Lead By Example

The Sochi Olympics start in 3 weeks and so far all we know is that Russia doesn't want gay people acting gay on its streets. In response to that the U.S. (President Obama) named a delegation of gay athletes, chief among them Billie Jean King and figure skater Brian Boitano. King never played in the Olympics (she did coach) and Boitano wasn't even out until last week when he did so in order to accept this honor.
You see the selection of King, Boitano et al, was based on one factor, they're gay.
And that's what prompted Mario Pescante, an IOC member from Italy to say "it's absurd that a country like that sends four lesbians to Russia just to demonstrate that in their country gay rights have (been established)."
And if I had to choose sides in this debate, I would side with Pescante, but allow me to state his point a little more delicately. If the U.S. is trying to prove that gay people are equal on all counts, including and especially sporting prowess, and therefore we shouldn't judge people or select people for honors based on the sexuality.
Wouldn't it be an outrage to give such an honor only to heterosexuals? So why is it ok to give the honor to only homosexuals?
I know the counterarguments to what I am saying: we have to make an issue of this and bring attention to the harsh policies in Russia and elsewhere. Basically the pendulum is pulled to one side, that we have to pull it to the other side, past the center, if we ever want it to rest in the middle.
That seems completely logical, but I disagree. I don't see how violating the very thing you're fighting for (people and athletes should not be judged by the sexual preference) helps further your point.
In my experience, the best way to influence the behavior of others is to be the person you want them to be.
So the U.S. should have named Boitano, and the usual raft of dignitaries and brown nosers, and made its point all the same, with a little less hypocrisy.

What the Heck Happened?

One day I noticed an unusual spike in hits for the Poop.

Most of them were for the post titled "Mrs. Poop's Evening Workout." That was the post speculating about Undercover Boss coming to Retro Fitness, which did eventually happen.
As you may remember, that episode featured a horrible employee named Jackie who was fired for her behavior on the show.

I am guessing that episode recently aired for the first time in New Zealand.

Note: that original post has 25 comments (most all-time) and 3400 page views (just outside the top 10 all-time).

The NFL is Poop - Divisional Playoffs

Disappointing Weekend
Normally Divisional Playoff weekend is the best one of the year because there are four games and you are guaranteed to have the league's four best teams are guaranteed to be involved. But after a very exciting weekend all four of these games were duds. Even the two games that were technically touchdown games were only made so by late touchdowns.

A Touch of Excitement
If nothing else we did have two very exciting plays. Twice a team down by a touchdown late in the 4th quarter kicked an onside, and recovered it.
First, the Saints. They actually might have had a chance after their recovery, but when Marques Colston caught a pass, instead of stepping out of bounds, and giving Drew Brees a Hail Mary, he stepped back in bounds and threw a forward pass all the way across the field. Not how the Saints wanted their season to end.

The Saints say the play was called, but Colston obviously screwed up the execution by passing forward. And Payton also admits maybe it was called one play too early, they had time for another chance.
San Diego tried their onside with 5 minutes left, down 10, recovered it, and drove for a score (a field goal). But they couldn't stop Denver and get the ball back.

Brilliance of Belichick

I don't want to get involved on the Bill Belichick dick-sucking, but it would just be impossible for him to have this much success without being an excellent coach. The latest example would be a playoff win where the Patriots run the ball 46 times (vs. 25 passes by Tom Brady) for 234 yards and 6 touchdowns. And with guys like LeGarrette Blount, castoffs who somehow buy into the Patriot Way.

Did Anyone Else Notice?
The pants of Colts wide receiver Da'Rick Rogers? I know it was raining, so I expected his pants to be wet. But he must have also come in contac
t with some red paint from the field. Either that or he had some serious rectal bleeding? LeGarrette Blount's confrontation with the ref? After some pretty benign jawing the referee, Garth DeFelice, aggressively shoved Blount, and screamed in his face, for much longer than necessary to defuse the situation? The guys at Larry Brown Sports noticed.

One Last ScrewUp
The Colts-Patriots game was the last in the long announcing career of Dan Dierdorf. And he left us with one final flub. While talking about the play where Patriots punter Ryan Allen scopped up a bad snap at the two yard line and tried to do something with it, Dierdorf said he should have just fallen on the ball and let his defense try to stop the Colts. His actual decision to try to throw it was a poor one (though it worked out well because it was batted out of the back of the end zone for a safety), what he should have done was kick the ball, or pick it up and run with it, out of the back of the end zone. The 2 points for a safety was the least bad option available to him at the time. But Dierdorf insisted giving the Colts the ball at the 2 was his best option.
Though Allen did get hurt forcing placekicker Stephen Gostkowski to do the punting for the rest of the game.

He did have a nice moment with Greg Gumbel at the end of the game.
But my best memory of Dierdorf occurred during the heyday of Monday Night Football when Hank Williams Jr was crooning "Franl and Al and Dannnnnn..." The Raiders Napoleon McCallum suffered a brutal knee injury and a disgusted Dierdorf said (too bad that video cuts off before he says it) "Normally we hope we have as many viewers as possible but I hope the TV wasn't on in the McCallum household tonight."

Game of Next Week
New England Patriots at Denver Broncos
It's very hard to choose because I am very much looking forward to both of these games, but how can you pass up Manning v. Brady for the Super Bowl. I have little rooting interest so I will just hope it becomes a legendary game with an exciting ending.

If the Super Bowl Were Played Today
Denver Broncos 21 Seattle Seahawks 10
I just have a feeling this is Peyton Manning's year. I do think there is a good chance the 49ers pull off the upset and lose their second straight Super Bowl, but as of right now, you'd have to make Seattle the favorites. Also, I did pick San Fran and Denver for the Super Bowl way back in September [CORRECTED] so I am hoping that comes true.

Song of the Week

"You Get the Best From Me" - Alicia Myers
Just a great early 80s funk/dance song. Every once in a while I like a really long song, something you can just chill and groove to.

Off the Carpet

Boobs were not in fashion this year at the Golden Globes (I feel this is harder than it should be every single year), since Madmen wasn't nominated and we didn't have Christina Hendricks.
But luckily we found Nina Dobrev from Mrs. Poop's favorite show, Vampire Diaries showing off her Golden Globes, at not just one but two different parties on Golden Globes weekend.

How Did They Know Which Way He Was Going?

An elderly man was arrested for driving on the Wantagh Parkway Sunday night.
Troopers said they received a report of a 71-year-old driver in a white Nissan was seen traveling north in the southbound lanes at about 8:11 p.m.
State police stopped traffic and set up a roadblock where the Nissan had last been seen. When the elderly driver approached, he went past the roadblock, but he was stopped south of the Southern State Parkway, police said.
He was charged with reckless driving, speeding, failing to comply with a lawful police order and driving the wrong way.

They set up a roadblock, and he drove around it?

Weekly Picks

It's going to be very difficult now to have a 9-2 playoffs, but I am going to try.

san francisco -2 CAROLINA
Sometimes young up and coming teams need to lose to a veteran team in the playoffs before they can make their own ascension.

SEATTLE -8 new orleans
Just because the home field and the cold weather isn't a guarantee of success it doesn't mean it never works.

indianapolis +7 1/2 NEW ENGLAND
I think New England is going to win this game, but the Colts offense can put enough points on the board to keep this close, unless Luck plays like he did in the first half against the Chiefs.

BEST BET
DENVER -10 san diego
This spread is about 3 more points than I had hoped to lay, but the fact that the Chargers won this last meeting, and got lucky two weeks in a row means that Denver is probably going to pound them.

Last Week: 2-2 (3 pointa)
Season: 45-44 (36 points)
Best Bets: 1-0 (6-12)
Home Favorites: 0-2 (19-20)
Home Underdogs: 0-0 (2-1)
Road Favorites: 1-0 (12-11)
Road Underdogs: 1-0 (12-12)

ForkGate

Soon New York Mayor Bill de Blasio will issue a mandate requiring all New Yorkers to eat pizza with a knife and fork. Hizzoner visited a Staten Island pizza place, and he went to Goodfella's (good choice) but the problem is, he ate his pizza with utensils.
Nothing could be less New York, and this is the guy running the city.
The Mayor tried to say this practice is common in his ancestral homeland and folding the pizza and eating with your hands is a strictly American thing.
He's a liar, a moron and a dictator. And now he has offended my ancestral homeland.

I Hate the Eagles, But I Love the Eagles Cheerleaders

Two left over notes from the Eagles game I went to with Billy a couple weeks ago, and they both involve cheerleaders.

First, the very hot Casey, came into our suite during the second quarter to pose for pictures. As best I can tell, only the teenage son of one of the executives took her up on her offer. I wanted to, for no other reason than to be able to add the "stupid things I do because they'd make good blog posts" tag to this post, but I demurred because Bill had been worried about acting professionally among his co-workers.

Also, if you're a grown man and you take a picture with a cheerleader, there's no way to avoid looking creepy. And it seems like a self-admission that hugging up on her is the closest you'll ever get to a woman's vagina.

During halftime of the game Rachel Washburn was honored. She recently returned from her second tour of duty in Afghanistan where she served as an Army intelligence officer with a special ops combat unit.

Reaction Shots

The great thing about the internet is that it gives a home to so much content we might never have seen before. But even with all that increased content, and increased access, there are still some things that are usually off limits, such locker rooms and team meetings. But recently we've gotten some good glimpses behind the scenes.

Let's start with the Wisconsin Badgers football team watching the Packers beat the Bears in the last game of the regular season, specifically the moment of Randall Cobb's game-winning touchdown catch.



Next, we go inside the San Diego Chargers locker room after they survived the final regular season against Kansas City's backup to earn a spot in the playoffs against the Cincinnati Bengals. When Mike McCoy finishes talking you can hear a player say "we owe Cincy" and one mocks the "who dey" chant. Clearly this motivated the Bengals to kick the Chargers asses.



The coolest of these is Ric Flair speaking to the San Francisco 49ers the night before their game against the Packers. Entrance music and all.



But my favorite one is from an NBATV show following the Toronto Raptors. Here you can see their initial reaction to the Rudy Gay trade, which also sent Quincy Acy and Aaron Gray to Sacramento.

Song of the Week

"Runaway" - Steve Means
I heard this song in a store an absolutely loved it. I don't know anything about this guy because he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. There isn't even a real youtube video version of this song.

The Things We Do For TON

The poker site I use, Ultimate Poker (benefactors of my $1000 score), is owned by the same company as UFC, as the name would indicate.
Because the site is newly opened to NJ players, and UFC 169 is in New Jersey it only makes that it would give away some tickets to the event to online players.
UFC and Ultimate Poker went big, putting 1,000 pairs of tickets on the line. There are quite a lot of ways to win including winning pretty much any tournament on the site in January, or some random draws on their Facebook page and lots of other ways. Each of the Ultimate Pros had 3 pairs to give away to twitter followers who do certain things like make a video, or do something for charity, or say what you would do with a million dollars.
None of those was up my alley, so I went after Brent Hanks.
He was awarding tickets for the best joke tweeted with the hashtag "makeBrentlaugh."

But here's the problem: UFC 169 is February 1st. The same day as Duke's first trip to the Carrier Dome to play Syracuse. So I can't go. So I will give the tickets* to my only other friend who follows UFC.

You're welcome big TON.

*-assuming there is no fine print about the tickets being non-transferrable. *-assuming if anything cool happens he takes pictures and does a guest post about it.

The NFL is Poop - Wild Card Playoffs

Fuck the Cold
I only wish I had a little more confidence in my knowledge of just how overrated home field advantage is in the NFL, especially when it comes to the weather. Three outdoor games this week, and all three games were won by the road team, from the warmer climate that was supposed to be affected by the bad weather. That doesn't mean every bad weather game will be won by a road team for a Southern city, it just means that there are a million factors in determining which teams win football games, and even in the playoffs, the cold is probably in the bottom 100,000.

Which Leads Me to the Most Important Factor in Wins and Losses
In the NFL you need a quarterback who can make plays when the game is on the line. It can be with his legs, like Colin Kaepernick's 11 yard scramble on 3rd and 8 that put the 49ers in field goal position. Or it can be with his legs and his arm like Aaron Rodgers's brilliant escape and fire on 4th and 2 to Randall Cobb early in the 4th quarter that set up the touchdown that gave Green Bay the lead. Both these quarterbacks played brilliantly in this game and the only reason Rodgers lost is because his supporting case just wasn't up to snuff.

And When Your Quarterback Plays Badly, You Lose
Andy Dalton picked the wrong time to put up an absolute stinker. The Bengals actually led this game 10-7 at the half, and after a Bengals 3-and-out, San Diego scored a touchdown to take a 14-10 lead. The game was still very much in reach but then Dalton fumbled on a long run when he dove headfirst, not feet first, meaning the ball was live and the ground could cause a fumble. (RGIII did the exact same thing earlier this season.)

Then Dalton threw interceptions on the next two series (he now has 1 TD and 6 INTs in three playoff games). But San Diego still led only 20-10 and the Bengals had the ball at San Diego's 41 with under 5 minutes to go. Yes, the situation was dire, but on 4th and 3, they should have gone for the 3 yards, and taken a field goal if it were available. Instead they went deep, missed, and ended their chances to win, with 5 minutes left.

Game of the Week
Indianapolis Colts 45 Kansas City Chiefs 44
One of the greatest, most exciting, craziest games I've ever seen. It's now the second biggest comeback in playoff history after the famous Bills-Oilers game.
In order to score 35 points in one half of football everything needs to go your way, like this fumble that bounced right to Andrew Luck for the touchdown that gave the Colts the lead.

But even besides that he played a great game, got just enough collapse out of the KC defense and led his team to a huge memorable victory.

I do kind of weep for Alex Smith here. He is known as a game manager, and more derisively as Captain Checkdown, but he played a great game, 4 TDs, 0 INTs, 378 yards, a few nice deep balls (a 79-yarder to Donnie Avery), and basically a hell of a game, but his team failed him.

Shoveling It In
One of Alex Smith's other touchdowns lack the artistry of his beautiful bomb to Donnie Avery, but still accounted for 6 points. It was a back-handed shovel pass to fullback Anthony Sherman. But that wasn't the only shovel pass I saw. Andy Dalton hit a big one to Giovanni Bernard as well. And I am pretty sure I saw a couple others over the weekend. It's a pretty risky pass, but cool when it works.

Picture of the Week
Ladarius Green makes a great leaping catch over Chris Crocker (he's 6'6", Crocker is 5'11") for a touchdown.

Game of Next Week
Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots
There's no such thing as momentum but that doesn't mean the team "on a roll" never wins. Confidence does matter though and if Andrew Luck is feeling good he could fling the ball around. But he's going to have to find a different receiver because you know Belichick is going to clamp down on TY Hilton.

If the Super Bowl Were Played Today
Denver Broncos 31 Seattle Seahawks 17
Nothing much changed this week, as expected. But this week is when we separate the contenders from the pretenders, so this space could change.

Mrs. Poop in 15 Years

This new Old Spice ad may seem kind of creepy to some, but to Mrs. Poop and maybe other mothers who don't like their sons getting older, it really hits home.

Weekly Picks

A bad regular season is over but I will make up for it by nailing 9 of the 11 playoff games. I hope.

PHILADELPHIA -2 1/2 new Orleans
I believe a lot of what people are attributing to the Eagles as a 9-7 was at the beginning of the season with Vick, and even Barkley. Since Foles has taken over he has been mostly great. And there is serious reason to be concerned about the Saints on the road in cold conditions.

CINCINNATI -6 1/2 san diego
I just really like the Bengals this year and think they are a serious threat for the Super Bowl. (For the record: I'm going chalk with Denver over Seattle in the Super Bowl). I don't like the Chargers, even at their best I don't think they are better than the Bengals and they will have a hard time being at their best on the road in the cold.

san Francisco -2 1/2 GREEN BAY
I don't think the cold will hurt the 49ers as much as people think it will. The Packers might be more used to it but it will still be cold. And if the weather does have a serious impact on the way the game is played, that might actually favor the 9ers and Kaepernick as opposed to Rodgers who needs to throw it around.

BEST BET
kansas city +1 1/2 [corrected] INDIANAPOLIS
I'm picking the Chiefs here just because they lost to the Colts a few weeks back. Those things tend to even out.

Last Week: 2-3 (1 point)
Season: 43-42 (33 points)
Best Bets: 0-1 (5-12)
Home Favorites: 1-1 (19-18)
Home Underdogs: 0-0 (2-1)
Road Favorites: 0-1 (11-11)
Road Underdogs: 1-1 (11-12)

Happy New Year

2013 was a great year for the Poop. In addition to all the great sporting events, I also started a new job for more money and a shorter easier commute.
Chase started first grade, learned to swim and tie his shoes. And he made his first best friend, and now spends every day at his buddy's house playing video games. That's what childhood should be.
Julian started the year in his terrible 2s and ended them as one of the smartest, funniest, cutest kids, I've ever seen.
Mrs. Poop has overseen it all while herself changing to a new role at work and helping many parents learn to care for their newborns.
The goals for 2014: buy a house and go to Disney World (shhh! it's a secret), if we can avoid serious illness and add a few other memorable experiences in there too, it should be another great year.

Song of the Week

"Stay the Night" - Zedd
The last awesome dance song from the super-producer who brought you "Clarity."
It continues a recent trend where the DJ/producer (David Guetta, Avicii) gets credit for the song and the singer (in this case Hayley Williams from Paramore) gets second billing, or no billing at all.
If this is the first song you hear today, your 2014 is off to a pretty good start.

The NFL is Poop - Week 17

The Fickle Field Goal of Fate
With the collapse of the Miami Dolphins and the Baltimore Ravens, the San Diego Chargers controlled their own future. Beat the Chiefs, make the playoffs, lose and the 8-8 Steelers get in. Oh yeah, the Chiefs were also sitting many of their starters.
But that might have actually worked against San Diego, as motivated KC backups, Chase Daniel and Knile Davis, led the Chiefs to a 24-14 4th quarter lead.
The Chargers bounced back from that to tie the game but Daniel led a great drive to get KC into position for a 41-yard field goal attempt from Ryan Succop. A very makeable field goal, with two teams' playoffs hopes on the line.
And he missed.

But here's the rub: the NFL admits the referees missed a penalty on the Chargers on that play. It should have been an illegal procedure penalty for lining up 7 men on one side of the formation.
So they played on and the Chargers starter OT with a 9 and a half minute possession ending in a field goal. The Chiefs couldn't match it and the game was over. But we'll see these two teams again this week.

The Refs Almost Blew This One Too
With the Eagles lead 24-16 and the Cowboys driving to tie it up late in the 4th quarter the refs made an error even more egregious. After a 33-yard catch and run Jason Witten was tackled in the middle of the field, the play clock was somehow only reset to 25 seconds, instead of 40. The Cowboys couldn't get off the play in time and were penalized 15 yards. Thankfully this mistake didn't change the game too much, because the Cowboys scored anyway (on a 4th and 9 play). But they missed the 2-point conversion attempt. hey did get another chance but Kyle Orton did his best Tony Romo impression and threw an interception on the first pass of what could have been the drive to make the playoffs.
So the Eagles go to the playoffs, the Cowboys go home, but this time they don't have Tony Romo to blame. At least not for this loss.

Game of the Week
Green Bay Packers 33 Chicago Bears 28
How did he get so open? That's the question every Bears fan is asking after a sure victory and home playoff game was ripped from their hands. 4th and 8, 46 seconds left, 28-27 lead for the Bears, Aaron Rodgers scrambles, buys some time, and Randall Cobb sneaks away from the Bears secondary, Rodgers fires one, and its a 48-yard touchdown pass for the win.
I actually think there may be some karmic justice in this one as the Bears played horribly at times this season and probably didn't deserve his spot, with the stinker they put up last week in Philadelphia.
The Packers on the other hand were 5-2 when Rodgers got hurt, and went 0-4-1 in the first 5 games without him (including the game he got injured in, because he threw only 2 passes). So I'm a little more excited to watch them, even at 8-7-1 then I would be watching another lackluster Cutler performance.

Game of Next Week
Kansas City Chiefs at Indianapolis Colts
All four games this week are actually pretty interesting, but I favor this one because it's a rematch of a Colts blowout win from a weeks ago. I think the Chiefs will get their revenge.

A Brief Rant About the Redskins
Mike Shanahan deserved to be fired. I don't think he is a horrible coach but I know his son is. Kyle Shanahan's play-calling was a big reason for RGIII's regression this season. And the Redskins weren't only bad on offense.
They gave up 478 points, only Minnesota's 480 was worse. They had a historically bad special teams, 3rd worst in history covering punt returns, and 3 touchdowns among all that return yardage. Plus they turned it over 34 times. Shanahan blamed his poor performance (double digit losses in 3 of 4 seasons) on the salary cap penalties the Redskins were hit with.
Hopefully his replacement will be the beneficiary of salary cap space, a healthy quarterback and a good offensive coordinator.
He will not however reap the benefit of the 2nd pick in the draft which will go to the Rams as part of the RGIII trade.

Black Monday
Four other coaches were fired in the NFL's annual season-ending purge.
Leslie Frazier is a horrible coach but I don't think his team, with those lousy quarterbacks, would have done any better with Vince Lombardi.
Greg Schiano is a college coach whose micro-managing control everything nature was never going to work in the NFL. Jim Schwartz is another moron, but he may have been done in by talented players who just didn't play smart at the key times. Maybe the next coach can reach these guys.
If any fired coach deserved to keep his job it was probably Rob Chudzinski who wasn't given enough time (about 355 days) to build something in Cleveland.
I have no problem with Rex Ryan and Mike Smith keeping their jobs based on past success, but what has Jason Garrett ever done?

Picture of the Week
San Francisco 49ers linebakcer Dan Skuta rips off Andre Ellington's shoe and sock while trying to make a tackle.

If the Super Bowl Were Played Today
Denver Broncos 34 Seattle Seahawks 21
After everything has shaken out during the regular season these two teams are clearly the best.

Love is Blind

Brought together by a mutual love of education former Phoenix Suns point guard and current Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is married to Michelle Rhee, the former head of Washington DC public schools.

Snap, Crackle, Pop

We've been chronicling gruesome sports injuries (that's your hint squeamish Poopheads) for many years here at the Poop and nothing may ever top the Kevin Ware injury in terms of national scope because it occurred in the NCAA Tournament with millions of people watching.
But, in terms of stature of athlete, Anderson Silva, unquestionably the greatest fighter in UFC history, is the biggest star we've ever cataloged in this space.
In his rematch fight with Chris Weidman, in an effort to regain the middleweight title he gave away in March by hot-dogging, Silva, lost the first round, and then early in the second round threw a leg kick. Weidman, who ate several leg kicks in the first fight, check the kick with his shin, and Silva's leg fractured.

Here's the moment of impact:

Here you can see the bone flopping around in his leg:

Immediately Silva went down in agony:

Immediately this was compared to the Corey Hill injury because it happened in exactly the same way, but in that fight, Hill was hopping around and Joe Rogan was screaming "STOP THE FIGHT!!!"

And again, this happened to a huge star in a title fight on a PPV bought by a million people.

Silva broke his fibula and tibia and immediately had them both surgically repaired. He's 38 and will be 39 (April 14) by the time he'll be healthy enough to fight again. I fully expect him to come back, fight once more next summer/fall and rematch Weidman about a year from now. But I wouldn't be shocked if the last image of this great champion is him lying on the mat screaming in agony as his lower leg hung loosely inside his skin. But it would be very sad.