Peeaaannnnuuuutttsss

What a dud

The Super Bowl was great. What a hard fought game between two evenly matched teams. I was very entertained during the 60 minutes of game time. However the same cannot be said about the Super Bowl commercials. What an awful display of 'advertising.' The people responsible should be publicly slapped for their half-assed, lazy, and embarrassing performance. Especially you Go-Daddy. You should be ashamed of yourself.

The Kid returns...

After ten long years spent between Cincinnati and Chicago, Ken Griffey Jr. is returning to Seattle to play for Mariners once again. It seemed as if it was a done deal last week, before the Atlanta Braves entered the equation. The Braves seemed a convenient choice, one where Griffey could have platooned in left field with Matt Diaz and remained closer to his Orlando home. However after consulting the advice of the greats Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, and his daughter he decided to sign a one-year contract with the Mariners, much to the delight of their fans, myself included. I'm so elated to have the Kid back in an M's uniform although I'm not expecting a monster statistical season from the 39 year old, injury prone, outfielder. If he can hit .275 with 25+ home runs sharing time in left field and at DH I will consider the signing a success. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen. But, needless to say, I'm very excited to see the Kid where he belongs, in a Mariners uniform in the outfield at Safeco Field.

Please, Please, Please,

I sure hope he's serious this time. I am not going to be able to handle another summer/training camp of regular Brett Favre coverage on the sports networks. This last season was an absolute debacle, one in which viewers were subjected to daily stories of Favre's latest news for the duration of their summer. Unbearable amounts. I speak for many, I imagine, in saying that please don't torture us any longer with your indecisions Brett. You're getting gone again, please stay gone this time. Although I would not be surprised to hear of a crazed Nick Nolte-ish looking Brett show up in Green Bay, green #4 jersey and all, about a week-and-a-half into training camp, reported by the legend himself, Ed Werner. Brett will, sadly, have to be restrained and removed by Packer security. Only till Sportscenter come mid-June-ish. Sweet.

More boring? Grammy's vs. Pro Bowl

For those of you who had the pleasure of staying at home this last Sunday you were blessed with two gifts of entertainment that took up nearly the entire day: the Pro Bowl during the afternoon and the Grammy's at night. I could not stomach either event in its entirety but I did tune in to each one for a significant period of time. I noticed they both have one thing in common, they are both painful to watch. On one hand you have the best NFL players compiled into one All-Star team from each conference and they half-ass it for 60 minutes. Yawn. And then you have the Grammy's; an awards show packed with mainstream horsecrap for music. It's more about the trendy, collaborative performances then the awards itself. And most of the music that is nominated is trash anyway. All this combines for awful, awful television that not only doesn't interest me but makes me angry. As much as I hate the Grammy's I'd have to give them the nod for being less boring than the Pro Bowl solely because they featured a 'Radiohead' performance (Thom and Jonny w/ the USC band) that was pretty cool. The only good thing is they have come and gone and we won't see their BS for another year. Hopefully next year they fall on the same Sunday so I can bitch about it some more.

The NFL sure loves the Steelers

I know I'm a couple days late writing about the Super Bowl but lay off me. I've been busy. I've calmed down significantly since the game ended but there's still some issues that I have to comment on. First off I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist, especially when it comes to what's referred to as the 'east coast bias'. The NFL will do everything in it's power to prevent a smaller market, west coast from winning the Super Bowl for monetary reasons. Face it, who will sell more Super Bowl champion crap? The Seahawks/Cardinals or a team with one of the largest, national (only God knows why) bandwagons? Not a tough one. And I (among many others) have sufficient evidence to support that Pittsburgh was the beneficiary of two zebra crews and their terrible towels...er...penalty flags. I don't really want to bring up Super Bowl XL but I think we can all agree that the officiating in that game was very suspicious. The Seahawks dominated that game offensively as far as yards go but couldn't get in the endzone because...well we all know why.

There were plenty of flags in Super Bowl XLIII and most of them (11 total to pitt's 7) went against Arizona...shocking. The first notable no call was on James Harrison's INT return. Yes it was a hell of a play that proved to be the difference in the game. I'm not taking any credit away from him but watch the replay. Warner had the best chance initially to make the tackle but was blatantly held. In a game where not one holding penalty was missed against AZ it seems a bit convenient to miss that one. Throughout most of the 2nd half I didn't see anything too obvious...until the end of the game. Look at the picture above. I thought the rule was both feet had to be on the ground with possession, not one foot on the ground and the other just above the ground but touching the grounded foot with possession. This was even reviewed and still upheld. Immediately following this play comes Santonio Holmes' extremely original and cool celebration where he uses the ball as a prop and pretends he's Lebron preparing for tipoff (way to go buddy). I can't think of anytime throughout the season where an official let any endzone celebration slide. Hell even the college guys didn't miss Jake Locker's emotional outburst. Should have pushed Jeff Reed's (awesome bleach job and all) kickoff back 15 yards. And finally let's not even bother to review the last throw Warner attempted. His arm may have been moving forward, maybe not. But who cares...it's only the Super Bowl. Fumble, Pittsburgh ball, take a knee and let's start celebrating. Good for you NFL.

well, well, well

Boy Norv Turner and those Bolts sure made me eat my words. Congratulations on winning four straight and capitalizing on one of the biggest regular season collapses in history. (hint for Denver: you might want to address some issues on defense. Granted you were devastated by injury at running back but more than likely that won't happen again and not being able to stop the run or pass doesn't give you a good chance to win games.) Norv may have been able to save his job with their victory on Sunday that secured the AFC west title. I say may because we'll see what happens when Peyton Manning and company roll into town with a healthy Bob Sanders. If this is the case bye bye Chargers. You and your 31st ranked pass defense don't stand an effing chance. If Bob Sanders doesn't play then I see the Chargers being able to score enough to keep it close but still inevitably falling. My picks for the weekend, Colts, Falcons, Dolphins (deep down I want to say Baltimore but I can't stand to watch them play and I think Flacco doesn't have a playoff road win in him yet), and Eagles advance.