My first impression from the quotes of Coach Crennel published in the newspapers following the Browns loss to the Cincinnati Bengal’s is that it sounds like he plans to treat this season like an exhibition season. I didn't like holding Charlie Frye out of that losing effort. I still think it was a mistake.
Coach Romeo and GM Phil Savage both had a bad 2005 season-opening week end. The Savage built Baltimore Ravens were crushed by the Indianapolis Colts and the Browns did not seem to make their a very good effort against Cincinnati. But the Bengals appear to be one of the stronger teams in the league after man handling the Vikings.
One could take the point of view that the New England Patriots didn't miss Coach Crennel much in their victorious start that featured an outstanding defensive effort and General Manager Phil Savage left his imprint on the Ravens losing effort.
Trent Dilfer continued to throw one interception for every 12 completions or a ratio pretty close to that in the Cincinnati game.
I don't mean to be cruel to Trent Dilfer but NFL football is a tough business and 26 for 43 with 1 TD and 2 ints and one fumble isn’t 12 of 14 and it obviously isn’t good enough to win against an improved Cincinnati Bengals team. On the other hand Trent played the best game of his NFL life against the Packers in leading the Browns to their 26-24 victory. 3 TDs and no interceptions or fumbles was a hell of an effort. I am proud of Dilfer and Romeo and Phil and all of the Browns for their victory.
This week the Indianapolis Colt’s defensive end #93 Freney, perhaps the best football player I have seen in many years will sack Dilfer at least four times. And probably force a number of interceptions. If the offensive line can hold him to two sacks the Browns could have a chance.
Gators...
The Florida Gators open their season 3-0 with an ugly victory over Tennessee 16 -7. The Gators didn’t look like a top 10 team neither did Tennessee. New Coach Urban Meyer won his SEC debut but his sideways option offense only pulled off one successful reverse not exactly a resounding success, but OK.
It is easy to put football aside with Hurricane Rita bearing down on buildings I built as a General Contractor in Galveston, Texas. One an eight story Holiday Inn was a design build project just behind the 17ft high sea wall on the Beach. We stack cast the concrete walls on site. Then used trucked in pre-stressed concrete hollow core slabs for the floors. We used a German steel post tensioned system in the walls to tie it all together.
Hurricane Alicia tore the brick veneer off the end walls of it for three stories down in perfect matching archs one on each end from the roof down to the forth floor. This eight story building is not designed to handle 175MPH winds or 200MPH gusts. Neither is the swanky Tremont House Hotel historical renovation project that I built in downtown Galveston. I made over $5million of repairs on them in 1983 after hurricane Alicia a category 3 storm hit them. I am extremely apprehensive about those structures ability to stand up to the stronger winds of Hurricane Rita. Even a downgrade to category 4 will be a large problem.
My previous Blog was about these two buildings and my experiences with them when hurricane Alicia hit as I completed them in 1983. Hurricane Katrina had stirred my thoughts about them. Football hasn’t seemed nearly as important since Katrina’s approach to New Orleans and now Rita is about to rip into Galveston. We flew the company plane home to Midland just hours before the storm hit in 1983. My nephew Gregory Parrish and Kevin McGinnis, a young engineer both working for my construction company, rode out the storm on the forth floor of a high rise condo that like the Holiday Inn is right on the roadway that tops the seawall. That experience made Gregory rethink his 18 year olds sense of invincibility. The storm surge topped the seawall and got into the second floor of the condo building. Alicia was a direct hit on Galveston.
I’m concerned about Hurricane Katrina and Rita and football seems rather small right now.
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