Author: Esoteric

The Afternoon Before: Playing the blame game

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 Again, later in the week working better, because of baseball and LeBron starring in the best Nike ad in years. It may become a trend. My usual reminder: I’m a football layman.

Apparently, the Dolphins didn't recover this fumble

When I showed up at work on Monday, one of my co-workers said, “Obviously, you’re going to write about instant replay this week.” Well, yes, but not in the way he was thinking

As a Dolphins fan, I do think they got shafted, much the way the Lions were in Week 1 when some obscure rule wiped out what was obviously a Calvin Johnson touchdown. They forced a fumble by Ben Roethlisberger before he crossed the plane of the end zone, and then Ikaika Alama-Francis recovered the ball and came away with it after the pile was sorted out.

And the referees said they couldn’t figure out who recovered it. I mean, that’s crazy. Anyone with eyes saw Alama-Francis with the ball.

But you can’t just roll over at that point. There’s still a game to win.

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Witness protection: Marketing LeBron in post-“Decision” landscape

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Since LeBron James’ reputation went straight to hell in the court of public opinion in early July, I’ve pondered how you can possibly market someone whose Q rating dropped like a stone following “The Decision.”

As it turns out, Nike and ad agency Wieden+Kennedy knew exactly how to go about doing it.

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The Afternoon Before: NFL reaps what it sows with concussions

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Way late with football thoughts this week due to Larry Johnson and the baseball playoffs, so it’s “The Afternoon Before.” I realize I’m beating a dead horse with the head injury thing, but as I was on this a few weeks back, I want to discuss this week, when it all came to a head, pun intended.

Yeesh

I remember way back in 1996, watching a rookie-year Zach Thomas’ first game for the Dolphins, when New England’s Shawn Jefferson came on a reverse and Thomas ran sideline-to-sideline, lowered his shoulder and leveled him, knocking him unconscious.

I still remember my reaction: Shock and horror at the brutality of the sport.

Except for the fact that it wasn’t my reaction at all. I told anyone who’d listen that it was obvious from his very first hit that Thomas was going to be a special player.

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The Weekly: Feeling good about Auburn, TCU, Baylor, Kentucky

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Something new we’re trying here – college football. Personally, I don’t know very much about college football, though I watch it casually. Luckily, I’ve been put in touch with Nick, who appears to be somewhat of a gambling expert and picks the games by an e-mail newsletter every week. He’s been doing this all season, but we’re jumping on board now. I’ve been reading his stuff and like it, and his record’s pretty decent, so here goes. We’ll try to get him a permanent posting name and such soon, I found this in my e-mail when I woke up today so I’m kind of working on the fly.

This is apparently Cameron Newton

It took more time than we expected, but we’re grooving heading into Week 8.  Our second consecutive winning week in a row still leaves us under .500 for the season, but gives us a renewed sense of optimism for the stretch run. 

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The Afternoon After: The irrational hatred of Favre

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Here are my weekly thoughts on the game of football, with my standard disclaimer that I don’t profess to know a whole lot about the sport. Apologies for its lateness – baseball, some Halloween activities and hanging out with Larry Johnson (post forthcoming) got in the way a bit.

"Text me" on a Favre jersey? This doesn't even make sense

It’s amazing to see the fall of Brett Favre, considering the heights he came from.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not an enormous fan of Favre’s apparent heavy-handed attempt at simultaneous sexual harassment and adultery.

But the visceral jubilation I’ve seen for the destruction of Favre’s legacy is baffling to me. It seems to stem from a deep-rooted dislike of Favre that has grown over the years, and one that seems somewhat outsized.

I mean, if you took out of context the euphoria on Twitter after Favre threw an interception on Monday night against the Jets, you’d have thought we caught Osama Bin Laden.

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Sifting through the nonsense: Quick Division Series thoughts

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Four guys in the playoffs

I don’t write about baseball very often here, which I admit is strange, since my day job requires me to watch what I estimate to be about 250-300 games a year. I figure, leave the analysis up to experts like Tom Tango, who have the time and energy to invent new statistics and stuff. Plus, I prefer other sports, such as high school basketball, boxing and Jay-Z.

Besides, I can’t stand the amount of nonsense analysis that goes into something like the baseball playoffs. You get stories that go position-by-position and determine who has an edge, as if it matters somehow that Alex Rodriguez is better than Danny Valencia in particular. You want a page devoted entirely to Ross Gload’s October exploits? Well, here you go.

Baseball, more than other sports, seems to lend itself to throwing loads of information out there indiscriminately. Why take the time to decide what’s actually important when you can lump it in with a bunch of other junk? I have no idea who’s reading all this stuff, but if you checked out the Gload page before I linked it here, you need to get out even more than I do. You’re officially invited to join me at a St. Patrick-St. Benedict’s game at Kean College.

One relevant statistic I saw out there, by the way, came from Tom Verducci, who points out that the winner of Game 1 in the Division Series is 12-0 in the last three postseasons, and 21-3 since 2004. Which, well, does make sense in a five-game series.

Regardless, here are some quick – emphasis on quick – thoughts on the division series:

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