The Green Bay Packers are whining, Mrs. McCarthy is pounding cheese and the frat boy is feeling pretty good.
The Seattle Seahawks beat the Packers in what some are calling a controversial play. Please. If the Packers needed to rely on the refs to win that is their problem.
With the clock expiring, Seattle receiver Golden Tate used his skills and charm to wrestle the ball from the Packer defender and was awarded a touch down. That gave the Seahawks the win and threw Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers into a funk.
Rather than complain about the refs, McCarthy and Rodgers might just want to look at film and see why it came down to this last play to decide the game.
Perhaps the fact Rodgers was running for his life the entire game and could never throw the ball down the field and the fact he was sacked eight times and that his front line looked like Swiss cheese may have contributed to Green Bay’s futile attempt to wrestle the win away from Seattle.
The Green Bay Packers may just be a third rate team trying to survive on past glories that can be shredded by the call of a third rate ref.
The Denver Broncos should be feeling pretty smug right now.
Peyton Manning looked quite manly as he led the Broncos to an impressive win over Ben Rapistburger and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Meanwhile, lil Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts, heir to Manning in Indiana, stunk out the joint with a loss to the Chicago Bears. Throwing three interceptions, fumbling the ball and getting sacked multiple times were the highlights in that game for Luck.
It is great to see Manning at 1-0 while Mr. Luck is not so lucky at 0-1. Let’s hope the trend continues.
One thing the Big Ten has besides great academics and cool campuses is football. Football is the entertainment and social activity of fall semester on most Big Ten campuses except the University of Minnesota.
With a goal of 8,000 student season tickets, only 3,000 have been sold to date for TCF stadium. That is sad considering opening day is tomorrow. Go to any other Big Ten school and students are fighting over coveted tickets.
School officials blame the fact alcohol was not available in the stadium and it “turned off the average Joe who wanted to party down at the game”. So of course they decided that this would be solved with making beer and wine available to all fans over 21 starting this year.
That misses the point. The students at the University of Minnesota are sloth like creatures who don’t care about football. They rather play games on their cell phones or get their hair permed or watch TV.
Why they don’t care probably is rooted in the mascot and color of the uniforms as well as the inherent indifference of this population of students.
Goldy Gopher is the mascot and he is a drab little thing who cannot hold a candle to the likes of Bucky Badger, a wolverine or even a Spartan.
But not only is the Gopher a joke so too are the color she is forced to wear. Dressed in a maroon and gold tee shirt the little gopher looks like a preschooler dressed by her grandmother for a day at the park. This is not the look you want in your mascot.
So until the mascot is shelved and the colors changed the school will continue to attract apathetic students who choose to find their entertainment anywhere but the football stadium on a Saturday afternoon.
I think the New York Giants won the Super Bowl last year but even so, it doesn’t matter because this is a new year and Eli Manning is in the rear view mirror.
Manning was sacked three times in his team’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys Wednesday night and his only retort to a sideline reporter questioning his poor performance was “I ain’t Peyton”.
Meanwhile, Tony Romo was riding high in the saddle as he dismantled the not so giant secondary of the New York team.
This is a good start to the NFL season and hopefully a sign of what these two teams will do throughout.
Adrian Peterson complained that he was a modern day slave considering his paltry salary in the NFL.
Not only are football players feeling the sting of the economy so too are ordinary folk like Jennifer Conlin. Ms. Conlin has found herself in the unenviable position of liivng with her parents because she couldn’t afford to live independently.
Poor Ms Conlin and her family returned to the United States from Egypt and needed a place to crash. Without jobs and with uncertain futures, the family moved into the parents’ home in Michigan.
Conlin chronicles the transition in a piece for the New York Times and lays it all out in terms of how hard it was to be so poor she was forced to use her British credit card when turned down for a store credit card. She describes her distress when forced to find the funds to buy new field hockey cleats, lunch boxes and “wardrobes” for the children. She speaks of the emotional trauma for her youngest child when he did not know the value of a dime and nickel. The children had to learn what it is like to live in a large colonial house with swimming pool and veranda while at the same time navigating the “myriad American extracurricular activities they had signed up for”.
I wish Ms. Conlin, her husband and children could see the world through the eyes of those people truly desperate and impoverished. Do Florence, Harriet and Charles sleep on couches because there are no beds for them? Do they have food to put in the lunchboxes? Can they wear new shoes? Do they worry about the water or electricity being turned off?
The article would be laughable if not for the fact the author seems serious. I wish she would write about a real family with real issues that others can relate to. It is difficult to feel sorry for this privileged white woman living in the comforts of her upper crust despair.
Football is not very fun now that Favre is retired and there is no speculation or chance of his returning to light up the field in the NFL.
So we are stuck with Eli Manning crying on and off the field, Timmy Tebow praying for talent, Drew Brees sneering at his own team and others, Peyton Manning being somewhat amusing, Michael Vick hurt on the sideline, Jay Cutler looking bored in the huddle, Aaron Rodgers trying to get his big head in the helmet and all the other nameless and not exactly noteworthy QBs littering the field with their false hopes and trite expectations.
Let’s hope a Favre like quarterback emerges soon so we can pin our hopes on someone with talent, charisma and a winning attitude.
Thank God for Twins fans hoping to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Joe Mauer is on trade waivers and the sooner that guy is gone the better for Minnesota. Mr. Cry Baby can go mope in Boston or New York or wherever as long as he is gone for good.
The guy is not worth the kind of money being thrown his way. The team stinks and Mauer is part of the problem. Too frail to play catcher he is often found hanging out on first base or in the dugout on the phone with mommy.
Let’s hope there is a team stupid enough to take the guy. Good riddance little Joe.
The city of Minneapolis, the state of Minnesota and the fans of the Minnesota Twins invested plenty of money and emotions into the building of Target Field only to see their efforts go to waste. Until now that is.
Target Field has been a wasteland as the home of the Minnesota Twins. It has been a shrine to mediocrity and a symbol of the ridiculous but now is being given a shot at something bigger.
MLB has announced that the 2014 All-Star Game will be played at Target Field. This will mean that vendors will have “fans” to buy sausage and micro beers as well as the pork chops on sticks and cheese curds soaked in bacon grease. The tacos, ice cream cups and chop suey will finally find an audience.
Whether out of pity or spite, baseball is finally going to be played at Target Field. It has been a long wait.
Russell Wilson as starting QB for the Seattle Seahawks is wonderful news.
As a University of Wisconsin alumnus and fan I am happy to see Wilson get the nod despite the fact he has to play for Pete Carroll, head coach and frat rat of the Seahawks.
Not only did Wilson work his way past Tavaris Jackson for the starting role, he also showed Matt Flynn who is boss in the rainy city of Seattle. Flynn thought he was going to waltz into Seattle and get the starting job because he and everyone else thought he had no competition with Jackson and Wilson.
I hope Wilson does well and that Pete Carroll can shut up and let the kid play ball.
Many people are under the misconception that road rage is a behavior bordering on mental illness and that it is without provocation or motive.
Not true according to Dr. James Van Beckum of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. “Road rage is a perfectly acceptable manner of dealing with extreme anger or frustration”
Testifying in court as an expert witness for Cathy Kull of the Town of Erin in Wisconsin, Dr. Van Beckum supported the defense position that Ms. Kull was justified in ramming her car into that of her sibling, Michael.
“Ms Kull is not a gifted athlete nor is she a coach in the NFL so she does not have a venue with which to express her frustrations or act violently in a socially acceptable manner” explained the doctor when asked why Ms. Kull should be found not guilty of attempted murder in the collision that prosecutors claim was deliberate and with the intent of great bodily harm or even death.
“Ms. Kull is a kitchen aide in the Slinger high school and cannot take out her aggressions on the students or the staff and is left with little opportunity to deal with anger issues with her siblings. Not everyone can limit herself to fantasy and day dreams” was the defense’s position in the closing arguments.
Asked what prompted this rage, Ms. Kull testified that she had been “dissed by her brother for not validating his wife’s feelings regarding a family conflict”.
Too bad he didn’t die was all she could say when asked if she was sorry.
