Well, it seems that in addition to Captain Steve Yzerman retiring, we'll also be bidding Brendan Shanahan farewell from the Detroit Red Wings. Shanny, apprently, has decided to go off to the New York Rangers. So now Stevie Y and Shanny are leaving.
And, of course, big ol' Ben Wallace has left the Detroit Pistons, too, for the Chicago Bulls of all the damn places.
But Matt Millen, sadly, doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Because I've not been quite as good at filing regular updates as I might have been, I'll have to combine a few subjects into this post.
Flying Beer and Rampaging Pacers
This past Friday, the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers met at the Palace of Auburn Hills for what otherwise would have been a normal, regular season NBA game. It ended up turning into a massive brawl. It seems that some jackass fan threw some form of beverage toward massive jackass Ron "I Honestly Don't Know the Meaning of the Word Integrity Because my Daddy Never Explained it to Me, Which is Why I Felt it Was Okay to Skip Out on My Contractual Obligations to Promote Some Stupid Rap CD" Artest, and Artest, AKA Mr. Doesn't Know What Integrity Means, decided to respond by whaling away at whatever random fans he could get his hands on. Several other Pacers jumped into the fray, as did some Pistons. Only one Piston, Ben Wallace, was suspended for his role in the fracas, as at least one of the other Pistons appeared to be trying to stop the whole thing. Supreme Jackass Artest, fittingly, was given a season-long suspension. At least he'll have some time to work on that rap career.
Buckeyes
Speaking of supreme jackasses, my beloved University of Michigan Wolverines faced our ultimate archrivals, the spawns of Satan known as the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Now, Michigan went into the game at the top of the Big Ten, with only one loss overall, and no losses in Big Ten action. The week before, it looked like Wisconsin, which was undefeated in the Big Ten and overall, would end up taking the conference championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl--Michigan and Wisconsin don't play each other, so there isn't any head-to-head tie-breaking opportunity or anything like that. However, our in-state rivals, Michigan State, managed to really pile on the mojo and bump off Wisconsin, giving them an all-important loss in the conference, and relegating them to second-place in the conference. Thanks to the Sparties, all Michigan had to do to win the Big Ten outright and go to the Rose Bowl was beat Ohio State.
And so, of course, Michigan lost to Ohio State. Both teams have, over the years, had the occasion to play spoiler to the other. This year was no different for Ohio State. They just plain outplayed the Wolverines, who couldn't seem to find a running game with both hands and a flashlight, if you get my drift.
Thankfully, however, the Iowa Hawkeyes also managed to beat Wisconsin this week. This gave Wisconsin two conference losses, and put them out of the Rose Bowl hunt. And while Iowa tied Michigan for the conference championship, Michigan gets the Rose Bowl bid because they beat Iowa earlier in the season. And so . . .
Roses
Michigan will, for the second year in a row, head to sunny Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. It looks like they will be playing California this year. I'm afraid that, unless "Lord" Carr makes some coaching changes, we may have yet another Rose Bowl loss. Perhaps not quite the ass-handing we suffered at the hands of USC last year, but . . .
Desperate Houswives & TO
Apparently people with nothing better to do with themselves have decided to get their shorts in a knot over the intro to Monday Night Football a week ago yesterday. Because Philadelphia was one of the teams competing that night, the MNF powers-that-be thought that their clever opening skit should feature Terrell Owens and Nicolette Sheridan, the former being the famed wide receiver who recently joined the Eagles, and the latter being a star of the new ABC hit show "Desperate Housewives." The skit featured a towel-clad Sheridan approaching TO in the locker room, apparently attempting to use her "feminine wiles" to distract TO from playing that night, thus assuring a win for the other team. At the end, she shed the towel and jumped into the arms of a "surprised" TO. Cut to two other characters from "Desperate Housewives" watching the scene on TV, and smirking about how "desperate" some people can be. Cut to the opening theme song.
Apparently, this caused all kinds of moral outrage because of the scantily-clad Sheridan literally throwing herself at TO. This is supposedly some untoward display of sexuality, apparently moreso than the regular display of several very scantily clad cheerleaders making suggestive moves on the sideline throught many of the games.
Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy went ahead and proved he was a jackass by taking this a step farther, and calling it racially offensive, apparently because TO is black, while Nicolette Sheridan is white. He also said that it was inappropriate in light of the alleged Kobe Bryant rape incident.
My thoughts:
Turkey
The day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I'm looking forward to a few days of relaxation and turkey-induced food comas. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.
Dear Whomever at ABC is Responsible for Monday Night Football,
You need to know that "You've Been Sacked," the cheap, "Punk'd" ripoff you do at halftime on Monday Night Football, is quite lame. I can imagine that someone might have thought that this half-assed, barely believable segment wherein on NFL player plays a prank on another merited a one-shot deal. However, doing it every week is an even worse idea than having done it in the first place. Indeed, even MNF hosts Al Michaels and John Madden acknowledged during the MNF show following the debut of this spawn of Satan that many people didn't like "You've Been Sacked" and/or thought it to be really stupid, before boldly stating that they would continue to show it anyway.
I understand that this is a desperate attempt to increase viewership. However, using lame skits, which become less and less believable as NFL players inevitably learn that some improbably bizarre situation is likely a "Sacked" practical joke, is not the way to achieve that goal. How about trying to move the starting time of the games back to 8:00 p.m. ET, instead of catering to the west coast denizens by starting at 9:00. It seems to me that a lack of viewership might best be explained by the fact that games start at a time that mandates that the vast majority of the viewing country must stay up until 1:00 a.m. on a Monday night to see the entire game, or later if it goes to overtime.
In summary, ditch "Sacked," and move Monday Night Football to a reasonable time like 8:00 p.m., just like Sunday Night Football.
Yours Sincerely,
Geoff Brown
Way back when Tom Brady and Drew Henson were playing college football at my beloved alma mater, I used to angrily complain about how overrated Henson was, and how Brady, an obviously gifted quarterback, was shafted by Lloyd Carr's half-assed two-quarterback system. I am convinced, to this day, that Carr's indecisiveness led to a lot of losses in what could have been an excellent season. Carr was likely caving to (what I feel) was ignorant fan pressure, combined with a fear that Henson would leave the team to play baseball with the Yankees if he didn't get enough playing time -- he ended up doing this anyway. For some reason, people were almost psychotically enamored of Henson, for no really good reason. I was always under the impression that he gained so much attention due to the fact that he was also a professional baseball player, having been signed by the Yankees -- this was sort of a novelty. He was also pretty good in high school, but then, so were a lot of bad college football players, something most people forget.
Nothing could possibly prove I was correct better than the extremely divergent paths their careers have taken since they left the University of Michigan. Let's review:
But that's just what I think.
So here I have been looking forward all summer to the return of football (as I wrote previously) and, finally, my wish was to be granted with the broadcast of the first pre-season game between Tampa Bay and the New York Jets. However, it was in Japan, which meant that it was played ridiculously early, at least for my time zone, this morning, which I think was Friday night for Japan. So it was already over by the time I woke up this morning, giving CNN Headline News, the bastards, plenty of time to tell me the damn score, and run some highlights. Thus pretty much ruining my plans to watch tonight.
Guess I'll have to wait until next week. Curse you, Headline News!
