Archive for August 28th, 2006

August28

Jeff George, Ladies And Gentlemen

By: the mighty mjd

As I’m sure you know by now, the Oakland Raiders signed Jeff George yesterday. And if you didn’t know that, you probably think I’m fucking with you. But much like Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross… I am not fuckin’ with you.

I really wish it had been some team other than the Raiders who signed him, so I could root for him. Unfortunately, no team but the Raiders would do that. Especially this close to the season starting. When you just spent a lot of money on a free agent quarterback. And the signee in question is 38 years old. And has not played a down of competitive football since 2001, when gas was $1.70 per gallon.

If the Raiders are going to do this, I hope they go all the way with him. I want him to fucking start. I want him to have that mustache, that miniature mullet, and I want him throwing the ball for them on Sundays. And he just might have a chance to do that.

I’d bet nearly anything that Randy Moss, at some point, will be calling for Jeff George to start. Say what you want about Jeff George, but I’m positive that he still throws a damn pretty ball. Randy Moss will get in practice with him, he’ll see those tightly-spiraled, perfectly-arched deep balls coming his way, and he’ll say, “This beats the hell out of Aaron Brooks, Andrew Walter, and Marques Tuiasosopo.” That’s going to happen.

There’s no downside to this. Al Davis hasn’t done anything this brilliant since drafting Todd Marinovich.

And here’s Jeff George rubbing in a victory against his former employer, the Atlanta Falcons. Jim Kelly sounds pissed. The best thing about this clip? It took place the last time the NFL was on NBC. Does Jeff George know it ever left?

Posted in: NFL9 comments

August28

Stem Cells And Your Favorite Striker

By: the mighty mjd

Something about this feels kinda … off-putting. Five professional soccer players in Europe have had stem cells from their newborn babies frozen, for the potential future use in repairing their own bodies.

So, for example, if Joe Cole (and I’m just using him as an example) rips up his ACL in a few years, we crack open the freezer, find the stem cells right behind the Stouffer’s frozen pizza, shoot it into him, and bam, good as new.

I at least hope he saves a bunch of them … I’d hate for the child to one day develop scoliosis, and have to hear daddy tell him, “Oh, no, I’m sorry. We can’t fix your spine. I know, tough break. But this one time, daddy had a really important game against AC Milan. Yeah … I’m sorry. But hey, we got you a brand new walker, little guy. It even has Spiderman stickers on it! Be brave.”

I’m not really sure why this bugs me. I’m all for stem cell research, and funding, and I think it’s an exciting thing, I do. And I think the people who believe that using stem cells is an abomination against God are absolutely fucking crazy. But, I dunno… using them to repair a center-back’s torn MCL, at least at this early point, seems a little crazy.

Maybe I’d just like us to understand this better, and figure out some of the more pressing applications first. For example, let’s wait until we figure out a way to use these things to cure Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or some other debilitating disease first, before this just becomes a plaything for rich people.

Posted in: Soccer, Sports in General3 comments

August28

Big. New. Blog.

By: the mighty mjd

AOL Sports has gotten into the blogging business. What they’ve done, actually, is bring a bunch of bloggers together under the same roof, and create one big, happy, NFL blog. They’ll eventually have something similar for all sports, I believe, but they’re starting with the NFL. And you can find it at:

http://nfl.aolsportsblog.com/

And they’ve had the poor business sense to make me one such blogger. I can’t use profanity over there, which means you’re likely to see an exponential increase in the potty-mouth over here. I think that’s good news for all of us. Fucking awesome news, in fact.

I’ve been posting there for a little while, as we waited for the thing to go live. But live it is, and I’d encourage you to make it a daily stop. There are some very good NFL bloggers over there. Really. I wouldn’t bullshit you about something like that. Okay, I would, but I’m not.

You can find all of my posts, in one handy location, here.

Posted in: Housekeeping, Media10 comments

August28

Dwight Smith Will Take You On A Stairway To Heaven

By: the mighty mjd

As I mentioned on Deadspin yesterday, Vikings safety Dwight Smith and a lady friend were cited by police for indecent conduct at the Escape Ultra Lounge this past weekend. Details aren’t available on exactly what they were doing, but my guess is that genitalia were exposed, and it was being stimulated in some fashion. By that, I mean she was probably sucking his cock.

I don’t know what else they were doing in that stairwell that could’ve been too indecent, unless they were thumbing through a collection of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, or using a Blackberry to browse through the archives of themightymjd.com.

And, you know, just because it was deemed ‘indecent’ doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been romantic. Let’s give Dwight Smith a little credit here. Some women want to be nailed in bar stairwells. Some women would like you to keep all of your “romance,” and your “conversation,” and your “exchanging first names,” and they just want you to put it down on them right there on the stairs under the goddamn coat rack.

Anyway… you’ve got to feel a little bad for Vikings owner Zygi Wilf and new head coach Brad Childress. It seemed like they were really trying. But the good news is that they just released Koren Robinson, so they’ve still got that going for them to protect their tough guy image. They had other options at receiver, but I’d imagine that it’s a pretty big drop at free safety from Dwight Smith to whoever’s backing him up. He’s probably free to fuck anyone he’d like, anywhere he’d like.

Posted in: Criminality, NFL4 comments

August28

Landon Donovan And His Pretend Balls

By: the mighty mjd

Landon Donovan and his LA Galaxy were playing on the road at DC United this weeked, and someone help up a big banner that said, “Landon in Germany: Worthless.” And that’s a fairly accurate assessment.

So Landon went out, and he scored two goals, and he shut the crowd up, and he brazenly waved his arms encouraging them to boo some more. And that’s great, he took the heckling, and he bounced back, hooray for him. Really.

But here’s my problem. The criticism of Donovan is that he can’t do it on the big stage. He was borderline invisible in the World Cup, and he did bomb in Europe before deciding to come back home to the MLS where he feels more comfortable. The knock on the guy is that he won’t accept the challenge and play against better competition. He won’t leave his comfort zone to make himself better.

So his answer to that is what … to score more goals in an MLS game? Well, congratufuckinglations, pal, you did it. That stopped being a challenge for Donovan a long time ago. He’s the best player in the MLS. But that’s never really been the question, has it?

Posted in: Soccer6 comments

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