I am so disappointed when sportswriters I respect turn out drivel like Rick Gosselin did in this article. Gosselin jumps to a conclusion faster than Paris Hilton jumps on a table. I wonder if he used a Tom Smykowski "Jump to Conclusions Mat" for this preposterously un-prescient prediction.
His premise is the rest of the league can use the New York Giants 2007 season that resulted in a Super Bowl win as a blueprint for future success. Balderdash! To anybody who wants to try this method, I would also recommend walking a tight-rope across two forty-story buildings without a balancing pole in the middle of a hurricane while sloppy drunk. Your chances of success are about the same.
Goose makes the claim that you win in the NFL by being a team, not by collecting stars. On the surface that seems reasonable enough. The NFL is the ultimate team sport so the idea sounds like a good theory. But when he tries to make the New York Giants of 2007 the prime example and uses the Cowboys 13 Pro-Bowlers as the counterweight it all comes crashing down like a house built with a faulty blueprint.
Here’s the recommendation according to Goose’s plan. Get yourself a coach who is within minutes of being fired over the offseason and early in the season. Don’t sign any prominent free-agents to fill in your holes. Have a QB who led the league in turnovers. Play mediocre ball for most of the season. Then wait for that team to turn it all round heading into the playoffs. Watch them reel off four straight victories in the playoffs (three of them on the road), pulling-off improbable upsets against the #1 and #2 seed in their own conference then do it again against the most dominant team in the NFL for that season in the Super Bowl. Yep, that happens all the time. I mean, what idiot wouldn’t believe that’s the full-proof way to win a Super Bowl? It’s so logical that I can’t believe no franchise ever thought of it before. So start your engines NFL teams and jump on the bandwagon, this is the way to go.
Don’t be fooled by big free-agent signings like Bigg Davis, who helped turn the Cowboys from a 9-7 team to a 13-3 team. That’s dumb, instead keep a broken-down guard like Marco Rivera and watch your team miraculously turn into Super Bowl Champs. Don’t fool around with playmakers and the like, that’s just asking for trouble. Instead, make sure you only have one Pro-Bowler because that’s how Super Bowl champions are made. Don’t bother me with facts like the Colts winning the year before with over five Pro-Bowlers and a bunch of superstars, ditto the Pittsburgh Steelers the year before, or the New England Patriots the years before that. That’s for suckers. Nope, the new way is too ride the lightning and hope you don’t get toasted.
This isn’t to take anything away from what the New York Giants did this year. When the chips were down they came together and played inspired football. There was nothing lucky about it, they earned everything they got. But do you really think that it’s a good idea to try and mimic what they did this year as a blueprint? How many teams over the years do you think were in similar situations as the Giants who crashed-and-burned and were swept into the dustbin of history. Probably more than you can count. This kind of thinking reminds me of last year when after the Super Bowl it was all the rage to say that getting a nice, lovable, player’s coach is the blueprint of the future because Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith took their teams to the ultimate game. Yeah, how’d that work out this year? Bill Belichick and Tom Coughlin, those noted teddy-bears, sure made that theory look good. You can counter that Coughlin lightened-up this year but I can tell you he wasn’t Teddy Ruxpin.
If you want to say that having a team is more important than collecting superstars, you may have a point. But if you’re going to point to this year’s Giants as some kind of blueprint for success in future seasons and as a GM or coach actually try it, then you’ll probably be asking customers if they'd like to super-size that after the season is over. The NFL will truly stand for "Not For Long" as the ever-quotable Jerry Glanville once stated.
Don’t hire Goose Gosselin to build your house with his blueprint unless living under 6-feet of tumbling bricks is your idea of a good time.
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