fegonomics

Enter the Gaijin Presents: The Drifters

2012-01-29T04:26:00.000-08:00

(NOTE: Ordinarily, this post would appear on my blog about life in Japan, Enter the Gaijin. However, due to some content that I've deemed unsuitable for parental consumption, I'll be posting it here instead. Please feel free to share this with other people in America who are not my immediate family. Please do NOT share it with anyone in Japan without asking me first.)

The year is 2006. In Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffers a massive stroke, sending him into the permanent vegetative state in which he remains to this day. In the Pacific, an earthquake rocks Indonesia, killing more 6,000 and leaving over a million more homeless. In Germany, Italy wins its fourth World Cup after French star Zinedine Zidane bludgeons a chatty opponent with his expansive forehead.

And in America, millions of young men, ages 16-29, flock to multiplexes across the nation, drawn in by a little movie with big ideas about courage, friendship, and the inertia of hope.

I'm talking, of course, about The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Less a movie than a master course on philosophy in motion, Tokyo Drift swept through America with the devastating speed and precision of protagonist Sean Boswell in his climactic showdown against Tokyo's reigning Drift King, the Yakuza-connected Takashi. Almost overnight, drift-fever seized the nation, and an automotive lifestyle was born.

Actually, no, that didn't happen. But Tokyo Drift did gross $158M, and if you don't mind a movie set in Japan where everyone speaks perfect English, it's a pretty entertaining. I saw the movie on TV a couple of years ago, enjoyed it, and hadn't thought about it since.

Until last month. I was having a conversation over drinks with an acquaintance of mine, whose relationship to me will be left ambiguous for reasons that will become obvious soon enough. We were chatting about very ordinary matters when the topic of cars came up.

Now, this is a favorite subject of young men around the world, but one I've always felt a little out-of-place discussing. I've never owned a car and never really wanted one. To me, a car is a mode of transportation rather than a status symbol or a fetish object. I know basically nothing about car parts, car maintenance, car makers, car anything. During the few times I've ever found myself amongst gear-heads, I just try to be polite and not embarrass myself.

This passive method of non-conversation is especially easy in Japan because, well, even I did know something about cars, I probably wouldn't know how to say it in Japanese. So when my friend whipped out his smartphone to show me a picture of his ride, I nodded my head and gave a compulsory response. As I was preparing to change the subject, he said in English, "I practice drift."

Sufficed to say, that got my attention. "Uhh... Tokyo Drift?" I said.

The smile of recognition. "Drift is Japanese culture," he replied.

The rest of the conversation doesn't merit a blow-by-blow, but basically, what I gleaned was that he went drifting with his friends on the weekends. He didn't say too much more about it, and I didn't press him, but later we went back to his apartment, where we drank more beer and watched Japanese drift-racing videos with his wife while his four-month-old daughter slept in the other room.

At the end of the night, I drunkenly asked him whether it might be okay for me to come and watch him drift sometime. "Okay, okay," he said (Japanese people almost always say okay twice when they say it at all), and gave me his phone number.

Over the next month, I tried to follow-up on this offer as delicately as possible. Finally, on Saturday, I got a text in Japanese: "Tonight, I will go. Meet at my apartment at 11." It was on.

Needless to say, I was excited, curious, and a little nervous. Most of the things I get invited to by Japanese people are work- or community-related functions. Only on rare occasions am I invited to something of a more intimate, less public nature. And this was about as intimate as it gets, since, strictly speaking, what we were going to do wasn't exactly street legal.

Just before 11, I met him outside his house. Now, without revealing too much, let me say this about my friend: he's about the most-unassuming lawbreaker you can imagine. Quiet, well-groomed, and a devoted family man at a very young age, if someone told you he breaks the law on a weekly basis, you would probably guess that he downloads movies illegally on the internet. You would definitely NOT guess that he is involved in a street racing syndicate.

Unless you saw his car, in which case you might have some suspicions. Because, although you can't tell from the pictures, this ain't no normal car. First off, it's a shakotan, or Japanese low-rider. Second, the car itself is tricked out with all kinds of custom parts, the likes of which I can't even begin to describe. All I know is it has lights like a spaceship and an engine that roars like its launching from an aircraft carrier. Third, the entire back of the car is gutted, save for some rear-mounted speakers. Behind the two front seats, there's nothing but empty space, partially filled by spare tires, a tool kit, and other assorted car parts waiting to be unloaded. I didn't ask, but I have to assume this is to make the back unweighted so that the wheels will slide more easily.

When he came out of the house, he wasn't dressed in the trendy, fitted styles so popular amongst younger Japanese guys that I often see him in. Instead, he was wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit and a wool cap. We made a pit-stop at a convenience store so that he could buy cigarettes, and although I hadn't planned on it, I decided to buy some beer. There are no open container laws in Japan, even in cars, so long as the driver has had nothing to drink. And if I was going to be hanging with a bunch of cigarette-smoking, jumpsuit-wearing, drift-racing Japanese guys, I wasn't about to do it stone sober.

We headed to an undisclosed location outside of town, far away from any houses or people. We didn't talk much on the drive and the sound of Japanese hip-hop played over the car's growling engine. A couple of times on straightaways, he opened her up a little bit, and although I couldn't see the speed gauge I can confirm that his car goes very fast.

Finally, for the first time in 20 minutes, we saw the lights of another car, idling by the side of a mountain road. We pulled up beside the other vehicle and I saw there was a third just behind it. My friend rolled down the window and shouted across to the guy in the other car. Then, the other car peeled out and headed up the mountain with us following close behind.

Coming in, I really had no idea what to expect. When someone tells you that they "practice drift," and this is your only frame of reference, well, you try not to over-think it too much. And besides, I had only asked to watch, which I assumed meant drinking a beer and standing at a safe distance. As we lurched up the mountain and my friend floored the accelerator, it became clear very quickly that I would be doing more than just that.

Like most of things that adrenaline-junkies will do for a rush, the thrill of drifting is hard to describe. What does it feel like to ride a roller-coaster or jump out of an airplane? I've done both, but I'm not sure I can characterize either one in a meaningful way, beyond emphasizing that they are reallllllllllly fun. The difference with drifting is that the rush feels more authentic. Much of the appeal of a roller-coaster ride or a tandem skydive is the simulation of danger in a controlled environment. It feels like you could get hurt, but really, the risks are managed and minimal.

Drifting is different. I gripped the seat-belt with both hands as we came into the first turn. Presumably, they like this course for drifting not just because of its remoteness, but also because the mountain roads are banked wide at the turns to accommodate runaway trucks. Even so, the road is not particularly wide, and it has a drainage ditch on one side that is, well, to be avoided.

I didn't get to see the mechanics of how my friend controlled the car because my eyes were locked on the car in front of us, watching it carve a wide arc across both lanes as the tires squealed and smoked. Then, we entered the turn, and my friend hit the brake and cranked the wheel, throwing the car into a (barely) controlled slide mere feet from the guard rail.

Coming out of the first turn, I saw the car ahead of us going into the second, so I braced for the slide. And by braced for the slide, I mean screamed like a fucking girl and cursed my face off. If the noise bothered my friend, he didn't say so, although he may not hear much over the noise of the engine and screech of the tires.

And it's pretty evident that drifting requires all of his attention, anyway. Until last night, I never really thought of race-car drivers as athletes, but that's a position I'm reconsidering. As an athlete, I've been in the zone enough times to recognize it in someone else. At that moment, the car is as much an extension of his person as a tennis player's racquet or golfer's club.

After three turns, we slowed and came to a stop, although I probably continued screaming for a few seconds. Turning to me, my friend smiled and said, "Kono kanji, ne," which means something like "This feeling, isn't it?" It is.

On the way down, as the course bottomed-out in the final turn, my friend, without any kind of warning, threw the car into a full 180 degree turn, which was way more fun/terrifying than even the regular drift turns. After we came to a stop, he smiled at me and said, "Spin." You motherfucker.

For ten minutes, my friend and his friend ran the course up and down a few times, never hitting the the guard-rail but coming phenomenally close again and again. Then, we got out. The Japanese guys smoked cigarettes. I drank beer.

This patterned repeated itself a few times, with the drifters making frequent adjustments to their cars during the breaks, changing tires and fiddling with engines. As you can imagine, drifting is murder on tires. The back tires take the worst of it. The course was scoured with dozens of jet-black tire trails left by melted rubber. The tires themselves sprouted ribbons of rubber that had to be peeled away in between runs.

But, clearly, the cars themselves take a beating, too. My friend's car, although he obviously cares for it well, shows plenty of evidence of the abuse he puts it through. The front windshield has spidery cracks on one side. The passenger door is dimpled with divots and gouges which I didn't find terribly reassuring. And the back bumper is all kinds of beat to shit, cracked and broken and, in places, seemingly held together by some kind of industrial threading material. Certainly, there have been some crashes. Presumably, no one has gotten hurt. I didn't ask.

Although I referred to this as drift-racing, it's really more of a club. They aren't racing or competing against each other, just having a good time. After a couple of hours, another guy showed up. A little older than the rest, this guy seemed like he might the club's president, or Drift King, if you will. He even came with a girl to boot, a pretty Japanese chick swaddled in jackets and blankets against the freezing mountain wind.

Perhaps because he was with his girl, he had come just to hang out, not to drift. So together, I went with them up to what they called "Gallery Corner," an embankment set back from the first corner. From this vantage point, we watched the other guys drift, which allowed me to see two things: (1) The volume of smoke that comes off the tires during a drift turn, which probably looks like a forest fire at a distance; and (2) The sparks that fly from the fender and spray into the air, which seem like they might cause an ACTUAL forest fire.

I was standing at "Gallery Corner," watching my friend lead through the turn, when a huge POP rang out. The car trailing my friend immediately slowed up and turned around, limping back to the starting line on three tires. The Drift King and his girlfriend found this highly amusing. I assumed this would end the evening, especially since it was almost 2 AM, but these guys had spare tires and other ideas.

For awhile, we stood outside in the cold and talked. And by we, I mean they. I stood outside in the cold and listened. The girl climbed into the Drift King's car and huddled for warmth. Then, the Drift King decided it was time for a "lesson." Evidently the third guy, who, like me, had been riding shotgun despite having brought a shakotan of his own, was a novice drifter, and the night would end with a training session.

We drove to a nearby parking lot, where they set up a single illuminated cone for the aspiring drifter to practice on. The session started with the novice climbing into his car and driving around the cone a few times in tighter circles, building up speed. Then, he would throw the brake and try to drift his car around the turn, with varying success. After a few attempts, he would climb out and go over to the Drift King, who would give him notes.

Eventually, though, the Drift King must have tired of his padawan's feeble efforts, because he climbed into the driver's seat with the novice sitting shotgun. Then, without any prelude or build-up, he floored the accelerator, hit the brake, and expertly slid the car in a circle around the cone. But he didn't stop at one revolution. Without decelerating, he sent the car into a second revolution, a third, a fourth. After five full revolutions around the cone, he let the car drift to a stop. Both men climbed out, with the novice looking just a little queasy. You wanna learn from the Drift King, you better have a strong stomach.

After the lesson, and despite the freezing wind and sub-zero temperatures, they continued to talk for over an hour. About what, I have no idea, as all of my faculties were focused on keeping my body temperature up.

Finally, at just before 4 AM, it was time to go home. It seemed the Drift King's dutiful girlfriend, who had been sitting idly in his car for hours, had to get back to where she had come from. And no doubt my friend had to get back to his home before the sun--and his infant daughter--were up.

In Japan, it's traditional to give small gifts in exchange for kindness, or when you meet new people for the first time. I wanted to thank my friend, and his friends, the drifters, for letting me intrude on their ritual. Thinking ahead, I had brought some omiyage (souvenirs) to give out, in the form of Reese's Peanut Butter cups, sent to me by my uncle for Christmas and saved covetously for the right moment. Peanut butter is a rare commodity in Japan, and no Japanese candy mixes peanut butter and chocolate, so it truly is an alien taste to them. And yeah, it was maybe a little lame to give these guys candy like they're children on Halloween, but come on, who doesn't love Peanut Butter cups?

To each drifter, I gave a Peanut Butter cup, saving one for myself. "Oishii (delicious)," the drifters agreed, except for the Drift King, who--in a show of generosity reminiscent of long-lost chivalry--gave his to his girlfriend. Evidently, you don't get to be the King without making some sacrifices.

We rode home in silence, but as we pulled into his driveway, my friend turned to me. In Japanese, he asked me if I had enjoyed myself, and I said yes, indeed I had. Then, in English, he said, "Drift... it is so excite!"

Boy's got a way with words and no denying it.

21/32

2011-06-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

...

..........

......................................

Hehn!?

I'm gonna bang out the rest, cause it's always bothered me a little:

Joey Harrington- A guy Mouse once called "One of the best backups in the league". Also known as "not quite as bad as Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, or an overcooked steak"
Guy never had a nickname, played poorly his entire career, got waaaay too many chances, and made you yearn for guys like Tyler Pigpen, Miss Cleo, and Sage "Helicopter" Rosenfels.

Vince Young
Did he try to kill himself? Who knows. He certainly killed his career, and quite possibly that of Jeff Fisher's. Why is Cam Newton better than Vincente Young? He isn't.

Jake Plummer
Ok, someone interesting. TMQ will rant for hours about how Shanahan went away from Plummer for all the wrong reasons (They were 6-4!) and that Cuckler was no better and probably cost them a playoff chance (finished 8-8), but when your best ability is the ability to "throw on the run" maybe your team needs to do you a favor and draft Alex Barron von Fego so by definition all your throws can be "on the run"

Randall Cunningham
Better Eagle than Viking. Nobody likes to believe it because we all lack historical perspective (avg fegonomics reading age: 23.5), but it's undeniably true. Also: "that's what you do when you have a quarterblack... err quarterback"

Daunte Culpepper
Owner of my favorite fantasy football season of all time. Highly overrated runner, but was the team's power back by default because Moe "syzlak" williams, Onterrio "wizzinator" Smith, and Michael "wait, i'm gonna get hit this isn't track?" Bennett all were somewhere between awful and shartful.

Edit: The Last Naked Warrior has chronicled the path of the Daunte quite well. That said, I'm not removing this segment.

Trent Dilfer
It's trendy to say he's the worst QB to win a superbowl. I say it's Doug Williams. But I'm a racist so....
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WillDo01.htm
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/D/DilfTr00.htm

neither player ever got to 60% completion percentage.
The Dilf is also really mean to incoming QBs and reminds me of Jim Rome.

Warren Moon
Guy played until he was 44. Let's play a game:
Below are two qbs who played in minnesota late in their career. One is Warren moon, the other Favre. The last two numbers are Tds and INTs.



*	40	MIN	QB	4	16	16	12-4-0	363	531	68.4	4202	33	7
	41	MIN	QB	4	13	13	5-8-0	217	358	60.6	2509	11	19

	39	MIN	QB	1	16	16	8-8-0	377	606	62.2	4228	33		14
	40	MIN	QB	1	8	8	4-4-0	134	247	54.3	1610	7		9

They are the same!
If you can't figure it out, warren moon is the 2nd one.

Now look what happens to moon after this year:

1997*	41	SEA	QB	1	15	14	7-7-0	313	528	59.3	3678	25	16
1998	42	SEA	QB	1	10	10	4-6-0	145	258	56.2	1632	11	8
1999	43	KAN		1	1	0		1	3	33.3	20	0	0
2000	44	KAN		1	2	1	0-1-0	15	34	44.1	208	1	1

If there is a case for Favre staying retired... it's warren moon.

Drew Bledsoe

Statuesque, Sedentary, Presidential. These words inspired Drew Bledsoe, and Drew Bledsoe brought new meaning to those words.

Aaron Rodgers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFV3DvqknOE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESYkXammpZ8&feature=related

"With great belt comes great responsibility"
-Aaron Rodgers

Phillip Rivers
Felipe Rios tiene mas capacidad para mejorar que cualquier quarterback este ano por una razon y solo una razon: Vincente Jackson.

Rich Gannon
Product of his receivers and defense. Interesting that he puts it all together so late. A much worse version of Kurt Warner.

Doug Flutie
Flutie Flakes. Yes. Flutie Drop Kicks. Yes. Flutie CFL. Yes. Flutie a caricature of a qb. Yes.
He personifies 'gitchy' at the qb position. Not gonna bring up the hail mary...oops.

Brady Quinn
Guy should have had every chance in the world to be the next Joey Harrington until the browns brought in a smart person: I am the walrus: Coo Coo ca choo

Kurt Warner
Behind only Manning, Favre and Brady in the 32 for 32 original list in terms of career value. Should be a HOFer. The "lost year" on the Giants included such studs as Ike Hilliard and Amani Toomer. Yes, Giants greats (Toomer at least), but they totaled 1100 yards between them that season. And Warner still threw for 220+ yards per game.

Peyton Manning
Is the best of all time at reading a defense and finding his best option. Has two seasons where he clearly played injured, yet you wouldn't be able to pick them out if you look at his season stats non-sequentially:

IND	QB	18	16	16	10-6-0	450	679	66.3	4700	33	4.9	17	2.5	73	6.9	6.8	10.4	293.8	91.9	16	91	6.6	6.5	2.3	16
IND	QB	18	16	16	10-6-0	392	591	66.3	4200	27	4.6	19	3.2	69	7.1	6.6	10.7	262.5	88.8	23	145	6.6	6.1	3.7	15
IND	QB	18	16	16	3-13-0	326	575	56.7	3739	26	4.5	28	4.9	78	6.5	5.2	11.5	233.7	71.2	22	109	6.1	4.8	3.7	11
IND	QB	18	16	16	10-6-0	357	571	62.5	4413	33	5.8	15	2.6	78	7.7	7.7	12.4	275.8	94.7	20	131	7.2	7.2	3.4	18
IND	QB	18	16	16	14-2-0	393	571	68.8	4500	33	5.8	16	2.8	80	7.9	7.8	11.5	281.3	99.9	10	74	7.6	7.5	1.7	17
IND	QB	18	16	16	12-4-0	379	566	67.0	4267	29	5.1	10	1.8	79	7.5	7.8	11.3	266.7	99.0	18	107	7.1	7.3	3.1	18
IND	QB	18	16	16	12-4-0	362	557	65.0	4397	31	5.6	9	1.6	68	7.9	8.3	12.1	274.8	101.0	14	86	7.5	7.9	2.5	20
IND	QB	18	16	16	12-4-0	371	555	66.8	4002	27	4.9	12	2.2	75	7.2	7.2	10.8	250.1	95.0	14	86	6.9	6.9	2.5	16
IND	QB	18	16	16	6-10-0	343	547	62.7	4131	26	4.8	23	4.2	86	7.6	6.6	12.0	258.2	84.1	29	232	6.8	5.9	5.0	15
IND	QB	18	16	16	13-3-0	331	533	62.1	4135	26	4.9	15	2.8	80	7.8	7.5	12.5	258.4	90.7	14	116	7.3	7.1	2.6	18
IND	QB	18	16	16	13-3-0	337	515	65.4	4040	31	6.0	14	2.7	73	7.8	7.8	12.0	252.5	98.0	21	124	7.3	7.3	3.9	17
IND	QB	18	16	16	12-4-0	336	497	67.6	4557	49	9.9	10	2.0	80	9.2	10.2	13.6	284.8	121.1	13	101	8.7	9.8	2.5	21
IND	QB	18	16	16	14-2-0	305	453	67.3	3747	28	6.2	10	2.2	80	8.3	8.5	12.3	234.2	104.1	17	81	7.8	8.0	3.6	18

Nuff said.

Jason Campbell
Somehow almost lost the job to the wild polac Gradkowski. Managed to return and I think his future is far brighter in OAK than washington. Why did they trade him again? Oh, right, they were targeting Terrelle Pryor with that 2012 4th rounder. OOPS!

Chad Pennington
Fettuccine AL-FRE-DO I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO.

Brad Johnson/Shaun King
I'm going with B-Rad over King me here. Brad Johnson is the only man who makes Gus Frerotte look like a viable option. Another Gruden "I pretend to develop QBs now, but I never really could so I went with B-Rad and Gannondorf"

Donovan Mcnabb
Why did he puke in the superbowl? Why did he get benched for Sexy Rexy last season in the 2 minute drill. Is there some building evidence that McNabb is only a 3 quarter player?
McNabb to westbrook WAS the 2 minute drill in Philly. Anyone could have run that 2 minute offense because westy is always open.

Jake Delhomme
The guy threw 89 INTs in his career as a Panther, and I think 60 were on steve smith targets, 12 on Moose Muhammad when Smith broke his leg and Muhammad had the best fantasy year for a WR (2004), and then the other 17 on obliteration sacks when he held the ball looking for steve smith to get open downfield. I got Tunnel Vision.....

Brian Griese
Bleck, we're ending with Brian Griese. Why didn't I pick Horseface Elway for the Broncos? Dunno. I guess I wanted to talk about filling the stable when the purebred leaves. Here's the thing though: They had another thoroughbred!
Then Sharpe left.

Ok, that's it.

Sleazer,
OUT

Get this man an Oak!

2011-02-01T10:38:00.000-08:00

One of the things that makes Blake Griffin's potential for greatness so promising is his willingness to just Diggler his body around with no regard for human life (and that he is, in fact, already great). He may be enough of an ATLien to do this for 10-15 years, but at the very least we know he could add miles to his career if teams weren't intentionally ramjamming him as their last ditch effort to slow the beast. Griffin's mom was recently distraught over the fact that Brendan Haywood blatantly took her youngest son out to suppress his Digglerian nature. Other than Stern making Goodell-like rule changes, the best solution I can surmise is that Blake needs an Oak.

Before I try to go all trade Van Gogh and figure out how the Clips can acquire a player with the Shaft-like qualities Oakley possesses, I have a much simpler solution. Taylor Griffin.

Ok so I just looked up Oak and both Griffins' stats from college. Oak as a senior had more ppg and rpg than Blake in his second and final year at OU, Blake's freshman year beats none of Oak's collegiate seasons, and our boy Taylor may as well have been in club trillion by comparison. But, really, that is neither here nor there. Taylor just needs to learn his defensive rotations, do work on the boards on both ends, and do work as Blake's enforcer. That last one should be the easiest to achieve as it is surely his nature to protect his little bro. I know if I was going to commit a grievous act against the most explosive athlete in the NBA I wouldn't want to worry about the wrath of his 6'7 240 pound older brother.

My critics might be thinking to themselves "well the Clippers can't just sign Taylor Griffin straight from Belgium and put him in anything other than garbage time, so what's the point? That Fegonomist is such a crackpot. I'm going to tell him his hair isn't luxurious even though I know it really is." The first point is fair, the second doesn't really make sense, and the third is predictable hate that can be disregarded. I have no rebuttal for point one, but I have an alternate solution. The Bakersfield Jam. The Clippers' D-League affiliate needs to reach out to Oakley to teach Taylor Griffin the swag and skills necessary to become Blake's enforcer. I know Oakley will accept. Like Snoop Dogg's pimp mentor in Bossn' Up, Oakley will feel the desire to nurture a protege for the sake of the Game. Also, he totally has a ton of free time, always partying in Vegas stealing other dudes' women with (or without) MJ. I know he has followed the path of being a post League entrepreneur, but his car wash can remain afloat without him for a few months.

Once Oak is aboard the train to Bakersfield, the Clippers need to sign Taylor to the Jam and let Oak wax on wax off Taylor until he is ready for the Show. When the new TG hits the League, Blake Griffin will no longer have to look over his shoulder for that next flagrant 1 and can focus solely on Digglering his way into the annals of NBA history.

Wearing the 45

2010-10-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

We're back.

July 1, 2010: Welcome to Earth

2010-03-05T15:39:00.000-08:00

Now I know I have not done a single one of my 32 for 32 posts yet. It’s bad. There’s no excuse for it, but I’ve been busy with work...and I was in Australia... And plus I’m not excited about football right now. At all. So deal with it.

This post is about summertime. We’re hitting that time of the year, at least in Portland, where we get glimpses of good weather. Maybe it’s a few 60 degree days in a row, maybe it’s a lone 70 degree-er. Regardless, one of the common phrases around these parts is “Man, I can’t wait for summer to get here.” Well, you can count me as a member of that bandwagon. Hot weather, barbeques, swimming, lemonade, beaches, camping, LeBron James…?

The upcoming NBA offseason has been covered (just a bit), but I want to throw my two cents in. There was Gene Wojciechowski who mulled over the idea of LeBron, Bosh, and Wade settin’ up shop together . There’s every Knick fan who is praying for LeBron to New York. There’s Rick Reilly who thinks…about…nothing important. Anyway, it’s my turn:

What I think will happen:

Dwyane Wade to the Miami Heat. He’s staying. Miami wants him back. He doesn’t ACTUALLY want to leave. Sometimes he hints at the possibility of leaving if he doesn’t get help, but he’ll stay. The Heat will bring in another star to help him. Someone like…

Amare Stoudemire to the Miami Heat. There were some whispers about Amare to the Heat at the deadline, but it didn’t happen. This summer could be another story. For such a dominant post player, Amare has never seemed to want to be “the man.” Well Miami already has “the man,” so he can just quietly dunk his way through South Beach.

LeBron James to the…Cleveland Cavaliers. The one is getting weaker for me. A few weeks ago, I would’ve definitely said the Cavs, but now I’m not so sure. He was at Madison Square Garden for the Jay-Z concert on Tuesday , luckily made possible by the fact the Cavs were off at New Jersey. Would’ve been easier if he were just a Knick, right? Somehow, I still see him staying. The Cavs have a solid team (I’m still not a huge fan of their pieces), he’s at home, etc…

Chris Bosh to the New York Knicks. Bosh is done in Toronto. He wants to be relevant. New York is certainly somewhere to be relevant. They’ll max him out and he’ll go, as long as he talks to some of his free agent friends and gets somebody else to come with him so that they can win some games here and there.

Joe Johnson to the New York Knicks. Hard to believe it, but there’d be some Knick fans that would call the 2010 offseason a disappointment if the Knicks “only” ended up with Bosh and Johnson. Johnson and Bosh would be a very solid duo and could make some noise with some decent Knick pieces around them.

Carlos Boozer to the Chicago Bulls. Utah has a lot of money tied up in Paul Millsap already, so paying another power forward isn’t a great option. Boozer likes the Bulls and they’ve got some money. If they can’t get another top tier free agent, I don't think they'd mind settling for Boozer.

What I want to happen:

LeBron James to the New Jersey Nets. Let’s say the Nets win the lottery. They take John Wall. That’s two really nice pieces in Wall and Brook Lopez (plus whoever they get when they trade Devin Harris). They add LeBron to that, who gets to kick it with Hova all da time and (eventually) play in Brooklyn? Too easy, mate! I love the Nets for LeBron.

Chris Bosh to the Portland Trailblazers. Nearly impossibly unlikely. It would have to be a sign and trade since the Blazers won’t have cap room, meaning they’ll really have to woo Bosh and then work it out with the Raptors. Toronto would be interested, especially with the fear of Bosh just walking and getting nothing in return. A nice package of LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Fernandez may be pretty enticing to them. Aldridge is talented but overpaid while Fernandez is a good value and an exciting fan favorite. They could do worse. Would Bosh be interested? Eh. But that’s why this is under “what I want to happen.”

"Uhh, yeah... LaMarcus? I'm just gonna scoot over here so your, um, "soft" doesn't rub off on me. We cool, right? Oh, and Greg? Well, you know."

Amare and Wade to the Heat. This is where what I think will happen and what I want to happen align nicely. What a fun duo this would be to watch. Bienvenido a Miami!

What about Joe Johnson? No real preference, as long as he's still doing things like this. All in all, I'm excited for new faces to be in new places. And for John Wall. Get some baby.

Finally, to leave you with this. You know I love me some NBA on TNT. Well with the Oscars coming up, they wanted to make sure Chuck got some recognition for his leading roles. Who wins?

Poison Pill 2.0

2010-03-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

At the risk of flooding the fegos with yet another Lost reference (after Dream's Lost sexplosion this will be a mere blip on the Last Naked Warrior's gaydar) I'm proud to release Poison Pill v1.5.3

It's a stir-fry concept that we can all try

Naturally, the Poison Pill has a progenitor. And no, it's not the naked warrior despite his radical claims that he is the progenitor of all mankind.

The poison pill concept was the brainchild of desperate times and desperate measures. As was well catalogued in The Many Fachays of Brad Childress, the 2006 Vikings were a team in need of change. While the obvious change was from Tice to Childress, the ownership takeover of Zygi Wilf from Red McCombs forced people to realize in the Minnesota organization that there was both a need to change and pressure to change fast. So the alchemists in Minneapolis decided to cook up a poison pill to prey on the unsuspecting.

And who more unsuspecting than the shell-shocked, referee exploited, superbowl losing OPI victims: The Seattle Seahawks. Lest we forget, while Tim Ruskell was the nominal GM at the time, a certain walrus was at the helm of most major personnel decisions for the Hawks.

At least you won with the Packers!

Too proud to accept that his team was aging, Holmgren would take an "ain't broke don't fix it" approach to his team in the 2006 offseason. After franchising a 31 year old Walter Jones, the Seahawks placed a transition tag on emerging stud guard Steve Hutchinson.

WHOOPSIE!!!!

The transition tag is just another wrinkle in the technicality-rich NFL free agency rulebook. Basically it allows for the right to match any offer if the player receives a contract offer from another team. It also simultaneously guarantees the player is among the top 10 paid at his position. Essentially it is another franchise tag with no compensation associated. The final wrinkle is that if the player under the transition tag signs a contract, the team may not use the transition tag until that player's contract is finished or terminated.

But those tricksy Vikings hobitsssissss...

The Vikings pounced on a chance to bolster their offensive line which would help support Chicken Taylor and their new run-centered gameplan. They signed Steve Hutchinson to a 7 year 49 million dollar contract with 16 mil guaranteed money. Included in the deal was some fancy language -- the poison pill of the contract. It stipulated that if Hutchinson wasn't the highest paid offensive lineman on the team, the entirety of the contract would be guaranteed. Because Walter Jones was their franchise player, the Seahawks would be unable to match the offer sheet (which actually was an option due to the transition tag) without activating the poison pill and thus destroying their salary cap for the next 7 years.

In effect, the lowly Vikings had just made the Seahawks --who were coming of an NFL rushing title by Steve Hutchinson, Walter Jones and Pork Chop Womack as well as a superbowl appearance-- their muppet bitch.

That was poison pill version 1.0. Version 1.1 would soon follow with a retaliatory poison pill against the Vikings. In a not so subtle contract offer of 49 million over seven years, the Seahawks signed then Vikings restricted free agent WR Nate Burleson. Analysis by gas chromatography of the poison pill shows several key components:

1) If Burleson played more than 5 games in the state of Minnesota in one year the entire contract would become guaranteed.

2) If his average salary per year (7 million) exceeded the total paid to the team's running backs the contract would be guaranteed.

The first component is an obvious poison pill against Minnesota, but the second component possibly ended up hurting the Seahawks more than they initially anticipated. Because the Seahawks were paying over 7 million to the ghost of Shaun Alexander alone, they didn't have to worry about this kicking in. The Vikings at the time were paying maybe 3.5 million total to a slew of wizzinators, track stars and TD Vultures of seasons past. Maybe Seattle included this condition in the trade because they feared arbitration might void the Minnesota part of the deal, but was there ulterior motive here? Was someone in the Seahawks front office trying to force a pay raise for those underappreciated Vikings runners?

In the end however, Seattle would come to the realization that they ultimately wanted to keep Burleson and release Alexander. But without Alexander, their own poison pill would turn against them! You may be thinking "Hehn!?" right now, but remember that they were paying Alexander top dollar after he rushed for 28 TDs. The end result of the Burleson poison pill was certainly not anticipated by the Seahawks, but it's a perfect example of playing with fire--fire that burns you in a slow, painful, salary cap induced manner. To help douse the fire, they would have but one choice: Sign Orange Julius Jones for way too much money to bring them back over the 7 million per year.

The Orange Julius externality (read: cancer) coupled with the fact that Burleson received a 3rd round restricted free agent tender (meaning Seattle surrendered a 3rd rounder) meant that this was a truly awful acquisition which clearly was made purely in retaliation. Their additional stubborn refusual to pass on Walter Jones for the younger Hutch means this Seattle 2005 offseason was one of the worst and most poorly managed offseasons that was unaffected by Al Davis. Al Davis has certainly reserved a separate ledger for his botched offseasons.

From here on out, Seattle would struggle and struggle to get back on the horse. They thought they had a thoroughbred backfield and a stud O-line. Now Muppett-drunk and out of sorts, they found what they had was actually a big fat whale at running back, and staying on said whale would turn out to be quite slippery...

In the end, both poison pill contracts were approved by an NFL arbiter (second only to the NFL's title of "special master" in terms of nerdy job appeal) and the player movement would decidedly change the shape of the NFC North and West divisions.

So why am I bringing up the history of a topic you probably were already familiar with? Because history is about to repeat itself. Welcome to poison pill v2.0. Fresh off beta testing it's about to go live this Friday March 5 when NFL free agency begins.

Taking a look at the 2010 potential free agents, without a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in place, a TON of players who would be unrestricted free agents (UFA) will now be restricted free agents (RFA) which involves tenders and offer sheets. And with RFA comes poison pills.

Who will poison whom? Unclear, but with Brandon Marshall, Vincente Jackson, and Miles Austin all currently RFAs, some movement at WR is certainly possible considering the UFA counterparts are the T.O. show and Derilict my own balls Mason.

The QB market isn't as volatile, but Defense might be where most of the action takes place. If 2009 was the year of the cuck in the NFL, 2010 is the year of the Ruffie-Cuck. Teams will try to swindle their rivals out of productive players using ruffie laden offer sheets and cuck them in the following season. Here are a couple of pre-free agency poison pill predictions courtesy of the Sleazer:

The Pats will make a play for Ronnie Brown. Maybe this has been hashed out by 98.5 the sports hub for hours on end, I'm not sure, but Belichick likes to sign players that he has seen up close. And he likes to take Dolphins fringe players and make them producers. Brown-pants isn't a fringe player, but Bill knows what he can do: single-handedly beat the Pats.

Oakland will cuck the Broncos in the most surprising Al Davis move of the new millennium. He will seek out a WR who runs slower than a 4.5 40. Heck, he might be slower than an O-lineman after the Raiders draft physical freak Bruce Campbell in the first round. The Broncos will pretend they don't care, and Marshall and his attitude will fade into Bolivian after he punts a few balls during practice.

Owen Daniels to the Browns. Houston showed last season they have offensive power, defensive playmakers, and a lack of consistency in all aspects of the game. In an effort to resign guys like Demeco Ryans, the Texans might let their most consistent player slip away. The Browns could definitely use the soft hands of Daniels no matter who is under center. They will be one of few teams willing to go after a guy who tore his ACL late in the season.

If nothing else comes out of poison pills, hopefully we can create some new team rivalries. Division rivalries are always great, but poison pill rivalries are fresh and go all the way to the top of an organization.

If all this has you scratching your head saying, why should I care? Fine. Go watch physical specimens show off their bodies at the combine. Or read what LeCharles Bentley (yes the former Browns and Saints Center) has to say. Because bitch... today, ain't yo day ( probably NSFW)

Brett Favre is LOST

2010-02-03T14:20:00.000-08:00

Ed Werder recently reported that Brett Favre is "highly unlikely" to return to the Vikings next season. We've heard this swan song before, and I'm not here to harp on the validity of Mr. Marlboro's statement. Instead I want you to know what Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Adams, and Damon Lindelof have been trying to tell us for the last 6 years; Brett Favre is going to die on the Island.

My freshmen year of college, Earnest and I were the only two guys in our dorm intrigued by the plane-wrecked previews for a new show called LOST. We assumed that it would be a one year soiree that essentially posed as an extended version of Castaway with chicks replacing the infallibility of Wilson. We made a weekly ritual of bowing to the smoke monster and discussing the potential secrets that lay deep within Locke's nemesis, the hatch. The hopeful season finale had a handful of the survivors setting off on a luxury homemade raft and ended with a rogue ship of Others "taking the boy." The lack of closure forced Earnest and me back into a piddling life of calzones, Halo, and late night viewings of And1 mixtapes. To boot, the RIAA decided to throw the kitchen sink at college pirates that summer and nabbed seven perpetrators at Tufts. Well before the Oceanic 6, I had been infamously tagged on campus as one of the Subpoenaed 7. A summer of "grueling" labor on the golf course stymied any snowballing interest I would have concentrated on the LOST mysteries, and come season 2 I was out.

Two days before Texas and Alabama met in the national championship game this year I saw a preview for the sixth and final season of LOST that featured the re-edification of the plane from Oceanic flight 815. The feebly crackling embers of LOST pontification that still swirled in my soul were suddenly struck with a donkey punch of wind and kindling. I grabbed my housemate's copy of season 2 and vowed to plow through the missing four seasons with the vigor of Makhtar spanking it to a 100 hour long montage of Aurora Snow's greatest gulps. Once the hatch opened, my mind was instantly illuminated with that omnipresent white light. My life became Requiem for an Island, and I was an ass2ass scene short of shit getting freaky. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to Jacob's whispers, Hurley flooded my dreams asking for putting advice, and I constantly kept a box of tissues nearby anticipating the oncoming deluge of nosebleeds. By the time Juliet was surviving 200 foot freefalls and knocking out nukes I was immersed in a LOST trance similar to the conscience duality Desmond faced in his early stages on Widmore's ship. I did what any Farraday follower would and opened my notebook to find this little ditty scribed there: Brett Favre is my constant. Finally it all made sense.

There's a well-documented history on this blog of my feelings towards Favre and his return, but unfortunately the Island delivers no reparations for past misdeeds. Favre's role in my LOST quest is more apparent now than ever. Brett Favre is Charlie Pace. Let's look beyond their identical perma-scruff and gina tingling accents (or just the opposite) and focus on what defines their twin identities, fate.

This is no time for smiles dude

It takes no stretch of imagination to see that both of our characters' journeys to the Island revolve around addiction and hardship. Charlie, an indie rockstar, was abandoned by his bandmate brother only after his brother had hooked Charlie on heroin and pawned away his beloved piano. As his brother Liam recovered in Australia, Charlie decided to visit with a plea to reform the band. He was swiftly dismissed and forced to purchase a ticket on the doomed Oceanic flight. Favre battled his own vicodin addiction during his early MVP years and came very close to abandoning his wife and young daughter at the time. Instead he became reinvigorated by his wife and daughter's love and began to imbue the country with his kid-like passion, stealing away John Wayne's crown as America's preeminent gunslinger. After all of their adulation from the super bowl ring, the media served as Favre's conduit to the Island, thrusting him onto a pedestal unaffected by criticism. He truly stood alone.

There's no logical explanation for why the Island affects people the way that it does (until season 6 I hope) but there is empirical evidence that supports the theory that the Island isn't pure evil. Both Favre and Charlie were bearers of good fortune through the reversed plights of their loved ones. Charlie's crush, Claire, beat the odds of maternal death when she successfully delivered her baby boy Aaron. Likewise, Favre's wife won a bout with breast cancer, eventually becoming a figurehead for cancer research. All of these parallel circumstances still don't characterize our two players' destinies; they came to the Island to die.

Charlie first encounters Desmond back in Scotland when he's playing Wonderwall outside of Widmore's office, but since this occurs in the past Charlie has yet to actually meet Desmond and their interaction is trivial. This deja vu power follows Desmond back to the Island and enables him to sporadically go Miss Cleo on fools. It's this clairvoyance that ultimately leads to Desmond saving Charlie from lightning, preventing him from drowning, and getting a tribal arrow to the gullet. Charlie becomes aware of his fate, and finally decides to accept it knowing that it will facilitate the rescuing of other people. He's sent on a mission to an underwater aquastation to disable a jammer that is blocking radio transmission signals from leaving the Island. With the help of the Beach Boy's Good Vibrations he's successful in dismantling the jammer and basically sacrifices himself but not before delivering the message to Desmond "Not Penny's Boat."

Now here's the fucking creepy part, Favre's story is the same thing. He first meets an NFL general manager when he's taken 33rd overall by the Atlanta Falcons, but almost every single casual fan doesn't remember this because it's pre-Island Brett. If Favre's sojourn to the Island begins after the fame from his super bowl win then it's pretty clear that Favre's fate was to build expectations then crush his fans with painstaking losses. All these losses came attached to symbolic last throw interceptions that mirrored Charlie's forecasted deaths. It's incredible that the final throw Favre made for his last three franchises has been an interception in a game with huge implications (super bowl birth, playoff birth, super bowl birth). Similar to Charlie, Favre has been protected, his Desmond coming in the form of desperate NFL GMs. Unfortunately, it can't be said whether or not Favre has had his "aquastation moment" yet, but predicting that his final message will read "No Super Bowl" is just too easy.

Yea, we get it Brett

Favre's dismemberment of three fanbases is definitely more sadistic than any late night crib robberies committed by Charlie. Just listen to this clip and PONDER if you ever heard the same passion from Claire, Sawyer, Kate, or even Jack at any point in the show. Every time Favre thinks he's getting off the Island he is pulled right back into the jungle either by his own undying passion, the suggestion of his 10 year old daughter Breleigh, or because the major networks still love rubbing one out to him. The question has to be what will it take for Favre to finally be released from teh Island's fetters? A Ricky Williams like kumbaya tour of North Africa? An admission that he's been using PEDs these last three years? A 10 million dollar donation to the pink ribbon cause? The true answer is that we don't know and we can't know because that's how the Island works. There's no logical explanation for why any of this happens, well, at least until the season 6 finale.

Throw Momma from the Train

2010-01-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

Editors Note: Contininuing our guest section of 32 for 32 on Fegonomics is new contributor Peaceful Mountain. Give him a break, he's Asian.

Disclaimer: This post is based entirely on conjecture and should be read and interpreted as such and nothing else.

Drew Brees’ mother, Mina Brees, died in an apparent suicide on August 7, 2009 a month before Brees’ ninth NFL season was about to begin. Prior to her death she had been under investigation for extortion for sending letters to some restaurants claiming that their rights to their names had been bought by another company, Chicksports, and that if they wanted the naming rights back they would need to send her $25,000. These letters of coursed failed to mention that Brees herself was the owner of Chicksports.

In 2006 Mina Brees came under fire from Brees himself, when she decided to use images of him as a Charger in campaign ads that she was running in a race for a spot in the Texas appeals court. Brees had asked that his image not be used, and it was only when his lawyer threatened legal action that Mina Brees acquiesced to his demands. At the time Brees described his relationship with his mother as “nonexistent”. The riff supposedly began in 2001, when Brees refused to hire his mother as his agent before the NFL draft.

One can only begin to imagine what kind of psychological damage his relationship with his mother has caused him over the years. And judging from the string of strange, bizarre and frankly crazy shit that has happened between them over the last 9 years, it is highly unlikely that Brees ever had anything close to what one would describe as a “normal” relationship with his mother.

With that being said perhaps Brees’ resilience came in part from his lack of motherly nurturing. As any young child knows, there are few places more comforting than at your mother’s side. This is something that has been hard wired into each of us as it is a key to our survival as a species. To have this bond taken away can be immensely damaging, and in Brees’ case, it seems apparent that this relationship has been irrevocably broken for some time now.

So to have the career that Brees has had in spite of all the doubts, injuries, and slaps in the face that he has had to endure is quite remarkable. Here’s a quick hit list of what he has faced:

1979 – Born with a huge hairy mole on his face that has been described as a “small woolly-bear caterpillar”, his parents decide to leave it on there.
1996 – Leads Westlake High to a state title in Texas but is not recruited by a single Division I college in Texas.
2001 – Finishes third in Heisman voting, named Big Ten Offensive MVP, receives Maxwell Award as the nation’s most outstanding player, and still does not get drafted in the first round.
2003 – Gets benched in favor of a 42 year old Doug Flutie.

2004 – Chargers draft Eli Manning, then trade for Philip Rivers. Clearly signaling they no longer believe Brees has a future in San Diego.
2005 – On the eve of becoming a free agent, and posting a career high in passing yards, Brees gets injured in his last game of the season against the Denver Broncos on a cheap hit by John Lynch.
2006 - The Chargers, wary of his shoulder, send him a low ball offer telling him essentially to leave. Then to add insult to injury the Miami Dolphins choose Daunte Culpepper, fresh off a ride on a sex boat, to be their starting QB over him.

By the time Brees signed with the New Orleans Saints in the spring of 2006, no one was quite sure where he or that team was headed. New Orleans was still in shock from Hurricane Katrina, and the Saints did not play a single game of the 2005 season at the Superdome, as it had become a makeshift refugee camp.

The team itself was in shambles, they underachieved in 2003 and 2004, and finished the 2005 season 3-13. Their starting quarterback, Aaron Brooks, had literally devolved over the course of 5 seasons, and had with each game found seemingly unconscionable ways to turn the ball over (Fegonomics staff edit:.If anyone has video evidence of the Brooks backwards pass please post link in comments section ASAP). Jim Haslett, their coach for the last 6 seasons was fired and the Saints were in full rebuilding mode. Typical Saints.

But with the signing of Brees, things seemed to turn around. Reggie Bush (then considered a sure thing) miraculously slipped to them at the #2 spot in the draft. Then in what was a surprise to most, the Saints announced that they will play all 8 games at home in the Superdome for the upcoming season. All of a sudden the Saints were not only relevant, but considered exciting again.

"I wanna kiss you"

4 seasons, 3 Pro Bowls, 18,298 yards passing, and a 122 TD to 57 INT ratio later it has become apparent that the quarterback and the city that were both left for dead have come back with a vengeance. Brees hasestablished himself as one of the premier quarterbacks in the league and has put himself in the conversationwith Mssr. Brady and Manning as a perennial MVP candidate.

After winning their first thirteen games this season the Saints ended the season on a three game losing streak. Since embarrassing a shell of a Patriots team in Week 12, the team has looked vulnerable and critics have questioned whether this is a team that should be considered a true contender. Brees has been spotty at best in his last two starts, throwing only 1 TD. The Saints vaunted offense has been anemic as they were held below 20 points in each of the last three games, their lowest three point totals of the season. The doubt has begun to creep in. How will Brees respond this time?

Intermission

2010-01-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

Gentleman,

This man has scored 158 touchdowns. Now, he reveals the secrets behind it all.

Lord Byron

2010-01-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note:
The following is another guest spot for our 32 for 32 feature. This post is by our own Mr. "Real Life of Alex Mack" Liquid Dinho.

O Byron, Lord Byron

Byron Leftwich was born on January 14th 1980 in Washington DC. Lord Byron was born on January 22nd 1788 in London. Byron Leftwich is a professional football quarterback. Lord Byron was an English Romantic poet. A google search for Byron Leftwich returns 204,000 hits. A google search for Lord Byron returns 3,600,000 hits. Byron Leftwich has a baby face and looks like Gary Coleman. Lord Byron is a true baller and doesn’t give a fuck who he looks like cause other people look like him not the other way around.

So what are the similarities? One, they both have the same first name. Two, straight players. That’s right both Byron’s are straight players. Lord Byron tapped everything that came his way. His conquests include the wife the Prime Minister of England, Mary Shelley’s sister and other English nobility. But don’t fret, Lord Byron doesn’t discriminate based on sex or family relations. He poked his cousin, half-sister, men, boys… Like I said, Lord Byron doesn’t give a fuck. Byron Leftwich on the other hand, well, he probably Mike Leached some sorority chica. (To Mike Leach is to undertake any action in a locked equipment room.) So maybe Baby Face can’t compete with the Lord in the game of Games, but Baby Face’s got the edge on the Gridiron.

The usual reaction that even a serious football fan has when the name Byron Leftwich is mentioned is of a fat, slow QB, with a big arm who never panned out in the NFL. In other words a bust. However these conclusions are somewhat unfair. To see why let’s review Leftwich’s career starting with his days at Marshall.

Not heavily recruited coming out of high school, Leftwich decides to attend the MAC powerhouse Marshall, whose potent passing game had been established by Chad Pennington and Randy Moss. Byron’s big frame 6’5 250, and big arm lit up the MAC with impressive passing numbers. Over three years he passed for 11,903 yards with 89 touchdowns and 28 interceptions.
His college career is highlighted by Marshalls 64-61 victory over ECU in the 2001 GMAC Bowl, in which he faced future teammate David Garrard. Leftwich threw for 576 yards and 4 TDs as Marshall rallied from a 38-8 deficit at half time to win in double OT. Check out some of the highlights from this game, its ridiculous. Check out the looks of the coaches at 13:22,14:15 and at 17:19. Priceless.

Leftwich also gained national fame for being carried downfield by his offensive linemen after completing a long pass with a broken shin. Check it out:

An accurate QB, with a cannon for an arm and leadership abilities is pretty enticing to NFL general managers. In one of the strangest draft day episodes in which the Vikings missed their pick, the Jaguars jumped at the opportunity for a franchise QB and drafted Byron 7th overall in the 2003 draft. The situation looked great for a young QB to mature. The Jags had a veteran starter in Mark Brunell, A solid defense and talented skill players such as Fred Taylor and Jimmy Smith. However the Jags’ plans hit a snag four weeks into Byron’s rookie year when Brunell went down with an injury, and Leftwich was thrust into the starting role.

Over the next 4 seasons Leftwich started 44 games before having season ending ankle surgery after week 5 in 2005 and week 11 in 2006. Leftwich lead the Jaguars to a 24-20 record during this span with 51 TDs and 36 INTs. Hardly bad numbers for the young QB, especially when you consider that this period also contained the retirement of Jimmy Smith, the leaving of Fred Taylor and was prior to the arrival of MJD.

The problem for Leftwich is that David Garrard came in and went 13-6 as a starter when Byron was injured and then proceeded to win the starting job over Leftwich during the 2007 preseason. Leftwich was released by Jacksonville and spent the 2007 season as a backup in Atlanta. He spent the 2008 season as the backup in Pittsburgh and won a ring on the shoulders of Big Ben. After signing with Tampa Bay to be the starter for 2009, he was replaced as the 1st string QB by Josh Johnson in week 4 and ended the season on IR.

Leftwich is due a $3.5 million roster bonus in March so you can bet he’ll be released this offseason. Leftwich is almost certainly going to look for a starting opportunity, however its unclear if he’ll get one. After getting dumped by Jacksonville he’s been with three different teams in as many years, hardly the right environment to excel as a quarterback. If no team is willing to give him the chance to start, I’d expect him to return as the backup in Pittsburgh. Charlie Batch is old and Dennis Dixon is not ready to be an NFL QB. Given Big Ben’s concussion issues the Steelers need a veteran QB who’s familiar with the offense. Byron Leftwich fits the bill.

It’s pretty clear that Byron Leftwich will never be a franchise quarterback. When you’re drafted 7th overall that level of achievement is certainly expected, so it’s easy to dismiss Leftwich as a bust. However look at what he did in Jacksonville. He wasn’t tearing up the league, but he certainly wasn’t bad enough to be run out of town. Since then he’s bounced around with mixed results. It’s likely that he will be given another starting shot in his career. If he can win some games, maybe lead a team to the postseason then he may leave a different legacy. As Lord Byron once said, “Men are the sport of circumstances when it seems circumstances are the sport of men.” I’m not sure what that means, but Leftwich is a man and he plays a sport so it should apply.

You Can't Go Home Again

2010-01-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Coach Coolbaugh, the struggles of JaMarcus Russell have been documented on this blog, and we have been asked to consider whether Russell can legitimately be dubbed The Worst Draft Pick in NFL History.

This is a worthy and interesting question. However, for the time being, I would like to consider a related question: Why was JaMarcus Russell taken number one in the first place?

There are, no doubt, a number of contributing factors, including Russell's physical and statistical dominance at LSU. And yet, Russell's draft stock was less a byproduct of his own successes than those of another man.

...

Daunte Rachard Culpepper was born in Ocala, FL, forty-five minutes south of the University of Florida's Gainesville campus. At nearby Vanguard High School, Culpepper emerged as a star athlete on three varsity teams, and his exploits on the football field eventually won him a spot on the Florida High School Athletic Association's All-Century Team alongside Sunshine State legends Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Ray Lewis, Deion Sanders, and Jesus H. Tebow.

As a blue-chip Florida recruit in the mid-90s, young Culpepper should have had his pick of the top local programs. In Tallahassee, Bobby Bowden's Seminoles were two years removed from a National Championship and coming off a victory over rival Florida in the Orange Bowl. Although mired in something of a bowl drought, the University of Miami had established itself during the 80s and early 90s as a powerhouse program, and had claimed a National Championship as recently as 1991. Then there were the Gators, a program on the rise under Coach Steve Spurrier, and a natural choice for Culpepper given his proximity to the school growing up.

In 1995, Culpepper's first year of college, Florida State began the season as the nation's consensus #1 team and beat Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. The Hurricanes won the Big East despite their first three-loss season in years. In Gainesville, Culpepper's hometown Gators ran the table during the regular season and played in their first National Championship game.

Amidst all this excitement, Daunte Culpepper was nowhere to be found. The prized prospect had landed in Orlando, FL, a town better known for Walt Disney World than competitive college football. His team?

The University of Central Florida Knights--a Division III football school since it first fielded a team in 1979.

...

How does a top high school football player from Florida end up playing college ball at a D-III school?

It's unknown what Culpepper scored on the SAT, and since Division 1 uses a sliding standard for minimum SAT scores based on the applicant's high school GPA, it's difficult even to speculate. Here, however, is what we know:

Culpepper's GPA was below 3.55, since a GPA of 3.55 or above exempts applicants from the minimum SAT requirement (or, rather, drops the requirement to 400--the lowest score possible).

As of 2008, all Division II athletes must score a combined 820 (Math + Verbal) on the SAT. I believe it is fair to assume Culpepper scored below 820 since he enrolled in a D-III school rather than D-II. Possibly well below, since this standard may gone up since Culpepper entered college in 1995.

Once again, these standards are probably not the exact ones Culpepper failed to make, but a reasonable approximation thereof. At any rate, Culpepper's SAT score--probably somewhere in the 600-800 range--combined with his poor (but good enough to graduate!) GPA prevented him from playing for any D-I or D-II schools.

D-III, on the other hand, has no eligibility standards other than those imposed by the school itself, which is no doubt how Daunte found himself as the biggest, baddest man in Orlando during the fall of 1995.

...

Although statistics are unavailable for Culpepper's freshman year in D-III, it is safe to assume he did everything but ejaculate onto opposing mascots. Having watched a couple of D-III football games, and attended classes with a number of D-III football players, I don't need John Clayton's shriveled testicles to imagine the kind of nuclear fallout Culpepper unleashed on those poor, unsuspecting "scholar athletes."

That is because Culpepper is nothing short of human wrecking ball. Listed at 6'4 and 264 pounds, Culpepper runs the 40 in 4.6, and I actually do need a calculator to compute the amount of force His Blackness meted out on would-be tacklers. I'm not actually going to do the calculation, but needless to say, it's a lot of Newtons--and I don't mean Fig Newtons (although I'm sure Culpepper accounts for a lot of those, too).

During Culpepper's sophomore year, UCF conveniently jumped to D-I, undoubtedly buoyed by lobbying from people around D-III: coaches, athletics directors, hospital staff, and parents of pregnant cheerleaders who thought that this kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen at Emory, goddammit!

The rest of Culpepper's college career was a blur of big hits, unprotected sex, and more big hits.

As the man says: "We've got a linebacker playing quarterback!"

...

Culpepper wrapped up a four-year career at UCF with 84 passing touchdowns against 42 interceptions and entered the NFL Draft in 1999. Luckily for Daunte, this was the year that NFL GMs embraced the quarterblack, as Culpepper went 11th overall but somehow managed to be the third black quarterback taken (behind Syracuse legend-turned-Campbell's Chunky Soup enthusiast Donovan McNabb and Frankfurt Galaxy-turned-Calgary Stampeder Akili Smith). Minnesota had already blazed the quarterblack trail with Randall Cunningham and elected to push it to the limit with a physical freak worthy of Makhtar's most private desires.

Culpepper brought a combination of size and speed to the quarterback position that no one had ever seen before. Alongside Randy Moss and Cris Carter, Culpepper's Vikings won 11 games, and the second-year QB out of Orlando led the league with 33 TD passes.

For the next few seasons, Culpepper's value seesawed back and forth, but in 2004 he realized his ample potential with a season that left Makhtar with a blistered stump of a lightswitch and many sleepless nights.

Overshadowed to some degree by Peyton Manning's better, more successful Colts team, Brother Culpepper turned in a campaign that was in many ways equal to Manning's:

69.2 completion %

5,123 all-purpose yards (an NFL record)

41 all-purpose TDs

110.9 QB rating

1 Star Wars reference ("I feel like a Jedi Knight," he said following the Pro Bowl)

In 2005, Makhtar eagerly predicted Culpepper would surpass his own lofty heights, penciling in the following fantasy stats with his one available hand:

4,950 passing yards

500 rushing yards

48 touchdowns

Already the victim of the Madden Curse in 2002, Culpepper now cruelly fell victim to the less notable Makhtar Curse, where everything Makhtar loves is immediately taken from him. (Note: The scope and power of this curse is capable of everything from robbing Daunte Culpepper of his effectiveness as a football player to driving relatively stable girls to volatile and unpredictable decisions, like relinquishing employment to move back in with her parents without warning).

...

Still, there were high hopes yet for Culpepper, as he was just a year removed from his historic season. But off-the-field incidents--including the now-famous boat scandal, where Culpepper engaged in four-way sexual intercourse with two women and one gay dude, with the proviso that the dude was not allowed to penetrate or otherwise ejaculate on the star QB but could help himself to any fondling thereof during the duration of said four-way--forced the Vikings to shop him around the league. Only 29, it seemed that Culpepper had plenty of juice left in the tank, but that a change of scenery might be in order.

The Dolphins, helmed by second-year coach Nick Saban--the same man who recruited JaMarcus Russell at LSU--decided that Culpepper would be his franchise QB, forgoing a done deal with then-free agent Drew Brees. For Culpepper, this was one of his happiest moments: a chance not only to return to his home state and play in front of his family but also to show the Vikings that his best days were ahead, illicit four-way sex scandal or not.

Immediately, it became clear that Saban's fetish for behemoth black quarterbacks was less successful in the NFL than it had been in college. Culpepper struggled while Brees soared to new heights, and soon, Daunte found himself injured and playing behind the likes of Joey Harrington and Miss Cleo Lemon.

The Miami experiment ended almost as quickly as it started, as Culpepper was in and out in one year, leaving behind just one trace of his tenure with the Dolphins:

In the meantime, Daunte learned a valuable lesson: you can't go home again. (Also, sucking dick isn't as fun in front of all your friends and family).

Broken, defeated, a shell of his former glory, Culpepper took refuge in the one place where talentless freak athletes will always find sanctuary:

The Oakland Raiders.

...

By now, we've come full circle, and the astute readers of this blog will have seen the writing on the wall:

Banished from Minnesota, exiled from Miami, Culpepper came to Oakland, where he was slated to mentor--but it can't be...

JaMarcus Russell, the former Sabanite who--at 6'6 and 260 pounds--was tabbed as the evolutionary Culpepper! Instead, he proved to be the devolution of Daunte, as his learning disabilities and the severity of his mental retardation dwarfed even the Culpepper Standard ("too dumb for D-I").

Between the two of them (and Josh McCown!), the Raiders wound up 4-12, although Culpepper got a measure of vengeance by scoring 5 TDs in a victory over the Dolphins team that spurned him.

...

Now, as Culpepper toils for Detroit in the twilight of his career, he will likely look at back at his lost year in Miami as the nadir of his time in football. However, if there is any solace to be found in schadenfreude, Culpepper can take pleasure in JaMarcus Russell's failures, secure in the knowledge that his transcendent peak convinced people around the NFL that they couldn't afford to pass on the Next Daunte Culpepper.

Unstoppable

2010-01-05T09:29:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure where I was when I saw the first Eli Manning Citizen ad, but if my life were going to be developed into a motion picture based on the true story the moment would have occurred in the great room of the Bradford Estate, summer of 2007. The fegos and I, off the heels of a heated Fifa matchup between Portugal and England, are discussing whether the tree trunk nature of Marisa Jones-Drews' thighs is properly captured in the latest iteration of the Madden franchise when Eli's boyish mug comes on the screen.

TV: "Unstoppable. Eli Manning is."

Mahktar, Dream, Sleazer, LNW: ::Uprorious Laughter::
Fegonomist: ::Sheepish Chuckle::

Underneath the chuckle lives a series of mixed emotions. Embarassment that my team's QB1 is the subject of such a textbook case of ununtentional comedy, pride that I wear the same brand of watch that Eli is now probably contractually obligated to wear, and focused determination because I know I will now have to defend the merits of a man who will probably never meet the requirements his pedigree and predraft behavior would seem to set.

We all know Eli's background. Youngest member of the Manning QB dynasty. Eli's rookie season corresponded with Peyton's greatest statistical season.

G CMP ATT PCT YDS AVG TD LNG INT RAT
16 336 497 67.6 4557 9.2 49 80 10 121.1

Eli played 9 games with a 55.4 rating that year. Of course no reasonable person would expect a rookie to immediately be as productive as one of the top 5 greatest quarterbacks of all time, no matter how close the relation, but Peyton's greatness was like that world record pace line they have on Olympic swimming telecasts. It has been in front of Eli for probably his whole life, given a 6 year head start and moving at a historically great speed.

As of the premiere of the commercial, Peyton was coming off a Superbowl MVP season. Eli had done OK his second and third seasons: 24 TDs both seasons, INTs in the high teens, completion percentage in the 50s, QB rating in the mid to upper 70s. Not exactly the performance of a Wunderkind with the right to refuse to play for the team that drafted him. He seemed to grasp the offense well and come up with some nice throws and big plays, but he would often miss high on his receivers. Accuracy is not a problem you want to have with your Franchise QB.

Peyton exhibits command over the field. He knows his playbook like his lawyers know the bylines of his endorsement contracts, and if a receiver is open, the ball will get there. It's like he's his 99 rated Madden character playing on Pro and he knows how to use all those complicated presnap adjustment controls. To expect Eli to be the next progression in QB evolution is expecting too much. Throw in the fact that Eli forced his way out of San Diego and was traded for Phillip Rivers and picks used to draft Shawn "I Took Steroids but No One Really Cares Because I Kill Skill Position Players Rather Than Baseballs for a Living" Merrimen and Nate "Always a Solid Fantasy Option" Kaeding, and you got a lot of potential Haterade to sip on. I feel like that's where the majority of fans are coming from. This includes Giants fans when Eli is having an off day, or simply if the Giants lose that week. This does not include The Fegonomist, for I believe I have the proper perspective.

My thesis is as follows: A) Yes, Eli Manning is Unstoppable...at being Eli Manning. B) Eli Manning is a Franchise Quarterback.

I define a Franchise Quaterback as a guy you can pencil in every year for 10 or so years at the position without having to worry about finding a replacement to make a serious Super Bowl run.

Of course B) is hard to disprove, given the criteria I offered, considering the events of February 3rd, 2008, but for some reason Eli's still got haters, at least within the comments of the Giants blogs I read.

I think it has more to do with A). Eli is not Peyton-evolved and never will be. He makes mistakes, gets away with throws that should be intercepted, and still isn't the most accurate quarterback. But the fact remains that he's improved every year he's been in the league except for a slight regression in 2007. And what do you know? The Giants won the Super Bowl that year.

2009 was Eli's best statistical season. He passed for over 4000 yards for the first time, rated in the 90s (93.1) for the first time, and completed 62.3% of his passes. Some of that can be attributed to the strongest core of receivers and the crappiest running game he's had in his career, but Eli was definitely not the reason the Giants fell well below expectations this year (Kenny Phillips replaced by P.P. Brown, tons of other defensive injuries, aging O-line, RBs with broken lower bodies, and Bill Sheridan are a few of the causes I would place above Eli).

In 2010 I expect more of the same from Eli. Steady leadership, improved accuracy, occasional mistakes (delay of game penalties being the most annoying of the lot), some game-saving throws, lots of audibles and pointing out of the Mike. If the Giants get someone competant to coach their defense and can limit themselves to 2 major injuries or less, I have confidence that they can return to the promised land on the above-average arm of the Unstoppable Eli Manning. I'll be saving my glass of Haterade for C.C. Brown.

Do I look like I care...what people think?

2010-01-04T15:16:00.000-08:00

As some of you may have heard, everyone's favorite jaw-punching head coach/walrus, Tom Cable, recently remarked that if the Raiders had gotten "average to above-average" play from the quarterback position, the Raiders would be in the playoffs. Now, put aside for a moment the fact that this statement is completely false and consider this: The Raiders may have been led by the worst possible combination of Quarterbacks that the NFL has ever seen. The best performer, in my estimation, was none other than the Rampaging Pollack himself, Bruce Gradkowski. Some credit must also be given to Charlie Frye, who despite playing himself off the roster in Cleveland (!), managed to throw for 333 yards against his former squad this season. That leaves us with King Poop himself, Jamarcus Russell.

When Jamarcus declared for the 2007 draft after his junior year at LSU, scouts nearly creamed themselves over his measurables: A rocket launcher for an arm, a 4.84 40 and what Todd McShay called "left tackle" length arms. I like to think that on his pro day, this guy was watching from his island lair/kiddie porn dungeon and tenting his fingers ala Mr. Burns. No one was shocked when the Raiders took him first overall (for those keeping score at home, Calvin Johnson was taken at #2 and Adrian Peterson at #7), but no one was particularly shocked when he lost the one game he started his rookie year. Nor were they shocked when he had a record of 5-10 his first year as the starter. I mean, his numbers weren't horrific (2423 yds passing, 13 TDs...er, 8 INTs, 12 Fumbles), and its not unusual for 1st year QBs to post similar records (see Manning, Peyton). Also, let's not forget who his leading rusher was. That leaves this year.

While watching the first MNF game of this season with Sleazer, it came up during the telecast that Jamarcus was having a problem with the playbook. Namely, he could only memorize the routes on one side of the field. Now, I haven't heard this since, but if this is in fact true, WHY THE HELL WAS HE ALLOWED TO START? Hearing this, I decided to check out his Wonderlic score, given the shitstorm that occured when VY turned in a sterling 6. You would assume that Poopmarcus would be hovering around 3, but he miraculously scored a 24. Color me un-fucking-convinced. I'm of the opinion that he memorized the answers. That said, he turned in a score one point higher than that of Jason Campbell and one lower than "Ben," so he's not exactly in the company of Mensa, but a respectable fake score nonetheless. Fun fact: The Leak Treat turned in an 8. Fitting.

In that same MNF game, I found myself surprisingly impressed by the Raiders. Except, of course, Jamarcus (and to be fair, Heyward-Bey), who threw 2 picks and had a 40% comp rate. So maybe Tom Cable was on to something. Actually, he wasn't and the Raiders suck, but the Raiders have managed to eke out a couple wins under the expert helmsmanship of Gradkowski. Though since his initial benching, Jamarcus has come back to help out (and even win a game!), I'm pretty confident that we're nearing the end of the Russell experience. Somewhere Ryan Leaf is smiling (and not just because he's high as a motherfucker). The longer he plays, the more likely it is that Jamarcus steals his throne as biggest QB Bust ever. I leave you with his enduring legacy: Being so top-heavy that he can't stand up.

And That's Why You Don't Trade a Rookie

2009-12-29T13:55:00.000-08:00

And with the 33rd overall pick in the 1991 NFL draft, the Atlanta Falcons select:

Brett Favre, QB, Southern Miss.
So the Packers didn't draft Favre, the Falcons did, and the rest was just little surprises along the way. Whoopsie!!!! Except that the Packers and then general manager Ron Wolf actually wanted Favre, while Falcons coach Jerry Glanville was quoted "It will take a plane crash for me to put him in the game." Unfortunately for Glanville, he was not aboard oceanic flight 815 and now he looks like the biggest boob to ever coach a legend. (Certain recent Vikings coaches aside)

Southern Miss was the only college to offer Brett Favre a football scholarship. That might come as a shock or maybe you knew that ages ago, but the fact remains that Favre was an unknown going into college. In high school Irvin Favre, Brett's dad, coached the football team. Despite being the coach's son, Irv's gameplan and offense was the wishbone so Brett never got to chuck the ball around the field despite his natural ability. Most high school games he only threw five or six passes. Mike Martz and Dean Coolbaugh shudder at the thought of such wasted talent.

On a side note, did Irv Favre repress Brett to the point that he began to compensate in the NFL by forcing the ball into coverage just to prove he could? How about audibling out of runs to throw game losing wounded ducks in the playoffs? We'll let Freud figure that one out I guess.

Once at Southern Miss, they wanted him to play corner, but Favre insisted on playing QB so he was relegated to 7th string. 7th string at Southern Mississippi. There are definitely some zero to hero stories in the NFL such as Samkon Gado (2nd stringer at Liberty to starter for the Packers), Willie Parker(his time is up), James Harrison (his time is now after years in NFL europe and the practice squad). Nevertheless, that Favre came from 7th on the depth chart to 33rd overall draft pick remains impressive.

Looking at Favre's college resume coming out of Southern Miss, 33rd overall does seem a little high for what amounted to a seemingly good player on a historically poor team. That Favre did as well as he did at Southern Miss is impressive in itself, but the NFL draft is often a matter of appearances more than football talent and Favre didn't have the pedigree or hype to overcome the lackluster reputation of the Southern Miss Golden Eagles.

Killer logo, but still a pitiful football team.

Coming out of college, Favre was somewhere between zero and hero, but still no one was willing to commit to him in the first round. There are always pre-draft storylines for the upper-echelon players and Favre's centered around his off the field problems. Only they weren't "problems" in the conventional sense. Favre had been in a near fatal car accident prior to his senior year. He survived, although doctors reportedly removed 30 inches (that's 3 shiancoes or 26 coolbaughs for you dick-counters at home) of his small intestine. Really this was just an irrelevant yet interesting story about a lesser known QB. It does not excuse the Falcons' actions in any way. Why the Falcons would ever draft any player, let alone a player high in the draft at the quarterback postion that their coach disliked is beyond me, but Ron Wolf of the Packers intended to draft Favre with the very next pick in the draft. That little tidbit would come to be quite relevant down the line, but for now Favre was a Falcon.

Favre began his time on the Falcons in horrid fashion. He would ultimately throw 2 interceptions on 4 attempts with no completions in his first year in the NFL. Quite the start for one of the best QBs ever.

The interesting part about Favre's time on the Falcons is not actually his play on the field or even in practice. Ron Wolf, the man who is forever legend in titletown for swinging the Favre deal, had coveted Favre since he missed him on draft day. Typically general managers are all too objective, and for good reason. If a GM becomes infatuated with a specific prospect he can end up staking his entire reputation and job security on a 21 year old man who really just wants to get paid. In the GM business it makes sense to be cautious and make every attempt to remain level headed about player evaluation and transactions. Football is a business from a GM standpoint and it is easier to avoid error and remain consistent if you treat it as such.

Bill Polian, current Colts GM is a perfect example of this. He drafts consistently well and almost never gets caught up in the hype of draft prospects be it good or bad. Ron Wolf was the opposite of Bill Polian, but he made it work by landing guys like Favre and Reggie White. Unfortunately for Wolf, his opinionated style cost him the shot at Randy Moss and he has continually stated that it still bothers him to this day that he passed on Moss.

Because Wolf was so unconventional, he never forgot about Favre and still wanted him even the season after his dismal rookie year. Wolf was daring enough to trade a first round pick (no 19) for a QB who had shown nothing and was originally drafted at 33. Only the infatuation of a GM with a player could cause such a deal to go down. The Falcons were ecstatic, and with any other player they probably laugh all the way to the bank. Call it great player evaluation, bad player evaluation by the Falcons, overvaluation of draft picks, luck, whatever. This time the rest really was history.

Ok, so maybe his first completion as a packer wasn't ideal, but he picked it up after that.

Perhaps it's because people would rather celebrate the forsight of Wolf than admonish an already mediocre franchise, but the Packers and Wolf get all the credit and the Falcons none of the blame. Well, I'm here to blame them because it was a stupid stupid move. ESPN did an entire documentary about how dumb it was to trade Wayne Gretzky. At least Edmonton got a few good years and some championships out of the guy! The Falcons got squat. That's right, they used the 19th overall on ANOTHER guy from Southern Miss.

How you can even conceptualize trading away what you must clearly believe (again, 33rd overall) is young talent at a position where you are starting the worst pro bowler of all time!!!? 53.3% completion percentage in the modern era is atrocious, and making the pro bowl with those stats is a travesty. Mike Vick never even got as low as 54% in his three pro bowl years and he makes chris miller look like he's playing women's ultimate.

Of the worst moments in Falcons history, this Favre trade should rank just below the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. Instead it is chalked up to Favre's "Lost Falcons Year" or something like that. Have some accountability for trading away the best NFL player ever to be traded.

Tom Fucking Brady

2009-12-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note:
This Fegonomics post is brought to you by your favorite Ann Arbor Man. No, not Brady you homer, the one you probably know personally.

This Guy Plays QB

Let me start this off by saying that my primary sports fan affiliation is collegiate. I never meant to become a New England Patriots fan, and I am not happy about the fact that I am. How all this came to pass centers around one man. And that man is Tom Brady. As someone who grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan as the child of two parents who both graduated from U of M, I was indoctrinated at a young age to worship Michigan athletes, particularly football and basketball players. Mainly because of the rampant Michigan fandom in my childhood home, I also have very minimal attachments to any of the Detroit based sports teams even though they are right down the road from Ann Arbor. During high school I became a legitimate Pistons fan, but that was mainly related to my own personal interest in basketball as opposed to something internal. Because growing up in Ann Arbor was there really any reason to pick your head up and look down the road at whatever is going on in Detroit when you have Bo and the Fab Five? I think not.

For those of you familiar with being dedicated college sports fans, then you will understand that as players pass through Michigan and onto the NFL, NBA, or NHL I continue following their careers and just generally wanting whatever team they are on to win all the time. I think this happens because it seems like a natural extension of supporting these players at Michigan. After living and dying with someone (at least) once a week for three or four years you really feel like you have a vested interest in their continued success. Also, a nice difference between college and professional sports is that once someone has graduated from Michigan, that is an affiliation that (at least to me, as a fan) stays with them for the rest of their career. The “everything is business and I just want to get paid” attitude of professional sports tends to (for me) really limit the attachment to individual players on whatever team. Another reason that this happens is because, if players leave Michigan and are successful professionally, it obviously makes the school look good and helps with recruiting, the schools profile, etc. So the point is that for a long time I would follow and support Michigan athletes in a general, but passionate, “I just hope you always win” type of mindset for some time. And this is something that applies to all ex-Michigan players, almost regardless of their actual performance while at Michigan (even if their underperforming expectations became a seasonal tradition: see June, Cato).

As I am sure you can imagine Tom Brady was an athlete that fell into the above described category. While at Michigan he won 20 of the 25 games he started, was 1-1 against Ohio State, and was 2-0 in bowl games, including an overtime win against Alabama in the 2000 Orange Bowl (the only BCS game Michigan has ever won). Despite a solid overall performance as Michigan’s starter (especially considering what has been going on recently) Brady’s overall career was considered kind of a disappointment at Michigan. He had a hard time winning over the full support of fans and was seen by many as being less deserving of the starting job than Drew Henson, who was highly touted but two years younger than Brady. So I definitely considered it a surprise when he ended up taking over the starting job for the Pats and they started winning during the 2001 NFL season. But, just like I would for any other ex-Wolverine, I started wishing success upon the Pats and maybe paying slightly more attention to their box score than I otherwise would have.
The amount of attention I was paying to the Pats increased as the season progressed and the team/Brady became more successful. Because of the prominence of the starting quarterback position, by the time of that seasons playoffs Brady was one of the most prominent Michigan grads in the NFL. After leading the Patriots to victory in the super bowl and winning the super bowl MVP, he became the clear cut “ex-Mich foot player who is the most balling out.” Although a relatively unsuccessful 2002 season for the Patriots dimmed his star somewhat, that title was still his and he cemented his claim to it perhaps for the remainder of his career with the 2003 and 2004 seasons, where the Pats went 28-4 overall, won two more super bowls, and Brady picked up another super bowl MVP.

Around this time some pretty important other things were happening. Of note in these circumstances is firstly the fact that as we entered late high school the sports obsession of my friends and I really moved to the next level. This applied to all sports in general, but particularly (obviously) Michigan football. The 2003 and 2004 teams were both relatively successful, and with the realization that they were going to be at Michigan for college, some of my friends started to make the “obsessed college sports fan leap” and follow recruiting constantly, try to keep tabs on individual players progress through offseason workouts, and have constant knowledge/analysis to give about every player on the 2 deep. The other was me (indirectly) choosing to not become one of those people by choosing to go to Tufts instead of Michigan.

So with the profile of Michigan football at perhaps an all time high in my life I descended upon Boston in the fall of 2005. Now, Boston is traditionally considered a great city to live in/near while in college/college aged. Which I agree with. But the caveat is that it is a terrible city to live in/near as a college sports fan. With the exception of BC (whose sports teams I find generally uninspiring/uninteresting), all of the other Boston schools are some combination of small/academic/shitty at sports. Also, any fan support for the Red Sox (which I don’t care about/I think baseball sucks), Bruins (hockey is irrelevant), or Celtics (which only occurs now that the Celtics are good and god I fucking hate the Celtics) is at most irritating and at least not redeeming with me whatsoever.
Tom Brady and the Patriots represented the only ray of hope for me in this situation. It seemed like there could be something there. I loved Tom Brady. I wanted the Pats to win. Other people wanted the Pats to win and like Brady too. It had the makings of a good situation. There was a kind of fundamental difference in how all parties got to that point (I supported Brady unconditionally and therefore wanted the Pats to be successful while other people generally supported the team unconditionally and therefore wanted Brady to succeed) but that was something that could be ignored.

The problem was that at this point in time, Brady and the Pats were in many ways inseparable. This was the point in which the Belichick/Brady/Pats mystique was maybe at an all time high. They had just won 3 super bowls in 4 years. Belichick was a genius. The Pats always found a way to win. And the perception had started to kind of change from “every player on the patriots is a replaceable cog in the machine of winning” to “every play on the patriots is a replaceable cog in the machine of winning except for maybe Tom Brady who kind of makes the whole thing go.” Or at least that’s how I felt. Supporting Tom Brady and being a Pats fan became (even more) indistinguishable, at least in my eyes since Brady was (again in my eyes) the embodiment of the team as a whole. Clearly, I was walking a fine line here, and clearly, things didn’t end well.

Upon reflection, my descent into Patriots fanhood was cemented by the entire events of the 2007 season. There are few ways to reinforce and strengthen some feelings than to have them attacked. And due to the “Spygate” scandal of that season combined with the Pats destroying everyone while Brady was having a historically great season, there were plenty of people attacking the Patriots. And while it wasn’t this way in reality, to me all of those attacks were direct attacks upon Brady. And so whenever the topic came up, I ended up defending the Pats team/organization as a whole. I guess it didn’t have to be that way. I could have said, “I don’t really care about the Patriots, I just love Tom Brady” and left it at that. But alas, I went to bat on the behalf of the Patriots pretty much every time.

By that season’s super bowl, I had a lot invested. A win for that Patriots would have basically but Tom Brady at or near the top of the list for greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. I went into the game confident. And of course, well, I think we all know it didn’t work out. Stomach punch disappointment. This was the point when my unfortunate status as a Patriots fan began to dawn upon me. Because the way that I reacted to that game was something that I was very familiar with, but had only experienced as a reaction to Michigan sports (Michigan’s history of underachieving is pretty well documented. I mean our most legendary coach was 5-12 in bowl games. Wtf). Anyways, after that game I not only had to deal with the disappointment of watching Tom Brady (and the Pats) botch their chance to be historically great, but also had to deal with the fear that I might actually be a Patriots fan.

Looking back it makes sense. That one season had all the elements that could have galvanized my support: epic on field success, a scandal and lots of bad press/character assassination of the team as a whole, and a heartbreaking defeat. If those elements can’t rally you around your team, you may not have a pulse. Unfortunately, the fear that I actually cared about the Patriots was confirmed immediately upon the beginning of the next season when Brady went down with his knee injury. Brady was out for the season and yet, to my dismay, I continued to follow the Patriots and hope they did well. I couldn’t believe it.

Now, there are many reasons that I am upset about becoming a Patriots fan. One of the largest is the need to continually justify to myself how I became a supporter of a team after moving to its city from far away while it was going through an incredibly successful period of time. I mean, as someone who grew up worshipping Michigan sports and athletes, I know how I feel even about people who just cheer for Michigan sports after going to school there. Despite the fact that, really, it makes no sense for me to have distaste for people who go to Michigan and support its athletics upon their attendance, I still think that their fanhood is somehow different from mine because of thoughts along the lines of “I mean, they would have gotten just as in to the sports at any school they went to.” (They would perhaps say to me that they actually went to school at Mich and therefore have a much more true connection to the school and its athletics than I do. They’re probably right, actually, but I am ignoring that.) Having to think of myself as one of those type of fans for the Patriots, is definitely at least slightly troubling. The other is the unfortunate fact that, in almost all cases, adding another team to the list of the ones you care about generally also means adding more things in your life to be disappointed by. I mean, only one team can win every year. Just mathematically the odds aren’t good. Sure enough, the Pats missed the playoffs last year and seem to be underachieving this year. I am upset by both of those facts. And even more upset that I am upset about them. And whose fault is all of this? Who led me down this path? There is only one man to blame: Tom fucking Brady.

Slash of All Trades

2009-12-25T15:41:00.000-08:00

Editors Note: As part of our groundbreaking 32 for 32 project, we have recruited some of this generation's most promising young journalists to offer their two cents on the QB's of past and present. Each of these mercenary storytellers will weave their unique points of view and styles into the Fegonomics tapestry, with the hope being that the project becomes more than the sum of its parts. (Ahhhh....who am I kidding, I've told everyone to a. Accuse every QB of being gay and b. worship the black quarterback's throbbing hard athleticism). Here is the first of these submissions:

Holy crap, is that Dennis Dixon?

Youtube search result: No videos found for “Kordell Stewart highlights.”

This statement fully defines his career. For what it's worth, Kordell Stewart will be remembered by most for his best Doug Flutie impersonation, but that is merely an outlier in the data of mediocrity. It certainly is one of the best plays my lifetime, even I can admit that, and I hate Colorado. But in Pittsburgh, "Slash" will be remembered for being an amazing athlete and depressingly mediocre at everything that mattered - being an NFL quarterback.

How mediocre, you ask? So mediocre that his accomplishments and stats are eerily similar to the Incomparable Michael Vick.

Stewart has 1 Pro Bowl to his name, and took the Steelers to two AFC Championship Games. Vick has 3 Pro bowls, and took the Falcons to the NFC Championship game once. Their career numbers are almost exactly the same. Let's break it down by the numbers (courtesy of Pro Football Reference):

Player X

71 TDs
53.7% Completion Percentage
75.8 QB Rating
22 Rushing TDs
0.567 Win Percentage as a Starter

Player Y

77 TDs
55.8% Completion Percentage
70.7 QB Rating
38 Rushing TDs
0.585 Win Percentage as a Starter

Player X is Vick. Player Y is Stewart. Kordell also has more passing yards and INTs, while Vick has more rushing yards, but Vick is simply so much more exciting. Stewart was boringly productive for someone so talented. Before the pooch fighting, Vick was hailed as one of the sports' greats. Kordell will be remembered as merely pedestrian. Not to say that Kordell didn't get his share of hype. But even better, he was featured on the cover of a magazine with Troy Aikman, Brett Favre, and John Elway. Henh??

Slash was supposed to be the most versatile athlete ever to play the quarterback position. His rookie year, the Steelers lost in the Super Bowl with Neil O'Donnell as their starter. Who? Anyway, that year Kordell took snaps at Quarterback, Running Back, Receiver, and even Punter. Too bad he spent most of his time in a revolving door quarterback system, otherwise he could have put up more mediocre stats. He ended his time in Pittsburgh being benched for a former Arena League and XFL quarterback. The year AFTER leading the Steelers to a 13-3 record and the AFC Championship game, and amid rumors that he also was "slash" gay. Too bad he didn't accept it and claim the success that comes with being the NFL's first gay quarterback.

Unfortunately for Kordell, having so many talents means you aren't likely to be very good at the one that matters. Without a true quarterback's talent, he just wasn't fit to be Pittsburgh's Heir to the quarterback Throne.

Bonus:

Let's Touch God

2009-12-24T17:11:00.000-08:00

How many times do you say the word "God" during the course of a day? Five times? Ten? "Oh my God," or "Goddamnit you fucking son of a whore," or "God, I love Dwight Howard's deltoids?" or even the offspring offshoot "Jesus Christ, man! Was that a fart or do you have giardia?" Whether it's in praise or in vain, no one surpasses Jon Kitna in the daily prayer to the Notorious G.O.D.

Often times Kitna gets lumped with the athletically inept and inferior teams of the NFL. This comes about with good reason, seeing how he's played for two of the most putrid poopocolypse clubs in the past decade, the Cincinnati Bengals (only 1 season over .500 in the past 10 yrs), and the Detroit Lions (.277 winning % 00'-08').

Kitna's entrance into the league was relatively underwhelming. Coming out of Central Washington University, he dabbled in some Euroball before being signed by the Seahawks, backing up the Moon Man. His notoriety rose when Seattle won the AFC West Division at a mediocre 9-7, but his straight-laced, choir boy behavior truly came to light when he signed with the "Bungles" in 2001. By then, the Bengals had already traversed the trials and tribulations of David Klingler, Ki-Jana Carter (#1 pick in '95, tore ACL), and "Akili's Heel" Smith, all of which crashed and and burned faster than Tiger Woods' sponsor support. But alas, thy reverent savior Jon Kitna elevated the Bengals from insignificance to prominence with an halo-infused holy pass. Or did he....?

As Dream mentioned in his article, sports fans inherently divide their love between lauding the hero and loathing the villain. One variant of "hero" arises from the revival of a franchise from the pits of hell (think: Kurt Warner '99 Rams), while a form of "villain" can incarnate the exact opposite, that is, the dismantling of a team from greatness to garbage (think: Terrell Owens, every team he's been on). Jon Kitna certainly was meant to be the former. He brought a fiery competitiveness into the locker room and onto the field that was sorely missing from the Bengals offense. Matched with a young and talented Corey Dillon, a veteran WR in Darnay Scott, and the burgeoning duo of Chad Ochocinco and T.J Houshyamomma, and it appeared that the 2001 Bengals were sailing in the right direction. Moreover, Kitna carried the Passion of the Christ in his heart (or through his hands, if you will), and he wore the cap to prove it. Any typical JoBro follower or Mel Gibson cinephile will inform you that Jon Kitna is pious not only to the pigskin, but also to the Big Commish in the Sky.

Being a devout Christian, Jon Kitna was a good man by nature. He prayed before games. He prayed after games, too. He prayed with his teammates, his family, his friends, and hosted Monday night Bible studies. He even prayed sometimes walking to the line of scrimmage. He didn't curse, didn't drink, and always spoke with optimism and humbleness. Yet he never divided the locker room, much less spout religious allegories to those who were nonbelievers. And you would think with all this praying, all that "good guy stuff," that God would exert some of his ethereal assistance, a little wind gust to carry the ball farther, perhaps more nudges into the endzone. But the Bengals continued to stink, posting a 6-10 record in '01, a 2-14 record in '02, and a slightly improved 8-8 in '03. Must be Kitna's fault right? He wasn't all that bad really:

2001: 3216 yds, 12 TD, 22 INT, 53.9% CMP
2002: 3178 yds, 16 TD, 16 INT, 62.2% CMP
2003: 3591 yds, 26 TD, 15 INT, 62.3% CMP

He even managed to win Comeback Player of the Year in 2003! So with a competent running game, a "future hall of famer" WR, and decent improvement in QB numbers, Jon Kitna and his disciples still lacked the moxie necessary for success. What Would Jon Do?

Now I'm not one to offer a discourse on religion's place in sports, seeing how for me, "Moses" was a 76ers legend, "Jesus" a pure shooter in He Got Game, and "Joseph" a blue and white shuttle that taxis kids to the T stop. But let's examine a potential factor named the "God Element," an existential force that I made up that can alter the outcomes of games. Jon Kitna is not the only one to have the GE advantage. It is commonplace amongst the football community to find Christian players unashamed to demonstrate their fanaticism. Tony Dungy attributes his Superbowl win and work ethic to God. Predecessors such as Reggie White paved the way for the circle jerk before games. I mean circle prayer. Another known outspoken preacher who I mentioned before, Kurt Warner, rivals Kitna in his blending of football and faith. So what exactly separates the success stories from the blunderers? In other words, what are their God Element ratings?

Let's keep with the Warner/Kitna comparison. Statistically speaking, Warner was a monster out of the gate, but sucked balls for years until his resurrection in 2008. Kitna has been more consistent over his career. Both experienced the "zero to hero" sob story, Kitna formerly a raging alcoholic, womanizing frat boy before being reborn, and Warner a shitty grocery boy. Both constantly pray, perform community service, and are righteous to the core. Kitna leads a life where family comes before football, as does Warner. Then why did Warner win a Superbowl, while Kitna is still washing the shart stains from his underwear as QB2? The answer lies somewhere in their deviation from His path. Perhaps Jon got curious, swiping a few too many peeks at MILF Hunter (inadvertently raising the kitten death rate), or maybe he snagged a few too many Dick Lebeau bobbleheads. At any rate, something has lowered his GE below threshold, thereby lowering his rate of success. So Warner has a GE rating of 95, and Kitna like a 60. The debate rages on.

We all know the rest. With the arrival of Marvin Lewis, and the imminent turnaround of the Bengals, Kitna was unrightfully usurped by golden god Carson Palmer, and humbly receded into the shadows of mentorship, whereby he left for smokier pastures in Detroit. The more things change, the more they stay the same kind of thing kept occuring. Jon Kitna put up fantasy worthy, yet real life irrelevant numbers on the Lions, and partially participated in THE WORST SEASON OF ANY FOOTBALL TEAM OF ALL TIME (to be fair, he only lost 4 of those games). That leads us to where we are now. Jon Kitna, patiently waiting on the pine, watching Tony Romo complain about Jessica Simpson ballooned to Octomom proportions.

What matters at the end of the day is this: Jon Kitna is content with himself. He never became the villain. Never really fulfilled the hero status either. Infused with a steady mind and a caring nature, you might've hated the Bengals/Lions as a fan, but you never hated Jon Kitna. He is just a man, a simple man, who enjoys football, never ruffles any feathers, and wants the best for everyone. Would he enjoy Christopher Lloyd's help one in a while? Heck yeah. But whether he ends up winning a Superbowl or not will not consume him. He'll continue playing however long the game allows him, and love doing it regardless. He plays to the win the game, and plays to win at life. No smiting required.

Jeff Garcia: The Life and Times of the NFL's First Gay Quarterback

2009-12-22T21:32:00.000-08:00

October 19th, 1980. A Sunday.

At Candlestick Park, second-year quarterback Joe Montana loses his home debut, but throws for 252 and two touches. Over the next 12 seasons, the 49ers win 100 regular season games and lose only 38 (.725), capturing four Super Bowls in eight years.

April 24th, 1987. After two years of purgatory in Creamsicle Bay, Steve Young is traded to San Francisco for a pair of picks, neither of them first-rounders. Young serves under Montana for four seasons, but at age 30, Brigham's favorite son is handed the keys to the Caddy. From ages 30 to 38, Young wins at an even higher clip than Montana (.736), but only manages to win one Super Bowl.

October 3rd, 1999. Young, crippled by the seventh concussion of his NFL career, starts only 3 games, two of them victories. His replacement? An undrafted 29-year-old rookie out of San Jose State named Jeff Garcia.

But this is not where our story begins.

...

In 1970, Jeffrey Jason Garcia is born in Gilroy, a city of 50,000 in central California. At 14, Garcia tries out for the JV football team, and earns a spot on the bench beneath sophomore quarterback Dave "Quickie" Kelso. Garcia sees limited action during the first four games of the season.

On the Friday of the fifth game, Garcia trots onto the practice field and begins tossing with Kelso. It's pre-game and there are no contact drills, so the players are dressed in helmets, t-shirts, and shorts. Minutes later, Garcia huddles up with the scout offense. The huddle breaks and Garcia watches his blockers line up before him. Walking up, he runs the play over in his mind, and steps under his center, Willie "HeMan" Herrera.

HeMan was a sophomore who smelled like schwag and took the bus to school. Large, forgetful, forgettable--but not on this day. On this day, in what must have been a celebration of freedom and indulgence, Willie Herrera decided not to wear a cup.

It wasn't until Garcia made contact that either boy realized the magnitude of this decision. Herrera stiffened up immediately but stifled a cry. Garcia thought to withdraw his hand but instead let it linger. Settling under center, he pressed his hands into Herrera's crotch, went calmly through the cadence, and snapped the ball.

The play-action pass resulted in a 16 yard gain. HeMan Herrera returned quietly to the locker room to piss. Jeff Garcia became gay.

...

After his revelation, Garcia's football career took off. He became more and more invested in the sport, both as proof of his manhood and as an opportunity to towel down with his teammates, and this enthusiasm showed on the field. Garcia made the Varsity team as a sophomore, and during his two years as a starter, the Alpha Flyers won 17 games against only two losses. Shameful, chronic masturbatory sessions to a Chippendale's calendar taken from his cousin's bachelorette party had given Garcia a strong throwing arm, but his slight build kept recruitment light. He was forced to take classes at a local community college before landing a chance to QB the Spartans of San Jose State.

His play continued to improve, but did not attract much attention, as he went undrafted by the NFL. Unwilling to give up the sport, Garcia latched on with the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL, leading the team to five strong finishes after Doug Flutie left the team for Toronto. After winning the Grey Cup with Calgary in 1998, Garcia abandoned the junior circuit, accepting an offer from the San Francisco 49ers to backup Steve Young.

When Young went down, Garcia stepped in, sharing time with Steve Stenstrom as San Francisco finished below .500 for the first time in 16 years. The following year, Young retired and Garcia was named the starter, something childhood "best friend" Peter Bronson described as "breathtakingly beautiful."

In many ways, Garcia's five-year tenure with the 49ers was a modest and unlikely success, as San Francisco twice made the playoffs and staged a memorable comeback in a Wild Card game against the New York Giants. Yet Garcia failed to achieve the same success as either of his decorated predecessors. Garcia never led the league in any category despite being buttressed by two elite receiver (Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens) and a strong running back (Garrison Hearst).

Instead, Garcia's career in San Francisco is remembered for a different reason: the prevalence of rampant, vicious speculation about Garcia's sexual preferences. The media shitstorm was set ablaze by Owens shortly after he left the team when he said of Garcia in Playboy, "If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, by golly, it is a rat." Off the record, Owens later added, "That dude tried to touch my penis!"

Rumors swirled out of the Niners locker room about Garcia's unusual... tendencies. Star defensive tackle Bryant Young remarked that Garcia frequently showered with swim trunks on and "still got [an erection] probably half the time." Ken Norton, a longtime 49er and standout linebacker, claimed that Garcia "asked repeatedly to see [Norton's] magnum condoms." Said Norton, "One 'no' ought to be enough."

Most telling of all, however, is that of the five centers who played with Garcia in San Francisco, none were willing to comment on his time there.

After leaving San Francisco in 2004, Garcia tried to put the city behind him, marrying Playboy Playmate Carmella DeCesare. Still, the Bay years were the best and most memorable of Garcia's career. "He blossomed like a rare and exotic flower," Bronson said. "He really felt at home in San Francisco. Playing in Detroit--not so friendly." And yet, lingering questions remain:

How good would Garcia have been if he'd been given a chance in the NFL draft?

Has he been unfairly judged in the shadows of Montana and Young?

Would San Francisco have won the Super Bowl in 2001 if Garcia had been able to play without imagining T.O.'s thick, pulsing, Nubian member?

The NFL may never know.

...

HEIGHT: 6 ft 1 in

WEIGHT: 205 lbs

THROWS: RIGHT

SEX: HOMO

Jay Cutler: Keg Buyer

2009-12-22T13:54:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Sig Ep

One of my favorite aspects of being a freshmen in college is the ridiculous dialogue that accompanies the unfamiliarity during the first week of orientation. It's like speed dating for friendships; everyone is impressionable and within all the earnestness and openness the bounds of conventional conversation dissipate. During this Judgment Week, students are constantly engaging in half-baked hypotheticals about the efficacy of contraceptives and anal circumferences. You will find some good friends and relegate many others to the "avoid at all costs" list. My involvement in the Wilderness pre-orientation program at school provided me insider access to Judgment Week as an upper classmen. During my senior year this conversation took place between two freshmen who we'll call F1 and F2.

F1: If you were at a frat party and they found out you were a freshmen and demanded you leave what would you do?

F2: I'd ask the dude "How much?"

Fl: What do you mean how much?

F2: I'd pull out my wallet and ask him "how much to buy the keg."

While I found it disgustingly hilarious that this pompous twat thought this an acceptable solution, it also worried me. Could someone just insert himself above a pre-existing system and find no consequence in such an absurd proposition? Was he to think that he could claim a stake of social power simply by ponying up a few Benjamins? Was he really this much of a bitch? Later on that night I would receieve a text from a member of this blog that read "literally cockblocked for hours by F2." This freshmen DID think rules need not apply to him and threw his disillusioned self in the path of my friend's permaboner (not that he was getting any that night anyways.) Thus marked the advent of the Keg Buyer.

The weeks leading up to the start of the NFL season are a confluence of optimism, expectations, and for all those outside the cities of Detroit, Cleveland, and Oakland, hope. Local media personalities and analysts are breaking down the minutia of each player's off-season triumphs and conquests. As a fan the preseason period serves as the TV version of a movie trailer, providing glimpses of the best scenes to come and roping in many with shots of tantalizing potential. Much like college Judgment Week, people take chances with the team by investing their hope in the axiom "it's a new season."

In the spring and summer of 2009 the city of Chicago was abuzz with excitement. The Bears had recently acquired a 25 year old Midwestern gunslinger born in a town (Santa Claus, Indiana) oozing with enchantment. The hero, Jay Cutler, was coming off a pro bowl season during which he threw for 4,500 yards and narrowly missed the playoffs. He was destined to be the missing piece on a previously 9-7 team whose glaring weakness had been the void of explosiveness at the most important position in sports. Cutler was going to be complemented by a running back coming off a rookie campaign during which he amassed over 1,700 yards from scrimmage and 12 TDs and surrounded by young explosive receiving options. His ball-hawking defense would get him lots of possessions and provide security when the gunslinging got the best of him. He was positioned to be Chicago's Marcus Aurelius, but instead of the last of the good emperors, Cutler would be the first of the good QBs. Just when the empire was ready to accept its new leader, Jay Cutler decided to buy the keg.

Jay Cutler has always been mired in the controversy caused by his mouth. Coming out of Vanderbilt, the SEC school least likely to produce NFL talent, he looked more ΩΒ than QB with his muppet coifed hair and beer bloated face. After grading out well at the combine and being drafted in the first round by the Broncos he was quick to anoint himself the hardest throwing quarterback in Broncos history, sending Elway steakhouse sales skyward. What's even more baffling is that within a year this statement wouldn't seem so ludicrous. The bionic combination of Cutler's arm and Brandon Marshall's T.O. like skill set morphed the Broncs from a between the tackles faceless backfield attack to a mile high aerial assault. Include the additions of rookie phenom Eddie Royal (ha!) and young tackles Ryan Clady and Ryan Harris of True Life: I Want a Perfect Body infamy and the offense was solidified for the next decade. Throw in the foresight of the Knowshon Moreno pick and a pretty weak AFC west and realize it's not a stretch to wonder if this Bronco's offesne could have been transcendent. But Cutler had to get him that keg.

Sports is a sector of entertainment that is always going to produce three things: winners, losers, and heroes/scapegoats. Even before Jamie Foxx and Jeff Van Gundy, our memories were gluttons for tales of blaming athletes. Mario Chalmers will be enshrined by the Kansas basketball faithful for his game tying three in the 2008 championship, but Bill Buckner's blunder will always remain the framework for how New England fans view agonizing defeat. Sports nation may someday forget Chalmers, but Buckner has defined a certain type of losing. Losing is worse than winning is good. This is why Broncos fans were looking for someone to strangle when their franchise QB was dealt to the Chicago Bears just weeks before the 2009 NFL draft. At first all fingers pointed to the new coach Josh McDaniels. Lauded as an offensive prodigy in New England, McDaniels ruffled some feathers in the Broncos organization by publicly pursuing ex-Pat Matt Cassel when he had Jay fucking Cutler already. Broncos fans rallied behind Cutler, just as they had when he came out with the admission that he was living with type 1 diabetes. Incensed by this open market shopping, Cutler became reclusive and even after McDaniels and owner Pat Bowlen came back to Jay saying they had made mistakes and he was the guy, Cutler found no merit in these reconciliations. Bowlen countered with an Ali-sized left hook and shipped Cutler to the Windy City within hours of his pouting, acquiring a slew of draft picks and Kyle Orton in the deal. This trade forced Cutler into a two franchse paradox. For the Broncos he'd lend himself to the part of scapegoat, but for Chicago he and his big market arm would be cast as hero.

Before we get into the purchase and acquisition data behind Cutler's keg buying let's go back to Judgment Week and justify the Bears fan's decision to befriend Jay Cutler. Just like Sleazer did in the Stump the Schaub post, I looked at Cutler's similarity score from the end of 07 (only one available).

The numbers suggest that Cutler was on a similar arc to almost every current great QB. Throw out David Carr and JP Losman and there isn't a dud to be found on that list.

In a side by side comparison of the 2008 Bears and Broncos offensive production, it's pretty evident that the addition of Cutler should have added another dimension to the Bears O. The Broncos passed for 85 more yards per game in only 5 extra attempts while scoring more passing TDs as well. To boot, the Broncos also rushed for 12 more yards a game and scored the same amount of rushing TDs as the Bears who are historically known for between the tackles smashmouth ball. The Bears actually won more games (9) than the Broncos (8) when faced with similar schedules. There was hope that Devin Hester's expanded role as a WR would continue to grow and that Greg Olsen would be rewarded as Cutler's go-to guy. Matt Forte was to use his rookie campaign as a jumping off point and possibly approach young LT mode with his great pass catching ability and new rifle-armed mate. On paper the 2009 Bears were better offensively because they essentially swapped out Kyle noodle arm Orton for Cannon Cutler. So why were Bears fans deceived?

Cutler betrayed two separate fan bases this year, the Bears and the fantasy owners of Matt Forte. What no one in Chicago had expected is that the offense would be revamped around the skill set of their new Prodigal Son. Even if this new offensive scheme was unplanned, it didn't matter because Cutler was captaining the attack. Ever since he was old enough to play, Jay Cutler had been told to throw, throw, throw the football. With every miracle heaving gunslinger comes an inherent risk of over confidence. It's the same thing that plagued Brett Favre and made him great. It is the difference in perception versus reality that can catapult risk takers into champions or bench warmers. Cutler believed that the Bears acquired him to win football games behind the virtuosity of his arm. He replaced the essence of the Bears offense, which had been run centric with the power and inconsistency of his almighty arm. His buying of the keg was this disenchantment with reality, that he was above the system of Chicago Bears football. It became a slippery slope, because as he threw more interceptions the Bears found themselves trailing by more and relying on the pass. I saw Cutler play on national TV a few times early in the season and saw the symptoms of an immature quarterback. He was locking onto guys, ignoring his tight ends, and completely outlawing the option of going to his check down. Chicago was cuckolded by his play because of his monster contract (5 years/50 million) and because he was the only option. They continued to trot Cutler out, enabling him to spray balls all over the field using his arm as his wallet asking everyone, "How much?"

If you're hesitant to believe the Bears have abandoned their style of the last 25 years then just look at this chart comparing the 08 and 09 version of the Bears.

Although passing yards and TDs per game have increased, highlighted in red is every stat they've seen decreased production from. The running game has become an afterthough and the interception percentage above 5% is even out of the Favreian range. This chaos has spilled over to team production, and the Bears just ain't winning. What's even more tragic is what the Cuckler effect has done to promising young Matt Forte.

Forte's production has been decimated by Cuckler's reluctance to check down or hand the ball off. If not for one huge receiving game against the 49ers, Forte's numbers would be down across the board. If you played fantasy football this year you know that any friend who drafted Matt Forte was a friend not making the playoffs of your league (unless he lucked into Chris Johnson and Ray Rice). Forte's yards per carry look like fullback numbers. Watching him play is just plain depressing because he appears so imprisoned by fascist Cutler.

For me, Cutler's entire season is epitomized by one sequence during his week 11 game against the Eagles. I was leading Coach Coolbaugh by 1.9 points in our fantasy matchup with the Bears/Eagles game representing the final game for both of our squads. I had Greg Olsen and Matt Forte and Coolbaugh was starting the Eagles D. There was 1 minute left on the clock and the Bears were down 20-24. Cutler started the drive off completeing a few passes and marching the Bears over midfield creating a sliver of hope for all those in attendance. On the next play he evaded a sack and targeted a wide open Greg Olsen. As the pass came out it looked good from the front angle, but as it neared the tight end it was apparent that the ball was going to just sail out of the grasp of his outstretched arms. It was tipped and landed right in the lap of Eagles DB Sean Jones. Game over, fantasy matchup over. I lost by one tenth of a point. At that moment I stood up from my chair and for a second thought about walking down to the liquor store and purchasing a keg to drink my disappointment away. Then I realized it was Sunday, and in Massachusetts Sundays are reserved for only one man to do the keg buying, Jay Cutler.

Schaub Stumps the Texans

2009-12-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

What a Beautiful Release Point

Powerful, Driven, Matt Schaub is... Unstoppable. Like his citizen eco-drive... wait a minute Texans QBs don't get commercials like that. When a quarterback lacks big market appeal or the expectations that come with first round draft status, it becomes hard to put your finger on exactly how effective that QB actually is. Big name QBs get national media attention, and so do lesser guys who start for big market teams like the Giants or Cowboys. When it comes down to it, how do you compare a QB like Matt Schaub to someone like Dallas' Tony Romo? Neither are high draft picks, but Romo gets the attention and scrutiny that a Cowboys player deserves. To compound the problem, the Texans as a franchise have never even had a winning season or played in a playoff game. Is Matt Schaub Good, Bad or an In-Between? The sleazer is taking off the kid gloves and getting into the grit of an important yet ignored player in today's NFL.

The trade that got Matt Schaub his chance was strange in that while the Falcons got first round value for Schaub they never physically got an extra first round pick. As it went down, the Falcons received two 2nd rounders (in '07 and '08) and traded up two slots from 10 to 8 in the 2007 draft. All in all, the value is somewhere around a mid first rounder for Schaub, but the Texans attempted to save some face by not actually giving up the first rounder in case Schaub flopped. I'm not gonna go into the ins and outs of what the picks turned into since that's more of a trade/franchise evaluation than anything.

Trading what is essentially a first round draft pick for a semi-experienced former backup clearly represents a strong display of faith in a quarterback. When you use a draft pick on a QB, you generally have the luxury of providing him some years of instruction in your system. On the other hand, when you trade for a 25 year old QB with 150 in game attempts and two games started you have to be hoping for an out of the box product who will grow along with your team. Schaub's situation was hardly common in the NFL, especially considering he was probably the better passer on his former team. Then again, Mike Vick is anything but common.

Taking a look at Schaub's similarity score, a relative comparison to other qbs, at age 26:

(courtesy of profootballreference.com)

we can see that Schaub had potential that ranged from horrible (Tim Rattay, David Carr, Josh McCown) to average (Aikman, Brunell, Hasselbeck) to sublime (Joe Montana). These across the board scores are another indication of the risk/reward factor involved in the trade.

Not that there weren't flashes of talent from Schaub. In his 2005 game against the Patriots, Schaub was 18-34 for 298 yards, 3 TDs and no INTs. He hit on a number of deep balls against what was still a good NE defense, and he showed the ability to run the offense and avoid negative plays.

After the completely undeserved amount of faith placed in David Carr, the Houston Texans were desparate for a serviceable qb. In the end, what they got in the first two years from Schaub was inconsistency and injury. Schaub started 11 games each year in his first two years as full-time starter. When he played, his numbers were efficient if unspectacular. He clearly outclassed Carr in that he didn't take 5 sacks per game, but with playmakers on the offensive side like Andre Johnson (undoubtedly the most complete WR in the NFL), Owen Daniels and eventually Steve Slaton the Texans appeared to be an explosive offense on paper heading into 2009. Schaub had improved from '06 to '07 and '07 to '08 and another jump in production would be expected as the overall team talent improved.

The Texans also managed to bolster what was once an attrocious defense by spending high pick after high pick on front seven players like Amobi Okoye, Demeco Ryans, Mario Williams and most recently Brian Cushing. And it worked! So why hasn't this Texans team blossomed as most assumed it would this year?

It's not quite as simple as Matt Schaub case closed. The run game has struggled more than expected, but even as Schaub improved his numbers (he led the league in TD passes by week 10,) it was his untimely interceptions and inability to get the offense started early that led to a horrible 4 game losing streak by the Texans. All of the games were losses by 7 or less, and in each of them they either struggle in the 1st or 4th quarter. In fairness, the losses are to good teams. But also in fairness, you aren't a good QB if you score big against teams like Seattle and Buffalo. What you are is a good fantasy QB.

After a really mediocre performance yesterday against an equally mediocre St. Louis defense, Schaub continues to show us more of the same: he can hit Andre Johnson since he is almost always open, and his good stats (completion percentage, TD:INT ratio) hide the fact that he fails to convert important first downs and score touchdowns in the red zone.

At this point in the Texans' potential playoff arc, they are just entering their Superbowl window. The defense is young and flies all over the field. The receivers and offensive weapons are in place and in their primes. If Stump the Schaub is the hero Houston deserves, he needs to start showing it in these next two games; otherwise, it might be time for Houston to start exploring other QB options.

With the 2010 season potentially uncapped things could get crazy in a hurry, but to his credit Schaub has really only three full years as starter under his belt. I don't think it's unreasonable for the Texans to stick with Schaub and hope he continues to improve. For the Texans, even playing in a playoff game would be a huge step forward, but so long as you have the talent on the roster why not gamble with a QB change if it can put you over the top?

Nevertheless, I would prefer they don't roll the dice with the options currently on their roster, or options they have already explored for that matter:

I think when all is said and done, Schaub's best years will have overlapped while the team's overall talent was at its pinnacle. It's a good situation for Houston, but in the end Schaub might be cast as the goat who held a talented team back.

Y'all Ready For This

2009-12-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

In a truly Innovative? (nope) Creative? (nah) Inspired? (sure) move, Our very own "It was all a Dream" made a move which is sure to put Fegonomics on the map.

An homage to ESPN's 30 for 30, Fegonomics presents 32 for 32: 32 quarterbacks for the 32 current NFL teams.

In order to celebrate the approximate 1 year anniversary of Fegonomics, the contributors together with some talented guest writers will attempt the most ambitious project ever to grace the server space of Fegonomics in a series of articles, exposes and passages of verbal diarrhea.

To determine the 32 quarterbacks, a draft was held. Why? Because if you can draft, draft.
The results can be found here and it will suffice to say that there were both great and poopy quarterbacks, but more importantly there's a story behind each one. The first story will drop 12/21/09 with the tentative title: Schaub Stumps the Texans What? you don't think Matt Schaub is an appropriate lead-in to such a monumental series of posts? Suck it Trebek.

The Many Fachays of Brad Childress

2009-12-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

So I'm supposed to write about how Favre is definitely the MVP because he only has three picks. Meh. Or how the Pats getting embarassed on MNF is a bigger deal than people are making it out to be (which it is). Or maybe I'm suppoed to make my case for going for 16-0 and risking injury as opposed to playing it safe. Whatever. Brad Childress has a funny face, and it's all I can think about.

Prologue:

Brad Childress' inauspicious start as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings was overshadowed by the recent ownership changeover to....

Zygi Played Guitar!!!!!!

So Zygi comes in and naturally decides that some change is in order. Now, it can be dangerous to come in and mess with the natural order of a team, but I suppose when your current head coach is...
Mike Tice

then there are definitely some grounds for termination. Mike Tice presents the perfect case study for the hiring of an upbeat interim coach when a long term coach gets fired or resigns. It just isn't worth the risk and associated ridiculousness. Now, this is a fachays of Brad Childress post, so I'm going to get to the meat in a moment, but hold onto your dicks and bear with me as I remind you of a couple of things about Mike Tice:

1) He once tore his ACL. As a coach. Watching Mike Tice attempting to coach his final year on crutches was both hilarious and a perfect visual representation of his coaching ability. I believe this also happened to former Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis (Perhaps the Mike Tice of the college game). My suggestion to the both of them: lose some weight! I understand it's a copycat league, but obesity is not a prerequisite for NFL head coaches despite the current trend of New England Coordinators. Mike Tomlin and Jon Gruden have won superbowls in visually acceptable weight classes, and on the plus side you might actually be able to dodge a 230 pound NFL player barreling towards your knee. In fairness, he did tough it out:

"You can't keep me off the sideline. MCL, PCL, ACL, cartilage, I don't really care."

2) He was caught in an NFL ticket scalping ring and fined $100,000 for his involvement which was the largest fine for a coach at the time and 10% of his salary. Tice was selling his personal tickets to scalpers. You are the head coach!!! Why are you taking time out of your day to even think "hey, maybe I should sell my extra tickets" let alone get involved with a serious weekly scalper. People came to his defense by stating that he was the lowest paid coach in the NFL. Of course he is! You get what you pay for.

3) This all happened in the same freaking year that the "Love Boat" scandal happened. Most guys that aren't X's and O's guys are good player coaches. Not Mike Tice. Gotta love Smoot Smack working that double-headed dildo as Tice looks on.

Tice also managed to take a team with Culpepper, Moss and the Whizzinator and be incredibly mediocre. After all these events in one season, anyone who forms complete sentences will look like an NFL savior coach.

Act I:

Enter, Brad Childress. As a part of the highly esteemed Andy Reid coaching tree, Childress has all the credentials to be a great NFL coach that is also a pedophile. While serving under Reid with the Eagles, he held the important position of stunting the development of Donovan McNabb as the Philly QB coach for four years (1999-2002), followed by a nice run as Offensive coordinator from '03-05. Oh wait, they went 6-10 in 2005.

Epic Side Boob.

Act II: The Chester Fried Year(s)

As a rookie head coach in 2006, B-Rad knew he wouldn't be able to run the fly eagles fly offense to which he was accustomed so long as Brad Johnson was at the helm. So he decided to bring in a free agent runner to complement his Mike Tice coached O-line. In all seriousness, Tice did a great job coaching up that O-line. Tice is the perfect example of why you don't promote an assistant to head coach just because they are good at their job.

Astutely sensing a lack of talent, Childress decided he would sculpt his QB of the Future using his excellent QB coaching skillz while he feasted on Chicken Taylor in the short term.

Brad Childress: putting the "molester" back in Chester the Molester

ACT III: Christmas comes early, and with a joystick!

And that joystick was Adrian Peterson who employed his video game physics in a great rookie campaign.
For Childress, it meant a year of hiking up his shorts and coaching the fuck out of this young team with talent and inexperience in the backfield.

Thems some high fastening pants. And for a dude with a mean molester 'stache, he doesn't have much leg hair does he?

The team improved somewhat behind the gruesome twosome of Chester Fried Chicken (A sneaky 1100 scrimmage yards and 7 TDs) and Adrian Peterson.

ACT IV: TARVARIS JACKSON IS 8-6 AS A STARTER (2008)

Yes Brad, we hear you. We just don't think you hear yourself.

Regardless of whether or not Childress really had such misguided hope for Jackson, there was absolutely nothing to be gained by proclaiming it to the world. Maybe Childress thought if he believed hard enough he could make it true. Something along the lines of never never land. Stop reading fairy tales to 6 year old boys and start coaching instead of praying.

Act V: The Wooing of the Favre

"Hey Brett, wanna take a long drive in the middle of nowhere with me? I just finished prepping my neardhead" "Well Brad, to be completely honest, I feel completely comfortable with that"

Childress just loves to set up both his sexual and business advances with a soothing drive in his black SUV.

We all know the Favre story, but the underrated storyline is how this saved the job of Brad Childress. He was given a long leash and a lot of leeway following the Tice era, but the luster of AP was wearing off and people began questioning how a team with Jared Allen and AP wasn't making a splash in the playoffs. With Favre now on Childress' side, he is untouchable. He somehow convinced a guy to play for his team even though it was his longtime rival. And the Vikings are great to boot. Despite his utter idiocy Childress will ultimately get a Tom Coughlin-esque get out of jail free card for the next 2-3 years. And he knows it, which is the worst part.

Which brings us to....

Final Act: The Lunatic Years

You could tell he was on the precipice when we started seeing glimpses of this hat in the preseason and training camp:

that, coupled with the losing battle of his hair against his beard further engendered a growing concern for Brad Childress' mental health.

And then there was the bombshell:

Not sure that it's him????

I'd recognize that 'stache anywhere.

The pics were originally distributed by snake cock Shiancoe following week 10 and show Chldress portraying a long time fantasy of his: A Male Flight attendant cross-dresser seduces an airplane full of gay football players with a storyline involving excessive bukkake pearl necklaces.

Yes ladies and gentlemen (ok just gentlemen since I'm pretty sure no labia have graced the pages of Fegonomics with the exception of Makhtar's flick grip) Childress has officially gone off the deep end. All that media attention has really gotten to him, and the pressure of all those secrets (read: little boys) just caused him to crack.

G'night and Snell you later.

Make it Rain

2009-10-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

To preface this post, most of it is borderline nsfw and some of it is slightly explicit/offensive.

To start it off...

(The Sleazer reccommends listening while reading)

I gotta give props where they're due, and Ahole - in one of the biggest emo music upsets of the century - introduced me to this fly version of the Fat Joe song. On a similar note...

Look at that man, how can someone with instincts so mischievous look so innocent?

On one glorious spring break of 2007, DuPont was so inspired by the combination of Fat Joe, plenty of liquor and dancing women that he deemed it necessary to stand on our kitchen table, grab a pack of bicycle playing cards and shower what was probably a bunch of zeroes with 52 reminders of his awesomeness. As DuPont grinned, the cards rained down and another spring break legend was born.

"Stupid bitch I'm famous"

I won't pretend that I've ever "made it rain" in any sense; hell, I've never even been to a strip club. Upset special? Nah, but I think I'm due. Despite this, there's no denying the prevalence of strip clubs, strippers, Vegas and their associated stories in my life. Even so, I think what DuPont did was awesome, hilarious and to a point downright badass. Is actually making it rain demeaning to women? Maybe. It's also a strippers job to entertain in exchange for cash, so from my perspective as long as someone isn't grabbing or insulting the girl he can throw his money around as he sees fit.

"Baby I make it flood, now you gon' need a boat"

Which brings us to PacMan Jones

Waa waa waaaaoooow. Bucketfuls of cash. Everyone knows the shooting side of the story, the suspension, the reinstatement, blah blah blah. What Pacman does or doesn't do after this video really doesn't interest me. The fact that he brought 100,000 dollars to a strip club does.

"Got a handful of stacks better grab an umbrella"

First of all, if you bring that much money anywhere you are looking for trouble. That aside, the fact that he changes $40,000 into ones is almost beyond belief. To help you conceptualize it, stacked on top of each other it's 14 and a third FEET of cash. Now if I had that many feet of cash, I would bring a ladder to the strip club, stack the cash and make it rain from on high.

"Girl make that bucket a pot of gold"

The very idea that this amount of money is even measurable in feet is absurd in itself. How much of the money did he shower the strippers with? 5K, 10K, 20? Maybe the last naked warrior would like to do an over-under on the amount of cash in one of those buckets and we can calculate from there. I really have no idea where to start. Buckets!!!

As a side note, how does the DJ not have even the slightest sense of timeliness and throw on Fat Joe "Make it Rain" the instant this goes down? I'm sure the song is queued up at some point on the strip club standard playlist, but if there was ever a time for repeat, this is it. "Make it Rain" has to rank up there with Simmons' favorite "Pour Some Sugar on Me" as far as most played strip club songs of the past few years.

Now, the matter of the Nelly sighting. Not only is this the first I've heard of Nelly in a while, but he's following pacman's lead with a stack of 10 Gs in singles. By this point, Pacman realizes he has eaten far too many power pellets and is willing to change out 10,000 of his ones to help out Nelly in his time of need. Clearly Nelly is just living the life nowadays and throwing his money around, and at least he has the sense to shy away from the camera. At worst, he'll be remembered for the best play in the mlb all star game when all is said and done with his career (2:51 mark in the vid if you don't wanna watch geriatric Bob Knight.)

Chappelle's Show

When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong - Vernon Franklin

www.comedycentral.com

Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs

Black Comedy

True Hollywood Story

"I got me a designated thrower cause my hand's hurtin'"

In an homage to Chappelle's "When Keepin it Real Goes Wrong", Jermaine "You me and" Dupri gets on the mike and decides that it's unacceptable for the women to bend over and collect their cash, and he then essentially reads the strippers their job description and responsibilities as entertainers. Apparently Pacman agreed and proceeds to go off the deep end.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with wantin' a little happy ending"

In the end we can all be thankful for the portability of camera phones for shedding some light on this ridiculous buildup to an absurd event. It just goes to show you that no matter how off the chain you thought your time was with the girls of glitter gulch, there's always someone doing something crazier.

Make it rain...

Packers Vikings Live Blog

2009-10-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

The sleazer, as a Packer fan and as a football fan, will be giving his up to the moment reactions and analysis of the Packers at Vikings monday night football game. This isn't going to be unbiased analysis. It'll be like you were watchng the game with me...the day after it happened.

My thoughts leading up to the game:

I'm not sure if there has ever been a regular season game with more media storylines in any sport. You see players move from team to team, but you still want to think that if they a longtime player for any team, their love for that team would prevent them from playing for their former rival. You even see it happen on a smaller scale with players like Johnny Damon, but Favre going to the Vikings doesn't have a comparison that I can think of.

For some Packers fans it was a complete gut-shot. I am basically numb to the point where I just ignore everything he does. He was the face of the franchise for 16 years, and now he is the de facto face for the rival franchise in his waning years. All these storylines are great, but for me Pack Vikes is enough of a storyline.

Two matchups that I think will be important in this game that haven't gotten the media coverage are the Packers right side of the offensive line vs. the williams family and whoever plays opposite Jared Allen. The packers have really struggled in run-blocking on the right side, but they have an advantage athletically. I expect the Packers to try to exploit this with toss plays away from Jared Allen. Also, expect some screen passes out of 2 TE sets which will help open up some run lanes later in the game.

Another mathcup that bears watching is how Charles Woodson jumps routes vs. Favre. Woodson knows how Favre likes to play, and he is the smartest and best defender they have. Favre has a tendency to throw to guys before they come out of breaks, and Woodson capitalizes on these types of throws.

1st quarter:

Packers start their first drive with a toss. This worked well in the home game vs. Minny two years ago as the packers gashed the vikings with Ryan Grant. Too bad the Vikings are better than two years ago.

(false start)
Allen Barbre cements his place as the worst starting lineman in the NFC with that false start. This guy gave up 6 sacks to antwan odom almost by himself. Defensive Ends must be paying him a percentage of the "not likely to be earned" incentives in their contracts.

(comeback route to Jennings against winfield)
One thing that Rodgers clearly does better than Favre is throw that deep comeback route. Same throw that Favre threw in the NFC championship, except Rodgers gets it outside the numbers with some zip. Maybe 4 or 5 QBs in the NFL now can make that throw with accuracy. Rivers, Peyton and McNabb are great at it. Most teams that run back shoulder throws in the middle of drives do that because their QB can't throw the deep comeback.

9:22 1st
And just as I start jerking him off, Rodgers goes down to a sack fumble by Jared Allen. Rodgers has shown an inability to do anything but run when under pressure. As soon as there is pressure, he will take off to his right or just run backwards and get sacked. Rodgers leads the league in sacks taken, and definitely is part of the problem himself. Dwight Freeney is the king of sack fumbles and he's often mentioned as a guy who goes for the ball. I'm not sure of any defensive end who doesn't go for the ball when they make a hit on the QB.

Commentators generally like to attribute sacks to the line and interceptions to QBs when probably half the time the sack is on the QB and the interception is on the WRs. So I guess it evens out in the end since QBs don't get blamed for dropped balls. Gruden is doing a good job of providing interesting commentary based on what he knows as a coach. This is the stuff Jaws used to do, but now Jaws gets lost in the back and forth banter rather than paying attention to the game.

One quote by Jaws: "there you go Jon, you sound like a real analyst!" Of course he does! All we want to hear is what the routes were and who missed their block or if the QB held it too long. There you go Jaws, you sound like a real idiot.

Packers are gonna go with 5 Linebackers on early downs to stop Peterson, and I think they had 6 on the field with that 2nd down play. The 3-4 Defense has always given Favre fits, and I like the idea of more linebackers to take on AP.

Gotta love the facial hair of Brad Childress. It connects to his regular hair even around his ears, except he doesn't have any on top of his head. Not the look you want, even if you live in Minnesota. He looks like he is wearing a bald yarmulke, like an incomplete bald cap.

Childress and Favre en route to a little town called Pedophilia

(Following a Vikings drive, Favre hits Snakecock in the endzone for the TD)
Love play action to the TE at the goal line. Really it's about how well the TE sells it more than anything. Easy throw for any QB, and it's made all the easier when you have AP forcing the linebackers to crash the ball.

2:27 1st Quarter (0:55 in above video)

Great protection as the packers throw from 2TE. Vikings only rush 4, but the rush overloads the left side leaving easy throwing lanes to the right. Rodgers could have run for the first, but it's encouraging to see him keep his eyes downfield. Jortsmichael Finley with the long score!!!! This guy is an asset when he doesn't have to block.

Vikings take over

Lets see if the vikings can commit to the run here. Even if they have to give chester taylor 15 carries and AP 30, keep shoving it down the packers throats and you are gonna burn them for a big gain on a zone blitz.

And they do exactly the opposite. Why manufacture a running game with receiver screens when you have one already? Teams like the Pats and Jets love to throw WR screens to supplement the run since their WRs are great in space. But AP is better with the ball anywhere on the field than Percy Harvin is in space. Horrible play calling on that drive. WR screens are basically a race, whereas RB and TE screens are a deception play to get the D-line moving the wrong way. Brad Childress is the only person on the vikings who can lose them this game.

0:57 1st Quarter
Passes to the TEs have opened up some running lanes. Antoine Winfield is getting off the snap and into the backfield on every running play. If the packers can get a ground game going, I expect them to spring Jennings deep via play action.

Start 2nd Quarter
Booth guys love to talk about the vaunted vikes run D and how great it has been for years, but part of that run D for most of the time was a horrible pass D. Teams don't need to run it if they pass for 400 yards.

(3rd down pass to Driver broken up, tipped to Jennings who grabs it)
Horrible call by childress on the no-challenge. It doesn't matter what the guys upstairs say, you challenge a play like that on 4th down. Goofy play on the tip drill.

(Winfield picks off Rodgers on a curl)
Great play by Winfield on that pick. They got him once already on a deeper comeback, and he was definitely ready this time. Easy to ask after the fact why you would throw it again, but all in all it's just a good defensive play. Vikings take over deep in their own territory.

Good drive put together by one Peterson run and a bunch of Favre lasers. Packers playing good D on first and second down stuffing Peterson, but they can't get any pressure on 3rd down even in obvious passing situations. Favre did very well when the packers ran cover 2; he showed no difficulty in hitting Berrian straight up the sideline between the corner and safety. Favre makes the throw of the half though on a strike to Sidney Rice. Falling backwards and across his body on 3rd and 11. Those are picks for normal qbs, but not the way Favre is dealing tonight.

Good defensive pressure by the Vikings on that 3 and out. Jared Allen is getting a lot of the credit for the pressures, but the pressure up the middle has been equally disruptive. Middle pressure leads to bad throws, tipped balls and bad decisions. Packers need a stop here or they are in trouble
(AP fumbles on a stretch play to the left side followed by a defensive TD)
And the strip fumble TD will do it. Nice shots of AP looking like he needs to visit the dentist as he grinds his teeth. Turns out he doesn't have nike battle armor after all.

The packers linebackers all have stupidly long hair. Matthews, Chillar, Hawk (who looks like a neanderthal), and even Barnett (some budding dreds) have shoulder length hair. They look like they belong in an Iowa truck stop rather than a front seven in the NFL.

(long strike to Percy Harvin down the seam to the 1 yard line)
Breakdown in the secondary on a pretty standard play is followed by poor tackling. The safeties are playing poorly for the Packers, and Favre is exploiting them. Two injuries at the safety spot have definitely caught up to them; this guy Derrick Martin is just chasing on D like Butters at wildwood. Both are biting hard on how Favre looks them off then comes back to a receiver.

(Woodson Picks off Favre but it's negated by penalty)
Horrible penalty call on the pass interference, but they were offsides anyways. Seems dumb to go to the play action again on the goaline. Chuck didn't bite and it almost cost the vikings 6. Penalties have hurt the packers, and they have a holding penalty on every return play.
(Peterson walks in on the next play)

For all the breakdowns in the secondary and lack of a pass rush, the Packers have been doing a great job against Peterson.

21-14 Vikings at the half.

At this point, things are not looking up for the old man's Packers. They are selling out on D to stop the run, but favre is just picking them apart with too much time. When you look at the time that he is getting, it's truly amazing how bad Tavaris Jackson really was.

The vikings secondary looks vulnerable to the quick pass, but the O-Line can't even give Rodgers the time on a 3 step drop. In their defense, they are picking up the blitz very well. My comments from here on out are gonna be more sporadic since "The Last Naked Warrior" has plopped down next to me.

(Favre to Berrian down the sideline)
Either that was cover 2 and the safety was late (most likely), or Al Harris blew the coverage. Nice find by Favre to score what essentially could be a game sealing TD. With a 14 point lead, Jared Allen is going to make Daryn "Dance Moves" Colledge his bitch.

(1st and goal from the 7)
Ryan Grant shows some nice leg drive getting to the 1 on first down. Packers should run the ball twice. Instead they go to the fullback. They ran this play last week. Do they really think the other team didn't watch their goaline offense from the week before??? Horrible play call. 3rd down. You have to run. the. football. Nope, pass to the jorts man on a route outside of the endzone. This guy is 6-5 and a leaper and you throw to him running laterally outside of the endzone? Great tackle. 4th down drop by Donald Lee on a fastball from Rodgers. That may cost them the game. Under durress, Rodgers really whipped it at Lee. Should have been caught, but it's like whipping the disc to Prancer: he should catch it, but he's not going to.

Impressive and ballsy passing on 3rd down from their own 3 followed by poor defense (woodson blows flat responsibility) and tackling lead to a key 1st down. Vikings punt, but do a great job switching fields. They are killing the field position game.
(Vikings punt to the 2)
Jared Allen. Sack safety after review. What is the defensive end equivalent of the cycle? Sack fumble is the single, sack-fumble-recovery has to be the double, sack-fumble-recovery-TD (a la osi in week 1) is definitely the home run. The triple needs to be hard and also a rare play. I think sack safety is appropriate. Maybe it's an INT though? Regardless, Jared Allen now has a chance to hit for the cycle since he's facing this O-line -- the baseball equivalent of a little league pitcher.

Now down 16 instead of 21 the announcers try to decide whether the safety in the end was better for the Packers than the inevitable TD from the 1. Yes. They are down less points with more time on the clock. Seems simple enough.

On the safety punt, the packers bring out Mason Crosby. So either they don't actually understand what a safety means, or you are allowed to do a kickoff following a safety.

Ok I looked it up on wikipedia:

"After a safety, the team that gave up the points kicks off to the other team from its own 20-yard line (in American football) or 25-yard line (in Canadian football.) This is termed a free kick: the kicking team has the option of employing a punt, a drop kick, or a place kick from a teammate's hold. Unlike the kickoff, a kicking tee may not be used (NFL only, college kickers have the option of using a tee on the safety kick); however, punts are allowed, unlike on kickoffs. A punt is the most commonly chosen option, whereas a drop kick is virtually unheard-of in modern football."

Still unclear if they could have onside kicked it.

Despite the late TD to the current best white WR in the NFL Jordy Nelson, the Jared Allen experience has just rocked and bopped the Vikings to victory. Ok, I got depressed and stopped writing in the 4th quarter. When your 3rd string left tackle comes in, you are gonna lose the game. Whatever, Bill Simmons always tapers off at the end anyways. I'm no more a slacker than he is.

Postgame thoughts:

Sidney Rice recovered two onside kicks, both in leaping fashion. I wonder what the record is for onside kick recoveries for a team and for a player. The onside kicks from Crosby were impressive, especially considering that they already recovered one last week.

In the end, the packers shut down Peterson and made Favre beat them. And beat them he did.

The concept of Jared Allen's "motor" is pretty accurate. I would use the term engine since motor doesn't seem to be a strong enough word. Dude has a V6. At one point they mentioned that he played 95% of all snaps last year. That's absurd for any player, but insane for someone who undergoes that much contact on every play. While the Packers have a knack for making defensive lineman into NFC defensive players of the week, Allen proved to be a cut above the rest.

Sleazer....
OUT

Still Got It

2009-09-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

You're Welcome

Citizen Number One

2009-09-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

If I've learned anything in my life as a sports fan, it's that sports reporters are predisposed towards hyperbole. In an era of around the clock sports coverage, where the writers have become entertainers, these ink slingers frequently resort to making absurd exaggerations and expressing intentionally contrarian viewpoints to sell print and boost ratings (read: Woody Paige/Skip "Fego" Bayless). It's simple--an article that annoints Bryce Harper as "The Best Prospect Ever" is always going to get more attention than one that merely touts him as "A Really Good Prospect." Hell, even in writing for a blog with virtually no readership, I feel the urge to juice up my subject's statures to make them seem more relevant.

I realize that what I write next may come off as more of the same--another piece of Rick Reillyesque bombast to burnish the memory of some undeserving millionaire has-been. The difference in this case is that I mean everything I am about to say and the subject really deserves the praise. It's fitting that the most sincere piece I'll ever write for this site is a paean to the white knight of the NBA (and my childhood idol), the virtuous David Robinson.

On a night that saw petulant Michael Jordan enter the Hall of Fame, still with several very obvious chips on his shoulder, Robinson, as always, flew under the radar, simply offering a genuine thanks to his teammates and words of encouragement for his family. Though Robinson fans (all three of us) may feel slighted by Michael Jordan stealing the spotlight in Springfield, I did not take umbrage at the The Admiral's overshadowing. Jordan's contributions both to the game of basketball and its globalization are innumerable, and as such his enshrinement into the basketball hall of immortals deserves all the attention it can get. While there is little debate that MJ is the best player the league has ever seen, Robinson and Jordan's respective actions this weekend confirmed to me what I've always suspected--that David Robinson is the best man the league has ever seen.

Aside from their accomplishments as 2 of the 50 best players in NBA history, the two men could not be more different. Michael Jordan is the tongue-wagging face of the Nike juggernaut, a hyper-competitive basketball machine. Much has been made of the fact that throughout his life, Jordan has avoided publicly expressing his opinions, political or otherwise, for fear of alienating his sponsors. Robinson, on the other hand, was nice to a fault, often criticized for not being competitive enough and lacking the killer instinct to truly become the elite player in the NBA. He was also more outspoken about issues of religion and faith, much to the chagrin of his NBA contemporaries, like Charles Barkley and Dennis Rodman. These differences were apparent even in their acceptance speeches at the Hall of Fame--with Jordan's delivery snarling and vindictive (Part I here), while Robinson was markedly positive and genuinely grateful to everyone in attendance. (See it here)

Of course, no one would argue that they'd rather have David Robinson than Michael Jordan on the court, but in a debate about whom to build a franchise around, I might just pick #50 with the Popeye biceps. What would make me say this?:

David Robinson was drafted out of the Naval Academy in 1987 despite the fact that A) He would have to serve out a two year Navy commitment prior to entering the NBA and B) If he chose not to sign a contract with the Spurs, he would instantly become a free agent. During this time, the Lakers, the Showtime Lakers of Magic "Magic's" Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Kurt Rambis' rec specs expressed interest in David Robinson should he have chosen to become a free agent. Robinson instead decided to honor his commitment to the Navy and to the Spurs, joining a floundering team that was on the verge of folding. An instant impact rookie, Robinson led the Spurs to the (since twice broken) largest single season improvement in record, going from 21-61 to 56-26 and a birth in the Western Conference semi-finals.

Robinson made the Spurs one of the 90's most consistent teams, missing the playoffs only once, when a serious injury in the 96/97 season sidelined him for all but a handful of games, a season that ultimately culminated in the Spurs obtaining the asset, Tim Duncan. While many will criticize the fact that Robinson never piloted the Spurs into a legitimate run for the championship without Duncan, his excellence should not be underestimated. Undoubtedly one of the top centers of his era, Robinson is the only player in NBA history to win the Rebounding, Blocked Shots, and Scoring Titles and Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and MVP.

I could espouse more on Robinson's measurables and statistical dominance, but that does not really cut to the heart of the matter, as his most important contributions go beyond the court. Robinson's discipline and air of professionalism transformed the Spurs from a middling, irrelevant team in basketball purgatory into perhaps the best franchise in professional sports, rivaled by only the New England Patriots.

Even now, years after he played his final game, you can see the hand of Robinson in everything the Spurs do. From superstar Manu Ginobili gladly coming off the bench, to Bruce Bowen's extensive charity work every Spurs player shares Robinson's grounded perspective--the idea that "there's more to the team than just me"--that "there's more to life than basketball." Really, what other superstar from this era could have played such an instrumental role in the grooming of his own replacement? To do so requires an impressive amount of humility and objectivity in the NBA's me-first world of inflated egos. Virtually everyone on the Spurs now shares this outlook, with many players, like Antonio Mcdyess, willingly taking less money to become part of the winning machine.

It may sound silly, but most telling signs of Robinson's greatness is the fact that the team has hardly missed a beat since his retirement. He gave the team a philosophy that was sustainable even without him motoring up and down the court. Michael Jordan may have made his Bulls teams great, but David Robinson has made the Spurs franchise great. Just think about what Jordan has left in his wake, two franchises (the Bulls and Wizards) that are just now getting over the Jordan hangover, and another in the Bobcats that can list Jordan amongst its braintrust, but has little else to show for itself.

While Jordan in his prime gave Bulls fans plenty of reasons to love him, his tenures in D.C. and Charlotte have been decidedly less popular. It has been said that for David Robinson's retirement gift, a hat was passed around the locker room to make a donation to Carver Academy, the school for underprivileged San Antonio students that Robinson founded and in which he has invested millions of dollars. The players ultimately gathered $100,000. In contrast, upon retiring for the third, and final, time Jordan's teammates on the Wizards reportedly refused to even give him a gift.

I'd gladly fluff DRob up more, but I'd rather leave you guys with something more indelible, something a little more visceral. So here it is, my Citizen Kane, my Magnum Opus for the best biceps in NBA history, here's to you Admiral:

Over/Under, Vol IX: Don't Call it a Comeback

2009-09-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

After allowing myself an Oden-esque lapse in productivity, let it be known that the Last Naked Warrior is making his triumphant return to the world of fegos.

Did you miss me, suckas?

17 - people excitedly awaiting the debut of The Cleveland Show. "From the people who brought you Joey and that show starring the chick from Grey's Anatomy, it's... The Cleveland Show!" How did this get green-lit? "You know, that Tyler Perry fella is doing awfully well with all those shows about fat, black families. Is he under contract? He is? Well, do we have any black people at this network? Wait a minute..." So now, if America Dad wasn't enough, we get further proof that Seth MacFarlane has too much time on his hands. OVER/UNDER?

6.5 - seasons until the Pittsburgh Pirates post a winning record. Much has been made of the Pirates recently--unfortunately, the first noteworthy thing they've done in years was to set a record for the most consecutive losing seasons of any professional American franchise in any sports. That would be 17 straight. Rather than bore you with the details of the streak, I'd rather look to the future, though it remains as dark as Makhtar's dating prospects. They've got Andrew McCutchen, who actually looks like the real deal, in center field. They've got Pedro Alvarez (I like the guy chanting "over-rated"--oops), their first impact bat since Brian Giles or even Barry Bonds, on his way up--he'll probably arrive in Pittsburgh sometime next season for a cup of coffee. They've got--well, they still have no pitching to speak of, but that could change. At the very least, they've got a GM--Neal Huntington--who actually knows what a baseball team is supposed to look like, as opposed to Cam Bonifay, who won The Sporting News Executive of the Year in 1997 when he was the only GM in attendance at the editor-in-chief's birthday party. Huntington helped build the Cleveland Indians into a pennant contender--can he do the same for the Pirates? Normally, a rebuilding plan takes about 5 years to bear fruit. Pittsburgh has a bit of a head start and I'm giving them an extra year. Can they finish in the black by 2015? OVER/UNDER?

100,000 - gay New Yorkers who have a boner for Mark Sanchez. I have to admit, he's pretty good looking dude. Look out, Matt Ryan, someone may be gaining on you. OVER/UNDER?

9 - statutory rapes committed by Mr. Anthony "Cris" Collinsworth. Some of you are probably outraged at this Over/Under: "Warrior, I know you play by your own rules, but this time you've gone too far. Besmirching the name of Collinsworth? He is an honorable, decent man, and an excellent color commentator." The rest of you, no doubt, have already seen this video:

Whoopsie! Let's break the tape down, Collinsworth-style:

On why girls like him: "Probably because of the money, and I'm not gonna deny it, I walk around with hundred-dollar bills hanging out of my pockets usually, and try to give it my best shot."

On his success with women: "Before I ever made any money, it was pretty much a big nothingsville."

On his type of woman: "I like girls that aren't too bright because you can trick 'em a little bit."

On his target demographic: "The punk rockers all love me, those are my big girls. And high school girls love me."

On Wooderson's Dilemma: "Fourteen to eighteen, I'm a big star with them. As soon as they mature, after about 18 years old, they start figuring out that, 'Hey, wait a minute, I know there's better than that out there.'"

So, to recap, Toine Collinsworth he needs money to get women, has no problem luring them with hundred-dollar bills, prefers stupid girls so that they are easily tricked, and happily exploits his popularity with high school girls.

Those are four pretty damning admissions in the space of about 60 seconds. My first question, I think, is pretty fundamental: How in the hell did this ever seem like a good idea? Who would admit to this kind of stuff? Did they get Colly drunk? From the look of it, he's drunk on his own sense of power and entitlement, having just seduced the libero from the Blessed Sacrament volleyball team earlier that afternoon. I understand that the '80s were a permissive decade. I'm even willing to give our boy the benefit of the doubt that he was manipulated by that frosty-hair reportrix and taken out of context. It's plausible that he was tricked into saying some of this, though improbable, since apparently Collinsworth is the Houdini of high school tail (His favorite illusion? The famous It's okay, I've had a vasectomy).

Even granting that, however, he readily admitted to being a "big star" with 14-year-old girls. Even by the Wooderson Standard, that's young, especially when apparently you're capping it at 18-year-olds. Why did they even show him hanging out at a bar with those quintessentially '80s floozies? Why not show him hanging around Cincinnati Central High on a Friday afternoon, leaning against a chain link fence in shades and a leather jacket, leafing through crisp $100s as he waits for field hockey practice to end?

It seems inevitable, given this information, that Toph Collinsworth probably enjoyed some very rare meat in his heyday. The question I ask you is: how much? (It should be noted that Collinsworth has apologized since this video leaked. Whatever.) OVER/UNDER?

25 - percentage of professional athletes that have solicited a prostitute. To me, this is the other major fallout from Colly's Folly, and I want to example the implications. Basically, Collinsworth just confirmed what we already knew, that people with a lot of money use that money to get sex. Now, normally, the transaction probably isn't as direct as CashForHookers.sex. I mean, sometimes it is, but oftentimes its probably more along the Coll-lines of having hundreds dripping off your person. Still, if you're that committed in your pursuit of hot underage ass and you have no shame, chances are that at some point you're going to pay for sex. It's easier, more discrete, and probably less expensive than serving 3-5 for blasting some girl the day her braces come off. Now, of course, some athletes are happily married. Others are super religious. And the rest of them, shit, why would they pay a hooker when they can just pick up a skank from the hotel bar? Well, to me, it's about convenience, quality, and the security of anonymity. Famous people are comfortable exchanging goods for services rendered. If you pick up a random floozy, she's in it to fuck a famous guy, and the next day there are pictures of you with a bunch of B- girls in a hot tub. A hooker, on the other hand, isn't going to post any pictures. She's not gonna go telling people. A hooker keeps her mouth shut, not just because that's part of what you pay for, but also because what she does is fucking illegal. Her livelihood is based on secrecy and discretion. Just, you know, make sure she's a hooker. OVER/UNDER?

That's right, bitches. I'm baaaaaaaaaack.

If You're Going To Bury The Truth, Make Sure It Stays Buried

2009-09-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

Unless you've been too busy dancing in your underwear to the new Miley Cyrus joint (Certifiable HIT), you realize that tomorrow marks the beginning of the NFL season. For football diehards, the season opener portends many things. Week 1 signifies hope renewed, the moment at which all the abstract posturing and adjustments of the offseason solidify into something tangible. Will Michael Vick prove to be a model citizen in the Philly dog pound? Is this Poop Fargas' breakout year? Is this the Wrangler Jorts Guy's last season? We'll find out in the next few months.

Brett Favre on Draft Day: This was too good not to embed

Unfortunately, the beginning of the season represents something entirely different to me....something for which I will be eternally remoseful. I've tried for years to hide from my mistakes, but ultimately, ignoring the truth is never the answer. But I'm done with caring what people think. Of penitence I've had enough. Of penance there has been none. It's time that I came clean....

In many ways, I was a late bloomer--I didn't really start going out or macking on girls until about Junior year of high school and I had just shed my adolescent bitch tits the previous summer. In fantasy sports, I was no different. With all of my friends from high school either WOW dungeon masters or Winslow Homers for the Broncos, I had no outlet for my self-proclaimed encyclopedic sports knowledge until I got to college. After feeging out with Earnest and the Dream for a year, I secured the honor of an invitation into the Dream's 8 team, IDP fantasy league.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, IDP stands for Individual Defensive Player, the red-headed step child of most of the league formats that are commonly the default on most fantasy sites (ESPN, Yahoo, so on...). Whereas most leagues merely require you to craft the offense, IDP leagues force owners to contemplate both sides of the ball. Suddenly, big guys like Takeo Spikes and Adewale "African Prince" Ogunleye became assets (Scoring roughly comparable to your average TE). You're likely to hear this repeatedly from me during the course of this post, but it sounded like a good idea at the time....

Blame it on the exotic league format. Blame it on our collective fantasy inexperience. Fuck, blame it on the fraa-aaa-aa-aankenstein. Whatever the cause, some fucked up shit went down in that draft, and I was at the center of the storm. How bad did it get? Well, how about you and I take a brief tour down memory lane...

Round 1 - 2

In the first two rounds, I stuck with the classic fantasy formula of drafting two stud RB's in the first two rounds. Obviously it helps that the people in the 1 and 2 slots made the classic n00b mistake of drafting big name quarterbacks because they seem important. Though, I can't criticize too much, as the next year, I channeled negrodamus and predicted a 5000 yd 45 TD comeback season by a kneeless Daunte Culpepper. The ill-advised homer pick of Julius Jones was merely a harbinger of the maelstrom that was to come, the poopgas that became...:

Round 3

This is what we in the industry call "when shit pops off." That "Baltimore" next to my name isn't Baltimore RB, Willis McGahee, no, no I went with the Baltimore D with the 18th overall pick. As impressive as this video is (And as much as it makes me think of opposing QB's curling into the fetal position), I can only think of one response to this pick, and that's one big HENH?!

What's worse is that my Ravens blunder probably wasn't even the biggest mistake of this round. Nah, that'd be the 17th overall pick, one Keith Bulluck. This is the part in an ESPN fantasy article where you see the Matthew Berry break down the statistics of Bulluck and the players who were still available, showing how big of a blunder Kanye's Dream Machine made. I'm not going to do that here because it's Keith Fucking Bullluck, you can imagine how bad this pick was--basically it was the fantasy equivalent of this:

I won't bore you with the rest of the details, but the rest of the draft proceeded in this manner, with profound value picks being juxtaposed with defensive and kicker poopocalypses. I'm just glad to say that I'm no longer a fantasy neophyte and I can draft soundly even under the greatest of pressures.

Oh wait, I panic picked Frank Gore and Kevin Smith in the first and third round this year...aphhhhbbbtttt.

Bonus: Degrassi Freak

Nina Dobrev

Dobrev played temptress Mia Jones on the Canadian dramedy Degrassi: The Next Generation. I'm a huge fan of this show because it's basically a watered down version of Dawson's Creek. And now you're going to see a lot of this girl this fall, as she's the star of the CW's Vampire Diaries. Bonus points: she's fucking hot.

Freaks: Insidious Sixth

2009-08-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

There will be times in your life when you cross a rubicon--one of those points where you recognize that life will never be the same afterwards. For me, last night was one of those nights.

Allow me to set the scene a little bit. One of my first posts on Fegonomics detailed my experience with my company's Red Sox season tickets last year--an experience that pretty much bored to tears. Fast forward 365 days: we got a black man doing his thing in the White House, Big Papi has lost at least 25 pounds of muscle, It Was All a Dream exhibits significantly more alcoholic tendencies, and I still hate baseball...well kinda.

I got tickets for the Red Sox/White Sox clash thinking that the White Sox fans were going to look like this. At the very least, I was excited by the prospect of double fisting $8 bood lights and alienating all the old-timers sitting around me and Dream. After a few assaults on the beer stand, and some freebie soft serve, I was starting to really get into the game. Something about the way Tim Wakefield was pulling some okey-doke shit with his knuckleballs really resonated with me. Around the sixth inning, the the score knotted at 1's, I started proclaiming that Wally Ortiz was going to hit a walkoff.

Anyone (read: the one person) who reads this blog realizes that my beisbol knowledge is limited. Patricia Heaton limited. Limited to the point that I think Henry Rowengartner is still the Cubs' middle reliever. So while I recognized that chaman Ortiz had definitely dropped a lot of bulk after getting off the 'roids, I failed to take into account the deletorious effects getting weaned off the cream and the clear would have on his performance. I mean, the fact that I can bench his batting average is not a very good sign. But statistics? Where we're going, we don't need no stinking statistics.

Whatever it was, I had a strong Shick Intuition (Am I the only one who'd smash Jewel from behind?) that Papi was going to come up big. A White Sox solo homer in the 8th set the stage perfectly for Papi to come up in the bottom of the 9th. After Now Watch Me Yoouukkkk struck out swinging, Papi strutted up to the plate to some salsa beats. The first pitch: nothing. The next: Fucking Pandamonium. Ortiz's walkoff electrified the fans and instantly turned Fenway into Zion. Sometimes people have their faith rewarded (Over/Under of the number of you guys that instantly cried upon hearing Chris Connelly's voice: 4). Ahh...that kid's kinda a prick. Here's a good one.

By far the best sporting moment I've ever witnessed. And if there was ever an event to compel me to like baseball, that was it. Look at this laser:

Alright, I got that out of my system. Now let's see some freaks. Seeing as how the college football season is starting up next week, and Coach Collbaugh has made no progress on his preview here's The Official Fegonomics College Football Preview.

Skywalker Freak
Julio Jones - SO WR Alabama Crimson Tide

There's a lot to love about Julio (outside of the fact that people sync up his mixtapes with Asher Roth). A) His real name is Quintorris. How they got Julio out of that, the world will never know. B) He's 6'4", 218 pounds and can run a 4.38 40. C) He has All-Neptune hops. Feast your eyes on this:
Julio's gotta be at least 2 feet above those other jabronis trying to D him. Fears over the departure of Hoover High's own John Parker Wilson and the effects this will have on JJ are simply unfounded. Someone who is that physically superior to his defensive counterparts will always gets his. Cut from the TO/Randy Moss mold, Julio Jones is going to be a matchup nightmare against even the stingiest SEC defense. Really, are you going to doubt someone who does this:

W. O. W. waaaaoooowww

Thumper Freak
Taylor Mays - SR FS USC Trojans

From left to right: Brian Mass Monster Cushing, Random Small Guy, Taylor Mays

Look at those dinner roll abs. Look at that shelf chest. Mays certainly makes my all-lobby team. But surely you don't think he'd make this list because of his chiseled muscles and mochalata skin alone?

No, my friend. You see, I've long been enamored with the safety position. These guys are always physical specimens, blending near cornerback speed with the hitting power of a linebacker. For years I overlooked all of the Real Roy Williams' deficencies because he could lay some hurting bombs. Mays is the embodiment of every Roy Williams wet dream I've ever had. He's been compared to all-timers like Ronnie Lott and Sean Taylor. Every creative writing teacher will tell you that it's better to show than tell....well let me show youa lil something something:

I love the confusion at the beginning of the video. The Penn State receiver is stumbling and bumbling like he's GTA IV drunk, but why? Oh wait, he just got fucking buzzsawed by Taylor Mays. Moreover, Mays stacks up the carcass of his teammate right next to the Penn State dood like it's a drowning pool video. He's a heatseeking missile who don't give a damn about collateral damage. Respect.

I'm always a big fan of guys who play all four years in college. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the guys who pass up millions of dollars to stay in "school" are the ones who know how to live life. I say this because they value being the Big Man on Campus, and smashing any
piece of ass they want (Note: For your viewing pleasure, these are 4 different links) over the $'s. Taylor Mays is one of those guys. Mays passed up being a probable top 10 pick in this year's draft so he could gun for a National Championship and pounding this girl after class. I think we all agree that he made the right decision. Especially if it means that he gives us more moments like these:

Built for Speed Freak(s)
Tie: Terrelle Pryor/Robert Griffin

The Griffin/Pryor debate will rage all year long. Griffin had a prodigal start at Baylor, using his olympic level (3rd place 400 meter hurdles at the NCAA Championships) speed and athleticism to make the long forgotten team relevant. Pryor came to Ohio State with much more fanfare, but hasn't disappointed. Reports came out of Buckeyes camp that Pryor was actually the fastest player on the team, clocking a 4.33 40. Honestly, I don't know which of these guys to pick. Ahhh, whatever. When in doubt, PS: Pick Stokke.

...and now we're all winners. Light. Wayyyytt!

Last Naked Warrior suspended one week for role in bench clearing brawl

2009-08-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

Actually, I'm just going to Cape Cod for the week, and changing apartments when I get back.

Anyway, I should have plenty of time during the next week to dream up a brand new set of Over/Unders, so check back with me next Monday.

In the meantime, if you're really jonesing for some Warrior in your life, check my other blog, Sports Toast. Okay, shameless plug over.

See you in a week.

Freaks v. 5

2009-08-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

This guy's dropping late, so we'll just cut straight to your freaks...

Meta Freak
Usain Bolt

People like Usain Bolt make this column easy to write. Not only did he easily win the 100m and 200m World championships, but he utterly eviscerated world records that he himself had previously set. Bolt's destruction of the 100m world record was the largest improvement in the mark in history. To help you conceptualize how crazy a feat this was, here's a chart that I merced from some other website (with some value added of my own):

That line indicates biostatisticians' projection of the progression of the 100m world record time. Bolt's record hadn't been projected until the turn of the next century. Pre-Bolt, researchers calculated the "Ultimate Record" (i.e. the fastest humanly possible time) for the 100m as 9.44 seconds. Given the drastic revisions of the record books in the past 2 years, it is clear that Usain is forcing us to reevaluate what the limits of human speed are.

In a similar vein, Usain Bolt's success goes completely counter to all previous concepts of the prototypical sprinter. In the past, it was believed that shorter was better for sprinters. Generally, there is a inverse relationship between the muscle speed and size. Small guys like rodents and Nate Robinson have lots of fast twitch fibers that enable them to accelerate quickly at the expense of long distance top speed.

Bolt, on the other hand, blends the fast twitch capabilities of a mighty mouse with the biomechinical efficiencies that come with his 6'4" frame. This is the very definition of a freak--someone who can have his cake and eat it, too; defying commonly held conventions of biology to be purely built for speed.

Perhaps I'm a little jaded, or perhaps I've just learned how to be a more discerning customer, but I can't get all the way behind Bolt. In the past decade, we've come to realize that if something seems too good to be true, and records don't seem real...they're usually not. That being said, I hope beyond all hope that Bolt is clean. He is first team all-Kevin Garnett because he shows us that anything is possiibbllllleeeee(also because he rill rill dark)--a beacon of light in the increasingly dark and sinister world of sports. Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.

Foodie Freak

Casey Thompson

I realize that Dream and Earnest are perhaps the only ones who will appreciate this pick, but allow me to explain myself. Top Chef returned with a vengeance this week, ram jamming viewers with 3 straight hours of new content, between the Top Chef: Vegas premiere and the finale of Top Chef: Masters. As of this writing the finale hasn't aired, but I think the smart money is on Hubert Keller to take home the gold in Masters, though Rick (Brother of Meta Fego (NSFW, Basically Porn), Skip) Bayless could surprise with by cooking within his comfort zone.

Oh, you guys still don't give a shit? Aight, aight. All this Top Chef talk is really just a front to showcase cha girl Casey Thompson. Not only is Casey head and shoulders(that's a dude!) above the competition as the hottest woman ever on Top Chef, but she was a final episode meltdown away from being the first woman to win the competition. Admittedly, this is pure speculation, but she looks like she could inhale my lightswitch, as well.

With her obvious physical and culinary gifts, some Heather Brooke level skill with the skin flute might vault her up to the #1 ranked prospect in the land. Can you imagine an HB 8.5 like her taking all of your 1.5 inch tower of power while you're scarfing down duck sous vide? I'm getting wet just thinking about it. One more for the road....

Classic Freak
George Best

I'm sure LNW will approve.

Alright, so Best has been dead for 5 years, so there's not a ton of justification for this choice. If you really want to know, I was trying to watch one of my favorite youtube mixtapes, the George Best "Ordinary World" clip, when I realized that the audio had been replaced with "My Immortal" by Evanescence due to copyright concerns. Stuff like that pisses me off, so I stuck it to the man and employed my D- iMovie skills to remake the video with the original audio. What we have here is a fitting tribute (that I basically plagiarized) to the man for whom they used to say, "Maradona good; Pele better; George Best."

Not Welcome

2009-08-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

Unless you’ve been living in Siberia these past few days then you know Brett Favre has done it again. He’s making his second come back to the NFL to play for the Minnesota Vikings, the arch rivals of the Green Bay Packers. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a darling of American sports return for a second time. Michael Jordan, the epicenter of sport for two decades, made a comeback in the 01-02 season with the Washington Wizards after drafting then thought to be promising rookie Kwame Brown. Jordan had been out of the league for three years, and after leading the NBA in scoring every single year he’d played a full season and winning just about every championship and MVP in the 90’s, he failed to even sniff the playoffs with the Wiz. Jordan dinged what had been an immaculate resume, one that even included him sitting out a season and a half on a gambling probation while claiming he was following his late father’s dreams to play baseball, but one tiny scratch on a fleet of Maseratis generally goes unnoticed. Favre’s return violates the Spoonie Luv Principal of Shame found here. It’s basic premise is, you can fool us once and we’ll forgive you, (if you’re playing for a team in another conference) but if you wrong us twice, then we have reason to despise you (especially when you join your former team’s enemy). With all the hype and news coverage Favre has been gleaning since his stated return you may be reluctant to believe that his return is destined to fail, but it is. This isn’t some radical game theory, it’s fact. Makes you want to say HE DID WHAT!

In 1997 I experienced a heavy tectonic shift in my world view of sports. The year seemed to be marked by much preening, as I saw the Pats make the Super Bowl, Tiger emerge as a great charismatic golf presence, and the Rockets put together a championship run on the backs of three veterans in the twilight of their careers. These accomplishments carried very ephemeral hopes as the Rockets were dismembered by Drexler’s lazy D on this shot by Stockton, Tiger was dissected and scrutinized by his peers, and the Pats lost to a well-coiffed hurler and a special teamer. I knew that the Rockets were finished and that Tiger would bounce back from such indignities (and I would love him), but what really weighed on me was the difference between the vanilla Stonehenge of Drew Bledsoe and the brazened heroics of QB1 Brett Favre. Flag footballers across the country began modeling their offenses after the kid, attempting to squeeze throws into impossible places, airing it out on first down, and making nothings into scrambling push pass somethings. His style was new wave and spontaneous, a bastion of fresh air from the horse faces and playoff losers. What people refused to know, was that Brett Lorenzo Favre lived every moment of his life with that same gun-ho passion and it quickly caught up to him. In a Sports Illustrated article by Peter King, right before his super bowl year, Favre revealed how he almost lost his life to a seizure as a result of his addiction to pain killers. The article goes on to detail that he was literally taking fistfuls of vicodin and that his wife Deanna came close to leaving with their bastard child who was conceived seven years before they were married. Of course Favre persevered and went on to win two more MVP awards.

So Dream, what does this have to do with his inability to produce this year? Basically, everything. Brett Favre is stuck in the year 1997, but with a twist. He not only believes that he can produce at the same level on the field, but thinks he warrants the respect of a guy who’s played in 270 straight games. Vicodin for breakfast, lunch, and dinner baby! The contradiction here is that these two beliefs can’t mutually exist. Brett, you can’t have your respected peers calling you a legend without accepting that you do this a lot. Don’t call me a hater because I wanted Favre’s career to end in a spectacle of glory with him riding off into the sunset as the iconic figure he would have been in Wisconsin, Mississippi, and all over the country. Instead Favre has made himself a pariah, the embodiment of everything selfish in sports. He refuses to go through training camp but claims he still has a laser rocket arm. He strings the Vikings along until the 25^th hour, and then only after they name Helicpoter Rosenfels the starter does he decide to return, probably because in his country heart he knows that he’s “better”. Then there are the Packers fans, Oden and Sleazer alike. What are they left to think of this man who once owned a dresser full of keys to the city? I commented earlier that the only parallel I can think of would be if Jeter at the age of 42 announced his retirement then came back to play out a one year deal with the Braves, announced his retirement again then felt he could be the missing piece of a championship contending Red Sox team. Although the New Yorkers would probably forget him quicker than A-Rod lets him slip it in his anoose, he is still the modern day face of the franchise. What this really means for Favre, is that instead of remembering him for his triumphs in the face of adversity and death we’ll forever associate him and his sniffles with the other weeping prima donnas of this era.

The icon you could have been...

Aside from the Karmic implications of this comeback, Favre has to wrestle with one very big elephant in the room, is he still any good? Some superficial fans may come running with pitchforks screaming, “Dream he made the pro bowl last year he must be awesome!” To which I’d laugh and retort, the pro bowl is the least important glamor game in all of sports. No one cares for a game that comes after the entirety of the season and has a voting system that closes multiple weeks before the season is over. Some NFL big wigs think that playing the game the week before the super bowl is going to make a difference. This just restricts the game even more, penalizing those players who have reached the real pinnacle of the sport, the championship game. Let’s take a look at Favre’s numbers before and after his bye week last year (week 5).

Click to Increase Size

It appears that the Jets success was not a function of Brett’s. In his first four games Favre appeared to be the ’97 gunslinger we always loved, throwing for an average of 3 touchdowns and only 1 interception. His team was only 2-2 during this stretch with losses to the Pats and Chargers. It should be noted that the numbers are a little deceptive because Favre threw for 6 tds and 1 int against the super bowl runner up Cardinals in week 4. The games after the bye week tell a different story. The Jets allowed 9 less points per game and experienced a 5 game winning streak which included a dismantling of the unbeaten Titans. But what about Brett? In the final 12 games Favre struggled to not turn the ball over, averaging a pick and a half a game while throwing for less than one touchdown per. His QB rating (a slightly flawed metric) fell 30 points, well below his career average. As a Patriots fan I can assure you that he completely sucked in the season finale against Miami when he could have locked up a playoff birth for the Pats with a win. It must also be noted that the Jets had a tremendously weak schedule last year and that their losses after the bye came to the Raiders, Broncos, 49ers, Seahawks, and Dolphins. Yes that’s right, only 1 of those 5 losses was at the hands of a playoff team. The Vikings will be playing the Lions twice this year but also have games at Pittsburgh, GB, Carolina, Chicago, Arizona, and home games with the Giants and Ravens. That schedule isn’t so Stay Puft. My advice to Favre is to reconsider this comeback and do what most MLBers should and come clean. Admit that you made a mistake in judgment and that you are content staying in the backwoods hunting elk and fly fishing. Go fight breast cancer with your wife and take the millions the Vikings are willing to give you to start more research centers. If that doesn’t work then take pride in being the Wranglers man and follow in the footsteps of the bionic man who is going to obliterate all your records.

Over/Under, Volume VIII

2009-08-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

Somewhere, lost in the unforgiving deserts of the American southwest, two men sit alone at the end of a forgotten bar. They are gaunt men, withered by the hardships of frontier life, acquainted with a sadness that few will ever know. Their eyes are cast down, and in the afternoon sun, their shadows stretch across the saloon. For a long time, they are silent, unaware that a rider is hurtling towards them over the boiling sand.

Rancher Bill: What time you figure, Tim?

(Cowboy Tim squints out the window)

Cowboy Tim: Three, I reckon, or quarter-past.

(Rancher Bill nods. Cowboy Tim takes a sip of whiskey)

Rancher Bill: How long you been livin' here, Tim?

(Cowboy Tim scratches himself and spits on the floor)

Cowboy Tim: Nigh on sixteen years since I come down from Montana.

(Rancher Bill nods)

Rancher Bill: I been ranchin' the same plot a dirt 46 years now.

(Cowboy Tim whistles, impressed)

Cowboy Tim: Damn near a lifetime in these parts, Bill.

Rancher Bill: Damn near. (Rancher Bill takes a swig of beer) I seen 'em come and go, yessir, but none quite like this.

Cowboy Tim: You mean that, Bill?

Rancher Bill: Ain't the type of thing a man jokes about. She's seen plenty a bad, this town, and even worse--but she died the day that naked fella left.

(Both men finish their drinks)

Cowboy Tim: You know, B--

(Suddenly, a man staggers into the saloon, collapsing on the floor)

The Rider: (gasping) Water...

(Both men approach The Rider)

Rancher Bill: How long you been out in that heat, son?

(The Rider clutches his throat)

Cowboy Tim: (to the bartender) Walt, get the man a drink!

Rancher Bill: Only a damn fool rides in this heat. That sun'll leave you for the vultures an' make no mistake.

(The Rider reaches into his jacket and pulls out a sheaf of papers)

The Rider: He--(gasp)--he said--"Better late than never."

(Rancher Bill takes the papers)

Rancher Bill: "Better late than"--you sweet sonuvabitch! Tim, Walt, Clancy! It's word from the Naked Warrior!

Cowboy Tim: A new shipment of Over/Unders??!

Walt: We're back, boys!

Rancher Bill: (to The Rider) God bless you, son. You saved us. This town'll never forget you, that's a promise.

(The Rider smiles weakly and, as Rancher Bill cradles him, closes his eyes for the last time)

All: A toast to our savior, the Naked Warrior, wherever he may roam!

(End scene)

Disclaimer: No orphans were harmed in this production of Over/Under. Just one rider and his faithful horse.

2.5 - peak sales rank of Brett Favre's #4 Vikings jersey. While the NFL doesn't release actual figures on jersey sales, they do release a Top 25 for bestsellers, which functions as a decent barometer of player popularity. At the moment, Jay Cutler's #6 Bears jersey is at the top of the list, but with the return of two former chart-toppers in the last week, Cutler's reign may be short-lived. This is made more likely because the two players in question--Brett Favre and Michael Vick--both signed with new teams, a surefire way to boost your jersey sales. Here's the issue, though: while Favre was the NFL's most popular player for years, inspiring unprecedented displays of jersey-loyalty, many football fans are tired of his act. While the jersey will undoubtedly sell well amongst Vikings fans--I actually don't understand why any Vikes fan would rather have Favre's jersey than AP's--it's unclear whether Minnesota alone will be able to vault him back to the top spot. For additional consideration: Who will sell more jerseys this season, Favre or Vick? Will they both reach the top spot? Will one but not the other? OVER/UNDER?

500 - rushing yards for Michael Vick this season. Vick really deserves his own Over/Under, and given what I've been hearing from the talking heads on ESPN, this one makes the most sense. In 2006, before being incarcerated, Vick had the greatest running season ever by a quarterback. This is, in some ways, a dubious distinction, since he had a mediocre season overall. Either way, Vick became the first QB to rush for 1,000 yards in a season, setting the NFL mark at 1,039. He only fumbled 9 times--down from 11 and 16 the previous two years--and lost just three. Now, Vick probably isn't going to be running the way he once did, as his 4.3 speed has likely deteriorated some. However, he'll still be the league's fastest QB the second he steps on the field, and if the Eagles are smart, they'll take full advantage. The poindexters on ESPN keep saying that to succeed in Philly he'll need to become a pocket passer--BULLSHIT. They've got a much better pocket passer in Donovan McNabb. Hell, they've got two, if you count A.J. Feeley. They need Vick to come in and be a big, bad seX Factor, Ron Mexico style. Will Andy Reid call enough design runs for Vick to crack 500 yards? Keep in mind he will miss anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks due to suspension. OVER/UNDER?

24 - number of snaps Tom Brady takes in tomorrow's Patriots game. Thankfully, Mrs. Naked Warrior has a real job, the kind that comes with health insurance, bonuses, and a slew of fringe benefits. As a result, I'll be in attendance tomorrow when the Pats play the Bengals, presumably watching the action from a plush suite somewhere. In the words of the nice guy, Aw, noice. Aw, sick, sick. Here's the thing: I've never been to an NFL game, and while this is preseason, it's the closest I figure to get for awhile. Given that, I'd like to see the stars get some reps, so I can approximate the experience of a regular season game. However, I'm marginally a Pats fan, and every time Mr. Handsome walks onto a preseason field, all of New England holds its breath. So how many plays can I expect to see from Gisele's better half? OVER/UNDER?

200 - career MLB wins for Stephen Strasburg. As I predicted last week, Strasburg became the newest National late Monday night, signing a record $15.1M contract that some say is valued closer to $19M. That kind of coin will place some awfully big expectations on Strassy, and with good reason. He's being paid like an All-Star without actually being one. Now, as I've said before, he has incredible talent. At the MLB level, though, the results do the talking. Now, I'm aware that wins are a terrible metric for evaluating a pitcher, especially one destined to begin his career in Washington. Still, they give us a very basic idea of his effectiveness, as well as longevity. There's nothing historic about a 3.50 ERA over three seasons, but 200 wins is basically the threshold for Hall of Fame consideration. Only luminaries like Sandy Koufax and Addie Joss get inducted without getting there. This question is similar to the one I posed about Bryce Harper weeks ago, but different in that--while Strasburg is considerably older and requires less projection--pitchers tend to flame out at a much higher rate than hitters. Will Strasburg have the sustained success necessary to win 200 games? Or will he flame out like Mark Prior, who was the proto-Strasburg eight years ago? OVER/UNDER?

75 - percentage chance that James Bond is HIV-positive. This question is inspired by an old SNL sketch with Sean Connery that, unfortunately, seems to be missing from the web. In the sketch, Bond is informed by a doctor that he has contracted every STD known to man, and a few that they didn't know existed. He spends the rest of the sketch calling up old Bond girls and awkwardly explaining to them the diseases they might have. It's pretty funny, mostly because Connery pulls it off so well. It got me thinking, though: what are the chances that Bond has HIV/AIDs? Probably pretty high, right? I mean, he's slept with dozens and dozens of women from all over the world, many in circumstances that probably don't allow for contraceptives. Furthermore, I can't imagine a guy as smooth as Bond fumbling around in his wallet for a condom while Christmas Jones or Octopussy wait around, can you? Working in Bond's favor, however, is the fact that AIDs didn't really become prevalent until the '80s and '90s, by which time he had already done some of his best work. Also, Bond girls tend to be a high class group, which also seems to lessen the likelihood. OVER/UNDER?

My apologies go out to the good people of Keibab, AZ. I never meant to hurt you. I will return some day.

If only you could major in "Shaqology"

2009-08-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

So I'm back to school with Trapper Keeper and Starter jacket in hand, which means that I'll probably be MIA for a while until I get acclimated to the Gauntlet. Rest assured I'll be reading United Fegos of Bennetton continuously, but to give you a flavor of what I'll be experiencing in the upcoming weeks, I'll leave you guys with a Bill Nye the Jorts Guy educational moment:

Drafting Chicks

2009-08-14T12:33:00.000-07:00

One of today's hottest new trends for sports sites is hosting a fantasy football league. There are countless hours of marketing, interface usability, and mock drafting that escort these project leagues. While I'm not advocating that we here at Fegonomics pioneer our own prototype lair of fantasy football power, I would like to help you associate your draft day picks with something more salacious than sitcom. All weathered draft room veterans know that every pick usually doesn't pan out, but before you go waste away and whisper cry to "screaming infidelities" over a misstep take a second to acclimate yourself to a world where wasted potential segues to wet dreams. Here's a list of draftable fantasy RBs and their vixen analogs. Drafting and chix, that's what Fegonomics does!

The Hotrod - Adrian Peterson/Megan Fox

Similarities: If there's one thing that sets these two apart it's that they both have one hell of a chassis. Fegonomics has a well documented affair with these Lamborghinis, as we've seen Makhtar ogle over the AP mixtape and many a prebuscent Fegonomist "find himself" to Miss Fox. Beyond their preternatural bodies and athletic ability I can't say that either one of these two has much more to offer, but in the scope of life aren't those the only things that matter anyway?

Draft Day Diagnosis: Every year there is one no brainer, AP is it. Don't draft Shawn Alexander.

Built for Speed - MJD/Michael Turner/Vida Guerra

Similarities: In the Hip Hop Bible, the inked up prophet Ja Rule 4:12 said it best, "It must be the ass..." While Ezekiel Rule's career has dissipated faster than a Tiger Woods' whoopi cushion, this one doctrine still holds true for athletes and starlets alike. This Cerberus of lower body flesh is exhibit A, B, and C of what is right with the world. Ok so those were all big booty pics of Vida, are the other two here? Then fuck em!

Draft Day Diagnosis: I've seen yaboy MJD ranked as high as first in some mock drafts. The first rule of fight club might be don't talk about fight club, but the first rule of Fegonomics is DO NOT draft Maurice Jones Drew first in your fantasy draft, though I do like him as a top five commodity. The Burner is a little more of a roll of the dice considering he crossed that 350 carry threshold that one Falcon never recovered from. I ain't sayin Turner won't be a valuable fantasy back this year, but you won't see me doing the dirty bird if he's gotta be my stud (please watch that video to the end and tell me that isn't the perfect sim of what will happen at my And1 wedding).

Next Generation - Steve Slaton/Kristen Bell

Similarities: Kristen Bell is best known for her work as teen super sleuth Veronica Mars and Slaton possesses the speed of a lava bug that could survive the de-oxygenated atmosphere of the big Red Planet. Makhtar has been plugging and tugging to Ms. Bell all week and while I'm always down with a girl in glasses, he may be fluffing her past the realms of my comfort. Note: She is not the last we'll see of Forgetting Sarah Marshall in this post.

Draft Day Diagnosis: While he doesn't possess prototypical size, he is a blur outside of the tackles and between the 20s. Biggest perk is that he doesn't have a real back up, unless you're still enamored by Cha Man. Definitely not a stalwart like say a Adimchinobe Echemandu behind him. Expect this former Mountaineer to go buck wild when Stump the Schuab returns in Week 4.

Mr. and Mrs. Brightside - LT/Jessica Alba

Similarities: Both spent multiple years at the top of their respective professions (NFL and Maxim, FHM, and Ask Men's top lists) and both saw precipitous fall offs this pas year caused by unfortunate hanger-ons (toe injury and baby). I bite my tongue when I say this, but it's very likely that we may never see either of these two return to the pinnacle, and that they are both destined to a life as a shell of their formerselves. But anything is possssssssibleeeeee, as the end of this list suggests.

Draft Day Diagnosis: Just last year LT was making cool commercials and was a no brainer to break Emmitt's all-time rushing record and I thought he'd be toasting DBs until he was at least 35. 2008 proved to be a song sung to a different tune as LDT struggled to eclipse 1,000 yards and only had two 100 yard games. I still believe he has significant value because San Diego's offense has so many weapons, and if he somehow falls to the second round in your draft take him and exercise your right to say this to the other draftees.

Precocious Posse - Reggie Bush/Jennifer Love Hewitt

Similarities: As a culture we are enamored by those who achieve greatness at a young age and we impress our hopes and dreams on the forebrow of many a child prodigy. J-Lo Hewitt was raised a child actor, finding early success in projects like Party of Five and the teen thriller I Know What you Did Last Summer. Bush also touched God at a young age celebrating yard after yard of success, evident in his super famous high school mixtape. What the average patron might not know is that these two share an insatiable desire for C-list celebrities. Bush had been keeping up with Kim Kardashian for the past two years before recent news of their break up, but J-Lo H is the real Asimov of pop culture ineptitude. Her triumphs include LFO's Rich Cronin (who's actually cool), TRL's Carson Daly, and current squeeze Jaime Ke nnedy. It's like she's trying to date Seth Green's beta bot character from her film Can't Hardly Wait. Pitiful.

Draft Day Diagnosis: If your league still counts return yards then Reggeggie can still be the asset. If not I don't see him taking any goal line carries away from Pierre "I'm Actually Black" Thomas. While Brees will probably sling it for around 5K again, don't expect Bush to be netting more than 1,200 total yards, unless he stays healthy.

Business Time - Fred Taylor/Heidi Klum

Similarities: Both have had to reinvent their careers as they've experienced a decline in their skill sets, but Klum is still the first suggestion when Googling Heidi (Freddy ain't even on the list). It doesn't take an artist's eyes to see how far they've both fallen while still remaining effective. This was the first picture I ever get a permaboner to and Fred is currently the league's active leading rusher. What really flummoxes me here is how well a guy who sings about roses has done. Blame it on the Po ah ah ah ah ah ck Marks! One more for the road, JESUS.

Draft Day Diagnosis: He will make a big play at some point in the season that will facilitate the Patriots winning a game, but he has almost zero fantasy value as do most of the Pats running backs. Unless you want to be serenaded by a room full of dodes singing Kiss From a Rose, stear clear of Fragile Freddy.

The Sleeper - Donald Brown/Mila Kunis

Similarities: Here are two fairly uknowns that could see huge returns by the end of 2009. They come from small systems (UConn and That 70's Show) but have been catapulted forward by admission into showcase systems. One Fegonomics follower, Butters Sinick, has come out as saying Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of his favorite movies ever. While this claim is absolutely incredulous, it does show a development of Kunis' character from oft targeted Punk'dee.

Draft Day Diagnosis: Brown benefits greatly from Joseph Saddai Another Day's reluctance to remain healthy. If Donald can come out of the backfield and catch passes he could become a nice check down option for Mr. Manning especially with Marvelous Marvin out the door. If you can snag him in the 5th round or later, ride him as a flex to the ship.

They're Baaaaack - Michael Vick/Britney Spears

Similarities: I don't even know where to start with these two miscreants. Spears once lauded as the teenie bopper savior, fell further than any celebrity we've even seen since MJ. She married a fego back up dancer who subsequently filmed her getting all coked up and doped up and then divorced her to pursue his hip-hop career. She was caught literally flapping in the wind (NSFW) in a limo with Paris Hilton and then purged herself of all evilness by going G.I. Jane up in hurr. This just seems ohso long ago. Vick's path isn't much different. In January of 2005 he signed a 10 year $130 million contract with $37 million guaranteed! Since then he's served two years in jail after being convicted of heading an underground dog fighting operation, filed for bankruptcy, and worked as a construction worker for $10/hr. The great thing about America is that we're a land of second chances, and these two are living proof of that "tabla rasa" system. Britney has come back to produce such hits as Womanizer, Circus, and If You Seek Amy (get it!) and actually looks pretty hot and lucid now. As of today, Vick was granted a second life by his boy Donovan McNabb who apparently vouched vehemently for the Crime Dog amongst the Iggles coaching staff. With the help of Tony Dungy as a mentor, Vick signed a 2 year deal worth upwards of $7 million. This is a man who was eating sloppy joe's everyday for the last 24 months. What kind of playing shape is he even in? I guess once a freak always a freak.

Draft Day Diagnosis: Vick will most definitely be riding the pine for my team especially if he is granted eligibility at 3 different positions. He has the responsibility of upholding my team's namesake, Simple Vick, and even if he doesn't sniff the field you know it's good karma to play altruist in these kind of situations. Don't be surprised if a heavy-handed Andy Reid loses it on McNabb like he did in the Eagles/Ravens game last year and inserts Vick in for a quarter or two. If there's one player the Wildcat was made for, it's our boy Simple Vick.

I wish I knew how to quit you, Griffey.

2009-08-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

First, I’d like to start off with something known in the biz as an “attention grabber.” Though irrelevant to the rest of the post, it’s something that readers should enjoy.

Quick note to start: As I'm writing this (Wednesday), Griffey is currently stepping in as a pinch hitter with two on and two out in the bottom of the 14th. There is no score. I’m not sure how many of you are awake now at 2 AM eastern, but luckily it’s only 11 here so I get to watch. Ball one. Strike one. Strike two. Pumping fastballs. Ooh just gets a piece of the slider to stay alive, 1-2. Next pitch lined down the right field line…fair ball! Mariners win! A walk off by Junior! Doesn’t get much better than that. Hit up the rest after the jump.

Since I have been called out to write a front page post (please note that I have made comments on other writers’ entries), I'm feeling a bit of pressure. I need to stick with a safe subject, and yes, that subject will be Ken Griffey, Jr. It does feel a bit like when you’re at a party and somebody says “oh my God, so-and-so does the BEST impression of Bill Walton. So-and-so, do it!” Well now you can either do it (looking like a full-blown fego) or you can say something like “I can’t do it on command” and disappoint everybody. Great. Anyway, this isn’t that bad.

I was only three when the Kid broke onto the scene. I’m a righty, but I still took time in my backyard to perfect his lefty stance, his swing, his hop step and his strut (I have since switched to perfecting this). Why else did half the kids at school start wearing their hats backwards? The only reason there wasn't a "Like Griffey" campaign was because "Like Mike" rolled off the tongue better.

When Junior left Seattle in 2000, he was well on his way to challenging all kinds of records, not that he cared. Griffey was all about having a flair for the dramatic. Sure, he had made 10 straight All-Star appearances, won 10 straight Gold Gloves, won seven Silver Sluggers, won three home run derbys, and added an MVP. All before turning 31. Are you serious? Above this, though:

1. His rookie year in '89, 13 of his 16 home runs were to tie the game or give the M's the lead (he would've won the ROY had he not broken his finger in July).

2. Home runs in eight straight games (absolute SHOT).

3. Amazing catches (ouch).

4. Back-to-back with Pops.

5. Um, at the bottom of the greatest moment in Mariner history.

How about just this year? The guy's hitting .226, but he homered in his first game, had a base hit in his first home at bat (homered the next game), hit a pinch-hit game-tying home run, homered on his bobblehead night (before the game when asked if he was going to do something special, he answered "yeah, probably") and had the pinch-hit walk off single on Wednesday. Okay, okay, too many highlights. I'm just sayin', if the Mariners find a way to sneak into the playoffs (5.5 games out currently), look out.

Outside of baseball, Junior's got unbelievably sweet kicks, a Wheaties box, a candy bar, two of the greatest video games ever (for SNES and N64), a JAM, and, as Ernest mentioned, some stellar cameos. Last Naked pointed out in a previous post that Griffey's Mariner commercials were some of the greatest (though my favorite still features Booney).

Lastly, to quickly cover a couple questions that have been brought up: first, Griffey never juiced. Second, yes, he is going to get 100% of the votes when he is eligible for the Hall of Fame. I'm trying to picture the person that wouldn't vote for him and I can't do it. But then again, I'm a bit biased. Being a clean player during the era of enhancement will certainly help.

Would he have been the best player of all time had he never left Seattle? Something tells me he would have. But that's okay. The sign in center field said it best when the he returned to Seattle with the Reds in 2007: "I wish I knew how to quit you, Griffey."

Since I led with something unrelated, I'll make it bookends. Thanks to a friend of the blog for the link. The video below features the studio recording for Buzz Bullets phenom Masahiro Matsuno's Callahan highlight tape. Enjoy.

Freaks v. 4

2009-08-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

Dearest Reader:
Fegonomics is going through a slight facelift, so please pardon our dust. Despite whatever hiccups you may encounter, just know that under the hood, the Fegos you've grown to know and love are still here. We're still going to reference the same shitty TV shows, we're still going to blatantly cop Bill Simmons' style, and we're sure as hell still going to circle jerk over this Adrian Peterson video (My Favorite Mix of All Time):

Stay big guys. Enjoy the freaks.

Herbert Freak
Lane Kiffin

You may be asking yourself, "What the fuck is a Herbert." The culturally elite among us know that Herbert is also more colloquially referred to as the dirty old man from Family Guy. What does this have to do with Lane Kiffin? Well, apparently Nathan Lane Kiffin decided to dangle the proverbial carrot in front of his team during the off-season, promising that those who kept in shape would get a special reward. No, it wasn't a one-on-one Tummy-Sticks session with the good old ball coach (Kinda NSFW), or a mass team circle jerk over the Candace Parker/Shelden Williams Sextape--no, no, it was something far more homoerotic. Their reward was this, the right to pose for a "Men of Tennessee Football" Poster:

Truth be told, I'm not exactly sure what we're looking at. I see All-Neptune Safety Eric Berry draping a chain around himself like some horrendous Princess Leia Cosplay star (Ok, sorry about that picture, here's a good one to soothe the pain, thought it's NSFW). The rest of the guys are staring blankly at the camera with their pants unbuttoned, pretty much oblivious to the fact that they look like Jeff Garthia's love children. And what does the license plate "DBLE T'S" supposed to mean anyway? Tirk Tiggler (Rill Rill NSFW)? It's fucking funny, but nothing about this video makes sense, really.

However, when put against Bruno Kiffin's larger body of work, the coach's sexual deviancy becomes clear. This is the same guy who decided to get recruits excited for UT by having them strip off their shirts while he watched in the wings, kneading his diack like it was Pizza Days dough on NQR night. This is the same guy who got a 13 year old to commit to his school (who conveniently happens to be Eric Berry's kid brother), and will presumably groom him as his resident cabana boy.

Listen, I know that cLANE Aiken has gone through a difficult stretch. It must be extremely humbling to get canned by Cryptkeeper Al Davis, a guy so senile he thinks Pudge Heffelfinger is still in the league. Moreover, ever since he's gotten hired at Tennessee, he's gotten ram jammed with NCAA violations left and right. Clearly, LANcE (Bass) is in over his head in any position of authority, but that is no excuse for him to project his sexual proclivities onto his unsuspecting players in the form of thinly-veiled incentives. A spyda does what a spyda do, but just keep the kids out of it, mayne.

Cognitive Freak
This Poindexter

Hot Clicks beat me to the punch a little bit on this one, but this kid's skills deserve a shout-out nonetheless. I only know a few idiot savants who can solve a rubix cube in under 5 minutes (mah man Huff Daddy), and a handful of dodes who can smash Guitar Hero on expert (Dream, Ernest, etc.). But both at the same time? That's some Kim Peek shit right there.

*Begin Non-Sequitur* Let me dwell on Kim Peek for a second. Not only does cha man have an encyclopaedic knowledge of pretty much anything, he also has perfect pitch, and perfect recall of any song he's ever heard. I mean jigga mean has a snake cock to boot. (Ok, I made that last part up, but would you really be that surprised if he did?). Kim Peek is the exact reason that I started writing about freaks in the first place. Truly an inspiration to us all. *End Non-Sequitur*

What really puts this task over the top is that both of these tasks are based primarily on colors. To be able to parse out the conflicting visual information that was coming into his brain is just incredible. I haven't seen multi-tasking on this level since I stopped rubbing myself while talking to you guys on Gchat. Oh you don't think it's happened to you?! Think again! You just got Smegma'ed!! Too bad he can't bench more than 15 pounds....Hit the weights, son!

Indie Dreamboat Freak
Zooey Deschanel

You know, I'm not the biggest fan of ganja weed. Generally, getting smoked up and doped up leads to me getting all paranoid, fearing that my life is spinning out of control to the guitar solo in Freebird. That being said, I have a really big soft spot in my heart for girls who sound like they're stoned. Don't ask me why, but something about a chick toking up (Kinda NSFW) and then hitting me up for a bag of Cheetos Flamin' Hots just gets me all hot and bothered. Which is why this Zooey Deschanel clip gave me Sienna Miller-level permaboner

Say what you will about Zooey being a generally goofy person, but girl looks like she's about to break out a Taco Town grab bag of munchies. I mean, just watch at the 40 second mark, you saying she doesn't have some of that Cali-weed in her system? Jigga, Please (NSFW).

On top of this, Ms. Deschanel is the star of the summer sleeper hit, and every beta's life-affirming moment, 500 Days of Summer. Truthfully, this is just a really clever, well done movie, and I'd encourage everyone, alpha and omega alike, to check it out if they have the chance. A big reason why this movie seems so believable is that Zooey is exactly the type of girl that guys go meta-beta over. She play the quirky, indie flower child role to a T.

And if that weren't enough, she's one half of indie upstarts She & Him. My plaudits just can't come fast enough for this girl.

I'll just come out and say it. I'm hereby challenging her fiance, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie fame, to a cock-off for Zooey's hand in marriage. You may be thinking that a cock-off is a weird challenge to make for someone who's traditionally been considered on the lightswitch spectrum. But have you listened to Transatlanticism? There's no way he's sporting more than a tootsie roll. You just got JACKED-UP!

A brief and ridiculous interlude

2009-08-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

If you're a fan of this blog--and not someone who accidentally stumbled here by googling "asian guy from saw"--then you owe it to yourself to read Earnest's post from earlier today. And, under normal circumstances, I wouldn't think of stepping on his toes by posting the same day. But that was before I read this.

Now, as a Red Sox fan, it's hard for me to read this article objectively. But let's try, shall we?

"Jeter the name that matters: If Yankees' captain ever ended up on positive test list, baseball's done"

That's the headline that Gene Wojciechowski and his editor at ESPN.com decided to go with? Clearly, Wojo is trying a little hyperbole on for size, since even Yankee die-hards have to recognize what a ridiculous claim this. Baseball, after all, survived a fixed World Series, multiple strikes, and a season-ending lockout, among other obstacles. No one player is going to undermine the sports' popularity (see: Rose, Pete), no matter how many celebrities he's dated.

But maybe Gene-o is just using the outrageous claim as a ploy to grab readers. Maybe the article itself is reasonable and carefully considered...

"If I ever see Jeter's name attached to the hip of performance enhancers, I'm done. I mean it--I'll never watch another big league game again."

Then you, sir, are a Derek Jeter fan, not a baseball fan. You should probably be writing articles for the Derek Jeter Fan Association (Knoxville Chapter) and not the front page of a major baseball website.

Look, Jeter's a great player, and there's no reason to think he's ever used steroids. Maybe I'm being unfair, but in the name of Reginald VelJohnson, what in the world makes him so special? He's not baseball's Atlas--he's just another ballplayer.

"So far the game has survived the depressing revelations. It sort of coagulates, scabs up and then heals as best as it can.

But there could come a time when the PED damage reaches a tipping point. For me, the magic number is 2.

Jeter's jersey number."

Jeez. How much knob could slob-knob slob if the knob was attached to Derek Jeter's chiseled, statuesque frame?

It's a party in my mouth, and everyone's invited!

2009-08-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

Here we are with a fresh batch of dopplegangers, albeit delayed since the last outing for a few reasons:

1). As amusing as it is to unearth look-alikes, it takes an unexpectedly long time to scour FB in search for a "great" picture, either amongst Friends (flipping through hundreds of photos of debauchery, unruliness, or downright fucking goofiness), or Nonfriends (takes a bit of sleight of hand stalker behavior which I've perfected as an art).

2). Within Fegonomics, we try to maintain a sense of anonymity, however I've actually introduced a risky peripheral by choosing subjects that some of us (and our avid fans) may recognize. The last few have been fairly tame, but some of the ones I had slated for this one and future posts, in reconsideration, might be beyond the appropriate boundaries of this blog. I don't wanna be the jerk that catapults Fegonomics into infamy due to the future decades of defacement and slander lawsuits.

3). I've finally submitted to the Jehovah's Witness holy conversion and denounced the heathen ways of Windows to be replaced by thy savior Macintosh. While it's infinitely more streamlined and user-friendly, I'm slowly taking off the training wheels after years of Paint, and upgrading to a hatful of hotrod photo editing options. I was driving a Mazda Geo, but now I'm handling a fucking spaceship. It's so easy a caveman can do it!

Let's warm up in the bullpen a bit...

Our first Jumbo affiliate sports the dapper style and the hypnotic smile of actor Justin Bartha, made famous recently in The Hangover. The movie possesses a plotline with Matt Wieters upside, but ultimately fails to live up to the hype. It has its moments that'll make you chuckle and guffaw, but if you've caught glimpses of the trailer, then you basically can sleuth your way to figuring out "Where in the World is Justin San Diego?" Stick around for the credits though if you end up watching this movie, it won't disappoint. Neither will Tyson's nightingale harmonics. Lennnnox......

Alright, working up a sweat now. The following two were graciously submitted by Oden and Dream:

It's Shelden! In addition to Sheed, let's formally welcome Mr. Candace Parker to Boston green and white. The former Duke phenom has bounced around the league the last couple of years, but that doesn't discount his rampant Orc-like inside game and his elite ability to bowl over Earl Boykin hobbits whenever he pleases.

One has to think that Matt Groening is a pre-cog for having the creative foresight to model cartoon Junior Griffey after Shelden. This look-alike fucking cracks me up, and is probably my favorite. I went so far as to rewatch the episode. Mr. Burns ends up hiring Pros to replace the Joes on the Springfield team to ensure victory against Shelbyville. Interestingly enough, some of the other ringers include Roger Clemens, Jose Conseco, and Daryl Strawberry. At one point, Clemens destroys Homer's Wonderbat with a single pitch. Hmm, Clemens with an juiced up pitch? Griffey later drinks this tonic that enlarges his head (not to incriminate Griffey or anything, but you never know). Growth tonics? That's some eerie, yet clever foresight, Mr. Groening. Eerie indeed.

To the seventh inning stretch...

With every revered Zirui Song or Hsupinos, there is also the antithetic player that is universally hated. I'm assuming every person has their own anecdotal evidence of this person being an Ultimate Tool, so don't be shy with your campfire stories in the comments. Wait, isn't this extending beyond the appropriate boundaries, you say? Earnest, might you going way past the endzone on this one? And besides, he's a future moon astronaut! Exaaaaaactly (this one's for you Billy Mays, you and Daryl would've been BFFs).

We're going into extra innings:

THE GLOVE DOESN'T FIT!!!!! THE GLOVE DOESN'T FIT!!!!!!!!

OH it's a walk-off HOMEEEE RUNNNNNN!

Courtesy of Pureharshmonium and Mahktar. No one told me it was couples night!

UPDATE: Originally I was gonna leave you guys with a stellar video, but I'll let you guys blow your loads over it when Mahktar features him on FREAKS. It combines the two talents that I unashamedly wish I was an expert at.

Over/Under, Volume VII

2009-08-08T00:35:00.000-07:00

In many cultures, the number 7 is considered lucky, a phenomenon I have never understood. The whole idea of lucky numbers is untenable, but beyond that, there's just nothing about 7 that makes it special.

Since this is nominally a sports blog, let's considered some famous number 7s in sports, shall we? Alcoholic. Pussy. Dog-killer. Horse-face. A bunch of fegos, if you ask me. And, speaking of shitty number 7s, what about son-of-a-horse-face? This dode not only has his own website--totally undeserved in the first place--but check it out: it's .org. I know that the internet is pretty informal, and that .com, .net, and .org and virtually interchangeable in many respects, but come on--jackelway.org? Really? It may have fallen by the wayside, but originally, the .org designation was intended for non-profit organizations, not over-privileged pieces of shit like Ken Doll-way here. Ask our Colorado correspondent, Mr. N'Diaye, and he'll confirm that Li'l Seabiscuit has been profiting from his famous name for some time (see: his facebook pics). As a fellow member of the Aryan race, I'm ashamed to share fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair with this turd. He looks like the orgy child of Patches O'houlihan, Barbaro, and Sarah Jessica Parker, liberally seasoned with all the learning disabilities of the rainbow. The best reason why that website is a crock of shit, though, is that he doesn't even play football anymore! I won't be the first to speculate where he's spending his newfound, chlamydiae-riddled free time.

Given all this, it's hard to see why the number 7 gets special treatment. In fact, like many of you, I feel a little sorry for 7, having to associate with such high-octane douche bags. But fear not, number 7, for your moment of glory has arrived: five nugs of the dankest, stickiest, ickiest Over/Unders south of B.C., and they've got your number on 'em. Drink it in, 7, it don't get any better:

0.5 - number of boob jobs for Kelly Hall. Gotta credit the Dream for turning me on to this breaking story. This is barely an Over/Under, but I figured it needed to be shared with the world, and since our resident college football expert is still living in the dial-up age, I'll take responsibility. Hall, a Georgia cheerleader and girlfriend of UGA product Matt Stafford, has been sporting a different look since her beau became QB1 of the Detroit Lions. All the details and legwork are at Busted Coverage, so check that out, decide for yourself, and then friend her on facebook! (For additional consideration: if you took the over, whose decision do you think it was?) OVER/UNDER?

30,000,000 - number of USD that Stephen Strasburg will receive for signing with the Washington Nationals. Strasburg, the #1 pick in the June draft, hasn't played baseball since May, but he's been playing hardball all summer long, apparently demanding a Major League contract worth $50 million--or more. No player taken in the draft has ever exceeded the $10.5M contract signed by Mark Prior, a prospect who in 2001 was touted almost as highly as Strasburg. His agent, Scott Boras, has dangled a number of potential ploys to get more money, including sending Strasburg to Japan for a year. This may be hot air--I imagine Strasburg isn't enthused by the prospect of playing in Japan rather than the big leagues--but with Boras it's nearly impossible to tell. Such a move would be a huge gamble, since it is predicated on Strasburg returning to America the following year as a free agent, which isn't even a given and would require challenging baseball's existing rules. What we do know, however, is that the clock is ticking: Washington has until August 17th to sign him, and if they don't, they lose the right to negotiate with him, so this week should be very interesting for Butters and the other eleven Nats fans. Strasburg is clearly a world-class talent--witness his 23 K game against Utah--but so was Prior, and we know how that turned out. OVER/UNDER?

99.9 - percentage of the overall votes received by Ken Griffey Jr when he becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame. This Over/Under is designed in part to put pressure on Oden to write an article about Griffey, because frankly, I will write it if he doesn't. Since I don't want to step on the toes of any posts to come, I'll just say this: no player has ever been named on 100% of his Hall of Fame ballots. Tom Seaver has come the closest at 98.8%. Compared with some HOFers who didn't make the cut--Willie Mays comes to mind--Griffey seems relatively ordinary, but he's got a trick or two up his sleeve: for one thing, he was the most popular player in baseball for the first half of his career, and has remained wildly popular despite decline and bodily deterioration. If you weren't born in the '80s, you don't remember that Junior was about as cool as athletes get, on par with Tiger Woods and Shaquille O'Neal. Also, while Griffey's done nothing particularly relevant to his Hall of Fame case in three years, it gets stronger and stronger each year, as more and more is revealed about the steroid years. Along with Frank Thomas, Griffey is a beacon of light, his name unlinked to any allegations, his numbers genuinely untainted. And what fantastic numbers they are: 623 home runs, 1807 RBIs, a career .914 OPS, 13 All-Star games, 10 Gold Gloves. During his halcyon days in Seattle, Junior won a Gold Glove and made the All-Star team for ten consecutive years, every single year of the '90s. He dominated the league for an entire decade, and then--when other stars in their mid-30s were juicing their way to big numbers--he entered a slow, normal decline, the kind that ballplayers have been enduring for 120 years. While he won't match Barry Bonds' career numbers, from a gambler's perspective, I'd bet on Junior to tally more HOF votes, and he'll deserve them all. Will he be the first player to merit unanimous selection? OVER/UNDER?

4.5 - minimum number of participants in an orgy. The word orgy, from the Greek orgia, can refer to a wild party but is more commonly used to describe sex involving multiple partners. For our purpose, this discussion is limited to the sexual connotation only. My question: how many partners does it take for group sex to qualify as an orgy? I've heard of threesomes and foursomes, but are those orgies? Do orgies begun where the "-somes" end, and if so, where do we draw that line? Is five people enough to characterize an orgy? Additional consideration: does the definition depend on the dynamic involved? For example, can a gang bang involving repeated penetration of one subject be called an orgy, based on the total number of participants? Or does an orgy specifically demand that the participants be swapping, switching, and freewheeling like there's no tomorrow? If a buddy told you he participated in an orgy, what would your expectations be? Can you participate in an orgy but only have sex with one person? I feel like these are all ambiguities that need immediate attention. OVER/UNDER?

2.5 - minimum number of female participants required for a straight guy to comfortably engage in group sex involving another guy. This Over/Under is really an extension of its predecessor, which is why I've grouped them together at the end to maximize discussion. Now, while this O/U is directed in particular at straight dudes, I encourage anyone reading this blog to give it due consideration. Now, faced with a Playboy Mansion situation where it's you and your boy versus a dream team of bunny hunnies strategically positioned around the grotto, I think virtually everyone would agree that this is a no-brainer. But imagine the opposite end of the spectrum: you are out with a friend and, over the course of the evening, you get propositioned by two down 'n' dirty smokeshows who are DTF, under one condition--four bodies, one bed. I'm not suggesting that you're doing anything obviously gay, but you are in the same bed, and chances are you're going to touch at some point, probably more than once. I just raised the stakes, motherfucker. What's going through your mind right now? Obviously, the hotness of the girls comes into play. The amount of alcohol consumed is also a factor. It probably matters who your friend is, but I'd like to see what people have to say about this. Would you rather have it be a really close friend, someone you're really comfortable with, or a mere acquaintance, so that if shit felt weird afterwards you could easily avoid them for the rest of your life? For additional consideration: is their some kind of ratio that needs to be maintained? What if it was 4 girls but 3 guys? What about a Riggins-Street-Lyla scenario (start watching at 40:00, you won't be disappointed)? Y Tu Mama Tambien? OVER/UNDER?

I'd just like to close by giving a huge shout out to a friend of mine and star of this PSA for the Big Ten Conference. I've probably only seen her twice since her graduation party, but I still think this is pretty sick. Definitely the best athlete I've ever personally known, and a really cool person to boot. Big ups, HilBo. (And she's wearing jorts! What's not to love?)