Week 8 Hangover - Love/Hate

LOVE

- Tip of the cap to Brett Favre. He played great, and is focused, controlled and not turning the ball over. The Vikings have a ton of weapons (memo to GB’s special teams coach: pack up your office. You’re fired. You couldn’t figure out how to keep the ball out of Percy Harvin’s hands?), and thoroughly dominated the game. And watching the game with Sal, I did correctly predict that there would be some waterworks from Brett in the post game interview on the field. Has to keep up that country bumpkin persona off the field.

- What a performance by Johnny Damon in the 9th inning last night. First the great at bat, fighting off pitches before slapping a single to left. Then a very risky move to steal second, and the intelligence to know he could outrun Pedro Feliz to 3rd base (Feliz was covering 2nd on a defensive shift). The runner on 3rd didn’t allow Brad Lidge to throw his best pitch – his slider – for fear of a wild pitch which would have scored Damon. Instead he has to go fastball, and A-Rod laces it to left. Say good night Phillies. Especially since your potential game 7 starter told reporters after he got shelled in game 3 that he couldn’t wait for the season to be over. Not exactly the eye of the tiger from Cole Hamels. And since no one wants to see a picture of Johnny Damon, here’s a picture of his wife.

- In addition to the Wildcat offense, maybe the Dolphins should find a way for Chad Henne to kick the ball to Ted Ginn when he’s lined up as a WR. He can catch a kick off, but he can’t catch a pass. And he can definitely run – 2 kickoff returns for TDs, 100 and 101 yards. Is it really vindication for getting benched for dropping passes to return kicks successfully? No one ever questioned his return ability. He still can’t catch a pass.

- Are we going to rev up the Vince Young hype machine now that the Texans finally won a game? He was able to move around in the pocket and keep plays alive, but he only had 125 yards on 15 completions. And Chris Johnson ran for 1,000 yards against the Jags. But they won the game, so I guess that’s what matters.

- The clubhouse leader for NBA rookie of the year after two games is Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks. Given, it’s only 2 games, so there is a ton of time for him to come back to reality. But the dude looks like a legit stud. Dropping 20.5 ppg, 6 assists and 5 boards to start the season, and he almost put up a triple double in his first game. He’s a high-energy guy, and looks like he’s having fun. I’ve got the DVR set up to record the Bucks-Bulls game on Tuesday night

HATE

- Winners of the Paper Tiger Awards: Giants and Jets. The Giants look bad, and it’s possible that Eli Manning’s foot is worse than anyone knows and is the reason he’s sailing the ball long and turning it over like he’s back in his rookie year. The Jets lost because they couldn’t stop Ted Ginn on kick off returns, and the Dolphins defense returned a fumble for a TD. So Jets, after losing for the second time to the ‘Phins, time to give them some credit, right? Not for Calvin Pace, who continues to talk trash while playing for a 4-4 team that is 1-4 in their last five games. Time to shut up and win some games, fellas.

- Anyone notice Oregon is strangely making their way to the Rose Bowl? After eating USC’s lunch on Saturday night, they’re one of the most dangerous 1-loss teams in the country. And all anyone knows about them is they got embarrassed in the season opener by Boise State, their RB punched a dude after the game and their coach send a disgruntled fan a personal check refunding him for the tickets he bought to see them play bad. Oh, and they have the most ridiculous uniforms ever. Yet they slapped around mighty USC, and will be the Pac-10 rep in the Rose Bowl.

- Can we please stop talking about Iowa being in the hunt for the national championship? They are undefeated, but they stink. Had they been playing anyone other than a putrid Indiana team, they would have lost this week. Ricky Stanzi, quite possibly the best QB in the Big Ten by default, threw 5 interceptions in the game – 4 of them in the 3rd quarter alone – and they still managed to win by double digits. They are threatening to really mess with the BCS is they end up unbeaten.

- Well I figured one of the QBs in the Cardinals-Panthers game was going to be a turnover machine. I just didn’t figure it would be Kurt Warner, not Jake Delhomme. Warner had 4 INTs and a fumble, allowing the Panthers to keep themselves on the skirts of the playoff hunt.

- Brandon Spikes of Florida should be suspended for the rest of the season. He is a classless ass-clown. An obvious eye-gouging of the Georgia RB from a guy that is supposed to be the best linebacker in college? Did he think that he was suddenly a pro wrestler? And they were comfortably handling Georgia and the RB was a nobody, so what was he possibly thinking?


- I’m not one for Sci-Fi movies or television shows to begin with, but what is Bailey from Party of Five doing on that overhyped “V” show on ABC?

Week 6 Hangover - Love/Hate

Couple quick airline stories from the weekend before the Love/Hate…….

7:00 am flight out of LaGuardia, boarding up around 6:45, and then become plane #31 in line to take off, so there’s some time to kill on the run way. Girl in the center seat wearing sweat pants and a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up decides she’s hungry. Rustles in her bag and pulls out a full size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Really? Who brings a full-size bag of Doritos on a plane? For a 7:00 AM flight!?! So it’s now just after 7 in the morning, with the smell of cool ranch Doritos dominating the plane. And she doesn’t have any napkins and since you don’t want to waste any of that great cool ranch flavor, the natural thing to do is lick your fingers and hands to make sure you get all that goodness. Ugh. As the plane finally takes off and the flight attendants come by for beverages, what does she request? A Mountain Dew, of course. And no diet for this one – go for the Mountain Dew heavy. Amazingly, the attendant didn’t have any.

On the flight back Sunday night, Ed Westwick and Jessica Szohr of Gossip Girl were sitting two rows behind us. Yeah, I watch Gossip Girl. Yes, I have a wife. Yes, it’s an excuse to watch Blake Lively and Leighton Meester. (note: Squirrel, get used to giving up the remote dude. You only have 2 weeks left.) In reality, Westwick is really short, and Szohr looked homeless.

LOVE

- The winner of the Florida-Alabama game will play Texas for the national title. No one wants to see Boise State or Iowa in the title game. No one.

- That Notre Dame-USC game had the 2 best QBs in the country. Barkley is a stud for a true freshman, and Claussen might be the most pro-ready prospect out there. USC is having their typical season, beat Ohio State early, lose the following week against a middle of the pack Pac-10 team, then round into form and be the best team in the country right before the bowl season.

- The Patriots are not dead and looked an awful lot like the 2007 Patriots – running up the score and squashing inferior opponents. Oh, and that Brady guy goes for 5 TDs in the second quarter. Titans were embarrassing to watch. The fall out? Jeff Fisher might get the axe in Nashville because that team showed they quit. Maybe it’s time for a change, and Fisher will immediately become the leading candidate for the soon-to-be-open Cowboys job.

- The Badger Snuggie was everywhere at the game this week. Also everywhere at the game were many Iowa farmers/fans. I was concerned that there was going to be a corn shortage since all those farmers were at the game and not tending their farms. Then again, they might as well travel to watch Iowa play, what the heck else are you going to do if you stay in Iowa?

- Modern Family is the best new show on television. Al Bundy is having a career resurgence.

HATE

- Mark Sanchez had never played in a game when the temperature was below 55 degrees in his life. Grew up in Cali, went to USC and now with the Jets. And in his first game in that weather? A game almost as bad as Jake Delhomme’s season opener. The Jets had a 210 yard rusher and a 99 yard rusher and lost in OT. Hopefully he figures it out, because the Meadowlands has a slightly different climate than southern California.

- The Angels look nothing like the disciplined and talented team that they were most of the season and they are in serious trouble. Down 2 games and facing Pettite is a tough task.

- The 2-3-2 format for the playoffs is ridiculous and asinine. If the Angels win just their home games, they will have 2 shots to close out the Yankees in games 6 and 7. If you don’t have home field advantage, you should never be leading the series just by winning your home games. I get the travel and cost constraints, but the schedule is stupid. And don’t get me started on the number of off days.

- You cannot be a Super Bowl contender and lose to the Raiders. There are no excuses for McNabb or Andy Reid. Because Reid is a jovial fat guy, everyone will give him a pass and say it was a one week slip up and they’ll learn from it. If it were the Cowboys that lost to the Raiders? Or the Giants? But that is the sign of team that is not mentally tough. McNabb has never been mentally tough and continues to prove it.

- Nice game Ohio State. Terrell Pryor is a joke. He’s not even as good as Kordell Stewart ever was.

- Have to feel bad for Sam Bradford. The guy would have been among the top picks in the draft last year, and went back to school to fight for a national championship and be a college kid for one more year. Now he’s injured his shoulder twice and his draft stock is going down faster than Paris Hilton in front of a video camera.