Episode 3 - 12/30/2009

Dig it y'all. We wrap up 2009 with JV's homecoming, unfortunately for him it coincides with him having to fulfill the Packers/Vikings bet that he made with Biggie. Whatta man...

RBTL-Season3-Episode3 12/30/09 from RabbitProductions on Vimeo.

Episode 2!!! 11/12/09

RBTL-Season3-Episode2- 11/12/09 from RabbitProductions on Vimeo.

Irrational Collection of NFL Thoughts

Thought #1 (while reading ESPN news headlines in the middle of the week):
Eric Mangini's career is strangely similar to George W Bush's presidency. They both debuted in the middle of disastrous circumstances, had a brief moment where it appeared that they were holding their shit together and then proceeded to crash around so violently in the throes of their incompetence that they ruined everything around them. In the case of Bush's presidency that "everything" was, you know, the world. In Mangini's case it was the Jets and currently, the Browns. You can't blame this shitty ass season on the talent. First of all, the talent's really not that bad. Second of all, shitty talent doesn't make you run all the wrong plays at all the wrong times. And lastly, they just SUCK. If you replaced Mangini with even the second worst coach in the NFL (say, Brad Childress) I gotta believe the browns are at least 5-11 maybe 6-10. The point is this: Mangini makes Romeo Crennel look like a flipping genius. Personally, I suspect that Mangini has quit on the season. With the way his assistant coaches are just having diarrehea of the mouth around any media microphone that happens to show up... I mean just read this shit:

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[from their D-coordinator regarding reports of an impending fan protest of the Browns shittiness] :

"That [ticks] me off. This is Cleveland. They're going to show up and back this damn team," outspoken defensive coordinator Rob Ryan said. "This is a town that's tough and that loves football. Nobody's happy. I hate me, too. So they hate me. Great. Doesn't mean you turn your back.

AND:

"I've got a kid who flunked a class one time and it [ticked] me off. I don't turn my back on him. I go get a tutor and help him."

AND [with regard to Aaron Rodgers commenting on how the Packers' scout team ran a blitz in practice better than the Browns did in the game]:

"I respect the guys that talk before the game," said Ryan. "The guys who tell you how much they're going to kick your butts, and then they do it or you can shut them up. He can say whatever he wants. I don't care about him. I've got no time for a guy like that."

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Now, you see, that's just insane. The fact that the discreet and classy Rob Ryan is allowed anywhere near the press at this point proves to me that Mangini has quit. That and the fact that I can't remember the last time the Browns scored a touchdown. And let the record show that this may be the first time that a coach has ever quit on his team (as opposed to a team quitting on its coach - like the Jaguars are doing).



Thought #2 (Had while watching this whole season and the 5 or 6 before it):

Enough with the throw back uniforms. ENOUGH. This shit has gone on long enough. At first it was cool, because the Cowboys were the first team to do it and honestly their old uniforms looked cooler than their current ones. But it has gone on year after year, and it just keeps getting worse.

I want to know what's inspiring this marketing idea. Because I'm assuming that it goes something like this: The NFL assumes that there are these aging fans out there who are just about to turn their backs on the game because it's just not the same. And just in the nick of time, they may catch a glimpse of the Jets wearing uniforms that make it look like the whole team has been wallowing around in medical waste before the game. And then maybe they'll think to themselves, "why don't I get another a decade of season tickets before I make up my mind?"

Is this the rationale? I want to know. Because I can't think up any other reason.




Thought #3 (Had while watching NFL highlights tonight):

Dear Mr. Miles Austin,

You are having a damn good season. Really great work. But you should really make sure you can even dunk a basketball before you try to imitate T.O.'s sweet take-off-from-the middle-of-the-endzone-and-dunk-the-ball-over-the-crossbar. There's an athleticism gap there. I honestly, physically cringed while watching that shit. It was embarrassing.

P.S. I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the league catches up to your one single good move in a hurry. But seriously, really good work so far.




Thought #4 (Had tonight after the Packers - Vikings game):

That sucked.




Thought #5 (Had while doing homework and watching NFL highlights with the sound off and closed captioning on):

The closed captioning tried to spell Percy Harvin and ended up spelling it Pursy Harvin. And boom, now I have a new nickname for that fucking douche. EVEN THE TV KNOWS YOU'RE A PUSSY...., HARVIN!!!!



My Truth,

JV

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom

So during games on Sunday, the NFL is proudly touting the fact that for the first time in history 3 teams are at 6-0 in week 7. On the surface this seems like a good thing. Like we're approaching some sort of impending battle of the titans at the end of the year. For anyone with even the most basic functional cognition who has been watching these games, you know better.

The trade off for these three 6-0 teams is that there is an entire legion of teams that are so historically shitty - I need to stress how literal I'm being here - they can't even snap the ball. So it's a good thing that Denver, Indianapolis and New Orleans are all undefeated? Tell that to the fans of the Raiders, Browns, Titans, Lions, Bills, Chiefs, Dolphins, Redskins, Panthers, Rams, Bucs and Jaguars. And also mention that to the tens of thousands of fans who get excited for some Sunday football and then find out that the only game on is Bills vs. Browns and the score is 3-3 in the fourth, and it seems to be headed for a tie. Fuck ME!

How did we get here? How have we arrvied at a scenario where with 1/3 of the season over, more than 1/3 of NFL teams are pretty much out of the hunt? A few obvious answers leap to mind: unbelievably shitty owners (Daniel Snyder, Al Davis), profoundly shitty coaches (Dick Juaron, Eric Mangini), record breakingly shitty quarterbacks (Derek Anderson, Demarcus Russell, Jake Delhomme) etc etc. I don't have any answers. I don't know how to fix it, but I do know that it seemed to me, in seasons of yesteryear, that if you flipped on a game of NFL football, you could expect to be reasonably entertained by competative contest between two competent football teams. Now think about what you're getting: If one of these 12 bad teams (12!) teams plays a good team, it's a shitty game. If either of these bad teams plays another bad team, I find myself wondering if it would be more fun to watch or to just sit on the couch and punch myself in the balls for 3 hours. It's that bad. Well no it's not. But you might want to check that TV schedule before you just decide that you'll watch whatever's on during the first NFL timeslot of the day.

- You think Mike Tomlin feels good about himself these days? What the fuck were those gold-rimmed aviators during the Minny game? Every time Pittsburgh did something good, they'd cut to a shot of him wearing those things, head slightly inclined, just striking the pose. I love it. I just became a Mike Tomlin fan. Not a Steelers fan, just a Mike Tomlin fan. If he ends up being a transcendent coach, those glasses will occupy the same place in history as Tom Landry's fedora. And that's something I'd like to see.

- Larry Johnson - You were not made for the digital information page. Please never spit, text, tweet or post or say anything ever again.

- More drama from the San Francisco 49ers never ending carousel of quarterbacks. Is it even possible that both of those guys are so inconsistent? I'm starting to wonder if this isn't the result of some back room arrangement in the 49ers front office to create drama and national media attention for the franchise. If this were Nascar I wouldn't even have to wonder. And hilariously I have to assume that the Redskins, Raiders and Bucs are all sitting around dreaming of having two quarterbacks who could sometimes remember how to throw.

- Jamarcus Russell is the greatest gift to this blog since Tony Romo. I can picture him before every game looking at himself in the mirror and telling himself that today is the day he becomes great. I haven't see someone so oblivious to his own shittiness since Dante Culpepper.

- That's pretty much all for now. I have to go finish excavating my media-proof bunker so I can seek shelter from all the Favre-coming-back-to-Lambeau hype. Seriously, I won't watch Sportscenter for a week. This promises to be the absolute apex of Rachel Nichols (ESPN's senior meaningless bullshit correspondent) career. Fucking Clown Shoes!! I can't support it.

- Also I'm fired up that Vikings lost (we're right on your heels you pussies!!!!) and that the NBA starts this week. Look for the NBA and to make up some ground on the NFL this year. They honestly might have a better product.

Season 3, Episode 1!!!

Well, it took me a while to get it done, but here we are. We have overcome the obstacle of distance with the miracle of the internet, and the hate continues...

Enjoy. Boomtho

RBTL-Season3-Episode1- 9/22/09 from RabbitProductions on Vimeo.

Football (Related) Notes - Just read it

Welcome back Sports Nation and a happy week 3 to you. I have another brief dispatch of thoughts for the legions of fans that are waiting with baited breath for the next post. It shall not disappoint... probably. You see America, I have been spending my weekends of late camped out on my couch, multi-tasking my way through eating, studying, petting my dog and watching a shit load of football. My exposure to the league this year is veritably unprecedented. Not unprecedented for me, I mean... like, for the earth. Anyways, brace yourself for startling truths that you didn't even know that you were already aware of.

Thought 1: Miami is the universal champion of finding ways to lose. I can't imagine being a Miami fan right now. There is no reason they should be losing. The wild cat formation was such ridiculously good coaching, that every other two bit hack in the league with access to an athletic quarterback decided to steal the idea for this season. But Miami still does it better than anyone else. They have power, size, athleticism, experience and legitimate big names on both sides of the ball. And yet every time they get within the twenty they suddenly forget how to play football. Today, Miami pushes San Diego all over the field on their first drive, right down to the one yard line. Something goes wrong with the exchange on a hand off and the ball gets fumbled through the back of the endzone. And this was only the first of maybe 5-6 critical points of the game where Miami inexplicably forgot the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground. It's amazing. Their the best 0-3 team ever. Except:

Thought 2: The Tennessee Titans are a damn good team. They're stacked on both sides. They've got a running back who's exploding right now. They have veterans all over the field and they just keep running into teams who are just a little bit better than them. I mean there are teams out there like the Browns and the Rams who deserve to be 0-3. They have hit that extra special level of losing where everyone in the secondary takes horrible angles and ends up running into each other, springing huge plays for the other team. You know, the stuff from the highlight reels of the 80s Buccaneers. But the Titans have the sort of roster and staff top to bottom that those teams had before they realized they had drifted off. I honestly hope they end up making the playoffs because if they don't, some bunch of shit-eating morons, looking at you AFC West, is going to be in the playoffs instead of them, and it offends my sense of justice.

Thought3: Daniel Snyder cannot buy himself a championship. Literally. Get it? I love the fact that people like him exist. Nerdy, aggressive little pussies that got beat up in school and then made a shit ton of money and decided to buy a sports team. These little bitches always think that they can finance their way to a championship. Remember the $100 Million Roster? When that dumbass signed the Bruce Willis, Deon Sanders and every other superstar in the league who was on his last legs? Yeah, well now they're paying $100 Million just to Albert Haynesworth (over a number of years, but whatever). And how's that working out? They have one lucky win over the fucking RAMS! That's it. They lost to the Lions of all fucking teams. And Haynesworth got carted off the field with a towel on his head. Not looking good.

Thought 4: A couple of college thoughts now. This Tim Tebow cult thing is getting a little too much for me. A friend of mine posted his status message the other day saying "Does God have a Tim Tebow complex?" Hyperbole, you say? But watching the sports community shit their collective pants when Tebow went down with, granted a serious, but common concussion was over the top. The updates every five to ten coming in while I was watching another game had a panicked feel to them; along the lines of "This just in, Tim Tebow just THREW UP as they were taking him off the field." and cut to the shot of Florida fans looking on as though they were bearing witness to their child being torn apart by a bear. This shit is just nuts. I can't wait for him to go to the NFL so he can be the next Vince Young and never heard from again. Right now he's kind of the defacto leader of yet-to-be-formed cult of bible thumping southerners. Seriously he is God to those people.

Thought 5: America, I am still licking my wounds after watching Iowa come into Beaver Stadium in my original hometown, State College, PA and lay an out and out asskicking on Penn State. I mean, for a highly ranked team looking to beat the hell out of what was supposed to be the mere shell of a team that wasn't that good last year, Penn State got seriously, seriously cleaned up. But the great thing about being a Penn State fan is being able to take shelter in the long view. For most of the other teams in country, you have the urgency of young coaches trying to make their break as the next big thing in college football, driving their kids to win for them. It adds urgency to games especially after a few tough seasons. Not with JoePa. He was a new coach once. Like before all those other coaches were born, literally. And he hails from a different era of college football. He is class itself. Asked all week if this game was about revenge he said, "I don't know what revenge has to do with it. They didn't sneak up on us and stab us in the back. They were a good team and played hard and beat us. That's all". Quite honestly, it would be nice to see other coaches take this sort of view, even though I know they don't have the luxury. The special thing about rooting for Penn State is knowing that you are rooting for a program that is geared towards competing at the highest level, with the utmost class and having goals beyond winning games. It was JoePa's idea (back in like 1965) to funnel money made my the football team back into the university for academic purposes. Penn State is so much more than a backwater agricultural school is because of that football team. When in so many other cases rooting for a program is essentially just a form of insane preoccupation with a random logo, Penn State is more than that. Do I want them to win it all every year? Definitely. Do I hate watching them lose? More than you can imagine. But in the back of my mind I know that there are more important things going on there. And that credit is due to JoePa. And we will lose all of that when he's gone.

Thought 6: Finally a brief shout out to Pizza Hut. There are really only so many things you can do with pizza. I mean, it's only got like 3-4 ingredients. And yet Pizza Hut is there every football season, having pulled a new kind of "specialty" pizza out of their ass. I think the current incarnation involves a ring of cheese baked around the edge of the sauce. It is remarkable only because they came up with a different way of making it for each of the past 20 years in a row. Simply stunning.

Fuck ME! and early NFL Thoughts

So we're clear: technical difficulties are being worked out and you can expect that Biggie and I will return to bringing you video sports content ASAP. Because nobody, including me is really loving the written form. If I can't yell it in Biggie's face, it's just not as much fun. For anybody.

That being said, I'm also working on some technical difficulties that will allow me to actually watch football games live on a television set. But until that gets worked out my keen intelligence has already picked up enough info from NFL.com highlights to make a shit load of bold predictions and sharp observations.

Observations:

1.) Brett Favre in a Vikings jersey is one of the worst things I've ever seen. In case you're wondering, yes, it made me want to punch myself in the balls. The image is really that ugly.

2.) Because every Brett Favre snap warranted a highlight, I feel it's safe to say that his debut looked like shit. He got hit more times than he had completions. And perhaps his only completion came on that same old shit that Packers fans had come to dread: The play where he throws into double coverage because he knows where he's going to throw the ball before the snap comes.

3.) Following from #2, why did he get hit so much? The two most obvious answers is that the Vikings O-line pulled an Any Given Sunday and just let D-lineman through because Brett Favre is a fucking distracting sideshow to an otherwise very promising season (more on this in a second) and he missed all of training camp being all fucking smarmy and elusive about whether he was coming back. Either that or it was because the O-line sucks that bad. Either way that performance by th O-line was not good for the Vikes. They basically took a shit on Brett Favre's face at the 50 yard line.

4.) Why is Brett Favre even there? His decrepit feet and throwing arm managed one shitty completion for 9 yards (setting up a 4th and 1 that was not converted), and the rest of the time he was on his ass. Enter Tavaris Jackson and believe me, I can't believe I'm writing this, he looked fucking DYNAMIC. Escaping from the rush, rolling out, throwing across his body, hitting 64 yard tochdown passes in stride off the run... I mean dynamic. The ultimate cherry on the top of this whole thing is that it looks to me as if Tavaris is finally ready to be a starting quarterback in spite of Brad Childress starting him too early in his career and just as he blossoms the dumbest child molester on earth (Brad Childress in case you're new to this blog) brings the fucking circus to town and installs an aging has been quarterback with no real chance to be good in his place. Now, if you knew all this as a Vikings O-lineman, what would you do?

5.) The Rams still look like shit. They've got Kyle Boller now? Fine. Whatever. They still tackle like 3 year olds.

6.) Though Brett Favre is going to get all the hype this season, the much greater concern to me for the Packers' season is that the Cowboys running game looks fucking amazing. Felix Jones and Marion Barber are going to be pretty hard to stop and the Cowboys already had Shaq-sized lineman at every position. If they can stop masturbating like monkeys at the zoo over Tony Romo's throwing arm and just punish teams on the ground... fuck me they are going to be hard to stop. Fortunately they have Wade Philips for a coach and suffice to say, there's no Wonderlic test for head coaches. That man is half manatee.

7.) The Falcons also can't tackle for shit. But they have Matt Ryan, Michael Turner, Roddy White and now Tony Gonzalez. That offense is going to be exciting.

8.) Peyton Manning and Dwight Freeney look F-ing sharp as ever. The league never seems to catch up to them. Derek Anderson just let out a whistful sigh somewhere.

My Truth. You and I and everyone else are looking forward to the return of the video blog. Hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer.

JV