2013 Pick 'Em Week 2

I apologize up front for not having G's skills with tables, charts and colors.

With that out of the way, here's week 2's results:

Brent - 12

Mike – 11

RJ – 11

AA – 10

Zeb – 9
Tom – 8

Rick – 8

George – 8

Combine that with week one results and voila:

Mike – 21

Zeb - 20 with one win

Brent - 19 with one win

RJ - 19

AA - 19

George – 17

Tom – 17

Rick – 16

Get your Thursday picks in before kickoff tomorrow.  You can leave your pick as a comment to this thread if you'd like.  Congrats to Brent for winning week two and Mike for having the overall lead.  Remember, two winners at season's end -- the most right picks and the most weekly wins.

 

WASHINGTON vs. PACKERS

The venerated RGIII and the rest of the not-so venerated Washington Football Club arrived in Green Bay for a date with infamy. It was ugly, and by "ugly," I mean "UGG-A-LEE!" Not only did the team have to deal with a few thousand obnoxious "cheese heads," screaming in some incomprehensible football language ("cheers" I think it's called), but they had to run a gauntlet of set up by the Oneida Indian Nation over the team name. So, to "pack" (pun intended) salt into the wound, the Packers just proceeded to thoroughly, completely, unquestionably, absolutely, and systematically KICK OUR ARSES! There's not much I can say about this game, except..."Oww!" and "Ouch!" and "Dag, yo? Why in my nads?" I think I'll just have to develop a taste for the old raven (crow), because it looks like I'm going to be feasting on it this year.

COLLEGE SPORTS AND MONEY (Part 1)

At the risk of repeating myself (and boring you in the process--again), here's how I'd solve the NCAA's "pay-'em-to-play" problem:

    1.  I would dissolve all college sports scholarships.

    2.  I'd allow all colleges to "hire" their athletes and treat them as paid employees. 

    3.  There would be no academic or scholastic requirement for this position; their classification would be "employee-athlete" vice "student-athlete."

    4.  The schools would only "pay" the athletes a sufficient sum as a stipend; the schools would house and feed these employees on campus, as part of their compensation package, but to keep them on campus for the purpose of training, practice, and managing their conduct during the season.

    5.  The employee-athlete would play for four (4) years only.  This is purely for athletic, mental, and physical development in preparation for a potential professional career.

    6.  Any potential residual income that could be earned by the employee-athlete in the form of merchandizing, paid speeches, honorariums, sponsorship, would be due and owing to the employee-athlete, but shared by the school (50/50) and held in interest-bearing trust.

    7.  After four years, the contract between the employee-athlete and the school terminates, automatically.  Any potential revenue directly related to the on-field/court/rink exploits of the employee-athlete after the 4-year term, belongs to the athlete (100%). 

    8.  All money, held in trust, will remain in an interest-earning account and will be used to fund a full college education if the athlete is unable to obtain a professional sports contract, and wishes to pursue a degree-bearing education.  Otherwise, all money is due and payable to the athlete immediately upon termination of the contract.

    9.  If, at that time, the athlete is good enough to turn professional, off he goes--God bless him.

    10.  After two years, the athlete no longer has any viable prospects for a professional contract, and he now wishes to pursue a legitimate college education, the money held in trust will be used to fund that education.  If the athlete's total in-trust account assets are less than one half (1/2) of the total cost of four year's worth of tuition, room, board, books, and fees for the schools for which he was engaged as an employee-athlete, then school will fund 1/2 of the total cost of a four-year education, with the athlete funding 1/2 through whatever sources are available to him (personal assets, scholarships, grants, loans, etc.).

Yaz gets a statue (and other baseball thoughts)

Firstly, if you haven't heard -- and if you're not a Red Sox fan, you may not have -- the Red Sox will be unveiling a Carl Yastrzemski statue outside Fenway Park before season's end.  He was this author's boyhood idol

I know it's hard to tell in this picture because of the backstop but that's yours truly at the age of 11 or 12 (good god, 1973ish).  It just so happened that my team's uniform had red socks but that's a patented Yaz stance, closed and bat held high.  Yes, I did wear #8, played left field, threw right and hit lefty.  Next time I'm at Fenway there will be a picture taken of me with that statue.  Can't wait.

The Red Sox have had an incredible season thus far and over the last few weeks it would be hard to argue against them playing like the best team in baseball, and to add extra sweetness they've taken 6 out of 7 games from the Yankees in the last couple of weeks -- games the Yanks badly needed.  I worry they've peaked too soon and anything can happen in the playoffs but I'm excited and optimistic.  But even if they hadn't played this well, this is a Red Sox team we all can love and get behind, a team with seemingly no unbearable egos, a bunch of grinders who love to play...the baseball version of gym rats.  We love this team.

A couple of other tidbits:  The Tampa Bay Rays need a new home.  After several years of very good and competitive teams, a few trips to the playoffs and one World Series visit, the best this team can draw in the middle of a pennant race is 10,000 people against another playoff contender.  I know there really aren't any major baseball markets left but they need to go somewhere else.  Mexico City?

I heard what I have to think is an unreal stat on the radio today, although I did hear it on ESPN.  Apparently the Astros had a game this weekend where they only had ONE THOUSAND television viewers.  I'm not sure how they could ever know exactly how many people are watching but that's just pathetic.

Is There Any Possibility For Negative Credibilty?

Because if there is, I just saw it on Saturday with NASCAR holding a press conference explaining how they are going to ensure that their races have credibility. Mike Helton, Randy Pemberton, and Brian France. They went and told the Sprint Cup racers yesterday in a 17 minute meeting in the Nationwide Garage the new "rules of the road". And yet as the new Tenat 12-4L is laid out to us that aren't in the NASCAR garage, I am thinking, this does nothing for most of the situations that happen during the year that brings the credibility down for NASCAR races.

The Quest For The Imperfect Season Almost Ended Before It Began

Many pundits are predicting the Oakland Raiders will run the table and join the 2008 Detroit Lions as the only NFL team to ever go 0-16. But are they really that bad? Maybe not.

They lost to the Indianapolis Colts, but it wasn’t nearly the mud hole stomping I predicted. I told a number of people not to be surprised if the Colts run up 40+ points on the Raiders. Not only did that not happen, but the Raiders actually had the lead until the middle of the fourth quarter.

The Raiders made a game out of this contest for one reason: Terrelle Pryor.

The former Ohio State quarterback had 217 yards passing, 112 yards rushing, and did something no other Raiders quarterback has been able to do in quite some time – make plays. When all seemed lost on third or even fourth down, Pryor would make a key completion or scramble past outstretched defenders on his way to a first down.

Even though Pryor had two interceptions that killed any chance the Raiders had of pulling off the upset, I’m still very pleased with his performance. Keep in mind this is only his second NFL start. My only concern with Pryor is that he still has a tendency not to check all of his receivers before he starts running. At some point, NFL defenses will catch onto this and be more effective in stopping him.

I hope Pryor makes the adjustment sooner rather than later. I believe he can be a really good NFL quarterback someday, but I’d like it to happen sooner rather than later!

Does My Team Suck That Bad?

This is some of the funniest crap I've ever read about the Redskins.  But the funniest thing is--IT'S ALL TRUE, SCREAMINGLY TRUE!

The following are selected sound bites from "Deadspin's" "Why Your Team Sucks: 2013"





1.  YOUR QUARTERBACK:  Robert Griffin III, who has all the athleticism of Cam Newton and none of the durability.

     Only the Redskins could fuck this up. Only the Redskins could draft such a brilliant young talent, let him get slaughtered on a rec softball league-quality playing surface, and then spend the entire offseason passive aggressively sniping with both him and his doctor. RGIII is the most exciting player in football, yet he is exceptionally fragile, unsurprisingly pigheaded, and is flanked by WTA-quality stage parents. The Redskins—who suck at public relations more than any company has sucked at anything—have mishandled Griffin to the point where I'm now excited for him to finally lose it and tweet out "FUCK SHANNY" and then delete the tweet five seconds later.

     Redskins fans worship RGIII the way a stalker worships a woman he's about to stab to death. They love him so much that they get SO VERY ANGRY when RGIII does something to disappoint them, like accepting gifts from fans on his wedding registry. WE LOVE YOU RGIII BUT NOW YOU MUST DIE FOR NOT BEING PERFECT. WE SHALL WEAR YOUR SKIN AT NIGHT. If I were RGIII, I would be terrified.

2.  THE 18 WORST REDSKINS EVER:   

     a.  Snyder. More Crown Royal, Mr. Snyder?

     b.  Albert Haynesworth. The best part was that everyone knew he would tank the second he got paid, and yet the Skins couldn't WAIT to fly him in.

     c-f.  Bruce Smith/Deion Sanders/Jeff George/Mark Carrier. I miss the days of Snyder openly trying to buy a championship and then failing miserably.

     g.  Michael Westbrook

     h.  Malcolm Kelly. It's amazing how many teams have whiffed on wideouts in the second round. Drafting a wideout in the second round is like putting your hand in a coffee grinder.

     i-k.  Jim Zorn/Norv Turner/Steve Spurrier

     l.  Taylor Jacobs

     m.  Desmond Howard

     n.  Josh Morgan. That's some clutch taunting, right there.

     o.  Heath Shuler

    p.  Dana Stubblefield

     q.  Adam Archuleta. Say his name to any Skins fan and they will drive off a highway ramp.

     r.  Danny Wuerffel. Once upon a time, there existed a LESS talented Tim Tebow.

3.  FAN MAIL:

 

"Remember that one kid in school who was popular only because he had money and nobody ACTUALLY enjoyed spending more than 30 seconds in his presence? And everyone was just about to wash their hands of him completely but then his folks got him a Camaro for his 16th birthday? And then everyone wanted to hang out with him again, right up until the point where he wrapped the Camaro around a telephone pole, at which point everyone felt justified in just writing him off as a complete dipshit for good?  The Redskins are that kid and Robert Griffin III is our Camaro."

 

"FedEx Field is a super dump. It's the reason you stay home to watch games in HD on your couch. Getting in and out of the place is a disaster that will take you hours. It's a giant corporate shit hole that ends up half full of Eagles or Cowboys fans even when they aren't fucking playing there. The 400 section is a nightmare level filled with drunken brawls, usually among Redskins fans. The field is the biggest embarrassment in the NFL. It looks like a fucking mine field. Snyder will spend a fortune on players (usually shitty) but probably not even $10 on the awful grounds crew this team has. We wait decades to get a franchise QB and our own fucking field helps injure him. Perfect."

 

"The team's pass defense was 30th in the league so they finally cut DeAngelo Hall. To replace him they bring in - DeAngelo Hall!"

 

"All the bad things ever written and said about this stadium are understatements. It is the anti-stadium."

"If Dan Snyder was drowning in the Anacostia River, I'd throw him a cinder block."

"RGIII's knee will no doubt collapse into itself, creating a black hole and ending all life on Earth as we know it."

"Rex Grossman is still somehow on the roster."

"Go up to Northern Virginia and ask anyone to name their favorite player from the past 10 years and the answer is ALWAYS Chris Cooley."

"I love my dog. She's really great and I'd do anything for her. I'd also put her in a burlap bag and beat her with a brick if it meant not seeing any more fucking wide receiver screens to Santana Moss for a two yard loss."

"In 2007 I snagged the Eagles game from my father's season tickets to bring a college friend from Philly. Two drunk morons decided they'd had enough arguing over Joe Gibbs's play calling, stood up and started some aggravated jawing. Sitting directly behind one, who sat behind the other, we had a front row view as the Redskins fan in the higher row, pushing three bills, decided to spear tackle the other, much skinnier, Redskins fan. They flew into the row below and broke off the plastic seat on impact before their wrestling crashed them down into the next row, crushing the people beneath them and scattering those nearby. After fighting down a few more rows of the upper deck, they landed on another drunk Redskins fan who, instead of getting out of the way, joined in. The melee, which began in the 15th row, turned into one of those cartoon fights where you only see fists sticking out of a tangle of bodies, eventually reaching the bottom of the section where a half dozen security guards showed up and restrained everyone.  Immediately after the fight began, McNabb tossed a screen pass to Brian Westbrook that resulted in a scrambling 57-yard touchdown run that put the Eagles up by one with three minutes left. I only saw a split second of the play as the stadium noise caused me to look up from the fight long enough to acknowledge the Redskins were blowing the game. The Eagles would go on to score another touchdown and win 33-25.  This was also the last game Sean Taylor (SEAN TAYLOR!!!!!!!11) played."

Souvenir

This is such a great picture I had to share it -- some are going for the souvenir and some are trying to keep from getting hit by it.  And then check out the guy in red holding his beer.

There are just great expressions and reactions in this shot -- the guy in blue on the far right, for instance.  Priceless.  The kid in red with the glove has a bead on it but the other kid's got his glove in his face.  I'm not sure what the guy in the top right is doing with his hands out, since everyone else in the shot makes it obvious the ball is not going anywhere near him.

He Said It (And Probably Regrets It, Too)

“You can’t arrest me, I’m a Colts player.” – Indianapolis Colts safety John Boyett, September 2, 2013.

Make that former Indianapolis Colts safety John Boyett, who was waived from the reserve/non-football injury list this morning after being arrested the previous morning for disorderly conduct, public intoxication, and resisting law enforcement.

Nothing like resetting the Arrest Meter on the Pro Football Talk blog to remind us that the NFL is ready to begin it’s new season in two days.

The Tweet I Feared To Read

Thanks to everyone at the Raiders for the opportunity this preseason. It was a blast. @MarquetteKing's got a bright future with you guys!

— Chris Kluwe (@ChrisWarcraft) September 1, 2013

Marquette King will do well this season, but I was crossing my fingers Chris Kluwe would win the punting job formerly held by future Hall of Famer Shane Lechler. Hopefully Kluwe will find another NFL team soon. He had a really good preseason, but King has an absolute cannon for a leg.

At least Kluwe won’t have to endure a likely 2-14 season this year and punt over 100 times. That’s what’s in store for the Raiders unless Terrelle Pryor magically becomes Randall Cunningham (loved him!) overnight.