Turkey Bowl Trash Talk 2018
Happy Thanksgiving to one and all, and we here give thanks for you joining with us and participating here. There are not many real remnants of the old blogosphere and commentary community left these days, and it still flourishes here, thanks to you. I was lazy this morning and am just now writing Turkey Trash, but Marcy has already posted the annual sister Food and Thanks Post, make sure to visit there too.
Okay, off we go. Thanksgiving has always been about football. Every year through college, law school and many years after, we had a Turkey Bowl. It was played among a bunch of us who played intramural flag football in college, and sometimes friends who actually played real college football. I even one time tried to recruit Pat Tillman, but he just laughed and said there was no way he was risking injury doing that. He was smart, I think there were more injuries to extremely hungover dudes in the Turkey Bowl than there would have been playing in full pads. Plus he would have hurt us. Game was always at 10:00 am at a local high school that would let us use their field. Stunned that none of us ever got a DWI driving to the game.
Okay, on to the games. First up is Chicago at Detroit. A week ago, this looked like another Kitteh mismatch for Thanksgiving. But Bears starting QB Mitch Trubisky is out and career backup Chase Daniel will be leading the charge. Daniel is a very decent backup, but has started just two games in his ten year NFL career. The Lions sure seem to have the edge here with Matt Stafford and, ahem, an improved running game lately (though Kerryon Johnson and Marvin Jones, responsible for that, are out). But Khalil Mack and the new Midway Monsters will be a problem. No clue, I rate it a toss up, even if Vegas likes Da Bears. The Bears defense may warrant that.
The second game is Redskins at Cowboys. Believe it or not, as horrible as the Cowboys have been to date this year, they will be atop the NFC East, tied with Washington, if they win this home game. On the other hand, the Skins will take a substantial lead if they win at Jerryworld. Speaking of starting QB’s out for Turkey day, Alex Smith is very out. Closest thing to Joe Theismann’s leg injury, eerily on the same exact date as Smith’s injury, but in 1985. Colt McCoy takes over for the Skins in a really important game. McCoy is not a bad choice if you have to have a backup suddenly starting. Should be interesting. Look for Washington to run Adrian Peterson hard against a Dallas defense that is not so good against the run. Look for Dallas to throw everything at Peterson. Should be interesting, and is yet another tossup.
Last game is tonight with the Falcons visiting the Saints in Nawlins. This one is NOT a tossup, the Saints have to be a heavy favorite. They are home in the loud and crazy Superdome, Drew Brees is having an MVP year and is simply on fire, and the Saints are putting up ridiculous numbers on offense. The Dirty Birds have been extremely disappointing so far. Sure Matt Ryan can still get hot and light em up, but do they have enough to keep pace with Brees, Michael Thomas, Alvin Kamara, Mark Ingram and the entirety of the Saints’ offense. Nope.
Since today has been a little sleepy already, gonna rock it up with a little Silke Berlinn and The Addictions doing a cover of the old Nancy Sinatra hit Jackson. By the way, that is our old friend John Amato, founder of the Crooks and Liars blog, honking magnificently on the tenor sax. Enjoy your food, enjoy your drink, and most of all enjoy the people around you today.
THe kitties suck.
Brutal
Michigan gets to stomp OSU this weekend so there’s hope.
Talk to me Sunday.
It’s Sunday. I have no words.
Was it worse than the loss to Appalachian State?
I hope you’re wrong. But I fear you’re right.
It’s time for that annual classic college football rivalry, the University of Michigan vs Ohio State University. When I hear the words Ohio State football one name always comes to mind. A name synonymous with everything that Ohio is and stands for. That name is Art Schlichter ; gambler, grifter, thief, treacherous back stabber. Sure, there have been some good people from Ohio. Art Tatum and Chrissie Hynde are two I am aware of. There may have been others.
Few people know that this football rivalry is the symbolic extension of the brief war between the state of Ohio and what was then the Michigan Territory as the later was in the process of gaining statehood. Ohio, oh so predictably, laid claim to land it stole from the Michigan Territory. It all worked out for the best since nobody in their right mind in Michigan minds that Toledo is not part of the state now and in forging a compromise the Congress made the Upper Peninsula part of the State of Michigan. In so doing giving Michigan partial sovereignty over the greatest of the Great Lakes. Happily Wisconsin didn’t seem to mind or perhaps notice. Probably because it was drunk, as always, but that’s another story.
Wisconsin has the cheese and brats too. Let’s be fair!
The best I can muster for OSU and the Bo Merlots is that they end up in an ignominious and ugly 0-0 tie.
It’ll look better after you drink more of that Honolulu Blue soda from Meijer.
The Boyz seem fired up
Scribe’s Owboys are controlling this game so far.
They are not mine. At best, they are a bete noire. I cannot allow myself to hate them, easy as that might be, because to hate is to be owned by the object of the hatred. So I root for their opponent, whomever it might be.
And mock the Owboys when they lose.
And point out, frequently, Jerry’s deals with the Devil.
All that said, they were on fire last night. That pick-6 sealed it.
Tomorrow my Gators have a chance to assure that school out west has a losing record and ends its very long streak of bowl games. That would be a lot of fun. We’re favored by 7, but the Noles pulled it out last week against a ranked BC team, so who knows how it will go when the Gators have run both hot and cold this season.
Come play a real team “from the west” instead of pikers like Charleston Southern and Idaho.
Welp, looks like I’ve spent so much time trying to decide which outcome is better for NFC E that the universe is deciding for me.
Lest I sound (more) like a hopeful loon, yes the Eagles need to “rebuild” as parsimoniously put. But it ain’t over yet! Just effectively so…
Yeah the mathematically still in it game is a tough one…The Pack pulled off a turnaround in their last SB win year, but they started a tad earlier.
Yeah and with this squad, even back when things seemed to be coming together, they were still consistently falling apart later in the 3rd/for the 4th, which wasn’t going to cut it long-term anyway. Of all the problems here (really just accumulating/compounding errors in all parts), I think the sports psych one is now the biggest one…haven’t seen it addressed, though I am sure it’s been covered somewhere in the recent hundreds of sports talk radio hours.
Seems the theme of the Traditional Thanksgiving games is, “players Jon Gruden was too stupid to keep winning on a national stage.”
bmaz linked this very moving post he wrote ~5y ago: 50 Years: That Day, JFK and Today
My mom was in study hall and her story- minus personal details- is very much like yours. I can’t remember now if they were sent under their desks or if- like you relate- the PA system coming on at an odd time evoked the drill to do so. I’ll have to ask her to tell her story again.
But the post was a reminder of how (that part of) the Cold War was/is embedded in American life, and how time between cohorts moved much more slowly back then (like many of the cultural references in the comments are familiar to me- tv off the air at night). At any rate, that day and all it encapsulated got transmitted through parents, woven through culture…
I think of things like the ’80 Winter Olympics and how huge was Team USA’s hockey win (and being a devoted hockey fan as a kid). And how in ’84 we got Rocky IV(?) instead. All the while reminded, intermittently- by “the adults”- how the Soviets were going to nuke NYC. Which morphed into someone was going to attack NYC, then 9/11. My mom was relieved when she finally got a working phone line and found out we were fine and nowhere near the events. And in so many ways, here we area again.
It is weird. Out of all the things I have forgotten, and that is most things by now, that one is seared into my brain like it was yesterday. And it was 55 years ago. Spooky.
The Bears and the Saints look like the real deal this year. I wouldn’t bet against either one of them. Turbisky looks like a man on a mission – fortunately he’s got a good backup QB. But what a defense !
Will the Rams match up with the guys – we’ll see soon enough ! the AFC is a big puzzler to me but the Steelers look like they got their Mojo back. Anybody but the Patroits !!
Speaking of turkeys . . .
With all of George Papa’s blathering about delaying his entrance into prison, what are the odds the judge will look at his motion and say something along the lines of this:
Engineering/safety of the world trash talk (45, this time NOT channeling his Uncle John, quoted and in video at first link. Translations as to wtf he is mangledorfing in convo at second):
Mick Krever on Twitter: “Trump: “Steam is very reliable. Electromagnetic – unfortunately you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly…” Navy Officer: “Yes sir. You sort of have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plant that we have here as well, but we’re doing that very well.”…”
https://twitter.com/mickbk/status/1065624061055721473
Greg Smith 🚀Spaaaaaaaace Force🚀 on Twitter: “May ’17- Trump was on board USS Ford- when he heard about EMALS, pretty much told them to take it out and replace with “goddam steam”. Like he was Supreme Leader and they would just do it on his say-so. So it was a pretty dumb idea to bring it up today…”
https://twitter.com/NotThatGreg/status/1065740201887260672
Oh crap, it looks like the ghost of Uncle John is trump-whispering nonetheless:
Colin Kahl: “From the beginning, Team Trump has dreamed of selling nuclear reactors across the Gulf. Now Saudi Crown Prince MBS wants US nuclear technology AND the right to enrichment BUT doesn’t want intrusive inspections to prove the peaceful nature of the program…”
Is there anything quite as boring and useless as the pregame show for, say, Michigan-Ohio State? I guess it’s only appropriate that it’s the only place Dave Wannstedt can get work. Sorta like one of the Hollywood stories I heard, where Disney (or was it Hallmark Channel, for their 1.5 months of Christmas Romance movies?) would leave business cards for actors seeking work at the exits from the various rehab facilities, figuring those folks would be so desperate for any work they’d take scale.
Fer Chrissake, I rearranged my morning so I could get in on the Maize-Scarlet thing, probably the one college football game I’ll pay detailed attention to all year. Not because I’m a great fan of either team but rather in the hope of seeing Urban Meyer humiliated at home. I do have to admit a certain favoritism toward Mich., having seen this year the intensity of their devotion and, OTOH, having also been in a couple roadhouses in Ohio where the entire paint scheme was gray with scarlet trim.
I mean, really.
Stories from Michganders about their personal experiences being pulled over by the Ohio State Patrol for Driving while having Michigan plates. And so on.
Fox lied again. This is a great rivalry, but it is decidedly not “The Greatest Rivalry in Sports”.
As I write this I’m debating whether to dive into tomorrow’s No Fun League trashpile, but I think I’ll pass.
Happy trails.
Meh. I’ll turn off the sound and listen to CLE. I can get a couple hours in while this game progresses.
Why listen? Online CLE is worthless (though quite cheap!) and they put flashing onscreen notices on and loud beeps before timing you out.
Well, I got in the CLE. That was probably a far better use of my time than having the game on and giving it my full attention. Disgusting.
I actually enjoy the CLE classes. I have gotten in most of my 2-year cycle’s worth this week; spent about 10 hours glomming up all the cannabis law courses (basically all they offered), a 2-hour course on #MeToo, a police misconduct course. Got a lot of mending done while waiting for the next code word, too.
That said, nice flea-flicker by Auburn to bring that game to 17-14.