XMAS

I guess it's that time again...

What's up with Christmas?
Who's home?
When?

Will Winston be there?

Tee It Up!!

Q: If a punt is in the air while the game clock expires and the receiver signals and makes a fair catch, is the game over?

• Danny Clark, LB, Giants: "Yes."
• Madison: "Yes."
• Damon Huard, QB, Chiefs: "If the punter touched it, then the game is over."
• Ray Rice, RB, Ravens: "Yes."
• Pace: "Yes. It's an untimed play, isn't it?
• Correct answer: No, the receiving team can try a fair-catch kick.

Q: What is a fair-catch kick?

• Brendon Ayanbadejo, LB, Ravens: "The ball is put on the tee, or maybe there's a holder holding it, but there's nobody covering."
• Jarret Johnson, LB, Ravens: "You kick from the 50, off the tee. You can cover it. We've gone over it in meetings, but you don't practice it because it's the kicker kicking off a tee."
• Correct answer: A fair-catch kick is a field goal attempt following a fair catch. It can be a placekick or dropkick, but no tee may be used. It cannot be defensed.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3737653

Mano-e-Mano

Imagine this:

A hot, dusty high noon on the deserted main street of a wild-west, one horse town somewhere south of the last exit off the Information Super Highway. Folks can find it on the map next to a tiny dot labeled "Yahoo League #273750", but the locals know it by another name: Fantasy City, USA.

As the sun scorches the barren, cracked earth a solitary tumbleweed rolls drunkely down the road, bisecting two stark and dangerous looking men locked in a death stare across the twenty yards and the Week 14 that divides them.

One is tall and lanky, his black leather holster embossed with the name of the deadly weapon it lovingly cradles: "The Romosexuals".

The other, shorter with peircing blue eyes and a reddish beard like steel wool squints as the sun catches the silver star emblazoned on his chest. It reads "WALL*E-on".

A doughy shopkeeper pokes his head, turtle-like, through a crack in the front door of a general store bearing the sign "NatsRedskinsWiz4Life". In a nerve-strangled voice he squeaks, "M'good sirs. Y'all are locked in a tie atop our fair city's standin's. It don't matter a tinker's dam what happens this week. Why can't y'all just agree to a stalemate and let us peaceful folk abide here in the cellar?"

"Man's got point." Says the shorter of the two gunfighters, and he spits in a high arc frightening the shopkeeper back into the doorway.

"I reckon he does" answers the taller. "How you figure we oughtta settle this?"

A long, tense moment passes. You can hear the buzzards ripping the flesh from the "Absentee Ballots" off beyond the edge of town. After years of starvation, it's amazing there's anything but sun-bleached bone left.

"How bout a duel?" The shorter and more handsome of the two offers. "You choose one player and bench the rest. I'll do the same. Mano-e-mano. May the best man win. Makes no difference who comes out on top this week. We're both locked inta a first round bye. Whatcha say?"

Another long mintue passes. You can hear the rusty gears grinding the thought into grist in the tall man's head. He squints against the blazing sun.

"Well? Whataya say, Phil?"

An intriguing possibility...

Gents,

If you take a gander at the standings at the Big East and the ACC, there exists the makings of a great weekend at the end of December.

Currently, UC sits atop the Big East while Florida State is battling for supremacy in the ACC's Atlantic Division. Should the right combination of events occur, they could very well meet in the Meinieke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, NC at 1PM on December 27th.

Hmmmm...who do I know that is either a college football fan, a UC enthusiast, a Seminole fan, or a new resident of the greater-Charlotte metro area?

Tickets look to start at about $40. Set your mind abrewin' on it.

You Throw Like a Girl

In case anyone was feeling particularly big headed or confident about their athletic abilities, this article should bring you back down to earth. Apparently a 16 year old girl (5' 115 lbs) was drafted by a professional Japanese team because she has a nasty knuckleball. I wonder how the undrafted guys on her high school team feel?

Melrose Place

In case you forgot, hockey is still being played at a professional level in the United States. In fact, on New Year's Day the Friendly Confines will host the Blackhawks and Red Wings (if anyone is interested I'd be willing to explore this more).

But I was deeply troubled when I learned today that Barry Melrose was fired after 14 games as the head coach in Tampa Bay. While I suspect that it was mullet-related, I have to ask: How bad could it have been after only FOURTEEN GAMES!? They were 4-5-1 in their last 10 games. And for those who remember the first Mighty Ducks, that means you're only inches away from being 6-2-1 or 7-3-0. WTF?

As someone who now works in labor relations, I have to say this is ridiculous. What kind of message does this send about job seccurity? Granted, the role of a hockey coach is mystifying to me, but I know that Scotty Bowan was worshipped like a god. What did he do so right and Mr. Party in the Back do so wrong?

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Goodell? Good God!

So, I think now that we've spent some time in the Roger Goodell era of the NFL, it might be the time to take a look at how it's affected both our favorite team, and the league as a whole. (Dav, I don't want to hear about the 'Skins. Ian, you're excused.)

Tagliabue had gotten a pretty bad rep there at the end, and the league itself, as Bengals fans well know, had devolved into day care for millionaire man-children behaving badly. Drunken boating, smoking pot and screwing around with teenagers, establishing and running vast dog-fighting networks in the greater-Atlanta area, eating only McDonalds in the offseason (I'm looking at you, Ocho-Cinco). These are all things that all of us would love to spend our time doing, but we don't. Because it's not appropriate or even moral. I think it's safe to say we left all that behind in college, right? But not NFL superstars.

So in comes the new sheriff, and while things haven't calmed down entirely, there are certainly less reported incidents. But wait, there's bad news.

The bizarre, off-field antics have been muted somewhat, in favor of odd, totalitarian 1984-esque "the rules are the rules and I reserve the right to change the rules at any time without notice" power plays by the upper-management of the sport. Here's a Deadspin post that goes into it slightly. Everyone gets fined for everything, no one knows what's ok and whats verboten, and Hines Ward gets two fines for normal hits, but NOTHING for a career-threatening shot on Bengals rookie LB Keith Rivers. They say the hit was clean, which I think is debatable.

That isn't the only example, obviously. Justin Tuck, Adrian Wilson, and this bizarre episode that's also chronicled in the Deadspin post, wherein Andrew Whitworth and John Henderson are fined equally for an episode that pretty clearly started and ended with Henderson:



So what's the deal? Have we exchanged an ineffectual doormat of a commissioner with a mad despot who rules the league with all the stability of Kim Jong-Il? Or is this just part of the transition from lawless Mad Max wasteland NFL to an Aldous Huxley sports league?

I'm putting the question to the House. I believe that part of the NFL's appeal is its reputation as the "Wild West" among major sports (sorry, hockey), and Goodell is trying to introduce order into a situation which is always going to reject it. Do you guys think we're going to see major changes? Or is Goodell's entire tenure going to be known as the period of arbitrary fines and confused players taking their frustration out on each other?

Sub-question: Has Goodell helped or hurt the Bengals, or were they always destined to collapse like this?