Monday, January 14, 2008

And The Team That Wins The Honor To Lose To The Patriots Is...

Grab a brat, throw some cheese and mustard on it, sit down with a case of beer, and get ready for the game Sunday. That's right, coming to a TV and Super Bowl near you are the Green Bay Packers. In the past three years, the Packers have gone from 4-12 to 8-8 to 13-3 and are playing in the NFC Championship game. Not only are they playing in it, they look like the favorites to have the honor of losing to the Greatest team ever assembled in the Super Bowl. But they might not lose. Now, I don't want to get ahead of myself. I know how the sports gods work. as soon as you concede a team will win and start looking to the next week or next game, that team gets surprised and loses. Well for the rest of the week I'll be knocking on wood, avoiding ladders, running away from cats, placing all mirrors in bubble wrap and setting them in safe places.

(Actually, check that. I'm NOT putting mirrors in bubble wrap because I might start popping the bubbles and accidently break the mirrors. I'll just calmly place them on the other side of my roommates bed. No one, especially any women, ever lays there. Also, that way, if somehow a mirror breaks, I'll know my roommate is sleeping with either angry Bears fans or some loud annoying girl from New York.)

The Giants are going to put up one hell of a fight. Or maybe they won't. I don't even know. They have been playing so well and remind me of a couple years ago when the Steelers won it all. Not because they're a hot team with a good D that runs well. It all has to do with Eli. Ben Roethlisberger had an extreme amount of confidence that year. That's what Eli looks like now. That's why these Giants remind me of those Steelers. And as a Packers fan, I am worried. Favre is going to get hit. In the cold. And it will hurt.

But I know who's going to win. I can't say who, because that might jinx it. So I'll leave you with this. Brett Favre has broken several records. But there is one record that he set that will never show his name nor any stat he has put up. But anyone who saw this record happen knows it was all Favre. The player who holds the record I'm talking about is going to lose on Sunday.

And if you know who that is, you know he owes him one

Monday, January 7, 2008

NFL Awards

First off, it's been almost an entire month since I've written anything. There's two reasons for that. First, I went back to Minnesota to visit my parents for Christmas during my break from school. They still have dial up internet, which is essentially no internet at all. Second, I found out I have a blood clot and blocked arteries. Not good stuff, but I'm on the way to recovering now. Hopefully I can have a good year where I get back to where I was, and then I can work on living a healthier life.



Alright, on to some sports. I'm going to offer up my choices for the NFL award winners this year, as well as a couple honorary nominees who didn't quite have enough stuff to win.



MVP - Tom Brady
I want to pick Brett Favre. Not picking him is like not picking America to win at anything. Not picking Favre is like rooting against democracy. If you don't love Brett Favre, you're a communist. But Tom Brady accomplished a LOT this year. Yeah, he had an awesome team around him, but damn.



Offensive Player of the Year - Randy Moss
Brady means more to the team. Moss means more to the offense. If Brady wasn't such a damn good leader, Moss would have won both.



Defensive Player of the Year - Ed Reed
Bob Sanders won it. But until you show me how Bob Sanders is better than Ed Reed, I'm taking Reed.



Offensive Rookie of the Year - Joe Thomas
I love Adrian Peterson. He is an absolute stud. But there's a problem. He couldn't break a hundred yards rushing COMBINED in his last three games. I had the pleasure of finally watching AD while home in Minnesota and what does he do? NOTHING. Asshole. I drive six hours and he can't even give me a fifty yard touchdown run? Hell, I would have settled for a fifty yard touchdown reception. The point is, Joe Thomas played awesome as a rookie. Cleveland was actually good this year. I think he helped a lot. I don't think Thomas is better, but Peterson let me down and looked absolutely human the last couple weeks when teams figured out how to stop him.



Defensive Rookie of the Year - Patrick Willis
No debate. Stud. I wish I could watch him play more often. This guy is a tackling machine and will probably keep getting better.



Wide Receiver Who Might Have Kept His Job If He Just Caught One Ball But Instead Lost His Job - Troy Williamson.
In the last game against the Broncos, Williamson blew by every defender, sat down in the middle of the field, read the paper, got up, and then had a wide open touchdown as long as he didn't drop it or get struck by lightning and....... coming to free agency this offseason, the #7 overall draft pick in the 2005 draft, Troy Williamson.



(How do the Vikings get Williamson one year with the seventh pick, then a couple years later get Adrian Peterson with the seventh pick? Doesn't it seem like one of those two should have been drafted a lot higher than the other?)



Guy Who Had A Really Good Year And I Think Is Really Good But Maybe He Isn't Because No One Else Is Giving Him Credit - Nick Barnett
He had something like 131 tackles and was everywhere on the field. I watched every Packers game this year and I haven't seen someone tear ass wild up and down a field like Nick Barnett did in years. He was literally everywhere. His body split up down to the molecular level and spread out across the field, then reconverged around the guy with the ball to make the tackle. Amazing. He should be in the Pro Bowl next year.



The Michael Irvin Award - T.O.
Star receiver. Hall of Fame bound. Will only be remembered for his mouth, not his stats, because he played udring the same time the best receiver ever played. (Irvin played when Rice was around, who at the time was the best receiver ever. T.O. plays at the same time as Moss, who is the best receiver ever).



Quarterback Who Played Well On The Road All Year, Yet Everyone Is Waiting For Him To Self Implode, On The Road, During The Playoffs - Eli Manning
8-1, including the first playoff game, on the road this year? I don't know how he did it. Eli always sucked in hostile environments and pressure situations. That's every road game. How did he do so well? I don't know, but Peyton better make sure he didn't steal his good luck charm.