Reid Kerr's Fistful of Sports

Fined & Dandy

This is a new one. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been fined twenty-five thousand dollars for comments about a referee that wasn't even working his games.

"I stepped out of bounds," Jones told ESPN. "Roger [Goodell] is doing his job."

Translation: "I found twenty-five thousand dollars in loose bills in an old pair of pants I wear to clean out my solid gold pool, so I don't give a crap. I've made my point, so I'll pretend to care."

Labels: Cowboys, NFL

Out Fox-ed

Here's a quick memo to the suits at FOX. Stop showing us highlights of baseball during the football games. I tune in to watch the Cowboys and the Redskins play, not to see Milwaukee Brewers highlights. In fact, if you're wondering just exactly when I'd like to watch Milwaukee Brewers higlights, the answer is almost never. They fall somewhere on the list after "According to Jim" reruns, that awful new 90210 show, the video game channel, the furniture refinishing channel, and anything with Star Jones.

For future reference, you're paying 712 million dollars a year to have the rights to the NFL, even the Detroit Lions. Baseball coverage costs you about forty-eight bucks a week, plus expenses. Don't ask us to pretend to care, especially in Texas. Baseball season has been over since Cowboys Camp opened. Show us the game.

Labels: Cowboys, NFL

Pickin' Ain't Easy: Week Three

As part of my duties here at the Examiner, every week it falls upon me to sift through the internet chatter and tell you who's going to win this week's NFL games. Of course, for some reason I'm also responsible for taking the trash to the dumpster, refilling the water cooler, and opening Dan Telvock's mail to weed out junk mail and catalogs, for some reason. It stinks being the new guy.

Anyway, here are the picks for Week Three. As always, these are merely the opinions of one man and should not be used as the basis for any financial investment of any kind. Your mileage may vary. If rash develops, discontinue usage.

WEEK THREE:

Cincinnati at NY Giants - Is this a good time to complain about having too many Bengals on my fantasy football team? How many is too many, you ask? One.
Pick: Giants

Tampa Bay at Chicago - I love the way Jon Gruden runs things. "Jeff Garcia is out with an ankle injury." "Hey, I'm not hurt!" "Oh. Then you're out because you suck."
Pick: Bucs

NY Jets at San Diego - Norv Turner couldn't get a big call if he had one of those giant phones from Sharper Image.
Pick: Chargers

Kansas City at Atlanta - Somewhere, someone will have to watch this game. Hopefully, next week we'll have a telethon for them.
Pick: Falcons

Oakland at Buffalo - Al Davis threatens to fire Lane Kiffen, the Raiders win a big game. This week Al is quietly under sedation, so the Raiders don't even bother to bring all of their pads.
Pick: Bills

Carolina at Minnesota - The Vikings have benched Tarvaris Jackson for Gus Frerotte, who hasn't been a starting quarterback since he lost a head-butt fight with Jack Kent Cooke Stadium. Calling Tarvaris Jackson a "quarterback" is like calling a schnauzer a Senator. I don't even think he's aware of the job requirements.
Pick: Panthers

New Orleans at Denver - Look for Mike Shanahan to try and go for two if he wins the coin-flip.
Pick: Broncos

St. Louis at Seattle - Statistically speaking, one of these teams will probably win this game. At this point, I have had as many plays inside the opponent's twenty yard line as the Rams.
Pick: Seahawks

Cleveland at Baltimore - Remember when this was supposed to be a rivalry? Me either.
Pick: Ravens

Miami at New England - New England after Tom Brady is still the Patriots. Unfortunately, Miami after Dan Marino is still the Dolphins.
Pick: Patriots

Other Picks: Tennessee over Houston, Cardinals over Washington, Lions over 49ers, Colts over Jags, Eagles over Jags, and Cowboys over Packers.

Last Week: 11-4, 20-11 overall.

Labels: NFL, Picks

Raider Nation 0, Rhythm Nation 43 (F)

ESPN is reporting that Al Davis is set to fire Raiders coach Lane Kiffin as soon as Monday.

At this point, is that bad news? They tried to get Kiffen to resign back in January, but he wouldn't take the hint. At this point, getting cut loose from the Raiders is like getting a day pass out of Hell. If I'm in the Kiffen family, I'm hanging streamers and happily updating my resume. This isn't a franchise with a long history of anything except front office insanity.

That's one thing about being a head coach in the NFL, there's only 32 jobs available. If you want one, you have to put up with crazy stuff sometimes like overbearing owners, absentee owners, and owners who don't even know who you are.

Al Davis was quoted in the article as saying "He's not the guy I hired." That begs the question, exactly who does Davis think he hired? Did he greenlight the hire based on seeing the name "Lane," and think he was hiring Bobby Layne? Dick "Night Train" Lane? Lois Lane?

Labels: NFL, Raiders

Ike Slaps Around The Astros

Even though Minute Maid Park wasn't damaged by Hurricane Ike, the Houston Astros are somehow still losing out.

The Astros have won fourteen of their last fifteen, and are making a mad dash towards the Wild Card. However, instead of getting the division-leading Chicago Cubs at home, the conditions have led Major League baseball to reschedule the games for Milwaukee's Miller Park.

This may sound a bit goofy, but if you'll perform a little experiment, you'll clearly see the logic. Get out a map of the United States. Put your finger on Houston, Texas, and move it slowly North. You'll quickly see that there's nowhere else with a baseball field that these teams could use to play on Sunday and Monday. There's not one in Dallas, or St. Louis, or Kansas City, or a really nice triple-A stadium that could get the series of a lifetime, or even a cornfield in Nebraska where the teams could throw down a couple of bases and play old-school-style.

See? MLB had no choice but to move this home series away from Houston. The Astros will still be the home team, even though they're eleven hundred miles away from their dressing rooms. Just because MLB took the game out of Texas and plopped it down in a stadium in Wisconsin that's ninety miles away from Chicago, that won't give the Cubs any kind of advantage.

Perish the thought.

Labels: MLB

Why I Hate Books By Athletes

Oh, good. Terrell Owens has written another book.

TO scheduled a press conference at his locker Thursday to make sure everyone saw his new book, "T.O.'s Total Fitness."

This is one of my pet peeves. Actually, that's not quite putting enough emphasis on it. Athletes and coaches writing books is one of my least favorite things in the world, landing somewhere between finding out there's a poisonous snake loose in my house and hooking my little toe on a chair leg in the middle of the night.

For more on why I just can't handle athletes who think they're writers, check out my new column at the Examiner. Comments always welcome.

Ready For Some Football? And Other Stupid Questions

A few random thoughts while waiting on the Cowboys-Browns game...

It's fairly obvious that football dominates American pop culture. Quick example? Does anybody remember any other songs Hank Williams Jr. ever wrote other than "Are You Ready For Some Football?" I assume at his concerts now, he opens with it, then plays it for an encore.

I'm always amazed at what the cable companies think we want to see. I imagine most cable companies will be showing the Cowboys-Browns game at three, and since we're in Texas, one of the noon games is Texans-Steelers. For the other noon game, do we get the debut of Brett Favre in a Jets jersey? Perhaps we'd get the Saints-Bucs game, since the area has a lot of Saints fans. Nope, we get the Rams at the Eagles, an awful matchup between two non-playoff teams. The only way this choice could have been worse is if my FOX station was running a Chiefs inter-squad scrimmage.

UPDATE: It is now the fourth quarter of the noon game. Tom Brady is out, Favre is on fire, and the Saints are in a tight game. However, I'm still watching two games with a combined score of 66-3. I've seen closer contests involving Pat Buchanan.

Say what you want about Chad Javon Johnson Ocho Cinco Mellencamp, but he does get people's attention. When I heard in one of the pregame shows that he wasn't going to be able to wear the "Ocho Cinco" jersey today, I immediately went to the web to see what was going on. Of course, I felt bad about it, like I was looking up serial killers on Wikipedia, or reading Amy Fisher's autobiography. I'm curious, but in a way that makes me feel dirty.

Finally, I see Atlanta is playing Detroit today. I'd like to hear from someone who actually went to that game, just to make sure it exists. I think it may have been simulated solely for the purpose of fantasy football stats.

The Summer of #85

Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson has finally gone over the bend. He has now legally changed his name to his nickname. Johnson will now get paychecks made out to "Chad Ocho Cinco."

It's a good thing he didn't pick his other common nickname, or the PA would be announcing "And at number eighty-five for Cincinnati, Chad Dumbass..."

Labels: Bengals, NFL

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