D's Notebook

Tag: NFL (Page 6 of 10)

Weekend Notes

October 12, 2020 /

We’ve hit that moment in fall that is both lovely and sad: the last burst of really warm, humid weather before things change. We are scheduled to have the pool closed on Wednesday, so last weekend was our final chance to swim. Friday I cranked the heater up to be sure the water was tolerable. That took the chill off but we may not have needed it Saturday as the temperature burst into the 80s. A couple of the nephews came over and enjoyed our last day in the pool with us.

Today the sky is darkening and the air is thick with humidity, feeling more like June than October. We may get a few sprinkles later, but not enough to break the drought we are mired in. It has been nearly two whole months since we got more than 0.10” of rain in a 24 hour period. Last week I had to bleach and flush out our sump pit because it had gotten so smelly from the lack of water.

The drought has caused trees to change colors rapidly and begin losing their leaves a little earlier than normal.

It looks like we will have a few more warm days before a bigger cold front comes through late this week and gives us more fall-like temperatures for the foreseeable future. In the era of global warning, you never know how many bursts of warm weather are left. Probably more than we expect. But these moments of transition always strike something deep inside my DNA that no doubt goes back hundreds/thousands of years ago when these changes meant finding shelter and stocking up on food to get through the cold months.

Besides swimming, it was a fairly boring weekend. M went to a watch party Friday for the CHS game at a friend’s house. (They won and are 8–0 going into the big season-ending clash with the #1 class 6A team.) C had a birthday party and sleepover at a friend’s. L was stuck at home with us.

It was certainly strange having the NBA Finals, the MLB league championship series, and the NFL regular season all on the same day Sunday.

The Colts lost a thoroughly winnable game in Cleveland, and the blame falls firmly on Philip Rivers. He’s taking some heat in the normally docile Indy sports media today. The gist of the argument against him is that he’s not performing that much better than Jacoby Brissett did last year, and he’s being paid a lot more than Brissett was. There was hope that putting him behind a stout offensive line could improve his passing stats. Losing his starting running back and three key receivers doesn’t help, to be 100% fair. But he also seems to making a lot of poor decisions. The defense has been great. Jonathan Taylor looks like a terrific draft pick. TY Hilton appears to be healthy. Quarterback is the only real weak link, at least thus far.

At least he didn’t snap his ankle like a pretzel. Very glad the Colts game was on at the same time as the Giants-Cowboys game so I could miss seeing Dak Prescott’s injury.

By the time I switched over to the NBA game, the Lakers were already up by 20. I didn’t think the Heat had one last run in them so pretty much avoided the game, other than a couple brief peeks to check the score.

Quite a run by the Heat. Had they been healthy maybe they could have stretched the Lakers out another game or even stole the series. They have to feel great about their playoffs despite the ending. I don’t think anyone outside Miami expected them to rip through the Eastern Conference and come within two games of a title.

As for the Lakers, this feels less like a triumph than an inevitable result. When the Clippers and Sixers proved too fragile in constitution and the Bucks too banged up, no one was really going to pose a serious threat to LeBron, AD, and their crew.

Their win kickstarts the “Is LeBron better than Michael?” debate again. I don’t think it changes my mind. They are still 1A and 1B, and lean toward MJ because of generational bias. But it gets harder and harder to separate the two. That said, the differences in the league during their two careers is what makes the comparison so difficult. The NBA is nothing now like it was in Michael’s career. So not only are they two very different players, but they also played in entirely different circumstances. Finally, I don’t think it is ever fair to judge a player who is still on the court against someone who has been retired, at least in terms of deciding who is the greatest ever. If LeBron ever retires, that’s when I will finally force myself to settle the question in my mind.

I’ve been a sporadic watcher of the baseball playoffs, some nights locked in, some nights not watching a minute. I watched a pretty good chunk of last night’s Houston-Tampa game. It was a classically tense playoff affair. I don’t know if it is the lack of fans, my general disinterest in baseball over the summer, or something else, but I’ve been finding baseball tedious over the past few weeks. I just can’t lock into all that playoff tension right now. I wonder if is the lack of a crowd is the biggest factor. There are no shots of people losing their shit because of nerves between every pitch.

Or maybe it’s just me getting old. I don’t think I could be as locked in if the Royals were in the playoffs as I was in 2014 and 2015. I was a mess those two Octobers. Not sure I what my mental state would be if I had to go through living and dying with every pitch again.

2020 NFL Predictions

September 10, 2020 /

Over the weekend I dug into the blog archives a little bit. I would pull up a random month from the past and scroll through the entries, skimming any that jumped out at me. I had thought a good quarantine project would be to re-read through the entire history of the site, but I never got around to that. Maybe that can be a winter project.

As I went through Septembers of the past, I realized to keep with precedent, I should throw together some NFL predictions for the upcoming season. Who knows how long the season will last and what it will look like as it progresses. And we all know who is going to win the hypothetical Super Bowl, baring an injury to one particular player. So maybe this is a waste of time and space. But seems like I should post something to keep up with history.

These are always half-assed, as I loathe the NFL offseason and all the hype that comes with it. This was an especially odd off-season, though, so I anticipate even more “I didn’t know that guy was on that team!” moments in the first month of the year than usual. Which makes these even more half-assed. And that seems appropriate for 2020!

AFC East

New England. Yeah, yeah, I know. But seriously, you trust Buffalo over Belichick? Come on. I also happen to think Cam Newton is going to do just fine and Josh McDaniels will embrace the options Cam offers that Tom Brady didn’t. The Pats might only be 9–7, but I can’t believe the Bills will win 10 games.

AFC North

Baltimore. I’m not sure I believe all the hype on Lamar Jackson. He’s definitely an amazing player. But I wonder if everything he did last year is repeatable. Or at least repeatable at the same level, or higher, that he did in 2019. Even if he’s only 75% of last year, that still means the Ravens are the best team in the division.

AFC South

Phillip Fucking Rivers. I hate that guy. And I hate that the Colts signed him. One of my brothers-in-law has been sending me pictures of Rivers all summer saying, “This is your quarterback.” My response is always, “Fuck that guy.” Houston really should be the favorite here. But since Bill O’Brien seems intent on crippling Deshaun Watson, I will say Indianapolis, provided that fucker Rivers stays healthy.

(Seriously, we should be in the midst of a glorious run where Patrick Mahomes, Andrew Luck, and Watson are battling each other every year. Luck is gone and Watson is never going to have all the weapons he needs. I feel cheated, and not just because Luck was a Colt. That was good football watching for a decade or more that will fall short of its potential.)

AFC West

Kind of weird that as soon as the Tom Brady era ends, the Patrick Mahomes era begins. You can just pencil in Kansas City as long as he remains upright. Concerns about the defense? Sure. But how many teams are going to be able to go toe-to-toe with the Chiefs offense for 60 minutes?

AFC Wild Cards

Pittsburgh, Cleveland

NFC East

Philadelphia. Like most of the NFC, I don’t love a team in this division. The Cowboys have a higher ceiling, but I trust the Eagles to play closer to their ceiling more than I do Dallas.

NFC North

Green Bay. Is Aaron Rodgers still Aaron Rodgers? Is the chip on his shoulder getting bigger the deeper he gets into his career without another Super Bowl? Will Minnesota have a few key injuries that destroy their hopes for a division title? Yes to all.

NFC South

New Orleans. One last go-around for Brees and Payton?

NFC West

Seattle. Not a sexy pick, but they are reliable and I feel like the 49ers will fall back some this year.

NFC Wild Cards

San Francisco, Minnesota

Playoffs

New England over Cleveland
Baltimore over Pittsburgh

New England over Indianapolis
Kansas City over Baltimore

Kansas City over New England

Green Bay over Minnesota
Philadelphia over San Francisco

Seattle over Philadelphia
New Orleans over Green Bay

New Orleans over Seattle

Super Bowl

Get extra bulbs for the scoreboard in Tampa, because the Chiefs and Saints are going to light it up.

Kansas City 45, New Orleans 42

Take these to your favorite betting app and lock that shit in!

Super Sunday and Monday

February 4, 2020 /

What a couple of days! We had back-to-back record high temperatures here in Indy. Sunday was the overtly nicer of the two: the sun was out and it felt like spring. Monday was actually four or five degrees warmer, but other than a quick peak of sun mid-morning, it was a very cloudy day and didn’t seem as warm as it actually was. Alas, in the hour since I dropped the girls at school we’ve dropped from 60 to 45 with another 10 or so degrees expected to bleed away by late afternoon.

Sunday we did some work around and outside the house.

But Monday was wide open so I got out and played golf for the first time since mid-November. I figured the course would fill up quickly so I got over as soon as I could after M’s late start. I teed off right around 9:20 with only a couple people in front of me. It was still cool, in the low 40s, but I didn’t need a hat or a glove on my bare hand. Getting there early was a wise choice. By the time I stepped to the fourth tee, which runs back toward the clubhouse, there were already several foursomes stacked up.

So, how’d I play? Not bad considering I didn’t warm up and played the first three holes way too fast to get some space between the guys who teed off shortly after me. I hit two off the first tee that were absolute garbage. But by the third tee I had loosened up and spent most of the day hitting the driver fairly straight. Same on the greens: after a slow start I had five one-putt holes, including three in a row on the back nine.

The issue yesterday was my irons. I hit a handful of decent shots but spent most of the day either spraying them or making horrible contact. Granted, the turf was in rough shape, as you would expect this time of year. Still, I was disappointed with my consistency there. My approach game was actually pretty solid, so it was all the second/third shots that were killing me.

I shot 44 on the front, 43 on the back, for my second 87. As seems to always happen on this course, I killed myself on one of the last two holes. On 17 I hit my second shot into the little creek that is about 40 yards short of the green. After the drop and penalty shot, I put myself in a really tough spot on the most difficult green on the course and four-putted to card an 8. Blech. I guess under the new handicapping rules I could have stopped counting at 6, but I figured I wasn’t in a match, no one was pushing me from the tee, and I legitimately made a mess of the hole: I deserved an 8 so I was recording an 8.

Still, not bad for a cool day in February when I hadn’t played in over three months. The round also allowed me to start thinking of concrete goals for this year. I think the biggest one is clear: get consistent with irons. If I can learn how to both stay closer to my target and get a better idea of how far I will hit them, I can see myself getting close to 80 on a regular basis.

OK, enough of that. On to the Super Bowl.

That was a damn fine game. I’m very happy for all my Kansas City friends. Several people asked me, “So I know you’re not a Chiefs fan, but are you pulling for them anyway?” My answer was always, “No.” I’m not that dude.

But neither was I pulling hard for the 49ers. I was leaning their way ever-so-slightly, but mostly I was looking for an entertaining game.[1] Which we certainly got.

I thought going in that the Chiefs were just too difficult to contain and no matter how good the Niners defense was, eventually they would crack. Plus I couldn’t see the SF offense putting enough points up to give their defense enough of a cushion to work with.

Hey, that’s pretty much exactly what happened! Not bad for a guy who doesn’t watch much of the NFL anymore!

Since someone always has to be the goat, there’s been plenty of hate aimed toward Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy Garappolo. I don’t see anything egregious either did to cause the loss, though. I tend to fall into the camp of thinking it kind of remarkable that the Niners came so close to winning a Super Bowl with a QB as limited as Garappolo. He can get the ball downfield, but still he’s just a slightly upgraded Alex Smith. A good enough NFL quarterback, but not one who is going to be a game changer.

And the big problem for San Fransisco, of course, was that on the other sideline was the biggest game changer in the game. Unless you get to the point where the Chiefs needed to recover multiple onside kicks to have a chance, the game was never really over. I figured the Chiefs would still win until that math came into effect, no matter how far down they were.

So, again, pleased for all my friends and family back in KC who are still celebrating. But not happy for the team itself not finding any personal joy in their win.

I have had conversations with several Big 12 basketball fans about how college basketball referees are calling the game this year. To sum it up: I really don’t know what a foul is anymore. I see defenders reach out and grab offensive players as they drive, or body them up and knock them off their path, yet no foul is called. I thought there was that big move a couple years back to reestablish the offense’s right to freedom of movement but in game-after-game I see the defense doing things that would be a foul in just about every other level of basketball go uncalled.

I mention that because it sure seems like NFL refs have eased up in their protection of the quarterbacks. I saw Patrick Mahomes get hit in the helmet or face mask at least three times, never with a call. On their final possession when they still had the lead, Garappolo suffered an obvious helmet-to-helmet hit that left him noticeably dazed, again no call.

The whole protecting the quarterback thing is tough. It’s hard to find the right point between giving the most expensive player on the field some aid and still keeping it tackle football. The ebb-and-flow between those concerns changes every season.

I thought it was strange that we seemed to revert to rules from several years ago just in time for the Super Bowl.

Commercials? The Bill Murray Jeep one was clearly the best. I was a fan of the Hyundai Smart Park ad, but apparently not everyone agreed. I guess not everyone loves a good, over-the-top Boston accent. The Google ad that made people cry annoyed me. Disappointed Chris Rock is shilling for Facebook. Not surprised that Sylvester Stallone is doing the same. The whole Mr. Peanut thing is dumb and was painfully predictable.

I didn’t watch the halftime show. I hear some folks were offended that there was some ass shaking. Shocking.

Feels like there needs to be a big push to get Pearl Jam or Foo Fighters on stage soon. But with dancers and stripper poles so people can still fan themselves and claim to be horrified they were forced to watch.

  1. I could have really confused people by saying, “I’m a big Niners fan. I lived out there for 11 months when I was in high school.” In fact, I’m disappointed I didn’t say that even though I’m not a Niners fan at all.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 20, 2020 /

It’s probably a good thing today is a holiday and most of my Kansas City friends are probably just now going to bed after celebrating the Chiefs’ AFC title overnight. I say that because I didn’t see much of either game yesterday, so I don’t have a ton to say.

I saw a decent chunk of the first half of the AFC game, although I was distracted during much of it. Still, I saw enough that when I lost control of the TV at halftime I didn’t sweat missing some epic finish.

Whilst I have not conveniently found some latent love for my hometown team, I am happy for all my friends who are long-suffering Chiefs fans. I enjoyed the Royals World Series runs with most of those friends. I’m sure KC is going to be a ton of fun for the next couple weeks.

I was even more distracted during the NFC game, but still saw long stretches of the first half before I again lost control of the TV. I don’t know that there is a defense that can slow down Patrick Mahomes when he’s healthy. But San Francisco could at least make it interesting for awhile. Despite the Chiefs’ first quarter defensive struggles the past two weeks, it’s hard to see the SF offense doing enough to make it a game. The Niners performance the past two weeks has a flukey feel to it, and came against two defenses that aren’t as good as the Chiefs.

In other words, despite having a limited view of yesterday’s games, I don’t see the Super Bowl result being in doubt. Or the score being terribly close.

L was happy that the Chiefs won, although as is her typical nature, she refused to watch any of the game. She’d much rather be playing on the XBox, on her iPad, or outside than watching any sport.

Bigger for her, though, was that we went out yesterday and bought a basketball goal. Today we are having some concrete poured to make two additional parking spaces. This is primarily for teenage drivers and their guests to park without blocking cars that are in the garage. A nice benefit for L is that this gives us space to put a hoop in. I had done my research online so the actual shopping part of our visit to the showroom was pretty brief. After I made the purchase we hung out and played two games of HORSE and she bounced on the trampolines for awhile. We were the only customers, it was a bitterly cold day, so it made for a nice way to waste an hour.

I was disappointed I couldn’t get a trick shot I tried roughly 20 times to work. Standing under a 9-foot goal I shot over a 10-foot rim, over a 9-foot rim, then attempted to bounce the ball off an 8-foot basket into a 7-foot rim.[1] I got this idea because on my first attempt to make on in the 8-foot rim I missed but my ricochet nearly went into the 7-foot basket. Naturally that was the closest I came to making it, but that didn’t stop me from trying another 19 times.

Beyond that it was a pretty quiet weekend. We were on nephew duty so that altered our routines a bit. I’ll talk more about our time with him in a few days.

  1. These hoops were all in a line, roughly 4–5 feet between each rim.  ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

January 13, 2020 /

What a weekend of sports! Hoops and football gave us plenty to discuss.

KU Hoops

I guess Baylor had to win in Lawrence eventually, right? For a decade Scott Drew has been bringing ranked teams into Lawrence. Some years they kept it close until very late. A few years they probably should have won. But KU always made the plays in the last minute as the Bears wilted and left with yet another L.

So Baylor was due. Odds, regression, etc aside, that was a damn impressive performance on Saturday. Just as it looked like KU might pull away in the first half Baylor dropped a big ass hammer and put a 22–4 run on the Jayhawks to close the first half. KU never got closer than five in the second half and the Bears walked away with a 12-point win that felt more like a 20-point margin.

Baylor did everything well Saturday. Shut down KU’s offense. Made great adjustments on offense. Hit contested shots. Really it was the perfect game. Which is the only good thing about the game for the rest of the Big 12. Surely Baylor can’t be that good every night, right? The thing is, though, even when they’re not that good on offense, they remain elite defensively. They just won in Lubbock and Lawrence back-to-back, which effectively gives them a two game margin on everyone before you factor in actual records. The Big 12 title race runs through Waco for the next two months.

For KU, a lot to be concerned about. None bigger than Devon Dotson’s health. Officially he has a hip-pointer. Who knows if that’s true. All that really matters is that KU began the 2019–20 academic year with three point guards in the program. One is sitting out the year as a partial qualifier and can’t do anything to help until next November. The other kid went through a week of fall conditioning, quickly decided KU wasn’t the place for him, and left the program. So now they’re left with a banged up Dotson and then 6’5” guys who can play emergency point. Not the ideal way to climb back into the Big 12 race.[1]

Aside from Dotson, the next biggest concern is how poor this team moves the ball. Entry passes are thrown off the backboard, out of bounds, or directly to the defender. Simple passes on the perimeter are put in the wrong spot, either preventing an immediate shot from an open shooter or putting the receiver in a tough position if they want to make a quick move.

I’m not worried about the shooting because that is what KU is. One night they’re going to shoot 60% from three, the next around 20%. That was something that should have been addressed in the offseason. There’s not much you can do about it in the heart of the schedule. It’s destined to cost them in March, but I worry more about losing because they turn the ball over 25 times than going 3–27 from behind the arc.

Clemson Beats UNC

I only throw this in because Baylor breaking their 0–16 streak in Lawrence was quickly topped when Clemson got an overtime win in Chapel Hill, breaking a 95-year, 0–59 losing streak. Carolina is always great. Clemson only occasionally has good teams. You can talk yourself into that streak. But, still, it’s basketball. Weird things happen. Especially in the modern era with the three-point shot. But it still took Clemson erasing a 10-point deficit in the final 2:00 and then overtime to get it done.

Some of the sting was taken off KU’s loss as I laughed at Roy Williams saying he should be fired for losing the game and it’s the worst thing that’s happened in his career. He’s such a putz.

OK, on to football…

NFL Playoffs

The Saturday games weren’t super interesting. Well, Tennessee continuing their run is a big deal, but we were out at a dinner for most of the game so I missed whatever happened in the first three quarters that set up the win. The real action was Sunday.

That Chiefs game. Good Lord! I turned the game on late, just in time to see Houston’s first TD pass. Then I got a call and was away from the TV for about 15 minutes. When I walked back into the living room it was 21–0 and I was thinking, “What the hell?” and “Chiefs will always Chief.” And I was honestly, for the first time in my life, feeling back for Chiefs fans. To lose this way would be a special kind of humiliation for a franchise that has found a million ways to torture its fans in my life.

Then the two fateful calls that changed the game. How on earth do you kick the field goal on fourth an inches early in the second quarter? 28–0 means the game is over, I don’t care what happened the rest of the game. The crowd was already booing the Chiefs, they were already dropping balls left and right. That stadium was about to get really ugly. Give the ball to Deshaun Watson and ask him to get less than a foot, then score two plays later to blow out whatever hope was left in Arrowhead. The decision looks even dumber when Bill O’Brien said after the game that he thought they needed 50 points to win. THEN YOU DON’T LEAVE POINTS ON THE FIELD YOU IDIOT.

Worse was the fake punt from their own 31 after the Chiefs had finally scored. That’s just asinine and reckless. At that point I texted some friends and said the final score would be 56–24 Chiefs. I wasn’t far off.

Despite all the stupidity on the Texans sideline – and I would fire O’Brien today if I owned the team – it was still a damn impressive comeback for the Chiefs. Once they scored 21 points in three minutes you got the feeling it was over. But, still, they completely shut down Houston for all but one possession and were nearly perfect on offense. Now that they’ve had their “Oh shit!” game, I am putting the Chiefs down as a lock to win the Super Bowl.

The nightcap was just a damn good game. Green Bay getting a nice lead, Russell Wilson doing Russell Wilson things to turn it into a ballgame, and Aaron Rodgers throwing an absolutely perfect ball on third down to ice the game. The only game of the weekend that was in doubt until the final moments, and one that kept me glued to the TV the entire time.

NFL Hall of Fame

So rolling that huge man out during the halftime shows on CBS and FOX to inform Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson that they had been elected to the NFL Hall of Fame was kind of cool. I did have to ask myself, “Wait, Jimmy’s not in the Hall of Fame already?” And I do have some quibbles on Cowher getting in. A very good coach? Absolutely! But an all-timer? Hmmm… Then again, the NFL Hall of Fame has always felt a little more open than the baseball HOF. Which is fine; big, inclusive halls are great. But I think Hall of Fames should be reserved for coaches who either won a shitload of championships or somehow revolutionized the game. For all his accomplishments, I don’t think Cowher reaches either standard.

CFP Championship

LSU 31, Clemson 28

  1. My biggest KU recruiting complaint is how Bill Self has such a hard time getting point guards. You would think they would look at his last Illinois team, the 2008 KU national championship team, and the Frank Mason/Devonté Graham teams and flock to the program. For all the “Self runs high-low” talk, when he gets guards he gives them the ball. Yet he is always scrambling to get guys to run the offense for some reason.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 6, 2020 /

Before I get to the notes, a quick warning that if you still access this site via thebrannanblog.net address, that site name will be going away at the end of the month. Please update your bookmarks to reflect dsnotebook.me as the correct address.

We are back at it today. Well, kind of. M started at her normal time today, but they are going to their first semester classes for 20 minutes each then will be dismissed for the day at 11:15. Which is kind of weird. They start the second semester with a normal schedule tomorrow.

St. P’s traditionally goes back to school on Tuesday. This year they’ve made today an eLearning day. As of 10:00 AM L has most of her work done. I’m still trying to get C out of bed.

So I guess Christmas break really ends tomorrow.

Some weekend for sports! I was sickish on the couch much of the weekend – the cold I have prevented me from sleeping much either Friday or Saturday nights – so I got to see plenty of football. I don’t have a great NFL memory, but that had to be one of the wackiest weekends in playoff history. Every game was competitive. Every game had a couple crazy-ass plays that set Twitter alight. Two overtime games and the likely end of the Patriots dynasty. Pretty solid work.

I watched most of the second half of the Buffalo-Houston game. When I turned it on, the Bills were up 16–0. As I caught up on Twitter I agreed with the universal thought of “Classic Houston in the playoffs!” But then Classic Buffalo in the playoffs said, “Not so fast!” The last 2:00 or so of regulation were some of the worst yet most entertaining football I’ve ever seen. I was so glad I was not a fan of either team because that was heart-attack inducing stuff. DeShaun Watson’s scramble and completion in overtime will be the signature play of these playoffs…until Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes top it when they get a chance this weekend.

I knew New England really wasn’t very good, but I still gave Tennessee no chance to win. A mediocre team from the AFC South going to Foxborough in January? No way. Good AFC South teams routinely get annihilated by the Patriots in the playoffs. But Derrick Henry was a freaking beast, the Pats offense was painfully pedestrian, and a shocking upset was the result. I don’t know what was more satisfying: Bill Belichick getting pissed when Mike Vrabel used a quirk in the rules – that Belichick himself used earlier this year – to burn a bunch of clock in the fourth quarter, or Tom Brady throwing a pick-six to seal the game. That they both happened is a gift to any fan whose team has been abused by the Patriots over the years.

I laughed at all the Boston media types who got all defensive about the Pats dynasty after the game. Listen, the Pats are, arguably, the greatest dynasty in sports history. They’ve done it in a league that sucks teams toward parity and away from continued dominance. They’ve managed to keep their franchise QB healthy for all but one year of his career. They’ve been coached by arguably the greatest coach in the sport’s history. And all that means non-Pats fans are going to delight in the apparent end of their run of excellence. That’s what sports are about: rooting for and against teams. Celebrate what the last 20 years have been like, but don’t get huffy when the rest of us celebrate its end.

I figured the Vikings-Saints game would be a rout. Had I done Super Bowl picks, I would have picked New Orleans to come out of the NFC. I thought they were the most complete team on both sides of the ball in the conference. Plus the Vikings were just too flawed to go to the Super Dome and pull off the upset.

Once again I prove that I know nothing about football. Just a delightful fourth quarter and overtime for us neutrals. With no dog in the fight I could both argue the non-call on the game-winning touchdown was a terrible miss and delight that New Orleans was again getting absolutely screwed by the refs at home.

With the Saints out of the way, the Seahawks became my NFC pick. I mentioned this to a buddy and he said, “Now watch the Eagles beat them.” I didn’t think the Eagles had a chance, home field or not, and when they lost Carson Wentz – who of course got hurt! – I was confident in my pick. This DK Metcalf kid is amazing! I don’t play fantasy and I don’t know that I had seen more than a few minutes of a Seattle game all year, so he was a revelation. It was very sobering, however, to learn that his dad, who had a long NFL career, is seven years younger than me. I mean, holy shit!

With the Wild Card games out of the way, I’ll lock in these picks for the next two weekends:

Kansas City over Houston
Baltimore over Tennessee

Seattle over Green Bay
San Francisco over Minnesota

Kansas City over Baltimore
Seattle over San Francisco

That’s right, Chiefs fans, for the first time in my life I’ve picked the Chiefs to go to the Super Bowl. Consider them jinxed.

I missed the first half of the Bills-Texans game watching the KU-West Virginia game. No one expected much from WVU this year, and even after they got off to a great start no one was sure if they were legit. That changed when the beat up on Ohio State a week ago.

Still, you figure a young Mountaineers team coming into Allen Fieldhouse for their conference opener would not be much of a contest. Naturally WVU totally controlled the first half, leading by 10 much of the half until a late KU run cut it to six. Oscar Tshibwe was un-guardable and the WVU defense totally took KU out of its game. I’ll admit I was nervous, even knowing the history of this series.

Fortunately Bill Self is pretty good at the halftime shit, he made some lineup and strategic tweaks, and KU got the win. Not quite as dramatic as the classic KU-WVU games but a decent start to the Big 12 season.

I watched several hours of the Sentry Tournament of Champions Sunday night. Even with relatively warm temps here in Indiana, it is always fun to watch prime time golf from Hawaii in January. We’ve been kicking around the idea of visiting the islands so I was paying extra attention to all the shots of the blue surf neighboring the green Kapalua Plantation course. I was hoping Gary Woodland would claw back into things but he never got it going yesterday. That left me rooting against the biggest villain in golf right now, Patrick Reed.

If you don’t follow golf – most of you fall into this category – Reed has a long history of, well, issues. He’s a complex character. In December he was caught improving his lie in a bunker, an act most people call cheating. He claimed the camera angle was bad and he had not, in fact, brushed a large quantity of sand back on two practice swings. He taunted Australian fans at the President’s Cup. Then his caddy attacked a fan during the event. Since it is golf, though, he has not been punished for his actions. In fact, the PGA Tour and its media sycophants have gone out of their way to brush all this aside and only discuss these acts in terms of how unfortunate it is that Reed has “had to go through all of this.” In the “Woke Golf” circles I follow, Reed has become public enemy #1. So it’s kind of cool that he’s a legitimately fantastic golfer, because he makes otherwise boring tournaments interesting and entertaining.

Anyway, I was pulling big time for either Justin Thomas or Xander Schauffele to hold off Reed. Thomas seemed to be in control, leading by two, until he bogeyed 16 and then dumped his approach into the penalty area on 18. Schauffele had two putts to win the tournament…and three-putted. That left a three-way playoff between Reed, Schauffele, and Thomas. The playoff started at 10:00 eastern and I was pretty well cooked after two sleepless nights, so I went to bed. That was a good call as the playoff lasted three holes before Thomas got the win. As long as Reed didn’t win, I was good with the result.

Weekend Notes

December 9, 2019 /

It’s Monday. That means some of my patented Weekend Notes are in order!

Service Hours

M, C, and I went to a local food pantry to volunteer Saturday so they could earn some service hours. They were sent to man the produce table, while I spent the first two hours running the door where people waited to have their eligibility status checked.

Upon check-in, people received a paper ticket with a number and then waited in the lobby. I ran the ticker that showed what numbers could come up and get in line. Then I checked to make sure people were in the right spot before they went into the office for verification. Simple, right? Well it was, it’s just as with any line, people would get anxious and begin lining up before their number had been posted. Some people complained about that. Others would try to barge in line because they had, say, 150 and 210 was on the ticker. I did my best to be gentle with folks, telling them to please go to the end of the line, they will get through just fine. There were a number of people who did not speak English well, and they were sometimes a challenge.[1] A couple people asked me to straight up throw people out of line. I wasn’t doing that, I wasn’t going to yell at folks who were getting in line early. It was a cold, December morning, no one in line wanted to be there. I was polite and friendly to everyone and asked people to be patient. It was way more stressful than I expected, but I was thankful most of the people were indeed understanding of the process and I had some nice conversations with a few people in my two hours at the door.

Once the crowd died down they released me and I joined the girls. They had an interesting job. The entire pantry is set up like a grocery store and the clients are allowed to “shop” for their food. For most areas there is a steady supply of bread, cereal, whatever, and they make their selection. The produce table M and C were at, though, was a feast or famine table. Workers in the back would bring a big rack of produce up, the girls would set it out, and it would disappear quickly. Then they’d sit around for 10–15 minutes until another cart came out.

Both girls had worked with me at another food pantry before, so they were aware of both the service the organization provides and why people are there shopping. I wish they had a job that would have kept them busy the entire time rather than sitting and waiting, but it was still a good experience. It’s an extremely humbling experience. This is one of several food pantries in Indy and it was packed. I reminded the girls of that, and that a lot of people who need food assistance aren’t able to visit these pantries.

M has to earn half of her 15 service hours at one place, so we will likely be back again as she earned 4.5 hours Saturday.

We laughed at how a couple people asked the girls if they were twins. They certainly have some similar facial features, but they’ve never really looked much alike.

I also got in a lengthy discussion with one of the regular workers about the state of politics, our society, and the world in general. He was a very nice, smart, thoughtful man and our politics mostly lined up. But he was also really into conspiracies. I’m kind of looking forward to being an old guy who believes in the strangest possible explanation for things. Hell, there are plenty of people in this country right now who are way younger than me and believe in things that have no factual basis, so I really don’t have to wait I guess!

College Football

I napped through much of the Big 12 game, which was the most entertaining of the conference championship games. I’m kind of shocked that Baylor hung in until the end, especially since they were down to their third-string QB in the second half. I was not shocked that their third-string QB, who is a freshman, looks better than any quarterback KU has had since Todd Reesing left. Jeez…

Wisconsin got a lot of us excited in the first half and then laid a big turd in the second half of the Big Ten game.

The final CFP rankings made sense. I honestly think there’s a top three this year and Oklahoma, or Baylor or Georgia had they won do not belong in the playoff. Let Ohio State and Clemson play for the right to meet LSU in the title game. I’m a big LSU fan for the next month. I don’t think OU has much of a chance and hate the other two schools. Although I am pulling for Ohio State in their semifinal because I’m sick of Dabo Swinney’s whining.

Family Christmas Gift

Our washing machine died last Monday. It looks like either the bearings or transmission was failing, as I found water and transmission fluid on the floor after I did a load Monday. I scheduled a service visit but after doing some research learned that the likely repair, if possible, would run us at least $400. Since every big box hardware store had huge sales last week and most washers/dryers were 30%-plus off, we bit the bullet and purchased a new set, which was delivered Sunday. The old ones really weren’t all that old, maybe seven years. But these new ones are sooooo much quieter. After a cycle with Maytag appliances and a number of issues, we’re back with LG, who we had used previously and had no issues with. Hope these work out as well.

NFL Sunday

Man, the game of the year in New Orleans, I guess, with the 49ers pulling out a last-second win over the Saints. I did see the last 90 seconds, which were pretty eventful. But I missed most of the game because the Colts and Buccaneers were putting on a low-key great game in Tampa. That game was filled with great plays and back-and-forth scoring, like the game in New Orleans. It was also played very much how you would expect a game between two mediocre teams to be played. There were so many mind-blowingly bad plays by both teams. The Colts forced four turnovers yet somehow still looked utterly lost on defense most of the day. It kind of summed up this year’s Colts team. The potential is there, but they constantly shoot themselves in the foot. And now I’ve officially won my bet that they will not win 10 games this year.

  1. Mostly Spanish speakers, but there were several people who looked and sounded like they were from West Africa, a few Middle Eastern people, and a few Asian people.  ↩

Weekend Notes

November 11, 2019 /

Mother Nature takes a lot of grief around here. Occasionally, though, I have to give her props. Yesterday she dropped an absolutely perfect late fall day on us. It was sunny, not much breeze, and although the high was forecast to be in the mid–50s, she kicked her heels off, checked her nails, and gave us a bonus high of 61. I spent most of the day doing yard work, but I did not mind because it was so beautiful out.

People clearly took advantage of the day because I saw several houses with Christmas lights on during our drop off commute this morning. We thought about putting our up but didn’t get to it. Still, the lights would not have been turned on if they had gone up. It’s fine to take advantage of a nice day to get the decorations up, people. It doesn’t mean you have to turn them on. (In related news, the grocery store was mixing Christmas songs in every third or fourth song this morning.)

So, thank you, Momma N!

Of course, as I type this it is a dark, rainy morning and in a few hours that rain is supposed to turn to snow and give us a couple inches in our first snow of the season. I imagine most of that will melt given Sunday’s temps. Tuesday morning wind chills should be right around zero.

Hey, Mother Nature: fuck you!

OK, it was a pretty quiet weekend with no sports we had to attend. But a few notes.

High School Football

Cathedral hammered the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last year to win the sectional championship. Now they face the #1 5A team in the state, which has lost four games in the last seven years. They have this freaky little running back who has run for over 10,000 yards and 100 touchdowns in his career. The computers favor CHS, though, thanks to a tougher schedule. It should be an absolute battle. It is a road game, about a 45 minutes away, so we will likely stay home and I will listen on the radio.

College Football

I watched parts of two fun games during KU’s bye week. Minnesota beating Penn State was a really entertaining game to watch. I’m not sure anyone outside Minnesota thought the Gophers were for real until they smacked Penn State in the mouth through three quarters Saturday. They almost blew it but survived to remain. Pretty crazy. Also crazy is the fact that Minnesota claims seven football national championships. Not all of these are recognized these days, but they still have a minimum of four national titles by the strictest measure. If you want to waste time, get yourself into the rabbit hole of reading about how football national champions have been declared over the years. There’s some wacky stuff out there, folks.

Then, of course, came the big daddy of the season, LSU-Alabama. It was thoroughly delightful to watch LSU beat the snot out of ‘Bama for 30 minutes. We were hosting a small family gathering so I missed most of Alabama’s comeback but was able to watch the final minutes as LSU closed it out.

I always think it’s funny how people like me, who root against Alabama, Duke, the Yankees, or whoever, often have to support another team that is just a slightly less successful version of the team we hate. With ‘Bama dominating football over the past decade, that means I’m often a fan of LSU, Auburn, or Georgia, schools that also send tons of players to the NFL, win 10 games more often than not, and have rich histories of their own. Yet because they ain’t ‘Bama, they come off as plucky underdogs.

NFL

I was thrilled I missed most of the Colts ugly-ass loss to Miami. I did make it in for the fourth quarter, though, which was probably the worst part. For all the stupid shit they did through three quarters they still really should have won that game. Another week, another nail in Adam Vinatieri’s career coffin.

I don’t follow the NFL super closely anymore. That changes a little right about now when kid fall sports end and the weather keeps us inside on weekends. But, still, I’m not like a super fan. I do skim a few notes columns on Mondays just to have a general feel of what is going on around the league. At The Ringer, I thought Roger Sherman had a great point when discussing the end of the Green Bay-Carolina game:

I’d tell NFL teams to coach their receivers not to stand on the goal line on these plays…

Yes! I was thinking this exact thing as the officials reviewed the final play of the game to see if Christian McCaffery scored or not. Every game you see receivers running down the goal line with their hands in the air, blocking the camera angle. They should spend an entire day in training camp teaching them to get off that line. Then again, I guess it’s a 50–50 shot whether blocking that angle hurts or helps your team, so maybe teams want them running down the line.

All I know is it was fun watching football in the snow in Green Bay.

Weekend Notes

January 22, 2019 /

Our holiday weekend was both busy and lazy.

We watched one of our two year old nephews from Friday night through Monday morning. He’s a really good kid – smart and funny and loves being with the girls – but you do kind of forget how exhausting that phase of life is. The repeated questions. The bizarre mood changes. The out of nowhere finickiness when eating. The failure to grasp basic logic. We love having him but it’s a relief to pass him along after a few days rather than face his barrage of Two-ness constantly.

But the weekend was mostly good. The big bummer was our expected snow storm came through about 12 hours later that initially forecast, and by the time we could get him outside to play the windchill was in the single digits. So we only took him out for about 10 minutes, made a slow lap around the house looking for icicles, and then went back inside.

M went on her first ever ski trip Sunday, down to a hill near Cincinnati with a group of other middle schoolers from North Side Catholic schools. She had a great time. She had never tried skiing before. Late in the afternoon she sent us a video of her zooming along rather nicely. All without taking a class. She had a great time and is excited to go to Colorado some winter and try skiing with her cousins.

As for sports, I’ll save the KU stuff for a post later in the week. Our nephew-watching duties cut into my football viewing time a little on Sunday. I actually slept through most of the first half of the Rams-Saints game and then turned the TV over to the kids while I made dinner. I started getting texts about a terrible call and then it took me five minutes of searching before I could find the remote to switch back to the game. It was after that game ended before I finally saw a replay of “The Call.” Man…that was brutal. How many bullshit DPI penalties do you see every game and then they let that go? Utterly amazing. If I was a Saints fan I would probably still be rioting.

I kept the TV on while we ate dinner and had one eye on the game. But somehow I missed that Greg Zuerlein’s absolute bomb of a field goal was for the win. I muttered “Wow,” between bites of taco lasagna, thinking it was just a great kick. Then I saw Rams running on the field and realized the game was over. That was a wacky, wild game.

For the Pats-Chiefs game, I watched the first two drives then had to run out to pick M up. By the time I was home it was halftime and I just had this feeling that A) the Chiefs would get back in it but B) the Patriots would manage to pull it out.

My football picks generally suck but this one was right on!

For most of the third quarter we were watching a movie with the nephew before bedtime. But I was able to sit down and give the game my undivided attention roughly mid-way through the fourth quarter. Which was the perfect moment to pick things up. With about 5:00 left I – semi-jokingly – texted a couple friends saying there would be four more scores in the game. I was wrong; there were five.

For an non-partisan viewer, those final five minutes plus overtime were fantastic to watch. And the best part was Tony Romo calling every damn play before it happened. I don’t get how some viewers are put off by this. And I don’t get why no other analyst is as good at it as he is. Does he watch more film than them? Are they told not to do it, as he apparently was told by CBS for part of this season? Or does he just have a gift no one else has? It was an amazing football game taken to another level by his insights.

I’ve heard plenty of bitching about the NFL’s overtime rules. In general I agree with those complaints. The overtime rules are already tweaked for the playoffs since you play until there is a winner. Why not make a second minor tweak and say that both teams get a chance with the ball, regardless of how the first possession plays out? Ending the season based on the whims of a coin toss seems counter to what the NFL is all about.

Then again, every sport is somehow compromised by its overtime rules. Soccer is strange, with different tournaments having different rules. College football is dumb. Basketball likely gets it best: add five minutes and keep playing. But team fouls also carry over, so you begin overtime with teams generally being overly penalized for every foul. Playoff hockey is fantastic: add a fresh 20 minutes and repeat until someone scores. But while those extended overtime games are often breathless viewing experiences, the play can get very choppy because of exhausted players.

I’ve heard some folks say the NFL should just go to a fifth quarter in the playoffs. Add ten minutes, play it out, and if someone is ahead at the end you have a winner.

I think the fairest way is to ensure each team gets at least one possession in overtime and then sudden death kicks in. No need to play out the last three minutes if one team kicked a field goal and the other scored a touchdown.

Anyway, another January disappointment for Chiefs fans. Another January of listening to Patriots bullshit. How long until pitchers and catchers report?

Title Games: How I Got Here

January 18, 2019 /

Conference championship weekend.

That doesn’t get me fired up the way it used to. Although I came back to the NFL a little this season, I would still label myself as a casual fan at best. A far cry from when I was a kid and I was super into everything about the NFL. I watched The NFL Today each Sunday, made sure I caught the halftime highlights on Monday Night Football, and could likely tell you several important facts about the third place team in each division.

Back in those days I was a hardcore Cowboys fan. That all stemmed from the first Super Bowl I ever watched in January 1977. I thought it was cool that the two teams playing, Dallas and Denver, both started with a D. The Cowboys won, I adopted them as my favorite team. I lived in southeast Missouri, the nearest team, the St. Louis Cardinals, were kind of garbage. It seemed like a good move.

When we moved to Kansas City in the summer of 1980, the Cowboys were beginning a run of losing in the NFC title game three-straight years. At my new bus stop, in the classroom, on the playground at recess, and at my own football practices, the primary topic of discussion was the Royals, who made it to the World Series that year. But when football would come up, I was usually the outcast. There were a few Steelers fans, a few random Raiders or Broncos fans, and a sprinkling of Cowboys fans. But most of the boys I hung out were Chiefs fans.

I remember a conversation that fall that went something like this:

“Why don’t you like the Chiefs?”
“Because I like the Cowboys.”
“Well, you live here now, you have to like the Chiefs.”
“That’s stupid. And so are you.”

I didn’t learn to cuss until later that year, otherwise I would have told the kid to fuck off.

Don’t get me wrong, over the next decade or so when the Chiefs had the occasional solid year, I would cheer for them. I went to a few games here and there and pulled for them to win. In the early 90s, when they became a very good team, I pulled hard for them…as long as they weren’t playing the Cowboys. They were a pretty solid second team, and it was cool that the local team was doing well.

But as the 90s progressed, the Chiefs started to drive me nuts. I hated how the Chiefs were the primary topic of KC sports discussion so much of the year.[1] I hated the almost Stalinist party line that the entire Chiefs organization stuck to in the Carl Peterson era. And that guy, he drove me freaking nuts with his press conferences where he would say “The Kansas City Chiefs Football Team” 1000 times while insisting everything at 1 Arrowhead Way was better than any other place in the NFL.

And then there were Chiefs fans. Not all of them, for sure. In fact, not even a very large percentage of them. But there was that vocal, idiot minority who just drove me nuts. The ones who yelled “Chiefs!” at the end of the national anthem at KU, Royals, or other games. The ones who had entire wardrobes that were nothing but Zubaz pants in Chiefs colors. I remember coworkers going on-and-on about how Steve Bono or Elvis Grbac were going to lead the Chiefs to the Super Bowl. I decided those “Camaroheads” were the typical Chiefs fan, and began openly rooting against them. I laughed when the Chiefs blew playoff appearance after playoff appearance. Greg Hill raising the roof when he got a first down while precious time ticked away in another home playoff loss was my favorite Chiefs moment ever. That the Cowboys dynasty was crumbling didn’t matter to me. I was more interested in watching Chiefs fans be sad.

I think it is very hard to live in an NFL city, be a fan of another team, and not end up hating the local team. Especially these days, where NFL games are 3+ hour exercises in avoiding drunk people, fights, and other nonsense. It’s easy to look at whatever stupidity is going on at your local stadium, think that is unique to your city, and then use it as a reason to hate the local squad.

When we moved to Indy, I was still a Cowboys fan. But I was growing sick of Jerry Jones’ bullshit. The Colts were getting good. It seemed like the perfect time to jump ship. My first year here, the Colts went to Kansas City for a playoff game. I wish I still had one of my favorite voice mails of all time, left on the answering machine attached to our land line – !!!! – during that epic, no-punt game.

“D, it’s Julie! Are you watching the game? Because the Colts are wiiiiiiinning!”
(Voice in background: ‘He doesn’t like the Chiefs!’)
“Oh, Mark says you don’t like the Chiefs…so never mind. Go Colts!”

So, for the couple of readers who told me they didn’t realize I wasn’t a Chiefs fan a week ago, that’s most of the story of how that came to be.

Speaking of bullshit, I’m pretty sick of New England’s bullshit. When their dynasty was first getting started, I really admired them. Tom Brady still seemed like a delightful fluke. They rarely had superstars around him on offense, and Belichick built a classic No Name defense that was always better than everyone else in January.

But they kept winning, got obnoxious, cheated several times, and became a joyless, soulless machine that just grinds all the fun out of the game. Tom Brady whining about how everyone thinks they suck and no one thinks they can win is classic, Patriots horseshit. Jon Bon Jovi and Robert Kraft sitting together and singing “Livin’ On A Prayer,” might be the worst moment of the 21st Century.[2]

So am I pulling for the Chiefs Sunday? Let’s not go too far, now. I would rather see the Chiefs win. But I will still laugh if all the Camaroheads go home sad because Belichick and Brady’s deal with the devil remains valid and they somehow get out of KC with a win.

Chiefs 45, Patriots 21. Yes, 21. Fuck you, Brady.
Saints 38, Rams 35

  1. It didn’t help that the Royals now sucked.  ↩
  2. JBJ is from fucking New Jersey, owns an arena team in Philly, and tried to buy the Bills. How the fuck – other than bandwagon jumping – is he sitting on Kraft’s lap during games?  ↩
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