Star One Smart Blog's

...but not from the lack of Mike Florio giving it his damndest.

From last Thursday, three days before the half-game the Titans played Sunday in San Diego (I believe they packed their bags during halftime and caught the plane home, leaving some doppelgangers in their places...how else could they manage to not score at all in the second half?) I posted this response to an entry found in Florio's Rumor Mill.

Supposedly, according to Kerry Collins (drunk in a bar ?) Coach Dungy and Coach Fisher winked and nodded and the Browns were deprived to a chance to go to the playoffs, given that in the final 25 seconds of the 6-point game in Indy, Dungy didn't call his final timeout, and Fisher had Vince take 3 knees to run out the clock. Florio wanted to see more action, a 'reverse Music City Miracle' as he called it. Actually, his intentions are paper thin: he doesn't like either the Titans or the Colts. And he might've lost a couple Ikes to his bookie, not making his mood any more pleasant.

Well, I share one of his dislikes. Peyton Whining isn't high on my list of faves, and I'm really looking forward to New England cleaning the Colt's clock in a couple weeks.

Florio posted again, yesterday (while I've been in two states and covered hundreds of miles, this here unwritten post was one I would've liked to have gotten out earlier...but more important things keep coming up, like actually earning a living) and opined thusly...

"Buried in Peter King’s MMQB column is the first reference we’ve seen in several days to the unintended bombshell from Titans quarterback Kerry Collins that his team took three knees while leading by six with less than two minutes to play in Week Seventeen because Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher and Indy coach Tony Dungy had some type of agreement that the Titans would run out the clock and the Colts wouldn’t use their one remaining time out.

"Fisher told King that the suggestion of such skullduggery is “absurd.” King also takes the somewhat non-journalistic tack of vouching for Fisher’s credibility, with the veteran NFL reporter saying that he could tell that the accusation “shocked” Fisher.

"Okay, so then either way this story deserves much more attention than it has received. Either Fisher and Dungy had a deal and are now lying to cover it up, or Collins was crazy (or liquored up) when he said what he said last week on WFAN.

"But the story has been largely ignored by the media. Well, it’s been ignored publicly by the media. Privately, we’ve heard from a prominent national media figure who had this to say: “If Dungy and Fisher had some sort of ‘arrangement’ in a one-possession game with another team’s playoff chances on the line, this makes ‘Spygate’ look like ‘Romper Room.’ This whole thing stinks to holy hell and I’m sure Dungy, Fisher and the league would love for it to continue to be a non-story. But this is a huge story. What arrangement? When was it arranged? Why was it arranged? Whose idea was it? Who was in on it?”

Bullshit! Pure fantasy. My comment to Florio (who's a lawyer when he's not covering the NFL...BTW, I read his stuff all the time, because usually it's pretty good) is, get past the theory stage and let's hit the evidentiary phase. You know, put up some facts already. We need some plausible collusion-sightings, or you get a tinfoil hat on my next photoshop run.

How about this...Dungy wants to get his team the hell off the field. This meaningless game is boring and fruitless, he cares two shits about winning, and the only Browns on his mind is his pending bathroom visit. So, he looks at the clock, sees one time out, and says 'crew this I'm outta here. Fisher, relieved, just takes what's given to him and goes on (to play that aforementioned half-game a week later...)

We hope this doesn't get wings. Who else can complain, save some Browns fans looking at a very long off-season, and maybe a slightly light wallet somewhere in West Virginia?