--No truth to the rumor that a distraught Nick Saban tried to hang himself, but couldn't find anyone capable of kicking the chair out from underneath. We'll have more on Nick and his Kickers next week, but we have to admit last night's #1 vs. #2 showdown did live up to its "Game of the Century" hype...too bad it was the 19th Century. I mean Rutgers-Princeton had nothing on the Tide-Tigers...well except for actual Touchdowns, but moving on...
--Last Saturday's freak Northeast snowstorm cancelled school and all planned activities on Halloween Day which allowed the kids to spontaneously declare it "Halloween Week". And let me be the first to say if I see one more 17 year old girl parading around in a blonde wig and fishnet/spandex Lady Gaga costume I swear I'm gonna...Cheer, quite frankly. There are advantages to working in the upper grades.
--Of course I should probably be more prudent with my comments in light of the still fresh furor over Ohio Gym/Health teacher Stacy Schuler who was convicted on 16 counts of sexual battery last week for sleeping with her students. My question whenever these cases arise is what teenage boy is turning these Women/Dream Makers in? Now admittedly from the pictures it appears Ms. Schuler is not gonna make us forget Miss Vaughan from Billy Madison or star in a remake of Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" vid, but at that age I would've been happy with any sex that didn't end with me limping out of Jerry Sandusky's Penn State Football Camp. Don't overthink it, Lads, just live the dream!
--And finally I wasn't joking yesterday when I commented on feeling old because I now get distracted in the supermarket checkout by the women on Prevention magazine. Just to drive that home someone sent me this picture yesterday
prompting me to wonder is that the class from the "Scopes Monkey" trial? Who's the teacher...Ms. Crabtree? Is that Laura Ingalls second row right? Until it was pointed out that I'm third row left and then it all came back to me...the classroom, the students, the powder burns we received when the photographer under the curtain lit the flash. Please somebody shoot me now before the first piece of AARP junk mail arrives in my box...NFL NOTES
--Last week's loss to Pittsburgh has all the talking/writing heads projecting the downfall of Bill Belichick's Patriot Dynasty. Now while the speculations may be a bit premature there is are some ominous signs lurking. For the most part Pittsburgh played press coverage last week and had their safeties attacking the intermediate zones thereby daring the Pats to beat them deep. With Ocho Cinco playing about as old as his name these days and Welker/Branch best suited for the underneath game that leaves New England's best deep threat as TE Aaron Hernandez. As long as Tom Brady's at QB the Patsies will still get their points, but the question has begun to arise whether they can get them often and fast enough to cover for a defense softening faster than the time I clicked on the YouTube trending "Celebrity Sex Tape-Dustin Diamond" before realizing that's Screech from Saved The Bell. More on the Pats/Giants game later in the "Fred's Pick" section.
--But before we leave the topic of New England receivers a quick mention should be made of Rob Gronkowski's and Julian Edelman's recent sexcapades. In Gronkowski's case we really don't see what's wrong with posting non-pornographic pics of you and your adult actress girlfriend on Twitter. Hell if I was dating BiBi Jones (photo below) I'd have our photo blown up and hauled around the school on a banner from the back of a plane like I was promoting my Surf & Sunglass Shop in Myrtle Beach. Besides if a 6'5" stud pro athlete is dating a hot, blonde porn star that's seems about par for the course, if I'm doing it then check the Field Trip fund and who cashed those PTA checks the kids brought in because something's amiss here.
On the other hand Julian Edelman's under-skirt groping of a female bar patron is a little more concerning. Then again if Crocodile Dundee taught us anything, besides what is and isn't a knife, then it's that it's wise to test the authenticity of approaching females when you're drunk in a dark nightclub...Caveat Emptor, Julian Edelman, Caveat Emp-tor!
Adult film cutie BiBi Jones...porn's answer to Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island.--How 'bout a bold prediction...the Dallas Cowboys win the NFC East! Alright maybe that's a little too bold, but I do think it's silly to write off Jerry's Kids as finished following every loss like folks did "99 Luft Balloons" Nena after that hairy armpit video.
Going back over my dating career that's the least of the hairiness I was worried about...Fact is according to Pro Football Reference the 'Boys have played the 3rd most difficult sked to date behind only the Rams and the Bears. Looking more closely they dealt everyone's darling du jour the 49ers their only loss in San Fran, should've beat the 6-2 Lions and except for their demolition of St. Louis have not really had another easy contest on their slate. And their losses may actually be more impressive having narrowly missed out on beating both the Jets at The Meadowlands and New England in Foxboro (where Tom Brady hasn't lost since 2006) while outgaining both. Last week was their only really poor effort and it came at Philly who was coming off bye a situation in which their coach Andy Reid has racked up a 12-0 record in his career.
Injuries are and have been a concern all year. The latest loss of underrated MLB Sean Lee is a problem, but as long as DeMarcus Ware is harrassing opposing QBs they should be able to hold their own defensively. The O-line also has it's problems, but Miles Austin is back and Demarco Murray may be on the verge of Wally Pipp-ing Felix Jones at TB. Their next 5 are against Seattle, Buffalo, at Washington, Miami and at Arizona so the potential is there to make Dallas' second act this season more than a "Feuer Und Flamme"; or "It's All In A Game" for you non-German speaking fans...and thank you Wikipedia Nena page for not forcing me to page through my milk crates full of vinyl albums for that one.
--Some Quick Hits: On several occasions girlfriends have left me for other guys (I know, I couldn't believe it either) at which point I would utter the same line Denver GM John Elway is using with Bronco fans who clambored all season for Tim Tebow: You want him, you got him! The only difference is in my personal case at least one person was happy, in Denver nobody's winning. Still we believe the Tebow experiment should go on for two reasons. First the season's already lost so might as well play Timmy T. (and maybe a coupla starts for Brady Quinn too) see if there's anything there worth salvaging or begin preparing your new plan. And secondly it gives us another potential market for our "Suck For Luck" t-shirt idea.
--Now back when I was in school people had a much more liberal idea of what was politically correct. The name of our intramural Floor Hockey team was the Mother Puckers, our intramural Basketball team began as Nudity and we played in sneakers and our Hanes briefs until a gym teacher found 17 year olds running around with beer guts disconcerting and we changed it to La Retts which we were told is French for "The Retards", but we may have been led astray on that one.
Today things are not the same. Have any mention of a beer or cigarette company on your clothing and you're pounced on by jackbooted thugs like the naked fat kid at Altamount. Still two weeks ago I saw a kid get away with this shirt for the entire day
So now I know there's plenty of "Suck For Luck" t-shirts out there, but if you live in Miami, Phoenix, Indianapolis or Denver I suggest you load up your trunk with a few boxes full featuring this style because there isn't a low-life, drunken, beer-bellied tailgater out there who wouldn't want to obnoxiously walk around with one of these. Good luck.--In other QB news Carson Palmer gets his first full shot with Oakland today and for the sake of the memory of Al Davis here's hoping things work out. You see at next year's draft the Raiders War Room is going to be as silent as that of the Swiss Joint Chiefs of Staff since between Terrell Pryor, Palmer and other deals they have awoken the memory of George Allen's Redskins by having no selections until the 5th round. Considering Carson P. is 33 years old and has had declining QB rates for every full year he's played since 2005 and that Pryor looks, at best, like Tebow-Lite Oakland took quite a big chance when they decided to go all in after Jason Campbell's injury and, though I never thought I'd type the words, may be regretting letting Bruce Gradkowski go in the offseason. Who'd have thought the Chiefs would be front-runners in this race after Week 2?
Stop scroll...ogle...time for picks...it's really a user-friendly site...--Fred cashed easy last week with Tennessee and is now 2-2-1 on the year. Today he goes with the Giants +9 which is an interesting play. Tom Brady is on something like a 32 game winning streak at Foxboro and NFL teams that win games SU cover around 70% of the time. The question of course is what is that percentage when the line is more than a FG or more than a TD. We're not sure, but we've talked in our college posts about enticing big numbers sometimes being traps. In this case it may just be the Pats still living off their reputation. The way to beat the Giants is to force Eli Manning into mistakes, but the N.E. defense had not shown that tendency in recent weeks. Still the Giants go in without Ahmad Bradshaw or starting C David Baas (as well as Hakeem Nicks) which bodes poorly for the run game and Belichick may be able to scheme well enough to confuse Manning and the NYG O-Line. We're staying away, but it should be an interesting game and a clue into which way these squads may be trending in the coming weeks.
--Our official play is New Orleans -8.5 over Tampa Bay. The offensive letdown in St. Louis after scoring 61 against Indy seemed inevitable. Now they're back at home and facing what we feel is a pretender to their NFC South supremacy. In the Bucs magical 2010 season they got smoked 31-6 by the Saints in Tampa before winning a meaningless, "rest your starters" game at the Superdome in Week 17. Sean Payton and Drew Brees should set things right today and hopefully Josh Freeman and company have another San Francisco style road clunker ready to roll. Now carry on without me...
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Yes, I'm a bit pensive about the Saints today as well...but hey we both have jobs to do...
