Kansas City Chiefs = Schadenfreude

 Life in General  Comments Off
Oct 302012
 

I admit that this is bad, but I have been taking a ghoulish delight in the meltdown that is the Kansas City Chiefs this season. Now, this is not because I actually harbor any ill-will towards the team. After all, they aren’t regular opponents of the Browns, and really haven’t done anything particularly heartbreaking against the team. Yes, there was the infamous “helmet” incident, but that was entirely on the Brown’s player, and not something that the Chiefs did.

No, my pleasure is derived from the fact that the Chiefs are proof that people who failed with the Browns previously are, in fact, just not good at their jobs, and that this wasn’t some sort of failure by the Browns to realize untapped potential.

In fact, the Chiefs are practically the Browns v 2.0 right now. The roll call is frightening in terms of who’s migrated over there:

Scott Pioli — GM. He was originally thought to be a top contender for taking over as Brown’s GM, and at the time, was considered to be the best man in the NFL for a GM position. In the end, typical Lerher weirdness took place, with Pioli not getting the job, first being reported as “asking for the moon,” but later reports contradicting such statements. Whatever. As it turns out, it doesn’t look like he was up to the task, as his 4 years have only lead to the current disaster. I will say that Tom Heckett’s time in Cleveland has been far more productive (and, of course, now he may easily be fired at the end of the season due to the new regime, ugh).

Romeo Crennel — When Romeo took over as interim coach last year and won some games, and was then hired on full time, I could see this outcome happening. After all, I saw it in Cleveland: he has a great run, and then just can not keep the team together as a head coach. A great guy by all accounts, but seemingly overwhelmed with how to fix problems on the team.

Brain Daboll — Daboll, as all Browns fans remember, was an offensive coordinator for the first time with the Browns, having previously been a QB coach. He wound up taking a huge amount of flak in Cleveland for the tepid play-calling, low-scoring, and general offensive ineptitude. I don’t think that anyone in the city was sad to see him go. He went on to the Dolphins, and started to have some more success (although the Dolphins were one of the 4 teams to lose to the Browns). But so far his work at the Chiefs has still been as uninspiring as ever. Recently, the big complaint is that he is not getting the ball to his best players — a charge, by the way, that was often leveled at him here in Cleveland.

(By the way, all of the three gents above were part of the Patriots dynasty of the early 2000s, so it’s easy to see why they would all form together again.)

Brady Quinn — 1st round draft pick of the Browns, meant to be Cleveland’s new franchise QB. He came from a winning program, was a Browns fan as a kid, and was instantly loved by the fan base. Unfortunately, he turned out to transition poorly to the pro game, having constant accuracy problems and also injury issues. In fact, even the old Browns motif of the QB controversy is now inherited by the Chiefs: Matt Cassel is benched for mediocre play, Brady is officially given the job for the rest of the season, but then Brady is injured in his first game as a starter, and now Cassel is back as the starter for a couple games. This is exactly the same type of thing that the Browns have suffered through for years with Couch/Holcomb, and Anderson/Quinn. Especially because it was essentially one average QB replacing another.

Peyton Hillis — The breakout star and darling of the fans the year he hit over 1,000 yards rushing, Hillis then followed that up with a year marred by injuries, bad agent decisions, flakiness on a level not seen since a reality TV show, and questionable work ethics. Oh, and fumbles. He did get things together in the last few games of the season, but by then, it was too late. Now, he works on the Chiefs, but still has problems with fumbles and injuries.

For me, the most beautiful moment of this whole ordeal for the Chiefs was this excerpt for the recap of their week 2 game against the Buffalo Bills, which KC lost 17 – 35:

“I thought that we would be better, and we’re not,” coach Romeo Crennel said. “So we have to try and figure out what that is. From what I’ve seen, if we do what we’re supposed to do, then we would be better.”

KC’s offense managed just 71 yards on its first five possessions and then coughed up the ball on its sixth, when Hillis fumbled at the goal line.

“I messed up and let the team down,” Hillis said. “I put the blame on myself.”

I swear, replace the “KC’s” with “Brown’s” and this would have been a word-for-word reprint from a Browns recap of a loss just a couple of years ago.

Quirky Football Note

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Sep 302012
 

Currently, the Cleveland Browns have the same record as the New Orleans Saints: 0-4.

I doubt anyone would claim that the Browns are on the same playing field as the Saints, but it is rather amusing when you consider the old adage: “Nothing matters except the Ws.” And right now, neither the Browns nor the Saints have any.

Personally, I think the Browns have the bigger challenge — they get to go and play the Giants on the road next week, so I doubt anyone is considering that one as an upset. Mind you, the Browns did upset the Giants on national television back in 2008, so stranger things have happened.

That’s a lot of cardboard….

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Sep 212011
 

Okay, so I’ve been in my new place for about a week and a half so far. This month has actually been refreshingly busy in terms of me doing things on evenings and weekends rather than just sitting around thinking that “I should be doing things.” Here’s a quick recap of the whole apartment move/settling in events:

  • I screwed up on my timing — I forgot that on a month-to-month lease, you have to not only give a least a month’s notice, but that it can only happen at the start of the month. So, when I gave my notice to my old landlord in the middle of August, I discovered that I would have to pay for the whole month of September, anyway. This caught me off-guard, and I was not too happy, as I am actually right now paying for two different apartments.
  • However, I did manage to salvage some of this. The person who was in my current place wasn’t out until the very last day, and then the painter needed to stop in, and then Hurricane Irene was coming up the coast, and well, it just made more sense for me to put a hold on moving until the following weekend, on the 10th.
  • This also helped in that I was able to get Lacy and Dex to stop out and help me pick up the U-Haul and then proceed to load it up. There was some concern on my part about getting the truck in time, and we took a wrong turn looking for the U-Haul center (all my fault), but in the end once we swung into loading action, we finished up within an hour, easily.
  • I learned that next time, I need more boxes. I had a lot of bags for my linens, and they just do not stack very well.
  • I wound up dropping pretty much all of my furniture, some earlier that week, and some that morning. That means that my futon, dresser, computer desk, and tall bookshelf were broken down and tossed. I was saddest about the futon, as was really the first thing I had bought in NYC, and had been with me through my earlier moves. I was thinking about selling it or something, but given that the frame was just $20 when I bought it, and the mattress was covered in sweat stains, well, I didn’t see it commanding a pick-up, let alone any type of price.
  • Lacy took my old desktop (which I had mailed from my parent’s house and then wound up never using — not a good sign that I wound use it ever again), and I recycled my old laptops, but I did remove the hard drives from all of them, so I’ll look at getting some of those external hard drive mounts to plug in to the current computer so I can be sure to salvage my old files.
  • Dex mentioned that I was driving into NYC the weekend of the 9/11 10th year anniversary, and that there had been some terrorist threats going on, and wondered at the wisdom of it all. Not the news you want to hear after you’re all packed up.
  • The attempt to do a final vacuuming failed miserably as the vacuum was still stuffed with all of that carpet fluff. I happily left it on the curb.
  • Then, after Lacy scored some of my old electronics, they bid me farewell, and I was off. The trip was not too bad — traffic wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared, and I was only stopped 3 times at safety checkpoints to have the truck inspected by the cops. There was about 30 minutes of frustration in Brooklyn when I was suddenly confronted with an onslaught of “No Trucks” roads, blocking me from getting the places I needed to be. After a bit of backtracking and slipstreaming, I finally managed to get through and reach my place.
  • Over the course of the next few hours, people started to show up to help. People I knew, that is, not just random strangers on the street. Julia & her hubby, Joe, and even eventually Will (with his wife and daughter, although they were excused from hefting boxes). What started out slowly with just me making one trip at a time from the truck to the apartment ended up with the 5 of us acting like a well-oiled machine, getting the truck unpacked and everything up to the new place.
  • Afterward, Joe gave me a lift to and back from the U-Haul drop-off place, and I learned how to use the Navigator app on my phone, finally. Well, sort of, as I must have hit something wrong since it wasn’t following my little arrow.
  • Since then, I’ve made several trips to the Brooklyn Ikea, mostly for research. Between that and my research online, I was able to go ahead amass a large quantity of inexpensive yet sturdy furniture, such as a dresser, desk, and many bookcases.
  • I also got a Couch and matching comfy chair for free; a lady who was moving out 1 floor below me was giving them away. They are of decent shape, are bug free, and certainly fit into my budget, so I was happy to take them in.

At this point, it’s a matter of breaking down/storing some cardboard boxes, throwing away most of them, organizing the many things on the bookshelves that aren’t, in fact, books, and getting plants. Oh, and hanging pictures. So, yeah, still much to be done.

It’s also been a bit on the pricy side as well — the furniture wasn’t too costly individually, but whew, there was a good amount of it. After all, I spent about 6-8 hours putting it all together, and wound up surprisingly sore for a couple of days afterward. I still think I need to pick up a few more items, too: a couple of lamps, some placemats, maybe another bookcase with doors, etc. But the bulk of things have been dealt with.

So, that’s one thing that’s been keeping me busy. Another is the start of rec sports season for me.

Basketball scrimmage was last night, and things kick off next week. Ironically, despite it just being Jen, Jack, and myself for the full 40 minutes, I never got winded. True, aside from a few moments I never really was pushing hard (it was just a scrimmage, after all, and I had no desire to get hurt), but the really weird thing was that I played a lot better than I have in a long time. I think it might have been because I was pretty much relaxed and loose during the game, so I wasn’t tensing up on my shots and passes. We actually wound up destroying the other team, something like 26-14 or something, but part of that was just due to some mismatches between me and the guys guarding me, and also that I think they weren’t as comfortable as a team as Jack, Jen, and I have gotten. I’m sure once the regular season kicks in and things pick up, it’ll be a lot tougher.

We also need to find a couple more players, especially on the female side of the bench. We only have 2 girls on the roster, and since you have to have at least 1 girl on the court at all times, this doesn’t give a lot of elbow room if someone has to miss a night. It’d also be good to get another guy, although I certainly am not complaining about having more playing time.

I also got involved with a football team, much to my surprise and delight. Apparently, the captain was friends with a girl I played with this summer, and my name was passed along when the captain was looking to fill out the roster. So far, so great! We had our scrimmage 2 weekends ago and played our 1st real game this past Sunday, winning both. What I’m most excited about is that we have a few really good QBs — Scott can throw the length of the field — and if there’s one thing I learned from playing so far, it’s that you live or die by your QB.

I also continue to be amazed by the fact that I have been playing consistently well. Part of it, no doubt, is that the other teams so far have been playing together for the first time, and have not been really hardcore. When I volunteered and reffed the next game this past Sunday, both teams were really intense: one, in particular, huddled before every play to draw up a play, had their own custom shirts, and seemed to constantly have a grimace on their face, like it was causing them pain every second that they weren’t scoring. A bit disturbing.

As far as I can tell, things will continue to be busy for the foreseeable future. Besides sports twice a week (when did I become a jock? This still blows my mind…) I’ve been pushing to get the apartment wrapped up so I can have a little official housewarming party, and I want to do that before October. Beyond that, the “push for Madness” will begin in earnest, and that will soak up quite a bit of free time as well.

As long as I keep turning “busy” into “productive,” I’m in good shape.

Football time again!

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Jul 302011
 

Well, not yet, but it is interesting in that I’ve been watching the NFL more closely now, curious as to what moves the Browns will make in Free Agency to try and bolster the team. So far there haven’t been any really big signings or big names, and in some cases, I have been a little surprised that they haven’t picked up some people to serve in their areas of need — with Eric Wright leaving, the real question is what they will do for cornerback, as they don’t seem to be interested in the big names that are still available. Still, I do like that they are picking up younger guys that are still improving, rather than guys that are on the waning side of their years.

I also find it interesting that the whole Derek Anderson experiment in Arizona was declared a failure, officially made when they acquired (finally) Kevin Kolb from the Eagles. When he was cut from Cleveland, and spouted off about how much he hated the place (and he did have some reasons) I was worried that yet again, a player that the Browns couldn’t make work was going to suddenly flourish outside of the “Curse of Cleveland.” But, no, he had the exact same problems in Arizona that he had in Cleveland: tempted the fans with some good throws early on, only to settle into a series of bad decisions and inaccurate throws as the season wore on. He was benched due to poor play, and the came back when the starter was injured, only to show that he still had the same issues. He also demonstrated that his trouble dealing with criticism was not just because of the Cleveland press/fans; his blow-up on the podium after being asked about his laughing on the sidelines while his team was getting pounded into the dust on national TV was right up there with Dennis Green’s classic meltdown. So, yeah, a change of scenery didn’t do him any good, as the Cardinals have now cut him after one year. I wouldn’t be surprised if he lands somewhere soon though as another back-up. He has experience, and every team can use a QB with that.

Oh yeah, and speaking of ex-Browns, it looks like Braylon Edwards will not be returning to the Jets. It’s not really a matter of not liking him in this case, but rather that after spending the money on Holmes, they would rather get a WR cheaper than what Edwards is asking for. Still, I can’t help but wonder if this is the first time that Edwards really had to deal with rejection in the professional level. While in Cleveland, everything bad that happened was everyone else’s fault: the coaches, the organization, the fans (I still love that whole, “They didn’t like me because I’m from Michigan and not because I kept dropping passes” reasoning). Now, with the Jets, he has to be taking this pretty hard. Think about it: They made their decision to sign Holmes to the big contract, so they valued Holmes over Edwards. Okay, that’s not too bad, since Holmes has a Super Bowl ring from his effort with the Steelers. But then the Jets start seriously chasing Nnamdi Asomugha, and Edwards had to realize that meant that the Jets weren’t interested in his services — no way they would be able to sign Nnamdi *and* Edwards. Then, the next indignity, is that the Jets are even looking into Burress, who hasn’t played a down since 2008 — Burress has more interest from the Jets than Edwards. And since Edwards said he loved the Jets, he has no-one to point the finger at and say “It was thier fault, not mine.” But, again, he has enough talent that he’ll land somewhere. Hey, I hear the Browns are looking for a veteran WR….

As for Brady Quinn, well, he’s still buried in the depth chart in Denver, but at least he still has a job. You have to take what you can in this economy, right?

Speaking of the Broncos, it seems that Josh MacDaniels decision to give Kyle Orton (who has played pretty well, to be fair) last year has placed the Broncos in a pinch with their cap space. Unless they can trade him, they can’t sign any new agents because of the cap. Again, it feels really good to know that for once, it wasn’t the Browns who majorly screwed up their personnel decisions by hiring a head coach that wound up sinking the whole franchise. And now that John Elway is involved, I can only hope that he proves to be as every bit a franchise genius as other players-turn managers before him, like Isiah Thomas, or Matt Millen. Boy, that would be so awesome.

Thoughts on the Draft

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Apr 292011
 

I normally don’t really follow the draft, but this year I’ve been interested in how it would play out, both to see how the Browns did, but also because there are no rules or guarantees in terms of how the rookies will be signed, as there is still no CBA in place.

Personally, from my own limited knowledge in the ways of the draft (which, as far as I can tell, puts me on par with a lot of the “gurus”), I was impressed with the haul that the Browns got in terms of picks. The talk is that the Bengals were also approached by Atlanta (so the Falcons could get A.J. Green) but that deal fell through at the end.

My guess is that the package originally offered to the Bengals was not as sweet as the one offered to the Browns. Instead, what I think might have happened is that after the Bengals decided that they wanted Green for themselves, the Falcons realized that Jones was the only other highly-rated receiver in the draft, and that with Peterson gone, it was highly likely that the Browns would take Jones. So, they offered more to the Browns, as they could not miss this chance.

I also think that the fact players could not be traded, only picks, was another big advantage for the Browns. Maybe the Falcons wouldn’t have wanted to trade some of their players, but they did have a lot of quality starters that the Browns could have used. With that option gone, it was all picks, and that’s something to relish. After all, 2 number 1 picks in the 2012 draft (assuming the NFL still exists at that point) is a luxury that few teams have.

On the walk in…

 Life in General  2 Responses »
Feb 232011
 

…I saw a magazine with the headline, “Engaged to be Married!”

I always thought this phrase was a bit redundant. I mean, seeing a gossip magazine with the word “Engaged” in the headline makes it pretty clear what’s happening; I wouldn’t think that it would be something like, “Engaged to go Bowling” or something.

[ S H E I L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

Remember how I had mentioned that I hoped the new Cleveland Browns regime dropped the False Start Master, John St. Clair? Well, they did a couple of weeks ago, among some other veterans.

Again, I’m not sure why he was in the line-up; if anything can be pointed to as a failure of Mangini’s coaching (aside from the two years of 5-11), this is definitely it.

Steelers lose! Whoo-hoo!

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Feb 072011
 

Well, I would be supporting the Pack, regardless of the opponent, for a number of different reasons. Partly because I support Aaron Rodgers and the decision to go with him over Brett Favre, partly because Donald Driver has always been a class act and deserved to finally get a ring, but mainly because the Packers are my second team behind the Browns. I don’t live and die with them as I do with Cleveland, but they’re still close to my heart.

However, I was really much more happy that the Steelers lost. And, ironically, this has little to do with them being division rivals of the Browns, and everything to do with the QB, Ben R. I used to support the Steelers in the post-season, because I liked to see the AFC North constantly represented, but now that Ben’s gone through 2 separate cases of alleged sexual assault, I just can’t support a team that has him as a starter. Yes, he was never charged with anything, but to me, it’s clear that he knew he did something “very bad,” and lucked out from having to pay for his transgressions. I see it as a little bit of justice that he was denied another Superbowl ring, and with any luck, he’ll never get another one.

This week’s TMQ complaint

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Feb 032011
 

TMQ was better than usual this week, returning to the form that first drew me in years ago: good football insight mixed with humerous observations about modern life. Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed a decline in quality of his columns with more and more space being devoted to his rants than anything actually informative (mainly because he often doesn’t due any good research before ranting; more on that below), but it’s columns like these that remind me of the reasons why I started reading in the first place.

This time around, the thing I found to be rather silly to be ranting about was the fact that, apparently, too many standing ovations are being given. Okay, fine, I understand that he was saying this during the State of the Union address, when congress will applaud anything that signifies movement — or shout out “You lie!” at any rate — but TMQ, as per usual, travels into his own personal La-La land of conspiracy theories:

Members of Congress know that when the president speaks, standing to clap is a way to get television cameras to pan off the president toward them.

More likely, those applauding are the Democrats who want to show support for Obama every chance they get. I bet you that very few Republicans were jumping out of their chairs to applaud, regardless of TV time it may have given them.

But it gets worse, as TMQ thinks that giving a standing ovation for a high school play is pure philistine behavior:

Standing ovations are supposed to acknowledge a remarkable insight or moving performance — not merely that a politician spoke, or a curtain closed. Here, theater critic Terry Teachout argues that the rising frequency of standing ovations “devalues their significance.” Once, performers dreamed of the day they would earn a standing ovation. Today, they expect standing O’s for walking across stage. And though it’s fun, as a high school kid, to see your parents standing to clap, realistically, rare is the high school musical or play that merits an ovation.

Note that this is from the same man who rails against colleges for fielding teams that display bad sportsmanship; apparently, it’s perfectly fine to not show support for your kid upon completing a high school play. Heck, I would think that in most high schools, just completing a play could be considered a moving performance.

And as for Broadway shows?

Why has the standing ovation proliferated? Your columnist thinks it’s a form of self-flattery for the audience, a way of saying, “I picked a great show.” If you pay $250 for a Broadway ticket for a musical version of “Hedda Gabler,” and the show is wretched, you leave feeling like a fool. If you leap to your feet in a standing ovation, as if you’ve just attended a work of art, you don’t feel so bad about that $250. When audiences stand to applaud, they are applauding themselves.

Again, I have to wonder if TMQ really thought this out. Most people who see something bad are going to be cheesed off, esp. if they spent a lot of money. Some will ever leave the theater. But applauding because this justifies the expense of the ticket? Sorry, that’s a leap of logic that misses the ledge and plummets to its death.

I will say that the nice thing about TMQ is that he often prints comments from readers who (often, honestly) point out how wrong he is when speaking on topics that he doesn’t know. Last week, he railed against a new hybrid car/airplane, and the fact that it only took “20 hours of training time” before one could get their pilot license. I suspected that we weren’t getting the full story, and that TMQ had likely read this in a magazine, got his hackles raised, and quickly wrote a piece bemoaning the fall of Western Civilization. Sure enough, this week, a reader pointed out TMQ’s error:

Chris Walker of Monroeville, Pa., a private pilot, writes, “Flight time minimums are much different than driving time minimums. You have to fly with a certified instructor until you show you are proficient enough to solo, after which you may make short training flights alone or with the instructor until you meet the requirements to take your checkride. The hours required are minimums, and rarely does one take and pass a checkride close to the minimums, which I bet is the opposite for driver’s license minimums. The checkride is much harder than passing a driving test. I was more competent to fly an airplane when certificated than I was to drive a car after getting my license.”

Will this temper TMQ’s apprehension? I doubt it — once he picks a side, he tends to stick with it, regardless of what evidence is presented thereafter.

Ah well, still a fun read.

Looking for a job with a low success rate?

 Life in General, Reviews  Comments Off
Jan 102011
 

I saw this posted on cleveland.com today, and thought it was a pretty nifty oppurtunity. Sure, it’s pretty thankless, highly stressful, and everyone who has tried it in the past ten years has been fired, but the plus side that you get paid kooko-sized bucks, and they pay you even after being fired! Talk about awesome!

And besides, all Cleveland Brown fans have all said the same thing at some point: “I could do better than this.”

http://www.cleveland.com/pdq/index.ssf/2011/01/heres_the_job_application_for.html

Another quick note on the Browns

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Jan 062011
 

With Mangini now gone, it’s anyone’s guess what happens to the Defensive Coordinator and the Special Teams coordinator. Both units certainly showed improvement, and you could see them sticking around. (The Offensive Coordinator, Brain Daboll, who may have been the albatross around Mangini’s neck, certainly won’t be back — his offense ranked 32rd and 31st in the league during his two years. And, for those not aware, the league only has 32 teams).

However, I will admit that I do hope Offensive Lineman John St. Clair is moved over the off-season, or at least regulated to 3rd string. Seriously, every game he would give up a huge sack, earning him the nicknames, “Turnsile” and “El Matador.” Plus, you could bet safe money on him always getting at least 1 false start penalty each game. Maybe he can work as a back-up in the depth chart, but it’s hard to believe that he was really the best the Browns had as a starter.

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