Tag: sports

Kwgwarblurgwokfurbla!

I think that is the exact quote from when we realized Stefon Diggs was going to not only be able to stop the clock in field goal range, but go in to score. Also, I’m pleased to discover that I am, apparently, in excellent cardio-vascular shape.

A few thoughts:

  • It’s good to have the official NFL Narrative on your side for once.
  • The new stadium is already luckier than the previous two.
  • SKOL!
  • What happened to the pass rush in the second half? Also, what happened to the pass blocking?
  • It is better to be lucky than good.
  • The second pass interference call for 34 yards was actually correct, although it could have been called defensive holding instead. The clip they kept showing was just the very end; Crawley actually held Diggs’s jersey for more than five yards to keep Diggs from blowing past him. When Aikman said that Diggs had his hand on Crawley’s hand he was right, but he didn’t realize that Diggs was trying to remove Crawley’s hand from his jersey. Remember, Diggs has the fastest on-field time recorded this season and the Saints were playing a Seahawks clutch-grab-and-pray style in order to stay with the superior Vikings receivers. Note that the Vikings actually declined almost as many penalties committed by the Saints secondary as they accepted.
  • Michael Thomas actually won his battle with Xavier Rhodes. I did not expect that.
  • I love it when Harrison Smith blitzes.
  • Why can’t any head coach except Bill Belichick understand that you have to burn the clock down to less than 20 seconds before you kick the field goal that puts you ahead by one or two points? I was going berserk when Pat Shurmur called a pass on second down, and aghast when he called another one on third down.
  • Case Keenum is a good quarterback. To become a really good one, he has to learn to avoid a) throwing the ball in the field of play when avoiding a sack and b) taking a sack on third down when in field goal range. Those two plays gave up 10 points.
  • Coach Zim is a really good coach. To become a great one, he has to learn not to wilt on the high pressure decisions. Not going for it on 4th and goal from the 2 was the first big mistake. Not calling a run on the first drive after the half was the second big mistake. Not burning the clock before kicking the go-ahead field goal was the third big mistake.
  • The punt getting blocked may have saved the game for the Vikes. With five minutes left, it prevented the Saints from being able to burn the clock while marching down the field. 
  • You HAVE to put away a good team when you have the chance. A good team, particularly one with a good quarterback, is ALWAYS going to come back on you. Even great defenses get tired. I would have felt good about going into the half up 20-0 and receiving to start the second half. I knew 17-0 was not enough, especially when they failed to score on the drive to open the second half.

Divisional Sunday

I have to admit, I did not think the Eagles would pull it together well enough to beat the Falcons. Discuss amongst yourselves. And Skol Vikings!

Divisional Saturday

Things would appear to be shaping up very nicely for a pro-Vikings narrative for once. Of course, we’ll need a Falcons win to set up for a REVENGE FOR 1998 storyline.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Panic in the NFL front office

I wonder what their excuse will be this time?

The NFL had a disastrous weekend when it came to ratings. Numbers have been down all season and it was more of the same for the wild-card games. The biggest surprise was that the best game (Panthers-Saints) had the biggest decrease year over year. Yes, markets were a big factor, but that was a competitive and entertaining game. Here’s the breakdown:

Titans-Chiefs (14.7) was down 11 percent versus last year’s Raiders-Texans game.

Falcons-Rams (14.9) was down 10 percent versus last year’s Lions-Seahawks game.

Bills-Jaguars (17.2) was down 10 percent versus last year’s Dolphins-Steelers game.

Panthers-Saints (20.4) was down 21 percent versus last year’s Giants-Packers game.

Hmm… so, what could possibly explain that surprise? What is different about the people down in Louisiana and North Carolina than the people in New York City? Aren’t they a little more likely to be patriotic and to serve in the military?

This is a classic case of the consequences of corporate convergence.

A Super Bowl theory

Whiskey1Zulu has a theory:

Here is my theory about the superbowl: Since at least 2005 the NFL looks for the best storyline to finish the season, and maybe back to 2001, where after 9/11 Patriots = USA = winners. In 2005 the owner of the Steelers was in failing health and the superbowl was thrown to them so they could have the most rings before he passed away.

Patriots will win over the Vikings. Vikings make it because they will be the first home team to ever make it to the superbowl, with the side benefits that they are the best team in the NFC and they are the best franchise to never have won the game.  Patriots will win because if they don’t there will not be a dynasty for the 2010s, the Patriots would be the first double dynasty, and pundits can tout Brady & Belichick as the greatest of all time forever, continuing to gloss over the constant favorable calls, known cheating, and allegations.

This combination provides the best possible storyline going into the final game and would get more people to watch because of those factors, attempting to redeem the season in the eyes of people who are already sneaking back to the TV for better quality football and forgetting about the protests and various other reasons football has been declining.

I have to admit, going into the season, I had a feeling that if the Vikings finally made it back to the Super Bowl with such a questionable team, it would tend to confirm the Original Cyberpunk’s theory that the entire NFL season is scripted.

And his logic is compelling, especially with the media suddenly – out of nowhere – banging the drum for the end of the Patriots era. That being said, I think LAST YEAR was supposed to be the last hurrah for them, which may be setting the stage for them to suddenly lose all of the mysterious bounces that have consistently gone their way over the last decade and more.

Personally, I don’t think there is formal scripting so much as a little gentle manipulation at the edges, particularly in playoff games that start to look like blowouts. For example, I don’t think some of the questionable calls that went the Titans’ way when they were on the verge of being put away were meant to help them win, but merely to keep them in the game.

For example, as a longtime spectator, I knew that the Titans were going to get the important calls once they were down 14-0 and looking hapless on national TV. Sure enough, Mariota’s fumble on the big hit by Johnson was blown dead due to nonexistent “forward progress”, which if is to be regarded as a precedent going forward, will preclude virtually all sack-related fumbles in the future. My theory is that Jeff Triplett isn’t actually the terrible, clueless referee he appears to be, but serves as the NFL’s Tim Donaghy, a hit man in stripes working for the Commissioner.

If nothing else, that would explain why Triplett still not only has a job, but is assigned to work playoff games.

The costs of convergence

The end of season statistics are in for the NFL. Average viewership per game.

2015: 17.9 million
2016: 16.5 million
2017: 14.9 million

That is a 16.8{1a9740d54aaadd1290ec59721f654a3d9aaf924aeae0d9d35ee2fe84bc4370ea} viewership decline in two years.

The NFL appears well on the way to follow the course set by Marvel and NASCAR, which amounts to about a 50 percent decline in ten years. Given that there are 256 games in a season, that loss of three million viewers per game represents 768 million lost game-viewings.

Convergence is costly.

Mailvox: roles are not interchangeable

Szopen shares an important observation from recent Polish history:

One acute political commenter made once a remark, that great guerilla leaders do not necesarily make great generals in regular war, nor great political leaders in time of peace. He noted that in context of Poland: that to oppose the communism and fight it effectively, one had very specific mindset. Sniffing the enemy agents, conspiracies, be suspicious, not willing to make compromise etc. That were the great traits when you were in conspiracy – but later made awful politicians when communism was (somewhat) defeated. Most of the great leaders of so called “democratic opposition” went on to become leaders of infighting, low blows, unable to compromise over even tiny issues in order to defeat the recovering left. He proposed that leaders of the resistance should get state salaries, become cult objects and then put into solitary luxury mansions, with everyone trying very hard to make their lifes comfortable and as far from the current politics as it is possible.

I guess most of current leading figures of the alt-right, with VD, Milo and Molyneaux should get their million dollars when the right take over the institutions and win the culture fight.

Another thing, from my observation is that people fighting against all odds, who are constantly being called the worst names, either become broken and give up – or start to share also similar traits. Cejrowski was on of the few guys who influenced hundreds of thousands young Poles. I loved watching his programs. However, in his later age he became an unbearable, arrogant arsehole. There is something similar about few other “lone fighters”. They raised the generation of rightwingers, but they lost something of their soul in the process, carrying the load in the times when no one was appreciating them. They seem to gain “f* you” attitude about everything they did. That’s understandable; otherwise they wouldn’t be able to do what they did. But still, for me they look like old, battle-hardened veterans with scars all over.

It’s amazing that VD is able to still be able to be, at least sometimes, polite.

One thing that people consistently fail to understand about me versus my fellow “leading figures” for lack of a better word is that I have always been an athlete. Not only that, but I have excelled in both individual and team sports, and discovered that I vastly prefer team sports.

That is why I can work effectively with others, and why I completely refuse to even try to work with those I identify as being self-serving, attention-seeking, or simply incapable of playing well with others. As I often tell people, the best way to get to know a man’s true character is to play with him on the soccer field. Every characteristic, from courage and determination to laziness and a desire to avoid responsibility, becomes readily apparent to his teammates. You just can’t hide anything from them.

It’s disappointing when those who have been assisted and supported by others affect to have become too important for them and attempt to move on, but then, they will learn their lesson soon enough as the support they need will not be there for them when opposition arises, as it always does. That is why it is always vital to never forget either your base or your allies, or to fail to protect their interests as assiduously as you look out for your own. The more the Right learns to do that, the more effective it will become.

When men were men

This is an interesting recount of the Ice Bowl from a collection of accounts by those who were actually involved:

It would have been a great game if it had been played on a sweltering September afternoon or on a crisp autumn day in November or even indoors, if there were domed football stadiums in 1967.

That year, the NFL Championship Game pitted Vince Lombardi’s proud but aging Green Bay Packers, seeking an unprecedented third consecutive title, against Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys, an ascending team out for revenge after losing narrowly to the Packers in the ’66 championship game.

Eight Packers and four Cowboys who took the field that day would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Both coaches would be enshrined, too. The Packers had guile and experience and a field general named Bart Starr. The Cowboys had youth and superior team speed and their “Doomsday Defense.”

Yes, it would have been a great game on any day, in any kind of weather.

It would be played, though, on New Year’s Eve day in Green Bay, in the kind of weather that tested the limits of what a man could endure.

The official low temperature at Austin Straubel Airport that day was 17 below zero. With Arctic winds whipping out of the northwest, the wind chill dipped to 50 below at Lambeau Field, its turf frozen solid and topped by a layer of ice, so that players slipped and slid and fell on what felt like jagged concrete.

The game would be decided in the closing seconds, at the conclusion of a drive that bordered on the mystical, with Starr plunging into the end zone to put a symbolic exclamation mark on the Lombardi era.

Fifty years ago Sunday, on Dec. 31, 1967, the Packers edged the Cowboys, 21-17, in a game for the ages.

The Ice Bowl.

It was and remains the coldest game in NFL history. It is among the most memorable games in league annals because of the wretched conditions, what was at stake and the dramatic way it ended.

My favorite part was the guy who was terrified to tell Vince Lombardi that his expensive new field heating system had failed.