--Now I know Penny's supposed to be the looker on Big Bang Theory, but has Bernadette filled out rather nicely this season...and while we're at it did Brandi from Storage Wars get a boob job...and who else watches all the way through the intro to Modern Family just so they could see the oldest daughter in that short skirt and calf-high boots...and what's with the fiancee girl on Terms of Engagement? Is she hot? Is she fat? It's hard to te...Dear God, maybe these educational experts are right. We do need a Voucher System...
NFL NOTES
--Sometimes you can be too smart. For example Ritz Crackers boxes of the 1970's used to feature on the back a recipe for something called "Mock Apple Pie". This was a traditional-style pie made with all the usual ingredients except apples. Instead one substituted Ritz Crackers...naturally.
Now going from using sweet, juicy apples to salty, crunchy crackers and putting together a tasty replica of the real thing is certainly a stunning feat of neurological gymnastics, but instead of being impressed I was generally left thinking what if this person had put his mind to something important, like say, finding a cure for cancer or coming up with a sign you could use to alert people their turn signal's been on for 17 miles (the middle finger doesn't have the effect I'd hoped it would) instead.
Last week Atlanta HC Mike Smith decided to go for it on 4th and 1 from his own 30 in OT and though the failure sealed a loss for the Falcons Football Sabermetricians, who have long been touting research that says teams should go for it on 4th and short far more often than they do, came out of the woodwork to defend him. And while I'm all for innovation and inventiveness I think this may be an overreach. Going back to the early 2000's sabermetric founder Bill James proposed a fluid, non-defined bullpen system that the Red Sox adopted and abandoned after half a season. The problem was not so much ineffectiveness as it was complaints from players who preferred having a defined role.
In football the offense's role is to get first downs. When they fail the special team's role is to flip the field position and the defense's job is to stop the opponent. Last Sunday Smith made his offense everything and played down the roles of his special teams and defense. Over a 162 game season you might be able to weather these storms and wait for regression to prove you right. Over 16 games even a short string of failures of this nature can destroy confidence and lead to dissension. It's only one game and Smith has built up plenty of points in the lockerroom since replacing Bobby Petrino so he should be able to survive this gaffe. But sometimes we need less Mock Apple Pies in the world and more easier opening ways to package, goddamned, cream cheese...
Maybe I was too hard on Mock Apple Pie...I mean sometimes fake is just better.--I'm gonna Occupy My Couch before I ever consider Occupy(ing) Wall Street, but let's face facts a lot of rich people are just Dicks. For example the sweater tied around the neck old guy who dropped his keys at the supermarket and when I went to hand them back said, "thanks, I'll need those for my BMW." At which point I held them up by the tiny Super Saver card and said, "yeah and you'll need this to save 3 cents on peas...Asswipe." OK, maybe not that last part, but hey when did they remove the "c" with a line through it cents symbol anyway.
Oh yeah the point...this kind of attitude it what makes it easy to see the Washington Redskins perpetually fail. Daniel Snyder looks like a little Napoleonic-complexed ass and the way he has jerked around this fantastic fan base while throwing money around to provide false hope pretty much bears it out.
So here's a tip...get a friggin' QB. Since he took over in 1999 the roster of signal callers here has barely shown any planning or foresight toward what is obviously the most critical position on the field. The lineup of starters includes the Over-The-Hill gang (well into their 30's at the time) of Brad Johnson, Jeff George, Mark Brunell and Donovan McNabb; the low or undrafted trio of Danny Wuerffel, Shane Matthews and Tim Hasselbeck; and the over-drafted tandem of Patrick Ramsey and Jason Campbell plus this year's train wreck that is Rex Grossman and John Beck.
So for an owner who once had his vendors sell beer in the bathrooms and bags of peanuts he got at an auction for the bankrupt Imperial Airlines quit cutting corners where it's important only to piss money away on the Albert Haynesworth's of the world. After all a bunch of fat guys in flower print dresses and pig noses deserve better.
This is our 4th Redskin Cheerleader of the year...which says at least Daniel Snyder hasn't skimped on the silicone.--If you need a stat to define why the Eagles are not the Dream Team they were billed as here it is: Last week the Arizona Cardinals threw 40 passes. On 16 of those Nnandi Asomugha matched up in single coverage with Larry Fitzgerald resulting in two targets for no completions. On the other 24 attempts Fitzgerald caught 7 passes for 146 yards and two TDs.
Years of watching Steve Smith put up monster numbers all by himself in Carolina has confirmed, as has Phil Simms in his book Sunday Morning Quarterback, that there is no such thing as Double Coverage, as we know it from the school yard, in the NFL. Still the least you could do is have your high-priced shutdown corner shadowing your opponents biggest threat instead of standing out in space waiting for lead-footed Tight Ends like Jeff King to run through his area.
Certainly the Iggles have regressed some on offense this year particularly in the passing game, but that was to be expected to a degree after a Top 3 performance in 2010. The signing of Asomugha, however, should have freed up the safeties and LBs to play a more agressive game that could have offset the down tick on O. Instead Philly is 12 takeaways off last year's pace and ranks 29th in the league in TD passes allowed. That's a lot of cheese steaks spent on a player for that kind of return, but hey Andy Reid and Defensive Coordinator Juan Castillo's bond is one that'll last a lifetime...and you can't put a price on friendship.
--Fred's Pick (3-3-1) today is Chicago -4 over San Diego. We concur, but wish we didn't have to as the mess in Charger-land has made the idea of the Broncos stealing the AFC West a distinct possibility and that means Tebow Time, All The Time for sports media everywhere. K.C. looks done what with having to start a QB who actually couldn't beat out Matt Cassell for the rest of the year and Oakland seems to be, as my Grandmother used to say, like Shit...they're all over the place. Today they go to Minny for a big one since up coming matchups with potential playoff squads Green Bay, Chicago and Detroit could be dicey. Carson Palmer's improvement last week and continuing familiarity with the offense does bode well for the Raiders. However, if they should falter and Phillip Rivers can't find his old self soon the press might have us believing the name on the back of those controversial Tebow jerseys shouldn't be "Jesus", but "God".
--As for us we're gonna try the Falcons to bounce back from last week's emotional loss (Hell it worked for freakin' Penn State yesterday) laying 6.5 to Tennessee in the confines of the Georgia Dome. We've already gone on about Matt Ryan's success at home vs. on the road and last week mentioned Tennessee seems a suspect 5-4 with a vunerability on the road and recent results results give us value at under a TD and even down to -6 in some places. I'm still sick so that's all while I'm off to self-medicate 12 fluid ounces at a time.
Finally, let's class this thing up a bit...Enjoy the games!
