DGDB&D: a Texans blog.

This might be the most gay sexually challenged post in the history of this blog, right after Matt’s unpublished mash note to Mittens, but, you know, fuck it.  Yesterday was my 13th wedding anniversary with my wife (obviously, please send prayers/alcohol/prozac her way), so I’m feeling a little mushy.  And gassy, natch.  Here are the questions, and here are my responses.  If you’re feeling equally dumb, play along!

If I were not a football player, I would be:

When I’m not at work, I’m most often:

Favorite all-time song:

Favorite non-football sports moment:

Favorite cartoon as a kid:

What actor would play you in a movie about your life?

Favorite guity pleasure:

Special talents:

Ideal SportsCenter highlight:

Oh yeah, this is a bad idea, so here I go!!!!!

f I were not a football player, I would be:

A baseball player.

When I’m not at work, I’m most often:

Begging my wife for sex.

Favorite all-time song:

Brent Best’s (of Slobberbone and The Drams) rendition of Cortez the Killer with The Gourds, back when when The Gourds was publishing their live stuff.

Favorite non-football sports moment:

Any time J.R. Richard pitched.  I know it was a kid-crush, but he absolutely dominated in his prime.  In person, he was a gentle giant.  He’s one of baseball’s greatest failures yet best successes all at once.

Favorite cartoon as a kid:

Even as a kid, I knew they all sucked.  Probably The Jetsons.

What actor would play you in a movie about your life?

Some pasty-faced Fat Albert.

Favorite guity pleasure:

Southern cooking.  All of it.  I mean, fried chicken, greens, wings, cajun, creamed anything, you name it.  And especially BBQ.  When it comes to Southern food, I am a stereotype.

Special talents:

Masturbating.  I *have* been married for 13 years, donchaknow.

Ideal SportsCenter highlight:

I was kinda shocked at the player answers.  I was honored to watch VY win a Championship for the Horns, and I still cared about the Rockets in the Akeem days.  But of everything, my beloved Oilers never won the big one, and I want the Texans to make that highlight come true.  The day Mario is holding the Lombardi Trophy is the day that highlight comes true.

Scanned in a couple of old-school items today.  Enjoy!

And, with a shout out to Dave and Lee, whom I love deeply and passionately, at Dave’s preference at the same time because he’s into orgies and stuff, I give you this:

Robert Reid likes it high and tight.

Kisses and leg hugs to all!

bfd

No accountability for saying the wrong guy got cut.

You get to put up a bunch of shit and call it a blog post.

I’ve had an uber-tough/shitty week at work, and every time I see this sort of shit, I die a little.  I really do.  These guys can fuck up for a living, and if I do, I lose my job.

/worthless and helpless cathartic moment

Training Camp starts tomorrow!

Carry on.

Super-quick Kickoff this morning as Matt doesn’t have intertubez access and I have a super-busy day at my real job.  Here goes:

Moves: So, yeah, lots of roster moves yesterday.  But you already knew that didn’t you Mr(s). Smarty Pants?

No need to panic: “BornOrange” at texanstalk.com did some research and noticed a trend that the Texans have a tendency to sign their top pick, Mario excluded, right at the start of training camp.  We’ve seen a couple more first round picks sign, Kenny Phillips being one of those, so I think we’re getting close.  Kudos to BornOrange for some nice research. (h/t Eric)

Training Camp: And remember, it’s just around the corner! In other words, Duane?  You have a couple of days to sign that contract.  You can’t afford to miss a single snap in camp.

Wha?: Is it me?  Or is sending Jeremy Shockey to New Orleans the wrong destination?  Not like New York is Utah or anything, but such easy access to alcohol?  And the ego battles with The Most Expensive Third Down Back in History?  This might be fun!

Tuna Slam: I’ve never really had a fond place in my heart for Bill Parcells, but I do now after he said this about Jessica Simpson’s wife:

All you got to do is kick a field goal, the most elementary of plays, and then you just don’t do it. And so I don’t want to go through that process again. Too much blood.

Tony Romo = Epic fail.

I’m wearing pants!  What are you wearing?

Let’s be honest: their love flows kinda like this….

I {heart} you all,

bfd

PS: Consider this a weekend open thread.

PPS: h/t Boing Boing

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

No, not that way.  No, not that way, either, though I am flattered.  Definitely not that way.  I mean, not even for $20 or something.  Maybe for $50, though.

Anyway, Matt and I are going to start working on a full-fledged site redesign, and we want input from you, our dearest readers.  Keep in mind that we already assume you want:

1. More hard core nudity, especially Filipino tranny porn (h/t Lee), and
2. Us to fuck off.

For example, one of the things we’d like to implement is the “Reply to” feature as on Deadspin.  We figure it’ll make it easier for Stacy and Foomey to hurl insults at each other (though can you really get enough anal fisting jokes?  I thought not.).

So, let’s hear you loud and hear you proud:

Dear Matt and bfd, I would like to see __________ to help improve the website.

Your biggest fan,

You

Thank you for your assistance.

As you may have noticed, things have been pretty damned quiet in BFD-ville (which, I believe, has nothing to do with Podunk, OK but much to do with Fucking, Austria).

Fact is, things have been extremely stressful for me personally lately.  I’ve tried to write a couple of times, but I’ve had the worst case of writer’s block evar.  And, when you write on a blog with possibly the best in the blogosphere, Matt, if your material looks like shit, it’s gonna stick out like my boner in a porn flick.  Well, there’s that, and the floggings when Matt doesn’t like your work.

If this gives you any idea: I had knee surgery today a couple of weeks after a near hit and run while I was on  bike.  Going the opposite direction, somebody turned left dead-on flush on me.  She missed, but only because I jumped the curb at an angle, forcing me to land pretty damn awkwardly.  Unfortunately, I completely wrenched my knee in the process…the one that’s already had four surgeries on it.  Fortunately, she was classy enough to peel off after this happened, though I did manage to get her license plate (yes, she knows what happened).  So, I get to deal with the local PD on this clusterfuck.  The surgery, at least, went quite well.

When I went in today, and they checked my blood pressure, it was 153/113.  Seriously.

All this on top of normal life, a death in my wife’s family, AND, most stressful of all, a pending death in my family which has created an enormous strain on me.  But, the burden has been mostly on my sister, who officially deserves saint-hood for all she’s done.  The last two months of my life have been an epic contrast on the difference between being alive and living.

I haven’t pooped in over 48 hours.

I do have some points to make, so bear with me a bit longer.

1. Thanks to Matt, who, in reality, is the Internet equivalent of a snuggly teddy bear.  Really.
2. Thanks to a couple of others who venture around these parts, but especially Eric.  Cept when the jerk makes me tear up at work.
3. My sister kicks ass.
4. Carpe diem.  Which, yeah, seems obvious.  But I’m watching yet another person dying of cancer, and I have a hard time releasing that concept.

My point isn’t too solicit “I’m sorry”s or anything like that (really and truly, I don’t want them).  Consider this another adventure in online carthartic moments.  I hope to start posting regularly, both here and at WTP, as soon as possible.

In case you missed it on Deadspin, it seems that former Texans cheerleader Carrie Milbank has a new gig doing something with hockey. I dunno, I didn’t really read the story. But here are some pics of Carrie for your weekend enjoyment. (And here is her bio.)

I believe the words you are looking for are “Jesus titty fucking Christ on ice skates! Thank you, Matt!”

So, I have been spending some time lately doing some spring cleaning.  As a long-time pack rat, getting rid of my old sports magazines - which date back to 1977 - has been interesting.

Today, I ran across a cover with Tony Rice, RB, ND, on an old Sporting News.

And it got me thinking: who was my most embarassing man-crush?  IOW, who was it that I cheered for relentlessly when they turned out to be a total scrub?

Now, as a grown man, I’m not prone to man-crush-itis, so childhood fave and accomplished wife beater Cesar Cedeno doesn’t count.

Sadly, some of you rooted for Zoolander Jackson like that.  No, I never really did cuz I never thought he was worth a shit and was a horrible pick from the start.

Here’s mine: Michael “Puppy Master” Vick.  Yes, it’s true.  I thought he was all that and a bag of extra crunchy Cheetos where all the Cheetos look like Abraham Lincoln.  I loves athletic QBs in the Randall Cunningham mode, and I thought for sure even *he* would be able to pick up enough of the offensive playbook to destroy opposing defenses.  Alas, he sucked.  Badly.

So, as we hear about Matt’s adventures with beer, who was your embarassing man-crush?

Unless you live in a cave on the Internet, or you think newspapers still have a ton of upside, you may have missed this at deadspin.

Look, I know that I’ve gone off on the Jurassic media before. Don’t worry, that’s not my intent here, even though I could easily type 1000 words on the subject.

Yesterday, I saw what one of the best bloggers in the biz, Orson Swindle, had to say. In the spirit of his post, consider this an open thread for questions about me. Yes, it’s ego-centric and arrogant and serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. However, after the Christmas Ape got dooced and this dust-up about the blogosphere and credentials and whatever, I think it’s worth a go - though I can’t exactly go too far.

With apologies to Matt, Steph, and all of you who don’t give a shit, here we go:

Why the fuck do I blog: Because I like to write. I have an undergrad in English from THE University of Texas at Austin. I like to write. I don’t suck at it…too badly. I’d put my body of work against the chron’s any day. I love sports, and I love to talk about sports. Being able to express my opinion is fun. I encourage all opinions at a reasonable level of discourse.

Why do I blog anonymously?: See dooced above. I don’t do this full-time, and I really can’t afford to lose my job. You’ll notice that I don’t talk about my job and I don’t say for whom I work. This is done on purpose. As long as people like Christmas Ape can be fired for no particular reason other than blogging, I am paranoid. Add that I work in a conservative industry, all the more so.

Do I live in my mother’s basement?: No. First, in this part of Texas, there really aren’t any basements. The only known basement is Tim’s mother’s. I live in Austin. In 15 years or less, I will own my house outright. It’s not a big house, but it’s what I like. I live in the middle of the city, but I have awesome views and I can bike to a ton of places.

So, why the fuck is it OK for you to blog?: I never said it was. I blog because I can. I blog because I want to. If blogging is no longer fun - even this post will take an hour to put up - I will quit. Blogging is harder work than it looks. If you don’t believe me, ask Steph of Tim or Hilton. It’s not easy. And when you don’t do it full time, it’s even harder. Still, I love the Texans, and that’s why I’m here (well, that, and Matt’s temporary lack of sanity).

Have you been spayed or neutered?: Why, yes! Yes I have. Thanks for asking. Jerk.

Religion/Politics: I only add this because Orson did, but I am going to skirt the issue a little. Just as I believe all people should be able to express their opinion, they should be able to express their religion. Politically, I am socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

Edumacation: As mentioned, English undergrad with several minors, and I am working toward my MBA (I’ll go into homework mode right after this post).

Career: Not much to say here, but I have been published in over 100 magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and websites across our great nation (and SE Asia). Unfortunately, I did all this as a ghost writer, so little of it is to my credit. As a special note to Little Dickie Justice, age 12, and Pancakes McClain: I make more than you both do, so bite me. Oh, while in school, I was the co-host for a sports show for three years. So, yes, I know the power of credentials (and they mean SHIT!).

Family: Wife and two kids: a son of 5 and a daughter at 1 1/2.

What do I look like?: Something about like this:

Dramatic Ending: I’ll end on this note. I hate the traditional media. I don’t watch TV, and when I watch sports, I rarely have the sound on. One of my minors is journalism, and somebody on deadspin.com reminded me of this: as a journalist, you are told you are the gatekeeper of information. Hasn’t this gatekeeper mentality gotten us into enough trouble already? That’s why I blog, and it’s why I read blogs. I’m not saying there’s no place for the traditional media - we need somebody to be the stenographer for coaches and managers and players and politicians - but I strongly believe that the best quality of work is at blogs.

Any questions? I’m ready to move away from these inane discussions, but as long as dinosaurs like Buzz Bissinger stalk the earth, these are slightly necessary. Kinda.

/being arrogant ass

Well, it’s all done but the crying. I gotta admit that I’m still disappointed that we lost out on DRC (note to self: do a better job discrediting who we want next year), and I will forever hate the Cards because of it. Or something. That said, I’m gonna throw up (sic) some grades for our draft this year, and I would love to hear your feedback. I’m not going to do any purposeful agitating a la Little Dickie Justice, age 12. I’m going to try and be as honest as possible with my subjectivity and objectivity.

1st Round (#26 overall): Duane Brown, LT, Virginia Tech.  I originally wasn’t too excited, and then I slipped quickly into acceptance. Considering he was taken with the 26th pick of the 1st Round, it’s definitely an over-draft. That we traded back eight places and still got the guy we allegedly wanted the entire time earns some points, though. For now, it’s a bit of a wash on the good and bad, and I am still worried about his ability to have a short-term impact on the team, so I will go with a Grade B. No, not great. I think it’s average right now, and it’s a full grade higher because of the trade down and acquisition of additional picks. Mr. Brown and Smithiak are certainly welcome to make me eat that grade, however.

3rd Round #1 (#79 overall): Antwaun Molden, CB, Eastern Kentucky. curtisdisco had some good things to say about Molden at BRB, and if you check out the entire thread, the guy is definitely a work-out fiend. Seriously, the guy seems to be a slightly lesser version of DRC: small school and huge combine numbers. Considering what the guy has had to deal with as a human, and how *pissed* he was at his badass workouts, I am prepared to go JJ on him. Grade B+.

3rd Round #2 (#89 overall): Steve Slaton, RB, West Virginia. I do worry he’ll be a Chris Perry at the highest level due to his size and seeming inability to run between the tackles, but he definitely has game-changing ability. Used in the proper role, I can see him excelling. Grade B+. I do think we need to set realistic expectations that he is not a true #1 RB, but I have no problem with that, either.

4th Round (#118 overall): Xavier Adibi, OLB, Virginia Tech. Here’s my take…so, we didn’t take a DE in this draft, yet I believe it to be a serious area of need. We signed Chaun Thompson, who could line-up at DE as a serious speed rusher. Yes, that’s where I am going with this. Chaun will see a lot of time opposite Mario at DE, and I have absolutely no problem with this. Chaun *is* 6′2″, 250lbs, so he’s not terribly undersized. But if he can become a demon off the outside, yeah, I’m liking this.

As for Adibi, as I said previously, I see a lot of Morlon Greenwood. Others in the Draft Thread said DeMeco, but that’s a little too far for me. And again with the b0ng hit of Adibi. He’ll definitely challenge Zach Diles and Kevin Bentley at SAM. An interesting pick with some seriously high upside. Grade A-. As stupid as this may sound, if any of our picks have a big impact in 2008, I think it’s most likely to be Adibi.

5th round (#151 overall): Frank Okam, DT, The University of Texas at Austin…bitchez. Yes, an alum from my beloved alma mater. And, yes, I am super-excited about this pick (though not as excited as Tim). He has a first-class body, a top-of-the-class mind, but he has the motor of a moped. He also needs some serious work on his technique. The worst thing about him is his ability to disappear for stretches, but when he’s on, he’s Shaun Rogers good (when his engine is running, of course).

Going into the 2007 season, I thought Okam would be a legit 1st round pick. That he slid is more of an indictment of the motor, technique, and (oh yeah!) conditioning than it is anything else. A motivated Okam would be an absolute steal and the acquisition of a 1st rounder in the 5th. Grade A-.

6th round (#173 overall): Dominique Barber, S, Minnesota. I just don’t understand this pick. We took Molden, we have enough DBs to hold up against Andre Ware, and we took the slowest S on the board? I mean, I think even I could hang with this guy in the 40 (20 years ago). Look, he may be Marion’s brother, but I hate that SOB. Grade D.

7th round (#223 overall): Alex Brink, QB, Washington State. I watched only about half of one WSU game this year, and I don’t have much of an image of Brink. He’s mobile but smallish, and he definitely has a “West Coast Offense” kinda arm, which means it ain’t the strongest. I will reiterate that I believe that Kubiak carries three QBs on the active roster, and Brink will be practice squad fodder. Grade who cares.

Overall Grade:

I think we are seeing a trend of sorts with Smithiak, which is taking safer picks in the earlier rounds and going for the homerun in later rounds. I’m OK with this. Brown, for all the smack, was a fairly safe pick. Mario and DeMeco were a fairly safe picks. In 2007, ManChild was an easy call and not a gamble, but they went Jacoby Jones in the 3rd, Fred Bennett in the 4th, and Brandon Frye in the 5th (looking forward to seeing him in the summer).

This draft just seems similar to me. A safer pick at the line early (Brown vs. Okoye), l33t skill position in the 3rd (Slaton vs. JJ [nod to JJ here, though]), a DB with upside (Bennett vs. Molden) in there, and another lineman with talent in the 5th (Okam vs. Frye).

Overall, I give this draft a very sold B+ with a greater possibility of upside than not. Molden and/or Okam could make this grade an “A” by themselves, much less Brown or Slaton. I’m excited.

I’ve had a bit of a cold over the past couple of days, and it’s been a bear to sleep.  Top it off with a huge line of storms that hit at about 5:30, and I’m running on little sleep.

So, in that time, I’ve been thinking about Duane Brown, football, and sweaty men in tight pants in general.  After looking at the other comments, I think a lot of us having been thinking about large men with big, manly hands…and have come to fairly similar conclusions.  Here’s my take:

I woke up next to Duane this morning, and I didn’t have a case of coyote ugly.  I looked over at Duane and thought to myself, “You know, he ain’t bad.  He’s not a cheerleader, he’s not the hottie drill team chick….he’s kinda like the homely looking Debate Club girl, not at all as in Not Another Teen Movie, though.”

Now, we had a good time, but I’m not quite ready to meet his parents yet.  Frankly, he’s going to have to work on a few things to win me over completely, such as creating holes, getting to attack points, getting stronger, and washing windows - you know, the usual stuff.

Now, the last time Alex Gibbs set somebody up in the first round with a LT, it was George Foster.  Foster was also a “terrific athlete” who was supposed to be all that and a bag of Cheetos.  Sure, we can’t control the fact that he ate all that, the bag of Cheetos, and the bag, but it still turned out to be a bust of a pick.  Alex seems to be a bit better at the whole “My Fair Lady” thing, taking lumps of clay and molding them into gold.  Matt Lepsis, who was signed as an UDFA by the Broncos, is a perfect example.

We did get 3rd and 6th round picks to make up for trading back.  And, heck, I would be elated to take Jamaal-American Charles with one of 3rd rounders to bring in for the occasional menage-a-trois to spice up the marriage a bit.

One additional comment: Somebody mentioned (too lazy to look, sorry!) that this was like 2006 all over again.  I respectfully disagree.  I think there was consensus that we wanted a LT, just not one so damn early, especially considering we passed on Rashard Mendenhall, a bunch of DEs, and other schwag on the way through.

Don’t worry, Duane: I’ll call you in the morning.  I know some people - and they apparent already really like you, as well - that can fix you up to make me proud to be in a long-term relationship with you.  It’s a little more maintenance than I had hoped, but I’ll give it a chance to work.

{hugs and kisses},

bfd

After much hype and a lull that would make the Big 10 jealous, I present to you:

The NBC Sports Blogger Mock Draft.

I’d also like to welcome the newest Texan, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie.

I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but…

THE 2008 SCHEDULE IS BEING RELEASED TODAY AT 1PM!!!!!

Get your calendars and PDAs ready; it’s time to start planning your live football watching for 2008.

We’ve known for quite some time (relatively speaking) that the 2008 opponents shake out as follows:

AT RELIANT
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Chicago
Detroit
Miami

AWAY FROM RELIANT
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Cleveland
Pittsburgh
Green Bay
Minnesota
Oakland

All that remains today is to tell us the order. So, as we count down the hours, I have a few predictions for you.

1. 1. We get a Monday night game, most likely one of our games against the Baby-Eating Sisterfuckers.
2. 2. We get a Thursday night game, most likely against Green Bay or Pittsburgh.
3. 3. Our Green Bay game will be mid-October at the very earliest. Which is not really a good thing for a domed team from a hot state.
4. 4. The Bengals WRs will make Petey Faggins look like BFD’s Real Doll–worn out from hours of torture and pounding.
5. 5. Our first home game will be against Da Bears.

(h/t to reader Kevin for reminding me of this date…I was off by a week in my head)

UPDATE 1: Monday, December 1. Jacksonville @ JUGGERNAUT. Ben gets one point for being dead-on with his date. I am giving myself half a point for predicting a Monday night game for us against a division foe.

UPDATE 2: Here it is.

• Week 1 @ Steelers
• Week 2 v. Ravens
• Week 3 @ Baby-Eating Sisterfuckers
• Week 4 @ Jaguars
• Week 5 v. Colts
• Week 6 v. Dolphins
• Week 7 v. Lions
• Week 8 BYE
• Week 9 @ Vikings
• Week 10 v. Bengals
• Week 11 @ Colts
• Week 12 @ Browns
• Week 13 v. Jaguars (Mon. Night)
• Week 14 @ Packers
• Week 15 v. Baby-Eating Sisterfuckers
• Week 16 @ Raiders
• Week 17 v. Bears

Initial thoughts…that December game in Lambeau does not sound fun from a “trying to win the game” standpoint…Weeks 3-5 will go a LONG way toward showing us how we stack up against the division…look for us to go 3-0 from Weeks 6-9.