I’m never one to make predictions.  Despite the fact that me and my buddy Derek won our office pool last year where you pick every game of the season NFL (Shake ‘n Bake, baby), I live by the creed of Joaquin Andujar when he once said “There’s one word that describes this game.  And that’s ‘You never know’.”  So true.  I can’t predict what’s going to happen in a given NFL game.  But I do know a thing or two about watching them on TV.  And there’s one thing that will happen during the Patriots-Ravens game this week.  At some point before the kickoff, and probably again when they have time between plays, they’ll stick a camera in Ray Lewis’ mug and give us one of those spontaneous, candid, heartfelt moments where Ray gets uncomfortably close to another man’s head and speechifies some of that incomprehensible gibberish that the networks have been showing us for the last 14 years to show us what an incomparable Leader of Men Lewis is.  It’s like it’s mandatory.  As if the NFL contractually obligates them to show us the Ray Lewis Vocal Leadership Moment the way they have to show  United Way spots.

This is in no way meant to say Ray Lewis is overrated as a player.  He has been and he continues to be a very good tackle football player.  This rant is strictly about this image of him as a Great Inspirational Leader.  I’m just not buying it.  There are some good, and several great, players on that Baltimore team, and I can’t imagine that any of them would respond to Lewis’ insane rants in a positive way.  I’ve been convinced for years that this whole image of the Ravens rallying around Lewis’ speeches and getting all fire up because he’s so emotional that they can’t let him down is a media contrivance, and Lewis perpetuates it.  That Sean Taylor “Sean is the only thing we playin’ for tonight” moment being the most ridiculous example.  The TV camera was closer to Lewis than a colonoscopy and that pep talk was as spontaneous as an Oscar acceptance speech.   And I also think this mythology around him is part of the reason Adalius Thomas and Bart Scott left Baltimore.  It’s only human nature that you can only listen to this nonsense so long before you want to go somewhere where they’ll recognize that you play hard all the time because you’re a hard working player.  And not because you want to make your Accessory to Murder Middle Linebacker proud.

But it will always be like this.  Like a horrible SNL recurring character that stopped being funny a long time ago but they won’t kill the sketch, the networks  continue to bring us this Ray Lewis sideshow long after it’s played out.  Because this is the nature of NFL coverage.  They come up with some story angle about a player, team or some conventional football wisdom and then spend eternity hammering away at it out of sheer laziness.  Ray Lewis’ teammates play hard because of him and his fiery inspiration.  Joe Namath (more career INTs than TDs) was an all time great QB.  Don Shula (2 championships in 36 years) is the greatest coach ever.  And it’s not gotten any better in this decade, that’s for damned sure.

The Worst NFL Media-Created Myths of the Last 10 Years:

10.  “Reggie Bush is an elite Running Back”


I confess I bought into this myth.  Coming out of Southern Cal I thought he was  the only guy (besides Mike Vrabel) of whom you could honestly say “He’s a threat to score every time he touches the ball.  But for his career he’s averaging 3.7 YPC, or more than a full half a yard less than Laurence Maroney.  Houston Texans, Mario Williams we all owe you an apology.

9.  “Michael Vick was/is one of the best QBs in the league.”


Vick’s pre-conviction 2006 season, when he had a 1,000 yds rushing and an astonishing 8.4 YPC, he had a combined 3,500 total yards.  By comparison, in his only complete NFL season, Matt Cassel had just shy of 4,000.

8.  “Vince Young started out great as a rookie before things went horribly, horribly wrong.”


Despite all the dramatic wins, some thanks to Young’s legs but more thanks to Tennessee’s defense and special teams, Young’s Passer Rating went from 66.7 in his first year to 71.1 the next.  It was just varying degrees of suck.  Both ratings were below what Dan Orlovsky (72.6) had for the Lions last year.

7.  “Tony Dungy was one of the best coaches in the league.”


Quick… without looking it up, who’s the Colts’ head coach?   They’re 3-0, at or near the top of everyone’s power rankings, and they’re doing it without the guidance and tutelage of St. Anthony.  He went to Indy where Tom Moore already had his offense in place, stayed out of everyone’s way and they haven’t skipped a beat in his absence.  And the answer to the question is Jim Caldwell.  You might not have known that because Caldwell hasn’t learned how to make water into wine yet.  “Where’s your messiah now?”

6.  “The San Diego Chargers are a classy team.”


Ladanlian Tomlinson protested his own classiness when the Patriots unclassily imitated Shawn Merriman’s very classy “Lights Out” dance after the 2006 Divisional Playoff.  Phillip Rivers showed his class by calling Ellis Hobbs “the sorriest Corner in the league” and with his perpetual sass fight with Jay Cutler.   The media ate it up and used it as Exhibit No. 297 in The People vs. The Patriots” in the wake of Spygate.  For the ’07 AFCCG, the Chargers classily vowed their revenge in Foxboro where LT classily sat out the game.  Forgive me for ending this paragraph in the most obvious way, but I can’t help myself.  You stay classy, San Diego.

5.  “The Wildcat Offense is the wave of the future in the NFL.”


Credit to the Dolphins.   The first time they played the Pats last year they caught them unawares and shredded them with the Wildcat plays to the tune of 4 rushing TDs, 1 passing and about 50,000 yards.  The next time, it was 7 attempts for 8 yards.  The Wildcat isn’t an “Offense.”  It’s a series of gadget plays.  A gimmick.  And like Ron Jaworski says, gadget plays and gimmicks “don’t work consistently in the NFL.”

4.  “Steve McNair was one of the gutsiest players in the NFL.”


With all due respect to McNair, rest his soul, was he ever NOT hurt?  Did a week ever go by where he didn’t miss practice time battling through injuries and inspiring the media with heart, guts and determination?  McNair never got hit as much as say, David Carr or Drew Bledsoe, but no one was ever giving them the Congressional Medal of Honor for summoning the courage to crawl out on the field every Sunday like (please forgive the expression) Blood & Guts McNair.  Maybe the guy was just fragile.

3.  “Tony Romo is a star.”


What exactly has this guy accomplished in his career exactly?  Why does every housewife in America know who he is, when last year he had a lower Passer Rating than Matt Schaub?  Look, I give his penis all the credit in the world for all that it’s accomplished.  I’m just saying he’s not much of a QB.  I didn’t say he can’t score.

2.  “You gotta run the ball and you’ve got to be able to stop the run.”


The 2006 Super Bowl Champion Colts weren’t just last in the league against the run, they were historically bad.  28 YPG worse than the 31st team.  And last year’s Arizona Cardinals were last in Rushing Yards, and they were leading the Super Bowl with seconds left in the game.  But that won’t stop any of us from hearing… and probably repeating… this myth about it’s all about “establishing the run” a million times this year.  Never let things like facts get in the way of a good story.

1.  “Brett Favre is [fill in the blank].”


Gunslinger.  Mississippi riverboat gambler.   Just havin’ fun out there.  Take your pick.  But hard as it is to believe, there are still a few media types who don’t see this fraud as the money grubbing, coach-killing narcissist he is.