With Christmas now in the rear view mirror, this introduction could easily qualify as a "Plus/Minus Take of the Week". The plus: football fanatics everywhere were treated to a Christmas Eve full of football; it was like being able to open presents at midnight instead of waiting until 9 a.m. long after Santa done crawled his dusty behind back up with milk in his mustache and Christmas cookie crumbs in his beard. The minus: although they had two pivotal division matchups with playoff implications--one being in prime time--they had to sacrifice most of Christmas Day to the NBA. Either way, outside of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and spending time with family and friends, there aren't too many other things I'd rather do than watch football on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. For some teams--as well as some coaches and GMs who will get their pink slips before Black Monday--jolly old St. Nick had lumps of coal. However, if you were like the first team featured in this week's edition, then you felt like you got straight As and minded your manners at the 11th hour...
As evidenced from last week's edition of "Views from the Nosebleeds", the "meantime in between time" leading into Week 6 had more compelling storylines. However, coming into Week 7, the most interesting story was Stephen A. Smith's diatribe of Washington's NFL team. Although the fellow Libra has been on my nerves for the past year or so for a plethora of reasons, I agreed wholeheartedly with him laying into the pride of Landover for being so arrogant in somehow thinking they arrived because they beat the Eagles for a fourth straight time, especially since they had a road trip date to face a quarterback who they've never beaten. Outside of that, all was quiet on the Western front and I initially had to reach for this week's "Plus/Minus Take of the Week", which was originally about all of the key injuries piling up around the league. However, once an unexpected development occurred in South Florida yesterday, it completely changed the tide. Sometimes, you have to be patient and wait for the story, even if it's last minute. Let's waste no more time, folks...
I nearly got roped into two things known to drive up my blood pressure over the past eight years: 1) another season of fantasy football and 2) buying a copy of Madden NFL 17. However, there are three simple reasons why I won't drink the Kool-Aid with either: 1) both bled me dry financially last year, especially FanDuel, and a brother needs to save his duckets; 2) I don't have the time to invest in FanDuel or Madden because I have too many creative endeavors; and most important, 3) I want to be able to enjoy the game of football without worrying about how a dropped TD pass, a fumble or an aberration of a performance will drop my from a cool $500 to zilch in a matter of seconds. Therefore, in an effort to accomplish what I failed to do last NFL season, I unveil a new weekly series dedicated to my favorite sport: "Views from the Nosebleeds." So during a week featuring six fourth-quarter come-from-behind wins and four one-point victories--the latter being an NFL record for an opening weekend--let's go over some of my "views"...
