The latest piece of evidence supporting my theory of Gumbel’s quiet revolution was his recent decision to cover the shooting of Robert Tolan, a black athlete in the state of Texas. Robert Tolan is the son of former Major League Baseball player Bobby Tolan. The junior Tolan was shot by police officer Jeffrey Cotton in a racially charged incident in late 2008. The story was covered this week on Gumbel’s show, “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.”

The shooting of Robert Tolan was quite disturbing, no matter how you slice it. Officer Cotton and another officer, John Edwards, stopped Tolan in the driveway of his own home, suspecting that he was driving a stolen car. The officers told Tolan and his cousin to get out of the car with their faces on the ground. That’s when Tolan’s parents noticed what was going on and came outside.

Upon seeing her son on the ground, Mrs. Tolan began asking questions. Officer Cotton then grabbed Tolan’s mother and slammed her against the garage. This move shocked the younger Tolan, who stood up and said, “Hey, that’s my mother!” That’s when Officer Cotton turned and shot Tolan in the chest. Tolan survived the shooting, but still has a bullet lodged in his liver, which effectively put an end to his aspirations of becoming a major league baseball player like his father.

Cotton claims that he thought Tolan was reaching for a weapon, but no weapon was found. It also turns out that the officers weren’t apprehending two suspects with a stolen vehicle, because the license plate number that the officer entered into the computer was the wrong one. They shot an innocent, law-abiding black man who was simply going to his parents’ house.

The city of Bellaire, Texas is right outside of Houston. According to Gumbel, the city stops African Americans 12 times more often than it stops white motorists. What’s most astonishing is that the mayor of the town, Cindy Seigal, actually told Gumbel that she sees no evidence that racial profiling exists within her city. Perhaps she might want to take a statistics class so she can realize just how alarming the racial profiling statistic sounds to the rest of us.

Adding insult to injury, Sgt. Cotton was found not guilty of aggravated assault in the shooting of Robert Tolan. This has angered the family, who has filed a federal suit against the city. Personally, I was outraged when I saw the show air on HBO this week. The Tolan family is not a pack of criminals and they weren’t resisting the officers. They were regular people minding their own business, being assaulted by the biggest street gang in the city, which appears to be the Bellaire Police Department. This should never have happened.

Here’s the deal with the shooting of Robbie Tolan:

1) There is no way we can imagine these officers treating a white family in a nice neighborhood the way they treated the Tolans. This fundamental disrespect and irresponsible aggression that some officers comfortably show toward African Americans, even when they are not suspected a crime, is outrageous. By bringing added aggression into the situation while dealing with black people, untrained officers increase the likelihood of a confrontation. Anyone being falsely accused of a crime by a violent police officer is going to be tempted to fight back.

Tolan’s mother was not under suspicion of having committed a crime, yet she was slammed against the garage and put in the back of a patrol car while her son lie on the ground with a bullet in his chest. Making matters worse, Tolan’s mother had to watch helplessly as her bleeding son had his pockets searched by the very same officer who’d just shot him. This could happen to any black family in America. I’d be curious to see if police officers exhibit the same reckless, trigger-happy behavior when they come to college campuses on a Friday night, where alcohol consumption, drug possession and belligerent behavior is at an all-time high.

2) The fact that Sgt. Cotton is back on duty after this incident is unconscionable. Also, the mayor’s response to the situation is reflective of the kind of denial that makes Texas a dangerous place for African Americans. This problem also exists in other parts of the country, and by allowing Sgt. Cotton to nearly take Robbie Tolan’s life without consequence certainly sends an interesting message. I looked into Mayor Cindy Seigal’s eyes during her conversation with Gumbel and I could see that she was defensive and not willing to concede even the slightest bit of responsibility for an officer who’d put a bullet into one of the law-abiding residents of her town. She was, however, quick to defend the police officers during a town hall meeting shortly after the incident.

3) I am the son of a cop, so I am typically quite empathetic to the plight of police when I feel they’ve done nothing wrong. There are not nearly as many bad cops as we’d like to believe, and there are some who truly want to do the right thing. But this situation is astonishing in the sense that the officers had no right to be at the Tolan’s home that night. The officers should have had the good sense to double-check the license plate number before putting a person’s life in danger. It is also difficult to imagine that the officers “just happened” to choose Tolan’s car for a plate search. I believe that Robbie Tolan’s license plate was checked because the officers saw two black men in a nice car and presumed that they were drug dealers. I wonder how often they check the plates of other middle and upper class residents of Bellaire, Texas. this artical was reposted

This whole situation is an outrage and some thing has to b done about it!

2K СПОРТ ОБЯВЯВА КОЛЕЖ обръчите 2K6 ЗА
XBOX 360 вече са достъпни

2K Спорт обяви днес, че колежа обръчите
2K6 за Xbox 360 (TM) виж игра и забавляване система от
Microsoft е вече на разположение на търговци на дребно в цяла Северна Америка. Като
единствената игра, колеж Баскетбол разположение за Xbox 360, колеж
Обръчите 2K6 доставя наистина автентични колективен опит,
демонстрират чувствате графика от следващо поколение, несравнимо геймплей,
всички от фен-любимите характеристики са отразени в настоящите генерал версии
и актуализиран и разширен списък на отборите и играчите .

За нас е удоволствие да се въвеждат й.
Колеж обръчите 2K6, единственият следващата колеж поколение баскетбол
дял, да Xbox 360 игра, , каза Грег Томас, председател на Visual
Концепцията, едно студио 2K Спорт. Колеж обръчите 2K6 е пример за
дух колеж Баскетбол чрез ангажиране атмосфера, вълнуващи
игра и уникални характеристики, които наистина за подобряване на цялостното
опит.

2K Спорт силно аплодирана колеж обръчите
2K серия, вече са достъпни за Xbox 360, потапя колеж Баскетбол
фенове в целия екшън с Xbox 360 – изключителни характеристики
включително зашеметяване модели играч, подробна арени колеж пълна
с пълно 3D тълпите и реалистични анимационни секции за групата,
Начало и посещение на тълпи. Колежът стил на игра е напълно
реализирана за Xbox 360 с точна игра темпо и скорост, и се съсредоточи
за играчи изстрел разпределение и отбраната на този пост. Колеж
Обръчите 2K6 включва целия набор от функции намерени в
текущата генерал версии, като Shot Stick, V.I.P. Система (TM),
Треньор и клипборда, Полунощ Лудост (R), Rip N Газа

The post got a lot of approving comments, which surprised me. I think there are pretty good arguments for just hauling off and buying. Consider what one of these hypothetical companies might say in defense of a decision to buy now rather than later.

1. We’ve got the money now and we should spend it.

2. The product we’ll get will be much more reliable.

3. The cost of services surrounding the product will be lower.

4. We don’t know when the new products will be out (with the possible exception of Workday 10).

5. We don’t know what will be in the new product.

Imagine what idiots we’d look like, the buyer might say, if we waited for five years for a product that was no better than what we could buy today and far more incomplete and buggy.

I see the force of this, which is why I thought it was a close call. Ultimately, I did decide it’s better to wait for markedly better products that are coming, despite the risks and delays. But I saw why people would disagree.

So are my commenters intemperate or am I dithering? One test for this is to look at the case of somebody who is not considering a replacement, but is considering a fairly big investment in the existing platform. Maybe they’re considering an upgrade, or maybe they’re considering some extension products, or maybe they want to push their existing installation out to other geographies.

This is a very realistic case. Several companies I know fairly well are considering one or more of these options. One is upgrading to Oracle 11i; another wants to upgrade to Infor LN. Still another wants to extend its QAD implementation to another geography. Still another wants to buy a CRM system from its existing vendor.

For each of these companies, the details matter a lot, but on reflection, I think the same argument applies. It will be hard to get the return on this big new investment in the old platform, because the useful life of what is to you a new product is not long enough to justify the expense.

This raises two questions. First, how does one calculate “useful life.” Most of the companies I’m thinking of believe that the useful life is defined only by how long they’re willing to use it, and for some companies, that’s pretty long. (There are, after all, big SAP clients who are still using R/2.) I think this is wrong, but I’m going to have to hold off explaining why till a later blog.

The second question is, “Assuming that the commenters and I are right, what kinds of investments should companies who have decided to wait actually make?” I have no determinate answers to this, but I think there are some guidelines.

Start with Gavin’s comment on the previous post. Gavin points out that some investments in the Oracle infrastructure and in new Fusion-based products will actually take you toward the next Oracle generation. He is quite right; Oracle designed things this way, and partly because of the problem that I’m describing, they quite deliberately created some ways of investing in products from Oracle without locking yourself into an older technology.

There are many, many caveats, of course. Among other things, if you have an Oracle system now, you might not want Oracle in the future. The three main products I mentioned in the earlier post (Workday, Business by Design, and Fusion Applications) are all highly differentiated, each with its own flaws and virtues. A rational person would do well to look at all of them before deciding to stick with the vendor they have now. (This applies to SAP customers, too.)

Even if you are bent on Oracle, you still may want to take some time thinking through your infrastructure stack before investing in pieces of it. Even the examples Gavin gives like OpenID, which are likely to be pretty good, may not be right in the long run, and if they aren’t, that will be a lot of trouble and expense gone to waste.

You should note that Gavin’s argument almost certainly will apply to SAP, as well. SAP is also workng on “hybrid” intermediate solutions, and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that they’re trying to figure out every way they can to ease the migration to the new system by asking you to make steady, rational investments in products that extend your current capabilities.

But what about customers for whom an infrastructure or extension investment isn’t right? Here, I think there are some interesting arguments, akin to Gavin’s, for small, light cloud-based apps, point solutions designed to solve highly specific problems. I’m not just talking about a CRM app or a call-center app or a recruiting app; I’m talking about things that are very, very specific to your industry, but really powerful, things like Tradestone in the apparel industry.

Another possibility is to spend some time and effort cleaning up your existing installation. This will improve its current effectiveness, extend its useful life, and very possibly lower the cost of the new system significantly. (A lot of the cost of any implementation is cleaning up after the mess left by a system that everybody has given up on.)

There’s a very smart analyst in Europe, Helmuth Gümbel, who has spent a lot of time thinking about this problem. He has a blog, and he also has a conference, Sapience, which goes into these questions at length. If you’re thinking about extending your current ERP to other geographies, a reasonable alternative might be to find lower-cost ERP systems to serve those geographies.

The basic theme running through these latter approaches is that while you’re waiting, you can focus on saving some money and preparing your current installation, thereby making the later transition to a newer technology faster and more affordable.

Contour plots

This was the case for Bryant Gumbel. The host of HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” announced this week that he has lung cancer. The announcement came as a shock too fans and coworkers. He announced he is seeing a specialist and hopes to get back to golfing soon.  I believe it should be an individual’s choice to make his or her medical records public. It obviously was not affecting his work if no one knew, and he reportedly never missed a taping.  This sounds good, but in reality it is much more complex. A celebrity or CEO are constantly vulnerable too reporters and others who will stop at nothing to obtain personal information. Mr. Gumbal made a wise decision in telling his fans on his own terms, instead of waiting until his records were leaked.

Anyways, ten years after retiring, CBS Sports asks me if I’d like  to try guest commentating.  Within a week I was sitting in the box chatting it up with Greg and Phil.  It started off fine, I complimented the teams but also mentioned things I thought they could work on.  I predicted why flags were thrown and even tried out my own catch phrase (“You just can’t do that!”).  It all started  going down hill in the middle of the 3rd Quarter when Gumbel goes out of his way to mention my fumble in the ’87 AFC Championship.  After watching the tape, I can see now that he was actually trying to pay me a compliment.  That’s why I feel so bad about saying “Well, what the hell have you done with your  life, Gumbel?”  I don’t know why I said that.  Or why I tried to push him out of his chair.  Or why I yelled “Stay out of this Phil, this knife isn’t meant for you!”  Which reminds me, I don’t know why I brought that knife.  When I leave the house with a knife, sometimes I’m just like “Why are you taking this knife with you?  You know if you take it  you’re just going to spend all day looking for an excuse to use it.”    That’s right about the time when security tackled me and I yelled the thing about the rings.  I tried to get in one last “You just can’t do that!”  but they’d already turned my microphone off.

Despite all that, I still think the Jets  played a thinking man’s football game against the Chiefs on Sunday and I’m excited to see what their defense has in store for the rest of the season.

(links nach rechts: Ralf Bollmann, Hans-Martin Gutmann, Jan Feddersen, Eva Gümbel, Kaija Kutter)

Mit ca. 25 Besuchern war die Veranstaltung leider recht mager besucht. Durchs zunächst offene Fenster dröhnte Laute Walzermusik und verlieh der Diskussion gleichzeitig eine Art Erhabenheit und ein kommunikatives Handycap. Mit Schließung des Fensters war das aber auch schon fast die letzte Schwierigkeit die sich stellte. Die angekündigte Direktorin des Landesfunkhauses Hamburg und stellvertretende Vorsitzende des Hochschulrats, Maria von Welser, hatte kurzfristig abgesagt.

Die statt dessen anwesende Eva Gümbel, Hochschulpolitische Sprecherin der GAL, hatte ganz sicher nicht eine so konträre Position zu Prof. Gutmann, wie von Welser es als Repräsentantin der Hochschulpolitischen Antidemokratie es vermutlich geboten hätte. Dennoch musste sich Gümbel mit einigen Fragen zur Hochschulpolitik der Schwarz-Grünen-Koalition konfrontieren lassen. Ihrer Meinung nach sei das Kernproblem die Unterfinanzierung der Universitäten.  Auf den Vorwurf die GAL habe sich beim Thema Bildung von der CDU über den Tisch ziehen lassen, war Gümbel allerdings der Ansicht, dass grüne Politik durchgesetzt worden sei. Ansonsten achtete sie darauf dem Koalitionspartner nicht auf die Füße zu treten, sah die Schulreform als ersten Schritt auf den aber die Evaluation des Hochschulgesetzes als zweiter folgen müsse.

Der Vielschritt des Föderalismus schien das Hauptthema des taz-Politikredakteurs, Ralf Bollmann, zu sein. Neben diversen Berlin (seine damalige Studienstätte) Hamburg Vergleichen, fand er in verschiedenen Rankings Argumente, weshalb es im Stadtstaat an der Elbe an Vorzeigeprofessoren mangele. Damit (und der Mutmaßung das das Kommunikationsdefizit von Auweter-Kurtz auch in deren Weiblichkeit begründet sei) schuf er allerdings immer wieder Diskussionanlässe.

Besonders die Schmählerung des hamburger Lehrstuhls veranlasste Prof. Hans-Martin Gutmann immer wieder dazu eine Lanze für seine KollegInnen zu brechen. Der von seiner Fakultät zum Dekan gewählte, in dieser Funktion aber vom alten wie aktuellem Präsidium, blockierte Theologe forderte seinerseits eine Reform der Reform und mehr Partizipation der Basis an universitären Entscheidungsprozessen.

In diesen Ansichten fand er in Kaija Kutter, taz-Nord-Bildungsredakteurin, eine klare Sympathisantin. Kutter erwies sich außerdem als Kennerin des Themas und brachte ihren Kollegen Bollmann, vor allem aber Fr. Gümbel mit fundierten Fragen öfters in Zugzwang.

Hauptfragensteller und Moderator Jan Feddersen, ebenfalls von der Taz, führte mit Beharrlichkeit, wo sie nötig war, und dem Bemühen um gerechte Redeanteile durch den abend.

Unterm Strich blieb die große Diskussion aus, da alle Diskussionsteilnehmer mit ihren Zielvorstellungen zu dicht beieinander liegen und sich höchstens in Nuancen und/oder Prioritäten unterscheiden.

Kleine Randnotiz: Während sich eine Vertreterin der Fachschaftsräte Konferenz, eine Vertreterin des akademischen Mittelbaus, ein Student der Leuphana Lüneburg (mit unschönen Zukunftsprognosen für Hamburg/Erfahrungsberichten aus Lüneburg) und ein Student der Erziehungswissenschaft über die Möglichkeit freuten, Publikumsfragen zu stellen, hielt sich der Vorsitzende des AstA, Severin Pabsch, zurück. Während er bei den Protesten angesichts der (inzwischen Finalen) Pressekonferenz von Auweter-Kurtz noch ins Bild drängte, um zu betonen, dass er der gewählte Vertreter der Studierendenschaft sei, hatte der Juso, der “sich [...] sehr für die politische Bildung der Studierenden [und] um das Verständnis für Hochschulpolitik” engagiert, heute nichts zum Thema beizutragen.

Dee Dee Ricks

Alexandra Lebenthal

Helen Lee Schifter

Tory Burch

Alison Minton

Shoshanna Gruss

Lisa Errico

Shafi Roepers

Kathy Lee Gifford

Valesca Guerrand-Hermes

Sherman Meloni

Lisa McCarthy

Lee Niven

Caryn Zucker

Grace Meigher

Meredith Melling Burke

Hilary Gumbel

Somers Farkas

With only a few hours to go on an expiring contract

“Comcast and the NFL are engaged in productive discussions toward a new agreement for NFL Network carriage on Comcast. NFL Network will continue to be carried on Comcast systems past tonight’s scheduled expiration of the current contract while both sides continue these productive discussions. We are both working to find a solution that works for NFL fans and Comcast’s customers.”

The NFL had been contesting Comcast’s extra monthly charge for a “sports package” that includes NHL, NBA, and more channels.  The League, and this subscriber, felt that the cable giant should include the programming in it’s already excessive (my opinion) rates.

A representative at Comcast told me earlier today she didn’t want to give any “false hope,” but that the service had not been terminated and they were still working towards a deal.  She said the NFL Network was pulling service away from them.

In the days leading up to the deadline, the football network displayed a banner alerting viewers of the pending divorce.  Their website urged viewers to submit a protest form.  Blogger Obsessed With Sports did a good job describing the situation.  The Comcast reply to the protest is inclued in his comment’s section.

Comcast apparently didn’t like being told how to run their business on account of them not being able to further gouge subscribers, many of whom have no other cable provider option.  Direct TV has poked fun at cable executives in a string of recent ads that are probably surprisingly accurate. 

Comcast made an argument at one point that the NFL Network only broadcasts 8 games a year yet charges a big fee for such little coverage.  If they’re only showing eight games then why charge subscribers extra money!  The reason is because the network pulls millions of viewers and is growing leaps and bounds.  The recent retirement of John Madden only opens up the field more to the next generation of football programmers.  (But please, for the love of Johnny U. do not let Bryant Gumbel ever call a game again).

So the spat continues, but the two sides are in therapy and hope in time they can work things out.  I’m sure they will.  After all, money is on the line.

Roland Koch hat ZDF-Chefredakteur Nikolaus Brender offen kritisiert, er wirft ihm vor, für Quoteneinbußen des Senders verantwortlich zu sein. Wie schätzen Sie die Äußerungen ein?

Koch tritt offenkundig die Flucht nach vorne an, weil er mit seinen Hinterzimmer-Mauscheleien aufgeflogen ist. Seine öffentlichen Angriffe auf Brender und den Intendanten Markus Schächter schaden dem ZDF. Weiter geht es >>> hier

Ivanka Trump

Renee Fleming

Andrea Olshan

Susan Fales-Hill

Crystal McCrary

Hilary Gumbel

Hillary Geary Ross

Barbara Walters

Stephanie LaCava

Shoshanna Lonstein

Princesa Firyal de Jordania

Christine Baranski

Anna Scott Carter

Annette de la Renta

Louise Grunwald

Beach Justice

NO! Not, Gumbels. Writing that name is sin enough, let alone suggesting there could be more of them; two is two too many. Greg Gumbel is like that uncle you never liked. You know, the one who wore styling gel well into his 40’s, always asked you about some activity you hadn’t been interested in for three years and had the wife that wore western-themed clothing. The one with the Mazda that always needed a jump start and who gave you disposable cameras for Christmas….you get the picture. And Lesser (Bryant) Gumbel? Oh man, he makes Phil Simms’ commentary look like Shakespearean prose! Lesser Gumble is the guy you have to settle for at a party where you don’t know anyone. The one that tells you he looooooves Pabst and eagerly explains the intricacies of fine literature like The Davinci Code……Wow. That, folks, is a digression.

But anyway, what I want to explore in this post are three gambles I’m putting my money on this season. So, without anymore commentary on Gumble2Gumble, here they are:

1. Denver Wins the AFC West: Okay, okay. This isn’t really a gamble if you know your head from your ass (pun intended? you’ll never know). Sure, the Donkeys winning the West isn’t necessarily a shoe-in, but I can’t say the limb I’m going out on here is thin. BUT, San Diego still seems to be the conventional pick for this division. Also, I’ll kick it up a notch and say that Denver will have homefield throughout the playoffs. There are number of reasons why the Chargers won’t win this division, the most major of which is how good Denver looks. Cutler is the best qb in the AFC right now (though Rivers isn’t far behind him), their backs and O line consistently control the line of scrimmage, and Marshall is incredible. In short, they’re a better team than San Diego. But Denver being good doesn’t rule the Chargers out de facto; rather, San Diego’s own weaknesses are their main problem. As the Tuna would say, they are what their record says they are…..and what Ed Hochuli says they are.

2. Miami Wins 8: Oh yeah, you read it right. God I’ll regret this but to hell with it. This team has talent. Ronnie Brown is a top 5 back, Pennington…..well…..no, no, I won’t say looks good, but he doesn’t look terrible. Anthony Fasono is a great TE and their D is better than last year (yes, they still suck, but they’ve hit rock bottom and are climbing back up). PLUS! Ricky Williams is nervous breakdown free thus far, and is starting to look like a legitimate player again. I know you don’t buy it and to be frank I’m not fully buying it either. But watch and see folks, this team has demonstrated that it’s already transformed itself from last year. And perhaps most importantly, their schedule includes: Houston, Oakland, St. Louis and Kansas City. Add it up; I like this gamble.

Reaction to a Tarvaris Jackson Pass

3. Minnesota Below .500: Again, I don’t know if I see this as a huge gamble, but most analysts think these guys should win the NFC North. WHAT!!!! This is the Packers’ division without any room for debate. Even if this team somehow slipped, Chicago would be next in line. Now, let me explain myself. I like the Vikings a lot. This team should be good in a few seasons. But their D is good, not great, their qb situation is as bad as it gets and teams are prepared to focus on A.P. Minnesotans, pray for the Twinkies cause they’re your only team makin waves this year.

Last night’s Monday Night Football game had some issues.  The problems began before the game even started with Kat Deluna’s atrocious rendition of the National Anthem.  This will go down in history as one of the worst in a long line of terrible renditions of this song.  It was a terrible version filled with growling and runs all over the place.  It was off-key and badly sung in general.  At least she was all into herself instead of the lyrics.  They could have found someone better at the American Idol tryouts.  Thanks to Dallas fans for appropriately booing her sorry ass.

Being on ESPN, we had to put up with the idiot, Tony Kornheiser.  Now that Bryant Gumble is gone, he is, bar none, the worst sports commentator on television.  Last night, as I was frantically and unsuccessfully trying to get “The Ticket” (the Cowboys’ flagship station) to tune in on my radio, I came to the horrible realization that I would rather listen to Brent Musberger.  I never thought I would say that, but sadly it is true.

It is apparent that whatever the ESPN commentators are talking about is much more important than anything else that must be going on, especially the game itself.  At one point Stuart Scott was making some general point about DeSean Jackson after a play where he obviously got hurt.  Since the injury did not do anything to bolster his argument, I guess Scott felt that the injury was not worth mentioning.  Also, it is evident that ESPN is not concerned with providing their audience with a replay even if there is a questionable component to a play.  Thank goodness the refs finally got one right when they reversed the claim that a ball had been tipped (by a phantom, I guess) late in the game.  It was obvious that the ESPN crew was not even watching the game at that point, and it took the refs to point out the play to them.  Thank goodness for Tivo/DVR.  With it, I am able to rewind and review pertinent events of the game on my own, and then fast forward past all of the “blah, blah, blah.  There has to be someone better than this crew out there.  Please find them.

This all being said, the viewers of the game were treated to one of the best Monday Night Football games in history.  What an enjoyable shootout it was.  I make no secret of the fact that I am from the Dallas area, and am a lifelong Dallas fan, and as a result, an Eagles (and Redskins) hater.  This made the game all the better for me.  The rest of the league is lucky that the Cowboys, Eagles and Giants have to play six games against each other this season.  Overall, it was a great game, but it was not perfect on either side of the ball or with the striped shirts.

On this point, I want to say first that I do not consider myself to be a bad fan, one that always complains and finds fault in a game.  There are those guys who would pick apart a victory if their team won 50-0.  I am not like that, but that does not mean that I am blinded by victory either.

One thing that I believe is very hard for players to overcome is a tendency to make bad in-game decisions.  There are those players who perform well, but in certain situations fall apart or make catastrophic mistake.  Usually, this is occurs under pressure.

Monday night’s game had more than its fair share of these moments.  Some times a play simply underscores the fact that a player is a knucklehead in general.  Cowboy fans can thank DeSean Jackson for replacing Leon Lett as the player who made the most boneheaded decision in league history.  Get ready Eagles fans, I’m sure you will have years to enjoy the antics of this idiot if he can survive the Philadelphia media.  There is a great quote from Bull Durham that applies well to this discussion.  Crash Davis says, “Come on, ‘rook, show us that million-dollar arm. ‘Cause I got; oh yeah, I got a good idea about that five-cent head of yours.”

Jackson’s folly overshadowed two other brain-dead plays that had a much greater impact on the game.  Late in the game, Donovan McNabb did his best Lucy Van Pelt impersonation when he stuck the ball out for Brian Westbrook, drew is back, and then stuck it back out again just in time to cause a game-changing fumble.  There is really no good explanation for this play, but he was just matching a equally bad decision made by Romo earlier in the game.

In that instance, Romo went to pitch the ball back to Marion Barber III, and had it slip out of his hands in his own end zone. Romo, instead of kicking the ball out of the end zone for a safety, the appropriate play at the time, picked it up.  This allowed him the opportunity to perform a Romo-like play and simply throw the ball away, as he was outside of the pocket when he got to it.  Instead, however, he picked up the ball, and looked for a moment as if he thought he were Barry Sanders, and was going to run it out of the end zone from eight yards deep himself.  Unfortunately, when he looked up there were four Eagles there ready to fustigate him.  Again, instead of making the good decision, and taking the safety, he decided to try to throw the ball away too late, and handed the Eagles a touchdown.

Look, I like Romo, and think he is one of the most talented quarterbacks in the game of football today.  The problem is that I am beginning to worry about his ‘five cent head.’  Tony has shown a propensity for the bonehead play in his career so far, be it the faulty hold against Seattle, untimely interceptions or his highlight play when he scrambled all over the field for a first down (it was still a bad football decision, though it was very entertaining to watch.).  Many people have compared his ‘gunslinger’ mentality to Brett Favre (I hate these nauseous comparisons.).  We are told that ‘when you have a guy like this, you have to take the bad with the good.’  I don’t get this argument.  I just want the good.  I want a player’s great talent and ability to be bolstered by him smart in-game decisions.  That is what wins championships.  I’m starting to be afraid that when the chips are on the line, in a must-win game, that his ‘gunslinger’ mentality will result in Cowboy fans being shot through the heart.  I truly hope I am wrong.

So what is this most momentous news?  Bryant Gumbel has been replaced on the NFL network football broadcasts this year.  I get heady just thinking about it.  There has never been a poorer broadcaster in the history of broadcasting, and I include the ‘boom goes the dynamite guy’ in this.  At least Brian Collins of Ball State knew that he was sucking.  Bryant Gumbel, on the other hand, brought the added irritant of being an arrogant ass to go with his ignorant and distracted commentating.

I had high hopes for a very professional channel that would provide the average NFL fan with tons of worthwhile information when this network was started, but Gumbel, alone, kept anyone from taking the venture too seriously.  By dropping this ‘boat anchor’, they have a good chance to rehabilitate their image.  I do not know a whole lot about his replacement, but his radio background should help.

I, personally, would like to see this network recreate my favorite NFL show, Inside the NFL with real hosts, not the spares that they populate much of the productions on this network with (excepting Collinsworth).  If they did, I would watch it every week.

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Bettina Zilkha

Libby Fitzgerald

Joanne de Guardiola

Eva Lorenzotti

Christine Schwarzman

Leslie Stevens

Grace Meigher

Hillary Geary Ross

Coco Kopelman

Hilary Gumbel

Alicia Bouzan Cordon

Whitney Fairchild

Mariska Hargitay

Shafi Roepers

Muffie Potter Aston

Neva Martin Anton

Ranjana Khan

Sara Ayres