Spiraling into Control

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you a public service announcement: the Red Sox owners, general manager, fans and in general everyone having anything to do with Red Sox of any sort, including those who are misguided enough—whether ignorantly or not—to don footwear painted that distasteful color, are a bunch of puling babies. Waa. Waa. Waa.

If there is ever one more cry of “woe is me, the Red Sox aren’t as rich as the Yankees”... if that is ever used as an excuse to make up for the Red Sox pathetic performance in baseball and life in general, the perpetrating puler should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Bucky Dent’s home run until a neighboring supernova destroys the Terran system.

The Red Sox bid 51.1 MILLION dollars to simply gain the rights to negotiate with that Japanese pitcher whose name I will certainly not attempt to spell but sounds like “Motzuzooka”.

As you have been informed by your columnist many times before, the Red Sox have always been whining babies when it came to money. This latest salvo of proof is simply too strong for the mainstream to ignore. The Red Sox are inferior because they are inferior, not because they don’t have money.

Okay, and now the caged beast that is a Yankee fan residing in your columnist’s scary mental capacity will be knocked out with chloroform while we talk about the NFL.

Analysts and commentators are always attempting to determine which teams will play well, which teams are “superior”, which teams are “a cut above the rest”; said analysts sometimes watch hours of tape (coughjawscough) along the way, doing everything possible to gain the knowledge required to say something insightful.

Well that is just dumb, because at least when it comes to the offense, how well a team will do is quite obvious. Just look at their QBs spiral. Yes. The spiral. To unscientifically prove how easy it is to equate “spiral” with “good offense”, I will now run through a random assortment of the NFL’s QBs’ spirals (wow that was a lot of words ending in “s”), and then explain how well their offense is currently doing.

Now before we get onto the meat of this article, one might wonder why this strange correlation between spiraling and winning exists. Wanna know why? BECAUSE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO THROW THE BALL WITH A SPIRAL, BEN WORTHLESSBERGER!

We might as well start there:

Big Ben: His spiral is simply non-existent. He doesn’t have a spiral. He chucks the ball up with all the beauty of the New Jersey Turnpike. So, you ask, how did he win a SuperBowl? First off, he didn’t. His defense, along with Carson Palmer’s knee, Nick Harper, and a conspiracy of referees won the Steelers the Super Bowl. But more than that, you do know he was not the only player to throw a football for Pittsburgh in the big game, and that Antwaan Randle El, who threw one pass that game, threw the only TD pass for Pittsburgh, and also that that TD pass was the prettiest thrown pass from a Steeler all day? Yep. That is why they won. Pittsburgh, thank God for Randle El. In a not-so-coincidental coincidence, the Steelers suck this year. Randle El is no longer on their roster. And one of the games they won was thanks to Charlie Batch, who throws a decent spiral.

Peyton Manning: Here’s an easy one. He throws a perfect spiral whenever he wants to. Their offense is nigh unstoppable. They are undefeated. Spiral, baby, spiral. (Disclaimer: The Colts lost after I wrote this, but that doesn't change anything. Their offense is still unbelievable, and they are still the best team in the league.)

Eli Manning: He throws a very good spiral half of the time, and he throws a Ben Worthlessberger the other half. This explains why he looks brilliant some moments, and downright awful at others. The team shares his spiral’s schizophrenia. Coincidence? I think not. Spirals shape the personality of a team way more than coaches do.

Rex Grossman: Absolutely beautiful spiral. Really. It makes perfect sense his team is so dang high scoring and also 9-1. No, their pathetic competition has had nothing to do with it.

Chad Pennington: Look at that spiral. Seeing as he can’t throw it hard or far, all he can do is spiral it. But that is enough to take a bottom feeding team from last year and make them playoff contenders. Oh how odd. Or not, if you ascribe to spiral theory.

Tom Brady: He throws a brilliant spiral. I think this has worked out well for him over the years...

Daunte Culpepper: No spiral in sight. Also, no Culpepper in sight, thanks to his hideous performance.

Donovan McNabb: He does not have the perfect spiral of Peyton or Rex, but he throws a decently tightly wound ball. His team reflects that with a 5-5 record. Of course, now that he is gone, Philly is dead.

Philip Rivers: This man throws one heck of a spiral. Oh yeah, and his team scored 42 points last week. In the second half. And they scored 28 points this week. In the second half.

Andrew Walters: Uh... no need to explain this really.

Jake Plummer: Throws a very mediocre spiral, if it can even be called that. His offense is anemic. Denver is good thanks to their defense. And their defense is good thanks to Champ Bailey. So... they are good thanks to Champ Bailey. I digress.

Steve McNair: He throws a good spiral when he needs to. Not surprisingly, his play and his team reflect this by only playing well when it is absolutely necessary.

Byron Leftwich: He does not really throw a good spiral, even though his throws are still nice looking. Similarly, his team does not really play well, even though their list of names says they should. (By the way, Leftwich, along with various other quarterbacks such as Donovan McNabb, proves that spirals are not exclusively required for a QB to be good—though they do help in that regard—but they tend to reflect the team’s performance even better than the QB’s. Rex Grossman is another example. He isn’t necessarily terrific, but his team is, thank to his beautiful spiraling pigskin)

David Carr: I have no idea. He is never on TV. Who wants to watch the Texans?

Vince Young: Ah... well... he doesn’t throw a particularly good spiral. His team is not particularly good.

Mark Brunell: His spiral used to be good, now he doesn’t have the arm strength left, and his team fell apart, and he is no longer the starting quarterback, and the moral of the story is: quit when you can no longer throw a spiral.

Brett Favre: Okay, his spiral is not very good, and his team reflects it this year, by also being “not very good”. Yet it is worth mentioning that Brett Favre has never thrown very good spirals, and yet he did used to be fantastic… Uh, no this doesn’t wipe out my theory, for two reasons: Brett Favre has always been an interception throwing machine, and also… come on, one exception isn’t that bad.

Drew Bledsoe: We aren’t sure what his spiral looks like. He never throws the ball. He just hangs onto it like it it’s a sack of gold. Or a bomb that will go off as soon as it leaves his hand. Either works.

Tony Romo: Very respectable spiral, I would say, and his team has played well since he started starting. Heh. Started starting, that’s funny, it—nevermind…

Brad Johnson: He was one of the QBs that led to the discovery of this correlation between spiraling and winning. He isn’t mobile, doesn’t have a strong arm, isn’t brilliant in the head, and yet he wins, because he throws spirals. Also, the Vikings have faltered as of late, and Brad’s passing has been very inconsistent. Several of his throws have been bad ones lately. Not sure why, but the results are clear. Loss of spiral=loss of games.

Jake Delhomme: He has a pretty spiral most of the time, and his team is pretty dominating most of the time. Inexplicably, his team lays huge eggs sometimes, and inexplicably, he throws horrible spirals some of the times. Call me crazy, but that appears to be a cow-INC-ee-dince.

Drew Brees: His spiral is very good. Not surprisingly, he has taken a bottom-feeding team to a 6-4 record.


There are plenty of other NFL teams out there, but to once again prove my bias and amazing ability to simply ignore those teams which no one cares about (let’s face it, no one in Seattle reads my column, so they aren’t going to be offended. And if, by chance someone from Seattle is reading this, it is your fault you live out in no man’s land. Get over it).

The fact of the matter is: spirals=points, plain and simple. Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, learn how to throw, and your team will progress magnificently.

OSU-UM fails to live up to expectations: The OSU/UM brawl was an extremely good game. As a country, we were completely unready for this, seeing as the vast majority of super-hyped games in the country turn out to be complete jokes. Everyone ready for OSU/*insert punching bag here*?

OSU now has only itself to fear…: Before you faint and accuse me of employing a stupid cliché, fear not. I do not mean OSU only has to worry about its own mistakes; I mean OSU literally only has to worry about a former re-incarnation of itself, the 2002 Buckeyes. That team took on heavily favored, high powered Miami and won anyway. The Buckeyes will most likely face a big underdog in the title game, unless Michigan somehow maintains its grip on #2 when USC and Notre Dame play. Props to Michigan for staying there for now, anyway.

Randy Moss isn’t inspired to play for the Raiders: Uh... duh? Why does anyone care about this? Who the heck *would* be inspired to put their body on the line for that sad joke of a team they have in Oakland. Trade him and be done with it, Oakland.

The Record for the record broken most times in a five year period: Marshall Faulk broke the TDs in a single season record. Then Shaun Alexander broke it. Now, Ladainian Tomlinson has a very good chance to break it. And you thought the home run record was meaningless.

See it, then see it again, then see it again, then see it...: Casino Royale was far better than I expected, and I was expecting a lot. Daniel Craig was brilliant, the scenes were brilliant, the plot was brilliant, the realism was brilliant. Dang. The whole thing was brilliant. See it. Now. I don't care if you have already seen it. Go see it again.

New Feature Coming: Everyone get ready for the Mort Report Retort to appear in ensuing articles. In it, you will get information Chris Mortensen would be proud of, such as "He might play, but then again he might not", and "I don't expect the league to fine him, but it is still a strong possibility", and "the Bears are really hoping Urlacher will be ready to play, because he is a big part of their defense" and "I am pretty sure that there is a chance he could be somewhat healthy sometime in the next few weeks"

I am sure you are salivating.

Holiday Special: This will be the last post for three weeks due to extraneous factors known as holiday vacations, so I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! Not that I really understand how anyone could have a "Happy Thanksgiving!" while no football is on, but I digress. (Stop it. I know you want to argue with me about the “no football is on”, but do you *really* want to argue? Think about it... keep thinking. Yeah, you came to the correct conclusion. Thank you.)