The Two-Day Hangover: Two Weeks Worth Of Losses, One Week's Worth Of Posting

Every day on my way to work, I pass the Arkansas School for the Deaf, where I see this:

I have SO many questions about the thought process that led to the adoption of that mascot.

Did no one know that there was a band by the same name, almost like Dr. Evil’s reference to "The Alan Parson’s Project"?

Did no one think it was odd for your mascot to remind people of a rock band when listening to rock (or any) music is probably not high on the list of hobbies for the members of your team?

Did everyone actually realize all of this and do it anyway as some sort of mascot-based meta humor?

I post this picture for two reasons:  First, because it's all kinds of awesome.  Second, because, whatever the answers to those questions, this mascot decision still makes FAR more sense than Gary Kubiak's strategy for Arian Foster.

Adventures In Idiocy, Troll Edition.

You know why I like Big Blue Shoe?

Trick question: I don’t like him. Not even a little bit, actually. I think he’s a mediocre writer, and I have about as much respect for his work as I do for Dane Cook’s.

Part of the reason Brad is so unlikable is because he writes inane tripe like:

This is the second year in a row Gonzo has landed on IR. Both injuries were knee injuries. In this case, his injury was a result of a dirty hit by known dirt bag Bernard Pollard of the Houston Texans. At some point, one has to assume that Pollard will 'get his.' I don't think Roger Goodell thinks well of an untalented nobody knocking out players like Tom Brady and Gonzo for entire seasons.

Where to begin? How about with the idea that there is such a category as "players like Tom Brady and Gonzo"? Unless the group we are speaking about is the entire universe of NFL players, I can’t come up with an equivalence that would make Brad’s point about Goodell’s feelings make sense.

Beyond that, however, Brad’s assertion that Pollard is a "dirt bag" or that he injured Gonzalez with "a dirty hit" is just stupid.

Here’s the play in question:

Was Gonzalez heading out of bounds? Most likely. Still, he had just slipped a tackle by Eugene Wilson (making him the 1,323,626th person to do so this season!), and he had his eyes upfield and his shoulder lowered to take the hit from Pollard. No, he was not likely to knock Pollard over and continue upfield, but Pollard sees his break a tackle and then look up field. Rather than blow Gonzalez up, which is what I hoped for (both because I hate the Colts and because I hate Ohio State), Pollard just rode him down from behind.

Yes, the tackle occurred about six inches out of bounds, and I would have had no legitimate gripe if Pollard had been flagged for it. That he wasn’t, however, certainly lends some credence to the idea that it was not a "dirty hit" and, by extension, that anyone who would claim it was a dirty hit is a mindless troll.

Let's be honest with ourselves: Gonzalez got hurt not because some "dirt bag" delivered a "dirty hit," but because he’s a huge wuss who manages to get hurt with such a regularity that the Colts should probably lobby for a roster exception for him when he is healthy. ("Yes, Gonzalez is active as he is still on Uninjured Reserve, but he doesn’t count against the 53-man roster because his UR status is subject to change at any minute.")

(Also, in a bit of shameless self-promotion, I’m using this reference to BBS to link to this post I did about Little Red Mitten rather than to actually link to Stampede Blue.)

578.

Cumulative winning percentage of Texans’ 8 remaining 2010 regular season opponents.

1.

Number of remaining opponents who have a losing record.

Australian For "Underused."

Going into last week’s game against the Colts, I wrote:

Whether all Foster or a combination of Foster and Ward, if Houston doesn’t run the ball at least 20 times in the first half against Indianapolis and force Indy to prove that they can stop something that they absolutely could NOT stop in week 1, the entire coaching staff should be fired at halftime, and DeMeco should coach the remainder of the game.

I have this sinking feeling that Houston is going to over-"think" things, assume that Indy will be looking for them to run, and come out throwing early and often. Except I’m pretty sure Indy was looking for them to run at some point in the second half in week one, and we saw how that turned out. Don’t reinvent the wheel, Gary; run the ball until they prove that they can stop it, and then exploit the weaknesses that Indy’s adjustments to the run will open up in the passing game. Please?

What happened? The game started off with this:

3-J.Kapinos kicks 58 yards from IND 30 to HST 12. 12-J.Jones to HST 32 for 20 yards (49-C.Vaughn, 52-C.Glenn).
1-10-HOU 32 (14:56) (Run formation) 8-M.Schaub pass short left to 80-A.Johnson to HST 43 for 11 yards (20-J.Tryon).
1-10-HOU 43 (14:25) (Run formation) 8-M.Schaub pass incomplete short left to 85-J.Dreessen.
2-10-HOU 43 (14:21) (Run formation) 8-M.Schaub pass incomplete short right to 80-A.Johnson. ---Timeout #1 by HST at 14:12.
3-10-HOU 43 (14:12) (Shotgun) 8-M.Schaub sacked at HST 37 for -6 yards (93-D.Freeney)
4-16-HOU 37 (13:45) 1-M.Turk punts 38 yards to IND 25, Center-46-J.Weeks. 15-B.White to IND 40 for 15 yards (53-S.Keglar, 57-K.Bentley).

Kubiak then proceeded to run Arian Foster --- who averaged 7 ypc (on 33 carries!) against the Colts the first time and wound up averaging 6.8 ypc against them the second time --- eight times in the first half (and added one Derrick Ward carry).  In total, Foster ran the ball 15 times, Ward ran twice, and Kubiak stubbornly continued to call pass play after failed pass play.

Fast forward to this past Sunday. Foster racked up 99 yards on 18 carries in the first half, and he was, by all accounts, the Texans’ best weapon all day long. So, of course, Kubiak decided to give him 9 carries in the second half.

Wait … what?

It was almost as if, somewhere in Kubiak’s Aggrificial Intelligence software, an alert sounded: Danger! Danger! If Foster continues to dominate, we’ll look even more foolish for not running him against Indy! ABORT! ABORT! ANIMAL HUSBANDRY IS THE ONLY FORM OF TRUE LOVE THAT WE RECOGNIZE!

Weird Random Stat That Says More About My Sample Size Than About Timobi McOye’s Irrational Hatred (But Still Kinda Says Something About That, Too).

Over the last four games, Mario Williams has fewer sacks (.5) than Amobi Okoye (1.5). He also has fewer tackles (9) than does Okoye (15). Of course, Okoye’s full sack came at the end of a win and prevented a Hail Mary pass, while Mario’s half-sack came in the first half of a game we ultimately lost, but, you know, whatever.

(Note: The NFL.com stats show Mario with one sack Sunday, but the play-by-play I linked above and the television broadcast both credited Okoye with half of it. I’m going with the latter, primarily because it makes my post more awesomer.)

(Other note: Yes, I pretty much only did this item so that I could bust out the "Timobi McOye" joke.)

Now, For Some Mario Love.

In his career, he has 33 games with at least .5 sack, and he has 10 games with more than 1 sack. Over that same time period (2006 to present), Dwight Freeney has 29 games with at least .5 sack, and he has 10 games with more than 1 sack. Yes, Freeney missed six games in there --- though that is also a testament to Mario’s durability --- but I don’t ever hear anyone questioning Freeney’s play.

Today, In Midget-Related Awesomeness.

 

I thought the cameraman doing a spot-on impersonation of Larry Merchant was a nice touch, too.

Marijuana Pepsi Sawyer Inexplicable Decision of the Week (Other Than The Decision Not To Run Arian Foster More Often).

Much like the decision to name a child "Marijuana Pepsi," Travis Johnson’s decision to shave his massive cranium borders on one of his worse decisions. And we’re talking about a man who screamed at a QB who could have been dead.

Travis, old pal, what in the world were you thinking? I mean, didn't you hear: God don't like ugly!

Adventures In Idiocy, Zebra Edition.

I had just started to write a rant about how incredibly wrong the call that overturned Arian Foster’s TD catch was when I saw that the NFL’s Mike Pereira said the same thing. Therefore, to make my life easier, here’s what he said:

The league needs to go back to the drawing board to figure out what is a catch when you are going to the ground. This play was reversed to an incomplete pass and I thought it should have stayed a touchdown. This is an example of the confusion surrounding this area of the game.

To me, this was similar to the two-point conversion in the Super Bowl last season and not the Calvin Johnson play from Detroit's first game this season. Foster was on his way to the ground and reached out with the ball in his right hand to make sure that he had broken the plane. This is the "second act" that the league has referred to in the past.

If the receiver is going to the ground but reaches out with the ball in an attempt to gain more yardage, he is deemed to have completed the catch and the ruling then becomes either a touchdown — if the end zone is involved — or a catch and down-by-contact in the field of play provided he had been touched by an opponent. If not, it would be catch and fumble. This is what happened last year in the Super Bowl when Lance Moore reached out to break the plane.

This is not what happened in the Calvin Johnson play earlier this season when the ball hit the ground and came loose as part of the process of completing the catch.

In my opinion, the ruling of touchdown should not have been reversed and this call seemed to change the complexion of the game.

(emphasis added) Oh, you think?! You think it might have changed things had the Texans only needed a field goal to win rather than a TD?

Adventures In Idiocy, BRB-Commenter Edition

A couple weeks back, when I managed to equate Gary Kubiak’s infatuation with Zac Diles with the institution of slavery (and somehow NOT be accused of being a racist), commenter DaGoat wrote:

booring [sic] The blind Diles hate on this site is getting increasingly played out and irritating to read about. Its [sic] getting to the point where I just close the particular blog whenever the next Diles rant gets started.

Now, that he wrote this is no surprise: DaGoaT has been fluffing Diles for quite a while now. If Diles hadn’t gone to K-State, which means that he could not possibly type in full sentences, I might even assume that DaGoaT was Diles undercover.

Nevertheless, despite DaGoaT’s assertions, the fact remains that over the last two weeks, Diles has gone from bad to abysmal. Coincidentally enough, the last two weeks happen to be the time frame in which he’s been asked to play more of a true WLB role, both in the nickel v. Indy and in the base 4-3 (but without TWO Pro Bowl LBs to take up his slack).

In the Indy game in particular, Diles should have had to pay Rick Smith for the privilege of being on the field, because he certainly didn’t earn any money for his play. At the risk of putting too fine a point on this, even Hellen Keller could tell you that Zac Diles is currently the worst non-Texans-DB on the field. You know, if she wasn’t dead and whatnot. It matters not if Diles "was only a seventh rounder" (quite possibly the worst non-BBS argument ever made) or if he is "cost-effective." Cost-effective smegma is still smegma, my friends.

(Also, not to step on a forthcoming Rivers post, but the numbers against Diles in coverage definitely bear this out.)

Frank Bush, You Should Listen To My Daughter.

It should surprise no one that, as I do every week, I erupted in a tirade of profanity while watching Eugene Wilson. When I was finished, my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter said, "Wilson, you are s#!tty! You go to time out!"

I ask you, how is it possible that she understands these things better than the people who are paid to make such decisions?

What?

Why are you looking at me like that? Because my daughter said "s#!tty"? Please. She only hears that kind of language during football games. If anything, I’m teaching her the proper way to observe football futility.

TXT MSGS of the Week.

Grungedave, discussing the overruling of Arian Foster’s TD catch:

They just used the rules on murder to determine whether a rape occurred. So angry.

Kerns, following the 500-yard TD to Ajiridon’tcarehowit’sspelled:

Yeah…didn’t see that coming when I saw Kareem in one on one coverage. Didn’t see it at all…

Shake, following the play where Eugene Wilson failed TWICE to tackle the WR:

I just stiff-armed Eugene Wilson from my couch. With a beer in my other hand.

Bonus: No Need For Cologne!

Via beefy, we see the future of fashion:

My only question is why the future of formal wear seems to have taken place in 1972, but we really don't want to get into time travel paradoxes again, do we?