TONAWANDA, NY – Watching the NFL Network at 4:30 this morning was like watching the old Batman TV series from the 60s. Sam Bradford? VRONK! Reggie Wayne? ZLONK! Doug Martin? SPLATT! What a Bloodbath! This past weekend featured KOs of big name QBs, star RBs and game breaking WRs. It was ugly. Yet, amazingly none of these three casualties had anything to do with being concussed. Nope. Just good ol’ fashioned torn ACLs. That’s progress! You know what’s not progress and not all that game-changing or innovative? That would be the proliferation of the “Read Option” offenses and “Pistol” formations. Last year’s NFL season brought us RGIII, Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson and they all had spectacular impacts on their teams and on the league. They were (and still are) exciting, blazing fast, had freakishly strong arms, and brought excitement to previously moribund teams and/or their offenses. Word around the league this past off-season was that Defensive Coordinators were losing sleep trying to figure out how to stop these dynamic, heretofore unseen offenses that were so innovative and creative that geniuses from NASA must have dreamed them up. Plus, Chip Kelly and his atom-splitting approach left Oregon for the Eagles promising to wreak still further havoc on the “old guard.”
Well, guess what? For those of you born after 1985; you know the Read Option, No-Huddle, Perpetual Motion offenses that are changing the NFL today? They’re not. Not so much. See, way back in the late 80s and early 90s there was a team from the Eastern side of Lake Erie. That team – South of Cheektowaga, North of Angola and hard by East Aurora known as the Buffalo Bills were really something innovative and game-changing. It was called the “K-Gun” Offense and it was run by a gunslinger out of the U, by way of Western PA, named Jim Kelly. The K-Gun offense ran No Huddle all game long, and if you couldn’t keep up with the blazing pace set by do-everything Thermal Thomas and slot receiver extraordinariness Andre Reed? They would just run over you. Kelly’s Heroes carved up every defense thrown their way-routinely rolling for 40 and 50 points against good competition. 
It was Professor Marv Levy and OC Ted Marchibroda, a couple of near Octagenarian lifelong coaches, who implemented this seek and destroy offense and dared defenses to try and stop them. These were the Innovators, the creative geniuses who revolutionized offensive football and got the likes of DJ Eberle hooked on the Boys from Buffalo. The Read Option boys have not re-invented the game and as Chip Kelly’s Eagles have proven so far.. sometimes what works stunningly well in the “lab” of the College game falls on its face when every player you face is a world class athlete.
https://youtu.be/oWSxNWkgdz4
Speaking of lack of innovation, Jim Leyland, your time and your idiotic devotion to hard pitch counts has now cost you your job. It wasn’t enough that you handed the Red Sox Game 2 by inexplicably pulling Max Scherzer and enabling Papi to hit a granny against an inferior reliever. He did it again in Game 6. The moment the pitch count hit 100, there was Leyland jumping from his smoke filled dugout to torpedo Detroit’s chances. Just as FSA predicted after Leyland’s game 2 rock, the Sox did indeed take this Series in 6 games.
On to the NBA, where Carmelo Anthony has announced that he will indeed “opt out” of the last year of his current Knicks contract so that he can “experience” what it’s like to be a free agent for the first time. Why wait? Trade him right now. Haven’t we seen this movie before? Didn’t Melo force Denver’s hand back in the Spring of 2011? Didn’t he force his team into accepting Jim Dolan’s moronic offer of 4 starters for the privilege of watching him hold the ball for 23 seconds and hoisting up one ill advised shot after another? The Knicks traded Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler and other goodies for the modern version of World B. Free. Dolan loves big names. Never mind that a Melo-led team will never make it even as far as Conference Final, the output from Carmelo surely tells us that the Knicks should not be held hostage by this selfish player who cares way more about “getting his” than the team getting a “W.” Let him walk. Trade him. We’ve seen enough of this fraud to know he will never lead a team to a championship.
Lastly, I received an offer from the New York Mets this week to purchase season tickets for 2014. As an added incentive, I was informed that my purchase of a 2014 plan would ensure my shot at post-season tickets. I don’t need a shot at post-season tickets. I NEED to see this sad sack team and its lying GM make their own investments before I make mine. I ain’t blinking. Real Sandy Alderson, it’s your move.
