Category: NFL (Page 1 of 7)

All Hail the Jimster!

When I was the News and Sports Director at KHLB Radio in the ’90s, I made the 60-minute drive from Marble Falls to St. Edward’s University in Austin at least twice a week in the summers to cover the Dallas Cowboys training camps. The media parking lot was several hundred yards away from the main practice field, but as soon as I parked and opened the door to my truck, I could hear Jimmy.

Jimmy Johnson coached the Cowboys loudly. In your face. Hollering and yelling. Running back and forth between the offensive huddles and the defensive huddles during scrimmages. Exchanging forearm shivers with linemen and expletive-laced insults with the skill players. Banishing kickers to the “asthma field.” Getting down in the grass with running backs and DBs during quickness drills. Both encouraging and lambasting with equal opportunity and fervor. No nonsense. Active. Seemingly coaching every group all over two fields at the same time. Loudly. Standing on the sidelines at these practices, you always knew where Jimmy was and what he was saying. He was omnipresent.

There was never any doubt who was in charge of the Cowboys back then. And Jimmy Johnson was in charge of all of it. He took the Tom Landry – Tex Schramm Cowboys from a franchise-record six-year NFC Championship Game appearance drought to the first of back-to-back Super Bowl wins in just four seasons. They were Jimmy’s players, Jimmy’s coaches, Jimmy’s trades, Jimmy’s draft picks, and Jimmy’s rules.

Following his way-too-short Hall of Fame coaching career, Jimmy spent 31 football seasons on Fox’s NFL Pregame Show. It was obvious to everyone watching that the other Hall of Famers on the program like Bradshaw, Howie, and Strahan, admired and respected Jimmy for his football knowledge and achievements and also loved him for just being a good guy and a great friend. Jimmy has always been great fun to listen to, both from the sidelines at a Cowboys summer practice and from my living room couch on a Sunday afternoon.

The Jimster finally called it quits yesterday. He’s been hinting at retirement for a couple of years now and it became all but certain when Fox Sports rolled out that weird AI-generated video tribute to Johnson during the Super Bowl pre-game show last month. All NFL fans are going to miss him. We’re going to miss him a lot more than he’s going to miss us. Jimmy doesn’t need the spotlight or the schedule; he’s going to be just fine on his fishing boat in Florida. But Sundays  are going to be a little less fun now.

Everything changed for the Cowboys when Jerry Wayne forced Jimmy out after that second straight Super Bowl championship–I don’t need to document it here. Again. But I do recall how different it was on those practice fields at St. Ed’s. It was hard finding Barry Switzer. Where’s the head coach? Which group is he working with? Who is he coaching? Where is he? It would turn into a game sometimes on the sidelines at training camp. Someone would say, “Where’s Barry?” and it would take a good long time for any of us to locate him. Inevitably, someone would spot him, usually sitting in a golf cart signing autographs and taking pictures with young women. During practice.

All hail the Jimster. A wise and humorous, authoritative, and trust-worthy presence for more than 35-years. I wish him the very best.

Peace,

Allan

Super Bowl Scattershooting

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Mike Zimmer.
Wait. Nevermind.

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About yesterday’s Super Bowl. Did you see all those Chiefs field goals? They matter. Extra points. They matter. Would somebody please tell Dan Campbell.

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These are my favorite Super Bowl commercials I have watched several times again today, in the order in which they made me laugh out loud: Reece’s Peanut Butter Caramel Cups, particularly the guy on the left slamming his head into that pot of beans or chili or whatever that is; Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Dunkin Donuts spot with Tom Brady; Aubrey Plaza’s Mountain Dew commercial, specifically where she’s having a blast both winning and losing; and the couch potato commercial for Pluto TV–that one’s funny in a really creepy way. Also, I did not see the little dog hula-hooping in the Reece’s commercial until like my sixth viewing.

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Thank goodness the Super Bowl is not on CBS every year. Does America really want to listen to Tony Romo tell us what he would do during a critical drive, trailing by one score, in the last two minutes of a half? We saw what he would do. We watched it for ten years.

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Name a quarterback playing right now you’d rather have guiding your team, down one score, with one possession left, over Patrick Mahomes. You can’t. Good grief, that guy. In the clutch, with the clock ticking and the game on the line, Mahomes just straight-up delivers. That last drive to set up the game-tying field goal at the end of regulation and that championship winning drive in overtime were both perfect. Perfect. Unstoppable. Travis Kelce caught nine balls for 93-yards, including three huge third down catches on those two drives. The Kansas City defense was unbelievable in limiting the Niners. And their kicker could split the uprights from 70 yards away. Mahomes is the rightful MVP. And the Chiefs are now America’s Team. They beat both number-one seeds during the run that ended with yesterday’s title. They’ve got big personalities at the skill spots and down-to-earth guys in the trenches. They’ve got a Hall of Fame coach. They’ve got America’s biggest pop music hero hosting movie stars and high-end celebrities in the million-dollar suites, cheering them on. And they win and win and win. The Chiefs are America’s Team.

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Following our annual GCR Daddy-Daughter Dance Friday, there were two-and-a-half boxes of Little Debbie Unicorn Cakes left over. Unicorn Cakes? I had never heard of Unicorn Cakes until Ashlee messaged us Sunday morning that we were free to take any leftover cookies, brownies, or other desserts home with us for our various Super Bowl parties. Unicorn Cakes? Sparkling strawberry? Some kind of gooey purple icing stuff in the middle? White icing and sprinkles? Yes, please! Today there are one-and-a-half boxes left.

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The World Series Champion Texas Rangers pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in Surprise, Arizona this Wednesday February 14. Day after tomorrow. I know it’s also Ash Wednesday. And Valentine’s Day. But it’s also the first official day of the defense of the Rangers’ World Series Championship! I’ve never typed those words before. Ever.

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I want to write something a little more reflective on the “He Gets Us” Super Bowl commercial featuring the foot washing scenes. I’ll try to get to that tomorrow. Have you seen it? Here it is. Stay tuned…

Peace,

Allan

Leonard

The great Lenny Dawson died last night at the age of 87. The Hall of Fame quarterback took the Kansas City Chiefs to two Super Bowls, beating the Vikings in Super Bowl IV, the last football game played by the old AFL. I’m wearing my Len Dawson #16 football jersey today. For at least a couple of reasons.

The Chiefs have always been my second favorite football team. Remember, they began life as the Dallas Texans of the rival American Football League, sharing the Cotton Bowl with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, and competing with the Cowboys for fans and tickets and money. Both teams were so miserable during those early years, Texans owner Lamar Hunt once challenged Cowboys owner Clint Murchison to a head-to-head football game between the Texans and Cowboys, and “the winner gets to leave town.” Hunt did move his Texans to Kansas City where he renamed them the Chiefs and won a couple of AFL titles and, eventually, that Super Bowl with Dawson at quarterback. I’ve always felt a connection with the Chiefs because of their origins in my hometown. They’re from Dallas and I want them to succeed.

I’m also a huge fan of the old NFL Films and that Super Bowl IV in 1970 was the first time a head coach had been wired up for the championship game. Hank Stram stole the show with his one-liners and quips, most famously his exhortation to “Lenny” to “keep matriculating the ball down the field!”

That quote became the line that bonded me forever to a friend at the Legacy Church of Christ in North Richland Hills, Chris Drake. Love the Drake. He called me Lenny or Leonard because, in his view, I was trying to move our church, trying to get us somewhere, trying to grow our faith outside our Sunday assemblies and grow our vision to include the Kingdom outside our walls. He could sense I had a passion and a plan. He could also sense that it would be tough at Legacy. So he encouraged me with “keep matriculating the ball down the field.” One yard at a time. One play at a time.

Drake called me Leonard all the time. Lenny. “Keep matriculating the ball down the field.” This is how he encouraged me when he knew things were rough. Continually. “Pump it in there, baby. Set ’em up for the 65 Toss Power Trap.” Constant encouragement. True friendship. “Work for it, wait for it, them drop it on ’em. One play at a time. One yard at a time.”

After a couple of setbacks with resistant elders and grumpy members, Drake told me he would be my Daryl Johnston. He would be my lead blocker, taking out anybody who got in my way. It made me slightly uncomfortable because I never knew how serious he was. He would text me after a particularly challenging sermon with “I’m turning the corner and looking for contact!” I never thought he would ever really physically take out one of our shepherds with a crack-back block in the west foyer. Would he? He signed his emails to me with “#48.” And kept me guessing.

He gave me this Len Dawson jersey as a Christmas gift a couple of years into our ministry at Legacy – that was thirteen years ago – and I still wear it every couple of months. We still text and email each other about the Cowboys and Rangers. We still go back and forth about church politics and Kingdom of God issues in the ‘comments’ section of this blog. He still signs his communications with me as “#48.” And he still calls me Leonard.

In a weird way, Drake helped me understand my role and solidify my identity as a preacher in God’s Church. It’s not an individual sport, it’s a team game. And not every play is a touchdown pass. It always takes a few short gains between the tackles before you can go deep. It takes dirty work in the trenches, down in the mud and the sweat of the real life of the Body of Christ, before you can run that sweep to the end zone.

Len Dawson died last night.

I’m reminded that he played in a different era and represents, in many ways, a different sport. Dawson was asked once how long halftime was back when he played and he replied, “About two cigarettes.” I’m reminded that success as a preacher in the Lord’s Church means keeping your eye on the big picture and just faithfully matriculating the ball down the field, one play at a time. And I’m reminded of Drake and the way he so intentionally went out of his way to encourage this brand new preacher so long ago.

Peace,

Allan

The Chart is for Losers

Will 2020 never end?!? Tom Brady is going to be in the Super Bowl?!? Of course he is!!!

I’m disgusted by the results of yesterday’s NFC Championship Game in Green Bay. I’m sickened that Tom Brady can throw three interceptions in a conference title tilt and be hailed the next morning as one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. Didn’t one of his Super Bowl wins come in a 13-3 score? Didn’t two others come via buzzer-beating field goals to make up for his turnovers? Didn’t he make it to his first Super Bowl a million years ago when the referees reversed his title-game-ending fumble with the “tuck rule?” Hasn’t every Brady Super Bowl season happened in the middle of a spy-gate or a deflate-game cheating scandal? It nauseates me.

I’m also dumbfounded by the head coaches of the two losing teams in yesterday’s conference championship games. May the Lord deal with me be it ever so severely, I’ll never understand what’s so hard about making a decision to just kick the extra point.

Green Bay’s Matt LaFleur goes for two at the end of the third quarter, fails to convert, and the Packers are chasing that missed point all the way to the end of the game. Instead of kicking the PAT and being down four, 28-24, LaFleur tries to make it a three-point game. When Aaron Rodgers’ pass is incomplete, Green Bay is down five points, 28-23, which, after a Tampa Bay field goal, turns into an eight-point deficit instead of seven. And that impacted LaFleur’s decision-making at the end of the game.

He told reporters last night, one of the reasons he kicked the field goal with 2:09 to play instead of going for the TD on fourth-and-goal from the Buccaneers eight-yard-line is that they needed the touchdown AND the two-point conversion to tie. They needed both. They weren’t going for the automatic tie with a touchdown there.

Well, whose fault is that?!?

Kick the extra point at the end of the third quarter and you only need a TD to tie there at the end.

An even more unbelievable meltdown, although not nearly as dramatic, was Bills coach Sean McDermott’s decision to go for two with about four minutes left in the game against the Chiefs. Down 23 points, Buffalo scores a touchdown to make it 38-21. A simple extra-point kick makes it 38-22, a two-score game. But for some still-unexplained reason, McDermott goes for two, resulting in the rare touchdown that KEEPS it a three-score game. Miraculously, the Bills recover an on-side kick, but they still need three scores, not two, to change the outcome. I thought only Mike McCarthy got away with stuff like this!

Bill Parcells once asked me if I had ever seen “the chart.” I was having a heated discussion with the then-Cowboys coach over just this kind of indefensible lunacy he had displayed during a Monday night game in Seattle and he was blaming “the chart.” You know, it’s that little index card coaches keep in their shirt pockets that tells them when to go for two and when to kick the extra point. Of course, you never hear about “the chart” until a coach makes a terrible decision that costs his team the game.

You always, no matter what, kick the extra point until you are mathematically down to your last possible possession. Always.

The chart is for losers. So is ESPN’s Win Probability Model. And anything else that’s used to defend any other practice.

Go Chiefs.

Allan

Positively Negative

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Pat Verbeek…

Mainly to assure my co-workers and appease a couple of our church elders, I submitted myself to a Covid-19 test yesterday. I came out positive for burning nostrils and watery eyes and negative for the coronavirus. Everybody around me can breathe a huge sigh of relief. While wearing a large mask.

The Houston Texans should have fired Bill O’Brien at least four years ago, long before he traded away Jadeveon Clowney, DeAndre Hopkins, and all those draft picks. The Texans have the highest payroll in the NFL this year and they have started out 0-4. Reminds me of another embarrassingly futile NFL team in Texas.

When a team begins a football season at 1-3, it has a 14% chance of making the playoffs. That statistic will probably be skewed a bit this year because the NFC East is led right now by a team with one win. The Cowboys might win this division with a 7-9 record. But they already have a 100% chance of extending their streak of consecutive seasons without winning a divisional playoff game to 25 years. They should design another commemorative patch. “Silver Substandard” or something like that.

Missions Month is my favorite season at Central.

I’ve added our middle daughter Valerie’s brand new blog, “The Kitchen Sink,” to my links on the bottom right hand side of this page. Valerie is the newly-married, newly-employed Youth Minister at the Contact Church in Tulsa. She just launched the blog over the weekend and just posted her first article about our (Christians) and her (personal) relationship between our citizenship in heaven and our national politics. You can click here to read it or scroll through the links on the right. Man, I really love this girl. I admire Valerie. I wish I had the same passion for the Kingdom when I was her age. I’m really blessed to be her dad. I’m very thankful to God.

Peace,

Allan

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