Week 5: Thoughts on the Haves and the Not-Haves

There are five undefeated teams left sitting pretty after five weeks of season, and nine that have managed one win or less. While there has been no shortage of great games, it seems to me that for every close game we have to sit through two unmerciful beatings the likes of which we could have predicted the tuesday prior. Five games this Sunday had more than 20 points seperating winners and losers. There were good close games (Buffalo and Clevland notwithstanding, if that game were any more boring and shitty they would have had to call it soccer) but a good third of them weren't much more than afterthoughts. On this point I really don't want to sound vicious, but if Seattle can beat Jacksonville 41 nil what business does Jacksonville have being in the same league?

These discrepancies in talent, motivation and\or just general having-shit-togetherness are all the more bewildering when you take into account the setup the NFL built for itself to avoid this very same problem. The NFL has the candy shell of competitive capitalism with a soft chewy oligarchical center where revenue sharing and a salary cap basically levels the field, bonuses notwithstanding. Even the differences in revenues, ranging from large fortunes to very very large fortunes, doesn't help explain why The Vikings (lowest) can be perfect while the Bucks can be 0 and 5 and still belong to the Billion Plus club. What it speaks to I think, is leadership that wants a superbowl the way I want a piano keys made of rhino horn compared to ownership that wants to kill a rhino. So if the Lions can be a perpetually terrible and embarrassing with wicked draft pick after wicked draft pick, and the Colts and the Patriots can just win win win till they're blue in the face, maybe that's the real NFL message to the world. You can be a team that has inspired heads of state, dedicated and knowledgeable coaches, and hard working players that follow the game plan and live in a state of competitiveness, excitement and victory, or you can be a bunch of hacks given every advantage chasing your tails who never get and never deserve to get out of the basement.

Franchises, like life's opportunities, are not handed out to the best and brightest, or even the most capable, they are given to millionaires. You can buy a place at the table but if success could be bought, then you can bet the Cowboys wouldn't have spent the last decade watching the second half of the playoffs on TV's, no matter how big they are.