First and foremost, Steeler game I suppose….

-Willie Colon must moonlight as an EasyPass booth on the turnpike…..wait at least you have to slow down while going through that…

-The line stinks sure, but more than a few guys came across unaccounted for, doesn’t Ben call the protections at the line?  Can anyone call a screen pass?  And not that he had time to hit them all the time, but were there hot reads or maybe a back to dump off to at some point?  I just have a hard time believing that you could play Philly, a team that loves to blitz, and has for years, and appear to have nothing in place strategically.  It is either that or we miss Sean Mahan that much…

-That being said and some of the injuries are a huge concern, but playing back to back on the road is never easy and Philly is a good team.  If Parker and Hampton aren’t hampered all year with these injuries, or there are not more injuries to other key players, the games against Indy, San Diego, and a few others may not be as daunting.  To go 10-6 they have to go 6-2 at home and 4-4 on the road, and that is still possible.  Baltimore isn’t the Baltimore that won a Superbowl a few years ago, and that is next at home….

There is a whole ‘nother rest of the NFL too…

Wait, Favre throws interceptions….impossible absolutely impossible, he took a team to the conference final I refuse to believe he is capable of error…

And it has been written, “he that was injured and watched his team win a Super Bowl without him. He will return years later, a pauper, turn his flock of sheep into Rams, and lead them again to the promised land…”  You laugh but the current financial crisis one of the signs of the apocalypse, this happens after the blowing of the 4th trumpet, I am sure…

Dusting off formations and plays popular before the AFL/NFL merger is all it took to beat the Patriots?  And it took like 6 years for someone to try this?  God I hope I see the wishbone then.

Jay Cutler second in the NFL in passing yards…Michael Turner leading the NFL in rushing and Greg Jennings leading the NFL in receiving yards……wow I guess you really don’t win your fantasy league with the first or second pick, maybe not the 3rd pick either for that matter….

I noticed the back of my milk carton was empty….I looked up and found Antonio Bryant and Brandon Lloyd having huge games, so that’s where they must have gone…

Kerry Collins, Gus Ferrotte, Brian Griese all winners this week and Kurt Warner is 2-1…at this pace just imageine how good Matt Leinart will be come the year 2027…

….One final note, welcome to the Johnny Lee Higgins era…

The mascot for NFLatino.com

Outside of the Chargers 0-2 start and the drama and controversy surrounding that team, LT has 31 carries and 5 catches for a whopping 152 yards and no TDs….I dunno that seems kinda interesting to me…Maybe the turftoe of the 2 time NFL rushing champion former NFL MVP would be interesting to someone….

Another interesting story might be Larry Johnson being very unhappy in Kansas City saying things like, “I’ve got to sit back and figure that the writing is on the wall, that this season or next season could be my last season as a Chief,” Johnson said. “I don’t know. But obviously if they’re making personnel changes now and I’m not even in for any of the snaps to (try to) help win this game, then that pretty much says it all?I’m not dumb. I know what’s going on. I sense what’s going on. Nobody should run the ball if it isn’t me. I always felt that way. If I’m not getting the ball, then I should be tired. If I’m not tired and I’m not getting the ball, then there’s something going on. I’ve just got to deal with it.”  Dunno…. that could be interesting too…

Here is another one, the Steelers after 2 games look pretty good, they played Sunday night in a pretty big mess, and after last year, should be the team most prepared to play in that mess.  And 10-6 isn’t that impressive, but you got the feeling that Cleveland would never get into the end zone, and a feeling that Big Ben and Co. would do just enough to win the game in that weather….by the way Cleveland and the rest of the NFL the half Korean, half black smiling guy that keeps catching TD passes against you is Hines Ward…he does a little more than block and get pedicures….you may want to cover him…

TO’s best TD celebration …..chest bumping the big cartoonish Cowboy mascot after catching that long one against the Eagles.

For you fantasy guys… Lamont Jordan, once the Patriots brush off the game tape showing him catching alot of passes he may assume a bigger role in that offense…. and if you are in my fantasy league…..forget you read this….

Kurt Warner had a great game, which means he should get hurt going out in the morning to grab the paper somewhere around Wednesday….with his game Torry Holt catching a TD and Ike Bruce having a good game it showed the Greatest show on Turf isn’t dead… they are just on different Turfs…(booo) it has been like a decade for all those guys since then too when will they retire, and when will I stop drafting any of them, or anyone in a Rams helmet thinking they can do it again….please help

I feel bad for Lane Kiffin, it must be tough fearing the axe at any time from a guy that is cryogenically frozen in a creepy Raiders jumpsuit…Al Davis is the Grim Reeper I am sure of it

I have been waiting on this one, Matt Jones has good straight line speed…..fast enough that even Dexter Manley couldn’t catch him, and he is the fastest NFL player ever on a line…

The first Jagoff family photo

The only thing worse than listening to talking heads talk about how good the New England Patriots are with Tom Brady is listening to the talking heads talk about how good the Patriots could be with Matt Cassell.  Seriously, I know every human north of New York basis their the importance of their own pitiful lives on the damn Patriots, but seriously no one has any idea of how good this guy is and just on a hunch, he may not be as good as Brady, and if that is the case the Patriots are in trouble, end of story.  They haven’t won a Super Bowl in 3 years with him, and they won’t win without him.  Now to expand on the NFL coverage that is not Brady or Favre related…

The Jags, Chargers, Colts, and Browns losing this week are the types of weeks that give a team like Pittsburgh the edge toward the playoffs and a team like Buffalo a chance to get in the playoffs.  Granted, it is only the first week, but getting a game behind for those teams can be a problem down the road.  Add that to New England’s problems despite winning and the AFC is about to get very interesting.  Losing at home, and/or against teams you should beat is always a recipe for disaster.  Cleveland plays Pittsburgh next week, Indy is on the road in Minnesota, the Chargers go to Denver, and Jacksonville hosts Buffalo.  None of those are easy wins, and can any of those teams afford to go 0-2?

99 Yards out of Carson Palmer’s arm?  Wow, I remember when Kordell Stewart used to have days like that and the Steelers would actually win the games, and Stewart actually took 2 teams to the AFC Championship game.  Kinda sad when you think that Carson Palmer is one of the “top quarterbacks” in the NFL.  Maybe he is just Jeff George, without the A-hole part.

Vince Young didn’t want to come back on the field after he got booed…sissy…

His career and the “career” of Matt Leinart makes you wonder about the high profile college player.  Did these guys think that because they beat on Oregon and Baylor in college that meant they didn’t have to study film or work hard to make it in the pros?  I am just glad those guys got big bonus checks and endorsements before they ever played a snap of professional football, then I can mock their otherwise pathetic professional careers without any guilt.

On the other side of that equation is a guy like Willie Parker, undrafted out  of college.  Works for a place on the team, injuries open the door for him and he runs for 1200 yards, and has a record breaking run in the Super Bowl.  Folks question if he can get into the end zone, so he runs for almost 1500 the next year and has 15 total TDs.  Last year despite a drop in TDs, when Parker gets hurt, he is leading the NFL in rushing.  No matter how much he seems to produce, it never seems to be good enough to make anyone happy.  Well he set out to prove people wrong again with another strong performance over 100 yards and 3TDs.  If guys like Young and Leinart had his heart and determination, they may do a little better for themselves than 1 overpriced contract.  On a side note, hey Willie, I don’t think you can carry the Steelers to the Super Bowl and win the MVP…

I head a saying a few times “I lamented that I had no shoes, until I met a man that had no feet.”  I believe that has been replaced by  “I lamented that my team lost, until I met a man that rooted for the Detroit Lions.”

Wow, what a find Michael Turner is….makes you wonder why the Chargers didn’t play him more than the guy they had in there…

Don’t call Reggie Bush a bust just yet.  It took a guy like Brian Westbrook a little time before he became a mega rushing/receiving threat.  and with already almost 170 catches in his career, just maybe this Bush kid could work out.  After all, he has been busy single handedly rebuilding the city of New Orleans while not on the football field.

Aaron Rodgers showed some grit and determination and a few nices passes.  Now if he can train himself to throw untimely interceptions and to talk about retirement for half a decade the people of Green Bay won’t even notice Favre is gone…

Hey Dallas, beating Cleveland the first week of the season doesn’t answer any of the questions about your team.

Elsewhere around the league…

• I’m sort of conflicted about the Brady injury. Actually, I’m not that conflicted, but I recognize that I could have been. Here’s the deal – it’s too early in the season for me to take any joy in the Patriots misfortune. I’m over all their 19-0 clownshoe foolishness from last year. At the start of the season, they are just a very good football team that I will grow to loathe, somewhat due to their antics, somewhat due to the verbal fellating they’ll receive by broadcasters, and somewhat due to that they are really really good. So if Brady had hurt his knee is October or November – I may have had a chance at some tasty schadenfreude, but in September – it just sort of sucks.
• At least we avoided the Farve-Brady match-up next week. In place of excessive coverage of that – we’ll get coverage of “Farve-Brady, what could have been…”
• This may turn out to be more annoying in actuality.
• Didn’t see any of the Eagles-Rams game. That won’t stop me from saying, damn! McNabb appears to have the receivers he (and any other QB) needs to light it up. 
• Anyone else amused by the Chargers losing to the Panthers on the last play? Yeah – the Panthers without Steve Smith at that…
• Lastly – congrats to the Pitt Panthers. It was against Buffalo, but whatevs – it was a win.

In fact, just about every article I read on the game opened with that thought. Interesting to note is that Kirk Herbstriet actually had called this game as the upset to watch for. Despite all the talk leading up to game about how the team knew how good Bowling Green was/is – Pitt played like a team that wasn’t prepared to actually be in a real game against this team. The opened up to a nice lead, and when mistakes allowed BGUto climb back in it, the team, went in to a bit of a panic. (That last interception was really all you needed to see. I believe it was first down, with the line of scrimmage at BGU’s 30 with about 1:20 to play. Why is the QB throwing it up for grabs at that point? Plenty of time to work the flats to move the ball closer to the end zone, or at least, throw the ball away and try to find an open receiver on the next down…)

So the question is – is the stache’s job on the line? I’d say definitely if this team fails to make a bowl game. I don’t think the bowl game matters too much as long as Pitt gets an unexpected or name win sometime this year. (I see Pitt beating Notre Dame on the road in the battle of guys who should not be head coaches.)

So Pitt fans – I see the International Bowl or the Motor City Bowl in your future. (Yeah – I have no idea if the Big East even has tie-in’s to either of those games.) I’d pull for the International Bowl between those two – if only because I’d prefer to head to Toronto than to Detroit.

Can we add this to the long list of senseless abuses and attrocities committed by Cuba?  Was this a result of a poor ruling from a judge or the one time this man who has lived his whole life under the oppression of Communism chose to lash out and rebuke someone in a position of authority?  After hitting the ref, why didn’t Classy Freddy Blassy, or Mr. Fuji hand him a foreign object so he could hit or impare the vision of his opponent and cover him so that when the ref realized what was going on he would dive to the mat and give the Cuban an undeserved 3 count?  Would this clip be better if instead of some lame French dude with the voice over it was Good Ole’ JR from the WWE using words like “slobberknocker?”  And finally, would this have happened if Chuck Norris were the ref?

The history books will remember these words as the start of World War III:

“I hope we do some damage,” she had said, “and, you know, kick some Russian butt.”

In a scene eerily reminiscent of Rocky IV except it was pole vaulting, not boxing, and the Russians won, female pole vaulters Jenn Stuczynski of the United States and Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia met in a battle to see who is the best woman in the world with a pole her in hands.  The American showed typical American arrogance running her mouth all over her nemesis’ ability to achieve great lengths with her pole.

When the dust settled, the Russian rode her pole to a new world record putting the American firmly in her place:

“She must respect me and … know her position,” she said.

“Now she knows it.”

Who would have thought that an obscure, random event like pole vaulting could ignite so much friction and put the 2 nations that once were a hair trigger away from global annihilation into each others cross-hairs again.  It is times and events like these that show the true political relevance of the Olympic games, and how even though they are about sports we could care less about, and athletes we know nothing about we must care.  If something like pole vaulting has the ability to upset our delicate geopolitical framework, than no American, nay citizen of the world can miss another event.

Thankfully, the US men’s basketball team knows this and despite earlier comments, refuses to engage in any talk of China’s human rights/business practices.  They know well enough that by keeping their mouth shut they keep the American consumer’s feet well shoed on the backs of Chinese labor.  Thank god for the Redeem Team.

MMA, the couples event

The problem with MMA has nothing do to with the barbarian nature of the sport as ESPN would have you believe, nor the battles between promotions, nor Dana White or any other joker promoting the event.  Simply, the sport is tough to bet on.  I know betting goes on for this sport, but that isn’t the point, I just don’t think it will draw enough action to get serious money involved betting on the sport.  Every other sport in America, or globally has a strong gambling following attached (except NASCAR which we will get to another day), heck even horse racing has its place yearly with the Triple Crown, and really there is no other reason to watch midgets ride beasts of burden in a circle other than to wager on it.  A sport needs to entertain the masses yes, but it also needs the masses to wager large sums of money on the outcome.

And that is where MMA falls short.  You can gamble on the fights, sure, but sometimes the outcomes are a little murky at best.  The decision to stop a fight comes from the referee, via tapout, or the scorecards at the end of the fight.  There are no 10-seconds of being knocked down as with traditional boxing.  And that is the rub, fights are stopped for the safety of the fighters, and soon if there is an injury such as a cut leading to blood pouring in the eyes.  Look at the cloud of confusion around the Kimbo Slice vs James Thompson, or even the fight on the under card with Robbie Lawler vs Scott Smith ending with an unintentional poke to the eye.  There are plenty other examples, from quick stops, to bizarre scorecard outcomes across the sport.  Now imagine the super-fight of the century pitting Fedor vs Randy Couture ending because the ref incorrectly judged whether or not one of them could continue fighting, or BJ Penn vs Georges St. Pierre having to be stopped due to an eye poke.  Sure the fights are still interesting, exciting and all of that, but would you really throw down serious money on the outcome of a fight if you knew premature or unfortunate stoppages happened a little more than once in a while?

Add the possibility of that to the same types of things that always threaten to make MMA as boring or as docile as traditional boxing, such as judges decisions, and you have a sport that can exciting to watch, but can never have the added attraction of “action,” to give it a prominent place in the sports world.  If that sounds crazy, look at the tons of press and positive coverage something like horse racing gets from major news outlets.  ESPN camps out at each Triple Crown event, broadcasts Sportscenters, Mike and Mikes, PTI’s and anything else around those events.  Give a horse some ‘roids or have to shoot it while on the track, no problem, Hank Greenberg or a host of other racing experts will be there to justify.  The money being wagered on that sport talks, no one wants to rock that boat. 

Now look at ESPN covering MMA.  Other than to pimp it as a carnival side-show with dreams of legitimacy, you really do not hear much about the sport.  Regardless of what you think about Gina Carano, or Kimbo Slice, if you want to talk about the sport and its emerging popularity, that isn’t where I would start.  There are a ton of great fighters and great stories all over the MMA landscape, but ESPN just wants to talk about girls fighting or make sure you know some guy had to work as a bouncer in the porn industry to keep his family fed.  PPV events go completely unnoticed by all major media except for the guy on Fox Sports Radio, who will talk about it some from 2am EST-6am EST on weekends.  Maybe I am wrong, but I find it a little odd that a sport like MMA with so much care and attention given to the fighters is still treated in that manner, but for horseracing a horse can get a cap in its ass “euthanized,” and we would refer to it as the “Sport of Kings.”

On second thought it has nothing to due with gambling on the sport and its appeal.  I have never seen a horse with “Condom Depot,” written across its butt.

During the first preseason game, I was out with friends from my fantasy football league and we traveled to a local tavern, not really to watch the game so much as to have a couple of drinks and maybe randomly comment on a play here or there.  Walking into the bar it was clear that we were out of place because none of us were wearing our required 8 pieces of  ”Steeler flair.”  Yes, that is right, 5 of us, (3 guys, 2 girls), and the only piece of Steeler garb between us was my wife’s “Big Nasty D,” T-shirt (which is more a comment on her temperament, but I digress).  We had no jerseys on, either home or away or my favorite the pink with matching pink Steeler hat.  No jester hat, no beads, and maybe our biggest no-no, not one pair of Steeler themed sunglasses.  To make matters worse, once the Steelers scored we barely cheered, despite a bar full of chanting, chest-bumping, and hi-5′s we just couldn’t stomach getting excited over the opening drive of the preseason.  And to cap an end to a perfectly horrible night, I nearly got into a fight with a lady in a pink Hines Ward jersey and a fellow in his brand new Aaron Smith jersey, because I thought it was a little premature to start Dennis Dixon ahead of Ben Roethlisberger even though in her words he did “suck” in the playoff game last year.

Sometime during the second half, we decided to leave that establishment and go to my favorite bar, Gator’s here in the Bloomfield section of Pittsburgh.  Again we walk into a bar packed full of fans decked-out in brand new Steeler merchandise.  I did see a 250lb blonde female in a Joe Greene jersey passed-out in her seat at a table in the back and I was smitten.  By then the hours of drinking had caught up to all these superfans and maybe the realization that a little too much effort was expanded by Steeler Nation for a meaningless game.

I must admit, I was drawn into watching Michael Phelps like most of America, but at first it was for my usually cynical reasons.  I wanted to see him fail, or they find out he is doping his blood some how, or they found out his mother conceived him through sex with a dolphin, something to shoot his story down in flames.  But as he collects gold medals, world records and the virginal dreams and fantasies of every suburban teenage girl, I am now rooting for the guy.

There are probably a few reasons why I too am swept up in all this hysteria.  First, it seems a decent way to be patriotic, you know rooting for the American to win the gold and all that jazz.  But on top of that he is the favorite just about every time he enters the pool, and I am sick of rooting for the underdog.  I don’t want to see an upset, I want to see some guy try to accomplish something no one has ever done before, I want to see the 7 other guys in the pool have the motivation to try and stop him, and to have him overcome it.   On top of all that, he seems like a nice enough guy, no dirt on him (yet).  He may be only 1 sex tape with Greg Louganis away from national shame, but for now, he seems ok…

But maybe it isn’t really the inherent excitement of watching someone do something that until this moment many thought would be impossible.  Maybe I and a few other sports fans are a bit fatigued by watching the same story lines play out, and 24 hour news coverage of otherwise trivial events.  Every summer for what now seems to be forever, I get Red Sox and/or Yankee highlights anytime I connect to any sort of sports media.  Every radio, TV, and internet media covers Joba Chamberlain’s inflamed left nostril as if the fate and future of civilized society depends on it.  Pac-man, TO, Brett Favre, any and every NFL soap-opera story is much the same way too.  Over the years I have found myself running to the refuge of soccer, NASCAR, and MMA just to be able to follow and enjoy a sport with some passion and not have its importance thrust down my throat by ESPN or any other traditional media outlet.  So maybe this story line fits the same reason why I have any interest in those other sports, it is just something I can enjoy for a little, take it for what it is and be done with it.

If/When he does with his 8th gold medal however, I am worried the Phelps media blitz will take on a whole new level of intensity, and manage to find that cynic/evil nerve in me that hope for him to fall from grace.  I don’t know if it will be his face pitching every product from Wheaties to soft Cialis, or my fear that this will spark a Speedo craze across the nation, but at some point I will turn.  The very thing I am hoping and excited to watch will end up being the very thing that has me calling my local cable provider asking them to please take “the Swimming Channel,” off my TV.

So Mike, here is to you, I hope you do win all 8 medals, and I hope I have the strength not to throw chewed on chicken wing bones at the TV when you still have your own segment on the ESPN crawl 6 months from now…