Turkey Day 2004 Ramblings....
Rambling after week 11...
Ahh yes, we've made it to Thanksgiving Vacation which is a nine day occasion for us Yooper-students and will soon be a four day weekend for most other college students/working folk.
As far as the end coming nearer....that could apply many ways....end of 2004, end of fall semester, end of professional hockey, end of deer hunting as we once knew it, end of civility in sports (although the older generations will argue that happened long ago)...
Quite a week in the sporting world, not to mention in our little fantasy league we have going on. So I should have plenty of material to work with for this week's ramblings although I have no internet right now to check my info, so I guarantee nothing as far as presenting correct facts here (so I suppose I'm leaving myself open for an appeal, but oh well...maybe I'll see David Stern at court)
Anyway, let's start out with talking about the pretty much forgotten incident of the ABC/MNF Desperate Housewives spot that opened up MNF a week ago. First off, I had never seen the show (or even knew of it's existence) at that point. When I saw the spot, I didn't think anything of it. I wasn't offended as a football fan, as a T.O. fan, or as a white male. I just thought it was a good way to open up the game and catch people's interest. Although I didn't think that Owens's biggest moment of the night would come before kickoff, it seemed that way. I was shocked to hear Coach Dungy's objections stating it was racist. It almost seems like he's stretching a bit there to pull race into this issue....I would think he would be happy with seeing a top NFL player (who happens to be African American) and a hot TV actress (Nicolette Sheridan who happens to be white) together in a promo....maybe be offended as a father of a teenager at the sexual nature (but then again he brings his kids on the sidelines of NFL games which I'm sure are not at all PG rated areas to be), but nothing else. ABC was pretty quick to apologize, but I'm sure the inner circle at Disney (parent of ABC) was happy cause I'm just guessing that the ratings for Desperate Housewives were up this past week - and I checked the show out myself and can say it won't be the last time I see it. For those of you who are not aware....its on Sunday night on ABC at I think 9 eastern/8 central.
And since I'm now recommending TV programs....right after Desperate Housewives is a show by the creators of "The Practice" called "Boston Legal". For those of you who were fans of "The Practice", the new show by David E. Kelly is pretty much the same show with a new cast. Also, if that's not enough to interest you....Monica Potter is one of the main characters....which is a good reason to watch as far as I'm concerned.
Ok, enough on primetime TV....let's get to football....right after we get to basketball.
Hard to think that any of you do not know what I am going to talk about next, so I'll skip the descriptions of the incident other than the reminder that it happened in the dirty city of Detroit. On that night (Friday), I was headed down to Eden Prairie with my sister and one of her co-workers. We got down to the hotel and I flipped on the game just about a minute after the whole deal had gone down. Jo's friend Jess had called her boyfriend and he asked if we saw what happened....and just about then I saw the replay for the first of about 500 times. All I could say was WOW. It was like Christmas come early for me seeing high priced baby athletes once again proving their stupidity. And if that wasn't enough, the people of greater Detroit were also proving their stupidity. It was awesome (but don't get me wrong, extremely sad). And if the whole thing wasn't yet enough, Ron Artest was the moron that first jumped in the crowd.
NBA Commissioner David Stern and the league office handed down suspensions ranging from 6 games (Ben Wallace for instigating) to the rest of the season (Artest for obvious reasons). Local (Michigan) prosecutors are in the process of bringing together their cases in prosecuting the fans (without question) and players (man I hope so) involved in the incident. Personally, I think that because of professional sports high profile and status as role-model for youth worldwide, all involved here need to be punished severely. I think the suspensions handed down by Stern were reasonable....neither excessive or short of what was needed. Already this morning, Artest was interviewed on NBC's Today Show. I saw that interview and have these thoughts.... Artest is NOT a smart, or personable man. His statements/answers were not prepared or delivered well at all. This surprises me since he has just released a rap album which to me would indicate he doesn't have trouble speaking in front of people such as he did this morning. But I suppose a $5.5 million dollar fine (the salary he loses) would make anyone a bit nervous. I'm sure all these guys will appeal....and I saw one of the player's union executives on the Today Show this morning too who was of course standing beside the players.
Its just a sad event and what's most disturbing is that is was shocking at first, but once the participants were identified, I wasn't all that surprised. Yes, this is just another sign (along with the non-existence of the NHL) that the end of professional sports as we know it is closer each day.
So how about football you ask? Well, how about the South Carolina-Clemson debacle that happened the day after the Pacers-Pistons fight? Those idiots had a bench clearing brawl on the gridiron which took a lot of cops a long time to settle down. I think the intelligence of the fans of both teams was shown as they didn't get on the field to join in (of course we are talking about mostly college educated folks in this case rather than in the Detroit fan base). The worst part of this one was some of the quotes afterwords the pretty much were to the effect of saying that their fight wasn't nearly as bad as the basketbrawl cause they kept it on the field. Yea, good work....kinda like trying to justify armed robbery as OK as long as you don't hurt anyone. Or as murder being OK if someone is only killing a gang member.
Finally, I thought all the crap was over with for the week but then we see on the Sunday news that some loony-toon decides to tresspass to hunt in cheese-land and then shoot the folks that confront him to leave their land. A lot of this story is yet to be told I think, but from what I've seen (which is about every local news program airing since Sunday), this guy has some major issues. It's gonna be a rough week for those folks in northwestern wisconsin...
Anyway, let's move on to the BIG. What a season it is turning out to be. After 11 weeks of play (and 5 of 6 divisional weeks), the difference between 1st and 3rd in all the divisions is no less than 2 games. In the Bulldog....Jason has the outright lead at 8-3, but the LB's are right on his tail at 7-4 and who do they play next week? That's right, week 12 will face the LRH up against the LB's. Smitty finds himself only a game back of the LB's and I'm not gonna do the math, but I'm pretty sure Juice isn't mathematically eliminated yet (although it's pretty much 'stick a fork in him' time....he's done).
In the Husky Division....(cough...sucks...cough), Wong gets another win while Jonny is riding the Daunte Pepper show directly into the ground. Kyle's team is now on a 5 game losing streak, second longest current streak in the league, but it still only 1 game back of Wonger. Rico is just hanging on to the Peyton Manning bandwagon - and I would to since he's poised to blow old Danny Boy's records away....you'd think someone would be able to slow down the Colts, but I think they face Detroit on Turkey Day, so I'm guessing by the time you fall into your tryptophan induced coma, Peyton should have at least 3 TD's on the board. Finally, Nookie is in the same position as Juice right now in the respect that he might not be mathematically eliminated, but pretty much is. Although the difference between the big guy and the big little brother is that when Juice 'ripped' Ben off in that trade, Ben obtained Juice's 1st rounder in 2005. That gives Ben a chance at having 2 very high picks in next years draft if the ping pong balls fall as they seem to be lining up. Safe to say that Juice will probably never again trade with Ben.
Finally, on to the Bison Division....(cough...doesn't....cough...suck.....cough....quite.....cough....so.....cough.....bad.....cough). Well, with the exception of Mike that is, and I think he'd agree, but on the bright side, Mike did hit 100+ this week for the first time this year. Looks like he might make a run at breaking 1000 for the year which would be nice to see. Mike also isn't yet mathematically eliminated from something yet....Ben could still 'win' the golden crapper, but any combination of a Nookie Win or a Straights loss will cement Mike's first ever addition to his trophy case. Mike's opponent of last week was The Soaring Hellfish. Another 140+ week for Suomala's boys (2nd of the year - only team with 2 this year) gets him a W and moves him back to a tie for 1st in the division....but it is a logjam. Air JC's win over The Fantasy Superior puts all three teams at 7-4 with only 3 weeks to go. Suomala will face Jugs and JC will face Mike in the final divisional matchup week.
So will all these ties and such, who is winning all the tiebreakers?
So here is this weeks edition of "IF THE PLAYOFFS WERE TODAY-DAY-DAY" (think
of a nice echoing announcer saying that)
Bulldog: Jason's Little Red Horse (8-3)
Husky: Wong's Wong's LD's (6-5)
Bison: Jugs's Fantasy Superior (7-4) [*takes 2nd divisional tiebreaker
over 'Fish, JC - see rules page]
Wildcard: Jon's Little Bastards (7-4) [*takes 2nd wildcard tiebreaker
over JC and Jugs]
Let's move on to a few NFL thoughts from the weekend...
I was looking back at the column I wrote at this time last year, here is a small section on the Vikings game from a year ago:
"So had Harrington realized either that he sucks and should have 1) gave up after the 3rd INT or 2) cut his sideburns and joined the 20th century, the Lions would have a shot with McMahon (Mike or hell, even Jim). But on Thursday, it will not be the turkey playing tricks with your mind when you see Harrington out there throwing INTs to the Pack and letting Green Bay come that much closer to catching the Vikes. Nothing like pressure for the Purple and Gold as they travel down the Mississip to the middle dome on the big river to face Tory and company." - 11/25/03
Funny how the Vikes played the Lions the week before Thanksgiving last year too and how most of the comments I made last year could apply to this year (with a few minor changes). Harrington still sucks and for some reason, the Lions continue to waste time and energy on him. I'd like to see him on one of those offseason Quarterback challenge TV specials sometime cause I'd bet he would not even hit the target 90% of the time.....man is he not good. There's a reason you've see Roy Williams making some unbelievable catches this year - its cause he has to if he wants to even have a chance at touching the ball with Joey Sideburns throwing it. I predict we will once again get our annual look at Mike McMahon on Turkey Day....so when you are sitting there in a half conscious state trying to figure out which white guy is screwing up the Lions game...its gonna be this simple, if its the 1st half, Joey will be throwing INT's, if its the 2nd half, it'll be Mike.
I got up Sunday morning down in the cities after going to the Rascal Flatts concert at Xcel on Saturday with Joanna and a couple other friends from up north and hit the road in time to get back to Duluth for kickoff. I spent the day watching football at Joanna's apartment.....no cable, no internet and poor (static) reception on CBS. Man does it suck having to rely on Terry Bradshaw and the Fox 'ticker' for your fantasy stats during the day. I bet fantasy football by itself is responsible for many people getting internet/cable connections cause man that was a tough day for watching football.
Do NFL defensive coordinators still not know about Antonio Gates? Get Juice and Scotty out there to scout ahead of time and I'm sure Hylla would be better prepared for this guy that these NFL teams are....not that Suomala really minds.
Weird things happen in the NFL when Dome teams hit the road.....no better example than this past week when the Rams got their rear ends handed to them by the Bills. If this game is played in the friendly confines of St. Louie's dome, the score would have been reversed - if not worse of a loss for Buffalo.
I think it is probably safe to say that Kevan Barlow is the bust of 2004, although also in the running are Clinton Portis, Jamal Lewis, Stephen Davis, Travis Henry and Santana Moss - all of which were drafted in our league's 1st or 2nd round.
How about the steals of our draft? Ben getting Brees as the 34th QB taken in the late 13th round. Rico getting Emmitt as the 44th RB taken in the 11th round. JC grabbing Reggie Wayne, the 30th WR taken in the 7th round and the LB's grabbing Musin Muhammed in the 8th round as the 36th WR taken. As for TE's, Gates going to Suomala as the 8th TE in the 7th round doesn't seem like a big steal, but it turned out to be. Also, the LB's grabbed Witten and Suomala grabbed Eric Johnson as the 22nd and 23rd TE's in the 14th round.
That's enough for today....have a great holiday weekend and I hope you have good eats whatever/where ever you might find yourself on Thursday.
Need I say more?
BIGFFBL senior writer Jeremy Carlson (TEQ) sounds off whenever he feels like it on www.bigffbl.com