Sporting Thoughts from 10/9

With my school closed for Columbus Day, my Sunday offered a rare treat of watching lots of sports instead of briefing lots of cases. Several thoughts:

1. I'm a big Philly Eagles fan and McNabb is my guy (has been since freshman year at Syracuse) but this loss to the Cowboys is pretty exposing- they don't have a running game, and have no desire to develop one. This killed them in the Superbowl last year, and it will lay waste their season and whatever other heroics McNabb pulls off. Please, Andy Reid. You're a good coach, but failure to even try to run the ball will hurt your team dearly.
   
   
2. I may be mistaken, but I do believe I just saw Bengals WR stud Chad Johnson try to give CPR to a football. Said ball has since flatlined.
   
   
3. As the Houston Astros-Atlanta Braves game ran into extra-extra-extra innings, that creeping feeling started to set in. You know that feeling? It usually happens in hockey & baseball, where the game continues to drag and you start to get a really sick feeling in your stomach, where the thought of losing is 10 times worse than winning. Almost without fail, baseball games like these end in the bottom of some inning with a home run, and at that point you just feel bad for the losing team. Six hours of competition, only to lose a game b/c you ran out of quality pitchers. And then to lose it...and doesn't it always seem like the Atlanta Braves lose these games?...to a 180 lb. guy who looks like he belongs on the "OC" and makes exactly 1.76% of the highest paid player on the team (though to his credit, the highest player on the team was a beast had every bit as much to do with this win - 43 years old, his first ever pinch hitting at bat, perfect bunt, then 3 shutout innings. Seeing him sit like a caged tiger all alone in the bull pen, then stalking out to the mound gave me chills)...what was my point?
   
   
4. Vincent Frank Freaking Testaverde. Thanks, Vinny. You knocked me out of my suicide pool.
   
   
5. I actually like the guy, but I took particular joy in watching Ray Lewis get flat-out TRAMPLED by Lions RB Kevin Jones.
   
   And my favorite throw-away quote from the weekend, courtesy of head official Mike Carey, who tossed out two Baltimore Ravens during a loss that saw them commit 21 penalties:
   
   

   "He bumped me with malice in his heart and he was gone."