Monday, November 5, 2007

7 Things on Novemer 5th

I'll admit, I'm not even sure that I have 7 things to note after this weekend. I'm just winging it here. So if I through in a Peter Kingesque "Tony Romo leads the league in smiles" please don't hold it against me. OK, you should flame me if I put something like that in.

1 - Purple Jesus (Christ he's good)

296 yards, against the Chargers D, when you aren't even listed as the starter... Jumpin Jesus on a Pogo Stick.

Adrian Peterson could take the rest of the year off and still get the Rookie of the Year award. In fact, I'm calling on Childress to give AP the rest of the year off, even if it is going to screw one of my fantasy teams. The Vikings aren't going anywhere this year. Even if they somehow get past Green Bay and Detroit in the standings, does anyone think that they are going to get past the 1st round of the playoffs with the excrement they have at QB?

So Childress, find some minuscule injury to over blow and put Peterson on IR. Not having Peterson available might save your job and give you a chance to find a real QB for next season. Then unleash Peterson against the rest of the league with a complimentary passing attack next year. (This has nothing to do with my desire not to have the Raiders give up 400 yards rushing to Peterson when they meet later this year...nope nothing to do with that.)

On a side note, how far has the Chargers coaching staff fallen in 1 year. Not stacking the box against Peterson was one of the most ridiculous coaching displays I've seen. Norvell and the boys couldn't out coach a box of Cheetos.

2 - I promised a plug if the service was good

I wrote about dropping my home computer last week and mentioned that the guy at the Apple store said to send the computer to some shady Internet based site to have it fixed fast and cheap. So I did, and they came through fixing it fast and cheap.

The site is:

http://www.techrestore.com

sent out the computer Tuesday night and had it back Thursday night. Brand new screen, they even cleaned the damn thing, looks like new. Now if there is some hidden problem I don't know about I'll be damning them here, but for now they get my praise.

If you drop your laptop and don't feel like paying full price to get it fixed try them out.

3 - Cramming 108,000 in a stadium meant to fit 78,000 sucks

So I made the trip to Penn St. for the HUGE match up with Purdue, where both teams attempted to not be the most disappointing team on the field. For a game full of mistakes and poor play calling, it wasn't that bad. Hell it would have been enjoyable if not for 1 thing.

The 4 tickets that we had, entitled us to as much space as the top of my desk. I am now convinced that the "renovations" that Penn St. made to increase their seating capacity entailed scraping the numbers off of the bench seats and painting them back on 6" closer to each other.

Thanks to the 1 lane road leading to Penn St. and the parking that we found being 1 mile from the stadium according to our GPS, we walked into the stadium just after the opening kickoff. When we found our row, I was sure that someone was sitting in 2 of our seats. But I was wrong, that was just how little room they left us.

So I spent the entire game so close to the guy next to me that I'm thinking of getting checked for STD's, with my knee in the back of some poor slob in front of me and with a knee jambed into my back.

Thank god my buddy and I brought our wives and not some friends who were bigger than 5-2, 110lbs. (I will not print my wife's actual height and weight for fear she actually reads this far into an article about football, I don't feel like being killed in my sleep.)

As for the much hyped Penn St. home field advantage, you could have heard a pin drop for most of the game. The student section got loud at times, but the rest of the stadium was to cramped up to take in a large enough breath to yell.

Well except for the old man two seats down for me, who seemed to feel that Joe Pa was looking for his input on every offensive down. The shit that was coming out of this guys mouth had me laughing half the game. His call to throw the ball as Penn St. was trying to run the clock at the end of the game was classic.

Joe Pa may not be what he once was, but he has still forgotten more about football than that clown will ever know. I would have let him know that, but I didn't have enough room to turn towards him, and I was too close to the guy in front of me to yell without blowing out his eardrum.

4 - Screw the BCS, let me set the match ups

Since I write a blog I obviously feel that I know more than anyone else, just like any other blogger. The difference being that I'm right.

So I think that I should be the one to set the BCS match ups. Because otherwise we are going to end up with the same old shit that we seam to get every year.

So with me in charge, who do we get to see in the Championship game.

LSU vs. Oregon

LSU let 'Bama stay in it longer than they should have Saturday, but in the end showed once again that they are the best overall team in the nation. I don't see anyone giving them a game after they have 3+ weeks to heal up leading to the title game. So instead of pitting them against what appears to be the 2nd best team (wake me when Ohio St. beats a good team) let the Ducks play for the title.

Oregon has the best offense going right now. This should at least keep them in the game well into the 3rd quarter. Where as the Ohio St. offense blows and the game will be a repeat of last years against Florida.

So screw the rankings, and lets set the match ups based on providing me the most entertainment.

(Oh and just so you know, If I'm setting the match ups, ND will get a New Years day game... against Michigan. Since this is for my entertainment I'd like to see Michigan actually win a bowl game.)

5 - The NHL network rocks

With absolutely no fanfare or publicity, (just like the start of the new season) the NHL has launched a network here in the states. I have been informed that this network has been around at least one year in Canada, but its new to me.

Hockey is easily my 2nd favorite sport, but I hate the fact that I have to remember where .VS is on direcTV to find a damn game. And even then who the hell knows when a game will actually be on. So I was just looking for something to watch the other night and chanced upon the NHL network.

It was some program called "on the fly" or something equally forgettable. But the program was great. Live in game coverage with highlights from other game spliced in. I left this on for a good hour. Thing cut around quickly enough not to test my attention span. I feel like I actually know what is going on in the NHL for the 1st time since I left college and had time to keep up. (Lets face is ESPN and SI would rather cover a rock paper scissor contest than an NHL game).

As soon as football season is over, the NHL Network will be on my TV almost full time. At least until we get close to the NFL draft.

6 - Another week, another Raider loss

I admit, I cheated on the Raiders this weekend. I Tivo'ed the Raider game and went over to a friends place with the wife to watch the Pats/Colts and have dinner. I managed to avoid the Raiders score except for during half-time so that I only knew that Jano would miss his kick when I watched the game when I got home.

Well TiVo missed the first 7 minutes of the game since I set it to record the HD feed, and the early game went into OT. That, plus my 30 second skip button let me watch the whole game in less than 1 hour.

My quick impressions:

It may have cost the Raiders 3 points, but going for the 64 yard field goal made sense to me. If Jano had made that field goal it would have given the Raiders their first positive in weeks to build on (Hell the crowd went crazy even with the miss). Instead, Jano was Jano and hit the goal post, and the Raiders continued trudging toward a top 5 pick. (I need someone to calculate the odds that Jano could hit the goal post 1 out of every 5 attempts. He has to have set an NFL record for goal posts hit by now.)

McCown, Culpepper, Jeff George... it doesn't matter. The Raiders receivers can't get separation quickly, the line can't block for more than 3 seconds. Nothing is going to change until the blocking improves and the WR's are upgraded. I have been dead set against playing JRuss this year since he missed camp. But I think we are quickly nearing the time to let him get in and get exposed to NFL game speed.

I could just repeat what I've said time and time again about the D. Only the announcer's give Sapp any repect anymore Check out this article by Michael David Smith over at footballoutsiders to read someone elses take on what I told you here about Sapp. Add in the LB's overpursuit and the secondary is left out to dry on the run game way too often.

The fact that I'm having trouble finding anything to write about the Raiders which doesn't involve how to patch up hole via FA and the draft tells me how sad this season has become.

7 - The NFL officiating is shady

I'm a Raiders fan so I have a problem with NFL officiating by default. Sunday's game between the Colts and Pats showed me once again that the NFL official have predetermined notions of what to call before the game. In the 1st half the officials made numerous questionable calls in the Colts favor, which served to ensure that the "Game of the Century" was no blowout.

Moss can be called for Offensive PI on almost any play, well except for the play for which he was flagged. The catch on the sidelines that was overturned by replay wasn't even close.

But before you let Pats fans get away with crowing about how they got pass the Colts despite the Officials bias, look at the 4th quarter. The officials made numerous calls in the Pats favor to allow the comeback. Perhaps a "my bad" for the 1st half. There was a ridiculous Defensive PI call late in the game setting up a Patriots TD.

Unfortunately this isn't going to change anytime soon. Its been going on too long, and the NFL is too successful for them to try an remedy the situation. So we can all look forward to bad calls influencing the outcome of the game. It sucks, but football fans are going to be left to just deal with it. To the rest of you, I say welcome to the hell Raiders fans have been dealing with for years.

The Pats are on a bye this week, so no one is getting the best bet to end Brady's season this week. Maybe he can catch the clap or something, or maybe he runs into the '72 Dolphins this week. Who know, but I'm done with 7 things, so anything else here and you will need to pay me overtime.

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