The New Year has begun. Our grand vacation from daily cares is over. And once again, we go back to the TMQ well…
How important is defense, especially given that Green Bay (ranked last in defense) and New England (ranked second to last) have made the playoffs? Is offense the new defense? Or is this an artifact of rule changes?
Luck. Cruz. Trope watch: “…TMQ’s contention that the gentlemen going to Hawaii should be called the 88 Percent All-Pros.”
Alexa Flutie. She’s quite nice looking, isn’t she?
Sweet and sour: Lions-Packers, Ryan (Rob), Ryan (Rex).
“Will Houston’s Fifth-String Quarterback Start in the Playoffs?” We were actually hoping that Lawrence would comment on this game, but since he has not, we’ll just say: that final Texans offensive sequence is exactly why we bet against them to go to the playoffs. An exciting last minute score, followed by a stupid penalty and a failed conversion. Houston teams will always find a way to break your heart.
Readers write: bullet trains and your academic standards are distracting from my football.
Atlanta is loosing track of the fundamentals.
“…depicting good characters as beaten to a pulp then suddenly super-strong and winning the climactic fight, presents audiences with an unrealistic impression of the harm done by violence.” Oh, bullshit, Gregg. We could probably trace this particular plot element back to the ancient Greeks if we had time. Isn’t this pretty much what “catharsis” is?
Does TMQ’s commentary on Newsweek and the Higgs Boson make any sense to anyone?
Raiders choke. Also on the list of things we don’t understand: why TMQ finds the new Southern cooking “wacky”.
TMQ is shocked, shocked at how many places sell booze in New Orleans. We have to ask: has he ever been there before? We’re sure he went to a Super Bowl in New Orleans. “…even as someone who loves a good football game, my sense is the country is beginning to devote too much money and emphasis to the sport.” Is the money and emphasis devoted to football really out of proportion compared to pro basketball and pro baseball? And isn’t this statement just symptomatic of TMQ’s desire to mange the affairs of others? Who gets to decide what “too much” is?
“Sports columns are unlikely to be your best source of fiscal policy news.”
Your Cincinnati Bengals, ladies and gentlemen. “Your columnist remembers walking into a 7-Eleven in Colorado Springs, Colo., that day, back when the only way to find out about the news was to go to a newsstand.” Wow. According to Wikipedia, TMQ was born in March of 1953, which puts him well into the generation that had both radio and television. It is unfortunate that TMQ was not aware you could get news from both of those sources.
LaDainian Tomlinson and Jason Taylor. Tebow.
“Was there even one person who thought Buffalo’s 21-0 first quarter lead at New England would hold up?” Well, we realize that FARK isn’t exactly representative of the population at large, but we were watching the NFL discussion thread on Sunday, and: yes, there were a lot of people in that thread expecting a Buffalo win.
Pro Bowl bashing. “[London] Fletcher’s problem is name recognition; he was undrafted, from a Division III college.” Mayhaps, Gregg, but even we’ve heard of Mr. Fletcher.
Since the city of Austin is considering a bag ban, we were tickled by Easterbrook’s item on bag bans. “Government doesn’t care about litter, government wants to remove money from your pocket.” TMQ speaks truth here. (See also this tweet: hattip TJIC on the Twitter.) But this would tend to make us much more skeptical of government intervention than TMQ has shown himself to be in the past. Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.
A Pittsburgh – San Francisco Super Bowl? Yeah, call us when the monkeys start flying. The Rams became aggressive as soon as they knew they had failed to suck for Luck. (Won’t it be great if Luck decides not to enter the draft this year? Or pulls an Eli and says “I won’t play for Indy”?)
Easterbrook has a good point in his item about the declining incidence of fires and the growing numbers of firefighters. But did he have to couch it in criticism of “Rizzoli & Isles” for being unrealistic? Seriously, does anybody watch that s–t? (We caught part of an episode or two once when we were eating at our favorite Austin pho place, and we don’t think we’re being unfair in that characterization.)
“What happened to the Bucs?” Yeah, we were asking ourselves the same question. We are glad Drew Brees broke Marino’s records, but we’re still sad that another year goes by without TMQ shutting the f–k up about the 1972 Dolphins.
“UCLA lost to Illinois in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, meaning the Bruins finished 6-8 — a bowl entrant that finished two games below .500.” Perhaps UCLA wasn’t hungry enough?
Worst play of the season – so far: Carolina -New Orleans.
Tune in next week for…the playoffs? Playoffs?