A Dissenting Voice

When the Redskins hired Al Saunders last week, it was widely hailed as another excellent piece of work by Dan Snyder. Following on the retention of Assistant Head Coach (Defence) Greg Williams immediately after the playoffs, the general opinion was that Saunders, who had ran the most prolific offense in the NFL over the last three years in Kansas, would solve a Redskins offense that had struggled badly in the playoffs.

The only caveat, it seemed, came from Mike Shanahan who had mentioned to Sports Illustrated's Peter King that there were now an awful lot of coaches in Redskins Park and that it could be a case of too many chefs.

Well, that is a very valid opinion and one that I tend to agree with. For example, just what are Joe Bugel and Don Breaux going to do now that Saunders has come in and effectively taken their jobs? We've already seen Bill Musgrave resign from his position as Quarterbacks Coach to take a similar position with Atlanta. Was that a direct result of Saunders appointment?

I have another question though. One that does not seem to have been addressed in the various column inches that have followed Saunders' appointment. Is he really needed?

Yes, the Skins struggled terribly in the post-season, especially against Tampa. Yes, Clinton Portis has averaged only 4.1 yards per carry since he arrived in the capital after averaging 5.5 in Denver. Yes, time and time again the offense could not match the superb efforts of the defense. But, no, the problems did not stem from the offensive system in place. It had more to do with the personnel, or more specifically the lack thereof. And that is a problem that could be easily solved.

Let's look at the basic numbers this past year:

This season Portis ran for a franchise record 1,516yds and eleven touchdowns. He also had a franchise record eight games when he ran for 100yds or more. Wide receiver Santana Moss caught 84 balls for a record 1,483yds with ten catches worth forty yards or more. Chris Cooley, a second year tight end/H Back remember, had 71 catches for over 700 yards. Even Mark Brunell, almost run out of town last year, returned as starter and threw a career high twenty-three touchdowns against ten interceptions and probably shoud have gone to the Pro Bowl.

Not that bad for a team that apparently so struggled with the ball.

The problem for Washington, and what killed them in the post-season, was the lack of a second wide receiver, a battered running back, an injured quarterback, and a shattered offensive line. Not the run heavy offensive system.

David Patten, who was signed as a possesion wideout from New England, was put on Injured Reserve after nine games but up to then had not been a factor with only twenty-two catches for 217 yards. Come free agency in March it is widely expected that the 'Skins will go after either Pittsburgh's Antwaan Randle-El or Indy's Reggie Wayne. If they get either of these two, then you can expect that second receiver problem to be solved. Even Terrell Owens, for all his disruptive influence off the pitch, is a heck of a player and may come under consideration. With any of these three you can expect Joe Bugel's job would be a lot easier.

Clinton Portis hardly carried in Tampa or Seattle due to sore shoulders. This was wear and tear after a long season. Portis is a terrific player, a tough player. He loves nothing better than going up the middle where only the crazy or foolish dare go. He also blocks like a full back. His body though cannot take the battering it takes. There is just not enough of him. He's the same height as Jerome Bettis but some four stone lighter. You could have expected his workload to be lightened next year as Ladell Betts and Rock Cartwright get more action. The plays Coach Gibbs called weren't at fault in the playoffs, he just didn't have his star half back available to him.

Mark Brunell was excellent all season but his accuracy collapsed after straining his knee against the Giants in week sixteen. He was clearly unfit in the games that followed but Gibbs stuck him in there even after Patrick Ramsey had come in and finished off the Giants and generally played well. Once again, the system didn't cause Brunell's late season struggles; it was injury.

The offensive line was in trouble once Randy Thomas went down against Dallas with a broken leg and they struggled thereafter but once again it wasn't the system that wore down the O line.

All in all the Redskins had a fine season. After going 6-10 last year did anybody honestly think they would come within an ace of making it to the Championship game? Does anybody really feel the offense was that bad? So bad in fact, that Joe Bugel had to have his job essentially taken off him and for Joe Gibbs, one of the great offensive minds of all time, to cede control of an offense he cherishes?

One more question. What does Gregg Williams make of all this? He has been earmarked as the heir apparent to Gibbs since he joined two years ago. He could have had his choice of head coaching jobs this off season after helping create one of the most feared defensive units in the league. Only when Snyder broke the bank did he agree to stay. Now, a fortnight after he signed on the dotted line, he sees a possible contender walk through the door to great fanfare. Did he know Saunders was coming when he signed?

Depending on who you are Dan Snyder is a great owner and Joe Gibbs is undoubtedly a great coach. I just hope he knows exactly what he's doing here. Al Saunders, offensive guru that he is, may just be more trouble that he's worth.

Championship Weekend

Right I'm writing this during the first quarter of Seattle and Carolina. I don't know the score of the first game and I haven't yet seen a play in this game so you can take these as honest predictions. Then again after last weeks debacle I'm probably better off waiting till after the games to predict them...

Pittsburgh @ Denver
This is a tough one. Denver are at home and have beaten the reigning champions last week. Jake Plummer's been excellent this season as has the Denver running game but speaking of running games the Steeler's is second to none and the force is with the Bus and you saw the game against the Colts.
Steelers 24 Broncos 17

Carolina @ Seattle
Seattle have been the standout team in the NFC all season but the Panther's are the form team of the playoffs in NFC and after watching Steve Smith take apart the Bears last week I'm going to have to go with them.
Panthers 27 Seahawks 17

It's Divisional Time!

Right, after my success in calling the Wildcard results (3-0, Manning 3 picks while Brady throws 3 TDs, anyone??), here's my shot at the divisional round. Dr. Z thinks this is the best week in football. The Championship games are too tense while the Superbowl is all hype and I can't say I disagree with him, especially when the Redskins are still there. Anyways, enough with the waxing lyrical about the weekend, on to predictions.

Washington @ Seattle
Everything is against Washington this week. Their quarterback is injured, their D line is battered, their secondary is in pieces. They're facing the League MVP and the most accurate quarterback in the NFL, surely they don't have a chance? Think again. If Clinton Portis has shaken off his sore shoulders and he can get the Washington running game going, then that opens up Santana Moss and the passing game. The Skins can contain Alexander and won when the sides met back in September, and Joe Gibbs will be on the sideline.
Redskins 24 Seahawks 17

New England @ Denver
This will be the toughest match either side have on the way to the Superbowl. Tougher even than if they play Indy in the Championship game. Denver are a fine side. They have run the ball tremendously all season while Jake Plummer has had his most accurate season of his career. Their secondary is second to none. But look who they're playing. The Patriots are back. The only question mark is can Corey Dillon get going on the ground because without a running game even Tom Brady will struggle to beat the Broncos through the air. The Broncos should be favourites, but they haven't won 3 World titles in 4 years.
Patriots 31 Broncos 28

Pittsburgh @ Indianapolis
The Colts' starters haven played a full game in a month. Will they be rested or rusty? I say rested. Peyton throws for 4 TDs and Edge runs for 125yds. The Steelers are a solid side. But solid isn't going to cut it in a dome against these Colts.
Steelers 14 Colts 38

Carolina @ Chicago
You thought the Redskins and the Buccs was a defensive struggle? Wait till you see this one! Two top defenses and two struggling offenses make this game one for the purists. One touchdown could be the difference and I fancy Dellhomme to Smith could be it.
Panthers 13 Bears 6

Playoffs

I'm an NFL fan and in honor of Peter King here are my picks for wildcard weekend:

Jacksonville @ New England
Tom Brady throws for 353 yards and 3 touchdowns, Byron Leftwich gets sacked 6 times. Jimmy Smith is shut out, while Deoin Branch repeats his Superbowl performance last year.
Jaguars 10 Patriots 31

Carolina @ New York
Eli Manning will lead the Giants to a Superbowl, but not this year. He throws 3 picks while Jake Dellhome and the Panthers do just enough to keep New York, and especially Tiki Barber, at arms length.
Panthers 17 Giants 14

Pittsburgh @ Cincinnatti
I love this game. Carson Palmer's probably equaled only by Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in the NFL but he struggled at home against the Steelers earlier on in the season. He redeemed himself at Heinz Field a few weeks ago but this time will be different. The Bengals won't stop The Bus who'll run for 3 TDs and Troy Palumalu will cause havoc for the Steelers.
Steelers 28 Bengals 14

The Skin's game is already over and my boys have won an epic over Tampa 17-10. For the record I called Washington 24-17

Lifelong ambitions

1. To score a hundred at Lords on front of a full house when opening the batting for Ireland.

2. To fire a shotgun in a manly fashion and not be thrown backwards by the recoil.

3. To be in a position to turn down Nicole Kidman.

4. To be able to afford a Canali suit.

5. To find a pair of trousers that fit me comfortably and aren't Road cords.

6. To live in New York. Again.

7. To have a den, filled wall to wall with books, which nobody would know about but me. And I could go there and write and read and write some more.

8. To own US Esquire magazine, Time, and the Wisden Cricketer. And to be a media barren in the Elliot Carver mould in general.

9. To be woken at 4.30am by the office telling me there had been a coup in Pakistan and I was booked on the 7am from Heathrow to Karachi. I would always have a suitcase packed for just such an event.

10. To be able to wake at 7am and not curse.

In My Head

It's 3am. I'm bored senseless. I'm off tomorrow so I feel obliged to be up till all hours which i am doing but now I've nothing to do but go to bed. Oh well...

Gwen Stefani rocks.

The joy of the Savoy

So I went to The Interpreter yesterday (a very, very good film but could have been one of the greats) and I had a choice of where to see it: The Savoy or UGC. Even though UGC had it on at a better time i found myself rushing to get to the Savoy. And when I got there I realised why.

The Savoy is the last of the "old" cinemas left in town apart from maybe the screen. The Carlton, Adelphi, Ambassador, even the Cameo are gone in the name of progress but the good old Savoy remains. Why do I love it so much? Maybe it's the massive Cinema 1. Maybe its the rich, old Velvet seats. But it's not. It's the fact that the ushers wear tuxedos. I feel so important when the usher is wearing a tux. Sure beats the hell out of some spotty kid in a t-shirt up in motherfucking UGC. I guess I wanna feel important, and the Savoy allows me to feel that way.

A disasterous protest vote

Is this the end for the moderate viewpoint in Northern Ireland? It would appear to be so. The UUP's vote has collapsed. They now have only one seat left in Westminster. The SDLP have taken a hit from Sinn Fein. Now the two extreme parties from both communities are in the ascendency.

Was this an endorsement of the DUP and Sinn Fein's position, however, or was it a protest vote in either community? In other words, did people vote for the DUP as the anti-Sinn Fein party or did they genuinely believe in what the DUP are doing and vice-versa? I believe it was a protest vote.

The UUP were always the strongest party of the Union in the North. They were also relative moderates compared to Ian Paisley and the Democratic Unionist Party as were the SDLP in the Nationalist community. Ian Paisley has been the face of extreme Unionism and leader of the DUP for thirty years. Why should he suddenly become so popular now? It is not what he has done recently- he has not changed in all his time in politics. What has changed is the Good Friday agreement and the "appeasement" of Sinn Fein in Loyalist minds. Paisley's message of the Catholic threat to the Ulster Protestant way of life now rings true where in the past he has been easy to dismiss as the unacceptable face of Loyalism and a crack on the extreme right of reason never mind Unionism. For many Protestants in the North, the IRA and Sinn Fein have got all the gains out of Good Friday, whether its prisoner early release (which Loyalists have also been granted) or delays in decommisioning (all the protests have been from the Unionist side about IRA decommisioning; there has been little or no mention about Loyalist extremists handing in their weapons). This has emboldened the Reverand to push for more. The demand that the IRA provide a photo of their decommisioning- something which Paisley must have known the IRA would never agree to- was as much for political gain as it was for proving that decommisioning was taking place.

Unfortunately for Northern Ireland, his strategy seems to have worked. By playing on the supposed threat on the Protestant way of life from Nationalists his party has become the dominant representative of Protestants in the province. His message has also become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By raising passions as he has, the Republican community has looked at the two parties on offer and, even after the Northern Bank Raid and the Robert MacCartney controversy has chosen the more extreme of the two; the "best" defender of Republicanism, Sinn Fein.

Like in Hamlet, it has been appearance rather than reality which has mattered in this election and now things look grim for the North. A few days ago I heard a commentator say that Election 2005 in the North was about finding a negotiating team for both communities. I hope they do end up around a table but I highly doubt it. It could be a long time before we see devolved government in Stormont again.

Benedict XVI: Conservative or Radical right winger?

So to some surprise Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Tuesday. It was not thought he had enough votes in the Conclave to claim a 2/3s majority but he got in on the fourth (or possibly fifth) vote. The fear that seems to be present in many quarters of his church now, especially in the developed world, is that Benedict will be a radical conservative pope and thus alienate even more a flock that has drifted away from the Catholic Church in alarming numbers over recent years. This is based primarily on Benedict's writings and speeches during his time as Pope John Paul II's "enforcer" over the last quarter century. He has suggested that because Christ took the male form it proves man's intrinsic superiority to women. He has also suggested that homosexuality is morally abhorrent and at a mass recently he spoke out against rampant liberalism and the dangers of changing to suit "fads" in the modern world.

This attitude alarms many people but I am not one of them. What else should a Pope be? He is, after all, the defender of the Catholic faith on Earth. The Church has not accepted homosexuality for 2,000 years. Why should it accept it now? Women priests have not been permitted for 2,000 years. Why should they be allowed now? One need only look at the Church of England to see what can happen to a church that seeks to change itself in order to attract a new generation. Religion should not feel the need to change to suit the people. If somebody doesn't like the idea of mass being in Latin or drowned in incense then that's not the church's problem (that's one thing about George Bush- I may hate him but I know exactly what he stands for). Hamlet doesn't change because solliloquys and brooding young men go out of fashion. Why should the church be any different?

Of course the Pope is a Conservative, as he should be. A liberal Pope runs the risk of the Church changing where change is unneccessary. Yes some changes should be made. The official stance on contraceptives and specifically condoms, for example, is not just outdated but plain irresponsible. Apart from the obvious risk of contracting STDs, surely it is as big a sin to bring a child into this world when the parents are incapable of raising that child officiently as it is to prevent conception in the first place. This, however, would not be changing just for change's sake. This would be common sense as much as anything else. It is not as if sex out of wedlock is a modern issue after all. In general though, the Pope should maintain the status quo and I believe Benedict to be able to do this effectively.

At the end of the day though, what the death of John Paul and succession of Benedict has thought me is that whoever is the Pope has little effect on my everyday life. If I'm about to have sex I'm not going to think of a guy 800 miles away who says it's a sin to use a condom and I'm not going to tell a gay friend that I think he is evil. Perhaps that is why I believe the Pope should always be a Conservative. It's reassuring to know what my church stands for and that it won't be forever changing what it stands for but it will make little difference to me whether I live up to certain aspects of its teachings or not.

The Weekend

Not a lot happened to be honest. Played a match against Wanderers, won 55nil. They were crap. Went to Sideways on Saturday night though. What a film that is! One of the funniest I've seen in a long time. Kind of American Pie with middle aged men instead of the Stifmeister etc but its a lot more serious and a lot better.

Belvo in the Senior Cup Final on Paddys Day- lovin' it!

The failings of Madden 2004

So in my unemployed boredom, I turned to the trusty Playstation and a spot of Madden '04 to pass the time. It's a great game but it has faults.

Although there are not many, there is one glaring ommision when compared to, say, the 2002 version. Namely the lack of classic stadia. In the case of the Washington Redskins, this would be the great RFK stadium. In Madden 2002 you could play in franchise mode at RFK. In 2004 however, we're stuck with frickin' FedEx Field. Come on EA, sort it out or else I'm gonna have to switch to NFL 2k5!!

Sitting here now with my cup of hot orange for my sore throat. Gonna have to take a panadol before bed- can't be like this for the weekend.

The Joys of Public Service Exams

Right, as the title of this blog suggests, I am currently unemployed. So, in an effort to remedy this problem, I did an exam to work for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council here in Dublin. For anybody who hasn't done one of these, their basically aptitude tests tailored to test your suitability to the job. This is about my sixth or seventh. They used to be a bit exciting but now they are just so boring it's not true. The fact that most of the people doing the exam seemed to be "simple" and hence the exam ran way over time didn't lighten my mood in the slightest.

And I've a sore throat so couldn't train tonight (I play rugby by the way; 2nd row for Old Belvedere 3rd XV- top of our league!)

Oh well, at least I've got 6c text messages off Vodafone so I can have a good moan to my friends about it...

The Da Vinci Code, am I missing something?

First ever post, my God I am now a blogger!!!

Feel free to post comments by the way, the more the merrier!

Anyway, enough of that, what's with the Da Vinci code? I've finally started it (after everbody else) and I' m up to about p.316 but frankly it's doing nothing for me. I mean it's not exciting at all. Dan Brown's writing style just doesn't work as far as I'm concerned. He seems to be obsessed with showing off his wonderful knowledge of Opus Dei and symbology but he all he does is come across as a know it all. I was in the States in 2003 and the book was everywhere but I had never heard of it and now it's a world wide hit but I just can't see the greatness in it. If anybody can tell me what's so great about it then please email me.

mailto:fredericktunney@gmail.com