Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Black Monday Firings Are Already Here

Oh wait—that happened. Pelosi and Hoyer, collectively the Hue Jackson of American politics, got to keep their lofty posts. Maybe the Democratic party and the Cleveland Browns secretly are run by the same person. If the Democrats want to start winning, they need to get rid of their Cleveland Browns management style and put the New England Patriots in charge.

Now to why Black Monday is converging with Black Friday. The explosion in information about athletics—easily acquired stats, sports analytics that may or may not be consequential but sure sound scientific—has led to an increase in angry fans. A generation ago, if a team was foundering, or even floundering, most of its faithful didn’t really know why. Now everybody knows every detail of everything that goes wrong with the Giants or Bears, and demands that heads roll.

An NFL franchise can’t fire the whole team: A roster rebuild requires several years. In the short term, the one dramatic gesture that can placate the base is to fire a coach, coordinator, or general manager. Thus when the Bengals started cold, offensive coordinator Ken Zampese got the hook while it was still September. Performance did not improve—but at least someone had been blamed. When the Raiders defense struggled, defensive coordinator Ken Norton was fired in November, which also saw the firing of Denver offensive coordinator Mike McCoy. Performance did not improve in these cases either, but at least a virgin had been thrown into the volcano.

The Jersey/A implosion led to the early-December firing of both head coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese, the latter an accomplished executive who had assembled two Super Bowl-winning squads—but who had overseen the deliberate screwing-up of the sole thing that was going right for the Jets and Giants this season, Eli Manning’s magnificent streak of starts.

More NFL coaches and executives soon will clean out their offices. As Black Friday and Black Monday converge, the coming years will see NFL and Power Five sideline and front office personnel fired sooner rather than later.

The acceleration of everything plays into this mindset. Last June, a flyer for the Lands End back-to-school sale landed in my mailbox on June 12—which was before the current school year concluded in my county. Winter doesn’t begin until December 21 in the Northern Hemisphere, but already Major League Baseball’s winter meetings have come and gone. The heavily advertised Mercedes Benz Winter Event kicked off whilst pumpkins were still coming in from the fields and concludes when winter is just getting started. This unified field theory of creep is a major force in sports marketing. NFL teams sell their seasons tickets, and universities solicit their big donations, well before the seasons begin.

By early December, many NFL teams either are eliminated or have no realistic shot at reaching the postseason. Though the playoffs—ostensibly the whole point of the NFL season—haven’t even started, the fan bases of this year’s letdowns may already be thinking about the next draft, months distant. Firing someone creates the illusion next year could be less awful than this year. ESPN’s Mel Kiper and Todd McShay, the Frick and Frack of the drafnik world, certainly have already lost interest in the current season and are looking ahead to next spring.

Though interest in pro football ought to be rising right now as the postseason approaches, actually it’s ebbing, since fans of the eliminated teams look ahead to the draft and free agency. There are 256 regular season games, then just 11 postseason contests. TMQ thinks the regular season count is already ample; expanding from 16 to 18 regular season games would be a horrible idea. But NFL playoff contests are the summit of the sport—expanding the playoff field makes sense on many levels, and would slow the December loss of interest now occurring in many cities.

At least there is a chance the regular season finales on December 31 will be playoff-lite. Panthers at Falcons and Jax at Tennessee could be contests in which both teams need to win for playoff seeding. Bills at Dolphins, Packers at Lions, and Bengals at Ravens are among pairings that could see at least one of the competitors needing to win to be in.

Tom Brady (12) looks to connect with tight end Rob Gronkowski (87) in the fourth quarter of New England’s 27-24 win against Pittsburgh. (Photo by Shelley Lipton/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

In other football news, New England at Pittsburgh was the best game of the year so far. Once again, as in the New England-Atlanta Super Bowl, the Patriots owned the fourth quarter, outscoring the hosts 11-0. In their two recent mega-games, versus Atlanta in the Super Bowl and at Pittsburgh on Sunday, New England’s cumulative fourth-quarter score is: Patriots 30, Opponents 0.

There were numerous Super Bowl fourth-quarter moments in which a slight change of Falcons tactics would have altered the outcome. Now let’s think about the moment that transpired with 2:16 remaining at Heinz Field on Sunday.

Pittsburgh led 24-19 and faced 4th-and-1 on its 28 yard line, the visitors holding two time outs. You’ve already guessed Mike Tomlin sent out the punter. The mighty Steelers defense—fourth overall entering the game—can hold a lead for two minutes at home, right? Instead the Steelers defense suddenly forgot how to play football, as recounted below.

But as Jimmy Johnson used to say, “If you can’t gain one single yard, you don’t deserve to win.” On the day, the Steelers recorded 143 yards rushing, averaging 4.6 yards per carry. If Pittsburgh goes for it and converts the first down, the Steelers would have been highly likely to prevail. Instead Tomlin had his charges launch a punt to Tom Brady, who has consistently shown himself the best quarterback in today’s NFL—maybe, the best quarterback ever in the NFL—in two-minute drills. If Belichick had been coaching the Steelers against Brady’s Patriots in exactly Sunday’s situation, Belichick would have gone for it.

Dallas punter Chris Jones would have gone for it! Raiders and Cowboys tied in the third quarter, Jones was sent out to kick on 4th-and-11 from the Dallas 24. Seeing a weak front the Boys had noted in film study, and designed a play for, Jones signaled an “automatic”: a fake that is called by the punter, not the sideline. Jones ran for a first down; Dallas scored a touchdown on the possession and went on to victory.

Pittsburgh punted and lost to the Patriots yet again; Dallas went for it and is back in the playoff hunt. Fortune favors the bold!

Stats of the Week #1. Tom Brady is 58-11 in the month of December.

Stats of the Week #2. Carolina is on a 6-1 run since linebacker Luke Keuchly returned to the lineup, while Dallas is 7-1 with linebacker Sean Lee in the lineup and 1-5 without him.

Stats of the Week #3. All last season the Panthers got 43 receptions from tailbacks. With two games remaining, rookie Carolina tailback Christian McCaffrey has 73 receptions.

Stats of the Week #4. Kansas City is on an 8-0 streak versus the Chargers.

Stats of the Week #5. In two games versus the Chargers this season, Chiefs tailback Kareem Hunt gained 327 yards rushing.

Stats of the Week #6. The Lions have not had a 100-yard rusher in the 2017 season—and did not have one in the 2016, 2015, or 2014 seasons either.

Stats of the Week #7. In the Division-III championship, Mary Hardin-Baylor University, which entered undefeated and averaging 38 points per game, was shut out and held to 144 yards of offense. (See below.)

Stats of the Week #8. From the start of Russell Wilson’s career, the Seahawks were 42-6 in Seattle‑until November 2017 began. Since then they are 1-3 at home.

Stats of the Week #9. Under John Harbaugh, the Ravens are 18-2 versus the Browns.

Stats of the Week #10. The Patriots won the AFC East for the ninth consecutive season.

Sweet Rob Gronkowski Drive of the Week. The Flying Elvii have gotten into the Steelers’ heads, beating them soundly in last season’s AFC title tilt, and arriving Sunday at Pittsburgh on a 10-3 stretch against the Steelers. Things seemed under control for the home faithful when New England got the ball back at its 23 yard line, Pittsburgh leading 24-19, 2:06 remaining. Then—77 yards in 56 seconds for the winning touchdown plus deuce conversion, without even using a timeout.

New England ran six snaps. Five were passes to Rob Gronkowski: incompletion; catch for 26 yards; catch for 26 yards; catch for 17 yards; then an 8-yard touchdown run by Dion Lewis; then a two-point pass to Gronkowski. On all five throws to Gronkowski, it was like the Steelers cut class during Football 101. The New England tight end was never jammed; four of the five times he was covered by safety Sean Davis, who is much smaller; three of the times Davis was looking around as if he expected someone else on Gronkowski.

After the Lewis touchdown put the defending champions ahead 25-24, New England tried for two. The Patriots lined up with Gronkowski split wide right, no other receiver on that side, and Davis across from him.

“Call time!” your columnist shouted at Pittsburgh coaches on the screen. (I was with a big group watching the game, so I have witnesses for this claim.) Amazingly, the Pittsburgh coaches did not hear me yell to them to call timeout. But why didn’t they do this unbidden? Gronkowski had just gained 69 yards in less than a minute; the Steelers had not reacted; the Patriots had exactly the matchup they wanted. Call time! Tom Brady was practically handing out cards that said, “Fade to Gronkowski.” Following the nearly effortless deuce, suddenly a field goal won’t win it for Pittsburgh. Candy-cane sweet for the defending champions.

Sour Ben Roethlisberger Drive of the Week. After the Patriots drove 77 yards in 56 seconds, the hosts seemed doomed—until Pittsburgh drove 72 yards in 51 seconds. The Steelers appeared to pull a rabbit out of their helmets when tight end Jesse James dove into the end zone with 28 seconds showing, and the zebras raised both arms. But a review reversed the call: The ball moved as James hit the turf. “The receiver did not survive contact with the ground,” referee Tony Corrente weirdly announced.

After the reversed call, Pittsburgh had 2nd-and-goal on the New England 10 with 28 seconds remaining and no timeouts. Remember, had the vaunted Steelers’ defense simply stopped the deuce play a moment before, New England would lead by one point and a chip-shot field goal from Pittsburgh’s current position wins the contest. Instead, trailing by three, the Steelers can try one throw for a touchdown and victory, and if unsuccessful use third down to spike the ball, then kick to force overtime.

Ben Roethlisberger threw a short pass—it should have been either into the end zone or out of bounds! The runner was tackled at the Flying Elvii 7. Tick, tick, tick. As the Steelers raced to the line of scrimmage, Pittsburgh players appeared confused. Your columnist shouted at the screen, “Don’t run a play! Clock the ball!” (Again, I have witnesses, and again, shouting at the screen had no effect. How puzzling.) Clear in my mind was how the Patriots intercepted a pass in a nearly identical last-second goal-to-goal situation to defeat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Plus I knew, as Mike Tomlin knew (or “should have known,” as prosecutors say) that Roethlisberger has, before, acted like he was going to clock the ball, then run a play. You could see New England defenders were gesturing to each other to expect a fake clocking. The New England defense looked ready for what was coming, while the Pittsburgh offense looked out of sync. Interception, and Belichick is 11-3 versus Tomlin’s Steelers.

Steelers’ faithful drowning their sorrows in craft-brewed local Fire on the Hill IPA will say New England cornerback Eric Rowe should have been called for pass interference at the point of attack on the fateful interception. Pass interference should, indeed, have been called. But the Steelers put themselves in position to lose with consecutive botched plays at the end. Sour, and a lump of anthracite for the Steelers’ stockings.

Sweet ‘n’ Sour Series. Kansas City leading 23-13, LA/B reached 2nd-and-6 at midfield with 10 minutes remaining. On second down, Chiefs safety Dan Sorenson made a perfect tackle on a flare pass, dropping the runner for a loss. On third down, Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters made a perfect tackle, stopping the runner one yard shy of a first. The Chargers went for it on 4th-and-1: Chiefs pass rusher Justin Houston hit the arm of Phillip Rivers, causing a bad pass that was intercepted. The series was sweet for the host team, whose fortunes are rebounding, and sour for the visitors, now longshots for a wild-card invite.

Two notes on the above snaps. First, on the 4th-and-1, an incompletion would have sufficed for Kansas City—it was the fourth-down-knock-it-down situation in which an incompletion gives the defenders better field position than a pick. But NFL defenders almost always play for interceptions on fourth down, because interception stats increase their next bonus offer.

Second, note LA/B considered 4th-and-1 a passing down, though the Bolts averaged 4.5 yards per rush on the day. The call was not a play-fake deep strike attempting for a touchdown—that can be a smart call if the defense crowds the box on 4th-and-1—rather, a short rinky-dink thing designed to get a few yards and the first. For several seasons, 3rd-and-2 has been a passing down to many NFL clubs: Versus Green Bay, Carolina went empty backfield on 3rd-and-2, while at Pittsburgh, New England went empty on 3rd-and-2. Now in the pass-wacky NFL, 4th-and-1 becomes a passing down, too.

Air Force Radars Detect the Millennium Falcon on Its Way to Reinforce Princess Leia at Crait. The New York Times reported that the Pentagon is spending at least $22 million per year to determine if spaceships from other worlds are visiting Earth. There’s no reason to assume that all UFOs are swamp gas. With, most likely, billions of Earth-like worlds in the cosmos, why shouldn’t one, or billions of them, host intelligent life that builds starships?

Right now the light speed barrier seems to rule out any form of interstellar transit. The “exoplanet” discovered last week is about 2,500 light-years away. At the velocity of the Parker solar probe, which next year is scheduled to launch as the fastest-ever manmade complex object, 4.2 million years of travel would be required to reach the new exoplanet. But not long ago, the Boeing 747 was unimaginable on a technical basis. Who can say what kind of advanced transportation space aliens may devise, or whether it would necessarily require ships?

Military contractors would be delighted if some low-level space alien hazard were detected, since this would mean decades of spending increases. That the Pentagon initiative is named the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program tells you that finding a reason to spend even more money is the immediate goal of the effort.

Maybe space aliens will be friendly, maybe hostile, maybe they won’t care about us one way or the other: UFOs could be tourist liners of tentacled creatures on holiday. For the moment, the notion that fighter pilots spot and chase glittering objects that are ships from other star systems requires one to believe that space aliens could attain the unfathomable knowledge to overcome interstellar distance, yet don’t know about switching off their running lights. Unless a UFO wants to be observed in order to see how our defenses react—not a reassuring thought—any society technologically sophisticated enough to cross the void ought to have no trouble masking its presence in the sky.

But then in the movies, super-advanced space aliens can seem incredibly dumb:

– In Independence Day, space aliens are able to manufacture a faster-than-light mothership hundreds of miles in diameter, plus antigravity beams and force fields that nuclear explosions bounce off, yet have never heard of computer viruses.

– In the 1983 TV miniseries V and in the big-budget space invasion flick Battle Los Angeles, space aliens invade Earth for our water, unware that water is among the most common substances in the galaxy. (The Oort Cloud around the solar system holds trillions of times more water than the oceans of the Earth.) Viewers never found out why the aliens of the 2009 remake invaded, since the series was cancelled in the middle of a cliffhanger. This means the show’s writers never found out, either.

– In Pacific Rim and the 2000 John Travolta/Scientology sci-fi flick Battlefield Earth, super-advanced space aliens have interdimensional stargate technology, but don’t know about bombs. Travolta note: High-end watchmaker Breitling has been running ads with the star posed with an X-15, implying the kind of guy who wears Breitling is so ultra-macho that he flies a rocket plane. The final X-15 flight was in 1968, when Travolta was 14 years old.

– In Starship Troopers, super-advanced spiders from another planet can teleport an entire asteroid across the galaxy, but don’t know about guns.

American actors Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, and Canadian Michael Ironside on the set of Starship Troopers. (Photo by TriStar Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

– In SyFy Channel’s Battlestar Galactica reboot, the Twelve Colonies of Kobol have mastered instantaneous travel between star systems, and build living cyborgs. But they have no idea it’s unwise to allow every weapon on every planet to be deactivated simultaneously by using the same password.

– In the Star Wars flicks, antigravity devices are so cheap and common they are owned by teenagers—perhaps getting your learner’s permit for a speeder is a high-school rite of passage—while space is practically clogged with vessels at warp speed. But firearms, from blasters held by soldiers to cannon emplacements on ships, must be manually aimed.

– Wells’s War of the Worlds had the Martians able to construct an enormous interplanetary armada, yet unaware of germs. But this book was written as a metaphor of British imperialism—plausible science was not its concern.

Star Wars notes (no spoilers). In The Last Jedi, the plucky rebel space fleet attacks an ultra-enormous Imperial space dreadnaught. The attack is staged by bomber spacecraft that operate like the B-24s and Lancasters of World War II: They fly above the target, then bomb-bay doors open to allow bombs to tumble downward. But there’s no gravity in outer space. The bombs wouldn’t tumble!

In sci-fi, people walk aboard starships as though they were walking around Hollywood—or, increasingly, British Columbia—sound stages, while a dropped pencil falls rather than floats. Occasionally there is an offhand reference to artificial gravity. A spaceship could simulate gravity by being donut-shaped and rotating, or by being shaped like a skyscraper on its side, if there was continuous thrust at the base. Neither applies to the star-bombers of the new Star Wars flick. And even if there were artificial gravity inside, why would the bombs continue to fall downward once they were released into space?

My other Star Wars note is that The Resistance should stop wasting resources on X-wings and simply build lots of copies of the Millennium Falcon, which once again shows itself totally invincible, even though audiences were told in the previous movie that it sat abandoned in a scrapyard for 20 years.

Authentic Games Standings. This super-sophisticated Tuesday Morning Quarterback metric tracks high-pressure games versus quality opponents.

For a month I have been tinkering with my super-sophisticated methodology to disguise the fact that my metric kept finding the Kansas City Chiefs the AFC’s best team. Last week I simply gimmicked the Authentic Games standings to drop Kansas City lower. If the Chiefs come on in the postseason, I will gimmick the standings the other way, link to my original column praising them, and pretend the whole numbers-fudging episode never occurred.

This week the Raiders drop out of the Authentic Games standings. The NFL is calling Oakland mathematically alive, in order to sustain interest in the team’s final two contests. But Oakland is fifth in line for the two AFC wild-card slots; it’s just not going to happen, especially since the Raiders were defeated by Baltimore and Buffalo, and thus lose the tiebreaker to both clubs.

I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but the Jacksonville Jaguars are 10-4 and have a shot at the second seed. As noted by Neil Greenberg of the Washington Post, they possess a decent chance to finish the regular season as the first team since 1970 to lead the league in sacks, takeaways, and fewest points allowed. The Jax defense is to 2017 what the Seattle defense was to 2013. There’s a natural inclination not to take Jacksonville seriously, perhaps because their uniforms look like little kids’ pajamas. Maybe that inclination should change. Kudos to Jax linebacker Paul Posluszny, a terrific player who, in his 11th year in the NFL, finally has a January invitation on his dance card.

For those encountering the Authentic Games Standings for the first time: Unlike certain others in sports analytics, I admit that my numbers are cooked up.

AFC:

New England 6-2

Pittsburgh 5-2

Jacksonville 4-3

Kansas City 3-3

Buffalo 4-6

Chargers 3-5

Ravens 2-5

Tennessee 1-3

NFC:

Eagles 5-2

Carolina, Minnesota 5-3

Saints 5-4

Atlanta 4-4

Rams 3-4

Cowboys 4-6

Seattle 3-6

Lions 1-6

Packers 1-7

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk. Entering the contest 4-9, against Detroit, the Bears punted on 4th-and-inches at midfield. Just to prove it was no fluke, trailing 13-3, the Bears punted in Lions territory.

Down 24-0 in the third quarter at Minnesota, Cincinnati punted on 4th-and-short at midfield. Marvin Lewis is said to be planning to quit at the end of the season—apparently the schedule moved up, since he quit during this game. Just to prove it was no fluke, trailing 27-0, Lewis had the Bengals punt in Minnesota territory.

Scoring to pull within 24-12 with 8 minutes remaining, Miami head coach Adam Gase had his charges kick a PAT rather than go for two. It’s the fourth quarter, you’re way down, a loss is elimination from the postseason—every point counts! Just to prove it was no fluke, Gase had the Dolphins kick away rather than onside. With 42 seconds remaining, when there was no choice, then Gase ordered an onside. When there was a choice, he stuck with “safe” tactics, resulting in the Marine Mammals kissing the postseason goodbye.

Some Scholars Now Believe the Wise Men Brought Gift Cards to the Baby Jesus. Once again America is going overboard on Christmas. And once again the “war on Christmas” will end with unconditional surrender by attacking forces, no matter what Donald Trump and talk-radio may claim.

Both a secular and a religious event, Christmas confounds its First Amendment critics: Religious Christmas symbols in public places raise questions, while secular Christmas symbols merely represent materialism. Fair objections can be raised to crèche scenes on public property. Christmas trees are crossover symbols that are mainly secular but also found in churches, though not in synagogues or mosques. Santa and Rudolph? You might as well object to Batman and Robin. There are no chuckling elves or flying reindeer in anyone’s scripture.

This Pew Research Center poll found that a majority of Americans think religious Christmas symbols on public property are okay. That the majority approves does not end the First Amendment debate; one of the functions of the Bill of Rights is to protect minorities against the majority. Look what else Pew found: 81 percent of Americans believe “Jesus was born in a manger,” 75 percent believe the baby was visited by wise men guided by a star, and 74 percent believe angels announced the celestial child to shepherds abiding in the field.

But these things can’t be true at once. The Gospels present two mutually contradictory Christmas stories. In Luke, Joseph and Mary live in Nazareth, travel to Bethlehem to be taxed, there’s no room at the inn—or perhaps “no place for them at in inn,” because Mary was visibly pregnant but unwed—Jesus is born in a stable, angels announce the historic news to shepherds, then the family goes back to Nazareth where everything is normal. In Matthew, Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem, there’s no inn or manger, the wise men come to admire the swaddled babe, then the family flees to Egypt to save Jesus from the slaughter of infant males ordered by Herod. (Mark and John don’t say how the Redeemer came into the world.)

“The Adoration of the Three Kings” by Girolamo da Santacroce.

Not only do the Gospels contradict one another on such core facts as whether the first Christmas triggered a slaughter of infants—in scripture, the wise men and the shepherds never meet. Either wise-men-at-home happened or shepherds-and-manger happened. Yet three-quarters of Americans told Pew both happened.

The error is common. I’ve certainly made it—see the link to a 1983 New York Times op-ed piece at the end of this column. Clergy make the error. In 2015, yours truly attended a service at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church in Washington, D.C., at which the pastor declared, “The star guided the wise men to the manger in Bethlehem,” something that occurs in every church-school Christmas play but not in the Gospels.

Scripture contradictions do not stop your columnist from believing Jesus was an actual rabbi who said and did what the Gospels report. But the numbers in the Pew poll show that millions of Americans are not getting their understanding of December 25 from sacred texts: They are getting it from Christmas carols, nativity scenes, schmaltzy holiday specials, and Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel. That is, mainstream American beliefs regarding Christmas come from pop culture rather than from religion. Maybe this makes everything OK in Constitutional terms!

Donald Trump, Tea Party Members Back Corporate Welfare for Pro Sports. There were junctures during the Donald Trump presidential campaign when he actually sounded like a reformer who wanted to shake things up. Trump said he would end “carried interest,” the most transparent of all tax dodges in the rich man’s playbook. (Basically it converts what is OBVIOUSLY income into capital gains, taxed at a lower rate.) Trump said he would extricate the United States from the forever-war in Afghanistan. He said national insurance should replace state-by-state—in health care, auto, homeowners, and other categories, having 50 different regulatory schemes for insurance causes confusion and adds transaction costs. And Trump criticized the subsidies and tax breaks enjoyed by professional sports leagues.

Instead insurance regulatory reform has been forgotten (this is separate from the Obamacare debate). More U.S. military units are headed to Afghanistan in order to accomplish . . . even the commanders can’t tell you what they are supposed to accomplish. Carried interest stays in the new tax bill, even though it’s an OBVIOUS entitlement for the rich. And as of this writing, the tax bill protects tax-free bonds for professional sports stadia.

“Republican negotiators revealed Friday they had removed from the legislation a House provision that would’ve prevented local governments from using tax-exempt municipal bonds to pay for the construction or renovation of professional sports stadiums,” Tom Benning of the Dallas Morning News reported. As Judith Long of the University of Michigan has shown, most professional sports stadia in the United States—for the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL—are extensively subsidized by direct construction funding, public payment of operating costs and utilities, public funding of infrastructure requirements, exemptions from property taxes and the use of tax-exempt muni bonds to make it appear that stadia are privately financed.

Now, rather than reformed, the latter are preserved in Trump’s bill. Tax-exempt muni bonds are presented to voters as not costing them anything, but the result is always that other forms of taxes must rise to compensate. They’re like a restaurant that says, “Your cheeseburger is free but the soda is mandatory and costs $10 a glass.”

GOP Rep. Joe Barton, whose district includes Tarrant County, Texas, location of the stadia of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers, had the temerity to tell the Dallas Morning News that keeping the muni bond tax favor in the legislation “is a win for North Texas taxpayers.” Barton appears to assume that if a sports owner (or ownership group in the case of the Rangers, who are building a new ballpark) were faced with the horrifying prospect of actually paying his own way, he’d simply hand the bill to local politicians and demand a bailout. Rep. Barton, a Tea Party member, masquerades as a conservative by backing the municipal-bond corporate-welfare aspect of the new tax bill, which would transfer Texas Rangers subsidies to the national debt.

Pro sports in north Texas already operate nearly exempt from property taxes, which means individual homeowners and small business must pay a higher property tax rate than they otherwise would. Apparently this is fine with the Tea Party, so long as the super-rich come out ahead.

From my 2013 book The King of Sports: “The futuristic new field where the Dallas Cowboys perform, with its 105,000 seats, go-go dancers on every level and built-in night clubs, is appraised at nearly a billion dollars, yet pays no property taxes. At the basic property tax rate of Fort Worth, Texas, nearest city in the same county as the stadium, Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones would pay about $8 million per year in property taxes. Instead he pays nothing – a $8 million annual handout from average homeowners and small businesses to a very wealthy man. To compensate, Tarrant County taxes the property of average people more than it otherwise would.”

Make-Believe Happens in Fairy Tales, Star Wars Movies, and the Halls of Congress. The blazing hypocrisy of members of Congress of both parties once again is on display as various senators and representatives admit to sexual harassment, or are caught doing the same. Shouldn’t we feel reassured that Congress has made dramatic pledges to change its ways regarding women? As Congress votes on Trump’s tax cut bill, let’s bear in mind that Congress routinely makes dramatic announcements, then simply ignores them.

In summer 2011, during a debt-ceiling meltdown, Congress passed the Budget Control Act of 2011, which required a $2.1-trillion reduction in the national debt. At the time, the national debt was a little under $15 trillion, meaning the law required reduction to $13 trillion of debt. Perhaps one should say the law “required” this. Today the national debt is almost $20 trillion; the Trump tax cut will add at least $1.5 trillion to the country’s red ink.

My former boss Charles Peters, founder of the Washington Monthly, has often said that the number-one fault of the political-media interaction in Washington, D.C., is that reporters rarely follow up to see if pledges are kept. Some issue dominates the headlines; Congress or the White House makes a dramatic pledge; the pledge is treated by the media as the conclusion of the controversy, with no tracking of what actually happens. In 2011, Congress enacted what appeared to be a binding commitment to reduce the national debt to $13 trillion. Now Congress is about to raise the national debt to $22 trillion—almost double in less than a decade!—and no one on the Hill cares about the “law” that appears to mandate otherwise.

TMQ’s Christmas List. I hope Santa brings me a new Audi with an “aerated glove box”: one of those features you didn’t even know you needed. Or, for that matter, don’t even know what it is.

Buying an entire car just to get the glove box does sound a tad pricey. Perhaps a case of this will be under the tree: The Wall Street Journal reports Coca-Cola and Pepsi are chasing a new category called “premium water.” Coca-Cola’s Dasani brand is “enhanced” to convert it from mere water into a “water beverage.” No two atoms of hydrogen, one of oxygen for today’s American consumer—premium water only!

The Football Gods Chortled. Recently the Browns, Giants, and Mount Union Purple Raiders, in the Division-III title tilt, have lined up in trick-play formations that entailed offensive linemen split far out like wide receivers. All three trick plays resulted in incompletions.

Adventures in Officiating. The Jesse James dive into the end zone that appeared to win the game for Pittsburgh over New England, then was reversed, left even NFL.com, the league’s in-house website, scratching its head: “Pittsburgh was the latest team to be victimized by the inconsistent and mystifying ‘process of the catch’ ruling that continues to leave us all flummoxed.” That’s what NFL.com itself thinks!

James caught the ball, had full control, took steps, and broke the plane of the end zone—that’s a touchdown, and the down should end when the plane is broken. The down does end when a runner breaks the plane. But the “inconsistent and mystifying” process-of-the-catch mumbo-jumbo came into play because the ball moved when James struck the ground, that is, after he scored the touchdown. When the runner sticks the ball across the plane of the goal line and then the ball comes loose—as happened two weeks ago in the Panthers-Vikings game—officials rule touchdown, because the down ends when the plane is broken. Why isn’t that the standard for receivers as well as rushers?

This is hardly the first inconsistent and mystifying officiating mood swing on a touchdown this season—and, in this instance, the officiating mood swing likely means the AFC title contest will be staged in New England, not Pittsburgh. It’s why the NFL needs to devise a simple catch/no-catch rule that its fans—and its zebras—can understand.

How Can the Cleveland Browns Be So Bad? Underwhelming Browns general manager Sashi Brown was cashiered: Not only did he repeatedly botch draft picks, at this year’s trade deadline, Brown was offering for AJ McCarron, viewed by most of the league with limited enthusiasm, about the same amount the 49ers paid at the same time for Jimmy Garoppolo, a budding star.

Cleveland’s new general manager is John Dorsey, who was shown the door by the Chiefs last spring after he lost a power struggle to Andy Reid. Dorsey has shown he believes TMQ’s Whiteboard Analytic of the NFL: that there is having a franchise quarterback, and there is everything else combined. During the 2017 draft, Dorsey traded a bundle to get Kansas City into position to select Patrick Mahomes, who has not yet appeared on the field, but is seen by most touts as a potential franchise signal caller. Not only have the Browns in the last two drafts passed on Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson, considering they had more draft-choice capital than any other club, they have passed on the chances to trade into position for Mahomes and Jared Goff. Presumably this won’t happen again under Dorsey, who will all but surely command the first selection of the 2018 draft.

The 500 Club. Hosting the Eagles, Jersey/A gained 504 yards on offense, and lost. Three blocked kicks by Philadelphia turned the tide.

Obscure College Score. Mount Union 12, Mary Hardin-Baylor 0 in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl (Division-III championship). The Green Bay Packers of the 1960s, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s, the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s, the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, and the present-day New England Patriots all are staring at the taillights of the Mount Union Purple Raiders, who banked their 13th Division-III football title. Since there have only been 45 Division-III champions, this means Mount Union holds 29 percent of the titles—versus the Steelers, with the most Super Bowl victories, holding 12 percent of the Lombardi Trophies. Located in Alliance, Ohio, Mount Union College recently changed its name to the University of Mount Union, based on adding only a token number of graduate degrees.

Obscure College Sign-Off. This item folds its tent and steals into the desert, as colleges that play from here on out tend to be well-known.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback finds it reassuring that long after you and I have left this mortal coil and are trying to scalp tickets to meet the football gods, every Saturday at colleges across our great nation, plastic-clad gentlemen will slam into each other as leaves fall, boys try to get girls’ phone numbers, and car alarms go off in the parking lot. In the Great Chain of Being, this is the gridiron link. At current rates of advance in technology, someday boys will be trying to get girls’ prefrontal cortex telepathy routing codes. The car alarms, I feel confident, still will be going off in the parking lot.

Next Week. I ain’t watchin’ no football on Christmas Eve, my favorite day of the year, nor on Christmas. But there will be a TMQ on December 26. My holiday gift to readers is a full column on how little humanity knows about the cosmos and about the history of life, and why this is an encouraging, not disheartening, situation.