Quarterback of the Week

Regardless of their respective performances on Sunday, Donovan McNabb, Kurt Warner, Joe Flacco or Ben Roethlisberger will not be the Quarterback of the Week.

That honor belongs to U.S. Airways Flight 1549 Pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III who cooly navigated his engineless plane over the city and landed it in the Hudson River. After his miraculous landing, Sullenberger walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board.

According to news reports, (and his website) Sullenberger has been studying the psychology of keeping airline crews functioning even in the face of crisis.*

Headcase atheletes (A-Rod, Romo) should read about crisis management and other psychological literature so they do not let their fans and teammates down. Selfish athletes (cough T.O., cough) should take notice of "Sully's" selfless behavior.

[Ed. Note: Malcom Gladwell's (poorly named but compellingly written) book called Outliers discusses the implications of cultural dynamics in precisely these situations (among other things). It delves into concepts such as power distance and dissects the causes or Korean Air Flight 801 and other airbone tragedies. Seriously, read it. Just like his other books, it's good.

And no, I did not get paid to write that.]

Inspire The Ire: Eagles Enmity [Part III]

[This is Part III of the several-part Fack Youk presentation: Inspire The Ire: Eagles Enmity. Here are Part 1, and Part 2 if you missed them.]

Up until this season I was a Dallas Cowboys fan so I have plenty of experience hating the Philadelphia shEagles and their pathetic, boorish, racist fans (with the exception of my sister and her two children—poor kids).

For me the event that perfectly characterizes these sub-humans is the cheering of Michael Irvin’s 1999 career-ending neck injury while he lied motionless for 20 minutes on Veteran’s Stadium rat-infested carpet. Many fans in the crowd of 66,669 cheered when they realized Irvin was hurt, and again when paramedics wheeled a stretcher onto the field. "Unspeakable, even for us," proclaimed a headline in the Philadelphia Daily News.

While The Playmaker is not liked by non-Cowboys fans due to the fact he was a U graduate, his multitude of moral and legal indiscretions and crazy success against their teams, I think the only individuals who people should take pride in seeing suffer are rapists or murderers.

The next events that raise ire about Iggles fans are:

•Booing of Santa Claus—Seriously?
•A municipal court in Veterans Stadium/The Linc—Because there are tons of reasons to get in fights at sporting events
•Fans pelted national TV broadcasters with snowballs during a Cowboys-Eagles game in 1989—WTF did TV broadcasters do?
•Booing of Donovan McNabb at the 1998 Draft—What did he do wrong?

My sister was also at an Eagles-Cowboys game a few years ago at The Linc when McNabb threw a game-winning Pick 6 that all of Philly fans around her starting yelling racist remarks at McNabb—even little kids! She was embarrassed to be a fellow fan.

How about their “Fly Eagles Fly” song and fans flapping their arms like wings after a touchdown? Grow the fack up!

Enough about the fans. How about the organization?

Owner Jeffrey Lurie is a scumbag and a horrible owner. Like T.O. or not, Lurie should have given him a new contract after T.O. had to sign that waiver to play in Super Bowl XXXIX and was the only one to perform (Donovan McNabb’s digestive system notwithstanding). He has given Head Coach Andy Reid a blank check despite Reid not accomplishing anything and spending too much time with his sons’ heroin and firearms problems. Reid is a fat fack who needs to pay attention to his team and re-learn how to call plays.

Inspire The Ire: Eagles Enmity [Part I]

[For much of the 2009 season, the Eagles have been an afterthought to the Giants and their fanbase. After the Week 10 victory, the Giants were 8-1 and on the fast track to the #1 seed in the NFC, while the Eagles were 5-4 and trying to collect themselves for a second half run.

When they met in Week 13, the Giants clinched the NFC East despite a 20-14 loss. Maybe the Super Bowl victory took some of the edge off of our antipathy towards the team that traditionally takes top billing as the most hated divisional rival. Maybe it's because the Cowboys with all their "superstars" and drama became the primary targets of Giants' fan disdain.

As a result, we have decided to provide some kindling for the hot coals of contempt for the Eagles that smolder deep within each Giants fan with a special several-part Fack Youk presentation: Inspire The Ire: Eagles Enmity]

[Part I - By: Jay]

If you've gone out drinking on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, there's a chance you've been to Bourbon Street. If you've ever gone out drinking anywhere, you've almost definitely been to a place just like it.

It's your prototypical dive bar, with ladies undergarments stapled to the ceiling and kitchy signs and antiquey-looking trash hung on the wall like its some sort of R-Rated Applebee's. The playlist every Friday and Saturday night consists of the same cliched 80's songs like "Livin' On a Prayer", "Jessie's Girl" and "I Love Rock and Roll". In fact, they even do a cut rate Coyote Ugly imitation to "Pour Some Sugar On Me", where the female bartenders pour shots of some brightly colored vodka combination down patrons' gullets at a specific time every weekend night (I couldn't tell you exactly what time, for a variety of reasons).

I may or may not have stumbled out of there few years ago on New Years Day at about 9AM. It's the rare kind of place in NYC that actually has good specials like 50 cent (12 oz.) Bud drafts every Thursday and Friday from 9 to 11. The place does have some uses.

One of those uses is for watching football. They have a ton of TVs, and if you get there fairly early on a Sunday, you can grab a stool at the bar or a seat at a table with a perfect view of a TV with your team's game on it. They don't make their own food, so they allow you to bring your own in, and the Bud Lights are $3. If you want to watch some football at a bar and not spend a ton of money, it's a excellent option.

During Week 11, Sampson and I journeyed up to 79th & Amsterdam to catch the Giants play the Ravens. We got there sufficiently early and grabbed a high top table underneath a few TVs and across from the biggest screen the Giants game was being shown on. As it turns out, the Eagles game was on one of the TVs above our heads.

If you'll recall, in Week 11, the Eagles played the Bengals. As the Giants were running over the Ravens, the Eagles game got off to a slow start, and the Philly fans clustered around the TV were pretty quiet. After a scoreless first quarter, a wiry guy with long-ish hair wearing a Brian Westbrook jersey and a winter hat sauntered in. He looked like a pretty chill guy, like someone who might listen to Phish while driving around in his 1992 Jeep Cherokee Laredo.

Not so much. This dude was one of the biggest assholes I have ever viewed a sporting event at a bar in the presence of. As soon as he got there, he was screaming at the TV, calling out individual defensive backs like, "What the FUCK, Lito Sheppard?!?". He coined an amazingly uncreative nickname for Donovan McNabb, "Donovan McShit". He wouldn't fucking stop. Every play was "What a FUCKING terrible play call Mornhinweg!", or "Andy Reid, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?!" He was knowledgeable, I suppose...

If you want to yell at the TV in the comfort of your own home, in the company of friends, by all means, go to town. If you are the angry type of fan who thinks they should be calling the plays, and you are smarter than everyone in the organization, let it out. Maybe if Andy Reid was my coach and Donovan McNabb my QB, I might be the same way. But Jesus-fucking-Christ, how little dignity must you have, to yell this shit at the top of your lungs in a bar in a city which your team is not even based?

Anyway, after the Giants game was over, the Eagles and Bengals were just heading into overtime, and the bartender switched the TV we were watching over to the Eagles game. Honestly, watching McNabb spike screen passes at Westbrook's feet and get called for a delay of game in OT, I thought, "Maybe this asshole has a point".

In an ending that I couldn't have scripted better myself, the game concluded in an orgasmically (for me) anticlimactic tie and Angry Winter Hat Dude stomped out of the bar and shot Sampson and I a sneer as we laughed out loud.

Guess where we are watching the game on Sunday. I really hope he's there.

Fuck the Philly, the Eagles, their fans, their damaged landmarks, their disgusting "cheese" "steaks" and everything about that godforsaken city except Ben Franklin, Cliff and Always Sunny.