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A Night at the (Soap) Opera
Updated: Monday February 05, 2001 11:25 AM
Factoid That May Only Interest Me | The 10 Things I Think I Think Click here to send a question to Peter King's NFL Mailbag. LAS VEGAS -- This is what I didn't like about the XFL opener Saturday night in the desert just east of here: The soft porn; the cheerleaders giving faux lap dances to drunken idiots on national TV. ... The titilating locker room posing between a Vegas cheerleader and Outlaw player Brandon Sanders, and the Temptation Island-esque commercial of a blonde bombshell stripping down in the locker room after a "game." Incredible that the league will detour its credibility by whoring so shamelessly to the basest element possible. ... The excessive drunkenness, and NBC putting some stupid louts on TV to scream nonsensical things that made the telecast at scarce times look like MTV's VJ For A Day. ... The lack of readiness of New York/New Jersey's offense, which was a cross between NAIA ball and the '76 Bucs. ... Nobody ran a quick kick. Wimps. ... The clichés, 60 percent of the time, from Jesse Ventura. What I liked: Almost everything else.
The surprising good play of Vegas quarterback Ryan Clement, a former NFL Europe backup who'd told me before the game: "You'll see. There'll be a Kurt Warner come out of this league." Not so fast. But Clement showed well, particularly on a beautiful seam pass up the right side for touchdown to Nakia Jenkins. ... Rod Smart. The "HE HATE ME" guy. See, each player can put whatever he wants on his back. Smart, a running back from Western Kentucky, ripped off a couple of nice runs and a 46-yard catch-and-run early. The first star in XFL history chose to put "HE HATE ME" on his back. At first, I looked at Smart's back and said: 'Is that DEBATE ME?' Then I figured it out. But I still didn't know what it means. After the game, I met him on the field, and he said: "You know, you go out and you're so good, and you hurt your opponent, and it's like, 'They hate me. He hate me.'" Uh, if you say so. ... Cameras in the locker rooms at halftime, with Vegas up 19-0. "The buzzards are circling," Sanders said. "The buzzards are circling." Hitmen head coach Rusty Tillman: "You guys on special teams? You ain't doing nothing!" ... Tony Siragusa on the sidelines, early second half: "The Hitmen better get their heads outta their a--. Rusty Tillman better get his guys going." ... Ventura on Hitmen quarterback Charles Puleri, after the schmoe got KO'ed by a light hit and sent to the sideline: "Aww, he didn't get hit that hard! He didn't even take one to the head." ... An incredulous Ventura on the Hitmen's play selection, calling for a run with 20 minutes left and down 19: "Now what are we getting? They're trying to establish the run down 19-0?" ... NBC switching to the close Chicago-Orlando game with this one out of hand, and catching running back John Avery chirping at the coaches to "Run the screen! Run the screen!" ... Avery, with 250 rushing-receiving yards. Star time, baby. ... The postgame smile of 36-year-old David Diaz-Infante, who acted like he was 10 and he'd just won his first Little League baseball game. "I'm so happy to be playing football," he told me. "I love this game. And I love what happened out there. Everybody's always wondered what happens at halftime, what happens on the field during the play, who says what. Now they know. It's great. It's great for the game." Totally agree. Flying home Sunday, I met Pete Stendel on the plane. If you watched the game, you saw Stendel. He's one of two on-field camera guys with the 40 pounds of padding, hockey-helmet and camera contraption strapped onto his body, standing behind the offense or defense and following the play, wherever it goes. He has worked cameras for 20 years at NFL games, for ABC, CBS, NBC and ESPN; he just did the hand-held Giants' sideline camera for CBS in the Super Bowl. "I have so much love for the game," said Stendel, a fit 46-year-old. "I played wide receiver at Elmhurst (Ill.) College in the '70s. I love pro football. I had so much fun out there last night. More than anything, I think what we did is enhance the game for the people at home without hurting the product at all. I'd love to have been a fly on the top of the TV set somewhere in America last night when a father and son are sitting there watching the game and you see the quarterback trying to hear the play called into his helmet, and all of a sudden, you hear the offensive coordinator's voice calling the play right into the quarterback's ear. How great is that? What we did was give the fans at home, and the fans in the stadium, access to feel and hear what they've been denied access for all these years." I asked him to identify the coolest part of the game for him. "There was a timeout, and the waterboys brought out the water in those squirt bottles. I'm right in the huddle, with the camera on these tired guys, and one of them looks at me, holds up the bottle and gives me a nod, like, 'You want some?' And I give him a look back like I did. So he gives me an infusion, right through my helmet. It was incredible to feel like I was accepted by the players, like I was working out there, like I was one of them." What we saw Saturday night was Reality TV wrapped around a football game. No one got hurt. No sacred football trust was stepped on. There was some bombast and too much sexual-innuendo crap for me. As my Sports Illustrated seatmate in the press box, Leigh Montville, said to me after a half-hour of play: "This isn't exactly the decline of Western Civilization, is it?" No, but it might lead to a better pro football game for the fan, particularly on TV. For that reason, root for the XFL to succeed. Sunday afternoon, Memphis took Birmingham down to the wire and won at Legion Field 22-20. And I watched the last eight minutes of San Francisco-Los Angeles. I saw former Cal and Arena ball quarterback Mike Pawlawski lead San Francisco downfield with his team trailing 12-10 with no timeouts left, screaming, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" to get the kicker on the field with six seconds to go. I was the field goal go up, up, up as the clock hit :00, and a sold-out Pac Bell go nutty when the kick split the uprights. Great finish. Three of the four openers went to the wire. We may not know these guys, but for one weekend, seven of the eight teams put on a heck of a show.
Factoid That May Interest Only MeThe first postgame press conference question in XFL history, about the intrusion of cameras in the game, was asked by a reporter from Inside Edition. The 10 Things I Think I Think1. My colleague and good buddy Don Banks had the story of the week a few days ago for this very Web site. First, imagine every great unit you've seen in the last couple of decades. The Chicago defense of the mid-'80s. The Giants' defense of the late-'80s and early-'90s. The Cowboys' defense and offense of the early- and mid-'90s. The Rams offense of 1999. What happened to their coordinators? Buddy Ryan, Bill Belichick, Dave Wannstedt, Norv Turner and Mike Martz all got head-coaching jobs -- pronto. After Baltimore defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis was shut out of the Cleveland and Buffalo jobs after the season -- and after the seven other teams that hired coaches sometime in December or January -- Banks did a smart thing. He phoned Tampa Bay head coach Tony Dungy, a black man who is as far from a race-baiter as any man on the planet. He asked Dungy what he thought of Lewis, who is black, missing out on the string of NFL job openings. Now, I know Dungy well, and I have called him on this outrageous topic several times through the years; 43 of the past 45 permanent head-coaching jobs in the NFL have gone to white men. And Dungy pointed out that only one of the nine owners who had an opening at the end of the 2000 season waited to interview Lewis, the architect of the best single-season defense since the '85 Bears. And Dungy wondered: Would a white coordinator have gotten one interview? You know, these black coaches and black players are not dumb. Year after year, they see idiotic stories like the bright and energetic and inspiring Lewis getting passed over. I don't know what it's going to take to rectify the shame of the NFL. Maybe this. Maybe a conscientious player like Shannon Sharpe -- if he truly is conscientious, and I have grave doubts about that -- following through on his threat to not play next year because Lewis got passed over. Maybe an organized job action, such as black veterans boycotting the first preseason game next August. Do something, players. The black NFL coach continues to get railroaded, and you continue to stand for it. 2. I think a lot of people in the NFL are wondering -- to themselves and out loud -- what in the world Matt Millen is doing by apparently trying to recreate the 1984 Chicago Bears. 3. I think I need football to be over for a while. 4. I think if Avery can get the mental part of the game right, and that's the part that plagued him in Miami and Denver, he will be Tiki Barber Jr. for some team in the NFL next season. 5. I think this is the biggest problem about Steve Young returning to the NFL, which reportedly he wants to do: How can a team give him real money, and how can a team trade something real to the 49ers for his rights, if no one is sure whether Young can play two quarters or two years? Concussions are funny things. 6. I think Tim Rattay could battle Charlie Batch for the Lions' quarterback job next fall. New Leos head coach Marty Mornhinweg loves 2000 seventh-round pick Rattay of the Niners, and he could probably be had for a third-rounder. 7a. I think the Bills should choose Doug Flutie. 8. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week: a. I think until the first pitch two months from now, we are in a vast sports wasteland. b. Coffeenerdness: Congratulations to the Starbucks on Paradise, just east of the strip: You wash your pods before inventing each shot of espresso. c. Rant of the Week: Do you know how hard it is to begin this column in coach, which I did last Thursday night on the flight to Vegas, with the idiot in 17C continually trying to push his seat back farther and farther, even when it can't go back any more, and even when I press hard on the seat while he snoozes, trying to subtly push the seat back two inches so I can see the screen when I type? Does anyone who flies for a living ever have the thought that they'd like, just once, to put an airline CEO in the middle seat of a non-exit row for a four-hour, 40-minute flight and ask: "Would you want your German Shepherd to be confined in a space like this for four hours and 40 minutes?" I have nothing to complain about in my glorious, privileged life -- except for the agony of modern flight. The people who run airlines should be ashamed of themselves. d. Montclair High Bowling Note of the Week: We bowed out of the state tournament Saturday, with frosh daughter Mary Beth King managing a 137-136 at Bowler City in Hackensack, N.J. The Mounties end their season Tuesday in Hackensack, against state power Immaculate Heart Academy, and I fear things will not end well. However, the 10-member girls' team will carb-up Monday night with a pasta party at the King home, with Ann King, the MVP of the evening, dishing up her incredible marinara sauce. We're excited about it. As is Mary Beth. She had to move her biology tutoring appointment with Wesleyan-bound Brielle Madej to 3:30 p.m. so she'd be done in time to enjoy the pasta. Then, we have an appointment at the gym to start working out. I have put off being healthy far too long after having a good 2000 offseason in that regard. e. See Cast Away. And tell me if you don't think Wilson should be a Best Supporting Actor nominee. 9. I think the Pro Bowl is the most inconsequential sports event on Earth, but I will say this about the little chunk of it I saw: I want to buy some stock in Edgerrin James the player and Edgerrin James the worker bee and Edgerrin James the person. 10. I think I will miss this column. Check back on Draft Monday, April 23, for a special MMQB, and then I'll see you in August. You've been a great audience. Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL and appears
regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN's NFL Preview.
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