The Ocho returns... to the Patriots?

Former Bengal and current Patriot Chad Ochocinco didn't do a lot last season. In fact, he only made 15 catches as a Patriot. Despite this lack of production, the Patriots reportedly want him to restructure his contract and stay with the team.

Apparently, the Pats still see something in him. They already have a formidable passing offense featuring Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, and Deion Branch, but I suppose they figure if they can add one more piece, especially a credible deep threat, it can't hurt. After all, Ochocinco's 18.4 yards per catch did lead all Patriots receivers with 10 or more catches. Obviously that's a small sample size, but if he can put up anything close to that average with more involvement in the offense, I don't think anyone will complain.

With this news, the Patriots continue their tradition of kicking the tires on veteran cogs to place in their machine. They did it successfully with Randy Moss for a season, they tried Albert Haynesworth, they brought back Branch, and now Ocho's on board.

Assuming he cuts a deal and stays with the team, can he be 2012's version of 2007's Moss? The formerly disgruntled veteran receiver known for his talent and ego coming out of nowhere to push the mighty Patriots into the Super Bowl once more? Well, for one, it's not like the Patriots needed him last season. And there's a wealth of credible receiving threats on this offense already. But still, it's an entertaining thought.

Who knows, Ocho might get a ring after all. And earn it, too.

What men want...?

NFL fans may or may not know of the Lingerie Football League, created in 2009. Basically, it is what it sounds like: women in skimpy outfits playing football. I can't think of any other rationale for creating it besides "hey, guys like football and scantily-clad attractive women, let's combine them and take their money!" The league's founder, Mitch Mortaza, has even said that the target audience is "mostly beer-drinking college students aged 21 and up."

As would be expected, there's some controversy over it. Some find it degrading in that it objectifies women and appeals to perverts and lament the fact that women's football can't find traction without sex appeal. Some players don't mind, or can put up with it. Some people don't see a problem at all.

So, is there a problem? Is this simply a business venture appealing to a market audience, or is it a symptom of a sexist and perverse society? One line of thinking says that, for now, sex appeal is needed to bring in the viewers, then a more legitimately athletic focus can develop. But it could just as easily be argued that this is only the beginning; it's just going to get raunchier and more exploitative from here. Looking at popular culture, it's hard to see any direction other than the latter. Sex sells everywhere. From beer ads to condom commercials to video game characters, the less clothing and more suggestion the better. I mean, why do you think porn is such a huge business?

There's a whole issue of cultural morality at hand that can be discussed for hours, days, months, generations. But this is a football blog, so I'm going to talk about football. Regarding the combination of sex and football, it seems the Lingerie Football is just more of the same. Cheerleaders already exist. It's not like there's never been a skimpy female outfit on a football field. But do guys (the target audience of the LFL, and, really, the NFL) watch for the cheerleaders? On the whole, no. They watch for the game. The excitement of the sport. The athletic feats. The emotion of cheering for a team's success.

Sure, you're going to get the occasional guy pointing with his beer and saying "oh, yeah, look at those cheerleaders." But that's a side "benefit" to the more... vulgar-minded fan. Sports don't need sex to sell. I think people who create things like the LFL overestimate sex appeal, possibly because of their own personal preferences (read: I don't think Mitch Mortaza has the purest of motives). Creating something like the LFL is superfluous. It's very, very easy to find that kind of... visual entertainment in our society. I mean, google is free, for crying out loud. Moral issues aside, making a "sexy" football league is just unnecessary and, I think, impractical.

In the end, guys want to watch football. You don't need women in their undies to make that happen. There's plenty of those around already.

What's next for the Patriots?

The New England Patriots are what no one wants to be: Super Bowl losers. But this organization has been unstoppable over the last decade. It seems unlikely that they will do anything but bounce back, hungrier than ever. Will it happen though? And will it be sustainable? Is it possible that the golden era for the Patriots is drawing to a close?

The offense is not a problem, that much is certain. Well, as certain as anything can be in the ever-changing NFL. Tom Brady is still a supreme quarterback. Bill Belichick is still a masterful coach. Wes Welker is phenomenal, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez shredded the league, and enough other parts (Deion Branch, BenJarvus Green-Ellis) are there to keep things churning along. Even though the running game lacks an elite star, Belichick's system keeps succeeding almost regardless of the players involved. I suppose the only question here is: how long can this keep up? Brady is still fantastic, but he's 34. He's not going to play forever; not even Favre pulled that off. He still wants to win more Super Bowls, to keep padding his Hall-of-Fame resume, to be unquestionably the best quarterback in the league, and possibly the best ever. But there's only going to be so many more chances, and who knows what can happen (think of the injury against Kansas City that ended his 2008 season before it even started).

The offense can still be dominant for the next few years. But there's a big problem facing this team: the defense, particularly, the secondary. The front line isn't bad, anchored by human wall Vince Wilfork. The linebackers are decent, led by Brandon Spikes and Jerod Mayo. But frankly, the Patriots can't expect to stop any functional passing offense with the likes of Kyle Arrington, Devin McCourty, Patrick Chung, and James Ihedigbo (who? exactly) starting. That unit has to improve, or teams will just throw all over the Pats and beat them at their own game.

Of course, free agency hasn't started in earnest and the draft is still to come. The Patriots are masters of trading draft picks around to get as many as possible at the expense of the "prime" drafting spots. But this year, they have to hope they strike gold and get some real impact players, or they might actually backslide. Remember, one missed field goal sent them to the Super Bowl. If Billy Cundiff makes that kick, it's possible we'd all be talking about the Ravens' rise to success in recent years culminating in their championship appearance. And how would the Ravens have done it? Defense and their running game led by Ray Rice.

The well-oiled machine that is the Patriots is still standing, still running, still giving the rest of the league fits. But if they're not careful, it could all come crashing down.

Rising from the dead.

They both wore #81. They were both regarded as top wide receivers. They both have bad locker-room reputations. They both have not won a Super Bowl ring. And they're both trying to come back.

Randy Moss and Terrell Owens are looking at comebacks, still hungry for glory. But will anyone give them that opportunity? The Yahoo! Sports NFL blog, Shutdown Corner, has some good posts about Moss and Owens and their desire to return. Both men have plenty of confidence; Owens says "Everybody knows I'm in great shape. It's just a matter of getting the opportunity." Moss claims he can run a 4.3 and he's "comin' to tear somebody's heads off."

Despite this brimming bravado, there are huge obstacles in the way of their glorious returns. Moss has always been known as a problematic ego who will drop his effort when he's feeling pouty. He seemed to lose that part of his reputation in his stint with the Patriots, putting up that huge 2007 season, but quickly regained it in his short and ugly return to the Vikings and failure to make an impact on the Titans. He wants to win a Super Bowl with someone, but it seems like a long shot that Super Bowl-caliber teams would want such a volatile character messing with their team chemistry, even if he can run a 4.3.

As for Owens, he has a long reputation of spats with quarterbacks and coaches, bouncing from the 49ers to the Eagles to the Cowboys. Lately, however, he's been a model teammate, keeping quiet during a statistically quiet season in Buffalo and a more successful season with the Bengals. His season-ending knee injury, however, raises new questions. Is he the same T.O. that used to terrorize secondaries? Can he really elevate a team to a championship, or is he just another washed-up veteran desperate to stay in the game (cough Favre cough)?

Like many questions surrounding the NFL, these questions are impossible to answer before the fact. If a team decides to take the risk of signing either of these guys, and if they put their ego aside, and if they can still play at a higher than average level, and if the rest of the team is playing at a high level... sure, they can have successful comebacks and win that elusive championship ring. But that's a lot of ifs. It's just as possible that one of them will join a team thinking it's one explosive player away from the Super Bowl (Baltimore, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, and the New York Jets spring to mind), contribute little to nothing, have a huge public blowup, and be unceremoniously dumped into obscurity. There's just no way to predict it. Personally, I find it more likely that a middling team will sign one of them, get some "meh" production from them, and drop them after that one-year contract, just like Cincinnati did with T.O. and the Titans did with Moss.

These guys think they can come back and win the big one. But does anyone else think so?

On Mannings and winning.

Eli Manning is now twice a champion. After beating Tom Brady and the Patriots for the second time, he has two Super Bowl rings and is securing his legacy as a top quarterback. His brother, the more highly-regarded Peyton Manning, has one ring, and is facing possibly the immediate end of his career after a series of neck surgeries. So, the question arises: which Manning is better?

The knee-jerk reaction by many is to count the rings and only the rings. Winners win championships, after all. It's not that simple, though. Aaron Rodgers has one ring and put up one of the greatest statistical seasons of all time. Drew Brees has one ring and set the single-season record for passing yardage. Looking from the other perspective, Ben Roethlisberger has two rings, but is generally considered just below the top tier (that tier being occupied by Peyton, Brady, Brees, and now Rodgers). Football is a team game: Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl because of his team's defense. Same with Roethlisberger in his first victory. So where does this leave Eli?

Peyton is considered great not because he won the Super Bowl once, but for his remarkable consistency and high performance in the regular season and the playoffs. He helped the Colts reach the playoffs 11 times in 13 full seasons. This past season, without him playing, the Colts went 2-14. He was the team. His presence and play elevated his team beyond its limitations (which became so evident in 2011).

Eli just doesn't have the same reputation. With him as the starter, the Giants made the playoffs in five out of eight seasons, but the Giants' running game and defense receive most of the credit for their success, including that first Super Bowl victory. Eli's play has been consistently inconsistent (lots of interceptions, including 25 in the 2010 season) and often it seems like the Giants will win in spite of him. To his credit, he has improved, culminating in 2011 with 4,933 passing yards, a 29:16 TD/INT split, and a Super Bowl victory in which he outplayed Tom Brady. If this keeps up, yeah, he'll be the main Manning. But not yet.

So just how important is winning championships to judging a quarterback's legacy? Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl, but he's one of the greats. Tom Brady has three rings, but it was always a difficult argument deciding if he or Peyton was better. Regular season wins are hard to judge on the surface as well. Look at Tim Tebow. He won a lot of games. He often made the plays that let them win. He even won a playoff game. But how much of that is to his credit compared to the coaching scheme, defense, matchups, and overall team context? In terms of passing ability, he's far behind most other starting NFL quarterbacks. His attitude and drive are unquestionable, but does that make him a great quarterback? I don't know. It's too easy to look at a quarterback and say "oh, he won a bunch of games this season, he's good" when it's the coaches and defense that were responsible for those wins, and it's also easy to say "oh, he didn't win the Super Bowl a lot so he's not that great" and ignore how well he played during the season and the limitations of his team.

You can look at the stats and numbers and titles, but judging quarterbacks (or any other players) comes down to a subjective interpretation of those facts. What do you think is more important? Only you know. Thus, the debates will never truly end. Peyton vs. Brady. Peyton vs. Eli. Favre vs. Rodgers. One day, all these players will be done with their careers. The numbers will be recorded. The rings will be worn. But the conclusions will never be resolved.