For/Against/Don't Care: The 2010 Cincinnati Bengals Preview.

Team: Cincinnati Bengals.

For/Against/Don't Care? When did the Bengals stop being the Team That Could Really Surprise You? For a few years there, all we heard was that the Bengals were on the cusp, that they might turn the corner, that they might really surprise you.

Well, okay, that wasn't all we heard about the Bengals, but it was all we heard that didn't begin with "Law enforcement authorities say...".

But somewhere in the last year or two, the Bengals stopped being a Team That Could Really Surprise You and started being A Team That, Surprisingly, Is Still In The NFL. People just stopped talking about them, more or less. They became Jacksonville North. Or Seattle East, if you like that better.
Put more philosophically and intellectually-snobbically, the Bengals are the first team that's a zen koan: They're a team that is mostly known for not being known for anything. They're not exciting, they don't really have a chance of winning a championship, and they're not even so mediocre that people talk about that, the way they do about the Buffalo Bills. The Bengals are more than twenty years removed from their championship years and yet are still best known for losing a Super Bowl while John Candy watched from the sidelines.

It even kind of felt anticlimactic when Terrell Owens went there, didn't it? Rather than pumping up a team with some excitement (like he did for the Bills, for 1-2 games) or giving them a legitimate shot at a championship (like he did for the Eagles), Owens-to-the-Bengals feels more like when sitcoms, in their last desperate year on the TV schedule, throw in a bunch of guest stars. Owens might as well be trading punchlines with Will while Grace frets about her wedding.

So you can fill in the blanks here, but I'll do it for you. The Bengals will not be exciting, and their villainous days are long gone. You didn't watch the last season of The Cosby Show, and you need not bother watching this season of Bengals football: Don't Care.

The Opposite View: Free agents in football, good ones, are highly overrated. They add, at best, exactly two wins to your team. Any good free agent makes a football team about 2 wins better. The Bengals were 10-6 last year (I know, I didn't believe it either when I first read it), so if Owens has anything left in the tank -- and odds are he does, since Buffalo never really bothered to work him into the game plan last year -- the team that sports the coolest helmets in the NFL could end up 12-4 and playing at home all January. Of course, that'll make it all the more disappointing for them when they lose the AFC Championship to the Titans, but it could be fun to watch.

Superhero The 2010 Steelers Are Most Like: Spider-Man. When Spider-Man first came on the scene, he was something new: a gawky guy with real-life problems that got some superpowers and grudgingly decided to use them to help people, even though people kept thinking he was a bad guy. Spider-Man seemed exciting at first, and for a long time people clung to that initial feeling of excitement, time and again hoping against hope that Spidey would at some point have an adventure that recaptured the initial thrill they'd felt when they heard about this hero.

And yet, he never did. Spidey never had any really big adventures, and people grew tired of hearing him whine about the rent and complain about never getting the girl. They began to ask questions: "What does his webbing attach to, anyway?" "How does he cling to buildings through his gloves?" By the time Tobey Maguire got through CGI-ing around New York, the only concept the writers could come up with was to have him fight his own clothing. Neat.

Forget Batman & Robin; the Bengals embody the Spidey myth perfectly: Marvin Lewis as their coach, Carson Palmer as their QB, Ochocinco and a weak schedule and all that... and they never lived up to the hype. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this year the most exciting thing you see from Cincinnati is the football equivalent of fighting your own suit -- a change in uniforms. I give you your 2010 Cincinnati Bengals:






Other previews:


Explanation & my Super Bowl prediction for this year.

Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons

Baltimore Ravens.

Buffalo Bills.

Carolina Panthers.

Chicago Bears

Detroit Lions.

Pittsburgh Steelers.

Do you read offline, too?

Garrison Keillor thinks reading is dead because of the Internet. He hasn't had a good idea since he invented Lake Wobegon, so help prove him wrong by reading one of these great selections from The Trouble With Roy Publishing:




The Scariest Things,
You CAN'T Imagine,
a collection of macabre horror stories you'll never forget.

A shape-shifting demon torments children while their parents stand by. A widower haunted by the ghost of his wife tries to understand her requests. A baby stolen from his mother by gargoyles returns, full of hatred for the life he's led. A family of children raised by grave-robbing corpse stealers tries to discover a way out. An elderly man possesses the power of life and death in his retirement. These stories present images and people who will haunt your thoughts for a long time after you read them.

See a preview below, and click here to buy it on Lulu.com.

Look for it on your Kindle for $0.99!



_________________________________________________________________
Just Exactly How Life Looks, a collection of short stories, was recently called "funny to sad to a little strange," and includes the story "God Shrugged," which READING AT THE BEACH called "...an interesting take on the Crucifixion of Jesus, from a more modern day time, it was very good, but sad also."

Check out a preview below. Or read the Reading At The Beach review here.

Click here to buy Just Exactly How Life Looks at Lulu.com

Click here to buy Just Exactly How Life Looks on your Kindle.




_______________________________________________________________

Claudius wanted to be the first man to reach the stars... and maybe he was.

In a stunning psychological horror work, "Eclipse" unfolds slowly, beginning with Claudius drifting through space after something has gone wrong with his mission. As he stares at the only thing he can see, a tiny rock off in space, he mulls the events that led him here, reflecting on his childhood and the mission-turned-into-murder. Or did things go bad? In "Eclipse" s the story, the reader is treated to a twisting, constantly changing landscape created by Claudius' own mind, as version after version of what-might-have-happened pile on. One thing is clear, though: Something has gone wrong, and Claudius may never reach the stars. Or will he?

Read Eclipse by purchasing it at Lulu.com. Or get it on your Kindle for as little as $0.99.

For/Against/Don't Care: The Pittsburgh Steelers' 2010 Preview.

Team: Pittsburgh Steelers.

For/Against/Don't Care: There are those who say that I have fallen hopelessly behind on my 32-team look at the football season, that say that I'll never finish telling you which teams you should root for, which teams you should root against, and which teams you shouldn't even bother turning on the TV for, before the start of the regular season.

To those people, I say this: When, exactly, do you think the games start to count? Not week 1. That's for sure. No, in the NFL, week five is when the games start to really count.

I say that not because that's when Ben Roethlisberger will be allowed to play again by the NFL, his "six-game suspension" being shortened to four not because he's done anything to demonstrate that he's a different person -- as we tell our kids, not doing bad things isn't worthy of praise; it's just what's expected of people. If you want praise, do good things. No, Ben'll be back in week 5 because week 5 is a bye week for the Steelers, followed by two easy games (Cleveland and Miami) before a marquee matchup against the Saints in week 8 on Sunday night. Do you think the NFL wants a rusty Roethlisberger taking the field for the first time in a national game against Gregg Williams' nasty (some would say cheating) defense? No way.

Also, do you think "Rusty Roethlisberger" should be a euphemism for something only adults should be doing? Me, too.

There's another way to tell that the games don't really count until week 5, though, and that's by listening to the coaches and the players. Coaches and players always insist that it takes an entire training camp and preseason -- 4+ weeks -- to install the offenses and defenses. That's why they need four games, and all that time, and that's how they explain away embarrassing moments in the preseason. "It takes a long time to get things ready," they say.

Then they also say that they didn't really try all their good stuff in those preseason games. Hang 59 points on them in preseason and the Colts coaches will likely say "Well, we weren't playing our full defense. We stuck to basics. We didn't really run all our plays."

Then, they also say that the only way to get ready is to really play in a real game. "He's got to be on the field," they'll say of holdouts. "The only way to learn this offense is to play it at full speed."

The net result? Stick with me here, I'm going to use math: Four weeks, minimum, to learn to play + need to play at full game speed - didn't really run all our plays = Nothing gets done in training camp, the result being that in Week 1, when teams open up their full playbook, most of those plays have not been done at full speed in a real game situation... and they won't be done well.

If I were the coach, I'd try everything in the preseason; I'd play those games to win because I'd want my team to hit the ground running on Week 1. But I'm not an NFL coach, and the real NFL coaches know that the only need to win about 9 or 10 games to have a shot at the playoffs, so they don't bother trying real hard to win the first four. If you have tickets to a game in weeks 1-4, you're paying full price for a warm-up game.

Oh, and the Pittsburgh Steelers? As you'd guess from an intro like that, one which really doesn't mention the team at all, Against. You've got to root against the Steelers this year, tuning in only to hope that they lose their games. While the team will likely produce the same tough-nosed football they're known for, they're not going to be very good, and there's a bigger reason to root against them: they're hypocrites.

The Steelers organization, renowned for its values -- we held onto the same coach for years. We're like a family -- demonstrated in the offseason that it's values aren't so much values as a marketing scheme when they kept around Rusty Roethlisberger despite numerous reports of sexual misconduct, while trading Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes to the Jets-- a trade that occurred reportedly shortly before the Steelers simply waived Holmes.

Holmes will serve a four game suspension for substance abuse problems this year; Rusty is on a six-game (but not really) suspension over the same period for well-known allegations of sexual assault. Holmes also had other legal troubles. Holmes is black; Roethlisberger is white. Holmes is a receiver, while Rusty is the face of the franchise at QB.

I'm not sure which of those factors went into the decision that let Roethlisberger stay in Steeltown, while shipping Holmes off to the Jets (and a likely AFC Championship game), but none of them equal "family values" or even values beyond, say, the values shown on a bottom line. The Steelers are hypocrites, and if there's any justice in the world, people will call them on it and root for them to lose.




The Opposite View: It might be interesting to see if Roethlisberger achieves a measure of success after serving his six game (but not really) suspension, and, if so, what he does after that measure of success. If missing the playoffs last year led to excessive partying in Georgia this year, what would a third Super Bowl ring do? TMZ.com can hardly wait.

Superhero The 2010 Steelers Are Most Like: Steel. The son of "Commander Steel," Hank Heywood III was created by his grandfather to carry on his name... serving in the ill-fated "Justice League Detroit" and eventually died fighting an android created by Professor Ivo; in some stupid flashback it was revealed that if the surgery that made him Steel hadn't been done, Hank would have died. That's probably supposed to be poetic or something, but it seems to me to be a moot point: Make him Steel, or he dies; but if you make him Steel, he's going to be killed by an android.

A steel-based hero created in the likeness of a forerunner, but who turns out to be a callow youth who's nothing more than a pale shadow of former greatness: I give you your 2010 Pittsburgh Steelers:






Other previews:


Explanation & my Super Bowl prediction for this year.

Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons

Baltimore Ravens.

Buffalo Bills.

Carolina Panthers.

Chicago Bears

Detroit Lions.

But Is It A Sport? Table of Contents

Is your activity a sport? Or just a thing you do? Read the posts below to find out:

Golf

Fishing

Why bother trying to win the Super Bowl when you can make money without even trying?

Proving again what I've long said -- that Al Davis is a mad genius and the smartest owner in sports -- Forbes has released a list showing what your favorite NFL team is worth, and, along the way, pointing out that you will always be poor and a loser.

Over the past 8 years, NFL team values have increased by a whopping 211% -- growing in value 11 times faster than the stocks on the S&P 500, and growing while home values continue to decline. The difference is because you can't get people to buy merchandise for your home -- while NFL owners can continue to sell a dizzying array of jerseys and luxury boxes even when their teams stink. That's why you'll always be poor, and always be a loser. (Me, too, despite my attempts to get Sweetie to authorize luxury boxes in our living room.)

You'll also always be poor because you think that it's important that football teams win games, a belief held by everybody except Al Davis. Case in point: Forbes cites Raiders' owner Al Davis as a "maverick" who's costing his team money by firing coaches at will, handing millions to any person interesting enough to generate some press for his team, and not building a new stadium, leaving the Raiders perennial doormats whose playoff chances are over before the season begins... but the franchise makes a profit and is worth $736 million this year, and has better revenues than the Chargers, Falcons, Saints, Colts, Vikings, and Cardinals.

That's right: The lowly Raiders made more money last year than the two Super Bowl teams, and more money than the runners-up. Still think Al Davis is an idiot? Why should he bother to field a better team when putting junk on the field makes him millions? The Raiders made more money than the Saints last year -- the Saints lost money, despite winning the Super Bowl. And the team is worth more than such teams as the Chargers and the Vikings, playoff perennials.

So again, Raiders fans (and football fans in general): Why would any owner pay tons of money to field a winning team, when he can make money fielding a crummy team? Al Davis knows that Raiders fans will keep buying Raiders gear, and going to Raiders games, and handing their money over to Al Davis, no matter what he does. That's why he doesn't care what happens to the team. (Other owners share this knowledge, which is why Jerry Jones gets away with charging stupid Cowboy fans to stand in a hallway and watch TV.)

If you want your team to play better, don't buy their stuff until they win. If you really want them to play better, buy stuff from the opponents' clubhouse. NFL teams share revenues except for merchandise from their clubhouse. So if you Raiders fans want a better Raider team, take a field trip down to San Diego and buy a bunch of Philip Rivers' jerseys. I hear they're on clearance.

The Scariest Things, You Can't Imagine

The Scariest Things,
You CAN'T Imagine,
a collection of macabre horror stories you'll never forget.

A shape-shifting demon torments children while their parents stand by. A widower haunted by the ghost of his wife tries to understand her requests. A baby stolen from his mother by gargoyles returns, full of hatred for the life he's led. A family of children raised by grave-robbing corpse stealers tries to discover a way out. An elderly man possesses the power of life and death in his retirement. These stories present images and people who will haunt your thoughts for a long time after you read them.

See a preview below, and click here to buy it on Lulu.com.

Look for it on your Kindle for $0.99!

It's not just me that says I'm a good writer!

Just Exactly How Life Looks, a collection of short stories, was recently called "funny to sad to a little strange," and includes the story "God Shrugged," which READING AT THE BEACH called "...an interesting take on the Crucifixion of Jesus, from a more modern day time, it was very good, but sad also."

Check out a preview below. Or read the Reading At The Beach review here.

Click here to buy Just Exactly How Life Looks at Lulu.com

Click here to buy Just Exactly How Life Looks on your Kindle.

"The Thinkable Has Happened:" Favre/LeBron/TO: Road To A Championship (Or At Least A Roster Spot.)

I think a Stephen Colbert/Brett Favre matchup in the UFC ring (or, as the UFC should be called, "Hobo Crotch Kicking") would make for a ratings bonanza. Not that either of them needs it, since everything in the world has been named after Stephen Colbert and since every camera in the world is now magnetically attracted to Brett Favre.

As unnecessary as it might be, though, ratings-wise, it's almost required credibility-wise, as Colbert unleashed this threat not long ago:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Brett Favre Retires Again
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

And now has to carry it out, since Brett Favre took the lead in this triumvirate by simultaneously coming back to the Vikings AND retiring.

Yep: Everyone thought Favre couldn't top the swirling dance of retirement, re-retirement, return to football that he's done the past 6 or so years, but with his press conference yesterday Favre tangoed his way into the Sports Retirement Hall Of Fame, saying at his press conference he was glad to do Minnesota a favor by playing another year, but adding:

"I can promise you this, not that I had ever set out as a goal to play 20 years, but 20 years and I'm done. This is the last year of my contract."

While we're on the subject of that contract, keep in mind that Favre got a little more money than he had been promised for this year, tacking on anywhere from $3.5 to $6.5 million. That's money that won't pay other players now and in the future -- so Favre is the latest pro to demonstrate that athletes are more than happy to screw over their teams by taking money that's irrelevant to them but hurts the teams chances in the long run. Enjoy being the midwest version of the Seattle Seahawks starting in 2011, Minnesota.

While Favre basks in the glow of the pale-skinned love emanating from Minnesotans, Terrell Owens is busy claiming he's the Batman in his relationship with Chad Ochocinco. TO even has Batman shirts on sale on his website, which might have caused problems with former Packer Ahman Green, except that nobody cares about Ahman Green anymore. (Or ever did.) TO is probably emphasizing this because certain knuckleheaded Nonsports bloggers claimed he was the Robin... doing so because they didn't follow Ochocinco's tweets back in August, when this exchange occurred:

@terrellowens man it dont take that damn long to sign on the dotted line, lets go damit!!! You can be Batman i will be Robin, lets go!!

He followed this by continuing with the Batman analogy:

@terrellowens Oh and Carson is gonna be ALFRED

@terrellowens Cedric Benson is the riddler and bobbie williams is the penguin and tank johnson is mr. freeze

@terrellowens we cant forget coach Lewis he is gonna be detective BULLOCK

@terrellowens holy batman where are you, Pow, Crunch, Boom!

(Source.) What's amazing is that Owens appears to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Batman world. Detective Bullock? Only a hard-core comic fan knows that guy. Now you know what Owens was doing last year on all those plays when Bills' quarterbacks didn't bother looking his way.

Last, and probably headed for least, in the long run, is short-suffering LeBron James, who might find being Robin to be an upgrade. LeBron said recently he's going to remember everyone who's taken shots at him about his move to Miami; if true, he's going to need an extra-thick Unicorn-themed notebook to keep the list, as by now everybody but me has taken to picking on him, and that includes carnies, as LeBron was mocked on a trip to an amusement park:



I've got to hand it to you, Cleveland; those were clever taunts. (Note: Insert a symbol to denote jeering sarcasm here.) Third grade wasn't wasted on those guys. LeBron missed all three shots, but I'm led to understand that the Miami Heat let him get a double scoop ice cream cone later on to cheer him up.

Is this REALLY a category of World Records?

Reading Filmdrunk while I ate my heart-healthy lunch and ignored phone calls, I clicked on the link over to With Leather to find out that I'm not the only one who thinks World Records are also sports related. In this case, I can now report that With Leather reported that MinorLeagueBaseball.com reported...

(...am I now safe from plagiarism/copyright infringement lawsuits? Seems so...)

That there is a new World Record Holder in the seriously-that's-a-category of "Circling the Bases of A Baseball Field While On Fire." The record was set by "Ted Batchelor," who I think did this because he's serious about getting a job as charcoal.

No, that's not true! Ted has a job already -- being lit on fire; he holds the record also for Longest Full Body Burn Without Oxygen (2 minutes, 57 seconds, for you readers who have a full can of kerosene but nothing to do this afternoon) -- and it's a job he takes seriously, only doing it when absolutely necessary, like when he got lit on fire in this instance to promote a minor league baseball game.

But it wasn't just a promotion; it was the fulfillment of a thirty-three year long dream for Ted, who said he'd dreamed about this since 1977 and added: “It was a magical thing to come out of the dugout and grab a bat and go to home plate. It was very strange to see both clubs out there watching."

The strange thing was not being lit on fire, mind you. Here's the video:

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

I'm glad to see that the New York Times' futile campaign to make parents think that "Kids lighting stuff on fire" is something to worry about hasn't worked, since that video proves what we all already knew: the Internet doesn't convince kids to light themselves on fire. Minor League Baseball does.

There's no WAY this woman lives in Arkansas.

Bobby Petrino, the for-now-coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, may have a losing record recently as a coach, but he's 1-0 in being an asspod. Petrino took a question the other day from then-radio reporter Renee Gork, and followed up his answer by saying he wouldn't take any more questions from her while she was wearing "that hat."

"That hat" was Gork's Florida baseball cap -- an SEC rival of the Razorbacks, I'm told. Since people in Arkansas have nothing better to do than worry about college football, and since the single most important value a person can display is loyalty to a coach who'll up and leave you on a moment's notice and to players who come from almost anywhere but Arkansas and who'll leave there in 2 or 3 years, well, you know what happened: Gork got fired for not supporting the Razorbacks quite enough.

As someone who was wearing a North Carolina t-shirt when I asked Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan to autograph a basketball for my father-in-law (he did it, but groused about the shirt), I'm a little amazed that the radio station would fire the reporter for the hat incident, instead of simply telling her not to do that kind of thing (as though it matters) or making a publicity stunt out of it -- why not send her in to each press conference wearing the hat of a Razorbacks opponent to see what the coach does?

I suspect that Coach Petrino -- not having a better job offer yet and trying to deflect attention from his dismal conference record and lack of bowl games in 2 of the last 3 years -- pressured the radio station to do something. Anything to take the attention of the world off how badly your team will underperform while you scan the want ads for coaching positions on the West Coast.

And, to Renee Gork, when you read this (you know you will), if you'd like a special correspondent position for this blog, covering Razorbacks & Florida football for me this year, let me know via email at thetroublewithroy[at]yahoo.com.

Update: The manager of the radio station, on The Dan Patrick Show, claimed that there were "several reasons" for firing Gork, but wouldn't elaborate on them. He also admitted that the U of A football department wasn't happy -- but claimed that the coach had nothing to do with the firing. The manager also claimed that Gork was going to be fired even if she hadn't worn the hat to the press conference. He suggested that Gork's using Twitter during practice (and in doing so saying she'd rather be covering Florida) was a big part of why she was going to be fired.

Lucky in love, unlucky in golf?

Why aren't you a better golfer than you are? Why aren't you out there making $25 million a week and getting to ignore your hot supermodel wife while luring that Perkins' waitress into the backseat of your solid gold Escalade?

Luck. Or mostly luck. An article on Slate.com says that the main factor in many golfers' wins is simple good or bad luck. It cites to a bunch of scientific studies to come to this conclusion:

... only the very best golfers of the late 1990s and early 2000s—Woods, Mickelson, David Duval, Davis Love III—were able to win a tournament without being significantly luckier than the rest of the field. The average player needs a lot of shots to go right for him—and, typically, a lot of shots to go wrong for everyone else—in order to hoist a trophy on Sunday. Think about that when someone you've never heard of—Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen—wins a major championship.

The article doesn't just say that nobodies like "Martin Kaymer" win tournaments because they didn't irritate their Golf Karma earlier in the week; it also notes that putting isn't as important as you think it is:

It's not that putting doesn't count. It does. But a golfer without a world-class long game simply can't be world class. The importance of power is confirmed by Mark Broadie in a forthcoming paper. Thanks to his shot-value analysis, Broadie is able to isolate particular skills. The areas that have the most influence on a golfer's score, Broadie found, are long-distance tee shots, shots from 200-250 yards, and shots from 150-200 yards. It's these locations on the course—not the greens—where golfers are most able to distinguish themselves from the pack.

So there you have it: You now have two routes to become a world-class golfer: One, be really really really good (and, it goes without saying, don't screw up a good thing by letting your wife clobber you in the head with your wedge), or, two, find a 7-leaf clover and use your foot for a putter.

Raise your hand if you think this post was simply an excuse to post a picture of Elin. Let's see... okay... gotcha all! It was also an excuse to post a picture of her twin sister:

For/Against/Don't Care: The 2010 Chicago Bears preview.

Team: Chicago Bears.

For/Against/Don't Care: This morning, on ESPN's morning drive-time show, the Not-Mike-And-Mike fill in hosts talked about the Bears; apparently, Mike and Mike had picked the Monsters Of The Midway to go 5-11 and 6-10. Eric I'm-Not-Going-To-Try-To-Spell-His-Last-Name-'Cause-I-Don't-Care took issue with that, saying "I think the Bears could be a lot closer to 0.500 than people think."

I take issue with that, because how much closer, Eric? 7-9? That's not a lot closer. 9-7? That's only three games closer.

I'd like to say what Eric actually thought the Bears would finish, but I tuned the rest of his comments out while I shaved.

So should you care about the Bears this year? And if so, in what sense -- root for them? Or against them? That's what I'm here to tell you: I'll take care of letting you know what to think, and in this case, I say you should root for the Bears, and here's why: An NFL without a good tough Chicago Bears team is not an NFL I want to be a part of.

These are the Bears we're talking about, people. I know that Chicago is where quarterbacks go to die, but the Bears, Soldier Field, CHICAGO, they have mystique. They're old school even when they're not. When you say Chicago Bears you think power football, amazing games played in fog and monsoon conditions, blizzards and ice and smashmouth. You think "Mike Ditka really punched his quarterback in the chest? You bet he did." Where else would that happen but in Chicago? This is a team that was in the Super Bowl not that long ago -- a team whose karma and legend carried them to the title game even with Rex Grossman (who I always kind of like, and kind of miss) behind center.

It's a damn shame when the Bears -- who embody tough football -- become a whipping boy. If you want the NFL to mean anything, if you want hard-hitting, classic football, you've got to root for the Bears, because what other team stands even a chance of undoing years of West-Coast-pansy offense and rules designed to make it possible to play with a quarterback made entirely of fine crystal? No other team. If football is going to remain a contact sport, and one that involves running and tackling and blocking and all that good stuff, it's going to do so because the Chicago Bears are going to remind people that no matter how many Air Coryell offenses you install, the game is still about hitting someone.

(And, yes, I know that Mike Martz is installing his Air Coryell in Chicago, but, God willing, Martz will install the version that includes actual body contact.)

The Opposite View: Eh. Jay Cutler. Mike Martz. Perennial not-as-good-as-he-thinks return guy Devin Hester. Even Lovie Smith doesn't seem to care all that much, so why should we?

Superhero the 2010 Bears Are Most Like: The Hulk. The embodiment of brutal rage has fallen on hard times -- from his heydays in the 70s and 80s as a hit TV show to repeated "rebootings" that have led to him now being part of an ensemble cast. Both The Hulk and the Bears show the flip sides of humanity -- mild-mannered, purple-pant wearing humans encapsulating abrupt, uncontrollable violence-- and of entertainment: where once fans wanted to see guys like Urlacher knock the lights out of the quarterback, we now eschew all that brutality in favor of screen passes to the running back. Three yards and a cloud of dust has turned into 4.5 yards per play average on a flip to the weak side just as superherodom has gone from watching Bruce Banner try to control his anger to watching Robert Downey, Jr. play with a smart phone.

There's hope, though, that humanity will embrace the toughness again -- and we should all focus on that and root for Your 2010 Chicago Bears:




Other previews:


Explanation & my Super Bowl prediction for this year.

Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons

Baltimore Ravens.

Buffalo Bills.

Carolina Panthers.

Detroit Lions.

For/Against/Don't Care: The Detroit Lions' 2010 Preview!

Team: The Detroit Lions.

For/Against/Don't Care? Commenter/Presumed Detroit Fan Rogue Mutt -- probably lured in by the picture of Wonder Woman -- commented on my last preview by wondering what I had in store for the Detroit Lions, and expressed his own hopes for the Lions' season thusly:

Whenever I go by the billboard advertising Lions season tickets starting at $230 I think, "Wouldn't it be a better use of that money to just pay a hobo to kick me in the crotch every Sunday afternoon for 16 weeks?"

Sure, it would be, but how are you going to sell Hobo merchandise to the teeming... dozens that still bother to show up for Lions' games? Also, I'd be careful with that concept, since "Hobo Crotch Kicking" is already a televised sport; most people know it better by the television name, "Ultimate Fighting."

Anyway, on to the Lions. Will the Lions be exciting this year? Will they be worth rooting for, or against? Or will the hobos in Detroit find themselves constantly pestered on Sunday mornings as they try to sleep off the night before?

Having shaken up the old Magic 8-Ball with that question, I'm going to go ahead and say this year's Lions team is worth rooting for. They're going to provide some fun, exciting moments in football -- and not just by giving up touchdown after touchdown to opposing teams. This isn't the same team that went 0-16 two years ago -- although it's barely better than that team.

But football, and football plays aren't necessarily the reasons to root for the Lions and why the team will be worth watching. Here are the reasons: First, QB and Superrich Guy Matt Stafford was named the permanent starting quarterback by Lions coach what's-his-name last year. Permanent. So not only did the Lions guarantee Stafford $41.7 million no matter what, but Stafford was also guaranteed to be the starter no matter what. Nobody in America ever had more job security -- which means Stafford should be free to make plays that look like Brett Favre improvising from a Mike Martz playbook.

That, combined with the fact that the Lions quite literally have nothing to lose, should...should make the Lions a team that plays fun and gutsy and loose -- like when Stafford came in last year to throw a TD with no time left on the clock (and in doing so, took away yet another of Dan Marino's former records.)

Then there's the sentimental factor: We Americans love rags-to-riches stories and people rising from the ashes of ruin to victory. We were thrilled when the Saints finally topped off New Orleans' rebuilding from Katrina with a Super Bowl victory last year (or, those of us who weren't Favre fans were thrilled, anyway), and Detroit is due for just such an emotional lift -- not only have the Lions been terrible for years, becoming the Aints of the Aughts, but Detroit actually stood in for Katrina-ravaged New Orleans in a movie. So if Real New Orleans could get a worst-to-first Super Bowl ring last year, shouldn't The Fake New Orleans' Lions get one this year?

That's the hope.

The Opposite View. There's ample reason to root against the Lions, though, and again it's embodied in Stafford, who was drafted to a city that has been the symbol of American poverty for a long time, and who was then guaranteed $41 million dollars, and who promptly set about using that money not to help the city or the fans (the way the Tigers, for example, gave free advertising to local companies), but instead (reportedly) invested in new boobs for his cheerleader girlfriend. Here's the before-and-after from that site:


Way to be a humanitarian, Matt Stafford. Why do we hate LeBron, but not Stafford?

Superhero the 2010 Lions Are Most Like: Rogue Mutt said in his comment that I would have to pick a superhero who loses all the time -- and he's almost right. There's a superhero out there who almost always lost, who time and time again had his power ridiculed and time and time again tried to get people to take him seriously: Polar Boy.

Polar Boy came from the hottest part of the hottest planet in the Universe, and had but one dream: to join the Legion of Super Heroes. Time after time, he was rejected and ridiculed, so much so that he formed his own band of superfolk, the Legion of Substitute Heroes, with such powered-people as "Antenna Lad" and "Infectious Lass." As I understand from Wikipedia, Polar Boy eventually got to join the Legion, but then had to suffer having his arm ripped off and creating a new one out of ice.

Such is life for Superhero Wannabes, but there's a bright side: Polar Boy also got to lead the Legion at one point after winning an election, so it just goes to show that even the lamest, ice-armed superheroes can ultimately rise to the top. And that's the role I see for the Lions this year: Lame, ice-armed, girlfriend-enhancing wannabes who somehow make it to the big time.

Your 2010 Detroit Lions:




Other previews:


Explanation & my Super Bowl prediction for this year.

Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons

Baltimore Ravens.

Buffalo Bills.

Carolina Panthers.

Michael Phelps: "Maybe getting high all the time wasn't the best of ideas."

People only really care about swimming when two things are involved: Michael Phelps, and the Olympics. This story only has one of those, and it seems like the second ingredient might never again be present, so I'm willing to bet this post'll show up as the highest bounce rate ever on my Google Analytics for this blog.

But I have a sacred obligation, blah blah blah something about journalism... so here goes. Turns out maybe Michael Phelps doesn't just know how to win. Sports Illustrated reported that Phelps lost to his longtime rival, and put the reasons for it delicately:

With only the Pan Pacific swimming championships -- rather than an Olympics or world championship -- to look forward to this summer, Phelps had not been in peak physical condition as he usually is during major years of his quadrennial cycles. His trip to nationals was marked by both a piece of history and disappointment.

The history was overshadowed by the fact that Phelps had never lost a major 200 meter IM until this summer, and by the giant white elephant in the room that nobody was mentioning. And by "giant white elephant" I specifically mean "that bong Phelps owns shaped like a giant white elephant."

The Scariest Things, You CAN'T Imagine...

Old women who avoid Hell through cannibalism.

Little kids left to demonic torment because of a deal their parents made.

A man whose talent is seeming to be exactly what people needs has it made... until he meets a dead girl's father seeking revenge.

These stories and more are available, free, on AfterDark, home to the world's scariest horror stories. AfterDark posts horror stories in serial form, with links to download the whole story free. Three stories are up at any one time. Check it out today!

Statistically speaking, 30% of you will not even read this article but will focus instead on the picture. (Facts Are Meaningless)

Welcome to Facts Are Meaningless, a new installment here where I'll feature, when I come across them, the most absurd statistics you can find in sports -- stats that prove, as Homer Simpson said, that "Facts are meaningless - you could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"

There are stats, and there are stats. And then there are the kind of stats that make you think "Who sits around thinking these things up, how much do they get paid, and if it's a lot, how do I get that job?" The kind of statistics that fall into that latter category include the ones that are used to make it seem like a big deal happened, when in fact something big did not happen.

What do I mean? Let's look at an example, from the Go Figure sidebar in the College Football Preview issue of Sports Illustrated. The item reads:

4: Consecutive wins by the Orioles under Buck Showalter, who took over the 32-73 club on August 3. No manager had won even his first three games after inheriting a team that was at least 30 games below .500.

That is a meaningless stat. Let's look how.

First, consider the qualifiers: To be considered, you've got to be a manager who takes over a team mid-season. And your team has to be at least 30 games below .500, meaning that you have to have played at least 31 games (but the odds of a team going 1-30 are pretty slim.)

Second, consider the relationship the qualifiers have to the actual statistics. Showalter won four games, but no other manager has won even 3 it says. And the measurement is teams at least 30 games below .500, but the Orioles were 41 games under even when he took over -- so is Showalter's feat better? Or worse?

Then consider how many other teams might fit that category -- and wonder why SI didn't say how many teams there were. Have there ever been any other teams in which the manager took over when the team was more than 30 games under the 50/50 mark? How many? 1? 2?

At times it seems we're just going to have a statistical category for everything, so that everyone can be number one at something. I look forward to SI's telling me when we see the very all-time greatest utility outfielder who's exactly 31 years, 3 months, and 2 days old playing in his 232nd major league game against a left-handed pitcher with an ERA under 5.0 but not less than 4.2, batting fourth, who hit a double in his second-at bat with two men on. I want that guy's autograph.

For/Against/Don't Care: The Carolina Panthers' 2010 preview

As I continue to recover from nearly dying, I continue to also give to the world of sports/blogging by occasionally rousting myself from bed long enough to ignore the chest pains and make fun of some NFL teams while telling you who you should root for, or root against, or simply ignore this year in the NFL.

Team: Carolina Panthers.

For/Against/Don't Care: In the world of sports, how you choose to geographically locate yourself says a lot about what you think of your fans. For example, the Milwaukee Brewers stubbornly refuse to be the Wisconsin Brewers, probably because nobody in Wisconsin cares about baseball, anyway. All kinds of teams call themselves the Chicago this or that, doing so because being the Illinois Cubs, or whatever, would actually detract from their mission, since Illinois wouldn't exist without Chicago and knows it.

Then there are the Arizona Cardinals, who had to change their name because being from Phoenix was too limiting to appeal to the broad-minded people of Arizona, who have shown themselves to be open to pretty much anyone from anywhere, provided that the "anyone" isn't in any way colored any shade darker than, say, rye bread.

Statewide appeal isn't enough for the New England Patriots*, who opted to stop being Boston Patriots to enhance their appeal -- something the Boston Red Sox didn't think was necessary. (Then again, the Red Sox didn't think it was necessary to cheat their way to championships, either.)

This is all by way of saying that the single most interesting thing about the Carolina Panthers is the geographical part of their name, so far as I can see. Yeah, they drafted Jimmy ClausenPickles, but not until the second round, and what's so exciting about Jimmy C, anyway? Did I miss something, or am I right that Notre Dame stunk the last four or five years? That didn't happen in an alternate universe, did it? I didn't think so. Plus, if Jimmy was any good, he'd not be among the four starters expected to see time in the first preseason game.

It'd be different, maybe, if Jake Delhomme was still there. I liked Jake and would root for him to have one last good go-round, especially since now he's retired (Yeah, I know he's on the Browns but it's the same thing) without the Super Bowl ring he deserved and that Brady Belicheated away from him.

Jake is gone, though, so it looks like the Panthers will not be exciting at all this year -- with no reason to tune into their games. But don't take my word for it; listen instead to the only veteran on their roster, WR Steve Smith, who cared so little about the team that he opted to break his arm playing a game of pickup football instead. When your wideout starter/leader of the team thinks that the NFL season isn't worth looking forward to, what are fans supposed to do? I'll tell you: Don't Care.

The Opposite View: Expect to hear a lot of worst to first talk as people repeatedly and boringly remind you that the NFC South never has repeat division champs, and also as they remind you that no NFL team has more players on the roster who've never suited up in an NFL game. That combination of weirdness and inexperience could lead this team to be an exciting contender, like last year's Jets only without the charisma. (Then again, there's a reason you've never heard of an all-rookie team winning the Super Bowl.)

Superhero The 2010 Panthers Are Most Like: Jimmy C's going to be the starter, if management has any idea about what to do to get fan interest. So the 2010 Panthers will have some potentially good young talent, a good coach, a recognizable name at QB and a decent shot at winning the division. And even that won't generate any fan interest or reason to care much.

What superhero has some decent powers, good standing in superhero groups, and some fans who care passionately enough to argue that the rest of us simply don't get how great she is... all the while the rest of us say, "Yeah, sure, she's a looker, but frankly, I can't get much excited about this." You guessed it: Wonder Woman. As superhero movies dominate Hollywood and more and more women get into Comicon and read comics and such, we repeatedly hear "Maybe there should be a Wonder Woman movie" and are reminded that once, Wonder Woman had a TV show, and on and on, and we all just say "Yeah, well call me when she does something interesting." And so it is with Carolina: Call me when they do something interesting.

Your 2010 Carolina Panthers:






Other previews:


Explanation & my Super Bowl prediction for this year.

Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons

Baltimore Ravens.

Buffalo Bills.

It seems like every post here ends up with two chicks kissing. (World Records)

Is "being naked" a sport? Sure -- or more of a sport, at least, than golf or NASCAR. Also more of a sport than either of those two things? Setting a world record, as 102 naked British people did recently when they set the world record for naked roller coaster riding.

Noted Naked-Reporting Site Huffington Post reiterates (reiterating is not plagiarism, high school students!) the report from The Daily Mail and notes that:

The riders can now claim the world record for naked roller coaster riding, a title previously held by a group of 32 British people, who took a naked ride in Staffordshire in 2004.

So the previous naked world record roller coaster ride was a measly 32 people? And that stood for six years? SIX YEARS? Seems to me that doing-stuff-naked records should be falling all the time, especially in England, which, after all, shipped all its Puritans to our country, saddling us with 2+ centuries of pretending we don't like nudity, while leaving them with no shame whatsoever.

Although, looking at the picture, they should have a little shame. Or, let's face it, a lot of shame.

You know who should set the next Naked Roller Coaster record? Those girls that play in the Lingerie Football League. Let's stop pretending it's a sport and see some skin. Or at least more of this:

I'll be back soon.

Hey, remember that thing where I almost died twice?

Turns out it's not over yet and I've got to go get some doctor-y stuff done, so I'll be out Tuesday, August 10, and maybe a little longer than that. Thanks for your patience. Maybe check out some of my other blogs that you haven't had time to read up on lately, and also enjoy this optical illusion -- thanks to Petri Dish's suggestion that I do this whenever I make people wait for my posts.
(from Mighty Optical Illusions.)


Thinking The Lions: Make Life More Interesting. Stories about me, and the things I think, and the songs I listen to. But mostly about me.

The Best Of Everything: Our Opinions Are Righter Than Yours! Pop culture served up with a side of philosophy, and sprinkled with inanity. And superheroes, because... well, just because.

Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! The sports blog for people who hate sports blogs.

AfterDark: Short horror stories in serial form. Up now: Temporary Anne: The Hunting. Join Temporary Anne as she tries to find a way to finally be free of Mephistopheles' curse on her existence.

5 Pages: Read a serialized novel 5 pages at a time. Up now: the After: When Saoirse dies in a plane crash and wakes up in Heaven, her first instinct is go home. After meeting William Howard Taft and finding a way back, though, she's no longer sure whether her seemingly fake existence is better than what he plans.

Lesbian Zombies Are Taking Over The World! Rachel woke up two weeks ago, not sure who or what she was. On the advice of her Octopus she set out on an adventure that finds her falling in love with a betraying waitress, making out with her own clone, and leading an army of lesbian zombies in a battle to save the 73 dimensions.

Family and Consumer Law: The Blog: Actual legal information, hidden amongst the sarcasm and stupid lawyer jokes.

For/Against/Don't Care: The Atlanta Falcons' 2010 preview

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Team: The Atlanta Falcons.

For/Against/Don't Care: How exciting will the 2010 Atlanta Falcons be? I think the answer lies in asking how exciting have the Atlanta Falcons ever been? And the answer is not very. The team that made it to the Super Bowl (because the Vikings stopped trying to win in the NFC Championship) turned that game into Elway's Victory Lap, and that is still the single-most-boring Super Bowl ever.

The current squad is nondescript, beginning with Matt Ryan, the most anonymously-named QB in the league. (My theory of how success follows QB names is well-known, so I won't spell it out here at length. Suffice to say that the best teams have the best QBs, and the best QBs are determined solely by two criteria:

1. Having a short, American-sounding first name, and
2. Having a 2-or 3-syllable, manly-sounding last name. Think Joe Montana. That's the ultimate in QB names and he's had the most success of any quarterback. Brett Favre has always been and will always be hampered by that last name. Terry Bradshaw has a kind-of-girly first name but a very manly (broad-shoulders-sounding) last name.

Anyway, Matt Ryan isn't manly or American enough; it's bland. It's the name you'd give a guy in a screenplay about espionage, but it would be given to the office drone who sits at the computer and tells the real star of the show where the satellite's Internet power cable linkup is so that Action Hero can blow it up.

Beyond that, there's no reason to think the Falcons will be a surprise team, or will build on past success, or have an electrifying star to watch, or any other reason to root for, or against, them. They're simply there, and that's a don't care.

The Opposite View: Atlanta is home to CNN, which is home to Robin Meade, who looks like this:

That's all I've got, really.

Superhero The 2010 Falcons Are Most Like: That Archer Guy From "The Avengers". I never really read The Avengers, despite a brief period when I was a kid and we'd play superheroes and I wanted to be The Vision. So I'm not sure who's all in the group or what they all do. I do know that there's an Avengers movie coming out and that people are saying that some guy who's like a Marvel ripoff of Green Arrow will not only be in the movie, but will also be the focal point of the movie.

That's the 2010 Atlanta Falcons: Nobody knows they're there, they're a pale imitation of other heroes, and even if they get into the spotlight we'll all just yawn and wonder what else is going on.

Your 2010 Atlanta Falcons:


Other previews:


Explanation & my Super Bowl prediction for this year.

Arizona Cardinals

Baltimore Ravens.

Buffalo Bills.

Favre v. LeBron v. TO: Road To A Championship, or At Least A Roster Spot: Robin still sucks, and Favre did WHAT NOW?

Keeping track of who's closer to their ultimate goal... because I care.

Still leading in this triple race is Terrell Owens, who I deem closer to a championship/roster spot simply by default. It's like nobody's even trying anymore, as we'll see.

Terrell Owens recently tweeted his embrace of being second fiddle/butt of jokes when he sent out this line:

Where cn we get batman & robin t-shirts? Batman is an XXL or XL & Robin is a L or XL.

Keep in mind: That statement is now cataloged at the library of Congress, and will no doubt form the opening line for the Book that Future Denzel Washington will carry across the postapocalyptic wasteland our world will become in December 2012.

Why, I wonder, is it always a post-apocalyptic wasteland when we talk about the future? I don't think the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs created a wasteland. If you can believe science* (*you can't) then the asteroid created the perfect environment for mammals to evolve -- that is, a paradise. So from now on, Hollywood, let's see Denzel strolling peacefully through a postapocalyptic Disney World.

Anyway, while Terrell Owens searches for someone who can point out to him that Robin, technically, was the lamest superhero ever created, LeBron James comes in second... again by default... as the NBA decided you want to spend your Christmas Day watching the Heat underperform against the Lakers instead of trying to put together that remote-control Millennium Falcon you bought for your kids. (I also feel I should point out that your kids don't like Star Wars nearly as much as you, and Seth MacFarlane, do. They've got their own things to like, and your things are as dated to them as John Wayne movies are to you. Just give them some cash and try to remember their names and you'll be doing fine.)

Bringing up the rear, hopefully not literally, is Brett Favre, who this week made headlines all over the world when it was revealed that a Maxim model/Jets sideline reporter (where was that box on my career survey in 8th grade?) claims to have been the recipient of...

... the recipient of...

... how can I put this delicately?

...pictures of Brett Favre's Whangdoodle.

The reporter (shown at right, the one not crying, surprisingly) told Deadspin that:

Favre first began to call her early in the season and leave strange, friendly messages on her voicemail...Then the phone calls from Brett started to turn weird....The interactions were flirty and strange but she didn't think there wasn't anything that made her too uncomfortable. But then, one night, Sterger received a picture on her phone which was so shocking that she just tossed it across the room.

You already know what it was, but I'm pausing for dramatic effect, and to ask, in a portentous voice, what was on that picture that was so shocking she tossed it across the room?!?!?!?

It was his dick. Brett Favre's dick. And it happened multiple times.

But that's not the big finish... pun intended. Even more shocking photos followed, the woman claims, including what now will be the single most disturbing image you'll ever have in your life:

In fact, Sterger claims that, in one of the photos Favre allegedly sent her, he's masturbating — while wearing a pair of Crocs.

If I've learned one thing today* (*I haven't) it's this: All you people who told me Crocs aren't sexy can go to Hell. I'm keeping my pair.