Like many others, I am excited about the prospects of a new administration, and the special significance of the United States having its first African-American President. To paraphrase President Obama, we are not the red states of America, we are not the blue states of America, we are not the white states of America, we are not the black states of America, we are the United States of America. President Obama is a trailblazer and you have to like that about him.
It’s a bit of a breath of fresh air after sixteen years of what appeared to me to be four consecutive terms of arrogant, self-centered, mildly brain-damaged, somewhat lazy and self-indulgent baby boomers Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who each, both in their own awful ways, demonstrated all of the very worst traits of the baby boom generation—Clinton in his philandering and uncontrollable appetites for food, sex and manic tirades which left his security details emotionally exhausted and upset about guarding him—and Bush in his stubborn intransigent refusal to change policies, his disappearances from public view for months on end, the rumors about his drinking which would resurface from time to time, his incredible oedipal complexes regarding his father and mother, his religious conversions from Episcopalian to born again to long rumored conversion to crypto-catholicism after long meetings with the two Popes.
I say, a pox on both their houses. The last good to excellent Presidents we have had, clearly, were Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr., whose three terms ended in 1993, and culminated in the downfall of the iron curtain, and the downfall of the Russian bear, the Russian communist government which had been in place since 1917, and the liberation of hundreds of millions of people from communism, including all of the enslaved millions of Eastern Europe. to my mind, this was the greatest accomplishment of the twentieth century, on a part with the defeat of Imperial Germany in WWI and the defeat of Hitler in WWII. Bush I and Reagan deserve our admiration and our respect for this great achievement. One might also throw in there the liberation of Kuwait and the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan as well as the defeat of the communists and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua on their watch as well.
In my view, while both the Clinton and Bush II adminisrations had mixed successes, neither President could directly claim them as Presidential successes. Clinton could not claim credit for either the legislation he passed or the great economy he engendered—those were the work of the Republican Senate and House, and of his excellent Treasury Secretaries Rubin and Summers. Bush could not claim credit for the victories in the war on terror or in Afghanistan or Iraq—those were the result of VP Cheyney and the neo-con think tank, and General Petraeus. While Bush greenlighted those projects, he wasn’t the leader on them. And the economy tanked badly under Bush, as did many other domestic programs, such as EPA and FEMA. Clinton’s entire second term was marred by the Lewinsky scandal and his own impeachment, while the first two years of his first term were marred by endless scandals and the downfall of his own party in the mid-term elections of 1994, along with the destruction of his mandate for health care reform and the defeat of his reform agenda during 1993-1994. Likewise, Bush II got little or nothing done in his second term, and his approval ratings were poor, suffering as they did from the attrition of a long ground war in Asia (very LBJ like) and meandering domestic policies which culminated in economic disaster.
In short, both Presidents suffered from attention deficit disorder, self-centered personality issues, arrogance, unwillingness to listen to criticism and poor comprehension of the big picture. In short, they both betrayed the worst aspects of the baby boom generational personality. Frankly, their personalities were quite similar, in many respect, even though their policies and politics may have been different.
I leave this to the scholars and authors, but eventually, some briliant psycho historian will put this all together in a compelling thesis or book or article, comparting Bush II to Clinton, and resolving the many strands of the Baby Boom Complex. Whatever the issues, I’m glad that we can finally sweep these guys past us and under the rug.
I preferred older leaders, guys like Reagan, who organized the Screen Actors Guild in the 1930s and 1940s, or Bush I, who flew fifty or more combat missions in World War II. Those guys were real leaders who stood up for real principles and worked hard all their lives. They didn’t have time to worry about themselves because they were always worried about others.
This brings us to President Obama, a fellow that seems to fit the mold of our older civil servants, a fellow that is more interested in others than he is in himself. And you have to like that. Like Reagan, he was a sports buff when younger, and like Bush I, he gave a great deal of time when younger to public service and civil service projects at cost and expense to himself. I cannot recall too many former editors of the Harvard Law Review who spent ten years or more pacing the streets of the South Chitown ghettoes getting to know the old ladies and young men and getting them organized and out to vote. Most of those Harvard Law Review editor types go straight to NYC or DC and pick up the big bucks, especially back in the go-go 90s.
There’s something nice in the way those old grandmothers from Chicago talk about the President that you have to like. A fella that’s willing to eat a meal at someone’s modest home in the south side of Chicago is a regular guy.
Also, and this one goes out to my good friend Scott Pritikin of Chicago, you have to love the fact that President Obama is a Chicago White Sox fan, and doesn’t care for the Cubs or the Red Sox. He’s not one of those yuppies or baby boomers who instantly root for the Cubs or Red Sox because they think they’re supposed to, or because it’s the elitist thing to do.
Rooting for the White Sox is a sign of being a down to earth, South Side Chicago, Blues Guy. A guy who likes reality, not cash, who likes to play hoops, not tennis or polo. The man is real. Really real. Everything peripheral about him seems just right. He’s no baby boomer–he’s a solid citizen. He’d rather spend the day eating pie with your grandmother than fooling around with some intern. That’s way righteous. And we all know he’s a religious fellow, and a righteous fellow, and a fine speaker.
But what I’m saying is, it all seems to come from some wellspring of personal integrity and decency.
In President Obama, we finally have someone who appears, on the surface at least, to be a serious, detail-oriented, intelligent man who will devote himself 24/7 to the job of being CEO and CFO of the United States of America, the most difficult and demanding job in the world. His cabinet picks and transition team work to date has been outstanding, and he has picked excellent people. Speaking in a nonpartisan fashion, I have been impressed with his willingness to appoint people from all points of view and from all sides of the aisle to his administration, including notably Defense Secretary Gates from Bush’s administration. There does not appear to be a pronounced liberal policy bias—instead, there is a bias towards getting the jobs done right in each and every sector of government. This is a blissfully good sign of proper management skills.
Plus, the new President shoots a mean left hook and he was a great athlete in high school. Hey, he even works out with the leading scorers of college basketball. To be nearly fifty and be able to work out with college kids, that’s saying something.
His hobbies are not self-indulgent, weird or twisted. He likes to shoot hoop in his spare time at the gym. This is the kind of guy I can actually relate too. He’s not some weird, self-centered, twisted baby-boomer in search of the meaning of life either by having an affair with a white house intern or by sitting down and chatting endlessly with the Pope. This President knows himself, is comfortable with his values and sense of self, and is just about business and getting the work done. He’s a down to earth regular guy, from what I can see.
You have no idea how refreshing that is to see in a President. I wish him well, and I hope they build a basketball gym at the White House, and invite kids from the neighborhood to come and have shootarounds Mondays and Thursdays with the Prez.
Part II – Donovan McNabb and Ernie Davis
Now, onto discussing Ernie Davis and Donovan McNabb.
Last night, I finally had the chance to watch a movie that explores in detail the racial problems of the old America in detail, while also telling the story of a sports legend. I refer here to “The Express—The Ernie Davis Story” which tells the story of “The Elmira Express,” Ernie Davis, the first African-American football player ever to win the Heisman Trophy. Davis followed Jim Brown to Syracuse University and wore Jim Brown’s #44 from 1959-62, and led Syracuse to an undefeated untied season, a #1 ranking, a national championship and a Cotton Bowl victory over #2 Texas in the 1959-60 football season. His accomplishments were unbelievable.
One of President Obama’s great heroes, the late President Kennedy, admired Ernie Davis greatly. President Kennedy was also a former athlete, and played football at Harvard. He truly admired Ernie Davis for his accomplishments on the football field, and he went out of his way to praise Davis for his Heisman Award, and in the film is shown to have met Davis in person to congratulate him.
And yet Ernie Davis, who was drafted by the Cleveland Browns and would have played in the same backfield as Jim Brown (what a backfield that would have been) never played a down in the NFL. He was stuck down in the prime of life by leukemia, and died in 1963 at age 23. President Kennedy himself sent a memorial message.
This film is a great deal about the bravery and pioneering efforts not only of Davis against discrimination and bigotry, but also of Syracuse University, and their trailblazing efforts to recruit and develop African-American talent at the highest levels of national championship football. We seen in this film an unbroken chain from Jim Brown to Ernie Davis to Floyd Little, and we all know what kind of running backs Jim Brown and Floyd Little were in the NFL for the Cleveland Browns and the Denver Broncos—great ones.
This got me to thinking a great deal about the traditions of football at Syracuse, and about another great football player who is having an incredible NFL career, who also is African-American and went to Syracuse, and here I am speaking of Donovan McNabb.
Does anyone seriously doubt that Donovan McNabb went to Syracuse because he was chasing the ghosts of Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little? Donovan McNabb, even though he jokes and smiles, is I believe, serious about advancing the cause of greatness on the football field for African-American players. Don’t let the Chunky Soup ads fool you. Terrell Owens may be a clown, but Donovan McNabb is a thinking man’s football player, and serious about the advancement of African-Americans.
At this point, we must start asking ourselves, is Donovan McNabb the greatest African-American quarterback of all time ever to play in the NFL to date? The unequivocal answer is yes, absolutely and positively, yes. No other African-American quarterback has been to five conference championship games within an eight year span as has Donovan McNabb, including the Super Bowl. Other African-American quarterbacks have put up gaudier numbers—and here I think of Warren Moon principally—and Steve McNair was great for a long time with Houston/Tennessee and also reached the Super Bowl—but McNabb has been greater for longer and been a consistent winner for a longer period of time than any of them.
In point of fact, McNabb’s accomplishments in the NFL are very similar to those of Obama in politics. At this point in his career, anything that McNabb accomplishes, from here on out, is pioneering unchartered ground for an African-American quarterback in the NFL. McNabb of Syracuse has redefined the level of quarterback play for African-Americans in the NFL, like Jim Brown of Syracuse before him redefined the level of running back play for African-Americans in the NFL. McNabb would certainly belong in the Hall of Fame for this accomplishment alone, but beyond that, he has matched the record of Steve Young in the 1990s for appearing in five conference championship games in one decade. And no one doubts that Steve Young, Jerry Rice and George Seifert all belong in the Hall of Fame.
And I remind you all, that in none of those seasons (except perhaps the one with Terrell Owens) did McNabb ever have a receiver as gifted as Jerry Rice. Imagine if McNabb had Jerry Rice and Steve Young had to throw to Todd Pinkston or Greg Lewis for eight years. Does anyone doubt that McNabb and Rice would have gone to five super bowls while Young would have been lucky to get to one NFC conference final had those two guys had each others’ receiving corps?
This past season has defined the greatness of McNabb in so many ways. A lost season was redeemed. Impossible playoff games were won. Even in the final NFC championship game, when all seemed lost, McNabb gave a heroic, Olympian effort to win the game during the second half, and played the most beautiful, perfect quarter of football that anyone has ever seen from a quarterback in an NFC title game in decades.
That McNabb and the Eagles lost the game is irrelevant. For most of the second half, McNabb was the greatest, most dominant player I have ever witnessed on a football field. He took over the game the way only great players do, players like Jim Brown, like Joe Namath, like Roger Staubach, like Troy Aikman, like Terry Bradshaw, like Franco Harris.
And, like Ernie Davis. McNabb’s greatness was there for all to see.
I doubt seriously that we shall see his kind again.
To those who say McNabb is a good and not a great QB, you are wrong. McNabb is a great QB. It is Kurt Warner who is a good and not a great QB. Two or three great seasons, interrupted by sitting on the bench for years in NYC or playing in the arena league in other years, does not a HOF career make.
This is super bowl year 43. Next year will be Super Bowl #44. That’s Jim Brown’s Number and Ernie Davis’ Number. For some reason, I think Donovan McNabb might have extra special incentive to want to win Super Bowl #44. It would be very special indeed if he could win Super Bowl #44 in 2010. It would be homage to Jim Brown, to Ernie Davis, to Floyd Little, to Syracuse, to a whole of players who have gone before…
and it would certainly stick it to Rush Limbaugh and TO for making those horrible racists comments about McNabb a few years back…
I think the Eagles have a fine chance of coming back to the playoffs next year, and perhaps going all the way. And even if it’s 80-1, as I’ve argued elsewhere, there are worse bets in the marketplace than putting a dollar on andy reid.
–Art Kyriazis Philly/South Jersey
Home of the World Champion Phillies
Happy New Year 2009
Cards Edge Eagles 32-25 in NFC Championship Game in Upset Stunner
January 19, 2009
The Arizona Cardinals, one of the worst franchises in recent NFL memory, shocked me and perhaps the entire world yesterday, by upsetting the battle-tested and road-tested NFC East worthy Philadelphia Eagles 32-25 in the NFC Championship Game yesterday. I simply cannot believe that the Cardinals managed to win this game, even though it was a trap game in many respects–a road game after two tough road games, a revenge game for the Cards, and a warm weather game for a warm weather team, as well as an emotional let down game for the Eagles coming off a big win against the Giants. Nonetheless, the Eagles should have won this game, for many reasons. The Eagles nonetheless had a terrific season, and for me the high points of the season will still be crushing the Giants last week at the Meadowlands, as well as Donovan McNabb’s incredible double fake roll out and 80 yard throw to DeSean Jackson to take the lead in the NFC Championship Game in the 4th Quarter on a 62-yard bomb that was magnificent in execution and brilliantly thrown. It was everything and more that we as fans could ever have hoped for from our Eagles.
Nonetheless, the Eagles, as well as they played, came up short. I see three main factors.
Factor one – The NFL’s System for Assigning Home Games is Faulty When it Comes to Back-End Division Chapions with Poor Records and Easy Schedules vs. Wild Cards with Better Records and Harder Schedules
First thing, this game had no business being played in Arizona. Arizona was 9-7 in the regular season, the Eagles were 9-6-1. The Eagles had the better regular season record. Second, the Eagles trouced the Cards 48-20 in the only game between the two clubs. Third, the Eagles were 4-0 against the NFC West. Fourth, the Cards were 0-4 against the NFC East. The NFL’s official explanation for the seeding was that the Cardinals, as NFC West Division champs, were official the 4th seed in the playoffs, while the Eagles were the sixth seed as the wild-card.
However, it seems to me, that once you get to a head to head match-up between two teams where one team clearly has a better record, a stronger schedule and has beaten the other team head to head as well as beaten the common opponent, you have to throw out the brackets and assign the home game based on record and head to head competition.
The proper thing to do here would have been to break brackets and give the Eagles the home game. After all, Arizona did not really earn their home game in any sense of the word. Nor did they earn their bye week with a weak 9-7 record. While I give Arizona credit for beating Carolina on the road last week, there is simply no way that Arizona as NFC West Division champs deserved a home game with a weak 9-7 record.
The NFL playoff rules need to be amended such that division winners should only get home games if 1) they are division winners and 2) of the remaining two teams playing, the division winner has the better record of the remaining two teams playing, taking strength of schedule into account.
i know this is a loser’s beef, but a fair one. If this game had been played in Philly, the Eagles could have played more their style of ball.
Factor Two – David Akers cost the Eagles lots and lots of Points
David Akers came up small in the biggest game of the year. With the score 7-3 in the first half, Akers shanked a 45-yard field goal attempt badly to the right. Akers had the shanks all game long–he shanked a kickoff, an extra point, and the 45 yard FG attempt to the right during the game–all to the detriment of the Eagles.
If Akers makes that FG, the Eagles are at 7-6, one point down, and they kick off and pin the Cards deep. Instead, the Cards took over at about their own 30, and immediately they did the flea-flicker play to Larry Fitzgerald that went for 70 yards and a TD, making it 14-6. That’s a ten point swing right there.
So that sequence cost the Eagles ten points, maximum, three points minimum, and Akers was kicking in a dome, remember.
Next, Akers missed an extra point in the second half, costing the team another point, and forcing them to go for two on another TD, which the team didn’t make, costing them another two points, which in essence cost them three points. If Akers makes the first extra point, they kick another, so really it’s two points.
So Akers cost the team another two points in the second half.
As I see it, Akers cost the team six points, and possibly ten. So on account of Akers, and only Akers, the final score could have been 32-30 Cards, or better yet, 30-25 Eagles, which is what I think the score would have been if Akers had simply done his job.
Moreover, if Akers kicks the field goal in the first half and kicks his two extra points in the second half, and even assuming that the Cards score 32 points, the score is only 32-30 with three minutes to go, and the Eagles are on the 47 of Phoenix needing only about 20 yards to kick a game winning FG, instead of needing to go 47 yards to get a TD. As I see it, that changes the whole complexion of the game.
David Akers needs either to be replaced, or supplemented by a long-distance kicker. He no longer has the range or distance from past 40 yards.
Akers, and Akers alone, arguably cost the Eagles this football game.
Factor Three – The Eagles came out Flat in the First Half
The Eagles were thoroughly out played in the first half of the NFC Championship game, and obviously came out very flat. Most surprisingly the defense played badly and allowed 24 points, probably the most number of points allowed by the Eagles in a half in many a week.
The Eagles offense actually did not play so badly in the first half. While they didn’t score TDs, they played well enough to get in position for three FG’s, but Akers missed one, so they should have had 9 points, and arguably one of the Card’s TDs came about because of the FG miss, so the score could have been 17-9 at half.
However, to the Eagles everlasting credit, and quite unlike the Tampa Bay and Carolina NFC Championship Games, where they basically lay down and gave up, the Eagles mounted a ferocious comeback in the third quarter and second half of this game to come all the way back and actually take the lead, 25-24, in the fourth quarter, and make this and exciting and truly great NFC championship game.
During that third/fourth quarter stretch, the Eagles scored three straight TDs, stopped the Cards on every offensive possesion and stifled them defensively, and looked every bit like the Eagles of the last two weeks. I had given the Eagles up for dead after the first half, personally. I was surprised to see their comeback. It was the comeback of a great team with great character and a great will to win.
This years Eagles were nothing like the Eagles of other years. They were a great team that had a great will to win, even until the end.
Even Arizona’s final drive (and I suspect the home team was shaving time off the clock, incidentally), which consumed 7 minutes and went for a game winning TD and two point conversion, did not mask the greatness of the Eagles defense, which resisted them every step of the way, and pushed them to 3d and 4th down repeatedly, and nearly made a big goal line stand to force them to a Field Goal.
And McNabb made a great run at a final two minute drive to win the game and just came up a couple of passes short.
The final stats show that the Eagles actually outplayed the Cards–McNabb threw for many more yards, and was a terrific passer on the day. McNabb’s second half was far better than the Card’s Kurt Warner’s first half.
Edgerrin James, though, did have a great day, and was a big factor in the Cards’ final drive.
This game was quite reminiscent of the Rams-Eagles game of 2001 where Warner and McCutcheon came back to beat the Eagles in the second half. that was a great game, too.
People will say that this tarnishes McNabb’s and/or Reid’s legacy. No, no, no.
The Eagles are truly a great team. Five NFC Title games in eight years, and a terrific performance in this last one, an exciting performance, and nearly a win against all odds.
Only the 1990s San Francisco 49ers appeared in five NFC championship games in one decade, and I would remind everyone that that team, also, made it to just one Super Bowl appearance in those five games under coach George Seifert, were 1-4 in NFC championship games, and thought they won the Super Bowl they appeared in, their record of accomplishments in the 1990s is not dissimilar from the Eagles. Also, the Niners were up against a powerful Dallas Cowboys team piloted by Troy Aikman in those years. The Eagles have faced similarly talented teams within their own conference.
The Eagles have been playing with house money the whole way through. They nearly made it to another super bowl in a year that no one expected anything of them.
Now, they are in a position to sign a kicker and a running back (LaDainian Tomlinson?) and make another run next year at the title.
The dynasty continues. Another great year of pro football comes to a close in philly.
Oh, and by the way, GO STEELERS! (hey, we love PA teams).
–art kyriazis philly/south jersey
home of the world champion phillies
Happy New Year 2009
