Whipped Cream Difficulties

Did TMQ spend the off season reading epic fantasy novels? (WCD wonders if Easterbrook is a big Game of Thrones fan. But we digress.)

Seriously, “great heroes”? “Muscular men with square jaws”? “gleaming heroes”? Who is TMQ talking about? After the jump…

“An ideal outcome for the 2011 NFL season would be for two underdog teams from fading old-industry cities to meet in the Super Bowl.” Yes, TMQ is talking about the Lions and the Bills. You can now skip the first 826 words of this week’s column.

“From now on, a Buffalo-Detroit Super Bowl is what this column is rooting for.” That would be the same Buffalo that TMQ predicted would go 2-14 this year.

Sam has kind of an odd face.

Sweet and sour plays: Texans-Saints, Packers-Bears, Dolphins-Browns, Cowboys-Redskins, Jacksonville, Saints-Texans (again).

The average political pundit is no more accurate than a coin flip.

We guess the point of TMQ’s North Carolina item is the bitter, bit, but we’re not entirely sure. If this were FARK, we’d put up the “Cool story, bro!” graphic.

Much like so many of his other items, TMQ thinks that his team wine list is funnier than it actually is.

More creep. If you were wondering where the NFL Game Book went, TMQ does a valuable service by telling you. “It’s pretty fun to run for touchdowns against the league’s most boastful defense if everyone in front of you has already been knocked to the ground.” Home cooked dog food.

Good stuff on concussions; specifically, why not require advanced helmets while grandfathering in existing players, and why not require mouthguards?

Christmas creep. 29 out of 32 teams are net losers on the road (and it is interesting that the Texans are 22-52 on the road). Martz! “They tried to send my escalator to rehab, but I said no no no…” We would prefer the male Citroen model to seeing that damn Jennifer Lopez commercial for whatever damn car she’s advertising ever again. Seriously, did the people at whatever car company that is tell their advertising agency, “We want you to make the most annoying car advertisement in history”?

“Another Way the High and Mighty Steal from Average People”. Two words: private jets. “Corporate leaders are using average people’s money, extracted from labor via wage cuts and from shareholders via lower dividends, to lavish private-jet luxury upon themselves.” We are somewhat dubious that wages are being cut solely to provide corporate leaders private jets; in any case, employees are free to seek higher paying jobs elsewhere if they are unsatisfied with their pay. As for lower dividends for stockholders, again, stockholders have plenty of options (including selling stock and replacing directors) if they feel private jets are being abused. “…all trips taken by an aircraft were made public, by tail number. That way shareholders, labor and the IRS could figure out if executives were using the company plane for personal travel.” Really? If HP’s CEO shows up as having traveled to Peking on the year end report, is it because she was trying to open Chinese markets for HP products, or because she really craves the duck at Quanjude? And how would this report tell us?

Blitzes. Red turf. “This year, Chiefs plays are being called by committee.” Hmmmmm.

Was Moneyball just hype, or were Beane’s ideas so good that every other team in baseball picked up on them? TMQ suggests the latter, as do many posters on FARK.

“About $100 million in guarantees to these three gentlemen [Manning, Vick, and Chris Johnson] is, in economic terms, not creating value.” We confess to not knowing who Chris Johnson was; having read his Wikipedia entry, we confess to thinking that paying him a large sum of money was not terribly bright. As for Manning, this is unfortunate, but also just as unpredictable as any other injury. As for Vick…well, we don’t talk about Vick.

What’s wrong with the Falcons?

TMQ’s latest “football factory” accused of being dishonest about academics: the University of Oklahoma. We read this item, and our feeling is that TMQ is just looking for an axe to grind here. We have no love for OU, the school that unleashed Brian Bosworth upon the world. But President Boren’s statement, combined with the facts provided by Ms. Bishop (the university spokeswoman) leave us with the impression that this more a difference of opinion than a clearly defined lie (as with Ohio State and Miami).

Rushing. Speaking of tight ends, more and better cheerleader photos, please. How do you lose 55 yards on the last play of the game and win? “Closed due to wind.”

Reader comments are particularly good this week. We single out for praise those by Jamie Habberfield of Pittsburgh, who provides a different perspective on the issues with older NFL players.

“TMQ said last week, before the CERN finding was announced, that there are many reasons to think ‘humanity knows hardly anything about the larger universe.’ Now there’s another.” Once again, Gregg, we challenge you to find any scientist who thinks we know all about the universe, or a significant portion of what’s out there. Secondly, this entire item is based on a result that hasn’t been confirmed yet. While we would be delighted to find out that faster than light particles exist (and we are already delighted at the jokes springing from this) could we possibly wait until the result is confirmed before overturning all of modern physics?

Unwanted players. The old “Statute of Liberty” (sp?) play. Susquehanna 56, Gettysburg 55. Eureka 55, Presentation 27. By the way, Slippery Rock University beat Indiana University of Pennsylvania 20-6.

And that brings things to a close for this week. Tune in next week, when (if we’re lucky) TMQ will tell us how unrealistic “Whitney” is.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Geek, Neuroscience, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.