– When I saw Big Ben was going to be out for a week or two, I decided to roll the dice and pick up Charlie Batch for my Salary Cap Fantasy Football League.  Since he’s a backup, I got him for pretty cheap, and it turns out I was pretty lucky this time:

15/29 209 Passing Yards 3 TD’s
1FBL 17 Rushing Yards

– NBC did a decent job of covering the game, but two things worn thin rather quickly: 
1.  The Pink song.
2.  Preview of the Manning brothers matchup.

– I’ve never really been a fan of Nick Saban and have felt that football writers over-rate his NFL coaching ability.  I think my opinion of him all started when he won the co-championship in the NCAA.  If memory serves me right, he had this contract that stated if he won a national championship, then he was to be the highest paid coach in college football.  So after becoming a co-champion, he was paid one dollar more than the highest paid college football coach.  Reeks of arrogance. 

I think the idea of Saban being over-rated as an NFL coach was proved two fold this time around.

First off, he had the choice of pursuing either Drew Brees or Daunte Culpepper in the off season.  Instead of choosing a QB that lead his team to the playoffs, he chose a QB that threw 6 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in 7 games last year.

Secondly, I did nothing but laugh at Saban when he didn’t throw the red challenge flag in view of an official.  It’s one thing that he waited until the very last moment to throw the flag, but not to throw it in view of an official or to get an official’s attention is just plain silly.  Also, he throws like a girl.  It reminds me of when I had a few friends that registered for a bowling class in college on the last day of registration, and then got upset that they never got in the class because they weren’t proactive enough.