NFL Spotlighted
Let ESPN go all Tim Tebow, the Texans counter with bizarre, off-the-wall ShaunCody show
The best story in the NFL does not drop into prayer after touchdowns, wait till the last five minutes to start doing anything or divide the nation. No, the best story in the NFL is a 10-3 team that calls Houston home, wins with three different quarterbacks, plays in a once prettily nondescript arena that's now a rollicking Slaughterhouse and refuses to give in to any dark cloud.
Of course, the best story in the NFL is destined to be largely ignored as long as Tim Tebow is on center stage.
ESPN now might as well call it itself the Worldwide Leader in Tebow so completely has the sports giant given itself over to The Chosen One on all its platforms. Even the NFL Network — which you'd figure would at least try to feign impartiality — replayed the Denver Broncos-Chicago Bears game so many times this past week that it might as well have run it as a marathon. And who did the NFL Network showcase almost exclusively in its weekly sounds of the game program?
Like anyone has to ask.
"How did you become a ninja?" Cody asks. "I studied it on the Internet," Smith deadpans back.
It's Tebow of course, the same savior who graces the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated. It's a wonder that David Letterman's people didn't try to bump Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III for Tebow too.
So what's the best story in the NFL to do when it's getting plowed over by Tebow mania?
Besides trying to beat the Carolina Panthers Sunday afternoon at Reliant and stay in the race for one of the AFC's two first-round playoff byes of course. Well, the Houston Texans are getting a little attention for their own leading off-beat character.
Only, he's not a quarterback. He's a nose tackle — arguably the most unglamorous position in the game. And he's not in SI or on ESPN. No while everyone else is going Tebow mad, Shaun Cody is being featured on The Season, the brilliantly insider look show on NFL.com that the league itself doesn't seem quite sure what to do with.
Cody's exposure comes because of his own ultra modest show that plays on the Houston Texans website — On The Nose.
The Season callsCody an "emerging star in the Texans locker room" and shows how No. 95 turns that locker room into his own laugh-filled playground in his weekly show. There's Cody getting inside linebacker Brian Cushing to talk about his love for body wash and distilled water. There's Cody putting defensive end Antonio Smith's well-known obsession with ninjas into a new light — one that has Smith covered in a black ninja suit with only his eyes showing, practicing high kicks and karate chops.
"How did you become a ninja?" Cody asks.
"I studied it on the Internet," Smith deadpans back.
But wait . . . there's more. How about Cody reporting live from the Houston Texans' cold tub "where it's a balmy 49 degrees"? Outside linebacker Connor Barwin is in the tub too. Barwin, the only Texan capable of matching Cody's hilarious theatrics, makes a cameo in every episode of On The Nose.
"Being serious 24-7 is not going to help anybody win," Barwin says on The Season.
The biggest surprise from the NFL program may be the revelation that Texans defensive coordinator Wade Phillips — a 64-year-old, no-nonsense Texan who isn't in danger of being described as hip anytime soon — is a fan of Cody's locker room TV show.
"I think it's pretty clever," Phillips says.
Drew Dougherty and Nick Scurfield, the producers of On The Nose, clearly realize that letting Cody be Cody makes for compelling TV. Oh, that might never be noticed outside of southeast Texas in this Tim Tebow world.
But that's all right. Cody mostly does it for his teammates' amusement anyway. He's a Houston Texan.
To watch the Shaun Cody episode of The Season, click here.