Green Bay Must Shut Skip Bayless Up

I hate the Cowboys.  I'm a lifelong Seahawks fan who lives in North Carolina, so to be completely honest I don't have a lot of love for any of those mass-market teams.  However, the Dallas Cowboys and all their "America's team" nonsense are particularly bothersome to me.  I'm pretty sure that I hate them.  The refs served last week's playoff contest between Dallas and Detroit up to the Cowboys on a silver platter, and that doesn't make me like them any more.

Plus, now I have to listen to a fresh batch of garbage about the "great" Tony Romo from the Dallas faithful, most of whom hated this guy prior to this season.  Seriously, people are talking about this dude like he's some living legend because he finally put together a good season, and he's still 2-6 in win-or-go-home games--after the officials gave him a freebie at Detroit's expense last weekend!  He's the best QB around, that's what some of the talking heads and a lot of the dimwitted fans are saying, and I'm sitting here wondering what it is that they're smoking.  Why is he so great all of a sudden?  Because he has a really good QBR?  What trophy are they giving out for that?  Dude is mediocre at best.  Okay, he has nifty stats.  Nifty stats are a dime a dozen for mediocre quarterbacks in this passing era.  Get real.  Winners win--and that includes the month of December and beyond.  Romo is looking to cover some new ground this weekend, and the ground he has covered isn't exactly legendary.  Save the coronation for someone who gets to hoist a trophy in a few weeks.   

I hate the Cowboys and I'm pulling for Green Bay this weekend.  I would be pulling for Green Bay anyway against Dallas, but now I have extra reason to root for the home team.  Yes, I'm a fan of ESPN's First Take.  Yes, like any of you who are also fans of the program and aren't bathing daily in Tony Romo Kool-Aid, Skip Bayless is driving me positively insane.  He must be stopped.  If I hear another inflated speech about the glory that is Tony "I have never even sniffed a Super Bowl victory" Romo and the Dallas Cowboys, my head may just explode.  If I have to listen to another ridiculous monologue about a so-called team of destiny that hasn't enjoyed a meaningful post-season run since cellphones were roughly the same size as bricks, I may toss my television out the window.  I need a Green Bay win for my sanity.  I need a Green Bay win for Stephen A. Smith, who has to endure this senseless blather at close range.  I need the Packers to win on the behalf of America, a country that has many sports teams and certainly isn't involved in an exclusive relationship with an incredibly popular and frequently-discussed franchise that hasn't really accomplished anything of significance since they put more than two bars on NFL helmets.

Fantasy Football

This weekend it's time for my fantasy football draft, and I'm pretty stoked.  I've been running a league I call the FFFL (Fantasy Football Fanatics League) for 14 years now and it's always a joy to see everyone and get the machinery up and running again.  We're holding our draft at a local pizzeria this weekend, so it's time to really dig in and get ready for the season.  We're going to have 14 members in our league this year, and we're doing some neat things with flex positions on our rosters to allow for a variety of line-ups. 

Playing fantasy football generally means that every game holds weight, not just those contests that your favorite team is playing in.  It takes NFL fandom to a whole new level.  It's also a nice social activity--my wife and my father are also members of my league, to include a number of friends, some of whom I probably would have lost contact with over the years if not for this silly game we take so seriously.  If you're a fan of football and you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend it.  We use ESPN's website to run our league, but there are a number of options out there.

I just want to know where I'm picking and get this thing rolling--football season is upon us, peeps. Long live fantasy football and the NFL!

Oh, and one last thing: Go Hawks!

Seahawks Fever

Last night, my beloved Seahawks brought home two well-deserved ESPYs: one for the fiery Richard Sherman and one for the team itself.  Sherman taking home the Breakthrough Athlete award seemed like a no-brainer.  This dude has gone from being a guy scouts regarded as a potential back-up to a Super Bowl Champion who nabbed the cover of the upcoming edition of Madden.  His stellar play and his brash antics have made him a household name, hated by many and loved by the rest.  The club itself scoring Best Team honors was more of a surprise, though they did clobber an offense labelled the best of all time by many in the Super Bowl.  Also: it was a fan vote.  As you already know, the 12th Man is loud and proud.

It was nice to see these honors bestowed upon Seattle, a franchise that has labored in obscurity in the Pacific Northwest for much of its existence.  Upon catapulting themselves to the top of the charts with an epic beatdown of the Broncos in the Super Bowl, the hate has been overwhelming.  Look for any positive article about the team online and the comments sections will be overflowing with animosity directed toward #25 and the bandwagon fans. 

Yes, Sherm can be obnoxious, but I think the same thing every time I see some numbskull making a passionate case for why he's not the best cornerback in the league: if you're a professional athlete and there are multitudes of people expending lots of time and energy talking about why you're NOT the best at what you do, well, you're probably the best at what you do.  That's how it works.  His stats speak for themselves and he has been doing it for a few years now.  Quarterbacks have started to shy away from him, but his video game production has remained consistent.  The same could be said for his chippy demeanor and his bravado.

The bandwagon thing is equally silly; yes, every championship team in this day and age garners bandwagon fans, but people want to act like Seattle has never been known for having a rabid fanbase.  Wind the clock back 30 years and the Kingdome was known as one of the loudest stadiums in professional sports, and that's back when the team could only manage to occasionally flirt with anything other than mediocrity.  There were some downright painful years, to include wasting the immortal Cortez Kennedy on a team saddled with one of the most pathetic offenses ever to take the field.  Yet the fans were there, and there wer people like me cheering them on from the other side of the country.  Take the bandwagon noise and shove it.

Things have changed.  The fanbase was always there, but aside from Steve Largent and his glorious hands, there was little to celebrate.  Now Big Tez and Walter Jones have joined Steve in the Hall of Fame and the Super Bowl champions reside in the Pacific Northwest.  Last night, the champs ruled over the ESPYs and the stage is set for another run at greatness in 2014.  The team has a young roster filled with budding stars, many of whom have been inked to long-term deals.  We have a quarterback on the cusp of greatness, a beast at running back, a receiving corp that is anything but pedestrian, and a defense that made Peyton Manning look totally inept in the biggest game of his career.  It's a great time to be a 12 and it should remain that way for a while.

As Russell Wilson says at the end of every press conference or interview he participates in, "Go Hawks!"