Crunch Time Trash Talk

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Sorry about the late start here, but I have been otherwise indisposed for the last day and a half or so. An old friend was around and we went walkabout downtown. Among the festivities taken in was the Phoenix Suns game against the 76ers. The Suns won, but it was really atrocious basketball by both teams. The current NBA is just not very appealing right now. Ugly and selfish play; little teamwork. It is almost unwatchable, which is a shame.

As to the oblong ball, there was apparently a game at Sun Devil Stadium last night. Earlier in the month, I invited David Dayen, a Michigan alum, to come over for the big Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, but he demurred. Good choice as the Wolverweenies got their ass kicked by Kansas State it appears. The game of interest locally is tomorrow night in So Cal, the Holiday Bowl with ASU and Texas Tech. ASU looks on paper to be a solid favorite, but the Red Raiders are pretty scary and can really score points. Also tomorrow, Mack Brown’s last game at Texas, with the Whorens taking on the Quack Attack of Oregon. Take the Ducks.

Today the biggest game is obviously the Packers at Bears, but I won’t be able to see that because I have to watch the Niners slaughter the paper thin playoff hopes of the Cardinals. Oh well, GO PACK! Aaron Rodgers is back, hope that is enough, cause the Pack defense is like Swiss cheese.

Also exciting, and just about to kick off, is the Ravens and Bengals. Baltimore has the pedigree, but I am taking Cinci and Dueling Dalton here. the Pats should pretty easily put the Bills out of their misery. And for that matter, the Eagles should do the same for the Cowboys.

With a late start and all, I am going to wrap this up and we’ll just hit the rest of the games in comments. Rock on!

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34 replies
  1. scribe says:

    Today, I am obligated to pull not only for my beloved Stillers, but also for Cinncinati, New York Jets, and Kansas City. I thought, come midseason, that Tomlin had lost his locker room but the comeback the Stillers have made – enough to keep them in the hunt today – is a tribute to Tomlin and to the Stillers.

    Even so, losing to the Crows the other week was a bitter, bitter pill.

    Even if the stars do not align and my Stillers go home tonight at 8-8 or 7-9, I still have the opportunity tonight to pull for my second-favorite team: “Who’s Playing Dallas?” This week, there’s the added pleasure of that team being the Iggles, the other half of one of the fiercest rivalries – perhaps the single fiercest – in the League. And if the Iggles win, the double pleasure of sending Dallas home (and being able to break the chops of a couple friends who are die-hard Owboys fans), too.

    As I write this, the Bungles-Crows game is noting that Fluke-o landed hard his right elbow, jamming it into his shoulder. We’ll see how this plays out.

    And BMAz: any comments on Michael Schuhmacher’s skiing ability?

  3. JohnT says:

    Huh? The Vikings are finally playing like it matters … only it doesn’t. Or is it that the Lions don’t care?

    And, yea, the NBA sux. It’s usually one or two prima donnas in isolation, while the other players stand around and watch. Where’s the Showtime anymore? Where’s the ball movement and passing and cutting? #unwatchable #boring

  4. Jim White says:

    Well, the Louisville season ended last night. I doubt that Jeremy Foley followed my directions on Twitter to call Charlie Strong right away, so I fear that Foley’s folly of keeping Muschamp will result in Strong going to Texas. What a shame.

    As for the NFL, I guess I’ll pull for the Niners in the NFC and be relatively agnostic in the AFC. But of course, gotta get the Iggles to send the Owboys home unhappy.

  5. bmaz says:

    @scribe: Yeah, Schumi skiing injury. Head injury and he was wearing a helmet. Wow. First off, to have a serious head injury whike you are wearing a helmet means it must have been one hell of an accident. Also, who wears helmets skiing, is that a new thing now?

  7. Bay State Librul says:

    @scribe:

    Has someone figured out the odds of a Pittsburg miracle.
    Is it about the same as hitting 4 out of 5 in Mass Millions (52,835 to 1)
    Drenching rain for Brady today.
    The season begins and ends with Buffalo.
    Why didn’t Edelman make the Pro Bowl?

  8. scribe says:

    @bmaz: The last time I went skiing, back about 1992, I almost broke my neck. Had whiplash for two weeks. There were people on the lift calling out scores for my wipeout. I didn’t wear a helmet, not that it would have helped with that wipeout.

    But I guess the helmet thing is de rigeur now. Just like no one ever wore a helmet riding a bike and now you get a ticket if you don’t.

    My concern is that, like seems to be the case in hockey, people get a false sense of security from wearing the helmet. In hockey, if you watch a tape of an old game (from like, the 80s) when helmets were not required, you’ll note that not only is the old game a bit slower (wooden sticks back then, composite now) but it is far more vertical. Players didn’t lay themselves out horizontally – particularly to block shots – nor did they go into the boards the way they do now. I suspect people ski far more aggressively now and, even if they don’t, their gear allows them to.

    Of course, Schuhmacher is a racecar driver and likes to go fast and ride the line. So one can expect he was skiing that way, too.

  9. scribe says:

    @Bay State Librul: As to Edelman, ask his fellow players. Maybe he’s a jerk and this is how they get back at him – deny him the trip to Hawaii.

    Don’t even want to speculate on the Stiller odds, though I’m sure Vegas will.

  12. emptywheel says:

    @bmaz: My bro wears a brain bucket (as does his son, who until this year competed in freestyle skiing). But he does some crazyass faces. Sounds like Schumacher does some crazyass speed.

  18. scribe says:

    @P J Evans: I went to the Suddeutsche Zeitung (a Munich broadsheet which actually covers F1 thoroughly) and translated the important parts of a very long article they have on the accident. Here’s a summary:

    Shortly after 11 am, while wearing a helmet, he crashed headfirst into rocks at the intersection of a “red” and a “blue” trail on the Saulire mountain at Meribel. No other person was involved in the accident and he did not collide with anyone though he was not skiing alone. Ski patrollers were with him within 2 or 3 minutes after the accident and called the rescue helicopter immediately. He was communicative immediately after the accident. He was in a hospital in Albertville-Moutiers by about 1153 and was transferred to a higher-level hospital in Grenoble about 1245. A neurosurgeon who’d previously treated him after an accident at Silverstone in 1999 is attending him now, flown in from Paris. He is suffering from bleeding in the brain which is causing pressure to grow and surgery appears to have been performed to relieve the pressure. He is in a coma, in critical condition and fighting for his life.

    “Michael Schumacher fighting for his life” is the headline on the article and it’s leading the SZ’s site.

  20. P J Evans says:

    @scribe:
    I’ve heard of SZ – I spent four years in German in HS and a quarter in college, and it was one of the more useful things I learned (along with a bunch of drinking songs, before I was even close to legal age).

  21. bmaz says:

    @scribe: Schumacher is a speed/thrill freak. He also had a quite nasty motorcycle accident a few years ago. Not just any motorcycle, but a racing one. Pretty sure he skis pretty intensely too. So he may have been really blasting a run when this happened.

  22. CTuttle says:

    I was astounded that there wasn’t any sorta trashtalking going on during Big Blue’s ignimonious defeat, last nite…! ;-) Y’all are getting mighty slack during the post-season, eh…?

    Aloha, rosalind and all you wheelies…! *g*

  24. rosalind says:

    @CTuttle: aloha back at ya, CTuttle!!

    (as every one of my comments has been going into moderation for the last week, i should probably bid you a happy monday morning!!!)

    (harumph)

  28. Bay State Librul says:

    @scribe:

    Vegas breathes a sigh of relief

    Succop fucks up?

    SI reports…….

    The flip side of the dramatic San Diego win finds a Steelers team that likely was ready to celebrate when Succop lined up for his kick at the end of regulation. Had Succop hit that field goal, the Steelers, despite starting 0-4 and needing a list of scenarios about the length of War and Peace to occur for them to survive, would have claimed a wild-card berth. They took care of business earlier Sunday — just as they had in Weeks 15 and 16 — downing the Browns.

  30. Del Fonik says:

    @rosalind: We’re seeing that meme on actual “news” media websites, and it’s totally inaccurate.

    Richardson was an actress — not a high performance athlete or even an experienced leave aside skilled skier, learning to ski with her young kids on a “bunny slope”, i.e. a very gentle incline, from where she fell backwards into collision between her un-helmeted head and snow packed so hard it was more like ice. Schumacher’s a high performance athlete with quite a bit of experience and acquired ski skills, taking on an area like many ski resorts maintain only for super-nuts/most-daring customers.

    So in that they’re both famous and on skis, it’s exactly the same.

  32. JThomason says:

    I have a question. There was a comment this year about a promotion in the CIA who was active in previous administrations and had dropped off the map. There was a reference in a Washington Post article and the person who made the comment remembered the name. Just kind of popped into my mind as something to revisit.

    Any suggestions that can help me find this would be appreciated.

  33. bmaz says:

    @JThomason: Not sure if you are talking about Alfreda Frances Bikowsky or Frank Archibald. Or someone else. But those are the two I recall that fit your description.

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