Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Bad hats, Phelps’ Faux Pas and Understanding Donovan 101

By Steven Lienert

The Phanatic Magazine


Some rumblings and grumblings while waiting for my internship at the Eagles to come to an end later this afternoon… (Hey, if anybody’s hiring, I know a sportswriter that’s available!)


Nice lids…Whoever designed the championship hats that were given to the Steelers following their 27-23 win over the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII should be fired.


I mean, what was up with that? Did the NFL expect the 1980 Seattle Seahawks to lay claim to the Lombardi trophy?


I get that the colors were along the lines of those used for the Super Bowl logo, which was pretty crummy in and of itself, by the way.


Name me one team in the league whose logo would have looked good on that hat? Both the Steelers’ black-and-gold and the Cardinals’ red-and-white would have looked equally awful on that thing.


The conference championship hats were wearable, but only because the league stuck with a basic gray, black and white base.


I feel bad for Stiller fans. Not only are they stuck with wearing that God-awful thing forever, they have to live in Pittsburgh, too. Ugh.


Drugs Are Bad, M’kay… Can we officially stop labeling marijuana a drug now? Michael Phelps apparently likes to toke up from time-to-time and obviously it has inhibited him from becoming all he can be.


The guy only set an Olympic record by recording eight gold medals in Beijing. If he wants to have a bong hit on his own time, I don’t see why that would be an issue. If he was caught smoking a cigarette or chugging a beer, would he have caught as much flak?


To be honest with you, I don’t see a difference between the three, except that two of them are legal, both of which are worse for you.


As a matter of fact, Phelps should sign up for Pot Fest. He’s already a fine representative of American athletics and with his lung capacity there’s no way the Europeans would repeat.


C’mon Super 5… Hugh Douglas, Jeremiah Trotter and Ike Reese have taken major exception to Donovan McNabb’s comments on Howard Eskin’s show prior to the Super Bowl after No. 5 said that he gave the Eagles a 25-24 lead in the NFC Championship game.


Here’s what McNabb said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer: “We were up, 25-24. (The Cardinals) drove down 72 yards by running the ball -- probably, what, eight times? And it reminded me so much of (the NFC championship game in) St. Louis where, coming back in that second half, they ran the ball nine times with Marshall Faulk to keep our offense off the field. Because they were terrified of us going back out and scoring more points.”


Trot, Hugh and Ike are under the impression that not only did McNabb throw the 2008 defense under the proverbial bus, but he also threw the 2001 defense under the bus.


On the contrary, McNabb, in my opinion, was trying to say that neither the Rams nor the Cards wanted the ball back in his hands at the end of the game because they were frightened he would drive the team down the field for a game-winning score.


Now, whether or not he could is more than debatable. Whether or not he was throwing the defense under the bus is not. He wasn’t criticizing the defense. He just misspoke as he so often does.


The guy can’t win. He’s a freakin’ lightning rod. He should just keep his mouth closed, especially around Philadelphia.


And by the way, Trot, you are almost solely to blame for that loss to the Rams. You attacked the wrong gap on running plays for almost the entire game, which let Marshall Faulk run free for most of the fourth quarter.


It led directly to the beginning of the end of your first stint with the Eagles and you know it.


At the end of the day… I’ve never had a job I’ve loved more than the one I’m finishing up today with the Eagles. Before taking this job, my friend asked me if I really wanted to take it. He said that I ended up hating the last two places I worked and he wanted to know if I could handle hating the Eagles.


Needless to say, I love them now more than ever. I’ll never forget the past six months of my life and I regret nothing about the decision I made.


After everything that happened this season, it will be tough to go back to Gen-Pop in the upper reaches of Section 207 at the Linc.


But how many of us can actually say that they lived their dream, even if it was just a six-month internship? I touched mine and I loved every minute of it.


No one can ever take that away.


Steve Lienert is covering the Eagles for about two more hours. He can be reached at stevelienert@hotmail.com.

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