.... supervisor I log a lot of transactions. We call them MTLs, or multiple transaction logs. I have to do an MTL any time a customer bets or cashes out more than $3,000 in cash, or any time their total bets add up to over 5 grand, regardless of whether they use cash, chips, or are betting off old tickets. While the delicate geniuses that are my work superiors sit in the back room and conceive the lines that allow our book to win the big money that pays all of our salaries, it is my job to log these MTLs.
On my first day back from a trip home in May, I somehow managed to mess up two MTLs. The next day, one of these aforementioned geniuses gave me a tongue lashing about how I needed to be more careful and pay more attention. Fair enough. He was right. Looking back on it now I can't help but wonder - What would have happened if I had only logged 6 out of 24 MTLs correctly that day? My manager might have given me more than just a tongue lashing had I gone 6 for 24. That's not very good. It's terrible, really. Imagine if you were a waiter and on a given night you were working 24 tables. And you only got 6 of their orders correct. You'd probably be fired on the spot. You'd deserve to be fired. Imagine if you were an emergency medical surgeon and you only saved 6 out of 24 lives? What if Peter Gibbons only properly filled out 6 of 24 T.P.S. reports? What if the writers of Entourage only produced a good script 6 out of every 24 episodes?!
Okay, that last one was a bad example. That would actually be a huge improvement for the Entourage writing staff. My point is that 6 out of 24 is not good. It's not even just bad. It is a terrible percentage and certainly not one that should lead to any sort of accolades. Kobe Bryant winning the NBA Finals MVP after a Game 7 performance like that is a joke. I realize that the Finals MVP is given to the best player in the series, not just Game 7, but the bottom line is that the series came down to Game 7, the biggest game of Kobe's career, the biggest NBA game of my lifetime, and the so-called MVP laid an egg, going 6-24 from the field and 0-6 from beyond the arc. Kobe needlessly threw up countless terrible shots that had no chance of going in. The Celtics didn't play well and it was Kobe's awful shot selection and the resulting wasted Lakers possessions that allowed Boston to build what at one point was a double digit second half lead.
I hate when I hear that "Kobe found a way to win the game." That's not true. Kobe didn't find a way to win the game. The Lakers team did. Pau Gasol did. He scored 19 points, grabbed 18 rebounds (9 offensive), dished out 4 assists, and blocked 2 shots. Ron Artest found a way to win. He came up huge on both ends of the floor, with 20 points and 5 steals. It was Artest, not Kobe, who stepped up and hit the crucial three pointer late in the 4th quarter that virtually sealed the Lakers 16th championship. As usual, the refs did their part to help out L.A. The Lakers went to the line 37 times in Game 7, compared to 17 trips to the stripe for Boston. The 17 free throws attempted by the Celtics in the game were actually one less than the Lakers shot in the 4th quarter alone. Seems fair.
I realize Game 7 isn't the whole series. There were 6 other games that got us to that final clash. But Game 7 is obviously the biggest part of the series. It's a career defining moment. You wouldn't give the Super Bowl MVP to a guy who played a terrible 4th quarter in a close game. You wouldn't give the World Series MVP to a starting pitcher who got shelled in Game 7. You wouldn't give the Conn Smythe Trophy to a player who didn't show up for the decisive game of the Stanley Cup Final. So why does Kobe get the Finals MVP? I just don't understand it.
Of course, I don't understand much about Kobe's career and the infatuation that the city of Los Angeles and most of the country has with him. I keep hearing about this tally of Kobe 5 LeBron 0 as evidence that Bryant is better than King James. This argument makes no sense to me. Kobe won 3 titles as Shaq's sidekick 10 years ago while LeBron was in high school. What does that have to do with who is the better player as we head into the 2010-2011 season? Absolutely nothing. Yes, Kobe has delivered two titles since he forced the Lakers to choose between himself and Shaq, but who is to say that he didn't cost them two championships (Perhaps more?) with his selfishness? Shaq had a few good years left in the tank (He was the 2nd best player on Miami's 2006 title team) and with some good role players and the refs in their pockets, the Lakers may have won 2-3 more titles with Shaq and Kobe paired together.
How could the guy being called the "Greatest Laker Ever" be the same guy who broke up a budding dynasty for the franchise? How could the Greatest Laker Ever be the same guy who reportedly asked for a trade and even flirted with the idea of signing with the Clippers? The Greatest Laker Ever couldn't win a damn thing without a premier big man on his team. During his early years as the #2 guy on Shaq's Lakers, Kobe went to the postseason every year, reached the NBA Finals four times, and won three straight world championships. During the three seasons since David Stern and the NBA forced the Memphis Grizzlies at gunpoint to trade Pau Gasol to the Lakers for nothing, Kobe has won a total of 11 playoff series, three straight Western Conference titles, and the last two world championships. Contrast that with the three years Kobe didn't count O'Neal or Gasol as a teammate. During those seasons, the Lakers won a total of zero playoff series, even missing the postseason entirely in 2004-05. Let me know when LeBron misses the playoffs.
Bottom line: Kobe is a very good player who has spent almost his entire career in a great situation. Beyond great, really. Bryant has spent the majority of his career with the most successful head coach in American sports history on his bench. Other than the 2005-2007 seasons, (Coincidentally the same seasons he couldn't get out of the first round of the playoffs) Kobe has always had a great big man on his team. And as a career Los Angeles Laker, Kobe has always benefited from having the refs in the collective pocket of his team. Getting 20 more free throws than the Celtics in Game 7 was one thing, but the Lakers 2002 title was practically handed to them by the officials, who refused to let the superior Sacramento Kings beat them in the Western Conference Finals. If LeBron ever has a world class center, an excellent supporting cast, a Hall of Fame coach, and the refs giving him and his team every call, and he STILL can't win a title, then I'll admit that Kobe is the better player. Until that day, I still say James is easily the best individual basketball player on the planet.
I haven't filed a blog since the whole Donovan McNabb to the Redskins debacle back in April. I'm still not happy about that and have no hope for my Redskins this fall. Here's what else is going on:
* I've been watching a lot of the World Cup. It's probably my favorite sporting event with the NFL Playoffs as the only possible exception. I loved that U.S.A. team and truly believe that they were better than Ghana. It's just a shame that they wasted such a great opportunity. There is no guarantee that they will even qualify for the World Cup in 2014 and certainly no guarantee that they will get out of the group stage. It's also likely that they will never again have as great a draw as they did this year. All they needed to do was beat Ghana and Uruguay and they would have been in the semifinals of the World Cup! Team U.S.A. will very likely send better sides to the World Cup in the future but we may never see such an easy path to the Cup Final again.
* With my biggest baseball future bet on the Texas Rangers off to a good start, I'm turning my attention elsewhere. Bets have been placed on the Chicago Bulls to win the 2011 NBA Championship at both 20-1 and 18-1. Obviously, the hope there is that Chicago signs LeBron James in the coming weeks and that Chris Bosh follows him to the Windy City. I'm not a big fan of Bosh but do love Bulls PG Derrick Rose. James is pretty good, too. That would be a great team and it'd be very nice to have a 20-1 ticket in my pocket heading into the 2010-2011 season.
* Also made a bet on the San Diego Chargers to win the Super Bowl at 14-1. As usual, the best Super Bowl odds in Vegas were found at the Venetian. I hate Norv Turner and it does concern me that McNeil and Jackson are holding out. However, San Diego appears to be easily the class of the AFC West, and they should benefit from playing four games against the NFC West. Their easy schedule could result in another high playoff seed, maybe even home field advantage. I always like to bet on teams that no one is talking about (Like the Colts last season) and I like teams that have dumped overrated big name players like the Chargers did by cutting ties with RB LaDainian Tomlinson and CB Antonio Cromartie. I'm still looking at a couple other teams to bet on in the NFL. Will pass that info along.
* The Bulls bet and the Chargers bet look good but my favorite future bet of the moment is definitely my play on the Florida Gators. I've been telling everyone to get down on the Gators and the more I look at it, consider it to be my favorite future bet ever. My bets are in at 24-1, 22-1, and 20-1 but I would consider betting more at 15-1 or higher. The Gators preseason odds to win the BCS title have been mostly in the range of 4-1 to 8-1 the last few years and now all of a sudden they are up to 20? I realize they lost Haden, Spikes, Dunlap, Pouncey, and of course, Tim Tebow, among others, but I think those odds are a huge overreaction.
Florida is a great football PROGRAM. They are almost always atop the list of college football's top recruiting classes and all those blue chip recruits have spent the last 2-3 years redshirting and learning the system under Head Coach Urban Meyer and his staff. Consider the case of QB John Brantley. The 2006 Gatorade National High School Player of the year redshirted in 2007 and spent the 2008 and 2009 seasons as Tebow's backup, learning the offense and putting up huge stats in garbage time. Now as a redshirt junior, it's Brantley's time to put up huge numbers in Meyer's offense. Brantley is a better passer than Tebow and may end up being the better player. Meyer's offense was wildly successful before Tebow came along, and it will continue to be successful going forward. Alabama lost both the starting QB (John Parker Wilson) and best player (LT Andre Smith) from their 2008 team and went on to win the national championship in 2009. Duke's basketball team lost their best player from two years ago (Leading scorer Gerald Henderson) and won it all the very next season. College sports are about the program, not the individual player.
The same way Florida has Brantley in position to replace Tebow, the Gators have other highly regarded recruits waiting in the wings to replace the players they lost to the National Football League. They also play a very favorable SEC schedule in which they will likely be an underdog just one time - October 2nd on the road against defending national champions Alabama. For all the hype that game will receive, it may prove to be meaningless if the two teams end up staging a rematch in December's SEC Championship game. The winner of that neutral field game would be the one playing for the BCS Title in Glendale, Arizona in January. Get your money down on the Gators.
* I was at Pebble Beach two weekends ago for the U.S. Open. Considering that I had a bet on Dustin Johnson that went up in flames early Sunday and that I suffered a Top 5 all time personal worst sunburn, it was still a great trip. Very scenic views and it was very cool seeing Tiger, Mickelson, Els, Vijay, Watson, etc. battling the extremely difficult course. I'd blog more about it but I was drinking most of the time so I don't have anything interesting to say.
* I'd also like to say that I will produce a blog about this Saturday night's UFC 116 card that I will be in attendance for. But again the drinking may prevent me from doing so. However, a recap of my drunken night at the Lesnar-Carwin fight might actually be better than my other current blog idea: A 5,000 word rant about how Mike Shanahan may not actually be that great of a coach, considering that he has won a total of 1 playoff game in 13 seasons as an NFL Head Coach without John Elway as his quarterback. Note: John Elway will not be quarterbacking the 2010 Washington Redskins.
That feels like enough for today. I need to mentally prepare myself for this afternoon's pickup basketball game. When you're 27 years old and still occasionally drink like a college kid, these games can be more grueling than one would think.
Go read something else.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
I was sitting at a bar
....inside the Indianapolis airport last night waiting for my flight back to Vegas. My buddies had already caught their flight back to the D.C. area and I was left all alone to think about how much money I had spent and how much money I had lost gambling over the previous 48 hours.
Good news came in the form of a text from Jeff Sherman confirming that we had gone 2-0-1 in golf match up bets for the week. Nice. Love The Sherm. More good news - word from Metcalf that The Group was betting the under in a girls-trying-to-play-basketball game and they were giving me a piece. Being included in a bet by The Group is even better than winning. Very nice. Love The Group. Things were starting to turn around as I ordered my second beer.
It was around this time that my evening really began to spiral out of control. Apparently, inclement weather in Chicago was forcing all flights there to be canceled. Normally this wouldn't affect my life whatsoever. However, a middle aged woman who had been bound for the Windy City had just plopped down on the bar stool next to mine and began talking my ear off about her predicament. I must have a sign on my back that says "Tell Me About Your Boring Problems" when I'm at the airport because this sort of thing seems to happen to me all too frequently. I will try to recap our conversation for my readers. Keep in mind that I was tuning her out as much as humanly possible and barely remember a word she said because I was so uninterested in everything that was coming out of her yap. So basically it was no different than any conversation I have with any woman.
Crazy Airport Bar Lady: Blah blah blah flight to Chicago blah blah blah canceled blah blah blah weather.
Me (looking at a girls basketball game on TV instead of her): Yeah?
Crazy Airport Bar Lady: Blah blah blah they are making us pay for own hotel rooms blah blah blah they say weather is out of their control blah blah blah.
Me (never taking my eyes off the TV): Damn. That sucks.
Crazy Airport Bar Lady: Blah blah blah Isn't that ridiculous? Blah blah blah.
Me: Yes. Ridiculous.
Crazy Airport Bar Lady: Blah.....
Me: Check please.
As I was in the process of paying my check I noticed that another TV at the bar, which was showing ESPNEWS, had just flashed a story about Donovan McNabb. I'm 27 now and my vision is starting to slip and from where I was sitting I would have sworn it said McNabb was now a Raider. That would have made perfect sense considering all the McNabb-to-Oakland chatter during the previous week. I still had to walk closer to the TV to confirm. As I got closer I could see the words on the screen more clearly.
"ESPN's Adam Schefter is reporting that the Eagles have traded QB Donovan McNabb to the Redskins." Not the Raiders. The Redskins. My dumb idiot asshole retard Redskins had made yet another ridiculous trade, no doubt giving up a high draft choice for a washed up player at the back end of his career. Again. Yet again.
What. The. Fuck.
I paid my tab and stormed out of the bar towards Gate B21. I wanted to know exactly what we gave up to acquire a QB who will turn 34 during the regular season and is due an 8 figure salary for the year. Although in the back of my mind I already knew. The Eagles had publicly stated their asking price of a Top 42 draft pick in exchange for McNabb and the Redskins held the 37th overall pick in this month's draft. I still wanted to know for sure, so I called the biggest NFL fan in my phone - Superbook manager Ed Salmons, who also doubles as an Eagles die hard. The McNabb deal was such a fresh story that even he didn't know the exact details of the trade. I called my brother and through a barrage of expletives he informed me that, as I expected, the Skins had given up their 2010 2nd round pick and just for good measure had also tossed in a 3rd or 4th round pick in 2011. Great. Already giving up our picks in next year's draft. Good decision, guys. No teams ever build championship rosters through the draft.
I started receiving a lot of phone calls and texts. Curse words and offensive pet names for McNabb from some of my buddies who root for the Skins. Mocks and taunts from friends who like Philly. And a few people who just wanted to know what I thought of the deal. I was so flustered all I could say to a few friends was that I thought it was unbelievable that the Redskins could do something so stupid. Unbelievable that they could continue to make the same mistakes they have been making for 10+ years. And unbelievable that no matter who is in charge that they continue to do the same dumb things year after year.
Allow me to elaborate:
1. This trade is exactly why I didn't want the Redskins to hire Mike Shananan as their head coach. Although I admit that Shanahan is a good football mind and obviously an upgrade over Jim Zorn, I never wanted him because I assumed that a coach who will be 58 on opening day and who has already won 2 Super Bowl championships would not be interested in a rebuilding job. Obviously, I was right about that.
2. I keep hearing this talk about how McNabb is a big upgrade over the Redskins incumbent QB, Jason Campbell, and how his presence alone will make the Redskins a much better team. Um, are we sure about this? Here are some statistics from 2009:
Player A: 16 starts, 3,618 passing yards, 64.5% completions, 20 TD, 15 INT
Player B: 14 starts, 3,553 passing yards, 60.3% completions, 22 TD, 10 INT
At gun point I would say that Player B had the better year because he threw fewer picks but Player A stayed healthy all season and completed a much higher percentage of his passes. When you factor in that Player A is 6 years younger and that Player B commands a much larger salary, I would argue that Player A is the more valuable asset to a football team. Also, consider that Player A was throwing from behind a decimated offensive line to a group of inexperienced WRs for much of the season. Player A was also often playing from behind which tends to lead to more interceptions. Player B had Pro Bowlers at both the WR and TE positions and a much better offensive line watching his back.
Player A is Campbell. Player B is McNabb. Considering production, age, and salary going from Campbell to McNabb is hardly an upgrade. It's a lateral move at best.
3. Then there's the draft picks. The Redskins just give these things away like they are worthless. Even if you knew nothing about the NFL or how to run a football franchise, you could just look at the most successful teams and copy what they do. Take the Patriots for example. They were the most successful team of the 2000s, winning the Super Bowl 3 times and they hoard draft picks more than any team in the league. New England is constantly making moves to acquire more and more mid round draft picks. Why would a team do such a thing? I will tell you:
Mid round draft picks are very valuable. They allow you to replenish your roster with young players who are generally being paid a relatively low salary. These young players are hungry to prove that they belong in the NFL and prove that they deserve a big contract once their rookie deals expire, usually within 3-5 years. Players like this allow you to build up something called depth, a concept the Redskins are clearly not familiar with. "Depth" makes it possible to sustain injuries during the long season. Football tends to be a fairly violent game so having depth is generally considered a good thing. Last season when the Redskins starters began dropping like flies, the team resorted to signing players off the streets because they had no depth. They had no depth because they never have any draft picks. And they never have any draft picks because of deals like this one for McNabb.
I would also argue that the 37th pick is just as valuable as a late first round choice. You are essentially just as likely to find a good player at 37 as you are at 31 and you don't have to pay said player a first round salary. You're also probably getting a player who is pissed he didn't go in Round 1 and eager to prove that he should have.
4. People are saying that the Redskins will be better in 2010 because of McNabb. The Redskins will be better this year but it won't be JUST because of McNabb. The Redskins went 4-12 last season so chances are they will improve on their win total in 2010 no matter what they do. But they would have been just as likely to improve from 4-12 without McNabb as they are with him. When you reach the bottom there's nowhere to go but up. If the Redskins do manage to win 7-8 games this fall, it won't be JUST because of their new QB. That's ridiculous logic.
Consider: Chances are that Butler won't be back in the national championship game next April. If I said that Butler didn't make it back to the title game because they lost Avery Jukes to graduation, I would sound like an idiot. Just because they didn't make it back to the title game doesn't mean it was just because they lost Jukes any more that the Redskins improvement won't be just because they traded for McNabb. When you get that high there's nowhere to go but down. Just like when you are at the bottom you generally move back up. Things resort back to the norm.
5. Let's just say that McNabb comes to Washington and plays his heart out all season. He stays healthy for 16 games and plays inspired football to stick it to the Eagles organization and the city of Philadelphia. And let's say that the Redskins offensive line stays healthy all year and that the young WRs continue to develop and that Clinton Portis has one more good year in him running in Shanahan's offense. The Redskins do have a very solid team defensively, although I think they made a dumb move replacing Greg Blache (Who was doing a perfectly good job) with Jim Haslett. If the Skins stayed healthy, the schedule broke well, and they got lucky at the end of a handful of close games, they could go 9-7 and secure a wild card berth. They did it in 2007. They could do it again this year. It's not at all out of the realm of possibility. But when that's your ceiling, when you need everything to break right just to win 9 games and lose in the first round of the playoffs, you need to be REBUILDING. And that's why I didn't like the Shanahan hire, that's why I didn't like the Larry Johnson signing, and that's why I hate this trade for McNabb.
You cannot rebuild a team trading 2nd and 3rd round picks for a QB who is about to turn 34. Two years ago the Redskins traded a 2nd round pick to Miami for Jason Taylor and people acted like it was a good move. Just because Taylor, like McNabb, is a name they have heard. "Oh Jason Taylor, I've heard of him. Must be a smart move." Taylor played a handful of games, compiling a whopping one sack, was cut after the season and re-signed with The Dolphins. Nice use of a 2nd round pick.
McNabb was a good player 5-6 years ago but don't kid yourself: He was never Peyton Manning. He was never Tom Brady or Drew Brees. He was good but never great. And now he's old and at the end of his road. Trading two draft picks for a player at the end of his career is a very poor decision. The only time you could even begin to justify a trade like that would be if you felt your team was 1 player away from being a Super Bowl contender which the Redskins are not. They aren't even close. They have holes up and down their roster that can't be patched up by 2 years of a mid 3o's Donovan McNabb.
But let's just say that you think I'm wrong about everything. Let's say you think trading draft picks for veterans can work out. Let's say you think that McNabb is a big upgrade over Campbell. Let's say that you think that fighting it out for the 5th or 6th seed is worth mortgaging your future because anything can happen once you are in the playoffs.
If you follow the NFL at all, you would know that the Eagles have one of the top 3-5 front offices in the league. Philly's brass has kept the team among the league's best for nearly a decade through a series of good draft choices and smart decisions in free agency. Do you really think that a smart front office like Philadelphia would trade its starting QB to a team INSIDE THEIR OWN DIVISION if they thought he could still complete at a championship level???
Of course, they wouldn't.
Of course, they wouldn't.
And that's what scares me the most. Something that obvious and the Redskins front office misses it entirely. I expect the average fan to think the Redskins made a good move. The average fan is an absolute idiot with little to no understanding of the game. They have heard of Donovan McNabb. He's been to the Super Bowl before. So it must be a good move. I expect the national media to approve of the move. McNabb is a good guy, so most sportswriters won't publicly rip him or a trade to acquire him. But the Redskins front office is a team of people who are paid to understand football. They are paid to evaluate talent and paid to determine what is best for the franchise. And they still made a trade like this and act like it is in the best long term interest of the Washington Redskins.
That really is unbelievable.
Good news came in the form of a text from Jeff Sherman confirming that we had gone 2-0-1 in golf match up bets for the week. Nice. Love The Sherm. More good news - word from Metcalf that The Group was betting the under in a girls-trying-to-play-basketball game and they were giving me a piece. Being included in a bet by The Group is even better than winning. Very nice. Love The Group. Things were starting to turn around as I ordered my second beer.
It was around this time that my evening really began to spiral out of control. Apparently, inclement weather in Chicago was forcing all flights there to be canceled. Normally this wouldn't affect my life whatsoever. However, a middle aged woman who had been bound for the Windy City had just plopped down on the bar stool next to mine and began talking my ear off about her predicament. I must have a sign on my back that says "Tell Me About Your Boring Problems" when I'm at the airport because this sort of thing seems to happen to me all too frequently. I will try to recap our conversation for my readers. Keep in mind that I was tuning her out as much as humanly possible and barely remember a word she said because I was so uninterested in everything that was coming out of her yap. So basically it was no different than any conversation I have with any woman.
Crazy Airport Bar Lady: Blah blah blah flight to Chicago blah blah blah canceled blah blah blah weather.
Me (looking at a girls basketball game on TV instead of her): Yeah?
Crazy Airport Bar Lady: Blah blah blah they are making us pay for own hotel rooms blah blah blah they say weather is out of their control blah blah blah.
Me (never taking my eyes off the TV): Damn. That sucks.
Crazy Airport Bar Lady: Blah blah blah Isn't that ridiculous? Blah blah blah.
Me: Yes. Ridiculous.
Crazy Airport Bar Lady: Blah.....
Me: Check please.
As I was in the process of paying my check I noticed that another TV at the bar, which was showing ESPNEWS, had just flashed a story about Donovan McNabb. I'm 27 now and my vision is starting to slip and from where I was sitting I would have sworn it said McNabb was now a Raider. That would have made perfect sense considering all the McNabb-to-Oakland chatter during the previous week. I still had to walk closer to the TV to confirm. As I got closer I could see the words on the screen more clearly.
"ESPN's Adam Schefter is reporting that the Eagles have traded QB Donovan McNabb to the Redskins." Not the Raiders. The Redskins. My dumb idiot asshole retard Redskins had made yet another ridiculous trade, no doubt giving up a high draft choice for a washed up player at the back end of his career. Again. Yet again.
What. The. Fuck.
I paid my tab and stormed out of the bar towards Gate B21. I wanted to know exactly what we gave up to acquire a QB who will turn 34 during the regular season and is due an 8 figure salary for the year. Although in the back of my mind I already knew. The Eagles had publicly stated their asking price of a Top 42 draft pick in exchange for McNabb and the Redskins held the 37th overall pick in this month's draft. I still wanted to know for sure, so I called the biggest NFL fan in my phone - Superbook manager Ed Salmons, who also doubles as an Eagles die hard. The McNabb deal was such a fresh story that even he didn't know the exact details of the trade. I called my brother and through a barrage of expletives he informed me that, as I expected, the Skins had given up their 2010 2nd round pick and just for good measure had also tossed in a 3rd or 4th round pick in 2011. Great. Already giving up our picks in next year's draft. Good decision, guys. No teams ever build championship rosters through the draft.
I started receiving a lot of phone calls and texts. Curse words and offensive pet names for McNabb from some of my buddies who root for the Skins. Mocks and taunts from friends who like Philly. And a few people who just wanted to know what I thought of the deal. I was so flustered all I could say to a few friends was that I thought it was unbelievable that the Redskins could do something so stupid. Unbelievable that they could continue to make the same mistakes they have been making for 10+ years. And unbelievable that no matter who is in charge that they continue to do the same dumb things year after year.
Allow me to elaborate:
1. This trade is exactly why I didn't want the Redskins to hire Mike Shananan as their head coach. Although I admit that Shanahan is a good football mind and obviously an upgrade over Jim Zorn, I never wanted him because I assumed that a coach who will be 58 on opening day and who has already won 2 Super Bowl championships would not be interested in a rebuilding job. Obviously, I was right about that.
2. I keep hearing this talk about how McNabb is a big upgrade over the Redskins incumbent QB, Jason Campbell, and how his presence alone will make the Redskins a much better team. Um, are we sure about this? Here are some statistics from 2009:
Player A: 16 starts, 3,618 passing yards, 64.5% completions, 20 TD, 15 INT
Player B: 14 starts, 3,553 passing yards, 60.3% completions, 22 TD, 10 INT
At gun point I would say that Player B had the better year because he threw fewer picks but Player A stayed healthy all season and completed a much higher percentage of his passes. When you factor in that Player A is 6 years younger and that Player B commands a much larger salary, I would argue that Player A is the more valuable asset to a football team. Also, consider that Player A was throwing from behind a decimated offensive line to a group of inexperienced WRs for much of the season. Player A was also often playing from behind which tends to lead to more interceptions. Player B had Pro Bowlers at both the WR and TE positions and a much better offensive line watching his back.
Player A is Campbell. Player B is McNabb. Considering production, age, and salary going from Campbell to McNabb is hardly an upgrade. It's a lateral move at best.
3. Then there's the draft picks. The Redskins just give these things away like they are worthless. Even if you knew nothing about the NFL or how to run a football franchise, you could just look at the most successful teams and copy what they do. Take the Patriots for example. They were the most successful team of the 2000s, winning the Super Bowl 3 times and they hoard draft picks more than any team in the league. New England is constantly making moves to acquire more and more mid round draft picks. Why would a team do such a thing? I will tell you:
Mid round draft picks are very valuable. They allow you to replenish your roster with young players who are generally being paid a relatively low salary. These young players are hungry to prove that they belong in the NFL and prove that they deserve a big contract once their rookie deals expire, usually within 3-5 years. Players like this allow you to build up something called depth, a concept the Redskins are clearly not familiar with. "Depth" makes it possible to sustain injuries during the long season. Football tends to be a fairly violent game so having depth is generally considered a good thing. Last season when the Redskins starters began dropping like flies, the team resorted to signing players off the streets because they had no depth. They had no depth because they never have any draft picks. And they never have any draft picks because of deals like this one for McNabb.
I would also argue that the 37th pick is just as valuable as a late first round choice. You are essentially just as likely to find a good player at 37 as you are at 31 and you don't have to pay said player a first round salary. You're also probably getting a player who is pissed he didn't go in Round 1 and eager to prove that he should have.
4. People are saying that the Redskins will be better in 2010 because of McNabb. The Redskins will be better this year but it won't be JUST because of McNabb. The Redskins went 4-12 last season so chances are they will improve on their win total in 2010 no matter what they do. But they would have been just as likely to improve from 4-12 without McNabb as they are with him. When you reach the bottom there's nowhere to go but up. If the Redskins do manage to win 7-8 games this fall, it won't be JUST because of their new QB. That's ridiculous logic.
Consider: Chances are that Butler won't be back in the national championship game next April. If I said that Butler didn't make it back to the title game because they lost Avery Jukes to graduation, I would sound like an idiot. Just because they didn't make it back to the title game doesn't mean it was just because they lost Jukes any more that the Redskins improvement won't be just because they traded for McNabb. When you get that high there's nowhere to go but down. Just like when you are at the bottom you generally move back up. Things resort back to the norm.
5. Let's just say that McNabb comes to Washington and plays his heart out all season. He stays healthy for 16 games and plays inspired football to stick it to the Eagles organization and the city of Philadelphia. And let's say that the Redskins offensive line stays healthy all year and that the young WRs continue to develop and that Clinton Portis has one more good year in him running in Shanahan's offense. The Redskins do have a very solid team defensively, although I think they made a dumb move replacing Greg Blache (Who was doing a perfectly good job) with Jim Haslett. If the Skins stayed healthy, the schedule broke well, and they got lucky at the end of a handful of close games, they could go 9-7 and secure a wild card berth. They did it in 2007. They could do it again this year. It's not at all out of the realm of possibility. But when that's your ceiling, when you need everything to break right just to win 9 games and lose in the first round of the playoffs, you need to be REBUILDING. And that's why I didn't like the Shanahan hire, that's why I didn't like the Larry Johnson signing, and that's why I hate this trade for McNabb.
You cannot rebuild a team trading 2nd and 3rd round picks for a QB who is about to turn 34. Two years ago the Redskins traded a 2nd round pick to Miami for Jason Taylor and people acted like it was a good move. Just because Taylor, like McNabb, is a name they have heard. "Oh Jason Taylor, I've heard of him. Must be a smart move." Taylor played a handful of games, compiling a whopping one sack, was cut after the season and re-signed with The Dolphins. Nice use of a 2nd round pick.
McNabb was a good player 5-6 years ago but don't kid yourself: He was never Peyton Manning. He was never Tom Brady or Drew Brees. He was good but never great. And now he's old and at the end of his road. Trading two draft picks for a player at the end of his career is a very poor decision. The only time you could even begin to justify a trade like that would be if you felt your team was 1 player away from being a Super Bowl contender which the Redskins are not. They aren't even close. They have holes up and down their roster that can't be patched up by 2 years of a mid 3o's Donovan McNabb.
But let's just say that you think I'm wrong about everything. Let's say you think trading draft picks for veterans can work out. Let's say you think that McNabb is a big upgrade over Campbell. Let's say that you think that fighting it out for the 5th or 6th seed is worth mortgaging your future because anything can happen once you are in the playoffs.
If you follow the NFL at all, you would know that the Eagles have one of the top 3-5 front offices in the league. Philly's brass has kept the team among the league's best for nearly a decade through a series of good draft choices and smart decisions in free agency. Do you really think that a smart front office like Philadelphia would trade its starting QB to a team INSIDE THEIR OWN DIVISION if they thought he could still complete at a championship level???
Of course, they wouldn't.
Of course, they wouldn't.
And that's what scares me the most. Something that obvious and the Redskins front office misses it entirely. I expect the average fan to think the Redskins made a good move. The average fan is an absolute idiot with little to no understanding of the game. They have heard of Donovan McNabb. He's been to the Super Bowl before. So it must be a good move. I expect the national media to approve of the move. McNabb is a good guy, so most sportswriters won't publicly rip him or a trade to acquire him. But the Redskins front office is a team of people who are paid to understand football. They are paid to evaluate talent and paid to determine what is best for the franchise. And they still made a trade like this and act like it is in the best long term interest of the Washington Redskins.
That really is unbelievable.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sports Illustrated put out its
.... NFL preview edition this week and inspired me to do an NFL preview of my own. While it is true that I don't know anything about the NFL and am in no way qualified to offer up any predictions on the subject, I am going to do it anyway. And I fully anticipate my predictions to be more accurate than SI's resident assclown, Peter King.
I'm going to do division-by-division write-ups picking a winner of each, then select two wild card teams and make playoff projections. I should probably warn you now that I will not be making any jokes in this blog. And please save your own jokes for the end. CB - You may need to spread this out over about a week. It's pretty long. Thanks in advance.
NFC East
King has the division going Giants, Cowboys, Eagles, Redskins. I think Sports Illustrated has picked the Redskins to finish last in the NFC East something like 19 years in a row. I can remember being all excited to read SI's NFL Preview when I was a kid and always being crushed when they picked us to finish last. And this was back when the Cardinals were in the division and averaged about 3 wins per year for a decade.
The Giants won the East last season with relative ease, before falling to another member of the division, Ed's Eagles, in the divisional playoff round. On paper, the Eagles appear to be clearly the best team in the conference. They got rid of several players I didn't like (LJ Smith, Dawkins, Lito, etc....) and added depth along the offensive line and more weapons on offense. The defense lost Stewart Bradley to a torn ACL but I don't see that as being a big deal. I'm sure they can just plug in the next guy and he'll be every bit as mediocre as Bradley was. I like the additions of Jason Peters, Ellis Hobbs III, and LaSean McCoy and will call for an Eagles division title. I also made a bet on this.
The other teams in the division all have more glaring holes: The Giants have no clear #1 WR now that Burress is headed for jail. The Cowboys are still coached by Wade Phillips and appear to have done nothing to improve their team since Bill Parcells left 3 years ago. The Redskins offensive line is a lock to wear down as the season goes on.
Finishing Order:
1. Eagles
2. Redskins (WC)
3. Giants
4. Cowboys
(I actually think the Giants are better than the Redskins but I'm picking the Skins to finish second anyway behind the division's best defense.... Actually it's just because I am a fan and don't really give a fuck if it seems like a homer pick. Suck my balls, Peter King.)
NFC North
This could be the most interesting division in the NFL, mostly because the greatest player in league history is back in it.... on a different team this time. The real winner in the NFC North is America because we all get to watch Brett Favre play the game with the same child-like joy he has whilst winging the pigskin around in his backyard as his golden retriever looks on. But I suppose I could make a more specific prediction than that. Two NFC North teams are getting Super Bowl hype but I'm going to pick a third team, the Green Bay Packers, to win the division title and make a deep January run. The Packers have the division's best QB in Aaron Rodgers and a new Dom Capers-coached 3-4 defense that should be way better than the defense they had last season.
The Vikings have arguably the best defensive line in football, a very good offensive line, and the best RB in the NFL in Adrian Peterson, so it's hard to predict them to fall apart. At the same time I don't see how a team coached by Brad Childress and quarterbacked by a 40-year-old graybeard can be a legit Super Bowl contender. Chicago is getting way too much hype and I've never liked Jay Cutler, anyway. The Lions have nowhere to go but up but are clearly at the bottom of this group.
Finishing Order:
1. Packers
2. Vikings (WC)
3. Bears
4. Lions
NFC South
Carolina won this division last year and were joined in the playoffs by the upstart Atlanta Falcons. Blogcast followers know that I have a bet on the Falcons to win the division at 4-1 which I feel is a good bet, as I see this being 50/50 between Atlanta and the New Orleans Saints. Peter King picked the Falcons and he's an idiot. I bet the Falcons and I'm an idiot. So who is my official pick to win the South? I'm still going with Atlanta. Matt Ryan, Michael Turner, and Roddy White all had great seasons last year and will enter their second year as a trio with Tony Gonzalez opening the field for all of them.
I hate the Panthers this year and don't see them contending for the division title or even a playoff berth. Everyone is way down on Tampa Bay this season, so I'll call for them to surprise a few people and win 7-8 games behind an underrated defense.
Finishing Order:
1. Falcons
2. Saints
3. Bucs
4. Panthers
NFC West
I'm constantly amazed by these kids betting on the Cardinals to win the Super Bowl at 30-1. Last season Arizona won the NFC West, hosted a first round playoff game, caught a huge break when the Eagles beat the Giants putting the conference title game in Arizona, and a running money line parlay on Arizona in the postseason alone would have still paid way more than 30-1. I don't even see the Cardinals making the playoffs this year and bet them under wins.
Seattle owned this division for years and I feel like the Cardinals were just borrowing it last season while the Seahawks were buried by a rash of injuries. I've heard different people talk about both the 49ers and Rams as sleepers. I don't see anything to like about the 49ers but I could see the Rams being a lot better this season. They drafted an offensive tackle with the second overall pick and sound like they are committed to establishing a tough ground game behind him.
Finishing Order:
1. Seahawks
2. Rams
3. Cardinals
4. 49ers
Wild Cards:
(3) Seahawks def. (6) Redskins
(5) Vikings def. (4) Falcons
Divisional Playoffs:
(2) Packers def. Seahawks
(1) Eagles def. Vikings
NFC Championship Game:
Eagles def. Packers
The Eagles make every effort to choke the game away but in the end Andy Reid and his outrageously highly power rated team head back to the Super Bowl.
AFC East
Last year the Patriots were coming off an 18-1 season and seemed like a virtual lock to win the AFC East. Then the Jets acquired America's Quarterback, Tom Terrific got injured on opening day, the Dolphins started using a high school offense, and when the playoffs started, New England was shockingly on the outside looking in. It was kind of a strange season in the AFC East. This year the Patriots are again a decisive favorite to win the East and I'm going out on a limb and saying that 2008 was a fluke and that the Pats will be back on top.
I've been telling people that the Jets are one of my favorite sleeper teams this season and I expect them to challenge for a playoff spot behind a very aggressive defense. How much of a drop is there between Favre and rookie Mark Sanchez really? I don't think it's that big of a difference. Favre kind of.... sucks. I bet Miami under wins and expect them to fall back this season. On paper the Bills have one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL, they fired their offensive coordinator a week before the season starts, and their best player has a reality show on VHI. Sounds like a last place season to me.
Finishing Order:
1. Patriots
2. Jets
3. Dolphins
4. Bills
AFC North
Last season I made a bet on the Steelers to win the AFC North at +150 at the fabulous Venetian. I liked the bet so much that I also recommended it to several co-workers, some of whom miraculously took my advice and bet it, as well. I liked the bet so much not only because I thought Pittsburgh was going to have a good season but also because I was way down on the division co-favorites from last preseason - the Cleveland Browns. Well, I was right about the Steelers being good and I was right about the Browns being terrible, but what I didn't account for was that Baltimore had a great team last season and nearly stole the division. The Ravens defense was typically dominant and rookie QB Joe Flacco was great. Pittsburgh was lucky to win both regular season games against the Ravens and the division could have easily gone Baltimore's way.
This season, I'm going to pick the Ravens to win the North behind Flacco, that tough defense, and what should be a great running game. Most people probably don't realize that the Ravens led the NFL in rushing last season and the addition of first round pick Michael Oher should make them even more formidable on the ground. Pittsburgh will be right there as well and I bet the Bengals over wins, so apparently I like them. I have absolutely no idea what the Cleveland Browns are doing. It doesn't seem like they do either.
Finishing Order:
1. Ravens
2. Steelers (WC)
3. Bengals
4. Browns
AFC South
Tennessee was the best team in the NFL during the 2008 regular season. The Titans earned home field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs and dominated play between the 20's against the Ravens in the divisional round. Unfortunately, Jeff Fisher's guys repeatedly found ways to choke the game away before losing to the Ravens on a last minute field goal. Tennessee should have won that game and they should have been hosting the Steelers in the AFC Championship game the following weekend. It's very possible that the Titans would have won the Super Bowl if they could have beat Baltimore that day.
One thing I have learned about the NFL is that chances like the one the Titans had last season are few and far between. Tennessee may have been the best team in the NFL last season and maybe they should have won the Super Bowl. What does that guarantee for this season? Absolutely nothing. Especially in what I consider to be the best divison in the AFC and the second best division in the NFL behind the NFC East. In fact, I'm calling for the Titans to finish 3rd this season behind the Colts and Jaguars. I love Indianapolis this season. Nobody is talking about the Colts, who last I checked still have the best QB in the NFL, won 9 of their last 10 games last season, and are power rated so highly that they were favored on the road in San Diego in last season's wild card round.
I'm picking the Colts to win this division and also like Jacksonville to have a good season. The Jaguars drafted offensive tackles in each of the first two rounds and should be effective on the ground this year. The Houston Texans were my big sleeper pick last season but they seem to be one of those dreaded trendy sleepers in 2009, which means they will probably finish last. The Texans have a lot of good young players but they are an inevitable Matt Schaub injury away from starting Sexy Rexy at QB, and they will face a very tough schedule. I don't see it with them.
Finishing Order:
1. Colts
2. Jaguars (WC)
3. Titans
4. Texans
AFC West
I guess you could call this a divsion. I'm picking the Chargers to win it but all I'm going to talk about in this space is Shawne Merriman's arrest and the Raiders trading for Richard Seymour. When I heard that Merriman was being charged with choking and restraining a female guest, I wasn't even remotely surprised. He's a roided out NFL linebacker. He's capable of pretty much anything. What shocked me was that his guest was MTV reality personality Tila Tequila. Who knew that those two were dating? Must be nice playing for the Chargers. You get to live in San Diego and date slutty Asian TV stars. And no one seems to care that your best years were the direct result of you cheating and taking steroids.
For the life of me, I can't figure out what the Raiders were thinking trading their 2011 first round pick to the Patriots for Richard Seymour. Seymour is 29, he's in the last year of his contract, and what exactly is he going to bring to Oakland? It's not like they have any chance of contending for a playoff berth with him. It just makes no sense to trade what will almost certainly be a Top 10 pick for a guy who is 29 and on the downside of his career. The only time that a move like this would be even remotely justifiable would be when your team is a player away from contending for a Super Bowl, which obviously the Raiders are not. My advice to the Raiders is that if the Patriots are willing to make a trade with you, just assume that Belichick is right and you are wrong and hang up the phone immediately. Oh, uh the Chiefs are going to be mediocre at best, the Broncos are a mess and the Raiders are idiots. What a division!
Finishing Order:
1. Chargers
2. Chiefs
3. Broncos
4. Raiders
Wild Cards:
(3) Patriots def. (6) Jaguars
(4) Ravens def. (5) Steelers
Divisional Playoffs:
(2) Colts def. Patriots
Ravens def. (1) Chargers
AFC Championship Game:
Colts def. Ravens
To beat a defense as good as Baltimore's, you need a QB who won't make a lot of mistakes and you need to be able to run the ball effectively. Indy has the best QB in the game and they now have two RB's they can count on, just like they did 3 years ago when they won it all.
Super Bowl XLIV:
Colts 27 Eagles 23
This would be Ed's dream Super Bowl. His beloved Eagles facing off against the QB he considers to be the league's biggest choker. The one thing Ed is forgetting? The Eagles are even bigger chokers than Manning is. At least Peyton has one ring. I think he'll get another one this season. Sorry, bro.
The funny thing about making NFL predictions and posting them online is that there is no possible way I could be successful. No matter how good or bad these picks end up being, everyone will just mock them even though they most likely couldn't do any better themselves. I'm sure that last season at this time most people were picking the Patriots and Cowboys. They both missed the playoffs.
More interesting tidbits:
* Ed is not allowed to make any jokes about how dumb my picks are, seeing as how his pick to win the BCS Championship game was the Oklahoma Sooners. I hope you snapped up some 5-1, bro.
* However, if you think that Oklahoma is eliminated from the BCS you're an idiot. It's college football. It's retarded. Losing a game in September and losing a game in November are somehow two different things. If they beat Texas next month and some other teams in different conferences lose, the Sooners could absolutely end up in Pasadena.
* 50 years from now when college football has a playoff system, people are going to look back at this era and none of them are going to understand why we didn't just set up a playoff system. I know I don't understand it.
* I hate this new rule in college football where if you hit a guy above the shoulders it's automatically a penalty. On Saturday, I saw a player who had the ball and was in bounds get hit up high and draw a penalty flag. Again - He was IN BOUNDS and he HAD THE BALL. What exactly was the defender supposed to do? We are 20 years away from defensive players having to either escort the man with the ball out of bounds or try to just convince him to go down on his own through clever wordplay.
* I may be more qualified to do a preview like this than you think. After all, I am currently in first place in the Leroy's College Challenge. And that's through one whole week. Keep an eye on entry "Ray Drecker" as it plummets down the leader board in the coming weeks.
* When I told a friend of mine back home that I went 6-1 over the weekend, he paused and then said "How is that even fucking possible?" I'm glad I brought it up.
* I also have a joint entry with my brother and a 3 man entry with two friends of mine from high school. My brother and I are picking under the alias "Two Brothers" and are 4-3 through Week 1. For the record, my 4 picks went 4-0, while he served up a solid 0-3 effort. I hate my brother.
The entry I have with my buddies, "Tim Donaghy" is currently 4-3, as well.
* Four of the drivers I had match up bets on in the Pep Boys 500 went to the garage. None of the guys I bet against did. I bet two of those four guys multiple times. I may have lost a Sherman unit on that race. I hate NASCAR.
Until next week at least.
Boogity, boogity, boogity....
Sorry, Chris.
I'm going to do division-by-division write-ups picking a winner of each, then select two wild card teams and make playoff projections. I should probably warn you now that I will not be making any jokes in this blog. And please save your own jokes for the end. CB - You may need to spread this out over about a week. It's pretty long. Thanks in advance.
NFC East
King has the division going Giants, Cowboys, Eagles, Redskins. I think Sports Illustrated has picked the Redskins to finish last in the NFC East something like 19 years in a row. I can remember being all excited to read SI's NFL Preview when I was a kid and always being crushed when they picked us to finish last. And this was back when the Cardinals were in the division and averaged about 3 wins per year for a decade.
The Giants won the East last season with relative ease, before falling to another member of the division, Ed's Eagles, in the divisional playoff round. On paper, the Eagles appear to be clearly the best team in the conference. They got rid of several players I didn't like (LJ Smith, Dawkins, Lito, etc....) and added depth along the offensive line and more weapons on offense. The defense lost Stewart Bradley to a torn ACL but I don't see that as being a big deal. I'm sure they can just plug in the next guy and he'll be every bit as mediocre as Bradley was. I like the additions of Jason Peters, Ellis Hobbs III, and LaSean McCoy and will call for an Eagles division title. I also made a bet on this.
The other teams in the division all have more glaring holes: The Giants have no clear #1 WR now that Burress is headed for jail. The Cowboys are still coached by Wade Phillips and appear to have done nothing to improve their team since Bill Parcells left 3 years ago. The Redskins offensive line is a lock to wear down as the season goes on.
Finishing Order:
1. Eagles
2. Redskins (WC)
3. Giants
4. Cowboys
(I actually think the Giants are better than the Redskins but I'm picking the Skins to finish second anyway behind the division's best defense.... Actually it's just because I am a fan and don't really give a fuck if it seems like a homer pick. Suck my balls, Peter King.)
NFC North
This could be the most interesting division in the NFL, mostly because the greatest player in league history is back in it.... on a different team this time. The real winner in the NFC North is America because we all get to watch Brett Favre play the game with the same child-like joy he has whilst winging the pigskin around in his backyard as his golden retriever looks on. But I suppose I could make a more specific prediction than that. Two NFC North teams are getting Super Bowl hype but I'm going to pick a third team, the Green Bay Packers, to win the division title and make a deep January run. The Packers have the division's best QB in Aaron Rodgers and a new Dom Capers-coached 3-4 defense that should be way better than the defense they had last season.
The Vikings have arguably the best defensive line in football, a very good offensive line, and the best RB in the NFL in Adrian Peterson, so it's hard to predict them to fall apart. At the same time I don't see how a team coached by Brad Childress and quarterbacked by a 40-year-old graybeard can be a legit Super Bowl contender. Chicago is getting way too much hype and I've never liked Jay Cutler, anyway. The Lions have nowhere to go but up but are clearly at the bottom of this group.
Finishing Order:
1. Packers
2. Vikings (WC)
3. Bears
4. Lions
NFC South
Carolina won this division last year and were joined in the playoffs by the upstart Atlanta Falcons. Blogcast followers know that I have a bet on the Falcons to win the division at 4-1 which I feel is a good bet, as I see this being 50/50 between Atlanta and the New Orleans Saints. Peter King picked the Falcons and he's an idiot. I bet the Falcons and I'm an idiot. So who is my official pick to win the South? I'm still going with Atlanta. Matt Ryan, Michael Turner, and Roddy White all had great seasons last year and will enter their second year as a trio with Tony Gonzalez opening the field for all of them.
I hate the Panthers this year and don't see them contending for the division title or even a playoff berth. Everyone is way down on Tampa Bay this season, so I'll call for them to surprise a few people and win 7-8 games behind an underrated defense.
Finishing Order:
1. Falcons
2. Saints
3. Bucs
4. Panthers
NFC West
I'm constantly amazed by these kids betting on the Cardinals to win the Super Bowl at 30-1. Last season Arizona won the NFC West, hosted a first round playoff game, caught a huge break when the Eagles beat the Giants putting the conference title game in Arizona, and a running money line parlay on Arizona in the postseason alone would have still paid way more than 30-1. I don't even see the Cardinals making the playoffs this year and bet them under wins.
Seattle owned this division for years and I feel like the Cardinals were just borrowing it last season while the Seahawks were buried by a rash of injuries. I've heard different people talk about both the 49ers and Rams as sleepers. I don't see anything to like about the 49ers but I could see the Rams being a lot better this season. They drafted an offensive tackle with the second overall pick and sound like they are committed to establishing a tough ground game behind him.
Finishing Order:
1. Seahawks
2. Rams
3. Cardinals
4. 49ers
Wild Cards:
(3) Seahawks def. (6) Redskins
(5) Vikings def. (4) Falcons
Divisional Playoffs:
(2) Packers def. Seahawks
(1) Eagles def. Vikings
NFC Championship Game:
Eagles def. Packers
The Eagles make every effort to choke the game away but in the end Andy Reid and his outrageously highly power rated team head back to the Super Bowl.
AFC East
Last year the Patriots were coming off an 18-1 season and seemed like a virtual lock to win the AFC East. Then the Jets acquired America's Quarterback, Tom Terrific got injured on opening day, the Dolphins started using a high school offense, and when the playoffs started, New England was shockingly on the outside looking in. It was kind of a strange season in the AFC East. This year the Patriots are again a decisive favorite to win the East and I'm going out on a limb and saying that 2008 was a fluke and that the Pats will be back on top.
I've been telling people that the Jets are one of my favorite sleeper teams this season and I expect them to challenge for a playoff spot behind a very aggressive defense. How much of a drop is there between Favre and rookie Mark Sanchez really? I don't think it's that big of a difference. Favre kind of.... sucks. I bet Miami under wins and expect them to fall back this season. On paper the Bills have one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL, they fired their offensive coordinator a week before the season starts, and their best player has a reality show on VHI. Sounds like a last place season to me.
Finishing Order:
1. Patriots
2. Jets
3. Dolphins
4. Bills
AFC North
Last season I made a bet on the Steelers to win the AFC North at +150 at the fabulous Venetian. I liked the bet so much that I also recommended it to several co-workers, some of whom miraculously took my advice and bet it, as well. I liked the bet so much not only because I thought Pittsburgh was going to have a good season but also because I was way down on the division co-favorites from last preseason - the Cleveland Browns. Well, I was right about the Steelers being good and I was right about the Browns being terrible, but what I didn't account for was that Baltimore had a great team last season and nearly stole the division. The Ravens defense was typically dominant and rookie QB Joe Flacco was great. Pittsburgh was lucky to win both regular season games against the Ravens and the division could have easily gone Baltimore's way.
This season, I'm going to pick the Ravens to win the North behind Flacco, that tough defense, and what should be a great running game. Most people probably don't realize that the Ravens led the NFL in rushing last season and the addition of first round pick Michael Oher should make them even more formidable on the ground. Pittsburgh will be right there as well and I bet the Bengals over wins, so apparently I like them. I have absolutely no idea what the Cleveland Browns are doing. It doesn't seem like they do either.
Finishing Order:
1. Ravens
2. Steelers (WC)
3. Bengals
4. Browns
AFC South
Tennessee was the best team in the NFL during the 2008 regular season. The Titans earned home field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs and dominated play between the 20's against the Ravens in the divisional round. Unfortunately, Jeff Fisher's guys repeatedly found ways to choke the game away before losing to the Ravens on a last minute field goal. Tennessee should have won that game and they should have been hosting the Steelers in the AFC Championship game the following weekend. It's very possible that the Titans would have won the Super Bowl if they could have beat Baltimore that day.
One thing I have learned about the NFL is that chances like the one the Titans had last season are few and far between. Tennessee may have been the best team in the NFL last season and maybe they should have won the Super Bowl. What does that guarantee for this season? Absolutely nothing. Especially in what I consider to be the best divison in the AFC and the second best division in the NFL behind the NFC East. In fact, I'm calling for the Titans to finish 3rd this season behind the Colts and Jaguars. I love Indianapolis this season. Nobody is talking about the Colts, who last I checked still have the best QB in the NFL, won 9 of their last 10 games last season, and are power rated so highly that they were favored on the road in San Diego in last season's wild card round.
I'm picking the Colts to win this division and also like Jacksonville to have a good season. The Jaguars drafted offensive tackles in each of the first two rounds and should be effective on the ground this year. The Houston Texans were my big sleeper pick last season but they seem to be one of those dreaded trendy sleepers in 2009, which means they will probably finish last. The Texans have a lot of good young players but they are an inevitable Matt Schaub injury away from starting Sexy Rexy at QB, and they will face a very tough schedule. I don't see it with them.
Finishing Order:
1. Colts
2. Jaguars (WC)
3. Titans
4. Texans
AFC West
I guess you could call this a divsion. I'm picking the Chargers to win it but all I'm going to talk about in this space is Shawne Merriman's arrest and the Raiders trading for Richard Seymour. When I heard that Merriman was being charged with choking and restraining a female guest, I wasn't even remotely surprised. He's a roided out NFL linebacker. He's capable of pretty much anything. What shocked me was that his guest was MTV reality personality Tila Tequila. Who knew that those two were dating? Must be nice playing for the Chargers. You get to live in San Diego and date slutty Asian TV stars. And no one seems to care that your best years were the direct result of you cheating and taking steroids.
For the life of me, I can't figure out what the Raiders were thinking trading their 2011 first round pick to the Patriots for Richard Seymour. Seymour is 29, he's in the last year of his contract, and what exactly is he going to bring to Oakland? It's not like they have any chance of contending for a playoff berth with him. It just makes no sense to trade what will almost certainly be a Top 10 pick for a guy who is 29 and on the downside of his career. The only time that a move like this would be even remotely justifiable would be when your team is a player away from contending for a Super Bowl, which obviously the Raiders are not. My advice to the Raiders is that if the Patriots are willing to make a trade with you, just assume that Belichick is right and you are wrong and hang up the phone immediately. Oh, uh the Chiefs are going to be mediocre at best, the Broncos are a mess and the Raiders are idiots. What a division!
Finishing Order:
1. Chargers
2. Chiefs
3. Broncos
4. Raiders
Wild Cards:
(3) Patriots def. (6) Jaguars
(4) Ravens def. (5) Steelers
Divisional Playoffs:
(2) Colts def. Patriots
Ravens def. (1) Chargers
AFC Championship Game:
Colts def. Ravens
To beat a defense as good as Baltimore's, you need a QB who won't make a lot of mistakes and you need to be able to run the ball effectively. Indy has the best QB in the game and they now have two RB's they can count on, just like they did 3 years ago when they won it all.
Super Bowl XLIV:
Colts 27 Eagles 23
This would be Ed's dream Super Bowl. His beloved Eagles facing off against the QB he considers to be the league's biggest choker. The one thing Ed is forgetting? The Eagles are even bigger chokers than Manning is. At least Peyton has one ring. I think he'll get another one this season. Sorry, bro.
The funny thing about making NFL predictions and posting them online is that there is no possible way I could be successful. No matter how good or bad these picks end up being, everyone will just mock them even though they most likely couldn't do any better themselves. I'm sure that last season at this time most people were picking the Patriots and Cowboys. They both missed the playoffs.
More interesting tidbits:
* Ed is not allowed to make any jokes about how dumb my picks are, seeing as how his pick to win the BCS Championship game was the Oklahoma Sooners. I hope you snapped up some 5-1, bro.
* However, if you think that Oklahoma is eliminated from the BCS you're an idiot. It's college football. It's retarded. Losing a game in September and losing a game in November are somehow two different things. If they beat Texas next month and some other teams in different conferences lose, the Sooners could absolutely end up in Pasadena.
* 50 years from now when college football has a playoff system, people are going to look back at this era and none of them are going to understand why we didn't just set up a playoff system. I know I don't understand it.
* I hate this new rule in college football where if you hit a guy above the shoulders it's automatically a penalty. On Saturday, I saw a player who had the ball and was in bounds get hit up high and draw a penalty flag. Again - He was IN BOUNDS and he HAD THE BALL. What exactly was the defender supposed to do? We are 20 years away from defensive players having to either escort the man with the ball out of bounds or try to just convince him to go down on his own through clever wordplay.
* I may be more qualified to do a preview like this than you think. After all, I am currently in first place in the Leroy's College Challenge. And that's through one whole week. Keep an eye on entry "Ray Drecker" as it plummets down the leader board in the coming weeks.
* When I told a friend of mine back home that I went 6-1 over the weekend, he paused and then said "How is that even fucking possible?" I'm glad I brought it up.
* I also have a joint entry with my brother and a 3 man entry with two friends of mine from high school. My brother and I are picking under the alias "Two Brothers" and are 4-3 through Week 1. For the record, my 4 picks went 4-0, while he served up a solid 0-3 effort. I hate my brother.
The entry I have with my buddies, "Tim Donaghy" is currently 4-3, as well.
* Four of the drivers I had match up bets on in the Pep Boys 500 went to the garage. None of the guys I bet against did. I bet two of those four guys multiple times. I may have lost a Sherman unit on that race. I hate NASCAR.
Until next week at least.
Boogity, boogity, boogity....
Sorry, Chris.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Football season is officially
.... here so I figured I might as well bring the blog back from the dead. For a day at least. I am fascinated by Thursday night's Oregon - Boise St game. When I first looked at the line of 6-6.5, I actually thought it seemed light. I liked Boise so much that I told Ed I was tempted to bet Oregon. You know, because I'm such an idiot.
Boise loses at home about as often as Hoffman turns down a lap dance from a black chick, so I figured that the Broncos seemed too good to be true. But then Ed's kids came in by the bunches to bet the Ducks. The Ducks? Wait what? Who do these kids think they are betting the road dog in a nationally televised game? What's going on here? And these weren't small bets. Some of these bets were for amounts so large they would keep Jeff Sherman interested. Well, probably. The line has been bet down all the way to 3 and who knows - maybe it will go even lower before kickoff?
To a normal person, this would be considered a good thing. I like Side A. All of America likes Side B. This should be every gambler's dream. Only you're forgetting one thing - I am a complete idiot who doesn't know shit about college football or how to pick winners.
In an effort to remedy that problem, I did a little research. Very little. Here's what I came up with:
Boise St has lost 2 home games in the last 10 years. They lost to Boston College in a bowl game in 2005. (I believe that was a Matt Ryan quarterbacked team, by the way.) They also lost to Washington State in 2001. It should be noted that the Boise program was not as strong as it is now back in 2001. It should also be noted that back then Washington St was giving out football scholarships.
Other fast facts:
* Chris Bennett is absolutely right (Big surprise there) about Boise St.'s lack of quality out of conference opponents. The best home wins they have in the last 10 years are a blowout over Oregon St and a 1 point win over BYU.
* If we all agree that Boise St plays garbage during the regular season, then a true barometer of how good they really are would be their postseason performance. I wonder how many people realize that over their last 5 bowl games, they are just 1-4? The lone win being the miraculous one over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl 2 years ago. However, they are 3-2 ATS in those games, covering in losses to Louisville and TCU.
* Boise St was up 37-13 last year at Oregon before the Ducks rallied to make it interesting.
* Oregon returns just one starter each on the offensive and defensive lines.
* Seven of my nine sets of power rankings pick Boise St to go 13-0.
* Oops. I stole that one from Phil Steele. Sorry about that.
* I actually only have 8 sets of power rankings.
* This may be the biggest game ever played on the Smurf Turf. The fans are going to be all riled up. And you don't want to see people from Idaho all riled up.
* So I went from thinking that Oregon had to be the right play because I liked Boise so much, to thinking that Boise had to be a super strong play because the kids are all acting like betting the Ducks in this game is just printing money. But looking at Boise's schedule over the years, they really have never faced a regular season test like this one. At the same time, you have to give them credit for only losing one home game since 2001, which again was to a Boston College team that didn't have a first year head coach and did have an NFL QB. It would take one helluva effort by the Ducks to go into Boise and come out with a win considering that they have a first year head coach and just 9 returning starters.
* Ultimately, I will recommend a *small to medium sized* (More on this below) play on Boise St -3. If it goes to -2.5 bet more but not way more. 3 is not the key number in college that it is in the NFL. At least I don't think so. The fact that Bennett's face is changing colors right now appears to indicate that he disagrees with me. As does the steam coming out of his ears. I'm going to wrap this up.
* $100-$200 if you are John Murray*
* $500-$1,000 if you are Chris Bennett*
* Whatever the amount you have to bet to get 6 drink tickets from the ticket writer if you are Scott Hoffman*
* Whatever the casino takes because that's what you bet on everything if you are Matt Metcalf*
* 2 fully loaded Brinks trucks if you are Jeff Sherman*
* I actually don't have any sets of power rankings.
- It's possible that I came back to the blog just to entertain myself due to the complete lack of good television shows going on right now after the season finale of Weeds on Monday. It is amazing to me that I used to be a huge fan of Entourage. I always thought that people who complained about how much The Sopranos slipped in its later years were just being elitist, show-off douchebags but I don't know how any one could possibly argue with people saying that Entourage has slipped terribly since its first two seasons. There doesn't even appear to be any story lines at this point. It's nothing but brutally painful scenes with the least interesting characters. Awful season for that show. Luckily, a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm is mere weeks away....
- My plan for my next blog is to do a brief (Once i get into a typing groove brief means about 10,000 words) preview of all 8 NFL divisions, in which I pick a winner of each, then make a Super Bowl pick. There is literally no way I could pick any possible Super Bowl outcome without being mocked. The other day, Matt told me that he mentioned a bet to Ed and Ed mocked him. Then Matt mentioned that he liked the other side of the same bet and Ed mocked that side, too. Sometimes you just can't win....
- One potential format for football season could have me doing a "Breakdown" of one game each week like I just did for the Oregon - Boise St. tilt. This would be very entertaining for the readers, as they could rip me for my stupid pick before the game and cash their tickets on the other side after the game.
- Oh, uh.... Jorgen carries a purse.
Enjoy the game!
Boise loses at home about as often as Hoffman turns down a lap dance from a black chick, so I figured that the Broncos seemed too good to be true. But then Ed's kids came in by the bunches to bet the Ducks. The Ducks? Wait what? Who do these kids think they are betting the road dog in a nationally televised game? What's going on here? And these weren't small bets. Some of these bets were for amounts so large they would keep Jeff Sherman interested. Well, probably. The line has been bet down all the way to 3 and who knows - maybe it will go even lower before kickoff?
To a normal person, this would be considered a good thing. I like Side A. All of America likes Side B. This should be every gambler's dream. Only you're forgetting one thing - I am a complete idiot who doesn't know shit about college football or how to pick winners.
In an effort to remedy that problem, I did a little research. Very little. Here's what I came up with:
Boise St has lost 2 home games in the last 10 years. They lost to Boston College in a bowl game in 2005. (I believe that was a Matt Ryan quarterbacked team, by the way.) They also lost to Washington State in 2001. It should be noted that the Boise program was not as strong as it is now back in 2001. It should also be noted that back then Washington St was giving out football scholarships.
Other fast facts:
* Chris Bennett is absolutely right (Big surprise there) about Boise St.'s lack of quality out of conference opponents. The best home wins they have in the last 10 years are a blowout over Oregon St and a 1 point win over BYU.
* If we all agree that Boise St plays garbage during the regular season, then a true barometer of how good they really are would be their postseason performance. I wonder how many people realize that over their last 5 bowl games, they are just 1-4? The lone win being the miraculous one over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl 2 years ago. However, they are 3-2 ATS in those games, covering in losses to Louisville and TCU.
* Boise St was up 37-13 last year at Oregon before the Ducks rallied to make it interesting.
* Oregon returns just one starter each on the offensive and defensive lines.
* Seven of my nine sets of power rankings pick Boise St to go 13-0.
* Oops. I stole that one from Phil Steele. Sorry about that.
* I actually only have 8 sets of power rankings.
* This may be the biggest game ever played on the Smurf Turf. The fans are going to be all riled up. And you don't want to see people from Idaho all riled up.
* So I went from thinking that Oregon had to be the right play because I liked Boise so much, to thinking that Boise had to be a super strong play because the kids are all acting like betting the Ducks in this game is just printing money. But looking at Boise's schedule over the years, they really have never faced a regular season test like this one. At the same time, you have to give them credit for only losing one home game since 2001, which again was to a Boston College team that didn't have a first year head coach and did have an NFL QB. It would take one helluva effort by the Ducks to go into Boise and come out with a win considering that they have a first year head coach and just 9 returning starters.
* Ultimately, I will recommend a *small to medium sized* (More on this below) play on Boise St -3. If it goes to -2.5 bet more but not way more. 3 is not the key number in college that it is in the NFL. At least I don't think so. The fact that Bennett's face is changing colors right now appears to indicate that he disagrees with me. As does the steam coming out of his ears. I'm going to wrap this up.
* $100-$200 if you are John Murray*
* $500-$1,000 if you are Chris Bennett*
* Whatever the amount you have to bet to get 6 drink tickets from the ticket writer if you are Scott Hoffman*
* Whatever the casino takes because that's what you bet on everything if you are Matt Metcalf*
* 2 fully loaded Brinks trucks if you are Jeff Sherman*
* I actually don't have any sets of power rankings.
- It's possible that I came back to the blog just to entertain myself due to the complete lack of good television shows going on right now after the season finale of Weeds on Monday. It is amazing to me that I used to be a huge fan of Entourage. I always thought that people who complained about how much The Sopranos slipped in its later years were just being elitist, show-off douchebags but I don't know how any one could possibly argue with people saying that Entourage has slipped terribly since its first two seasons. There doesn't even appear to be any story lines at this point. It's nothing but brutally painful scenes with the least interesting characters. Awful season for that show. Luckily, a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm is mere weeks away....
- My plan for my next blog is to do a brief (Once i get into a typing groove brief means about 10,000 words) preview of all 8 NFL divisions, in which I pick a winner of each, then make a Super Bowl pick. There is literally no way I could pick any possible Super Bowl outcome without being mocked. The other day, Matt told me that he mentioned a bet to Ed and Ed mocked him. Then Matt mentioned that he liked the other side of the same bet and Ed mocked that side, too. Sometimes you just can't win....
- One potential format for football season could have me doing a "Breakdown" of one game each week like I just did for the Oregon - Boise St. tilt. This would be very entertaining for the readers, as they could rip me for my stupid pick before the game and cash their tickets on the other side after the game.
- Oh, uh.... Jorgen carries a purse.
Enjoy the game!
Monday, July 20, 2009
I didn't realize
.... how long it had been since I blogged until Friday afternoon when Matt asked me if I even had a blog any more. So even though I have absolutely nothing to say about anything, I'll force out several hundred words for you guys to enjoy. (All I'm going to do is make fun of Bennett. And Sherman. Oh and Matt, too. Probably some Ed in there. And obviously Scott. Maybe a dash of Jorgen. Just read it. Or don't. I don't care. I just write it for my own amusement anyway.)
* In my new position, I spend a lot of time working with CB which is both good and bad. It's good because Chris is preposterously sharp and just by being in the same room as him I can feel myself becoming a wiser sports bettor. But it's also bad because Chris is - for lack of a better word - an asshole and he is on a seemingly constant mission to remind me that he is still my work superior. Dude - I get it. You are far more important than I am. Shut up already. That reminds me - Congrats on the promotion, Chris. You earned it, bro. (I am smirking as I type this. Now I'm giggling a little. Now I'm just laughing out loud over how funny I am. Sorry, Chris. Seriously though - congrats.... I'm giggling again.)
Because Chris is constantly busting my balls, I have to fire back throughout my shift with little jabs of my own. (Why not just let it go, you ask? Because I too am an asshole.) The other day I was talking about how sharp Chris is in front of everyone else in an effort to make him uncomfortable and I made a joke about how people at sports books around town must react after Chris has bet into one of their numbers. I said I figured that after Bennett makes a bet and is walking out the door, the various supervisors on hand gather around and yell at each other for hanging such a stupid number while frantically checking the offshore books to find out what the number should have been. Chris in no way denied that this is true, by the way.
This got me thinking - What happens when some of the other top sharps in town make a bet? Here's my take:
- Let's start with the boss hog - Ed. I have to admit that If I ran my own book and Ed made a bet there I would panic. If he's going in person to fire on something, your book probably fucked up. I figure that after Ed bets, the supervisor mutters something under his breath about how sarcastic that guy was and, after aggressively moving the line, makes a mental note to root against that bet winning so that the sarcastic mocker on the other side of the counter will be unhappy.
- Jeff making a bet can cause major problems for a sports book. If there is only one teller open at the time of Jeff's bet, the book has to briefly close while he or she counts all that money. This can take up to 20 minutes. After Jeff cashes a ticket, the supervisor on duty has to call the cage to get a fill of money. Most books have requested that Jeff call ahead before coming in to cash a ticket so that they will have ample time to get the money together.
- After Matt makes a bet, the supervisor moves the line then asks the teller why he/she didn't "Ask that cocky little shit for his ID."
- After Jorgen makes a bet, the supervisor or manager on duty usually yells at him as he is walking out the door, telling him that he is never welcome to set foot in that casino again. What a scumbag that kid is.
- After Scotty Hoff - aka God's gift to sports betting - makes a bet, the supervisor wonders why he took the time to calculate exactly how much he could bet for his ticket to pay $9,999 despite the bet having no chance in hell of winning.
- So what happens after I make a bet you're wondering? I'm such a moron that the management team usually decides to move the number the other way both to mock me and to encourage money to come in on the other side. I'm not going to lie, it hurts, but give me a few more months working side-by-side CB and maybe one day I'll be where these other legends already are.
There just isn't a lot going on in the sports world right now, leaving me with very little to rant about. But here you go, anyway:
* I've had enough baseball for one year. Baseball Prospectus has blown it out their ass this season and it's costing me money. It's gotten so bad that my latest calculations have me losing nearly one Sherman betting unit between my baseball season bets and the fantasy team I share with Austin. My parents may have to sell their house to help me out with such a debt.
* I have a bet on the Minnesota Twins to win the AL Central and was keeping tabs on their game against the Oakland A's tonight as I blogged. The Twins were up 12-2 against the A's (The A's!!!) and actually blew that lead before being robbed by a very questionable call at home plate in the 9th inning that would have and should have tied the game. The only possible explanation for this comeback is that Hoffman secretly bet the A's without posting. Even though I had a shocking 3-0 day on Monday, I still hate baseball. I really do.
* Check out this new baseball betting system: If the Nationals or Padres are ever favored for any reason, or if the price on their game is anywhere near even money, simply bet on the other team. I know it's not as complicated as Scott's "Bet on all the underdogs on my days off" system, but I think it could be equally effective.
* Instead of losing my money following what a bunch of asshole writers say, I'm going to lose money following my own opinions in football. I've made some future bets on the following NFL teams: Packers, Bengals, Colts, Jaguars, Seahawks, and Eagles. I've also made some bets going against these teams: Dolphins, Cardinals, and Bears. I'd also like to fade the Cowboys and Texans at some point.
* One team I can't decide what to do with is the Denver Broncos. Everyone hates that team this year. The sharpest sharps come in to bet against them in Games of the Year. I hear other guys I consider to be very sharp talking about how bad they are going to be. But I also hear the same talk from people I consider square. I also hear it from tourists, from run-of-the-mill morons, even from people I know who are from Colorado and are Broncos fans. Everyone is down on this team from the most objective sharp to the most biased square.
While I don't like the fact that they are matched up against the NFC East for four games in which they will most likely be an underdog, I do like that they get to play the Raiders and Chiefs twice each and feel that having one of the best offensive lines in the NFL will make up for the departure of overrated crybaby QB Jay Cutler. Denver had one of the worst defenses in the NFL last season and still won 8 games. I don't see how they could possibly be worse on that side of the ball this season. I see a Broncos 'Over' wins bet in my future.
* I'd like to give some thoughts on college football but I clearly know nothing about it. I will say that I feel several teams are being overrated by the powers that be, specifically Ole Miss and Notre Dame. If you were to ask me for a team that could be really good that no one is talking about I would give you Georgia. They lost their biggest name players at QB and RB, but return their entire starting offensive line from last season and most of their defense. Stafford and Moreno weren't the only reasons the Bulldogs were a trendy pick to win it all in 2008. I also think Michigan will be good this year and watch out for Alabama - They bring back nearly everyone from a great defense and miss both Florida and Georgia this year.
That will do for today. I'd like to tell you guys that I'm going to start blogging more frequently again but we all know that's a lie. I tweet now. So why blog? I thought I was going to mainly mock Chris and Matt but ended up just piling on Scotty. The guy has been extra cocky lately.... probably why I couldn't resist. Sorry, bro.
Enjoy the summer.
* In my new position, I spend a lot of time working with CB which is both good and bad. It's good because Chris is preposterously sharp and just by being in the same room as him I can feel myself becoming a wiser sports bettor. But it's also bad because Chris is - for lack of a better word - an asshole and he is on a seemingly constant mission to remind me that he is still my work superior. Dude - I get it. You are far more important than I am. Shut up already. That reminds me - Congrats on the promotion, Chris. You earned it, bro. (I am smirking as I type this. Now I'm giggling a little. Now I'm just laughing out loud over how funny I am. Sorry, Chris. Seriously though - congrats.... I'm giggling again.)
Because Chris is constantly busting my balls, I have to fire back throughout my shift with little jabs of my own. (Why not just let it go, you ask? Because I too am an asshole.) The other day I was talking about how sharp Chris is in front of everyone else in an effort to make him uncomfortable and I made a joke about how people at sports books around town must react after Chris has bet into one of their numbers. I said I figured that after Bennett makes a bet and is walking out the door, the various supervisors on hand gather around and yell at each other for hanging such a stupid number while frantically checking the offshore books to find out what the number should have been. Chris in no way denied that this is true, by the way.
This got me thinking - What happens when some of the other top sharps in town make a bet? Here's my take:
- Let's start with the boss hog - Ed. I have to admit that If I ran my own book and Ed made a bet there I would panic. If he's going in person to fire on something, your book probably fucked up. I figure that after Ed bets, the supervisor mutters something under his breath about how sarcastic that guy was and, after aggressively moving the line, makes a mental note to root against that bet winning so that the sarcastic mocker on the other side of the counter will be unhappy.
- Jeff making a bet can cause major problems for a sports book. If there is only one teller open at the time of Jeff's bet, the book has to briefly close while he or she counts all that money. This can take up to 20 minutes. After Jeff cashes a ticket, the supervisor on duty has to call the cage to get a fill of money. Most books have requested that Jeff call ahead before coming in to cash a ticket so that they will have ample time to get the money together.
- After Matt makes a bet, the supervisor moves the line then asks the teller why he/she didn't "Ask that cocky little shit for his ID."
- After Jorgen makes a bet, the supervisor or manager on duty usually yells at him as he is walking out the door, telling him that he is never welcome to set foot in that casino again. What a scumbag that kid is.
- After Scotty Hoff - aka God's gift to sports betting - makes a bet, the supervisor wonders why he took the time to calculate exactly how much he could bet for his ticket to pay $9,999 despite the bet having no chance in hell of winning.
- So what happens after I make a bet you're wondering? I'm such a moron that the management team usually decides to move the number the other way both to mock me and to encourage money to come in on the other side. I'm not going to lie, it hurts, but give me a few more months working side-by-side CB and maybe one day I'll be where these other legends already are.
There just isn't a lot going on in the sports world right now, leaving me with very little to rant about. But here you go, anyway:
* I've had enough baseball for one year. Baseball Prospectus has blown it out their ass this season and it's costing me money. It's gotten so bad that my latest calculations have me losing nearly one Sherman betting unit between my baseball season bets and the fantasy team I share with Austin. My parents may have to sell their house to help me out with such a debt.
* I have a bet on the Minnesota Twins to win the AL Central and was keeping tabs on their game against the Oakland A's tonight as I blogged. The Twins were up 12-2 against the A's (The A's!!!) and actually blew that lead before being robbed by a very questionable call at home plate in the 9th inning that would have and should have tied the game. The only possible explanation for this comeback is that Hoffman secretly bet the A's without posting. Even though I had a shocking 3-0 day on Monday, I still hate baseball. I really do.
* Check out this new baseball betting system: If the Nationals or Padres are ever favored for any reason, or if the price on their game is anywhere near even money, simply bet on the other team. I know it's not as complicated as Scott's "Bet on all the underdogs on my days off" system, but I think it could be equally effective.
* Instead of losing my money following what a bunch of asshole writers say, I'm going to lose money following my own opinions in football. I've made some future bets on the following NFL teams: Packers, Bengals, Colts, Jaguars, Seahawks, and Eagles. I've also made some bets going against these teams: Dolphins, Cardinals, and Bears. I'd also like to fade the Cowboys and Texans at some point.
* One team I can't decide what to do with is the Denver Broncos. Everyone hates that team this year. The sharpest sharps come in to bet against them in Games of the Year. I hear other guys I consider to be very sharp talking about how bad they are going to be. But I also hear the same talk from people I consider square. I also hear it from tourists, from run-of-the-mill morons, even from people I know who are from Colorado and are Broncos fans. Everyone is down on this team from the most objective sharp to the most biased square.
While I don't like the fact that they are matched up against the NFC East for four games in which they will most likely be an underdog, I do like that they get to play the Raiders and Chiefs twice each and feel that having one of the best offensive lines in the NFL will make up for the departure of overrated crybaby QB Jay Cutler. Denver had one of the worst defenses in the NFL last season and still won 8 games. I don't see how they could possibly be worse on that side of the ball this season. I see a Broncos 'Over' wins bet in my future.
* I'd like to give some thoughts on college football but I clearly know nothing about it. I will say that I feel several teams are being overrated by the powers that be, specifically Ole Miss and Notre Dame. If you were to ask me for a team that could be really good that no one is talking about I would give you Georgia. They lost their biggest name players at QB and RB, but return their entire starting offensive line from last season and most of their defense. Stafford and Moreno weren't the only reasons the Bulldogs were a trendy pick to win it all in 2008. I also think Michigan will be good this year and watch out for Alabama - They bring back nearly everyone from a great defense and miss both Florida and Georgia this year.
That will do for today. I'd like to tell you guys that I'm going to start blogging more frequently again but we all know that's a lie. I tweet now. So why blog? I thought I was going to mainly mock Chris and Matt but ended up just piling on Scotty. The guy has been extra cocky lately.... probably why I couldn't resist. Sorry, bro.
Enjoy the summer.
Monday, June 22, 2009
We have officially entered
.... the dog days of summer now that The Rapist and the Lakers won the NBA Championship. All that's left for the next 6 weeks is Major League Baseball. And NASCAR. And Nationwide. And trucks. And the Indy Racing League. And F1. The MLS is playing, too. And there's usually some random international soccer tournaments every summer. And MMA fights and boxing. Oh, and golf every week. And tennis. Plus there's girls basketball now. Slow times at the Superbook. At least until football starts.
I'll give a few thoughts on the NBA Finals, tell a few stories about our trip to Omaha and then I'm calling it a night.
Actually.... I can tell this is going to a long one. Chris - You may need to read this in like 4-5 sessions spread out over a month or so. Enjoy.
* I was not happy for Kobe or the Lakers at all last Sunday. I wasn't happy for their idiot fans. I wasn't even happy for Jeff. Why exactly should we be happy for Kobe again? He has millions of dollars, is a lock for the Hall of Fame, and had 3 championship rings before the season started. Plus he raped a girl in Colorado a few years back and got away with it. Why would anyone be happy for this person? Fuck that.
* I want to thank Dwight Howard for making every FT attempt during the Eastern Conference Finals and then shooting like my sister against the Lakers. Perhaps the Lakers defense was really tough while Dwight stood on the free throw line.
* Orlando just shot the ball out of their minds against the Cavaliers and they couldn't possibly duplicate that performance against L.A. Please don't tell me that it's because the Lakers defense is better than Cleveland's. That just isn't true. The Cavs had one of the best defenses in the leasgue all season and the Lakers are a bunch of Europeans and lazy players. Orlando just went through an historically hot stretch against the Cavs and couldn't keep it up in the next round.
But I'm not bitter.
* I was at the Palms with Hoffman at the end of Game 4 of the NBA Finals surrounded by idiots rooting abnoxiously for the Lakers. After Dwight Howard choked and missed both free throws, Orlando was still up by 3. All they had to do was foul the Lakers and they win the game. Instead they let Derek Fisher take a 3 and he (miraculously) made it to send the game to overtime. Great.
* At the end of the day I'm just bitter about the Cavs not being able to make it to the Finals and the entire postseason just reminded me of why I hate the NBA.
You can hear more of my thoughts on the NBA and life in general in the most recent Blogcast which Andy and I recorded the afternoon before Game 4. Chris.... just listen to it.
And now I will talk about the Omaha trip by making fun of each person who was on the trip individually. Let's start with Matt.
* The Big Guy is a party animal. We went to bed about 6 am the first night we were there and Matt still woke up around 9 to catch the shuttle over to Rosenblatt and start tailgating. There's really nothing good to mock him about but I'm going to do it anyway. For one thing, Matt was the only person who took this stupid tailgate game we were playing seriously. The object of the game was to toss this thing and have it catch on a ladder a few feet away. (It's not as fun as it sounds. Actually it's exactly as fun as it sounds.) All of Matt's tosses would hit the ladder and bounce off at which time he would complain about how unlucky he was. Everyone else was just standing around hoping that somebody would win so that we could stop playing.
For the record, the team of Austin and I defeated Matt and Hoffman thanks to my winning shot. Had I known that Austin and Scott had bet $20 on the match, I most likely would've thrown the game on purpose, then split up the booty with Hoffman back at the hideout.
Matt was also obsessed (Obsessed!) with collecting wristbands from every bar and/or beer tent he went to. I believe that I tweeted that he was like a sorority girl proudly displaying the many wristbands adorning his arms. He was also so self-conscious about this that he actually used bigger wristbands to cover up the smaller ones when I started making fun of him for it which only made me want to make fun of him even more. That guy is too easy.
* Austin made the smart decision to turn in early on the first night instead of joining us on our dumb trip to a place called "The Play House." He also came through with free tickets to several games and got us into a few tailgates where we drank and ate for free. But even he was not without flaws. He and I had planned to leave at the same time on Wednesday so that we could share a cab to the airport. His original flight back to Vegas was around 2:30 so I booked a flight at 1:55. Makes sense. What he failed to tell me until Tuesday morning was that not only was he going straight to NYC from Omaha but that his new flight was at 7 AM. This wouldn't have been a huge deal except for the facts that we had no place to stay on Wednesday morning (We had slept at his buddy's house and his buddy would be at work) and a cab ride from his buddy's house to the airport cost more than 50 bucks. Instead of just apologizing for this, he went into to classic defensive Austin and repeatedly told me he had "Forgot" and that somehow it wasn't his fault that he had never bothered to look at his new itinerary. Sigh.
To make a long story short, I called Southwest Airlines on Tuesday night around midnight and paid a decent amount of money to move my flight up to 7:20 AM so that we could leave his buddy's house in the morning and split a cab. However, more problems ensued when Austin left his cell phone at the kid's house and the cabbie had to turn around and go back to get it. When we were a few minutes away from the airport, Austin mentioned to me that he needed me to pay the whole cab fare because he had very little cash left and would need to pay for a cab ride from the airport in NYC to his brother's apartment. He and I are no longer on speaking terms.
* Back to the first night..... With Austin in bed and us headed to the local strip club, The Play House, we needed to find a fourth guy to fill in for him and round out our group. That fourth guy was a young Nebraskan kid named Chris who was sitting at the bar, heard us talking about going to a strip club, and somehow ended up in our limo on the way to The Play House.
Yeah, we had a limo in Iowa. I don't really remember what happened but Matt says we jumped into a limo that two other guys were already using at the urging of the valet guys and had them take us to a strip club. But not before we stopped at a gas station so Hoffy and this kid Chris could jump out and buy beer. Okay, there's a lot at play here:
1. You can bring your own beer into strip clubs in Iowa. I still can't get over that. You just walk in carrying cases of beer like you're going to a house party. An Iowan house party. With fully naked girls. Fully naked Iowan girls.
It was awesome.
2. We were in a limo that was not our own and the other people were not amused. The one thing I do remember is that one of them was wearing Vikings gear and a scowl the entire time we were in there. That person may have been related to Chris Bennett.
3. Being the asshole that he is, Matt started to mock this Nebraskan kid Chris in the limo and Chris didn't realize he was joking around and got offended. I'm pretty sure Matt even got up and went to the other side of the limo to apologize.
4. Chris ended up going out to breakfast with us and our driver dropped him off at his house around 5:30 AM. This begs several questions: How did he get to the bar we were at in the first place? Who did he come there with? Or was his plan to just go to a random bar in Iowa and hope to run into some dumb kids from Vegas looking to go to a strip club?
It also begs the question of how 3 morons like us had our own driver. Well, we did. She was an employee of the hotel who drove a shuttle for hotel guests. I was so drunk that I had no idea that's who she was. I honestly thought she was a cab driver who was just following us around from the strip club to breakfast and then back to the hotel. Scott thought she was some girl I had met at the bar and convinced to drive us around. After we all had a nice post-strip club drunk breakfast, she dropped Chris off at his house in Nebraska and we never saw him again. (Although he was one of about 10 guys to give me his phone number during the week. Nice kid.)
* I'll make fun of myself for a while and ease into the Scott jokes. I was pretty drunk that first night. I can handle beer like a champ but throw in a few shots of Tequila and I'm like a tweenage girl experimenting with alcohol for the first time. A little tequila and I'm screaming at bartenders to come to the strip clubs with us and nearly getting into a fight with a bouncer who Metcalf swears was two seconds away from ripping my head off while I leaned against a car and mocked him. Matt said I was pretty funny, so I have that going for me. Still probably wasn't a good idea. I was a little sloppy on Friday but I pulled myself together on Saturday. Somebody had to babysit Hoffman. And I managed to take a few notes while I was blocking the "Shot Girls" from getting near him.
Try to guess which one of these things Scott didn't really do:
- Elbow me literally every single time a hot girl walked by. (Which during an LSU or Arizona St game was pretty much every 2 seconds) Dude - I'm already looking at her. Every guy in our general vicinity is already looking at her. Freakin' Hoffman.
- Took a piss in the street across from the stadium. This wasn't like an abandoned alley. This was a very busy street with hundreds of people everywhere. Luckily we were in Nebraska so the security guard and police officer let us off with a warning and a boys will be boys laugh. Except Scott is 31.
- Went up to a guy and asked him to "Make a line" on whether I could knock Scott out with one punch. The guy looked at him with a "What the hell are you talking about?" face but eventually bought us a few beers. And offered to help me get a job as a sports writer. And gave me his phone number offering to take my buddies and I to a Nebraska football game if I'm ever in Lincoln.... People in Nebraska are really nice.
- Threatened to fight Austin repeatedly. And threatened to fight Matt. And threatened to fight Austin and Matt at the same time. And refused to sit with us at dinner one night, instead opting to sit across the room muttering about how Matt was "Overrated" and how he wanted to kick Matt's ass.
- Nearly got into a fight with a belligerent kid at a beer tent in Omaha after the kid refused to buy him shots.
- Was banned from going to the casino area of our hotel and forced by security to return to our room for no less than 8 hours.
- Slept in the same bed as Matt Metcalf.
- Spooned every night with Matt Metcalf.
- Took about 90 minutes to get ready on Saturday morning, prompting me to tweet about how much of a diva he is.
- Finally gave up on Sunday night and went to bed at 10:30 PM.
- Almost fought through it on Sunday night when Matt told him that The Play House was doing 2-for-1 black lap dance night.
I need to stop here for a second because I thought that was definitely the funniest joke anyone made on the whole trip. Think about how funny that is. The strip club gives you two dances for the price of one as long as the girl is black. Does that mean that you get two black girls at once? Or does the same black girl dance for two songs and only charge you for one? What if the girl is half black and half white? Does it cost $12.50 instead of $25? What if the girl is related to Tiger Woods? Do you need to break out a calculator at that point? What if there's only one black girl working? How long would that line be?
Whatever the case may be - Scott was very intrigued by this.
Actually the funniest thing that happened on the whole trip occurred on Monday morning. Austin and I had just boarded the shuttle for Rosenblatt and Scott and Matt were standing on the curb waiting for their ride to the airport. A pretty girl walked past the two high rollers and Scott looked right down at her ass as Austin and I watched the whole thing play out and laughed out loud. I love the Hoff. He really is incorrigible.
Before I go, I will rank the 8 schools who were in Omaha based on the hotness of their female fan bases:
1. LSU. And it's not even close.
2. Arizona St
3. Texas
4. Arkansas
5. UNC
6. Cal Fullerton
7. Southern Mississippi
8. Virginia
UVA has to be one of the worst sports schools in the country. They never have good crowds at their basketball games. Their own football coach called them the "Wine and Cheese" crowd of the ACC, and they had about 20 fans in Omaha despite it being their first ever trip to the College World Series and hardly something they can expect annually the way fans from LSU or Texas do. UVA sucks.
(The above rant has nothing to do with the fact that I wish I had been smart enough to go to UVA.)
That's enough for today. It was light out when I went to bed last night and when I woke up the U.S. Open was already over. And had been over for several hours. It sucked. Going to get some sleep tonight. I'll try to force out a blog from time to time but there's really no point now that I have the aforementioned Blogcast and I am available to follow on Twitter.
(And yeah I follow Miley Cyrus on Twitter. So what? Have you heard what Eminem says about her in the second verse of his new song 3 AM? Well, I suggest you listen to it. I won't seem so bad after you hear that.)
Enjoy the game.
I'll give a few thoughts on the NBA Finals, tell a few stories about our trip to Omaha and then I'm calling it a night.
Actually.... I can tell this is going to a long one. Chris - You may need to read this in like 4-5 sessions spread out over a month or so. Enjoy.
* I was not happy for Kobe or the Lakers at all last Sunday. I wasn't happy for their idiot fans. I wasn't even happy for Jeff. Why exactly should we be happy for Kobe again? He has millions of dollars, is a lock for the Hall of Fame, and had 3 championship rings before the season started. Plus he raped a girl in Colorado a few years back and got away with it. Why would anyone be happy for this person? Fuck that.
* I want to thank Dwight Howard for making every FT attempt during the Eastern Conference Finals and then shooting like my sister against the Lakers. Perhaps the Lakers defense was really tough while Dwight stood on the free throw line.
* Orlando just shot the ball out of their minds against the Cavaliers and they couldn't possibly duplicate that performance against L.A. Please don't tell me that it's because the Lakers defense is better than Cleveland's. That just isn't true. The Cavs had one of the best defenses in the leasgue all season and the Lakers are a bunch of Europeans and lazy players. Orlando just went through an historically hot stretch against the Cavs and couldn't keep it up in the next round.
But I'm not bitter.
* I was at the Palms with Hoffman at the end of Game 4 of the NBA Finals surrounded by idiots rooting abnoxiously for the Lakers. After Dwight Howard choked and missed both free throws, Orlando was still up by 3. All they had to do was foul the Lakers and they win the game. Instead they let Derek Fisher take a 3 and he (miraculously) made it to send the game to overtime. Great.
* At the end of the day I'm just bitter about the Cavs not being able to make it to the Finals and the entire postseason just reminded me of why I hate the NBA.
You can hear more of my thoughts on the NBA and life in general in the most recent Blogcast which Andy and I recorded the afternoon before Game 4. Chris.... just listen to it.
And now I will talk about the Omaha trip by making fun of each person who was on the trip individually. Let's start with Matt.
* The Big Guy is a party animal. We went to bed about 6 am the first night we were there and Matt still woke up around 9 to catch the shuttle over to Rosenblatt and start tailgating. There's really nothing good to mock him about but I'm going to do it anyway. For one thing, Matt was the only person who took this stupid tailgate game we were playing seriously. The object of the game was to toss this thing and have it catch on a ladder a few feet away. (It's not as fun as it sounds. Actually it's exactly as fun as it sounds.) All of Matt's tosses would hit the ladder and bounce off at which time he would complain about how unlucky he was. Everyone else was just standing around hoping that somebody would win so that we could stop playing.
For the record, the team of Austin and I defeated Matt and Hoffman thanks to my winning shot. Had I known that Austin and Scott had bet $20 on the match, I most likely would've thrown the game on purpose, then split up the booty with Hoffman back at the hideout.
Matt was also obsessed (Obsessed!) with collecting wristbands from every bar and/or beer tent he went to. I believe that I tweeted that he was like a sorority girl proudly displaying the many wristbands adorning his arms. He was also so self-conscious about this that he actually used bigger wristbands to cover up the smaller ones when I started making fun of him for it which only made me want to make fun of him even more. That guy is too easy.
* Austin made the smart decision to turn in early on the first night instead of joining us on our dumb trip to a place called "The Play House." He also came through with free tickets to several games and got us into a few tailgates where we drank and ate for free. But even he was not without flaws. He and I had planned to leave at the same time on Wednesday so that we could share a cab to the airport. His original flight back to Vegas was around 2:30 so I booked a flight at 1:55. Makes sense. What he failed to tell me until Tuesday morning was that not only was he going straight to NYC from Omaha but that his new flight was at 7 AM. This wouldn't have been a huge deal except for the facts that we had no place to stay on Wednesday morning (We had slept at his buddy's house and his buddy would be at work) and a cab ride from his buddy's house to the airport cost more than 50 bucks. Instead of just apologizing for this, he went into to classic defensive Austin and repeatedly told me he had "Forgot" and that somehow it wasn't his fault that he had never bothered to look at his new itinerary. Sigh.
To make a long story short, I called Southwest Airlines on Tuesday night around midnight and paid a decent amount of money to move my flight up to 7:20 AM so that we could leave his buddy's house in the morning and split a cab. However, more problems ensued when Austin left his cell phone at the kid's house and the cabbie had to turn around and go back to get it. When we were a few minutes away from the airport, Austin mentioned to me that he needed me to pay the whole cab fare because he had very little cash left and would need to pay for a cab ride from the airport in NYC to his brother's apartment. He and I are no longer on speaking terms.
* Back to the first night..... With Austin in bed and us headed to the local strip club, The Play House, we needed to find a fourth guy to fill in for him and round out our group. That fourth guy was a young Nebraskan kid named Chris who was sitting at the bar, heard us talking about going to a strip club, and somehow ended up in our limo on the way to The Play House.
Yeah, we had a limo in Iowa. I don't really remember what happened but Matt says we jumped into a limo that two other guys were already using at the urging of the valet guys and had them take us to a strip club. But not before we stopped at a gas station so Hoffy and this kid Chris could jump out and buy beer. Okay, there's a lot at play here:
1. You can bring your own beer into strip clubs in Iowa. I still can't get over that. You just walk in carrying cases of beer like you're going to a house party. An Iowan house party. With fully naked girls. Fully naked Iowan girls.
It was awesome.
2. We were in a limo that was not our own and the other people were not amused. The one thing I do remember is that one of them was wearing Vikings gear and a scowl the entire time we were in there. That person may have been related to Chris Bennett.
3. Being the asshole that he is, Matt started to mock this Nebraskan kid Chris in the limo and Chris didn't realize he was joking around and got offended. I'm pretty sure Matt even got up and went to the other side of the limo to apologize.
4. Chris ended up going out to breakfast with us and our driver dropped him off at his house around 5:30 AM. This begs several questions: How did he get to the bar we were at in the first place? Who did he come there with? Or was his plan to just go to a random bar in Iowa and hope to run into some dumb kids from Vegas looking to go to a strip club?
It also begs the question of how 3 morons like us had our own driver. Well, we did. She was an employee of the hotel who drove a shuttle for hotel guests. I was so drunk that I had no idea that's who she was. I honestly thought she was a cab driver who was just following us around from the strip club to breakfast and then back to the hotel. Scott thought she was some girl I had met at the bar and convinced to drive us around. After we all had a nice post-strip club drunk breakfast, she dropped Chris off at his house in Nebraska and we never saw him again. (Although he was one of about 10 guys to give me his phone number during the week. Nice kid.)
* I'll make fun of myself for a while and ease into the Scott jokes. I was pretty drunk that first night. I can handle beer like a champ but throw in a few shots of Tequila and I'm like a tweenage girl experimenting with alcohol for the first time. A little tequila and I'm screaming at bartenders to come to the strip clubs with us and nearly getting into a fight with a bouncer who Metcalf swears was two seconds away from ripping my head off while I leaned against a car and mocked him. Matt said I was pretty funny, so I have that going for me. Still probably wasn't a good idea. I was a little sloppy on Friday but I pulled myself together on Saturday. Somebody had to babysit Hoffman. And I managed to take a few notes while I was blocking the "Shot Girls" from getting near him.
Try to guess which one of these things Scott didn't really do:
- Elbow me literally every single time a hot girl walked by. (Which during an LSU or Arizona St game was pretty much every 2 seconds) Dude - I'm already looking at her. Every guy in our general vicinity is already looking at her. Freakin' Hoffman.
- Took a piss in the street across from the stadium. This wasn't like an abandoned alley. This was a very busy street with hundreds of people everywhere. Luckily we were in Nebraska so the security guard and police officer let us off with a warning and a boys will be boys laugh. Except Scott is 31.
- Went up to a guy and asked him to "Make a line" on whether I could knock Scott out with one punch. The guy looked at him with a "What the hell are you talking about?" face but eventually bought us a few beers. And offered to help me get a job as a sports writer. And gave me his phone number offering to take my buddies and I to a Nebraska football game if I'm ever in Lincoln.... People in Nebraska are really nice.
- Threatened to fight Austin repeatedly. And threatened to fight Matt. And threatened to fight Austin and Matt at the same time. And refused to sit with us at dinner one night, instead opting to sit across the room muttering about how Matt was "Overrated" and how he wanted to kick Matt's ass.
- Nearly got into a fight with a belligerent kid at a beer tent in Omaha after the kid refused to buy him shots.
- Was banned from going to the casino area of our hotel and forced by security to return to our room for no less than 8 hours.
- Slept in the same bed as Matt Metcalf.
- Spooned every night with Matt Metcalf.
- Took about 90 minutes to get ready on Saturday morning, prompting me to tweet about how much of a diva he is.
- Finally gave up on Sunday night and went to bed at 10:30 PM.
- Almost fought through it on Sunday night when Matt told him that The Play House was doing 2-for-1 black lap dance night.
I need to stop here for a second because I thought that was definitely the funniest joke anyone made on the whole trip. Think about how funny that is. The strip club gives you two dances for the price of one as long as the girl is black. Does that mean that you get two black girls at once? Or does the same black girl dance for two songs and only charge you for one? What if the girl is half black and half white? Does it cost $12.50 instead of $25? What if the girl is related to Tiger Woods? Do you need to break out a calculator at that point? What if there's only one black girl working? How long would that line be?
Whatever the case may be - Scott was very intrigued by this.
Actually the funniest thing that happened on the whole trip occurred on Monday morning. Austin and I had just boarded the shuttle for Rosenblatt and Scott and Matt were standing on the curb waiting for their ride to the airport. A pretty girl walked past the two high rollers and Scott looked right down at her ass as Austin and I watched the whole thing play out and laughed out loud. I love the Hoff. He really is incorrigible.
Before I go, I will rank the 8 schools who were in Omaha based on the hotness of their female fan bases:
1. LSU. And it's not even close.
2. Arizona St
3. Texas
4. Arkansas
5. UNC
6. Cal Fullerton
7. Southern Mississippi
8. Virginia
UVA has to be one of the worst sports schools in the country. They never have good crowds at their basketball games. Their own football coach called them the "Wine and Cheese" crowd of the ACC, and they had about 20 fans in Omaha despite it being their first ever trip to the College World Series and hardly something they can expect annually the way fans from LSU or Texas do. UVA sucks.
(The above rant has nothing to do with the fact that I wish I had been smart enough to go to UVA.)
That's enough for today. It was light out when I went to bed last night and when I woke up the U.S. Open was already over. And had been over for several hours. It sucked. Going to get some sleep tonight. I'll try to force out a blog from time to time but there's really no point now that I have the aforementioned Blogcast and I am available to follow on Twitter.
(And yeah I follow Miley Cyrus on Twitter. So what? Have you heard what Eminem says about her in the second verse of his new song 3 AM? Well, I suggest you listen to it. I won't seem so bad after you hear that.)
Enjoy the game.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Allow me to give my thoughts
.... on the NBA's Western and Eastern Conference Finals. If you don't wish to read 1,000 words from me ripping Kobe Bryant or listen to me whine incessantly about the Cavaliers playoff choke job, I suggest you stop reading this right now. In that case, I recommend going back and reading my old blogs like Jorgen does when he is bored at work.
I've spent way more time watching the Eastern Conference games but I'm going to start by talking about the Western series. The series price originally came Lakers -250 which was interesting because the Lakers were roughly 1/5 to win the whole thing at Caesars at the time. Was Sherman panicking before this series? You bet he was.
The #1 thing I consistently find so fascinating about Mr. S and his fellow Laker fans is their undying loyalty to Kobe Bryant. It's very possible that right now there is no athlete more beloved by his own fans than Kobe is by Lakers supporters. They worship the guy. They defend him no matter what. They still think he's better than LeBron James which is just laughable. This is all fascinating to me for several reasons:
1. Kobe Bryant is obviously a gigantic douche.
He's just not like a likeable guy. He's completely phony. Every exchange he has with teammates, fans, media members, etc... seems forced and uncomfortable and just generally akward. I don't care what anyone tells me: There is no way the other Lakers players like Kobe Bryant. For one thing, he's about as likely to pass them the ball on the basketball court as Bennett and Jorgie are to pass on a backwards number at the Golden Nugget. I'm sure Kobe's teammates respect him for being such a great player and I'm sure they appreciate the fact that he is capable of carrying them on his back when he's hot, but there is no way they like him. Let alone adoringly fawn over him the way the Lakers fans do.
2. Kobe forced Shaquille O'Neal out of town because he didn't want to share the spotlight.
Why does everyone pretend like this never happened? The Lakers won three titles with Shaq as their #1 guy and Kobe as his sidekick. They probably could have won 1 or 2 more titles together but Kobe wanted to be the lead dog and forced the Lakers to deal Shaq to Miami, where he won a championship with Dwyane Wade leading the way. Wade is not the player Kobe is so it stands to reason that had they stayed together Shaq and Kobe could have definitely won at least one more NBA Championship. But Kobe didn't want it that way. He wanted to be the guy. Shaq was a likeable guy, a great player, and he lead the Lakers to 3 world championships, winning 3 NBA Finals MVPs along the way. Kobe forced him out of town while he was still good enough to win another title. And nobody in Los Angeles seems to care or even remember that it happened. I just don't get L.A. fans at all.
3. There once was a girl named Katelyn Faber....
I don't want to go into too many graphic details but I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Innocent people settle out of court with their accusers all the time. Don't they?
Nobody in Los Angeles seems to be bothered by this whatsoever. I just don't understand these fans.
Aside from the reasons above, let's not forget that the "Kobe as Top Dog" experiment in Los Angeles wasn't working at all (And rumors ranged from Kobe demanding a trade out of town with Chicago as a possible landing spot to Kobe SIGNING WITH THE CLIPPERS a few summers ago) until David Stern forced Grizzlies management to trade Pau Gasol to the Lakers for nothing 2 years ago. Look at the results of the 3 Kobe-led Lakers team, prior to the Gasol trade:
- In 2007, the Lakers lost 4 games to 1 in the first round of the NBA Playoffs to the Phoenix Suns as the #7 seed. (That same year LeBron James led a similar, if not worse, cast of supporting players to the NBA Finals as a 22-year-old.)
- In 2006, Kobe and the Lakers lost 4-3 in the first round to Phoenix, also as a #7 seed. (That same year, Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat won the NBA Championship.)
- And in 2005, the first Kobe-led Lakers team without Shaq in the middle didn't even make it to the postseason.....
Kobe was 26, 27, and 28 during those three seasons. Those are prime years for most athletes but with a mediocre supporting cast he could barely lead his team to the postseason and was unable to win even one playoff series. That tells me all I need to know about the ridiculous LeBron-Kobe "Debate." As I said above, LeBron took a similarly crappy team to the Finals in 2007 at the ripe old age of 22, and he is back in the Eastern Finals this year with a team of crummy supporting players, white guys, and a dopey Brazilian guy who looks like Sideshow Bob. By the time he is 27, LeBron would be able to carry a team of me, sharp shooting farm boy Jorgie, a hungover Scott, and my 60-year-old mother to the second round of the playoffs. I'm sorry but if you think Kobe is as good a player as LeBron is, you don't know shit about basketball.
But nobody in L.A. ever talks about any of this. They just blindly love Kobe. What a sports town.
For all my Kobe ripping, the fact remains that he is one win away from taking the Lakers back to the Finals for the second straight season. Unfortunately for Nuggets backers, the Western Conference finals were wrapped up last night in L.A. Denver's only hope was to win last night and play the game of their lives on Friday night in Denver. Now they would have to win Game 6 at home, then go on the road on Sunday afternoon and beat the Lakers, the refs, David Stern, and ABC in Game 7. That's just not going to happen. Even if Carmelo gets over his little baby flu bug, Denver still has no shot of winning a Game 7 on the road. Sorry, guys.
Let's turn our attention to the Cavaliers and the Eastern Conference Finals.
* Okay, first of all, as most of you already know, I have a bet on the Cavs to win the championship at 20-1 and I was too stubborn to hedge it before the Orlando series because I reasoned that it would be dumb to hedge against an -800 favorite. I realize that I am a moron and as usual I made the wrong decision, but I want it to be on the record that while I have been panicking hard core during this series, I have been no worse than Ed or Jeff who both laid huge prices on Cleveland to win the East. Do you have any idea how much those guys need to bet on a -600 favorite to make it worth their while? Between the two of them, they probably could have bought a small island with the money they are going to lose on this series.
* I also want to address idiots like ESPN's Skip Bayless who are blaming LeBron for Cleveland's current 3-1 deficit. This could be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. LeBron is averaging 42.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 7.3 assists during this series. And he really should be averaging closer to 10 assists per game. How many times has #23 driven into the paint, waited as the defense collapsed on him, and then kicked it out to Mo Williams, Delonte West, or Zyndrunas Ilgauskas for a WIDE OPEN shot only to watch as it clanked off the iron? During Game 4, I compared LeBron to a father who puts the ball in the hands of his young son, lifts him up to the point that the child is hovering over the rim, then tells his son to slam it through the hoop. Only these guys are professional basketball players. (Mo Williams actually made the All-Star team this season believe it or not.) And they probably couldn't even make that shot. Yeah, it's LeBron's fault. Skip Bayless might be the most clueless sports reporter on the planet.
* LeBron tries to get his teammates involved. He doesn't want to be like Kobe hogging the ball and settling for dumb outside shots on every other possession. But if you are playing basketball and you realize that you are the only person on your team that can make a shot, would you really keep passing to your teammates? I know I wouldn't.
* There was a sequence during Game 4 that I feel was a perfect microcasm of this series so far. Trailing 93-88 with with just over 5 minutes left, LeBron took and hit a tough jumper to cut the lead to 3. Orlando missed and the Cavs came charging back down the floor. LeBron drove to the rim and somehow saw and managed to kick it back out to Delonte West who was wide open for 3 in the corner. This wasn't a tough angle. It was a direct shot from the corner. There were no defenders in the area. They had all wisely converged on LeBron. I would've expected myself to make the shot. And West missed. Of course, he did. Mickael Pietrus grabbed the rebound and the Magic rushed frantically up the court for no apparent reason and Rashard Lewis forced up a stupid 3 pointer with a hand in his face. *Good.* And Orlando is up by 6 again.
* Cleveland still had a great chance to win at the end, up by 1 in the final seconds. Orlando gets the ball and instead of setting up a play or calmly working it inside to Dwight Howard so he can dunk over Ilgauskas, Pietrus forces up a ridiculous 3 from corner and clanks it off the rim. If there was any justice in the world, Orlando would have lost the game right there for taking such a dumb shot but Delonte West falls to the ground trying to grab the rebound and it rolls out of bounds. Still down by a single point, the Magic inbound it to Rashard Lewis, who turns to his right and forces up a stupid fadeaway 3 point shot from the wing, probably the hardest spot on the court to make a 3 from. (Again I want to reiterate that Orlando was only down by 1 and they have a center who couldn't possibly be stopped down low.) *Good.*
Son of a bitch.
The refs tried to help Cleveland out and LeBron made two ridiculously clutch free throws (Something no one will mention the next time he misses one in the 2nd quarter) to force overtime with 0.5 seconds left but Orlando was able to pull away for the win in overtime.
* I watched a great deal of Game 4 with fellow Cavs bettor and fellow panic junkie Ed Salmons and he kept saying that Cleveland should just let Orlando gunners like Pietrus and Rafer Alston shoot the 3 anytime they want it. And Ed was probably right about that. If you let guys like Pietrus and Alston take dumb 3's instead of passing it inside to Howard or having Lewis take it to the rack, in the long term you are probably much better off. Except in this particular series those guys never miss. None of the Magic players ever miss. Orlando made 17 3's on Tuesday night. Rafer Alston made 6 himself. Rafer Alston. And this is a game that went to overtime so every one of those shots was precious. Orlando is just shooting out of their minds right now and Cleveland, well other than LeBron James, Cleveland couldn't make a shot right now unless you lifted them up over the basket and instructed them to drop it in.
* If you watch the game tonight, look out for the 25 times that LeBron drives to the rim and kicks it back out to his teammate for a wide open shot. When that loser clanks the shot like a JV high school player, think of me cringing and cursing and think of Ed frantically texting me a complaint. Because it's going to happen. Over and over and over again.
I know I wasn't funny today. I've just watched more NBA basketball in the last week than I did over the entire regular season combined. And I didn't want to be the millionth person to write about how bad the officials have been for two reasons:
1. Aside from a few weird calls like the foul on Pavlovic at the end of Game 2, the officials are helping my team, Cleveland. Thank you for that, guys.
2. Everyone who actually watches the NBA and isn't a complete idiot, already knows that the officiating in this league is beyond abysmal, so there's no reason to talk about it until you are hoarse.
You gotta believe that the refs will be helping out Cleveland tonight. And the Cavaliers are at home. And at some point, Orlando's secondary players like Alston and Pietrus have to finally miss shots.
At least I hope so. Or there will be a lot of panicking tonight. And I'm not just talking about Ed and Jeff.
Enjoy the game.
I've spent way more time watching the Eastern Conference games but I'm going to start by talking about the Western series. The series price originally came Lakers -250 which was interesting because the Lakers were roughly 1/5 to win the whole thing at Caesars at the time. Was Sherman panicking before this series? You bet he was.
The #1 thing I consistently find so fascinating about Mr. S and his fellow Laker fans is their undying loyalty to Kobe Bryant. It's very possible that right now there is no athlete more beloved by his own fans than Kobe is by Lakers supporters. They worship the guy. They defend him no matter what. They still think he's better than LeBron James which is just laughable. This is all fascinating to me for several reasons:
1. Kobe Bryant is obviously a gigantic douche.
He's just not like a likeable guy. He's completely phony. Every exchange he has with teammates, fans, media members, etc... seems forced and uncomfortable and just generally akward. I don't care what anyone tells me: There is no way the other Lakers players like Kobe Bryant. For one thing, he's about as likely to pass them the ball on the basketball court as Bennett and Jorgie are to pass on a backwards number at the Golden Nugget. I'm sure Kobe's teammates respect him for being such a great player and I'm sure they appreciate the fact that he is capable of carrying them on his back when he's hot, but there is no way they like him. Let alone adoringly fawn over him the way the Lakers fans do.
2. Kobe forced Shaquille O'Neal out of town because he didn't want to share the spotlight.
Why does everyone pretend like this never happened? The Lakers won three titles with Shaq as their #1 guy and Kobe as his sidekick. They probably could have won 1 or 2 more titles together but Kobe wanted to be the lead dog and forced the Lakers to deal Shaq to Miami, where he won a championship with Dwyane Wade leading the way. Wade is not the player Kobe is so it stands to reason that had they stayed together Shaq and Kobe could have definitely won at least one more NBA Championship. But Kobe didn't want it that way. He wanted to be the guy. Shaq was a likeable guy, a great player, and he lead the Lakers to 3 world championships, winning 3 NBA Finals MVPs along the way. Kobe forced him out of town while he was still good enough to win another title. And nobody in Los Angeles seems to care or even remember that it happened. I just don't get L.A. fans at all.
3. There once was a girl named Katelyn Faber....
I don't want to go into too many graphic details but I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Innocent people settle out of court with their accusers all the time. Don't they?
Nobody in Los Angeles seems to be bothered by this whatsoever. I just don't understand these fans.
Aside from the reasons above, let's not forget that the "Kobe as Top Dog" experiment in Los Angeles wasn't working at all (And rumors ranged from Kobe demanding a trade out of town with Chicago as a possible landing spot to Kobe SIGNING WITH THE CLIPPERS a few summers ago) until David Stern forced Grizzlies management to trade Pau Gasol to the Lakers for nothing 2 years ago. Look at the results of the 3 Kobe-led Lakers team, prior to the Gasol trade:
- In 2007, the Lakers lost 4 games to 1 in the first round of the NBA Playoffs to the Phoenix Suns as the #7 seed. (That same year LeBron James led a similar, if not worse, cast of supporting players to the NBA Finals as a 22-year-old.)
- In 2006, Kobe and the Lakers lost 4-3 in the first round to Phoenix, also as a #7 seed. (That same year, Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat won the NBA Championship.)
- And in 2005, the first Kobe-led Lakers team without Shaq in the middle didn't even make it to the postseason.....
Kobe was 26, 27, and 28 during those three seasons. Those are prime years for most athletes but with a mediocre supporting cast he could barely lead his team to the postseason and was unable to win even one playoff series. That tells me all I need to know about the ridiculous LeBron-Kobe "Debate." As I said above, LeBron took a similarly crappy team to the Finals in 2007 at the ripe old age of 22, and he is back in the Eastern Finals this year with a team of crummy supporting players, white guys, and a dopey Brazilian guy who looks like Sideshow Bob. By the time he is 27, LeBron would be able to carry a team of me, sharp shooting farm boy Jorgie, a hungover Scott, and my 60-year-old mother to the second round of the playoffs. I'm sorry but if you think Kobe is as good a player as LeBron is, you don't know shit about basketball.
But nobody in L.A. ever talks about any of this. They just blindly love Kobe. What a sports town.
For all my Kobe ripping, the fact remains that he is one win away from taking the Lakers back to the Finals for the second straight season. Unfortunately for Nuggets backers, the Western Conference finals were wrapped up last night in L.A. Denver's only hope was to win last night and play the game of their lives on Friday night in Denver. Now they would have to win Game 6 at home, then go on the road on Sunday afternoon and beat the Lakers, the refs, David Stern, and ABC in Game 7. That's just not going to happen. Even if Carmelo gets over his little baby flu bug, Denver still has no shot of winning a Game 7 on the road. Sorry, guys.
Let's turn our attention to the Cavaliers and the Eastern Conference Finals.
* Okay, first of all, as most of you already know, I have a bet on the Cavs to win the championship at 20-1 and I was too stubborn to hedge it before the Orlando series because I reasoned that it would be dumb to hedge against an -800 favorite. I realize that I am a moron and as usual I made the wrong decision, but I want it to be on the record that while I have been panicking hard core during this series, I have been no worse than Ed or Jeff who both laid huge prices on Cleveland to win the East. Do you have any idea how much those guys need to bet on a -600 favorite to make it worth their while? Between the two of them, they probably could have bought a small island with the money they are going to lose on this series.
* I also want to address idiots like ESPN's Skip Bayless who are blaming LeBron for Cleveland's current 3-1 deficit. This could be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. LeBron is averaging 42.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 7.3 assists during this series. And he really should be averaging closer to 10 assists per game. How many times has #23 driven into the paint, waited as the defense collapsed on him, and then kicked it out to Mo Williams, Delonte West, or Zyndrunas Ilgauskas for a WIDE OPEN shot only to watch as it clanked off the iron? During Game 4, I compared LeBron to a father who puts the ball in the hands of his young son, lifts him up to the point that the child is hovering over the rim, then tells his son to slam it through the hoop. Only these guys are professional basketball players. (Mo Williams actually made the All-Star team this season believe it or not.) And they probably couldn't even make that shot. Yeah, it's LeBron's fault. Skip Bayless might be the most clueless sports reporter on the planet.
* LeBron tries to get his teammates involved. He doesn't want to be like Kobe hogging the ball and settling for dumb outside shots on every other possession. But if you are playing basketball and you realize that you are the only person on your team that can make a shot, would you really keep passing to your teammates? I know I wouldn't.
* There was a sequence during Game 4 that I feel was a perfect microcasm of this series so far. Trailing 93-88 with with just over 5 minutes left, LeBron took and hit a tough jumper to cut the lead to 3. Orlando missed and the Cavs came charging back down the floor. LeBron drove to the rim and somehow saw and managed to kick it back out to Delonte West who was wide open for 3 in the corner. This wasn't a tough angle. It was a direct shot from the corner. There were no defenders in the area. They had all wisely converged on LeBron. I would've expected myself to make the shot. And West missed. Of course, he did. Mickael Pietrus grabbed the rebound and the Magic rushed frantically up the court for no apparent reason and Rashard Lewis forced up a stupid 3 pointer with a hand in his face. *Good.* And Orlando is up by 6 again.
* Cleveland still had a great chance to win at the end, up by 1 in the final seconds. Orlando gets the ball and instead of setting up a play or calmly working it inside to Dwight Howard so he can dunk over Ilgauskas, Pietrus forces up a ridiculous 3 from corner and clanks it off the rim. If there was any justice in the world, Orlando would have lost the game right there for taking such a dumb shot but Delonte West falls to the ground trying to grab the rebound and it rolls out of bounds. Still down by a single point, the Magic inbound it to Rashard Lewis, who turns to his right and forces up a stupid fadeaway 3 point shot from the wing, probably the hardest spot on the court to make a 3 from. (Again I want to reiterate that Orlando was only down by 1 and they have a center who couldn't possibly be stopped down low.) *Good.*
Son of a bitch.
The refs tried to help Cleveland out and LeBron made two ridiculously clutch free throws (Something no one will mention the next time he misses one in the 2nd quarter) to force overtime with 0.5 seconds left but Orlando was able to pull away for the win in overtime.
* I watched a great deal of Game 4 with fellow Cavs bettor and fellow panic junkie Ed Salmons and he kept saying that Cleveland should just let Orlando gunners like Pietrus and Rafer Alston shoot the 3 anytime they want it. And Ed was probably right about that. If you let guys like Pietrus and Alston take dumb 3's instead of passing it inside to Howard or having Lewis take it to the rack, in the long term you are probably much better off. Except in this particular series those guys never miss. None of the Magic players ever miss. Orlando made 17 3's on Tuesday night. Rafer Alston made 6 himself. Rafer Alston. And this is a game that went to overtime so every one of those shots was precious. Orlando is just shooting out of their minds right now and Cleveland, well other than LeBron James, Cleveland couldn't make a shot right now unless you lifted them up over the basket and instructed them to drop it in.
* If you watch the game tonight, look out for the 25 times that LeBron drives to the rim and kicks it back out to his teammate for a wide open shot. When that loser clanks the shot like a JV high school player, think of me cringing and cursing and think of Ed frantically texting me a complaint. Because it's going to happen. Over and over and over again.
I know I wasn't funny today. I've just watched more NBA basketball in the last week than I did over the entire regular season combined. And I didn't want to be the millionth person to write about how bad the officials have been for two reasons:
1. Aside from a few weird calls like the foul on Pavlovic at the end of Game 2, the officials are helping my team, Cleveland. Thank you for that, guys.
2. Everyone who actually watches the NBA and isn't a complete idiot, already knows that the officiating in this league is beyond abysmal, so there's no reason to talk about it until you are hoarse.
You gotta believe that the refs will be helping out Cleveland tonight. And the Cavaliers are at home. And at some point, Orlando's secondary players like Alston and Pietrus have to finally miss shots.
At least I hope so. Or there will be a lot of panicking tonight. And I'm not just talking about Ed and Jeff.
Enjoy the game.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Sorry Guys
.... but there just hasn't been much time for me to blog lately.
Look at all this crap:
My Twitter Page. Where I follow such luminaries as Miley Cyrus, "Diddy," John Daly, Bill Simmons, and Jeff Sherman.
Andy's blogcast. It took 3 whole episodes before it was stale and repetitive to the point that even Ross and I didn't like it.
The baseball contest. Believe it or not there was a time when I was doing good in that contest. A time long, long ago. Ah, to be able to turn back the clock to Monday.
I'm almost as internet savvy as Jeff at this point.
The truth is that the main reason I haven't been blogging much lately is my state of depression over my current gambling stretch. I've been the anti-Hoff lately. Nothing goes my way. I don't know how it's possible that even with all the money I won in April, I'll go over my finances and be like "Shit, that's all I got left?"
I really gotta stop hanging out with Hoffy. He lives too hard. And I don't have any "Hoffytime" to make up for these wild, stupid, nights out.
Although, not everything I do with my money is a complete waste. I did send my Mom a dozen roses for Mother's Day with the following note:
Hey Mom. Happy Mother's Day. No matter what Peter tells you, these flowers are not half from him. This is all me. Your son with the job. And his own money. Peter had nothing to do with this whatsoever.
Regards,
John Murray
Apparently she cried when she got the flowers. Then laughed. Then started crying again. Really glad I wasn't there for that.
Ovechkin and LeBron both playing tonight. And I'll probably get murdered on another Cup race. Whoops, I mean NASCAR race. Sorry, Chris.
Crappy blog but good poll this week.
Enjoy the game.
Look at all this crap:
My Twitter Page. Where I follow such luminaries as Miley Cyrus, "Diddy," John Daly, Bill Simmons, and Jeff Sherman.
Andy's blogcast. It took 3 whole episodes before it was stale and repetitive to the point that even Ross and I didn't like it.
The baseball contest. Believe it or not there was a time when I was doing good in that contest. A time long, long ago. Ah, to be able to turn back the clock to Monday.
I'm almost as internet savvy as Jeff at this point.
The truth is that the main reason I haven't been blogging much lately is my state of depression over my current gambling stretch. I've been the anti-Hoff lately. Nothing goes my way. I don't know how it's possible that even with all the money I won in April, I'll go over my finances and be like "Shit, that's all I got left?"
I really gotta stop hanging out with Hoffy. He lives too hard. And I don't have any "Hoffytime" to make up for these wild, stupid, nights out.
Although, not everything I do with my money is a complete waste. I did send my Mom a dozen roses for Mother's Day with the following note:
Hey Mom. Happy Mother's Day. No matter what Peter tells you, these flowers are not half from him. This is all me. Your son with the job. And his own money. Peter had nothing to do with this whatsoever.
Regards,
John Murray
Apparently she cried when she got the flowers. Then laughed. Then started crying again. Really glad I wasn't there for that.
Ovechkin and LeBron both playing tonight. And I'll probably get murdered on another Cup race. Whoops, I mean NASCAR race. Sorry, Chris.
Crappy blog but good poll this week.
Enjoy the game.
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Monday, April 27, 2009
What happens to a blogger
.... when he has no interest in writing anymore?
He does a podcast: Ross and I ramble on about everything from Jeff's busy schedule to Jorgen's purse.
Enjoy.
He does a podcast: Ross and I ramble on about everything from Jeff's busy schedule to Jorgen's purse.
Enjoy.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Stop telling me that I haven't
.... been blogging lately. There's all kinds of crazy shit going on every day right over here - 2009 Baseball Contest and that should be enough to keep everyone satisfied.
Do you people have any appreciation for what's happening at that blog? Chris Bennett (Yes, him, the scumbag kid) is posting his personal baseball plays. For free. Every day. We can all quit our jobs! Just be careful not to overload the server refreshing it repeatedly. (I had that problem with Jeff trying to read my blog a few months ago. Very sad.)
And it's not just Chris (Although in point of fact the "Contest" is just an elaborate farce for me to see who he likes every day.) Hoffman is in a zone right now unlike anything any of us have ever witnessed. In fact, I have taken the liberty of printing up LeBron James-inspired "Witness" t-shirts for us to all wear in homage to the month Scott is having betting baseball. That kid is beyond sharp. Hoff - I want to publicly apologize for the "Horseshoe up your ass" comment I made last night. I was drunk. I mean let's face it - You have had a lot of positive variance lately and that was a funny line but still - I'm sorry.
And guys please go here - Damn. This Guy Is SHARP!
We also have Metcalf posting total plays using some fancy Calculus For Future Astronauts math that only Chris could possibly understand. Plus Matt's taking the time to post rap lyrics which I really appreciate. Ideally, I would like for the contest to evolve into a sort of online rap battle in which everyone oohs and aahs when another contestant makes a particularly stinging comment about Bennett or Sherman using a mid to late 90s rap song that no one my brother's age has ever heard. In a perfect world it would be like that show Yo Mama on MTV where everyone stands around and laughs at the person who was "Dissed." I think if everyone who reads the blog chipped in like 20 bucks we could even get Wilmer Valderrama to be the emcee.
In addition to that Holy Trinity of sharp sharps, there's a few other guys posting their plays. And we're trying to recruit Ed and a few other sharps to make it even more competitive. I've even had a lot of positive variance this month so I'm up near the top. Will that last? Stay tuned....
(Although it almost certainly will not.)
Here are some quick thoughts before I go watch the new ep of SP I DVRed last night while I was out throwing money around like a teenage Arab with Scotty and Austin:
* Why are we even playing the NBA Playoffs? Let's just fast forward to June and Game 1 of Lakers-Cavaliers at the Q. Not only are they clearly the best teams in their respective conferences, the NBA would never allow one of them to lose to an Orlando or a Denver. The NBA is like WWE. With black people.
* Actual argument I had with a professional clothes remover last night: I maintained that LeBron James is already better than Michael Jordan ever was. Her and Austin took MJ's side. And this girl was from Cleveland! Doesn't she remember MJ's shot over Craig Ehlo? Needless to say, she left soon after.
* When I woke this morning, er afternoon, I saw that the Chiefs had traded Tony Gonzalez to the Falcons for a draft pick. So, obviously, I texted the only die hard Falcons fan I know to congratulate him on his team acquiring a future Hall-of-Famer. And Jeff didn't even respond. Either he didn't like the trade or he lost his cell phone at a strip club last night.... Eh, no one would be that dumb.
* The Nationals were winning going into the 9th inning on Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday of their 3 game series with the Marlins over the weekend. They lost all 3 games. I hate D.C. area sports teams.
* The Redskins aren't really going to trade 2 1st round picks for Mark Sanchez are they? I'm going to have to watch the NFL Draft from underneath my covers. I hate D.C. area sports teams.
* The Capitals.... I don't even want to talk about it. I really do hate D.C. area sports teams.
I'm done.
Do you people have any appreciation for what's happening at that blog? Chris Bennett (Yes, him, the scumbag kid) is posting his personal baseball plays. For free. Every day. We can all quit our jobs! Just be careful not to overload the server refreshing it repeatedly. (I had that problem with Jeff trying to read my blog a few months ago. Very sad.)
And it's not just Chris (Although in point of fact the "Contest" is just an elaborate farce for me to see who he likes every day.) Hoffman is in a zone right now unlike anything any of us have ever witnessed. In fact, I have taken the liberty of printing up LeBron James-inspired "Witness" t-shirts for us to all wear in homage to the month Scott is having betting baseball. That kid is beyond sharp. Hoff - I want to publicly apologize for the "Horseshoe up your ass" comment I made last night. I was drunk. I mean let's face it - You have had a lot of positive variance lately and that was a funny line but still - I'm sorry.
And guys please go here - Damn. This Guy Is SHARP!
We also have Metcalf posting total plays using some fancy Calculus For Future Astronauts math that only Chris could possibly understand. Plus Matt's taking the time to post rap lyrics which I really appreciate. Ideally, I would like for the contest to evolve into a sort of online rap battle in which everyone oohs and aahs when another contestant makes a particularly stinging comment about Bennett or Sherman using a mid to late 90s rap song that no one my brother's age has ever heard. In a perfect world it would be like that show Yo Mama on MTV where everyone stands around and laughs at the person who was "Dissed." I think if everyone who reads the blog chipped in like 20 bucks we could even get Wilmer Valderrama to be the emcee.
In addition to that Holy Trinity of sharp sharps, there's a few other guys posting their plays. And we're trying to recruit Ed and a few other sharps to make it even more competitive. I've even had a lot of positive variance this month so I'm up near the top. Will that last? Stay tuned....
(Although it almost certainly will not.)
Here are some quick thoughts before I go watch the new ep of SP I DVRed last night while I was out throwing money around like a teenage Arab with Scotty and Austin:
* Why are we even playing the NBA Playoffs? Let's just fast forward to June and Game 1 of Lakers-Cavaliers at the Q. Not only are they clearly the best teams in their respective conferences, the NBA would never allow one of them to lose to an Orlando or a Denver. The NBA is like WWE. With black people.
* Actual argument I had with a professional clothes remover last night: I maintained that LeBron James is already better than Michael Jordan ever was. Her and Austin took MJ's side. And this girl was from Cleveland! Doesn't she remember MJ's shot over Craig Ehlo? Needless to say, she left soon after.
* When I woke this morning, er afternoon, I saw that the Chiefs had traded Tony Gonzalez to the Falcons for a draft pick. So, obviously, I texted the only die hard Falcons fan I know to congratulate him on his team acquiring a future Hall-of-Famer. And Jeff didn't even respond. Either he didn't like the trade or he lost his cell phone at a strip club last night.... Eh, no one would be that dumb.
* The Nationals were winning going into the 9th inning on Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday of their 3 game series with the Marlins over the weekend. They lost all 3 games. I hate D.C. area sports teams.
* The Redskins aren't really going to trade 2 1st round picks for Mark Sanchez are they? I'm going to have to watch the NFL Draft from underneath my covers. I hate D.C. area sports teams.
* The Capitals.... I don't even want to talk about it. I really do hate D.C. area sports teams.
I'm done.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
UConn Lady Huskies
.... Basketball. Now that's a great team.
I think I actually won more than 1 Sherman Betting Unit thanks to Renee, Maya, Tina, and the rest of the girls.
There is some ridiculously sharp stuff going on right here - 2009 Baseball Contest
It took Bennett 2 days to figure out I was only holding that contest so that I could see all those sharps plays. It's true. Anyone else want in? Let me know.
Enjoy.
I think I actually won more than 1 Sherman Betting Unit thanks to Renee, Maya, Tina, and the rest of the girls.
There is some ridiculously sharp stuff going on right here - 2009 Baseball Contest
It took Bennett 2 days to figure out I was only holding that contest so that I could see all those sharps plays. It's true. Anyone else want in? Let me know.
Enjoy.
Today is the 1 year anniversary
.... of this pointless thing I call "The blog." I'd like to say we've had a lot of good times over the past year but we all know that isn't true. There have been a few highlights: My favorite being the blog I did after a hectic day at the airport last June. There have also been a lot of low lights. A lot. Just terrible, terrible writing.
Allow me to give a quick recap of the past year with several key bullet points:
* Jorgen has a purse.
* It's red.
* Jorgen is a man but he has a purse. That's the entire joke. See now that isn't even funny. He carries a purse because he has so much shit to carry with him. Hand cream, books, betting sheets, a picture of Amanda. And he's from the Midwest so he's a little delicate. I get it. It's lame but I get it.
* Jorgen is Swedish.
* He will probably give his kids Swedish names. See now that isn't even funny either. Why wouldn't he and Amanda give their children Swedish names? They ARE Swedish. Very poor work on my part. Sorry, Jorgen.
* Jorgen couldn't pick a boxing winner if he had Biff's book and Butch Coolidge was in the fight.
* I had to look up Butch Coolidge's last name. I go the extra mile for this blog.
* Chris Bennett is smart.
* He is smarter than you are.
* He is the smartest guy in the history of this town.
* I know all this because he personally told me.
* Scott likes to gamble. And drink. And look at naked ladies. And criticize other people's money management when he drastically fluctuates his units and bet amounts based on him having the day off and/or him being at the game in person.
I love Scott.
* It's entirely possible that Matt taught himself how to read and write.
* Jeff reads the blog. A lot.
When he's not watching old highlight reels of the Williams sisters.
* Ed hates the following things:
Everything.
Except Tom Brady.
* I like Ryan Howard, LeBron James, Alex Ovechkin, Carl Edwards, and Maya Moore.
And I love the Washington Redskins.
Sometimes.
Very rarely, actually.
I hate the Redskins.
I don't like anyone else in the sports world.
* I gamble almost every day and am incredibly bad at it and desperately wish that I could stop.
* I hate gambling.
* My Mom is a wonderful woman who loves her children more than anything in the world. Well except the dog.
She is also completely insane.
* Others have tried to blog alongside me. They have all failed. Not going to name names but Andrew Ross, Michael Miller, Christopher Bennett, and Christopher Graham know who they are.
* Sorry, guys.
* It's going to be really hard to bang out another year of this pointless drivel.
Thanks for reading!
Allow me to give a quick recap of the past year with several key bullet points:
* Jorgen has a purse.
* It's red.
* Jorgen is a man but he has a purse. That's the entire joke. See now that isn't even funny. He carries a purse because he has so much shit to carry with him. Hand cream, books, betting sheets, a picture of Amanda. And he's from the Midwest so he's a little delicate. I get it. It's lame but I get it.
* Jorgen is Swedish.
* He will probably give his kids Swedish names. See now that isn't even funny either. Why wouldn't he and Amanda give their children Swedish names? They ARE Swedish. Very poor work on my part. Sorry, Jorgen.
* Jorgen couldn't pick a boxing winner if he had Biff's book and Butch Coolidge was in the fight.
* I had to look up Butch Coolidge's last name. I go the extra mile for this blog.
* Chris Bennett is smart.
* He is smarter than you are.
* He is the smartest guy in the history of this town.
* I know all this because he personally told me.
* Scott likes to gamble. And drink. And look at naked ladies. And criticize other people's money management when he drastically fluctuates his units and bet amounts based on him having the day off and/or him being at the game in person.
I love Scott.
* It's entirely possible that Matt taught himself how to read and write.
* Jeff reads the blog. A lot.
When he's not watching old highlight reels of the Williams sisters.
* Ed hates the following things:
Everything.
Except Tom Brady.
* I like Ryan Howard, LeBron James, Alex Ovechkin, Carl Edwards, and Maya Moore.
And I love the Washington Redskins.
Sometimes.
Very rarely, actually.
I hate the Redskins.
I don't like anyone else in the sports world.
* I gamble almost every day and am incredibly bad at it and desperately wish that I could stop.
* I hate gambling.
* My Mom is a wonderful woman who loves her children more than anything in the world. Well except the dog.
She is also completely insane.
* Others have tried to blog alongside me. They have all failed. Not going to name names but Andrew Ross, Michael Miller, Christopher Bennett, and Christopher Graham know who they are.
* Sorry, guys.
* It's going to be really hard to bang out another year of this pointless drivel.
Thanks for reading!
Monday, April 6, 2009
There really is no point
.... in subscribing to a sports handicapping service when you can just go to this blog - 2009 Baseball Contest - and see the actual plays of some of the most feared bettors in this city.
Some sharp stuff going on there....
Enjoy.
Some sharp stuff going on there....
Enjoy.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Have you ever told someone
.... that you have never seen the movie Boondock Saints and then had them hyperventilate while telling you what an incredible movie it is? No? Well I have. It's actually a pretty good movie but it became wildly overrated by people who thought they were the only one(s) who had seen it. People have this tendency to always think that anything obscure they know about is better than it actually is. Not only do I hate people like this, I am also somehow one of them.
I'm always shoving The Wire down everyone's throats and I recently blogged about the movie Bully and mentioned that I thought you guys should watch it. I apologize for nothing. The Wire is the best TV show I have ever seen and the more I see Bully, the more I like it. Speaking of Bully, Matt was saying that his sister lives right near where that whole thing took place and that she read my blog about it. Needless to say, I don't believe him seeing as how it's unlikely that anyone from that area actually knows how to use a computer, but still - It was nice of him to say that.
Anyways, here are some other movies/shows I wanted to recommend to you all. And until you see them I am going to continue to exaggerate how great they all are:
* Boiler Room
If you haven't seen this one.... What have you been doing for the last 5 years? I'm always surprised by how many people have never seen this movie. The first time I saw it my friends told me that it was about a kid who runs a casino out of his apartment and I got really excited. Of course that was complete bullshit, although there are some brief scenes involving the casino. However, outside of Anchorman, I can't think of a movie I enjoy quoting more.
* Cheats
This is a movie about four kids cheating their way through high school I discovered one afternoon a few years while I was laying on my couch and, ironically enough, skipping class. It's got the kid who played Fulton Reed in The Mighty Ducks as an awkward teenager and Matt Lawrence as the tough guy. Also, Martin Starr is in it playing the token nerd all the other guys rip on. This is a great movie not enough people know about. It's also loosely based on the story of how CB got into the University of Illinois.
* Orgazmo
Written and directed by a young Trey Parker, who is probably my biggest comedic hero with the possible exception of Dave Chappelle. Trey also stars as a young Mormon kid on his mission who becomes a porn star. Matt Stone is hilarious, as well. Really funny and unbelievably stupid movie.
* Gremlins 2
When I was five, my favorite movie was The Gremlins.
* Saving Silverman
Co-written by a guy who went to my high school. Anything involving R. Lee Ermey amuses me. Neil Diamond also appears as himself. Too funny.
* Warriors
I hate people who do unfunny variations of the famous "Warriors.... Come out and plaaaaay" line. However, I love this movie.
* Curb Your Enthusiasm
Way too many people still aren't watching this show. Buy the DVDs, borrow them from a friend, set your DVR to record it, ask your wife if you can have HBO back before the new season starts.... Do whatever it takes. It has definitely been my favorite show on TV since the day Chappelle went crazy and his show went off the air.
Sports and gambling talk? If I must....
* I like this M Resort. Not only do they employ upstanding young men like Jorgie and Mikey Millz, they are allowing people to bet that the Cavaliers won't win the NBA Championship at -200. That came in very handy for those of us with tickets on the Cavs at 20-1. At least now when Kobe, Lamar, Pau(l), and the refs combine to sweep them out of the NBA Finals, I'll win something.
* I love what the Broncos did trading Jay Cutler for all those draft picks and Kyle Orton. I know it's hard to believe but football teams usually play 11 guys at a time. The quarterback isn't the only guy on the team. Cutler isn't even that good to begin with. He's one of these guys who is going to throw for 300 yards and a couple touchdowns so the media will hump him and wet themselves over his stats. But he'll lose against good teams because he takes too many chances and turns the ball over way too much. There's already a guy like that in the NFC that people seem to love. Can't think of his name right now....
* I can already tell that I will be fading the Bears this season and will be very high on the Broncos.
* We know that John Calipari is leaving Memphis for Kentucky and it sounds like some of the recruits he paid, er, I mean convinced through fair and ethical means to come to Memphis will be following him to Lexington. What I'd like to know is what will happen to all the people in Memphis that Calipari arranged jobs for with FedEx, etc.... There are a number of friends/relatives of top recruits who coincidentally got jobs working in the Memphis area either as employees of the team or working for FedEx right around the same time their kids started playing ball for the Tigers. What happens to them now that their kids aren't playing for Coach Cal any more?
* I'm sure that Calipari will win a lot of games at Kentucky. I'm also sure that a scandal will erupt at some point either while he's there or soon after he leaves. What I don't understand is how they can justify firing a good basketball coach like Billy Gillespie after giving him only two years to turn the program around. Somebody is going to get a really good coach in Gillespie.
* Speaking of college basketball, ESPN Classic re-aired the 2000 NCAA Championship game between Michigan St and Florida this morning. There were a lot of good players in that game: Cleaves, MoPete, J-Rich, Charlie Bell, Aloysius Anagonye, AJ Granger among others for Michigan State and Florida countered with Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, Brett Nelson, Teddy Dupay and Donnell Harvey. I'm pretty sure Harvey left after his freshman year and flamed out in the pros. And Dupay might have been the biggest douche in college basketball history. It was fun to watch despite the CBS cameras showing every person Tom Izzo had ever met sitting in the stands at the end of the game and the announcers gushing about how gritty Mateen Cleaves was despite the fact that he was obviously faking his injury. It reminded me of how much I used to love college basketball. Maybe I still do. We'll find out this weekend.
* One thing's for sure: I love women's college basketball. It literally amazes me how they make those three pointers despite bringing the ball up from their hip. Their shooting stroke reminds me of my own when I was like 6 years old and not strong enough to shoot it normally. I can see why all their tournament games are on ESPN and the players get full college scholarships to schools like Stanford and Duke. There's a lot of talent out there.
* Baseball season starts on Sunday night and gets into full swing on Monday. Go A's. For those of you who are interested, here is a link to the blog I started for my Baseball Contest.
This dumb blog has been around for almost a year now. I never would've thought it would still be here a year after I started it. And I never would've believed that I'd be starting a second one.
I'm done.
Enjoy.
I'm always shoving The Wire down everyone's throats and I recently blogged about the movie Bully and mentioned that I thought you guys should watch it. I apologize for nothing. The Wire is the best TV show I have ever seen and the more I see Bully, the more I like it. Speaking of Bully, Matt was saying that his sister lives right near where that whole thing took place and that she read my blog about it. Needless to say, I don't believe him seeing as how it's unlikely that anyone from that area actually knows how to use a computer, but still - It was nice of him to say that.
Anyways, here are some other movies/shows I wanted to recommend to you all. And until you see them I am going to continue to exaggerate how great they all are:
* Boiler Room
If you haven't seen this one.... What have you been doing for the last 5 years? I'm always surprised by how many people have never seen this movie. The first time I saw it my friends told me that it was about a kid who runs a casino out of his apartment and I got really excited. Of course that was complete bullshit, although there are some brief scenes involving the casino. However, outside of Anchorman, I can't think of a movie I enjoy quoting more.
* Cheats
This is a movie about four kids cheating their way through high school I discovered one afternoon a few years while I was laying on my couch and, ironically enough, skipping class. It's got the kid who played Fulton Reed in The Mighty Ducks as an awkward teenager and Matt Lawrence as the tough guy. Also, Martin Starr is in it playing the token nerd all the other guys rip on. This is a great movie not enough people know about. It's also loosely based on the story of how CB got into the University of Illinois.
* Orgazmo
Written and directed by a young Trey Parker, who is probably my biggest comedic hero with the possible exception of Dave Chappelle. Trey also stars as a young Mormon kid on his mission who becomes a porn star. Matt Stone is hilarious, as well. Really funny and unbelievably stupid movie.
* Gremlins 2
When I was five, my favorite movie was The Gremlins.
* Saving Silverman
Co-written by a guy who went to my high school. Anything involving R. Lee Ermey amuses me. Neil Diamond also appears as himself. Too funny.
* Warriors
I hate people who do unfunny variations of the famous "Warriors.... Come out and plaaaaay" line. However, I love this movie.
* Curb Your Enthusiasm
Way too many people still aren't watching this show. Buy the DVDs, borrow them from a friend, set your DVR to record it, ask your wife if you can have HBO back before the new season starts.... Do whatever it takes. It has definitely been my favorite show on TV since the day Chappelle went crazy and his show went off the air.
Sports and gambling talk? If I must....
* I like this M Resort. Not only do they employ upstanding young men like Jorgie and Mikey Millz, they are allowing people to bet that the Cavaliers won't win the NBA Championship at -200. That came in very handy for those of us with tickets on the Cavs at 20-1. At least now when Kobe, Lamar, Pau(l), and the refs combine to sweep them out of the NBA Finals, I'll win something.
* I love what the Broncos did trading Jay Cutler for all those draft picks and Kyle Orton. I know it's hard to believe but football teams usually play 11 guys at a time. The quarterback isn't the only guy on the team. Cutler isn't even that good to begin with. He's one of these guys who is going to throw for 300 yards and a couple touchdowns so the media will hump him and wet themselves over his stats. But he'll lose against good teams because he takes too many chances and turns the ball over way too much. There's already a guy like that in the NFC that people seem to love. Can't think of his name right now....
* I can already tell that I will be fading the Bears this season and will be very high on the Broncos.
* We know that John Calipari is leaving Memphis for Kentucky and it sounds like some of the recruits he paid, er, I mean convinced through fair and ethical means to come to Memphis will be following him to Lexington. What I'd like to know is what will happen to all the people in Memphis that Calipari arranged jobs for with FedEx, etc.... There are a number of friends/relatives of top recruits who coincidentally got jobs working in the Memphis area either as employees of the team or working for FedEx right around the same time their kids started playing ball for the Tigers. What happens to them now that their kids aren't playing for Coach Cal any more?
* I'm sure that Calipari will win a lot of games at Kentucky. I'm also sure that a scandal will erupt at some point either while he's there or soon after he leaves. What I don't understand is how they can justify firing a good basketball coach like Billy Gillespie after giving him only two years to turn the program around. Somebody is going to get a really good coach in Gillespie.
* Speaking of college basketball, ESPN Classic re-aired the 2000 NCAA Championship game between Michigan St and Florida this morning. There were a lot of good players in that game: Cleaves, MoPete, J-Rich, Charlie Bell, Aloysius Anagonye, AJ Granger among others for Michigan State and Florida countered with Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, Brett Nelson, Teddy Dupay and Donnell Harvey. I'm pretty sure Harvey left after his freshman year and flamed out in the pros. And Dupay might have been the biggest douche in college basketball history. It was fun to watch despite the CBS cameras showing every person Tom Izzo had ever met sitting in the stands at the end of the game and the announcers gushing about how gritty Mateen Cleaves was despite the fact that he was obviously faking his injury. It reminded me of how much I used to love college basketball. Maybe I still do. We'll find out this weekend.
* One thing's for sure: I love women's college basketball. It literally amazes me how they make those three pointers despite bringing the ball up from their hip. Their shooting stroke reminds me of my own when I was like 6 years old and not strong enough to shoot it normally. I can see why all their tournament games are on ESPN and the players get full college scholarships to schools like Stanford and Duke. There's a lot of talent out there.
* Baseball season starts on Sunday night and gets into full swing on Monday. Go A's. For those of you who are interested, here is a link to the blog I started for my Baseball Contest.
This dumb blog has been around for almost a year now. I never would've thought it would still be here a year after I started it. And I never would've believed that I'd be starting a second one.
I'm done.
Enjoy.
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Carl Edwards
May be the blog's biggest hero....
