Tag: sports

The media is awful

Even the sports media has become increasingly dumbed-down to the point of completed retardation these days, and I’m not referring to its tendency to interject politics into sports, I’m talking about the ability of the announcers to simply do their freaking jobs.

Last week, the announcers at the Steeler-Lions game were rambling on interminably about Brett Favre playing in the dark. Brett Favre, you may note, does not play for either the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Detroit Lions. Yesterday, as the Vikings defense was suddenly getting shredded in the fourth quarter and every Vikings fan was wondering what in the sainted name of Bud Grant special teams player Karl Paymah was doing on the field, the announcers couldn’t bother to mention that both Antoine Winfield and Benny Sapp, the Vikings #1 and #3 cornerbacks, were injured in the first half. Winfield was out for the rest of the game and Sapp was less than 100 percent as he was playing with what looked like a concussion.

On the other hand, give credit to Peter King as he is spot on with this comment:

We were stunned at NBC Sunday to see the Vikings — with 2:30 left in the game, trailing Baltimore 31-30, with a third-and-nine at the Ravens’ 17 — to not go aggressively for the first down. “We were a little surprised too,” Peterson said. Peterson ran for a three-yard gain, with the Vikings happy to settle for the field goal. It was a poor call because the Ravens had scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, the Vikes looked gassed on defense, and even if Ryan Longwell made the field goal, Baltimore would have two minutes to win it. Longwell made it, Baltimore drove into field goal range, and Steve Hauschka lined up for a 44-yarder with two seconds left. Wide left. I don’t care if the kick was wide left; if you’ve got a quarterback as hot as Favre (playing nearly mistake-free in his first six games), you give him a chance to get the touchdown before settling for three.

Especially when you’ve got two downs if you play for the first down instead of the field goal. Childress really reminds me of Denny Green, a decent coach who doesn’t understand when to go for it and when not to. The Vikings once scored to put themselves within a point of the heavily-favored Cowboys at the end of the game, Green ordered the PAT team on, and the Cowboys marched straight down the field to win it in overtime. I’m not sure which play had me shouting at the screen more, that handoff on third-and-nine or the idiotic big blitz that Frasier called when the Ravens were just outside of field goal range.

On an unrelated note, yesterday was clearly a sign from the football gods that the Patriots must return to the Pat Patriot look. 59-0! And 85 percent completion percentage… in the snow!

NFL Week 6

This would be your weekly NFL open thread aka Nate’s suicide watch. Jamie’s on duty this weekend, so let’s hope he’s sober for once.

You know you’re old school when you have old Adrian Peterson throwback jerseys around the house… because they date back to Ahmad Rashad. Skol Vikes!

Liberal integrity

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk desperately tries to cover his backside after the St. Louis Post-Dispatch admitted that it has no evidence that Rush Limbaugh ever made the “divisive” comments that caused him to be dropped from the ownership group bidding for the Rams.

“When posting on the matter on Monday, we made it clear that Limbaugh contends he never said the words.”

That’s Florio’s story now. But that’s also a very misleading characterization of his earlier post on the matter, to say nothing of the intervening posts made in the five days between Monday and Saturday:

During his Monday show, Limbaugh broadly claimed that 15 hours per week of radio programming covering 21 years had been reviewed. (It’s a job that would take more than 16,000 hours, so he apparently has a bunch of employees.) Said Limbaugh, “There is not even an inkling that any words in this quote are accurate.”

But here’s the key — he never directly denied saying the precise words that Burwell assigned to him. Sure, Limbaugh made vague claims of libel and slander, but there should be no ambiguity here. If Burwell attributed a concocted, made up quote to Limbaugh, Limbaugh’s lawyers should be demanding a retraction and a large bag of cash.

Though I’ve got no idea whether Limbaugh said it, Burwell says that Limbaugh said it. And if Limbaugh didn’t say it, he’s got an open-and-shut defamation claim against Burwell, the Post-Dispatch, and anyone else who has attributed that quote to Limbaugh….

Look, either he said it or he didn’t. And in referring to an item from the Post-Dispatch that troubled him because it suggested that he supports slavery, all Limbaugh had to do was read the quote that Bryan Burwell attributed to Limbaugh and say, “Folks, here are the words they say that I said. And I swear to you that I never uttered these words.”

The fact that Limbaugh didn’t do that makes us think that maybe he said it. And we’ll continue to think that maybe Limbaugh said it until Limbaugh either specifically and categorically denies making the remark or successfully sues Burwell and the Post-Dispatch for falsely claiming that Limbaugh made a statement that any fair-minded person would regard as incredibly and patently racist.

I like Pro Football Talk. It’s a good NFL-related site. But, like many of its readers, its ludicrously biased coverage of the affaire Limbaugh has forced me to concur with many other PFT readers who have concluded that its proprietor appears to have the integrity of a player’s agent and the spine of a sea slug. Everyone who knew anything about Limbaugh and the way the left obsessively tracks his show knew there was no chance that he had said anything even remotely similar to what was falsely attributed to him. Read the comments, as it’s obvious that a lot of PFT readers are not inclined to let Florio skate by on this one.

The man owes Limbaugh an unmitigated apology as does the NFL commissioner, Smith from the NFLPA, and a whole host of other media lefties who mindlessly leaped to the attack and in doing so shredded their false claims to objectivity. I rather hope Rush does as Florio originally suggested and follows through in suing those who slandered him.

NFL ownership follies

Forget NBC, Mike Florio appears to be ready for his cameo on MSNBC. Here he attempts to float the idea that Limbaugh scrubbed his transcripts:

And regardless of the debate over whether Limbaugh did or didn’t say things that have been attributed to him but that, as Limbaugh claims, don’t show up in the Limbaugh-generated tapes and transcripts of his show (in this regard, most lawyers know of at least one judges who is very adept at ensuring the official record of in-court statements never includes potentially embarrasing or controversial commens from the man or woman in black), it’s not what he has said in the past that should scare the owners — it’s what he might say in the future.

Right, one of the most popular broadcasters in the world somehow managed to eliminate every recording in which he uttered inflammatory words. This is ludicrous.

The entire episode has been interesting in that it highlights the difference between the toadying sort of individuals whose success stems from successfully crawling their way up the employee ladder versus entrepeneurs who actually create their own success. It’s no surprise that the doorknob chosen by the NFL players would flap his lips on a subject that is none of his business, but Roger Goodell, who is showing more and more signs of being a terrible NFL commissioner, should have known better than to even think about commenting on the prospective ownership of any NFL franchise.

When one considers that the Dolphins are giving away small ownership slices to former methheads in the name of diversity, it’s absurd to that one of America’s most successful businessmen should be preemptively shot down on the off chance that he is foolish enough to invest in what is nothing but a vanity investment in the first place. If the economy goes the way I expect it to, in the not-too-distant future the same people who are presently pontificating on why Limbaugh shouldn’t be permitted to buy an NFL team will be desperately seeking bids from Russian gangsters and Colombian drug lords like the NBA is already doing.

It was amusing to see Peter King lumbering about in attempting to dance around the NFL’s affiliation with Keith Olbermann, who is far more extreme and far less popular than Rush Limbaugh. With classic left-liberal illogic, he declares that it’s just fine for a league-employed commentator to be a political flamethrower who offends millions, but that the league would be damaged if he were to be an owner. This makes no sense, since the league-employed commentator is much more in the face of the public he is offending, but then, that’s par for King’s analytical abilities.

My attitude is that turnabout is fair play. If the Left can do play business thought police, so can the Right, and I’d love to see those owners, whose politics are far more similar to Limbaugh’s than Olbermann’s, take Goodell and every other league employee who was dumb enough to advocate thought-policing to task.

VPFL Week 5

83 Mounds View Meerkats (4-1)
31 Valders Valkyries (4-1)

74 Judean Front (4-1)
53 Alamo City Spartans (3-2)

73 Masonville Marauders (1-4)
64 Black Mouth Curs (3-2)

54 Burns Redbeards (1-4)
49 Bane Silvers (2-3)

75 Winston Reverends (2-3)
71 Greenfield Grizzlies (1-4)

The defending champs finally gets a win! Nate is customarily a slow starter, but this is bordering on ridiculous. And with the Redbeards showing life, can it be long before the Titans follow?

VP-AFL

79.60 Lesbian Dorito Night (5-0)
78.00 Cranberry Bogs (1-4)

109.95 The Thunder (3-2)
98.25 Village Valkyries (3-2)

142.65 South Plains Storm (2-3)
87.25 Az Hammeroids (3-2)

90.05 COS McRays (1-4)
67.00 Oakies (2-3)

96.20 Supernaut’s Jihad (1-4)
58.50 Masonville Marauders (4-1)

NFL Week 5

I have to say, I quite like the Vikes chances this week. Mostly due to this comment by a Rams fan on the possibility of Rush Limbaugh as a future owner:

If the new owner can produce a single win this season I’m willing to consider the following for ownership:

– Hitler reincarnated
– Bill Ayers
– Satan
– Mordo, destroyer of galaxies
– My ex-wife
– Santa Claus

Some people are looking for a letdown after the big win over the Pack, but I don’t know if it’s possible to let down far enough considering that even the Lions, sans their starting QB, would probably give points to the Rams these days.

I have two words

That’s all that is needed to conclusively refute the Favre doubters who are casting aspersions on the Viking quarterback’s ability to maintain his level of performance over the course of a 16-game season. Yes, we know he started fast with the Jets last year. Yes, we know he faded in the stretch. Yes, we know the late-season fade cost the Jets a playoff spot. Yes, we know the Vikes haven’t beaten anyone but a banged-up Green Bay team yet and the competition only gets tougher. Yes, we know all the risks. And yet, we’re perfectly willing, we’re cheerfully willing, to gamble on a 40-year old gunslinger’s arm even so.

Tarvaris Jackson. Q.E.D.

Someone tell the United Negro College Fund

One of the more amusing commenters at Pro Football Talk opposed to the possibility of Rush Limbaugh purchasing a part-interest in the St. Louis Rams:

The word ‘Negro’ is offensive and Rush exploited that to boost ratings.

That was a gem spotted in the comment thread inspired by a ridiculous piece written by a former NFL player in the Washington Post. The reality is that Limbaugh, with his media savvy, would probably be a much better owner than several teams have at present, moreover, there’s no longer any question that the man was correct about Donovan McNabb, he of the 58.9% career completion percentage and 1.052.15 TD/INT ratio, being an overrated quarterback. I just can’t see the NFL being dumb enough to ban an owner out of distaste for politics that are extremely popular with a statistically significant portion of its fan base. That’s the self-destructive sort of thing the mainstream media does, and it has obviously not escaped the NFL’s attention that the mainstream media is in the process of collapsing. After all, the reason it created the NFL Network is to have a vehicle to deliver its product to its customers once the networks can’t afford to pay huge broadcast rights fees anymore.

Vikes-Pack round one

I like the Vikings tonight because I think Favre is more fired up about playing the Packers than the Packers are about playing Favre. Also, the banged-up Green Bay offensive line should give Jared Allen and the Williams twins a chance to beat up on Aaron Rodgers.

For the sake of the Meerkats, I’d like to see a shootout, though, since I’ve got Rodgers, Jennings, Harvin, and Shiancoe going tonight.

NFL Week 4

While the Border Battle will be even more heated than usual this week – which would appear to settle the ongoing question regarding whether the Bears or the Vikings are now Green Bay’s primary rivals – I’m quite curious to learn if the Jets are for real. Sportswriters love a swaggering, gambling defense, but as TMQ has repeatedly pointed out in the past, such defenses tend to crumble at inopportune times. I’m also a bit skeptical of Sanchez being all that he’s cracked up to be.

I think Baltimore looks like the most impressive team thus far and if they’re able to beat up on what looks like a less than invulnerable Patriots team, this will establish them as the early Super Bowl favorite. While last week’s game was incredibly exciting and San Francisco isn’t the complete pushover they were expected to be, the reality is that the Vikes haven’t looked at all dominating in beating three weak opponents they were expected to beat. On the other hand, an easy schedule and an absence of injuries are two of the primary factors underlying success in the NFL and you can only beat the teams you play. If they can beat Green Bay convincingly this week, they’ll merit being taken seriously as a potential contender. Otherwise, the jury will remain out.