2012, It Was Nice Knowing Ya: Redskins, [Fantasy] Wrap-Up, and Rankings, Oh My!

In all likelihood, this is going to be my last post of 2012, and there’s a lot to cover…so let’s get right to it.

The Redskins have exceeded every one of my expectations this year, and no different was this past Sunday when the rookie backup quarterback to the rookie starting quarterback played, looked great, and led Washington to a decisive victory, which was their 5th straight. With RG3 returning this week against a hapless Eagles team, I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop (lifelong Skins fan as I am). This can’t really be happening, can it? Washington in the driver’s seat for the NFC East going into week 16? Fasten your seatbelts, folks…

At the very least, I have confidence that Cousins can carry the vacated title if RG3 goes down again.

Fantasy football came to an early end for me again this year, as I bowed-out to my brother-in-law Nicky in the 1st round of our league’s playoffs last week. It was a fitting end to my season really. I backed into the playoffs with a 6-8 regular season record, faced the number 1 seed as the number 8 seed, and had James Jones’ 3 touchdown catches and 24 fantasy points on the bench. (I lost by 27, but it was still a sucker punch to the gut for him to blow up like that). At the end of the day, I would say I lost this league in the 1st (my keeper), 2nd, and 10th rounds. DeMarco Murray has missed 6 games this year, Stafford seems to have regressed, and Evan Royster was a wild swing-and-a-miss for a sleeper pick…Alfred Morris is the league’s 8th rated fantasy back, on the other hand. All of that is a recipe for disaster.

Less commercials, more touchdown passes, please (Jerry Rice stole the show in those ads anyway).

Weekly NBA Power Rankings? Sure, why not?!?

1. LA Clippers (19-6, PR=6)…Big leap for Lob City here in week 2, and the other teams didn’t really do anything that warrants getting dropped, but 11 straight is 11 straight. CP3 looks locked in at the moment and hungry for his 1st ring a la LeBron last season.

Showtime is back in LA, and it has nothing to do with the Lakers.

2. New York Knicks (19-6, PR=2)…Melo accumulating some bumps and bruises has to be a concern, but this team is still rolling right now. They might get some reinforcements soon with Amare’s pending return, but I’m wondering if that’s going to mess up their feng shui at all.

3. Oklahoma City Thunder (21-5, PR=4)…Have the league’s best record even with a loss last night in Minnesota thanks to a 12 game streak of their own. Durant looks to be on a mission on par with Chris Paul's above.

4. Miami Heat (17-6, PR=5)…LeBron and Miami looked like the varsity scrimmaging against the JV last night facing a depleted Mavs team. Looks like they can still turn it on when they want to.

5. Memphis Grizzlies (17-6, PR=1)…Damn, all they’ve done is win 3 in a row, and they drop from the top spot to 5th? Such is life this year in a very top-heavy league. Something tells me Team Grindhouse won’t pay outside perception much mind though.

30. Washington Wizards (3-20)…This team is such a mess that they probably deserve their own blog post at some point, and the story that the owner turned down a potential James Harden deal because he didn’t want to commit the money is depressing to say the least. Maybe they will at least split a home-and-home with nearly as dreadful Detroit coming up.

In the Words of Eminem, "Where the F***'s Kanye When You Need 'Em?"

Even though this is a blog, and I can technically post whatever I want without any regard for past posts, I still feel bad when I don’t give updates to certain posts that have become somewhat serial in nature: weekly NBA power rankings, Redskins’ Monday morning quarterbacking sessions, periodical fantasy football updates, my personal injury status, etc…but even when I’m falling behind on those fronts, sometimes something presents itself that I can’t pass up: this time it’s one of my coworker’s inane sports-related babblings.

There’s really only one thing worse than being wrong: being loud-wrong. This dude is a good guy all in all, but to say he’s passionate about sports is putting it mildly. And since I work in an office of mostly dorky engineers (me included) and program managers, most of the athletic opinions he espouses go unchallenged no matter how ridiculous they may seem. (Said coworker has made a B-Court All-Star appearance once before as the coworker who boasted he could bench press 225 lb., close to double his own weight…yea.) Most of the time, I ignore him and go about my business, but he's been in rare form lately. Here’s some of the doozies I couldn’t quite lay off of over the past few weeks.

Oh, s***!

In sports betting, picking against the spread is a 100% random process.

There are no good short basketball players.

No good basketball players come from small high school programs

An average team from our company adult intramural basketball league could beat the majority of the country’s high school basketball teams.

He’s annoying to argue with partially because he always assumes he’s right no matter what. He also often doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. For example, when I asked what he had based any of these hyperbolic basketball statements off of, it wasn’t from a lot of experience playing or watching basketball…it was based off of the heights of and common high schools where college prospects were listed on recruiting websites.

Arguing with him about this stuff is also obnoxious partially because there is an element of truth to most of his opinions. Yes, there is a degree of randomness to picking against the spread because that’s the way sports work in general, but there’s a reason people with enough resources and brains can actually make a lot of money off of sports betting. Yes, height obviously is a huge factor in basketball, but not every good basketball player is 6’8”. And what exactly qualifies as “good?” Division 1 players only? Yes, there are certain high schools like Dematha and Oak Hill that are basketball factories, churning out pro prospects like an assembly line, but did every high profile baller come out of schools like that? The answer would be “no.” And I have watched a lot of high school basketball over my lifetime, and I know the level of play of a lot of the players in this work league…let’s just say that last statement is not even close to true.

If you stay in a discussion with him long enough, you will usually find that these statements cover up some hidden agenda of his. He stinks at picking games against the spread, or he is short and stinks at basketball; therefore, all short people must stink at basketball, and so on…today was another doozy that, even with my voice so hoarse that it is barely audible, I couldn’t lay off of: Maryland’s drop in men’s basketball ticket prices shows just how crappy their athletic program is.

What…wait…what? Ok, yes…Maryland’s athletic program is in a particular state of suck-titude right now. The football team is awful. They have had to cut certain sports because they aren’t raking in enough money. Their move to the Big 10 was a pure money-grab. And even the men’s basketball team has been successful to a degree, but not to the standards they had made for themselves as of late. But…what?

Exactly.

Even if Maryland’s athletic program was flourishing, why wouldn’t they do that this time of year? Students are home on winter break. The gym is going to be half-full, especially if they’re playing schools like Monmouth and Stony Brook. You might as well get as many people through the gate as you can so you can sell as many sodas and hot dogs as possible. This idea made just as much sense when Maryland wasn't financially in the tank. But if you hang around just long enough, you will find out that the genesis of this statement has to do with said coworker’s comparison to athletic fandom in this part of the country to that of somewhere like the University of Florida, where he grew up near and roots for to this day.

Comparing collegiate sport support between a place like Washington, DC, and just about any SEC school is silly. There are a million things to do and see in and around DC, and its population is absurdly transient. It’s a Redskins’ town and a basketball town, but hometown support for any other team or school fluctuates depending on who’s hot in that moment. SEC-country is a completely different culture, where many schools like Arkansas and Alabama have little competition to hold onto people’s attention. Schools from that pocket of the country produce fanatical (and sometimes radical) supporters that steal each other’s mascots and poison each other’s historic trees. The craziest (and dumbest) thing Terp fans do is burn their own couches in the street. This doesn’t make sports fans from this area better or worse…it just makes them different.

Ok, maybe that's a little bit crazy too...but mostly just dumb.

And that’s the point. Save your over-generalized and mostly unfounded opinions, dude. They’re not going to fly over here! I don’t mean to pick on this guy…but I will continue to do so here because I enjoy it!

Government Friday: Fittingly, The Home Of The Laziest Post Ever

Sometimes I just really want to post something, but I either don't have anything good to write about, or I am too lazy to write...or both. Well, today I'm stooping to the ultimate form of blog laziness, and I'm just posting some funny pics I found when scrolling across the Interwebs a la The Chive. Actually, most (if not all) of these are pilfered straight from The Chive. I could write about RG3-knee-calypse, fantasy football, or any number of other things, but f*** it...super lazy...super-duper...yep.

Have a good weekend, nerds.

Special Edition/Season Premiere Of The Weekly NBA Power Rankings

With the NFL season hitting the home stretch, basketball tends to get lost in the shuffle this time of year…as well it should. I’m certainly not the 1st to say it, and it will never happen due to the monetary implications of it all, but wouldn’t the NBA be better served to have a shorter season? Even with the generally bad basketball across the board during the 1st month or so of last season as players went from downing donuts to having to get in midseason shape on the fly, can’t we all agree that the shortened season produced a better overall product? Like I said, it’s not ever going to happen, but I’m just saying…with that in mind, let’s take a break from the world of football, the Redskins, and RG3’s knee to bust out the 1st edition of the B-Court All-Star NBA Power Rankings of the 2012-2013 season. I’ll even throw in a little extra this time.

Aww, f*** it.

1. Memphis Grizzlies…Team Grindhouse has been every talking head’s buzz-team for 3 seasons now, but there’s a reason for that. This team is loaded, has a style a play that’s not for the weak of heart to play against, and they actually have their full compliment of players right now, with Rudy Gay and Zach Randolph healthy at the same time for the 1st time in seemingly forever and Darrell Arthur back to sure-up their front court rotation. Experience and the fact that the West’s other 3 top teams (the Spurs, Thunder, and Clips) all provide interesting foils for the Grizz are their biggest hurdles, but be warned: this team is nasty.

2. New York Knicks…It pains me to put the Knicks this high, but then again it’s hard not to based on what I see on the court. How can a team that looked that bad at times last year make this big of a leap when all they did was get even older and slower? Well, the 1st thing is that they have basically moved Carmelo Anthony to the power forward position full-time, and it looks like he may have actually finally got it (changing from a just a scorer to a playmaker, which in turn has made all of his teammates better). 2nd, they have basically adopted the old Mike D’Antoni offense. You wouldn’t think those old heads would fit into a run-and-gun style, but Jason Kidd knows how to spot up behind the 3-point line, and Rasheed Wallace, Kurt Thomas, and Marcus Camby all know how to run a pick-and-roll when Tyson Chandler needs a blow. 3rd (and most importantly), they are taking and making 3’s at a historic pace right now. If that continues, it could be a special season in New York.

3. San Antonio Spurs…As as good as they look at times I wonder if sometime this year the Spurs will begin to resemble that team that has seen better days. It’s tough to make that argument when they have the league’s best record, beat this ranking’s number 1 team in their only matchup to date, nearly won in Miami with their JV team, and were only a couple games away from playing in the Finals last year with basically the same squad, but something tells me this season is going to end badly for them. I hope I’m wrong.

4. Oklahoma City Thunder…Many (including myself) wondered aloud whether OKC should have let things play out with the James Harden situation instead of being proactive and trading him, but it actually looks like a smart move at this point. Kevin Martin isn’t nearly the player Harden is, but he may actually fit the Thunder’s needs better. He doesn’t need the ball in his hands to be effective, whereas Harden did, and as good as he was putting the ball in his hands would also take it out of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook’s hands as well. Those 2 have also raised other parts of their games (numbers up in assists and rebounds for both) this year, but it’s Serge Ibaka’s leap in offensive production (going from 9.1 points per game last season to 14.3 this season) that has made the Thunder look the smartest of all in the trade’s aftermath. Oh, and they just happen to be on an 8 game streak to the good, best current run in the league.

5. Miami Heat…Miami 5th to start out? After winning the title and adding Jesus Shuttlesworth? I wouldn’t call it a championship hangover because the Heat still have the 2nd best record in the East, and they do seem like they play with some we got this championship swag now, but they also appear to be on cruise control in certain games. Still, if I were them, there wouldn’t be much that would worry me about their start so far…except their 2 games against the Knicks. After 2-plus seasons, I still don’t think they have solved their point guard problems, and in both of those games Raymond Felton was able to get into the paint, draw defenders, and kick the ball out to open shooters at will. While being a different kind of player, Baron Davis had similar success against Miami in the regular season and playoffs before breaking his entire knee. Both guys were able to out-quick or bully their way past Mario Chalmers and or Norris Cole to score or set up other guys…before his injury, the Heat only had a clear advantage when New York sent Davis to the bench to play JR Smith at the point (yuck). Miami’s best solution would be to play their funky, non-point guard, amoeba type lineup, but they can't do that all the time, and either way the Knicks present a real problem for the Heat in the East this year.

He still got game.

6. LA Clippers…I had questions about chemistry and playing time when the Clips signed or traded for every available player in the universe this offseason, but this team is going to be a problem for opponents all season long. Jamal Crawford, (fat) Lamar Odom, Eric Bledsoe, and Matt Barnes give them the deepest bench in the league, and you still have Chris Paul and Blake Griffin to deal with on a nightly basis. If Griffin continues to at least take (making them is a bonus, but he at least has to take them to keep the defense honest) open 18-footers off the pick-and-roll, it’s going to open the offense up for the whole team. Did I mention they are right behind OKC with a 7 game winning streak of their own? No? Ok, well there you go.

23. LA Lakers…No bottom 5 this week, but I will give you a team that has definitely been among the dregs of the league up to this point. The Lakers have lost 3 straight, 7 of their last 10, and are 4-8 since D’Antoni took over as head coach. I had some doubts about their overall team speed and health as an older unit as well as their lack of a bench, but I didn’t expect them to struggle like this at all. After firing Mike Brown, using the current roster in D’Antoni’s previously mentioned system has been nothing short of trying to smash a bunch of round pegs into the squarest holes ever. Pau Gasol has been hurt, but D’Antoni doesn’t want him on the court anyway. Steve Nash was the engine that made D’Antoni’s offense go in Phoenix, but Nash is a few years older, hurt now as well, and doesn’t have the Suns’ miracle training staff to fix him up anymore. If LA thinks Nash’s return is going to be a magic cure-all for everything that ails them, they better hope they kept the receipt for that purchase. Dwight Howard continues to be a liability (as he has his whole career) at the end of the game from the free throw line, but D’Antoni refuses to sit him because he doesn’t want to scare Howard off from resigning with the Lakers in the offseason. Even besides all that, the Lakers have basically none of the spot-up shooting necessary to make his offense work, and that along with Nash’s injury has caused Kobe Bryant to bring the ball up the court, somehow pass to himself a few times without travelling, and shoot possession after possession. Kobe’s individual stats are great this year considering the point he’s at in his career, but the Lakers are also something ridiculous like 1-10 in games where he scores 30-plus points. So then what exactly is the solution? Is there a solution at all? They are a complete mess. Their best hope for this year is to trade an unhappy Gasol away for like 3 quality role players (preferably 2 shooters and a point guard)…wait, hold that thought. Of course that’s what will happen…they are the Lakers after all. The rest of the league always lines up to be taken to the cleaners in trades by LA.

On A Monday Night In December, RG3 Finally Gets Some Help

There are a couple of reasons I dread primetime Redskins’ games. There’s the fact that they usually stink, and I feel embarrassed that the rest of the country has to watch my lousy team…I imagine it would be something like if your kid was bad at sports. F***, I am about to have a kid in a couple of months, let me take that back! Don’t want karma to bite me in the ass already. There’s also the fact that Washington has been consistently lousy for 2 decades, but that lousiness has been amplified at home Monday night games for some reason…how’s 10 straight home MNF losses taste? And lastly, it means yours truly has to stay up way past his bedtime, rendering me useless for most of the following day.

But the Redskins made that all worth it last night, holding on to beat the Giants 17-16. For all the shame they usually provide their fans, it’s nice to have “Mike & Mike” gush about them once in a while on the drive into work. RG3 is almost at the point where his individual exploits aren’t worth mentioning. He delivers pretty much every week, so it’s hardly even worth bringing up a ho-hum game (for him) where he went 13/21 for 163, a touchdown throw, 0 picks, and added in 72 yards on the ground. He’s been consistently good to the point where it’s a bigger story if he has an off day.

No, this week let’s give some dap to some of Griffin’s helpers. How about a little bit of luck, with Griffin’s fumble popping right into the waiting hands of Josh Morgan for the game’s 1st touchdown? How about Pierre Garcon’s 106 yards and 4th quarter go-ahead touchdown catch? How about big Trent Williams, who might be the best left tackle in the league at the moment, playing through pain to do some road-grading in the running game and keeping RG3 mostly clean against a vaunted New York d-line? How about Alfred Morris’ 124 tough rushing yards, including consecutive gains of 4, 3, and 6 yards to effectively end the game with the Giants trying to get the ball back for some late game magic? We know all too well that Eli Manning only needs a couple plays to take his team down the field (against this D in particular).

Game, set, match...

And I guess a little credit does go to that much-maligned defense referenced above. They were the definition of “bend but don’t break,” but it’s hard to whine too much about them when they only gave up 16 points for the game, 3 in the 2nd half, and held that 1 point lead for most of the 4th quarter.

And yet, you couldn’t help but think the Giants gave the Redskins the game at least a little bit too. Washington’s D was so bad through 3 quarters that it seemed like the only way they could get off the field on 3rd down was for the Giants to commit a penalty. In the 1st half, New York had 3 drives with double digit plays, and they held on to the ball for nearly 34 minutes in the game. Those 16 points seemed like they could have easily been 24 or 27. And while Manning seemed to be able to throw the ball at will, the Giants curiously were very run-heavy in the 2nd half. Ahmad Bradshaw finished with good numbers – over 100 yards and averaging nearly 4.5 yards a carry – but I would much rather throw the ball against the Redskins than run it, and the run D was much better in the 2nd half. I’m not sure if the Giants were trying to run some clock in the 2nd half or they saw something they thought they could exploit in the running game, but it seemed interesting considering Giants’ receivers were running through Washington’s secondary wide open all night long.

The Giants probably regret not letting Eli keep chucking it in the 4th quarter last night.

Regardless, a win is a win. The Redskins are now at 0.500 and have creeped within a game of both the Giants for the division lead and a wild card spot. Even though Washington holds tiebreakers over the Giants for the division and some of their wild card competition like the Vikings, Bucs, and Saints, they still have an uphill climb, and it’s easy to play the what-if game now. What if they found a way to eke out even 1 win in close losses against the Rams, Bengals, Falcons, the lowly Panthers, and the Giants the 1st time around…but maybe that’s just the eternally pessimistic Redskins’ fan coming out again. Today is a good day. Let’s focus on that.

Good Ending Not Guaranteed

And for my 1st post of December, how about the glorious return of “terrible movie and TV show reviews?” Yea, get hyped, people. This week’s honor goes to Safety Not Guaranteed, which stars the younger funny girl from “Parks and Rec” and Nick from “New Girl”…I know what you’re thinking because it’s the same thing my wife and I were thinking when we rented it off iTunes: that’s not a bad start. And for the 1st hour or so, it didn’t disappoint. Yes, it gets a tad unrealistic at times. No interns for a b-list local magazine are going to risk life and limb for some goofy story idea, and there’s no way an even emotionally damaged Aubrey Plaza is going to fall for a late-30’s lunatic with a sweet side (a different guy than "New Girl"-Nick, by the way). But you can suspend your disbelief for a little while at least because the story pretty much breezes along, and Plaza and Nick-from-“New Girl” actually make you LOL (yes, I just typed that) from time to time.

Not a bad comedic duo at all.

But no one is going to buy Plaza sticking around past the next bus out of town when she finds out this time-travelling yahoo concocted some alternate reality in his own head about his past fictitious relationship or her being so bummed-out by the present and yearning for the past that she climbs on said wackjob’s death-contraption fashioned out of stolen government lasers, gyroscopes, transmogrofiers, and who knows what.

But even that is fine I guess as long as the movie didn’t have the ending it had. Have Plaza b****-slap the dude and let the FBI throw him in the back of a squad car as she looks all sad and mopey, have them climb on the time machine and it bursts into a raging inferno as soon as bizarro-Marty McFly hits the switch, but don’t have the stupid time machine seemingly work and blast the 2 into some alternate dimension! Don’t make the next screen the credits!

F***...

I guess this isn’t really a “terrible movie review” per se. It’s more a “pretty good movie review that went horribly wrong in the last 5 minutes.” And maybe I’m completely alone on this, and people universally loved the ending. It’s possible. It scored a 7.1/10 on Metacritic after all. I’m just not sure what they were going for with that ending other than maybe they thought other endings were far too obvious and they were trying to be hip and smart and edgy or something. All I know is I hadn’t WTF-ed (yes, I typed that too) that hard at a movie ending since The Departed, where everyone but Marky Mark bites the big one…just…no more of that, movie people. When the other movie I watch this weekend is Step Up Revolution, and that 1 ends up being the 1 I was less angered by, that’s not a great sign. For the love of…

A Better Kind Of Mediocre, Snap Judgments About The Terps, And The Move To The B1G

I have already written on here countless times about the plight of longstanding Washington Redskins’ fans. Since their last Super Bowl victory, the Redskins have been largely irrelevant…and they haven’t done it by suffering through a bunch of miserable 3-13 seasons. In fact, since my fandom began (1991), they have had only 1 season with a record that bad, and have only been 4-12 twice. Now, that’s not exactly a glowing review, but you would think those types of records would be more commonplace for a franchise that has only been above 0.500 5 times in that same span of time. No, instead the Redskins have wallowed in seemingly endless mediocrity, finishing with a record somewhere between 6-10 and 9-7 an astounding 12 times since 1992. They never seem to bottom-out and start from scratch; always creating the illusion that they aren’t that bad and are only a player or 2 away from contending. Well, as a result they have gotten pretty predictable over the years to me at least. Year by year, I can sniff-out an out-of-the-blue upset of a top-tier team just as easily as an ugly loss to 1 of the league’s bottom-feeders…but not this year. No, this year RG3 has thrown a monkey wrench into my prognostication skills. In pick ‘em leagues and other NFL pools over the years, I usually had my pulse on the Skins from week to week even if my overall pick record continued to submarine. For Washington’s games for the year, I’m 5-6 picking winners and only 4-7 picking against the spread (compare that to picking 2 out of every 3 winners and just a shade under half of the games against the spread correctly for the league as a whole). So, while the Redskins are almost a lock to fall into that “mediocre record” range once again this season, at least there have been a few pleasant surprises along the way. With a weak returning supporting cast, an $18 million cap penalty, and a starting rookie quarterback, I was bracing myself for 1 of those 3-13 type seasons though…I guess I can be satisfied with mediocre just this once.

You can't see me...no, actually we literally can't see you thanks to your blurry f***ing hand.

On a different note, I happened to catch the 2nd half of the Terps game last night…I have caught 2 halves of Maryland games so far this year: the 2nd half of their opening game against Kentucky and the last 20 minutes last night against Northwestern. For both of those 2nd halves, they looked pretty damn good to me, which is a surprise given the state of their roster this past spring. Now, it’s still probably way too early to get all hot and bothered about this team. We’ll wait until ACC play opens up to do that. Also, aside from the 2 halves of basketball I’ve watched, the Terps have played pretty inconsistently in every other game (even in the 1st halves of the 2 games mentioned prior, where turnovers and poor outside shooting plagued them) so far this year by all accounts. But while playing a creampuff schedule so far outside of those 2 games, they have worked their way to 5-1 out of the gate. And while they don’t necessarily possess 2 things that most great college basketball teams have (great backcourt play and perimeter shooting), they also seem to have things that most college teams don’t have nowadays: size and a deep roster filled with athletes. Most college teams (and pro too for that matter) have gone the way of Duke recently, perhaps playing 1 true big guy at a time while spacing the floor with 4 shooters, and the teams with the best athletes don’t seem to go more than 7 or 8 deep for some reason. The Terps appear to have the ability to go 9 or 10 deep if they want, and they have close to NBA size at every position.

Remember last year when Alex Len looked awkward and lost most of the time? This just in: he's turned into a beast.

The odd thing about last night’s ACC-Big 10 Challenge matchup was that it was somewhat of a glimpse into the future of what life will be like once Maryland switches conferences. Could last night’s game be a potential rivalry preview? I don’t know…it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as going into a hostile Cameron Indoor Stadium. It does seem kind of funny that Maryland always considered itself the red-headed step-child to schools like Duke and UNC in terms of basketball, and leaving for the Big 10 resembles Maryland taking its ball and going home. In reality, it has nothing to do with that. It’s all about money, and theoretically if Duke or anyone else in the ACC could get into a conference that would better benefit them financially they wouldn’t hesitate about jumping ship either. As a fan, it’s still tough to wrap your head around though. I can’t envision Maryland students camping outside the Comcast Center to score tickets to the big Maryland-Purdue game…but I suppose only time will tell…doesn’t mean I can’t be salty about it though.

Finally, enjoy a random, creepy, yet hysterically funny (to me at least) picture I came across on the Google Machine today. It's on the house.

So good, girl.

Bring On The Turkey: Romp Against Philly Was Nice, But Now The Skins Are Fighting Against Thanksgiving History

Better late than never, but can I just say that it was nice to not have to sweat out a Redskins’ win for once? If they’re not trying to put together a drive to tie or win the game late in the 4th quarter, they are testing their fans’ nerves by forcing them to watch a porous defense keep the other team out of the end zone late in the game. Even if you look at a game like the one against the Vikings earlier this year, the final score makes it look like they won comfortably. Truth be told, Washington had the game in control most of the afternoon until they began their 2nd half collapse. If RG3 doesn’t put on his cape and score on that long 4th quarter run, who knows what happens?

So when the Skins beat down the tanking Philadelphia Eagles last Sunday, it was a rare source of joy for me. According to the team’s official website, they hadn’t outscored an opponent by 25 or more since 2007! That’s 5 seasons worth of either wanting to vomit because they were getting beat so bad or at least not being able to have a comfortable heart rate every time the Skins are playing. Thank you, Washington Redskins…you have probably knocked 3 or 4 years off my life expectancy.

It certainly helped that the Eagles look like an absolute mess right now…blowing coverages, not generating any pass rush, turning the ball over, and, maybe more than anything, throwing the ball seemingly every down (despite having a rookie quarterback making his 1st NFL start). This would stink of the head coach begging for someone to fire him, but anyone who has watched Philly games over the last decade and a half knows this is Andy Reid’s MO. He wants to throw the ball every play. It doesn’t matter that usually the best player he has on the field, whether that’s Brian Westbrook or Shady McCoy, is his running back. He can’t help himself. Last Sunday, with rookie Nick Foles under center and a decimated offensive line, the Eagles dropped back to throw 51 times by my count from looking at the box score.

The worst part is that McCoy and backup Bryce Brown averaged 4 yards a carry between them for the game. But that doesn’t seem to ever matter with Reid, who if he is faced with a 2nd 3 after a 7 yard run on 1st down will gladly call plays to chuck it somewhere on the next 2 downs (and then usually punt on 4th down). His record will prove that he has mostly been a very good coach, but I’m not sure he could ever be reasoned with on this subject.

Ironically and to the bewilderment of many, McCoy was out there running the ball (and getting concussed) late in the 4th quarter though.

As for my Skins, they travel to Dallas tomorrow for the dreaded Thanksgiving afternoon game with the Cowboys. Most football fans would probably find this to be a good thing. You stuff your face with turkey and plop down in front of the TV to watch football every Thanksgiving anyway. Why wouldn’t you want your team to have the spotlight, the good announcers, and the timeslot all to themselves? Well, the Redskins have never beaten the Cowboys on Turkey Day in 6 tries. Most of my Redskins-Thanksgiving memories revolve around Emmitt Smith running rampant on Washington’s D (twice) and Danny Wuerffel checking down to his backs and tight ends for 3 yard gains on 3rd and 8 all afternoon long. No doubt I will be watching from the comfort of the elastic drawstring of my sweatpants regardless…it’s probably wishful thinking of me to hope that I won’t have to sweat this one out too.

Even the old, brittle version of Smith could bust out for 100-plus against Washington on Thanksgiving.

Friday Fluff: Thursday Night NFL Garbage And Hot Pockets...So Good, Girl

Simply put, the NFL has got to do something about these Thursday night games. I love the Thanksgiving games, even the 3rd night game that was added a few years back. I liked how late season Thursday night games were added to the schedule several years ago as well. While I don’t have the facts in front of me, it seems like those games were “flexed” to ensure at least a halfway decent matchup. However, this season long Thursday night schedule is garbagio. The 3 days of rest instead of the normal 6 seems unfair to those teams, and it errors on the side of hypocrisy given the league’s perceived concerns about injuries as of late. It screws up everyone’s fantasy leagues, as our internal lineup-checking clock is naturally geared to Sunday, not Thursday night. Furthermore, unless there’s a marquee matchup, the games are mostly irrelevant and forgotten. Giants-Panthers, Ravens-Browns, Rams-Cardinals, Titans-Steelers, Buccaneers-Vikings, Chargers-Chiefs, Colts-Jaguars, and now Bills-Dolphins…those are 8 of the 10 Thursday night games this year so far. The last few weeks of the year offer better games, but the games previously mentioned are all, as I said before, garbagio.

I don't know, Patrick Stewart...I really don't know.

I consider myself a diehard NFL fan, but I must confess that I didn’t watch a single minute of last night’s game between the Bills and Dolphins. And apparently the sports world didn’t care much about it either. On Friday morning, Foxsports.com had no mention of the game on their homepage. ESPN.com and Yahoosports.com contained no picture or major stories on the game either, but there were links to the game result in the 9th and 5th headlines on those pages, respectively. No one cares. So, NFL, either somehow work it so you show better games on Thursdays, or get off the air that night. (By the way, the Bills beat the Dolphins 19-14 in an epic AFC East clash.)

I know I pay too much attention to TV commercials, but has anyone seen this Hot Pockets ad?

Hot Pockets? Does it strike anyone else as slightly inappropriate? I am all for using sex to sell food products (think those old Uncle Ben’s Rice Bowl ads), but Hot Pockets? The microwaveable snack that soccer moms stuff in their kids’ faces before they run out the door to a PTA meeting? Yes, those Hot Pockets…I’m not sure what part got me more, the guy’s awkward sex noises, or the uglier version of Lisa Marie Presley diving into said Hot Pocket like she’s going in for “the money shot.” And there’s using sexiness to sell your product, but there’s also blatantly cheesy porno-ish advertising too. I kind of see what they were going for, trying to add some spice and humor to their commercials, but damn…it’s definitely memorable, in an uncomfortable did I really just see that sort of way. Good job by you, Hot Pockets.

The Antonio Gates Fantasy Football Problem

Sup, nerds…it’s been a minute since my last post on here. Actually, my post per month average has taken a steady dip since mid-summer, and November has been completely update-less halfway through the month. It’s been a bad time to go cold too, what with the heart of the NFL season opening up and the tipoffs of the pro and college basketball seasons (it might be time to dust off the NBA Power Rankings soon). And no, I wasn’t just dodging my RG3-Luck post or the Redskins’ losing streak. Since that last blog, Griffin (who is still playing very well individually) has sunk behind Andrew Luck and Doug Martin (of all people) in the Rookie of the Year race, and Washington has dropped to a very stinky 3-6.

One thing I have taken care not to write about is my fantasy team, as I’m currently only 5-5, but I have been somewhat hot as of late, winning 4 out of the last 5 weeks. The “somewhat” is appropriate because I still rank dead last out of 12 teams in total points scored this season, my opponents during those 4 wins averaged only 83.5 points per week, and my current healthy running back options are Shonn Greene, Jonathan Stewart, and Alex Green…yeah, not much to write home about there…which just goes to show that hot streaks are usually equal parts your own doing and just plain luck in most situations. If there’s one thing that has kept me flummoxed all season though, I have 2 words: Antonio Gates.

Believe me, I know what it’s like to root for a franchise whose owner treats the roster like his own fantasy football team. I’ve seen my share of Deion Saunders, Bruce Smiths, and Donovan McNabbs roll through town, all past their primes by the time they got to Washington, all basically mediocre players with humongous price tags during their time in burgundy and gold. Well, actual fantasy football owners can be guilty of being too “fantasy” as well.

I thought I had blocked this from my memory, but I guess not.

Such was my luck with Gates, who I’ve coveted but never been able to get ever since my 1st fantasy football team in 2006. For many years, I think the fantasy universe regarded tight ends as only slightly more valuable than kickers and defenses. If you were lucky enough to get Gates or Jason Witten, then that was actually a great value. Even so, I drafted Witten in a league a few years ago, but so desperate was I to get either him or Gates that I probably reached for him a round or 2 too early, and it was the main reason that season went south in a hurry.

You could argue for guys like Tony Gonzalez or Dallas Clark too, but either way the dropoff from the top shelf fantasy tight ends to the 2nd tier seemed substantial enough that you could basically play position roulette every week if you wanted, dropping and adding tight ends based on matchups, who had been hot of late, or any other tea leave reading methods you could think of. Oddly enough though, guys like Gates, Witten, and Gonzalez paved the way for what can probably be considered the golden age of tight ends. With rule changes in recent years that favor the passing game, teams have targeted freak-of-nature, hybrid type tight ends in their scouting, and almost half the teams in the league have 1 of these NBA power forward lookalikes: Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Jimmy Graham, Vernon Davis, and on and on and on.

This year in our league Graham was picked as someone’s keeper, and Gronkowski was picked in the following round. In the 4th round, there were better players available and probably better tight ends as well (no other tight ends had been taken up to that point), but I had heard good things about Gates coming out of the preseason. He was motivated by all these younger tight ends coming into the league taking his shine. He was the healthiest he had been in years.

F*** my life.

I couldn’t help myself. I had wanted Gates for 6 years. There he was. I took him, but regretted it almost immediately. Reggie Bush, Darren Sproles, and Percy Harvin were selected just a few picks later. The run of tight ends didn’t start until a round or 2 after my Gates pick. This was a “Daniel Snyder” pick: a once great player who still had flashes, but was mostly just a decent to good player and a name on the back of a jersey at this point.

What’s been most frustrating is that Gates hasn’t been a complete bust this year. If he was or had gotten seriously injured, I could have dropped him and cut my losses. Gates started off the year with 4 games under 60 yards receiving and no touchdowns. He was a scratch minutes before kickoff in week 2, which I didn’t see in enough time to edit my lineup, causing me to take a bagel for him that particular week (so much for feeling healthy).

At that point, I had seen enough. Owen Daniels had been sitting on my bench as the Texans leader in almost every receiving category almost every week up until that point in the season. I benched Gates, and he responded with 81 yards and 2 scores against Denver. In week 7, Gates had a bye, but Daniels had a bye the following week leaving me stuck with Gates, who had only 14 yards against the Browns. At that point, I had thought Gates’ week 6 game was nothing short of an aberration. With Daniels in my week 9 and 10 lineups, Gates found the end zone both weeks. (Daniels was out for Houston’s game against the Bears, but in the infamous “Yahoo crash of 2012,” I was stuck with him.)

On the year, Daniels has Gates beat in receiving yards and touchdowns, and he has tallied about 20 more fantasy points in our league. But you would think that I would want to ride Gates moving forward (the hot hand)…however, San Diego’s offense is not the explosive system it was several years ago. Phillip Rivers seems to have regressed in the past season or 2. LaDainian Tomlinson, Vincent Jackson, and Sproles are long gone, which means more double teams and defensive attention for Gates. And there just seems to be an overall unsteadiness with the team that makes it hard to predict what you’re going to get week to week. (See the Chargers' and Gates’ clunker of a game referenced above against the lowly Browns.)

So it looks like another lost season at the tight end position for me, and I will probably play tight end roulette with Gates and Daniels for the rest of the season, which is never fun. It should be a 50-50 proposition, but it feels like I pick the player who has the worse game 80% of the time. At least I will be able to look back and say that I once had Antonio Gates on my fantasy team…sike.

Rick Reilly, Open Your Eyes: Luck-RG3 Not Just About The Numbers

Late last week, ESPN’s Rick Reilly wrote an “interesting” column where he argued that despite RG3’s early season hype Andrew Luck was actually the rookie quarterback who had played better up to this point in the season. As the 1st and 2nd picks in last spring’s NFL draft, the Luck-Griffin comparisons are going to go on for the entirety of their careers, and a pro-Luck piece is totally acceptable given all the praise heaped upon Griffin so far this year. But a tagline like “Andrew Luck is a better QB than RG3” is enough to rile me up.

Luck better than Griffin? Not as simple as QBR, Rick.

That’s cut-and-dry enough of a statement that you better be clearly correct, and I don’t think Reilly or anybody else can definitively say that at this point. Is Luck actually better? He very well might be, but Reilly’s tone makes him look foolish to put it nicely. Is Luck playing on a terrible team? Yes. As a rookie signal-caller, is he already the face of his franchise? Check. If you look at new-fangled stats like QBR and the average distance each pass traveled in the air, Luck betters Griffin up to this point. That’s all fine and good, but to say Griffin has had it easier because he has a better team around him (as Reilly also suggests) is ridiculous.

Reilly seems to love stats (like QBR), but it seems he has spent too much time reading them instead of actually watching games. He points out that Griffin has a head coach with nearly 300 NFL games under his belt and a supporting cast that knocked off the Super Bowl champion Giants just last season. That’s true, but it’s also an incredibly lazy point to make. The 2011 Washington Redskins finished just 6-10, and those 2 wins against the G-Men were 1 of the anomalies of the season. Mike Shanahan has a wealth of experience, but his record in his 2+ seasons in the nation’s capital is a less than stellar 14-26.

If Reilly would care to turn on the DirecTV package he boasts about rather than simply rattling off numbers, he could have seen more evidence to contradict his point yesterday, where Luck continues to throw to future Hall of Fame receiver Reggie Wayne and gets superhuman efforts from guys like Vick Ballard (what a play, by the way). Griffin has Alfred Morris to hand the ball off to and…not much else.

Pierre Garcon had 1 great quarter before basically being shut down up to this point in the year. RG3’s next favorite target, Fred Davis, went down last week with a torn achilles. Now what? The helmet-throwing Josh Morgan, the fumbling Santana Moss, and who else? The cut and recently resigned Chris Cooley? Leonard Hankerson? Dezmon Briscoe? Aldrick Robinson? How’s that for a better supporting cast? No future HoF-ers on that list. Did I mention that the Redskins dropped 10 passes yesterday in their loss to the Steelers? Yes, it was wet, rainy, and miserable in Pittsburgh, but the Steelers’ receivers didn’t seem to have the same problems holding on to the ball.

C'mon, man.

It’s more than likely that I am more protective of Griffin than most other players when I read something negative about him, but that’s no excuse for lazy writing. And this isn’t to say that Luck isn’t great, because I think he may have an equally if not more electric career than Griffin's. But RG3 is playing in a tougher division where he basically has to keep the Skins in games all by himself, which simply isn’t the case for Luck. I don’t need stats for that. It’s called the “eye test.” Maybe if Reilly turned on an actual game instead of reading off a list of numbers he would see that.

Friday Fluff: NFL Sack Dance Power Rankings

The more time passes, it seems the more choreographed celebrations have popped up in the NFL. The league tried to curtail this several years ago, when it seemed like almost every score was followed by some elaborate dance or pantomime. It’s tough to argue that it hadn’t gotten out of control, but I admittedly enjoyed some of the routines. I subscribe to the Tony Kornheiser philosophy, which is that I will pretty much forgive anything for “smart and funny.” As annoyingly self-promoting as he was, I actually enjoyed T.O.’s dalliances with sharpies, pom-poms, and bags of popcorn. On the other hand, Joe Horn’s hiding-a-cellphone-in-the-goalpost routine seemed stupid…so if you’re going to do something, it better be good. If not, hit the bricks. While the NFL has since legislated out any celebrations involving props or multiple teammates, players have actually found a new, smarter (in my opinion) way of celebrating scores: coming up with their own personal celebration that they repeat over and over. In today’s sports world of making your own brand and selling yourself, this seems like the way to go. Even casual football fans will recognize Aaron Rogers’ title belt/discount double-check motion, Victor Cruz’s salsa dance, and Arian Foster’s bow. Eventually though, defensive players must have said, “Hey, what about us? Why should the skill players have all the fun?” Now, we have a slew of (of all things) signature sack celebrations to rival those from the offensive guys. Much like the T.O.-Joe Horn comparison, some are good, and some are not so good. I attempted to make a list going from worst to 1st…

10. Ndamukong Suh’s “Head Smack/Roar/Flex”…Suh is an absolute beast of a player, and I wouldn’t want to be the 1 to tell him this to his face, but his sack dance is pretty wack. Is he going out of his mind? Is he flexing? Roaring? What? As you’ll see further down, it just seems derivative of a bunch of other celebrations on this list. Also, it doesn’t really seem to fit with Suh’s personality, and because of that it appears somewhat forced, as if he gets a sack and then thinks to himself, “Oh s***, I forgot I have to do my dance thing. How does it go again?”

9. Shawne Merriman’s “Lights Out”…Due to injuries, he’s mostly irrelevant now despite being only 28 years old, but he still gets consideration for being an active player (Buffalo resigned him last week). Merriman’s “Lights Out” dance was cool, but it was also a little over the top, convoluted, and WWE-ish. It was called “Lights Out,” but it looked like he was firing off a machine gun or something, and it resembled what the wrestling world’s Batista would do to pump up the crowd more than anything else. I could be wrong, but it seemed like he never completely thought it through.

...the f***?

8. Terrell Suggs’ “Flexing/Being A Badass/Looking Like A Tough Guy”…As you can see from my description, Suggs’ post-sack move is kind of hard to describe. It’s not so much a move as a general swagger and display of attitude. In another wrestling-inspired metaphor, think of Triple H’s schtick, which is mostly snarling, being jacked, and looking tough. Suggs will sometimes add a double finger point at the crowd or something too, but he proves that in the celebration game sometimes less is more.

7. Brian Orakpo’s “Roar/Flex/Bursting Out Of His Own Skin”…Did I mention how nice it is that Microsoft Word doesn’t autoformat your list when you write the list in reverse order? I’m going to make reverse order lists more often for that reason alone. Like Suh’s celebration, Orakpo’s dance seems a little forced and copycat-ish. The concept of being so hyped that you tear off your own skin is kind of rad I guess, but maybe Orakpo should bag this until he stops tearing pec muscles at least.

6. DeMarcus Ware’s “Kane Dance”…Sense a wrestling crossover trend here? I have never heard him talk about it or seen anything written about it, but to me Ware’s sack dance is so blatantly a rip-off of the WWE’s Kane’s thing he does before his fireworks go off that I see no other reason to call it anything but the “Kane Dance.” Having said that, he is a scary dude, and he plays against my Washington Redskins twice a year, so do whatever the f*** you want. Just please don’t kill RG3.

Does that make Jay Ratliff The Undertaker?

5. JJ Watt’s “Salute”…It’s really simple, and the “Mile High Salute” will always be the original salute celebration, but it works for Watt. I also give Watt props for “throwing away” Roger’s title belt and another famous Packer’s move before saluting the crowd in their game against Green Bay a few weeks ago, but I guess I also have to deduct a few points because the Packers won that game going away despite Watt’s strong play.

4. (Tie) LaMarr Woodley’s “Kick Open The Door” and Larry Foote’s “Stomp Out The Fire”…How can this be anything but a tie? Both are Steelers’ linebackers who played their college ball at Michigan, both celebrations use their feet, and I’ve wanted to use both equally awesome moves during our adult recreational coed 2-hand-touch football games at 1 time or another.

2. Jared Allen’s “Lasso”…I must confess that for years I didn’t even know what Allen’s “Lasso” move was. When I found out, my initial reaction was “WTF,” as the kids say these days. However, for a player that is equal parts wacky and great the move is fitting, as Allen’s “Lasso” is as ridiculous as it is awesome.

1. Clay Matthews’ “Predator”…I also must confess that I Googled “Clay Matthews Sack Dance” to figure out what his celebration was called for fear of having to use some variation of “Flex/Pose/etc.” again. Turns out, it was inspired by the movie Predator, but whatever the origin it’s probably the coolest looking signature football move out there today. And maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with Matthews’ penchant for being an unblockable, relentless freak of nature as well. Watt can toss Matthews' “Predator” out all he wants, but Matthews doesn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

If your sack dance appears in multiple commercials, you know you've got something.

In Latest Loss, Watching The Redskins' Defense Was Almost Too Much To Bear

Count me as 1 of those guys that believed the Redskins and RG3 were due for a game like this. A lot of winning the turnover battle has to do with being careful with the ball on offense and wreaking havoc on defense, but it also has at least a little bit to do with chance or luck or randomness or whatever you want to call it…a tipped pass could fall into a defender’s waiting hands instead of harmlessly to the turf, or a fumbled ball could roll towards the opposing team instead of bouncing right back into your arms, etc. In light of that, the Redskins’ offense coughed the ball up only 5 times through their 1st 6 games, which is mind-boggling to anyone who watched Sexy Rexy play quarterback last season. So yes, maybe they were due yesterday…especially playing a division game on the road against the defending Super Bowl champion Giants.

And maybe Griffin was due as well. Through his 1st 6 games, you couldn’t say RG3 played poorly in any 1 of them. A bad game against a strong opponent (and a subsequent thumping at the hands of the Giants) was almost half-expected. And after a turnover-free 1st half, the Skins gave the ball away 4 times in the 2nd half. 2 of those belonged to Griffin (a fumble and a interception), and yet he still performed well by all accounts. The rest of his numbers for the day: 20 for 28 passing for 258 yards and 2 touchdowns as well as 89 yards on the ground. His 4th and 10 completion with the game on the line was epic. His 30 yard touchdown bomb 2 plays later to Santana Moss looked like it would put this game on ice.

Unbelievably, it looked like Griffin and the Redskins would have that bad day at the turnover offense they seemed to have been avoiding up until that point, and they still somehow looked to have the game in hand. My 1 fear, with about a minute and a half to play, was that Washington left too much time on the clock for Eli Manning to do his thing…which he did. Manning, who seemed off for most of the day (his missed touchdown pass to Victor Cruz earlier in the game and his 2 uncharacteristic interceptions probably cancelled-out the Redskins’ own turnover woes) needed only 2 plays it turns out. That’s how bad Washington’s pass defense is right now.

Cruz, who is by far the Giants’ most dangerous receiver, somehow beat double coverage, and got free for a 77 yard step-on-your-throat touchdown…cue the salsa dancing. Washington DBs Josh Wilson and Madieu Williams apparently thought that placing 2 guys on the field in Cruz’s vicinity would be enough to cause Eli to look to another option, but just because your defensive alignment calls for “double coverage” doesn’t mean you don’t actually have to play defense on that guy. An unimpeded Cruz ran right by Wilson and Williams like 2 burgandy and gold traffic cones. He had gotten so much separation that Manning’s slightly underthrown pass still didn’t allow any Washington defender to catch him. Another week…another minor league performance by the Redskins’ D. No, not much was expected of these Redskins this season...but it was another opportunity wasted just the same.

How About I Just Keep Recycling This Title? RG3 To The Rescue Again

It wasn’t turning out to be a banner weekend for DC area sports fans, what with the Nationals’ 9th inning meltdown in game 5 against the Cardinals (makes the game 4 dramatics seem pretty anticlimactic now) and the Redskins’ once seemingly insurmountable lead dwindling away late in the 4th quarter against the Vikings. A once 19 point lead had been trimmed to 5, as the Skins’ bend-but-don’t break defense had a little too much bend to it in the 2nd half for my taste.

However, RG3 had different ideas. With just under 3 minutes remaining in the game and Washington facing a 3rd and 6 from their own territory, the Vikings chose to blitz, and Griffin broke containment. Even at this early stage in his career, I have seen enough RG3 to know that when he gets to top gear if you don’t have an angle on him, you’re not going to touch him. 1st down, move the chains, and continue milking the clock…but when a 2nd Minnesota defender took a poor angle, possibly underestimating Griffin’s world-class track speed, it became almost instantly clear that Griffin could go the distance. No flags…game over.

Through 6 games of watching RG3 as a Redskin, there is 1 thought that keeps popping into my mind: this is what it’s like to have a real playmaker on your team. I don’t know if anyone really knows what Griffin really is yet. He’s not Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or Drew Brees. In fact, he may very well be something the likes of nobody has ever really seen before (only time will tell). But for the 1st time in my lifetime, the Redskins have a guy on their roster who actually has the ability to take over a game.

If you forget about schemes and injury concerns and what his teammates have done around him, you would have to give Griffin a very high grade in each of his 1st 6 games. Sure, maybe he has taken too many hits, but he has played great by almost any measure. It’s that playmaking, take-over-a-game ability that makes you think the Redskins have at least a chance to win every week. And that’s with a lousy defense, a makeshift offensive line, and, despite Alfred Morris’ surprising start, a collection of skill players that isn’t exactly awe-inspiring. No more was this on display than last week, when Griffin was knocked out of the game. Both my heart and my head say Washington beats Atlanta if he doesn’t get concussed…the Falcons are the last unbeaten team in the NFL by the way.

As it stands though, the Skins are 3-3 and only a game behind the Giants, who they will play next Sunday. If you asked me before the season started, I would’ve taken that place in the standings through 6 games. The Giants in the Meadowlands will be Washington’s toughest test to date, but as long as RG3 can avoid getting bludgeoned by Jason Pierre-Paul, Justin Tuck, and company (no easy task in and of itself), Skins’ fans at least have to think they have a chance again. They know they have 1 guy who can make a play.

Where Does The Time Go? Baseball, RG3, And Other Odds And Ends

12 days since the last BCAS (B-Court All-Star) post…let’s just say my job hasn’t been cooperating with my blog-writing ability. Work busy-ness hasn’t exactly dwindled today, but it’s late Friday afternoon, and my motivation is taking a metaphorical nosedive. Let’s hit a few topics real quick before I ride off into the sunset for the weekend…

- Things looked pretty bleak for the Nationals yesterday…until Jayson Werth happened, that is…

Epic crowd reaction/roar in my opinion…the O’s also won yesterday, breaking a 1-all tie in the 13th. Both series are tied at 2 games apiece. Both deciding game 5’s are tonight…stay tuned.

- A lot of hullabaloo concerning RG3’s concussion during the Skins’ 24-17 loss to the Falcons last Sunday. Sports talk radio guys and ESPN talking heads all put in their 2 cents all week, but I’m not sure what Griffin should have done differently there…run out of bounds? Throw the ball away? He was scrambling outside the pocket trying to score off a broken play in a game that was tied in the 2nd half, not running a quarterback-keeper on a triple-option play. You take away his natural instincts and athleticism, and you limit his effectiveness as a player. And yet it was scary to see that, even in RG3’s youth, he really is the engine that makes the whole car go for Washington’s offense. Kirk Cousins had a nice touchdown pass to Santana Moss in relief duty, but that seemed as much to do with a blunder by Atlanta’s secondary as it did with offensive execution. If Griffin stays in the game, I think the Redskins win that game, which would have somehow put them in a tie atop the NFC East…yeah, on 2nd thought, run out of bounds next time, Griffin.

- Fantasy football…do I even have to talk about fantasy football anymore? Sheesh…1-4, 11th place in a 12 team league, and relying on William Powell and Alex Green this week. Who?

Yeah, exactly…

- The NBA preseason is underway, which means we might be only a short while away from the BCAS NBA Power Rankings! Or not…because of last year's lockout, I actually kind of forget what pre-Christmas NBA games look like, but I’m probably better off not diving into pro basketball until after the new year (especially with football in full effect).

- I’m not sure if anyone else noticed (or cared), but unbelievably the 6th season of Jersey Shore started last week. That’s right, Jersey Shore now somehow officially has more longevity than Friday Night Lights and as many seasons as Lost. (What is the world coming to?) The last time I mentioned our 8 most famous guidos and guidettes, I wondered aloud whether their 15 minutes of fame was about 4 minutes past the expiration date. After watching the opening episode of season 6, I’m honestly not sure what to make of our cast of Italian American misfits. The last few seasons had gotten so stale that they were borderline unwatchable, and this year’s edition looked to be more of the same, as Pauly D, Ronnie, Vinny, Snooki, Deena, J-Wow, Situation, and Sammi made their annual trek to Seaside Heights for 1 more summer. But if the season premiere is any indication, Jersey Shore might actually have some twists this year. Situation has apparently gotten himself sober and cleaned up, Snooki is pregnant, and Ronnie and Sammi…well, they still probably will get drunk, break up, and get back together every 2 seconds, but who’s kidding who? To say it was odd to see Mike and Vinny conversing about their respective issues instead of GTL-ing or Snooki making actual grown-up responsible decisions is a huge understatement…maybe this last season will actually be different. Or maybe by episode 4 it will just be the same ol’ s*** again, and I will curse myself for adding Jersey to my DVR queue for a 6th time. No matter what, I guess I’m in for a dime and in for a dollar...updates to follow soon.

Here we go again...oy vey.

In A Game The Redskins Looked Determined To Give Away, RG3 To The Rescue

As I’ve documented the last couple of weeks, being a Washington Redskins’ fan is really tough sometimes. Not only do you have to deal with losing, but you often have to deal with losing and simultaneously being the laughing stock of the sports world too. If they don’t lose because of a childish ball or helmet flinging incident, it’s usually because of some coaching blunder, having an offensive line or defensive secondary that provides about the same resistance as a grocery bag, or something else even more horrific. Take yesterday, when 2 players, who would at worst be considered important role players if not starters at times, knocked each other out in pregame warm-ups. To add insult to injury, Redskins’ kicker Billy Cundiff seemed hell-bent on trying to lose the game all on his own by missing 3 field goals, 2 of which were extremely makeable.

So, when the Skins’ D let Tampa QB Josh Freeman march right down the field to set up a Connar Barth go-ahead field goal with under 2 minutes remaining in the game, I was about to burst through my own skin. The game should have long ago been well in hand, but it looked as if defense and special teams would once again spoil a pretty solid day for RG3, Alred Morris, and the Redskins’ offense…until RG3 came to the rescue, that is.

With 1:42 left in the game and with only 1 timeout remaining, Griffin marched Washington 56 yards in 7 plays to set up a possible redeeming field goal try for Cundiff, who looked like he was going to be the Redskin to officially s*** the bed on this particular day filled with plenty of potential burgundy and gold bed-s***ters to choose from. These ranged from the terrible 2nd half pass defense to Mike Shanahan’s continuation as the worst head coach of all time in challenging calls to Kyle Shanahan’s dubious choices for 60 yard bombs when what the Skins really needed to do was get 1st downs and chew up clock in the 2nd half to Kory Lichtensteiger’s inability to keep from jumping offsides before Griffin was even able to get under center…sigh. At least Cundiff had the decency to describe his own performance as “crap” even after he snaked his last try through the upright, but without RG3 none of that really matters.

Nevermind that Tampa boasted 1 of the worst pass defenses in the league going into this game, or that the offense stalled a little bit in the 2nd half, or that this particular Redskins’ team is most likely going nowhere in particular this year. In a vacuum, this was probably the best 2-minute drill I had watched the Redskins execute in 20+ years as a fan. (No, that is not hyperbole on my part.) Mark Brunell once beat the Cowboys with 2 heaves to Santana Moss with the clock winding down, but that was more flukiness than anything else. There have been other game-winning drives in that span of time, but they usually seem more bumbling and chaotic, where the Redskins appear to win the game almost in spite of their own ineptness. This looked like what a game-winning 2-minute drill is supposed to look like: crisp and organized where every yard and second counts…and all that while RG3’s headset supposedly went out.

I will try not to gush, but Griffin’s numbers through 4 games are staggering, especially considering the Donovan McNabbs, Rex Grossmans, and John Becks we’ve had to stomach the past 2 seasons: 1,070 passing yards, 4 passing touchdowns, and a completion percentage of nearly 70%, all while only throwing 1 pick so far. Add in a 6.5 yard per carry clip and 4 rushing TDs, and it’s even harder not to gush. Just imagine if Griffin had an actual offensive line, a defense, or a big time receiver to work with. While the losses to St. Louis and Cincinnati exposed Washington as a team with flaws o’ plenty this year, 1 thing should be certain by now (if it wasn’t a given already): they have a quarterback…on to the next.

Week 3 Of The MFL And Other Football News And Notes

Yes, I finally got a chance to do some actually body-surfing this weekend. Did I do enough of it to quench my appetite for the summer? No, not really…did I do enough of it to miss most of this weekend’s slate of NFL games (including a good portion of the Redskins’ game)? Why yes, yes I did…well, turns out I didn’t miss much…or did I miss everything? Sweet mercy, I f***ing missed everything!

I guess I should start off with my beloved (terrible) Redskins. 1st, I have to admit that I only watched about 64% of this week’s game. When the Skins were down by 2 touchdowns at halftime, I figured I would cut my losses and head back to the beach. By the time we got back to the house, we were greeted with the following from my uncle: you’re not going to believe this, but it’s tied! Tied?!? Well yes, it was at least for a moment…as soon as we got upstairs, Washington’s porous pass D promptly gave up 2 disgustingly easy touchdown drives to Cincinnati, all but putting the game out of reach…that is until RG3 tried to come to the rescue. The potential game-tying 2-minute-drill drive, which was going pretty well I might add, hit a snag in 1 particular mind-numbing sequence where Griffin took a bad sack trying to do a little too much, the Skins jumped offsides, and then offensive wunderkind Kyle Shanahan took a 15 yard penalty for berating an official. After losing what seemed like 80 yards in the sack and ensuing penalties, the resulting 4th down Hail Mary pass fell harmlessly to the turf, but all in all I think this game confirmed what most Redskins’ fans already know. If you’ve watched this franchise for 20 years, transparent defenses, sieve-like offensive lines, coaching mistakes, and end-of-game follies are almost expected at this point. You also have to concede that RG3 looks like the real deal, but those longstanding Washington characteristics may hasten some kind of catastrophic RG-injury if the Redskins aren’t careful. Let’s just say my new founded hope is diminishing week by week.

One of these times, RG3 isn't going to get up if he keeps taking hits like this.

Do I have to talk about my fantasy team? Ok fine, I guess I will talk (a little) about my fantasy team…let’s just say that my team didn’t reach triple digits in points for weeks 2 and 3 combined. Excuse me while I throw up in the empty cubicle next to mine…so much for having the 2nd highest point total in week 1. Through 3 weeks my team has scored the fewest points in our league by far, and I’m not sure if there’s any relief in sight. Shonn Greene, Antonio Gates, you guys are dead to me, and now Stafford might be hurt as well. The worst thing is that my team does have some depth, but I’m rediscovering that depth is not always a great thing in fantasy sports, as you have to play matchup roulette every week…give me a couple of studs and a soft bench over this s*** any day. I’m not sure I can do 14 more weeks of this.

Oh, for crying out loud...

And how can I go a whole NFL post without mentioning the replacement refs? Listen, I’m not going to root for anything cataclysmic to happen. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt or a team lose a game because of officiating (oops, too late), but it’s getting to the point where you almost have to root for things to get more and more chaotic just to get things to change. This was pretty much the same way I always approached the college game’s BCS system…just root for a complete clusterf*** until it gets to the point where the people in charge have no choice but to amend things, because the NFL seems to be too busy doing some serious ass-covering to actually get this right. We’ve already seen the errors of replacement refs decide games, but I’m surprised that we haven’t seen a full-on “Malice in the Palace” type melee yet too. Like maybe somebody blatantly spears a defenseless receiver with a helmet and it goes uncalled, which spawns a bench-clearing battle royal at midfield or something. I’m thinking the 49ers-Jets game is a good candidate for this. Actually, is there any way we can bet on this? I got to go…I got to see a guy about a thing.