Alex Burrows' Excuse For Kneeing Taylor Hall In The Head Was Nothing If Not Creatively Unsuccessful2/8/2018
Not for nothing, but it's certainly something I hadn't considered. You know, when you see a guy lying face-first on the ice under the body weight of an opponent who is flailing each and every one of his limbs in the direction of his head, you tend to focus on the discomfort of the victim. That's why I'd like to thank Alex Burrows for opening his closet to the world and letting us take a lap in his shoes, because - upon further review - I can now see how he might not have been all that snug as a referee tried to forcibly remove him from the back of a defenseless opponent mid-temper tantrum. Aging cheap shot artists whose value have deteriorated quicker than their morals are people too, and - as such - they should be entitled to remaining cozy while carrying out their belated and cowardly retribution for the type of physicality that's inherent to contact sports. Say what you want about the excessiveness of delivering multiple knees to the skull of someone who did nothing more than hit him cleanly, because we've all put ourselves in awkward positions that we would do anything to get out of immediately. Fortunately there's no pesky officials there when you wake up hungover on your couch with a massive hangover and a cramp in your thigh, because - shockingly - the Department of Player Safety doesn't see violent fidgeting as a viable excuse for on-ice assault...
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The Cavaliers Just Traded Almost Everyone Not Named LeBron James, And The Return Appears Admirable2/8/2018
First and foremost, let's just take a second to appreciate the most memorable moment of Isaiah Thomas' "shooting star in the night sky" stop in Cleveland...
Annnd within the span of one lunch break, LeBron James' Cavaliers have gone from being a thrown pudding cup away from a full-blown organizational food fight to legitimately challenging the Boston Celtics for the opportunity to once again lose to the Golden State Warriors in five games come early June. I honestly don't know what's more amazing. The fact that things had gotten so goddamn bad in Cleveland, or that - without giving up the Brooklyn pick - they managed to right so many of their wrongs in so little time. It's obviously a credit to LeBron that his skill set makes him so easy to build around, but this isn't exactly the greatest endorsement of professional basketball as a cohesion-dependent team sport. It's probably even odds for who wins the East, but if it's Cleveland it will be with a team that will likely still be trying to give each other nicknames. I mean, there are 12 year olds playing NBA2K that would stop short of making so many deals in so little time in lue (not Tyronn) of remaining somewhat realistic. Yet, not only did the winners of three consecutive conference championships refuse to leave any trade unmade out of complete desperation, but they also got younger, better, and - by default - more unified in the process. Kind of have to give LeBron a pass for his lackluster defense as of late, because - as the unofficial GM - it must have been exhausting for him to orchestrate all these deals during the season. I'm just concerned that in doing so he limited his scapegoats to the usual suspects of Kevin Love and Dan Gilbert if he does decide to occupy the cap space he just indirectly created in Los Angeles this summer.
LBS- Turkish newspaper Sabah reported on Wednesday that New York Knicks big man, Enes Kanter, has been indicted in his home country for insulting ex-NBA player Hedo Turkoglu, who is also a Turkey native.
Turkoglu, who played in the league for 15 seasons, now serves as the president of the Turkish Basketball Federation and is a chief advisor to Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. EuroHoops provided some translated details of the charges Kanter is facing: An indictment was filed on the grounds that Kanter has “insulted Turkoglu more than once on different dates”, per the report by Sabah. The Istanbul Cyber Crimes Investigation Bureau prepared the indictment which is based on “humiliating and hurtful messages” made by Kanter against Turkoglu on his social media. The indictment mentions that even though Kanter won’t appear before the judge, he will be tried in absentia because he “has to be punished for the charges of insult”. The case will be heard before the Assize Court. Kanter has long been a vocal critic of Erdogan as well as a supporter of exiled opposition cleric Fetullah Gulen. ------ I know a lot of people, - myself included - have been quick to question the virtues of our current justice system, but if foreign countries allow for the indictment of internet insults then I think were comparatively doing pretty damn good for ourselves. I hesitate to call America "great" due to the political undertones that now carries, but - as much as I'd like to see the President detained - I'm glad I live in place where he quite obviously has to do hell of a lot more than chirp someone on social media before he has to start worrying about his grasp on the soap. This nation has a hell of a lot of its own problems, but only like a couple dozen of them could be solved if we start handing out sentencing for subtweeting stateside. While Turkish countrymen engaging in trivial trash talk from opposite sides of the world is hilariously fitting as far as white-on-white crime is concerned, this is kinda like a "chicken or the egg" situation. What comes first, war-torn nations that are stewing in their own political turmoil, orrrr a government that prioritizes imprisoning those that speak freely against it? I can't be certain, but the fact that the Istanbul Cyber Crimes Investigation Bureau has nothing better to do than scroll through Enes Kanter's timeline is probably why Enes Kanter had no problem tweeting the things that got him excommunicated from his family in Istanbul in the first place. We're talking about an NBA basketball player whose living the good life as a multi-millionaire over in the US-of-A. Sort of seems like overkill to prosecute him for online rudeness towards his basketball playing brethren when he's already a homecoming away from death row for publicly disrespecting a dictator. Not that a country as corrupt as Turkey needs it, but there's a sufficient amount of evidence to convict Enes Kanter if his death wish is the same as a fascist's empty command that he head back to a broken home. Trying to add to it by claiming that a 38 year old former pro athlete was cyber bullied? At the risk of telling a borderline 3rd world country how to execute justice and/or encouraging computer generated criticisms, I'm going to say that declaring them worthy of incarceration only justifies them. So, considering he's willing to go nose-to-nose with LeBron James, I don't think Enes Kanter is too worried about going twit-for-tat with an opponent who is equally as unlikely to actually do something about it...
The preamble:
The masterstroke:
I'm generally a fiend for landscape-altering Woj bombs, so trust me when I say the following. Never, and I mean not a once, have I needed a competitive team in an otherwise uncompetitive conference to stand pat during the deadline. That's looking less and less likely, and by the time you read this my dream may already have been shattered, but I simply can't get enough of the Cleveland Cavaliers as currently constructed....
I'm not sure such a high level of defenseless dysfunction is sustainable without a one-team bench brawl breaking out prior to the playoffs, but I'll be damned if I'm not made giddy by the prospect of finding out if it means getting to see this pubescent passive aggression take place on a bigger stage. A move is probably inevitable, but - much like leaving the class clown alone in the chemistry lab - this failed social experiment is going to produce the most combustibly entertaining results if left to its own devices. We legitimately just watched a grown man take the silent treatment a step further by completely refusing to acknowledge his own teammate's existence in front of tens of thousands of people in attendance and the millions watching at home. LeBron probably doesn't even know that white dude's name and he actively sought a chest bump with him because the only other alternative was making eye contact with someone he'd recently deemed invisible. That may have been the first time that he has ever fought through a foul without so much as sending a glance the way of the person who committed it, and in this instance that person was his own teammate desperately trying to clutch and grab his way into a celebration while being treated like the ugly fucking duckling. Seeing as we should all probably want to see one of the greatest players of all time partake in a watchable brand of basketball, what we've been offered is a sports fan's guilty pleasure. Seriously, we might as well roll the windows down and start belting out Taylor Swift songs at the top of our lungs, because it doesn't get any more shameless than encouraging this type of bad blood. It's a real time movie that's so, so bad that you simply can't turn it off. If last night was the final scene then it was a fitting one. LeBron James knocked down a Christian Laettner-esque turnaround buzzer beater and his first instinct was to straight up disrespect Isaiah Thomas as both a player and a person. For the Cavaliers, even a triumphant winning effort has turned into nothing more than an ostracization opportunity, so it might not get any more volatile than that. However, if they want to run this same roster back post-deadline I will gladly sit through that counterproductive sequel. Somehow, it would be even more endlessly intriguing than watching LeBron do what LeBron does when he's not being a mean girl which is quite obviously the incredible...
P.S. And also...whut?
You know what, I'll take it a step further. Not only is there no reason not to believe that the seven foot gazelle with the hands of a human tree frog didn't see his prey as he damn near hurdled it cleanly, but it's actually the only way he could have completed the supernatural feat so casually. I know Giannis Antetokounmpo is confident in abilities that allow him to dunk from spots on the floor that were once thought impossible prior to the first installment of NBA Jam. However, even given his measurables and athleticism, I have a hard time believing he sized up another professional athlete, mentally calculated the amount of effort required to jump over him, and landed on 'less'. Therefore, I'm stuck believing that the extraterrestrial that the Milwaukee Bucks have starting for them navigates NBA hardwood like you or I navigate excess rain water. If we aren't paying close enough attention we could easily end up with wet socks, and if Giannis isn't paying close enough attention he could easily slap a 6'6 shooting guard on a poster with a scrotum draped over his skull. Now, if only I could leap clear over a sizable puddle with the same grace that he could fully clear a sizable human if he ever found himself concerned enough to catch a glance at the runway prior to takeoff.
Look, Jacob Copeland's choice in what college he wants to accept a full ride from is his and his alone. No matter how much his mother loves both Tennessee and Alabama and/or despises Florida, she was undoubtedly in the wrong for making his big moment about her by defiantly stomping away like a petulant child that thought running away from her vegetables was going to make them disappear. Unfortunately, I can kinda see why she might have felt justified in doing so. I'm all for a little teenage rebellion, but at the expense of publicly embarrassing your mom? Like, if the alternative is having her sit on national television appearing as though she got dressed in the dark at Dick's Sporting Goods, perhaps it might have been wise to hint at his decision prior to letting her go 0-for-2 live on ESPN2. Maybe he thought breaking the bad news in front of an audience would save him from a smacking, but he's going to wish he was swimming with Gators once he gets home from officially becoming one. I don't know if the 4-star wide receiver knows this, but if burnt orange and crimson were distant cousins they'd be the type that would require close supervision if left alone in the same room. We all - at one point or another - disappoint our parents, but to trick the woman that raised you (seriously, what's with the maroon blazer?) into buying a one-way ticket to Clash City? That's a bigger faux pas than her hopelessly hopeful fashion. So you're goddamn right she bounced with the quickness. If I were twelve years younger and 12x more athletically inclined, my mom would also be pissed into an immediate departure if I had her deviating from a wardrobe that looks like the Blue Man Group used it clean up their bulimia just so she could end up getting caught red-sweatered as an out-of-touch parent in public.
The NHL's Department of Player Safety has proven that they can make even the most obvious of decision look like a difficult one, so I won't say that the following suggestion could make their job easy. However, I will say that having a representative follow the New Jersey Devils around from city to city could give them a live, instantaneous, non-TBD look at what appears to be a conspicuous, league-wide attempt to literally knock them out of a playoff spot. Seriously, would it kill the rest of the Eastern Conference to at least thinly veil their conspired effort to send the entirety of the Devils' active roster into concussion protocol? I'm mad at about the elbows, sticks, and knees to the heads of New Jersey most dangerous forwards, but not as disappointed as I am in the lack of effort that has gone into insulting their intelligence. I mean, first Brad Marchand...
Then Radko Gudas...
And now Alex Burrows?
Have they no shame? That's legitimately the unholy trinity of soulless scumbags on skates, and they have all taken aim at one particular team within a two week span. Am I really to believe that's just a coincidence?! Hell, even if there's not a price tag on the heads of Devils' players, with the increased focus on head injuries can the NHL really be too safe in regards to protecting players whose skulls are apparently super susceptible to blunt force trauma from any and all parts of their opposition's anatomy? They'd probably screw up the sentencing anyway, but for once it would be nice if the team that's consistently on the ass end of shit calls could actually benefit from a punishment that fits the crime. On a night in which the Devils sucked their way into needing a couple breaks by remaining complicit in soaking the panties of every fan that's bought into the Mike Hoffman trade rumors, an additional two minutes for throwing enough punches and high-knees to fill an in-home workout DVD doesn't feel like justice. Even if Taylor Hall immediately did his best to carry it out...
What I'm not trying to do is make it sound like it's the Indianapolis Colts' fault that they got left at the alter by someone whose cold feet were publicly reported well before his sprint back down the aisle made Julia Roberts look slow enough to play outside linebacker for the Patriots. When you bear the baggage of a franchise quarterback whose throwing shoulder is as unstable as his team owner's toxicology report sometimes you have to settle for the imperfect. A once failed head coach who is currently employed by the team that has taken delight in your downfall ever since DeflateGate is just that, even if he did happen to orchestrate 600 yards of offense in the Super Bowl. This is more or less an indictment on the current state of the Colts, but they would have been lucky to get Josh McDaniels. Therefore, sacrificing a little organizational pride as he sat around picking pedals from dandelions in order to determine whether or not he wanted the job was worth the risk. What wasn't worth the risk was essentially posting marriage photos with the runaway bride prior to the writing of the vows...
Putting together a staff you've yet to decide you're joining isn't exactly standard protocol, but there's nothing orthodox about the relationship between the teams involved here. Like, if there was one franchise that was liable to put the rug out from under another it would be the Patriots leaving the Colts lying flat on their ass staring bewilderingly up at their head coaching vacancy. A two year bitch-fest about ball firmness set the precedent. This buzzer-beating, ball-busting bailout just continued to follow along in its patently absurd path. Now, I don't know what this says about Josh McDaniels' hirability going forward, nor do I know if it's a foreshadowing to Bill Belichick's future. I do, however, know that it provides even more evidence to the fact that verbal contracts are a hoax and agreements aren't set in stone until the ink is dry. Social media - for better or worse, depending on whether you use it for humor or premature news circulation - lives on longer than the most lengthy of coaching stops, so while there is nothing particularly wrong with this announcement...
...the following statement is really all that matters...
I thought it was fairly obvious that in taking over for Ryan Grigson, Chris Ballard inherited the beefs he was involved in. I don't blame him for getting into bed with a candidate that could best help his team. However, seeing as his organization seemed pretty goddamned convinced that the Patriots had to cheat to routinely kick the crap out of them prior to his arrival, they should have also long been subscribed to the "once a cheater, always a cheater" theory instead of being overanxious in changing their relationship status. Rivalry is the wrong word because that would require the Colts to be competitive, but Indianapolis' biggest mistake was thinking the feud was ever off...
It's not a rarity to see a player get a warm welcome upon his return to a city in which he won multiple championships, so it's not like the cheers and tears were some huge surprise. That said, speaking about Marc-Andre Fleury as if his tenure as a Pittsburgh Penguin was all sunshine and Stanley Cups does a disservice to peaks and valleys he endured in becoming beloved member of the franchise. We are in a world where the average hockey fan doesn't know what the hell he or she is watching on the ice and the goaltending position subsequently becomes the one that is far and away the easiest (i.e. laziest) to criticize. In said world, a first overall pick who - at one point - was best known for his postseason struggles doesn't typically put them in his rearview en route to reverence. Now granted, having a title-sealing save on his resume certainly helped his cause, but not nearly as much as proving his worth as a player, person, and teammate did. Marc-Andre Fleury is a three-time Stanley Cup champion. That label is both earned and well deserved, but what it fails to acknowledge is the selflessness he displayed in humbly conceding his crease to a younger player that was arguably - and is now statistically - no more talented than himself. Of course, it wasn't his choice to view the majority of back-to-back title runs from behind a bench, but the fact that he was able to do so with professionalism as well as significantly contribute when cold-called upon is a credit to his prioritization of his team's best interests over that of his own. Now more than ever, it's disproportionally difficult to become a universally admired hockey player when the only goals you are responsible for are the ones that end up behind you. Whether on the ice or off the ice, Marc-Andre Fleury was able to do just that in a fashion that had fans drawing up so many signs for a former player that you'd swear he was part of the main event at WrestleMania. Circumstances made him expendable, but there's nothing circumstantial about the undying love between Pittsburgh, the Penguins, and the player they first entrusted with shaping the future of their franchise. It's not often you can say that about someone whose bipolar play of the past from the most over-critiqued of position had him likely to be seen as a scapegoat, but the most resounding of applause proved that appreciation for 'The Flower' was in full bloom and his legacy is as golden as the crest he now wears across his chest.
Watch that video. Then watch it again taking into account that the Tampa Bay Lightning are not only the best, but also the most skilled team in the National Hockey League. Then watch it again while paying close attention to the human cheat code whose number 97 registered as nothing more than a blur as he rode a 4 goal and 5 point night to meet $425,000 worth of contract incentives while making said team look nearly as slow and helpless as the General Manager that lucked into his services. Then watch it again while bearing in mind that the star of that trailer is destined to get killed off before the show even starts getting good because he's sitting a handful of hopes and a prayer out of a playoff spot during an era in which loser points tend to keep the standings tighter than whatever it is that is slowing the circulation of blood to Peter Chiarelli's brain. You can most certainly accuse me of talking out of both sides of my mouth. Beggars can't be choosers, and while I begged for the Devils to get their hands on a player like Taylor Hall, I would merely choose for Connor McDavid to take his transcendent talents to the postseason. Still, it's a damn shame that I can't watch a kid display superhuman skill that makes top-level competition look like teenagers trying to skate off their first hangover without being reminded of just how badly it's being wasted. Someone capable of the things seen above should unquestionably be performing on the sport's biggest stage, and the only reason he won't be is because the casting director has held back the success of his play by failing to navigate a budget better than a drug addict.
Sadly, I don't know that we honestly should have expected anything other than a mishap that's just as inexplicable as it was innocent for one of the most under-appreciated stars in the history of basketball. Granted, he's brought a lot of the recent disregard on himself by repeatedly taking the NBA equivalent of peanuts in return for his continued loyalty towards an irrelevant organization in order to keep it's owner from having an existential crisis. Still, milestone night or not, you better make damn sure you put all of his consonants in order after all that Dirk has done for the Dallas Mavericks organization. Hell, accidentally mixing in a red shirt with the white jerseys and coming out of the tunnel looking like it's breast cancer awareness month would be easier to explain than going dyslexic with the stitching of the last name that will be in the rafters with the championship banner he made possible sooner than later. I don't care if the equipment manager was on a time crunch. Using duct tape and a Sharpie to identify every other person on the roster would have been more understandable than failing to prioritize the one German spelling that's more important than every remaining Mavericks game combined. Simply put, 50,000 minutes spent revolutionizing a position is about 40,000 minutes more than should be required to demand some respect be put on a name as accomplished as that of Dirk Nowitzki.
BREAKING NEWS: Tony Dungy is officially OUT on Josh Rosen. Any and all General Managers looking for the approval of a God-fearing former football coach, please update your draft boards accordingly. Also, may I suggest you start searching any and all cross bearing prayer houses for prospects at the most highly valued of position. Kidding aside, my first instinct was to mock an NFL "analyst" for diminishing one of the best, most unexpected performances we have ever seen from any quarterback in the Super Bowl - never mind one that was a little over a month removed from backup duty - by attributing half the credit to an unseen supreme being. No matter how spiritual Nick Foles and Carson Wentz happen to be, I find the idea of Jesus H. Christ sending angels to the endzone to preside over the most ruthless and barbaric of competition to be absolutely preposterous. I don't care how many times thanks is given to God through an NFL-licensed microphone, you will never convince me that prayer has ever put a single point on the board. For that reason, I find it difficult to take Tony Dungy seriously when he abuses the platform made possible by the blood, sweat, and tears of superhuman bodies other than that of Christ to preach about the superiority of his own beliefs by directly associating them with success in sports. Fortunately for him, I totally understand why he does. I mean, if I fell ass backwards into Peyton Manning prior to stumbling upon a Super Bowl win that propelled me into an undeserved role evaluating football players when my main criteria for doing so is their religion then I too might believe that God keeps a close eye on the gridiron. I'm no good Christian boy, but there being an almighty figure pulling the strings on the trajectory of Tony Dungy's broadcasting career is just about the only reason I can think of for it still being on the up and up. We are talking about a guy who was given the floor during NBC's most important sporting event of the year despite having no real insight other than anti-Patriots bias and pro-Catholicism bias. That better be proof that the Lord works in mysterious ways, because the only alternative is that it's proof of...::audible gasp...:: prejudice in sports media. UPDATE: We are now "reporting" the second-hand "coaching" of spiritual beings in the sky. Ha, and they say the integrity of sports journalism has been compromised!
I would think that someone who recently had two of his numbers retired by the same organization retains a pretty close relationship with those inside said organization, so it's entirely possible - and even likely - that this strong suggestion was born from having some inside information. That being said, how perfect is it that Kobe Bryant still managed to sound selfish while giving the most selfless of praise? Perhaps the Lakers were already considering immortalizing Pau Gasol. However, at the very least, I'm sure there was a debate about whether or not the secondary scorer that was only part of one of the most decorated franchises in all of sports for six years deserved eternal recognition. Granted, he was a very important part whose services were required in the attainment of two titles, but we are talking about a team with more than enough clout (and a limited supply of jersey numbers) to doubt whether a championship contribution was truly legendary. Again, 'The Black Mamba' probably has his teeth sunk into each and every aspect of the Lakers' future, but if I didn't know any better I'd say that sounded like a boa constricting of their organizational volition. With that over-the-top endorsement, Kobe Bryant basically just spoke for the plot next to both of his in the Staples Center cemetery as if he's the unquestioned bearer of basketball burial grounds. There could be a good reason for that, but it would be incredibly fitting if even Kobe Bryant's overwhelming generosity as an appreciate teammate was born of the extreme arrogance the Lakers encouraged by catering to each and every one of his desires. The Miami Marlins Publicized The Firing Of Their Long Time Mascot With One Confusing News Leak2/6/2018
I can't help but feel like the oh-so-rare-occurence of canning your longtime mascot for logic unknown (but probably frugal in nature) during the offseason is enough of a reason not to give your marine life costume a human name. Seriously, if you let yourself start skimming during the reading of that tweet you might think that Derek Jeter's shameless nuking of his new organization extended to the fan friendly face the Marlins use to silently entertain all 63 season ticket holders, as opposed to the person sweating bullets behind it. Would 'Splashy' have caused too much of splash? Would Huckleberry have sued over the appropriation of 'Finn'? Whatever the case may be, Billy is undeniably a crappy name for a cartoonish fish that - combined with the internet's short attention span - makes for some easy miscommunication. Luckily, there is one benefit to this relatively confusing - and wildly unnecessary - news break, and that is the hilariously symbolic visual of a six foot marlin with an unrelenting gill-to-gill grin heading to his locker, packing up his belongings, and dispiritingly dragging his feet out of the bleakest of buildings after 14 years on a job. It's far less funny when you think of him as the adult male that's now looking for a purpose after being one of the handful of fans that hadn't given up on the Miami Marlins over the years. The type of person that showed up - day in and day out - for well over a decade to bring joy to 30,000 empty seats is probably ever-so-slightly more depressed than the happy-go-lucky, spear-nosed fish he portrayed. Therefore, instead of thinking of this as Derek Jeter being a cheap ass and making an example of even the most anonymously loyal member of the organization, I'll be blissfully ignorant and view it as a long-suffering human-marlin hybrid being given a new lease on life by an owner that realized his forced happiness was going to waste within South Florida's most inherently miserable franchise.
You know, maybe if the Falcons were a little better at taking a joke they might not end up on the wrong side of so many of them. I can't believe this needs to be explained to a 75 year old NFL owner that encourages humor at his expense by reacting to it in a way that's fitting of a thin-skinned younger sibling, but '28-3' and the like would a hell of a lot less funny if his organization took the overused punchlines in stride...
I'm not entirely sure Arthur Blank's incessant bitching about harmless trolling served as an impetus for the unnecessarily petty headline, but I do know that I only found it somewhat funny because he had once again made it relatively topical. Excuse the picture I'm about to paint, but the idea of his granny panties swirling up into a bunch a full year after his team turned themselves into a meme is much more hilarious than the overdone meme itself currently is. The New Orleans Saints and their media affiliates should be above mocking the Falcons at this point, but as a division rival it's their duty to keep preying upon those Atlanta birds until they finally become comfortable with their own inferiority.
And the biggest surprise is that it was actually no surprise at all. Alvin Kamara was up against a first year player that won the league rushing title, and somehow the kid whose emergence made a sure-to-be first ballot HOFer immediately expendable still made Kareem Hunt seem overmatched with the Gale Sayers-esque variety of ways in which he became an unstoppable lynchpin to one of the most versatile offenses in the NFL. Marshon Lattimore was put in the unenviable position of securing a secondary that had long been a league-wide laughing stock, and he had such a game-altering impact on it from one of the least forgiving positions in the sport that it felt like they could have shipped him the trophy by the end of November. Becoming the first pair of teammates to sweep the 'Rookie Of The Year' awards (there's no way a palindromic duo of Mel & Lem existed anywhere but a children's cartoon) is special regardless, but being so favored that any other outcome would have felt like a grave injustice is a credit to just how spectacular both their seasons were. The Saints got back to the playoffs because of how they drafted, and who they drafted (amongst multiple other starters) were two players who can easily already be slotted in the Top 5 in terms of their importance to the team. It was awesome to see them get rewarded for their individual accomplishments not only because they deserve them, but because it's only right that the 'Rookies Of The Year' highlight what will be fondly looked back on as the year of the rookies if New Orleans continues its upward trajectory. -------- And the award for 'Best Bromance' goes to.... — Josh Katzenstein (@jkatzenstein) February 4, 2018
I generally consider myself an optimistic fan, but on the "hey, it could happen" list of hypothetical outcomes of a potential standings swapping game against the back-to-back Stanley Cup Champions you'd have to turn a couple dozen pages to find "Travis Zajac leads a full-on blitzing of the Pittsburgh Penguins". Not only does his offensive prowess leave as much to be desired as the hockey knowledge (or lack thereof) possessed by those who despise him so much you'd think they were funding his salary, but - more importantly - you wouldn't consider scoring to be his primary concern when going up against the team with the most dangerous one-two punch down the middle in the entire league. As it turns out, when centering two guys - in Blake Coleman and Stefan Noesen - that are made relentless by a refusal to play without the puck, the best defense is an overbearing offense. That was pretty obvious throughout a thoroughly dominating effort that proved - if only for one night - that there's a basis for the recurring dream of Travis Zajac sliding into the role he was born to play as a top notch third line center. I'll never underestimate his haters, but if Saturday's win didn't make them accept that the preferred destination for their foot might be their mouth then they are just flat out ignoring how the rest of the locker room feels about the longest tenured player in it...
Look, for a team as experienced as the Penguins, getting outshot 38-16 by a younger, hungrier group was nothing more than a mid-season let-down on the ass end of a back-to-back. However, for a team like the Devils that's actively seeking litmus tests, outgunning the arsenal they are largely (and unsurprisingly) being built in the mold of was an affirmation that they are on the right track. They finally have a top 6 that's sets in relative stone, and if Saturday's three stars continue to align with half as much chemistry as they displayed against Pittsburgh then you might even accidentally trick yourself into believing it's a top 9. For all it's warts, the blue line - led by the offense of Damon Severson and the defense of Sami Vatanen - has done a great job suppressing opportunities as of late. If the offense can continue to create them from the top of the lineup on down, there's no reason to think that they can't stay hot and avoid suffering too many knockdowns in the gauntlet that is their upcoming, Metro-heavy schedule.
As I understand the rule - and the entire problem with the rule is that no one truly understands the rule - that Corey Clement touchdown should have been overturned. By the time the ball becomes completely secured, he only gets one foot cleanly in bounds. Depending on which way the wind is blowing on any particular Sunday you could need as many eighteen steps in bounds before you can feel safe about your score, but even the most forgiving of officials tend to demand at least two upon full possession and by my count that was approximately one toe short of meeting the quota. Now, I don't necessarily have a problem with it being upheld as a touchdown. I think we would all consider that a catch if not for the NFL's recent blurring of the definition of an athletic act so fundamental that even children and dogs grow up doing it. I find the slow motion nitpicking of freakish feats completed at 1,000x the speed in real time to be inherently silly, and that's exactly what you have to do to come to the determination that that pass wasn't entirely swaddled by it's recipient. Still, by the letter of a suspect law, Corey Clement was probably out of bounds. Unfortunately for the Patriots, they just learned - for the first (and worst) time this season - that the problem with the enforcement of that law is the uncertainty regarding it. Hell, you could argue that the most dependable detail of video replay this year has been the amount of times in which it's defied conventional wisdom to work in New England's favor. You're free to say it was the wrong call, but in Austin Seferian-Jenkins, Jesse James, and Kelvin Benjamin you'd find some pretty physically imposing opposition that would argue it's the retroactive righting of injustices. At the very worst, the most consistent team in football fell victim to a little bit of inconsistent officiating. It sucks it happened to them in the Super Bowl, but - considering just about every other goddamn team had already experienced it in a huge spot well before they were even able to get that far - there's no amount of Chris Collinsworth's commentary that could possibly convince me to care...
Bill Belichick Finally Got Caught On The Wrong Side Of The Thin Line Between Genius And Idiot2/5/2018
Well, it was about damn time. It's nothing short of a miracle that it took this long, but the robotically emotionless shell of a being that's run the Patriots with an all-knowing iron fist for close to two decades finally proved he's human. Bill Belichick is no stranger to unorthodox personnel choices, but with one potentially ego-driven benching he gave the entire sports world a glimpse at why most coaches are so hesitant to stray from the norm. I mean, we are talking about a guy that's widely regarded as a genius after leading his team to seven straight AFC Championships and being basically a single pass deflection pass away from winning his sixth Super Bowl in eight tries. Yet, even he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt when one of his decisions does the previously impossible by completely backfiring. It's almost as if winning masks mistakes and losing shines a national spotlight on them, who would have thunk it?!? Of course, a controversial situation was made more flammable by a complete dumpster fire of a defensive effort from the members of the team that don't have a Super Bowl winning interception on their resume. Still, if Nick Foles had so much as misfired on a 4th and 1 pass to Zach Ertz then Bill Belichick retains his title as an irreproachable disciplinarian as opposed to being viewed as a hard headed jackass that let his pride draw up the depth chart. Who knows if/when we find out what exactly Malcolm Butler did (or didn't do) to have his involvement in the game plan go from 98% all season to 0% with that season on the line, but 41 points against and 500+ wasted yards from Tom Brady says that failing to up that percentage over the course of 4+ hours was as idiotic as trying to play it off as performance-based. In the same vein that you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain, it was merely a matter of time before Billy's undeniable brilliance left him looking like he was batshit crazy. The same type of unfathomable call was responsible for the play that introduced the world to Malcolm Butler in the first place, so if you're looking for the deciding factor between genius and idiot it can best be seen on the scoreboard. CBSSports- So to commemorate the team’s epic rally from a 28-3 deficit, the Patriots put 283 diamonds in their Super Bowl championship rings. And why not? It’s kind of hard for a guy who’s had give out four previous celebratory rings to come up with new ideas to make them unique.
His players certainly loved their new bling, but it appears Falcons owner Arthur Blank was not too happy with this decision. In fact, it pissed him off quite a bit, and he made sure he let Kraft know it when the two met up for dinner in New York prior to the 2017 NFL season, according to the New York Times. But the ring stunt bothered him. He found it unnecessary and tacky. “I said to Robert, ‘You didn’t have to do the 28-3 in the ring,’” he told me recently. “It kind of pissed me off.” ------- Ahhh see, what we have here is just a simple misunderstanding. This isn't an overly sensitive reaction to innocent trolling, because - assuming Falcons players weren't made to sit in a sweatshop and count the diamonds, band by band, as Patriots players stood around laughing at them - this wasn't even trolling. Instead, this is one NFL owner having absolute no familiarity with how Super Bowl rings work, and when you give it about a half second of thought it becomes pretty easy to see why he wouldn't be able to comprehend the design process behind commemorative jewelry. Ignorance aside, could Arthur Blank have more of a loser's mentality? His team crapped away a 28-3 lead in just over a quarter in the biggest game in franchise history and he's not most concerned with how his organization wasted what now appears to be their starting quarterback's best season with dumbass play calling and a collective amount of situational awareness that you'd expect from someone who farts at a funeral. Nope, rather he's found himself enraged by the concept of the winning team immortalizing the historic odds they overcame in gems fit for their hands and their hands alone. To the victors go the spoils, so if Robert Kraft felt so inclined he could have tried to get his mitts on Arthur Blank's tears so he could have them crystalized in the face of the each ring, but that's not even the point. The point is that the rest of the sports' world treats the 2-8-3 sequence of numbers as an overdone jab at the Falcons, but the Patriots treat it as a reminder of what they were able to accomplish regardless of the fact that it came at the expense of the Falcons. Being how significant the comeback was in its own right, as well they goddamn should embrace it as loudly and proudly as it now embraces their fingers - no matter how much it hurts feelings that are as fragile as the psyche of the team that made it all possible. |
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