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NFL Playoffs: Kickers Rule

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So far in the NFL Playoffs the kickers have been displaying pivotal domination.  They’re usually forgotten and disrespected. But, this year, they’ve been the ones left in the lonely high pressure spotlight.  If you look at their stats and how many points they score, you’d think they must be 6’9” and weigh 255 lbs and run like a sprinter.  In reality they might be 5’11” and weigh around 180.  Kickers never catch or even fall on a football. They only touch a football to put in on a tee. A kicker gets to wear a uniform so that a referee doesn’t think a fan ran out onto the field.  A kicker never has to hit the weight room if he doesn't want to. He doesn’t even have to wear pads. A kicker is the only guy on the team that hopes someone runs into him. That way he gets another chance to score if he misses.  You know how some guys watch their diets and wear out exercise bicycles? Kickers could eat pizza and drink beer all day as long as he splits the uprights. Nobody cares how fast he can

NFL Wild Card Weekend

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This NFL Wild Card weekend was great if you’re a football fan. I mean the NFL, and not the international game where they don’t wear pads and where the players don’t automatically collapse in a heap when someone exhales on them. Even in these days of COVID, it takes a few days before exhaling on someone results in them collapsing.  There were five games this weekend and that was enough. There is one tonight on Monday, and that is the game I’m looking forward to the most because the team that I root for, the Los Angeles Rams, are playing the Arizona Cardinals.  The Cardinals are the oldest franchise in the National Football League, having been the first team to join in 1922. They were in Chicago then, and because they don’t win very often, they were kicked from city to city until they ended up in the desert.  That said, the NFL games played this weekend ranged from entertaining to almost unwatchable.  First up was the Las Vegas Raiders against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals hadn’t w

NFL Receiver Divas

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NFL receiver divas treat Sunday like an unruly child in church. NFL receiver divas are ultra competitive and feel that all passes should go to them. When I’m playing Madden football , I always feel I need to throw to the number one wide receiver at least five times per game.That’s what they demand. As a quarterback, you’ve got to feed the number one receiver even if you have to force the pass into tight windows.  Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford fell for it recently. Last Sunday against the Ravens, Stafford threw a deep pass to Odell Beckham Jr. when he had two other receivers open underneath. By the time the bomb got to Beckham, there were three defenders on OBJ. A check-down pass would’ve gotten an easy first down. Instead, the Ravens got the ball and ultimately scored.  This is the thing with wide receivers. They are supremely confident in their abilities. It's an isolated position. They excel by getting the offensive coordinator to tell the quarterback to throw them the bal

The Beatles Get Back. A Process Of Motivation.

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There is a video  of the Beatles circulating that is extraordinary. I haven’t seen anything like it before.  It’s a clip of Paul McCartney from Peter Jackson’s reconstruction of the ill-fated Beatles Get Back project now streaming on Disney+.  In it, McCartney shows up in the morning, along with bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr as they complain that John Lennon is late again. “We’ll have to get rid of him." McCartney jabs. It’s a harbinger of things to come as the Beatles broke up later that year. Then something extraordinary happens. It's The Beatles after all. McCartney sits down and starts to noodle around on his bass guitar. Randomly strumming and scatting a melody, and, in mere seconds, a tune starts to take shape.  A caption on the screen says, ‘Feeling pressure of their approaching deadline, Paul searches for new song ideas.’ After a few seconds the now familiar strains of the Beatles song Get Back starts to emerge.  He’s being open to motivation . It’s what ha

This just in: JFK is still dead

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Of course, just when you think this society we have here in the United States couldn’t get any weirder, along comes a group that gathered in Dallas waiting for JFK Jr.. They’re followers of QAnon. A once upon a time fringe group that is no longer fringe. Some of it’s adherents almost seem downright lucid, except when they profess what they believe.  Now, don’t get me wrong. We’ve had our share of many well meaning weirdos before. Flat Earthers, Mayan calendar end of days believers, Y2K devotees, Apollo 11 moon landing deniers, Mormons and so on.  But, among QAnon beliefs, of which there are many , is the John F. Kennedy Jr. is going to emerge and proclaim that Donald Trump is still the President of the United States, and that he, JFK Jr., is now the Vice President. Together, QAnon supporters believe Trump and Kennedy Jr. will clean up the degenerates in Washington D.C. that stole the 2020 presidential election, amongst other charges .  They’ve been camped out in Dallas since this summ

The Transcendent Shohei Ohtani

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When Shohei Ohtani chose the Los Angeles Angels, it was like the baseball gods finally gave the ball club's fans a break. Not since the Angels lost out on Mark Teixeira and got the rights to draft Mike Trout as fortune shone on Angel Stadium.  Drafting Trout was a fluke of the rules. Shohei Ohtani choosing the Angels was a miracle. He did it because the club told him he could pitch and be a position player. That ruled out National League teams. Ohtani wanted to be a Dodger. But they weren’t prepared to let him do it.  In his first season, Shohei Ohtani became the first Major League Baseball player to make 10 starts as a pitcher and hit 20 home runs as a position player since Babe Ruth accomplished the feat in 1919. The Babe was not a two-way baseball player after that. His diet didn’t allow it. Shohei Ohtani was just getting started.  He has always been a meticulous conditioning zealot. As a youth in his native Japan, Ohtani became relentless and worked out hard. When drafted

NFL: The Arizona Cardinals Are For Real

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For the first time since 1947, the NFL Cardinals franchise has an actual chance to win the league championship. To say it has been a long time is an understatement. Jackie Robinson was a rookie for the Brooklyn Dodgers the last time the Cardinals won a title. It was so long ago, the team was in Chicago. They were the Chicago Cardinals! That comes as a shock to most Chicago Bears . Joe Louis was heavyweight champion of the world. A horse named Jet Pilot won the Kentucky Derby. That sounds like a fast horse. Israel wasn't a country yet. The Cardinals made a Super Bowl in 2009. The club was lead by Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald. They almost won, but were beat by the Pittsburgh Steelers on a last minute impossible pass by Ben Roethlisberger to Santonio Holmes for an equally impossible catch. Warner had one last chance but his luck finally ran out. Being out of luck is a normal state of being for the Cardinals. The team is actually the first professional American football team. T