Jake gets a hole in one. We think.

"...and you shake it all about."

After getting all whoopty-woo about the Broncos' 5-0 start, we figure it's time to get back to what life's really all about: a Jake Plummer update!

A search of the ol' Google brought up this little tidbit. Apparently Jake nailed a hole-in-one last Monday on the #2 at Maple Hill Golf Club in Hemlock, MI.

It's entirely possible that this was just a guy named Jake Plummer and not THE real deal Snake, but either way it's newsworthy. Either our man Jake got a hole-in-one, or someone with the last name "Plummer" had the God-given sense to name their boy "Jake" some time ago, knowing his offspring would share that name with one of the NFL's great gamers.

Honestly, we aren't sure how much golf Jake actually plays, but 99% of former NFL quarterbacks seem to take it up, so he probably does swing the irons on occasion.

LET PLUMMER PLAY!!! GOLF!!!

Jake takes his first step on the coaching ladder

Explained below.

According to the news wires, Jake Plummer is going to be the new quarterbacks coach at Sandpoint High in Idaho. Congratulations to Jake and also to Sandpoint High, naturally. Also, congrats to Jake for helping raise over $10,000 for the DayBreak Center (see our last posting.)

So why is Justin flipping the bird? Why, he's flipping it at Examiner.com's Broncos yapper Greg Henry (okay, Justin's not really, but we are), who has reacted to this Plummer news with lazy witticisms. Quoth:

"Views: We're guessing Idaho doesn't get much news about Plummer's antics. His sideline flipping the bird at Broncos fans, berating a local columnist with a 9 p.m. phone call at her home, leaving his fiance at the altar in Hawaii, his general disdain for personal hygiene ...

We're guessing the folks in Idaho like the lumberjack look -- scruffy beard, plaid shirt, stocking cap and uncombed hair. We also think it's a good deal for Plummer; a part-time coaching job so he can keep up his illustrious racquetball career.

All we can say is good luck to those high school kids in Idaho. Let's hope Plummer is a better role model and teacher in Sandpoint than he ever was in Denver."

Let's hope you get a paper cut, Greg. Let's see...flipping the bird? Five years ago. The phone call? Truthfully, we don't remember that. We're sure it was a while back. Leaving his fiance? It sounds harsh, and maybe his timing was a little off, but better to call off a wedding BEFORE you get married than fake your way through it and try to live with someone you don't want to live with. Unless you're one of those hardline religious types who would rather see two people torture each other in matrimony. His lack of personal hygiene? I'm sorry, I don't recall any news of Jake skipping showers when he had his glorious beard. I don't see anyone berating Jesus or Moses for their lack of hygiene. And those Hasidic Jews must be REALLY dirty, right?

And we'd like to say going after his "illustrious racquetball career" is a pretty low blow, but we guess "racquetball player" must be far, far below the title of "Denver Broncos Examiner" on the sign-up sheet on Career Day. It's too bad Jake isn't wealthy or anything from that NFL career and can't pick something to do he actually likes.

Jake will be a better role model for Sandpoint than he was in Denver because Jake like any sane person realizes that in the NFL, he wasn't a ROLE MODEL, he was a SPORTS IDOL--just like every other player. People wanting athletes to be role models are insane. If athletes volunteer to be all-around neato people, sure, let them be role models--in their spare time. Otherwise, it's a parent's job to point out that most people who play childrens' games for a living are NOT to be emulated. Famous athletes are idolized for their play, their pay, and their fame. How can a kid truly model himself after someone based purely on news blurbs and on-field accomplishments? There's no personal connection, nor should there be because athletes like anyone else have personal private lives that shouldn't really be anyone's concern beyond what they want the public to know. As a SPORTS IDOL, maybe Jake fell short because he understood the hypocrisy and flat-out bullshit involved in spinning idolatry as being a "role model" and refused to buy into it.

But as a high school coach, Jake the Snake is now specifically a ROLE MODEL. This is a position he has fully accepted. Jake Plummer turns 35 this year, is far removed from the smoke and mirrors of the NFL and is by all accounts a family man who has settled disturbingly well into a non-NFL existence. I think he'll manage to avoid flipping off his players or convincing a kid to grow a beard--like that would matter anyway.

Either people grow up or they don't. Jake's grown up. If all "journalists" want to do is take potshots at positive acts--like a Pro Bowl QB offering his experience to kids who would otherwise be learning from math teachers and guys who never played past high school--then maybe we should all pray that Pacman Jones, Matt Jones, Michael Vick and Plaxico Buress end up in Broncos blue-and-orange so that we can read some nice complimentary articles for a change.

Not that we regularly read the Examiner or recommend doing so. It's just what came up when we Googled "Jake Plummer News." Sadly, this makes them a valued source.

Anyway, good luck to Sandpoint High as they...

LET PLUMMER COACH!!!

P.S. According to what we've heard, Pumpkin Pie (Jay Cutler for the uninformed) has reached out to Plaxico Buress and is trying to get the Bears interested in signing the ex-Giant who doesn't know how to use the safety on a gun. Good for you. Pumpkin Pie. We know you get along really well with immature dimwit receivers.

Things We Already Know About Jake But Don't Mind Hearing Again

“Just call the plays. I’m going out there and playing f***ing football.”

-Jake Plummer to Mike Shanahan, during a game. No, really. He said it.

One of our favorite foosball sites, Kissing Suzy Kolber, has just received a copy of a new book, on shelves now. It's by Stefan Fatsis, entitled A Few Seconds of Panic. The book details the writer's short but eventful publicity stunt stint as training camp place kicker for the Denver Broncos and his subsequent coverage of the team for the 2006-07 season. This, of course was the season in which rookie Jay Cutler succeeded the mighty Jake Plummer at quarterback, among other things. Subjects covered include the Darrent Williams tragedy, the writer shanking all sorts of practice kicks and the not-so-surprising revelation that (and we directly quote the KSK reviewer) "Jake Plummer's a badass."

Well, duh.

We'll definitely be picking up a copy of this as soon as possible and maybe even post a short synopsis/review of the parts pertaining to the Snake. Before we call it a day, we hope you all enjoyed a happy Independence Day (the holiday, not the movie) and we'd like to leave you with a Jake quote from Mr. Fatsis's book, regarding offseason workouts:

Jake: “Yeah, I missed some workouts. And you know what? Mike Shanahan, you can kiss my f***ing ass for being pissed at that… I don’t want to be here every f***ing day in the offseason.”

...

Come back, dammit.

Plummer Plundered

Was "Tampa Bay Fops" already taken?

Well, the underdog gets stomped again. It looks like the Tampa Bay Fake Raiders are going to get a lot of Jake "The Snake" Plummer's signing bonus after all. (Thanks to "grizzly" for the heads-up)

With the matter ready to go to arbitration, it seems apparent that the multi-gazillionaire Glazer crew had our favorite retiree over the barrel, as it were. Jake will be paying the Fake Raiders a pretty huge chunk (roughly half) of the money that Denver included in his contract as a pro-rated bonus. It's nice to know for future reference (any NFL players, pay attention) that apparently a "bonus" is only a bonus when it's in your hand as an extra incentive in the present, not a percentage tied to your actual paycheck that can be taken away in the future. If that's the case, it's not a bonus, it's a salary. And--may we add--it's bogus.

There is a stipulation about Jake still being chained to the Fake Raiders' mast in case he decides to return. Wow, that's great. The Fake Raiders treat guys who want to play for them like crap as it is. I bet Jake would just love to board that rapidly-sinking ship. The Dread Pirate Gruden is probably updating his resume in preparation to scurry out of there with the rats ASAP--leaving the twenty-seven quarterbacks on their roster fighting for the starting job to drown in the mediocrity of the Fake Raiders' forseeable future.

Well, we hope Jake still has enough cash flow to get by, especially since coming back is now even more complicated than before. If not, there's still time to run for office! We'd like to extend our middle fingers to the Tampa Bay Fake Raiders organization for punishing Jake as a result of their own completely idiotic trade for a guy who had already said he didn't want to play for them. So here's to you...

F*** YOU, TAMPA BAY FAKE RAIDERS!!!

Put The Man On A Damn Ticket Already

All right, we seem a little biased. Well screw it, if McCain was really that good he would have beat out Bush for his own party's nomination eight years ago and anyway, the Democrats deserve their chance to screw up America for four to eight years, right? Either way, it's high time somebody...

LET PLUMMER RUN!!!

ESPN is either spineless or stupid

Over the past week or two, ESPN and most other national sports outlets have been concentrating on the Roger Clemens case. This is only natural. Roger Clemens is widely considered to be one of the greatest individual players in baseball history and has won two World Series rings with the New York Yankees in 1999 and 2000. Keep this in mind as we go on.

The Patriots "Spygate" scandal is pretty well known. The Patriots were accused by the Jets of illegally taping signals during their first matchup of 2007. After NFL commissioner Roger Goodell saw the evidence and decided that the Patriots had indeed broken the rules, he had all evidence destroyed. Imagine that. Can you think of any incriminating scandal, whether in the business world or in politics, where all evidence was intentionally destroyed by the ruling committee rather than stored for posterity or future review? The Warren Report still exists. So do the Watergate tapes. And if you think we're being overly dramatic, the Pete Rose evidence is still on record with Major League Baseball...and Pete was banned even though no evidence exists that his gambling affected his management/playing decisions; i.e. it neither gave him an advantage nor a handicap on the field.

So you may recall that just prior to the 2008 Super Bowl, a former employee claimed that the Patriots had illegally taped a walkthrough (essentially the first20 or so planned plays of the game) by the opposing Rams just before the Patriots won their first Super Bowl in 2002. Since the Super Bowl was a week away, it was picked up and overblown by the media. Then the Patriots lost, order was restored, and the media ceased to care because 18-1 is a far cry from 19-0.

But Senator Arlen Specter raised a little noise, wondering just how rampant cheating really is in the NFL, and why there were no farther-reaching consequences for the Patriots outside of money (admittedly a large but far from crippling fine to Belichick and the organization) and a draft pick. He also questioned the destruction of the evidence.
Lest we think this is a waste of our tax dollars...well, it sort of is. But look at it from this angle. The Patriots have defeated a lot of teams in the playoffs, and we'll focus on the cities or areas: Indianapolis, San Diego, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Carolina, Pittsburgh. If the other guys win those games, do not the local economies occupied by each team stand to profit in the millions of dollars, either from further playoff games or the simple reputation of having a champion NFL team? Don't these franchises all have to make multi-million-dollar decisions based on the season's final outcome, with failure to reach a championship being one of the top reasons to change rosters, coaches, and gameplans, at great cost? So isn't it unfair if one team has an advantage that the rulebook specifically dictates they should not?

So in the last 24 hours it's come out that Bill Belichick told Roger Goodell (who told Arlen Specter) months ago that the Patriots had been regularly creating illegal practice and game tapes of other teams since 2000...meaning that they had been cheating for over seven years. Here's what ESPN.com currently has on its front page regarding this:

NOTHING.

Not one sentence. Last night, you could find this information contained within another article, with the headline "Goodell: No regrets about Spygate" or some nonsense, like that was the story. Incredible. Maybe ESPN is afraid of pissing off their biggest cash cow?

The Patriots have won 3 of the last 7 Super Bowls. There is no doubt that they are the team of the decade, barring a Giants three-peat (yeah, sure.) If Belichick broke the rules for seven years, he had to think that the information he'd gained was useful. Did other teams break this rule? Possibly, but none so blatantly and stupidly as the Patriots.

If you had a good idea of what the other team was going to do in its first 3-4 sets of downs each game (which is what a walkthrough generally practices) isn't that like having a set of hints? Isn't it an advantage? So why is it not a bigger deal than baseball players using steroids...they're only one person out of a 25-man roster and if it was a league-wide problem, no one team should have had an advantage! Yet steroids in baseball are a Congressional embarrassment.

Meanwhile, in football, steroids are an afterthought and cheating by a coach is clumsily swept under the rug...and somehow it seems to be working! Where's the scandal? Where's the fury? Where is anyone who cares? Frankly, we at LPP are disgusted.

However, in all of this, there was one QB that Bill Belichick could never beat no matter how many practices he taped, no matter how many signals he stole...because you can't predict what an improvisational genius is going to do in advance!
That's right. Even Belicheat could never topple JAKE "THE SNAKE" PLUMMER. At least we'll always have that, even as the NFL refuses to investigate unless Congressmen tell them to and will never put any asterisks next to any Patriots wins and will never ban Bill Belichick for life the way baseball banned Pete Rose.

Even if you taped what he did a thousand times, you'd never see how the Snake was going to beat you until his coach...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

Tampa Bay...stop crying!

This is a story about a group of billionaires who are trying to use their traditional "legal" bulldozer tactics (utilized by NFL owners for decades) against a guy who just wanted to retire.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are starting the process of suing Jake Plummer for a big chunk of the $7,000,000 in bonus money that he was awarded by the Denver Broncos in 2003, some of which (as a result of last year's infamous trade) is counted against the Bucs' salary cap. Tampa was also fining him throughout 2007 for missing training camp, practices, and games.

First of all, we'll speak from the heart here, and this will definitely be the part of this posting where people will say "you guys are idiots." Hey, Tampa Bay (specifically GM Bruce Allen and the trust-fund-baby sons of ailing billionaire Malcolm Glazer)--just release the guy and agree he's, you know, RETIRED. Admit you should have kicked the tires before buying the car. Admit to jumping the gun on a trade and making a mistake. Live with it. Maybe before trading for the multi-million-dollar contract of a guy who plays what is supposed to be the "most important position" on a football team, you should find out if the guy actually wants to play for you, and when he says no...DON'T MAKE THE TRADE! Well, Jake didn't want to play any more. And he retired. And he went away, out of the public eye. And that's not good enough for Tampa Bay's front office.

The Glazer family is worth at least two billion dollars. That's "billion" with a "B." They want Jake to be held accountable for seven million dollars (that, oh by the way, the Broncos paid him, not the Bucs,) because it represents a big fat mistake on the Buccaneers salary cap that the team's decision makers were blatantly warned about when they went ahead and traded for Plummer anyway--one day after Plummer made no bones about not wanting to go to Tampa.

Let's face it, in some form or another most NFL teams make yearly salary cap "mistakes" that range from one to twenty million dollars...but none of the other owners and GMs cry about it and try to get store credit. On the morning of Friday May 3rd 2007 the Broncos and Bucs put together the Plummer-for-a-pick deal but had not yet pulled the trigger. In the same afternoon, media sources widely reported that Jake Plummer had essentially told everyone he knew that he would rather retire than pull up his roots and play 3500 miles from his comfort zone.

On Saturday May 4th 2007, the Buccaneers shrugged their shoulders and rolled the dice anyway. And Jake, true to his word, retired from football, assuming that Tampa Bay would do what every other NFL team does when a guy under contract retires: accept the retirement and release him from his contract.

See, this is what pisses us off the most, and it's a huge point to make when looking at the big picture of NFL owners vs. players. The NFL, more than any other sports organization, has power over their players union and by definition their players, the guys who play with the possibilty of a thankless permanent injury nearly every time the ball is snapped. Between their personal law dogs and damn-near corrupt influence with city, state, and even federal governments (as multi-billion-dollar money machines for regional economies,) an NFL team will rarely lose when they decide to make an example of someone in court. The only people who ever seem to successfully challenge NFL owners are --surprise-- other owners (Al Davis and Jerry Jones are the first to come to mind.) So now, a team with roughly the third-deepest pockets in the NFL is going after a guy who, by all accounts, just wants to retire and be left alone. Bucs GM Bruce Allen said this back in June:

“You can’t unilaterally retire as a player in the NFL,” said Allen. “That’s because you have a contract.”

Well said. But this, of course, begs the question "When is a contract not necessarily a contract?"

Oh right...
NFL contracts are only guaranteed to the TEAM--

--not the PLAYER.

ANY team can "unilaterally" cut ANY player and void ANY contract whenever the team wants. That's why up-front bonuses exist in the first place! Denver (remember, not Tampa Bay) paid Jake X-amount of up-front bonus dollars (as every team pays nearly every notable player) to sign a contract stipulating that if Jake wanted to play football in the years covered by the contract, it would be with Denver...and they would pay him a designated salary if they decided to keep him. However, NFL teams reserve the right to release any player without having to paying them for the remaining years on the contract.

Denver did not want to do this because they already had paid him the signing bonus and did not want to simply trash a good starting player with nothing to show for it--especially if Jake decided to sign with another team (and proved Mike Shanahan wrong.) Now, Tampa Bay doesn't want to do the same thing, for two reasons:

1. Bruce Allen and whichever Glazer okayed the deal don't want to look stupid. They traded for a guy who had already said "I DON'T WANT TO BE TRADED TO TAMPA" and the guy was true to his word. The Bucs made a bone-headed decision when they should have just left Denver twisting in the wind. If the Snake had no takers, the Broncos would have to simply release Jake (or act like dicks the way Tampa is acting now, however, Denver's upper management doesn't seem to have the same stick up their asses that Tampa's does--Shanahan still has a job, doesn't he? Think that happens in San Diego or Dallas after ten years of no Super Bowl?)

2. The Tampa Bay franchise, as part of the overall NFL conglomerate (stop thinking of it as a sport for a second, folks, and see it for the cold corporate machine it actually is) does not want to set precedent by letting this kind of situation slide.

If Jake Plummer is allowed to retire with no "consequence" other than GIVING UP SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS he would get by suiting up for the '08 and '09 years of his contract, the NFL owners would eventually have to deal with someone down the line, whether it's next week or ten years from now, who decides to use retirement as a tool to get out of an undesirable contract and sign with a team of his choice. NFL owners are rich white men. Rich white men do not like being made fools of and they really do not like giving their money to people who have crossed them. They would rather keep a guy under contract and sue him later to make him an example than give the guy his way and actually spend less money by cutting the teams losses. This is what's happening to Jake Plummer. The Bucs would rather keep him under contract for 17 million bucks and sue him for a prorated chunk of seven million, rather than lose face by simply releasing him, saving his contract money, and taking a bite out of their salary cap that their own stubbornness is responsible for. The worst part is they put on big fake smiles and pretend to want Jake in uniform for 2008 just so they can use those lies to back up their court case. Why would Tampa Bay want to pay Jake Plummer starter's money when it's obvious that barring injury he'd be a backup behind Jeff Garcia, who nailed the 2008 job down with a gutsy 2007? Answer: THEY DON'T. They really do want to just cut him. But those kinds of public statements make it easier to maintain a "hurt" position in court against Jake.

We aren't asking anyone to feel sorry for Jake. He's got money, friends, family, a beautiful wife, and last we checked he had one of those sweet two-tone Honda Elements, though it was an '05 or '06 and he may have traded it in by now. However, we ask our few but proud readers to look at this situation as another example of a little guy being leaned on by a ruthless bully. Tampa Bay violated one of the oldest rules of business: caveat emptor--Let the buyer beware--and now they don't want to be stuck with the check. Well, excuse us, but last we checked, if you buy a Buccaneers season ticket you don't get your money back if you simply decide not to show up for the games. You certainly don't get a refund if they lose! And if Jake Plummer had said "Wow, I really want to play for Tampa Bay, let's do this!" the team could still have cut him, with no obligation to pay the remainder of his contract, any damn time they pleased. But despite Jake's warning of retirement, the Bucs went ahead anyway and traded away a draft pick and cap space. Now the Buccaneers want Jake to dip into his own pockets to cover their mistake. We say that no matter how the legality of this situation is properly interpreted, Jake Plummer is being bullshitted by Tampa Bay and (logically) by the NFL as a whole.

Jake the Snake Plummer may not seem like a "little guy" to us average citizens who make 5-figure incomes. However, when compared to the combined 100+ billion dollar empire that is the NFL, he definitely qualifies for "little guy" status, and the big guys are trying to push a little guy around. In today's America, isn't that happening far too often? Aren't we average Joes getting crapped on daily by corporations who are taking more of our time, money, and even our careers whenever they feel like doing so--with the rules bent squarely in their favor?

Write to the NFL and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or to any NFL team, or to your favorite sportswriter, and tell them that the Bucs need to stop here! Lay off Jake the Snake, Tampa Bay! You bet against the dealer and you lost--AFTER you saw the cards! Don't turn around and blame the cards!

So whether you like Jake Plummer, hate Jake Plummer, or simply dislike David getting the shaft from Goliath, send a letter to:

Tom Carter - Regional Director
NFL Players Association
1133 20th St, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
800-372-2000 ex 119

Bruce Allen - General Manager (and/or Bryan Glazer - Executive VP, and/or Joel Glazer - Executive VP...but don't bother Malcolm)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
One Buccaneer Place
Tampa FL 33607

or to:

Roger Goodell - Commissioner
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE HEADQUARTERS

280 Park Ave., 15th Fl.
New York, NY 10017

Phone: 212-450-2000
Fax: 212-681-7599

Or comment to NFL.com, the NFLPA, or Buccaneers.com (not recommended, most companies could give two shits about their website's comment box.)

and tell them to...

LET PLUMMER BE!!!

The end is near...

The playoffs are near, the Patriots are chasing perfection, Brett Favre is looking to ice his Hall of Fame cake, Michael Vick is practicing his grip on the soap, and the Denver Broncos are making January vacation plans for the second year in a row. It's been a topsy-turvy year for the NFL, and it's been a strange season of ups and downs. Actually, some might say it's been one of the all-time great years for the NFL. Of course, the only people saying this are writers who are paid to make average fans like you and me think stupid thoughts like this. The NFC is 90% irrelevant and the AFC is severely top-heavy. Case in point: there are only two teams west of Texas that don't stink, and only one team east of Pennsylvania that matters in the slightest. This wouldn't be a problem if everything in between was fine, but there's inconsistency across the rest of the board as well.

We here at LetPlummerPlay.com have mixed feelings about the end of the 2007 regular season. On the one hand, we're sad to see the Broncos run out of games. On the other hand, thank God they're not going to be getting brutally embarrassed anymore this year. With the new year upon us, we would like to present our few loyal readers with LetPlummerPlay.com's New Year's Resolutions:

1. We resolve to continue our undying support of that beleaguered specimen, the "Denver Quarterback Who is Forever Shadowed By the Ghost of John Elway." This means we will back our favorite NFL pastry, Pumpkin Pie himself: Jay Cutler. Jay's a solid, impressive passer who bravely plays behind a terrible offensive line for a coach that no longer seems to have any sense of direction or inclination to hire any sort of coaching assistant who could either challenge his authority or his job. Pumpkin Pie will be a tasty quarterbacking treat as long as someone--anyone--can put together a Broncos O-line that can stop a g*ddamn blitz once in a while. Otherwise he'll end up an injured, gun-shy mess...which is only a little worse than being discarded and banished to journeyman status, or being completely hounded out of the city.

2. With that in mind we resolve to continue cheering for the Broncos even as we criticize the hell out of anything we don't like about the team, especially if they are stinking up the joint. You know, like the fans in every other place outside of Fantasyland County, CO.

3. Along those same lines we resolve to give Mike Shanahan one more chance. Actually, we think he should be fired as of several weeks ago, but we know he's going to get another shot because of the now-decade-old glory days. If nothing else, we have a clear goal in 2008: continue to preach the truth about the sorry, sad decline of Denver's beloved "Mastermind."

4. We resolve to neither hate nor fear the New England Patriots. It's just been one of those years. They played in a division full of pansies and only played two teams that turned out to be legitimate contenders. We respect Tom Brady and the Pats for their accomplishments (even if they get bounced in the playoffs) but we also feel that there are several historic teams that could have taken them down...the 1997 Broncos are one of those teams, actually.

5. We resolve to keep an eye on Gary Kubiak. We won't be shifting team loyalties anytime soon, but Gary's doing a promising job down in Houston. Good for him.

6. We resolve to be polite and cordial on Andrew Mason's official Broncos blog. Actually, "LPP" himself abstains from this one. But the rest of us will behave, we swear. Mostly.

7. We resolve to try and be funnier. Some of our jokes and captions have fallen flat. Hey, you try being funny when your favorite team is worse than Helen Keller playing 20 Questions. We don't get paid for this, you know.

8. We resolve to try and find a way to get paid for this. Maybe a new T-Shirt.

9. We resolve to open up our site to other sports items of interest. The Rockies and Nuggets are a start, but to be honest...those aren't unanimous favorites of the entire staff. But we need to kill time between now and training camp with more than Shanahan-bashing and "Where is Jake now?" reports.

10. However, on that note, we resolve--nay, we solemnly declare--that we shall continue to maintain this site in honor of Jake "the Snake" Plummer, our all-time favorite NFL player. Although it is highly improbable, we will continue to cross our fingers that Jake rises again and shows the league what he can do with a real offensive line and more than one target on a team with a defense that shows up for every single game. Sure, Jake's still claiming retirement. Forgive us if we'd like to see, just once more, a team that will pick up a proven vet and...

LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

Happy New Year to all, and best of luck to the 2008 Broncos. If Shanahan is still in charge, they're gonna need it.

¡Feliz cumpleaños!

On December 19th, 1974, Jason Steven Plummer was unleashed upon the world somewhere in Boise, Idaho. We here at LetPlummerPlay.com would like to wish our favorite QB a happy 33rd birthday. Kind of sucks to have a birthday at this time of year. We get the feeling Jake had to put up with a lot of "combo gifts" growing up. But have a happy birthday regardless, Jake, and continue to enjoy retirement--although if you get bored, there's always a needy team out there who might...

LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

Communication Breakdown

It looks like Jake was having a problem at the end of the season last year, but didn't we already know that?

CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE!

The Good Old Days!

From ESPN

By John ClaytonESPN.com(Archive)Updated: October 4, 2007 * Comment * Email *


Where's Jake Plummer when you need him?

During Jake the Snake's QB days in Denver, the rivalry between the Chargers and Broncos was predictable.Plummer would win the games in Denver with his smartsand feet, always making two or three big plays.Meanwhile, coach Mike Shanahan would do a masterful job catching the Chargers' defense off guard with his running attack.

In the rematch in San Diego, the Chargers would keepPlummer in the pocket and pound him. The series usually was a split.Now that Plummer has retired to Idaho, theChargers-Broncos series is unpredictable.

Breaking News: Jake Missing From Madden 08

LET PLUMMER PLAY GAME NIGHT!

It’s that time of the year! Madden 08 came out yesterday and we picked up a copy, hoping against hope Jake “the Snake” Plummer was somehow in the game on the “Free Agents” list. Or at least, maybe the Tampa Bay reserves roster.

Wrong.

EA Sports took Jake’s retirement seriously and completely left him out of the game, which was the SECOND most disappointing thing about Madden 08. The WORST part is that our little web crew and a couple of extra friends have been fiending for MONTHS waiting on Madden so we could put together an online full-season league, with saved stats, records...a simulated NFL from Week 1 to the Super Bowl. Well, EA bamboozled us. Once again, even though the PS3 and 360 are into their second Madden games, and even though these machines are SO much better than the PS2 and XBox, and even though EA is always promising HUGE improvements to Madden every year, there are NO ONLINE LEAGUES IN MADDEN 08!

This, friends, is INEXCUSABLE. One of our favorite games around the web dungeon is SEGA’s NFL 2K5, which came out FOUR YEARS AGO. For twenty dollars brand new, you had a full ESPN presentation with great announcing, beautiful visuals, smooth play, personalized goodies, and a complete online service including fully tracked private leagues for 1 to 30 players. Naturally, EA Sports saw this rising threat and decided to one-up SEGA. Would EA Sports put their noses to the grindstone and make an effort to create a better game; a balls-out Madden that would blow 2K away with all of SEGA’s features cranked up times ten, giving gamers the best football experience of all time?

No. Instead, EA cried like little bitches, scraped all of their money together, and threw it at the NFL. EA got an exclusive license and yanked the rug out from under SEGA completely. To add insult to injury, the Madden series continued its streak of non-excellence, barely improving anything and spending more money on hyping the game than actually assuring it was any good. Four years and a hardware upgrade later, Madden looks pretty, but still plays sluggish (picking plays has actually gotten worse and less intuitive) and is missing that Holy Grail of modern sports game features, a feature that dozens of other games have been getting right for half a decade: no online leagues. That, friends, is INEXCUSABLE.

So while it was fun to run around with current rosters and new uniforms in high-definition, it was not as good as it could have been considering all the self-promotion EA does every year, somehow touting itself as “the best” when in fact its only “the best” because they paid to make competing NFL games IMPOSSIBLE. It’s acceptable because it’s the ONLY OPTION unless you want to illegally modify an older game, but acceptable is not excellent. We can almost forgive the exclusion of Jake Plummer because we can always Create-A-Jake, but the clumsy play selection and NO ONLINE LEAGUES just piss us off. Consider our faces slapped.

We here at LPP are done with Madden until they patch this up with a downloadable update (*a FREE downloadable update you leeches, this is a STUPID MISTAKE TO BE CORRECTED, not a “fun” extra option most gamers didn’t consider necessary) and by that I mean we will not be buying any more Electronic Arts video games at all until we see progress! We were bamboozled by Madden, and once you open a video game, all you can do is exchange it for half of what it’s worth or wait a week and a half on eBay to sell it back, and you might not get your money back there, either. Since we have no other options, we’ll keep this one, but EA Games: you’re on boycott! It’s not really that hard to boycott EA, of course. Most EA Games have sucked lately anyway. The only upcoming game I was waiting on was Half-Life: Orange Box, and frankly, I can live without another first-person shooter since there are about 100 of those out there.

Join us in our protest, game fans! EA Sports has given you the finger, give them one back! WE WANT ONLINE LEAGUES! Buy 2K Sports games, or whatever other options are available, until every EA Sports game has the online leagues that apparently weren’t all that hard to do half a decade ago for SEGA and Microsoft and Sony.

And if it’s not too much trouble, maybe they can do a free agent pool update so we can...

LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

All of this while both Denver and Tampa Bay seek $14,000.00 a day from Jake!

NFL Power Rankings!

BREAKING NEWS: July 25th 2007
NFL POWER RANKINGS

The new NFL Power Rankings are posted at yahoo.com, well power rankings according to Jason Cole and Charles Robinson. Their rankings which put the Denver Broncos at #9 beg the question..."How do you go from being in the playoffs three years in a row, each year going deeper into the playoffs mind you, to not making the playoffs to now being considered the 9th best team in the league?"

YOU GET RID OF JAKE PLUMMER that's how you do it!

It saddens me to think that a team that gave such joy to root for year in and year out, is now just another team amongst many others, and many other better teams at that!

Once again, it seems had we continued to build upon our success from the 05/06 season, where our defense could not hold a lead in the AFC Championship, we would have won a super bowl within the next one or two years. All you can hope for now is that Denver wins another superbowl in Ed Mccaffrey's lifetime! God I miss you Ed! I bet if you laced em' up again, you'd be a better quarterback than that damn kid who couldn't muster up a winning recored at Vanderbilt.

Jake IS Retiring

BREAKING NEWS: July 5th, 2007

IT WAS ALL WORTH IT

LetPlummerPlay.com is proud to inform its loyal readership that, indeed, Jake Plummer has seen this website at least once! We received an email recently from somebody who speaks to Jake on a fairly regular basis (who will remain anonymous because we are polite here at LPP.com--but the source’s identity was more or less easily confirmed.) The source slipped us the confirmation that Jake was indeed amused by our poorly-written but well-meaning antics, and that he definitely appreciates the support. We have to believe that his appreciation is not just for people who run this site, but for ALL of his loyal Plummerinos who have left messages and comments to cheer on their favorite QB.

Unfortunately, this silver lining came attached to a little black cloud. Within the same email, we were informed that Jake is indeed settling into retirement with his wife Kollette (sorry ladies, he’s officially off the market) and does not plan to return to the NFL in the foreseeable future. This means that reports of Jake’s retirement papers going “missing” are either completely untrue or that there’s some sort of contract issue for his representation to address before filing. Well, if Jake should happen across this site again: we do respect your decision sir, but forgive us if we continue to hold on to that little shred of hope that you get the itch to start slinging the pigskin sometime in the next couple of years. We’re only human.

In summation, Jake’s still retired and isn’t planning on coming back. But the site stays up! We’ll find things to write about. You know, smart-ass remarks and all that when the Broncos fail to win the Super Bowl, etc. Perhaps when our little circle of friends starts its Madden 08’ league, one of us can select the Buccaneers (unless Jake’s in the free agent pool) and offer up progress reports on the record-breaking season of Virtual Snake (though if the rest of us face Virtual Snake, he will be crushed...nothing personal, just business.) And he’d better be in there. If he’s paid his NFLPA dues in the last 12 months, there’s no excuse for omitting the Snake while he’s still got some sort of NFL contract.

We’d love to invite Jake to join our Madden 08 league when it comes out in August! Unfortunately, we keep pretty weird schedules and wouldn’t want to piss off the Snake by making him wait a month for his match-up while at any given time, one guy could be in Thailand with his girlfriend, one guy may go visit his brother in Costa Rica, and another one guy could jet off to Ireland with his girl, etc, etc. Besides, Jake seems a bit more outdoorsy than us lazy slobs who worship frozen pizza and high definition televisions. Still, if you ever want to play a quick match with 5 minute quarters against us sometime Jake, just let us know! Just don’t expect mercy! (Well, maybe from LPP.)

In any event, let the battle cry continue to echo through the internet as we await the release of Madden 08 for one last chance to:

LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

Breaking Jake News

BREAKING NEWS: June 21st, 2007

ESPN.com just posted a story about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As we’ve said before (though maybe it was just among ourselves and not on the site) Chris Simms may be a nice guy and a tough guy but he’s no Jeff Garcia. And while we’re on the subject, Jeff Garcia (age 37) is no JAKE PLUMMER. Why is this important? Because apparently coach Jon Gruden is still doing his best to convince THE SNAKE to slither out of his premature retirement and back up Jeff Garcia for the Bucs. We here at LetPlummerPlay.com are all for this and more. “Wait a minute,” you say. “Why would you guys want Jake to simply collect six million dollars for holding a clipboard and patting Garcia on the ass when he comes off the field? Isn’t the whole point of your site based on the idea of LETTING PLUMMER PLAY?”
Damn skippy! That’s why we’re getting excited. Coach Gruden isn’t impressed at all by Chris Simms or the other backups he has waiting to hold the clipboard for Jeff Garcia. Gruden is doing the same thing we’d be doing: trying to get Jake Plummer’s ass on the grass! We here at LPP know one thing about Jake Plummer: the man simply ROCKS. Jeff Garcia isn’t going to do anything in Tampa Bay. TAMPA BAY? You’re kidding right? The guy’s 37 years old and Tampa Bay is not Philadelphia. Philadelphia could give a QB a little protection in the pocket. Tampa Bay’s crappy offensive line left Chris Simms WITHOUT A SPLEEN because they couldn’t protect him. Jeff Garcia won’t be mobile enough to avoid getting creamed regularly. Plus, Philadelphia had Brian Westbrook, one of the most versatile offensive weapons in the league. Tampa Bay has the a lemon named Cadillac Williams, at least for the 5-7 games he plays when he isn’t injured. Plus, Garcia had a reliable receiver in Donte Stallworth in Philly while Tampa Bay has...has...who the hell do they have? Nobody! Jeff Garcia is a decent pocket QB who is not going to have any time at all in the pocket...therefore he stops being decent and becomes a guy with a big “HIT ME” sign on his chest.
With that in mind, who could play out of the pocket...you know, a scrambling QB who could throw on the run when the line crumbled? Hmm...what available QBs could Tampa Bay pick up that can scramble and improvise on the fly...wow, whom could they possibly acquire, maybe someone who’s got experience, but who’s still in good shape and relatively young...is there anyone?
Wait, they have someone ALREADY UNDER CONTRACT: IT’S JAKE, BABY!!! It’s a foregone conclusion that Garcia will either play himself out of the starting job or get pulverized when Brian Urlacher or Shawn Merriman blows by his blocker and puts the imprint of Jeff Garcia’s facemask into the turf.
Snake, if you decide to bite the bullet, take your money, and slap on the headset, then good things will come to those who wait. There’s no shame in a veteran having to wait his turn to shine again just because no one appreciates what he’s capable of doing. Crumple up the retirement form you keep forgetting to mail in, get on down to Tampa Bay, and get ready to BRING IT in about, oh, November or so. You can do it, Jake! We believe in you! Suit up in the crimson and pewter and report to camp so Chucky can...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

P.S. For our take on the Kobe Bryant sitch...check our new site: TradeTheMamba.com

Jake's New Resume

Click On Picture to Enlarge: