A Nor'easter Ate My Blog Post

Everything is Forever

Barring an extinction level event or a failed backup, here in the digital age, we not only have to live with our mistakes, our children and our children’s children have to live with them as well.  They will also live with our successes but for most of us (all of us?) the mistakes far outnumber the successes.  And trust me, if the evidence fits on a thumb drive, you do not have the only copy, no matter how much you paid that man with the Portuguese accent.

A Lot of Football Left to Play

Numbers are meaningless without other numbers.  You don’t know if eating twelve pancakes is a lot without knowing the record for eating pancakes.  Well, okay, any sane person knows eating twelve pancakes is a lot.  Bad example.  But you know what I mean.  I mean those plate-sized pancakes you get at the Wells Diner not those saucer-sized pancakes at IHOP.  The blueberry pancakes at the Wells Diner are delectable, but I can’t imagine eating more than three.

Stampede!

I didn’t think the herd was this easy to spook. 

Maybe we’ve all become hypersensitive to doom.

Maybe we’re addicted to fear.

Flight.  Fight. 

Some or all of the above.

This is This

We need to tackle better.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-      <!--[endif]-->Why Bill Belichick is a Pigskin Genius 

Soon The Pines Will Be Falling

Everybody in Detroit is hoping Bobby Lane didn’t say one hundred and fifty years.  Well, it’s probably not top of mind for everybody.  Not everyone believes in curses.  I do.  Just not in this case.  I don’t believe Bobby Lane cursed the Lions.  There are perfectly reasonable explanations for five decades of gridiron futility.  (I’m looking at you, Matt Millen.)  But that’s so over now.  The Lions of 2011 are three rebuilding years removed from the curse.  (And Matt Millen.)  These young lions in autumn roam the NFL veldt with sinewy grace, stalking their pigskin prey, striking suddenly, an overwhelming force moving with unimaginable speed and violence.  Yeah.  I just peed a little.

One in Five

No one here gets out alive.  Aside from the absolute and irrefutable finality of Death itself, there’s always a chance.  Even if it’s never been done before, there’s still a chance, however incomprehensibly galactic the odds may be.  Unless the thing that’s never been done before is cheating Death.  Weren’t you paying attention?  Reaper done wrote all the fine print, bro. 

Desperados

It’s not too early for teams and fan bases to panic.  It’s never too early for panic.  Football – all of life – is played out on that portentous, primitive plane where all decisions ultimately come down to fight or flight.  Panic doesn’t always lead to flight; sometimes it crystalizes as bravado.  As someone who was looking certain defeat straight in the eye once said, lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.  If that’s the case, Go Dolphins!

Heroes and Villains

Subtext is everything.  It’s so important that teams will often create one.  “Nobody believed in us!” is always good because even the most favored of favorites only get 7-1 odds at best.  And “Nobody believed in us!” is a much better rallying cry than “Only 14% of you believed in us!”  Winning, it seems, is not the only thing.  Winning with a backup right tackle is far sweeter.  Beating your archrival with a backup right tackle, a second-string QB and a street free agent wide receiver is a half decaf soy latte with organic raw wild honey.  Yum!

Breaking the Hitler Rule

You know what I hate?  I hate people who qualify their apologies with “if it offended anyone.”  Is there some doubt?  You’re apologizing just in case your words (or actions) offended someone?  No, you’re apologizing for a reason.  There’s no need for if; you definitely offended someone.  Most likely, you offended a whole lot of someones or you wouldn’t be updating your web site, tweeting “my bad if I off ended u” or holding a press conference to make a public act of contrition.  So, just say it.  I’m sorry.  I know I offended many and I deeply and sincerely regret the hurtful things I said.

 

Is that so hard?

Apparently, it is.

90 Degrees of Football

Somewhere in Dallas, somebody is asking “What’s the deal with Tony Romo?”  And that somebody’s name is Jerry Jones.

To Have and Have Not

As Bill Parcells famously said, you are what your record says you are in the NFL.  To every point there is a counterpoint (to paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion) so we must also consider Jerry Glanville’s equally famous observation that NFL stands for Not For Long.  Have I tortured this lede sufficiently?  Let’s see, I’ve randomly referenced Newtonian physics in a pro football blog.  I’d say, yes, yes I have…