Now, I'm not one to indulge in conspiracy theories much myself.......I think Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy. I think Elvis Presley is dead. I think OJ did it. I think Anna Nicole Smith's breasts were stuffed full of alien microchips, and when the aliens returned to retrieve them she suffocated on her enormous deflated love bags. Well, I didn't say I was COMPLETELY averse to conspiracy theories.
Well, it's time to add one more conspiracy theory to my small arsenal.......Bruce Arians is Wile E.Coyote. Outrageous you say?? Have YOU ever seen them together in the same room? I thought not.
Upon what basis do I rest my theory?? The pathetic gameplan which unraveled before my disbelieving eyes last Sunday in Arizona. Where is the Wile E. Coyote connection you ask?? ACME. As any aficionado of RoadRunner cartoons will tell you, Wile E. Coyote was forever being thwarted in his attempts to corral the RoadRunner because of the faulty plans/equipment he purchased from ACME. In fact, ACME took incompetence to new lows with every successive 'toon, becoming synonymous with failure and frustration. Given that fact, can there be any doubt from whence Arians purchased the gameplan he implemented on Sunday??
Consider these facts...........
1) Even when it became painfully obvious that Arizona was going to continue stuffing the box like Ron Jeremy on a Viagra binge, the playcalls were almost exclusively Run Run Pass. With the Arizona "D" sneaking close to the LOS on almost every down, even the Venus De Milo could have pulled off a play action pass or two.
2) Big Ben was mauled mercilessly in this game. Frankly, the offensive backfield looked like a mosh pit for most of the game.......I wouldn't have been surprised to see the refs handing out nipple rings and hits of Ecstasy. Why weren't there any screens called to take advantage of the over-aggressiveness of the Arizona "D"?? We usually run screens about 70% of the time, and it would be an even higher percentage except the other 30% of the plays we're on Defense. But Sunday?? I've seen more screens on the doors of submarines.
3) The wide receivers.........I haven't seen that many balls bouncing off hands since that last Michael Jackson documentary. I realize that Hines was out, and Santonio performed magnificently, but the Late Nate Washington and Cedric the Complainer needed to step it up a notch.........or 30. If Arizona's D Line and LBs were so committed to the run stuff, and the WRs were unable to beat the deep coverage, perhaps there may have been room for the TEs to operate in the enormous gaping hole in between. For the love of Pete, the vacuum between the LBs and the safeties was exerting a suction so powerful that the Cardinal Emblem at midfield had a perpetual dirty grin on his beak.
4) Where was the No-Huddle?? It was never used consistently even when a change of pace was obviously necessary, but when it was implemented (before a comeback was rendered impossible) it produced a long drive that netted 7 points. Why wasn't it used early and often? If Arians is still trying not to "tip his hand" by using Run Run Pass and neglecting the No Huddle, perhaps someone should show him a calendar without the nude pics of Pamela Anderson so he can concentrate on the dates.
5) What was with that pass to Miller in the EndZone without clearing out the traffic to give him room to operate?? Good grief,Miller had so many uniformed guys groping him it looked like the private backstage party at a Village People concert. As long as Nate and Cedric weren't going to bother to actually catch passes themselves, they could have at least been used to help out Miller.
Conclusion?? The only place on earth where a gameplan THAT pathetic could have been constructed was within the bowels of Acme. And the only dork who still uses ACME despite their reputation for utter incompetence is Wile E. Coyote. Are Bruce Arians and Wile E. Coyote one and the same person?? You do the math.