Kickoff
Aug 18, 2008 2008 Training Camp, Fatty Starbucks, Hi Steve!, Kickoff, Preseason 2008
Come along and ride… Fantasy Football is here. By my last count, the people on board were: Me, Lee, grungedave, socctty, DisplaceTexan, Dan B., DeMecoShall…, Jordan, and abumnamedPaul. That’s 9. Both bigwood25 and bfd have thrown their names in as “if you need me” players. Max number of teams in this is 12 and the draft is tentatively set for this Saturday afternoon. Send me an email and I’ll send you the appropriate info. Feel free to bitch about the settings in the comments.
Gary Kubiak is making the NFL preseason his bitch. So says Keith Weiland. I have no reason to disagree, either. Very solid write-up. And “Kung Fu Panda” as a nickname for Duane Brown is gold.
Super Steve. According to Kubes, “The Rookie We All Not-So-Secretly Hope Will Be Our Starter” is going to, well, be our starter this week. Or, more accurately, going to “get reps with the first group.” Nice. (this link and the one before it courtesy of Eric)
Finally. I hate Peter King. You hate Peter King. But this Peter King quote is too good to skip: “You can’t tell me the Titans are looking at Vince Young’s game against Oakland — he completed one of his last 10 throws — without getting a little nervous.” Could it be? Really? The national media is starting to turn on Radio?!?
Kickoff
Aug 6, 2008 2008 Season, Awesomeness, Fatty Starbucks, Huh?, Kickoff, Self-Referential Stuff, Teams that aren't the Texans
Because you can never have enough Matt in your life. I was lucky enough to be the guest on Houston Diehards’ inaugural podcast. Listen as I speak way too quickly—complete with nasal-y twang!—while trying to pretend like I have a clue what I am talking about. (Seriously, though, Chris did a bang-up job of leading the discussion and I could see HD’s podcasts becoming a must-listen as the season progresses.)
Wait…what? Look, mister, there’s two kinds of dumb—a guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and a guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don’t matter, the second one you’re kinda forced to deal with. If yesterday’s KSK comment was the latter, this article is a good example of the former. Still, it warrants posting because, well, I’ll be damned if I can follow the logic in it. Apparently, the Texans are an incomplete team, but the Raiders aren’t.
More Peter King stupidity. Apparently, Peter King thinks the Texans would be interested in Chris Simms. “The reason I pointed out Houston in MMQB is the Texans have a need for a third guy behind Matt Schaub and Sage Rosenfels, plus the new offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan, is Simms’ buddy from their days at the University of Texas.” We have a “need for a third guy,” Peter? Really? And Chris Simms would fill that need because…um…Kyle knows him? Do me a favor…just don’t ever mention my favorite team again, ok? Because every time you do, you say something ridiculous.
Finally. This has NOTHING to do with football or the Texans, but it is funny enough to be worth posting. (h/t Rendhel)
Update: How much interest is there in a DGDB&D fantasy football league? I know the BRBers are doing a pretty elaborate one, so I was thinking something smaller (12 team max) with QB, WR, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, K, DEF, D as the positions.
A Pre-cap of All the Stories You’ll Read About Sean Taylor in the Next Week
Nov 27, 2007 2003 Draft, Colts Shmolts, Damn it, Fatty Starbucks, National Media, Non-Texan stuff, Pro Bowl 2008
By now, everyone has heard about the murder of Sean Taylor. While this event is completely out of left field, the media coverage of it will not be. Thus, I present the following NOT to make light of Taylor’s death–I honestly do feel bad for his family and friends–but to make light of the preposterously predictable nature of the media. If, in so doing, I seem slightly insensitive, I apologize. Still, you know DGDB&D well enough to know there are no sacred cows.
“This is a tragedy that really puts the non-importance of football into perspective.” by Mike Lupica
“Taylor’s death shows us how quickly everything can be taken away.” by Peter King
“This is a logical conclusion to the embracing of the “hip hop” lifestyle.” by Skip Bayless
“How does Taylor’s death affect Tony Romo’s love life?” by Matt Mosely
“If this were Pacman Jones, you could blame it on the “hip hop” lifestyle, but Sean Taylor was not a part of that. He had left the bad boy image behind.” by Jeffrey Chadiha
“This is racial. People would be screaming for the killer to be brought to justice if this were Brett Favre.” by Jason Whitlock
“Sean Taylor’s murder is not unlike the death of INSERT FAMOUS ATHLETE HERE.” by Bill Simmons
“The Redskins are dedicating the remainder of their season to Taylor, but where do they go from here?” by Jason La Canfora
“This shows the foresight in Roger Goodell’s zero-tolerance policy, but he needs to be more strict and ban for life any player within 20 yards of a crime.” by Rick Reilly
“Would Sean Taylor have been a Hall of Famer if this didn’t happen?” by Football Outsiders
“It should have been you, Peyton Manning.” by Matt Campbell
At 12:01, I had a lot of respect for Trent Green
Oct 8, 2007 Fatty Starbucks, God hates ugly, Injury bug, National Media, Travis Johnson
Some follow-up notes on “The Travis Johnson Incident.”
- I’ve received a couple emails from people saying that they don’t entire agree with me. That’s to be expected and it’s one of the things I like about feedback. One of the main points that emails have mentioned, though, is that I am way off-base when I say Green should have hit Johnson high. If Johnson were running right at Green, that would be true.
However, the point remains that, regardless of where Green hit Travis, the hit was almost certainly going to be blind. Now, while it would be suicidal for Green to try to go numbers-to-numbers with Johnson, hitting him in the shoulder when he doesn’t see it coming (more on that in a second) would have been completely effective and safe for both players. My bigger point, though, is that Green could have basically hit Johnson anywhere between Johnson’s earhole and his thigh pad and both players would have been fine. - As to Johnson getting blindsided, if one wants to fault him for anything on that play, not seeing looking for a block would probably be it. “Head on a swivel” is the phrase that special teamers and pass-catching TEs and the like use frequently. Well, a DT running free in space makes a pretty large target and would do well to heed that advice. Of course, the flip side to that is that asking someone to watch out for a cheap shot to his knees as he is trying to track the ball-carrier is asking a little much. Still, if you are looking to make Johnson guilty of something in the play, that would be it.
- A lot of people have mentioned the KSK discussion of the hit. My favorite line is “Johnson’s only crime was being excited that Green’s pisspoor blocking skill didn’t end his career.” Pretty much.
- McClain offers up a pretty fair take that discusses the scenario from both sides. He also mentions that Johnson has a “clicking” in his knee and will undergo an MRI. Great. Fantastic. That’s what we need. How dare he get angry at Green for that hit?
- Regardless of what you think of Johnson’s “taunting,” (and I use quotes because I don’t think it was really taunting in anything but the purely technical sense) you have to admit that Green getting knocked cold was Green’s fault and no one else’s. So, yeah, if you want to feel sorry for the guy because he got yelled at when he couldn’t hear it, go ahead; but Green doesn’t deserve much (or any) sympathy for actually getting hit.
- Over at Fanhouse, Stephanie’s take is straight-forward and even-handed, which is exactly what you would expect. I mean that in a nice way. Michael Smith’s take, on the other hand, is trite drivel devoid of anything interesting or compelling, which is also exactly what you would expect. I wish someone would knee him in the head.
- Final thought. If you look at all the ways Green and Johnson could collide in a game setting, nearly every one either results in no penalty or a penalty on Johnson. Clean sack? No penalty. Green dives into Johnson’s knees from the blindside, possibly injuring him? No penalty. Sack where Johnson hits Green in the head? Flag. Sack where Johnson hits Green too low? Likely flag. Johnson trips and rolls into Green after the ball is released? Flag. Johnson sees Green trailing the play and lights him up before Green can block him? Flag. This is fair how?
Not-so-fair-weather fans
Sep 10, 2007 2007 Season, Fatty Starbucks, National Media, Preseason 2007
(Some of this was discussed in the comments to the previous posts, but I think this deserves a post.)
For most of the past five years, we have been nothing if not a laughingstock. From the offensive line to the Mario draft pick, non-Texans fans have used Houston as an NFL punchline at every opportunity.
Something strange happened over the last nine or ten months, though. The trade for The Savior Known As Schaub and the removal of the Carr-shaped tumor, coupled the back-to-back wins at the end of the 2006 campaign had people whispering the words “Texans” and “sleeper” in the same sentence. (At the height of this, I even wrote a post about how people needed to stop picking us or I would have nothing to be angry about.)
So, the preseason rolls around. We should’ve beaten Chicago. We throttled Arizona and Dallas. We lost to Tampa playing only our scrubs. People are singing the praises of Schaub and Jacoby (though still deriding Mario) and talking about how we might have turned the corner.
Given all of that, you would assume that we would get some sort of recognition for the all-out decimation of the Kansas City Chiefs, right? Nope. Now that the season has started, it seems like the national media are afraid to give us any credit, lest we revert to our losing ways and make them look (more) stupid. Fatty Starbucks (aka Peter King) went so far as to rank teams who lost in week 1 ahead of us in his fine fifteen. Teams like Buffalo. BUFFALO! I honestly cannot come up with an argument for how Buffalo is better than us as of this instant. Or how about Jacksonville? Their strength was to be their defense… and that got shredded for nearly 300 rushing yards. So they are better than us?
Now, look… I know the whole thing about having to show some track record of success before you are given any sort of respect. I get that. I don’t even disagree. My anger–or, more accurately, righteous indignation–at the whole situation stems from the disingenuous approach of the writers. If you honestly thought we were improved or a sleeper or turning the corner or anything else positive prior to the start of the season, you can’t jump off that wagon after seeing the Texans rip the collective heart out of the Chiefs. It makes no sense. If anything, that win should have given the random myopic sportswriter fodder to point at his preseason predictions and scream about how smart he is. You know they all love to do that.
(Random side note: I should’ve linked to this weeks ago, but Gregg Easterbrook can eat my crack.)
Anyway, in the end, I suppose I am glad that we are back to being off the national radar. That will make it all the more sweet when we rack up our 9 (or more) wins in a “keep my name out of your mouth” sort of way. I just get irritated at the hypocrisy of the national media.
You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
