Weighing In On 16-0

I'm not really sure why I haven't written anything on the Patriots until now. Maybe it's because it was pointless to debate the "will they/won't they?" question of the team trying to finish the regular season 16-0. While I very much enjoyed watching them accomplish the feat last night, it now heaps an overwhelming amount of pressure on them going into the playoffs. If they don't turn 16-0 into 19-0, how much will 16-0 really have meant?

Looking forward, there are a few teams that very well could come in to Foxboro and leave with a win. Ever since Bill Belichick failed to renew his lease in 2005, he no longer owns Peyton Manning. The Colts also bring a fast, physical, well-coached defense that is a nightmare matchup for anyone, even record-setting offenses (think the Pats 2004 defense versus 49 TD Manning). Besides the Colts as obvious challengers, the Chargers could ride LaDainian and a turnover-happy defense to a victory in the right circumstances, as long as they play about a million times better than they did in getting blown out in Week 2 this year. The Jaguars are another team with a solid running game/defense combination, but their offense may not be strong enough to keep up with New England's.

The other problem, as has been shown in the last few weeks of the regular season, is that a bad weather game is a detriment to this team's historic offense. Laurence Maroney has given them a nice running game the last few weeks in those situations, but that was against the putrid Jets and the abysmal Dolphins, and I don't think the Pats get to play them again in the playoffs. The offense, which is the key to the team's ability to win, becomes exponentially less explosive in the bad weather. All three of the teams listed above may actually be better off than the Patriots in a foul weather game, because they've all got better running games. (Note: I'm a little surprised to see Indy in 16th in the league in rushing, and my head exploded a little bit to see the Patriots in 10th, but still, Addai vs. Aging NE Defense is more likely to succeed than Maroney vs. Fast, Strong IND Defense)

I guess the point of this post is simple enough: all the 'Yahdood' idiots who happen to follow these Patriots had better not be celebrating 16-0 too heavily, because it's anything but a free pass to the Super Bowl. It's been mostly nice so far, but I'm not celebrating until the Lombardi trophy is on stage with Bob Kraft in Arizona.

Julie "The Cat" Gaffney Was Not Available

Apparently, my Anti-Jinxing Label was useless. After watching my two most hated college basketball teams play, and seeing the lesser of two evils prevail, I looked elsewhere on the Interwebs to see how my somewhat favorite, somewhat discarded team, the Boston Bruins, were doing. To my ultimate shock, they had come back from a 4-0 deficit halfway through the second period to tie up their game with the Pittsburgh Penguins! Because Clash of the Shitty Choirs (emphasis mine) was on for two hours in the usual Thursday Night Two Hours Of Awesome Comedy block, I wasn't jumping over to the usual high quality NBC shows.

For all of these reasons, I caught the final two minutes of regulation in tonight's Bruins-Penguins game, as well as the stalemate overtime and the abominable shootout. Tim Thomas looked bad on two goals allowed in the shootout, and Ty Conklin barely needed to do anything to stop the weak efforts of Phil "The Thrill" Kessel and Marco "From The Land Of Chocolate" Sturm. Honestly, in case you didn't see it, Tim Thomas was probably rusty early on, leading to the four Penguin goals, and though he must have played well in the late stages of the game, during the shootout he played about as well as Goldberg through most games in the first two Mighty Ducks movies. For those not "in the know", Goldberg's normal goaltending style against "The Hawks"/"Iceland" was to leave the entire goal wide open, only to dramatically and ineffectively dive across the goal, coming nowhere near the easy put-away goal. Dominik Hasek he was not.

Of course, wunderkind coach Gordon Bombay didn't realize until the end of the second movie how much Goldberg gobbled testicles, but when he finally woke the fuck up, he went to resident Mainer and otherwise useless Julie "The Cat" Gaffney to stop the Icelandic captain (douchebag?) for the win. And do you know what she did? She fucking stopped that Icelandic dickbag. And she was so awesome about it that she rocked the glove save, and she rocked it so hard that no one in the arena even knew she had saved it, until she tossed the puck up from her glove (apparently the referees and the goal judge couldn't tell that the puck wasn't in the net at all) to show that USA was once again the bestest ever. And then they played Queen's "We Are The Champions". Goosebumps aplenty, my friends.

As Team America so aptly put it, "America, FUCK YEAH!!"

I guess I shouldn't complain since the Bruins are still 2nd in the Eastern Conference in points, but their suckitude (spelling?) is slowly growing. Claude Julien has probably made them a playoff team, but not a true Cup contender.

Sidenote: Two Minute For Roping = Comedy

Sidenote 2: The Knucklepuck is the BALLS. Kenan Thompson set the groundwork for his future, earth-shattering role in "Snakes On A Plane" with this effort.

Isiah Thomas = On Crack

=

If you scroll down to item #2 in espn.com's Daily Dime feature today, you will get to read about Isiah Thomas, the overly optimistic coach of the New York Knicks.

"One win-- against a dispirited, disinterested, disjointed opponent-- was all it took for Isiah Thomas to be talking playoffs this weekend."

Ummmm...Coach Thomas? Jim Mora would like a word with you.

"PLAYOFFS?!?! PLAYOFFS?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! PLAYOFFS?!?! WE'RE LUCKY IF WE CAN WIN A GAME!!"

I think Mr. Mora has the right assessment of the MSG debacle known as the Knicks. How can you sit in 14th place in the conference, with possibly the worst roster in the NBA (at least Minnesota has Tremendous Upside Potential), having some of the worst cap flexibility in the NBA, and think you're well on your way? Is he delusional, insane, or just on crack? I'll be keeping an eye on him the next time they play the Celtics to see if I can find any Tyrone Biggums tendencies.

No dice

Shit, that didn't go well. I guess Manchester United has a recent history of winning on Liverpool's home field. I couldn't see the game but reports are that Liverpool played better than the result they got, but none of that matters. Barring a lengthy winning streak in the league, it's probably "Wait Til Next Year" for the Reds' Premier League title hopes. Come on, Carling Cup!!

And now for something you've never seen before!

For the first time in their 32 seasons of NFL existence, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers returned a kickoff for a touchdown. Congratulations to Micheal Spurlock for enduring 30 days of eating only McDonalds for a documentary, then coming back to play in the NFL and being faster than 11 Atlanta Falcons. Wait, is accomplishing anything against the Falcons worthy of celebration this year? The Bucs are now well on their way to winning their division today (by default).

Honestly, I wasn't even sure whether I should post anything about this, but then a Google Image search for their old swashbuckling (gay?) logos turned up, of all things, a website with all kinds of sweet beer steins! Like this one...or perhaps you enjoy this one. On further review, though, the collection of steins here is pretty random, since you can get this 1996 Carolina Panthers NFC West Champions stein. And if you enjoyed (or can somehow remember) former NFL superstar Y.A. Tittle, he's got one too. Is having his own stein the logical next step for Celtics superstar Brian Scalabrine?

Derby County's Record Setting Rams

My sister spent a semester abroad in Derby, England. Unknown to me at the time, they had a professional soccer club at the Championship division level. When she came home last May, and I informed her that a team from Derby was playing for a chance to move up to the Premier League, her response was a confused look, and an equally confused tone. "Derby Rams?!" she asked. She informed me that the team was nothing short of awful when she was living across the pond, but apparently they had improved enough to finish third in the Championship and win the four team playoff to move up to the Premiership and realize, at least, a windfall of the league's massive TV money.

While I'm sure they're enjoying the money, they're likely not enjoying the competition. The current record for fewest points in a Premier League season is 15 (Sunderland, 2005-06). The current record for fewest goals scored in a campaign is 21 (Sunderland, 2002-03). Derby's 6 points and 6 goals at nearly the halfway point of this season give them a chance to break both records. Last week, Derby managed a moral victory by posting their first road goal of the year at Manchester United. That might be quite embarrassing for the Red Devils, even though they won 4-1. This week, they lost to Middlesbrough at home, 1-0, their 13th loss in 17 matches. Yikes. So much for making this my secondary team for this year...back to rooting for Team America behind the Reds.

In other news, the craziest game of the day was Blackburn at Wigan. Wigan jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the 37th minute, gave up an extra time goal for a 3-1 halftime lead, gave up a second goal five minutes into the second half, saw Blackburn go a man down with a red card for Brett Emerton, then saw Blackburn equalize four minutes later with Roque Santa Cruz's hat trick goal. Not to worry for the relegation-endangered Wigan: they took the lead back five minutes later, and put the match away with Marcus Bent's third goal. Despite the win, Wigan remains in the bottom three of the league, but at least now they are closer to escaping relegation.

Driving In A Winter Clusterf--k

So I'm sure just about everyone who worked yesterday has themselves a story about yesterday's snowstorm. So what's the point of re-telling mine here? Basically, I'm bored. I took an early lunch to avoid the start of the snowstorm, which ended up not being early enough, as the snow began when I started driving back to the office, and had already accumulated almost half an inch before I reached my destination. I got back to work at around noon to receive word that we were being released at 2:00. Which was nice, except that 2:00 was about two hours too late.

I shouldn't complain because I've already heard worse stories than mine. Basically, my twenty minute commute became an hour and twenty minutes because I'm a moron and got on the highway, and because people who got stuck spinning tires in front of me were difficult to pass, as I remained convinced they were going to break free and fishtail into ten different cars at any moment. Add in fun extras like not catching sight of a plow truck until I got to my own road (the final 0.2 miles of the drive) and it killed off any enjoyment from a shortened work day.

Why is it that towns and the state are always so woefully prepared for the first significant storm of the year? (Also, how come I can't get no Tang 'round here??) Sure, the storm hit very fast, but from all accounts I've heard there wasn't a single major road that was in decent condition after 1:00 PM. This shit wouldn't stand if Mr. Plow was in town. Here's my major problem, though: because they got so far behind on the roads, the storm was still newsworthy late last night, because of some reports that Providence children were still stuck on buses at 9:00 PM and later. Why was this a problem? Last night was the last new episode of "30 Rock" (the funniest show on TV right now) until the Hollywood writers union resolves their current strike (Skinner said the teachers will crack any minute purple monkey dishwasher!), and we missed the first seven minutes because NBC 10 just had to cut in and discuss the road conditions. I'm betting I missed a sweet flashback to a previous LudaChristmas! Damn kids with their rap musics, and their skateboarding on the sidewalks, and their getting stuck on a bus all day and night.

The Biggest Loser From The Mitchell Report

I posed this question to Red Sox/Yankee fans over the office e-mail group today, but who else thinks it's a lock that Clemens is the first player to go into the Hall of Fame with '$$$' on his hat? If I had any Photoshop skill(z), I'd have replaced that repulsive Yankee logo with a much more appropriate hat for The Mercenary.

Because it had to be done...

Thanks to the link at LOLJocks for the ROFLBot tool.

Glen Davis Is A Large Infant

The image at right is Glen "Big Baby" Davis playing in the preseason between LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden (before Oden's old man knees gave out on him). Davis stepped into a starting role for Kendrick Perkins (bed attack) and had 16 points and 9 rebounds in yet another Celtics win, which improved the NBA's top team to 18-2 (!!!) overall.

I think the most surprising part about the Infant's stat line was that, despite being a rookie with a 6'9", 290-ish pound frame, he had no trouble knocking down 10 of 10 free throws. And while the obvious catalyst for the win was, as always, superstar Brian Scalabrine (2 points, 1 steal), Glen Davis gets some kudos too. Hey, we can't all be red-headed basketballing wunderkinds.

Wait: So, if Perk is a beast, what does that make Glen Davis? Yeti? Chupacabra? Nessie?

Next up for the Celtics: Chairman Yi and the Bucks, Friday night at home.

Nothing Has To Give!!

I haven't had enough (any) Celtics commentary yet, because they have finally had a necessary 3 day break, but I just caught a quick glance at the home/road splits for the Celtics and Kings going into tonight's game:

Celtics at home: 10-0
Kings on the road: 0-8

The obvious problem for the Kings... they need



MORE COWBELL BABY!

It's times like these, when I reminisce about great sketch comedy, that I wish Saturday Night Live was still on the air.

What, it's still on? Awesome!! I should check that out!

**Checks out random compilation of sketches from last three years, enjoys "Dick In A Box" and "Lazy Sunday", sets self on fire after the next ten minutes to ease the pain**

Hooray!........Oh S--t

Liverpool's do-or-die match at Marseille in the Champions League couldn't have gone better. Gerrard collected the remains of his briefly saved fourth-minute penalty, Fernando Torres continued to be worth every pound, and Kuyt and Babel piled on in the second half to send the French side to the UEFA Cup and themselves forward to the final 16 of the Champions League.

Upon further review, the news is not all great. FC Porto predictably eliminated Turkish side Besiktas with a win, and also took first in the group. The draw for the next round is not free-for-all, and although they match each first place team with a second place team, they will not match two teams that just tangled in the group stage, so of the eight teams the Reds could see in February, Porto is out. Despite that four groups are not finished until tomorrow, three of those groups have first place teams whose place cannot be usurped. The other stipulation about the first knockout round is that clubs from the same nation cannot face one another until the quarterfinals, so Chelsea and Manchester United are out as well. With Arsenal second in their group going into tomorrow, there are five teams left that Liverpool could face in the next stage, but if Arsenal can win their group tomorrow, FC Sevilla comes off the board. The other four possible opponents are a true punishment for not triumphing in the group they were seeded first in:

--> Barcelona
--> Real Madrid
--> Inter Milan
--> AC Milan (nightmare fuel)

Yikes. I guess you can't expect to play the Stuttgart's and Dynamo Kiev's of the world all the way to the final, but that's going to be a hell of a potential road just to get to the quarterfinals.

But I guess I should be thankful they made it through and worry about the next hurdle when they get to it....

WHAAA???

As of the morning of Tuesday, December 11, the Boston effing Bruins have the second best record in the Eastern Conference. How the shit did that happen??


Welp, last night the Bruins managed a 4-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres in which they were outshot 45-21. That vaulted them to just four points behind the division-leading Senators. 44 saves from Boston newbie goaltender Alex Auld (!!!) led the way, and goals came from Savard (he actually took a shot!), PJ Axelsson, Peter Schaefer and Glen Metropolit (weren't those last two guys career fourth-liners before this year, at best?!?) provided the scoring punch I was convinced this team didn't have.


I haven't watched much of the last few games, mostly because I know my brother doesn't want to be subjected to them. Of course, the Hollywood writers strike means the end of regular, quality television for a while (and the return of a true classic!!), and that may mean that the Bruins are worth watching, as long as the Celtics aren't on simultaneously. Of course, there's still the chance that the Bruins will manage 16 losses against the combined forces of Ottawa (talented) and Montreal (not so much), so this has a good chance of not lasting very long. Hopefully an anti-jinxing label on this post will do the trick. That or my continued ignorance of their games. The next one I turn on is certain to end in a 6-1 loss.

Isiah Thomas > George Costanza

Isiah Thomas just can't get himself fired. Perhaps he should go get a Willis Reed jersey and eat some blueberry pie, or drag their 1970 NBA Title trophy behind his car in the parking lot. I think Zeke is crazy enough to run the Body Suit Man ploy sans body suit. Shield your eyes at MSG, Knicks fans.

And now for the part where I pretend I know anything about soccer...

After a disappointing loss to Reading yesterday, I was starting to think Liverpool was close to done in the Premier League title chase. Once the Goddamn Gunners took care of business against Boro today, as they have done without fail this year, Gerrard and company would be ten points back, rendering their "game in hand" less useful.

Perhaps I shouldn't transfer my pre-2004 Red Sox paranoia to the Reds. Middlesbrough, thanks for an effort I certainly didn't see coming. Common perception in England is that there are four big teams, and then everyone else. Obviously, I've chosen to throw my support behind Liverpool, but I respect Manchester United (because of Wayne Rooney, in spite of Cristiano Ronaldo), and I'm indifferent to Chelsea. When it comes to Arsenal, though, it was only halfway into my first season following the Premier League when I found cause to despise the Gunners. Bouncing my newfound team from two cup competitions in four days, and in embarrassing fashion, will do that. (They still don't rank near AC Milan, though...Inzaghi...urge to kill...rising...rising...)

So Liverpool are still miraculously 7 points back, and facing a huge two weeks ahead with an essential survival match at Marseille in Champions League, followed by a home tie with Manchester United (which precedes the equally ginormous Chelsea/Arsenal match the same day), followed by a League Cup quarterfinal at Stamford Bridge (I know, I know, I'm the only one who bothers caring about the League Cup, including the clubs and players competing for it), followed by a visit from Portsmouth, the most likely challenger at the moment to the Reds' Top 4 status this year. Hopefully this weekend's stay of execution wasn't just delaying the inevitable.

And, for my friend over at I Got Words!, congrats!! Tottenham held a late lead!
Looks like things are finally starting to look up for Spurs.

Another ESPN hater!

One thing the sports blogosphere didn't need more of was ESPN haters. Apologies. The Worldwide Leader (in opinion-mongering) used to be must-see TV. Much more so than "Friends". Fuck that show. Doggy-style. Sportscenter with Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman, or with Kenny Mayne and a rotting corpse, used to be informative and entertaining. It used to be about sports news. It was essential to being a sports junkie. Now, it's glorified sports talk radio. It makes me want to vomit, and not just because of their awesome and soon-to-be-overhyped Saints-Falcons MNF game.

Of course, I also have a specific gripe with ESPN that I share with about 10 Americans and any Canadians watching tWWL: Since they've quit airing the NHL (my first sports love, thanks to the Ray Bourque/Cam Neely era), it's been treated as though the league folded. Whether this is because they're no longer promoting it for their own ratings, or whether the league's banishment to Versus means it doesn't generate enough buzz for them to deign to acknowledge, no one knows, but it still pisses me off.

The whole problem with the network now is that they are so far up their own ass with vapid talking (yelling) heads and pointless debate topics (Who's Now? When's Up? Where's Waldo?). Pardon The Interruption may have been the impetus for it all. When it started out, it was a nice little show to watch, mostly because Wilbon and Kornheiser are good writers and are able to speak effectively (Emmitt Smith=not so much). Then ESPN made the mistake that so many other networks do:

Executive Windbag 1: Wow, America is really eating up "CSI"!
Executive Windbag 2: If only we had a show like that, I'm sure we'd get those ratings!
Executive Windbag 1: Well, we should take a look at some new pilot ideas for the fall season.
**Five minutes of 'thinking' ensues**
Executive Windbag 2: My head hurts. Why don't we just make a show like CSI, and call it something else!!
Executive Windbag 1: Great idea!! Creativity is overrated anyways.

(Disclaimer: If NBC picks up my pilot for "Law & Order: Meter Maids", I will forgive Executive Windbags 1 and 2).

So ESPN did what any untrained monkey would do and created Around The Horn, which is an assortment of cartoon characters with their volume stuck on 11. They gave famed douche-nozzle Jim Rome another show. Jim Rome is burning, so the rumors about him and Paris Hilton are probably true. And if he's been burning this long, and he hasn't gotten himself checked out, he gets no sympathy from me. Just man up and go to the clinic already. Then this virus spread to Sportscenter, and suddenly we've got analysts where the highlight packages used to be.

The problem is that ESPN stopped being a sports news network and became a sports issues network. Their own reasoning behind putting Tony Kornheiser in the Monday Night booth, then removing Joe Theismann from it (not complaining about that move) was that they wanted the show to revolve around issues instead of the game. As a result, I no longer know where to go for sports news and, more specifically, highlights. It just seems nowadays that the network has decided that it's all about them, and not about the sports anymore, and all I can say is: Fuck the heck! (Have the guys at Fire Joe Morgan trademarked that one yet?)

Solutions to the problem:
1) More Kenny Mayne on Sportscenter. 24/7 if possible.
2) Pair Kenny with Scott Van Pelt.
3) Eliminate Screamin' A Smith and Sean Salisbury so they have less people to discuss (yell) and analyze (misinterpret) every major story to death.
4) Eliminate self-serving, non-news "discussion" pieces like 'Who's Now?'.

I'm sure there's a lot more they could do to fix their intolerable Sportscenter and other broadcasts, that's just the immediate, obvious things they should be doing. I guess I'll close this post by linking to my new favorite blogosphere dig at tWWL: Deadspin's skewering of espn.com's Featured Comments. Deadspin commenters, you are the REAL heroes.