NBC is the only network that sends NFL halftime quotes and this came after I had shut down the computer last night. So why not post this now? This includes the exchanges between Dan Patrick, Rodney Harrison and Tony Dungy and Bob Costas’ goofy essay.
Let’s take a look.
“SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL” HALFTIME
ON PACKERS
Patrick on the Packers: “You’ve got some concerns.”
Dungy: “I do. That secondary has been torched two weeks in a row, giving up 800 yards passing. Now, we expected Drew Brees to put up some numbers, but 400 yards from Cam Newton has to have the Green Bay defensive coaches a little bit alarmed.”ON TONY ROMO
Harrison: “Tony Romo had every built-in excuse to quit. They were losing and on top of that he had a cracked rib. Even after he cracked his rib he came and threw for 300 yards. I had a cracked rib and I missed two-to-three weeks of football.”
BOB COSTAS’ HALFTIME ESSAY
“It’s true, we’re basing this on early returns, but the Detroit Lions, 48-3 conquerors of the Kansas City Chiefs today, are emerging as one of the season’s big stories. The Lions are 2-0, but more significantly, they’ve won six straight as they took their last four of the 2010 season. And for whatever it may be worth, they also won all four of their preseason games. Matthew Stafford is becoming a first-rate quarterback on a team many now view as a legitimate contender. This following a 4-40 stretch, including an 0-16 in 2008, the upside of which was getting the No. 1 pick that yielded Stafford.
Stafford, touted for stardom from the jump, is a much different story than Buffalo’s Ryan Fitzpatrick; a seventh round pick, out of that noted football factory Harvard University. Harvard [undergrad] has produced five U.S. presidents, 45 Nobel Prize winners, and 38 Pulitzer winners.
It is easier to count the number of quarterbacks from Harvard in the modern history of the NFL, because that number is one. Ryan Fitzpatrick, whose team, like the Lions, is now 2-0 after he directed a last minute drive to beat Oakland, capping it with his seventh touchdown pass of the young season.
It might be worth noting here that Buffalo and Detroit are among the cities hit hardest by the nation’s economic downturn. And while it’s nonsense to suggest that the fortunes of a local team are going to do you much good when the Repo Man shows up, it is true that spirits can be lifted.
So like chicken soup, it couldn’t hurt in Buffalo if the once formidable Bills return to the playoffs for the first time since 1999. And certainly they’d be celebrating in Detroit if Justin Verlander pitches the Tigers into the World Series and Matthew Stafford somehow pitches the Lions to their first Super Bowl ever.
Hey, it’s Week 2. Let hope abound!”
I wonder if Bob will give us a commentary on the state of the economy next week.
