Sports

Dirty HGH Player vs T.O.

Jeromey Balderrama

Let me get one thing straight: I can’t stand T.O.  My disdain towards Owens has been well documented here and here, so it really messed with my mind when I write a post defending him.  But here I go.

Last Sunday T.O. broke his streak of 185 games with at least when catch, when he went absolutely stat-less against the Saints.  Obligated to go to the Press  Conference, tried to be as short as possible, repeatedly saying “I just go with the plays that are called.”  Owens was pissed, and whether that is right or wrong Rodney Harrison lashed out at him on NBC’s “Football Night In America”, with this gem of a quote:

"He’s a clown. He’s all about the circus show and the cameras, and it’s all about that. But you best believe he’ll have Shawn Springs in his grill and Brandon Meriweather will be putting his helmet down his throat. So I’m excited about seeing that on Monday." [From USAToday]

I think Rodney Harrison is the perfect example why players should have a TV waiting period, or spend a year in purgatory (aka the NFL Network) before they get these National Network TV Gigs.  Harrison has a right to speak his mind, and I’m not going to argue that it should be taken away from him.  However, for him to make remarks that disparaging on “Football Night”, with his national platform, shows pretty poor judgment.  I really have no idea what NBC was thinking when they hired Harrison.  Throughout his career he was continually voted the dirtiest player in the NFL, and he doesn’t seem to have that charisma that other former players possess when they’re on TV.  It seems Harrison is only engaging when other commentators ask him a question, and when he responds it looks like the other commentators are hoping Harrison won’t punch them out.

T.O., through his Twitter account fired back, in pretty hilarious fashion:

"I could less about Rodney Harrison! Anybody tht using steroids, yes STEROIDS rodney, is a cheater & cheated the game! … Is tht Y u used steroids b/c u were worried about ur stats or ws it b/c u were losing it? Lol! U’re a loser & a cheater? Got any steroid … Hey rodney! Send me sum steroids 2 the Bills facility next week!" [From USAToday]

Owens is talking about Harrison’s 4-game suspension for using HGH in 2007, which was a pretty classic response.  How did Harrison fire back? By completely ignoring the Steroid fact:

"When it comes down to it, I’m a champion. He’ll never have that on his resume. He’ll never be a champion. He’ll look at his stats and say I was a great football player, but I was never a champion. You always have to stand up and be accountable for your actions. As a football player you have to be accountable. Regardless of whether you had 10 catches or zero catches.” [Dan Patrick Show]

Classy Rodney, in the same phrase that you completely ignore the HGH comments, you talk about need to be accountable for your actions.  As much as it pains me to say it, T.O. looks like the guy on top of this one. It was great that he followed up that phrase by demonstrating that he’s more of a Patriots mouthpiece than he is a studio analyst.

With these analysts booths growing as large as they are, is it too much to ask to put some kind of standards in choosing who they put in front of a national audience?  Give players a year or two to get out of the player mentality and shift towards a better analytical contributor.

Cutler Bowl (help wanted)

Jeromey Balderrama

CutlerBowl

Tomorrow Denver’s biggest villain since. at least Ashlie Lelie, Eddie Kennison, Brandon Marshall (but who knows?) is coming back to Denver for his home-coming.  Who would have thought anyone would be excited to see a pre-season game, but I can only imagine the amount of vitriol that is going to come from the Orange & Blue fans in the stands when Cutler takes the field.

I’m sorry to say that I actually have a Broncos Cutler jersey in my closet.  Even though I had the Cutler #6, I still couldn’t resist wearing my John Lynch jersey last season.  Now I have a perfectly bad Cutler jersey and I’m trying to come up with a ceremonious way to get rid of the jersey.  We’ll be tailgating at the stadium, so tomorrow would be the perfect opportunity to destroy it.  The obvious answer is to burn it, but I think the stadium security and police would frown upon that. One idea I have is to use it as a doormat, but that seems to obvious.

Basically I’m looking for the perfect idea on how I could destroy my Cutler jersey.  Any suggestions?

Nuggets, Playoffs and the NBA

Jeromey Balderrama

birdman
(Photo by Jack Dempsey from AP)

Football is definitely my sport of passion, but with it being 3 months away I’ve decided to shift my attention to Denver’s hottest team right now.  The Nuggets look red hot right now, and I’m rooting for a swift finish with the Mavs so that they can rest up for the next series (and here’s hoping that I haven’t jinxed anything).

We’ve been catching a lot of the playoffs on TV.  At some point in the evening, the NBA is on, and it’s kept us up way too late for our bed time.  Despite being entertained and amused by the playoffs, I can’t help but be put off by the arrogance of the NBA by scheduling them so poorly.  The fact that the Nuggets played on Tuesday night and won’t play again until Saturday is asinine.  Are the teams traveling by covered wagon to get to the next game?  Come on NBA, they could play a whole other game during that time.  I also realize the NBA wants to play their games in prime-time, but it’s really too bad that the East Coast is missing out on these great games because they start at 11pm their time.  I think the NBA would be wise to take a page from MLB’s playbook and start their games earlier in the afternoon, or even alternate the times a bit.

It’s crazy that the playoffs last as long as they do, and really doesn’t offer much incentive for casual fans to follow the regular season.  They should shorten the first round to a best of 5 series and play the games without messing up the days.

Enough with the rambling though, here’s to the Nuggets!

Hopefully the last Cutler post ever

Jeromey Balderrama

The picture of Cutler showing his Bear excitement was too classic to wait for a post, but I have plenty of thoughts over what transpired last weekend in Denver. Rather than rehash the whole scenario, I just wanted to offer a few random thoughts.

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First off, Cutler had to go.  He could talk about feeling snubbed by McDaniels all he wants – but when he stops taking call from the guy who signs his checks, Cutler becomes just another disgruntled employee who should be shown the door.  The nerve that he had to claim that he never received any calls, and never wanted to be traded said all that you needed to know about his character.  Despite what really happened – and we may never know – this situation was beyond repair.

Now the Bears, that was definitely a team I didn’t expect to be vying for Cutler, but it all made sense. I think this was a good move by both teams.  People can debate who got the better of the deal, but only time will tell.  It’s up to the Broncos to make smart decisions with these picks, which they’ve honestly could have done better with our First Round track record.  I still think Mark Sanchez may end up in Orange and Blue before we know it.

I like Kyle Orton.  He’s obviously not as talented at Cutler, but is a winning quarterback who did throw for 3,000 yards last year.  When you considered the other quarterbacks on the trading block (Jason Campbell, Brady Quinn), Orton is was probably the most consistent of all.

While the dust settles, it’s still frustrating to think that Bronco fans have endured all of this drama.  After being known as one of the more stable and quiet organizations in the NFL, to have this kind of circus is very Dallas-like.  I’m sick of hearing about Cutlergate every time I turned on ESPN.