The Morning Offering - April 25, 2005

Written by TiVo on April 25, 2005

Fadda Time convinced me to take today's offering, partly because I'm the Rotogods' resident football genius.

A'ight. It's more like football loser, as evidenced by the fact that my friend Brother B and I met at Damon's to watch the NFL Draft. (This of course had a lot to do with TiVo not paying his cable bill. It was so delinquent that a Comcast collector came to my door later that evening to snag a check for $292, and then kindly remind me that I could have bypassed the cable being off by taking the co-ax out of my box and running it directly to my TV. Shit. I knew that).

So anyway, B and I were big ol' losers. A Florida State fanatic, he just wanted to see where his favorite 'Noles ended up. I had to pay attention in case the Eagles randomly traded up again. So we spent four hours taking up a front row seat at Damon's, making fun of Andrea Kremer's attempt to look sexy and Chris Berman's tired schtick. And at least we weren't as loserish as the guy who sat next to us, alone, in his Redskins jersey, or the clown who wore his 00 personalized Packers jersey.

And I'd still rather be a football loser than a baseball loser, sitting along the third-base line with a glove on one hand and scorebook in the other.

Draft recap
Hordes of football writers will grade each team's draft performance this week, some even taking care to grade the performances of draft classes who have actually had three seasons to mature.

At my incredibly difficult job, which I am not -- I repeat not -- writing this offering from as we speak, I was commissioned to do some telling research last weekend: Compile the records of all 32 NFL teams for the past 10 years.

Since Super Bowl titles are so rare and hard to earn, playoff appearances are a great measuring stick for the success of a franchise. (I'll take Things an Eagles fan would say for $400, Alex).

Here's how many times each team has reached the playoffs from 1995-2004, excluding the 3-year-old Houston Texans:
8 - Green Bay
7 - Philadelphia, Indianapolis
6 - New England, Denver, Miami, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, San Francisco
5 - Dallas, St. Louis, Tampa Bay
4 - Buffalo, Jacksonville, N.Y. Jets, Tennessee, Atlanta
3 - Baltimore, Kansas City, Oakland, Detroit, N.Y. Giants, Seattle
2 - Carolina, San Diego
1 - Arizona, Chicago, Cleveland, New Orleans, Washington
0 - Cincinnati

Now, the whole point of me sharing this is to point out how much the Redskins fucking suck. Yes, the Bengals are still worse. But I don't care how many times the eternally optimistic Redskins fans bring up those three Lombardi Trophies from the days when Terence Trent D'Arby ruled the R&B charts, it's just pathetic. The Arizona Cardinals have been to the playoffs as often as the 'Skins, and under Dennis Green look to be going back sooner than the Gibbs and Snyder-led Redskins. The kicker though is that Cleveland, the franchise that has drafted flameouts Tim Couch, Courtney Brown and Gerard Warren in the top 3, has been to the playoffs as often as the Redskins, and they didn't exist for three years due to Art Modell's move (which made him a one-time winner of the No Vaseline Award).

Time for some action
I found the draft stuff cool, but I can't imagine there is anything left to say about a season that doesn't start until August that hasn't already been said.

Ain't no such thing as halfway crooks who wear sandals
A'ight, one more rambling item before I dish out some quick-hitters for you to finish your cereal with.

I rolled up to a FedEx Box the other day, and since it was in a weird spot, I made sure not to box a parked car in. As I walked up to the box, a guy and his girl got into a car and attempted to back out from the spot. Even though I thought I left him enough space, dude thought I blocked him in.

In a smarmy voice, he leaned toward me and said 'You gonna hurry up?' " I forget what I said back, but his next comment had a dickhead tinge too, so I couldn't led two digs pass. "Okay tough guy," I said.

Before long, dude was scaring his girlfriend and challenging me with the old wussy-boy standby "You got a problem with me?"

The whole thing struck me as a bit absurd. I'm 28 years old, I don't have time to be getting in fights with lame-ass Asian dudes who are mouthing off trying to impress their girls. Even though I had a pretty strong feeling I would whoop dude's ass, I told him to "get the fuck out of here and be on his merry way." He got really insulted that I cussed at him, but eventually backed out and left.

Which was good. I started wondering why dude was looking so hard for trouble. Perhaps he just graduated martial arts class and wanted to test the moves out on me. I actually thought this during the encounter and became a little shook.

After a trip to the bank, a friend and I went to eat at a restaurant called Chipotle's, and guess who is sitting at the table across from me? Stocky Asian dude. Of all the places surrounding the mall and skyscrapers in the overcrowded area where I work (Tyson's Corner), the guy was in the same restaurant.

He came up to me, said he was having a bad day and apologized. I wasn't sure if he was really sorry or was just trying to save face before his girl decided he was too confrontational and kicked his ass to the curb, but I shook his hand and said 'Same here' even though I was having a perfectly good day.

He was wearing Teva sandals by the way. No way he would have kicked my ass.

Speaking of tough guys: Is there anything more bitch that is considered cool than a pitcher purposely throwing at a batter? What kind of lame-ass tough guy uses a ball to do all his damage? If you got beef, drop your glove, walk to the plate and pimp-slap the dude you're angry with.

Granted, beanballs led to a nice little benchclearing between the Red Sox and Devil Rays on Sunday, but I hate when people give tough-guy props to pitchers for throwing at someone. Oooooh. You're such a badass from 60 feet away.

Throw them Bowes: I swear I saw Riddick Bowe on TV today. In a boxing match. Looking old and overweight. But in the early 90s, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and Bowe were all in their primes. The heavyweight division was shaping up to be as good as it had ever been.

Then Tyson grabbed some ass, went to prison and messed it all up, though his first clash with Holyfield (not to mention Bowe's brawls with Evander) was a good fight. And Moorer-Foreman wasn't bad either.

Legendary tirades: Every now and then, late in the work day, a "That is crap! It is unfair!" rings across our office. It's a tension-breaking clip from former Georgetown coach Craig Esherick's now-infamous tirade about Mike Sweetney getting fouled too much.

Tonight though, a co-worker played me former Cubs manager Lee Elia's "get a fucking job," tirade, which has to be up there with Hal McRae's phone-smash, Bobby Knight's chair toss and his "I'm tired of losing to fuckin' Purdue" tirade, and Jim Mora's "Playoffs" classic.

If you haven't heard any of these, or Earl Weaver telling Alice from Norfolk to get some dick, on his radio show no less, put the internet to good use and find the clips. (Okay, I did it for you. You can download Elia, Weaver and Knight here).

I hate Coors Field: So I'm required to actually put some rotissierie baseball info in these things. Here's my question to the masses today: If you have one of the Marlins starters who has been absolutely dealing (A.J. Burnett, Dontrelle Willis or Josh Beckett) and you see an upcoming trip to Coors Field on Florida's schedule, do you still start them?

I say yes, but I'm damn unsure of myself.

Til death do us part: I'm assuming most of our readers are grown and in the workplace. But don't you catch a girl every now and again staring at you then looking away real quick like it was high school?

When it happens to me, I first question the girl's sanity. Or eyesight, as she probably can't tell from across the room that my baggy shirts are covering the flab from six years of not working out, ever.

Then of course, I remember that I'm married and I, uh, love my wife.

Short attention span: It always cracks me up when you ask someone "How you doing?" and they say "Nothing much." Or you go "What are you doing?" and they go "Fine."

How hard is it to concentrate on a conversation past the first sentence?

Roto question, part 2: Do you start a pitcher in his first time on the mound after a DL stint? This has worked well for me lately with Matt Morris and Kelvim Escobar (7Ks in six scoreless innings last night), but it usually doesn't pay to rush guys back. Thoughts?

In closing: ESPN's Joe Morgan weaved into tonight's broadcast some information about his daughter's state championship soccer game coming up. SI.com's Peter King often mentioned his daughter's softball games.

Fellas, I don't mean to be crude, but I think I speak for most men when I say that unless your daughters are of age and you're giving us the Web address where we can find her nude pictures, we don't give two shits about your athletic daughters' exploits.

Berate, belittle or big-up TiVo at Tivo@rotogods.com. Or find him lurking the message boards 24-7. Hip-hop and funk fans can also peep TiVo’s musical musings occasionally on allthangsfunky.blogspot.com

-- Written by TiVo on April 25, 2005