Gruden Gets JACKED UP! by Frank Caliendo

Gruden: "People are gonna say you are too small to play the QB position. What are you gonna tell them?"
Kid: "That I'm gonna grow."
Gruden: "Grow?"

Classic.

You Want Pathetic? This, Is PATHETIC.

Apparently, JerrahWorld isn't all it's cracked up to be as a "home field" advantage for the Godless Blue Stars of Texas.

According to a New York area newspaper, the Cowboys sent an e-mail to season ticket holders, reminding them that their job once they pay $75 to park their car, is to actually YELL for the home team.

Imagine that.

This week the Cowboys e-mailed season-ticket holders a “Stand Up and Shout” campaign that instructs fans on how to cheer against the Giants. This weekend, there will be a new third down graphic on the video board. 

“When you see the video graphic playing on the video board, get on your feet and get LOUD! Together, we can make opposing teams dread coming to Cowboys Stadium,” the email says, according to the New York Daily News. “If we all play our part, we can help give our Dallas Cowboys a true home-field advantage. 

The last time Dallas played at home, the Chicago fans were louder at times than the Cowboys fans. The Bears said so. 

Wrote Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall on his Twitter account: "Big ups to all the Chicago fans in Dallas. Felt like a home game." 

Wrote Chicago defender Charles Tillman: "Cowboys Stadium felt like Soldier Field with all the Bear fans. Thanks for traveling to Dallas and showing us some love. Bear Down!!!" 

The Cowboys 56% winning percentage at "Jerry World" is considerably worse than the one the Cowboys posted in Texas Stadium, where they won more than 68% of their games. 

Last year, Marcus Spears said the crowd at the Cowboys’ old home was “way louder.”

The problem with JerrahWorld is simple. They have an oversupply of seating capacity, by around 20,000 seats - easily. Cowboy fans are atrociously fickle - everybody knows this.

So for every big Division/Rival game at "home" there's 20,000 EASILY had seats for either visitors, or "native" non-Cowboy fans to come and invade.

Combine this, with a truly 9th Wonder of The World TV Screen (it's fucking incredible, really) that makes the stadium a real "Tourist Attraction."

So with that recipe, you're gonna get crowds that are routinely 20% or more, road fans.

Until the novelty wears off, and then you'll just get empty seats.

Clownsuits For Sale!

The Pittsburgh Steelers looked like helmeted bumblebees Sunday, with an homage to the ol' 1934 Steelers. (Fun Fact: The Steelers that year went 2-10, beating the BOSTON Redskins twice! Oh, the irony!)

Of course, these unis looked utterly stupid.

Unless you think they looked awesome.

Which maybe 15% of Steelers fans did. And you take that 15% of maybe 1 million (guess?) Steeler fans around the world, assume a merchandise buy rate of 50% of those 15% of that 1 million, and take an average NFLShop.com purchase of $29.99... and well... ah fuck it.

MONEY!

The NFL loves its money, and it will stoop to any gutter level to scoop up even more. The NFL is like a rich guy up to his shoulder reaching into a sewer grate for a shiny nickle.

But hey, nobody got hurt by the stunt (except your eyeballs) and if you don't like it, don't buy it. Yeah, Capitalism!

If you want to know more about the flimsy pretense of this shameless cash grab, the boys at UniWatch.com are all over it - as they are with all things uniform and logo in sports.

(They, are the REAL "Man From U.N.C.L.E.")

Fire This Bum!

Always feels good, doesn't it, sports fans?

Rarely works.

Maybe this kid has the right idea. Hell, Andy Reid is obviously out of ideas, so what the hell. Hire him again, and re-fire him again.

Then call one of those "players only" meetings.

It's the action movie equivalent of throwing your empty gun at the bad guy.

Are You Not Entertained? Are you NOT ENTERTAINED!?

There's a reason why the NFL is the Tyrannosaurus Rex of professional sports in America.

Put simply, there is nothing that compares as pure athletic spectacle.

Little known Colts RB Vick Ballard provided another vivid reminder of this fact Sunday. His impossible flying, twisting, launching effort at the magic orange pylon in overtime, was something that had to be seen, to be believed.

And seen, and seen, and seen again.

My first reaction was "holee sh**!"

My second reaction was: "Hey, didn't Denzel do that in the movie "Flight?"



I once angered hardcore baseball fans, by saying that if you've seen 12 basic baseball highlights, you've essentially seen them all.

Home runs, the $20 bill of baseball highlight currency, are reduced to nothing more than saying: "Wow, that went far."

Football, however, is endlessly splendid in highlight form. While a game may drone on for 3 hours with nothing to chew on but your fingernails, there's always that chance something truly shocking - magical, maybe - will suddenly unfold in front of your eyes.

In glorious 1080p high definition.

Hey, don't yell at me. The World Series, is well on it's way to a new record low in TV eyeballs, dipping below even the NBA Finals nadir of the Nets-Lakers annihilation.

Which brings me to something I've been wondering for a while now. That clip in "Flight" where the plane screams low overhead, UPSIDE DOWN? I mean, is that possible?

Says the interwebs... no, not really.... unless Denzel was just barrell rolling.

Commercial aircraft are definitely not designed to fly upside down and could not sustain flight.

Airplane wings have a specific shape - curved on the top and relatively flat on the bottom. Air flowing over the curved top of the wing has to travel faster than the air flowing across the relatively flat bottom of the wing because it has farther to go. This difference creates a low-pressure area (vacuum) on top of the wing, and this is where the majority of our lift is generated.

Flip the airplane over, and the lift is destroyed. While rollovers and very short times of inverted flight are possible, too long like that stresses the airframe and aircraft in ways it can't handle, and result in either structural failure, stalling, or simple complete loss of lift.

Okay, but like, um, has this ever actually HAPPENED to a passenger jet flight? Answer: (gulp), YES!

An All Nippon Airline pilot screwed up in the most stunning way possible, and nearly killed 100 people...

Here's what happened: the co-pilot mistook the rudder trim knob for the cockpit door lock switch so when he "opened the door" for his captain, he actually caused the jet to roll and drop 1,900 meters in 30 seconds. According to internal investigations, "the narrow-body aircraft continued to roll until it reached 131.7 degrees to the left, leaving it almost belly-up. Its nose pointed down as much as 35 degrees at one point."

In the movie, they get on Denzel's ass because he likes booze, coke, and waitress tail. Damn. Big deal. Some pilots can screw up when stone cold sober.

Hold On A Minute, Superman!

Okay, I might just throw up in  my mouth a little bit, but I think I am going to call on Rick Reilly for backup on a point I've been making about RG3 so far this year.

It's not that he's over-rated. He's awesome. Electric. Current and future star for many years.

But this is a honeymoon. So enjoy it while it lasts.

He'll eventually float back down to "normal good/great" which should be enough to cheer about if you are a long suffering Redskins fan still fresh of the Rex McBeckman disasters of the last 2 seasons.

RG3 is terrorizing confused and scared defenses, and it's a beautiful thing to watch. Yet it is surely going to fade as teams make adjustments. It won't end abruptly, and maybe not even this year.

But my other point about RG3 being "maxed out right now statistically" is also something I will stick to. The ol' phrase "And he's only going to get better..." is often applied in sports when rookies/phenoms take leagues by storm.

However, sometimes, it's not true. Sometimes players regress. Or stagnate. I don't think Griffin will regress or stagnate, but he'll be forced to evolve. And his stats can't go much ABOVE where they are now. I mean, QB's just don't pass for 75% completions in this league, even with the rules being as ridiculously stacked in favor of QB's as they are now.

Griffin's at 70% (#1 in the league!) right NOW, 7 games into his career. How much higher can he go? Not much, in my opinion. This is not to knock him, but more of a concession to the statistical laws of the football universe.

He's running the ball at an incredible clip: on pace for 1,000 yards, which would put him on the same slim shelf as the ONE season where Michael Vick did that for Atlanta. Combine that pace with his expected 3,600 yards passing... and RG3 is on pace to produce nearly 5,000 yards of total offense.

Phenomenal for a rookie!

But that's about the MAX for a QB in terms of yards produced, and last year 4 guys did that by just throwing the football.

Anyway, here's Rick Reilly and ESPN's guru of "Total QBR" - a made up metric, that I have claimed in the past was pure Bristol Bullshit, and now look at me, I'm citing it! What a fraud I am!

/hangs head in shame

"It's like they're not watching Andrew Luck," says a man who analyzes quarterbacks for a living, Jeff Bennett, the curator of the most comprehensive QB stat ever invented, ESPN's QBR (total quarterback rating). "One is being called a savior. But the other is just as successful and no one seems to notice."

If you want a stat that considers everything a QB does, and when he does it, and what was at stake when he did it, then Bennett's QBR stat is for you. Going into Week 8, it had the Mannings at 1 and 2 (Peyton, then Eli), with Tom Brady third. Sound about right? In the QBR rankings, Luck is sixth and Griffin eighth.

But it tells you more than that. For instance, it tells you:
Luck runs more successfully than Griffin. He's had 10 scrambles for first downs. Griffin has had nine.
Luck is asked to do more than Griffin and is doing it. His average pass completion travels 8.6 yards in the air, highest in the NFL. Griffin's is 5.8, one of the lowest.
Luck is more valuable to his team than Griffin. Sixty-nine percent of the Colts' passing yards are gained while the ball is in the air, the rest after the catch. Only 49 percent of the Skins' passing yards come through the air. In other words, Griffin still has his training wheels on. Luck has his license.

What is it, Mike, all of RG3's Subway ads?

Wait! I'm clairvoyant! I know exactly what you're going to say next!

Reilly, you single-celled organism. Griffin leads the NFL in completion percentage! He's third in the league in passer rating! Luck is second to last!

Oh, you mean NFL passer rating, the most useless stat in football? The 41-year-old fossil that was invented, literally, on a slide rule? The one that doesn't even consider running or fumbles or time of game or score? Yeah, I know that stat. That stat is the whole problem.

RG3 kills in that stat because he's nibbled his way to a league-leading 70.4 percent completion rating. Given the way the Redskins have babied him, Katy Perry in heels could throw for 60 percent. More than 20 percent of RG3's passes this season haven't even traveled across the line of scrimmage. Only 6 percent of Luck's haven't. If you do a cannonball and I do a triple backflip with a McTwist and we both get straight 9s, whose dive was better?

Portman, Suh, and a Hunter Pence's Magic Bat

Some days, I put a modest amount of effort into this page. You know, think about something for a few minutes, write about it for about a half hour. Chuck up a jpeg or two.

Then there are days like this. Where I just throw three piece of "eye candy" on the page and say: "Here. You'll enjoy this. Look!"

/puts up "Gone Fishin' sign

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Drunken Bear Fan, Fails Stripper Pole Combine

.

The Real Cam Newton Finally Shows Up

It took a while, but "heeeeere's Cammy!

They say that adversity does not build character, it reveals it. And right now, a 1-5 start by a Panthers team considered by some to be a bit of a playoff "sleeper", has scratched away the phony shine on the former Heisman winner to reveal what some said was there all along.

Nolan Nawrocki, a scout for Pro Football Weekly, refused to buy the hype leading up to draft day. You can read the full write up here (and much of it is positive) but Nawrocki was SAVAGED by the media's "amen chorus" on Cam when it came to this paragraph in particular.

Very disingenuous — has a fake smile, comes off as very scripted and has a selfish, me-first makeup. Always knows where the cameras are and plays to them. Has an enormous ego with a sense of entitlement that continually invites trouble and makes him believe he is above the law — does not command respect from teammates and always will struggle to win a locker room. Only a one-year producer. Lacks accountability, focus and trustworthiness — is not punctual, seeks shortcuts and sets a bad example. Immature and has had issues with authority. Not dependable.

Now... low and behold... with Sunday's pathetic loss to the Cowboys, we saw Cam throwing his coordinator under the bus in public on play calling. 

Dude? Really.

It's NEVER a good sign, when NFL Network talking heads are asking if you are the "new Jay Cutler."

I had doubts about Cam Newton based more on his short college experience, and his super-simplified offense he ran at Auburn. I was agnostic to the "off-the-field" persona stuff, including his now infamous quote about wanting to be "an entertainer and an icon" as well as a football player.

Mind you, I was never "all OUT" on him as a QB in the pros, I just had some doubts, and saw lots of red flags. And as you saw last year, he took all of those red flags and shoved them up my ass and anyone else who doubted.

Which brings us to now. Adversity. It happens. How do you respond, as an athlete? What do you do? What do you say? How do you act? Can you L-E-A-D?

It's quite possible Cam will figure it out, now that the football tailwinds of last year, have shifted into headwinds this year. I was impressed last year with his ability and willingness to stay in the pocket as it collapsed, stand tall, and deliver heavy balls to all parts of the field with accuracy and timing.

But the game changes. And the game is hard. And people are going to - GASP! - "say things..." you know.

Time to figure it out, Cam.

Start, by understanding that your body language means something to your teammates. Your coaches. Your fans. That means the scowl and pout after losses at the podium. The towel over the head. All of it. Start with changing that, because it's the easiest thing to do.

There's a long, and excellent career to be had for Cam Newton. If he wants it.

UPDATE: Ooops. Panthers GM Marty Hurney just got the axe! Ouch. Who could have seen that coming? Oh wait... Nolan Nawrocki did. This guy (/Gruden voice) is getting more right by the second!

Can provide an initial spark, but will quickly be dissected and contained by NFL defensive coordinators, struggle to sustain success and will not prove worthy of an early investment. An overhyped, high-risk, high-reward selection with a glaring bust factor, Newton is sure to be drafted more highly than he should and could foreclose a risk-taking GM's job and taint a locker room.

"Ever See A Deer That Got Impaled By The Nads On A Wrought Iron Fence?"

... now you have.


/as you were, soldier.

Snicky du Jour: Kyna Treacy

We all know by now two things...

1. A-Rod can't hit water if he tripped out of a canoe
2. The Yankees will have him sitting on the curb this winter with a "Take Me" sign around his neck

Okay, fine.

The guy can still spot a 10 while wearing heavy fall clothes at a baseball game from several rows away.

Her name is Kyna Treacy. She's an Aussie. A model. 33, and wow!

I almost half think that A-Rod already knew about her, and that maybe he's ALREADY BANGING her, because every shot of Ms. Treacy while at the Yankee game said "very attractive Manhattan junior executive" almost none of them said: "smoking hot bikini model!"

And here's another question: her gal pal next to her? Just chopped liver? Haven't even seen her name mentioned. If that's the "wingman's obligation" in this transaction, is it that bad of a second place prize?

Anyhow, because you are too lazy to google search Ms. Treacy yourself, I've done the hard work wasted my time for you.

Enjoy.

Matt Holliday Is A Dirty Little Bitch

Okay, so last night Holliday takes out Marco Scutaro on a really hard, really borderline dirty, waaayyy over the bag "slide."

At first, I thought: "Okay, borderline. Cheap. But not riot inducing dirty."

Then people started to fill me in on Holliday's "rep" so to speak.

Wow.

There's lots of evidence out there, and it's not good.

The Giants may not get revenge by drilling him THIS series - who knows what kind of ejections or suspensions might come down by Uncle Bud and the League Office? But I bet sometime next spring, ol' Matt Holliday better "watch his lips" when he faces the Giants.

Snicky du Jour: Brooklyn Nets Girls

I don't know what you think about the new Brooklyn Nets jerseys, but I would dare say about the cheerleader outfits: "NAILED IT!"

This Is The Life We Chose...

What can I say about Friday night?

Nothing.

This is baseball. This is the deal. We wanted a team of our own here in D.C.

And we got it.

Now we've got this. To forever burn in our hearts. One out. One strike.

Disaster.

I'm not going to bother second guessing anybody, or anything.

Did they overuse Storen? Should they have walked Kozma? Strasburg?

Nah. Let it go. We needed a strike. ONE strike.

We'll just sit down in the sports bar of woe, and order our beer next to every other fan base that was one out, one strike away. Slide over, Indians fans. Scoot down, Rangers fans.

As somebody - ahem - "helpfully reminded me on Twitter: "This is what you signed up for."

True.

But having never had a baseball team to live and die with, you have no idea just how cruel the game without a clock can be to you. Hell, they stole our champagne. That ain't right.

But it's part of the deal in baseball.

Like the great scene in Godfather II:

Hyman Roth:

There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada... made a fortune, your father, too. 

As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way to the West Coast. That kid's name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. 

This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. 

When I heard it, I wasn't angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. 

And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!

Behold, The Always Useful "Composite Box"

Because I was silly enough to ASSUME that the regular MLB.com main site - you know, the one which lists  every post-season series with convenient info - would also include the most important stat page  link - the "composite box" - I was stumped yesterday looking for this info.

No longer.

Here's the Cards and Nats comp boxes, through 3 games. Plus links.

If you want the composite boxes - and the entire post-season box scores as your teams plow deeper into the playoffs - here's where to go.

/you're welcome.

UPDATE:

Orioles Division Series Box

Yankees Division Series Box

Elizabeth Hurley Can Still Pop The Radar Gun at 98 MPH!

Damn. Haven't seen her for a while now, but she's got it all together, still.

Zapruder Film of Sunday's Big NFL Hits

Credit the boys at www.thebiglead.com for these excellent animated GIFs. The top two picks in the draft last year, the two rookie QBs who are expected to be the face of the NFL for years to come.

Both hits, on the very border of legal and clean. The RG3 hit was not flagged (properly so, IMHO) and the Perry hit was flagged (close call, IMHO, he did lead with the crown of his helmet into chest) and the commissioner is running around worried about petty sums of money the Saints allegedly swapped for "cart-offs."

Child, please.

This game is vicious on a good day.

Oriole Magic

Sure, it's hokey. And yeah, franchises like the Yankees with their 27 World Championships do not NEED this small market kitsch.

But so what.

If you are an O's fan... this little ditty still warms the heart!

"The Worst Thing That Ever Happened Anywhere"

Chance of Heavy Aluminum Thundershowers

Sometimes, it's more fun to be completely out of the loop when something big happens in sports.

Like Friday night.

I was totally in the dark when the beer bottles came raining down in Atlanta.

Only when I turned on my phone again, checked Twitter, did I start piecing things together.

Infield fly rule sucks.
Stupid umps.
Are these guys replacements, too?
Screwjob.
The ball landed 225 feet away!

And of course, there were a few seamheads who insisted the call was "correct" even if it came "late."

I am not here to argue the call's merits. Hell, I needed an intense refresher course on the rule after it happened.

I would rather adjudicate whether Braves fans were way out of line to throw bottles on the field in the aftermath.

My ruling: Hey, sometimes, sh** happens.

The way I see it, bottle throwing incidents following bad calls in sports, are few and far between.

For one: those stadium beers are PRICEY!
For another: if you try to START a good ol' bottle throwing protest, there's a GOOD chance you are going to JAIL.

It's only when a call so f***ed up happens, that a rare spontaneous beercan shower erupts. It literally takes thousands of fans to say: "I will risk JAIL to let you know in no uncertain terms that call was complete horseshit!"

I remember the bottle incident in Cleveland years ago, vs. Jacksonville. If you didn't, click below.

Yeah yeah. Classless. Dangerous. Bush league. Somebody could have been hurt. Yeah yeah.

It was ATLANTA people! Talk about getting some "street cred!" This is a sports town regarded as softer than 800 thread-count Egyptian cotton bedsheets. The fans there actually CARE just a bit!

Heck, they cared more than Chipper Jones, who in his last major league at-bat, LOAFED it down to first base, almost turning a bonus-error into an out!

I'm gonna give Atlanta a pass on this one. The call really sucked (in application, if not by rule) so things are gonna happen.

On a separate note, do we really NEED an "infield fly rule?" I mean, really. Don't fucking pop up with runners on base. It's like grounding into a double play. Sure. Some really wacky plays may ensue, if teams try to game-out a dropped double-play.

So what?

There's nothing in the Bill of Rights protecting teams from popping into a gimmicky double-play.

There's A Monstah Out There!

Front yard. Last Tuesday. When does the season open?

And is it "illegal" to just shoot this guy from my rolled down front window?

Really?

Sheesh.

Attention, Idiots

Thank God, I am not the ONLY one who is horrified by the notion that a substantial amount of citizens who plan to vote in a month, are still "undecided".

SNL takes them to the woodshed...

Meanwhile, if you need a cheatsheet for November 6th, here it is.

Death By Pigs: Not Pretty

When I was a kid, the first pig I ever saw, was named Porky.

He was mostly friendly, occassionally agitated. And had a stutter.

He did not, eat you alive.

Real pigs, are quite different animals. In short, they will f*** you up, if given the chance.

Take this holy sh** story from Oregon.

When he wasn't seen for several hours, a family member went to look for him, and found Garner's dentures on the ground in front of the hog enclosure, which housed several of the animals. 

While searching the hog enclosure, the family member found Garner's body in several pieces, with a majority of it consumed by the hogs, the district attorney said

Dentures. All that was left was his choppers. Damn.

It reminds me of the epic scene in Deadwood, where Al Swearengen tries to communicate with Mr. Wu on which dope fiends murdered the Chinese courier.

This is definitely NOT SFW and certainly politically incorrect. But, it serves as a great Deadwood 101 for those that never saw the series.