For all the exponentially bad things that happened with the Fins last week -- and by "exponentially bad," I mean "shitty, shitty, very shitty" -- Phillip Merling was the one real positive to emerge. The guy was a one-man wrecking crew, and pretty much the catalist for the front seven holding down the Falcons' powerful running game. The knock on Merling has always been that he's a crappy practice guy. But practice is practice. Come game time, he comes to play, and fucks shit up good and proper:
"I'm going to show people I can play. I know I can play." Damn if he wasn't right! The first pick of the 2008 draft's second round was a beast on the front line against the Falcons, contributing four tackles, and producing at least two knock downs. Merling maintains his reputation as a gamer. There's clearly a switch that goes off when the bullets are live.
Bad practices be damned, the man is a gamer. As am I. I may seem like a boring insipid guy during the week, but come Saturday nights, I don't fuck around. For example, last Saturday night, I opened the refrigerator and just looked at shit for like an hour. I'm a baaaaaad motherfucker.
