This isn't a championship celebration, just jubilation that a goal was scored.
There are certain things in sports I don't get. Soccer is at the forefront.
Soccer elitists like to say to people like me, "You just don't get it." No shit?
Yeah, I don't get the excitement about a game that lasts over eighty or whatever minutes ending in a tie and that's all just fucking dandy.
I don't get how an American player can get butt-raped by two Slovenians and have a foul called on him, a foul that was never explained and disallowed a winning goal for the Americans. Yeah, I don't get it.
I don't get those socks. They go all the way up to the mid-thigh. That's not a good look for a guy. Why not just put on some stockings and be done with it?
I don't get how a sport can be so fucking boring that the crowd ejaculates over missed shots.
I don't get how a ball that merely hits a player in the arms can result in a "hands" call. Even if the player isn't reaching for the ball and kick hits him there, it's a foul. Huh?
I don't get why soccer pimps keep saying that one day, soccer will be big in this country. We've heard this shit for decades. Pele couldn't do it. Beckham couldn't. Nobody can. Americans don't like soccer as a rule. We like football. You know, the kind where you score more than 2 times a game.
Not only do I not get it, I'm glad I don't.
I don't get why the Glazers put Rasheed Morris and Mark Dominik in charge of the Buccaneers. Well, actually I kind of do. Jon Gruden and Bruce Allen didn't want to run the team on a payroll more befitting an Arena Football League team.
Dominik, the team's GM, made news this week. First, he addressed left tackle Donald Penn's contract status. Penn is a restricted free agent (a contridiction in terms if there ever was one) and hasn't signed the team's tender yet. He wants a long-term deal. Long-term deals mean lots of money, something the Glazers aren't really excited to part with, especially if they can keep him on the cheap for one more year.
What sucks for Penn is that he would've been an unrestricted free agent had the NFL not entered into the final year of the collective bargaining agreement without a new one in place. Once that happened, it extended the years of service required to become a free agent from five to six.
Anyway, this past week, Dominik decided that the way to handle the Penn situation was to be a complete idiot. Addressing a group of season ticket holders, he said that Penn had gained forty pounds over the course of the 2009 season due to his bad eating habits. Thus, he pretty much ate his way out of a long-term deal this off-season.
Let me get this straight. Dominik was asking us to believe that a professional football player who was a starter was able to not only keep from losing weight during the rigors of training camp, four preseason games, and sixteen regular season games but to actually gain it. Forty fucking pounds of it. He basically made Penn out to look like a big fucking pig who couldn't control his appetite.
Yeah. Okay. That's certainly believeable. Right. So is the fucking Tooth Fairy.
Then a Bucs fan site, JoeBucs.com, printed his remarks. Well, of course, that made Dominik look incredibly stupid and petty. So Dominik, clearly in control of his senses, asked the site to take them down. JoeBucs did and then Dominik decided that a bad situation could be made worse.
He proclaimed that his remarks had been "off the record." Uh....one, so what? Two, how do expect anything to be "off the record" when you're talking to a group of season ticket holders?
Well, at least we'll have another top five draft pick next April.....
I don't get what the Detroit Lions are thinking. I really don't.
The Lions, who were mismanaged for several years by Matt Millen, are now mismanaged by guys who used to work under Millen. Awesome decision there, Ford family. Treat the pink eye with Visine.
In the 2009 draft, the Lions took Matt Stafford, a quarterback from the University of Georgia. They paid him lots of money. And this kid could end up becoming, if not an elite QB, certainly a top tier QB for them.
Instead of having the kid sit on the bench and learn for a year while Daunte Culpepper--no slouch, himself--started, they declare that Stafford had won the job. I'm sure he had and that naming him the starter had nothing to do with putting asses in the seats. Nahhhhhhhhhhh.....
Stafford, though, played decently. You can't expect much from a rookie. But the real concern is the pounding he took behind a shitty offensive line. He got injured, he was beaten down, and even when a QB isn't sacked, he can still get nailed after a pass.
So the Lions took a defensive lineman, Ndamukong Suh this past draft. Brilliant. This is like repaving your driveway when your roof is leaking.
Yeah, Suh was a beast in college. IN COLLEGE. Suh was a force, a monster, and pure mayhem for opposing offensive lines. But BL's gonna let you folks in on a little secret.
Defensive linemen drafted in the first round have as big a bust rate as QBs drafted in the first round do. And it's because once these guys get to the pros, they're facing offensive linemen who are bigger, stronger and faster than anything they ever faced in college.
And instead of taking the top-rated offensive lineman, Russel Okung, and filling a giagantic need for the next ten years or more, they took Suh. They took the exciting pick. The next Julius Peppers. The next sack monster. No need to take a boring left tackle.
Ask Browns fans (use Hooked On Phonics, if need be) how happy they are that the Browns made that boring Pro Bowl left tackle, Joe Thomas, their pick at number #3 a few years ago.
Ask the Rams how drafting defensive linemen so often has worked out for them. Nice job, Millen's proteges. Nice job. Way to not protect your 60 million dollar QB, morons. Yeah, you'll be happy with Suh, but would've been much happier with Okung. But hey, Jeff "Swinging Gate" Backus will man the left tackle position well, huh?
Way to start turning this kid into the next David Carr. He's probably already hearing the footsteps of opposing defenders in his sleep. Suh ain't gonna change that.
Speaking of defensive linemen, the Bucs drafted Gerald McCoy out of Oklahoma. I dunno. You can find good defensive tackles later on in the draft, but there wasn't really anybody else that was worthy of the number three overall pick. Joe Haden, who went to the Browns, wasn't really an option.
McCoy will help with the Bucs' pourous run defense, so I guess I kind of give an ambivilent thumbs-up to the pick. I like the kid and all, but have those reservations about picking a defensive lineman so high. But he certainly fills a need. And I sure as fuck didn't want Dez Bryant, no matter how badly the Bucs needed a receiver.
I don't get how the Raiders are making a 360 turn and making fantastic moves. Their pick, at number 7, of linebacker Rolando McClain was excellent. I wouldn't have minded McClain coming to the Bucs. They upgraded their QB position by trading for Jason Campbell from the Redskins, and cut JaMarcus Russel. They also picked up a decent LB in Kamerion Wimbley for a 3rd round selection (they overpaid a bit for Wimbley, but Al Davis has always liked him).
The Raiders could surprise in 2010. I think they need another year or two of smart moves to really contend, but they took some major steps in that direction this offseason. Nicely done, Raider Nation.
I don't get one thing about the Lakers NBA Finals victory over the Boston Celtics. People keep mentioning that the Lakers are now only one championship behind the Celtics for the all-time lead, with sixteen titles.
Nobody's mentioning one little fact: That FIVE of those titles have come since 2000. That's right, at the beginning of this decade (or the end of the last one, whatever), it was sixteen to eleven, in favor of the Celts.
Then LA won three straight to cut it to sixteen to fourteen. Then, two years ago, the Celts beat LA and extended it to seventeen to fourteen. Then last year and this year, the Lakers won, cutting the margin to just one.
There's nothing really significant in all of this. Sports, like everything else, is cyclical. But it's interesting that LA has cut into Boston's title lead by a net margin of four over the past decade.
And Kobe Bryant still has more than a few years left in his prime. That should scare fans of every other team in the NBA.
I don't get how you trade a future Hall of Fame QB and expect to get better. Then again, maybe the Eagles aren't expecting to get better. At least, not this season.
A few months ago, Philly traded star QB to the Redskins for a conditional third round pick. Fucking a, is that all it costs to get a QB of that calibre who is only 32 fucking years old? Huh?
I did an entry before the trade, pimping new Philly starting QB Kevin Kolb to Browns fans. I'm a big fan of Kolb, make no mistake. He's going to be really, really good. But he's not D-Mac.
Obviously, since they would be facing this exact choice in a year or two, the Eagles made it this year. And they chose Kolb, and signed him to a nice extension.
Time will tell if it was worth it. Now the Eagles must contend with D-Mac for several seasons now and have to hope that Kolb can become the QB his predecessor was. Eagle fans, who never truly accpeted or appreciated what McNabb did for their team, will have to deal with life without him. Maybe Eagle fans should've been careful about what they wished for (right, Bucs fans?).
Kolb's development and whether McNabb can lift the Redskins to prominence in the NFC East and beyond, are two of the more interesting stories that will be worth watching this season and next (providing there is a 2011 season).












