In the Pocket - Predictions

by Daniel Reiter…

We all know that NFL preseason games are meaningless in more ways than one.  They do not have any impact on regular season rankings or really give a good sense of how a team will do in the coming season.  The teams do not play many of their core veterans very much because they know they will be starting anyway, so the fans pay for games wanting to see a giant bowl of poutine and they get a plate of cold fries.

Basically it is obvious the preseason allows teams to take a look at those players that are sitting on the fence between the practice squad and the starting roster.  Offensive coaches get to see which plays work for which players and which need to be scrapped and defensive coaches find out where their weaknesses are and who trusts who on the field.

Aside from all of that it is a cash grab for the teams, so since the preseason is a bit of BS and has not been on my T.V. as of yet here are a few predictions that don’t take the first week of preseason games into account.

AFC East

The New England Patriots will obviously win the AFC East again this season unless Tom Brady goes down with an injury and Randy Moss and Wes Welker forget how to catch.  They won’t be perfect this year as they haven’t really changed that much about their team.  They had a few close games with Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Baltimore last season that certainly proved they were not superhuman.  The only other competition in the division will come from the New York Jets.  Brett Favre even at 38 brings weapons and qualities to the Jets will give them a legitimate shot at the post season.  The Bills and Dolphins will not have great seasons again this year.  The Dolphins are clearly rebuilding and Bill Parcells’ methods could be questioned.  He brought in Chad Pennington who might finally solve their problems at quarterback and he decided to cut Jay Feely after he set a team record in field goal percentage, most likely because they didn’t get along – pretty stupid.  The Bills will reach mediocrity only if they start Trent Edwards at quarterback because if they go with J.P. Losman they will all indeed be lost men.

Patriots (14-2)
Jets (9-5)
Dolphins (5-11)
Bills (5-11)

AFC North

The Baltimore Ravens have not done enough in the off-season to change their fortune so they will be sitting in the basement again.  They seem to have some uncertainty at quarterback as well.  The Cincinnati Bengals have made some good offseason moves and Carson Palmer will carry the offense again but the big story is the overhaul of the entire defense, which was ranked 27th last season.  The Cleveland Browns came close to a wild card last season and will do so again this season possibly challenging the Pittsburg Steelers for the AFC North title.  The Steelers will once again ride the arm of Ben Roethlisberger into the playoffs again this season and the steel-curtain defense will make it all that much easier ranked second last season only behind the Indianapolis Colts.

Steelers (11-5)
Browns (10-6)
Bengals (8-8)
Ravens (4-12)

AFC South

This will be the strongest division in the AFC again this season.  The Indianapolis Colts will be a powerhouse again no question about it.  The Jaguars took out the Steelers in the playoffs last season and will make the playoffs again maybe even challenging the Colts for the division title.  Their offensive line conceded only 21 sacks last season on David Garrard and it hasn’t changed much so Garrard will be a factor in every game. Don’t forget about their interception stats either, they had 20 where opponents had 8 last season.  The Tennessee Titans have Vince Young returning at quarterback and if he spreads the ball around like he did last year the Titans will make the playoffs again.  The Houston Texans will stay at the bottom of the division.  Their receiving stats will not be enough to make up for the terrible defense, oh and Ron Dayne – just incase you wondered what happened to him after all his rookie year hype.

Colts (12-4)
Jaguars (11-5)
Titans (11-5)
Texans (5-11)

AFC West

San Diego will be at the top again, Philip Rivers and LaDainian Tomlinson need I say more.  The Denver Broncos have a great coach in Mike Shanahan, but Shanahan has very little to work with to make his team competitive.  Jay Cutler hooking up with Brandon “Baby Terrell Owens” Marshall gives them the only offensive threat they have. Elvis Dumervil at defensive end can’t compensate for the rest of the holes in their defense that were not addressed in the offseason.  The Oakland Raiders are rebuilding and have problems on defense with defensive backs DeAngelo Hall and Nnamdi Asomugha injured.  Their bright spot may be their rushing but with 19 wins in their last 80 games optimism is just silly at this point.  The Kansas City Chiefs will look to veterans to improve this season.  Tony Gonzalez and Dwayne Bowe will lead the receivers again and make life easy for either Brodie Croyle or Damon Huard at quarterback.  On defense it sounds like the Chiefs have sorted out their problems with linebacker chemistry and are poised to fill in after losing defensive end Jared Allen and the 16 sacks he got last season.

Chargers (11-5)
Broncos (5-10)
Chiefs (5-10)
Raiders (2-14)

Any team can look good on paper but the real test will obviously be when they take to the field in week one.

Quick note to Baltimore Ravens management: You clean house like Brett Favre retires: you wait and mull over what to do and when you finally make a decision you realize you are old and confused and should have done something a long time ago.   Take a lesson from Bill Parcells, he cleans house like Tony Romo picks his girlfriends: fast, reckless, and if it doesn’t workout he’s the boss so he can just start over (ok so Tony Danza is the boss, but close enough).  Have fun week 17 when you are getting it handed to you by the Jaguars and you start to wish you were Tony Romo.

Next week the NFC.

Just Happy to be Here

Jamie Uyeyama… You have all seen the movie Hoosiers, right? It’s about a small town team in Indiana that against all odds won a state title. It might be the greatest underdog story of all time. Everyone loves an underdog. We love Rudy and we never get tired of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team. Everybody loves the Cubs too. The “lovable losers” are tough not to pull for. How can you hate someone who never wins?

No wonder everyone all over the world loves Canadians. We’re always looked at as so nice, polite, and friendly where ever we go. Traveling Americans will even put a Canadian flag on their backpack just to get treated better. That’s right, other people wish they were as liked as much us!

Canadians are the ultimate underdogs to everyone. We are pillars of sportsmanship and class in the competitive arena. You have no choice when you always come up short. You can see frustration on the faces of our athletes who continue to finish without medals. You can sense the pressure they must feel by the weight of the entire Olympic team putting up a giant bagel so far. It’s incredibly difficult as a Canadian to watch and I feel for each and every competitor who is trying to live up to unrealistic expectations.

You see, the story is the same as it always is for Canadians in the Olympics. We sit at home hoping for the best from our athletes often without knowing what they are up against. I know everyone gets pissed watching an event and seeing a Canadian breaking a Canadian record yet still finishing 6th.

Shouldn’t we expect more than just making the final? Can’t we better than that?

The answers are no we shouldn’t expect more and yes we can be better. The only way we can be better though is to increase funding for Canadian athletes. That means that the government needs to give more and Canadian corporations needs to chip in more as well. We landed the 2010 games in Vancouver and the government was forced to increase funding but it’s just not good enough. It’s like giving a two dollar raise to someone who makes minimum wage. Sure it helps a bit, but not compared to what everyone else is making.

I had a chance to hang out with my buddy Tom the other day for the first time in a long time. We used to train in the off season together for football and since he is done with his football career he has been staying in shape by competing in jiu jitsu. He actually has a purple belt now and has won quite a few competitions. He even has an MMA fight on his resume. (Check it out on youtube. It is hist first match and he gets the guy to tap with a kimura in the first round. Just take a look at him, he is a beast out there.)

He always seemed like a perfect fit to compete in MMA but he never pursued it after that fight. When I asked him why he said it was because if he really wanted to be good at it, he would have to quit his job and devote all of his effort towards fighting. He knew if he continued to fight doing the same amount of training he does now, he would never be able to beat the guys who did it full time.

This is the dilemma that most Canadian Olympic athletes face. They are part timers competing against full timers. It doesn’t matter what kind of talent you have when those are the chips you are dealt. The days of Olympians being considered amateurs are over. Most countries provide everything for their athletes to make sure they can just concentrate on just being an athlete. They don’t have to work at a job just to sustain their training expenses. Canadians do not have that luxury.

It’s no different than our college athletes who can’t receive full scholarships in Canada. They have to work so they can have the opportunity to compete. And that’s just wrong.

It all adds up to us not even being considered in the same category as those “lovable losers” in Chicago. We are more like the Clippers. Content to just show up and do just enough to be there. It’s almost as if the Canadian government’s stance towards the Olympics is that “we’re just happy to be here”.

Well…that doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t cut for everyone watching at home hoping for a breakthrough from a Canadian to just to earn a medal and it doesn’t cut it for the athletes giving their all against individuals with a competitive advantage. Those individuals are given more money for coaches and training than our athletes could only dream about.

Right now we are the Hoosiers, hoping against hope for someone to go past their limits and shock the world. That is what athletic achievement would be for most of our athletes right now, a big shock to the world. We have these expectations of what we want our athletes to accomplish and I’m sorry to say that it is completely unrealistic.

As Canadians, we have never needed a miracle on ice. Just a miracle on the track, in the pool, or in the summer in general. On occasion we have experienced those kinds of miracles by some exceptional performances by some outstanding athletes. Maybe one day our athletes can win on a regular basis by giving them the funds they need to compete with the rest of the world. Until the government does that, we shouldn’t expect much more than what we have gotten in Beijing. Then we can begin to find out what it’s like for other countries to not like us so much.

For more you can check out his blog Top Cheddar at www.topcheddar.com.

Hey Repetitive Olympic Commercials…I Fucking Hate You!

by Jon Dwyer… McDonalds has done it again. First they made us Mac-addicts (those looked down upon by crack-addicts), which resulted in my obese childhood and the nickname “fatlick.” I looked the other way when they put nicotine in their “hamburgers” (I use that term loosely). I’m still terrified of that fucking clown Ronald and his kleptomaniac sidekick, “The Hamburgler,” when a lone burger went missing, I knew who it was!

McDonalds is like cigarettes…amazing when you’re drunk, yet so terrible for your health.

Now that I’m older, wiser and thinner, I avoid “wack-donalds” unless drunk or high…but now, reveling in the near 24-hour coverage of the Olympics and close proximity to my weed dealer, I’m bombarded by the repetition of commercials featuring 4 smug little bastards who “sip” and “bite” in unison to toast Canadian Olympians in Beijing.

What in the name of hot-fuck is wrong with these kids, and more importantly the creative geniuses that brought this gaggle of midgets together?

What leaves me particularly perturbed is the constant torture one of the kids is subjected to.

So he has a bit of mayonnaise on his face, give em’ fucking break!
It wasn’t enough that he had to endure the ridicule, his friends laughing at him as the 70 pound female ringleader serves as a reminder that little girls are far more cruel then boys, but the empire of the “Golden Arches” ran another commercial.
After their poly-unsaturated, anti-nutrient, epilepsy inducing lunch, the kids make their way home brandishing Olympic souvenir cups…
“I’m gonna be a dancer” the mean little brat says, “I’m gonna be a boxer” the anemic/uncoordinated kids exclaims, “I’m gonna be a mascot” proclaims mayonnaise boy. Not letting him off without a sarcastic comment, the Shannon Dougherty of the group once again lays into him…

“That’s so you” – they all laugh

Fuck you lady! Mayonnaise boy should have Round-housed her in the jugular and said something awesome like, “Naaa, fuck that…Tae-kwon-do bitch!”

The Air Canada commercial that sounds like its narrated by Charlie Brown and his bi-polar cast of coworkers also pisses me off. A group of technicians, mechanics, flight stewards and pilots are featured preparing a plane for Canadian Olympians. The entire time some douchbag is whining about his disinterest in being in the limelight, he’s “just happy he could help.”
Why is it necessary for him to say anything at all? He’s a union member, healthy, lives in the best country in the world and IS ON THE COMMERCIAL. Dude, you’re in the limelight and shouldn’t be. Fuck! You don’t see the kids from some Roots clothing sweat-shop in Singapore with a commercial telling of their appreciation to “be able to help,” hunched over a sewing machine sardonically eyeing the tee-shirt he/she’s making? No!

Its like Steve Martin said in “Trains, Planes and Automobiles”
-“Next time you tell a story, have a fucking point…its much easier on the listener.” -

Well CBC, next time you show revenue-generating commercials, take your head out of your federally subsidized ass and attract a wider variety of talent, its much easier on the viewer. Because of the lack of initiative shown by the CBC and the wank-stains running the operation, we have to endure the same commercials for the next 20 days or so…what part of the game is that?

P.s.

“Stubby Clap”
Definition(s)…
a) John Bobbitt’s first STD in the post-Loraine era
b) An audience of War Amps
c) Member of the Canadian baseball team
Answer…
All of the above