In the United States we are experiencing a government shutdown that is primarily affecting certain government employees, who are mostly Democrats, according to The Donald-In-Chief. The reason for the shutdown is The Donald’s insistence that he receive funding for The Wall that Mexico was going to pay to build. The Donald wants $5 billion and not in cryptocoin.

Let’s contrast the $5 billion requested by The Donald to the money needed to put in  place a tsunami warning system in Indonesia. According to an October story by the Associated Press, Indonesian government officials reluctantly agreed to spend a negligible $69,000, on a preliminary model, which was created with a $3 million expenditure from the U.S. National Science Foundation. That model has early detection buoys that do not work, has reportedly been vandalized, and should have been used as a prop in Kevin Costner’s all-wet opus, Waterworld.

Only days ago, a tsunami inundated coastal towns surrounding the Sunda Strait and between the islands of Sumatra and Java. 424 people are reported dead. 150 people remain missing. And 16,000 have been forced from their homes.

The cause of the tsunami was an explosion by an underwater volcano, Anak Krakatau, which triggered underwater landslides creating the tsumani on Saturday. In October, 833 people were killed by a tsunami spurred by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake that ravaged the Indonesian cities of Palu and Donggala in central Sulawesi.

The current technology employed by Indonesia cannot detect tsunamis caused by volcanic explosions or underwater landslides. It is only effective in detecting tsunamis created by earthquakes.

Now, why am I connecting the devastating effects of a tsunami located halfway around the world to our own seemingly every-other-year government shutdown?

Because the United States has the ability to throw walking-around money at Indonesia’s troubled tsunami detection system and to guarantee that a serviceable early detection system will be in place next year. The present administration could trumpet the global munificence  of the Donald, future lives could be saved in Indonesia, and The Donald would be one-step closer to a Nobel Peace Prize that he covets like another Eastern European bride.

I know – it’s not a wall. It won’t prevent hordes of brown people, from attempting to illegally migrate to the United States, in caravans funded and orchestrated by George Soros. (George Soros sure has his fingers in every pot, doesn’t he? For an octogenarian creeping up on 90, Soros still has mad game. )

Let’s help the Indonesians build something that could potentially save thousands of lives and secure for the The Donald the Nobel Peace Prize that he so richly deserves.

 

DISCLAIMER: I am a dumbass and wrote below that the national semifinal between Notre Dame and Clemson would be played at the storied Cotton Bowl. That is incorrect. The first national semifinal game will be played at Jerry Jones’ AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

After I posted this piece of fantasy, I thought there is no way the semi-final is actually being played at this Cotton Bowl, which is a relic compared to Jerry Jones’ monument to self-love. So, this piece is hit and miss. Maybe more miss than hit.

It still doesn’t change the fact that a No Contest sucks Tip O’Neill’s balls. Simply put, no contest belongs in a court of law and nowhere near a football field. Football isn’t a court of law unless you’re Roger Goodell.

I would like to blame my mistake on having watched too many Cotton Bowls broadcasted by Lindsay Nelson and that his technicolor sport coats have destroyed my ability to think critically.

Ever To Excel

_________________________

In the uber macho world of college football, the First Responder Bowl between Boston College and Boise State being played at the Cotton Bowl, in Dallas, was ruled a no-contest by bowl authorities and no stats will count. The decision to cancel was based on a weather pattern of lightning strikes moving through the Dallas area, which would have caused a delay of approximately five hours. At the the time of the cancellation, Boston College was leading 7-0 and there was 5:08 remaining in the first quarter.

No one can argue with canceling the game to protect the players from injury. Each school had warmed-up, play had commenced, and a lengthy wait would have placed the players in jeopardy of injury. The decision not to continue today’s game was understandable.

But the larger question: Why not replay or start the game from where it was suspended the following day?

The decision by bowl authorities to cancel the game clearly was not in the best interests of each school’s seniors, who saw their final college football game eradicated by a meteorological event. Little or nothing, which surrounds or comprises college athletics, has to do with the welfare of the student-athlete. For those players, band members and cheerleaders, who sacrificed a family Christmas to travel to Texas, they will leave having experienced approximately ten minutes of football. Clearly there was no thought given to the students from the two schools and the commitment they had made to attend the game.

If a ticket refund is offered to both schools’ fans, do those fans also receive any type of refund for their airfares and hotel rooms? Or would these fans need to have purchased “bowl insurance” to see any type of refund?

Here is the real determining factor that precluded both teams from playing on Thursday. The first national semi-final game between Notre Dame and Clemson will be played on Saturday, December 29th, at 4:00 pm. The location of that game is: The Cotton Bowl

Both B.C. and Boise St. need to get the fuck out of town and pronto. Hotel space needs to be freed up. The actual field needs to reflect the august nature of the Cotton Bowl, with Notre Dame and Clemson colors festooning the end zones, and each of the national semi-finalists needs access to the field for practice.

To be blunt, Boise St. and B.C. are bowl pretenders playing in a meaningless bowl game. The only people carving out time to watch today’s meteorological event were diehard fans from each school. To ESPN, the First Responder Bowl was inexpensive community access programming that took up a few hours of daytime tv. With a set programming schedule, ESPN has no room to show the game at another time.

In the big money world of college football Boise St. and Boston College were sacrificial lambs, but wouldn’t it have been great if the game could have been moved to S.M.U.’s Gerald J. Ford Stadium on Thursday afternoon?

The game would be broadcast by each school’s radio station or from a spectator taking a video, from their phone, and putting it on their YouTube channel. The game would be played in a setting reminiscent of a high school game. Some people would have to leave to make flights back to wherever but the game would be played – the spirit of competition would survive.

Unfortunately, in today’s college football, it’s not about the game but about the big bucks. The colossus of college football clearly does not care about the First Responder Bowl. The players, from Boise St. and B.C., will view this bowl game as unfinished business and the message sent to both squads is that your bowl game truly doesn’t matter.

_________________________

Twitter Trash

Someone’s tweet stated this was most talented senior class in the history of Boston College football. This class isn’t even close to being the most talented in the history of Boston College football.

With a 7-0 lead, many B.C. folks believe the Eagles were going to roll over the Broncos. I’m far less sanguine than those folks.

_________________________

B.C. Hype Machine

The B.C. Hype Machine appears to have no basis in reality. Already diehards are making a case for A.J. Dillon’s 2019 Heisman run, which begs the question can a kid from a small Catholic university, in New England, compete against the sports marketing departments of Southern schools?

Steve Addazio is putting together the greatest recruiting class in the history of Boston College. This never gets old – the constant inaccurate refrain that Addazio is a great recruiter. Beating out Wake Forest, for a recruit, is not the mark of a legendary recruiter.

And to soften the hype, twenty-something Liam Coen has decided to stick with the Los Angeles Rams and not become Addazio’s new offensive coordinator. Smart move by the former UMass quarterback. Maybe Hue Jackson will take the job?

_________________________

Later this afternoon Notre Dame will run onto the tire-filled carpet of Boston College’s Alumni Stadium and another skirmish in this college football Holy War will be fought, and what was once a true event will take place with little national or regional attention.  

I used to plan my calendar around this event, and now it’s, “Oh, Boston College is hosting Notre Dame this weekend?”

In fact, I may have been put on a terrorist watch list with former Sheridan intern, Patrice Mooney, for using the term, “jihad”, in numerous email blasts to describe the gridiron clash between these two Catholic universities. And it may it explain why TSA selects me to go through the full body scan at a percentage that would suggest I have not been randomly selected. I confess long hair may have contributed to their repeated “random selection “ of me, but I’m sure Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA and other agencies within our national security umbrella have collected my puerile emails regarding “jihad” and have attached a watch status to my travels.  

 

What was once an incandescent romance between Boston College football and its fans has evolved into a mediocre Match.com date, which has the two participants gazing at their phones, wondering … when is it polite to say good-bye and head home?

Boston College football is the frumpy, middle-aged divorcee, who is looking for a good man or someone erotically exotic, to recharge her batteries and awaken her sexual libido. Unfortunately, our frumpy middle-aged divorcee refuses to say farewell to a man she has dated for the last five years.

When eligible and confident bachelors message our divorcee, who uses a headshot that is a few years younger than her current self, they are met with reluctance and skepticism. She has a dude. She has a mustachioed dude; who is conservative, boring, creatively-challenged, mildly incompetent – but he’s hung around for five years. He may not excite, he’s not really a winner – but she can’t seem to shake her dude.

The Dazzler

For the past five years, that seems to have been the administration at Boston College’s attitude towards head football coach Steve Addazio. He’s here. He’s okay. And we kind of like his “Be A Dude” aphorism. The Dazzler may not win a lot of football games, his teams get blown out more than any other squads in school history, but he’s our dude. This is sort of our guy.

In the last nine years, Boston College has failed to beat Notre Dame. Notre Dame’s five-game winning streak is a symbol of Boston College futility that cannot all be attributed to the incompetence of Steve Addazio (Because the incompetence of Frank Spaziani preceded The Dazzler’s incompetency.),  but this match-up has lost much of its sizzle as a result of Boston College’s inability to compete with Notre Dame or be relevant within the grand scale of college football. Boston College isn’t a MILF, but a confused middle-aged divorcee in stasis mode.

Boston College’s negligent decision to continue the Steve Addazio Experiment has undermined the appeal of its brand. Of course, the reluctance to fire Addazio was predicated on the idea that a new athletic director, Martin Jarmond, should have the ability to hire his own coach. But Boston College is a college football joke. With UMass losing to Temple last night and Boston College’s expected loss to Notre Dame this afternoon, it can be persuasively argued that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is home to the worst college football in America. Arguably retaining Addazio was the prudent course of action, but it has resulted in a Boston College football program that is stuck in neutral.

Entering today’s game versus the Fightin’ Irish, the Eagles sport a record of 1-1. Their win coming against MAC member, Northern Illinois University, which easily could have resulted in a loss. The Dazzler got lucky in DeKalb, Illinois. The Eagles were clearly the more talented team, but were outcoached and nearly outplayed by a physically inferior NIU squad. Last Saturday, Boston College hosted Wake Forest, a fellow ACC cellar dweller and recruiting rival, and got their asses handed to them by the lopsided score of 34-10.

How do you walk into a recruit’s home, after getting smoked by the less than impressive Demon Deacons, and convince a young man that Chestnut Hill should be his home for the next four to five years? That’s a tough sell.

I never thought I would write something like this or think something like this, but I want Notre Dame to wax the Eagles today. I want today’s game to put an end to any talk that Steve Addazio is the right man to coach the Eagles. I’m ashamed to write the previous sentences, but I want Boston College football to be relevant again and not stuck in a relationship that is lacking on so many levels.

Should Boston College hire another louche douche like Jeff Jagodzinski? No, but Jags could coach up a team on game day.

Should the Eagles hire a psychotic madman, in the vein of Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly, who sacrificed a student manager to make the echoes ring again? Uh … I don’t think so.

And should Martin Jarmond find the next P.J. Fleck, who has made Minnesota football a national brand, with his four-part, Being P.J. Fleck, documentary/reality show on ESPN? I believe that Mr. Jarmond understands that P.J. Fleck is a new coaching paradigm, who understands the impact of social media and brand exposure to college football recruits. Fleck is taking things to a whole new level and Boston College should be taking notes.

Where does this leave our middle-aged divorcee and this Boston College football fan? I’m waiting. I’m waiting for the right decision to be made and our relationship to move to another level. I want to fall back in love with Boston College football. I want to post Facebook photos of our new relationship and show all of my Facebook friends that love can be rekindled. At Alumni Stadium, let’s toast our rekindled passion with a Bud and a glass of white wine. (In the golden era of craft beer, only Boston College would offer Bud and Bud Light as the only in-stadium beer choices. How many craft breweries are located within twenty miles of Chestnut Hill?)

Hey, I’m waiting. Just take that first step, baby. We can work this out. This is more about me than it has ever been about you, but just give me a sign. Just an indication that this wait is worth it.

Memories

 

Prediction & Hopefully A Self-Fulfilling Prophesy: Boston College will be without their starting center and starting middle linebacker, which translates into a huge edge for Notre Dame. With redshirt freshman and New Jersey native, Anthony Brown, taking the snaps at quarterback, look for the Notre Dame defense to have its way with another Steve Addazio offense that is ranked near the bottom of college football. Expect the game to be sort of close for a half, and then Brian Kelly’s Fightin’ Irish will assert its dominance in the second half.

Score: Notre Dame 41  Boston College 13

Put the needle on Father John Misty’s The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apt.

The Labor Day weekend has kicked off with our adorable black cat, Hadley, trying to make a late lunch out of a rabbit she discovered in the backyard. Being distracted by some crap I was reading on the internet, Hadley starts to surveil her prey behind the shelter of some aspiring tomato plants that refuse to ripen their fruit. Further immersing myself in forgettable pablum on the internet, I hear a scuffle and Hadley scratching/clawing at the fence. A few seconds later, Hadley comes triumphantly parading around the corner of the garage with a rabbit dangling from her mouth.

This is an actor not to be confused with Hadley. The look of terror in the rabbit’s eyes is familiar.

In this summer season of killing, Hadley has racked up an impressive kill total; she has exterminated moles, suffocated mice, broke the necks of a few birds, and ended the short lives of two baby bunnies. The baby bunnies were blindfully unaware of the dangers that surrounded them and were easy marks. I attempted to save one of the baby bunnies, but Hadley had inflicted so much damage that the rabbit died shortly after I was able to separate the two.

Today, I was able to save the large rabbit dangling from Hadley’s jaws.

As Hadley parades by the pool with her prey balanced perfectly between her jaws, I make the decision to block her path and aid her victim. When she stops in front of me, I grab Hadley’s fashion-forward red collar and she then relinquishes her jaws of death grip on the rabbit. The rabbit – bewildered and gobsmacked – takes a last look back at me and then vanishes in a flash of white for the backyard fence. Hadley lurches after the rabbit, but I have a firm grip on her collar as she gasps and chokes trying to chase after her prey. Fortunately for the rabbit, I was able to intercept our killer cat from taking her victim into the basement where she likes to play with her special toys. (Please do not compare Hadley to The Silence of the Lambs‘ Buffalo Bill – Hadley does not have a hidden penis. Hadley is a she. Also, Hadley does not eat or skin her victims. )

As a hunter, Hadley has more balls than Donald Trump, Jr. After two summers of prowling the backyard, under supervised recreation similar to an inmate at MCI Cedar Junction, Hadley is a big baller in the backyard who has shown no inclination to wear Big Baller sneakers.

Donald “Rambo” Trump, Jr.

This cat is a beast. This cat is a winner. And this cat was a little miffed at her owner for interrupting her hunting session. Certainly, I am proud of Hadley’s skills but watching her kill a rabbit for non-survival purposes is a little tough to take; because when five o’clock rolls around, she is at her food bowl looking for a handout and not The Revenant’s Hugh Glass looking to devour raw rabbit.

Alright, so that’s my version of Curt Gowdy’s American Sportsman. 

Curt Gowdy

From this sportsman’s persepective, this is a great night to be in front of a high-definition television to watch the Red Sox controversially bunt on the Yankees in the Bronx, root for the United States Men’s National Soccer Team take on the Ticos of Costa Rica in World Cup qualifying action, and then watch a mediocre-at-best Boston College football squad take on Northern Illinos.

Hadley is a winner. She has practiced her craft. She has learned her lessons in the backyard and she is a stone cold killer.

Later tonight, I would like to see Boston College football show some of these same winning attributes, which my three-year-old rescue cat demonstrates, but I have as much belief in that as the chances of beer being sold at a Boston College home football game. (In a heavenly act surpassing the parting of the Red Sea, beer (heavenly beer!) will be sold at Boston College’s Alumni Stadium for the 2017 season. I don’t believe in God, but this does make an atheist pause.)

Expectations are high at The Heights, but tonight’s game will temper those lofty aspirations. Some books have Northern Illinois as a favorite and other books have Boston College as a 3.5 point favorite. Under fifth-year head coach Steve “The Dazzler” Addazzio, Boston College is a perennial disappointment and tonight’s game should not change that prevailing attitude.

I like Northern Illinois to win. Look for a score of 22-17.  And expect to hear bloodthirsty cries of anguish emanating from Boston College fans around the nation.

Cue the music: “I Had A Dream” by the Long Ryders

 

 

This weekend I got hit by a truck called the flu.

Saturday was a delightful melange of explosive diarrhea combined with projectile vomiting. Sometimes these two events occurred simultaneously, which gave my body a serious ass-kicking, that I am still recovering from. And the whole time … I’m wondering … will I be able to watch the Giants play the Packers at 4:40 pm ET?

If you read the previous post, you would know that I mistakenly thought the Giants and Packers playoff contest was scheduled for Saturday. I have no idea how I got that in my head, but this incorrect information was seared into my brain. (Must have been a Macedonian or Chinese fake news site, because I trust Russian news. Just GLASNOST Baby!)

Acquiescing to the flu, and the virus’s vise-like hold that had contracted my body coupled with the ice pick attempting to escape from my cranium, I managed to realize that the game was being played on Sunday. Immediately, I felt relief. Then I cringed at how I wrote an entire post about a playoff game and had the wrong date. (But I was dying of Spanish Influenza, so who the fuck really gives a shit about an erroneous blog post from some hack. And, after I had cleaned up a vomit based in Schweppes Black Cherry Ginger Ale off the bathroom wall, I really was completely apathetic regarding any journalistic integrity I never held.)

Some folks would call my error fake news. Others would attribute this to another BuzzFeed dumb ass writing a blog. Probably both schools of thought would be correct.

After watching Ben McAdoo’s Giants get drubbed by Aaron Rodgers & Company, 38-13, I really did want to puke. My Giants fanboy post predicted a G Men victory, but the real man behind the blog, didn’t believe the Giants were capable of scoring enough points to beat the Pack.

Hail Mary %&*! #$%!  #$&%!

Throughout the regular season, I was mystified by the high level of praise bestowed on head coach Ben McAdoo. Throughout the year, McAdoo did an adequate job, but his team’s success was predicated on the improved play of defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s unit. In no uncertain terms, would anyone describe the Giants’ offense as prolific or explosive.

McAdoo’s gridiron expertise is found on the offensive side of the ball. McAdoo snared the Giants head coaching job, because the front office thought it would be best not to ask quarterback Eli Manning to adjust to a new offense; but there is little evidence to suggest that McAdoo is a great offensive mind.

Against the Green Bay defense, the Giants were incapable of running the ball. McAdoo consistently attempted to run Paul Perkins up the middle. In 10 rushing attempts, Perkins gained 30 yards and his longest run from scrimmage was a 14-yard burst up the gut. (Yep, McAdoo finally proved the Giants could run up the middle.) In Perkins’ nine other carries, the rookie gained 16 yards but McAdoo stayed with Perkins and his belabored strategy of running up the middle. Perkins’ backup, Rashad Jennings, carried the ball 5 times and gained 29 yards.

For the majority of the 2016 season, the Giants were incapable of running the ball, which has more to do with an ineffective offensive line than anything else. Prior to the 2017 season, New York’s offensive line needs to be revamped either through the draft or free agency, because this is not a championship-caliber offensive line.

I would argue that any improvement in the offense, from 2016, could be partially attributed to jettisoning wide receiver Rueben Randle and running back Andre Williams, and demoting tight end Larry Donnell to a backup role.  I’ve wondered whether these three players were Tom Coughlin guys; and if that was the case, Coughlin was loyal for too long with this trio.

TC & LD

Rueben Randle did not make it out of training camp with the Eagles. Boston College great, Andre Williams, scratched out a spot on the Chargers practice squad and was activated for the last game of the regular season, where he gained 87 yards on 18 carries versus the Kansas City Chiefs. And McAdoo seems to only deploy Larry Donnell when he is going to call a run. Every time Donnell ran on the field versus the Packers, all of Lambeau knew the Giants were going to run the ball.

The Giants have three questions that need to be answered:

1. Is Ben McAdoo a good offensive football coach?
2. Does a 36-year-old Eli Manning possess the arm strength and talent to take the Giants on another Super Bowl run?
3. And is Odell Beckham, Jr. a big time player or a big time douche? 

I don’t have the answers to any of the above questions, but the 2017 season should give us some evidence that will be a little more cogent than President-elect Donald Trump’s divestment plans.

Regarding OBJ, the guy is 24 years of age and is still more mature than a 24-year-old Johnny Manziel. I don’t care if OBJ hangs out with Bieber, takes a 2 Live Crew cruise, idiotically warms up shirtless at Lambeau; but the guy has to show up and deliver in the playoffs. Beckham’s inability to make plays versus the Packers – did not cost the Giants the game – but those drops will be used to define OBJ as a playoff pretender.

Johnny Manziel: The NFL’s version of Shane MacGowan 

To shed a negative light on New York’s 2016 season, which will sober up any Giants fan boy, the Giants only played five games against teams that made the playoffs. In those five games, the Giants went 3-2 with two wins coming against the Dallas Cowboys. In comparison, the Green Bay Packers played seven games versus teams that made the 2017 NFL Tourney and the Packers went 5-2 in those games.

The 2016 Giants beat up on the also-rans of the NHL. General manager Jerry Reese needs to provide more offensive tools to Ben McAdoo, which will allow us to see where McAdoo is as an offensive coach. The Giants are a team in flux and 2017 should provide us with more answers than a Donald J. Trump press conference.

________________

I feel alright. I feel alright tonight. Play the song Mr. Earle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fresh off his Luther Campbell 2 Live Crew photo opportunity on a somewhat downscale version of the  Trump Princess, Odell Beckham, Jr. will lead the New York Football Giants into the polar opposite of Miami, Florida – Green Bay, Wisconsin. In this first round of the 2017 NFL post-season tourney, the wild card fifth-seeded Giants (11-5) will look to defeat the fourth-seeded NFC North champion, Green Bay Packers (10-6). For the Fox 4:40 pm ET kickoff, the weather should be a Green Bay balmy ten degrees.

OBJ will aim to end all comparisons to Pit Bull, Eli Manning will attempt to prolong his playoff winning streak versus The Pack (2007 & 2011), and Giants head coach Ben McAdoo will look like a fashionista to Wisconsin cheeseheads.

My favorite lucha libra mask wearer, Odell Beckham, Jr., will try to silence the skeptics who have criticized his day-off jaunt to FLA, where he partied with The Biebs and boated like a La Cosa Nostra capo.

This was the NFL’s most scandalous sailing adventure since the Minnesota Vikings’ Love Boat or Smoot Boat Scandal, in 2005, where prostitutes were flown in from Atlanta and Florida (The Dirty South), to party with the team and then performed sexual acts on players in front of crew members. Odell and his New York 2 Live Crew took a poorly conceived photo-op, where they appear shirtless and sport long pants and Timbs, and a Zapruder-like video has emerged alleging the use of weed and Adderall on the high seas. This is clearly not the Smoot Boat Scandal of 2017.

These are men in their twenties, who are flush with cash, so the idea of taking the Weehawkin ferry and then bar-hoppin’ in Hoboken was probably not on their radar. These types of hi-jinks are a staple of professional football.

Vince Lombardi’s Packers were famous for leaving the practice field and reconvening at a watering hole in Green Bay. The 1970s’ Bad Ass Oakland Raiders took partying to new heights with quarterback Kenny “The Snake” Stabler leading the way. Jimmy Johnson’s Dallas Cowboys, of the 1990s, rented the infamous White House, where debauchery last seen in ancient Rome transpired on a daily basis.

Kenny “The Snake” Stabler

The Giants are not going to lose tomorrow’s playoff match-up because of a Bieber boating junket to South Beach. However, they may fail because of a simplistic offensive game plan concocted by former Packers assistant coach and current New York el jefe, Ben McAdoo. McAdoo has been the choreographer of an offense that has struggled to run the ball, that has struggled to adequately protect Eli Manning, and that has shown little ingenuity in devising offensive formations to free up wide outs.

McAdoo relies on his receivers to beat their men. Why can’t he help out his guys with some pre-snap movement? It’s frustrating to watch. And it must be frustrating to the players on the field.

Prior to the arrival of Odell Beckham, Jr., the Giants were a team seemingly hopelessly tied to the notion of not using a high draft pick on a game-changing wide receiver. From 1976 to 2016, the Giants drafted five wide receivers in the first round:

• Mark Ingram (Michigan St.) selected with the 28th pick in 1987.
• Thomas Lewis (Indiana) selected with the 24th pick in 1994.
• Ike Hilliard (Florida) selected with the 7th pick in 1997.
• Hakeem Nicks (North Carolina) selected with the 29th pick in 2009.
• Odell Beckham, Jr. (LSU) selected with the 12th pick in 2014.

With the exception of Lewis, who caught a total of 74 passes in his four-year career with the Giants, that’s a decent list of professional wide receivers until you get to Odell Beckham, Jr. – the likes of which has never been seen in a New York Giants uniform.

Covet thy neighbor’s diva-like wide receiver. For years, I have lusted and longed for a wide receiver who could take over a game, abuse cornerbacks, talk ridiculous Steve Smith smack, blast Josh Norman with a helmet-to-helmet hit, compete like LT, and bring Giants fans to their feet. Previous to OBJ, Victor Cruz was the closest the Giants had to approximating a franchise-changing wide receiver.

OBJ layin’ the wood to Josh Norman.

At the age of twenty-four, Odell Beckham, Jr. is arguably the second-greatest wide receiver in the history of New York Giants football.

Sheridan’s Top 5 New York Giants Wide Receivers

1. Frank Gifford
2. Odell Beckham, Jr. 
3. Victor Cruz 
4. Hakeem Nicks
5. Amani Toomer

It deeply troubles me not to have included  Phil McConkey and Stephen “The Touchdown Maker” Baker in this Top 5, but this is not a list of my all-time favorite Giants wide outs but a list of the best. Frankly, I have some reservations about putting Frank at the top of the list but the man does have a bust in Canton.

The only other New York Giants receiver to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame is Don Maynard. Unquestionably, football fans associate Maynard with the New York Jets, but Maynard played the 1958 season with Big Blue and caught five passes. Before the 1959 season, Maynard was released by the Giants and traveled north of the border to play for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, where he caught one pass for ten yards. He then was the first player to sign with the New York Titans in 1960.

OBJ reflects a sea-change in the organizational philosophy of the New York Giants. I can handle when OBJ assaults a kicking net, it doesn’t bother me when he proposes to the same kicking net a week later, and I could give a shit that he hung out with Justin Bieber ruining his street cred.

What I do care about is that OBJ is always one broken tackle away from taking it to the house. As a Giants fan, I have been tormented by the likes of DeSean Jackson, Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens, Harold Carmichael, Drew Pearson, Art Monk, Gary Clark and Dez Bryant, but now the Giants have a target who is a constant big-play threat.

Tomorrow’s playoff game versus the Pack will be decided by the ability of Eli Manning to get the ball to his wide receivers. Ben McAdoo will need to show some creativity with his passing routes and allow OBJ, Sterling Shephard, the diminished Victor Cruz, and the less than sure-handed Roger Lewis to make plays.

At kickoff, the members of New York’s 2 Live Crew will long for balmy Caribbean zephyrs, but previous Giants teams have shown an affinity for Wisconsin winter weather.

Prediction: The Giants will prevail 23-20. Look for All-World safety Landon Collins to notch a pick six versus Aaron Rodgers.

 

Turn it up for Hoochie Mama by 2 Live Crew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at my career prospects, I’ve noticed that being able to use a computer is an overblown skill and ultimately leads to hacking by unverifiable and anonymous sources that only Julian Assange can obliquely confirm.

Any employment opportunity that would insist on having me use email would meet with resistance. As we all know, a handwritten note delivered by a courier, of unimpeachable character, is far more safe and efficient than using email. I have always suspected the Chinese or North Koreans were attempting to hack my email and not shadowy Slavic types.

Perhaps some prospective employers would be interested in my familiarity with social media, and I would admit that I only visit internet news sites that originate in Macedonia. Who better to have their fingers on the pulse of America but Macedonian bloggers. Take that Matt Drudge.

If an interviewer were to ask about my management style, I would emphasize that I place no faith in metrics, data, big data or any quantitative method that might use an abacus or calculating device made popular by Texas Instruments in the 1970s. I’ve always had huge success by making decisions with my gut.

Abacus

Do I play well with others? I’ve been known to bring together both white men and white women better than farmersonly.com. Love the white people. If I need to grab a pussy, I’ll do that to get everyone’s attention and make sure that protesting pussy is escorted out of the building. That’s how you manage and motivate people.

Why do I want this job? I want to make this company great again. I want to make sure that every non-union employee is aware that I am the Original G  – the Don Corleone – of the business world.

With these wide-ranging skills and my forward way of thinking, I am the man for the job.

 

Play the song: Man Up by Nikki Lane

 

 

 

 

If 2016 wasn’t a cudgel-like teaching tool that documented the pernicious rise of the unrepentant and unvarnished asshole in American life, then there is no real takeaway from 2016. (I always think of a takeaway as Indian food to go, but in the year of the asshole, business-speak reigns supreme in our land of deal-making and debt.)

The Greatest Generation battled through the Depression and then brought the world safely through the perils of World War II. In the process, that generation voted four times into the Oval Office – Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s stewardship of the nation provided hope to a country that was pummeled by financial ruin, suffocated by the Great Dust Bowl, and then challenged by  Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

In contrast, 2016 revealed more about the American character, and perhaps my generation, than anyone wished to know. The past year clearly illustrated, that the deplorable part of our nation, is clearly enamored and vicariously thrilled with asshole behavior via video, printed on hats and t-shirts, delivered in 140-character tweets, and has become  a permanent part of programming on cable news. 2016 was a precursor – a Don Rickles warm-up act – for 2017 and its claim as the year of the asshole. There has never been a greater time to be an American asshole.

The previous sentence is probably a gross exaggeration, because the robber barons of the 19th century were not espousing the tenets of Saint Francis of Assisi, who wrote, “For it is in giving that we receive.”

Not only are assholes popular in America, but they’re also doing big box office abroad. Mein Kampf is a bestseller in Germany. Vladimir Putin is your favorite cuddly KGB uncle, who will slip a Mickey of Polonium 210 into your holiday eggnog. Hell, Syria’s Bashar Assad is a freedom fighter and not a despot who unleashes poison gas on his people.

Vladimir Putin – “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”

On a personal level, I will even confess that I think of myself as sort of an asshole. (I’m sure others vehemently disagree and would delete “sort of.”) I have friends who are assholes. I’ve been involved with women who are assholes. The asshole is a huge part of our American tapestry of personalities that has given us Bob Knight, Richard Nixon, Mariah Carey, Don King and Rush Limbaugh.

And, as an asshole, you can say anything you want. Documentation or the truth isn’t needed. We are encouraged not to take things literally but to examine their figurative meaning. Politeness is an overt symptom of being a chump, and no asshole wants to be a chump. Fuck that. And fuck being polite. You want polite – we’ll bomb the shit out of you.

2017 – The Year of the Asshole

 

Cue the music: Surrender Under Protest by the Drive-by Truckers

 

 

Tuesday’s night’s Game 1 baseball masterpiece between the New York Mets and the Kansas City Royals, which ended in 14 innings on a sacrifice fly to right field by Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer scoring Alcides Escobar from third base, and gave the Royals a 5-4 victory was loaded with exotic and every day baseball feats.

An inside the park home run? Only the Mets, on the first pitch of the 2015 World Series, could allow an inside the park home run to Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar. Escobar is a notorious first pitch swinger, Mets starting pitcher Matt Harvey offers a fastball down the middle of the plate, and Escobar drives the ball to deep left center field.

Mets center fielder Yoenis Cespedes is either still digesting the pregame buffet or sorting out how he missed the pregame lineup introductions because he was in the bathroom, and does everything in his power to give the Royals a one-run lead. Off the bat, Cespedes gets a Kyle Schwarber jump off the ball. Rookie left fielder Michael Conforto appears as if he has a play on the ball, but stops to allow Cespedes to catch the ball. Cespedes attempts to catch the ball, with a half-hearted backhand sort of stretch for the ball, which hits Cespedes and then caroms to the left. Conforto gives chase. Cespedes stands there. Escobar runs the bases in 15 seconds and celebrates the first inside the park home run in a World Series, since the legendary Mule Haas hit one in Game 4 of the 1929 World Series for the Philadelphia Athletics.

Uh … are you fucking kidding me?

An inside the park home run on the first pitch?

Cespedes walks back to center field, where the Fox production crew shows Cespedes doing stretching exercises.

He’s stretching? Now?

Asshole, the time to stretch is before the game. Unless you’re Ichiro who stretches throughout the game in the outfield, give me a break.

Uh … Manny Being Manny.

And that is Yoenis Cespedes being Manny Ramirez, because Cespedes has a lot of Being Manny in him. That American made dump truck, which is going to drop green American currency on the island of Cuba, may be smaller than originally thought.

Cespedes Being Cespedes

Sacrifice Bunt

In the top of the 11th inning, with the game tied 4-4, the Mets’ leadoff hitter Juan Lagares reaches on a infield single off Royals relief pitcher Ryan Madson.

Hitting in the eight spot, after Lagares, is shortstop Wilmer Flores, who is instructed by Mets manager Terry Collinss to lay down a sacrifice bunt and move Lagares to second. Flores is successful, Lagares moves to second, and Flores is thrown at first base. The Mets have a runner in scoring position with one out.

In baseball orthodoxy, Collins’ managerial move makes sense. He now has a base runner in scoring position with one out, and that one run could spell victory for the Mets.

I have a huge issue with Collins using Flores to sacrifice with no outs.

Following Flores in the batting order is Michael Cuddyer, who is in midst of a woeful slump, and had already struck out twice after replacing Casey Johnson as the designated hitter. What does Cuddyer do against Madson? He strikes out for a third time.

A team can expect to score approximately .827 runs with a runner on first and no outs. A successful sacrifice bunt provides the offense with a runner on second with one out, which lowers the chances of scoring to .62.

Examining the Mets’ situation, Flores has a better chance of getting a hit than Cuddyer. Cuddyer’s strike out puts Curtis Granderson at the plate with two outs. Granderson has been swinging a hot bat for the Mets, but I would have preferred seeing the Mets use all of their outs to drive in Lagares. In my opinion, Cuddyer could not be expected to get a hit or record a productive out.

In deGrom We Trust.