Nick Toon (No Nickelodeon)

Perusing Twitter a few weeks ago, I came across Wisconsin Senior wideout Nick Toon's Twitter handle -- @TOOOOOOOOOOON -- a tip of the cap to the fans who bellow his name after every catch. It's not the funniest or most clever, but it's my new favorite Twitter handle. My first thought was to count the number of "O"s because why not? I was pleased to count 11 "O"s. Solid. Eleven is an arbitrary, clunky number. Ten is nice and clean. The 11 tells me Toon typed a "T," placed his right index finger on the "O" key and held it there for a few seconds, and followed up with an "N." Had he been concerned with aesthetics or practicality, he would have made it an even ten. I immediately thought of situations in which his Twitter handle may be problematic:

UW-MADISON STUDENT: I'll hit you on Twitter about this Agricultural Journalism project. What's your handle?

TOON: It's TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON.

UW-MADISON STUDENT: Uhh, how many "O"s is that?

TOON: Jesus, I have no idea. Just type my name in the search box and my account should pop up on the right side.

UW-MADISON: So you want me to type your name into Twitter? Is this some kind of lame attempt to show me how many people are talking about you?

TOON: I have over five thousand followers.

And so on.

I've often wondered if athletes seriously consider why the crowd chants their name. They're fan favorites or good players, those seem like the obvious answers. Sometimes familiarity with a player -- he's played most or all of his career for the same team, or even tradition -- we chant his name because we've always done it, play a part. During pregame introductions in the 1990s, roars of LUUUUUUUUUUUUUC would fill the United Center when Luc Longley was introduced. Nowadays, Luc has been replaced with LUUUUUUUUUUUU for Luol Deng. For Bulls fans, tradition meets appreciation in the form of pregame introductions. Each time Packers fullback John Kuhn touches the ball, Lambeau is engulfed in KUUUUUUUUUUUUHN chants. Kuhn is a short and stout white guy who does all the dirty work. His primary role is that of lead blocker, but he will occasionally be asked to pick up short yardage or catch a checkdown out of the backfield and take on a linebacker head on. Kuhn's look and style of play appeal to the blue-collar sensibilities of the Green Bay fans. He could be and probably is the guy sitting next to you at Joe's Texas Barbecue, wolfing down the hefty pulled pork sandwich.

TOOOOOOOOOOON is a combination of all of these elements. Former walk-on Luke Swan preceded Toon at Wisconsin and became a fan favorite. Camp Randall shouted LUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE after every catch and held their right arms at 90 degree angles, rotating their hand to resemble a swan's head. Aided by his father's impressive NFL and UW resume, Toon endeared himself to the crowd with his athleticism and knack for making the spectacular catch. Now a Senior, Toon has developed into the consistent Number One receiver the team envisioned him as two years ago. Chants of his name are as much an appreciation for his development as a player as they are an adherence to tradition and nepotism.

As nice as it is to talk of tradition and performance, we cannot ignore the obvious. There are many great players, iconic players, all-time great players who have never heard their name chanted in a stadium. This isn't because they are overlooked or their home fans are shitty. They simply do not have names as aurally pleasing or compatible with a sustained chant. Peyton Manning, Brian Urlacher, James Harrison, Adrian Peterson -- great players, but names that need to be broken down to multiple syllables in order to chant. They just wouldn't sound as good.

Not to take anything away from the Nick Toons of the world, but he clearly is the beneficiary of a perfect name. The special sign of appreciation Camp Randall shows to him is as arbitrary as the number of "O"s in his Twitter handle. The fans mostly scream his name because the close back rounded vowel sound in "Toon" is nice to listen to for 5-10 seconds at a time. And this is why @TOOOOOOOOOOON is my new favorite Twitter handle. It caused me to contemplate an otherwise glossed-over subtlety of fan behavior, and I now know what a close back rounded vowel sound is. 

Neither of these pieces of information are useful in any way.  

A Quick Thought On Fantasy Football

I completed my fantasy football draft today; had the 2nd overall pick and selected Arian Foster. My team is OK, a lot of question marks. I relied a little too heavily on injury-prone players and guys who broke out last year. I also had a subconscious fascination with the 49ers. Three of my fifteen players are 49ers. I suspect that can't be a good thing. 

We usually discuss fantasy football as I did in the previous six sentences, and then relate everything back to the point system. Is this a good match-up for my running back? Which of these three receivers is most likely to break out? Will quarterback so-and- so's injury be a good or bad thing for the run game? We tend to forget about the human element, you know, the people who play fantasy sports.

Many people have tried to pinpoint the reason why 27 million Americans play fantasy football. The same answers always seem to creep up: fantasy football creates interest in NFL games many fans would otherwise have no interest in, the spirit of competition, the chance to feel like a GM. These are all good reasons, and there are many more. I'm interested in the groups of friends who create their own league and get together every year to draft.

My modest 10-team draft was conducted at 2:00 PM Wednesday afternoon. This time all but assures a mixture of college kids and low-lives, with the occasional office worker furiously maximizing and minimizing his page. Our league was chosen at random. None of us knew each other. I arrived in the Live Draft about fifteen minutes before start time. One guy, the sixth overall pick, typed "Hey" into the conversation bar. Another guy, the first overall pick, expressed excitement over the chance to finally draft Adrian Peterson. I suppose I could have added my two cents, but I didn't. After all, I didn't know these people and was not particularly interested in forging a relationship with them.

I thought of the groups of friends, sometimes living in different parts of the country, who agree upon a location every year (VEGAS, BABY, VEGAS) to hold their fantasy football draft. Sure, the draft is important, but it's easy to see the real reason for these fantasy football leagues. They provide a yearly opportunity for a group of old friends to get together and catch up. Life eventually gets the better of us. We have to grow up, move around, maybe get married and have kids. Through all of this, fantasy football, of all things, can keep people together. To me, this trumps however many points Arian Foster is going to score this week.

At the heart of it, fantasy football is a silly game. All of us who have even an ounce of perspective know this. If you play with friends and family, feel fortunate that you have friends and family who are willing to play. Getting together in a Vegas casino or even your neighbor's house is a beautiful thing. You don't want to be drafting at two in the afternoon on a Wednesday with a bunch of strangers. You really don't.

A Win Is A Win...And The Bears Have Seven Of Them

The Chicago Bears are the worst 7-3 football team in the history of the NFL. Last week, they were the worst 6-3 football team in the history of the NFL. If they beat the Eagles next week they will be the worst 8-3 football team in the history of the NFL. If this is all starting to sound a little silly, it should.
ESPN.com writer Gene Wojciechowski (I triple checked that, it's spelled correctly) was kind enough to offer me an alley-oop. I was planning on addressing all of the excuses that have been made as to why the Bears have been successful this season, and Wojciechowski provided a nice, quick reason/excuse for each Chicago victory this year (minus the Packers, for whatever reason). I believe that his views match up almost perfectly with what I've heard about the Bears all season, so I decided to use his article as a reference point.

On the Lions win: "[The Bears] beat the Detroit Lions in the season opener, but needed a Matthew Stafford injury and a bizarre, last-second nullified touchdown to do it."

When healthy, Stafford is a much better quarterback than back up Shaun Hill, no one is disputing that. However, let's not pretend that Hill hasn't stepped in and played well. In his six starts this season, Hill has thrown for 1544 yards, 10 TDs to 7 INTs, and completed 62 percent of his passes. Not bad numbers at all, especially for a back up quarterback. The Lions were 1-5 in those games, not because of Hill, but because they gave up an average of 28 points per game in those five losses and couldn't run the ball. Hill played the entire second half of the Bears game and the Bears defense held him to his worst half of football this season.
Johnson's nullified touchdown is a tough call. There is a portions of the NFL rulebook that could have interpreted that as a catch, and another part, the part the referee's used, interpreted it as a drop. I'm convinced that Johnson could have came down with the ball in both hands, he chose to swing it to his right hand and payed for it. It's really no different than a receiver making a spectacular catch and coming down with his toe out of bounds.

On the Cowboys win: "[The Bears] beat the spectacularly underachieving Dallas Cowboys on the road for their second win."

I hate this argument. This was the second game of the NFL season. The Cowboys were 0-1, had they underachieved then, after one game? To suggest that the underachieving 1-8 Cowboys are the same team that took the field in the second game of the season is ludicrous. The football season does not remain static, some teams get better as the season goes on, and some get worse.
In Week 2 of the NFL season, the Dallas Cowboys were a Super Bowl favorite playing their first home game of the season. Dallas' D-Line came close to killing Cutler the entire first half, Romo threw for almost 400 yards, and Miles Austin caught 10 passes for 142 yards. The Bears won because they were plus three in the turnover battle, not because the Cowboys were an underachieving team one week into the season, they actually played very good that game.

On the Panthers win: "On the week [the Bears] lost Cutler to a concussion, the schedule gods gave them the Carolina Panthers -- and a win. Carolina is 1-8 this season."

I don't care what the opposing team's record is, if your quarterback (Todd Collins, the worst quarterback to start a NFL game this season) goes 6-16 for 32 yards and 4 INTs, you have no business winning that game. The Bears did because they created three turnovers of their own and held the dynamic Williams-Stewart combo to a combined 81 yards rushing.
The Bears also made a commitment to the run against the Panthers' pitiful rushing defense. Matt Forte scored two touchdowns and ran for 166 yards. When teams like the Patriots exploit other team's weaknesses, they're called smart. When the Bears do, they're lucky to be playing a weak team. It's all part of the double standard.

On the Bills win: "[The Bears'] fifth win came against the then-winless Buffalo Bills. And they didn't even have to play the Bills in Buffalo. Instead, they faced them in Toronto."

Sure, let's just ignore that after their Week 6 bye, the Bills weren't playing great football. They took the Ravens and Chiefs (both 4-2 when the Bills faced them) to overtime in back to back weeks. Bills QB Ryan Fitzpatrick threw for 605 yards and 5 touchdowns in both games. The Bills lost to the Bears and then went on to beat the Lions on the road. They're playing much much much better in the last four weeks than they were in the previous five.   
I'm not sure what Wojciechowski was getting at about playing in Toronto. He is aware that Buffalo and Toronto practically border each other, right? If he's suggesting that this was a home game that didn't have the feel of a home game it's because the Bears fans travel well, not because Bills fans couldn't make it to the game.

On the Vikings win: "[The Bears] got win number six against a Minnesota Vikings team that can't stand its coach and is without its best wide receiver."

Am I missing something? Haven't the Vikings hated Chilly for years? Weren't they going to win despite him? And not going to lay down like the Dallas Cowboys? Hasn't Sidney Rice been injured all season? These excuses could have been but weren't used when the Saints, Jets, Packers, and Patriots defeated the Vikings. Double standard, anyone?
Adrian Peterson and Brett Favre have made careers out of beating up on the Bears defense. In this game, they held Peterson to 51 yards, and Favre to 170 passing yards and 3 interceptions the week after his career high 446 yard passing effort against Arizona. If that's not impressive, especially for a team that has struggled historically against both players, I don't know what is.

On the Dolphins win: "And then [the Bears] threw a shutout against the Dolphins, who converted just one third down, had the ball nearly 16 fewer minutes than the Bears and saw Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams rush for a combined 11 yards."

I'm confused, these all seem like compliments to me. So the Dolphins a) couldn't convert on third down, b) lost the time of possession battle, c) had a reshuffled offensive line and couldn't run the ball, and d) started a back up quarterback. And that's why it was OK for Miami to lose? By my calculations, the Bears could have circled A, B, C, D, or E (All of the Above) for every game this season, yet they're 7-3, and being criticized for winning games that the Dolphins are getting a pass for.

The Bears are a flawed team, just like any other in the NFC. I believe they will make the playoffs, and after that, who knows what will happen. The last six games, especially next week at home against Philadelphia, and the three division games on the road will be hugely instrumental in shaping their playoff chances. Luck doesn't last for ten games and it sure doesn't last for sixteen. If the Bears make the playoffs it won't be because they were lucky, but because they deserved it.
For the record, Wojciechowski's summarized argument was, "I don't think the Bears are very good, but they've been so lucky this year, that I wouldn't be surprised if they made it to the Super Bowl." That seems to be everyone's view of the Bears in a nutshell. They're no good but they keep on winning, so I'm not going to be the one to wrongfully pick against them.
Just remember that there's more than one way to win a football game. The 2010 Bears are anything but conventional, but they're getting it done.

Don't Overlook The Vikings

With Week 6 of the NFL season quickly approaching, now is about that time when we think we have each team figured out. This couldn't be further from the truth in the NFC North. Ask four different people about who will win this division, and you'll likely get three different answers. Sorry, Detroit.
I think the Bears will make the playoffs. I really do. I've been fighting myself lately, trying not to set myself up for disappointment, but I finally feel comfortable with believing they're playoff bound.
The next three games will be crucial in determining Chicago's playoff chances. Seattle and Washington at home, bye week, and Buffalo on the road. All three winnable games. Three wins and viola! The Bears are 7-1 heading in to the toughest stretch of their schedule.
That means they'll only have to win three, possibly two of the following eight games to make the playoffs. I think they can, I think they can...
The Vikings are the biggest question in the NFC North, and all of football at the moment. For a team with such lofty expectations, they've been nothing short of disappointing. Even more so than Dallas because, let's face it, unless if you live in Dallas, you know the Cowboys have been overrated for the past 15 years.
Let's bring it back to the Vikings, a team in total disarray. Sidney Rice is still injured, Jared Allen isn't sacking the quarterback, and Brett Favre is bringing new meaning to the naked bootleg.
I'm still afraid of this team. I think they've already hit rock bottom. Their next two games, at home against Dallas, and in Green Bay will reveal a lot about Minnesota's make up. The Bears beat both of those teams, if Minnesota wants to contend, they have to beat them as well. Two wins and just like that, the Vikings are back to .500.

It's imperative that Minnesota stops the bleeding. Rice could be back in as soon as three weeks. By that time Moss should be acclimated into the offense. That's going to be the week I crap my pants.
Moss and Rice lining up on opposite sides, Harvin in the slot, and Peterson running the ball. Not even a turnover-prone quarterback like Favre could screw an offense like that up. I think people are underestimating how scary this offense will be in a few weeks.
Until then, the Vikings can't dig their own graves. They're already 1-3 and can't afford to lose a couple more games.
They need their defense to step up. They've been pretty good in pass defense, an area that was expected to be a weakness. The run defense needs to be better. With the D-Line they have, there's no excuse to not be in the Top 5 in rush defense every year. They play the pass happy Cowboys, Packers, and Patriots in their next three games, so they should have an opportunity rectify that.
The Packers are having one of those years where the injury bug hits early and often. Ryan Grant, Nick Barnett, and Jermichael Finley are all out for the year. Aaron Rodgers may have to miss his next start. No one is talking about how they let Kampman walk or Jolly's suspension.
This is a pretty weak Green Bay team right now in a variety of areas. When healthy, they're definitely a playoff team, but the way it's looking, maybe 8-8.
The Bears will be playoff bound. I swear I believe that and am not just repeating it to try and convince myself.
I'm predicting that within the next month, the Vikings will shake up the NFC dramatically.

Favre Always Did Have A Flair For The Dramatic

What is it about Brett Favre and Monday Night Football? For a player that has always seemed to have a flair for the dramatic, Favre certainly seems to crank it up a notch on Monday night.
We can all remember back to December of 2003. Favre was scheduled to play the Raiders on Monday night, only a day after the death of his father. Favre suited up and threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns en route to a 41-7 beatdown of Oakland.
That game became a defining moment of Favre's career. The mistakes that plagued him early in his career seemed to be swept under the rug. Instead, the media propped Favre up to the iconic status he already enjoyed amongst the people of Wisconsin.
A year later his wife Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer. The Packers had started off the 2004 season slow, with a 1-4 record at the time of Deanna's diagnosis. In typical Brett fashion, he played through the grief. Throwing for over 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns on the year, he led the Packers to a Wild Card berth.
Favre could do no wrong. He'd dealt with some of the worst news imaginable and still managed to play. And not just take the field, but play at a Pro Bowl level.
While Favre's yearly "Should I stay or should I go," retirement contemplations have rubbed most of us the wrong way for the last three years, he's successfully been able to repair his public image.
By no means do people think of him as a Saint, or even like him for that matter, but he's still been a far cry from the womanizing, pill-popping alcoholic of the early 90s. 
Or so we thought. At least for one third of that Axis of Evil, anyway.

You've all heard the story by now regarding the pictures and voicemails that Favre allegedly sent two years ago while playing for the Jets. While the timing is certainly suspect, and the Favre allegations are just that, allegations, this story still needs to see the light of day.
Cheating to me is a lot like holding on the offensive line. It happens often, it's just a matter of getting caught or not. That doesn't make it right, but that's the harsh reality.
So should Favre be punished for pursuing a sexual relationship? If the allegations are true, I'd have to say yes. The woman was employed by the Jets. Therefore, her and Favre were technically coworkers, and sexual harassment amongst coworkers, by law, shouldn't be tolerated at any workplace.
Whether or not anything happens to Favre, tonight's game will be another defining moment of his career. Imagine if Favre plays well and the allegations turn out to be false. There's Brett again, playing through adversity.
Now imagine if Favre plays poorly and the allegations turn out to be true. The little reputation he has left will be shot.
This story is a big deal. Think of all the other things we could be talking about. The return of Randy Moss, who will eventually team up with the injured Sidney Rice to form the most freakishly athletic pair of receivers this league has ever seen on the same team.
Santonio Holmes comes back from his four game suspension and finally gives the Jets the number one receiver they've been missing all year.
Moss and Revis square off again. Hopefully this time for the entire game.
Adrian Peterson tries his luck against Jets vaunted front seven.
Maybe this speaks to the sensationalism we favor in our news. Sex sells and all that. But we can also chalk up this sex scandal trumping every other storyline to the aura of Favre.
Tonight is another significant chapter for Brett Favre the player. Brett Favre the person? I don't think we'll ever know.