Top NFL Stories After 3 Weeks

As I teased yesterday, we're three weeks into the NFL season now and we're getting a good sense of where every team is at and what kind of record we can expect....and much like every season, there are plenty of surprises....some of the good variety and of course, some bad....I present my Top 8 stories so far:

8) New Orleans Saints

We all knew after last year that the offense was going to be exciting and high-powered....Drew Brees has too many weapons at his disposal not to be successful, but the biggest problem was always their defense....this year, the defense has come through when necessary to allow them to start 3-0....

7) Denver Broncos

It was all doom and gloom predictions after the Jay Cutler trade with Chicago....no one expected much with Kyle Orton at the helm....but at the rate the Denver defense is going, Orton won't have to do much to win ball games....the Broncos are 3-0 and have only given up 16 points in the first 3 games, but is it fools gold? The first 3 opponents were Cincy, Cleveland and Oakland...

6) Arizona Cardinals

Much like we see in other sports, the team that ends up losing the championship game or series tends to have problems the following year and Arizona is joining the majority....their big weakness last year was their lack of a running game and yet, it's gotten worse this year....They only average 61 yards rushing a game, good for worst in the league!

5) Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals are 2-1 and their only loss is to the 3-0 Denver Broncos....oh yeah, their two wins this year are against Green Bay and the defending Super Bowl champs in the Steelers....the team may have the most improved defense in the league after acquiring safety Roy Williams from Dallas and choosing USC standout Rey Maualuga at the LB position...

4) Miami Dolphins

Everyone expected there to be a drop-off after such a terrific season a year ago.....the thought was that teams would be ready to take on the Dolphins instead of looking at them as a pushover and that the Wildcat wouldn't be as successful....Well, the pundits were right, but no one could have expected them to be this bad!

3) Pittsburgh Steelers

We all know the Steelers are known for defense, but unlike the championship seasons, the Steelers have managed to give away both of their losses in the fourth quarter, including an improbable loss to the Bengals last week....defending champs or not, you cannot play only 45-50 minutes and expect to win....

2) New York Jets

Much of the credit for their 3-0 start has been given to the NFL's newest GQ boy in Mark Sanchez, but just look a little closer and you can see that Rex Ryan had turned this defense from mediocre into a force....the addition of Bart Scott from Baltimore has been huge and Darrelle Revis has become the best cornerback in all of football....you just haven't heard of him yet....

1) Tennessee Titans

All the pundits suggested that the loss of Albert Haynesworth to Washington via free agency was not going to affect the team as regular folk might have suggested, but score one for the regular folk....last season, the Titans gave up less than 15 points a game....through three games this year, the Titans are giving up almost 10 points more....could they possibly miss the playoffs?

Alright, I've already decided tomorrow to talk about the Raptors as they start their camp here at Carleton University.....I'm starting to hear the Canadian media propaganda already and I just want to get it out there that this team is NOT going to be good as the media will suggest to you....until tomorrow!

Post #100....cool!

Well, waiting 2 and a half weeks between post number 99 and 100 isn't really all that cool, and for that, I apologize, but I just feel like my life has been a complete whirl-wind this month....today is September 29th and I did the quick math and realized that I've been in the U.S. for 11 of those days...


The trip to Vegas as I stated over and over again was amazing and I can't wait to go back there.....then, I started working with Steve Ryan and everyone else involved with Ultimate Tours (http://www.ultimatetours.ca/) as we've made two weekend trips in a row to Buffalo to catch the games against Tampa Bay and the disaster that was the Saints game yesterday...


Not a great time for Bills fans yesterday when the only points of the game are executed on a trick play, in case you missed it, the punter, Brian Moorman, passes it to a defensive lineman in Ryan Denney on a fake field goal and connects for a 20 yard touchdown pass....I think we got spoiled with 33 points the week before in a win against Tampa....


But back to the experience of attending the game....everyone told me that it was like nothing I've ever been to, but for whatever reason, I still had doubt....I had seen the different videos from NFL Films and had heard the various stories about legendary tailgaiting with huge barbeques and tons o' drinking, but I needed to experience it myself in order to be blown away...


It's nothing like you will ever get at any sporting event in Ottawa or even Canada (although I've heard a Saskatchewan Roughriders game is as good as you will get in Canada)....the laws here sort of get in the way of having 70 thousand people all drink and party on lawns and parking lots hours before a Sens game or.....or.....right, we don't have anything else....

And out of 70 thousand people in the stands, I'll estimate that at least 45 thousand people have some sort of Bills jersey on for the game, whether it be a T.O jersey or Marshawn Lynch or Lee Evans....put that into terms at an NHL game here....for a crowd of 20 thousand, you would need to see 13 thousand people in Sens jerseys.....not happening!

It's giving me the urge to check out some other NFL stadiums for the following season....one that I've always wanted to check out was the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum.....yes yes, I know that I hit that stadium when I did the baseball tour, but it's a lot more tame for baseball.....I want to see it when it's packed full with Raider Nation with war paint and skulls all over the place!


I'd love to see Lambeau Field as well.....I can do without the games in December and January and I couldn't really care less about how the Packers do on a week to week basis, but I've heard so many great things about the fans, their passion for the team and how friendly of a place it is....I feel like I have to get there at some point...


Conversely, I'd love to see an Eagles game because I'm curious to see how Philly fans treat the ups and downs of a football game.....I got a chance to experience Philly fan when I saw the Phillies in April, but a baseball game in April doesn't conjure up the same emotion as an NFL game in November or December does when playoff spots are won and lost on single plays....


One can only dream and I've done more travelling in 6 months than most people do in their life times, so I guess I won't get too much sympathy....we'll get there eventually! Just like the planned trips to Ibiza and Europ....I hate my sister for that! She toured all of Europe while I toured the baseball stadiums...


I do want to get some things off my chest about how the NFL is shaping up after Week 3....lots of surprises, both good and bad, but it's already been a wacky year! But much like the motto of the TV show Big Brother, expect the unexpected.....that reminds me, I need to watch the premiere of Amazing Race on the PVR.....


Now I'm rambling.....Until tomorrow, time for some sleep.... :-)








Wow....just non-stop here in Vegas....

Just hanging out in my hotel room after spending all day at the World Championship of Fantasy Football....Even though I made some extra cash to help pay for my trip by doing some work with the event, I was still hating the idea that I wasn't poolside on yet another beautiful day here in Vegas...

Anyways, we finally got here on Thursday night after 11-12 hours of travel time and we settled into our suite here at the Signature at the MGM Grand....I gotta say that this is one hell of a deal that I was able to find....so as I write this, I'm lying in my king-size bed while watching Notre Dame-Michigan on the big flat-screen!

We decided to sort of take it easy on night number one here by just checking out the casino and bar here at the MGM and also heading down to the casino and bar at New York, New York....but much like I found in Atlantic City, once you've been to one casino, you've really been to them all...

All I know is that I'm not gonna make the rookie mistake again of sitting at a bar and putting money into a slot machine just for the idea of getting the free drinks.....as I quickly found out, if you don't find a winning machine, your "free" beers might end up costing you quite a bit of money...my "free" beers cost me 25 dollars after only 10 minutes or so....

The big difference between Atlantic City and Las Vegas is just the colossal sights, sounds and lights of the strip in Vegas as compared to the lack of sights and the terrible atmosphere of the boardwalk in Atlantic City....when comparing the two cities, it's as big of an apples and oranges comparison as you can get...








Another thing that you don't get in Atlantic City is the constant badgering of people handing you cards for escorts or people trying to get you into clubs....it's not just a couple of people every so often....it's 5-7 people doing this per block....it was hilarious to see at first, but after only a few minutes, it got annoying real fast....

We called it a night pretty early because of all the travel the day before (if you can call 1 a.m. real early...LOL) and just decided to save some energy for the rest of the weekend....there's no point in forcing anything 'cause there's still plenty of time to be here to party when necessary and relax if needed....

Friday morning, I woke up pretty early because I wanted to be prepared for the debut of the football show as much as I could....I love talking football throughout the season, so I'm pumped to do the show yet again for another year...but I just don't think I was very good....hard to keep your head in the game when you're just thinking about how to spend the day vacationing....

After the show, I was scheduled to talk with the manager of the sportsbook here at the MGM, but that got re-scheduled to later today, so Jordan and I decided to get some rays poolside at one of the many pools here at the hotel....there are sooooo many pools here that you just can't get to all of them....

We ended up meeting a group of people our age from Edmonton....so, of course, the way we made an initial bond was through hockey and specifically, the Dany Heatley situation....don't worry, I have a few thoughts on that, but I'll get to that tomorrow since there's a few things I want to get to before hand...

It was interesting to hear their thoughts on the Heatley situation since it's coming from an Oilers' fan perspective....and it was cool that the four girls in that group all had an opinion on it as well....but they were happy to see that the deal did not happen 'cause they all agreed it was too much to give up for a risky return...

The thing I couldn't believe though was the fact that they thought Dustin Penner could be due for a big year....pardon my laughter, but I think that's a lot of wishful thinking on their part....on the outside looking in, Penner looks like he will be the consistent underacheiver, but who knows, the people living in that city normally do have a better pulse on the situation....

We then had a quick dinner here and met up with the full group of friends as we went down to the Red Square at the Mandalay Bay....it was a pretty neat vodka bar, but the only problem was that I had to cut it off early since I had to be up for 7 a.m. this morning for the Fantasy Football championship...

Got up this morning feeling as good as you can for only 4 hours of sleep....oh yeah, I failed to mention that cutting the night short = going to bed at 3 a.m. :-) But luckily when I got there, I found out that my only job really was to take care of peeling stickers for the model to post on the board....

Oh, woe is me, I have to talk to a model all day....just terrible! Most of the time, I find that these girls are so into themselves that you never really can talk to them in the first place, but the girl at our table was really down to earth and easy to talk to....plus she was Canadian, so we had a way to bond already....

Her name is Sarafina and she's a model here in Vegas, but she's from Vancouver....we talked about our different hometowns and I asked her a bunch of questions about the modelling business....she even mentioned how she wanted poutine, so I had to show her my background pic of my cell, which is a large poutine from La Belle Province in Montreal.....that was a great laugh!








So, hanging out with a model for 6 hours straight and getting paid for it was pretty sweet....As for the draft itself, it was incredible to see the Marquee ballroom be completely full of people as they had almost 50 tables of 12 teams picking in different leagues, all at a price tag of 1,750 dollars....I think it will take me about a decade before I spend that much gambling on fantasy sports....








I was curious to see how the drafts here would be different than the draft I did with the boys earlier this week....it was very deep.....teams were picking players that I have never even heard of, so I asked one person why they would pick a player like that....their thought process is that if you can hit the pot of gold that no one else has, you have a much better chance of getting the big pay day....

Alright, I'm gonna try and find some cheap dinner around here before heading out to Caesars Palace tonight and really hitting up the club large....I don't really have anything to do now, but I do wanna be up early enough to watch the football starting at 10 a.m. tomorrow...but if I have to sleep in a little more, I'm not gonna lose sleep over missing the first few minutes of the first week....

Finally, I'll attach the audio file as I got a chance to talk with Dustin Ashby, co-owner of the World Championship of Fantasy Football....he's had a very busy weekend to say the least, but he was nice enough to give me about 10 minutes of his time earlier today, so check out the link at the bottom....talk to you soon!

Off to Vegas....finally!

Just hanging out at the Syracuse airport right now with my buddy Jordan as we are set to fly on the first of three flights today as we make our way to Vegas....we started by driving to Syracuse last night, then fly out of Syracuse this morning and head to Chicago, then Chicago to Los Angeles, and finally L.A. to Vegas....total travel time: 11 hours

Just a quick aside about Syracuse sports news.....they REALLY love lacrosse down here....I guess it helps when Syracuse has such a strong program and won the NCAA championship last season, but I've never seen so much lacrosse news packed into a couple minutes like they did on the local news last night....they even did a pack on the NLL Draft....weird!

This is my third attempt at trying to go to Vegas....I wanted desperately to try and fit Vegas in on my big baseball trip, but I just couldn't find room on the schedule....It wasn't as bad as my first attempt though....I had my tickets bought a few years ago, but the airline I booked with went bankrupt the week before and the trip was toast....

So, barring any problems, I should make it to Vegas by 5:30 pacific time today and get to the hotel by 6, just in time to catch the first quarter of Steelers and Titans at the MGM Grand as I meet up with another friend of mine, Ron, who's just as big of a sports fan as I am....after the game, we can start to explore a little bit more....

Looks like my schedule is already pretty full for the weekend, which is pretty impressive considering I'm usually someone that says and does things at the very last second all the time.....but I managed to book the trip a full two weeks before hand and planned things a couple weeks in advance as well.....a concept that's just so foreign to me....

Tomorrow morning, I have a bunch of interviews tentatively scheduled with different people from the MGM Grand that I'll be posting on the blog on a daily basis throughout the weekend....then Saturday, I participate all day at the World Championships of Fantasy Football at the MGM Grand as well....

I'll be working as a commissioner for one of the drafts on Saturday morning and I'm pencilled in right now to fill in and pick a team for someone that is not able to make it down to Vegas for the draft...not sure if I want that kind of pressure 'cause the WCOFF is not your typical 40-50 dollar pool....buy-ins are in the hundreds or thousands! A little too much for my liking....

Saturday night and Sunday will be the days to finally just relax and unwind....already got the VIP set-up at Pure in Caesars Palace with bottle service, then it's nothing but football on the Sunday at the sportsbook as a bunch of people have already got me to put bets down....and I'll be looking for my fantasy team, Fish Taco, to destroy Dirty's team....

Contrary to popular belief among all of my friends, I doubt I will find myself at a poker table or a craps table throughout the five days....I might do it once or twice, but I figure that poker is poker no matter where you go and I don't really need the "experience" of playing in Vegas....I'd much rather use my free time to explore every part of the city possible....

Even though I'm on the road, I'll be a part of the NFL Preview Show, presented yet again this year by ultimatetours.ca, with Lloydie and Yorkie as I'll be calling in from the MGM Grand tomorrow afternoon, so look for the debut of the show at 5 p.m.....I just hope to find a spot in the casino with not too many slot machines going off.... :-)

Tony Moss AFC and NFC Previews

http://www.box.net/shared/cgk3eoslb2

http://www.box.net/shared/l0fy7fsj72

Just a drunken mess....drink-by-drink replay....

So, we had our fantasy football draft last night.....let’s just say I went a little overboard when it came to the drinking aspect of the event and made a complete ass of myself, not only by being drunk and belligerent, but also making a grave error in the picking of my team...I’ve decided that I’ll break it down on a drink-by-drink basis...

Drink 1: After the show, met up with my good friend Jeremy and we headed down to the bar for a quick couple of pints since we had about 45 minutes to kill....Drink 1 consists of the small chit-chat that you would have with a good friend that you would see on a regular basis, the “How was your day?”/”How was work?”....nothing too exciting.....

Drink 2: I noticed that we downed the first one pretty fast.... I catch myself sometimes trying to keep pace with someone drinking faster than me...I’m not sure why I do it, but it comes back to bite me most of the time... Jeremy then admits that he’s already had 3 and is hitting a good stride....We get the call for our ride, so we have to chug it back or leave it behind....who ever chooses the second option?

Drink 3: Get over to Dirty’s place for the draft, everyone is decked out ....To go with my Marshawn Lynch jersey, we have Willis McGehee, LaDainian Tomlinson, Rich Gannon, Fran Tarkenton, Jerry Rice, Jerome Bettis, a Denver Bronco, a Dallas Cowboy, a Miami Dolphin and 2 Reggie Whites all sitting at the table...I know I’m taking AP first overall, so I have another beer to celebrate picking first

Drink 4: I proudly select Adrian Peterson and had the hindsight to make sure to specify that I wanted the Adrian Peterson from the Minnesota Vikings.....or else someone would have made the joke, “Adrian Peterson from the Chicago Bears, it is!”...Do everyone a favour and punch that guy.... Dirty remembers to go over the ground rules and remind us that the draft is 21 rounds....I’m gonna need another beer

Drink 5: The problem with picking 1st overall in a 12-team league with a snake draft is that you’re gonna be stuck waiting until pick 24 and 25....so lots of down time to have more beer and razz other people’s picks, but I’m delighted to get Steve Smith and Calvin Johnson at 24 and 25....I decide to toast myself with another beer....

Drink 6: At this point, I realize that any more drinks could be more of a hinderance to the picking of my team, so I try and slow the pace down a little bit....but I still have enough alcohol in me to pick Lendale White and attempt to do his touchdown dance at the same time....Someone then suggests I have another beer....sounds like a pretty good idea to me....

Drink 7: My memory is down the tube at this point, so for whatever reason, my brain was tricked into thinking it had taken a QB like Phillip Rivers or someone of that caliber and by picking Brady Quinn as my number two, I was golden....turns out I had never taken a QB in the first place and in a league where two QB’s start, I had Brady Quinn and that was it....it was one collective laugh from everyone at the table as I scratched my head to try and have this all sorted out in my brain....With my tail between my legs, I had to take Kerry Collins as my number 2 QB....I need a beer...

Drink 8: This one is spent outside as I stew on the pooldeck still trying to work out how I could have possibly forgot about the QB position....I guess 7 beers will do it and 7 beers also allowed me to pick 7 RB’s and 5 WR’s in a league where a max of 3 RB’s and 3 WR’s can start....I instruct the Bear to pick my defensive players and kickers for me since I had no interest in picking anything at that point....

So, I wake up in a groggy state this morning as I prepare to be groggy for the next week....I start the Vegas trip right after work.....head down to Syracuse tonight since we fly out of there first tomorrow morning, then it’s 5 days and 4 nights of fun at the MGM Grand!

I finally had a chance to go over my fantasy roster, so the audio file is there.....cross my fingers there are no problems this time! Plus, just talked to Tony Moss for about 20 minutes today to talk about the NFL, division-by-division, so I'll have that up in a couple of minutes....

http://www.box.net/shared/699jzr4bd6

Blogging During the Show

First time I've tried blogging as the show goes along, but I finally have a chance to catch my breath a little bit and get a break in the day to get a chance to talk to you guys....I didn't realize how much time we would take before the show to just catch up, tell some stories about the summer and have a couple of laughs before we get our first show in the books....so I didn't get a chance to get everything done that I wanted today.....

First off, gotta say that it's great to have Lloydie and Yorkie back in the saddle after the summer....no offense to anyone who filled in during the Summer Scratches, but any of you can relate to this....you get used to working with people that you see on a daily basis....you know their ticks and tendencies and eventually you just get into a routine....

So, we're back and the first day was nothing different than last year.....Yorkie has his different requests for random music, whether it would be 80's hair metal or his request today, "I Gotta Feeling", the latest track by the Black Eyed Peas....I just shook my head in disgust....Can I go anywhere without hearing that song? Just sooo overplayed at this point....

Lloydie and I decided to trump him and surprise him at the same by finding a couple classic Yorkie "D'oh!" moments and combining that with a little Mmmbop by Hanson....pretty ridiculous....That song has been out for over a decade now and it still shakes my head to this day that it was such a hit....

The best thing about the video was the fact that no one had ever seen the boys before, and one kid in particular looks like a girl, so I'm sure I'm not the only one that caught a friend saying, "That one chick on the keyboard is pretty good looking...." only to reply with, "Hey dude, that's a dude...." LOL

Good to see all the e-mails and receive all the calls from the listeners welcoming us back after a summer away.....it really is appreciated and it only makes us that much more excited to go at it again for another year....it's definitely better than the "Stay Away" and "Who asked you to come back?" e-mails that we could have received.... :-)

And of course, our first call of the new season had to come from Sleeptoid and the subsequent hate mail that comes with every call.....Sean's e-mail cracked me up.....the best thing you could do for your e-mails to be read would be to make them short, to the point and entertaining....and this hits all three criteria for the boys....

Um, no Jeff, he's not making it up, we can't f-ing stand you.

Thanks,

The World


As I said last night, I've got my fantasy football draft tonight with first pick (Adrian Peterson) and I've got my Marshawn Lynch jersey on as we speak.....I got a few looks walking around downtown this afternoon with lapper in tow since most people around there at noon are out in their suits and dress shirts as they pour out of their government buildings for lunch.....

But as I head to Vegas tomorrow night, I quickly realized as I put the jersey on this morning that I'll be putting on this jersey possibly three more times this week....Thursday night for the NFL opener, Saturday for working at the World Championships of Fantasy Football at the MGM Grand and Sunday all-day for the true starting day for the NFL season....definitely will need a wash once I get back next week.....

I've had a few problems with the audio aspect of the blog, but I think I have everything settled and I will test it out tonight by doing a quick synopsis of my fantasy team through my personal mp3 recorder....i'll try not to make it too dry for you guys, but let me know if you have any problems with the file....

Talk to you later tonight!

Everything is sore right now!

Ow Ow Ow Ow! My legs, my chest and everything else is pretty sore after my first 10k run in a couple of weeks....Everyone knows me as a gym rat during my spare time, but having the flu this week really hurt me since I was out of commission from doing anything for three days....so today was my first day of exercise in over a week....

Went for a run along the canal with Rosalie....started at Parliament and went to the Bronson St. Bridge and then back again.....she was on rollerblades, so she kept the pace up pretty high....then she caught me checking out a fellow jogger up ahead, so she decided to put the pace up so that I was just about sprinting....

I tried to pretend like it wasn't bothering me and managed to stick with her for about 2 minutes, but I eventually broke and was just dragging for the rest of the run....she skated ahead and left me to struggle all the way 'til the last half km....she was waiting there with arms crossed and says, "I figured I would give you a chance to check me out too...." Point taken.... :-)

Now I'm just resting at home taking in Miami at Florida St. right now....thank the lord for the college football package or else I would be stuck watching repeats of pre-season NFL football in order to get my football fix....I guess I could be watching Calgary/Edmonton, but that's gonna be a "no dice"....

All and all, it was a pretty quiet weekend for me....as I wrote you guys on Friday, I took in the 67's game against Gatineau on Friday night, but wasn't able to make the rematch at the Bob on Sunday night since I decided to play some poker with the boys....something I hadn't really done in a while....

I managed to break even on the night....I was just having more fun chatting with the guys and I wasn't really paying attention to the game....the final hand of the night, I just push all-in with pocket 5's and get called by k-8....flop: k-8-8....yikes! That will do and I'll just call it a night right there so I could go grab a drink somewhere....

I also took a quick roadie to Kingston on Saturday afternoon just to help out a friend with transporting something back to Ottawa....I hadn't been there to party in a handful of years, but just driving down Princess St. and seeing places like Stages and MyBar....I feel like heading back there again real soon and wrapping up the night with a great poutine from Bubba's.... :-)

Big day for the Team 1200 tomorrow as we start the new year of the Healthy Scratches with Lloydie and Yorkie....as much as I loved the idea of really doing nothing since April, it will be a nice change to actually have some work to do and help put together a great show for you guys tomorrow afternoon....

It's also the return of the "Original" TGOR as J.R. makes his return to the Team 1200 airwaves.....as per my personal policy, I don't wake up during the hours of the morning show if I don't have to, so I probably won't hear any of it....but I'm sure it won't take long for the great chemsitry to come back between the 3 guys....some of the saved clips we have are just pure gold!

Having worked with J.R. and Garry Galley for two years, I can tell you that it's a great get for the station to have J.R. back with us.....He's got a great ability to be all things to everyone....be the hardline sports guy, the entertainer and the guy to get your emotions up as well on things local....So, tune in tomorrow morning and check it out....and then make sure to check us out in the afternoon as well... :-)

That was TOO exciting for pre-season!

Just got back from checking out the 67's/Gatineau pre-season game at the Civic Centre, followed by a couple of drinks with my great friend Sarah as we talked about the sports stories of the week....since I missed a couple of days of sports news 'cause I was soooo sick, she let me in on what happened while I was out of commission....

Out of all the girls I know, she has by far the most knowledge of sports and can easily hang with my knowledge as well....but it's compltely opposite from Rosalie, who I talked about before....a month ago, we were sitting and going through the channels on a Sunday afternoon and she asked, "What's PGA Tour?" Hmmmm...... :-)

Anyways, I don't know why I feel this way, but I've got a bone to pick with the people in charge of marketing at the 67's, especially with their misuse of the word "pre-season"....To put it bluntly, I feel duped! That game was too fast-paced, exciting and entertaining to be deemed "pre-season"!

I was fully prepared for lots of floating and a lack of hitting....so I brought a copy of the newspaper and a book full of sudoku puzzles to keep me entertained, but instead, I saw tons of hitting, a lot of emotion, some terrible penalty calls that got the crowd fired up and a great performance from Tyler Toffoli that has to make you excited for the regular season if you're a 67's fan....

Quick Hit: I've never been able to figure out crosswords....I just don't get what they're asking for with their clues.....some of them are so vague and some are only one word....so wouldn't there be tons of choices that it could be? For example, the clue is "denigrate" and 5 letters....am I supposed to be a mind-reader?

Anyways, after a pre-season game, I'm supposed to feel jaded and as I walk out, I should be asking myself why I bothered going to the game in the first place.....instead, I feel like taking in the rematch on Sunday night at the Bob....in 60 minutes, both teams found a way to create a lot of hate for each other for Sunday night....

I guess I'm so used to professional pre-season games where players are held out in fear of injury or players going at half speed 'cause they want to save themselves for the season....but it was a complete shock to the system to see players battling after the whistle and for a player like Toffoli to show some emotion after scoring a goal, despite the fact he's guaranteed a spot on the team....

Take NFL Preseason for example.....the starters play a quarter or two at the most and we get some excitement from that as we get to judge how that team is going to do based on that time....but after the starters are gone, the commentators shut down for the night and they start talking about anything but the game, whether it's the upcoming season or the latest movie they saw....

The other troubling thing I see in NFL Preseason is the amount of "homer-ism" I see from the home-team broadcasts.....you'll notice home-team broadcasts when you see things like the "Eagles Television Network"....I challenge you to watch a couple minutes of pre-season NFL games on the NFL Network this weekend (if you have it) and not see how biased the broadcast is....the home team can do no wrong!

Anyways, off to Kingston for the day tomorrow....I'm looking forward to it since I haven't been there in a handful of years.....all you have to know is Princess St. and you're good.......it's time to go to bed and you know that time has come when you're watching Australian Rules Football on TSN2....

Top 5 Hilarious Failures of the XFL

So, I make one little comment on my facebook/twitter about how I'm excited for the U.S. college football season to start and it becomes the ol' CFL/American Football debate....for the record, I can't really stomach a full game of CFL Football.....I just don't have time for a league with "bigger balls", 8 teams and superstars made from NFL castaways....

Please don't convince me why I should give the CFL a higher spot in the pecking order or how I'm just jaded because of how Ottawa has been given the shaft over and over again with failed CFL franchises....I think I have the league placed pretty fairly near the bottom of the pole and I would have had to have cared about the league in the first place in order to be jaded....

With that in mind, the failed XFL made an appearance in the discussion for comedic purposes....as I thought about the league, I had really forgot just how awesomely bad it was....every idea seemed to fail and in an entertaining way as well, which made it the entertaining trainwreck that it was....

I could go on and on, but I've come up with my Top 5 XFL hilarious failures, in no particular order....

5) The "Opening Scramble"

The thought was to fit excitment everywhere....that included the boring coin toss as Vince McMahon thought to add a 20 yard sprint for a ball between two opposing players....whoever got the ball would win the toss and choose possession....the failure came right in Week 1 when a player injured himself for the year with a seperated shoulder during one of these scrambles....

4) Bump and Run

Unlike the rule in the NFL where bump and run is only allowed in the first five yards, the XFL extended this rule to anywhere to create more WR/CB in-fighting in the open field....problem was the rule hampered scoring so badly, there was hardly any scoring at all....bettors in Vegas (yeah, there were some) took advantage and made a killing off the sportsbooks because the oddsmakers could never set the over/under low enough....

3) The Broadcast Teams

Vince McMahon kept around most of his wrestling guys to be play-by-play and colour commentators for the XFL, which gave the league hardly any credibility whatsoever.....It was just so hard to take good ol' J.R. and Jerry "The King" Lawler seriously as estemeed football broadcasters....

2) The Cheerleaders

The XFL took a play out of the book of the movie, "The Replacements", and seemingly hired models and girls that could offer the raunchiest look or appeal....it was great entertainment for the men, but as far as being sponsor-friendly, that was another story....the models and subsequent commercials and promos were deemed too risque and had to be toned down....

I managed to find a video of only the cheerleaders that also showed the ineptitude of the broadcast team....classic XFL right here....



1) "He Hate Me"

Players were allowed to put either their name or a nickname on the back of their jersey....the idea was that the players really didn't have name recognition anyways, so maybe a fan would be able to start recognizing players by nickname instead....for Rod Smart, he became a classic when he decided to go with "He Hate Me" on his jersey....it has some sort of meaning, but who cares...

Rod Smart would later join the NFL and have limited success, but he would always be known for his "He Hate Me" moniker....even the NFL tried to help him out with this by making it impossible to put "He Hate Me" on the back of any jersey purchased on NFLShop.com as his nickname joined the likes of "Ron Mexico" and Rae Carruth...

In the end, the XFL folded after one disaster-filled season and the only true success to rise up from that steamy pile was quarterbcak Tommy Maddox, who went on to have one great season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but at least Vince McMahon took it all in stride and was able to make fun of himself in this spoof video....

Exciting changes starting next week!

Does anyone else find it annoying now that if you want to keep up with the Joneses on the internet, you have to link every single site you've signed for....So, you have to link your facebook to twitter, then you have to link your pics on flickr to facebook....it really has become a never-ending dilemma....

And really, it's getting to the point that my starting routine of websites is taking me closer to an hour with my various sports sites and now my social networking sites....but I guess that's what happens when technology evolves.....the days of dial-up are pretty much over and multi-tasking online is now the norm....

Although, if you head to the U.S. like I did for a couple of months, you can see that the U.S. is behind Canada when it comes to technology integration.....people are still reliant on dial-up internet and regular cable there....On the other hand, I definitely prefer my digital cable watching Oregon-Boise St. while I surf on my lapper with high-speed internet.....

I just loved how some Americans were going ballistic when the cable companies and different local channels were telling them they were changing to digital and they would possibly have to change their receivers in order to get service....some even claimed that they didn't know about the change, despite the fact that these warnings were played over and over again for over a year before the deadline....

Anyways, getting off that tangent, I'm going through the tedious process of linking sites together because starting Monday, I've decided to step my game up and add a daily interview to the blog....it's something that I've wanted to do for a while, but with nothing really exciting happening during the summer, I figured the best time to debut it would be first week of September....

Most of the time, it will be an interview with someone about the biggest story of the day or the night before, but I'm gonna add some different audio elements as well....whether it be a quick podcast with some of the boys at the Team about the latest Sens game or something just completely off the wall, who knows what idea this brain will produce? :-)

For example, I'm off to Vegas from the 10th-15th for 5 days of fun.....It will be my first time there, so I'm super-excited....but just because I'm down there, it doesn't mean that I'm going to forget about you guys....I'll be conducting different interviews and collecting sound bytes so that you can follow me as I go along....

I might as well also tell you now that during the summer, I was able to work out a deal where I'll be working and heading on the various sports trips with Ultimate Tours, so I'll be on the road quite a bit over the next few months at Buffalo Bills home games and other trips.....exciting times indeed....

I want you to be a part of the interviews as well, so my rule of thumb will be to let you know ahead of time who I'll be talking to or what I'll be talking about....that way, you just send me a question via e-mail that you can find under the "Profile" tab and I'll ask it to the various guests....

I hope to be able to keep up with the new and busier schedule, but I love the idea of interacting with everyone, so I want to take it to as far as a level as I can....I can't thank you all enough for the support....it's only a matter of time before it statistically becomes the number one blog for the Team 1200.....trust me, we're off to an amazing start already! :-)

Wow! That Put Me Right on My Ass!

My apologies for not being able to get to the blog yesterday, but I was out of commission....I'm pretty convinced that I contracted swine flu or something related to it 'cause I couldn't do anything....I barely could make it out of bed just to go to the washroom or get myself some water or juice....

Luckily, I feel a lot better today, but still just hanging at home for another day....If I really wanted to push myself, I probably could have made it into work, but since we're in the last week of "summer hours" (as I like to call them), I might as well take advantage of it now while I can 'cause we're gonna get super-busy very soon with hockey season right around the corner....

It's funny 'cause I'm one of those lucky few people that get sick only about 2-3 times a year as opposed to those who are taking a sick day seemingly every week....if you work in an office, you can immediately think of someone right now.....you might be even able to look at them as you read this.... :-)

But when I get sick, it knocks me right out....It's like my immune system is the equivalent of a great boxing champion who still happens to have a suspect chin.....like a Lennox Lewis, my immune system is very difficult to hit hard, but once something does, it's usually out for the count....

But the human body is really an amazing piece of work.....as I was lying there in bed not capable of really doing anything except to think about these kind of things, you can tell the different stages that the body is going through in order to repair itself....most of them are not pleasant, but are necessary....

I was able to handle being on my laptop for a couple of hours yesterday.....the only difference was that I had no patience for reading anything sports-related....unfortunately, that's about 80-90 percent of my web-surfing right there.....so where do I go if I'm not gonna visit any sports websites?

Of course, it's all about youtube....and then you can just search to your hearts content.....Admittedly, most of the stuff I watched involved people falling down or generally hurting themselves, but really, except for x-rated videos, what other videos are you really going to watch?

Although, I ended up somehow watching WCW wrestling from 1995 where Hulk Hogan was taking on the Giant, but before their World championship match, they decide to prove their manhood in another way with....a monster truck challenge....Of course, why wait to fight each other when you can battle with monster trucks on a rooftop?



I remember watching this when I was 13 and I thought it was so cool....I was really into wrestling and I would get my mom to rush home from practice or games just to watch, but now that I watched it again yesterday, I couldn't believe what I was watching....it was just so stupid and pretty boring actually....

And then, the most ridiculous part.....Hogan ends up winning the truck battle, so of course, Giant is pissed and comes out to attack him by grabbing him by the throat....Giant pushes Hogan towards the edge of the rooftop.... but Hogan counters by waving Giant's arms away and the momentum forces the Giant to fall to its ultimate death (or so you think....) and that's the end of the clip....

I was freaked out when I saw that for the first time 14 years ago, but having watched that again yesterday, I was only slightly curious on how they explained a human being dropping off the rooftop of a skyscraper only to survive and be ready to wrestle....I saw how they explained it before, but my brain has since moved on, so that information is not available to me anymore....The problem is that I'm not curious enough to search for the answer....