Monday, January 22, 2007

Random Thoughts from the Weekend

1. I'm really indifferent to the hiring of Rob Chudzinski as the Browns new OC. He was San Diego's TE coach and that's great for Kellen Winslow and probably bad for Lawrence Vickers.

2. He's already been the Browns O.C. once already? Who knew?

3. Peter King loves him some Peyton Manning.

4. From MMQB:
"I don't get into monkeys and vindication.''
-- Peyton Manning, asked after the AFC Championship win if he felt the 38-34 win over the Patriots got the can't-win-the-big-one monkey off his back.
5. I know Manning won a 'big game' and that's great for him and it was really great to watch. However, he hasn't won 'the big one' yet. He got the monkey off of his back but he needs a championship to really shut people up.

6. Simmons can always find a way to bring up the Red Sox, can't he? (Though I was going to mention the parallel myself):
There were eerie parallels to the Dave Roberts Game in that the Colts (A) were handicapped by their collective history (much like the Red Sox heading into that 2004 ALCS), (B) were battling their long-time nemesis who always owned them (much like the Yankees), and (C) needed to hit rock-bottom to set up the whole "miracle comeback that makes everyone forget that this team was snakebitten in the first place" thing (like the Red Sox being three outs away from a sweep). Nothing's scarier than a home team playing with house money in front of a desperate crowd dying for a reason to jump back into the game.
7. First line of Simmons's column: "We had it". No, the Patriots had it. You were watching the game like the rest of us.

8. The whole 'fans using 'we' when talking about their teams' is one of the little things that bugs me. Don't get me wrong, I understand it and I used to do it myself. I make a conscious effort not to use 'we' when I discuss the Cavs, Browns or Tribe (with OSU it's more difficult, cause I actually went there and my tuition paid for those players salaries...er.. scholarships). It's really not a big deal and it's quite common, but still, for whatever reason, it's grown to irk me.

9. This makes it real easy to root against the Bears.

10. So if Manning wins the Super Bowl, how many more commercials can he do? He's already everywhere and that's with being perceived as a choker. If he wins, he's going to be everywhere.

11. Bill Livingston is not a good columnist.

12. Livingston has a point with the Cavs don't have a consistent second man, but he (like everyone else) absolves James from any of this. LeBron's interest varies from game to game (or from quarter to quarter) and the Cavs suffer because of it. If LeBron plays the every game like the second half of the Warriors game, the Cavs are up 5-6 games in the East.

13. Free Darko uses big words to discuss LeBron's season.

14. They also have a great discussion on Bill Simmons and the Suns.

15. Does "I'm in, and I'm in to win" remind anyone else of "We'll take the ball and we're gonna score"

16. I agree with this:
I think you may have touched on this before, but I'd like to reiterate the single biggest mental block that currently makes me think I will not cast my vote for Clinton. It makes my stomach hurt to think that in twenty or thirty years I could look back at a list of presidents that includes "Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton." This country is far too great to have to rely on two families for so much presidential leadership. Think about it: a two-term Hillary would be TWENTY-EIGHT years of Bush and Clinton. It's petty, but like I said it's a mental block, and I'm just not sure how I can get over it.
17. More on Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton

18. Huh? Liberal blog fights PETA misinformation? wah?

19. That terrible Nancy Pelosi.

20. Tell me this isn't awesome:



22. Come on, who wouldn't want to see this?

23. Bob Saget as Zyrdrunas Ilgauskas? This works for everybody.

24. I must say, I do like the blue unis.

25. It turns out that there's a reason that Shannon Brown isn't playing and it's not because of Sasha Pavlovic's awesomeness:

Brown is dealing with a somewhat serious injury in his lower left leg. He was kicked just above the ankle during practice Dec. 29, the day before he was to go to his hometown of Chicago for the first time as a pro. It turned out to a very deep bone bruise which has led to a host of other complications.

``It's really affected some muscles that control the movement in my foot,'' Brown said. ``I had a little bleeding in my bone marrow, then it sent some fluid into my Achilles area and swelled my ankle up. It's one of them freak things that happen, I guess.''

The Cavs never officially announced Brown had been injured and have never listed him on their daily injury report. Team officials said they haven't listed because they didn't think the injury was serious. Perhaps it isn't a big deal for a player who has been inactive for most games, but frankly Brown wouldn't mind it. He knows there's a perception out there that he just has been unable to play well enough to crack the lineup.

26. I still say it's a little too soon to rip Ferry, though I can see the point. However, I'm pretty sure Joel's piece generated more comments on Real Cavs Fans than anything I've written combined (and I write for them after every game : ) ).

27. Trade for Pau!

28. This was by far the best thing on SNL this past week (I had the exact same thought about having an entourage):



29. The tivo will be working overtime tonight with a new Heroes and Studio 60 combined with the Cavs-Magic game and me being out of the house due to a church league game.

30. I've been wanting to post a video of the Hold Steady for awhile now and while I love their song 'Chips Ahoy', I really don't care for the video. So here's 'Stuck Between Stations' from their Letterman appearance (though the piano is too drowned out):

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never seen Real Cavs Fans before. I've spent a moment checking out the first page of that forum on my post and now think I'll have to write a reply.

I agree with a few things people have said; others have been completely off (like the guy who said you have to spend money to make money--in the context of Ferry's tenure as GM that makes no sense).

The next post will rely on statistics much more, but as a preview I can say that the only move that has seemed to actually help the Cavs is Marshall replacing Tractor Trailer.

The big myth to debunk is the skill of Hughes. The ONLY season he's had as a pro in which he's been above average is the season he had before he signed with the Cavs. Every other season he's been much worse and the margin hasn't been close. I've made this point about eighty times now, but once more won't hurt.

There are plenty of reasons to hope Clinton doesn't get the nomination. 28 years of Bush-Clinton is but a small blip on the radar. It is, however, quite worrisome.

Ben said...

Real Cavs Fans is one of the better, if not the best, Cavs boards out there.

Personally, I liked Tractor, because if nothing else, when Tractor and Andy were in there, if you drove the lane, you were getting hit. Hard.

LargeBill said...

As far as the new offensive coordinator goes, I have two questions.
1. Do I have to learn how to spell his name?
2. Is he bringing Tomlinson with him?

As far as the Bush-Clinton-Bush-??? thing goes, I get the feeling people on both side of the political spectrum are uninterested in seeing it continue. If that means Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton are kept out of the White House because of something they can't control (their last names) then oh well. Hey, there are over 300 million people in this country. I'm sure we can find someone with a different last name. We have only had 43 presidents and only 37 different last names have been used. Got to be lots of names we haven't tried like Chudzinski.