A world without quarterbacks

Not for nothing, but today's games seem to be some sort of experiment in what the NFL would be like if the forward pass had never been invented. I like to call it "the day the forward pass overslept and missed the playoffs."

For our neighbors, this is more likely known as "the day those old knuckleheads upstairs got Rock Band and just pounded away on the floor all... damn... day..." Too bad for them. On the plus side, the dog won't bark when we're making an unholy racket with the drum kit.

So, there's that.

I'm not watching the San Diego/Tennessee game too closely, but you shouldn't expect much from teams featuring Philip Rivers and Vince Young (Rivers is actually having a good day on a couple of long plays).

The first game was just brutal to watch. Frankie and I were catching up with the game on in the background and we interrupted each other every few minutes as Eli Manning and Jeff Garcia took turns looking ridiculous on the field.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that one of Garcia's retinas had been knocked loose, rendering him unable to accurately judge distances. But where would someone be exposed to that sort of force and/or blunt trauma? Oh, wait.

It was just ugly, like watching kids on a playground who had really good arms, but had yet to realize their limitations in terms of control. I suppose it didn't help that the Tampa Bay offensive line appeared to be in strike for parts of the second half - every replay was of Garcia throwing under pressure or while he was being wrapped up, leading to him trying to strongarm lame duck passes over the middle.

In San Diego, CBS is loving the stats regarding the Chargers' post season flops - they haven't won a playoff game since 1994, the year they were blown out by the 49ers in the Super Bowl.

If they could find some long-dead player to pin this on, they'd have a full-blown Curse of the Bambino on their hands. I'd prefer to call it, "the curse of shitty coaching hires in San Diego."

(Image from CNNSI.com)