“Big Game” Pre-PLAAY: ‘21 Cincinnati and Los Angeles Home-Brew for SECOND SEASON
This will be a very QUICK blog post--mainly wanted to make available the "Big Game" Second Season team sheets for Cincinnati and Los Angeles, created by Paul Salzgeber. Paul's put together the championship teams (sometimes the "final four") for the last several pro seasons, and they always get a lot of tabletop time the week before the game. We really appreciate Paul's time and energy! So, here are the teams…
NOTE: Paul sent along an updated file 02.10.22 with correct team colors and some ratings changes, if you downloaded the earlier version Paul suggests you discard that one and use the new one!
We won't be streaming a "Big Game Pre-PLAAY" with Second Season this year, but we are planning on holding a pre-PLAAY off-line, we'll report the results at the start of our Pro Football Showcase stream Thursday night (02.10.22).
As long as I'm composing thoughts--and here, I'm switching to journalist mode, so I'm allowed to use the words "Super Bowl!"--let me put a few things out there, personal opinions...
I wonder if part of Sean Payton's reason for stepping down as coach of the Saints was that Sean McVay is now making his SECOND trip to the Super Bowl, in just five years of coaching. In fact, he's only 35 years old--Payton wasn't even a head COACH until age 42. Competitive as Payton is, that's gotta bug him. Especially since they both made aggressive moves in recent seasons to build Super Bowl-ready rosters; McVay's moves worked, Payton's didn't. So, for that reason, I think Payton is being totally honest that he wants to try something different, like TV analyst.
But I bet he returns to coaching. Being on TV isn't as easy as it seems. It's one thing to know the X's and O's, and be able to guess what's going to happen next. It's a whole different thing to be entertaining as you do it. I know this sounds weird, but take it from someone (me) who spent 30+ years in the broadcast industry: as a broadcaster, you're in the entertainment biz first, the football (or whatever you're broadcasting) biz second. The best football TV analysts have entertaining personalities--they're witty, funny, able to quip on demand and deliver entertainment outside of the game itself. Chris Collinsworth, Tony Romo have "it," whatever "it" is. They're fun to watch, even when the game is a blow out. John Madden had "it." A lot of TV analysts don't have "it." Not sure if Payton does, but I guess we'll find out. I will say one thing--if Sean Payton DOES have "it," we won't see him coaching again any time soon.
New topic...
Joe Burrow is...AWESOME. Man, the Bengals are so fortunate to have him. Think about it, this season is his FIRST full season in the NFL! (Remember, he was injured in week ten last year and missed the rest of the 2020 season.) The guy plays like, well, the OTHER "Joe Cool," Joe Montana. Dang I wish the Saints could have gotten him. It's almost enough to make me switch allegiances and become a Bengals fan.
Which is interesting because, I could have BEEN a Bengals fan all along. Most know my story of how I became a Saints fan--Reader's Digest version for those who don't: my family moved to Wisconsin when I was a kid, every kid in my sixth grade class was a football fan, Packers. I figured I needed to follow pro football if I wanted to fit in. But, me being me, I didn't want to be like everyone else, so I decided to choose a DIFFERENT team to follow. I was looking through the sports section of the newspaper, there was a picture of Dave Whitsell intercepting a pass for the Saints. "Cool helmet! The Boy Scout symbol! What team is THAT!?" That's how I became a Saints fan.
A couple weeks later, though, I was watching TV and on the scoreboard show the announcer mentioned the "brand new Cincinnati Bengals"--this was 1968. That was a pretty cool name, and a brand new team! So I checked out THEIR helmets. At the time, they were pretty boring. No tiger stripes, just a plain orange helmet with the name "BENGALS" in block print on each side. They didn't even have numbers on the sleeves of their jerseys. I decided to stick with the Saints. (But maybe now I'll switch!...)
OK, this was supposed to be a SHORT blog post...