Fake Mailbag #1

I've been toying with a few ideas that aren't quite enough for their own posts, so I thought I'd blend them all together.

As always, these are completely fake emails definitely not written by actual readers...

Ethan, what are your thoughts on the Jay Leno/Conan thing? How can any of this really be a surprise to NBC? Isn't this exactly what everyone thought would happen ratings-wise, at least at first?
- Dora, Billings, MT

I agree, Dora. Look, anybody who had ever seen Conan, even if you liked him like I did, could've predicted that his ratings would be a big drop-off from where Leno's were. His style of humor doesn't exactly work for everyone and it certainly wasn't going to work with Leno's old viewers. I do think that however, Conan is very naturally funny, a genuinely good interviewer, and a smart guy who wants The Tonight Show to succeed so if he gets the chance, I have confidence that he'll figure it out and produce a show that satisfies not only his old fans but the Leno leftovers. Conan's statement was great--eloquent, humble, but unambiguous--and it serves, to me, as further evidence that NBC should stick with him as he's the one who really cares about The Tonight Show's legacy above all else.

The situation reminds me a little of The Green Bay Packers/Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers fiasco actually. Consider this: long-time moneymaker, hero Leno/Favre announces an unsurprising retirement. NBC/Green Bay has been preparing for this for quite a while, and has the successor Conan/Rodgers prepared to take over. However, when push comes to shove, Favre/Leno decides he made a mistake and actually wants to stay, leaving Green Bay/NBC with the awkward position of choosing between Favre/Leno and Rodgers/Conan. Now, Green Bay went with Rodgers (and despite the two losses to Favre's Vikings and how the GB season ended, I think most people would say they made the right call) but it doesn't look like NBC will make a similar call as they were the ones who started this whole mess and they couldn't have realistically expected Conan to move to 12:05.

Which reminds me...

I know you're a big Patriots fan. What did you think of that weekend of football? Is the Patriots Dynasty over? Is Brady over the hill?
- Sully, Springfield, MA

Man oh man. Until Rodgers led that valiant comeback against the Cards that was probably the worst weekend of football I'd ever watched, and it may still be. The Saturday games were terribly boring--which I expected from Jets-Bengals but not from the Cowboys-Eagles. To cap it off, my Patriots team played their worst playoff game of the decade. Granted, it still wasn't on the same planet of pain as the Giants Superbowl loss, but they played much worse this past weekend. Awful, awful stuff.

That said, the loss of Welker was a lot to overcome. Even if Julian Edelman played well, Welker was the best player on the team this year and he was where the offense got most of its grit. Two or three times in the first half the Patriots had great field position and couldn't put any points on the board. Those are the kind of times when Welker gets first downs and moves the chains. With or without him, however, NE probably wasn't winning the Superbowl. Brady needs another year to get healthy and get used to being back in the saddle, and that defense needs another year to mature and, honestly, they're probably two or three impact players short. There were some truly embarrassing performances by the defense this year and the loss to the Ravens made sure that NE management won't be able to pretend it those regular season defensive meltdowns (Indy for example) were any kind of fluke.

How about that BCS Title Game? Do you think Alabama deserved to win? What an end for Colt McCoy.
- Hunter, Little Rock, AK

It was a great game, though I could've done with a little more life from UT on the drive with Garrett Gilbert's fumble that led to the Bama touchdown that sealed the game. If they could've moved the ball another fifty or sixty yards before that happened that would've made me think Texas might actually win and would've really amped up the drama, thereby cementing the game as one of the better title contests of the decade. As it was, a courageous performance by the Longhorns, though I think the Tide would've rolled even if McCoy had stayed in, the script of the game just would've been different. Nick Saban is a real wet-blanket too. He wins the national title and can't even smile! I'm sure he wanted to win with McCoy in the game--it was a shame it had to be that way. Check out McCoy's post game interview. Sad stuff.

As for my fellow Friday Night Lights fans, how about the parallels in the game? Star QB (McCoy/Street) gets injured, afterthought second-stringer (Gilbert/Saracen) comes in and plays terribly at first, then either leads the team to victory (Saracen) or almost does (Gilbert). In addition, I heard a rumor (though I'm 95% sure it's entirely made up) that QB1's girlfriend (Lyla/McCoy's girlfriend, Rachel Glandorf) was cheating on the QB1 (McCoy/Street) with the secondary star/QB1's best friend (Riggins/Jordan Shipley). What is true, however, is that in the aftermath of the injury, QB1 (Street/McCoy) asked his girlfriend (Lyla/Rachel) to marry him, and she said yes.

I don't know if Mack Brown has a daughter, but I wouldn't be surprised if she and Gilbert are dating soon.

Your blog is so great. Can we read you anywhere else?
- Mickey, Tacoma, WA

Yes! Thanks for asking, Mick. Though I haven't written anything yet, I've been picked up by the Pop Culture Nerd blog (and by "picked up" I mean, I applied to contribute) and will occasionally be writing some articles about television shows that I follow and have written about here (Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights, and Mad Men perhaps) as well as chronicling some of my indie-music musings. The tastes of that blog are a little more mainstream than my own, so I hopefully I'll be a good compliment to what it's already covering. I'll be sure to link on this blog to anything I write over there.

That's all for today. I'm going to try and start posting with greater regularity as I've been lagging the last few weeks.

Until then, here's the new Animal Collective video to "Brother Sport", one of my favorite songs from 2009. The video isn't quite how I imagined the song would be represented, but it's still pretty good and definitely pretty trippy.