Minus a few blowouts, Sunday’s NFL action offered a good slate of closely fought games. The Redskins won another tough NFC East road game, beating the Eagles 23-17 to up their record to 4-1 and raise the special breed of Beltway-area douchey homerism to Bostonian levels. The Titans rallied late to eke out a 13-10 win in their slugfest against the Ravens; the lowly Bengals looked tough against the Cowboys, rallying from a 17-0 deficit before Dallas put Cincy away 31-22; and the Steelers were gutsy as hell in their 26-21 win over the Jags.
However, this is the Suck-Off, and the focus should really be on the teams and players who completely blew ass. And, as with almost every other week, the Lions and Chiefs looked horrible. Detroit were impressively awful in a 34-7 blowout at home; Jon Kitna left after a half with “back spasms,” which is coach-speak for “massive sucking.” Kansas City managed to suck even harder, getting shut out at Carolina 34-0. DeAngelo Williams ran for 123 yards and scored three touchdowns, meeting his quota of one good game per year.
This Big Ten Network commercial surfaced on Awful Announcing yesterday, and even if you're not clued into all the foibles of the coaches in the country's Midwesternest conference, it's worth it just to hear Joe Paterno fight off dementia long enough to try to complete a sentence. Also, for the record, Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald looks like every Marine infantry officer I've ever known: thick neck, deep-set eyes, Cro-Magnon forehead. Thank God the Marine Corps doesn't have Northwestern's record.
After the jump is the highly recommended, new and improved version from Every Day Should Be Saturday and demented image wiz LSUfreek. It's like watching Mr. Subliminal, if Mr. Subliminal were funny and on cocaine.
After an offseason incident in which several members of the Penn State football team strolled into a party, kicked a bunch of people's asses, and walked out, legendary coach Joe Paterno brought the hammer down on his team by making all players clean up the stadium after home games. And boy did they learn their lesson, because only three Nittany Lions are being charged with crimes after a fight last month that went a little something like this:
The victim's shirt, according to the complaint, was covered in blood and the victim was trying to use it to stem the flow of blood. Police saw swelling on his entire face, lips and nose and an injury to the eye. His nose was fractured and his lip was split, the complaint stated. The victim was yelling: "It took 15 football players to attack me," according to the criminal complaint.
The victim later told police he was "strolling" through the HUB, may have brushed another man and excused himself. He said he felt tension growing, and decided to walk outside to get away from it, according to the complaint. He said 15 people — all or many of them football players — followed him outside and jumped him.
Sounds like cleaning up the stadium was just the dose of humility those boys needed. Wait, did I say "humility"? Because I meant "rage fuel." Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.
Word on the street — and by street I mean Internet — is that 80-year-old Penn State coach Joe Paterno, in a hilariously-executed reversal of stereotypes, doesn't like people driving slowly:
Yesterday, two grad students… were driving on campus and being followed closely by a white car. The white car passes them and then cuts them off and pins them against the curb. The driver gets out and starts screaming obscenities at the woman (who was driving), flipping both middle fingers and repeatedly saying "do you know who I am!". The irate screaming and cursing by the driver of the white car continues long enough for the campus police to arrive at which time the driver of the white car takes off…
They were both in some state of shock the rest of the day that Joe Paterno, a man they both admired, could act this way.
Police are investigating the matter, but I don't think this is anything more than your typical dementia-laden Alzheimer's lash-out. Seriously, do you know who he is? Because he can't remember.
Despite my vigilant campaign for an aggressive euthanasia campaign, our society is still saddled with old people and homeless people and old homeless people. And today, in a New York Times profile, Joe Paterno and his wife go about flaunting their non-euthanized oldness all over the place:
Joe and Sue Paterno have not seen a movie in a theater since “Titanic” and watch so little television that they were delighted to stumble upon a show this spring that they had not seen before. “We discovered ‘M*A*S*H,’ ” Sue Paterno said, laughing. “I had heard about it, but I didn’t know what it was about.”
However, at the end of the article, Sue shares her disappointment at the loss of "M*A*S*H."
“They don’t show ‘M*A*S*H’ anymore,” Sue said. “But we haven’t seen ‘Cheers’ yet. Maybe we’ll find ‘Cheers’ soon.”
Y'know, when I see old people say, "Maybe we'll _____ ______ soon," the blanks aren't usually filled in with "find Cheers."
Fresh off the State College scandal in which several Penn State football players crashed a party and started cracking heads, animated wax figure / head coach Joe Paterno has levied a punishment on the entire team:
He said he will have his entire team help clean up Beaver Stadium every Sunday after home games this season…
"We're all going to do it. Everybody. Not just the kids that were involved. 'Cause we're all in it together. This is a team embarrassment. I wouldn't call it anything much other than that."
I'm all for doing things together as a team, but that's hardly fair for the players who didn't get to hit people with bottles or kick students who were curled up in the fetal position. They should get a mulligan for one free ass-kicking of the dorkbomber or geekwad of their choice. Seriously, just look at those nerds, walking around like they own the place. Someone oughta learn 'em. Someone oughta learn 'em good.
