NFLization of America

It would be too easy to use this blogging time to discuss my boy Greg Paulus and his sudden interest in becoming the Michigan quarterback. To turn down Coach K's offer of a seat on hi bench is akin to me telling the manager at Chick Fil A that I just want a salad today. It ain't a good idea and you just don't do it. Instead I want to address a far more pressing issue for sports fans around the country.


With the NFL draft rapidly approaching I want to discuss a threat so dire that mainstream media outlets dare not touch it for fear they will run afoul of the NFL's conduct policy and that's the NFLization of America. Believe it or not I coined that phrase.

To illustrate this point I take you back a few years when a friend of my friend made an offhand comment that just ruined my week a few years back. My beloved Phillies were in the midst of yet another 90 plus loss season and he said its alright because Philadelphia is really an Eagles town anyway. Boy that really burned me up, look I'm the biggest Eagles fan I know, but the Phillies have won two world championships since 1980 and last time I checked I didn't have any Super Bowl t-shirts with the Eagles logo on it. So if Philly is any kind of town it really should be a town dedicated to a team that has actually claimed the title "World Champion" at least once.

The look I shot this guy must have cut right through his being, but later I thought it wasn't him saying that, its what the NFLization has done to our psyche. The NFL has taken over everything related to sports. Its already a given that we talk about it every week starting with training camp and preseason games in August through the Super Bowl in, yuk, February now. Then we bleed into the combine, then the free agency period, then the draft and before you know it we are in the summer and training camps are about to start. It has become a never ending cycle that doesn't leave page one of the sports section. And for what? The NFL currently plays a 16 game schedule and yeah I know they are thinking of adding one or two games, but in the end we spend all this time talking about what will amount to at most as 16 regular season games now. All this time and attention focused on just 16 games. Its too much focus for just that few a number of games.

When you look at other professional sports like baseball, hockey and basketball you have at least 80 games to get excited about. There is no way we should devote this much time and effort to 16 appearances a year. I urge you to do what you can to keep your NFLization at a minimum, for the sanity of us all.

Rites of Spring

Well, I know the winter must be ending soon. There are some annual indicators that let me know the warmer weather is on the way. In our grandparents time, they probably looked to the blooming pear trees or listened for the sounds of songbirds returning to the air. For those of us in the modern day, there are two clearer indicators of spring that we can anticipate each year. First, is that every year at this time I read the same article about Kobe, LeBron, KG or some other straight to the NBA star and how they really wish they could have been in the NCAA tournament and that their only regret about having skipped college. The article is always the same - every year. The second sign of spring is that this is also the time of year when we hear the Cubs fans saying, 'this is our year', and '100 plus years of frustration is about to be over'. Let me tell you a secret Cubs fans - no, it is not your year. But, I do appreciate you letting me know the temperatures are about to turn for the better. I am ready for that.

Make Room for Greg Paulus

Its been awhile since I last posted, hopefully this makes up for the gap.

Well I hope everyone enjoyed the beat down of the Blue Devils last night as much as I did. Contrary to popular fandom I do not root (most of the time) for the conference in which my beloved Tigers play in. I don't subscribe to the theory that one should root for their "home" conference simply so they can make the point that their conference is the toughest or hardest one to play in. Rarely does that argument ever lead to anything except more arguing.

The biggest issue to come out of the NCAA tournament (at least last night) was the fact that Greg Paulus played his last game for the Dukies. Meaning just like every other guard that has played for Coach K he now gets his honorary assistant coaching job right next to the legendary coach. Needless to say the athletic department at Duke has been spending this entire past year trying to determine how they will add another chair and still keep the current student-athletes from joining the first row of the "Cameron Crazies". Believe you me, this takes some time and effort. So if you saw Chris Collins and Wojo looking to their left and right last night as the final minutes ticked away you know they were wondering which chair Greg would be occupying.

Jimmy Award Winner Number 3

Yes, I know that I have not posted in a while. I am sure you will get over it.

So, you all remember when Detroit was snatching up wide receivers like a fat kid on cheese curls? In 2003, they drafted Charles Rogers. The history is important, because Charles has not exactly had the most memorable of careers. Anyway, Charles was recently arrested for a domestic violence issue. He is serving his time. When he gets out, FFF will hand him our third Jimmy Award for this bit of self aggrandizement that appeared in today's paper:

“I’m just going to do my 10 days, get out of the court system and try to get in shape for a comeback,” Rogers said today in a telephone interview with the Associated Press from the Oakland County jail in Pontiac. “Am I sad about the way my life has turned out? No, because I know the strides I’ve made to take care of Charles Rogers.”

Congrats Charles - keep dreaming big man.

The lifestyle

You ever wonder how the swinger community got the rights to claim 'the lifestyle' as their own adjective? Seems a bit unfair to me. There are several types of living that certainly constitute a lifestyle, and yet if someone says anything about 'the lifestyle', it is assumed that they are talking about swinging. This is not a huge deal in everyday life for me, but if I were Amish, I would be pissed. To me, the Amish certainly commit to a larger change in actual way of life than swingers do. And yet you don't hear a whole lot of people saying, "hey, I noticed Jebediah's family bought a new car, and seem to be straying from the lifestyle".

The Bachelor

As I have mentioned before, as a married man who values family time I am prone to watch whatever my wife records on the DVR. Not a big deal. In fact, sometimes it presents me with the most amusing of life's situations. Such is the case with our families recent addiction to "The Bachelor".

Whether you have seen the Bachelor or not, you probably understand the basic concept. One guy dates several (I think it is around 30) women and weekly eliminates them until the final one is standing. It creates the perfect storm for a classic train wreck TV moment. The pending train wreck is why I find the show so amusing and entertaining each week. Actually, I figured out this year that I find the fans of the show even more amusing than the actual program. The show itself is fairly predictable when you think about it. Fun to watch, but predictable.

Before I go on, another thing that is important for background is that I have a Facebook account and keep in touch with many old friends this way. Because I have a Facebook account, not only did I watch the show each week this year, I also tracked my friend's "status updates" after each episode and almost without fail lots of friends on Facebook would post about the latest situation on The Bachelor. If you watched the show, you know that the Bachelor slept with at least 4 or 5 of these women. He did this on national television without apology and with everyone knowing that the same thing was going to be happening the next night with a different gal. Anyone see a concern? Anyone know anyone personally who has done this? Anyone even had enough guts to say out loud that you would like to do this? Well, maybe I should put it this way: Do you think the Facebook updates were calling him a male whore or pig or any other assorted descriptor of anybody on the street that would try to pull off such a thing? Oh hell no - don't kid yourself. People loved the guy. "The Bachelor is so sweet", "what a cutie the Bachelor is", "wow, the Bachelor is such a caring guy" were all standard types of responses that could be seen after the show aired each week. Are you confused? I am. In defiance of all standard social norms, why does the female population eat this stuff up only if its on national television and despise the entire male gender if such a stunt were done by someone they know? Don't hurt your brain pondering that, because I think we all know what happens next...

The Bachelor chooses a girl, proposes marriage, and at the first sign of trouble heads back to one of the other girls. The status updates explode!!! "What an ass", "The Bachelor is a jerk!!!!", "I never want to see this guy in person or I would slap him".

Ladies - what the hell did you think you were watching? He cashed in his morals when he signed up for the show. I knew that. It's why I watched. The trains were heading towards each other as fast as they could and the wreck was guaranteed.

As Denny Green would have said, "He is who we thought he was!!!"



- The other true gem from this year's show is that it produced our second "FFF Jimmy Award" winner. For those unaware of the Jimmy award, see the post dated December 16, 2008.

The second Jimmy Award goes to the Bachelor's 'victim' Melissa, whom he engaged and then left for cold. She seemed like a nice girl. Unfortunately, the Bachelor left her with nothing. Well, good news Melissa - you won the Jimmy Award.

Did anyone else catch it? At the point Melissa is fuming with smoke bellowing out of her ears, she went total third person for all the nation to enjoy. She looks at the Bachelor while she is telling him the reasons that she believes he sucks and says, "Because you chose Melissa, but you don't want to fight for Melissa." Congratulations Melissa - you win our second Jimmy. Don't spend all the prize money in one place. If you decide you must spend it all in one place - add another tattoo to your lower back.

My Problem with Naismith and Thoughts on Manny

Next week will be the first of March, so our collective sports focus turns to basketball and the fun of the tournament. Kansas is right in the hunt again this year and having a good season despite losing some stars from last year’s championship squad. Whether you want to or not (and most of us don’t want to), when you live in the Midwest, you hear a lot of chatter about Ohio State during football season and Kansas during basketball season. The Jayhawk faithful despise and look down upon anyone who does not embrace all of their traditions with fondness. From my observations, the first commandment for being a Jayhawk fan is to worship James Naismith as if he were a God. I want to point out a simple problem that I have had with Dr. Naismith for years, and I simply cannot get past. The fact is that I do not find Naismith to be nearly as admirable as whichever of his students decided to cut a hole in the bottom of the peach basket. That is really the person to admire and the history I find simply says it was a student. Just imagine if every time Kansas scored a basket, someone had to get out the ladder to get the ball.



Manny Being…Humbled…

Is anyone else as happy as me to see that teams are not lining up to try and sign Manny Ramirez to the money that he believes he deserves? Manny is truly a gifted talent, and as good with the bat as you will ever see. Maybe that fact is what makes his ‘bigger than the program’ attitude the saddest of all. Still, I am glad that the collective memory of baseball owners and GM’s is long enough to remember that if Manny decides your team has not given him enough money at any particular time, he will turn off the switch and shut down. Well Manny, it looks like there are not a lot of folks that are going to fight for your services, so you might want to think about that before you shut down next time. The rest of us will continue working our 9 to 5 for whatever we can fight and claw for and with the economy as it is, we will be glad to simply have a job.