Actually, I rather like Richard Sherman.
I'm sure atm we've all got Sherman's back. Did you know that in all the years he was in Chicago, Skip Bayless never once set foot in one of his little brother's excellent restaurants?
NFL bad lip reading. Via Peewee Herman.
Uh, I changed my mind. http://mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/john-elway-to-fox-news-im-republican-because-i-dont,52eea47c025312186cc76253
Re: "awesome basin," my family loves Colbert's consonant shift: Superb Owl.
Livestream available here in case anyone was unaware.
Whoa. That's one hell of a way to start a Super Bowl.
Wow, me, apo and Peewee Herman are apparently corporate tools as McDonald's pre-game commercial is NFL bad lip reading.
I didn't even realize that sort of thing was even considered a safety.
This is not looking good for Denver so far.
12: in that case, where are the mashed potatoes?
Not many plays between last 2 SB safeties.
Maserati's going for the Hayao Miyazaki fan base?
Only halfway listening to the TV, all the phrases I pick up are things like "penetration into the backfield" and "natural rubbing action".
I think maybe you're watching The View.
I'm kind of, but not really, interested in how this ended up 8-0. I didn't watch the start.
Denver has been fucking up to an astonishing extent.
I don't always watch the Super Bowl, but when I do like to get my commentary from teo.
This was seriously the best offense in the league this season?
yoiks.
I was surprised that Seattle had so much trouble getting its 1st touchdown.
Manning going for the lowest QB rating in Owl history?
Hey, was that teo in the commercial standing next to the bear?
It's a sign of how closely I'm paying attention to the game that I muted the ads at the two minute warning and by the time I looked up the game was going to halftime.
Who on his O-line will Manning blame after the game?
In 5, ogged I think was attempting to link to this story on Elway describing his lack of "belief" in safety nets. Taxpayer-supported stadiums and a non-profit league not enough for the golden bag of douche I guess.
You might think Denver's QB was a 37-year who a few years back had a very bad knee injury or something. 27% thinking they still make it a game.
48: Eh, his quotes are pretty equivocal about it, and I'm sure basically everyone else in his position is also a Republican.
Denver did show an ability to score a shitload of points in a hurry during the regular season. But man, what a shutdown by the Seattle defense.
Yeah, that is a really impressive defense.
So many nipples on display at the halftime show.
27% thinking they still make it a game.
The Super Bowl blowout crazification factor.
50: Maybe if you restrict yourself to good quarterbacks.
During his years in Congress, Shuler made a name for himself by challenging the leadership of his party, which he believed had moved too far to the left.
Close enough.
After watching the halftime show, I now realize that I couldn't have picked Bruno Mars out of a lineup and had always pictured him as John Legend.
THIS IS JUST SETTING UP THE GREATEST SUPER BOWL COMEBACK EVER
So did Seattle get on the board faster in the first half or in the second half?
So the RHCP found the fountain of youth, no?
55: Right. The choice of percentage was not random.
(for our non-US readers wondering at this comments, this is a blowout.)
So did Seattle get on the board faster in the first half or in the second half?
I think it was the same both times. 12 seconds.
Speaking of bad quarterbacks, I just looked up Ryan Leaf's wikipedia entry and it turns out he's recently started a multi-year prison term.
73: Am pretty sure Art Schlichter is serving one as well.
73, 77: On a related note, this is a harrowing read but very much worth it.
That run by Lynch looked like one of the clips from Breaking Madden, where the defender was just holding on to the runner's ankle and being dragged along.
This game is tiresome. TWRCL wanted to turn off the television after Renee Fleming, but then she got interested in the commercials I put my foot down as a man and an American who doesn't particularly care.
I put my foot down as a man
This game is on double secret probation!
82: That seems to be the question the Seahawks are trying to answer.
Super Bowl XXIV is the most lopsided. 55-10 and Denver lost.
87, 88: Yeah, this is very reminiscent of the Broncos from that era.
Dammit, I was kind of hoping for a shutout now.
89: When they showed Elway in the luxury box, the expression on his face looked to me like he was thinking "Jesus Christ, I went through this as a player, I shouldn't have to go through it as an exec."
Now they just need to do that several more times.
95: One more than I would have said a couple minutes ago.
And thanks to Elway's patented last-second magic, the final score of Super Bowl XXX: Denver 7, San Francisco 56.
(That quote has been going through my head for pretty much all of this game.)
I mostly blame myself here. I've spent over a decade disliking Peyton Manning, reveling in his chokes, dismissing his achievements. And then he finally got me this year, seeming to put it all together, and I was willing to root for the old (ahem) man.
And so this. Normally I would have been chuckling mightily at this outcome, but instead I feel like a sucker. I didn't care much, but what I did, I cared for Manning to do well. Jerk.
78: omg teo, that's nauseating. jesus.
I hadn't thought to blame JRoth, but sure, why not.
101: Sorry, I should have put more of a warning on it.
103: No!!! Not like that, I'm glad I read it, but it is definitely as you say hard to read.
104: Oh, good. Yeah, a difficult read but an important and under-discussed subject.
I should have put more of a warning on it.
Like having apo post it.
Don't worry about Manning, he'll be okay. He's already cemented his legacy as being slightly better than Elway.
I don't think Arby's sells turnovers, but I guess Moby would know better than I.
Well, it's official. I'm not actually that emotionally invested, so I'm not as upset as some of my comments here may imply. It's probably for the best that my dad didn't live to see this, though.
It was very thoughtful of them to end the game before Sherlock comes on.
109: And even if he hadn't, he could cry himself to sleep on his piles of money.
Well, I'm $25 richer. Shoulda bet more.
Did you take "Hijab" over "Gay Dads" in the What Will Anger the Wingnuts pool, Halford?
That Benghazi prop bet paid for my massage chair.
Did you take "Hijab" over "Gay Dads" in the What Will Anger the Wingnuts pool, Halford?
My wife nominates Cheerios family.
He's already cemented his legacy as being slightly better than Elway.
I think Marino is a better comparison. And I don't mean that as a criticism of Manning or Marino.
I don't really mean to criticize Elway either. But he wasn't the same type of pure pocket passer as Manning and Marino.
I briefly felt like JRoth's 100 because there was some media conspiracy to soften Manning's image. But then I read an article that reminded me that Manning was a Republican and added the fact that he owned like 27 Papa John's franchises in Denver, so I was saved from that awful fate. Now I can have the only appropriate, ethical response: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
As I said at the other place, offense wins games, defense wins championships. That's an old saying and a bit of a cliche, but there's a lot of truth in it and this game was an extreme example of that.
123: Then they wouldn't be playing within themselves. When Cliches Collide.
That was a very odd game. I'm happy, but it makes me very conscious of being a casual watcher, because I'm also just befuddled.
But my boss is a lifelong Hawks fan, and was at the game so I'm very happy for him
125: I think it often is when a strong defensive team dominates an otherwise good team. The Ravens first Super Bowl run had a lot of "odd" games including the Super Bowl itself where they busted out and won by a decent margin.
One of the more subtle ways the Seahawks dominated was in having very tight coverage on the wide receivers. The announcers mentioned this a few times, but it's the sort of thing that most casual fans don't notice that is actually really important in shutting down the opposing offense. And there are lots of other things like that that a really good defense does that aren't nearly as obvious as the things a really good offense does, so it can be hard to tell why a game is developing the way it is when one of the defenses is dominating.
Seeing how much they troubled Drew Brees probably should have been a bigger clue.
I guess we're not all in agreement that the series 3 finale of Sherlock was the major cultural event of the evening.
I like TV shows that fuck with my head, have ridiculous cliffhangers, and then go off the air for an indeterminate amount of time.
I still haven't seen the last one from season two.
I like TV shows that fuck with my head, have ridiculous cliffhangers, and then go off the air for an indeterminate amount of time.
Then you must be very happy. I did like the elements from the old stories, e.g., the false-front building.
I'm rooting for whichever team has that Decker guy on it for reasons I assume need no clarification. It's probably already over, though.
That game was not at all what I had expected. The Muppets commercials more than made up for it, though.
As I said at the other place, offense wins games, defense wins championships
Incidentally that doesn't tend to be true in the NBA these days. The Heat, for example, have generally been better on offense than defense, and have beaten superior defensive teams in the conference finals the last two seasons (Indiana and Boston).
The Muppets commercials more than made up for it, though.
Is it just me or did it seem like there was in general less gross sexism than usual this year? Even GoDaddy's ads weren't horribly offensive.
Isn't the CW there though that the Heat's defense was top handful when they were actually trying? (Which isn't to say that they were quite as good defensively as those other teams, but certainly the gap in quality of offense was much much bigger than the gap in quality of defense.)
Obviously, Seattle's defense played very well in this game, but looking at their last five games of the season, two of which were losses, and their previous playoff games, both of which were closer, this was somewhat of a surprise. It's not like they'd just been stifling opposing teams all the time.
On the other hand, the Seahawks-49ers game seemed much better played than Broncos-Patriots*, so I could see thinking that the NFC teams were just better this year.
*Except I'm biased in that I don't like either team, so of course I didn't think either of them looked that great.
The 2000 Ravens, on the other hand, won their last 7, gave up 20 or more only twice during that stretch, allowing no more than 7 in the other 5 games, and didn't give up more than 10 in the playoffs. After watching them beat the Raiders, I'd have been shocked if the Super Bowl had been close.
Re: the article Teo linked, I want to hear more about Kraft's supposed zero-tolerance policy concerning violence against women. Does this mean, for instance, that he would have fired Big Ben?
Yeah, I thought that was one of the most interesting parts of the article. The Patriots' zero-tolerance policy appears to be unique among football teams, and this article has some more details about Kraft's response to a previous situation.
Based on that, it sounds like he would indeed have fired Roethlisberger.
That's the most decent thing I've heard about the Patriots ever.
Since this is the violent movement thread, the Guardian trolls the Halfordismonians hard.
"CrossFit: the new fitness craze has a lot to tell us about late western capitalism"
The exploding popularity of CrossFit suggests a kind of atavistic revolution where office workers can feel the thrill of an increased heart rate without having to become a bricklayer
Outside of a bricklayer, it's too dark to exercise.
I see opportunity in a new, bricklaying-based chain of gyms.
The Patriots did manage to end up with a murderer on their team. I mean, they got rid of him after he was arrested, but they signed him to a $40 million contract extension.
I mean, they got rid of him after he was arrested
Immediately, yes, and without any equivocation. Not like other teams which show some loyalty to their murderers.
I mean I guess they could have hired precogs so they would have known he would commit murder in advance.
I see opportunity in a new, bricklaying-based chain of gyms.
They're self-propagating!
I wonder about the conversation between Robert Kraft and The Belichick about cutting Hernandez over the whole "multiple murderer" thing:
RK: Bill, one of our players has allegedly committed several cold-blooded murders in connection with a larger program of criminal activity.
BB: [Mumble. Grunt. Mumble. Grimace.]
RK: We are going to cut him, because the three-time Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots are not an organization that tolerates violence.
BB: [Scowl. Frown. Mumble.]
RK: This has been a good talk, Bill.
151: As long as they stay lower than 6 stories.
I mean I guess they could have hired precogs
Salary cap, Tweety. Precogs are fucking expensive.
I would have thought any cap hit from precogs would be in the future.
They cut Hernandez very early on (when he was arrested) and he was a star, so that's evidence they take these policies pretty seriously. Ray Lewis was charged with murder and was never released by the Ravens. (It's clear now that Hernandez is more likely to be convicted, but that wasn't clear at the time when they released him.)
156 -- In all such cases (and also for far more minor scandals) the teams conduct extensive internal investigations on the first whiff of something going public, run by lawyers so that nothing comes out. Not Patriot bashing, I think their actions with Hernandez were fine, just that in all such cases the owners/team management likely have a pretty clear understanding of the facts early, as of course any company would do when an asset worth tens of millions at stake. I am 100% sure that the Patriots were confident early on that Hernandez was not only arrested but guilty as sin, plus they had tons of prior knowledge of bizarre behavior on his part. R. Kraft didn't just say "no tolerance for arrests."
The dynamic in 156 is why I dropped my adopted not very strong Steelers fandom. It was pretty clear to me that the organization clearly understood that Big Ben was a rapist, but also that there was basically no chance of prosecution/conviction, so they've done nothing, even though the Rooneys had a long history of being particularly decent owners.
157: oh, I mean, I'm sure they knew they were likely going to cut him once the investigation started. And I'm sure they knew about all the other rumors and so on. And I think they probably use the zero tolerance policy as the stick piece of a carrot-and-stick strategy for working with players who have fucked up elsewhere. But I am confident that they had no idea when they signed his extension that he was just gonna be murdering dudes left and right.
||
I just want you to know, Halford, that if you want to do a mid-career switch to personal injury law, I support you 1000%.
|>
I'm sure you're right that they knew more than was public, but I'm pretty skeptical that at that stage in the investigation you can tell the difference between a murderer who's going to get convicted and a murderer who's going to get away with it.
Not particularly relevant to the discussion but, "Man allegedly shot by Aaron Hernandez shot again." This was a former sidekick who alleges Hernandez shot him in the face.
Kraft said: "The rationale behind that decision was that if any member of the New England Patriots organization is close enough to a murder investigation to actually get arrested -- whether it be for obstruction of justice or the crime itself, it is too close to an unthinkable act for that person to be part of this organization going forward."
Now maybe that was just a lie, but if it's not note that Ray Lewis was not only charged but plead guilty to an obstruction of justice charge in a murder case.
160 is literally the greatest thing ever.
161 -- they don't need to know that much, just a relative sense of the odds, the prosecution, and who ultimately will be suffering a claim from whom.
And 163 is of course based closely on what they need to say under contract and union rules. I mean don't kid yourself that there was some saintly zero tolerance policy. In the Ray Lewis case I believe the conclusion from the start was that the facts were too murky to get a clear answer, which of course they were.
160 really truly is the greatest thing ever. (I'm willing to help you pick a new name, halford, but it will be hard to top Jamie Casino.)
The sledgehammer made me think he might be a Crossfiter but his technique wasn't the greatest.
"Robert Sledge" would be a good personal-injury lawyer name for you.
152 was not satirical. I am happy that the Patriots have a history of firing players who moonlight in the beating-up-women and murdering-people fields.
160 is so AWESOME!!11!!1!
(The Greek icon at 1:28 is a nice touch.)
158: Same here. I used to root for the Steelers in the playoffs after the Dolphins blew their season, but now I'm loathe to even draft Steelers for my fantasy team.
Oh gahd. An IP lawyer's rap. C'mon Halford, make one.
The only thing that could make the ad in 160 more awesome would be if he got the sledgehammer from Miley Cyrus.
if he got the sledgehammer from Miley Cyrus.
Peter Gabriel wept.
That reminds me:
Background: My dad (just turned 70) always listened to pretty much regular rock music. Then, when my mom had her accident, back in '91, he basically awakened to the entire universe of music. He'd go into the City 3X a week to see live music - mostly blues, but also whatever caught his attention (he was the first person I knew who listened to Ani DiFranco, including my lesbian sister). He owns an absolutely stupid amount of music, and listens constantly. Jazz, Indian, classical, whatever.
And at Xmas he asks my wife about Peter Gabriel, basically as if he'd never heard of the guy*. Somehow or other he'd decided to give him a shot, but he had no idea where to start. It was just so... odd. I mean, I guess he never was into prog, and he was pretty nose-to-the-grindstone during the '80s (thus, Gabriel's solo peak), but he's always listened to mainstream rock radio. How do you miss the dozen or so songs that have been on heavy rotation for 30-odd years?
*I think he said, "So what's the deal with Peter Gabriel?"
Also, David Rasche. But nobody remembers he had a series.
Wow, was that that crazy vigilante show? Like Death Wish, but sans guns?
I have the impression, maybe wrong, that it's his fandom for Peter Gabriel that shows Wynona Ryder's character in Reality Bites that Ben Stiller's character is, um, incompatible.
179 - Nope, it was a surprisingly awesome* Mad Magazine style spoof of movies about cops on the edge who get results, you stupid chief! IIRC the first season finale involved Hammer managing to nuke New York through his own incompetence.
* Wikipedia sez that some future Simpsons writers were on the writing staff, so that helps explain it.
Huh. I kind of remember it, but totally forgot it was a spoof.
I miss Police Squad!