Unlike many folks, I don’t second-guess the decision to run Hillman on third and seven, whether the decision was made by Fox, Manning or collaboratively.  Yes -- as much as some folks may dislike hearing, sometimes it’s best to “play the percentages” -- running on third down from your own 47 with two minutes to go and your opponent having no time outs left was the right call.  I don’t care if Peyton Manning was the quarterback and the play call appeared to “take the ball out of” Manning’s hands. Despite being a sure-fire Hall of Famer after he retires, Manning had a touchdown lead, the game clock on his side, field position to his advantage, and more than a light breeze facing his 37-year-old surgically-repaired body late in a game after a long season of physical endurance. As great as he’s played all season, and as much as he has my vote for the NFL’s Most-Valuable Player, I recognize that Peyton Manning in 2013 isn’t Peyton Manning from 2009 or even 2006, and at that point of a game under those game and weather circumstances, Peyton Manning shouldn’t have to be “the one” to make “the play” that clinches the win.  Yes, the quarterback is the supposed to be the key to an offensive unit — the Broncos stimulated a national domino effect when they signed Manning as a free agent — but the quarterback is really just one of eleven men working together, and those ten other offensive players are hardly bystanders during crunch time.

Whether we agree with decision or result, the bottom line is that the Broncos needed to kill as much time off the clock as possible, in order to prevent Baltimore from having sufficient opportunity to score a tying touchdown. Running the ball was the right call for the circumstance. The problem was poor execution.

Hillman’s third and seven run was his fifth consecutive carry on the drive. He ran up the middle three times to gain 15 yards and once off left guard for a single yard before the two-minute warning. Running inside is a good idea, but Hillman’s gains were gradually less successful: five yards, eight yards, two yards, one yard, and finally, no gain.  Even though the Broncos needed to keep the clock running, Hillman was negating things by not running a bit more to the outside.  By staying inside, Hillman was running into contact much sooner, essentially running right into waiting arms of Baltimore defenders. Early contact leads to running plays ending early and early clock stoppages.  Yes, Denver definitely wanted the Ravens to burn their timeouts, but why rush it? The key is two-fold: eat time off the clock and avoid traffic.

Denver didn’t need Hillman to run a full sweep, nor did he need to run close to the sideline and risk being knocked out of bounds and another clock stoppage; he just needed to get a little outside either of his offensive tackles where the Ravens defense wasn’t stacked — that would’ve kept him running more before contact, the Ravens defense (already tired out by approximately 70 Denver offensive plays to that point) would’ve been forced to chase after him in order to tackle him.  If Hillman ran wide and turned up-field properly once he reached his right or left offensive tackle, he could’ve helped the Broncos kill much more than 45 seconds off the clock, regardless of how many yards he gained and regardless of gaining a first down.  Hell, I wouldn’t have cared at that point if Hillman tried his best Barry Sanders imitation and ran around in circles yelling “woo-woo-woo-woo-woo” like Curly from the Three Stooges... As long as he avoided Ravens tacklers and drained time off the clock. The Broncos were already near mid-field, so everything was all set up for Colquitt to punt and leave the Ravens in the shadow of their end zone with almost the entire length of the field to travel in less than a minute, as opposed to the 1:15 Denver left on the clock.

That’s how the game should’ve ended, and it didn’t.

Colquitt compounded Hillman’s mistake by only kicking a 30-yard punt, allowing the Ravens to start their scoring drive from their own 23, instead of inside their 10.  Colquitt punted five times on Saturday; four (including one in overtime) averaged almost 54 yards. The other punt, the most critical of the entire game, Colquitt’s fourth on the stat sheet, went for only 30.  Even with the wind in his face,  if Colquitt was slightly less-than average on that punt, the Ravens would’ve started their final drive of regulation from their five yard line.  At a time when the Broncos needed to put the Ravens in a suffocating and desperate situation, 18 yards of starting field position means a lot — especially in terms of what plays the Ravens offense ran.  On the very first play from his own 23, Flacco threw deep to tight end Dennis Pitta, but the pass went incomplete.

Such a play might not have been called if Flacco had to drop back into his own end zone. Flacco might’ve ran something more conservative.  That Flacco let it fly on first down should’ve been warning enough to every Broncos defensive back to line up in front of its own goal line, 70-75 yards away, like New York police officers surrounding the field at old Shea Stadium when the Beatles played in 1965 and 1966 — a human wall of uniformed men representing the point no other person shall cross.  There’s the zone defense, prevent zone defense, and the “hell no, you ain’t going there” zone defense, and the Broncos secondary was definitely in the wrong zone defense.  A Flacco run of seven yards and 24 seconds later, and the Broncos secondary paid dearly for being in the wrong zone defense. Jacoby Jones got behind safety Rahim Moore and caught the most stunning 70-yard touchdown pass in postseason history.

Eventually, the 2012 Broncos were history.

Yes, we could second-guess John Fox and Peyton Manning for several plays throughout the game, but the bottom line is that 35 points should’ve been more than enough for the Broncos to beat the Ravens, even with Manning throwing a pick-six on a deflected pass and fumbling what should’ve been overruled as a “Tuck Rule” incompletion during regulation.  Joe Flacco’s receivers -- particularly Jacoby Jones, Anquan Boldin and Torrey Smith -- were burning the Broncos secondary -- particularly Moore, Tony Carter, Champ Bailey and Jim Leonard — all game long.  As early as the Ravens first touchdown drive, it was clear that the Broncos defensive backs were overmatched by the faster and more physical Ravens receivers.  Speed kills, especially if you have a quarterback capable of vertical passing. Flacco is indeed such a quarterback, and the Broncos defense underestimated the Ravens passing attack all game long, the same way the Steelers defense did with the Broncos last year.

But understand me clearly: no matter how great or mediocre the quarterback is or isn’t, if a defensive secondary allows receivers to run free and wide-open, even the least accurate passer can complete enough passes to inflict serious damage. It’s the defensive front seven’s job to prevent quarterbacks from passing the ball. It’s the defensive secondary’s job to prevent completions.  Last year’s Mile-High goat was the Steelers secondary. This year’s goat is the Broncos secondary.  Even I was picking apart the Broncos secondary on television with my eyes, while talking with a friend on the phone for more than an hour and a half.  If I could spot the Broncos defensive weak spots from my sofa and telling my friend to pay attention on his own television, imagine what the Baltimore Ravens saw from field level.

The Broncos are now two-time AFC West champs and have almost all pieces in place for a solid championship run before Manning retires, but General Manager John Elway and Head Coach Fox need to fix their defensive secondary in they honestly expect to make it past the Divisional Playoff Round.

OTHER THOUGHTS ON THE 2013 NFL PLAYOFFS:
Is it any wonder why America’s students are so illiterate in math and science? Ray Lewis, the Ravens 17-year veteran and star linebacker, blubbered to ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio: “Nobody gave us a chance. Nobody believed in us.”  Doesn’t the first rule of doing science and mathematical analysis essentially teach us that we don’t draw conclusions without examining all sources of data?! Lewis gets a big fat red “F in my grade book.  Was Lewis sure nobody gave the Ravens a chance in Denver? How many people did Lewis personally survey before concluding nobody gave the Ravens a chance? Sorry, but it’s about time we take a stand and hold professional athletes accountable for their emotional hyperbole.

On a less frivolous note, did anyone notice that only two of the eight quarterbacks in last weekend’s divisional playoffs didn’t commit a turnover? Flacco and New England’s Tom Brady both avoided fumbling or throwing interceptions. They face off against each other in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game.

Speaking of interceptions and quarterbacks, did anyone notice that two quarterbacks threw pick-six interceptions? Manning and San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick both gave a touchdown to the opposing team. Manning is home for the winter, but Kaepernick plays against Atlanta in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game, against quarterback Matt Ryan, who threw two interceptions in the Falcons 30-28 win over Seattle.

Did anyone notice that a quarterback can throw multiple interceptions and still be on the winning team? Atlanta’s Matt Ryan threw two interceptions. The Falcons are hosting the NFC Championship Game. Repeat after me: TURNOVERS HAPPEN. TURNOVERS AREN’T ALWAYS FATAL TO A TEAM’S SUCCESS.

Did anyone really expect defense to rule Divisional Playoff Weekend? Four games produced 201 combined first downs, 3,598 total yards, 276 total points and 15 offensive touchdown plays of more than ten yards. Average team output: 25 first downs, 450 total yards, 34.5 points and two long touchdown scoring plays.

The game with the most long-yardage scoring plays (offensive, defensive and special teams combined)? Ravens-Broncos with nine touchdown plays of more than ten yards. Final score: Ravens 38, Broncos 35

The game with the most short-yardage scoring plays (offensive, defensive and special teams combined)? Texans-Patriots with six touchdown plays of less than ten yards. Final score: Patriots 41, Texans 28

Go figure...

The Ravens and Patriots meet again in the AFC Championship Game, the first next-year rematch in the AFC since the old Cleveland Browns (who became the Baltimore Ravens in 1996) met the Denver Broncos at the end of the 1986 and 1987 seasons. Both teams also met in the 1989 AFC Championship Game. The last time a similar rematch took place in the NFC? The Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers met each other at the end of the 1992, 1993 and 1994 seasons. The Cowboys and 49ers also met in NFC Championship Games at the end of the 1970, 1971 and 1981 seasons, and met in the divisional round at the end of the 1972 season. The Cowboys lead the post-season series 5-2.

Are championship game rematches rare?  In today’s era of parity, such rematches are very rare compared to past decades.  The first two NFL title games, in 1933 and 1934, pitted the New York Giants against the Chicago Bears (FYI: The Bears won the first matchup, 23-21, and the Giants won the rematch, 30-13, in the famous “Sneakers Game” at the old Polo Grounds).

During the 1950s, the Cleveland Browns and then-Los Angeles Rams met three times for the NFL title (1950-1951, 1955), the Browns and Detroit Lions met four times (1952-1954, 1957), and the Giants and old Baltimore Colts met twice (1958-1959).

During the 1960s, the Green Bay Packers met both the New York Giants (1961-1962) and the Dallas Cowboys twice (1966-1967) for NFL supremacy while the San Diego Chargers battled the old Houston Oilers (1960-1961) and Buffalo Bills (1964-1965) for the AFL title.

During the post-merger 1970s, Cowboys-49ers (1970-1971),  Rams-Vikings (1974 and 1976), Cowboys-Rams (1975 and 1978) and Cowboys-Vikings (1973 and 1977) dominated the NFC Championship Game, while Steelers-Raiders (1974-1976) and Steelers-Oilers (1978-1979) were the recurrent AFC title game battles.

Yet another interesting piece of trivia: 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh is the fourth head coach to coach a team in the NFC title game for the second year in a row to start his tenure. The previous three? Ray Malavasi (Rams, 1978-1979) George Seifert (49ers, 1989-1990) and Barry Switzer (Cowboys, 1994-1995). As for the AFC title game, three head coaches hold the distinction: John Madden (Raiders, 1969-1970), Don McCafferty (Colts, 1970-1971) and Rex Ryan (Jets, 2009-2010).

Speaking of the Harbaugh name, this is the second consecutive year that the brothers Jim (49ers) and John (Ravens) are coaching for the opportunity to coach their teams against each other in the Super Bowl, the first time brothers would coach against each other for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.  While this is Jim’s second chance at a Super Bowl berth as 49ers head coach, he played in the 1995 AFC Championship game, quarterbacking the Colts against the Steelers (the Steelers beat the Colts, but ultimately lost Super Bowl XXX to the Cowboys).  On the other hand, older brother John is coaching the Ravens in the AFC Title Game for the third time in five years (previously losing in 2008 and last year).

More interesting trivia: On Sunday, the Patriots will play in their seventh AFC Championship Game since 2001 and eighth during Bob Kraft’s ownership since 1995.  The Patriots are 6-1 so far in these games and 6-0 at home, the lone loss at Indianapolis to the Peyton Manning-led Colts in 2006.

Are seven conference title games the most for any team during any dozen-year period? NO! The old Cleveland Browns of post-World War II played in seven NFL title games during the 1950s (see above) and four All-American Football Conference (AAFC) title games prior to that (1946-1949). During a thirteen-year window, the Browns played in 11 title games and won seven titles (3 NFL, 4 AAFC). More astonishing was that for ten consecutive years (1946-1955), the Browns played in a league title game, winning seven times.  Talk about a sure thing. Talk about dominance.

The Patriots have never played in more than two consecutive title games.

More “modern” examples of teams appearing in consecutive league or conference title games:
The Giants of the 1950s and 1960s played for the NFL title six consecutive times and seven times during an eight season period (1956, 1958-1963), winning only one title (1956).

Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers played in three straight NFL title games twice (1960-1962 and 1965-1967), winning a total of five titles, including the first two Super Bowls.

Tom Landry’s Cowboys played in a total of twelve NFC or NFL title games during a 17-year stretch (1966-1967, 1970-1973, 1975, 1977-1978, 1980-1982), including four separate consecutive appearances, winning five NFC titles and two Super Bowls.

Under Bill Walsh and George Seifert, the 49ers played in nine NFC title games during a 14-year period (1981, 1983-1984, 1988-1990, 1992-1994), appearing consecutively three separate times, winning five NFC titles and five Super Bowls. Since the 1970 merger, the 49ers have played for a total of 14 Super Bowl berths during the past 42 seasons.

Whether coached by John Madden or Tom Flores, whether playing in Oakland or Los Angeles, the Raiders played for the AFL-AFC title ten times over a 17-year period (1967-1970, 1973-1977, 1980, 1983), including nine times over 11 seasons, winning a total of four titles and three Super Bowls.

The Steelers are now on their third era of contention: first under Chuck Noll (AFC title games in 1972, 1974-1976, 1978-1979 and 1984; four Super Bowl berths and wins in 1974-1975 and 1978-1979), next under Bill Cowher (AFC title games in 1994-1995, 1997, 2001 and 2004-2005; Super Bowl berths in 1995 and 2005; Super Bowl title in 2005), and now led by Mike Tomlin (AFC title games in 2008 and 2010, two Super Bowl berths and one Super Bowl title 2008). In case your abacus has worn out, that’s fifteen AFC title games in forty years, eight Super Bowl berths and six Super Bowl titles.

Let the debate begin about what represents a dynasty.

Prediction for Championship Sunday? Each game will involve a head coach named Harbaugh, Tim Tebow will be completely irrelevant, and the games should be fun to watch!

Sure, NOW the CTE researchers care about the living - Doc's bark for January 11, 2013

For those who did not watch yesterday's edition of ESPN's Outside the Lines, you missed a very valuable and noteworthy statement by Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at Boston University's School of Medicine.  During an interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schapp, Dr. McKee stated that perhaps the time has come for some form of medical testing of current players, while still alive, to determine if they are at risk of developing CTE or are indeed suffering from it. To my knowledge, and for the record, this is the very first time I've heard medical scientist associated with the Boston University research group publicly discuss studying the central nervous systems of the living as opposed to the deceased.

Perhaps the recent disclosure that the late Junior Seau's brain indeed had CTE influenced this public statement by Dr. McKee.  Albeit hardly surprising or unexpected, perhaps the harsh reality about Seau, a man who played linebacker for the better part of two decades without ever being diagnosed with a concussion, was the final straw in this never-ending debate about player safety in football.  As hopeful as I am that this is indeed the case and a good step forward in the NFL's evolution and sports medicine, I'm just a tad cynical.

Let me explain why...

On August 17, 2010 I contacted the Boston University research group, where my brain and spinal cord are registered to go after I kick the ol' bucket, and reached out to Dr. McKee after reading this news brief in the New York Daily News:
Boston University neuropathologist Ann McKee says the toxic proteins that form after brain trauma and lead to depression and dementia may also cause ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

My primary inquiry was to find out what the "research team" knew about the basis of this article and what exactly Dr. McKee knew that the rest of us didn't.  In case people forgot or didn't know, ALS was a research interest of mine during the mid-1980s while I was at the University of South Florida, studying biochemistry and the physical structure and behavior of proteins found in voluntary muscle. Given I have progressive muscle weakness in my legs and arms as my spinal issues worsen, and have been through my own gamut of medical tests and procedures, I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could. Needless to say, the response was less than satisfactory for me:

Dear Dr. Pushkin: Thanks for your questions. Here are our answers, for now. As you know, we are really trying to push this science forward and are actually exploring some of these avenues currently.
1.       All of the subjects identified in Dr. McKee’s paper were diagnosed post-mortem. Thus far, no tests in living patients, but we hope to expand to that sometime in the future.
2.       Currently there is no definitive diagnostic test in a living person.
3.       Dr. McKee identified the tau and TDP-43 using specific staining methods in the post-mortem brain and spinal cord tissue.
4.       At this point, we cannot determine age of onset through levels of these proteins. This may be difficult given the natural/normal presence of TDP-43 in the body for regular functioning, but it is definitely something we will consider.
5.       Thus far, no research specifically on these areas.

Okay... so the route to knowledge was still through the dead. Part of me accepted that. Part of me thought the science world could do better, and I replied back to the research group with my own suggestions:

I already assumed Dr. McKee identified the proteins by tissue staining methods.  What I’m interested in is the following:
Suppose she were to do a spinal tap on a live person and draw off a small sample of CSF [Cerebrospinal fluid].  Afterwards, if she can identify presence of either or both proteins by chemical/enzymatic means, she could radiolabel the proteins and study the new radioactive derivative’s half-life in a liquid scintillation counter.  From calculations, she should be able to determine how long those proteins might have been present in the CSF — i.e., she’d then know the approximate onset date of illness based on length of time proteins were present in CSF.

Make sense? In a more sophisticated way, she’d be carbon dating the proteins relative to how long they’ve been housed within a living patient.

If these proteins are naturally present in the body, let’s assume brain and spinal tissue, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re normally present in CSF, thus providing a possible medium for latent incubation and transport. In fact, these two proteins should not be present in CSF in a normal person.
Thanks in advance for Dr. McKee’s feedback. 

No one EVER responded back. Yes, what I've learned over the past couple of years is that the very people who want the brains and spinal cords of dead former football players are busy busy people with no time to waste with ideas of former football players whose brains may be scrambled eggs while everyone waits for us to die.  Yes, these people are busy busy and a little too arrogant and condescending for their own good.

I'm far from Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk, but I'm far from a dithering idiot drooling on a bib either.  I recently had a similar conversation with multiple colleagues and felt it necessary to point out that being a former football player and happening to use a wheelchair due to neurologically impairment should NOT be confused with stupidity.  Maybe this has never been an issue for you, but I've spent my entire adult life waiting for people to publicly acknowledge that I'm a highly intelligent person who knows what the hell I'm talking about and have very good and insightful ideas to offer.  Oh sure... I know plenty of people who will call me "smart" in private, but my intellect shouldn't be some dirty secret like bed wetting.  I have a freaking high IQ, three academic degrees, have published out my wazoo, have lectured around the world, and managed to teach chemistry and physics -- NOT TIDDLY-WINKS -- for 25 years! And yes... I expect proper recognition as being an intelligent and intellectually-capable human being, just like I give everyone else in my professional circles.

Anyway, let's fast-forward to just before Thanksgiving weekend 2012. HBO's Real Sports ran a segment on football concussions and ALS. Incredible. Powerful. Fascinating.  Also a little upsetting, because a non-medical member of the Boston University research team boldly proclaimed to HBO Sports' Bernie Goldberg that Boston University group has the ability to prove causality between current neurological disease and collegiate football, all with the intention of holding the NCAA financially liable. THIS was news to me! In barely two years, BU medical researchers have gone from studying the dead to now having a living breathing smoking gun to sue the NCAA for damages, damages to benefit the living, not those left behind by the dead? In the timeline of scientific progress, this is the equivalent to testing the Atomic Bomb and suddenly having Cold Fusion. Science doesn't work that fast, and if it did, it's reprehensible and unethical for the BU research team not to disseminate this information to the most important community of all -- all the current and former football players who have bequeathed their brains and spinal cords to BU's study!

If Ann McKee has been keeping important scientific knowledge and development of a viable diagnostic medical test under wraps in order to deceive former football players who are willing to contribute towards her research while she and her director, Dr. Robert C. Cantu, coordinate their media calendars, any positive accomplishment has been contaminated and compromised.  Worse, if the grand goal of BU's entire research agenda is to help their executive leader, Chris Nowinski, possessor of a bachelors degree in sociology from Harvard, grease the wheels for lottery jackpot-sized lawsuit against the NCAA, then the entire medical research program is undermined by major conflict of interest issues and has lost all credibility.

The ironic part is that a "diagnostic test for the living" is fairly simple now that Dr. McKee has presumably done all the pathology work on post-mortem brains and spinal cords -- at this point, all we need is an efficient and safe routine to perform spinal taps on large men and slightly modified analytical biochemical lab techniques.  Spinal taps yield CSF, which bathes our brains and spinal cords while we're alive. After death, things get a little more challenging since CSF could very well leave the body during rigor mortis. It's logistically impractical to harvest CSF immediately after death, even if everyone kicks the bucket outside the front door of Dr. McKee's laboratory. Are spinal taps routine? Not really, and they are very uncomfortable and unpleasant, but they contain the very proteins found in our brain and spinal cord tissues when affected by CTE, ALS and other deadly neurological diseases.

If indeed Dr. McKee and her BU colleagues have this test under development, this is clearly a big step forward towards addressing football safety and neurological injury issues.  But these people need to be more forthcoming with the public, especially all the men who have already played football or continue to play at the school, collegiate and professional levels. We lack sufficient transparency in our health care industry as it is.  We don't need the medical research community adding to it.

As for me, the BU folks are welcome to all the publicity and recognition they crave... BUT, I expect my public acknowledgment for contributing to the solution of a deadly problem, especially if Dr. McKee's technique employs any of my 2010 recommendations.  Treat me as a human being with an appropriate thank you, instead of treating me like a medical specimen in waiting.

An open letter to Tim Tebow from a fed-up Jets fan - Doc's Bark for December 30, 2012

Dear Tim Tebow:
As you prepare for what could be your final game in a New York Jets uniform, I think it's about time you started reflecting on the insights of your biggest critics.  The first thing you, as well as all of your surrogates and supporters, need to get through your heads is that criticism is NOT HATING. Only the most narrow-minded and backwards-thinking human can boil critique down to such dichotomous terms, and in fact represents the lowest form of adult cognition.  I guess former Harvard psychologist William G. Perry was right on the mark when he theorized that low-level adult thinking is perpetual adolescence. Therefore, the first and most-lasting advice I can give you and your legion of Tebowmaniacs is GROW UP and stop acting like life is a Middle School popularity contest.

I don't hate you.  I personally don't like you either. I'm frankly neutral and uninterested in you as a person or a football player. However, I am pretty damn sick and tired of hearing about you day after day on the radio, television and newspaper.  In a world and nation with so many problems, I shouldn't see your name or face on the front page of my daily newspaper.  The day you get equal billing with the fiscal cliff, Hurricane Sandy or the Sandy Hook shooting is a day I no longer take journalism seriously and a day you need to disappear from any national conversation.

I really hope I've reached my "rock bottom" when it comes to having any respect or giving you the benefit of the doubt, because both attributes have progressively sunk lower since the day the Jets and Denver Broncos discussed a trade for you.  From that day fast forwarding to today, let me tell you that every bit of grief and embarrassment you've endured is primarily your own making and well-deserved. Unlike the rest of the foolish masses who've bought your act hook, line and sinker, I see right through your act and hardly see you as an innocent victim of disrespect.  What was your sin? You came to New York to specifically compete for a job that wasn't yours. Oh, I know very well how Mark Sanchez struggled last season and how the Jets brain trust felt he needed solid pushing from a backup, but the job was always going to be his, and rightfully so.  Unless you can produce a league-certified contract between you and the Jets explicitly stating that you would be given the starting quarterback job upon a Sanchez implosion or benching, then you were clearly not his next-in-command and have no legitimate beef with your coaches. Plain and simple, you COVETED something of your neighbor that didn't belong to you, was never legally promised to you, and this does not reflect what any reasonable adult would classify as an act of "great friendship" or "professional support." You came to New York with the sole intention of taking away Sanchez's job, whether it was available or not, and you didn't care how you or your surrogates sabotaged Sanchez or the entire Jets season.  It was all about you, from the moment you had the option to choose New York over your hometown, Jacksonville, to having members of the media actively lobby for you.

And then, when Sanchez finally got benched, you pitched a fit because you were passed over by a third-stringer, Greg McElroy, for the starting job against San Diego.  Here's a little news flash for you: McElroy is a better quarterback than you.  He's demonstrated it in practice, film study, review of the playbook and position meetings. Playing quarterback - or "regular quarterback" as you call it - is more than just messing around for 55 minutes until you break down the other team's will while fans are chanting your name and the spotlight's bright. An NFL game is more than just the SportsCenter moments, and you continuously fail to grasp this, just like you continuously fail to grasp the playbook and the purpose of practice.  If you want coaches to believe in your ability to play a real 60-minute game, you need to  prove your worthiness in practice while game situations are simulated.

For you to cry foul is the height of hypocrisy. You leapfrogged Brady Quinn in Denver when you got your Machiavellian  opportunity last year in Denver.  Weren't you a third-stringer back then? Yes you were. Did you outplay Quinn in practice?  No you didn't. You were simply  handed the starting job as a means to appease your hoard of supporters.  Did the Broncos win with you as quarterback? Yes they did, several low-scoring games by close margins, until a three-game losing streak almost threw away the division title.  Did the Broncos win a wild card playoff game? Yes. So what? Did your statistics and quality of play earn any confidence from the front office and coaching staff? No, and now your former team appears headed towards a possible Super Bowl with Peyton Manning at quarterback, a 36-year-old man coming off four neck surgeries who is still a superior quarterback to you at even his worst physical health.

What this all boils down to is that for the first time in your life, you can't have your cake and eat it too, and at 250+ pounds, perhaps you should be stepping away from the desert cart if you seriously want to play quarterback in the #NFL. You were the young man who got to play high school football for a high school you didn't even attend.  Somehow your parents and supporters lobbied enough to get the state of Florida to change scholastic athletic rules just to allow you to play while being home-schooled.  Not only that, but when you didn't get to play quarterback right away, you managed to change from one high school team to another, and you were still being home-schooled.  It's a shame we're having this conversation in 2012 as opposed to 1990, when I was teaching chemistry and physics and coaching football in Bradenton, Florida, because I would've put my job on the line just to block every effort your family made to let you play football anywhere you weren't attending school.  Why? Because I don't believe any child or student should have their own special set of rules compared to the rest of the school population and community, and I firmly believe that if any young man doesn't think our school is good enough for his academic needs, then we're also not good enough for his athletic needs.  Never mind my questions of how you managed to meet the state requirement for having high school chemistry and physics (with lab components) in order to matriculate to the University of Florida after being home-schooled. I won't even bother to entertain the question of whether you have any legitimate academic preparation for the real world because it's clear you've been a mercenary to play football since at least age twelve.

But here we are, 2012- you're employed by the New York Jets to play whatever position the coaches tell you to play, and receive your paycheck from ownership.  If you're told to play the utility role of jack-of-all-trades, play it to your best effort and commitment. If the coaches honestly want you to play the backup quarterback position, then prove your worth by doing more than standing on the sidelines staring into space and holding your hands in your warmer pockets.  Yes, your disinterest and indifference shows loud and clear on the sidelines, and it has all season long.  You're completely disengaged mentally from the game, game planning, game adjustments, play charting and every other function a legitimate NFL quarterback performs on the sidelines during a game- and it shows every time you step out on the field.  I've counted at least three occasions during the first half of the season when you clearly seemed unprepared to call and run the play your coaches sent you into the huddle with as the quarterback, and it disrupts the huddle not to mention the flow of the game.  Is it all your fault? No, I am fully convinced the Jets have the wrong offensive coordinator, but he's still your coach and your job is to correctly follow his play call and lead you teammates on that play, and to date, you've been very ineffective in this expectation.  I don't know whether it's a physical thing or mental, but you clearly appear as someone who doesn't buy into what the coaches are doing and your heart clearly isn't into what you are expected to do. That's all on you, because you're being paid a fairly handsome salary to play football, and that's not a bad gig when the starting quarterback position was never legitimately available to you.  There are plenty of backup quarterbacks in the NFL who never step onto the field during an entire regular season, so already you were ahead of the game. Why did you have to exacerbate a circus-like situation by demanding more than you legitimately deserved? No matter what kind of spin control you and your surrogates present to the media, the fact is clear that you put yourself above your teammates for the sake of your own personal agenda, and THAT IS being a phony, hypocrite and fraud, Worse, it's more indicative of your true nature and reinforces the image of teenage boy whose parents lobbied to allow their home-schooled son play football at the high school of his choice without ever attending the school, as opposed to the young man who holds press conferences to tell the media how "excited" he is to be a part of the team and contribute any way he can.

I have spent the past 3-4 years saying you're a misplaced fullback or H-back and that you're better suited for those positions as opposed to quarterback, but now I can no longer give you the benefit of the doubt as a football player and must say you're completely unwelcome on any NFL team I would hypothetically coach or support.  I've read and listened to enough of your "self-defense" over the past several days and I'm fully convinced you're a bigger locker room cancer than any other player could be to an NFL team, and yes, you are a phony, fraud and hypocrite.  For a backup quarterback who clearly lacks the physical and mental skill development to play the position, I think you have way too much to say for your own good at his stage of your career.  If you honestly wanted to become a legitimate NFL quarterback, you would've begged to stay in Denver and learn everything you could for a couple of years backing up Peyton Manning, because the harsh reality is that you require more seasoning and development to play the position. You didn't want that. You simply wanted to play, so you came to New York and tried to impose your agenda, and now it's blown up on you. Maybe you'll go home to Jacksonville and succeed playing according to your paradigm in front of your family and fans. I seriously have my doubts as to how well you'll ultimately do, until you consistently demonstrate a capacity for intellectual growth as an NFL quarterback.

Do I look forward to seeing you leave the Jets once this stinker of a season ends? Yes and no. If you're going to remain stuck in "Timmy the 12-year-old" mode, then you can't leave fast enough for me. If you're honestly able to take a cold hard look at yourself in the mirror and assess yourself as a professional football player, perhaps you can accept yourself as part of the Jets backfield and running back rotation, which is where you're best-suited.  No one says you'll never throw an NFL pass again (I assume you've heard about the halfback option play?), but you're fooling yourself thinking you're just as much the starting quarterback of the New York Jets as Mark Sanchez is when you don't even do a fraction of the preparation work he does. There's more to being an NFL quarterback than what you think, and it's about time you grew up and paid attention to those responsibilities while everyone's paying attention to you.

Jets fans need to pause and reflect -- Doc's bark for Nov. 23, 2012

There's not much more to say that hasn't been said after Jets Nation vented its collective spleen while Gang Green got stuffed, roasted and carved by New England to the tune of 49-19 last night on prime time television.  We've tweeted our guts out, called in to join a still-ongoing bitch-a-thon on local sports radio stations, and stared at ESPN highlights over and over again like the Zapruder film, terribly ironic given yesterday was the 49th anniversary of JFK's assassination. But for all the wailing football fans and talking heads in the media are doing, I'm not hearing one iota of perspective among the emotional masses.

I know what many of you are probably thinking: Shut up, Dave... what the hell do you know about anything, much less professional football? You're just some idiot in wheelchair.

Well, if I'm an idiot in a wheelchair, what's Eric LeGrand? There! I can hit below the belt too, you know.  I don't care if it is Thanksgiving weekend... you can't have your cake and eat it too every time you want to create postulates to discredit anything I have to say. Either young Mr. LeGrand and I are both know-nothing idiots in wheelchairs, or we're both disabled human beings who became disabled as a consequence of playing football. I may not have played overly well during my day, but I actually know more about football than how to tie the laces of my cleats.

Don't mistake my admonishment for arrogance. I'm far from the smartest person on the planet, but I am blessed with a unique ability to gather, analyze and synthesize information while connecting it to the big picture and perspective, and I haven't heard much big picture thinking or perspective over the many hours of hysteria since last night's game kicked off.

Let's briefly talk about what we saw last night. Yes, the Jets stunk up the joint and were dead in the water before halftime. Most of us haven't seen a 35-point blitz in one quarter in a long time.  I share Al Michaels' personal memory of Super Bowl XXII when the Washington Redskins exploded for 35 points in what seemed like the blink of an eye and the Denver Broncos never knew what hit them. Last night was deja vu all over again for anyone with a head full of NFL (and AFL) history. That's what last night's second quarter was like, the train wreck of historical proportions you didn't realize was instantaneously happening before your very eyes.

Anyone who's played organized football at any level has been on the right and wrong end of such games... it's simply part of the law of averages.  Those games really aren't laughers to the team on the receiving end of a big-time butt kicking (see 2010, Patriots 45, Jets 3), or epic collapse. Last night NBC reminded us all about the great comebacks from 35-3 by the 1992 Buffalo Bills in a wild card playoff game against the Houston Oilers (Bill Belichick's personal justification for running up scores)  and the Jets own Miracle in the Meadowlands in 2000, coming all the way back from down 30-7 in the fourth quarter to beat the Miami Dolphins 40-37 in overtime at almost 2:00am. As we all know, I wore the uniform of the Temple Owls and Tampa Bay Buccaneers many years ago (queue in laugh track), so losing games by 30 or more points was pretty routine for me, and unfortunately, you can only play William and Mary so many times in order to see things from the brighter side of the scoreboard.

Do 49-19 losses bug me? Yeah... especially when the game matters, especially when my team losses 49-19 with a still-existing chance of making a wild card berth, especially when my team has already lost 34-0, 30-9 and 28-7 this season. Too many stinkers like this gives me indigestion, no matter what's on the dinner menu.

But what bugged me most was the cruel, uninformed, snarky, and disrespectful carrying on by my fellow Jets fans, members of the media and members of the football fraternity.  In fact, I'll go as far as saying that I haven't been as turned off my some people's comments since the masses ganged up on Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler during the 2010 NFC Championship Game when he went down with a knee injury that couldn't be treated without complicating his Type I Diabetes.  In short, I was a little ashamed by many of the comments many folks were tweeting and saying on radio, just like I was back in January 2011.

So how do we turn last night's Jets debacle into a teachable moment so we can all grow and learn from this as vested fans and supporters?

The first thing we can do is start learning how to use vocabulary properly.  Without calling out specific members of the media, one cannot call the Jets an "embarrassment" and "pretenders" in the same sentence.  These are two distinctly different words and they have two completely different meanings in the context of NFL parity.

To simplify things, there are four possible adjective categories one can use to describe an NFL team: dynastic, contender, pretender or embarrassment.  Here's a simple rule-of-thumb to follow when you use these terms:

1. A dynastic team is one that routinely wins NFL titles during an extended number of years, like an entire decade (see the 1960s Green Bay Packers, 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers and 1980s San Francisco 49ers).

2. A contender, or contending team is one that routinely wins their division during an extended number of years and at least plays in as many conference championship games (see the Dallas Cowboys of 1966-1982, the Oakland Raiders of 1967-1983, the Minnesota Vikings of 1969-1980, the Buffalo Bills of 1988-1999, and the New England Patriots since 1994).

3. A pretender is a team that routinely finishes at or above .500 during an extended number of years, occasionally making the playoffs, possibly even winning their division every now and then, and could go far if planets are aligned just right (see the New York Jets since 1997).

4. An embarrassment is a team that routinely finishes well below .500 during an extended number of years, where .500 is a very exceptional season and a playoff berth is a miracle (see the New Orleans Saints of 1967-1985, Tampa Bay Buccaneers of 1983-1996, and the Oakland Raiders since 2003).

Okay? Got it? Good.  Now, let's take a breath and look at our Jets with a critical and rational eye. For those carrying on that the 2012 Jets are the most embarrassing in franchise history, I should remind you that this franchise has been playing since 1960 when it was the AFL's New York Titans, a team that essentially went bankrupt under owner Harry Wismer. 

4-7 is embarrassing? 4-7 is lousy. Embarrassing is a different level of lousy. What about the 4-28 Rich Kotite era of 1995-1996, piggybacking the Fake Spike collapse of 1994 under Pete Carroll? What about the 9-33 Jets of 1975-1977 under the leadership of Charley Winner, Lou Holtz and Walt Michaels? I appreciate that many Jets fans think Super Bowl III and 1968 was as long ago as the Fall of Rome and so many young fans today feel personally persecuted for still waiting for a sniff of a Jets Super Bowl since the day Bill Parcells arrived at the old Hofstra facility, but you guys really have no idea what "bad old days" really mean in the history of this franchise.

Yes, this season has been a major letdown for Jets Nation and at times painful to watch, but having watched this team since 1966-1967, through great seasons and absolutely awful, and being on borrowed time with a morphine pump surgically implanted in my belly, I'm actually just happy to watch another season, even this 4-7 slop.  You bitch about when the Jets are going to make it back to the Super Bowl while I don't expect to live long enough to see a Super Bowl played in New Jersey. It's all relative, folks; get a damn grip on yourselves and smell some reality.

Fact: the 2012 Jets are having a very sub-par season in many respects. Fact: compared to the Patriots, the Jets are big-time pretenders, even with back-to-back AFC Championship Game appearances in 2009 and 2010. Fact: the Jets can really embarrass themselves on and off the field. Fact: the Jets are NOT an embarrassing football team.  This is a team that beat the Colts 35-9, hung 48 points on the Bills, and came close to upsetting the Texans at home and the Patriots on the road. Yes, this is also a team that has lost three home games to the 49ers, Dolphins and Patriots to the tune of 113-28. Hello?! When the Jets are going good, they can be very good, and when they're going bad, they go bad big.  No matter how you slice it, that's a sure sign of a very mediocre and maddingly inconsistent team, just like the other 16 teams that were at, just above or just below .500 going into Thanksgiving weekend. That's parity. Has the bottom fallen out on this team? Not if there's better than a cockeyed chance they can run the table and finish 9-7 in spite of themselves.

Fact: since the great Parcells graced Jets Nation with his presence in 1997, the Jets are an overall 132-121 with seven playoff berths, two AFC East crowns and three trips to the AFC Championship Game (1998, 2009-2010). Add in the 7-7 postseason record and the Jets are 139-128 since the stench of the Kotite era was removed. You know what that works out to, on average, for almost sixteen seasons? 9-7.  Yes, for all the physically-present head coaches the Jets have had -- Parcells, Al Groh, Herm Edwards, Eric Mangini and Rex Ryan -- and big-name stars on the roster, the Jets are basically a 9-7 team that makes the playoffs every few seasons and gives fans some added thrills to break the monotony.  Compared to the dark days of 1975-1977 and 1995-1996 (neither period representative of years in endless oblivion like other well-known and long-time NFL losers), sixteen years of "better than average" is pretty okay.  Compared to NFL organizations that are truly contenders or potential dynasties, the Jets have a long way to go before results back up constant talking. Think about it: since 1994, Bob Kraft's Patriots have six Super Bowl appearances, winning three, and that's on top of thirteen AFC East titles. Folks, the Patriots are what a contender looks like. The Jets are not. The Jets are a pretender unable to make the leap to contender status.

How do the Jets make that leap from sixteen years (or perhaps even four decades) of being a pretender to a sustained run as a bonafide NFL contender? Change ownership? Change the front office? Change the head coach? Change the coaching staff? Change the quarterback? Change the entire roster? Relocation to the NFC? All of the above? None of the above?

How about changing the overall perspective about the organization? Yes, more than forcing Woody Johnson to sell the team to someone less distracted by GOP politics, replacing Mike Tannenbaum as GM, Rex Ryan as head coach, or Mark Sanchez as quarterback, or any other minor move or major overhaul, the entire Jets organization needs to take a long hard collective look in the mirror and ask "what kind of team do we want to be?"

The Jets can't be the Florham Park Patriots, or the Green Giants, or any other knock-off version of a team that knocked everyone's socks off for one magical season or one dominant decade.  The Jets have spent too many years trying to be Parcells' old Giants or Belichick's Patriots, or the 1985 Bears, and it's simply not working.  Hell, the Jets can't even figure out a way to become the reincarnation of Weeb Ewbank's 1968 Jets, and for good reason... those teams already existed and are now part of past history! When Rex Ryan became head coach in 2009, one of his first goals was to make sure his players all knew how to play like Jets, but Rex never really explained what a Jet was supposed to play like, so this entire roster is perpetually trying to define itself and its style as a knock-off of other teams, leaving everyone in an identity crisis.

As I've written before, there's a lack of vision, or as we might say in the academic world, the Jets are in ontological and epistemological crisis. I'm still waiting for Rex Ryan to paint a verbal picture of what a truly great Jets performance looks like beyond the final score and how many busted up bodies are in the opposing training room.  How many times have we heard Rex say "we'll take it" even though his supposedly vaunted defense gave up 200 yards rushing or 400 yards passing, or the offense barely showed a pulse? Sure, you can win ugly; Herm Edwards loved winning games "Shreck style", but every head coach should have his "perfect" game within his thought process, no differently than master chefs envision the prefect menu item or conductors envision the perfect symphony.

I frankly don't care if the Jets ideally see themselves as having a suffocating defense, or a bombs-away passing attack, or a meat-grinder run-oriented offense. I don't care if the Jets want to win every game 45-42, 10-7 or 52-9, but if they know what an ideal Jets game looks like, then they need to build their team accordingly. Have a vision. Articulate the vision. Create an identity. Build a team that matches the identity and stick with that core essence for several years and see how it progresses. You can't be the '85 Bears reincarnated one year, Ground and Pound the next, then Air Coryell the third. Even the old Soviet Union had five-year plans! The general manager, head coach, coaching staff and entire team roster need to consistently match the team vision and identity.  It's like being a salesperson -- if you don't believe in the product or its value, you'll never sell it.

Should Mike Tannenbaum be fired as GM? Perhaps the time has come for a change, but it all depends on the organizational vision and identity.  Tannenbaum might very well be the right GM if he's in sync with the vision, but we don't know because Tannenbaum seems to be making too many personnel moves based on coupon clipping theory rather than what it takes to build a genuine NFL contender.

The same is true for Rex Ryan as head coach. If the Jets had a comprehensive vision besides "find a way to win more games than the Patriots or Giants do", perhaps Rex might be someone who can guide the team as long as Chuck Noll did with the Steelers, or Tom Landry did with the Cowboys, or Don Shula did with the Dolphins, but we don't know, because Rex's too obsessed trying to compete with his father's legacy as defensive coordinator of the 1985 Bears as well as the number of Super Bowl rings Bill Belichick owns. If the Jets can have real stability under Rex and make the leap to contender status, that would be very preferable, but there are times Rex seems befuddled at how to be the voice and face of an NFL franchise.  Just like Tannenbaum, if Rex can't develop or articulate a vision, much less put one into action, then he should be fired.

What about Mark Sanchez? What about him?! I haven't seen a Jets fan base so eager to chase a quarterback out of town since the days of Richard Todd, and don't think there aren't some very eerie parallels between these two franchise players within the annals of Jets history. Just a few hours ago, I heard one ESPN bloviator tell another "I really wanted to see the Jets give Sanchez one game, all to himself, without any Tebow substitutions or interruptions, so we could see what Sanchez can really do.  Now we see. He lost by 30 points. Get him out of there and put in Tebow."

REALLY? Sanchez deserved one such game, after ten weeks of having his entire 2012 season disrupted by Tim Tebow and his legion of fanatical supporters, and that's his final trial to prove his worth as an NFL quarterback?  How did we get from ten weeks of "oh, c'mon... just give Tebow a couple of series. Let him play! Let him show what he can do!" to a week 11 ultimatum for the Jets franchise quarterback?  How stupid have we all become?! For ten weeks, every misinformed fan and media member begged for Tebow to get his fair chance, and now the same people are willing to hand the keys to the entire offense over to a fullback masquerading as quarterback with no need for an audition anymore?! I hate to break the news to everyone yet again, but Tim Tebow is NOT a legitimate NFL quarterback with his current physical size, muscular bulk and grasp of an offensive playbook, and if the Jets are going to hand the full-time reigns over to anyone other than Sanchez, it should be Greg McElroy, who has the right physical stature and level of scheme comprehension.

Last night's interception? From my view of the play it looked like Jeremy Kerley cut his route too wide as Sanchez committed to throw the pass into soft safety coverage. The fumble? Busted plays happen no matter how many years experience a quarterback has, and Sanchez had the presence of mind to slide to the ground once he realized the play was going nowhere. Sliding into Brandon Moore's ass was more due to Moore being pushed backwards by Vince Wilfork than Sanchez looking for an inappropriate place to bury his head.

And while we're on the subject of fumbling, did anyone pay attention to how hard the Patriots defensive players were smacking Jets ball carriers? You get popped like Sanchez, Joe McKnight and Shonn Greene got popped last night, you'd lose your grip on the ball too, if only to reach and see if your teeth are still in your mouth.

But let's look at things more fundamentally... no one trusts Sanchez as quarterback... not the fans, coaches, owner, or members of the media. Don't tell me he's had almost four years to demonstrate how lousy he is... fans were calling for his benching by his fourth NFL game, a 24-10 loss at New Orleans, the first loss of the 2009 season after a 3-0 start, where he committed four turnovers. Oh, and it got worse as the bonus baby rookie, trying to play NFL quarterback in what really should've been his junior year at USC, committed six more turnovers two weeks later in a 16-13 overtime loss at home to the Bills, and three more a month later in a 24-22 loss at home to Jacksonville, and five more a week after that in a 31-14 loss at New England.

And let's not forget Hot dog-gate during the final minutes of a 38-0 week 7 win at Oakland. 

Everyone's fed up and making final calls for his head on Thanksgiving 2012?! You were all doing the same damn thing by Thanksgiving 2009! If Sanchez is a mess at quarterback, it's not anywhere near of his own doing.  For all the mistakes and dumb things a kid in his early 20s has done in four years calling signals behind center, eating junk food on the bench, giving lame press conferences, and dating too many celebrities, we, as Jets Nation, have inflicted far more damage than he has!

The Jets invested a top-five draft pick and a lot of money in him and he's yet to enjoy a genuinely full opportunity to mature and develop into the franchise NFL quarterback he was expected to become.  Think about it... by Thanksgiving 2009 this kid's head was already screwed up with fans screaming for his head and his coaches forcing him to wear color-coded wrist bands and deal with all sorts of stupid word-association games in order to avoid mistakes.  AVOID MISTAKES?! Rookies are supposed to make mistakes, even highly drafted and well-paid ones. 

He was a kid, for heavens sake! A mere puppy! He still is! My mustache is almost old enough to be his father... we don't fully grasp how young he really is, especially coming out of college two years too early. You can't tell a kid to play quarterback like it's defensive driving school. That screws his head up and makes him afraid. Fear of failure has a warped way of manifesting itself by causing a series of mistakes like uncontrollable hiccups or flatulence.  It's a wonder being the Jets starting quarterback hasn't given Sanchez a permanent case of irritable bowel syndrome.

Has Sanchez been coddled?  Maybe yes. maybe no. Some fans and media members think Sanchez hasn't been challenged for his job security. Maybe that's the case, but maybe not having a legitimate back-up who can take away his job has created terror instead of complacency.  If you know you're left holding the bag at quarterback and there's no one to bail you out, no Don Strock to your David Woodley moments, that's not overly comfortable either. You don't have a choice but to keep strapping on your helmet and taking your lumps for the team, over and over again.  You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.  If you can't comprehend how Sanchez may feel between a rock and a hard place as quarterback of an offense that resembles a stripped-down Buick, think about how screwed the average adult is dealing with a mother-in-law.

How is a mother-in-law a metaphor for Sanchez's dilemma? When I was married I couldn't stand my mother-in-law (I still can't, by the way, and I haven't seen the woman in almost four years), and my wife would threaten me before every family gathering if I dared say anything nasty to her mother, no matter how many insulting things the woman publicly said about me or my own family. Well, if you were raised like I was, your mother taught you that if you don't have anything nice to say about someone, keep your mouth shut.  Well, without fail, every time my wife and I would return home from a family gathering, she'd scream at me "why won't you talk with my mother?!" Here I am, trying to be the polite person my mother raised me to be and avoid letting my mouth get me into trouble among a bunch of Nussbaums, and my wife is pissed because I opted not to engage with a woman I absolutely despised. THAT'S what damned if you do, damned if you don't looks like! THAT'S what Mark Sanchez has to deal with as the starting quarterback of the New York Jets!

No one besides Rex Ryan and his big mouth had any illusions that the 2009 Jets were anything close to a Super Bowl contender. Most folks, and we can all go back and look it up, were fully prepared for and expected an 8-8 season as the Jets rebuilt their offense with Sanchez after Brett Favre and 2008 blew up on everyone. 9-7 was a very pleasant surprise and making it to the AFC Championship Game in Indianapolis was icing on the cake with such a young and inexperienced quarterback.

Here we are, three years later, and everyone's still freaking out that Sanchez makes mistakes, often the same ones over and over again.  Well... so does Eli Manning every now and then, even with two Super Bowl titles and MVP awards, and so does Tony Romo in Dallas, and Phillip Rivers in San Diego, and Jay Cutler in Chicago, and Ryan Fitzpatrick in Buffalo. When is it going to be Tebow Time in those cities? The great Peyton Manning still throws interceptions, be it in Indianapolis or Denver. He even throws a pick-six every now and then. Drew Brees of the Saints throws his fair share of interceptions too. Matthew Stafford in Detroit completed only 31 of 61 passes yesterday in an overtime loss to Houston. That's a 50.8 completion percentage. Where are the Lions fans calling for Tebow to replace him? Atlanta's Matt Ryan threw five interceptions last week against Arizona. Why aren't Falcons fans calling for his benching and begging for a trade for Tebow? Quarterbacks make mistakes, even the great or elite ones, all without the existence of one Timothy Richard Tebow waiting in the wings like some vulture.

Joe Namath, the greatest quarterback in Jets history, had a lifetime completion percentage of barely 50 percent during his thirteen-year AFL-NFL career. He threw more interceptions than touchdowns.  In fact, during the Jets 1968 Super Bowl season, Namath completed 49.2 percent of his passes, throwing 17 interceptions against 15 touchdowns.  On four occasions, Namath threw two or more interceptions. Twice he threw five interceptions, in losses to 1-12-1 Buffalo and 5-9 Denver.  Did the Jets bench Namath? No, despite defensive coordinator Walt Michaels wanting to kill him a few times.  And the Jets won the Super Bowl that season.

How did Namath's rookie season, 1965, go? The Jets went 5-8-1 and Namath completed 48.2 percent of his passes (18 TD, 15 INT) on the way to being AFL Rookie of the Year.  1966? 6-6-2, 49.3 completion percentage, 19 TD, 27 INT. 1967? 8-5-1, 52.5 completion percentage, 26 TD, 28 INT.

What do we see, boys and girls? The Jets let Namath play quarterback, grow into the position, make his mistakes and not play in fear.  Did Joe Willie give his coaches plenty of agita in the process? Yes, he did, but he also became the first quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards in a single season (14 games back then) and the Jets won a Super Bowl.  In four years, Namath threw 1,692 passes, barely completed half of them, and tossed 87 interceptions along the way to a Super Bowl title. The Jets won 30 regular season games during his first four seasons. Do the math... one glorious championship season included, the Jets were approximately 8-6 on average during those first four seasons. What a coincidence! 8-6 for a 14-game regular season is very similar to 9-7 for a 16-game season. The Jets weren't some overlooked AFL dynasty during Joe Willie's early years. They needed to take a leap up from pretender to contender, which they basically did for one special season.

Sanchez has thrown 1,754 passes, completing more than half of them, with 61 interceptions.  The Jets have won 32 regular season games during Sanchez's tenure, which averages out to 8-8 and pretender yet to be contender status.  If you toss in fumbles and any other blunders, the only major difference between the Jets during Namath's first four years and the Jets during Sanchez's is Super Bowl III. The 1960s were a different time. Perhaps Sanchez needs 5-6 years to grow into where Broadway Joe was by Super Bowl III? But we don't give Sanchez enough time to test that theory, because we have no patience with learning curves to begin with.

Ever since Joe Willie left the Jets in 1977, no matter who's the head coach or quarterback, the mantra has been don't screw anything up... just go out and win like Joe did. What has been the result? A bunch of 8-8 and 9-7 seasons sprinkled with some 4-12, 6-10, 11-5 and a heap of headcase quarterbacks who couldn't live up to impossible expectations... and we're doing it to Mark Sanchez too! When do we stop the madness and break this ridiculous cycle, especially since Joe Namath was hardly the standard for quarterbacking efficiency to begin with?!  Even if Sanchez gets benched for Tebow, how long will it be before Jets Nation turns Tebow into a headcase? Gunslingers, perpetual scramblers and game managers can all end up seriously neurotic trying to please our fan base.

I can imagine it now... Rex Ryan and the Jets brain trust finally relent and give the fans what they've called for, Tebow starting at quarterback, perhaps the regular season home finale, a Sunday night affair December 23rd against San Diego.  Tebow runs around aimlessly for 58 minutes, completing a mere two passes all night to Jets players and six to Chargers defensive players.  Somehow the Jets trail by eight at the two-minute warning, Tebow pulls a rabbit out of his helmet with a last-play touchdown scramble, then gets sacked on the two-point conversion attempt and the Jets lose. How do his fans and supporters react? Oh, he almost did it! He kept us in position to win the whole night and almost won it on the power of his legs and the spirit of Christ in his soul.

Excuse me while I take a moment to hypothetically vomit my guts out... You and I all know that if Tebow's interceptions outnumber completions by a 3:1 ratio, we're all going to beg for an atheist who can throw to the correct colored jerseys ASAP! Two completions and six picks will not -- and should not -- earn Tebow, or any supposed savior, the benefit of the doubt or another start as the Jets quarterback, be it running a pro-style or wildcat offense.

One last dagger at Tebowmania... he reportedly had two broken ribs suffered against Seattle and couldn't even throw a pass last night, but he was the active back-up quarterback and in uniform on the sidelines while a perfectly healthy McElroy wasn't.  After the game, Tebow, according to ESPN's Sal Paolantonio, was tossing passes right-handed to a young boy from Jacksonville attending the game as part of the Make-a-Wish Foundation. In the locker room, Tebow told reporters that he wanted to be available "in case there was an emergency and he was needed." Oh really?! What would've constituted an "emergency" -- Sanchez suffering an injury slamming his head into Brandon Moore's tuchus? Sanchez tossing three or four interceptions? The Jets being down by thirty points at halftime? Woody Johnson receiving an urgent telegram from the Easter Bunny?!

Or is Tebow such a narcissist that he "talked" his way into being dressed and active for the sake of appearance and enhancing his "brand" on NBC's prime-time coverage and with little sick kids from Florida? I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'll take a bumbling Sanchez who gives it his all, mistakes and all, for 60 minutes over Tebow wasting 58 minutes and waiting for the two-minute warning so he can save the day like Mighty Mouse (see Andy Kaufman's 1975 debut on "Saturday Night Live") and have his "SportsCenter moment."

I've questioned his motives for refusing to see himself as anything other than a starting quarterback in the NFL, for "agreeing" to a trade to New York so he could back-up "a great friend" in Sanchez while sharks circled Sanchez after last season's collapse, and for maintaining publicly how he's "always competing" every day with the Jets. Now I must raise the toughest question of all: did Tebow misrepresent a rib injury and put his own interests, persona and agenda ahead of a properly-set team roster last night by taking a spot better suited with McElroy active?  If that's the case, and if I was calling the shots with the Jets, Tebow would be immediately released and his contract voided for violation of team and league policy, and Tannenbaum, Ryan and the entire Jets coaching staff would be terminated effective six hours after the final gun of the 2012 season sounded. Period. Exclamation point. End of discussion. Let Tebow hire the NFLPA to fight for his severance, and let Tannenbaum, Ryan and the rest of the coaches consult attorneys if they think they're wrongfully terminated.

If "Play like a Jet" means the logo on the helmet takes precedent over the names on the back of jerseys or lockers, then manipulating a roster to put the team at disadvantage for the sake of an injured player's public image is an absolutely inexcusable and intolerable offense.

This finally leads me to the most important and potentially volatile issue facing the Jets as 2012 sets the stage for 2013.  If you look at the roster, the Jets have a few over-paid and under-performing players beyond what anyone thinks of Sanchez. Such players eat up valuable salary-cap space and force Tannenbaum and Ryan to fill slots with Wal-Mart quality talent, and it's undermining the team's overall depth, strength, stamina and performance.  Whether fans and media members want to accept it or not, Darrelle Revis and Santonio Holmes become salary-cap liabilities coming back from season-ending injuries, especially if Revis plans to stage yet another hold-out to hold Woody Johnson's money hostage.  As I've written before with his 2010 hold-out, the quest to be the highest-paid defensive player, even by a mere penny, means Revis cares more about his own financial portfolio and ego than ever bringing a Lombardi trophy to MetLife Stadium draped in Jet green and white. All those millions Revis and his agents strong-arm for him are millions the Jets can't use to sign other great talents, on offense and defense, to free agent contracts or contract extensions, and that's how a team in the salary-cap era fails to maintain roster stability and build a contender. $16M to Revis, and $10M to Holmes leaves any GM only $100M to put together the best possible 53-man roster.  Take away $8M for Sanchez, a few more millions for center Nick Mangold, Tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, tight end Dustin Keller, linebacker David Harris, cornerback Antonio Cromartie, safeties Le Ron Landry and Yeremiah Bell and perhaps a few other starters, and before you know it, the poor GM is trying to find starting right tackles and third-down pass rushing specialists for the league minimum.  Add that all up and that's how a salary cap of $125M or so gets you 8-8 or 9-7 year after year, if you're lucky.

The Jets have already let some talented players leave, post-injury or not, simply because the players over-inflated their price tags... Leon Washington, Alan Faneca, Pete Kendall, Brad Smith, Thomas Jones, Braylon Edwards, Jay Feely... we often overlook how valuable role players are on an NFL roster, and so do some of those role players in their personal quest for top dollar.  Many decades ago, Branch Ricky, then the GM of the Pittsburgh Pirates, offered a pay cut to perennial National League home run champ and future hall of famer Ralph Kiner on the basis of "we're a last-place team with or without you, big paycheck or small."  As great a talent as Revis is, the Jets brain trust needs to ask itself if Revis at $16M is really worth it if the team is basically mediocre with or without him.  Since being drafted in 2007, the Jets are 4-12, 9-7, 9-7, 11-5, and 8-8 with him (give or take a missed game or two for a tweaked hamstring), and 3-6 without him since his week 3 knee injury. 41-39 with a healthy Revis the first five seasons. $16M for a cornerback, granted one of the best, and barely better than .500? Is he really worth it, considering how well the Jets defensive secondary has played without him so far this year? I'm not saying force Revis to accept a pay cut all the way down to $1M or $2M next year, or even release him, but sit down and have an honest discussion with him about reality, team economics and the team's overall performance since he's been drafted.  Coming off reconstructive knee surgery, Revis can't hold the team financial hostage. Just like Tebow and being suited up last night when reportedly unable to play, no single player can put himself above the team if winning a Super Bowl is the primary goal.  53 men have to learn how to work together physically, intellectually, economically and socially, or else they can forget ever winning one Super Bowl title, much less several en route to becoming a dynasty. Revis, Holmes, Tebow and everyone else with an image-related agenda needs to face the music and accept that this is the New York Jets, in quest of returning to the Super Bowl and winning for the first time since January 1969, not the New York Revises, Holmeses or Tebows. Do these guys really want to be remembered as champions, with shiny rings and legacies to last a lifetime, or do they want to suck as many dollars away from the rest of their teammates for their own personal wealth? It's a pretty basic question with a fairly simple answer, even in this era of multi-million-dollar salaries.

At the end of last season's collapse, Rex Ryan said the Jets all needed to do some soul searching in order to recommit to winning in 2012.  Even if all things break just right the next five weeks, the Jets will still only be a 9-7 team, hardly the kind of record Super Bowl champions regularly have, so it's clear there's still a lot more soul searching to do.  But this time the soul searching needs to be deep beneath the surface and utilize every physical sense, not just speech.

We always talk about the heart of champions and the souls of teams.  Based on what we're all seeing so far in 2012, all of Jets Nation -- ownership, front office, coaches, players, fans and media pundits -- need to relocate the true heart and soul necessary for the Jets to ever have all the right parts and wherewithal to be the champions everyone keeps yammering about.  If becoming a champion is the goal, you need to play like a 12-4 team, not just talk like one. Talking like a 12-4 team when you're scuffling to finish 9-7 doesn't make you a 12-4 team, no matter how much you believe a championship is possible. Eventually every team has to shut up and simply play football, assuming the team -- and its supporters -- knows what playing winning football looks like.

One real Turkey of Pigskin Analysis - Doc's bark for November 20, 2012

Thanksgiving approaches while football and culinary gluttons prepare to enter the land of Gobble-gobbelopolis, and I'm just as unable to get my head around this football season going into the end of November as I was back in the beginning of September. Wonders never cease to amaze me as the Twitterverse is all atwitter with football fans prognosticating college rankings, bowl matchups, and wild card chances for their favorite Division I-A (er... FBS... or is it BCS?) or NFL teams.  I typically advise football fans not to worry about postseason scenarios until at least midseason, but even at this point of autumn I have no clue how things may shake out.  Is this all due to parity, convoluted overtime rules, over-emphasis on player safety, under-emphasis on player fundamentals, the cosmic randomness of our galaxy, or some other silly notion on par with Sabermetrics in baseball?

Beats me, but each passing weekend convinces me more and more that football seasons are getting stranger and stranger.

Take Saturday's NCAA football action as evidence Earth's axis might be tilted a bit more than usual.  In Exhibit A, I present to you this final score from West Point: Temple 63, Army 32.  Uh huh! Uh huh! Everyone not consuming hallucinogens knows Temple football teams don't score 63 points in a single game. Heck! Sometimes Temple football teams don't score 63 points in a month! But there it was, thanks to 351 yards and seven rushing touchdowns by Montel Harris, the Temple Owls football team imitated the Temple basketball team. 

In fact, the Temple-Army game was one of twelve games played on Saturday that seemed more like lopsided basketball games. Twelve different teams scored at least 50 points, and among them three topped 60 (Temple, Clemson in beating North Carolina State 62-48, Oregon State in beating Cal 62-14) and one topped 70 (Morehead State beat Valparaiso 76-24). Topping 70 actually isn't so unique anymore, since Oregon manages that feat a couple of times each season, but Oregon didn't even top 20 this weekend, falling in overtime to Stanford 17-14, an absolute scoring drought compared to all the points-o-plenty from this weekend's action.

The Clemson-NC State game led the pack on games completely devoid of defense.  Of the twelve teams topping the 50-point plateau Saturday, four actually surrendered more than thirty points, most notably Oklahoma which sqeaked by West Virginia 50-49. 50-49 is not what people expect for Sooners-Mountaineers.  50-49 is what we expect when Penn and Princeton get together at the Palestra for an Ivy League hoops battle.

By comparison, Exhibit B provides us nine NCAA Men's basketball games from Saturday where at least one team failed to score 50 points.  All nine teams lost their games, the worst performance being Mercer, scoring a mere 36 losing by 26 to the University of Illinois-Chicago.

When did college football games start having basketball scores? I can't wait to see some of these defensive stalwarts (ha) in a bowl game in six weeks.  Can you imagine two of these programs getting together and fans throwing toilet paper streamers from the stands after the first touchdown is scored, like they do at basketball games? People complain that the NFL has become too much of a passing league due to rules progressively favoring quarterbacks and receivers, but I beg to differ... the NFL has become a passing league because too many defensive players never learned how to master tackling in college.  Watch any Big-12 football game! You'll see what I mean.  Heck! Watch the replay of Saturday's Temple-Army game.  If the Pentagon trained soldiers the way Army defenders slowed down Montel Harris, we would've surrendered to Iraq years ago.

Let's take a look at Exhibit C, the NFL regular season as week 11 nears its conclusion.  Wasn't it only a few weeks ago when fans and pundits were lamenting how seemingly superior the NFC was to the AFC based on teams with winning records? Yeah, what about it? Has anyone taken a look at the standings today?

There are exactly two 9-1 teams - Houston in the AFC South and Atlanta in the NFC South. There is one 8-2 team, Baltimore leading the AFC North. San Francisco is 7-2-1, comfortably leading the NFC West. New England, Denver, Green Bay and Chicago are all 7-3. 

What's my point? There are 17 -- yes, seventeen -- teams (8 in the AFC, 9 in the NFC) that are within one game above or below .500 -- 17 teams that are either 6-4, 5-5 or 4-6 -- middle of the pack teams somehow in the mix for a postseason berth -- the Jets, Dolphins, Bills, Colts, Titans, Bengals, Steelers, Chargers, Giants, Cowboys, Redskins, Buccaneers, Saints, Vikings, Lions, Seahawks and Cardinals are all jumbled within two games of each other and still have a legitimate chance of at least a wild card spot. That's more than half the league right in the bulge of the NFL's bell curve known as parity.  Any of these teams can get hot, win enough games down the stretch at the right time, and you never know what could happen.  It was only a mere ten months ago that the 9-7 Giants snatched the NFC East crown on the final night of the regular season and parlayed it to a Super Bowl title, their second in five years.  Which one among these 17 teams might be this year's Super Bowl champ? The first Sunday in February is still around eleven weeks away. Anything can happen for the good.

And anyting can happen for the bad. Remember last year? The Bears were 7-3 and looked like the NFC front runner alongside the 10-0 Packers. What happened? The Packers went 15-1 but weren't as strong as weeks earlier and got bounced out of the playoffs, and the Bears lost their starting quarterback and ended up 8-8 and out of the postseason. Injuries are a killer. Case in point, Exhibit D -- the 1993 Dolphins. After winning a crazy Thanksgiving Day game in snowy Dallas (the "Leon Lett touched the blocked field goal" game), Miami was 9-2 and on a roll, even without Dan Marino (lost weeks earlier to an Achilles injury). Five straight losses later, they were 9-7 and out of the playoffs.

The Texans are 9-1 now, but a year ago they were 10-3 and barely hung on to win the AFC South after injuries forced them down to their third-string quarterback, rookie Tyler Yates. Six weeks to go is a long, long time and all sorts of good and bad things can happen to a team looking forward towards the postseason. Yesterday's 43-37 overtime win against 1-9 Jacksonville may be reason for concern. The first concern is Houston needed overtime on top of a late fourth-quarter comeback to beat a 1-9 team at home. The second concern is that the Texans needed a 527-yard passing (completing 43 of 55), five-touchdown performance by quarterback Matt Schaub in order to drive this comeback win. The third concern is that one of the league's top defenses gave up 458 yards and 37 points to one of the league's most anemic offenses.

Wasn't it only two weeks ago the Falcons were 8-0 and seemingly invincible, or at least kinda awesome? They don't seem so invincible or awesome after struggling to beat Arizona at home Sunday, 23-19. Matt Ryan threw five interceptions, and the Falcons added a fumble for good measure, yet managed to win in spite of themselves and a -5 turnover margin.  Ryan's extreme generosity -- the first QB to toss 5 INT, zero TD and win since Bart Starr did it with the 1967 Packers -- got me thinking about NFL quarterbacks, especially given how many teams have questions if not extensive fan-based hysterics on hand directed towards their quarterbacks and passing games.

It's not every day that a quarterback throws 5 INT in an NFL game, and as we now know, winning a game you throw 5 INT is even rarer.  Since 1960, the NFL and old AFL have played a combined 11,327 regular season games, and in 148 of those games (approximately 1.3 percent), a quarterback has thrown 5 INT. Matt Ryan became just the 13th NFL quarterback since 1960 to throw 5 INT in a game and win.

It's even less frequent for a quarterback to pass for 500 or more yards in an NFL game.  In case you were wondering, the very first time an NFL quarterback accomplished the feat was September 28, 1951 when Norm Van Brocklin passed for 554 yards and five touchdowns, leading the then-Los Angeles Rams to a 54-14 win against the old New York Yankees (yes... there used to be an NFL team called the Yankees). Van Brocklin's feat (a mere five days before Bobby Thompson's "Shot heard 'round the World"... yes... there also used to be a MLB team called the New York Giants... PLEASE read a sports history book, those of you born in the 21st century! Sheesh!), believe it or not, is still the single-game NFL record for passing yards, 61 years and counting.

More importantly, since Van Brocklin's still-standing record day in 1951, thirteen other quarterbacks have eclipsed the 500-yard plateau (no one ever accomplished the feat more than once), Schaub's 527 yards being the second-most (tying Warren Moon's 527 yards, reached on December 16, 1990, when the the former Houston Oilers beat the Kansas City Chiefs  27-10).  When you think about it, you might think passing for 500 yards is not only pretty special, but also helps a team win and win big, and normally the lots-of-yards equals lots-of-points makes sense, but not in the NFL, my friends.  Believe it or not, of the fourteen quarterbacks to pass for 500 yards in a game, six were actually the losing quarterback on that day. 

Another quirky thing about passing for 500 yards is that all those yards don't necessarily translate to lots of points. In fact, nine of those fourteen quarterbacks' offensive units failed to score at least 40 points, and one quarterback, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, generated a mere sixteen points in losing a game that he passed for 510 yards. Yessir... On November 19, 2006 (six years ago yesterday) Brees (he of lots of passing records and an offensive unit that scores bunches of points) passed for 510 yards and the Saints lost to the Cincinnati Bengals 31-16.  On that day, Brees passed for two touchdowns and the Saints did little else besides move up and down the field without scoring points.  Sometimes a lot of passing yards doesn't translate into touchdown passes, so it helps if other players are scoring points. Case in point is Phil Simms' 513-yard performance against the Bengals on October 13, 1985. Simms passed for only one touchdown, the fewest in a 500-yard game, and the Giants lost 35-30.

Does a quarterback need to throw a lot of passes, or complete a lot of passes, in order to accumulate 500 yards in a single game? Well, thirteen threw at least 40 pass attempts (the lone exception was Y.A. Tittle, who threw 39 passes on October 28, 1962, beating the Redskins 49-34), two threw at least 60 passes (Simms completed 40 of 62; Dan Marino completed 35 of 60 in 1988), two completed at least 40 passes (Simms' 40 in 1985 and Schaub's 43 on Sunday) but four quarterbacks completed fewer than 30 passes (Tittle, Moon and Van Brocklin all completed 27; Ben Roethlisberger completed 29 in a 37-36 win over Green Bay on December 20, 2009).

The most-efficient passing performance among the fourteen 500-yard games was Tittle's 1962 gem, completing 27 of 39 passes (69.2 percent) for 505 yards and 7 touchdowns. The least-efficient, if we can even say that, was Dan Marino's game on October 23, 1988, completing 35 of 60 passes (58.3 percent) for 521 yards and 3 touchdowns. Unfortunately, Marino also threw 5 INT and the Dolphins lost to the New York Jets 44-30 (see... I told you throwing 5 INT is typically a losing proposition.

What about throwing for 500 yards and touchdown passes? Tittle threw seven. Van Brocklin, Schaub and Matthew Stafford (Lions, January 1, 2012) each threw five. Tom Brady (Patriots, September 12, 2011) threw four. Moon, Esiason, Marino, Eli Manning (Giants, September 16, 2012), Vince Ferragamo (Rams, December 26, 1982) and Roethlisberger each threw three. Brees and Elvis Grbac (Chiefs, November 5, 2000) each threw two. Simms threw one.

Perhaps the oddest factoid about the fourteen 500-yard games in NFL history is that only two involved overtime, Schaub's game on Sunday and Boomer Esiason's 522-yard performance on November 10, 1996. Esiason completed 35 of 59 passes and threw 3 touchdowns in a 37-34 Arizona win over the Redskins.

Last, for those fans of obscure and potentially useless trivia, November is the most-frequent month for 500-yard passing performances with four, September, October and December each have three, and January had one such performance.

After ten games played by all 32 teams so far this regular season, 34 quarterbacks have thrown at least 100 passes and are listed among the league rankings.  Supposedly, the "standard" for "good" quarterback play, in this era, includes a pass completion percentage above sixty and a quarterback efficiency rating above eighty. Guess how many of 34 quarterbacks are currently completing less than sixty percent of their passes? Thirteen, and with the exception of Michael Vick, everyone else has 1-4 years of NFL experience. Guess how many of 34 quarterbacks currently have an efficiency rating below eighty? Nine, and with the exception of Michael Vick, everyone else has 1-4 years of NFL experience.

What do these two statistical trends possibly mean? Relatively young and inexperienced quarterbacks tend to struggle with consistency and efficiency... and Michael Vick really hasn't improved with age. These two trends may also suggest that consistency and efficiency improve with age, experience and maturity, and that it likely takes more than 3-4 years to grow into being an NFL quarterback, just like it takes at least that long to grow into a lot of professions or occupations, like medicine and teaching, so if you're a fan of a young and struggling quarterback, perhaps it might make good sense to back off, be more patient and let your team's quarterback mature and evolve into his potential (see New York Jets fans and Mark Sanchez critics).

Do quarterback sacks worry you? It's hard for a quarterback to throw passes lying on his back, right? Well, let's suppose being sacked at least 15 times in the first ten games is an arbitrary caution threshold for a team's passing game.  Guess how many of 34 quarterbacks have been sacked less than 15 times heading into Thanksgiving? Seven -- Peyton (Broncos) and Eli (Giants) Manning , Josh Freeman (Bucs), Brandon Weeden (Browns), the Texans' Schaub, Arizona's John Skelton and Tennessee's Matt Hasselbach -- and Skelton and Hasselbach haven't even been their team's full-time starter all season.

On the other hand, guess how many of the 34 quarterbacks have been sacked at least 25 times heading into Thansgiving? Six -- Michael Vick (Eagles), Sam Bradford (Rams), Aaron Rodgers (Packers), Christian Ponder (Vikings), Jay Cutler (Bears) and Kevin Kolb (Cardinals) -- and Kolb shares the quarterback duties with Skelton!

What does this all possibly mean? Well, in addition to Michael Vick seeming to be on the wrong end of a lot of statistical trends for quarterbacks, anybody playing quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals is a glorified tackling dummy for opposing pass rushers. We might also wish to note that the number of times your quarterback is running for his life or being knocked to the ground may not necessarily dictate success or lackthereof, since the most-sacked list includes Rodgers of the 7-3 Packers and Cutler of the 7-3 Bears, and the least-sacked list includes Weeden of the 2-8 Browns.

Perhaps touchdown-to-interception ratio matters to you. After all, tossing five picks like Matt Ryan did Sunday usually doesn't bode well for success, although that brings his season total to seven versus 20 touchdowns. But there are six quarterbacks from the list of 34 who've thrown more interceptions than touchdowns (Dallas' Tony Romo, Carolina's Cam Newton, Miami's Ryan Tannehill, Cleveland's Weeden, Matt Cassel of the Chiefs and Arizona's Skelton), and only three play for teams still with a middle-of-the-pack chance at the playoffs (Romo, Tannehill and Skelton).

Just like completion percentage, yardage and sacks, any individual statistical trend may not tell us anything worth a bag of beans about quarterbacks and team success, but putting all of these statistical trends together may give you a reasonable profile on what makes for a winning and successful quarterback. For my money, I think it's fairly safe to say that unless you're an incredibly gifted athlete surrounded by several other incredibly gifted athletes, you probably can't be a winning NFL quarterback if you're constantly under pressure, running for your life, unable to consistently complete passes (especially scoring passes) to your best receivers, completing too many passes to guys in the wrong-colored jerseys, and are still in the early half of your learning and development curve. In other words, youth, lack of supporting cast and mistakes are not a quarterback's best friend in the cold cruel NFL.

What's our take-home lesson heading into the final six weeks of the regular season? Stop complaining about your team's starting quarterback, let him play, and see where it leads.  In the meantime, let indigestion be limited to turkey consumption, not your quarterback's passing statistics.