Non-Impeachment Trash Talk
No, there is not yet a voted resolution for a formal impeachment inquiry, despite all the rhetoric from Pelosi and idiocy by the gullible press. So what can a poor boy do, in addition to singing for a rock and roll band? Trash Talk, that’s what!
Last night, the ASU Sun Devils actually played well and pulled off an upset on the road at 15th ranked Cal in Berkeley. If ASU had not have stunk up their home field last weekend against Colorado, they would be 5-0 and looking good. But they are young and look to be up and down all year. As for today’s games, Virginia at Notre Dame might be interesting, but I think ND is actually good for once, despite their close loss at Georgia. USC at the Washington Huskies may be the matchup of the day. And Washington State at Utah could be really good as well. Rare that there are two Pac-12 games in this category.
In the pros, The Iggles beat the Pack in Lambeau. Should not have been so, but between some horrible refereeing and even worse coaching by Green Bay’s rookie head coach, that was the result. A wasted effort by Aaron Rodgers and Devante Adams.
Believe it or not, the undefeated Patriots go to undefeated Buffalo for the right to first place in the AFC East. Don’t see that very often! I’ll take the Pats. Keep in mind that Tom Brady has won more games in Buffalo than any Bills QB since Jim Kelly. Chiefs at Lions might…might…be interesting, depending on the health of Matt Stafford. Skins at Giants, Lol. Squawks gonna kill the Cardinals. Cowboys at Saints would be a killer game if Drew Brees were not hurt. It still looks to be a pretty decent Sunday Night Football game.
Music is, of course, the Stones. We opened with a reference to it, and so the song is here too.
Nice cut bmaz. Right at the end of the classic period – imho. The Armstrong is a good clue (so’s Mick on his LP of course too, lol.)
Well, the PAC is engaged in its annual process of shooting each other up as the season progresses. Sun Devils look good. My beloved Huskies lost early and while that may that be good, we . have some tough games ahead. Meanwhile, the swine in the SEC/ACC have doubtless already arranged things for the end of the season!/s
Thanks for this – it’s been a crap week otherwise.
SFGate is wondering if the Niners can keep their wins going.
At lest the 9ers are off this weekend and hopefully we can get some players back for the following week. The big test will be the Rams and Seattle. Go 9ers.
And the Giants have done their usual end-of-season fold. Maybe next year. *sigh*
I think it will, some of the players brought up at the end of the year look promising. I wonder who the next manager will be?.
And so are we all.
Sad!
Not a word about my Rays clinching a Wild Card slot last night? Come on, man.
Gators host a Division II foe today, but then the meat of the schedule comes up. I like Trask a lot. I don’t scream when he drops back to pass like I did with Franks.
(did your dinner guest do battle with the rattler? or are ya free’lancin-?)
https://youtu.be/N-bVFcMthIc
Friend didn’t make it by, but the we also never saw the rattler.
Hi Jim, Enjoyed your post today. Right on about about Trask and Franks. Big homecoming vs Auburn next weekend!
Thanks. Worried about Auburn and LSU.
Third generation Gator, College of Ag ‘88, MBA ‘91, survived the trauma of ‘70’s and 80’s Gator football. It was a gantlet worse than Trump, you know. Nothing scares me anymore.
Cal Bears brought back to earth. We were playing music at an outdoor venue in downtown Berkeley, and I saw a lot of ASU-appareled fans walk by on their way up to Memorial Stadium.
Shout-out to retiring SF Giants manager Bruce Bochy, one of the all-time greats. The fleetingly relevant but ultimately medicore team couldn’t muster a decent send-off for him, such as sneaking into a wild card slot or even finishing the season above .500. At least they scratched out his 2000th career win a few weeks ago.
Why, yes. Boch is going out with a whimper rather than a roar, but he is the last of an era. I’m guessing that there will be very few managers in the future who will have a career as long as his (or as long as many other Hall of Fame managers). Two thousand wins is an a-Mazing number.
Yes, Oski is Licking his wounds today.! Herm Edwards (former Cal player btw). Was a great coaching choice for ASU. He has that young team moving in the right direction.
I’m sure HE wouldn’t have hired, and then kept Baldwin as OC. Grrrrrr. The game in Eugene next week is going to be painful without the Garbers at QB. It is tough being a Cal fan some years.
Punaise, didn’t know you were local!
yep – drew my first breath at Alta Bates!
So, switching between Clemson-UNC and UVA-ND what do I see?
A promo for The Russian F1 Gran Prix tomorrow 7:00AM ET.
Is this a usual stop?
I’ll be watching. Go leclerc. He’s terrific.
Russian GP is a weird one. During practice or the race, almost on a yearly basis, there’s a big crash. Fast Mickey Mousy circuit. Race started there in 2014. Leclerc is badly served by Ferrari, they’re breaking him in this year. He’s dominated, decimated, spanked, left in the dust his partner Vettel. Ferrari has the most powerful car on the grid and last week, deploying these new small ailerons on the nose seems to have fixed the balance problems the red car suffered from. I won’t be watching, I’ll be on my bike. Go Leclerc.
And Quebecois is right, Ferrari is hosing Leclerc. He is clearly the number one driver now, despite his youth. He needs to be treated as such.
PeteT – yes, Sochi has been on the calendar for a few years now. It is a beautiful location, but a tragically sterile and uninteresting track.
Leclerc bitten by fate today! Ferrari used a pit stop undercut to put Leclerc ahead of Vettel and into the lead. But components of Vettel’s engine failed and he parked the car, creating a Virtual Safety Car incident. The VSC allowed Hamilton and Bottas (on another immediately following Safety Car) to pit under the yellow, gifting them first and second place, which they held to the end. Ouch.
Vettel tried to hose Leclerc against team orders, but it was really his car giving up that did the deed. It really was just horribly bad luck. Ferrari has driver issues. I half wonder whether Vettel will still be there next season.
Ferrari has a management problem associated with the worst strategy decision making in the fucking universe. Vettel is having a bad year and a half, he’s still a good driver when he’s not acting like Trump. Leclerc is being savaged by ferrari, he should sue them to oblivion.
They really do. That can be corrected, I hope. But, man, Vettel has become a real problem child. Alonso has indicated he might be willing to return to F1, just saying. Probably the Scuderia would not want a two time champ as Leclerc’s number 2 though. Vettel is still a very good driver, though has gotten erratic frequently the last year or so.
Vettel’s still a great driver but doesn’t follow orders eg today. I get it – he’s a racer first and last but he can’t be trusted to be a team member. Leclerc is the future. He can run with Hamilton. Sochi could be so much better.
Back to politics.
Knowing Ferrari, they would give number one to Alonso. Even if Alonso would come in agreeing to be number two, his chances of winning a championship would still be very high, the man can drive.
Oh, he can indeed. He drove the hell out of that McLaren when it was a complete turd. I don’t think Alonso would care as long as he could be competitive again. But I still don’t think it would be him, although I would love it.
Let’s talk baseball
Fuck the Rangers, Fuck Mike Minor, and those cheating bastards from Texas.
Let me tell you of the strange saga of Mike Minor.
On Thursday afternoon, working at home, I tuned into the Sox versus Rangers game.
It was the ninth inning, and by that time old Mikey had tossed close to 126 pitches, and was struggling for his 200 strike out for the year.
Up steps, the Red Sox’s mighty Owings, batting .156 for the year.
He lifts a soft pop up in foul territory near the first base line for the potential final out of the game.
Enter First Baseman Guzman who hears a scream “let it drop, let it drop”
Guzman intentionally lets the ball fall to the ground.
On the next pitch, Owings fans, for Minor’s 200th K.
The sanctity of baseball is dead.
I need a Moscow Mule
Bochy got a big sendoff today. Dignitaries and tributes live and by video.
https://www.sfgate.com/giants/article/bruce-bochy-last-game-dodgers-kerr-mays-newsom-14477234.php
Just wondering about the mental cost for bmaz admitting the Irish are pretty good.
Threat Level Red!
Oh my! THIS just made me spew my coffee!
Belichick has run roughshod over the entire NFL for 20 years. It’s not fair. Parity exists for every team except the Patriots. Makes for predictable easy blowouts. Games used to be a little more interesting but now it’s more or less a given that Belichick is on another level. What makes him such an outlier? I say it’s his expertise on the fundamentals, derived from his 50 year study of football…
Agreed.
Finn from the Globe supports your claim
“I demand a display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame of all those little notes Belichick scribbles to himself during the game, even if we’d probably need him to provide a key to decipher them.”
Hey bmaz, your assessment of Rosen looks to be spot on. He seems to have all the physical skills – hell of an arm- and looks to have the head too. Missed him last week vs The Boys, but reports were positive despite the score.
Now if he survives until Fins can get an O-line and receivers that don’t drop the ball (two critical ones today). Kicker missed two FGs wide right so should only be down 1.
Next year or maybe 2 – long time for NFL patience.
He looks good though.
He has all the tools, and is truly smart. Inconsistent though. Would be good if he had a more disciplined team to mature with, going from terrible Cardinals to the Fins is harsh, but I hope he does well.
Frank Gore still has crazy legs. He just reached 15,000 career rushing yards.
Vontaze Burfict is still part of the criminal element in football, made clear by his joining Oakland, where the criminal element was first most clearly identified (by Chuck Noll). I’ll find out at halftime what it was he did to get ejected, but it had to be him.
Biebs is not perfect. He threw a pick in the end zone.
Blind squirrel alert: Fat Rex is quite right about Baker Mayfield. Funny how the Browns picked (on advice of the homeless guy living in the gutter outside Browns HQ in Berea) then got rid of the showboating ineptitude of Young Mr. Football (you remember Johnny Manziel, don’t you?) only to replace him with the slightly less inept but more showboaty (Manziel didn’t get endorsements) Mayfield.
Also noted: Bruce Springsteen is 70. I’ve been listening to him since the beginning, before he was on the cover of Time and Newsweek. Current (and longtime) favorite song: The Price You Pay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_b297Cljg8
“… you learn to sleep at night
with the price you pay…”
Another version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJM1g5Pfy5c
“…now they’d come so far
and they’d waited so long,
just to end up caught in a dream
where everything goes wrong
where the dark of night
holds back the light of the day
and you’ve got to stand and fight
for the price you pay…”
I’m surprised no one has ever covered it; John Cash’s cover of Johnny 99 from Nebraska is awesome, mind-blowingly brilliant, as is that whole album. But then again I’m not – the lyrics and song are entirely too powerful for corporate America to tolerate.
Iggles D stepped up when it was most needed. Wentz starting to look like Wentz.
More later….
Hey…Mayfield mows the field with a push mower. He’s a lousy electrician, but tries.
Fuck Cleveland.
That’s the city where, you’re driving toward the city center on I-90 and all of a sudden it makes a 90 degree turn like it’s a frickin’ streetcorner, then it does it again to the right. Eternal traffic jam. And then you drive past the sports stadia and downtown and there’s a huge billboard you can’t not look at while in traffic. You would think it’d be advertising how great Cleveland is or how Cleveland products are the world’s best or something touting Ohio.
No.
Last summer, it advertised vacationing in Pure Michigan.
Burfict.
Headhunting.
https://deadspin.com/vontaze-burfict-ejected-for-particularly-heinous-late-h-1838596827
Surprised?
He has been doing that shit that borders on criminality forever. Like back in college at ASU, including being benched for too many personal foul penalties, that literally lost games for the team. He is a very bad actor. A great player otherwise, but it is just too much, too consistently. He really ought not be in the league.
He’s been suspended for the rest of the season.
https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/NFL-suspends-Raiders-Vontaze-Burfict-for-rest-of-14479975.php
Good. Deserved.
For once, King Roger the Clown got it right.
video here. It’s so obvious that anyone watching could see it.
https://twitter.com/PFF_Sam/status/1178370077634285568
This Josh Allen kid is good – just broke through Cheatin Bill’s D with a real Biebs move – QB sneak and stretched the ball to break the plane.
I suspect the fans in Buffalo, having witnessed a wedding at halftime, are really getting rolling now. Warming up on the sidelines, Biebs has that “Fuck You Tour 2015” look in his eyes, the one he wore coming back from his Deflategate suspension.
Wow. 3 and out for Biebs, Edelman whining to the refs about something. And the Cheaters get an unsportsmanlike flag on the punt.
Lovin’ it.
What was the final score?
I listened to the first half of the Chefs-Kittehs in the car, then watched the second half on television. Bmaz, you got your wish: “Chiefs at Lions might…might…be interesting.”
Andy Reid clock mismanagement at the end of the first half? Check.
Chefs give up the first ten points, then tie it up before heading to the locker room at halftime? Check.
Five fumbles lost in the third quarter (2 Kittehs and 3 Chefs, all on subsequent possessions), one of which resulted in a 100 yard fumble return? Check.
Mahomes throws for 315 yards and no TDs? Check.
Stafford throws for 294 yards and 3 TDs? Check.
Chefs D gets four big sacks on Stafford? Check.
Good video from the Chef’s locker room after a game that might define “winning ugly”? Check.
(Video at the link.)
Yep, it was interesting.
Andy’s a Culture Guy.
oh my is that funny.
“a real culture guy for sure.” yep.
And now we get to see whether the Owboys emulate their owner and stagger drunkenly through NOLA. Here’s hoping the Saints pull it off.
Well, the Saints pulled it off. Those Hurricanes did their work.
Now, tonight we get to see which team(s) will leave Pittsburgh still winless. Gawd.
Forever 70?
Agree with your Springsteen assessment…
Flashback to the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa:
“I want you to step back from the guacamole dip, I want you to put the chicken fingers down and turn your television all the way up,” he announced as the show began, pointing into a camera.”
Looking forward to JLo and Shakira in Miami 2020
Nothing like a battle of the unvictorious and untied.
Scintillating!
Going out on a limb here, but either the Steelers or Bengals will no longer be unfeated after tonight.
Well, that was a pleasant result. It would seem like the Stillers offense finally got their shit together. To be sure, this was the Bungles, but still.
I liked how their D worked over Andy Dalton. 8 sacks. Reminds me of a game a few years ago, when ex-Bungle Carson Palmer was playing for the Cards and went down in a heap with a broken leg. The Stillers played the Bungles that week and beat Dalton into the turf, leading to the saying: “We tackled Andy Dalton so hard we broke Carson Palmer’s leg.”
The thing about the Stillers’ D last night was the speed with which they got to Dalton. Something like 5 of the sacks within 4 seconds of the snap. It remains to be seen whether this is purely a function of the Bungles’ O-line being bad, or the Stillers’ D having found its mojo.
Next week, host the Ravens, a real team. We’ll see how this turns out.
And Mason Rudolph, we have to see whether he’s the real deal or just another pretty face. Not quite Steely McBeam’s jaw, the one which invited so many punch-the-mascot incidents (and general mockery) that ol’ Steely headed for the hills never to be seen again. I do foresee a quarterback controversy in Pgh come August, though I will stipulate my prediction may be premature, based upon a limited sample size.
I’m watching a mashup of all their sacks last night and it’s really, really fun to watch Dalton get sandwiched, repeatedly. This Stillers fan smiles.