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Posts tagged NFL

Virtual Couch™ – 2012 Kickoff Edition

Sep09
2012 39 Comments Written by Toast

And awaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy we go! At long last football has arrived, my friends, and although my hopes are low for the J-E-T-S this year that in no way dampens my enthusiasm for the return of America’s Game. Just finished checking my fantasy lineups in four different leagues. Got my picks filed for the week. Soon Tracy and I will don our Martin and Chrebet jerseys and head out to Lime Bar for the game. Even the weather gods are getting into the spirit of things, delivering us cooler, crisper air for the occasion. Football! Finally.

I could write a 5,000-word post on the Jets weird offseason, horrible preseason, and debaculartastic season to come. Instead, I’ll summarize:

1. I think it was a huge mistake to sign Tebow. Literally the worst thing they could have done if they had any intention of righting Sanchez’s game and moving forward with him. I think Woody Johnson did it for media coverage and to sell tickets. The guy is a joke of an owner.

2. Regardless of who’s behind center, they’ve got no one to throw to. I read a comment from a Jets fan somewhere saying “Antonio Cromartie claims he’s the team’s second-best receiver. The sad thing is he might be right!” Ugh.

3. Even if it’s moderately successful somehow, I don’t look forward to watching a Sparano-devised, wildcat-heavy offense. That’s not good football, and it will never take any pro team to the promised land. (It’s painfully ironic that in an era where the high-flying passing attack – the kind of football I adore – is ascendant, my team is going with ground-pound-and-gimmick.)

Prediction? 5-11, good for third or last in the AFC East. Sanchez gets benched at some point in the season. Locker room implodes in a smog of acrimony. Rex is fired towards the end of the season or shortly thereafter, completing the four-year Jets coaching cycle of high hopes, higher hopes, crash, burn that I’ve now seen played out under Parcells, Edwards, and Mangini. (You wonder if maybe it’s not the coaching staff that’s the problem?)

But hey! Maybe they’ll surprise me. #LOLNo

Like I said, though. It’s football season! Not gonna let a small thing like my team sucking dampen my spirits. There’s so much more going on than Gang Green’s slow death march to destiny. There are questions! Questions like:

1. Peyton Manning in Denver. How’s that going to work out? I’d be thrilled to see the Peyton of Old return, and Denver looks to have a team around him that could make it happen. Tune in to SNF tonight to see Laser/Rocket Arm play the first game of the rest of his life against Team Vanilla.

2. Luck vs. RGIII. They’re not scheduled to play each other, but they’ll be playing each other every week.

3. Did the Bills do the right thing handing Mario Williams a record-breaking contract? And, in the near term, if I gave you an Over/Under of 3.5 for Williams sacks on Sanchez today, you’d be tempted to take the Over, wouldn’t you?

4. How do the Saints respond to BountyGate? It has to be weird going from being the league’s official Feel-Good franchise due to the New Orleans/Katrina connection to being Villains (or scapegoats, depending on your take) almost overnight.

5. Will the Patriots have a defense this year? And if they don’t, will it even matter?

6. Bonus: Will the Jets get it together and make me look like a jackhole for slagging on them?

See? Drama! Excitement! FOOTBALL!

OK, so here’s what we’ve got for today’s games in the 860:

CBS Early: Patriots @ Titans
FOX Early: Redskins @ Saints
FOX Late: ‘Niners @ Packers

As I said, with the Pats bumping the Jets off CBS, we won’t be around here for the early action. Doing the Jets Fans in Exile thing down at the Lime Bar instead. (And may I say? It’s so awesome to have a great little bar with the Sunday Ticket only two miles down the road.)

Enjoy the games and we’ll catch you on the flipside.

Posted in Sports, Uncategorized - Tagged

Virtual Couch™ – Super Bowl Edition

Feb05
2012 25 Comments Written by Toast

We’re just about four hours away from the kickoff of Super Bowl XLVI and the mood in the Shire is optimistic. I do not think this Patriots team is all that, my friends. I do not think so. They should have lost last weekend to the Ravens. Might have were it not for a strange scoreboard “malfunction” on that Ravens field goal attempt. Would have were it not for a mystifying non-call on that Ravens TD catch.

Who did they face before that? Oh, yes, God’s Own Quarterback, one Timothy Tebow. (…yawn…) Before that they had the Bye Week. And before that they won 13 games in the regular season. Not one of the teams they beat finished the season with a winning record. Not one.

The 2011/12 Patriots as Super Bowl champs? Come on, man!

Nope. Eli’s comin’ after that 31st-ranked pass defense. And the Giants’ ferocious pass rush is comin’ against Perfect Tommy. I won’t say it’s going to be a repeat of the last Super Bowl between these two teams because that would imply a closer game than I think we’re going to see. Calling it: Giants 30 – Patriots 21

Posted in Sports - Tagged ,

Virtual Couch™ – Divisional Round Edition

Jan14
2012 97 Comments Written by Toast

Howdy, ‘Shift!

And, uh, the rest of you. I guess. Welcome to the Divisional Round of the 2012 NFL Playoffs and to this cozy spot on the internet we call the Virtual Couch™. Grab a spot. There’s plenty of room.

I couldn’t be more stoked for this weekend. We’ve got some great games on tap today and tomorrow, then we’ve got the Golden Globes (with Ricky!) tomorrow night, and then we’ve got MLK Day to recover. It’s going to be freakin’ marvelous. I hope you’ve all got something fun planned, but I also hope you’re around for football.

On to the games!

Saints @ ‘Niners (4:30 PM): No question but that this is a tough one for the Saints. They’re playing on the road against a team with a top-tier defense and a running game that lets them control the clock. The Saints are favored by 3-1/2 going into the matchup, as if that’s any solace to their fans, but it’s way too easy to see San Francisco turning this into a slugfest and gutting out a win. In fact, that’s what I’m feeling*: ‘Niners 27 – Saints 24 (*Don’t hate me, ‘Shift. My predictions are usually the kiss of death.)

Broncos @ Patriots (8:00 PM): I know this much: If Tebow pulls this one out of his ass, tear up the stat sheets and make room for me on the bandwagon. There will be a picture of me Tebowing in front of the television, and it will be my profile pic for a long, long time. And, let’s see, I think this will be a sufficient jinx: Patriots 45 – Broncos 17

Texans @ Ravens (Sun – 1:00 PM): I have no particular dog in this fight and, truth be told, if chores are going to get done this weekend, it will probably happen during this game. That said, two cheers for the Ravens, if for no other reason than that a Raven’s victory will put a smile on our young Howard friend’s face. Ravens 21 – Texans 14

Giants @ Packers (Sun – 4:30 PM): Game of the Week, bitchez! Look, I know Aaron Rodgers is awesome (and also showing himself to be quite the funny man in these discount double-check ads). And I know Green Bay are the defending champs. And I know the game’s at Lambeau. But tell the truth: Aren’t you just getting that vibe from this Giants team all of a sudden? Giants 41 – Packers 31

(I went 2-2 last week, but I really only called one game – the Saints – accurately and even that prognostication only rounded into form in the fourth quarter when Brees and company hit the afterburners. Did NOT see that extraordinary defensive performance by the Giants coming. And, well… Tebow?)

Posted in Sports - Tagged

Virtual Couch™

Dec24
2011 45 Comments Written by Toast

1:15 PM: Sanchez to Baker! Touchdown! J! E! T! S! Jets! Jets! Jets!

10:00 AM: Merry Christmas Eve, football fans. Welcome to the penultimate weekend of the 2011 NFL regular season, and to this special holiday edition of the Virtual Couch™. I don’t know about you, but it feels strangely out of joint to have a full slate of NFL action a.) on a Saturday, and b.) on Christmas Eve. We’ve got rooms to clean, gifts to wrap, food to prepare, and hey, wait, football?!? But you know what? We’ll muddle through. Because we’re muddlers, dammit.

Hey, at least the Jets will be on our teevee today. When I looked and saw that they were lined up against the Patriots for the fourth week in a row, I was filled with a deep, prickly annoyance. But yea, verily, the Football Gods looked upon my plight and showered mercy upon me, saying “Your Gang of Green is playing a foe from the NFC this fine day, and so they shall be broadcast by FOX for all the world to see (except for the mid-Atlantic states, parts of the midwest, and Arizona).”

Herewith, then, is the slate of games available in the Nutmeg State:

CBS Early: Dolphins @ Hateables
FOX Early: Giants @ Jets
CBS Late: Eagles @ Cowboys

After that disaster in Philadelphia last week, the Jets have their backs against the wall again. Of course, so do the Giants. This might as well be a playoff game for both teams. Let’s hope the home team, at least, plays like it. FSM knows I’ve seen enough bad Jets football for one season.

Anyhoo, I hope you’re all enjoying the start to your holiday weekend. If your travels bring you near a computer, by all means fluff up a cushion and stay a while.

Posted in Sports

Virtual Couch™

Dec18
2011 50 Comments Written by Toast

Good afternoon, Couch Denizens. Getting this up a little late today because we just got back from Boston, where we attended my family’s annual Christmas bash yesterday. Feeling kinda beat, so let’s just get to it:

CBS Early: Dolphins @ Bills
FOX Early: Racist Mascots @ Giants
CBS Late: Belicheaters @ Tebows

This is the third straight week that the douchenozzle Patriots have knocked the Jets off TV for us, and we’re leaning heavily towards throwing in the towel and staying home. This is the worst time of year to get kicked out of your house on Sunday, and I’ve just had it. Hate to miss the Jets. Hate, hate, hate it. But unless we have a change of heart we’re parked here for the day.

See y’all in comments.

Posted in Sports, Uncategorized

Virtual Couch™

Dec11
2011 39 Comments Written by Toast

Hey All, good morning and welcome to week 14 of NFL action here on the VC. Did you notice that I switched the position of the Couch graphic from left to right? That’s so people know it’s not the same post that was up last week. I’m thoughtful like that.

So Tracy and I are off to Damon’s Tavern again this week, as the allmighty cocksucking Patriots have once again commandeered CBS’s 1:00 PM time slot. You know, December is really not a good time to be bounced out of our house on Sundays. Too much to do this time of year. But, hey, god forbid Pats fans take second billing for a change. (sigh) At least Damon’s is a really cool sports bar. So we’ve got that going for us.

We will be back home for the late games, which will coincide with the assembly and decorating of our Holiday Tree. Egg nog will enter the picture at that point. There may be naps as well. I can’t believe some douche scheduled a 9:00 AM meeting tomorrow. There should be penalties for that. (Wait, I just checked my calendar! The 9:00 AM meeting I thought was tomorrow is next Monday. So, Woo Hoo for now, and I’ll bitch about that next week.)

But I digress. Here’s what’s viewable in the 860 today:

CBS Early: Fucktards @ Redskins
FOX Late: Saints @ Titans*
CBS Late: Raiders @ Packers

*And thank the Football Gods for that. If you look at the map, central Connecticut and the Pioneer Valley are getting the Saints game, but our surrounding areas, including eastern Mass, the Rt. 2 corridor, Capitaland (aka Angelosville) and the tri-state area around NYC are all stuck with Bears @ Broncos, which is going to be all kinds of shitty.

So that’s that with that. We’ll be checking in from the bar and of course later when we’re home. Enjoy the games.

Posted in Sports - Tagged

Virtual Couch™

Dec04
2011 80 Comments Written by Toast

Good morning, friends and readers, and welcome to another week of football, which is seemingly the only thing keeping this blog alive at the moment. (I will write more. At some point. I have sooooooo much to write about. But I have been preoccupied with distressing matters here in the Shire.)

Well, it took until Week 13 (might have happened when we were in China or displaced by the Storm of the Millenium also – not sure) but we finally hit one of those weeks where the Patriots and Jets are both playing at the same time, and since Connecticut is not considered a natural market for Gang Green, Tracy and I must do the Nomad Jet Fan thang and shuffle off to a sports bar to see Nacho and company take on the Racist Mascots of Washington, D.C.* We will be heading over to Damon’s Tavern in Hartford around 11:45 AM this morning. Damon’s won Hartford Magazine’s “Best Sports Bar” this year, and is described as having “an upscale sportsbar-like atmosphere with a modern fine dining flair” which is pretty much exactly what Tracy requested. We love you, Buffalo Wild Wings, but you’re a little too loud and crazy on football Sundays for our tastes. I like to be able to converse with people sitting within a four-foot radius without shouting. And I don’t care for middle-aged dudes pissing in the parking lot. Call me crazy.

Here’s what’s on tap for today in the Nutmeg State:

CBS Early: Colts @ Douchebags
FOX Early: Broncos @ Vikings
FOX Late: Packers @ Giants

I can scarcely imagine how bad the final score of that first game is going to be. The line was 20 points, something I have never seen before in my professional-football-watching life. And that’s not high enough. Unless Belichick instructs Brady to simply kneel out the entire second half I could see this game finishing 73 to 13. I’m going to request a table at Damon’s with a view of the Jets game and an obstructed view of the Pats game.

Packers at Giants should be interesting because, frankly, every Packers game is going to be interesting from here on out. This Green Bay team is a legitimate threat to do what the 2007 Patriots could not do (thanks to the magical efforts of this self-same Giants team in what I consider, no hyperbole, the Greatest Thing to Ever Happen in the History of Sports): Finish 19-0 with a Superbowl trophy. What Rodgers and the Pack are doing this year is truly amazing to behold. Every game is like watching football perfection. And since, unlike the Patriots, the Packers aren’t Evil Incarnate, I’m allowing myself to enjoy every moment of it. Hell, I really hope they pull it off.

Tonight gives us Lions @ Saints. Stafford is supposedly healthy this week, so it’s possible that Detroit could give our man ‘Shift a little heartburn. And Monday Night Football this week features Chargers @ Jaguars or, as I like to call it, “Hey, Honey, let’s watch The Sing Off‘s first annual Holiday Special!”

It’s December now, in case you missed it, and that means that fantasy leagues are wrapping up their regular seasons. It’s been a weird one, if you ask me. Seemed like the talent pool was unusually shallow this year. Bye weeks were a crazy bitch because there were just no appetizing free agents out there to pick up and plug in. Really, aside from DeMarco Murray, did any game-changing players bust out this year and give fantasy owners something to salivate over on the waiver wire? I can’t think of any.

In defiance of the “Nobody Cares About Your Fantasy Team” dictum, a quick summary:

Guns For Hire (Frat League): 11-1 and looking damned-near unstoppable. Aaron Rodgers, LeSean McCoy, Wes Welkuh, and the aforementioned DeMarco Murray (score!) have me thinking about back-to-back Superbowl wins.

Ballbreakers (Work League): 5-7 but, remarkably, still in the mix. A whopping five out of ten teams stand at 5-7 with two more at 6-6 (one of whom I play this week). I actually feel bad for our commissioner, who’s going to have to figure out the tiebreaker cluster. It should never have come to this, of course. After the third round of the draft I had Phillip Rivers, Chris Johnson, and Jamaal Charles. Which, in September, looked like a free pass to the playoffs, bye week included. But the Fantasy Football Gods doth laugh at the best laid plans of we mortals, don’t they?

Meanstreak (Angelos’ League): 2-10. And, seriously, I hate this fucking league and I’m out next year. The scoring system is retarded. Week in and week out, year after year, roughly the same players that take me to the playoffs in other leagues leave me at the bottom of the pack in this one. Too many dipshit bonuses, individual return yards, and a ludicrous array of team defense points. Fuck that noise. Change the scoring system to make it closer to standard leagues or kiss my fantasy genius ass goodbye.

Problem Child (TwoGlasses League): 9-3 and tied atop my division with Chris. Locked up a playoff spot, but the first-round bye hangs in the balance. I’ve got an odd crew in this one. Cam Newton at QB, Fragile Frank Gore, Welkuh, and Megatron. On a good week, they’re unbeatable, but as those three losses show, they’re not all good weeks. Hope they hang together, because I’d love to take home the title in my own blog’s fantasy league. Just once. Seems appropriate, you know?

And on that note, time to shower, don my Jets garb, and head out to Damon’s. As always, hope to see you in the comments.

(*I finally looked this up. Turns out that “when the period ending the abbreviation comes at the end of a sentence, it will also suffice to end the sentence.” I’ve been wasting extra periods for years.)

Posted in Sports - Tagged ,

Virtual Couch™

Nov27
2011 69 Comments Written by Toast

12:00 PM: Hey all. Lots to do this morning and time kinda got away from me. Back around game time with the setup.

12:45 PM: OK then. Tracy and I are back from a brisk little bike ride into town to get moth traps for the pantry. Turns out these little bastards that have been getting into our provisions are flour moths (h/t: Julie). We’ve got to throw out just about all our flour, cereal, pasta, rice and whatnot, clean the pantry from top to bottom, and then lay these things down. Probably need to do a second pass on our snack/miscellaneous food stuffs cabinet as well. These things suck.

But first things first: Football!

FOX Early: Vikings @ Falcons
CBS Early: Bills @ Jets
CBS Late: Patriots @ Eagles

It feels like it’s been a month since the Jets last played. And, come to think of it, it has been that long since they played well. This is it for Gang Green. No margin of error. To have any shot at the playoffs they have to win out. I do not have high hopes.

On that note, it’s time to crack a beer. See you all in the comment tube.

Posted in Sports

Virtual Couch™

Nov20
2011 80 Comments Written by Toast

Mornin’ all. Quiet day in the Shire on tap, chilling with the wife and birds and watching some football. Might get some reading done. Might get some chores done. Might not. Here’s what we’ve got on offer today:

FOX Early: Cowboys @ Redskins
CBS Early: Bills @ Dolphins
CBS Late: Chargers @ Bears

We will not be watching tonight’s game, that’s for sure. Chiefs at Patriots? Ugh. My Bloody Mary is starting to come back up just thinking about it.

Enjoy your day and hope to see you in the comments.

Posted in Sports

Virtual Couch™

Nov13
2011 171 Comments Written by Toast

Good afternoon, friends and readers, and welcome to Week 10 of NFL action on the Virtual Couch™. I sit here, for the first time in three weeks, in my own damned house, on my own damned couch, in front of my own damned television, with my own damned wife and birds for company. Holy shitpickles has it been a stressful couple of weeks. But today, finally, we’re kicking it like the Football Gods intended, right here in the Shire. It feels good.

The Big Game doesn’t go down until tonight, when my J-E-T-S host the Hatriots at MetLife Stadium. A lot has changed since these two teams last met. The Jets have gone 3 and 0 and the Pats have gone 1 and 2. Sports pundits are starting to ask “What’s wrong with the Patriots?” It is my profoundest hope that, after their visit to the Meadowlands, the chorus asking that question will grow even louder.

There are three keys for the Jets to win this game. The first is to remember what got them their mojo back: the running game. Don’t look at that Pats’ defensive rank against the pass and start slinging the ball with reckless abandon; continue to set up the passing game with a power running game. The second is to keep Revis on Welkuh at all times. Unlike in years past, it really doesn’t seem like Brady has a whole lot of options after his number one guy — (Ocho Who?) — so if you take away Welkuh the game’s half won. And the third thing is… um… the third thing is… Oops.

(That’s not getting old any time soon.)

OK, so here’s today’s action:

CBS Early: Bills @ Cowboys
FOX Early: Cardinals @ Eagles*
FOX Late: Giants @ Niners

*I typically roll my eyes at Angelos’ complaints about the league’s programming decisions, but I’m with him on this one. What the hell makes the NFL think that upstate New York or Connecticut give a rat’s ass about the Eagles? With apologies to any Philadelphia transplants living in our areas, for the most part, nobody outside of Philly gives a shit about Philly teams. Many of us, in fact, find them actively repulsive.

Luckily, I don’t have to watch the battle of the birds and I’m actually looking forward to Buffalo at Dallas and Giants at San Fran. And with that, I’m out. See you in the comments.

Posted in Sports
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