Trash Talk – Angels In The Outfield Edition

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Well another week has come and gone and people are still talking about the Most Interesting Man In The World and what he has been doing up in the land of the Norske. Well enough about that, let’s talk football.

National Favre League: This is a horrid week for NFL matchups; none of them are great and most are downright lame. The best to my eyes is Marcy’s newfound love, Mike Singleterry and the Niners hosting HotLnata’s Dirty Birds. This actually has the makings of a very good game. The Niners are solid and need to be taken seriously. Their defense is tough and disciplined, and offense has been sufficient, if somewhat underwhelming, so far this season. Atlanta plays well on both sides of the ball too, and young Matt Ryan is just learning what he has got with Tony Gonzales. Frank Gore is out for Frisco though, so give the edge to the Falcons. The other game that has a little bit of sex appeal is the Pats visiting the comfy confines of Mile High in Denver. Now, you have to take the Pats here, but never underestimate the Broncos at home and Denver’s defense has been fantastic so far. Brady should end the Donko’s fantasy start of the season though.

I will take the Jets to rebound and beat the Fish in Miami and the Cards to play with more passion than they have so far this year and take care of business at home against the Texans. Again, though, never underestimate the ability of the Cardinals to suck. Baltimore puts a crimp in the joy of Ochocinco and the Bengals in Baltimore and Buffalo continues the Brownie’s suck in Buffalo. Pittsburgh has too much for Detroit, but Detroit will continue to improve and will at least make it a game. The indianapolis Peytons contue the woeful start of the Titans. I have no idea what kind of bad mojo has consumed Tennessee this year, but they won’t quit sniffing that glue this week. Jeff Fisher must be beside himself; his team has been sloppy and that is just not characteristic of his teams.

Jags/Squawks and Skins/Panthers are both toss-ups. Look for the Vikings to go back to Adrian Peterson heavy against the woeful Rams and rest the arm on the old guy. Read more →

Big Game Trash

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With September out of the way, the rust is off the gridiron and we are getting into the heart of the football season. Heck, we even got a cold snap going here in the desert. Got down to 72 degrees last night, and the hight today will only be in the low 90s. Brrrrr. Smells like football weather. It is time for some big games.

The Student Athletes: In the Big Mitten, the Wolvereenies are taking on the Spartans. Nothing would crash Rich Rodriquez back to earth faster than a loss to Michigan State. This is the first real test Big Blue will face this year; to win in Sparta, they are going to have to do better than scrape by with last second victories over also rans like they have the first four games. Smells like an upset. Oklahoma versus Miami will either be a great game or a Sooner blowout; it is up to the Hurricanes to decide, and they sure looked mediocre last weekend. Young Landry Jones for the Sooners is looking very good substituting for Sam Bradford. Oklahoma is safe. LSU at Georgia is too close to call and should be a really good game. The game I am most interested in is USC and Cal. Both teams seem to be less than advertised so far this year, but this game will have huge ramifications for the conference crown and likely the Rose Bowl matchup for January. Who knows which Bears and Trojans will show up, but if pressed, I guess I will roll with USC here. Matt Barkley is back, and the freshman may still be getting his sea legs, but he is clearly critical to the Trojans offense, they looked very pedestrian without him.

National Favre League: Clearly the game of the weekend is the Lions and Bears. Okay, just kidding. The Pats host the Ravens in a real early season gut check. The Pats are 2-1 and have looked only so-so through three games. Tom Brady really is a little tentative, and opposing defenses have been blitzing the bejeebies out of him with success. They really need to get Fred Taylor and the Law Firm untracked. Bill Bel needs to use the Law Firm more I think. Hard to pick against the Pats at home, but I will. Joe Read more →

Trash Talk – Crazy Pete’s Miranda Edition

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Hello Americans, it’s Friday! Since that no longer means Paul Harvey is coming on the radio, it means it is time for Trash. Speaking of trash, we have the garbage from Crazy Pete Hoekstra and J-John Shaddegg (article with quote in it here). So, what is it with these wild ‘n crazy conservatives? They are always so fixated on Miranda; did they grow up having wet dreams about a C Street encounter with Carmen Miranda or something? It is all really hard to figure, so lets move along to the action for this weekend.

NFL: There are a lot of missing B’s this weekend, as in QBs, RBs and CBs. Donavan McNabb and Matt Hasselbeck both look to be out, Marion Barber and LaDanian Tomlinson are out and the Jets have a pair of cornerbacks, Lito Shepard and Don Strickland out. Not good for any of those teams.

The best games, in no particular order, are the Niners v. Old Father Time and the Vikes: It is in the Metrodome for starters, so even though both teams are 2-0, give the home edge to the Vikes. Neither team has a flashy passing game, but the Norske have Adrian Peterson and I’ll take Favre and AP over Shaun Hill and Frank Gore; going to be a great game though. Titans v. Jets: Seems hard to think the Titans could go 0-3 as talented as they are, but I think they are going to. They really miss Haynesworth on defense. Jets still have their best corner, Reavis, and are on a roll. Falcons at the Pats: This is a tough call on paper, but Belichick isn’t going to lose again this soon; take the Pats. They really need to get a ground game going. Saints at Buffalo: Buffalo is way better than anybody thought, and they will make this a close game, but Drew Brees and company are just too much. TO will have a big game. Colts at the Cards for an extremely rare Monday Night game in Arizona: Cards are going to score some points without Bob Sanders patrolling on defense for the Colts. Peyton can clearly still take over a game. This is a toss up.

In the other games, the Ravens put some more hurt on the Brownies, the Lions upset the Skins Read more →

Trash Talk – Spooks And Jukes Edition

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Hi there Wheelies and Lugnuts, we have reached the end of another week. So now the fun starts!

Marcy and I kind of have a lot of the same interests, that is how I came to be here. Today she wrote about the Ambinder Atlantic article on top spooks caterwauling about the lame ass, to start with, Holder "preliminary review" on the beyond the criminal guidelines, set out by even the tortuous Bush/Cheney Administration, torture.

Yowzah, that letter, and article, was the definition of hubris, both as to the letter from the Head Spooks and Ambinder’s article. But the fact is it was a predictable juke on the part of the spooks, meant to feint the supposedly rookie Obama in a misdirection. The spooks are not as slippery as Darren Sproles though and, hopefully, nobody will fall for that bunk.

That was the spooks, lets look at the jukes on tap. First up, college football; and there are few really big games this weekend. The first is, believe it or not, Boise State v. Fresno State tonight. Boise State is up by two touchdowns midway through the fourth quarter. Since Jacory Harris and the U Hurricanes decimated the Ramblin Wreck last night, the only real top matchup is the Cornhuskers v. Va Tech. I’ll take the Hokies in that one. If you got other interests in the college ranks (Hi Jim White and Freep) talk em up.

National Favre League: The biggest game this weekend is the Jerry Jones Bowl. Jerry has a brand new scoreboard and Bad Eli’s punter wants to take it out. Godspeed punter dude. Bad Eli is missing his weapon, Plaxico, who is headed to the real big house because he, ignorantly, had a weapon (and shot himself in the freaking thigh). Eli wil miss Plaxico, more than Romo-eo misses TO, but the Gents have too much (remember Osi Umenyiora? He’s back). Sorry Jerry, ‘Boys get spanked.

It is a fine line between love and hate, but the Panthers are done; Dirty Birds take em in Hot ‘Lanta. Matt Stafford ain’t no Brett Favre, even a forty year old Favre; Vikes hand the Lions yet another loss. Rams versus Skins – I dunno, Skins ought to win, but I take the Goats in an upset. Houston at the Titans – I took the Houston Tejans as a sleeper this year, Read more →

Surplus Trash Talk – Trojans And Vikings

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We got off to an early start on Trash Talk because of the first game of the NFL season Thursday night. Just so everybody has an easily accessible place to jaw about the games, and especially the big Ohio State-USC tilt and the rest of the Sunday and Monday NFL games, here is another Trash thread.

A couple of comments are in order. That was a great season opener Thursday with the Stillers nipping the Titans in overtime. I still wish the NFL would give both teams a shot before ending overtimes in sudden death – it just isn’t right that one team can own the ball, kick a field goal and the other team never gets a shot – but that was a great game. Polamalu getting injured may haunt Pittsburgh though. Despite the loss, the Titans look solid.

The big Wolvereenie-Domer matchup in da Big House has, somewhat surprisingly, been great to watch. Not much for defense, but both offenses have gotten a lot of exercise and it has been fun. A far cry from the pitiful matchup up the unvictorious and untieds that took place last year. And Big Blue has won a thriller 38-34. Oh Masaccio, I think you need to sing Hail To The Victors to Marcy! If Weiss also gets blown out by USC again, how does he survive? So far, the rest of the college schedule has gone as expected. BYU just obliterated Tulane and really looks good on the heels of their upset of ex-trollkiller Freepatriot’s Sooners. A shoutout is also owed to GulfCoastPirate for his call on the Houston Cougars (William Ockham’s hometown team too) for their big upset of number 5 rated Oklahoma State. Very impressive.

As to the pros, nothing new until tomorrow except the Tequila charges against Shawne Merriman have been dropped and RanDiego is now crowing about the inevitability of the Bolts winning the Super Bowl. Oh, and some old geezer has apparently been named captain of the Vikings ahead of the season opener against Mannotsogenius and the Brownies.

There is also tennis via the US Open from Flushing Meadows. Nadal and Federer appear on a collision course and a young girl named Caroline Wozniacki looks to overcome an unseeded opponent to take on the winner of Serena Williams versus Kim Clijsters (in a great comeback run) for the women’s final.

And last, but never least, for the F1 Circus afficionados, the always exciting Italian Grand Prix from Monza will go off at 8 am Eastern time with the Read more →

Trash Talk: The Regular Season, at Last!

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We made it the vast wasteland of baseball hell back to football season! Congratulations one and all, especially you baseball nuts cursing my heresy right now.

Titans-Stillers: Things kick off tonight with scribe’s Stillers taking on masaccio’s Titans, the Super Bowl winners against last year’s winningest team. Gotta go with the Stillers, easy, in this, because I still haven’t washed my hand since I shook Franco Harris’ hand at Netroots Nation. Plus, Mike Tomlin did something really classy this off-season–he said, as a friend of Michael Vick’s, he might have ordinarily considered pursuing him, but given Big Ben’s drama in the off season, he didn’t want to do anything to get in Big Ben’s head. The Stillers are pretty much the team that won the Super Bowl, whereas the Titans have lost both Albert Haynesworth and Jim Schwartz. Plus, it’s in Pittsburgh.

Irish-Wolverines: Yes, this college game merits discussion in the first pro Trash Talk of the year. When’s the last time this game actually mattered? How long since it has it featured two undefeateds? There was an interesting stat on ESPN the other night–one of those insta-polls on which coach needed the win more, Charlie Weis or Rich Rod. The entire country, save two states, said Weis. One exception, of course, was MI. The other? WV, which appears to still be pouting. I gotta go with the Wolverines here, because if I gotta deal with game day traffic, then I sure as heck am owed a win. Go, um, Forcier!

USC-OSU: I might make the effort to muster some Big 10 jingoism over this game, to claim that OSU can stay with USC in the Horseshoe.  But … Navy?!?! So consider this the first opportunity of the year for bmaz to boast about how much better the Pac 10 is than the Big 10.

Merriman-Tequila: I frankly had never heard of Ms. Tequila when this whole nightmare for Shawne Merriman came up (yeah, you guys know my problems with pop culture, I get it). Read more →

Trash Talk: My Traffic Su@k$

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JimWhite, who seems anxious to start the college season for some unknown reason, pointed out how remiss I was in not posting a trash talk for the first college games of the season. Oops. Sorry.

In college ball, I have three things to report:

First, for one whole quarter, Navy kept it close with OSU. Alas, one quarter does not make an upset.

Second, apparently those people driving to MI’s first game of the season are suffering from some first-game jitters. Specifically, all the suburbanites driving through my neighborhood to the game seem to never have driven through a traffic circle before. And with four straight home games (that’s what a 1AA schedule will get you in the Big House), I won’t be able to drive through said traffic circles on a Saturday for an entire month.

Third, for some reason Ann Arbor has broken the cardinal rule of city road construction: which is that you finish the major arteries before the first game. They’re starting road construction right out in front of my house on Monday. Now I’ve got wayward traffic circles and construction drivers to contend with.

As to MI football? I don’t have much to say about that.

In the pros, though, here’s an interesting development while we wait for the season to really start. Roger Goodell anticipates that next year (2010), there may be no salary cap (because they haven’t agreed to a new contract yet). So for those of you who want to talk about something else than JimWhite’s gloating, I invite you to consider who will make worse use of his opportunity to spend unlimited funds on big egos: Jerry Jones or Dan Snyder?

Here’s another puzzler. Does anyone doubt that the NFC North–the perennial laughingstock of the NFL–is going to be the most improved division this year? Frankly, with Dallas looking pretty crappy and the Gents looking dicey and the Iggles looking gimmicky, I wonder whether the NFC North might be the best NFC division this year? I understand that doesn’t mean the Kitties will win any games (though I think we’ve done far better off of stealing masaccio’s Titans’ Defensive Coordinator than we did off of stealing Christy’s Mountaineers’ Head Coach), but there are some seriously strong teams up here in the Midwest this year.

TT: Are You Ready For Some Football??

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Yep, it is that time of year again; football season is upon us. Not to mention that we are about to enter the stretch drive in MLB and the long summer break is over in F1. It has been a long week, starting with the IG Report release and ending with services for the Lion, Ted Kennedy. So, take yer shoes off, have a cocktail and let’s have some fun.

NFL: Well, here comes another season, and it looks to be a doozy. Seriously, so many teams have got people back, have added key parts, and gained exciting rookies through the draft; there is simply a lot of excitement all across the league. The following are some random highlights as I see them at this early and somewhat unclear vantage point. Let us start off with the team I predict will win the Super Bowl, and that would be the:

New England Patriots: This pains me a little because of the natural inter-blog rivalry. And hey, my local professional football team was actually in the Super Bowl more recently than the Pats. No matter. Listen, the Pats were 11-5 last year with no Tom Brady all season, no Roidney Harrison and a rushing attack led by Sammy Morris. Oh yeah, and they sported a quarterback that had not started a game since high school. Harrison is gone, but they now have the closest thing to Joe Montana as far as cool (and with a better arm) I have ever seen back in the saddle and raring to go, and they have added Fred Taylor, a back that can still run wild if you don’t run him down with overwork. And I still love the Law Firm. The defense looks healthier too. Oh yeah, and that Bill Belichick guy. and someone named Moss, Randy. The Pats are not the sexy darlings of the moment, but they don’t care. They are the best coached team in the league and they have Brady back. Look out.

Some quick hits on the rest of the AFC: I wonder how the Fish will make use of Pat White; I think the kid is a winner. The Bills have TO, but I just don’t see them going anywhere. The Jets are a tough call. They really could be pretty tough if they run (love rookie pick up Shonn Greene, getting him and Read more →

Bacon, Boobs & A Blowjob: All Star Trash Talk

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Bacon Bra

What the hell, somebody (h/t Kalium) had to write a post with this title, why not me? And fear not fearless readers, I intend to deliver on all elements promised. And let’s get that out of the way early.

For the bacon, I present a full fledged pig. John Kyl, who I am embarrassed to say, represents the fine state I reside in, Arizona. If it were not for bad Senators, I would have no Senators at all. Here is John Kyl, in transcript form, interacting ("questioning" is too nice for what he was doing) with Sotomayor. I have had to live with this asswipe representing me and not being able to pay enough attention to the jerk because I was worried about Uncle Fester McCain. It is the definition of conundrum. Kyl is like the Gooper Milli Vanilli, he will lip synch whatever cretinous right wing horse manure is available, and he never disappoints.

For the boobs, see the graphic attached hereto. Or check out the latest from MC Steele or Sarah Palin. Enough said.

Blowjob. There, I said it. And I am the second person on this blog to do so!! Now, I dunno if y’all have heard tell or not, but my friend, The Most Right Prim & Proper Ms. Marcy Wheeler, done gone and upset the delicate sensibilities of the Ms. Vanderbilt Ladies Couch Fainting Association, or at least Tam. Hall division thereof, into a bit of the vapors.

Goodness now, what shall we do? Well, it turns out, if you are in the media, you want to cluck cluck that a modern woman might use the term "blowjob" on cable TeeVee. Oh my, It does make one faint, eh? This is delicate tripe coming from a woman employed by a network making its bones on the Bill Clinton prurient diversion.

Now the Trash Talk. It is the Major League Baseball All Star Game tonight and President Barack Obama is throwing out the first pitch and appearing in the broadcast booth with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. The best moment in my All Star history is banned player Pete Rose sliding into home on Ray Fosse in the 1970 All Star Game.

Football isn’t here yet. Nor is basketball. It is the Mid-Summer Classic, the MLB All Star Game. And POTUS is there. Read more →

Trash Talk – The Hitched and The (Potentially) Unhitched Edition

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First off, we’re gonna be moving a little fast here, because it is a classic Circus weekend; the lads are in Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. I’ll return to that in a minute, but there is also the issue of the continued existence of F1. There is a potential divorce in the making. From CNN:

Eight of the sport’s major teams (Formula One Teams Association or FOTA) have potentially thrown the glamorous world of F1 into chaos by making good on their intention to set up a rival championship for 2010.

It follows months of talks and frustrations after they failed to resolve their dispute with motor sport’s governing body over financial constraints. Quite simply, the Formula One Teams’ Association announced they would not compromise on the quality of the series by signing up unconditionally for the 2010 F1 season following the release of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile’s (FIA) radical new plans for cost-cutting.

All of this follows FIA president Max Mosley’s insistence on introducing a voluntary $60 million budget cap for teams to curtail what has been called a “financial arms race” in the sport.

The teams in question are championship leader Brawn GP, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BMW Sauber, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso. With the two remaining outfits, Force India and Williams, staying put as it were.

The sport will go where the manufacturers go, notably Ferrari. The list of breakaways is everybody that matters, even weaker teams like Toro Rosso. To my mind, that means they will sort this out with Ecclestone and Mosely and things will remain where they are. Bernie and Max really have no choice. But that is just my take. Please discuss Circus heads!

As I said earlier, the British GP is this weekend. Here is the track (I miss Brands Hatch). Here is a rundown of practice. Qualifying is at 8:00 am EST Saturday on SpeedTV. The race is at 9:00 am EST on FOX (tape delayed, the suckers). See if Jenson Button can win this one too. Hard to bet against the lad at this point.

But the excitement doesn’t end there. Oh no. No way hoser. Read more →