When your best touchdown to interception ratio over six seasons in the NFL is 19/12, you really haven't distinguished yourself as, let's say the elite of the league. I don't know if anyone had truly high expectations for Joey Harrington when he came into the NFL out of the University of Oregon, but he was good in college. I wouldn't say great per se, but he finished 4th in the Heisman voting in 2001 and lead the Ducks to two impressive bowl wins over top 12 teams in his tenure. So why has the Dave Groel look-alike performed so poorly since it's been for money? I have a theory.
He hasn't been the same since leaving the nest, so to speak. Life as a Duck was good to him, so perhaps he should never have left the aves class within the chordata phylum for that of the mammalia.
How a duck is expected to go from a dredging water fowl to the king of the jungle is beyond me. I mean, that's like taking a swimmer in the Special Olympics and pitting him against Michael Phelps in the individual medley. Sure, it's still water in a pool but you can't win a race in floaties. He had been trained to just kind of sit around, taking the occasional flight towards a stray morsel of bread that may have been tossed in his direction. Imagine having to adapt from a small beak to a giant jaw complete with enormous teeth, suited for tearing animal flesh and kicking pretty much anyone's ass. Circle does not get the square. Even if he possesses the heart of a lion, his carnivorous hunting skills were severely lacking when he was drafted by the mammalian class. Result: shitty.
His next move was a step in the right direction in terms of joining a more docile class of mammal, but again, just too much of a leap to take with any hope of succeeding. A dolphin, while intelligent and playful, is a sea-stricken fish and another carnivorous mammal. We again must look at the transition here. Sure, maybe Joey learned a thing or two about being in charge of a species in his time as a lion but he still failed miserably. Whoever thought he'd serve better in the open ocean, eating squid and doing flips in the air, was terribly mistaken. A duck is a bird, people. No flowing mane, no dorsal fin, no blowhole (in the literal sense). The boy needs some wings, a beak, a bunch of feathers. Perhaps we can throw in some talons so he can at least protect himself, you know? This mammal crap is for the birds.
They say that every time a Snell slings, a dolphin gets his wings. Sure enough, Ian Snell slung it around for the Pirates last night and Joey the dolphin inherited a pair of much needed falcon wings. This is just the thing for the publicly pilloried (from the Old French word pilori, meaning to expose to ridicule) pianist...just the thing to nurse him back to above-average mediocrity and mild success with the occasional disaster. Once Mike Vick gets his wings clipped this season by way of season-ending hit, we'll again see Joey take to the air and return to the comforts of wings and a beak. It's been a long road to this Oz, but along the way he's picked up the heart of a lion and the brain of a dolphin to assist him in his familiarly new landscape. Go get 'em, Joe.
Must be opening day at Fenway...I have no idea what the previous few paragraphs are all about and I sincerely apologize. Harrington's a bum...he should be coaching Pop Warner somewhere and playing Keno in his spare time. Anyway, I'm looking forward to a little Jeff Weaver home cookin' at old yard this afternoon. Jeff will be serving a delicious variety of meatballs and cheese and I hear Papi's a little on the hungry side.
Bon Appetit.
3 comments:
Correct me if I'm wrong (like that could ever happen!), but isn't that a picture of a goose? In which case this entry about ducks playing for lions and dolphins makes even less sense than I originally thought. And that's saying something.
Nope...I thought that too. But it is actually a duck. I learned this the hard way during a hotly contested game of Duck, Duck, Goose.
Interesting. Not that the picture is actually a duck, but that you somehow figured that out by playing a child's game. You mind works in strange, wonderous and somewhat disturbing ways.
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