Questions From A Wolfman

The Wolfman is a tough guy. He’s sweet like Kool-Aid most of the time, but if you ever cross him he’ll put a hurting on you so quick you won’t even have time to ask him where he got that awesome Schweppes t-shirt.
The toughness is difficult to see underneath his lovable, albeit cur-like, exterior, but it’s there. If you don’t believe me you can ask former Wake Forest forward Rafael Vidaurreta, who once found out first-hand how small packages sometimes contain the most vicious ass-kickings.
Still need proof? Look at The Wolfman's 7th grade student ID (right). Not many among us can manage to look tough while wearing an all-white rugby, but somehow The Wolfman pulls it off. Can you imagine seeing that scowling face sitting next to you every day in math class? You’d probably memorize 900 digits of Pi just on the off-chance The Wolfman might one day require such information.
Speaking of pie, The Wolfman doesn't eat it because one time he saw Jean-Claude Van Damme helping himself to a heaping slice of the cherry variety. That was right before The Wolfman administered two roundhouse kicks to Van Damme's temple for besmirching the name of an innocent girl. After licking what he thought was Van Damme's blood from his foot and realizing it was actually the pie's cherry filling, The Wolfman lost all taste for the baked dessert and has never so much as looked at a piece ever again. On Thanksgiving his mother hides her delicious pies in the crawl-space out of view just so The Wolfman won't see them, fly into a rage and start using his Uncle Murray as a punching bag like he did in the infamous Thanksgiving Throwdown of 2001.
Those seeking out a rump-roughing might want to point out the irony in The Wolfman attending a high school with the same name as the college he despises most. But honestly: How long do you think it was before The Wolfman pulled some strings (and by pulled some strings, I mean knocked heads around at a school PTA meeting) and got that bad boy changed from Notre Dame: The High School for Boys to The Mackey School? If you guessed more than nineteen seconds, you're about eighteen and five-sixths seconds off. (Why the Mackey School and not Wolfman High, you ask? Because The Wolfman doesn't advertise.)
Today, the toughest tough guy alive asks some questions about Jerome Bettis, Donovan McNabb and the 2006 NFL season. In the interest of my own well-being, I decided to answer, because if there's one thing The Wolfman hates more than Notre Dame, it's a guy with a sports blog not answering his e-mailed questions.

How excited are you that Jerome Bettis won a championship? Hooray, I know I'm excited!
Unlike you, I don’t have any particular animosity towards Bettis because he went to the greatest football university of all-time – nay – the greatest university of all-time. But even I was a little annoyed with the Bettis coverage this week. Sure, he’s a sure-fire Hall of Famer (but shouldn’t be a first-ballot guy), but I didn’t really understand the Bettis-love permeating throughout the media.
I’ll acquiesce to the fact that he’s a good guy, but that should have no bearing on the following facts:
1) Bettis isn’t (or wasn’t) as good as Barry Sanders, Eric Dickerson, Curtis Martin or Priest Holmes. And when’s the last time you heard anything about how those guys never won a Super Bowl and needed a title to validate their careers.
2) The Bus has run for over 1,200 yards in a season once since 1998. That was in 2000, also the only year during that span he his yards per-carry was over 3.9.
3) Even though the 1,000 yard benchmark, which has become the main criteria in judging any running back’s year, is a fairly easy mark to reach (one only needs to average 62.5 yards per-game over a season to get there), Bettis hasn’t hit that number since 2001. I know he’s been splitting carries with Amos Zereoue and Duce Staley, but that just proves my point further.
4) Only three times in his ten seasons with Pittsburgh has Bettis finished among the top-10 rushers in the NFL. Conversely, Ricky Watters did it six times during that stretch.
This doesn’t mean that Bettis isn’t a Hall of Famer and wasn’t a great football player; but he hasn’t been an effective back since George W. Bush moved into the White House. And he certainly isn’t a big enough star to warrant all the attention heaped on him this week.
John Elway is my most-hated football player of all-time (but at least he showed up to the Super Bowl, unlike some greedy prima-donnas), but that doesn’t change the fact that when he finally won the big game in 1997, he deserved all the accolades (even if it did take Terrell Davis to get him there.)
Bettis was a role player on Pittsburgh this season. He was hanging on to win a Championship. It’s very nice he did, but don’t forget he was still the 50th most important player on the field on Sunday.
Yet despite all that Bettis cynicism, I still loved when Hines Ward said, “I’m going to Disney World and I’m taking The Bus!” Maybe I’m just an old softie at heart, but damn if those Disney commercials don’t get me every time. (The in-game commercial with the players practicing their “I’m going to Disney World” moments was fantastic and not just because you could tell Shaun Alexander knew there was no way he’d ever get to actually say those words again.)

Has anyone gone from having such a terrible first half in the Super Bowl to being MVP as Hines Ward? He had a couple of drops in the first half, including a TD pass (where Michaels and Madden excused him for it), then the first play of the 2nd half dropped a pass, after which they showed Big Ben roll his eyes (maybe because he threw the pass low, but I think he was pissed the Ward clapped and motioned for Big Ben to get the ball up.)
I had totally forgotten about the Hines clapping incident, but I was ripping him after that too. It was so unlike Ward to leave his quarterback out to dry like that. Granted, Roethlisberger didn’t make a great pass, but a receiver like Hines has to make that catch. Maybe it was just frustration on both their parts, and I’ll give them both the benefit of the doubt, but that was a T.O.-like move from one of the classiest receivers in the league.
My question is, did Hines deserve the MVP? I’m leaning towards yes, but since Super Bowl MVP’s are often defined by one moment in the game couldn’t you have made strong cases for Willie Parker and Antwan Randle-El?
I realize Parker didn’t do anything other than his 75-yard TD run, but that’s sort of like saying Robert Horry doesn’t do anything in the NBA Finals except hit the game-winning shot. Parker’s TD was the most important play of the game; that he did little else is sort of irrelevant (especially with no other player standing out as the clear MVP). Sometimes one play makes the game.
My vote would have been for Randle-El though; he had some great 3rd down catches and threw the prettiest ball I’ve seen in a long time for the game-clinching touchdown to the eventual MVP.

Remember when Donovan and T.O did interviews making fun of the media for asking them questions about how they would get along, or when they mocked the media during their win over the Cowboys by having T.O. chase McNabb around the sidelines calling for the ball, mimicking what had happened the week before? I guess the two of them are the ones that look like the idiots now.
Only Joe Montana did more to ruin his reputation during Super Bowl week as Donovan McNabb. His interview with ESPN (and the subsequent follow-ups with teammates) exposed McNabb as an egomaniacal pushover who gets no respect in the locker room. Even ESPN can’t cover it up anymore, Donovan doesn’t have what it takes to be a big-game quarterback.
Because T.O. is such a jerk and is fully to blame for all his problems in Philly, people automatically painted Donovan as a sympathetic figure. In reality, he’s a smug and petty man who always tries to pin his problems on others. The T.O. mess only helped cover-up how ineffective Donovan is as a leader and what an arrogant, attention-loving jerk he really is.

What's the story with the horse collar rule in the NFL? I saw it happen several times this season, but I did not see it called once, why even have the rule if you're not going to call it.
Apparently the rule is: A player cannot tackle a ball-carrier from the back by the inside of his shoulder pads. Meaning, a player can still horse collar as long as he doesn’t stick his hands all the way underneath the pads.
This makes no sense. Tackling a guy from behind by grabbing his jersey collar will still result in injury as many times as tackling a guy from behind by grabbing underneath the shoulder pads. If the rule is designed to protect players, as is said, all sorts of tackling from behind should be outlawed. This might upset Eli Manning, but he can get over it by giving Derek Jeter a call.
(By the way, Roy Williams still doesn’t know how to tackle without using the horse collar. He almost ended both Tiki Barber’s and Clinton Portis’ season by doing so this year.)
Here are some other rules that the NFL should change this off-season:
1) Get rid of the tuck rule. It was wrong then, it’s still wrong now.
2) Bring back the old intentional grounding rules. The penalty should be called when a quarterback throws the ball away at any spot on the field. Having the “outside the tackle-box” rule penalizes defenses when they make a great play to rush a QB out of the pocket.
3) When a quarterback slides in the open field, the ball should be spotted at the point the QB first makes the sliding motion. (I’m pretty sure this is the rule, but it needs to be enforced. The Super Bowl refs actually did this, the first time I’ve ever seen a play like that spotted correctly. In the Seahawks-Redskins Divisional Playoff game, that crew routinely placed the ball where Hasselbeck stopped his slide, which was a good three yards behind where it should have been.) I’m no fan of allowing QBs to slide (and not get hit), by the way, but I realize why the rule is in place.
4) Keep the replay challenge system, but have the booth supervisor look at the contested plays. This will cut down on the ridiculous amount of time it takes the referee to hear the challenge, announce the challenge, walk over to the hooded monitor, watch the replay, figure out where the ball is spotted and how much time is on the clock and announce the result of the challenge.
5) Allow some contact between corners and receivers after the five-yard cushion.
6) Put a TV camera directly on the goal line so it will be clear when a ball breaks the plane. For some reason this suggestion was shot-down at the owner’s meetings last year. Had those cameras been in place, all the Seattle fans would have shut-up about the Roethlisberger touchdown and the Redskins would have had a home playoff game as well.
7) This isn’t for the NFL, but the NCAA has to change the rule that allows teams to call timeout as they’re diving out-of-bounds or when they’re scrambling for the ball on the floor. Timeouts aren’t designed to bail teams out of pressure situations. They should only be given during stoppages in play or when possession is clearly defined and not in doubt.

With football over, and the Deacs ACC cellar-dwellers, what are we today as sports fans?
Did somebody forget about a little something called the NHL?

How awesome is Chris Paul?
Last year New Orleans, with arguably a better roster (minus Paul) than this season, was 18-64 and finished 27 games out of a playoff spot. This year they already have 24 wins (in just 47 games) and are currently the 7th seed in the West (ahead of teams featuring Kobe, KG, Tracy McGrady and Mike Dunleavy Jr.)
If Paul doesn’t make the All-Star team as a reserve it will be an outrage. Frankly, if the season ended today CP would deserve MVP consideration. I’m not saying he should win it, but if Kobe is getting MVP-buzz for carrying the Lakers, why wouldn’t Paul get it for carrying the Hornets? (Did you see CP just won Western Conference Player of the Week honors too? And what's with that flaming CP3 nickname that seems to have caught-on for Paul? CP3? That's not a nickname! It sounds like a tax form or Star Wars character. From now on I'm calling Chris Paul "Prophecy" until I hear a better nickname. Suggestions?)

Do you have any early predictions for next season in the NFL?
In honor of yesterday’s final Monday Morning Quarterback column of the NFL season from Peter King, here are Ten Things I Think I Think About The 2006 NFL Season:
1) Increasing scrutiny of the referees will force the NFL to make all officials full-time employees of the league. However, this will no have effect on the overall crappiness of NFL officiating.
2) Tiki Barber will suffer an early-season injury, the Giants will finish in last place in the NFC East and Tom Coughlin will be fired.
3) Neither the Patriots nor the Colts will win the AFC. (Losing Edgerrin James will hurt Indy more than they imagine.)
4) The Washington Redskins will win the NFC East and earn a bye into the Divisional Playoffs.
5) With Al Saunders and Dick Vermeil gone, the Chiefs will struggle and fantasy owners nationwide will rue the day they picked Larry Johnson #1.
6) If Marty Schottenheimer is fired, San Diego will represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. If the Spanos family decides to retain the perennially underachieving coach, San Diego will once again have an early-playoff flameout or miss the postseason altogether.
7) With the promise of Reggie Bush in the backfield, the Houston Texans will lure some top O-line free agents. The added protection for David Carr will make him an adequate (yet not quite #1 pick worthy) QB and will have the Texans fighting for a playoff spot. Bush will contend for the NFL MVP award in his first season.
8) Terrell Owens will catch 95 balls for 1,400 yards and 10 TD for the Broncos, who will win the AFC and play in the Super Bowl.
9) There, they’ll lose to the Redskins in a rematch of SB XXII.
10) Despite playing with two broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, nine kidney stones and bamboo shoots under his nails at different points during the season, Steve McNair will only be known as the 3rd toughest guy in the world. The Wolfman and Chuck Norris will battle it out for the top-spot, but upon arriving at the showdown Norris will see The Wolfman’s 7th grade student ID and run the other way.

"Questions From A Wolfman" is an occasional feature on this site.