Tiger Not out of the Woods Yet with Website Statement

Tiger Woods is finally being brought to his knees.

Augusta couldn't do it. Pebble Beach, neither. Nor could any of the vaunted courses across the pond.

A four-stroke deficit on a Sunday doesn't faze Woods, either. Having to get up and down from 45 yards away, his ball in a pile of thatch? Piece of cake.

But this isn't the golf course, it's the fish bowl of celebrity.

Woods, who was involved in a single-car crash just outside his home over the weekend, is playing this one like Greg Norman trying to hold on to a lead in a major on the final day.

Tiger is shanking them and his approach shots are plopping into water hazards.

Woods is hoping that the statement he released on his website will satiate those among us who are a tad curious---and that number is no doubt in the tens of millions, at least--- about what went down, and why at 2:25 a.m. Saturday, when Woods smashed into a fire hydrant and then a tree with his Cadillac.

The statement takes responsibility for the crash---duh, it was a single car mishap right out of the driveway; who ELSE'S fault would it be?---and praises the actions of wife Elin Nordegren, who according to reports used a golf club (I imagine there are a few of those lying around the Woods house, huh?) to smash the windshield so she could help extricate her husband from the vehicle.

The statement also apologized for the embarrassment the incident has caused, and it vowed that it will never happen again.

Bounding out of your driveway, ramming into a fire hydrant and then careening off a tree? I would hope not!

Sorry, Tiger---not enough. Your statement was a 75-yard chip shot when you're 90 yards away from the green.

Tiger left this one short, alright. Now he needs to blast out of some serious rough, just to save bogey.

What was conspicuous by its absence was any REAL explanation of what happened late Friday night/early Saturday morning. Woods chided rumors and the irresponsibility of some of the sensationalistic reporting of the incident, yet did nothing to stop either---unless he fancies himself living in some fantasy land where folks take everything celebrities say at face value.

Was he popping out to the store for a late night Haagen Dazs run for his wife? Did he run out of Doritos?

The number of viable, explicable reasons why one leaves his/her home at 2:30 in the morning doesn't create a very large cache. Unless Tiger took a graveyard shift to earn some extra dough, then we know he wasn't on his way to work, either.

Why not come clean? Woods has, at press time, canceled three separate interview requests made by state troopers who want to ask, basically, "Hey, what happened?"

And the troopers are giving Tiger a wide berth here. Next time you or me or Joe Shmoe try to put off cops trying to investigate an incident at our home, see what happens.

Tiger Woods is the Muhammad Ali of his time, in that he's recognizable worldwide. He's iconic, and his mere being transcends golf, and even the entire world of sport. So when he crashes his car at 2:30 in the morning when no one else is around, it'd be nice to know what the hell went down.

The rumors, meanwhile, continue to swirl like the wind at Candlestick Park.

Tiger and Elin had a fight. Tiger stormed out. If that's true, then good thing she used the golf club to smash the windshield and not his skull.

Tiger's having an affair and was setting out for a late night tryst. If that's true, see above re: Elin and the golf club.

The rumors that Woods derides, however, are like any vegetation: they need fertile ground in which to germinate. And it doesn't get much more fertile than silence and cryptic "statements" that say everything yet answer nothing.

You'd think Tiger would know this. His whole life has been spent in the fish bowl, just about. You'd think he'd know how to handle an incident like this as if it was a par-4 at the Buick Open.

But Tiger is stumbling and bumbling. He's making a mess of this hole.

Meanwhile, the vegetation of rumor and innuendo is climbing, like a vine, around his life. And that stuff grows fast.

He ought to know that.

Hey NFL! Leave Lions' Thanksgiving Day Game Alone

I’m going to make a preemptive strike here. An end-around, if you will, to head them off at the pass.

I’m getting my own iron hot. Not enough time to wait for others to reach the proper temp.

This is for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and those who would petition him on their behalf.

Keep your stinking paws off our Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit.

Maybe the rumblings have already started. Maybe I’m not the early bird that I think I am.

The Lions lost, 34-12, on Thursday to the Green Bay Packers. That’s what the Lions do anymore on Thanksgiving—they lose by scores like 34-12. It’s been so bad lately that 34-12 is actually one of the better ones, truth be told.

That’s six straight losses on Turkey Day. And those outside of our fair city are crying fowl.

It began a few years ago, when the Lions were starting a new tradition of getting the stuffing beat out of them on Thanksgiving.

“Take the Thanksgiving Day away from the Lions and give it to a team more deserving—or at least one that’s easier on the stomach.”

One of the biggest instigators was the late Lamar Hunt, the erstwhile owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, who whined yearly about the Lions and their Thanksgiving tradition.

Rotate the game, Lamar said. Let other teams get in on the fun. Other teams like his, for example.

The movement gained momentum. Hunt garnered more and more support, until it was forgotten by many that it was Hunt’s idea in the first place. You could almost see the pitchforks and torches gathering in front of the league office.

Hunt, among other things, thought that the quick turnaround from Sunday to Thursday benefited the Lions, who were used to doing it, so therefore they must have some sort of an advantage.

HA!

The Lions, after their latest Thanksgiving Day turkey, are now 33-35-2 on the holiday. Yeah—that’s some advantage, alright. They really clean up on Thanksgiving, don’t they?

The NFL went out and started scheduling its own Thanksgiving Night game on its own network, but that still hasn’t stopped the moaning about the 12:30 kickoff in Detroit.

At issue is the Lions as a team, not a franchise. It’s nothing personal, the pitchforkers and torchers say. They’d just rather see a better brand of football at 12:30.

Well join the club!

So here’s my scientific, heavily-researched, highly analytical response to that argument.

Tough cookies!

We have precious few football traditions in Detroit. If we didn’t host a couple of Super Bowls, the Vince Lombardi Trophy wouldn’t have even crossed the state line.

Hell, we don’t even have Matt Millen to rip anymore, so there goes one of our pastimes, right there.

Yeah, the Lions are bad—been bad for this entire century, so far. The Lions wear bad like rice wears white. No argument there.

So you don’t like them soiling your television set from 12:30-4:00 p.m. eastern time every Thanksgiving Day? Then turn the channel, or turn the TV off and talk with your family—until the Cowboys come on. Or plan the meal for that time slot. I’m sure you can manage.

There’s this, too: WE have to watch them, so why should YOU be any different? Who died and made you Kings of Football?

You don’t seem to understand. This is all we have here in Detroit when it comes to the Lions. Every year, when the new NFL schedule is released, the first thing we do is ask, “Who’s the Thanksgiving opponent this year?” The second thing we do is get our magnifying glasses out and look for possible wins for the Lions on the team’s agenda—and squint realllllly hard.

That’s pretty much it—for now.

I don’t care that the Lions stink. I don’t care that they’ve been the Washington Generals to the other team’s Harlem Globetrotters for the past six years. I don’t care that the game starts at 12:30 and the outcome is usually decided by 1:00.

The game is ours. Period. The ritual started in 1934, so that means we’re now in our second great economic depression of providing pro football on Thanksgiving Day.

Besides, you have your precious rotating game on the NFL Network during prime time, so shutty.

You think the Green Bay Packers want to take the game away from the Lions? Thursday’s stinker makes two shellackings they’ve laid on the Lions in the past three years. I’m surprised they haven’t called dibs on it by now.

Thanksgiving Day is special in Detroit. It’s enjoying the parade in the morning, then traipsing to Ford Field to watch the Lions get whacked in the afternoon. Then it’s back home to have dinner in the evening and bitch about how the Lions got whacked in the afternoon.

And you’d take that away from us?

Look, all I know is that I don’t recall any blubbering about this game until Millen took over the Lions and turned them into a punch line. Talk about kicking a team’s fan base while it’s down.

Finally, as much as I hate to invoke Bill Ford Sr. as a heroic figure, the truth is that the NFL owes a whole lot to the Ford family. They pumped big time advertising dollars, via Ford Motor Company, into the league in the 1960s and ‘70s, when it was sorely needed.

So quit your moaning and get your grubby hands away from our Thanksgiving Day game.

We wouldn’t even know what to do with ourselves at 12:30. If you met some of our families, you’d see how attractive the Lions look, too.

Stafford's Legendary Tale Gets Re-written by Packers

Cinderella's coach really did turn back into a pumpkin. Hansel and Gretel got caught, after all. None of the pigs got around to building a joint out of brick.

John Elway's legend is safe once again. Whoever sculpts those busts for Canton needn't rush out to procure a head shot of Matthew Stafford at his earliest convenience.

Cloud Nine just touched down. The bandwagon came to a screeching halt. After one game.

If rookie quarterbacks were stock on the New York Exchange, their chart would look like an EKG readout.

On Sunday, Stafford won a game for the Lions. Damaged wing and all. Real storybook stuff. Someone dared to disturb Bobby Layne's ghost over it.

Four days later, the re-set button got hit, taking his progression back to the hot July days of training camp.

On Sunday, the kid threw five touchdown passes. It usually takes a Lions QB half a season to do that. On Thursday, he had a fetish of throwing to the wrong guys. Four interceptions, and it could have been more. Each one of them was a killer.

The rookie quarterback gives and he takeths away. Within four days, sometimes.

Stafford tried to pen another chapter in the tiny legend he's trying to author as a first-year signal caller in the NFL.

His tender left shoulder was so bad after Sunday's game that the idea of him playing on Thanksgiving Day seemed folly.

The days of the short week passed and after each one, the diagnosis was the same: doubtful. Highly.

Backup Daunte Culpepper arrived at Ford Field Thursday morning thinking he was the starter. He had taken all the reps with the first team. Stafford's left wing was still limp.

But a funny thing happened, though the humor was lost on Culpepper.

Stafford threw some footballs Thursday during warmups, and suddenly things weren't so bad. The doctors, abiding to the script, agreed that Stafford playing wouldn't cause any further damage. It was deemed to be a "pain management issue."

So Stafford is announced as the starter not long before game time, and Culpepper was probably the only person in the stadium who was disappointed with that determination.

But someone forgot to send the script over to the Green Bay Packers for their approval.

After an early hiccup---a fumbled opening kickoff that led to a Stafford-to-Calvin Johnson TD toss---the Packers regained control and jammed Stafford's next chapter into the paper shredder.

If you played a drinking game where you had to take a shot of booze whenever Troy Aikman said something like, "That's part of the development of a rookie quarterback," you'd be reading this with a hangover. But Troy's right, and he ought to know. Aikman suffered through a 1-15 season with the 1989 Cowboys, in which he went 0-11 as a starter.

I tried my hand at playing soothsayer on Monday's episode of "The Knee Jerks," the Blog Talk Radio gabfest I co-host with Big Al Beaton.

Stafford could very well, I said, go back to being the goat as soon as on Thanksgiving Day, because that's what happens with these young whippersnappers. They waddle then they fall down sometimes.

I'm not right all that often, but I picked a helluva time to be spot on.

The loss on Thursday wasn't all on the kid, though.

Once again, the Lions' pass rushers treated the opposing quarterback as if he'd had a garlic sandwich before the game, topped with limburger.

I think I saw Packers QB Aaron Rodgers, prior to rocketing a 68-yard bomb to Donald Driver in the first quarter, have a shave and brush his teeth. Or maybe the rules were that the Lions' pass rushers had to count to 20-Mississippi, and they got stuck on 11 or 12.

Once again, the Lions were the antidote to what ailed the other team. The Packers have had trouble all season protecting Rodgers, who came into the game being sacked once for every 8.9 pass attempts. That rate was one for every 39 passing attempts on Thursday.

It wasn't just that the Lions didn't sack Rodgers; they didn't even get within shouting distance of him. They made him more comfortable in the pocket than a set of car keys.

The Lions' secondary needs all the help it can get, and it's not getting it from the front four. The pass coverage is softer than Charmin, and it's being made to look even worse because of the complete lack of pressure from the pass rushers.

So it's not all on Stafford, but there will still be afternoons where he's no help, as on Thursday, and at Seattle, and against the Rams.

All part of the development of a rookie quarterback, right?

Ha! Now you have to take a shot.

Thanks!

Time to give thanks. I suppose I can muster up the will to do that. It's only once a year, after all.

So, here goes...

I'm thankful for Army-Navy, even though I never watch it.

I'm thankful for Brandon Inge.

I'm thankful that a football is shaped the way it is, because you never know how it's going to bounce. Other balls are so predictable that way.

I'm thankful for outdoor stadiums.

I'm thankful for the mute button.

I'm thankful for the Original Six.

I'm thankful for left-handed golfers because they look so cool.

I'm thankful for a well-timed 6-4-3.

I'm thankful for Nick Lidstrom.

I'm thankful for fake kicks, because they're so rare.

I'm thankful for NFL Films.

I'm thankful for tabletop baseball games, so I can play a summer's game on a cold winter's night.

I'm thankful for anyone named Igor, or last names that start with Z.

I'm thankful for players who have the courage to wear number 13.

I'm thankful for Vyacheslav being shortened to Slava.

I'm thankful for the quick slant on a key third down.

I'm thankful for no timeouts remaining for either team in an NBA game.

I'm thankful for sudden death overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs, even if my heart isn't.

I'm thankful for Tony Dungy.

I'm thankful for having seen every one of Barry Sanders' ten seasons.

I'm thankful for my photo with Ernie Harwell, our arms over each other's shoulder, and showing it to Ernie sometime later and him saying, "Well, who are THOSE two handsome fellas?"

I'm thankful for George Kell and "They're waaaaaaaving him in!!"

I'm thankful for whoever first thought of pulling the goalie.

I'm thankful for kick returners who run it out from five yards deep in the end zone.

I'm thankful for doglegs right because that's how I hit them anyway.

I'm thankful for the flag they run up at Wrigley Field after every Cubs' game: W or L, depending on the result. So quaint, so simple.

I'm thankful for the squeak of sneakers on the basketball floor.

I'm thankful for scoreboard watching in September.

I'm thankful for Canton, Ohio. And Cooperstown, New York.

I'm thankful for Retrosheet.org.

I'm thankful for stand-up triples.

I'm thankful for Dr. J.

I'm thankful for TV showing us the play clock winding down.

I'm thankful for Don Criqui.

I'm thankful for football in the snow and baseball in a light rain.

I'm thankful that the Yankees have the arrogance to omit the names from their jerseys.

I'm thankful that the Red Wings and Tigers have pretty much the same uniforms as they did during the Truman Administration.

I'm thankful for Bruce Martyn and "He shoots, he SCORES!"

I'm thankful for "Hockey Night in Canada," even though I can't get it on my dish.

I'm thankful for the Canadian National Anthem.

I'm thankful for seeing-eye singles.

I'm thankful for a basketball block from behind.

I'm thankful for "the ground can't cause a fumble."

I'm thankful for tape-to-tape passes.

I'm thankful for Bo and Woody.

I'm thankful for knuckleballers.

I'm thankful for Madison Square Garden, because it's still one of our finest sports palaces.

I'm thankful for boxing in Yankee Stadium, the Beatles in Olympia, and hockey at Wrigley Field.

I'm thankful for the Red Wings' New Year's Eve games. Did you know that Christmas Day at Olympia was a tradition, too, until the players squawked too much?

I'm thankful for a backhand stab at third base and a gun to nip the runner at first.

I'm thankful for good free throw shooters---and bad ones, if they're on the other team.

I'm thankful for Canadian football, because linebackers wear no. 71 and wide receivers wear no. 37 and quarterbacks wear no. 23.

I'm thankful for the two-point conversion.

I'm thankful for medium deep fly balls with a runner on third base, because you know there's going to be a whale of a play at home plate.

I'm thankful for Ann Arbor on a crisp fall Saturday, Joe Louis Arena on a warm June evening, and Comerica Park on a chilly April afternoon.

I'm thankful for Mike Babcock.

I'm thankful for the hip check, because no one throws them anymore.

I'm thankful for a well-executed screen pass.

I'm thankful for the circus catch.

I'm thankful for Mays, Mantle, and Snider all in New York at the same time.

I'm thankful for whoever invented slow motion replays.

I'm thankful for a fastball down the middle on 3-and-0.

I'm thankful for the trap play.

I'm thankful for pinstripes.

I'm thankful for basketball coaches who coach sitting down.

I'm thankful for spaghetti. I know it's not sports but I like it so much.

I'm thankful for a wife who has put up with me, and my games, for 17 years.

I'm thankful that you've read this far.

Happy Turkey Day!

Last Night on "The Knee Jerks": A Football Extravaganza!!

First, a semi-major announcement: “The Knee Jerks” will be moving up a couple of hours!

Beginning December 14, you’ll be able to get your jerkosity two hours earlier. The show will debut its new 9:00-11:00 ET time slot, so everyone can get some sleep on Monday nights!

The Michigan Wolverines and MSU Spartans just finished their football seasons, so it was the perfect time to do a post-mortem. Our guests were Andy Reid, sports editor of the Michigan Daily (U’M’s student newspaper) and Bleacher Report’s Nick Mordowanec, who writes about MSU frequently.

Andy and Nick provided us with solid analysis of U-M and MSU, respectively, along with taking a look ahead at both programs’ futures. Big Al almost totally stopped Andy in his tracks when he asked him whether he thought Rich Rodriguez was the right man for Michigan. I guess you’ll just have to listen to find out what Andy finally said in response!

After talking college football, Al and I turned our attention to the pro game—specifically, the Lions’ improbable 38-37 win over Cleveland, a.k.a. the Coming Out of Matthew Stafford.

Thirty minutes later, we drifted over to the Red Wings and the latest injury—to defenseman Niklas Kronwall, thanks to a dirty, knee-on-knee hit by Montreal’s George Laraque.

The Pistons then made a rare appearance on “The Jerks,” for about five minutes of garbage time!

But that’s OK—the Pistons will be the focus of our show next week!

As always, we closed with a flurry, in the form of our “Jerks of the Week.”

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, for updates on scheduled guests, time changes, etc.

Upcoming guests/topics:

Nov. 30: Guest(s) TBD (Pistons-related)
Dec. 7: NHL Central roundtable with Bleacher Report writers from Columbus, Chicago, Nashville, and St. Louis
Dec. 14: Gregory Shamus, one of the best sports photographers you’ll ever know (Getty Images, Pittsburgh Penguins, Red Wings, Cleveland Cavaliers, and others); don’t forget—this will be our first 9:00 show!

Some highlights from Monday’s show:

Big Al

On Matthew Stafford: “This was like a Disney film! Like a script! At least it looks like the Lions have found their answer at quarterback and now they can turn their attention to other things.”

On the NHL suspension of Laraque for five games: “You almost want to go to an ‘eye for an eye’ way of punishment. Five games was ridiculous.”

On the Pistons: “(Coach) John Kuester is really hamstrung because he doesn’t have Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince. But there’s no way they’re going to win anywhere close to 50 games.”

Eno

On the Lions: “I don’t think they’ll lay an egg on Thanksgiving. Maybe they can build on Sunday’s win, but they’ve never come off a win like that before.”

On the NHL: “Once again they’ve put themselves in a trick box. The five-game suspension is too low. It should have been 15, 20 games. They’ve set a bad precedent.”

On the Pistons: “I like this rookie Jonas Jerebko. He’s not a true starter, but he’s getting invaluable experience against other teams’ No. 1 units.”

You can listen to the episode by clicking below!