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Cheeks of the Week: Early ramblings

By Dr. Cheeks
Special to NFL.com


(Dr. Cheeks will offer his own take on what’s happening in the NFL world each week from now through the end of the season. He arrives from HBO’s Inside the NFL, where he contributed his online commentary for the past two seasons.)

(Aug. 27, 2004) -- Well, considering that we are still in the middle of preseason and that I spent the entire offseason preparing just for last week's article, I figure I might as well delve into some random ramblings right out of the gate this week. If you think the following piece is below-average, well, let me remind you that it is just preseason and I don't want to show my stuff too early.

I mean, I could talk about the enhanced enforcement of the 5-yard "bump" zone or the reason why I think Warren Sapp going to the Raiders is the biggest move of the entire offseason, but we have plenty of time for that. Apparently, NFL.com has plenty of more qualified people than yours truly for such a discussion.

So without further delay, I bring you the first of many installments of the Cheeks of the Week:

Don't show your stuff too early!
A common saying heard this time of year is, "It's only preseason." And yes, it's true that as a fan you can't get too excited or too depressed over a few meaningless preseason games. Every year it seems that coaches and fans use the preseason as an excuse or a crutch, and this doesn't always work.

You're telling me that if you were a Cincinnati Bengals fan that you wouldn't be doing jumping jacks right now after destroying the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots last weekend? The score was 28-3 by halftime (Bengals won handily, 31-3), and first-time starting quarterback Carson Palmer looked like the next Dan Marino as he passed for three first-half touchdowns. Coming off a surprising 8-8 season, the Bengals seem to have a winning attitude for the first time since Long Island's own, Boomer Esiason, was leading the striped ones to the Super Bowl with the vaunted no-huddle offense.

You're also telling me that if you're a Patriots fan that you're seriously worried about things right now? I can't think of a team in the last five years more poised to repeat a Super Bowl. The Patriots actually have improved since last season, or at least on paper, and most Super Bowl teams lose countless players to free agency. Did the anointed genius, coach Bill Belichick, get outcoached on Friday or did he leave his bag of usual tricks at home? Probably a combination of both.

That's the thing. How are we supposed to know? Some star players only play a few plays a game before riding the pine, and most coaches call the most basic of plays on offense and defense. We just have to be patient and confident in our teams (and if our real team is terrible, we have to be confident that our fantasy team will, at least, be good).

(Oh, and if you are an Arizona Cardinals fan? Well, maybe you shouldn't be patient or confident. What you see is probably what you are going to get. Sorry to disappoint you ... again).

Maybe we should just all settle down and follow the newfound preseason philosophy of Bengals coach Marvin Lewis: "You want to go play well," Lewis said. "Then the next week, you want to play well again."


After an 11-year hiatus, Joe Gibbs is back to lead the Redskins.
I mean, some folks in Washington are even grumbling over returning coach Joe Gibbs' play-calling. The guy is a Hall of Fame coach and they welcomed him like he was the returning savior in the spring. Now they are questioning his play-calling? Did you hear that he had the nerve to call seven rushing plays in a row last game? Stop the press! In Gibbs' case, I think we may have to give him the benefit of the doubt and be sure that he has a little more up his sleeve. He's only had about 12 years to draw up a few more offensive plays on some cocktail napkins. This all leads me to imagine if all of our real lives and jobs were like one big NFL preseason.
Wouldn't you love it if in July your boss came to you and told you that you were only going to work until 11 a.m. for a few weeks so that you don't get burnt out for the fall season? Some days I would love if a young replacement -- eager to make an early impression -- tapped me on the shoulder and told me to go home and study my playbook.

We could even pretend we are NFL starting players in Week 3 of the preseason. This week, NFL coaches will keep the starters in the game after halftime to more closely simulate real-game experience. In our case, the boss would tell us that we actually have to come back after lunch in order to deal with the inevitable post-lunchtime energy crash. Then we could go home at 2:30 p.m. so we don't burn out or give too many strategies away to workers from other companies.

Or we can pretend we are Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson and 49ers linebacker Julian Peterson and just take the entire preseason off. I'd venture to say that most of us would not be able to return for the fall season unharmed expecting a nice $500,000-a-week salary and our "starting job" back.

Am I jealous? Of course, I am.

The Lenny K./Ricky W. World Tour
Speaking of jealousy, I can't decide whose life I would rather have -- Lenny Kravitz, the rock star, or his friend, Ricky Williams, the former NFL star running back for the Dolphins.

What I can't figure out is what is really going on with these two guys. First, Ricky retires a week before training camp after hanging out in the early summer with Lenny on his global concert tour. Ricky also cut his dreadlocks for the first time since college.


Singer Lenny Kravitz will be part of a star-studded lineup at the NFL Opening Kickoff.
Right after Ricky retires, Lenny announces that he is canceling his 19-date North American tour due to "family matters." He is seen without his trademark long hair/dreadlocks for the first time in years.

Now we see that Lenny will have time to perform at the NFL Opening Kickoff concert before the Colts-Patriots game in two weeks? So Lenny will be at the opening NFL game, while Ricky is supposedly cruising in Jamaica with the Marley brothers.

Does anyone else think this is all a little strange? Either way, we're probably all a little envious of both of their lifestyles, and the only ones who can really complain about Ricky's lifestyle change are the Dolphins fans (and not some aging sportswriters).

Speaking of Ricky, he is the prime example of why you would never have a fantasy football draft before training camp opens and also why leagues should not allow fantasy teams to "keep" certain players from the year before.

Hobby or mental illness?
Last week, I spoke about the fine line between being a football fanatic and being mentally unstable.

Last night was one of those nights that shows a prime example of straddling this fine line.

I have been in a fantasy football league for five straight years with good friends from college. Most of us live in the New York area and not one team has dropped out since the league's inception.

Some leagues have already held drafts for the upcoming season. We are not even close to that stage yet. Last night, we held our "Selection Dinner" where we figure out the order for our upcoming draft. Picture the NBA Lottery but in a New York restaurant with 10 times more drama and 10 times less athleticism.

This year we held it in a traditional Italian restaurant as opposed to the usual noisy steak places. Twelve guys sitting around a table, fretting about where they may land in the upcoming draft. I think a few tables moved to get away from us at one point when we were talking about "staggering" the selections and making the first series of friendly sidebets for the upcoming season. No one would have confused us with the Sopranos clan or the crew from Good Fellas. Did we care? Not at all.

I was feeling great after landing the fourth overall pick in our upcoming draft, but that old familiar nervous feeling came back immediately as I remembered years past and how many times I screwed up my first pick. Now I have almost two weeks to strategize how not to screw it up.

The good luck quickly subsided after a few of us tough guys decided to play "Credit Card Roulette" to see who would pay for half of the group's meal -- the "winners" would not have to pay and the loser is the one whose card gets picked out of the bunch. Let's just say that my bad luck from the previous weekend at the horse races in Saratoga made me feel like the odds were in my favor.

Let's also just say that the only reason I mention all of this is because NFL.com might be getting an expense request from me for last night's meal for me and a few of my close friends. Hey, I used the story in the column, right?

The best part about it is that I can rationalize it by saying that I'm officially saving all of my luck for the upcoming football season. It has to turn around for me.

And even if it doesn't turn around for me, at least I can now pretend I am an NFL head coach and boldly declare, as one would after a woeful preseason performance, "It's only preseason."

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/7620347