Hey Gang!

 

Happy Pro Bowl Section Day to you and yours!

 

Sorry it took me so long to post this…  I got into a fight with a 7′ Christmas Tree
and was very much NOT the winner!  My
hands are so sappy, each key stroke takes 5 minutes.

 

Once again, thank you everyone for getting your picks in
on time!!! Much appreciated!

 

THERE IS A GAME THIS THURSDAY, SO ALL PICKS ARE DUE THURSDAY
NIGHT BY 8:00 P.M. ET.

 

Here is the Low Down for Week 15 (and some other junk):

Congrats to FFP for the largest gain this week and for
jumping to 1st place.

 

Only 2 more weeks in the regular season! Yikes!! What are
we going to do??

 

The average points wagered by each team jumped to 80%.

 

The average risk this week was 27,478.

 

Of the total points wagered this week, the majority or
57% were bet on losing teams.

 

Another crazy week — 11 underdogs were winners, 5 of
them won outright.  The Chiefs make me so
sad; the Lions keep fighting and actually looked decent at certain points this
week; I was so happy that Cassel had a great
game after losing his father last week; Jets were saved by fumble; the Steelers
were saved by a much refuted irrefutable reversal.

 

I think I grew too accustomed to having a dependably
great team last year in the Patriots. It just seems the teams that have reached
that "great" echelon this year fall quickly and rather disgracefully.

 

Will the UPS whiteboard guy ever run out of things to
draw?

 

Arena Football League will cancel the 2009 season to
build a better business model given the difficult state of the economy. That’s
disappointing. In these tough economic times, tickets to an arena football game
were about the only affordable ticket in the sports world.

 

If I start a petition to stop Keanu Reaves from making
any more movies, can I count on your support??

 

NHL: No Humor League

 

I honestly cannot believe the Dallas Stars are kicking
Sean Avery off the team. Now I don’t follow hockey at all, so I’m not sure if
he’s good or not. But he had a $15.5M contract. I’m assuming he’s not a piece
of dog doodey. So, why kick him off just because he likes to talk badly about
his ex-girlfriend?

 

In case you haven’t been following the saga, a couple of
weeks ago Avery made a comment about his "sloppy seconds" which I
just think is hilarious. The Stars were getting ready to travel to Calgary and he made some comment about one of the Calgary guys who is
currently shacking up with Avery’s ex, Elisha Cuthbert (who happens to be a
favorite of Big Papa’s from her days as Jack Bauer’s daughter on 24). Anyway,
it was a funny comment and not totally over the top.

 

The NHL suspended him for 6 games and made him seek anger
management classes. Unbelievable. And now the Stars are saying that when he is
allowed to come back after the suspension they don’t want him on their team.
Seriously?? It’s not like he shot himself in the leg!! Since when it is
impermissible for a guy to diss his ex? That’s just human nature. And let’s be
honest, Elisha does seem to be riffling through the NHL starting lineups. And "sloppy
seconds" is just such a funny thing to say.

 

The craziest thing is that reading the quotes from his
former teammates and coaches and others involved make it sound like he had both
of his legs amputated. "There’s no sense talking about it until he gets
better." As far as trading him is concerned, "it’s hard enough to
make a deal with 2 healthy players."

 

There’s nothing wrong with the guy! He made a smart ass
comment. That’s all!!! I guess he’s undergoing a humorectomy. I wish him a
speedy recovery!

 

So I sucked it up and watched MNF … with the sound
on,  no less!

Here are the things I learned while watching MNF:

It’s a lot easier to convert a 3rd and 3 than a 3rd and 7
plus.

 

Gaining enough yards for a first down can also be called "a
positive play".

 

You can segue any conversation easily with "speaking
of Brian Westbrook"? doesn’t matter if you are talking about the price of
oil in China?
works every time!

 

Evidently, saying that a receiver is covered by Shaun
Rogers is an oxymoron. That’s interesting. I thought an oxymoron was when 2
contradictory terms were combined, as in deafening silence. How would it be
contradictory to say that a 360 pound mammoth of a man is covering someone? I
can’t question the wisdom of the MNF crew. I can only hope to learn from it.
(By the way, who weighs more: Shaun Rodgers, Cromeo or Andy Reid?)

 

No more Cromeo jokes. His droopy dog eyes make me so sad.
I just want to hug him.

 

It was 40 degrees warmer in Philly than Denver on Monday.

 

Monday was Chamber of Commerce Day in Philly. I hope you
all got your Chamber of Commerce Day cards out in time!

 

MNF hired some focus groups prior to the game. Their
findings: it takes the average person 14 references before they understand that
Ken Dorsey went to Miami
and led them to a National Championship. Just to be on the safe side, the MNF
crew went with 18 references.

 

If you can’t be too sure that the audience understands
the words "dramatic" and "drastic", it is better to use
them together. Such as, "their numbers are dramatically drastically down".

 

Every time Braylon Edwards is responsible for a
reception, you have to say "caught that one".

(27 Dropped Balls this year!!! Amazing. Simply Amazing.
The Sports Guy had the best idea - "what if the Browns saved every game
ball that Edwards dropped during the ‘08 season and auctioned them afterward as
a collector’s set? Imagine a sports bar buying it and building a special shelf
behind the bar to accommodate 27 dropped footballs from Braylon? The Browns
fans would go there just to stare at it the same way people stare at the Grand Canyon.")

 

It’s fun to say things like "big time NFL throw".

 

The over/under on the time elapsed between the announcers
saying "it’s impossible to find anything wrong with Donovan McNabb"
and Donovan McNabb throwing an interception is 6 seconds. (by the way? I LOVE
that Baskett chased down McDonald on that INT and saved a touchdown!! It always
bugs me to see guys jog idly down the field as if they have no intention of
stopping the pick 6… I thought that McDonald was in the end zone after stiff
arming Westbrook? way to go Baskett!!)

 

It is more than permissible to say "explosive run"
and "gain of 2" in the same sentence.

 

The game film is only used when the team did everything
perfectly? kind of as a backdrop to a great celebration. If the team had some
miscues, they will not want to watch the game film!

 

Fireworks make everything better! Even an Eagles TD.

 

Kevin Kolb has way too much skin on his forehead. When he
straps on his helmet, all of the skin pushes into his eyes? How is this kid a
QB? He can’t even see through his skin flaps.

 

I was confused as to why the Browns were sporting not
only the "GU" sticker on their helmets for Gene Upshaw, but also a "GH"
sticker. My boys in the booth didn’t elaborate on this soon enough for my
liking, so I turned to my one and only source of truth and wisdom - Wikipedia!
The Browns will wear the "GH" sticker for the remainder of the year
to pay tribute to Hall of Fame Offensive Guard Gene Hickerson who passed away a
couple months ago. The schmucks in the booth didn’t mentioned this until 1:17
left in the game.

 

Other MNF Thoughts?

So, I guess Hank Williams Jr. always says "let’s
blow the roof off <home team> tonight" in his MNF song. It was
insensitive when he said it in Houston
following Hurricane Ike’s destruction of the dome and it was dumb when he said
it in Philly where there is no roof.

 

I was going to give them grief for continuously saying
about Donovan McNabb’s performance, "you can’t throw a ball better than
that" and "you can’t spot the open receiver better than that"?
but then I realized that Tirico was just saying that to Jaws.

 

I went to the kitchen in between plays? and I came back
to hear the MNF guys saying, "sometimes you have to look in the mirror and
say you know what, we’re not that good". I was so excited that they
admitted it. I rewound to hear the whole admission. Evidently they were talking
about Braylon Edwards. Ah, so close!!!

 

Is it just me, or were the guys kind of bragging about
having the Browns on MNF 3 times this year? That’s nothing to be proud of.

 

I cannot believe it took them over 2 hours to mention
that Jaws played for the Eagles. I missed the pre-game. I am really hoping they
drilled that little factoid to death. I was disappointed at how long it took
them to talk about it during the game.

 

Possibly my favorite exchange between the dynamic trio
occurred when they were lamenting on Cromeo’s future in Cleveland. After spending 5 minutes
prognosticating who his replacement will be once he gets shit canned, they
spent the next 3 minutes criticizing sports reporters and saying how unfair it
is to jump to a conclusion that he will be fired. I really don’t think that
even SNL could do a better job scripting these nimrods.

 

 

I hope everyone has a great week and good luck to those
remaining in the pool.

 

Cheers,

~Juicy