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Behind The Scoreboard
By Claude Vinson NFL kickoff The
2010 NFL football season was completely ushered in last Thursday with
the game between the reigning champs of the Super Bowl and the team
which almost made it to the big game. The high
school and collegiate seasons had been kicked off a few weeks earlier.
Already comments are flying and car side banners are flourishing.
Thanks, Don (Hollingsworth), for your comments on last week’s column.
We here at The South Reporter welcome remarks from our readership. Is
the Mid-South shifting slightly from the Dallas Cowboys as “America’s
Team”? Yours truly makes mention of this because during the past week,
not only the Cowboys’ emblem was noticed but flags from the Eagles,
49ers, Raiders, Steelers and Falcons were spotted. Heck, there was even
an ensign from Tampa Bay! The Bucs was one of the “low finishers” last
season (13-3). Some team in Kansas City was a game better at 4-12. The
worst of the worst was St. Louis with a 1-15 mark. The Rams snagged
their quarterback choice in the first round of the draft, taking Sam
Bradford out of Oklahoma. Is Monsieur Bradford going to be able to put
the “battering” back in the Rams’ offense? The
third hottest topic in the early season was centered around the
Cincinati Bengals, namely, T.O. (Terrell Owens) and C.O. (Chad
Ochocinco). And one has to throw in Carson Palmer when discussing the
Bengals’ future, for he is the one who has to make viable targets out
of these two teammates. Both have great abilities and volatile
personalities. Will they keep control and aid the Bengals in improving
their 10-6 record from last season? Another good
conversation starter was the Cowboys and the Redskins. The latter went
and hired Mike Shanahan as the new Chief and acquired (some called this
“divisional raiding”) Donovan McNabb from the Eagles. The irony is that
McNabb spent 11 seasons with Philly and Dan Snyder’s team has won just
two playoff games in that length of time. The six- time pro bowl
selectee will have to do some scrambling. The Redskins were 4-12 in
their last campaign. The very hottest topic was
the opener between the Vikings and the Saints. I didn’t get to be a
witness to that one because of the Heritage Classic activities.
However, attendees were using their hand-held devices (you know, the
ones which do everything except milk the cow and churn the butter) to
track the game’s progress. Some newfound Saints’ fans were dismayed by
the low score (14-9). But there was a good number who stated that they
were rooting for Brett.
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