Yes, it has been several weeks since I last posted. My bad. I don't have any excuses other than a great football and beer man who was very close to me passed away last month and for some reason blogging just seemed to take a back seat for a while. My Uncle John was only a week shy of 56 years old when he passed away of cancer. He and I went golfing and fishing in October - he drove us to June Lake - and there was a lot of beer and football that weekend. John had been diagnosed the week before, so he held off on the beer but consumed copious amounts of football, fishing, and plain old jackassery with the rest of us.
It is strange for me to watch him go. Several of us spent the last few days of his life with him and his kids at his bedside. I even got a chance to watch his last football games with him on the Sunday before he died. He was surprised at just how bad the Eagles and Redskins were that week. As I recall, he said that both teams played like donkey dicks. That about summed it up as this was not the world's best played game - at least during the stretch that we watched. No friggin defense at all - both teams had 100+ yard runners.
Anyway, my Uncle John is now above us, with a beer in hand watching live football all day every day. Actually, I am sure he will toss in some NBA and MLB here and there, but football was #1. I miss him a lot already and will take the avuncular guidance he gave me forward and pass it on.
Now - back to The Blog
Raiders
I gotta start out with the Raiders as this was a notable week for The Nation. Since appearing in the Super Bowl in 2003 - note that date Charger homers - the Raiders have won precious few games against AFC west rivals, with the last win coming in Denver on a snowy Monday night when Ronald Curry made that spectacular catch in the end zone. SEVENTEEN straight losses to division opponents - until now. We have now won TWO STRAIGHT! Yeah now! Off the Schneid!
The Raiders may have squeaked past KC, but this was in KC, until this season a really hard place to win. The Silver and Black handed Denver their asses by 14 points and it sure was nice to run one right up ol' Shanahan's ass! Squeal like a Pig Mikey!
Another Raider development was the appearance of Jamarcus Russel - at last. Coach Kiffin may be just teasing us, but he gave the kid two series' to show his stuff and he did as well as one could hope. His passes looked confident and crisp and I have a feeling that he can throw the ball harder than Brees and Rivers put together. He is HUGE in the pocket and I hope and pray that he lives up to half of his promise.
You heard it here first - the Raiders will beat the Packers in Lambeau. Do you know why? As of today, Brett's hand is still tingling and he does not have his full grip. Aaron Rodgers, who did so well last week, injured his hammie in practice on Tuesday and is out for two weeks. They have no third QB and picked a guy up just now to fill in. I predict that Brett will start to preserve his record, but will not be effective and without Brett (and Aaron) they are sunk. The Raider D will pick off the new guy of he tries to throw and our newly energized run defense with hold off any running attack that the 30th ranked Packers rushing attack can muster.
Chargers
Looks like the Chargers are doing better. Who could have predicted that if you give the ball to #21 you will win games? Not Norv earlier this year. Rivers had a game that on paper looked good, but anyone who saw him play would disagree. Yes, he had a long TD pass, but he looks unsteady in the pocket and really should learn how to properly throw the ball away. He scares me and if I were AJ Smith I would be looking for help in this area. Of course, Aj is an idiot, so he will make more stupid decisions for the bolt fans. The bolts have the division all but locked up, but all it will take is a few bad passes by Rivers to take away the running game and the bolts are sunk.
Patriots
The pats are not invincible. Say that again to yourself and try to make yourself believe it. I think that the Pats have way more than 9 lives, because it seems like they used up a dozen or more on Monday night. Who the fuck called that time out from the Raven's bench? that cost the game. I think that the NFL should revisit that rule as it seems to be distorting games. If you give Brady and Co. enough chances they will kill you every time. The key to winning is to apply pressure to Brady, cover all the hot routes, make sure that you don't get burned in a screen, and hope that Moss has a bad game. If you get all of that Right AND score like 40 points, you have a shot.
Beer
I gotta give it up for my Uncle John on this post, as he was a Budweiser drinker. He was not so much into all the other wacky flavors of Bud (light, ice, dry, etc) and stuck to the Red White and Blue for the most part. He enjoyed many other beers and I have personally seen him drink any number of Mexican beers in our trips south of the border fishing. One of my favorite anecdotes about he and I drinking beer relates to our shared love of astronomy. his house is at about 4500 feet above Palm Desert and the sky there is very dark. From my late teens into my 30's I spent a lot of time out there with our scopes observing, photographing, and generally enjoying the heavens. We founded the Golfing Astronomer Musician's Association during these years as a way to buy more scopes and beer.
Anyway, in the winter it got quite cold out at his house and it was always new moon when we would use the scopes so it was also quite dark. We would run into problems remembering whose beer was whose as it was so dark and we devised a way to tell by turning our tabs one way or the other so that you could identify your beer by feel - even with gloves. I started turning my tab to the left (9:00 position) back in 1982 or so and still do that to each and every of the thousands of beers I have drank since. I do it as a habit that, now that John is gone, will be a silent reminder of him while I drink beer. John always took the 3:00 position and my next door neighbor, with whom I have drank quite a few beers, adopted the 3:00 position 6 or 7 years back. Of course, if you turn it all the way to 12:00, you have a chovie guard, but that's another story.
So if you see me turn my tab to 9:00, you now know where that came from.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Week 14 - Sorry for the Delay
Yes, it has been several weeks since I last posted. My bad. I don't have any excuses other than a great football and beer man who was very close to me passed away last month and for some reason blogging just seemed to take a back seat for a while. My Uncle John was only a week shy of 56 years old when he passed away of cancer. He and I went golfing and fishing in October - he drove us to June Lake - and there was a lot of beer and football that weekend. John had been diagnosed the week before, so he held off on the beer but consumed copious amounts of football, fishing, and plain old jackassery with the rest of us.
It is strange for me to watch him go. Several of us spent the last few days of his life with him and his kids at his bedside. I even got a chance to watch his last football games with him on the Sunday before he died. He was surprised at just how bad the Eagles and Redskins were that week. As I recall, he said that both teams played like donkey dicks. That about summed it up as this was not the world's best played game - at least during the stretch that we watched. No friggin defense at all - both teams had 100+ yard runners.
Anyway, my Uncle John is now above us, with a beer in hand watching live football all day every day. Actually, I am sure he will toss in some NBA and MLB here and there, but football was #1. I miss him a lot already and will take the avuncular guidance he gave me forward and pass it on.
Now - back to The Blog
Raiders
I gotta start out with the Raiders as this was a notable week for The Nation. Since appearing in the Super Bowl in 2003 - note that date Charger homers - the Raiders have won precious few games against AFC west rivals, with the last win coming in Denver on a snowy Monday night when Ronald Curry made that spectacular catch in the end zone. SEVENTEEN straight losses to division opponents - until now. We have now won TWO STRAIGHT! Yeah now! Off the Schneid!
The Raiders may have squeaked past KC, but this was in KC, until this season a really hard place to win. The Silver and Black handed Denver their asses by 14 points and it sure was nice to run one right up ol' Shanahan's ass! Squeal like a Pig Mikey!
Another Raider development was the appearance of Jamarcus Russel - at last. Coach Kiffin may be just teasing us, but he gave the kid two series' to show his stuff and he did as well as one could hope. His passes looked confident and crisp and I have a feeling that he can throw the ball harder than Brees and Rivers put together. He is HUGE in the pocket and I hope and pray that he lives up to half of his promise.
You heard it here first - the Raiders will beat the Packers in Lambeau. Do you know why? As of today, Brett's hand is still tingling and he does not have his full grip. Aaron Rodgers, who did so well last week, injured his hammie in practice on Tuesday and is out for two weeks. They have no third QB and picked a guy up just now to fill in. I predict that Brett will start to preserve his record, but will not be effective and without Brett (and Aaron) they are sunk. The Raider D will pick off the new guy of he tries to throw and our newly energized run defense with hold off any running attack that the 30th ranked Packers rushing attack can muster.
Chargers
Looks like the Chargers are doing better. Who could have predicted that if you give the ball to #21 you will win games? Not Norv earlier this year. Rivers had a game that on paper looked good, but anyone who saw him play would disagree. Yes, he had a long TD pass, but he looks unsteady in the pocket and really should learn how to properly throw the ball away. He scares me and if I were AJ Smith I would be looking for help in this area. Of course, Aj is an idiot, so he will make more stupid decisions for the bolt fans. The bolts have the division all but locked up, but all it will take is a few bad passes by Rivers to take away the running game and the bolts are sunk.
Patriots
The pats are not invincible. Say that again to yourself and try to make yourself believe it. I think that the Pats have way more than 9 lives, because it seems like they used up a dozen or more on Monday night. Who the fuck called that time out from the Raven's bench? that cost the game. I think that the NFL should revisit that rule as it seems to be distorting games. If you give Brady and Co. enough chances they will kill you every time. The key to winning is to apply pressure to Brady, cover all the hot routes, make sure that you don't get burned in a screen, and hope that Moss has a bad game. If you get all of that Right AND score like 40 points, you have a shot.
Beer
I gotta give it up for my Uncle John on this post, as he was a Budweiser drinker. He was not so much into all the other wacky flavors of Bud (light, ice, dry, etc) and stuck to the Red White and Blue for the most part. He enjoyed many other beers and I have personally seen him drink any number of Mexican beers in our trips south of the border fishing. One of my favorite anecdotes about he and I drinking beer relates to our shared love of astronomy. his house is at about 4500 feet above Palm Desert and the sky there is very dark. From my late teens into my 30's I spent a lot of time out there with our scopes observing, photographing, and generally enjoying the heavens. We founded the Golfing Astronomer Musician's Association during these years as a way to buy more scopes and beer.
Anyway, in the winter it got quite cold out at his house and it was always new moon when we would use the scopes so it was also quite dark. We would run into problems remembering whose beer was whose as it was so dark and we devised a way to tell by turning our tabs one way or the other so that you could identify your beer by feel - even with gloves. I started turning my tab to the left (9:00 position) back in 1982 or so and still do that to each and every of the thousands of beers I have drank since. I do it as a habit that, now that John is gone, will be a silent reminder of him while I drink beer. John always took the 3:00 position and my next door neighbor, with whom I have drank quite a few beers, adopted the 3:00 position 6 or 7 years back. Of course, if you turn it all the way to 12:00, you have a chovie guard, but that's another story.
So if you see me turn my tab to 9:00, you now know where that came from.
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