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LAST BLOG
The Cast
Date: 092319
FILLERBUSTER’S ELEVEN
BACKGROUND: This started as a long-winded numbered blog. It transformed into an organized long-winded category blog. Now, it is a quick-hitter to ease your pain. I lack time. So, the preparation of the blog actually made me procrastinate from writing the thing. Let’s see who makes the cut. Barely edited as usual unfortunately, so please excuse any mistakes during my stream of consciousness. I feel the need…the need for speed. Let’s turn and burn.
SETTING: This is written during the beginning of MNF, as the Bears and Redskins can’t have my full attention. Missed time or not, the last blog was a little long, I admit. Let’s shave it down this time back to the new and improved methodology. Streamlined slightly…
- EVERGREEN: Eli Manning got benched this week. If this is indeed the end for him, the benching got me thinking about his overall legacy and how extremely ODD it is. Eli not only won two Super Bowls, but he beat Tom Brady, the greatest ever when it is all said and done, TWICE. One of those seasons, Eli stopped an UNBEATEN Pats team. And BOTH of those Giants titles yielded an MVP trophy for Eli. Yet, he will always be known for mediocrity DURING the season oddly. His won-loss record is a near .500 124-120. His passer rating is an unremarkable 84.1 The Giants either made it all the way, or pretty much nowhere each year. Boom or bust. And when you think about it, it is crazy to think he has the same amount of titles as his more flashy older brother. He was also consistently healthy. He has the second longest starting streak in history in his 2004-2017 years. Barring a Daniel Jones injury, we probably have seen the last of Eli Manning as a starter. And, if he does end up starting at some point, I am sure he will do something else magical to continue to confuse us with his legacy. I don’t see HOF stats. But, when you think that legends such as Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Brett Favre have won only one title each, you realize his place in history will always be as a winner.
- EVERGREEN 2: Although Antonio Brown is still IG’ing and tweeting sarcastic entries, he is now off the NFL radar temporarily. The Pats ended the madness by releasing him last week. And what a run it was. The exclamation point was threatening messages to one of the ladies accusing him of wrongdoing. I have altered my stance on AB slightly since last week. Up to last week, I was one of the people laughing, especially as an ex-Steeler fan. Not the case anymore for me. I am sad for the guy and hope he gets help. I think he is either sick, or one of those hits he took (probably the Vontaze Burfict one vs. the Bengals) took him somewhere other than Earth. His list is full of very serious allegations to odd, harmless oddities, but the pattern, or LACK of a pattern, is very much there. Look at this. It is all over the place. It includes (not in any order) refusing to pay an aquarium guy after he took out the dead piranhas, sexually assaulting an artist in a robe behind her, sending threatening texts to her, rape allegations of his trainer, losing Nike endorsements, verbally assaulting the Raiders GM, various incidents of using the word “cracker,” farting repeatedly in a doctor’s face, shoving his baby’s mama to ground, not paying a chef for catering, reposting derogatory tweets about JuJu, entering training camp in a hot air balloon, getting hypothermia because of not doing it right, appealing helmet rules, missing practices and meetings with the Raiders, getting fined $54k by the Raiders, posting the fine letter from the Raiders GM, getting cut by Raiders, misspelling Foxboro when going to Pats, missing practices and meetings with the Pats, having the Hoodie walk out during a presser, getting cut by Pats, calling out Ben on IG the day of firing, calling out Robert Kraft on IG the day of firing, saying HE is deciding to now play football anymore, and now…back to Central Michigan to school. Sorry if I missed anything. It is too long of a list. Bottom line is this. AB just isn’t mentally right and I hope he gets help and eventually gets better.
- NFL (in fluid style): Losing Big Ben and Drew Brees for extended periods of time not only hurts Steelers and Saints fans, but football fans in general. At least one of the fan bases gets their guy back this season. The Steelers finally got me my wish, and traded for a bookend corner. But, I didn’t expect to get that present when our HOF QB is down, so mixed emotions. I understand we need modifications in rules after certain season changing bad calls, but this pass interference review thing could be a slippery slope. Last week, the Seahawks challenged a non-call late in the game against the Steelers. The refs changed the call after seeing it in slow motion, and there will be plenty of PI non-calls that are by the book calls watching slowly and that scares me. That was a call reversal that slammed the door shut on the Steelers. I find it ironic that the Bears kicking game not only is winning games, but most of their offense up to this week. The ending to the Falcons-Eagles is why we keep watching games. Crazy ending. I really hope the Jags trade Jalen Ramsey to a bad time if possible. I have been rooting for the Chargers recently merely because I wanted them to do well while Melvin Gordon is demanding stuff. That is not working out so far. The OBJ catch last Monday night on the first drive was not a scoring catch, but such a good example of his ridiculous skills. For the 1000th time, the fact that Colin Kaepernick still doesn’t have a job with all of these QB injuries is ridiculous. We will never know whether Cam Newton’s injury is real or not, but after this weekend, I have a feeling they will round on the long side before rushing Cam back, as Kyle Allen looked good. The Fins switching to Josh Rosen is smart, as they have no immediate winning future, and they might as well see what they have. I was prepared that the Steelers could lose in San Fran. But, what frustrated me more was the fact that they HAD that game, and then gave it away. I watched an interesting play during the Broncos game. Phillip Lindsay ran out of bounds obviously just short of the first down marker in the red zone. No one was around him and he could have gotten the one more yard. So weird, the lack of awareness. The Lions beating the Eagles showed me that maybe the buy-in with Matt Patricia is happening, and also that the Eagles can’t lose every single receiver and not have it not have effects on performance. All of the people who said the Giants reached in the draft on Daniel Jones suddenly got a little quiet this week, but we will see a lot more very soon, as the crutch of Mr. Barkley is out at least 4 weeks now. I got sucked into the hype. I thought the Browns would win a statement game against the Rams. The more advanced team drew a line in the sand this time around.
- COLLEGE FOOTBALL (in fluid style): For all of the crap we give the Pac-12, who would have thought that five teams from the conference would be ranked still, and that the unblemished one would be California? There is a 4 year-old in Florida who is semi-famous because she is using the money from her lemonade stand to send to FSU to buy out Willie Taggart. It was surprising enough that Tulane would take down Houston, but then the Houston QB demoted himself. So, USC keeps losing blue-chip QB’s on their roster due to injury, and they keep winning somehow. They beat a VERY good Utah team this past Saturday. We all thought that Michigan might lose to Ohio State again later this year, but not sure a majority of people saw them getting SMOKED by Wisconsin coming. One bad thing about Wisconsin though. They were up 35-0 and got TWO consecutive targeting penalties and ejections-not optimal or classy. First game by a first-time starter in the opposing team’s 100k plus stadium? No problem. Nix was a stud at A&M, and A&M is again in the situation of not taking that next step to getting back to being a contender. Giving a team like Notre Dame two touchdowns was too much, and they played UGA tough until the end. UVA was down big to a bad ODU football team, but doing what they did in the second half showed they are taking a step in the right direction. The rubber hits the road when they head to South Bend next week. Thank you Pittsburgh, as the UCF fake national championship banter had to stop. SMU was around a TEN point underdog before taking down TCU at TCU. LSU’s offense seems to get scarier each passing week. LSU’s QB had six TD’s, and Tua “only” had 5. CU’s win at Arizona State was impressive, but again, it proves that ASU was prematurely ranked and the Pac-12 is confusing as heck this year. Finally, this is the 12th anniversary of Mike Gundy’s “I’m a man” monologue. Epic.
- COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Three things. One, there is NO way I ever thought I would see serious allegations against Bill Self and KU, as I thought he would be a class act until the end. Totally surprised. I hope the story gets better before it gets worse. Two, know the name Cassius Stanley. He is the new Duke player who just broke Zion Williamson’s vertical leap record. That is not an easy-to-break record. Three, in case you missed this story. Tony Bennett, UVA head coach, turned down offered additional contractual money, said his wife and him are happy and set, and told the school to give that offered money to his assistants or other sports in UVA athletics. Class act.
- MLB: Just a couple of things. I will get to the playoff race next time. The Biggio’s became just the second father-son combo to each hit for the cycle. Tell your friends. Gerrit Cole became the 18th pitcher ever to throw 300 k’s in a season. Kind of a big deal. More impressive is that he isn’t even the best pitcher on staff. Scary. The Padres fired their manager, but, and I think I have said this about many MLB teams recently, I don’t think that roster was good enough to blame the manager this year.
- MISCELLANEOUS: The first bill is in the mix now. The state of New York has a bill in motion that proposes paying college athletes. More to come. Elena Delle Donne won her second WNBA MVP Award. If you don’t know her story, you need to check it out. She went to the lower tier (as far as a basketball program) University of Delaware to be with family members (was recruited heavily by UCONN) and she is a very, very complete basketball player. Well deserved for a classy chick.
- THIS AND THAT: Ric Ocasek died this week. The Cars had similar sounding songs, true, but at least when you heard one for a few seconds, you knew it was them. They created a niche sound. Seinfeld got picked up by Netflix, so now some of those younger people who are clueless with my daily constant jokes now can catch up. So, will there be a SNL skit about Shane Gillis, or will they just leave that quick work relationship alone? Not sure why you would WANT to, but you can rent out an igloo at the North Pole for 100k…a night. A man who beat cancer twice decided to buy some lottery tickets…and won that, as things happen in three’s allegedly. Pizza Hut has announced a Cheez-It pizza. Sylvester Stallone, I just found out, still has the turtles from Rocky. I did NOT have a cheeseburger on National Cheeseburger Day oddly. Blake Griffin was unexpectedly HILARIOUS with cutting edge material during the Roast of Alec Baldwin. Worth watching. Teens videotaped a fatal stabbing at a strip mall instead of assisting. Between Two Ferns was sort of hilarious, and I had no idea that was a thing. I also had no idea Rick Rolled was a thing, but my wife just did that to me over the weekend. My wife is listening to Billy Strings regularly now, and I will admit that after seeing him live, he is one of the best bluegrass guitarists you can listen to. There is also a country song by Mark Leach talking about how there ain’t no laws when drinking White Claw, so my wife listens to that also. I might have to try this Impossible Whopper thing just to clear my curiosity. I was a big, big Game of Thrones fan, but still wonder how it wins best drama at the Emmy’s, as I thought it still had a lot of writing flaws. I was very happy to see that Bill Hader win best actor in a drama. And, apparently, I should check out this Fleabags show.
- THE FILLERBUSTER: The Voice is back as of tonight, and that means my marriage’s #1 compromise show is back too. My wife bought a necklace with “Do Epic Shit” so it would match the bracelet I religiously wear. I missed Phish over Labor Day, so I was very happy when Greensky (saw them at Red Rocks after Billy Strings) played my favorite song as a cover, Rift. Again, I am pretty sure I could win a deviled egg food eating contest. I was on a demo this week that was in Spanish, and that will be the LAST work call I am on where I don’t understand that language. I am going into overdrive on my learning. I got my oil changed in my beautiful ride, and they said the only thing wrong with my car is a low-pressure tire light. While getting my oil changed, I went to 20th street rec center, where I did my favorite workout. Hoops, boxing, swimming. FnG (Highlands Denver) is one of my favorite places to eat, hang out, with sports on TV still. Otra Vez (downtown Denver), I have decided, is just not good service, not good food, and a crappy atmosphere to boot. Wordshop (Highlands Denver) is the best place in the city to pick up any type of card. Smart, clever, original cards. I love this time of year in Colorado. Chilly in the morning, warm during the day, chilly at night. We are going to Toto Wednesday, so I am pretty sure that will be next week’s theme. Easy one.
- TWEET OF THE WEEK
- 11.MOVIE REVIEW: Of course, I went to Rambo: Last Blood on the very first night. I had posters of all three original movies, and love Rambo, whether he is doing it for himself, his country, his friend, missionaries, or family. My critique of the movie? No spoilers, but you know what is going to happen anyway. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. It was simply the Rambo formula, through and through. He is trying to be peaceful on a ranch. Something pisses him off, as they take his niece. He goes after them, and then they come after him. He gets help from a surprising source, he for some reason has tunnels all under his house, and those become perfectly convenient for when people attack you at your ranch. There is, of course, his bow and arrow, traps galore, and brutality that surpasses your expectations or fears. Stallone is good, and he is just…Rambo. Don’t go to the movie if you are looking for something outside of the Rambo formula. Go because you love Rambo. And, without telling you WHAT exactly, after the movie I put together a list of movies with one similar scene. Prepare for it. The list is Temple of Doom, Kill Bill, Undercover Brother, Simpsons, and Dumb and Dumber. Good luck. I give it a C as far as a movie. If you put it under the Rambo umbrella though, it becomes a B in that paradigm. The third one is still the worst of the series, and this wasn’t that bad. There were about 20 people in the theater when Vince and I watched it, and people were laughing and cheering near the end because of how brutal some of the kills were. You became a delirious Rambo fan for 89 minutes, one way or the other.
ALTERNATE CATEGORIES (not making the cut)
- THE BEST WORKOUT SONG EVER FOR THIS WEEK (because the best song this week IS the best song ever…for now):
- QUOTE OF THE WEEK
- LINKS TO SAVE YOU TIME IN LIFE
- TRAVEL
- THIS WEEK’S LIST
- MY NUMBERS
- GONE FISHING (the riddle for money):
- PICS BY MY PIXEL (pictures from my phone):
- LIFEGUARD ENTRY:
- NBA
- NHL
The theme? This is not my last blog. Just a semi-play on words with Rambo: Last Blood.
And our weekly reminder of the greatest sequel ever made coming out next summer… Top Gun 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSqVVswa420
That’s it for today. Hope you enjoyed or are at least more informed. Remember two things. First, feed yourself, feed your family, but always, always remember to…feed the wolf. Second, if you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker. Will I blog again? That is a CLOWN question, bro. As one shepherd said to the other shepherd, let’s get the flock out of here.
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