Pick'ems week 5

Sorry for no pick'ems last week. A deadly combo of laziness (during the week) and not being near a PC for more than 6 minutes (weekend) didn't help.

Bears over Bills- We'll start it off right with the monsters of the midway. I'm thinking about playing a hole in the keeper league rather than play McGahee. Really.

Panthers over Browns- Speaking of the keeper. I didn't start Keyshawn this morning so he will most definitely score twice. Book it.

Lions over Vikes- When you heard about the Amish School shooting did you, like me, wonder about Brad Childress and his whereabouts. You would not have been shocked if it was him. Just admit it.

Pats over Phins- I may not pick the Phins to win another game this year. As long as Daunte is starting. I really don't see it.

Pack over Rams- For no other reason than the Pack cut Carroll. Stat courtesy of NFL.com Carroll played 34 games in four seasons and started 28 of them. He had 104 tackles, 95 solo, three interceptions, three sacks, 26 passes defensed, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery. Offically. Unoffically he had 5497 yards in pass interference penalties. That stat was courtesy of Beck's little yellow note pad by his recliner.

Saints over Bucs- Gradwhoski?

Colts over Titans- The Titans have offically lost the one guy on their team who seem to care if they win or lose. He just doesn't seem to care about faces, rules, and laws. Stay classy Albert Haynesworth. More on you later.

Giants over Redskins- I'm starting Moss in the keeper this week so he should become the invisible man. I'm also not starting Shockey so he should score at least one TD.

Chiefs over Cards- The Cards O-Line has more holes in it than A-rod's postseason swing. (Jab for Chris. Don't worry Christian they're still not the Cubs. )

Jets over Jags- The only thing I expect from this game is a lot of tackles.

Raider over Niners- They've gotta win one game. Randy Moss has to have a huge game pretty soon doesn't he? Not so fast says Keyshawn Johnson. Oct 7 Pat Yasinskas, of the Charlotte Observer, reports Carolina Panthers WR Keyshawn Johnson says Oakland Raiders WR Randy Moss no longer is considered one of the NFL's elite receivers. "Randy Moss wanted out of Minnesota? Oh well," Johnson said. "Four years ago, he was the best wide receiver in the NFL. Now you can't get a pack of gum for him." Juciyfruit is the bomb.

Chargers over Steelers- Until I see Big Ben step into a throw I'm picking against him. He's become Jim Everett 2006 since his appendix was removed.

Ravens over Broncos- Remember what happened the last time the Ravens played Denver on MNF. Keith Burns doesn't. He was the guy Ray Lewis vaporized on that crackback block on Chris McCallister's return.

Did I miss any games....is there anything else going on in the NFL this weekend? Oh yeah!

Cowboys over the Eagles- Philly fans the best thing you could do today is ignore T.O. Act like he isn't even in the Link. It would annoy the shit out of him. That said I know that isn't happening. What is the over/under on the number of pill bottles thrown on the field today. How many drunk assholes are gonna rush on the field trying to get a shot at him. Security is beefed up like it was in New York for the world series after 9-11. For one guy. Philly's reception of T.O. is going to make the treatment of Mike Irvin when his carrer was ended there look a tickertape parade. I really hope someone does rush the Cowboys sideline and Andre Gurode lets loose some of that pent up Haynesworth anger on some drunk sap. I want that more than my next breath. I also can't wait for Parcell's postgame interview. That should be hilarious. The NFL should lift the ban on celebrations for this game. So McNabb and Owens could get in to a game of celebration one-upsmanship. Owens can do a McNabb moonwalk over the Eagle head on the fifty. McNabb could get that guy with the live eagle before the game to command it to attack T.O. Owens responds by plucking it. McNabb steps up with filming a commercial for the phramacutical company that produces hydocodone. Owens could kick a handicapped child in a #5 jersey. Donny could offer T.O.'s publicist a comb. Terrell could counter by thowing a can of Campbell's Chunky Soup into Momma McNabb's chest. The subsequent riot would make Pacers-Pistons look like a minor disagreement. I can't wait.


Later.

Yankee Blue(s)

It's disappointing but not surprising that the Yankees are gone. Once the Tigers got to Mussina in Game 2, I knew they were toast. In fact, on Friday I was listening to the radio and the SportsCenter guy was reeling off Kenny Rogers' dismal past stats against the Bombers. Then he said, "He faces Randy Johnson ..." and I interrupted with, "... WHO ALSO SUCKS!" I had no faith in either he or Jaret Wright to get the Yanks a win so here I sit not in shock but in submission.

The Yankees will likely fire Torre, and although Girardi is just like Torre, we should hire him anyway. And we (couldn't go 100 words without reverting to "we" when discussing the Yankees) should bring in guys like Girardi to play on this team: the Paul O'Neills, the Scott Brosiuses, the Tino Martinezes ... in other words, guys you wouldn't have to hide in the 8-hole while making $25 million. But if we are to believe the reports this morning that Lou Piniella will be taking the helm ... well, whatever.

Here are the batting averages of the Yankees for the series. Notice the old-school names at the top.

.500: Jeter, Posada
.333: Abreu (whose plate patience and willingness to slap hits the other way remind me of late-'90s Pinstripers)
.250: Matsui
.235: Damon
.133: Cano (whom I like)
.125: Giambi (to his credit, his OPS was .917)
.083: Sheffield (whom I hate, and whom Torre didn't have the stones to keep on the bench)
.071: A-Rod (what more can be said)
.000: Cabrera, Bernie, Phillips

Not since my childhood have I had to say "there's always next year" for six consecutive seasons. (Cubs fans, I feel your pain--ha ha ha.) But unlike my football allegiances, which admittedly have wavered for years before discovering my family's history with the Packers (if I haven't shared this here, I'll do that sometime), I have been a Yankees fan since I was in preschool, which meant I endured the entire decade of the 1980s, so I can endure this.

I only wish the numbers that mattered when I was a kid--the stats I memorized on the backs of the baseball cards of Don Mattingly, Ron Guidry, Willie Randolph, and others--were the ones that made headlines, instead of the ridiculous payroll numbers we see today.

Lost ... and lost

Aside from a sweet opening, Lost opens Season Three with a bit of a yawn. I always find the Jack flashback episodes a bit boring, but with all that went down in last season's finale, I figured the present-day stuff would be a bit more ... stimulating (though Kate freshening up fit that bill nicely). But I expect greater things from forthcoming episodes, which is the same way I feel about Friday Night Lights. Nice Mack Brown cameo in that premiere, and the two running backs are a couple of U.G.'s ...

And speaking of lost, how about Torii Hunter? Oops. To me, the interesting thing was the SportsCenter clip of Torii giving an interview at his locker after the game, where in clear view on the top shelf of his locker was a fat bottle of Captain Morgan. I was waiting for Hunter to stand on his right leg, lift his left leg in the air, bent at the knee at a 90-degree angle, and flash a grin, after which Nick Punto (Punto!) could shout, "Looks like he's got a little Captain in him!" I don't know where Torii was in the batting order today, but in the field, it appears he was hitting (the) fifth. One benefit of Billy Beane's "Moneyball" philosophy: his outfielders can't afford booze.

Haters Count to One Hundred

I posed the question "How can you hate Derek Jeter?" yesterday. UG correspondent Danny found this response online. Although I find Jeter hatred incomprehensible, at least these guys are pretty funny about it.

Toronto Baseball Guys' 100 Reasons to Hate Derek Jeter

Today's important discussions

MATT
Ahmad Carroll defines the Mike Sherman era...just terrible

CHRIS
How terrible must Joey Thomas be if he couldn’t beat out Carroll for a roster spot? Yikes.

Those early fumbles by Buckhalter just tricked me into thinking we had a shot. It should have been 45-9. Nice to see we couldn’t punch it in at the end of the game, either.

Seems like there’s always one bum corner on teams I like (Carroll, Shada, used to be Antwan Allen).

MATT
Ahmad Carroll is the worst player in the NFL. Put in in the bank.

Beast REALLY had a tough week [in The Keeper].

CHRIS
Yeah, when one receiver on your bench almost outscores your whole team, that’s a week to forget. [Beast had Santana Moss on his bench.] He drew four of the five fines—it was nice of you to draw the other one.

MATT
I take back anything good I said about Charles Woodson in the off season too. He's washed up. I haven't even seen Collins making any plays. I hate to admit it, but AJ Hawk looked like our best player on D last night

CHRIS
I think Kampman is a close second, if not equal, to Hawk. That sentence explains a 1-3 record quite plainly. Don’t feel bad about Hawk looking good—at least it means we didn’t whiff on our first-round pick this time.

MATT
Probably 1-4 after the Rims throw all over us this week

CHRIS
The Rims.

By the way, how does Laurence Maroney tear up the NFL less than a year after being a total gimp against the Hawks? Scurred of Mitch King, I suppose.

MATT
Yeah, once they tap Corey Dillon out, he might be the truth, I should have scooped him in the Keeper instead of DeAngelo Williams

CHRIS
How fast are the Cubs going to swoop in on Girardi? I was hoping he’d go a couple of years in Florida, then take over for Torre.

MATT
I don't know if they will or not...

CHRIS
Are they looking at someone else?

MATT
Rumor has it Hendry is looking at some "surprise" candidate and I think they may give Bob Brenly a shot

CHRIS
So the best-case scenario might still exist: Yanks win the Series, Joe T. retires, Joe G. steps in. Sounds great.

MATT
There you go. I'm still kind of thorned out about the Packer game. How would you rate Favre's performance? I actually thought he looked pretty good. Ton of drops, big drops, especially by Driver. The one pick was pretty bad, late over the middle, but all in all I don't know what people expect. We have NO running game whatsoever and they know we have to sling it 50 times a game. That's going to happen.

CHRIS
If he throws 50 times a game and gets picked twice, that’s still only a 4% rate, and I’ll take that from him. I like the shotgun plays too; Colledge and Spitz can’t step on FOUR’s feet that way. I just hope Driver isn’t turning into 2004 Darrell Jackson, with a bad case of the drops—perhaps Koren Robinson has that effect on his teammates. I thought FOUR played a great first half but after the Driver drops, particularly the second one, his confidence seemed to evaporate and then the bad interception came. The guys in the booth were hammering on Driver’s drop in the third quarter but he also dropped a TD early in the game on a short slant. I don’t foresee a trend, but man ....

I actually thought Morency played OK, if not for that untimely fumble in our own red zone. But saying something like that reminds me of a bad headline in the ISU paper the Monday after a guy got murdered on the lawn of a frat house during Veishea 1997: “Slaying aside, there were few Veishea hitches” (I’m not making that up).

Did I mention the suckiness of Ahmad Carroll?

MATT
Twins are hurting now...they basically need Santana to win EVERY time he pitches.

CHRIS
Ah, you read the book: Moneyball doesn’t work in the playoffs. The Twins will be fine. Besides, they’re just vying to be the next sacrificial lamb ....

MATT
You see, all year there was no Yankee gibberish, and now all of the sudden there is a bunch of firing, which reminds me why I'm supposed to hate the Yankees.

CHRIS
How can you hate Derek Jeter …

MATT
I don't hate him, I actually got in an argument this year that he is the best shortstop not just right now, but EVER. Raised a lot of eyebrows I tell you. I do however hate A-Rod, Sheffield, the Farns, Giambi, Randy Johnson, Mussina, Judas Damon, Matsui and all the other mercenaries chasing rings. I may take Mussina out of there, because I kind of think of him as a Yankee now.

CHRIS
As long as you don’t hate Jeter, Rivera, Posada, and Bernie, I can live with you not liking the Yankees in general. I have to admit, the list of old school dudes is a lot shorter than it was in the late ‘90s. And don’t hate on the Moose—he’s basically David Cone 2.0, and addicted to crosswords, which any wordsmith can appreciate.

I see Haynesworth got more than double the suspension that Charles Martin got for body slamming Jim McMahon way back when. I tried to find footage on YouTube of McMahon getting dumped but only found him doing commercials for Taco Bell and those old Gotcha! paintball guns.

MATT
Haynesworth should maybe make the front page of the UG. That was pretty hardcore.

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Since this conversation, the Packers cut Ahmad Carroll and Jeter is 4-for-4 as the Yankees lead, 7-3. Life is good!

Today's important discussions

(Since the Packers have the lead at halftime, Matt and I bitch about last Saturday's game.)

MATT
Tough one Saturday night. I didn't expect to win or anything, but I wish we would have brought our "A" game; we still haven’t played a "good" entire game yet this year. At least we got some good national exposure, I guess.

CHRIS
When Young scored to make it 14-10, I thought we had a shot, but when you try to cover Anthony Gonzalez with linebackers, forget about it.

The TD that made it 21-10 (I think) was the only play that really got me riled up. The receiver moved toward the line of scrimmage and didn’t reset for a second before the snap. No flag. That WR ended up catching a fade for a score (over Shada) on that play. How many times did Pittman start up the middle, hesitate, and then run left behind a pulling guard? We had no answer for that play.

MATT
Right after Young scored, we held them to a three and out and they kind of shanked that punt so we had the ball at midfield with a chance to take the lead. Of course we went three and out, and then they scored right away. I'm starting to think that Scott Chandler is the most overrated player in the country.

You are right about covering that Gonzalez guy with a LB too, just doesn't make sense. That's why we will never beat a USC or Ohio St...teams with mobile QB's that can spread the field we cannot match up with. And Norm Parker won't change his ways.

There were only three penalties called in that whole game, all against them, but I thought they were holding us on EVERY running play. Apparently their left guard and left tackle are the best players in the country and are going in the first round of the NFL. We were getting killed up front on both sides of the ball. Mattison looked okay, but the rest of the guys were getting killed. Don't even get me started on Shada. All in all we needed to play perfect to even have a chance and that just didn't happen. I'm a little nervous about this Purdue game now too; they spread the field and fire it around too. We need to run the table, beat Michigan at their place (AIIIIYYYY) and hope OSU has their normal meltdown against Michigan at the end of the year and be co-Big 10 Champs.

Could be worse I guess, we could be ISU.

CHRIS
That OSU-Michigan game could very well be #1 vs. #2. I was flipping between Iowa and Michigan Saturday night, and I saw C.R. Washington grad Adrian Arrington catch 2 TDs for Michigan. Meanwhile, the Hawks couldn’t catch a cold on the other channel. Ah, what could have been .....

MATT
We have some stud receivers waiting in the wings; I think that Douglas is going to be the truth. What is screwing us is the other teams know that Brodell and Grigsby must have pictures of the Captain doing something bad because they have no business being on the field and can load up against the run.

CHRIS
I do like Douglas. A lot. I just wish Arrington was on the other side. Gonzalez’s second touchdown looked like something I would have pulled off in Tecmo.

MATT
How about that block that knocked Mattison into King and wiped them both out. Ouch.

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In other news:

I [Chris] broke out the claw for the first time during a Packers game; as a result, David Akers was too scared to try a long field goal as the first half ended, and they ran a pass play that ended in no points. Does that count as a successful claw?

******

Juice Williams won his first game last Saturday against MSU, making my dad (Illini alum) happy. His line was much improved from his first start, which was against Iowa. His numbers against Iowa looked like my numbers when I play Madden NFL on All-Madden level. Against Iowa: 9-32-3-162, 1 TD (31 yards)

28.1 completion percentage, yet 18 yards per completion. Oh yeah, and a 24-7 defeat. But he actually hit 9 of 16 against MSU last weekend—must have knocked the settings down to All-Pro.

******

Update: Ahmad Carroll should never play. Ever. Stephen Hawking could do a better job in coverage.