Week 4, In Which Your Hosts Experiment with Audio Replacement

In the past, whenever we felt our patience being tested by the exuberant ignorance of network NFL broadcast announcers, we would simply turn the volume down to a low murmur. For reasons that are difficult to explain to anyone who doesn’t currently live in the headquarters of the Weekly NFL Update, this strategy is currently proving difficult.

But we were determined this Monday night to avoid Tony Kornheiser at all costs. We needed to have some other noise going on while Monday Night Football was being shown. Luckily, we received a copy of The Best of the Talking Heads for our birthday last week, and we were impatient for an opportunity to listen to it in full.

This confluence of events struck us, frankly, as win-win. Little did we realize that the Talking Heads would provide much more insightful commentary on the game than the announcers would normally have provided.

For example, at one point in the game, the Packers were driving. They had a slim lead, and they were moving the ball. On a crucial down, Brett Favre fired a quick slant to Donald Driver, who watched helplessly as the ball bounced right off his hands. While the players shrugged it off at the time (Favre smiled and slapped Driver’s helmet in a show of support), it turned out to be a drive killer and a momentum shift of huge significance. At this point in the game, the song playing was “Once in a Lifetime.” The words that David Byrne sang as Driver watched the ball careen out of his grasp? “And you may say to yourself, ‘My god, what have I done?’” Since we didn’t have the sound up in the game, we can’t be certain, but we are fairly confident that no one in the MNF booth had a more insightful comment than that.

Later in the game, as the Eagles scored yet another easy touchdown, what song was playing? “Burning Down the House.” Again, hard to argue with the insight.

Finally, when ex-Texan Vernand Morency took a hand-off all the way to the line of scrimmage before falling down, we heard David Byrne singing, “I’m wearing/ Fur pyjamas / I’m riding / A hot potato.” OK, so they got two out of three. That’s still a better average than Kornheiser can muster.

“Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.”

And now, on to the games…

San Diego @ Baltimore: We were saddened to see Marty’s Chargers fall in defeat to the Ravens. Wait—did we say “saddened”? “Overwhelmed with lamentation” might be more accurate.

Indianapolis @ New York Jets: In recognition of the elevated play that the Jets displayed throughout this game, we are seriously considering promoting Eric Mangini to “Four Cheese.” One more game like that, and we may even give Mr Mangini a fifth cheese, as well as our sincerest apologies for doubting his abilities just because he is barely old enough to drive himself to the games.

Dallas @ Tennessee: Yes, Albert Haynesworth is a despicable human being for stomping on Andre Gurode’s head and causing Mr. Gurode to have 7,000 stitches, but let’s not lose sight of the really important story: What did Terrell Owens think of the incident??? Geez, sports reporters—can’t you get anything right?

But there is a very small, insignificant bright side to Mr. Gurode’s pain: in recognition of his suffering, Andre Gurode is this week’s recipient of the Robert Johnson Award. In his “Walking Blues,” Mr. Johnson tells us that “Babe, I been mistreated, baby and I don’t mind dyin’.” We imagine that Mr. Gurode understands this feeling well these days.

New Orleans @ Carolina: We hate to second-guess seasoned professionals who know much more about the NFL draft than we ever will (OK, no, we don’t, but we’re trying to be nice), but Reggie Bush sure has looked impressive so far this season. We can’t help but wonder what the nonexistent Houston Texans running game would be like if they had Mr. Bush in the backfield instead of Ron “Three Centimeters And A Cloud Of Little Tiny Pieces Of Rubber That They Make The Sub-Strata Of Artificial Turf With These Days” Dayne, Samkon “Damn But It’s Hot Down Here And Why Does Everyone Talk So Funny?” Gado, and Wali “Hey, Don’t Blame Me—I’m Just A Rookie That No One Ever Heard Of” Lundy.

Miami @ Houston: Then again, Mario Williams finally got a sack in the Texans surprising win. Oh wait—that was a sack and a half. That’s the difference maker, friends.

Minnesota @ Buffalo: We still can’t place Brad Childress’s claymation appearance. For a while, we were thinking Yukon Cornelius from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but that’s not it. And it’s not Hermey from the same show—that’s Chris Simms. (Hey, he’s out of intensive care. That means he’s fair game again.) Burghermeister Meisterburgher from Santa Claus Is Coming to Town? No, that’s Floyd Reese, GM of the Tennessee Titans. (And his Nancy-boy assistant? Jeff Fisher.) (And yes, we do like Jeff Fisher—we’re talking about physical resemblance here, not attitudes or behaviors.)

We’ll keep ruminating on it.

San Francisco @ Kansas City: This being October, we are primed for a good scare, but seeing Damon Huard possessed by the spirit of some competent quarterback from days-gone-by frankly chilled our blood. That was creepy, creepy stuff, friends…

Arizona @ Atlanta: Oh cr*p. Now we have to find another joke.

OK, here we go. On Christmas morning a cop on horseback is sitting at a traffic light, and next to him is a kid on his brand new bike. The cop says to the kid, "Nice bike you got there. Did Santa bring that to you?" The kid says, "Yeah." The cop says, "Well, next year tell Santa to put a tail-light on that bike." The cop then gives the kid a ticket. Before the cop rides off, the kid says, "By the way, that's a nice horse you got there. Did Santa bring that to you?" The cop says, "Yes, he did." The kid says, "Well, next year tell Santa to put the d*ck underneath the horse, instead of on top."

Commercial Break: There are few things that we’ll admit to that embarrass us. As is the case with most smart asses, we are horribly insecure and very easily broken. With that said, we feel honor-bound to admit to the following. First, even though we don’t even pretend to understand why, we think Jon Lovitz is funny in his Subway commercials. We have laughed at each one, and we still do. (We can still make ourselves chuckle with the memory of “Blondie is a loser!”) We don’t believe there is anyone else alive on planet Earth who can make us laugh by screaming, “Eat the sandwich!”, but somehow, Mr Lovitz does. (We may seek therapy for this.) Second, the Careerbuilder.com ad with the chimp working on the bubble wrap hits us a bit too close to home. We’ve been known to slip into obsessive-compulsive fugues of bubble-wrap popping… Seeing our own weaknesses portrayed by chimps for laughs is a bit unnerving.

(Speaking of things that we shouldn’t admit involving primates, the commercial with the shortest game of charades—hairy guy stands up, player immediately guesses “Planet of the Apes!” and hairy guy sits back down—also hits us a bit close to home. There is a reason why we are never seen in public without a shirt on.)

(Actually, there are many, many reasons why we are never seen in public without a shirt on. The reasons are legion, friends. But this is an easy one to pick out of the lineup.)

New England @ Cincinnati: So what happened to the Johnsons? We are accustomed to seeing the Johnsons standing tall and proud! But in this game, the Johnsons were flaccid, limp… They drooped onto and off of the field, and never really seemed to get it up to the emotional level of the Patriots.

Oh well. They say this happens to most teams. The trick is to not think about it. Dwelling on it will only make it worse.

(Or so they tell us. We certainly wouldn’t know from personal experience.)

Detroit @ St. Louis: Behold the genius of Mike Martz. On one play, he had Kitna split out at a receiver position, with Kevin Jones moving over to take the snap in the shotgun. When Kitna saw that no one was coming out to cover him, he knew that the Rams were loading up on the line to stop the obvious run, so he called a time out.

See, if only the Rams would have respected Martz’s authoritah, they would’ve split a linebacker out to “cover” Kitna, even though everyone knows that Kevin Jones was going to run. Stupid Rams, ruining Martz’s perfect playcalling…

Jacksonville @ Washington: This was a good game, but throughout, we were struck with one simple thought: Just exactly how large are Joe Gibbs’ ears? Granted, we never really paid attention to his ears before, but at one point in the game, when the camera was tight on his face, Gibbs turned to the side, and we noticed that he had what looked like an inch and a half of ear sticking out underneath his headphones… We aren’t presuming to make any judgments about the man (apart from the obvious observation that he probably hears like a Peruvian fruit bat). We just noticed that his ears are freaky big.

Cleveland @ Oakland: Come on, Anthony Walter! You call this seizing your destiny? If we are going to keep Aaron Brooks on the bench (which we should all agree is a noble goal), you’re going to have to step it up, friend! You don’t have to be the second coming of Kenny Stabler, Anthony—you just have to be a little better than Brooks, and friend, that is a low-set bar. Come on, Anthony! Seize your destiny!

We won’t tell you again…

Commercial Break: While we’re fessing up to things, we can also admit that there a few things that are guaranteed to just creep the sh*t out of us. For example, the Texas Instruments DLP spot. This pale kid with the creepy voice talking about how “it’s the mirrors!” And the elephant! What the f*ck is up with that? Creepy! And dancers with rubber bones creep us out every time. The current offender in the rubber bone category is the Intel Core 2 Duo spots with limber clones writhing to peppy beats. Having clones in a commercial is bad enough, but flailing, rubber-boned ones? Creepy!

We are even having trouble typing with the creep-inspired tremors we’re experiencing at this moment… We may need to take a break…

Seattle @ Chicago: OK, talk about creepy… Now that they have a decent offense, Chicago is a little scary. Of course, knowing that their offense is predicated on the health of Rex “My Bones Will Snap Like Kindling If You Give Me So Much As A Sharp Glance” Grossman? Really scary.

Green Bay @ Philadelphia: Listening to music while watching football is a wonderful multimedia experience, as long as both media are living up to their end of the deal. In the second half, the Packers’ ineptitude, especially on defense, made it hard for us to focus on the game. So, we are having a hard time coming up with insightful, pithy commentary for this matchup.

But hey, The Best of the Talking Heads was a smash success.