2012 NFL Season – Division Round

Last Week: 2-2 (.500)  Playoffs: 2-2 (.500)

You win some, you lose some.  The ones I lost (Minnesota and Baltimore) came close to covering the point spread.  But close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and with impatient people who just want to go home.  Once again I will give insight into the games.  Please don’t laugh.

1/12 4:30 ET Baltimore (+9.5) at Denver
Thirty years ago, John Elway had an opportunity to play for Baltimore (Colts). He demanded to be traded and was traded to the Denver Broncos. There was what seemed to be an annual tradition of the Broncos playing the Browns for the AFC Championship. The Broncos won all those games and the-then Browns soon after moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens. None of this has anything to do with Saturday’s game, except that John Elway is now the Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the Broncos and Art Modell (former owner of the Browns/Ravens) recently passed away and the current Ravens have a “Art” patch on their uniforms in his honor.  The Broncos will continue to be a pain to Art Modell post-mortem.  Take the Broncos and give the points.

1/12 8:00 ET Green Bay (+3) at San Francisco

This would have been the rematch of last year’s NFC Championship game, except that the Packers somehow lost to the eventual Super Bowl Champion New York Giants.  While the stats would suggest to take the 49ers and give the points, I have a feeling that Aaron Rodgers and the Packers find a way to win this one.  Or maybe not.  Take the 49ers and give the points.

1/13 1:00 ET Seattle (+2.5) at Atlanta

I’ll keep my logic simple.  This will be a hard fought defensive battle.  In battles like these, the team with the better running game usually wins.  Few things are harder than tackling Marshawn Lynch.  Here is a video of him in the 2010 Wild Card game against the New Orleans Saints:

Take the Seahawks and the points.

1/13 4:30 ET Houston (+9.5) at New England 

Once upon a time, this game would have been a close game and it would have been in Houston because they had the best record in the NFL for most of the season.  But football is a 16-game season and the Texans fell apart after their twelfth game.  The Patriots have been on a roll aside from a hiccup against the 49ers a few weeks ago.  Take the Patriots and give the points.

 

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Potpourri

I am having a hard time spending time writing on any one subject largely due to my mother still being here.  If Mitt Romney is the “Etch-a-Sketch” candidate then I am the “Lite-Brite” candidate.  I always say the same thing, but how pretty the message us depends on the colors of the bulbs.

Global Warming – I don’t normally start fighting it until Memorial Day weekend.  I might have to start fighting it soon though.  Today’s high was 77°F (The normal high in northwestern New Jersey on March 22 is 49F°.)

Tim Tebow – For the first time since Joe Namath was a Jet, there are Jets fans west of the Delaware River.  The Jets might not make the Super Bowl even with Tebow, but people are suddenly buying Jets jerseys.  The Broncos bandwagon is now being painted green and white.

Meetings – This week’s campaign meetings were held telepathically.  I have found a Ouija board to be helpful in getting the messages that I miss.

Zombies – I am not sure they are going to be the demographic that I was hoping they would be.  It seems that the Republicans have been campaigning for their votes with the zombie vote being split between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.  Mitt Romney is still getting the vampire vote.

NCAA Tournament – My bracket has more red ink than a federal budget.  No further comment is necessary.

I am trying to talk to my father into coming up tomorrow for the weekend.  I don’t want my mother to know that he might be coming up.  (Mom, if you’re reading this, read something else and resume at the next paragraph.)  If this works, I can get back to normal on Monday.  I have to call my father and ask him to pick up my daughter even though my daughter is afraid of him.

Mom, this is where you can resume reading.  You had no business reading the last two sentences of the previous paragraph.  I’ll be done in the morning on business.  If I finish soon enough, I will be going to Washington to pick up Patricia.

I will be doing some campaigning this weekend.  Where I campaign depends on whether my daughter is here or not.  Her ninth birthday was last weekend and I wasn’t allowed to see her so I get her this weekend.  I bought her a cell phone for her birthday so she can work the phone bank for the campaign.  She has an irresistible voice and might be able to get more people to vote for me than the zombies.

I’ll be there in a minute, Mom! …

What I Have Learned From Tim Tebow

Jets fans take heart. If you ignore the mechanics and look at the results, Tebow did lead a 1-4 team to the playoffs and did throw for 316 yards in a playoff game against a stingy defense.

Ahmnodt Heare for President

My father always says, “Whether you can or you can’t, you have to do it, so do it!”  the premise behind that thinking is that if you don’t dwell on thinking that something can’t be done, you will spend time thinking on how to get it done.  I see a lot of that in Tim Tebow.  He is hardly accurate throwing the ball and people question his ability to compete in the NFL.  He runs a lot for a quarterback, but he’s not very fast.  Despite these glaring shortcomings, he keeps winning.  But how?

I have been looking through Denver Broncos highlights and I watched the last couple games.  Here is what I have learned:

• He doesn’t give up – He is a firm believer of “It’s not over until it’s over,”  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” and countless other cliches that coaches tell their players.

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My Week in Review (Thus Far)

Like everything else in life, a presidential campaign has its ups and downs.  When it’s up, you want to stay up, and when it’s down, you want to get up and stay up.  When one is down, one can either wait for a break or create an opportunity.  I have chosen the latter and will explain why I am currently in Massachusetts despite not planning on being here later in this entry.

Sunday – Ames Iowa:  I was looking for a place to talk a little bit about politics while watching football.  I was a bit scared at first about the bar near my hotel.  I wanted to root for the Broncos, but the bar was decked out in black-and-gold and had a lot of football stuff.  I thought at first it was a Steelers’ bar until  I saw a bartender wearing a Tim Tebow jersey.  I saw a few patrons walk in wearing black and gold shirts, but they had “IOWA” on the chest with a hawkeye underneath.  It turns out that the University of Iowa’s football team and the Pittsburgh Steelers have the same colors and that Iowa adopted the Steelers’ colors in the 1970s to look more llike a championship.

Monday – I was in an antique store in Iowa City when a young woman came up to me asking for my autograph.  I happily obliged.  She looked disappointed.  I asked her what was wrong.  She said she thought I was running for President.  I told her I was running for President and gave her my web address.  She then said she thought I was Vermin Supreme.

Tuesday – I went to cemeteries, morgues, and libraries through Des Moines campaigning to the deceased.  I didn’t hear any objections from the cemeteries or libraries, but the morgue said I was getting in the way of autopsies.

Wednesday – Flew from Des Moines to Manchester, New Hampshire (via Chicago, Boston, and St.Louis).  Too tired to do anything by the time I got to Manchester at 11:30PM

Thursday – rented a car and drove to Dixville Notch.  I normally like it when I leave an impression on people and they remember me the next time I see them.  Most of the people didn’t remember me from my visit in 2010, but unfortunately, a few did.  Another person thought I was Vermin Supreme and wanted a pony.

It occurred to me that the South Carolina primary is next Saturday and not this Saturday.  I have also learned that they don’t allow write-in candidates in primaries.  And Manchester is not too far from Boston (or specifically, Foxboro).  I drove to Foxboro this morning looking for people who have tickets to tomorrow’s game between the Patriots and the Broncos.  I couldn’t find anybody with tickets.  (I don’t want tickets, I just wanted people to hold signs that can be shown on TV.)  I’m now at Logan Airport awaiting for my flight home.

Sports Programming Retards

Before you say anything, I am going to tell you how I define “retard” so my e-mail isn’t filled with hate mail.  I do not mean people who are mentally challenged.  They should not be made fun of.  I mean people who can think, but opt not to.  Those people should be made fun of, insulted, whatever it takes to get them to THINK!

The object of promoting sports is to promote the sport.  It sounds simple, but it goes over so many heads in the sports programming world.  This means putting the best games on TV and scheduling sports doubleheaders so that the second game can be seen in its entirely after the first game.

Saturday:  SNY (Sportsnet New York) had a college basketball doubleheader on their network.  The first game was Northern Colorado at Marquette at 4:00PM.  The second game was South Carolina State at Pittsburgh.  These are hardly marquee games (games this time of year are usually top-tier teams playing against weaker teams to fatten the win-loss records of the stronger team.  This is a time honored tradition.

At 6:00, Marquette was leading Northern Colorado 80-60 with five minutes remaining.  (Marquette would win 93-52.)  Instead of relieving viewers of five minutes of bad basketball, they should have switched to the South Carolina State-Pittsburgh game.  SNY ended up showing Northern Colorado fouling Marquette players so they could limit them to two point plays and try to overcome a 20-point deficit by shooting a bunch of three-point baskets.  Fouls stop the clock.  I could rant at Northern Colorado for thinking they could come back, but when one plays a game, one is never supposed to give up.)

By the time the Northern Colorado-Marquette game ended, the South Carolina State-Pittsburgh game was already halfway through the first half in a tight (at the time) game.  Pittsburgh ended up winning by a sizable margin, but they didn’t get it going until the second half.

My beef on Sunday was with CBS.  The last seven games of the season are subject to having one of the Sunday afternoon games switched to Sunday evening before a national audience on NBC.  The game NBC ended up showing last night was Baltimore at San Diego.  Rumor had it that NBC and the NFL wanted to show the New England at Denver game in that slot, but CBS and Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft nixed the deal.  I don’t know why Kraft was against it, but CBS was against it because it would have been the highest rated game with the most viewers.  The only problem is that the Patriots-Broncos game was not shown in New York City (CBS’s largest local market.)  People in New York were subject to watching the Jets get slaughtered by the Eagles.

Here is how to promote sports:

College basketball – Have a doubleheader, but schedule the games 2 1/2 hours apart.  The time between games can have a studio team who can split the time between games dissecting the previous game and previewing the upcoming game.

NFL Football – Change the late afternoon games to 4:30PM Eastern.  If there is a marquee game and a local game scheduled at the same time, sell the broadcasting rights of the local game to a television station in the local area.  There will still be a market for NFL Sunday ticket for Washington Redskins fans like me who don’t live in the market and know the Redskins aren’t going to be the marquee game very often, but still want to watch their game.

Schedule better, don’t be afraid to break away from a bad game to show another game in its entirety, and show viewers that you really want viewers.  This is my advice for the sports programming retards.

What I Have Learned From Tim Tebow

My father always says, “Whether you can or you can’t, you have to do it, so do it!”  the premise behind that thinking is that if you don’t dwell on thinking that something can’t be done, you will spend time thinking on how to get it done.  I see a lot of that in Tim Tebow.  He is hardly accurate throwing the ball and people question his ability to compete in the NFL.  He runs a lot for a quarterback, but he’s not very fast.  Despite these glaring shortcomings, he keeps winning.  But how?

I have been looking through Denver Broncos highlights and I watched the last couple games.  Here is what I have learned:

• He doesn’t give up – He is a firm believer of “It’s not over until it’s over,”  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” and countless other cliches that coaches tell their players.
• He has his team believing they can win (even with him at quarterback) and people tend to do more when they know their objective can be reached.
• He stays out of trouble (on and off the field) – He doesn’t do drugs, drink, or hang out at the mall or the library.  On the field, he doesn’t fumble, throw the ball to the bad guys, or do stupid things that hurt the team.

This is what I have learned:

• I gave up once, but I took back down and am preparing for the pitfalls I expect in the 2012 campaign.  I’m not going to win by doing things the traditional way.  This is why my campaign is unconventional – I am campaigning to my strengths.
• While I am not sure how many people think I can win, I do know many Americans think I am a better candidate than either Obama or any of the Republican candidates.
• I stay out of trouble (on and off the campaign trail) – I don’t take campaign money from big business (or from anybody else as is evident by the lack of a “PayPal” button on this website.)  And I only patronize legitimate nudie bars recognized by the law.

I wish Tim Tebow luck for the rest of this season as well as in his career.  I have already learned much from him and look forward to learning more.

Vacation Ends Today

I head home today after a week of must needed time away from the job and my campaign.  I will leave here at 7:30 for a ride to Colorado Springs.  At 11:00, I will be taking a bus to Denver.  The plane leaves at 2:00PM and I shoujld be back at my home by 8PM.

I spent most of yesterday alone relaxing.  I did watch some of the Rockies game against the New York Mets at a bar.  I came back to the bar in time to watch “Wheel of Fortune.”  It was then that I found out why my campaign was so popular here.  Saguache is a hotbed for Vanna White supremacists.   There was an altercation as a few people came in wanting to watch the Denver Broncos’ game against the Arizona Cardinals.  But the Broncos fans were outnumbered by the Vanna White supremacists.

We were about to watch the Broncos game after “Wheel of Fortune” when there was a sudden showering of boos.  I saw the television and it was Wiliam Shatner doing a Priceline commercial.  An elderly woman shouted, “Way to ruin our entertainment, you Canuck spy!”

The irony is although I am heading home today, I will never feel as home as I have this past week.