A Reminder And A Review

Yeah, I haven’t blogged in a few weeks. For starters, my bad. It’s been an interesting mix of events in the last few weeks—nothing really major (ie—blogworthy) has really popped up in my life, yet since the last time we spoke, it’s been a complete whirlwind.

My last few entries were pretty football-heavy, so let me go ahead and get the majority of the football-talk out of the way.

As some of you predicted, from my mere association with the team, the Berlin Thunder were the worst team in NFL Europa this season. We finished on a 6-game losing streak, became the second team in league history to lose every home game in a season, and didn’t throw a touchdown pass since our Week 4 comeback win against Cologne (which was also our last victory).

Interestingly, by the statistics, we were one of the best teams in the league. We had the second best offense and the third best defense. Chris Barclay pretty much ran the league this year: he had the second best all-purpose yardage season ever, the third best kickoff return season ever, and became the Thunder’s single-season—and CAREER—rushing champion. Damn.

But, as you’ve surmised from reading my other entries, we were great at finding ways to lose games. In our last game, at Amsterdam, we blew yet another lead with 5 minutes left in the game. That’s 4 of our 8 losses that we lost leads for the first time, late in the game. That’s just painful.

Just as well, however…we knew my team couldn’t be a winner.

***

Let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way: yep, Amsterdam was tons of fun. I toured around the red light district, and peeked into a few coffee shops (but did not sample). In the afternoon, I took the train into the middle of downtown and just wandered around for an hour or two. I managed to stumble my way into the red light district—bear in mind, it’s like 3 PM—and for anyone who ever needs a quickie in the mid afternoon on a weekday, let me just tell you, the afternoon talent available is sub-par. Save your money for nightfall.

The road trip was a fitting way to end our season. The train ride from Berlin was 6 hours. Our trip, however, stretched out to a cozy 11. Ugggghhhhhhhh. First, one of the switches on the train broke. So, we had to call a mechanic and wait on the tracks for 2 hours before he got there.

Once that debacle was taken care of, we came up to a stopped train about an hour later, right over the Netherlands border. Why was this train stopped, you ask? Well…it seems they ran over some guy on a scooter, and killed him.

…

So, they had to clear the train off in—and I mean this—the wilderness of the Netherlands. We called up the Admirals (the team we were playing against) and they helped us charter a bus to pick us up and get us into Amsterdam. The bus itself took 2 hours to get there. Then, the bus ride itself was an hour and a half. We got in around 11. Good thing we had a night game.

Although, the extra rest really didn’t help that much.

***

Well, here I am in Frankfurt, Germany, the site of this year’s World Bowl. Funny, this blog started with my work at the Super Bowl, and now here we are at the mini-Super Bowl.

Don’t expect the same kind of cool encounters, though. In fact, I’ve really done nothing this entire week. I haven’t been given any duties (despite my efforts to help others), and I’m just not allowed to go to other events with everyone else (like tonight’s VIP party). Seriously, all I’ve done this week was help my boss, Cem, carry some photocopies from a copy shop back to the hotel.

Besides that, I’m staying at the downtown Marriott—a nice hotel, if I say so myself—and eating the staff breakfasts and lunches every day.

On one hand, it has been nice to use this week to sleep off the drudge of the season. But on the other hand, I could be doing that at home. And in the meantime, 5 or 6 people have been going crazy with all of the work they have this week, and people like me have been freeloading the whole way.

I haven’t even been able to tour about Frankfurt that much, either, since it’s been dark and rainy most of the week. There really isn’t that much to see, anyway. It’s a banking city. There are lots of big, bank headquarters, and lots of big hotels to have banking conventions and meetings.

So, that’s how my season ends, alone in a hotel room in Frankfurt waiting for tomorrow’s World Bowl, between Beth’s Frankfurt Galaxy and Joe’s Hamburg Sea Devils. Should be a good one (1 PM live, NFL Network) (with a life performance from rock legend Meat Loaf!) (yes, Meat Loaf).

***

I feel compelled to touch on this, since it’s now been talked about on ESPN and ProFootballTalk.com: the rumors of NFL Europa ending after tomorrow’s World Bowl.

Of course it’s possible. Then again, rumors of NFL Europe/Europa ending have been happening at the end of every season for the past ten years or so.

Some people say that this new league Mark Cuban is starting could be the new NFL developmental league. Maybe so, but the NFL isn’t going to cut ties with its own league—of fifteen years—for some other league that hasn’t even played a game yet, and won’t until after the next NFL season ends, at the earliest. And, if that becomes the case, much still has to be decided about this league—much less get billionaires like Cuban to agree that starting a minor league NFL is worth their time and money.

One of the points made at PFT was:

“Finally, the developmental benefits aren't as compelling as they used to be. … Think about it— at one point a list of European success stories could be rattled off pretty quickly (Brad Johnson, Kurt Warner, etc.). We can't think of the last guy who starred in Europe before becoming a big deal in the States.”

True, the number of starting quarterbacks that played in NFLE has gone down (the most recent success story was Jake Delhomme, who played in Amsterdam in 1998 and Frankfurt in 1999, before becoming Carolina’s starter in 2003). But what about guys like Brian Waters, who played on the offensive line with Berlin in 2000 and has been named to the last three Pro Bowls with the Chiefs? Bills punter Brian Moorman, who played in Berlin in 2000 and 2001, and has been to the last two AFC Pro Bowls? Or Adam Vinateri, who played with Amsterdam in 1996? Marco Rivera (Packers/Cowboys Pro Bowl guard), Scotland in 1997? Dante Hall, Scotland 2001? Jon Kitna, Barcelona 1997? Damon Huard, for crying out loud? Frankfurt 1998?

I could continue, but my point is that just because NFLE isn’t producing Super Bowl winning quarterbacks doesn’t mean it’s not producing stars at all. The purpose of a developmental league isn’t to produce Hall of Famers. It’s meant to give the players who a) need more professional experience or b) just fell through the cracks a second chance. If those players become future Hall of Famers, then, that’s outstanding.

Also, PFT goes on to point out that with the projected success of the London game next season, and the possibility of future games in the English capital, that the league is no longer necessary as a tool of international growth. That couldn’t be farther from the truth—and, think of this: Germany has been promised regular season games in 2008 and another in 2009, I believe. (Maybe 2010…) You think if the NFL pulls the plug on NFL Europa now, that the Germans will welcome them back for one single game with open arms just 12 months later?

One other point they made at PFT—which contributes to plenty of this talk—is that unless you’re an avid follower of the league, you wouldn’t know that the championship game is being played tomorrow. I wouldn’t quite peg that as an indicator of the league’s downfall, since even in its heyday, you barely knew what was going on in this league.

…but I could go on about ways to improve the promoting of this league. In the interest of my future, I’ll keep those to myself.

***

That being said, my experience in this league sure was quite a ride.

There is no doubt in my mind that I’m better at what I do than I was when I got here. I know that. It’s just the things that I had to give to get better, and some of the ridiculous experiences I had to go through to get there.

Being here for such a period of time is a pretty emotionally taxing experience. On top of that, some of the people I lived with—not including the players—really weren’t very friendly people, and moreover, I found out pretty quickly that I couldn’t trust anyone. As a result, I pretty much just kept to myself when I was in Berlin.

Since I was around so much and I just kept working, I feel like the expectations of me from certain areas of the team were just unrealistic. Eventually, it got to the point where I was simply a garbage disposal of work, and I wasn’t expected to do things like, leave the hotel, or attend team functions when I could be home doing work for someone else. (I’ve told some of you about the time I was yelled at for getting lunch.)

It’s funny, because if you ask the people who knew what I had to go through—the PR staff, the GM, and the head coach—they think I did a great job. It’s a lot of the people who had no idea what I had to do—and ended up expecting ridiculous things from me—that leave this experience thinking I’m a terrible worker.

The sad thing is, there was really nothing I could do about that. On most days, I’d work from 8 AM to about 1 or 2 AM, and yet I’d wake up to being yelled at about why I didn’t take care of something.

I went into this experience as confident and self-assured as I possibly could have been. But, I was just telling my dad how, at times, I equated this season’s worth of experiences to a boot camp. Eventually, you can only take so much before you break.

On top of that, some things here were the complete opposite of how they were in San Francisco. With the 49ers, everything was all about communication, and a team effort. Everyone knew what was going on, and how they could pitch in. Here, to call communication poor was an understatement; it was non-existent. Getting anything done meant overcoming someone that stood in your way. By the second half of the season, I realized how much extra time I needed to portion for things like, an injury report, because I realized all the people I had to deal with and all the hoops I had to jump through.

The funny thing is, with all this difficulty I encountered among the staff and coaches, the players were great. They’re some of the best guys I’ve ever been around, and I wish most of them nothing but the best of luck. I even look forward to seeing some of them around the league in the future.

And, to a large degree, the experiences I relayed above were about a very select, small group of people. The PR staff with the Thunder—Cem, his assistant Folke, and the PR intern Benja, were just awesome to work with. They’re good at what they do and they’re a fun bunch. I’ll always be pulling for our head coach, John Allen. I really feel like he has a great future ahead of him, and I cannot wait to see him succeed. Our GM, Joe Cealera, always had time to stop and talk to me, to get to know me and to understand the work I was doing. Our operations director, Phil Hickey, would bend over backwards to help me if I needed it. I’ve even had some members of the media thank me at times during the season for my work.

As a result, the Thunder have made it clear that they want me to come back next season. Will I do it? It’s hard to say. A lot of it depends on what is going on in my life a year from now. Of course, the goal is always a full-time job, in the NFL or otherwise. But, if that’s not going to happen, who knows what I might do?

One thing that is cool is I’m now 2-for-2 in being asked back by teams I’ve worked for. (I guess no one has caught on to the whole losing streak thing yet.)

***

On Sunday afternoon, I’m out of Germany for good. Mostly.

I fly off to London, for my four-ish day vacation (on Wednesday night, I fly back to Frankfurt, so I can fly to JFK on Thursday morning). I can’t even tell you how excited I am. I’ve always wanted to see London, and I get to hang out with Jane, who I haven’t seen in quite a while.

Then, it’s back to New York for about three weeks, before I re-pack my life and head back to San Francisco. Expect another update after the World Bowl, or from London.