It is the first week of December. There are 2 undefeated NFL teams. There are conference championship games this weekend that will decide who will play in all of the BCS bowls – including for the national championship. There is an NBA team that has been playing basketball for over a month and hasn’t won a game. And of course, one of the five greatest college coaches of all time just retired. Yet, the only thing you can find on the internet is the fact that the greatest golfer in history has a little thing for skanks that he is not married to.
In all honesty, I am pretty much over this story. I just can’t get myself worked up into some sort of moralistic rage over athlete infidelities. I didn’t care when A-Rod was messing around with an 80’s icon. I’m pretty sure HeMan messed around with Skeletor before A-Rod did. Oh, that wasn’t Skeletor that was Madonna? Wow- good work by Guy Ritchie on selling high(ish) on that one.
I won’t rail against the incredibly skewed priorities of this country. Instead, I will simply paste a twitter message posted by Green Bay linebacker Nick Barnett yesterday:
Let’s poll …. Which demands more attention.? Tiger woods….. 8 year war going on where we just sent another 30k of our fellow Americans
In fact, there is really only one aspect of this entire story that is not being discussed nearly enough. Why would anyone in the world need to cheat on a Swedish bikini model? That is who we all dream of cheating with – not cheating on! So, let me get this straight. Tiger had to choose between a former underwear model who happens to be his wife or an amateur hooker from a 15th rate reality TV show? And he chose the ho.
I am guessing that is one decision he did not consult Steve Williams on.
Any way, on to the picks this week. One matchup we will not be picking is between Elin and Jamiee.
Turner: 27-0. Enough said. What has been a long, draining college football season that started with OU and FSU not meeting expectations (as expected), Bowden is now R.I.P., and the Shadow’s Hawkeyes coming up short against the mighty purple Wildcats, it has been a good ride. While it is not over yet, we still have a few games to look forward to for one last dream to take us to next August (i.e. my road trip to El Paso followed by THE SMU BOWL GAME in Hawaii, The Bowden Whiner Florida Bowl, and hopefully the Fiesta bowl, and ONLY 2 more Tebow games!!). I still have not recovered from the College Gameday episode and Tom Ronaldi’s 8 minute “moment” of talking about Tebow. The puke on my shirt will not come off. The other thing that won’t be the same is my finger. I managed to put a drill bit through it while trying to be a ‘man’. I decided all of that really should be outsourced from now on. The only bonus is that it is my middle finger so when I show it off, I can pretend I own the Tennessee Titans……
Shadow: My fantasy team in my money league has tanked. Kiss that $100 goodbye as I am going to miss the playoffs. This is kind of fortuitous in that I am going on a cruise Saturday, so would be unable to do any last minute lineup tinkering this week or next. Heck…come to think of it, perhaps that would have been a better strategy all year long as most of my tinkering ends up being the wrong decision. The Broncos got back on the winning trail, which should continue at least one more week as we face those Chefs in KC. And hopefully the first night of my cruise will be punctuated by learning that Iowa will indeed be in a BCS bowl for only the second time since the inception of the BCS, where we will get to drill some hapless non-BCS team like Boise State. Speaking of drilling, someone should ask Turner about his week. Since he managed to injure his middle finger, I keep getting a mixed message every time he wants to show me his injury.
College:
Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh
SD: There is a football team in the Midwest that doesn’t seem to understand that the world has changed. It used to be one of the premier teams in the country, but now after the utter failure of a high profile hiring, they are just an average team yet seem to still get an inordinate amount of attention. What does this have to do with this game? Well, Brian Kelly is a leading candidate to become head coach at Notre Dame. Of course, Dave Wannstedt used to coach the Chicago Bears and that sentence could apply to them as well. I will go with Dave and Pitt here, since he has already done his time disappointing a delusional fanbase – Kelly’s time will come soon enough.
Turner: In this AFC North battle, I think the Bearcats are destined for victory. Despite Kenyon sucking last night for the Nuggets for the 100th straight game, I’m a fan of the Cincy football team, most notably they scheduled OU last year and not this year. That would have been embarrassing.
Shadow: It is college basketball time, and in most years that would mean that Cincy Bearcat fans had stopped caring about football. Not so this year. Sadly for Brian Kelly, all anyone wants to discuss is the Notre Dame job, and since I hate all things related to Notre Dame not named “Rudy”, he is caught in Hate by Association. I hope the Panthers put the end to this silly talk of Cincy in the BCS championship game.
Georgia Tech @ Clemson
SD: Why does the Georgia Institute of Technology go by the shortened name of Georgia Tech? I think they should go by the name GIT. They could use Larry the Cable Guy as their mascot rather than a car from the 1920’s that has less to do with their nickname than that hound patrolling the sidelines at Tennessee. A motto of “GIT r’ done “would finally draw some of those southern fans from cheering on Alabama or Georgia. For a bunch of smart guys, the Yellow Jackets sure are dumb when it comes to marketing. For that I will cheer for Clemson.
Turner: I love the Yellow Jacket Mascot and the term Ramblin’ Wreck is great. Speaking of wreck, I’m just waiting for the day when the Clemson team trips coming down their “hill” and has a mass pile-up when coming out of their locker rooms. That will be great. Go smart engineering school.
Shadow: Two teams coming off losses during Rivalry Week and facing each other for a slightly tarnished ACC crown. The coach of the Tigers, when asked about games against Tech, said, “These games have been some humdingers”. WTF? Seriously? This is 2009, and the man saying that is not even 40 years old. “Humdinger”? That shouldn’t even be allowed in the lexicon anymore, and certainly should be uttered by anyone who doesn’t possess a firsthand account of the Great Depression. Go Yellow Jackets.
NFL:
St Louis @ Chicago
SD: I almost feel bad for Chicago. There were such high hopes for Jay Cutler before the season started. Some of us knew that Cutler is a turnover machine that believes in his ability to the detriment of his team – especially when he has a bunch of wide receivers that should be playing in the CFL or on the defensive side of the ball. It must be devastating for Bears fans. I really almost feel bad for them. I said almost. Go Rams.
Turner: What is worse, an entire crappy team or ‘pro-bowl’ whiner that seems to throw more balls the way of the other team and you mortgaged your future on. I’ll take the former, if you know you are going to suck then it is ok, but the expectation of getting Joe Montana (the GREATEST of all time – next to Jason White), and then sucking makes your gut just hurt. Come on Rams, Suck less then Cutler.
Shadow: It hasn’t even been a full season yet, and Urlacher longs for Kyle Orton. Someone may need to remind Brian that the Bears defense of 2009 is not the Bears defense of years past, so having Orton at the helm is no guarantee that the season would have turned out any differently. That being said, I can honestly guarantee that a Cutler-led Bronco team would probably have 3-4 fewer wins and a lot less team chemistry. Nothing to like here about the Bears. Give me the Rams.
New Orleans @ Washington
SD: Two of my favorite cities. In a city that personifies power – from the ambitious residents to the cold marble architecture of the buildings – it is fitting that the most famous buildings are actually just fancy office buildings. In the other city, it is hard to imagine anyone ever working. There are casinos, Bourbon Street, mardi gras, gumbo, trolley cars to the Garden District, jambalaya, Café Du Monde beignets. None of those sound anything like work to me. For having their priorities right, I am cheering on the Saints.
Turner: Remember Vegas? Redskins cost me a lot of money (ok – it wasn’t a LOT of money but it was money) and ok, it wasn’t really the Redskins but the crappiness of the Broncos. N.O. – well they beat the crap out of Bill Belichick, that is enough to make me love them at the moment. Geaux Saints.
Shadow: Has there ever been a more clear-cut trap game? If I was in Vegas I would back the truck up on the Redskin money line. Of course, that is no reason for me not to hate the Redskins. Their name alone is an affront to noble Native Americans like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves, and Daniel Snyder continues to try and throw money at a problem. It doesn’t work in education and it doesn’t work in the NFL. (lucky for me, it does work in baseball). I would love to see the Saints go undefeated and win the Super Bowl….just to stick it to Bellicheat. My pick here is New Orleans.
