My brain was working on overdrive on my trek across New Jersey this morning. Fueled by Wawa coffee, I had all kinds of thoughts running through my head. I am sure this will be a pitiful attempt at capturing the incredible insights I had while driving, but I will give it a shot.

With the NFL playoffs coming up and the recent hiring of new coaches in the NFC East, I was thinking about (American) football. The United States Senate is said to be the world’s most exclusive club. There are 100 US Senators, though, and only 32 NFL head coaches. Plus, as an NFL head coach, you get to play what may be the ultimate strategy game (Civilization III notwithstanding). A commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition was talking about how the NFL coaching fraternity was a somewhat closed group, and that perhaps they should look farther a field for new talent. The problem is that it is so difficult to judge whether a prospective coach has the skill set needed to succeed in the NFL, unless the skills have been previously demonstrated in the NFL. That’s why ex-New York Giants (New Jersey A) head coach Jim Fassel, whose team had a sub-par 4-12 record this year, is still in demand as a potential head coach for other teams. I do have one suggestion for the owners, presidents and head coaches of NFL teams to consider in their search for future coaches – Madden Bowl winners. If I were an owner, I would make every effort to bring these guys into my organization and see how they develop. While mastery of Madden football may only show a ghost of the ability needed to run an NFL team, at least it’s an indication. Based on the sporadic success of NCAA Division I coaches moving to the NFL, it may be as good an indicator as anything else. As I finish this paragraph, one other thought occurs to me: Why don’t CFL head coaches get recruited by the NFL?

A (glacially) slow movement toward updating Redwolf’s Den is gaining some momentum. Here is a link to Shelley Lamb. Since I couldn’t find her on the Intar-Web, I figerr this link may be harmless. I think he guy she is with may be named Doug. While he may be funny, he’s not Funny. One of the other pix is of Cora Tekach, who does have a web presence. (The result of a unique name and maintaining her name). I also assume she has children, based on the search result from the Holy Trinity School web site. So there isn’t a direct link to her picture, so that her child(ren) will have to work to find it, if they do. I have been back and forth on attempting contact for the last 5 weeks, but I figure this will pop up on Google in a week or two, so I will try the one potential e-mail address I’ve found and see what transpires.

Stumbleupon is the best implementation I have seen of a noteworthy concept: that if you group people together by common interests and share their internet experience, you can enhance the experience for everyone. So far, for me at least, it is proving to be an attention grabbing diversion as well. You should try signing up, and add redwolf as one of your friends (it’s the button at the top of the page). Send me a message if you do sign up.