I’ll get one thing out of the way right now, I hate the
Patriots. I’d like nothing more than for Tom Brady to tear a knee ligament while
getting blocked on a pick-6 he just threw to lose the AFC championship game. That
may just wipe the “I could #### all your girlfriends and mothers” grin off his
face for maybe a second or 2. Or I’d love for the truth to really come out
about how exactly Bill Belichek went from “Same record as Dave Wannstedt in
about the same amount of games (41-56 record vs. 40-56 in their first 6 seasons)”
to “Greatest coach ever”. I’m sure the cheating has nothing to do with it
what-so-ever. Or even better, I’d like to see Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel
get into some obviously steroid fueled fight over who’s the douchier player and
knock the hell out of each other.
Okay, I’m getting off topic. My the#### said I need to
look at the good in the bad, to find the good points in things I don’t like.
Well….. my imaginary the#### said it. So I’m going to go over some of the
good things about the Patriots, and they aren’t even of the backhanded
compliment variety.
1) They know when to talk.
Ever notice how the Patriots never talk smack before games?
But after they win they stomp on logos, taunt opposing fans and players, and
just generally act like a bunch of jackasses? That’s the way you should go
about it, if you’re going to be a big pack of taunty jerk-offs do it after
you win. For some reason my Steelers have never been able to keep the order of
this chain of events straight, even though it’s 1) win 2) talk smack. Seems
easy, but after a decade or more of seeing the Joey Porters, Lee Flowerses, and Anthony
Smiths of the world get it wrong maybe it’s more complicated than I give it
credit.
2) People turn dumb when they play them
I don’t know if the
Patriots cheat or not, but I do have my su####ions. If nothing else there
should be at least an investigation into some sort of ray-gun the Pats use to
turn opposing player and coaches into the football equivalent of Ralph Wiggum.
Opposing Linebacker: “Oh hey, there’s Mike Vrabel lined up
at tight end on the goal line, no way they’ll ever throw to him!!”
Opposing safety: “Hmmm, they haven’t run the ball since
Robert Edwards was the running back, but I’m going to totally buy into this
play-fake anyway”
Opposing DB: “I’m a butterfingered defensive back, but
goddamit I’m taking this interception to the house!! Oh damn I just fumbled and
they got the ball back”
And there are many, many more examples of this. For the sake
of saying good things about the Patriots I’ll chalk this one up to them just
being smarter than everyone else.
3) Shrewd player movement
This is really more of an extension of #2, but the Pats
certainly know how to do player acquisitions and drafting. Randy Moss for a 4th
round pick, Wes Welker for a 2nd rounder, seemingly having two 1st
round draft picks every year, having a top 5 (possibly top 2) pick in the 2008
draft. Also, unlike a lot of other teams who seem more content to just maybe make
the playoffs and take it from there (*cough*Steelers*cough*), the Patriots just
go for it.
4) Motivational tactics
In past years the Patriots have taken every little negative thing
said about them, every slight, and magnified them to the point where their
mascot should really be Tommy DeVito from GoodFellas. Considering that this
year the legitimacy of their entire run of Super Bowl wins has come into
question, it’s not so much a surprise that they’re undefeated as no one’s died
on the field yet. Just whatever you do don’t say they’re “funny”.
5) Randy Moss
Maybe my favorite player in the NFL, and definitely the best pure
athlete to ever play (Note that “best athlete” does not equal “best wide receiver”).
All that while being just a dumb hillbilly from West Virginia. Hey, I’m not being unfair,
ever hear him talk? He could be giving a lecture on quantum physics and you’d
still look at him like a (very) illegitimate part of the Clampett clan. Also
just think, this is the guy who made good/great QBs out of Randall Cunningham,
Jeff George, and Dante Culpepper. How anyone could be surprised that Brady’s
having the season he’s having is beyond me.
6) Pure unbridled luck
From the time they won their first Super Bowl in 2001 with a
bunch of cast-offs (Mike Vrabel), has-beens (Drew Bledsoe), and never-wases (Otis
Smith), all the while scoring 3 offensive TDs in that playoff run, you had to
figure that there was something lucky about the team. Then came the Casey kick
out of bounds, the McNabb puke, the San
Diego collapse, and even the Ravens game from this
season among many other examples. With all that luck coming their way there
must be a lot of sick kids being fed by them, or old ladies being visited, or
something. So good for them.
7) Due to fortuitous circumstances I was able to bet money on the Patriots at 5/1 to win the Super Bowl like the day they traded for Moss. So if they win the Super Bowl I win $1500. No better reason to like someone than winning money
Here’s a comprehensive guide to the teams with BCS
championship game aspirations. I am giving cases for and cases against each
team, if they win the rest of their games. They can be either tangible things,
like wins, losses, and strength of schedule, or just plain opinions. They range
from those with very high chances (Ohio State, Florida), to those with no chance in hell (WVU, Boise State)
but are included for argument’s sake. The reasons can either be reasons they
will or won’t be in the game, or should or shouldn’t. There really is no rhyme
or reason, or order. So enough explanations, here we go.
Ohio
State
For:
- They’ll be undefeated in the Big 10.
- They have an explosive offense with 2 Heisman candidates
in Troy Smith and Theodore Ginn.
- They convincingly beat Texas
at Texas.
- They haven’t given up more than 17 points all season, and
have only given up double digit points in 3 games.
- They’re Ohio
State, that has to count
for something right?
Against:
- They won’t have played Wisconsin,
thereby avoiding the only other team in the Big Ten besides Michigan that doesn’t completely suck this
season.
- On a related note they have only played one team thus far
who is currently in the top 25.
- When they beat Texas Colt McCoy it was his second start
ever, and it showed.
- The defense may only be good because they haven’t played a
team with an offense besides Texas.
- Seriously, only beating Illinois by 7?
USC
For:
- Will have played the toughest schedule of any team on this
list.
- Recent history
- Beat the only team who is undefeated in SEC play (Arkansas) by 36 points… in Arkansas
Against:
- Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, and LenDale White, et al are
all in the NFL. Their replacements aren’t quite up to that level, not that
that’s a crime or anything
- Have struggled, albeit mostly on the road, against lesser
opponents.
- Lost to an okay but not great Oregon State
team. A team that lost 42-17 to Boise
State earlier in the year
Florida
For:
- They play in the “Toughest Conference in the Nation”. They
have 2 wins against teams currently in the top 15, including on the road at Tennessee.
- May have the best defense in the country.
- Chris Leak is a proven senior QB
Against:
- Their offense isn’t that good, they have struggled to
score points against even the bad teams they’ve played
- The toughest part of their schedule is long gone, their
remaining games are against South Carolina, West Carolina, and a very down FSU squad.
- Chris Leak has at least one INT in every game but one, 10
overall. Kind of betraying his positive senior leadership
Rutgers
For:
- Undefeated in a relatively tough BCS conference. The Big
East is better than the ACC period, and has better depth than the Big 10.
- They may very well have the best offensive line in the
country, if there is a way to gauge such things.
- Ray Rice should be in New York for the Heisman ceremony.
- If they win out they will have 2 wins against top 15
teams.
- Have one of the best defenses in the country
- Feel good story, for whatever that’s worth
- Are you going to tell James Gandolfini they aren’t worthy?
Against:
- Have the worst schedule of any of the BCS conference teams
on this list.
- I can’t remember their QB’s name, which should tell you
something. If they had even an above average QB they could have been the best
team in the country.
- Were ranked too low in the beginning of the season. With
that and the anti-Big East bias it would take a series of strange and unusual
upsets to overcome all the teams ahead of them
- The Jew-run New
York media is too late to the party to make a
difference
WVU
For:
- They have an offense that is mostly unstoppable
- Right now they have as many wins against current top 25
teams as Ohio State, Cal,
USC, Arkansas, Texas,
and Rutgers.
- Pat White and Steve Slaton
Against:
- Really blew it against Louisville,
more losing the game than Louisville
won it.
- Defense is still suspect.
- If you can stop the run Pat White cannot pass very well.
However that is a big if.
- East coast bias, in reverse. People act like the AD of WVU
is Osama Bin Laden or something.
Texas
For:
- Defending national champions
- Only loss came against the team that’s been #1 the entire
season
- Colt McCoy is getting better and better
- May be the most talented team in the country. Please note
that talent does not equal good necessarily, otherwise Florida State
would still be in the top 10.
- Richard Nixon’s on their side
Against:
- Offense has struggled against the few good teams they’ve
played.
- Schedule is lacking, the Big 12 is down this season. They
only good team they’ve beaten is a team with a wide receiver playing
quarterback.
- Already had their chance
Michigan
For:
- Dominated Notre Dame at South Bend
- Have looked like the best team in the country at times
this season
- Have the best QB, RB, WR combo of these teams.
- May have the best defense in the country.
Against:
- Aside from the two wins against Notre Dame and Wisconsin their best win is against an offensively
challenged (to be kind) Penn
State squad. And that’s
by a fairly wide margin
- Offense hasn’t played the same since Manningham got hurt,
even since he’s been back
- Were a goal line stand away from being taken into overtime
at home by a bad MAC team with a starting QB I watched play at Bellaire High
School last year. There’s no excuse for it really, if they were looking two
weeks ahead to OSU then that shows mental weakness. If they took the starters
out early enough for something like that to happen that shows poor judgment by
the coaching staff (which has been a knock on them to begin with). Even then if
Michigan’s as good as people hype them to be
Bo Schembechler could hobble his way onto the field, play defensive end, and
they still shouldn’t have a problem beating Ball State.
Probably the poorest showing by any team on this list.
Arkansas
For:
- Darren McFadden is the best running back in the country
not in the Big East.
- Undefeated in SEC play, which I’m pretty sure means
they’re in line to move up to the NFC West next season. The AZ Cardinals will
move to the SEC West.
- Beat Auburn at Auburn.
- Very underrated defense.
(ifyouignorethefirstgameoftheseason).
Against:
- Can you really ignore that first game? USC may not even be
the 2nd best team in the PAC-10.
- They have about as easy a schedule as you could hope for
in the SEC. They don’t play Florida, and they
get Tennessee
and LSU at home.
- As good as true freshman QB Mitch Mustain may be, he’s
still a true freshman QB who’s being protected by a great running game.
Cal
For:
- Since their opening glitch at Tennessee they have looked as good as any
team. Maybe even better
- Offense has some of the best talent in the country.
- Um, somebody may want to help me with this. I haven’t
really seen much of them
Against:
- Suspect defense
- Suspect schedule, the PAC-10 is very poor outside of the
top 3 teams. Or The Big Other 2 so far as Cal is concerned.
- Got destroyed by the 5th best team in the SEC (Tennessee)
Auburn
For:
- Beat Florida
and LSU
- Good, if not great, defense
Against:
- 8.5 home games to 3.5 road games (You can’t really count Alabama as a true road
game). Their road games were against Miss
State, Ole’ Miss, and South Carolina. In other
words every game they’ve played has been at home. No Tennessee either.
- Looked really bad against Arkansas,
and didn’t beat Florida
so much as Florida lost it.
- Thoroughly average offense. Cox is an average QB, Kenny
Irons is more hype than actual production.
Boise
State
For:
- Undefeated
- Mostly unchallenged
- Dynamic offense
- Badly beat Oregon
State, who beat USC
Against:
- Ugh, that schedule. It’s like an SEC team’s out of
conference schedule, only for an entire season
- Just an extension of that last thought, not only will they
not have beaten a top 25 team, they will not have played a team that’s been in
the top 25 ALL SEASON
- Only beat Wyoming
by 7 points.
- Not in a BCS conference, therefore they aren’t owed
anything
Well, there you have it. Now imagine all of these flawed but
very good teams actually having the chance to play each other and see who
really is the best team? Of course we can’t have that, because, um…………. well
there’s no real good reason. Oh well
Just a couple of random thoughts for those still reading
- There’s no sneaker major for athletes than kinesiology. It
sounds impressive if you don’t know what it is, and in some ways it still is, but
for athletes it’s basically a slight step up from a Phys Ed major.
- Staying on majors, and this applies to normal people more
than athletes, they need to re-name “Criminal Justice” to just “I Don’t Know”
- It’s kind of weird and frustrating when a coach does an
awesome job at everything except actual in-game coaching. Dave Wannstedt to
this point has been that way. He’s recruited better than anyone could imagine,
he’s been great with the alumni, he’s been great with the players (not too much
of a hard-####, but not a pushover). Unfortunately every big game he’s had so
far with Pitt has gone horribly wrong. Now in fairness, Walt Harris didn’t
leave him with much, but you should still beat South
Florida. So now the best Pitt can hope for is, I dunno, the
International Bowl. Crappy thing is, next year will be a step back most likely
because all of their tough games are on the road, and they’ll be breaking in a
new QB. “Wait till ‘08” does have a nice ring to it at the very least though.
I'm getting sucked into this Two-A-Days show on MTV. If you don't know the show I mean, basically they just follow around the players from one of the best high school football teams in the country. And being MTV they naturally do alot of off field drama ####, but it's not so bad. Now, keep in mind I'm not much for MTV, the last show I watched on that channel regularly was Beavis and Butthead. But this show is good, it's got good football stuff (andbarelylegalcheerleadersintightshorts) for the guys, and stupid relationship #### for the chicks. Most of these reality type shows (Newlyweds, Laguna Beach) are more boring than you can imagine, usually it's watching rich kids sit around and mumble. But, this isn't boring, it's kinda good.
Here are just some funny things that I noticed on the show
- There's a black kid on the show who has a super-hot white chick girlfriend with a huge rack, and he sounds exactly like Boomhauer from "King of the Hill", no joke. The best part? His name is Repete. If the final episode features him and a guy named Pete in a boat, and Pete falls out, I'll kill myself cuz life won't get any better.
- These kids have the squarest heads I've ever seen. It's like the Blockheads from Gumby came to our reality and impregnated the rich and elite of Alabama.
- One of the squareheads for whatever reason has to do the old "put flowers in the girls car as a suprise" to ask one of the cheerleaders to some dance. I have no idea why, I'm the biggest dork ever and I know that's a #### move. But it worked, maybe it was a producer suggestion or something.
- I'm always intrigued by the Napoleanic comlpexes that most high school football coaches have, this show shows that side of these coaches in ####s.
- Speaking of coaches, the defensive coordinator of the team was eating dinner with the step-dad of one of the players (who's apparently the ultimate example of a 'dicky sports dad') and admitted to never hearing of asparagus. Probably not funny to everyone, but I laughed for probably 3 minutes.
- They play in one of the 50 million dollar or however much stadiums. When you play in a better venue than 30% of most pro teams in high school, that's gotta be worth something.
Perhaps more as the show goes on, if I remember it's on. I'm going to go find my nuts now, I think they fell off.
Well, I’m not one for long intros. I watch WWE’s Monday Night Raw, recap it, and you laugh at or ignore this. That is unless I don’t do it for a month or so as has been the case recently. Anyway, enough yappin’, on with the nonsense
- Show opening
- With life-span having increased exponentially since the time of the very first clip of the opening montage (1940-something at best guess) you’d have the figure that your average pro-wrestler died at age 15 back then.
- I went a long way for that one, you’d better like it
- DX opens the show with a clip package of their shenanigans and goings on the past month or so
- #### jokes and #### (literally) falling from the ceiling. Throw in some roofies and a fight or 2 with the football team and you have any given frat party on any given weekend
- DX is beloved in San Antonio, which is where Raw is being broadcast from tonight oddly enough
- Helps that Shawn Michaels is from there
- Hot chick, possibly a plant, shown completely freaking out
- DX duo does dumb infomercial skit for new shirts
- It’s actually not that bad, these guys are actually kinda sorta funny, for wrestlers. Throw in Kevin Nash and I may even take away the sorta
- Or the kinda, I haven’t decided yet
- You know, even at the height of its popularity, if you wore a wrestling shirt you pretty much looked like a mouth-breathing ####. I think the closest thing to acceptable was the original NWO shirt
- HHH says that Vince seems un-happy tonight and “On edge”
- Of all the #### jokes the guy makes and he chooses to pass up that one.
- Oh well, I’m no writer
- Did they ditch the Raw opening? One can only hope
- Heh, raw opening
- One of these guys are turning, not sure who though. Or when. Hopefully it’s not HHH, that’s been done waaaayyyyyy too much
- Not that it’s ever stopped them before
- Lots of hot tail in the audience tonight.
- DX goads Vince out
- Guy in the crowd holds up a stuffed chicken with a sign that says “Vince likes me”
- Hey, who doesn’t like taxidermy?
- Vince doing his best “John Vernon in Animal House” impression.
- If the line “Roided, oiled up, and stupid is no way to go through life son” is uttered my life will once again have meaning
- Vince has 2 words for them
- Shane-O-Mac
- Isn’t that 3 words?
- Or 2 and a half at least
- Oh well, I’m no mathematician
- Vince makes a HBK/Shane match for tonight
- Shane does a nice McMahon “Shaaadaapp!” to the crowd
- Generic bad guy stuff
- Vince’s music plays as we go to clips of Umaga destroying people
- Commercials
- I could have lived my life without hearing a midget scream “The meat!! The meat!!”
- Carlito and Trish shown winning at SNME
- Carlito to the ring
- Nice, a “My mom says I’m cool” sign in the audience
- Here’s a guy in desperate need of a personality, he could rule the world. Right now he’s just idling
- Both guys seem to be going at half speed
- As I type that JR says they are both “quicker than hiccups”
- “Quicker than a long wet ####” would be more appropriate tonight
- Wrestling happens
- Carlito wins using the ropes, after Benji tried doing it first
- SNME clips shown, Cena v. Edge
- Lame DQ ending
- Black guy in crowd shown checking out Lita’s ####
- Umaga gets a guy like Cena already?
- Wonder where they’re going with that
- Probably another DQ
- Commercials
- “Clerks II: Clerks meet Earl from ‘My Name is Earl’”
- So it seems anyway
- Backstage, Trish pretends to be attracted to Carlito
- This Week in Wrestling History, it involves women’s wrestling (from the 80s no less) so basically it’s one big who-gives-a-rats-####?
- Was Fabulous Moolah always 80 years old?
- Announcer says the bout “grabbed headlines nationwide”
- Yes, I can see it now, “Woman Beats Woman Twice Her Age in Fake Bout” on the front page of the New York Times
- Women’s tag match next, for no real reason Candace is the guest referee
- Trish and Torrie vs. 2 women who won’t win
- The women get mixed and matched more than an #### dating web-site
- At least they usually stay in character
- Usually
- #### flop around, midriffs are shown, my pants are messed….er, nevermind
- Stuff happens, Candace helps Trish and whatsername win the match
- Maria backstage with ethnic stereotype #1 and ethnic stereotype #2
- If El Matador Tito Sanatana were there too it’d be a nice trifecta of 1950s style non-white stereotypes. Oh well, maybe eventually
- Estrada: “let me ‘splain somethin’ to jew”
- I don’t think the Jews have time to have things explained to them right now, theys gots airports to bomb
- Umaga shows us his grill
- Commercials
- “John Tucker Must Die”, not since “40 Days and 40 Nights” has a movie made the average guy feel like such an impotent loser.
- And what’s with this kid? First he gets to #### Eva Longoria on that show, now he’s in a movie where he’s getting 5 hot chicks after him? I mean, he’s a good looking guy and all (which I am comfortable enough in my ultra-heteroness to say), but by age 30 he’s either gonna be balding or have a widow’s peak that’ll make Eddie Munster jealous. You can just kinda tell, he already has a good one started
- Mick Foley in Stamford for some-odd reason
- Makes excuses for losing to a 60 year old man
- Says there’ll be no re-match
- Speaking of widow’s peaks, Lawler needs to start wearing a baseball hat instead of a crown
- Clips of 2 men beating up a woman from last week.
- Maria asks Vis and Haas why, and to tell the truth I don’t care. Unless they admit to being lovers, that’d at least be interesting. Hey, with that headband Haas has on would you be surprised?
- Diva Search
- Far be it for me to complain about hot chicks on a show full of half naked guys.
- So I won’t
- Commercials
- Miami Vice, coming soon
- Any reason they haven’t gotten around to making an Alf movie? I better not joke about that, it may actually happen
- WWE Magazine, US Weekly for people with no teeth
- The Highlanders
- Does this mean we’ll eventually see them get their heads cut off?
- Please?
- I do like that they announced their weight in “stone” though. I think the US should change its weight measurement to that
- As lame as the gimmick is the guys doing it do as good a job as can be hoped for it
- The Bushwackers for the 21st century
- They have stuff on under the kilts, so they aren’t really Scottish
- And thank Almighty God for that
- They win, natch
- So is ECW’s 11 pm start time a sign that it’s in trouble after only a month?
- Commercials
- Benchwarmers on DVD. Did that movie do well? I actually have no idea
- DX speaks with the Scottish guys, tell them that Vince would love to meet them
- At least they aren’t telling them that Pat Patterson wants to meet them.
- If you don’t know, don’t ask
- Teacher guy in the ring
- Cena out
- So Cena’s doing stuff with Umaga and Stryker now? Did HHH catch him ####ing Stephanie or something?
- Speak of the Samoan devil, Umaga comes out
- No ref, so the match won’t actually happen
- Cena beating down Umaga
- Until Umaga throws him through Strykers chalkboard
- Once again, if you don’t know, don’t ask
- Ref finally comes out, and of course starts the match after the obvious DQ
- Back and forth action
- I still have to wonder where exactly they go with Umaga. He’s kind of limited if he stays in this character, cuz otherwise he ain’t bad, especially for his size
- Edge and Lita out
- Cena goes after Edge
- Cena in control
- So wait, do people like Cena now? Or what exactly?
- That’s #### as in stupid, not #### as in ####-erotic. There is a difference
- Highlanders with Vince, hilarity ensues
- Commercials
- Wait, was Vince trying to catch DX in a net last week?
- An anvil wasn’t available?
- Orton down
- You may remember Mark Madden as the big fat ring announcer from the last days of WCW. He’s also a big fat sports radio host here in Pittsburgh. While he very very rarely talks about wrestling he did talk about the Orton/Hogan feud before it happened, even knew the Brooke Hogan aspect. He may be Comic Book Guy come to life with a made for radio voice, but he knew what he was talking about this time
- Orton beats Eugene quickly
- How long has Brooke Hogan been 17? I think it’s been about 3 years now
- Clips of stalking are shown
- Commercials
- I read somewhere where Gieco commercials are the most widely played commercials on TV. I can buy that
- Foley again
- Mentions Melina for the second time.
- Either setting up for a future match with Nitro. Or some inside thing that only the geekiest of internet wrestling geeks knows about
- He doesn’t really say anything new, in fact it was kind of pointless
- Flair out
- Clips from Flair’s match with Big Show on the ECW show is shown
- Why the hell would Flair want to do that?
- Melina comes out, with Nitro. Hopefully for some kind of explanation
- Melina with the Madeline Kahn at the end of “Young Frankenstein” hair going on
- Looks really stupid
- Nitro beats up Flair
- Oh right, Melina’s thing is screaming now.
- Is she really going for a Bride of Frankenstein thing? I’m being serious
- Melina gets knocked off the apron. I’m sure she’s really in great pain
- Flair celebrates crippling the tiny woman
- Diva Search, next
- Commercials
- Two straight commercials featuring guys who’re supposedly getting more #### than a proctologist. Why don’t they just show an episode of Cribs or Jay-Z naked to really make me feel inadequate
- Okay, Clerks II commercial kind of does the same thing. I ain’t buying Dante dating Rosario Dawson, I’m sorry. Randall? Maybe. Jay? Maybe. Dante? Heeeall no
- Alright, enough complaining
- Diva Search, now
- “The Miz”
- So is he a wrestler or just an announcer? He’s a big enough guy, and he’s got charisma, something precious few WWE guys have these days
- I’ll take the middle chick in the black, whatever her name is
- Or the blonde
- Cuz that’s about all that’s left after that
- Vince pumps up Shane
- Stupid sign gag, and I still laughed
- I suck
- Commercials
- Rusty Griswold gives HHH a hand
- DX out
- “Let’s get ready to suck it”
- Never got why any wrestler would be comfortable saying that
- Commercials
- Ballad of Ricky Bobby
- Will Ferrell characters really don’t vary much do they? Lucky for him he’s funny
- Back to action, HBK comes this close to breaking his neck
In Kurt Cobain’s suicide note he basically said that he killed himself because he lost his passion for performing. He even said in the note “I'm too much of an erratic, moody baby!” Now, some might suggest that putting a shotgun in your mouth and pulling the trigger merely because you don’t like being a rock-star anymore may be a bit, um, extreme. But little did we realize at the time that it was a warning sign that people in Seattle and the Northwest in general are just basically whiney, stupid people who get too emotional over things.
First is the big one, the Super Bowl. First off, before the game even started Seattle fans were convinced that I had a better chance of dating Adriana Lima that then Steelers had of winning the game. For what reason that is I dunno, I’m assuming their domination of the awesome NFC West had something to do with it. As for post game reaction, you’d think that there was never a game where one team had more penalties called against it than another team. It was a conspiracy! It was rigged!! They wanted the Steelers to win the game!!!!!! Forgiving the fact that Mike Holmgren had one of the worst coaching performances in Super Bowl history. Why do you think he’s been so steadfast in his ref bashing, taking every opportunity to do so. It’s because if he does that he knows Seattle fans basically started following the team in December of 2005, and they’re stupid enough to buy it so it lets him off the hook. It’s like fending off an attack from a really stupid pit-bull by throwing a piece of #### and he goes to fetch it and eat it. And you ate it up and asked for seconds Seattle-ites, need a breath mint?
So this was all in the immediate aftermath of the game, and every rational person figured it would die down within a month at the most. We did not count on the persistence of Seattle based people and their ability to hold on to things so long that even fundamentalist Islamist who refer to the Pope as the “Leader of the Crusades” say “Damn, you sure can hold a stupid grudge” They are STILL complaining about the Super Bowl reffing there.
There’s a journalist here in Pittsburgh by the name of Jim Wexell, kind of a free-lancer. Specializes in the Steelers and maybe more specifically the NFL Draft. Some sports radio guy named Softy (apropos name for a Seattle sports guy don’t you think?) had Jim on his show a week or so ago and started complaining about the Super Bowl. Well they got into it and Jim called the guy a #### on the air, well needless to say he got hung up on not long after that. Now, I’m not one for being vulgar on the air, it really made us here in Pittsburgh look bad, even though that played it back locally found it incredibly funny. However, Jim wasn’t wrong, people from Seattle are a bunch of #### apparently, he just could have found a better way to express himself. He also brought up a good point.
They Seattle radio guy used the old “Well, *sniff* if the shoe had been on the other *whimper* foot you’d be doing the same thing in Pittsburgh. Waaaaaahhhhh!!” argument. And I kind of bought that before, but then our guy pointed out, and quite correctly, that if Cowher had messed up half as bad as Holmgren and cost the Steelers the Super Bowl he would have been met at the Pittsburgh Airport by a mob with a short length of rope and a map to the nearest tall tree (my words, not his). Exaggeration of course, I think, but the point remains that we here are not stupid enough to buy the fact that refs alone determine the outcome of games.
As a basic outline of how pretty much everyone in America feels about the Super Bowl can be summed up by the following mailbag question and answer from ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons.
Q: Did you READ Peter King's MMQB column this week? Where on the scale of "most ridiculous unjustified whining well after the game is over" scale do the '05 Seahawks rank? I'd say at least an 8.9. It's been more than three MONTHS and they're STILL whining! Look, it's one thing if the call certainly cost you the game (e.g. the Tuck Rule game, the '72 U.S. basketball team, etc.), but come on. The Seahawks have no one to blame but themselves. Get over it.
-- John Gale, Albuquerque, N.M.
SG: Hear hear. I think Mike Holmgren is keeping it up to deflect attention from the fact that he mangled the clock management at the end of both halves. Seriously, did that game even crack the top-100 worst officiated games of the past 25 years? What about the Don Denkinger Game, or Game 6 of the 2002 Kings-Lakers series, or Game 7 of the 1993 Sonics-Suns series, or the Pats-Raiders playoff game in 1976, or the Jeffrey Maier Game, or the Hart-Michaels match at the 1997 Survivor Series? Let's face it, that was just a lousy Super Bowl -- the officials stunk, but so did both teams. Deep down, the Seattle fans know that their team didn't do enough to win that game. You guys should be worrying about more important things -- like figuring out what the HELL is going on with Felix Hernandez.
And this was a Patriots fan who during his Super Bowl running diary said something along the lines of “Boy, I hope the Steelers take the refs with them to the White House!” and even HE has seen the light.
There are 4 types of people who are still on the “crying about the Super Bowl” bandwagon
1 Seattle people, but I’ve dogged them enough for the time being
2. Fans of rival teams of the Steelers (ie Browns, Bengals, and to a lesser extent the Ravens) – First if you’re a fan of any Ohio NFL team: Hahahahahahahahaha, what a loser. Second, it’s nice of you to attempt to cut the Steelers at the legs to attempt to make yourself feel better. But wouldn’t it make more sense to try and legitimize the Steelers win to make your crappy teams look better? Because the Steelers whipped your ####-#### teams you can say “at least it was the Super Bowl champs who did it”, but no that would actually be the smart thing to do. There are 2 things that come from Ohio, hot chicks and morons, sometimes both (see Holmes, Katey). What do you expect from the flattest most boring state east of Nebraska?
3. People who just hate the Steelers and want to twist the #### a little bit. These people I can go along with more than the others because as I’ve said before if I weren’t a Steelers fan I would hate Steeler fans with a passion.
4. Uninformed ultra-casual fans, ie your wife, grandma, etc. The “Well if John Madden says it's a bad call it’s good enough for me” crowd.
Now if all this weren’t bad enough, when Washington got eliminated from the NCAA tournament in March the cries of “OH MY GOD, THE REFS ARE OUT TO GET US!!!!!” talk started anew. As I said at the time, the free-throw disparity in that game and the game where Pitt got eliminated was very close. And there was no call as bad in the Washington-UConn game as the technical foul against Aaron Gray in the Pitt-Bradley game. But again, we here in Pittsburgh aren’t stupid whiney people, we’re angry people who go after our own first. Again, as I said at the time you can tell which state Adam Morrison was from because he started bawling uncontrollably before the final buzzer even sounded! Go ahead, guess which one.
Now, and this was what brought this entire post on, we have some genius from Washington complaining about refereeing in a game where his team isn’t even involved.
Does it get more retarded than that? I doubt it. He doesn’t really even give any reasons, it’s just in his Washington born and raised blood that causes him to blame refs.
Now maybe you understand more why Seattle is the suicide capital of the world. And if the Super Bowl got rid of one or two more, then the Lombardi Trophy shines brighter in my eyes than it did before. And if you are still alive quit being such erratic, moody babies, or just stick the shotgun in your mouth.
I'm Travis. I'm a born and raised Pittsburgher, although I'm only now starting to pick up the accent. Like many Pittsburghers I can pick out which famous people are from Pittsburgh (especially athletes, cuz outside of Michael Keaton that's about it around here) and mention it to anyone I think doesn't know. Which usually results in a "Um, who the hell cares?" I'm a fan of all Pittsburgh teams, and the Penguins are probably my favorite, mostly because they're the only team that's won anything since I've been alive (1981). (Update, Steelers won the Super Bowl, duh) Other hobbies include movies, TV, travel, and general milling around.
