Really, REALLY dumb things

So head coach Mike Mularkey is out as the Tennessee Titan field boss -eh? Seems pretty dumb. Sure, the Tits got squashed at New England a week ago in the playoffs, but there's no shame in that. The Pats were highly favored to win the Super Bowl before the season even started. And let's not forget this is the same Tennessee team that came roaring back to overcome a 21 point deficit at Kansas City just the week before.

To boot, this year and last were the first time the TT's had put back-to-back winning seasons together in a decade. And the KC game was their first playoff win in a whopping 14 years. Mularkey (love that name) had whipped the long sad sack franchise into semi-contenders.

And they get rid of him, while still owing him another year's salary?

WHATZAMATTUH with these people?

According to reports, owner Amy Adams Strunk thinks she sees a "better path to success".

Maybe her and Martha Firestone Ford, heir/owner of the Detroit Lions, should start palling around together. The Lions haven't won a playoff game in a ridiculous 27 years, only one in their whole sordid history, and would probably KILL to win another. Such a head coach would probably have a statue of himself erected outside of Ford Field to commemorate such "greatness". (The Lions have a mighty low threshold of what constitutes a "successful" season.)

If it's true that misery loves company, perhaps it's also true that rich and clueless does as well.

And now a word from our sponsors.

Can that be right? A mattress company proudly states that any buyer of their latest and greatest product won't have to pay any interest for 72 months.

Think about that number. If my little pea brain has the math right -- that's 6 years.

Six years (or more) of payments --- for a MATTRESS???

Good grief, people pay off new car and truck loans in somewhere between 3-5 years.

So here's my question.

How much does that dang mattress cost anyway?

They don't tell you that, but it must be a whole lot.

At that sort of price, besides being the most comfortable thing you ever slept on, that mattress better be able to clean the house, do laundry, grocery shop, and mow the yard.

Dumb.

The talking heads have the utter gall, or perhaps are just that desperate for a story -- any story -- to question who was more at fault for the New Orleans Saints blowing a certain victory on the last play of the game in Minnesota.

Could it have been the fault of Saints head coach Sean Payton? One of his coaches or coordinators?

This goes beyond dumb, to downright stupid.

NFL fans have seen the replay a bazillion times already. Saints' rookie Marcus Williams, out of Utah, lowered his head (apparently closing his eyes as well) and whiffed on a tackle.

[Next time you see the replay, look closer. Not only did Williams miss the ball carrier, he took out one of his own teammates with a helmet shot to the knee. How bad would it have been if he'd blown out the knee of a teammate on the same doofus play?]

All he had to do was "wrap up" the receiver, who was still thirty yards away from the end zone, and off balance. With no Minnesota time-outs left, the game clock would have ran out, and the Saints win. Period.

But no, he went into brain freeze mode and forgot everything he had been taught since probably 7th grade about tackling.

You use your shoulders pads to hit, and your arms and hands to wrap up the receiver, quarterback, running back, whoever the ball carrier may be.

It wasn't up to Payton or his staff to remind Williams of that in the time-out a few moments earlier. I mean, good grief. Should you have to remind a teenager about the potty training thing?

You'd think they'd have it down pat.

But not Williams.

When it mattered most, with the entire season on the line, he blew it for his team, in front of a sold out stadium and tens of millions of people watching it on TVs around the world.

So forget the preposterous notion that this could possibly be the fault of the coaching staff.

There's only one goat, and that's Marcus Williams. Period.

He knows it, or at least should. His teammates know it. Saints fans know it. And everybody that watched the game knows it.

Any other explanation is just plain dumb.

It is what it is.

That being a really, REALLY dumb play.