Brian Westbrook has been released by the Philadelphia Eagles. Brian Westbrook was and is a badass. He was good. He came to work every day, brought his lunch pail. He brought everything to work every night he came to work, put in a hard day’s work and left it all there. Boy, did he ever? There were no easy days at the office for Brian Westbrook. There were no days off. Either Brian was well and he came to work or he was so badly hurt that he had nothing to give. Let me say this again: Brian Westbrook was and is still a badass. One of the badassest badasses I have seen in a long time.

Brian was an amazing talent. An unassuming back. He never talked about what he was capable of. He just did it. For years it was just him and McNabb. And they got it done. They took the blame. The took Philadelphia’s shit. Because they understood the inanity of the rabid Eagles fans. But they still cared for the team they played for. One of the most enduring plays I ever saw Brian Westbrook make was the one where, rather than walk in for a touchdown, he stopped inches from the end zone and took a knee because that is what the team needed him to do to win the ball game. That kind of selflessness is so rare, it is a near freak occurrence when you see it.

I also remember that horrible game in New York when the Eagles were embarrassed so badly (I think the score might have been 58 for New York to maybe a couple for Eagles).  The Giants sacked McNabb like 11 or 15 times or some such. That was the game that made OC’s career. The Eagles offensive line were completely punkass in that game. It was like New York was writing their pay checks on that night. They had collectively forgetten the meaning of the word protection that night. Around the 10th time Umenyeoira hit McNabb (it must have felt like the 100th to Mcnabb), the punkass offensive line had completely given out. Not one – NOT ONE – was trying to help their quarterback up. Brian was injured. He was not dressed for the game. Brian walked on to the field. Brian helped his quarterback off the field. Brian understood. He got it. That is badassitude. That was one badass to another.

I understand the business of football I think. But it is sad to see Brian go. A badass. Brian, a  guy with badassitude to give.

The Saints looked good. 2 things were badass for the Saints in the game – going for it on fourth down at the goal line and the last minute drive for the 3 points at the end of the 1st half. I didn’t think very much of the on site kick but I guess it was interesting. The Colts too looked pretty badass with the 4 and 2 at the 50! At the 50! That was badassitude.

As the game progressed though, you could see that the Saints seemed more comfortable and confident of what they wanted to do and they were showing a certain stone cold confidence (otherwise known as pure badassitude) in the ability to move the ball as they wanted. That said, the Colts just did not seem to be clicking as well as they should have. And they had a few tough things go against them – some dropped balls including loosing the onsite kick (the folks in Philadelphia were not surprised to identify the culprit as one Hank Baskett – he had been pulling that kind of crap for a while with the Eagles until he was ran out of town)

By the way, does anyone think as little of Jim Nantz as I do? I positively consider him to be a fully fledged punkass. Were it not for Simms, the game calling would stink beyond belief. It was so lackluster, if an alien was visiting earth and was told Nantz announcing the biggest sports event of the year, why the alien might think we were an awfully quiet lot.

The interception by the Saints was great – by one Tracy Porter. Apparently the same guy who might have ended Bret Favre’s career with an interception 2 weeks ago. Sometimes you just can’t make any of this shit up. And there was something so complete in the way the game ended – with an incomplete pass on 4th and goal. Now the drivel about New Orleans Saints, what they mean to the city, the inspiration etc, etc, is going to kick into over-drive. I am changing channels every time I hear it. Here is my take – they were the badasses of the season. Their Badassitude came through.

I wonder who the Eagles’ draft picks will be….

New Orleans Saints Display Winning Badasssitude
In the New Orleans – Arizona game, there were no surprises, at least to me. New Orleans have been badasses all season. More importantly, for most of the season, they had scored awfully high on the badassitude scale. Arizona on the hand had not really been badass through the season. However, last weekend, against Green Bay they had scored pretty high on the badassitude scale. On the balance, the badass, with a high badassitude quotient will win 98% of the time against a sometimes badass, with only occasional high scores on the badassitude scale. New Orleans knocked Warner on his ass early and quick. Right there, you knew it was going to be a long day. You could see the Cardinals looking around like they were checking if they had remembered to bring lunch. The game was over early and quick. Badassitude, which New Orleans had aplenty, worn out as it always would, as it always has. No surprise there.

Baltimore Offense Lays An Egg, Is Shown Up
The Baltimore Ravens were to me, a surprise. The Ravens, particularly the defense, were badasses all season. The Ravens defense had and still has, badassitude to spare. The defense was good – no question. Now the offense?? They sucked, they laid an egg. The Ravens offense were never really badass – they lacked badassitude. They have lacked badassitude all season and yesterday, it showed. The Colts on the other hand, were true to form. Badassitude abounded on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. And they kicked Baltimore’s ass (to my dismay).

Cowboys Crumble
I always thought the Cowboys beat the Eagles all the three times simply because the Eagles offensive coaches are probably among the most inept in the NFL (the offense often found prosperity in spite of the awful coaching). And the Eagles defensive coaches had zero imagination. Very simply, it was not that the Cowboys were a much better team than the Eagles, but that head to head, the Cowboys were coached to better match the Eagles perhaps more than any other team. Face to face, the Eagles fell down in the badassitude quotient and the Cowboys rose. On their own, it was a different story and it showed today Minnesota. I particularly liked the little fuck-you touch down play at the end of the game which had the Cowboys incensed, saying Minnesota was running up the score. Hello? If you don’t want the opponent to run up the score, stop them. It’s that simple.

Same Old Norv, Jets Win
Norv Turner brought the San Diego Chargers into the play-offs, and inevitably, disappointment. This was a guy who in seven years with the Washington Redskins was given every chance to succeed, every resource he needed, for whom the local press was in the tank, and he punked out. A team cannot be badass if their coach is a punk. Norv is not badass. The Jets are.  Rex Ryan has badass and badassitude pedigree. His dad, Buddy had badassitude to spare. You could run a badassitude charity on the badassitude Buddy did not need. So it came to pass that the Charges/Jets match up was necessarily a mismatch. And it showed. Badassitude, which the Jets had in larger quantity than they needed, won out. Bye, bye Norv…

The game is not over yet but I can unequivocally judge that both the Arizona Cardinals and the Green Bay Packers have rich amount of badassitude. Interestingly, I had not thought much of the badassitude in the Arizona Cardinals before.  One did not think of them as a team that exhibited much apparent badassedness. Having said that, they have today shown a quiet calm and steadfastness that only badasses know to carry themselves with. The Green Bay Packers, down 17 points calmly worked themselves back into the game as only badasses who know what they are capable of would do. Total double badassitude win! A good day in the realm of badasses and  badassedness!