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Tecmo Super Bowl returns
As if there isn’t already enough reason to look eagerly to the return of spring, Tecmo Bowl is coming to the Xbox 360 and the PS3 Spring 2010.
Tecmo Super Bowl was a game that came out in the late 80’s or the early 90’s — I don’t remember which — and it was 16-bit goodness. When I played the Los Angeles Raiders and I controlled Bo Jackson, I was literally unstoppable. It was a lot of fun.
Unlike the current Madden game franchise, you didn’t have to be a football genius to play it. In fact, a lack of knowledge of all things football might have actually been an advantage. You didn’t have to take note of the safeties before the ball snapped. You didn’t have to look for the blitz. You just played. It was fun.
Tell me something I did not already know
The Wall Street Journal did a study that showed in the average NFL football game, the ball is actually only live for about 11 minutes. Most of the nearly three hours it takes to play a professional football game in the NFL is spent just standing around waiting for play to begin.
To be perfectly honest, I’m actually surprised it’s that much.
If you have ever watched a real football game (soccer) you will quickly realize just how much of American football is spent doing absolutely nothing. In soccer, the ball is constantly in play. Time does not stop, even for injury. The ball gets kicked out of bounds by either team and then the injured player is attended to. The officials decide how much time was spent attending to the injured player and that time is added to the end of the half or the end of the game.
In soccer, the only commercials are at halftime.
The first year I started watching the English Premiere League, I could not even watch the NFL. The thing that struck me the most was just how much time is spent in an NFL game where the coaches are shown standing on the sideline. When I watch a sporting event, I want to see competition between athletes. I don’t want to see a middle-aged white guy with a perturbed look on his face.
Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly quits to accept a ‘dream job’ at Notre Dame
Football coach Brian Kelly has been lured away from the undefeated, BCS ranked no. 3 Cincinnati Bearcats to coach the unranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Cincinnati will be playing in the Sugar Bowl without Kelly on the sidelines. Not only did Kelly quit on his school and his team, he did so before they had a chance to play in the biggest football game in school history.
This just makes no sense to me.
Granted, the job of college football coach is one of the most dishonest and corrupt professions a person can have. It’s right up there with used car salesman and military recruiter. I just don’t understand why the NCAA allows coaches to up and leave their program before the college football season is over to take another job at another school. Players cannot do that. If a player wants to leave and go to another school, he must sit out one complete season.
Brian Kelly is saying that coaching Notre Dame is his “dream job”. I wonder if he ever told the University of Cincinnati that. I don’t really quite understand the fascination so many of these white coaches have with Notre Dame. It’s just a Catholic college in Indiana that pretends to be better than every other college.
His former players at Cincinnati are both upset and hurt by the move. Kelly didn’t inform the team that he was abandoning them until after news of the hiring went public. Some are saying that he is dishonest. One former Cincinnati player said that Kelly’s actions were “cowardly”.
I cannot help but agree.
How about those Raiders?
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
They’ve only beat four teams this season. It’s a shame Pennsylvania doesn’t have any more teams in the NFL for the Raiders to play.
I “watched” the game yesterday on the Raiders official website while I was really watching the Saints beat the Redskins on the TV. The Raiders game was actually exciting, waiting for the browser screen to update with the down and the field position. I was so focused on the actual field position that I didn’t even notice that the Raiders had scored with less than two minutes on the clock. I showed Sheri that they now had the ball on the 2 yard line and she had to point out that they had scored.
The ball was on the two yard line for the extra point.
Journeyman quarterback Bruce Gradkowski had a phenomenal game yesterday. He went 22 for 33 for 308 yards with no picks. He also threw 3 touchdowns. His quarterback rating yesterday was 121.8. I’d be lying if I really knew how that was formulated. All I know is that anything over 100 is pretty stinking good.
I grew up a Raiders fan, but my love for the Silver and Black has faded since I’ve been living in Maryland. At least I thought it did. I felt my fandom for the team rekindle while back home on vacation this past summer. I saw all the Raiders swag in the stores and it took me back to my youth.
My blog posts are dishonest?
I had a few people leave comments on yesterday’s post about World Soccer Daily going off the air that I felt the need to delete. To say that deleting comments here is a rare occurrence is a huge understatement.
I don’t employ comment moderation and I generally allow people to say what they want in the comment section, as long as they are the ones actually saying it. What I don’t appreciate is when someone simply pastes the words of someone else from another blog or website into my comment section.
I usually delete these comments as spam.
This morning I received an email from one of the people who left comments yesterday that I had to delete. In his message to me, he encouraged me to post his email. I’ve decided to do that as well as reply to it.
Horace Steenblatter wrote:
From: Horace Steenblatter (hsteenblatter@yahoo.co.uk)
To: rick@bentcorner.com
Date: Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 7:19 AM
Subject: Your blog posts are dishonestYou are not deleting “something negative someone on another blog wrote concerning Steven Cohen.” You have repeatedly deleted comments that I’ve left under my own name which consisted of nothing but Cohen’s own words and Chelsea FC’s response to Cohen’s words. If you were actually concerned with disseminating factual information, you would let Cohen’s words speak for themselves rather than posting dishonest information which only contain a partial account of his words. How in the world is a post about Steven Cohen’s words “not the place” for Steven Cohen’s words?
Horace, your comments were not the only ones I felt the need to delete yesterday. Not that what you were actually leaving comments. You were simply pasting statements from other blogs and websites dedicated to getting Steven Cohen “fired” from his own radio show because he shared an opinion.
That’s what radio talk show hosts do in this country. They share opinions. Nobody says that you have to agree with it. Nobody says that you have to listen to it. Nobody says you have to like it.
I’ve posted the actual quote that got Steven Cohen in trouble with Liverpool supporters. You or anyone else re-posting it in the comment section is at best, unnecessarily redundant. It’s also not even important. Cohen only voiced his opinion about an historical event. People shouldn’t be shut down or threatened with physical harm because of their opinion.
At least not in the United States of America.
Furthermore, the comment section of my blog is not for you or anyone else to treat as their own personal blog. If you want to re-post content from other blogs or other websites, get your own blog and do it there.
Do not do it here.
Maybe Brett Favre just hates living in Mississippi
Once again, Brett Favre has decided to come out of retirement and return to the NFL. This time the former Green Bay Packers star quarterback is returning to the NFC and will be playing for the Minnesota Vikings. Last year he came out of retirement to play for the New York Jets.
The Vikings reportedly signed Favre to a two-year contract, paying him $12 million this year and another $13 million next year if he remains with the team that long.
Will Favre ever stayed retired? He’s 39 years old. That’s 104 in professional football player years.
Maybe the reason Favre is constantly changing his mind about retirement is because he just doesn’t want to live in Mississippi. It seems like he retires, goes back home to Mississippi, and then decides that he wants to play some more football. Maybe he just hates living in Mississippi.
Can anyone really blame him?
Maybe next time he retires, he ought to pack up the family and move somewhere else. Someplace that’s not Mississippi. If I had his money and could live anywhere in the world, I’d move to Santa Barbara, California.
I certainly wouldn’t live in Mississippi.
Football coach suspended 30 days for saying ‘little faggot dance’
University of Hawaii football coach Greg McMackin has been suspended by the school for 30 days and will take a cut in pay for repeatedly using a gay slur during a Western Athletic Conference media day Thursday in Salt Lake City.
McMackin was referring to last season’s Hawaii Bowl when he said Notre Dame University’s team did a “little faggot dance” for Hawaii during a banquet the night before the game. Players from the University of Hawaii performed a haka, a traditional Hawaiian dance.
This is the same homophobic school that changed it’s logo from a rainbow to a letter “H” in 2000 because of the rainbow’s connection to the gay and lesbian community. Hugh Yoshida, the school’s athletic director said concerning the change, “It’s part of the gay community, their flags and so forth. Some of the student athletes had some feelings in regard to that.”
I actually think the new logo looks better, but that’s beside the point. They didn’t change the logo because they thought their existing logo looked stupid. They did it because they were worried people would think they were associated with the gay community. It would be like if Florida State changed it’s logo because they didn’t want people thinking they supported the Seminole Tribe in Florida.
Suspending their football coach because he used the word faggot is hypocritical on their part. He sounds like the perfect coach for them.
When did LaDainian Tomlinson win a championship?
I saw this book, LT & Me: What Raising a Champion Taught Me about Life, Faith, and Listening to Your Dreams, sitting in the book store yesterday. It’s written by Loreane Tomlinson, mother of San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson. The book insinuates that LaDainian Tomlinson is a champion.
The thing is, he’s not.
He’s never won a Super Bowl. In fact, he’s never even played in a Super Bowl. I’m sure he’s watched one, but who hasn’t?
If he’s never won a Super Bowl, why is his mother identifying herself as the mother of a champion?
In case you’re wondering, LaDainian Tomlinson didn’t win a championship in college either. He played college ball at Texas Christian. They’ve never won the national championship.
Maybe he won a championship in high school. If that’s the case, why isn’t he wearing his high school jersey instead of his San Diego Chargers jersey?
I’m not trying to knock LaDainian Tomlinson. I think he’s a fine NFL running back – as long as he’s playing in the regular reason. In the postseason, he tends to disappear, unless the TV camera pans the bench.
He’s just not a champion. I don’t see how his mother can write a book where she claims that she raised a champion.
Real football coming to Baltimore
Two of the world’s top football teams, Chelsea of the English Premier League (EPL), and A.C. Milan, from Italy’s top division, are coming to Maryland to play on exhibition in Baltimore on July 24.
I can’t begin to describe just how excited I am about this. I ordered tickets from Ticketmaster as soon as I read about it. I went ahead and purchased two of the fancy $175 VIP tickets. It allowed us to get two seats five rows up from the field along with access to the pre-game party tent before the game. It also allows us to watch both teams practice the day prior to the game. I’m not sure if we will be making the practice or not. I bought the VIP tickets because I wanted us to get the very best seats possible. When will we ever be able to see Chelsea and A.C. Milan play again? Probably never.
Chelsea is one of the teams in the EPL that I love to hate. They are owned by a Russian mobster and other than German midfielder Michael Ballack, I pretty much despise every player on Chelsea. A.C. Milan has Brazilian superstar Kaká, probably the world’s greatest football player.
We went to Washington D.C. to watch the U.S. National team defeat the Cuban National team in a qualifier for the 2010 World Cup. It was an awful game played in a run down, awful stadium. Many of the Cuban players had defected before the game. Some of the fans in attendance were making asses of themselves by throwing their expensive, watery stadium beers into the air and lighting smokes bombs every time the U.S. team scored.
Hopefully none of that crap will be going on in Baltimore.
The only football game I’m looking forward to watching today
Most of my fellow Americans are looking forward to watching the Arizona Cardinals (9-7) face off against the Pittsburgh Steelers (12-4) in tonight’s Super Bowl. Though I may (or may not) watch the Big Game™ between these two teams, I could honestly care less who wins. Neither team was the best team this past season. That distinction belongs to the Tennessee Titans (13-3).
Six other teams in the NFC had either better or equal records compared to the the Cardinals. Three teams in the AFC had records either better or equal when compared to the Steelers.
I’ve never put much stock into the Super Bowl. Only occasionally does the winner of the Super Bowl represent the best football team that year. The purpose of the Super Bowl is not to separate the very best from the best football teams in the league, it’s to separate as much money from TV networks, advertisers, gamblers, and attendees as possible.
It’s all about the money.
The football game I’m looking forward to watching today doesn’t involve the NFL. It involves two teams that play real football, Lazio and AC Milan of the Italian football league. Normally we only watch the English Premier League, but now that David Beckham is finally playing (and scoring) for AC Milan, it will be an interesting game to watch.
Something to think about before sitting down to enjoy the Super Bowl
American style football is extremely damaging to the people that play it. Specifically, it’s extremely damaging to their brains.
The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE) has studied brain tissue collected from retired NFL players collected after they have died and the results show that the long term brain damage sustained from concussions is far worse than what was earlier believed.
Of course the NFL is planning on conducting their own study of the long term effects of concussions and I’m sure their findings will be the complete opposite of the CSTE. In fact, their “independent” study will probably show that concussions are actually good for the brain.
It should really be no surprise that helmet-to-helmet collisions between two NFL players is causing damage to their brains. Perhaps when a player needs to be carted off the field strapped to a stretcher, it should be a clue that we need to find something less dangerous to our fellow man to entertain ourselves with.
I used to enjoy watching professional wrestling. I of course knew it was fake, but that was one of the reasons I enjoyed it. It was theater. Something happened that ruined it for me. It was the pay-per-view when Owen Hart fell from the rafters in Kansas City and as a result of his injuries from hitting the top rope, he died. We were watching that event live. The thought that someone died while trying to entertain me troubled me. I never felt the same way about professional wrestling again. It was not a conscious decision. It was just something I felt.
I don’t want to think that someone has to be harmed so I can be entertained. I definitely don’t want to think that someone is getting brain damage. How about you?
Link (CNN)
NFL tries to strong arm cable companies into carrying the NFL Network
Last night the Baltimore Ravens played the Dallas Cowboys down in Texas and won the game, 34-24. I only know this because I was able to read about it on the Internet. Even though the NFL decided over a decade ago that the Baltimore Ravens were officially my local team, I could not watch the game last night. It was not shown on any of the channels I can get on TV. The game was televised exclusively by the NFL Network. My cable provider, Antietam Cable, like most cable providers, refuses to carry the NFL Network.
I would have liked to watch the game last night. Both teams are fighting for a spot in the playoffs. Last night’s game was the final game to be played in Texas Stadium. Starting next year, the Dallas Cowboys will be playing in a new stadium. The game had some real significance.
By only showing the game on the NFL Network, the NFL is attempting to ratchet up the pressure on cable companies like Antietam Cable to carry the NFL Network. They somehow think that if they irritate and enrage enough people like me by not allowing us to watch our local team, we will somehow force cable companies to buckle. It’s not going to happen. There is nothing I can do to make Antietam Cable carry the NFL Network. I’ve written emails. I’ve signed petitions. They still refuse to carry the NFL Network.
Continuing to withhold NFL football games from me is not going to do anything other than to piss me off.
Let this be a warning to football hippies everywhere
For a few years now it’s been somewhat popular for football players to grow their hair really long and to fashion said hair into dreadlocks. The hair then protrudes out the back of the helmet. Sometimes it’s so long that it even covers up the player’s name.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if one of these hippie players got tackled by a defender pulling their hair. It looks like I got my answer.
Here we see Louisville’s Travis Norton tackle Rutgers’ Jourdan Brooks by yanking down on the dreadlocks. Take that hippie!
I don’t think this tackle would be legal in the NFL. Unfortunately it would most likely be considered a horse collar tackle. They’ve been banned in the NFL for a few years now. I don’t think they’re banned in the NCAA. Maybe the NFL could make an exception for hippies.
I don’t like hippies.
Both teams will wear home jersey in this weekend’s USC-UCLA game
USC coach Pete Carroll told the media and his team this past Monday that they well be wearing the dark crimson jersey when they play UCLA in the Rose Bowl this weekend. Because it’s an actual NCAA rule that the home team is to wear a dark jersey and the visiting team must wear the white jersey, USC will be penalized once in each half they wear the dark jersey. The penalty carries a loss of one time out.
Evidently this is a tradition with USC and UCLA. It was last done in 1982. I don’t ever remember it.
Personally, I think it’s kind of cool. Both schools play in the same city. Though technically the Rose Bowl is UCLA’s home field, both teams represent Los Angeles. I garuntee you that at least one point in the game, the camera will focus on some fan in the stands wearing a hybrid jersey that is made from both a USC jersey and a UCLA jersey.
I don’t know of any other two college football teams that share a city. I guess the closest thing would be North Carolina and Duke in college basketball. [Rivals]
Wow, the Lions really suck
Like a good American I’m watching the first NFL game between the Tennessee Titans and the Detroit Lions. I cannot believe just how bad the Lions really are. Granted, I realized before this game that they were a whopping 0-11 for the season. If anything, they are even worse than their meager record suggests.
Why than are they even on national TV?
I know that they have always been shown on TV on Thanksgiving Day and it’s some sort of tradition, but enough is enough. The NFL should have yanked them from their Thanksgiving Day obligation years ago. You don’t showcase your worst team on national TV for the entire country to watch.
I have to hand it to Lions fans. It looks as though the stadium is packed with people. It’s not like they don’t have anything better to do. It takes a lot to be a Lions fan in 2008.
Ray Lewis is a thug
I watched the beginning of the Ravens/Steelers game on Monday Night Football. Though I didn’t get to watch most of the game, I did get to see the pre-game coverage including Raven’s linebacker Ray Lewis give one of his infamous “pep talks” to his teammates.
Lucky me.
He screamed to his teammates, “Whenever someone touch the ball, someone’s getting knocked out.” I didn’t attend the University of Miami like Ray Lewis did, but I think what he said was grammatically incorrect.
Not that I should be the one to criticize anyone’s grammar.
It’s also completely stupid. If he wants to knock someone out, maybe he needs to forgo football and become a boxer or a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter. Knocking someone out is actually one of the intended goals in either one of those two sports. That is not the case in football.
In the opening kickoff, Steelers special team player Andre Frazier lay motionless on the field with a suspected spin injury. The game was delayed while medical personnel removed his face mask with a screwdriver and strapped him to a backboard. He was then removed from the field on a cart.
Watching at home, it was a scary thing to see. I can only imagine what his friends and family were thinking while watching Frazier being strapped to a backboard and taken off the field.
What about Ray Lewis? Did it make him happy? In the world of Ray Lewis, is a spinal injury even better than a knockout?
It turns out that Andre Frazier is fine. In fact, he may even play in the Steelers next game. Unfortunately, injuries are part of the game. They are an unfortunate byproduct of the game being played at it’s highest level. That doesn’t mean players should step on to the field with the intention of injuring their opponent, especially when the intended injury is a brain injury. That’s what a knockout is. It’s an injury to the brain.
Does Ray Lewis even know that?
I always knew John Elway was kind of a dick
The four-letter sports network is reporting the Hall of Fame Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway is engaged to a 41-year year old former Raiders cheerleader. According to the The Denver Post, Elway met Paige Green three years ago at a Los Angeles celebrity golf tournament.
What’s a former Raiders cheerleader even doing at a “celebrity” golf tournament? That makes me wonder just how celebrity the tournament was.
I find this news somewhat shocking in that the last I heard, Elway was happily married to the mother of his four children. In fact, I remember something about his wife being a colon cancer survivor. For all I know, they divorced a long time ago and Raiderette Paige Green had nothing to do with the break up. I would go look it up on Wikipedia, but I would hate to find out that Elway didn’t dump his cancer surviving wife for this woman.
This is just wrong. Raiders, even former Raiders cheerleaders, don’t have sex with Broncos. It’s unnatural and perverted. It’s an abomination. If she is going to do John Elway, it makes we question just how committed to the Silver and Black she ever was. Paige Green is bringing great shame to the once proud football franchise.
I hate John Elway. [ESPN]
Are you ready for some football?
Today starts the begining of the NFL 2008 season even though technically it sort of began this past Thursday when the 2007 Superbowl Champions the New York football Giants beat the Washington Redskins.
I was planning on watching the local Baltimore Ravens lose to host the Cincinnati Bengals, but the TV listings show that our CBS station is showing the New York Jets play the Miami Dolphins. Thus begins the obsurditiy of watching sports in the central Maryland region.
Perhaps it’s for the best. Normally watching the Ravens play football is a lot like taking four Excedrin PM’s and turning the thermostat up to 85 degrees. To say that their games are boring makes them sound more exciting then they really are. Watching a game where the final score is 9 – 6 might be fun to watch if it’s baseball. It’s not so fun when it’s football. It’s even less fun when, because of geography, the team you are rooting for is the one with only six points.
Update: I just checked the TV listings again and the Bengals vs. Ravens game is now showing up on the non-HD CBS channel. The HD CBS channel is still showing Jets vs. Dolphins. Watching non-high definition football like people did back in the olden times is like drinking warm non-alcoholic beer or eating a tuna sandwich made with fat-free mayonnaise.
I do not understand this commerical
I saw this commercial last night while watching Monday Night Football. I don’t get it. I guess it’s to promote the NFL football video game Madden 09. The only problem is that the last thing I feel like doing after watching this commercial is to play Madden 09.
I want to take the person featured in this commercial (code name “Secret”) and beat him over the head with his own shoe.
This guy has got to be the most obnoxious punk I think I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen quite a few obnoxious punks in my lifetime. He is supposedly the world’s best Madden player. This guy. This guy who appears to be humping the ground. This guy that looks like he is wearing his dad’s red jersey. This guy that makes weird faces at his opponent.
Why would anyone from either Sony (Playstation 3) or EA Sports (Madden 09) want this spot to air on the TV to promote their products?
NBC hires Dan Patrick
Looks like Dan Patrick has got himself a new job. From the New York Times:
Dan Patrick, who left ESPN last year to create his own syndicated radio program and write a column for Sports Illustrated, will join NBC Sports where he will be reunited with Keith Olbermann to call the NFL highlights on “Football Night in America.” NBC is scheduled to make the announcement at 2 p.m. Eastern.
NBC is looking to recreate the chemistry and quirky humor that Patrick and Olbermann demonstrated when they were co-anchors on ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” which they dubbed “The Big Show.” Olbermann joined “Football Night” last year, but is best known now as the host of MSNBC’s nightly “Countdown” program.
Recreate the chemistry? I’d argue that any chemistry the two co-hosts had was before people realized Olbermann could be such a narcissistic, misogynistic douche bag. He didn’t have any of his politically polarizing “Special Comments” back when he was on ESPN. I’m not sure adding Patrick to the mix is going to help. Olbermann is clearly not the same person he was in during this stint at ESPN.
Not that I really understand the attraction of NFL football on Sunday night. I don’t get to watch NFL football on Sunday night. I live on the east coast and I work for a living. I can’t stay up till midnight on a Sunday night to watch football.
I thought I knew what choking was, but then I watched Turkey beat the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic was up 2-0 with 15 minutes left in regulation. They had arguably one of the best goal keepers in the world with Petr Cech in front of the net. Turkey didn’t stand a chance, right?
Wrong.
This has got to be one of the most exciting soccer games I’ve ever seen. Unbelievable.
It even included Volkan Demirel, the Turkish goal keeper receiving a Red Card in the final seconds requiring him to remove his distinctive goal keeper jersey and leave the field. A Turkish defender then had to put on his sweaty jersey and Hamburger Helper gloves and take on the goal keeping chores.
Exciting!
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