Somewhere Over Dwayne Bowe Power Poll: Week 12 Edition

Four weeks later, and the Power Poll is back!

Some thoughts before we begin...

-The bottom half of the league is in bad shape.  Injuries have not helped this.  But the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the NFL is bigger than I can ever remember.
-I've advocated trading Matt Flynn in the past.  At this point, if he wants to stay I'd say keep him.  There are a number of teams who are ranked 5-6 spots lower than they otherwise would, because their backup quarterback is trash.  I like Flynn.  I think he rates in at "competent NFL starter," which would make a dozen teams salivate at this point.  But I also see Houston fans talking themselves into Matt Cassel, and a Caleb Hanie/Nathan Enderle controversy on the horizon in Chicago, and Kansas City in a division that's ripe for the picking but stuck with Tyler Fucking Palko calling the shots... it's terrifying.

(By the way, that Chicago thing?  It's coming.  Mike Martz HATES Hanie.  Hates him with a passion.  Remember the NFC Championship?  I know I do.  But do you remember Todd Collins?  How completely fucking incompetent he looked when he was put into the game?  He was AHEAD of Hanie on the depth chart--that's how much faith Martz has in him.  Enderle is Martz's handpicked draft pick.  Enderle split snaps with Hanie running the No. 2 offense for the Bears in training camp.  If Hanie struggles, he could be on a short leash.)

The "Cleveland Without LeBron" Division
32. Indianapolis
It's eerie how Peyton Manning is turning into Brett Favre #2... the durability, the perplexingly lonely ring after extended dominance, the place in the Greatest of All Time debate... now the fan base subtly turning on them in favor of the younger quarterback, the hints at coming back... are we two years away from Andrew Luck getting fried by Manning's Tennessee Titans, then coming back and curbstomping them the next year as Manning falls apart and retires in shame, revealing he "accidentally" texted pictures of his cock to Kenny Chesney?

The Turd Sandwich (aka NFC West) Division
31. Arizona
Well, it turned out that San Fran was the lone competent one in this division.  Meanwhile, the Cards paid roughly $6.50 on the dollar for a quarterback who can't even show that he's convincingly better than John Navarre Skelton.  Fuck it, at this point they're best off with Kurt Warner coming out of retirement.

30. St. Louis
A game worse than 'Zona, but I think they're a better play the rest of the way.  So there.  I'm still humiliated by my "StL to win NFC West" preseason bet.  I'd have been better off lighting that money on fire.  If gambling were legal, of course.

29. Seattle
In the translated words of the groundskeepers from Major League?  They're still shitty.  Not much more needs to be said.  Seems Pete Carroll isn't that great of a coach when everyone else gets to pay the players too.

The Gallons of Suck Division
28. Kansas City
Every time Tyler Palko underthrows his target right into the waiting arms of a defender, an angel gets his wings.  The Chiefs might be a team to watch next year--Cassel and Charles injuries derailed this season, and they'll get a Top 5 pick.  Keep an eye on them--you know, if you live somewhere that gambling is legal.

27. Carolina
Cam Newton looks like either the Evolutionary Michael Vick or the Evolutionary Akili Smith.  There's no in between.  But Carolina fans just urped in their mouth a little bit.

26. Minnesota
These guys are 2-8.  Doesn't feel like it, does it?  I mean they're bad, but you have to feel like they should have a win or two more.  Anyway, I'm ranking them high because I feel like they can compete with most teams, even if they can't win.

25. Miami
They're showing signs of life.  On the downside, they don't get Andrew Luck anymore.  On the bright side, they might finish ahead of Buffalo at this rate.

24. Washington
Had them ranked three spots lower, then remembered that Rex Grossman is back.  By the way, whenever Rex Grossman is enough to vault your team three spots up, um, that's a really bad thing.  Enjoy the Arena League, John Beck.

The Large 32oz Combo Meal of Suck Division
23. Cleveland
These guys don't suck by the gallon, but they're still a great collection of suckitude.  If the Packers are unable to convince Matt Flynn to stay, Cleveland makes a hell of a lot of sense as a destination for him.  On the other hand, they're from Cleveland--by signing there, he's pretty much saying "fuck you" to his ACL or something.

22. Jacksonville
Taking the approach of "We're going to keep the offense in second gear so Gabbert doesn't freak out, let him be confident, and accept that this is going to be a 4-5 win season.  Meanwhile, start up talks with LA about a stadium deal."  Okay, I'm assuming the last part.  But still.

21. San Diego
Phillip Rivers seems hell-bent on breaking the one Brett Favre record that Aaron Rodgers isn't aiming for--the interception one.  Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.  And is there a more toothless backfield pairing than Ryan Mathews and Mike Tolbert?  They don't even get "poor man's" status--they're the homeless man's Willie Parker and Jerome Bettis.  I regard coming back for seconds with Mathews this season in fantasy football to be a mistake on par with going back for seconds with any piece of questionable pussy I've had.  Once can be a fluke, but once you've blown that second chance you're done.  Never again.

The Mediocrity Division
20. Tampa
Just a season ago, they were a 10-win team.  Today, they need to win out to match that.  They've got the fourth worst point differential in the league.  And, uh, I don't think Albert Haynesworth is going to be much help.  After four losses in a row, it's gut check time in Tampa.

19. Tennessee
The Tennessee Titans of the National Football League would like to take this opportunity to ask for your help.  It appears that our running back has gone missing.  He answers to the name Chris Johnson and he is usually very hard to tackle, though recently folks haven't been having much trouble.  $50 reward.

18. Buffalo
It's lucky that the Bills and Buccaneers avoid each other--the way they've both played this past month, I don't think you can pick a winner out of that matchup.  Remember our last Power Poll, when this team's number was a third of what it is now?  Ryan Fitzpatrick looks like such a spectacular waste of $50 million that the United States federal government is toying with the idea of purchasing his contract.

The Dead Hype Division
17. Philadelphia
Worth noting: after this weekend, Philly closes their schedule with SEA-MIA-NYJ-DAL-WAS.  That looks like a possible 5-0 run, even with Vince Young.  Meanwhile, they're chasing Tom Coughlin and Tony Romo, two of the most notable choke artists of our time.  We're about three weeks away from the torch being passed to the Eagles as the potential snuck-in-the-playoffs team that nobody wants to play.  "Eagles to win NFC East" is actually a pretty good value bet--don't count on it as a sure thing, but it could pay off huge.

The Single Worst Scandal In Sports History

Before we get started, I'm going to let your mind wander and think of the worst sports scandal you've ever heard of.  The White Sox throwing the '19 World Series?  Pete Rose betting on baseball?  Boosters buying a house and a Hummer for Reggie Bush's mom?  All bad, and all basically irrelevant as of today.

This morning, a report broke that former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky raped eight boys over his 15 years at PSU on school facilities.  Boys that he met through The Second Mile, his not-for-profit dedicated to helping at-risk kids.

And this isn't just shit being made up.   Victims are coming forward; eight of them so far.  One claimed that Sandusky initiated advances with a "soap fight" in the shower.  The boy in question once appeared in a Sports Illustrated photo with Sandusky.  In the fall of 2000, a PSU janitor witnessed a young boy, aged 11 to 13, pinned up against a wall while Sandusky blew him.  Two years later, a graduate assistant witnessed Sandusky rape a 10 year old boy in the shower.  The graduate assistant reported it to AD Tim Curley, who promptly covered it up.  Sandusky, once considered Joe Paterno's heir apparent, resigned in 1999,* but allowed to continue to use PSU facilities for his work with The Second Mile.

Suddenly, gambling and false amateurism seem like small potatoes.

The unfortunate thing is this will almost certainly fail to get the attention it deserves.  It will be a story for a few weeks, then disappear.  And that should not happen.

Paterno, Curley, and vice president Gary Schultz (who is being charged along with Curley) are all unforgivable in this.  Paterno, rather than alerting the authorities, simply reported the incident to Curley.  I know eyewitness accounts are hardly airtight, especially when the 10 year old boy being sodomized against his will is black, but at the same time Sandusky was banned from again bringing children onto PSU's campus.**  And Curley enabled the living fuck out of Sandusky.  Letting him continue to use the facilities?  Not telling the police?  Worse yet, attempting to justify the grad assistant's report by claiming that a 55 year old man and a 10 year old boy in the shower was "little more than horseplay?"

Something smells like shit, and it's not Jerry Sandusky's dick for once.  Curley literally did everything he could to help Sandusky short of buying him orphans or making him the new host of "Are You Harder Than A Fifth Grader?"  Little more than horseplay?  I'll believe the ER patient who "doesn't know" how the remote control got stuck up his ass before I buy that.

Look, I'm not a big time moral crusader--in fact, I'm quite fond of the "live and let live" approach to forcing your beliefs down others' throats.  But when the "other" in question is forcing his cock down the throat of a child, well that's wrong no matter how you spin it.  This is, as the title indicates, The Single Worst Scandal in Sports History.  Miami may have provided their players with hookers and blow, but you can defend hookers (the players were 18) and blow (it was the '80s).  USC and Ohio State may have paid their players, but you could argue that they ought to have been paid in the first place.  Pete Rose may have bet on baseball, but he didn't bet on his team.  Mark Sanchez may have fucked a 17-year-old, but it was consensual.  The Roethlisberger accusations are flimsy hearsay, at best.

There is no spin to this.  Rarely in life are things so black and white; so cut and dry.  Jerry Sandusky used his position of power in Happy Valley to sodomize children.  Joe Paterno knew about this sodomy, and did nothing.  Actually, I take that back--he didn't do nothing.  He informed his higher ups, covering his own ass.  Paterno KNEW this was going on in his facilities in 2002; when Curley chose to cover it up Paterno was complicit.  At no point in the past 9 years did Paterno go to the police, even as this was still happening.  It took a high school, investigating a 2009 abuse of one of their students by Sandusky, to bring this to the authorities.  In a legal sense, Paterno is clean--by telling Curley, he effectively passes the buck on liability.  In a moral sense, Paterno could not possibly be more wrong--he knew of abuse, was easily in a position to stop it, yet he did not.  What, exactly, was his logic here?  "I told my boss, it's in his hands now."  HOW IS THAT DEFENSIBLE?!  The cocksucker was more concerned with safeguarding his legacy than protecting future victims.  If there were such a thing as justice, every last person involved in the coverup would be fired, put in stocks, and marched off the PSU campus to a public stoning.

By the way, this gives the 1988 Orange Bowl a whole new spin, doesn't it?  At the time, it was the wholesome squeaky-clean Penn State team against Miami's band of criminals.  Now?  Miami's party boys against PSU's child-rape-enablers.  Congratulations, Miami--for once, you're the good guys.  Don't get used to the feeling.

Another quick aside, as well--Penn State Creamery has a sundae named the "Sandusky Blitz."  The ingredients?  Banana, chocolate-covered peanuts, and gooey ropes of caramel.  I'm trying really, really hard to avoid joking about child rape, but the only way that could be any funnier is if they added marshmallows made of jizz.

I know the sports media is generally useless, but it's up to our reporters to keep this from going away.  Paterno press conferences should be full of questions like "Coach, when scheming to stop Russell Wilson, did you ever consider alerting the authorities to the child rapist on your staff?"  "Historically, Penn State's defense has been good at backside pursuit and pressure--did Coach Sandusky teach that in the shower?"  "Coach Paterno, whats more rewarding to you: Being the winninest coach in history, or helping Coach Sandusky rape children?"  "Coach, if you were going for a rape theme, why did you not offer a scholarship to Ben Roethlisberger back in the day?"  You get the point.

And it's on the rest of the NCAA coaches, too.  I know your lot.  When it comes to recruiting, you will use every advantage you have--and if you don't have any, you'll make one up and lie about it.  Well you don't have to lie here.  Thanks to NCAA's recruiting rules and regulations, plus the power of technology, we now know who, specifically, every coach/school is targeting.   If you're competing for a recruit with PSU, beat the kiddy-rape angle into the ground.  "You're a good looking guy, I'm guessing you'd like to have a family some day?  Bring the kids back for Homecoming, show them where Daddy used to play?  Well, would you like them to also get raped?  Didn't think so.  I'd shy away from PSU if it were me, then.  Just sayin'."  Make it so these scumbags are picking from the dregs of the borderline talent that nobody else is willing to deal with.

On the bright side, if you're a fan of Miami, Notre Dame, USC, Ohio State, Florida State, or someone along those lines, today is the greatest day in the history of fandom.  Now, whenever your rivals skewer you for violations, all you have to say is "Hey, at least no children are being raped on our campus!"  And if you're a Florida State fan, you now have in your history the winningest head coach who never helped cover up child rape among his staff.

Penn State is one of only four BCS schools who do not have a major NCAA violation in their history.  Since there are technically no NCAA rules against this kind of thing, that will still stand.  But at least they are now the only school with a child-rape violation in their history--and personally, I think that's just a little bit worse than boosters paying off players.

*By the way, Sandusky's resignation smells fishier than Paris Hilton's underwear drawer.  He was first investigated for child rape in 1998, and the investigation ultimately did not lead to charges.  A year later, Sandusky resigns but is allowed to continue using PSU facilities.  If you believe that the two events are unrelated, I have a bridge to sell you.
**Because that's a solution--don't stop him from doing it, just make sure it doesn't happen on our watch!