Illegal Procedure

…because a hell of a lot less of the earth is covered by Smoot than we’ve been led to believe. And seriously, I think those five preseason games have lulled Zorn into some kind of reverie in which the fourth quarter is just for evaluating practice-squad players, not for actually trying to win.

Gus already did a great job of reacting to the game, so I’ll take a moment to reflect on Fred Smoot. Last night, I got a little misty that my young son was able to see so many characteristic Smoot moves before bedtime: the unnecessary receiver-mugging (resulting in a drive-extending PI call), the hopeless flop, the sideline pout — and these three were all on the same play!

Smoot is interesting because he personifies a particular kind of overrated player, the one who shows just enough flashes of brilliance (or even competence) to be extremely frustrating. When he’s not getting burned or penalized, he’s jawing or whining at his opponents or teammates. He does seem to be pretty good at tackling, at least within a few yards after a receiver makes an easy first down.

Sure enough, just as I was getting ready to put on my smoking jacket, get my scotch, and start scoffing at how much better I am at evaluating football talent than Dan Snyder (who overpaid to get Smoot from an empty set of suitors after Minnesota cut him loose), Smoot had a pick. “Ah ha!” I thought, “surely, this is the Fred Smoot that Vikings fans were briefly excited about in March 2005 and that Redskins fans were heartbroken to see go!” Then he went back to sucking for the rest of the night.

Game notes:

• Less time on hair gel, more time on game plan.
• Trade Santana Moss for Plaxico Burress.
• That Eli is one elusive motherfucker.
• What was Clinton talking about with all that “off-tackle” and “outside” jabber?  Oh, that was on-camera?  How did my hair look?
• Chris who?
• Upside: ball did not injure receivers as it bounced harmlessly off their hands.
• Blame it on Campbell, he looked almost as lost as I did.

The Pro Football Talk website is pretty much a case study in how not to build a scalable web service. (Whereas, here at IP.com, we have no trouble catering to the demands of our 4–6 daily readers, including “canadian pharmacy teen sex orgy,” “casino gambling,” “hrb@l v*i*a*g*r!@,” and “GoogleBot”.) In general, PFT will just die with the old “MYSQL is TITSUP, LOLLERCOASTR” message that we know and love from underpowered WordPress sites everywhere. Today, though, it was different:

ZOMG FLORIO’s WEB GUY IS USING SOME CACHE SOFTWARE THAT MAKES IRONIC REFERENCE TO TEH AMIGA!!1! <3 <3 <3

You just bought yourself a week of reprieve, Deliverance boy. But if you write about politics again, all bets are off.