Odell Beckham Jr. Used Tom Brady's Sideline Tantrum To Bring To Light The Ultimate Double Standard12/5/2017
You know, at first I was apprehensive, but after looking at photos of Tom Brady and Odell Beckham Jr. side by side it becomes tough to deny that a double standard governs how their overly emotional outbursts are viewed by the general public. I would imagine that double standard has just about everything to do with race, because - other than skin color - there's not a one (or two, or three, or four, or five) difference between the winningest quarterback ever and whiniest wide receiver ever. I can't - for the life of me - figure out what makes people see the theatrics of an attention seeking, prop-abusing pass catcher as selfish when the quarterback who is just as in tune with the entirety of the offense coached by the guy he's yelling at is seen as passionate. Maybe it's just the blonde mohawk that takes people out of their comfort zone and stops them from seeing the obvious hypocrisy here? Honestly, your guess is an good as mine. It's just a flat out mystery as to why the guy that eats one tablespoon of avocado ice cream in celebration of his 80th consecutive playoff berth gets the benefit of the doubt when the guy that prepared for his one piss poor postseason performance by going to Miami and shooting shirtless R&B album covers with a handful of his teammates doesn't get that same respect. He might have had a tumultuous relationship with the otherwise quiet and unassuming Super Bowl MVP that was throwing him passes, but Odell Beckham cares about the game just as much as Tom Brady. Regardless of whether or not his ranting and raving is aimed at drawing the lens of the nearest camera as opposed to actually fucking winning it.
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Look, if you want to criticize Ben Roethlisberger for pointing to nothing more than a random regional affiliation to explain a football game that became so barbaric that it actually made the increasingly desensitized fan feel feelings then be my guest. I'd love to tell you that you don't understand the intensity of rivalries in professional sports, but in doing so I'd have to ignore that approximately 37.5 man years were left on a field that an athlete was carried off of without sensation in his lower body. Therefore, yes, it is quite obviously more than a little callous to be like "AFC North, am I right?!?" after being a willing participant in what quickly devolved into human wreckage...
That being said, it's not even remotely untrue. Say what you want about the Steelers and Bengals, but you can't say that they don't prioritize hating each other's jersey over respecting the people wearing them. That's not the greatest of looks for a league that is desperately trying to prove that it's just "fun and games" as opposed to being an insanely dangerous means to a premature end. However, some of those players didn't appear too bothered by watching one of their peers potentially lose his career and/or life when they immediately proceeded to try to put each other in a neighboring hospital bed. Let's take this crackback block (and subsequent taunting) of Vontaze Burfict, for instance...
You can (and I do) think he had it coming after showing a complete lack of remorse for a career's worth of dirtbaggedness with what he said yesterday regarding this vicious hit to the head that kept Antonio Brown from playing in the 2015 AFC Championship a week later....
“HE FAKED THAT,” Burfict says casually of the Brown hit before quickly trying to wave his own observation away. He knows instantly how the comment will be received, and it’s easy to see he wishes he hadn’t said it…
“I feel like he looked at me. The ball tipped off his hands and he kind of put his head towards my area, and I tried to fade off of him at the last second, but he initially tried to make contact because he knew he could get the flag. And just the way he went down, it was just like — I don’t know man.” (h/t ESPN) ...but to scream it throughout a locker room that just saw a teammate left unable to move his extremities on a fairly routine tackle that was theoretically far less dangerous?
Whether it's right or wrong from a moral standpoint is a whole different question, but this inhumane verbal and physical intercation between multiple members of two teams that despise each other is proof positive that your mentality needs to not only be cruelly compartmentalized, but completely detached from reality if you are going to put forth a full effort on an NFL field. Not every Sunday is going to be littered with blindside hits in which injury is the clear intention, and the ongoing blood feud between these two particular AFC North rivals is by far the most extreme reminder that professional football is unadulteratedly organized violence. That said, by lambasting Ben Roethlisberger for speaking an obvious truth you're really just deflecting blame from yourself for being complicit in a barbaric business model by way of your viewership. You can't take football for what it is - the biggest, fastest, and strongest men on the planet hitting each other as hard as humanly possible - and then act appalled when that results in them ignoring the long-term prognosis of a fallen comrade and continuing to take pleasure in inflicting pain on one another. I say the following as a huge sports fan...the frustrations they continued to take out on the health of one another's brains ultimately stemmed from nothing more than the cities they play in and the colors they were wearing, whether you felt comfortable hearing a quarterback say so or not. More importantly...thoughts, prayers, and well wishes go out to Ryan Shazier. Here's to hoping the good news keeps coming...
The Vegas Golden Knights Pranked Defenseman Nate Schmidt By Taping Some...Uhh...Junk To His Helmet12/5/2017
I'm not trying to turn my nose up at the use of a penis as a punchline. In fact, considering my first thought when I saw this was "he's got a dick on his head, but don't call him a dickhead", I am liable to claim that a well-timed dick joke will never not be funny. So, phallically speaking, I should appreciate that the members of the Golden Knights managed to get one of their teammates to slap a cock-laden piece of protective equipment atop his head before going out to practice for the professional hockey team that employs him. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel like Nate Schmidt's general obliviousness as a person was taken advantage of here. Half the fun in pulling off a prank is the pay-off of executing it without detection, and that bastard wouldn't have been anywhere as veiny or triumphant if his teammates thought there were even the slightest chance that he would catch the "subtlety" of the fattest of 'D' before rocking it onto the rink. This feels like a weird thing to say about paper mache testicles that could be seen from space, but Nate Schmidt mushroom stamping himself was a conclusion as foregone as Gronk being goated into a '69' reference or Josh Gordon being tricked into snorting random lines of baking soda. Still funny, but just not as satisfying as it would have been if pulled off against someone that is apparently naive enough to get dressed with his eyes closed. P.S. But...but...but....WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!?!?!?
In theory, it would be silly for the Devils to "entertain" the idea of sending their former first round pick down to the AHL. I don't think the trade that brought in Sami Vatanen was anything other than an acknowledgement of their clear and present defensive deficiencies. However, the fact of the matter is that it in shipping out both a player that was above him and a player that was below him in his positional pecking order, the Devils couldn't have cleared a wider path for Pavel Zacha to take a reins on a permanent spot in the lineup. Not only that, but it's a path that is currently being overseen by both a General Manager and a Head Coach that have shown no hesitancy in giving young players - whether it be a first overall pick, 6th round pick, or college free agent - a chance to succeed in an environment that is pretty clearly conducive to their success. With that in mind, one of the Devils' most physically skilled prospects should hypothetically be humored as he looks to carve out a steady and consistent niche on a team that needs his services more than ever. Unfortunately, in execution, he has made it seem silly to expect things to suddenly change. You can instinctively blame John Hynes if you want, but all you have to do is take one look up and down the roster to realize that Pavel Zacha isn't playing because he hasn't deserved to play. He isn't getting yanked in, out, up, down, and around the lineup because he's the unofficial team scapegoat, but rather because he's failed to take advantage of the multitude of opportunities he has been given to contribute. Now, I don't think a 20 year old - who was originally considered a bit of project - should be labeled a 'bust' just because a couple of his peers are incredibly wise beyond their teenage years. That said, having pushed all the right buttons in getting this team back to respectability, John Hynes and Ray Shero can't let the under-seasoning of their sole outlier cause even the slightest of distractions. I'd love to see him flourish wherever he's given the chance, but if the ever-changing role of Pavel Zacha is going to continue being a storyline then it should one that pops up on the sports page in the Binghamton Gazette. This inexperienced team has far too much going right to worry about what's wrong with one particular player that hasn't quite figured himself out. Your guess is as good as mine when it come to predicting whether or not Pavel Zacha needs to be sent across the New York border in order to turn a corner, but if a player's game-by-game usage (or lack thereof) is so sporadic that it requires the reading of tea leaves then all options should - at the very least - be kept in strong consideration.
Re-load! Re-load! I don't know much about the modernization of first-person shooters, but - back when I could be found standing in an arcade wasting both time and quarters - a man getting sniped in the head prior to immediately disappearing from the screen served as the ultimate cue to ammo-up for the next wave of enemies. In all seriousness, credit to the person running the controls for the 'SkyCam' here. I know it was completely incidental, but I can't imagine Alex Mack getting momentarily paralyzation by a penalty flag would have appeared anywhere near as hilarious if the camera remained on him as he collected himself and got back up unscathed. The idea of a 300 pound, All-Pro athlete literally getting brought to his knees by a weighted piece of cloth is funny regardless, but the fact that it was passed over and supplementary to the scene being zoomed in on like an extra getting gunned down in an action flick made it that much more incredible to watch. I know the title urges you to pick a particular winner, but - let's be honest - we are all winners after watching someone who blocks freakishly large and athletic men for a living appear to get stunned into submission by what would undoubtedly be a referee's finishing move if he were a character on 'Street Fighter'.
You know what, if nothing else, it's somewhat poetic that the New York Giants managed to piss off literally everyone invested in their mishandling of a situation that didn't have to be anywhere near as difficult as they, themselves, made it. With how quickly their season devolved into full-fledged organizational chaos, it wouldn't have been right if any one fan, player, coach, or executive was left at all satisfied. Through an asinine amount of questionable - if not comedic - (in)decision making, a once proud franchise made it so that literally every member shared in the ungodly amount of blame that goes around when you bench a two-time Super Bowl MVP to invest in the "future" of a 27 year old, soon-to-be free agent backup who has proved - time and time again - that he's nothing more than just that. The Giants season was lost far before the decided to bench Eli Manning, but in voluntarily putting an end to his starting streak of 200+ games they made sure he wasn't the only remaining person in the locker room without a finger pointed at him. Considering the anarchic culture of a team whose outright implosion was addressed about six weeks later than it should have been, it's actually fitting that its long-time starting quarterback was the last one to catch some shrapnel before the house got mercifully cleaned. From John Mara, to Jerry Reese, to Ben McAdoo, to an irritable defense, to a depleted offense that was built to get it's quarterback killed from Day 1, to the emotionless face that's run that offense for the last 13 fucking years, to the fans whose hearts were broken by that familiar face getting replaced, to those heartless bastards that thought it was actually the right decision. The dysfunction ran so deep that it absolutely had to leave everyone feeling the detrimental effects. Of course there's no rhyme or reason to cause an irreparable rift between your organization and the player that helped bring it two titles when the inevitability of both Geno Smith's mediocrity and the subsequent shit-canning of your Head Coach and GM is going to have you helplessly doing damage control a week later. Fortunately, inexplicable is the only way to explain the last few months so not one single person being left unscathed by the Giants incompetence serves as a testament to just how incredibly self-inflicted it was. Shame on the Carolina Panthers, and - though it's true - I don't mean that in the sense that the saying "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" should be reiterated in everyone of their team meetings after having New Orleans make them look pedestrian for the second time in as many games. On the contrary, the Carolina Panthers should feel bad about themselves because for the last week they have had football fans judging the Saints by the merits of the company they were keeping a top the NFC South. Having their 8-game winning streak snapped by the first viable contender they had faced in months certainly didn't help their league-wide standing, but after yesterday I can confidently say that giving people the ability to say "oh wait, you're tied with THAT team" was a more damning indictment of the New Orleans' case for conference contention. Cam Newton and company might be deserving of a postseason appearance, but as they compare to the Saints? It's not worth a comparison. That's now twice that the latter bested the former in each and every phase of the game, and neither came with the inevitable Defensive Rookie Of The Year taking away half the field. This win looked slightly different than the one that came in Week 3 because the Alvin Kamara Show has gone from being in production to being nominated for weekly awards since then. However, it felt eerily familiar in the sense that it made one team look like it should be apologizing for it's unfortunate association with a far less impressive team. After giving up an initial touchdown drive that tied the score and had the Who Dat Nation bracing for one of those games, the defense stiffened and proved that it's not completely dependent on the presence of a shutdown corner as another in Ken Crawley returned to fill his role more than admirably. Outside of a garbage time score, the Saints gave up just seven points the rest of the day and even those came when a turnover gave them a short field to defend. They didn't turn Cam Newton into an interception dispenser like they did earlier in the season, but - under the lead of Cam Jordan - they made him look just as incapable of finding his own receivers. Regardless of how his final stats might read, Devin Funchess might as well have spent his Sunday touting his alma mater as a contender, because - when it mattered - his efforts in getting open against a depleted secondary were just as hopeless. Take away the busted coverage that allowed Christian McCaffrey to stroll into the end zone untouched and his contributions were...well...basically that of every white running back that doesn't play for the Patriots. For a little clarification on just how in sync the Saints defense was, look no further than this one stat that doesn't even seem possible after watching them fall all over themselves trying to tackle Todd Gurley...
A special teams unit that has barely been "special" enough to get told so by it's mother had a breakout performance that was - believe it or not - sparked by a a third string QB who repeatedly looked like he was shot out of a cannon while being used as a gunner. As for sentences I never thought I would write, Taysom Hill's ability to rush the punter turned Mike Palardy into a microcosm of his team's performance as he dropped the ball in laughable fashion. Tack on the Chris Banjo forced fumble that ultimately led to the dagger that was an insurance field goal, and not even Will Lutz pushing one right earlier in the half could sour a turnaround performance for a group that desperately needed it. As for the offense? Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say it's hard to continue to find words to describe Alvin Kamara. No human body should be able to rebound over the goal line after absorbing a head-on collision with a linebacker so I truly hope that the NFL doesn't find out that the Saints are featuring an alien that is not constrained by the laws of physics in their backfield...
Between that 4th down score and the all-too-casual 20 yard scamper that he added in the second half, Alvin Kamara looked like some perverse combination of a greased pig and one of those bottom heavy blow-up toys that simply refuses to stay down. I know that's not the most flattering of comparisons, but - with him making a complete mockery of NFL defenses on a weekly basis - I'm running low on compliments. Luckily, the guy whose ability to rattle off a 72 yard run when you least expect it and has made it impossible for teams to game plan solely around a player that's literally running away as the Offensive Rookie Of The Year has no shortage of high praise...
As has become the case when the Saints are at their absolute best, Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara made yet another efficient performance from Drew Brees the footnote. Considering they have the Falcons coming up on a short week, I'm sure he appreciates the ability to fly under the radar. Let's hope the team that's won 9-of-10, just dominated an 8-3 division rival, and stands to solidify their two biggest weaknesses with the imminent return of their star left tackle and a transcendent rookie corner continues to do the same. Desmond Howard Compared Tennessee's Coaching Search To A Poopy Diaper, And He's Not Entirely Wrong12/1/2017
“If you have a child, if you’ve been around kids they have this one incident where they have a massive poop in their diaper and it’s coming out the side, it reeks. You could be at home, you could be in public, it’s just nasty as it can be no matter where you are. I think you can draw a parallel at what’s happening at Tennessee to that situation because it stinks and it’s very messy.” - Desmond Howard --------- I honestly don't know what's funnier, the fact that Desmond Howard's best point of comparison for Tennessee's increasingly counterproductive coaching search was the cleaning up of an overflow of human feces, or the fact that all poopy diapers that have run low on storage space should probably take offense to that analogy. Seriously, we are at a point now where a once proud SEC program is trying to clean up the shit they got themselves into by backing down to the mob mentality of the internet, and instead they've re-created a scene straight out of a movie that uses unadulterated stupidity at its main trope... I happen to agree with the former Heisman Trophy winner's assessment that the Tennessee job is as stinky as it's entire program is messy, but not even the stinkiest father trying to raise the messiest baby could create a scene this toxic. Labeling an innocent man some sort of second-hand sex criminal has left the bowels of Tennessee football irritable, and each and every failed hire is aggravating their bubble guts while they're stuck in the public eye without any backup plan as to how to cover their ass. With respect to all the proud parents that do the thankless task of changing diapers, not even they would Volunteer to wipe their way out of a situation this crappy...
TheBigLead- Rick Pitino is not going to go away quietly. The former Louisville head coach is now suing his former employer for a whopping $38.7 million.
Pitino claims the school breached his contract when it put him on administrative leave without notifying him and then firing him with cause. Pitino’s lawsuit argues Louisville had no legally justified case for terminating him with cause. Louisville fired the 65-year-old coach on October 16 a few weeks after it placed him on leave following a federal bribery probe involving college basketball. Pitino has claimed he had no knowledge of payments to a recruit’s family. Pitino’s lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday seeks damages of $4.307 million yearly through 2026. It claims the school did not give him 10 days advance notice before it “effectively fired” him. -------- This guy. This fucking guy. Admittedly, I didn't expect the vampire that has become so caught up in his own circle of of lies that he's basically running away from the truth on a hamster wheel to go quietly into the night, but dropping a 38.7 million dollar lawsuit as his metaphorical "muuuuahaha"? If part of the allure of college athletics is watching people do things that us - as fans - aren't physically capable of doing then I think I have to appreciate Rick Pitino's commitment to his fascinatingly fabricated side of the story. If only because I could never be so shameless in trying to exploit the loopiest of loop-holes so as to monetize a long overdue termination, I respect the disgraced Louisville legend's lack of self-respect. I'm absolute certain there were multiple pieces evidence proving that he, himself, transferred money to players in exchange for their eventual entrance into his program, but hey - what harm could an absurdly frivolous lawsuit due when you have no reputation left to ruin? I've maintained that Rick Pitino - like most "good" pathological liars - has absolutely no idea he's even lying anymore. If that's the case, then who is to say he's not juuuuuust detached enough from reality to convince other people of his untruths in exchange for the financial security that he won't be getting from coaching basketball in the new future? The play:
The reaction:
You know, it's really unbelievable how cruel some people can be to professional athletes. Kris Russell lays it all on the line - night in and night out - and people are going to nitpick the one mistake that directly cost his team the game and served as the microcosm of their incredibly disappointing season thus far? How dare they! I'm glad the Oilers' bleeding heart beat writers are doing what's right and sticking to their historically high standards of empathy by giving a guy a pass for shooting it directly into his own net with just a over a minute remaining in a tie game against a rival. There's not much you can count on from the hockey writers in Edmonton, but an understanding of circumstances and mercy towards those who are occasionally complicit in a loss despite otherwise putting forth a winning effort are undoubtedly at the top of that short list... Not but seriously, I didn't realize that an absence of compassion was an emotion - or lack there of - that was subject to an overcorrection. We are talking about the same journalistic jabronis that scapegoated Taylor Hall and wiped their ass with his reputation after the current Hart Trophy candidate got shipped out of town for laughably less than he was worth (one for one, el oh el). The same group of reporters that responded to Jordan Eberle's respectful criticism of how he covered in Edmonton with the PG-equivalent of "don't be a pussy". The same cast of characters that managed to use a fine-tooth comb to pick out the flea-sized flaws of a 20 year old who is already arguably the best player in hockey. Those are the guys that want the casual fan to join them in swaddling a middle pairing defenseman in the NHL because for one night he turned himself into a punchline on the internet. Honestly, if this is a case of them making up for lost time then they are trying way too hard, because I think even Kris Russell would tell you he'd rather not be treated like the mentally-handicapped bagger that accidentally dropped your carton of eggs during checkout. And trust me, I've been there. I didn't put a decisive puck in my own net with tens of thousands of overly opinionated people in attendance but I did so in a game that probably meant as much to me as a some random regular season game means to Kris Russell, and you know what? It sucks, and it's embarrassing, and it completely overshadows everything else you did on the ice, and that's exactly the way that it should be. That moment shouldn't define his season, but when you take a turnaround clapper through your goalie's five-hole with just over 60 seconds left then it's going to define your night more so than the goal you scored to tie it in the first place. Luckily, this particular night came in mid-November as opposed to during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. So maybe, just maybe, the journalists that happily keep a running tally of the reigning Art Ross Trophy winner's turnovers can wipe the fucking crocodile tears and enjoy a nice hearty laugh at an objectively hilarious play made by a proud professional athlete whose getting paid handsomely to compartmentalize that calamity and move on from it.
First and foremost, let me just say that the following has nothing to do with the trade that sent Adam Henrique westward. I've made it clear that I love the deal and am excited to see what Sami Vatanen brings to a defense that probably needs him to clone himself as a lefty before it can be trusted to do anything more than give Cory Schneider an extra 45 minutes of sleep per night. That being said, it's going to be weird to see the New Jersey take the ice without the player who was undoubtedly most expendable from a hockey standpoint, but one of the few that developed enough of a connection to the franchise that even the immediate improvement of the roster couldn't completely quell the instinctual disappointment of its fanbase. I know professional sports are a business, and thus the door to a locker room will always be of the rotational variety, but it's been long time since Devils' fans have had to deal with the loss of player whose contributions couldn't be measured entirely by stats. Maybe that's because Adam Henrique was the one of the few promising prospects to flourish during an era in which the farm system made the Devils look like draft dodgers. Maybe it's because most of the players that have delivered moments that were as unforgettable as an Eastern Conference-clinching overtime goal against the Rangers are (or will be) immortalized in the rafters of the Prudential Center. Maybe it's because not too many athletes can avoid being engulfed in flames while stuck in a down trending dumpster fire for half a decade. Maybe it's because the person in question was one of the first to be able to use his personality to relate to the fanbase as he broke free of the hyper-strict parental controls of a General Manager whose disdain for all things technological is so persistent that it probably still takes him 5-7 business days to wish his kids a happy birthday. Maybe it's because high profile departures like Parise and Kovalchuk left on their own volition. Hell, maybe it's just recency bias. Whatever the case may be, listening to the man informally dubbed 'Rico' discuss his Devils' tenure in the past tense pulled on a couple heart strings. Of course, the shit-storm that Adam Henrique made it through unscathed theoretically makes it easier for Sami Vatanen to be a part of memories that will help the emotional toll of this trade come out in the wash. Still, I'm glad a guy who embraced being a New Jersey Devil is being thrust into a prominent role for a contender, because - after all he went through in helping them become one again - the last thing he deserved was to suffer through what Taylor Hall did last year. |
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