Trap.
- Greetings and salutations, people. Thanks for coming aboard (the boat). Let’s turn and burn.
- I thought I would have all of this time for a blog. But, big work week for me, so I have time to write one, but not the long winded one I was hoping to have. And no focus once again. Just some random thoughts on the last couple of days, some fun pics, and I will get out.
- Kind of depressed I will have to mention politics later in this blog. But, it happened on the sports wire, and Mr. Trump poked the bear. He poked a LOT of bears.
- But first, let’s cover the last couple of days elsewhere.
- I can imagine OBJ THINKING of this celebration while boozing heavily, but DOING the dog going to bathroom in a game? Weird, man. Just…weird.
- More fun if this subject is read on Deadspin. http://deadspin.com/odell-beckham-jr-celebrates-a-pair-of-touchdowns-by-pe-1818706182
- I think I have ducked out of losers pools three years in a row picking the Steelers on the road against a bad team. I deserve it, but since I had a feeling about that Houston-NE game being a close one, I decided to not join the main pack. I even put $10 on the money line for Houston. I didn’t get to see the game because I was all on the Steelers of course, but sound like the Texans took their foot off the gas right when they thought Brady couldn’t pull anything out of the hat…which he did.
- Brady had 51 pts in fantasy today. Not against ME thank God, but still…
- From the guy who only missed 3 games last week for the NFL, it appears I am trying to actually have a losing record WITHOUT spreads THIS week. That is TOUGH to do even if you just picked all favorites.
- It utterly AMAZES me how we talk about a “trap game” for a WEEK and what happens? It IS a trap game. Lots of trap games I guess.
- The Broncos walked into one.
- The Steelers walked into one.
- The Dolphins walked into one.
- The Panthers were at home and somehow walked into one.
- It was in London, but the Ravens walked into one.
- The Pats TRIED to walk into one.
- The Packers are TRYING to walk into one.
- I love anaphoras in grammar. Use them all the time. Or sometimes, I just start realizing a lot of items apply to one point.
- The Steelers-Bears game featured a halftime ending convincing the entire nation that although we ASSUME everyone has learned the Leon Lett lesson, that maybe, just maybe, some coach forgot to tell one player somewhere about it.
- Today. https://fansided.com/2017/09/24/bears-player-celebrates-early-no-touchdown-safety/
- My Monday sucked when the Steelers lost, but knowing Broncos fans also will be sad makes it somewhat of a weird push.
- FSU is now 0-2 like 4 weeks into the college season, has lost their starting QB, is now in peril of falling out the the ACC race, and is out of the top 25 for the first time since 2011, their LAST rebuilding effort. Well, except this time it wasn’t supposed to be a rebuild.
- I saw a commercial for Criminal Minds during my complete couch-football Sunday. That show is still ON? I exited stage left after the 2nd season, when things just got dumb. I imagine the dumbness has almost come full circle enough to make people believe it is a good show. Like any of the NCIS shows.
- Wait. (just thinking for a second). Come to think of it, today is a lot like yesterday, but just with PRO football. My couch probably has an imprint in it from the last 48 hours. Well, yesterday, I watched a movie in an actual theater, so that is different. More on the movie later.
- I travel all the week of Oct 2nd, so I did a light grocery shopping trip today. I have to tell you. I came in at about 19 items, meaning it was the first time in like EVER I have made the “about” in the Express lane “about 15 items.” I usually have a full cart that looks like I have like 20 kids. It was a first.
- On the same grocery trip, I heard Disturbed on the overhead music. Weird hearing my workout music in a place where I am used to elevator music. It is the deli guy making a bet with the bread guy about how long until management notices hard rock on the loudspeaker.
- But hard rock or NOT, have you HEARD this remake???? Awesome stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4
- The Farrell father-son thing was one of the best sports stories this year. Imagine being a dad managing your MLB team, and watching your son trot out and shut your team down in the 9th as the closer. You might be sad about the loss, but pretty COOL story all the way around.
- Shame the Lions lost today, since this is the first game since Caldwell got re-upped. Dude should have been signed a while back as he does everything right for the club, but shame they have temporary sadness this week.
- Saturday night late football was pretty fun stuff. Washington woke up in the 2nd half, Stanford won but we know nothing more since it was above UCLA, team no one knows ANYTHING about, and Oregon somehow lost on the road as a 14 point favorite to a bad ASU team. But, like a tree in the forest, people are not sure any of those things actually happened.
- With Oregon out now for the championship and with the crazy week in general, I have decided this week to post a full top 25 of who is out and who has hope in my opinion.
- My swing betting game was San Diego State Saturday night. There is nothing like watching Gamecast updates on your computer after a long rain delay where your betting day up or down rides on it. So much fun.
- San Diego State was favored by 3, was down by 3 late, got a touchdown to go up 4, and held on defense to win against Air Force.
- The definition of the philosophy “just GET the road conference win no matter how you do it” is the last second win from PSU on Saturday against Iowa.
- Why is playing Iowa SOOOOO irritating? Hell, they are even irritating to WATCH.
- I need to start a list of the teams that work me over the most, whether I am betting on or against them. I would say Nebraska and Iowa are right there at the top.
- In the spirit of that saying about road conference games, that line is hard to sell DURING the game. Tell those fans before or AFTER the game. It doesn’t go over well WHILE Baylor is making a slight comeback in the OU game.
- Sure, TCU is a team to watch, but let’s ignore them for a second. IF the Sooners make an undefeated run, Oklahoma State and Texas are NOT doing them ANY favors. Those were supposed to be two of the big teams on the schedule, and OSU’s loss hurts the strength of schedule a little.
- But…those voters who had Clemson LEAP-FROG the Sooners better think again. Clemson looked pedestrian for three quarters and they should have just left them where they were for another week or two.
- Kind of sad that I will go work for an hour or two after posting this, but I will not complain about A) having a little more free time since I don’t booze anymore B) being ahead for the work week and C) doing a job that I look forward to doing daily.
- Today. JUST when I thought the Bucs were going to be really, really good.
- With me back liking sweets a little, I had a Monte Cristo last night. My, those things are good.
- Need to work on staggering my bets a little more instead of betting similar amounts across the board. Easiest bet this week I saw was UGA, and I just did my usual. Like playing blackjack, you have to feel what you are confident in and feel the run.
- I felt bad for that UK kicker last night. He could have ended 30 years of frustration to the Gators, but had a VERY long field goal to do it, and it will just be an almost for another year of his career. His defense should have stopped them the series before so he didn’t have to kick it at all.
- Two things about the Bama-Vandy game. 1) We can now squash all of those rumors that Vandy is a darkhorse in the SEC and 2) One can NEVER say that Bama does not play big matchups probably the best of any team in the country regularly and they frequently just demolish those teams. If it is supposed to be a hyped matchup, just expect Bama to drop the mic more often than not.
- The Dodgers “won” their division, as we expected them to years ago it seems. And they seem to have ended their losing streak and snuck back into mediocrity RIGHT before they were about to lose FULL home field advantage, so that is good. They better right the ship unless they want to play Game 7 of the World Series in Cleveland or Houston though.
- A small headline you might have missed that might depress non UK bball fans is that they quietly picked up the #3 PG in the nation. Ugghhh. Rich get richer.
- Have you seen the Jungle Book remake? Isn’t it for kids? We watched it Friday night, and I sat there the whole time thinking how I would be freaking OUT if I was a kid watching it. I think because it is not full cartoon, it looks more real, and therefore incidences can be…scary. Seriously, I was scared for the kid SEVERAL times while totally sober.
- That was the first time a dude was scared of Scarlett talking all sweet to him.
- I had the score on the UVA-Boise game PEGGED. One positive problem on that. I had them reversed. Bronco knows this is going to be a long turnaround at UVA, but DAMN he got those kids to beat a good team at one of the toughest cribs in America the other night. Wow. Nice win. I won’t get any hopes up and assume we will lose lots and by a lot very, very soon.
- Interesting thoughts from my father-in-law about college vs. pro football.
I pondered this dilemma before when I notice my own interest in the NFL wane 15-20 years ago. I believe it is due to a number of factors, some big, some small.
1. The outcome of a college game has more potential to be determined by emotion, also defined as momentum, than an NFL game. My hypothesis for this is the athletes are so highly skilled in the NFL that the athletic difference is smaller and thus emotion can’t have as big an impact.
2. The college game is more fun because it is not a job with 30 year olds playing something they are doing for a paycheck. We like seeing young men having fun (remember the A & M player jumping up and down after a tackle in the 77-7 loss some years back?). As was mentioned above, the NFL players seems more interested in attracting attention to himself after a TD, big run/catch, or sack with some dance move, etc. (thanks Billy “White Shoes” Johnson)
3. The college players are only there for 3-5 years. The NFL players can be there for 20 years. I know most are not (Not For Long), I think I heard the average NFL career is 3 years somewhere, but the really good ones stick around for a long time (e.g. Brady, Farve, Manning). I think we are rooting for the college kid to make good so he can grab the brass ring in the NFL.
4. This is a generality, which I admit doesn’t hold much water, but another theory, If you went to a college with a quality football program, like OU, especially one that is a perennial top tier program, you are less like to bond to an NFL team. I only know one OU fan (also a past AA player at OU) that also has season tickets to the Broncos. Doesn’t mean there aren’t many more. But I think the NFL is attractive to the fan who did not go to a high achieving football college or college period.I live in Denver, so have access to a good NFL product if I wanted it. I have been to 1 game in 32 years. As a past player, I love and HIGHLY respect the game of football. I guess my l heart for football will always reside in Norman.
- Ok, I have to go get my work done. Let’s get to the Big Three Topics and then I am out of here. Big Three? Trump, Melo, American Assassin.
- Melo. Good trade. The Knicks got SOMETHING out of the Thunder, and it wasn’t a bad pull considering they were about to GIVE him away previously. They can now focus on Porzingis and get a road map for the future. The Thunder? Well, they have star power now-I will give them that. As far as winning anything, I still believe that you need role players and positions. I love the pickup, and will HATE rooting for Melo when he plays against KD, but I still have some minor problems with this pickup overall. A) I think Paul George and Melo play too similar of positions for them to do anything TOO magical. Both are swing players/ 3’s. B) Melo can’t play defense and C) I haven’t seen Melo pass the ball aside from the Olympics. It as a whole will be fun, and that is good. But, from a basketball point of view, the Warriros make sense from a bball perspective, while the Thunder are more of a stockpile of random superstars.
- American Assassin. No spoilers I promise. Decent movie after I was expecting a FULL letdown, but I only give it 2 out of 4 stars. Good action scenes, and not a horrible plot, but A) no character development before the action started B) the training scene was a primitive, shallow version of the training scene in The Recruit C) main character is a little TOO off the wall, like a shallow Lethal Weapon Mel Gibson D) dialogue was pretty weak overall E) Keaton was also a little over the top since we never saw any of his past marvels and F) had some sensitive scenes that really had you on the edge of your seat (this is a good thing). Anyway, not sure it is worth the movie trip unless you have Moviepass (like we do), but it is not horrible by any means and some of the critics were a little harsh. The Alamo Drafthouse is a cool place to go eat, drink, and watch a movie. And oddly, a kung fu theme throughout the theater and before the premier showing. After explaining this to my buddy at work, the summary of the movie is this. It is an action packed Bourne movie without the first two installments that had character development and made us BELIEVE he was a badass. It was like starting in the middle of a trilogy without the actual first movies.
- Trump. I will be brief since I don’t do politics in this thing. He poked bears he shouldn’t. Was he drunk? Maybe. Why would he even go DOWN those paths? To lash out on one thing? Ok. To take out three in one swing? Dumb. Take the high road on the Warriors invite, do NOT mention anything negative about players kneeling, and DON’T even touch the hits in the NFL and calls protecting players. Leave them all alone with your personal thoughts. Now? I find it AWESOME, especially for people who hated Colin Kaepernick BEFORE this thing. EVERYONE is kneeling and most of the Steelers aren’t even coming out of the locker room. I mentioned this before. You can hate Kaep for what he did and how he did it, but he gives money AND he started a MOVEMENT, which is now existing on its own. Now, I LOVE that Trump made this movement MONSTROUS. Enjoy, everyone who was not on their side. It is just going to snowball, and it should. AND, the fragmented culture is never more evident when Richard Petty is yelling from the mountain tops that he would fire all of these kneelers. Sad, sad, sad. Trump, I knew you were dumb, but this weekend proved that even I underestimated your stupidity. You at least should have been aiming to be liked by NON political people, and now you just pissed off the ENTIRE sports nation. Good job.
- That’s it for today. Hope you enjoyed or are at least more informed. Will I blog again? That is a CLOWN question, bro. This is Pudgy, signing off. Peace.