Liveblogging the Death of the American Dream
In the end, Rob Lowe was right.
Months and months and months after we all knew how the Peyton Manning-Colts situation would play out, having encountered something in the neighborhood of 10,000 articles speculating on what would happen, the day finally arrived. The era finally ended.
Peyton Manning will no longer be a Colt by the close of business today. [Read more...]
Ahoy-hoy!
Your correspondent is the first to admit that it can be challenging to develop and publish avant-garde mockery four or five times per week depending on the federal holiday schedule, powder days, and the itinerant laziness and disorganization of the crack journalistic and editorial staff of this thoroughly overrated e-rag.
Magic Sam and I have been going through myriad life changes in the last several weeks (mainly adult-onset puberty).
[Editor's note: The Cardigans covering Black Sabbath?? You're welcome.]
Like many other entrepreneurial ventures, pimpin’ ain’t easy and neither is racking your brain for original bloggy content on a schedule that doesn’t necessarily suit your drug induced hazes civilian life. It was therefore a welcome development when the lovely [name withheld] from [redacted] unwittingly inaugurated the Daily Dickpunch mailbag (known henceforth as The Dickbag) with the following:
“The U.S. Treasury’s ‘Economy in Charts‘: good, bad, or bunk… discuss”
FINE I WILL, gosh.
Dear ESPN:
Hi there. Do you know me? I’m one of your millions of viewers, readers and listeners that you say you’re here to inform. Now I know, you’ve got plenty of viewers of SportsCenter, and you’ve got plenty of people listening to Mike & Mike, and have plenty of people reading Grantland, so in the grand scheme of things, I’m not terribly important to you. You’ve proven this over and over again.
But this Tim Tebow obsession you seem to have is starting to take on a life of its own, and I think it’s high time you re-evaluated whether you’re going to stay “ESPN, The Worldwide Leader in Sports,” or if you’re going to change to “TSPN, The Tebow-wide Tebow in Tebow.” [Read more...]
Three points? That’s it?
In a game the Broncos ostensibly needed to win in order to make the playoffs, the defense once again played lights-out, holding an NFL team to one touchdown and nothing more (although there was the matter of the missed field goal).
Three points? Really?
Sure, there were some questionable non-calls from the refs. But if you’re expecting the refs to get every call right every single time, it’s going to be a long time before your team wins any titles.
Especially when they can only muster three points. And that after a muffed punt on the opposition’s 20.
Tebow fans, you may want to cover your eyes. The league has figured out how to play your boy. The Chiefs were the first team to flawlessly execute the gameplan: Use your biggest guys in the middle to hold the point of attack, while letting your linebackers play contain, moving up field to keep Tebow in the pocket. Then play tight man coverage in the secondary.
Tebow ran back, he ran forth, he ran side to side. But he didn’t break the pocket. And because he’s not a quarterback, he didn’t keep his eyes up field, looking for his outlet pass.
It’s over, folks.
[Read more...]
Well, it was a really fun ride. Stop laughing, I’m serious. It was a blast going 7-1 down that magical stretch when things just started falling into place for the Denver Broncos.
Unfortunately every lucky streak — and that’s what it was, don’t kid yourself — must come to an end at some point. After the Patriots game I still thought that the Broncos would win out, make the playoffs, and c0uld even win a playoff game at home.
I see nothing. And if I’m being honest, I have no desire to see this version of this team playing an obviously superior Pittsburgh or New England in the “real season” of the playoffs.
They’re not good enough. And going to the playoffs at this point is pointless. [Read more...]
Hitch. Photo by Gasper Tringale
Like I suspect many of you did last Friday, I spent much of the day reading and sharing obituaries of Christopher Hitchens, the noted author, critic, and polemicist who departed this world after a long but dignified public battle with esophageal cancer. The fact that Mr. Hitchens’ death was not unexpected gave the literary world enough advance notice to craft obituaries worthy of the great man’s superior written words; see the Guardian, Vanity Fair, and the Daily Mail for especially good ones.
It was not until later in the day when I read a tough but fair post-mortem by the lovely people at Gawker that the irony of all of this dawned on me. Above all else, Mr. Hitchens seemed to hate unqualified admiration; he was widely quoted as not believing in the concept of heroes although George Orwell came close. So Mr. Hitchens, sat at the right hand of our Lord and Savior Jesus H. Christ in Heaven™ (which was Mr. Hitchens’ idea of hell so that’s where he is, obvs.), would likely have found all of this glowing praise to be awkward and maybe even a betrayal of his contrarian ideals.
The Not Ready For Prime Time Player
So Tim Tebow, he of much faith and bicep and scruff, reeled off six straight victories at the expense of struggling and just flat-out bad teams, resulting in overstatements and overshares, glowing articles and glowing praises, comparisons to Jesus, God, and John Elway, who might as well be both.
There were folks claiming, absurdly, that Tebow’s miracle run could include a trip to the Super Bowl and, “dag gum, it’d be hard to say they wouldn’t win it.” I mean, we’ve got Tebow.
Well, at the end of the day, we still have Tebow. But they still have Tom Brady. And the difference between the two of them was night and day. Look no further than the scoreboard: New England 41, Denver 23. In other words, not even close.
Why can't it just be like this every season?
Whenever I tell people outside the D.C. metropolitan area that the Washington Redskins are estimated to be the second most valuable National Football League franchise, they look at me like I’m a space lizard from the planet Zog.
“The Skins, really? Don’t they suck? I’m not sure I’ve ever met a Redskins fan…”
/nervous laughter
Tell us how you really feel, Luis. Photograph: Javier Garcia/Javier Garcia / BPI
Liverpool were mugged yesterday on a bitterly cold night on the Thames by referee Kevin Friend, their own profligacy in front of goal, and an opportunistic strike by that part-time rapper from Nacogdoches, Texas, Clint Dempsey. Championship-winning teams have enough ability and self-belief to offset refereeing injustices and goalkeeping mistakes; Liverpool last had this quality about them in April of 2009 and we haven’t seen the faintest hint of it in nearly thirty months. To be fair, the referee had about six major decisions to make and each time (whether rightly or wrongly, mostly wrongly) he came down on the side of Fulham. Consistent refereeing would have seen Fulham down to ten men for Dempsey’s absurd headbutting, then down to nine for repeated cynical tackles by Phillipe Senderos. On the balance of play it can be argued that Fulham deserved a point for a well-organized display that required the full attention of the usually magnificent Pepe Reina, but the additional two they won were a gift from the man in black.
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