The Monday Sunday Roundup: Third Time's a Charm?

G'morning, scumbags.  This entry is coming to you a few hours earlier than originally planned, because, well, I didn't go to work last night.  I wanted to get out of bed, but it just didn't happen.  Can't really explain it, just wanted to sleep.  I figured the mild high of the game I watched earlier would jolt me, but in the end it didn't.  Maybe I just needed a mental health break?  Maybe.  Yeah, that sounds good.  Mental health is paramount.  Onto the show.

1.  In late August, I gave Jay Gruden some sound advice that I eventually hoped to never have to see him implement.  Well, yesterday, he implemented my sage advice, albeit in a different way, and ended what seemed like years of bad decisions and poor play, but was really only less than half a season.  Kirk Cousins is a bust and I could not have been more wrong about him.  That tends to happen when I feel strongly about something.  People warned me.  He's a decent backup, they said.  He fell to the fourth round of the draft for a reason, they said.  Dan Snyder is a buffoon, they said for years, which had nothing to do with Cousins.  I didn't listen.  I made a public declaration of allegiance.  The RG3 era was over.  Kirk was gonna win all the Super Bowls.  So he threw an interception or 11 from time to time.  Hey, so did Brett Favre, and Favre is an all-time great, right?  Right?  Realistically, I cannot recall having seen a guy regress so dramatically so quickly, and Jay Gruden had had enough.  So at halftime, as the Redskins were down 10-6 to the tougher-than-advertised Tennessee Titans (BULLSHIT ALERT), Gruden answered the boos at FedEx.  He did the right thing.  He put Colt McCoy in the game.

What?

Never in the history of pro football has putting Colt McCoy in the game at QB been the right decision to make for any coach.  Putting Colt McCoy in the game at QB is something a coach does when he gets mugged in the locker room at knifepoint.  It's something a coach does when his team just couldn't snag Sage Rosenfels on the waiver wire.  Colt McCoy's own mother doesn't draft him in fantasy football.  His brother owns a Jake Delhomme Browns jersey.  Colt McCoy is a guy who, against all conceivable odds, has accomplished less in the NFL than Tim Tebow.  I forgot he was even on the roster until the middle of the second quarter yesterday.  So Colt shuffles onto the field in the 3rd quarter & hands the ball to Alfred Morris for a paltry one-yard gain.  Yeah, I've seen this crap before.  Your QB is toilet residue, you know it, your team knows it, the fans know it, and even the QB himself is mouthing "I SUCK" and shrugging at the sideline reporters before the next play.  And then the next play is a 70-yard touchdown pass to Pierre Garcon.  Fans explode.  Zane has a look of disgusted disbelief on his face.  That play was all Garcon and that fact could not have been more obvious.  But Kirk Cousins simply wasn't making plays like this.  Kirk Cousins' best completions were to opposing defensive backs, and maybe one or two to Desean "Tookie" Jackson.  Cousins, somewhere along the way, had been mentally destroyed.  He was a shell of his 41-10-win-over-Jacksonville self.  He's started something like nine games for Washington and won precisely one of them.  Damn, maybe I should have looked at THAT stat before I gave him his golden tiara in week 2, huh?  That could have provided some perspective, couldn't it?  No, stupid Zane hung the blame on the Shanahans.  Mike Shanahan's face, in both color and texture, looks like a raisin.  He's an easy and convenient target for blame.  I blame him for Ebola.  I blame him for ISIS.  My hair is probably 20% gray, and guess who gets the blame for that?  Shanahan.  So anyway, under the guidance of Colt McCoy, the Redskins derped their way to a last-second win over a similarly awful team, and man it felt good.  An aside:  the Redskins HAVE to find a better kicker.  Kai Forbath has the leg strength of Steven Hawking.  He's mostly accurate, but that doesn't mean anything when you can't hit anything beyond 30 yards.  Back to McCoy.  Is he gonna start next Monday against Dallas?  If the choice is between McCoy and Cousins, hell yeah, I say start McCoy.  But that may not be the choice, and if Robert Griffin III can go, then he has to go.  After all, he's the franchise QB I've said all along he was *cough*.

2.  The St. Louis Rams pulled off the most brilliant play I've ever seen on a football field yesterday.  It wasn't a fake spike/dive for a touchdown.  It wasn't a bootleg, or play action, or a fake handoff.  It wasn't a fake field goal or a fake punt.  They made the Seahawks look ridiculous on a punt.  Tavon Austin was on the left side of the field (or right side, depending on which team you play for) when the ball was punted away by Seattle.  Austin did was a punt returner does:  he kept his eye on the ball and adjusted his position accordingly.  All eyes were on Tavon Austin.  As he caught the ball, he fell to the ground.  Here's the thing, though.. he didn't catch the ball.  He was nowhere near the ball.  Stedman Bailey was on the right side of the field, which is where the ball actually traveled. He caught it.  Nobody saw him catch it.  The Seahawks were all locked onto Austin.  He ran it back 90-something yards for a touchdown mostly unseen, and definitely untouched.  That could not have been planned.  It can't have been.  How was anyone supposed to know which way the Seahawks would punt the ball?  Also, Jeff Fisher is the least imaginative person in history, so he could not have possibly called this.  This is 80% Tavon Austin, 20% Stedman Bailey, and 3% the special teams coach.  103% beautiful brilliance.  It was so great that Pete Carroll tried to get it overturned.  It barely looked legal.  And I can assure you all that you will never see it again in the NFL.  That's something that only happens once.  WHen your grandkids tell their grandkids about it, they'll screw up the details horribly, because they'll have no frame of reference, and by then the NFL will have merged with Major League Baseball.  So in the interest of harmony, here it is on Youtube.  For the sake of your mental health, MUTE THIS VIDEO, unless you want to hear a computerized voice talk about the Street Louis Rams.  Here you go:

Really, other than Colt McCoy winning a game and Tavon Austin pulling a Houdini, nothing of note really happened in the league yesterday, except the Cleveland Browns getting hammered by the Jacksonville Jaguars.  But I don't really want to discuss that.  If you want to ask me why privately, I'll explain it to you, but I guess the Browns are playing up or down to the level of their competition.  I hope they play nothing but contenders the rest of the season.  OK, you beat it out of me:  I bought a Ben Tate jersey.  That happened.  So, tonight.  The First Round Punter's © second team, the Houston Texans, take on a team that I guess I could consider an archrival (given recent confessions and purchases), the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Look, one of my dearest friends is a Steelers fan.  I've been at her home for Thanksgiving.  We've watched football together.  Drank beer together.  She and her boyfriend lost to me at darts.  We have history.  But I want the Steelers to lose.  Even if it's to the Texans.  Praise Brian Hoyer.  Free Josh Gordon.  

Catch ya later.