As Dylan says “People are crazy and times are strange”

I think the biggest decision for any coach is choosing an offense to commit to and orchestrating a play-calling scheme that is beyond random mixing and matching and catching defenses off guard. That’s why I propose an intelligence test for would-be coaches as part of the application screening process.

If they score in the dull normal range, they can still be hired to lead young men. Just find a person who has a concept or clue of how to exploit defensive alignments, adjustments, blitz packages and disguises of pass coverage to implement the offense and call the plays.

Dunk a doughnut - I have seen so many success stories of individuals who go from flaccid and fat to firm and fit, but take your eyes off those cowboys for a couple of years and there’s not a brokeback horse that could walk them across the corral without suffering swayback. My theory is that eating tasty stuff in large portions throughout the day is great fun, which is why psychologists list the drive for food as drive one and the drive for sex as drive two. It takes time-consuming discipline to maintain ideal fitness, which is why those inclined to make lists and set short-term goals every five minutes have greater success. And if fat is home base for a person, he or she will sooner rather than later eat a hoagie with a side of potato salad, drink a soda, then chomp down a Tastykake and lick the wrapper - and usually nothing immediately dramatic happens in any perceptible way. The person feels the same, doesn’t even have to let out a belt notch or two. And so that meal is repeated a hundred times followed by the inevitable depression, then it is seriously on. Before you know it, an 80-pound blob has smothered the person like mayonnaise on a baked potato. So he reaches for the bacon bits because the road back is just too steep.

Snippets - Cowboys interim head coach Jason Garrett was born in Abington, Pa., which is pretty close to being interesting. Norman Robinson, who went to Cape in the early 1970s and grew to be close to 6-foot-8, attended Cowboys camp a few years later. The Eagles will play their subs in the final game against the Cowboys, but with only 53 players allowed to dress, it’s not like a preseason game, so lots of good guys will get plenty of minutes. If the Eagles win their home game on wild card weekend and go and beat the Bears - and if, on the other side, the Saints get all the way through as a wild card - then the Eagles would host the NFC championship game. The Eagles played in the NFC title game four years in a row from 2002 through 2005, losing 29-24 to the Rams on the road in 2002, 27-10 to the Bucs at home in the last game at the Vet in 2003, and14-3 to the Panthers at home in the first game at the Linc in 2004. Finally in 2005 at the Linc, they beat the Falcons 27-10. In 2009 the Eagles lost the conference championship in Arizona 32-25. That was McNabb quarterbacking the Eagles to five NFC championship game appearances in eight years. Eagles fans in their lifetime will never see another quarterback do that.

I was working the press table inside the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center last Wednesday night at the Governors’ Challenge Maryland versus Delaware three-day tournament, sitting baseline between two portable courts with two games running at the same time. It was pretty sensory overload kind of stuff. Two sports writers sitting to my right and a Salisbury cop were simultaneously wireless laptop watching-and-listening to YouTube, discussing the merits of 1980s heavy metal/electronic bands Motley Crue, Kix and Depeche Mode. I don’t know why, but I was feeling like Ralph Friedgen singing a Dylan song: “People are crazy and times are strange, I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range, I used to care, but things have changed.” Here’s one thing that will never change: Go on now, git!