Wednesday, October 28, 2009

'Burgh Sports Wrap: Purple Jesus Throws Two Picks; Horn-Helmeted Christians Everywhere Weep...

Okay, so I predicted one pick-six too many in my Facebook prognostication. What can you do?

STEELERS
Skippy Reed owes Kieran Fox his reputation and place in Steeler history. If not for Fox's miraculous pick-six, 70-plus-yard touchdown return late in the fourth quarter, Skippy might have gone down as the second football player referred to as "our idiot kicker who got liquored up" and beat the shit out of a Sheetz towel dispenser.

Luckily, the memory of his junior-varsity-benchwarmer tackle attempt, on what could have been a cock-chopping, soul-crushing, permanent-momentum-changing touchdown runback, is now just kind of funny.

Even Brett Favre made a better attempt, when he "tried to tackle" LaMarr Woodley, and Skippy outweighs him by about 30 pounds. That's the real shame here. Jeff Reed is a BIG BOY, and he could have (and SHOULD have) made that tackle.
Don't give me that "he's the kicker" shit. He's a solid 220 lbs. The game's on the line. Put a hit on someone, byaatch.

That said, here's to the D for standing tall in the fourth quarter, even if they let Purple Jesus and Purple Jesus Jr. (Adrian Peterson) drive all the way inside the 10 before taking one to the house on 'em. I predicted Favre would have one of his patented triple-INT days, and I was one off. And the Steelers beat the spread. I'll take that.

The bad news is that the Vikes ate up a lot of clock, and looked reasonably good doing it most of the time. They're a good team, no question. But I'm very glad I don't have to hear Jared Allen woofin' about the Steelers. I like him, and he's a beast, but it wouldn't have been nearly as funny this week.

PENGUINS
Well, the one Pens game we missed was a loss. Oh well. I get it. Marty Brodeur is great. Two losses through Oct. 28? That's fine by me.

I recently made a return to watching hockey. I was never a huge fan before, but I do remember watching some Pens games, particularly the first Stanley Cup runs. But then during the playoffs one year, the Pens were interrupted by the OJ chase, and for some reason I never watched hockey again. OJ ruined hockey for me. I don't know how the logic works on that one, but fuckit.

Anyway, my girl got me back into it during the '07 playoffs, when the Pens lost to Detroit, and we watched all the Versus games, playoffs and Cup win last year, which was awesome, I have to say. As a recent hockey re-convert [and someone who really doesn't know much about hockey play or strategy], the Pens are really exciting to watch, most of the time. Right now it seems like they're still getting into a groove - I know, 8-2 is a pretty great groove already - but I'm talking about the high-octane scoring threat that kept pace with the Ovechkin Machine and rolled right over the Hurricanes... Malkin and Crosby firing on all cylinders. Malkin has showed a few little flashes of it, maneuvering right around people and setting up sick goals, but it's not on like Donkey Kong just yet.

Canadiens tonight... I was just watching some History Channel documentary about how the Cosa Nostra boss in Montreal had a huge share of the drug trade in NYC back in the day. How 'bout that, eh?

OHH! A Quick Sneak Peek at the New Madvillain Record


J-Rocc spins a few snippets from the forthcoming Madvillain sequel. Sounds pretty damn good to me.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

'Burgh Sports Wrap: Why I Told Yo' Ass to Watch Out for Daunte Culpepper!

Oh, Rashard... let's hope you can make it look this easy against a team that isn't 1-19 in their last 20 games...

STEELERS
"I wouldn't say I'm worried about Culpepper. Would rather have a rookie back there, though."

That was my boy's general feeling about Matthew Stafford rocking the backwards hat and the clipboard this week against the Steelers. I was a little more concerned, what with the whole "fourth-quarter meltdown" thing and Culpepper being a seasoned vet who dropped 30 pounds in the offseason and is STILL bigger than Big Ben.

My concern was justified.

Culpepper led multiple successful drives against the D this afternoon, and looked pretty damned good doing it, too. True, it wasn't enough to catch up to the Steelers, and wouldn't have been nearly enough without a bad pick-six giveaway to the Lions' defense.

I was glad to see they left Polamalu out for this game. They (mostly) didn't need him, and he can rest up another week and get stronger. I will give the D all the credit in the world on the Lions' final drive, though. They just piledrove the whole damn organization into the ground, and that was pretty great.

Browns up next. And while a conference game is always important, this one is almost crucial. They really need to catch up to the Bengals and Ravens, and Baltimore gets the Minnesota Brett Favres next week (oops, I mean the Vikings), so they could easily take a loss. That would be nice. 'Nati gets the Texans, which is basically a toss-up with a slight edge for the Bengals. I would say probably Bengals minus 4.5.

PENGUINS
We saw about three-quarters of the Pens-Flyers game before the streaming TV channel got shut down (sonofabitches...), and even though we had already seen plenty of scoring by that point, there was apparently a bunch more. After the lazy layabout that was the Coyotes game, it was nice to see the Pens hustle and get a nice win against the Philth. Then another high-scoring win, 5-2, against Toronto. Ottawa up next.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

'Burgh Sports Wrap: One-Fourth of the NFL Season is Already Gone, and I've Only Won the Pool Once...

Go 'head, Brent... too bad no one could score a single facking goal to back you up

PENGUINS
Admittedly, I've only seen one Pens game so far, and they had to go and lose it, 3-0. Although I'll also admit that my attitude going into it was, "The Phoenix Coyotes? What the fuck is a hockey team doing in a city that couldn't ever possibly have natural ice?" This, of course, is a vain hope in the modern NHL, with squidders in Florida and Cali. Anyway, turns out the 'Yotes are one of the fastest teams in the league, and it certainly looked that way last night. True, it's early in the season, and the Pens are 3-1, but it was kind of an ugly loss. I paid absolutely zero attention during the off-season, which led to blatant ignorance on my part about Scuderi and Big Hal Gill being gone. I also didn't know about this Brent Johnson cat. Can't really put the loss on him, though. There weren't any bad goals (hell, Prucha scored one flat on his back with his leg all bent backwards and shit!).

I'll certainly give 'em a few more games to gel, but the scoring lines are pretty much the same; they weren't getting it done last night. They were just giving the puck away time and again. Philly tonight... phuck the Phlyers.

STEELERS
I'll call this a satisfactory recovery from last week's testicle-shriveling loss to the Bungles, WHO LET THE GAWDDAMN BROWNS DROP 20 ON 'EM THIS PAST WEEKEND, BY THE WAY. San Diego is a decent team with hardly any D. I'm still not happy with where the defense is, but that can still be chalked up to Polamalu being gone. Hopefully they let him sit out the Lions game so he can come back full-strength two weeks from now. It was nice to see Mendenhall have a breakout game. Hate to say it, but I'd also like to see him replace Willie Pee if he keeps it up. I love me some Fast Willie, and I'll love him forever for Super Bowl XL, but since the injury he's just not the same. Not his fault, but Mewelde Moore has been nothing but good for this team since they picked him up, and a Mendenhall/Moore attack is a throwback to the Bettis/Random Third-Down Back Days (Oh you don't think so? Let's do the rundown: George Jones, Fred McAfee, Richard Huntley, Amos Zeroue, Chris Fu'amatu Ma'afala... that's just '97 to '99) when the Steelers ran it straight up everyone's cornhole every week.

This is actually about the best schedule you could hope for when it comes to a team that is having some defensive difficulties. Lions, Browns, Vikings, Broncos, Bengals again, then Chiefs. The Vikings are gonna be tough, but I'm convinced the wheels are gonna fall off Denver any week now. It's gonna suck playing the Ravens twice in less than 30 days, but there's still the Raiders (greatest Dan Patrick Show caller of all time: "Can JaMarcus Russell throw it 70 yards? Sure! Ain't nobody gonna catch it."), Dolphins, and another game against the Browns.