Monthly Archives: September 2010

Brawling and Foul Balls

Sometimes the fans take center stage, and ARE the story more than the athletes at times. We saw Bo and Sarah’s foul ball fiasco give them more than their five minutes of fame, and fortunately, I think we are done with both of them. This past Friday a fight between an unruly fan at the US Open made more waves on internet forums  than the actual tennis being played. I figured it was only fitting to show you the compilation clip that someone spent some time syncing up all the camera phone videos that caught the incident. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about this jackass. I’ve never been a fan of people from the eastcoast, and this might just be another example of why…

This second clip shows us that unitentional pain is always funny. Cali4Dre’s thoughts summed it up nicely…

Three things I like about that one:

  • The HD feed looks really nice
  • The multiple replays of ball contact to forehead
  • The camera dude saying he tried to warn him, as if that made a difference

Labor Day Ramblings

Three day weekends are never a bad thing. You everything you want to in the first two days, and have an extra day to come back to the reality of knowing that tomorrow you will be heading back to work. I pretty much missed all of the first college football Saturday of the year, but fortunately the game of the week is on tonight. The Sportschump broke it down what the teams looked like, so that helped. In an attempt to get myself ready for the upcoming NFL line predictions, I figured I’d start my ramblings with my pick for the college game of the week.

Virginia Tech (+2) Over Boise State

I’m going to be rooting full force for Boise State, but in the end, I have a tough time seeing them coming out the winner. I’m not basing this pick off the players, the coaching strategies, or even team strengths. I’m mostly picking Virginia Tech because they are at home, and the underdog. Since Boise State has to travel to the other side of the country, it’s going to be an even tougher task for them than just playing a great team. I think this is one of the biggest factors that’s overlooked in a game. Teams don’t do well traveling from the westcoast (sort of) to the eastcoast in the NFL, so why should they in college?!? Hopefully this game lives up to the hype, and we get a close one. Anytime you can take the home team with points in a game that you aren’t sure who’s going to win, you do it. The Hokies win unfortunately win tonight!

Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis finally ended his holdout agreeing to a contract worth $46M for four years, with $32M of that guaranteed. He held out to get paid as much as Asomugha, but didn’t really get close to his numbers, and isn’t even the second highest paid cornerback in the league (making less than Asomugha and Champ Bailey this season). I’m not sure I understand why he incurred half a million in fines only to sign this four year contract when it sounded like the Jets offered him that wacky ten year $120M deal. I’m on my own island when it comes to understanding contracts, so maybe that offer had a lot of incentives, and the guaranteed money wasn’t where he wanted it to be. To me, it’s like watching a porno for the dude “actors”, it doesn’t make a ton of sense, but $32M guaranteed > $1M this season… Who knows, I just hope Hard Knocks will clear that up for me on Wednesday night, and now maybe Rex Ryan’s #2’s will play a lot better now that Revis pushed one of the #1’s down to a #2. Are the Jets the favorite to win the Super Bowl now? Maybe, but it all still comes down to how well the Sanchize does, and it’s sounding like the experts have less and less confidence in him. If you somehow didn’t know that Revis was an amazing cornerback, our buddy Weller broke it down like only he can.

Floyd Mayweather apologizes?!? He made this racist rant challenging everything he could conjure up about Manny Pacquiao towards the end of last week. Not surprisingly, it ended up making him look foolish.

Floyd likes chicken so much he's becoming one!

He apologized after the video hit the newswires, but I’m not sure why he was calling him out in the first place. It seemed like a month ago, the fight was going to happen, and Pacquiao conceded to some things in the contract to get this fight going more on Mayweather’s terms. Once again pretty boy Floyd backed down. I’m actually shocked that he apologized. I didn’t really know that this guy even had the word sorry in his vocabulary. Maybe he finally realized that he was the idiot ducking the fight that could save or  revive boxing. I’m not sure how these guys can’t agree on a $100M+ fight. It’s just ludicrous that they are holding this sport hostage, and denying us a chance of seeing rematches as the two slowly grow out of their primes. Mayweather has never been short on confidence, but you have to believe he’s scared at this point, since we’ve never really seen him apologize about anything. If he’s truly the best, he needs to prove it, and I don’t think he is even drinking his own Kool-Aid anymore.

The Padres lost their 10th consecutive game. They are scratching for answers anywhere they can find one, but just flat out aren’t playing well. I was one of the semi-doubters, but was still rooting for them more than against them. I understood how they were getting it done for most of the season, yet I still couldn’t really understand, if that makes any sense! This bump in the road might be showing that they don’t have enough offense, and their pitching might just be too young. The NL West is starting to heat up with the Rockies, Giants, and Padres all in contention now. Two weeks ago, I thought the Padres were going to walk into the playoffs, now they might have to use Latos more than they originally wanted to, and are finding it’s never easy to close out a division title. In contrast to the Padres sudden demise, is the big rise of the White Label Hot Rockies, who seem to come out of nowhere at the end of each season. They’ve won 11 of their last 15, and have a former A’s player, Carlos Gonzalez, who is putting up some MVP type numbers. Too bad for C-Gon, that he has to compete with guys like Pujols and Votto are pushing for a triple crown. This might be the most interesting race in baseball down the stretch, so stay tuned!


Trojans Win Track Meet At Aloha Stadium

David Ausberry, a 6'4', 235 LBS WR, pushed away CB Lametrius Davis with one arm after catching the ball and strolled into the end zone.

Here’s some observations I had from last night’s USC vs. Hawaii opener, and the nightmare on defense, for both teams…

  • USC’s offense looked mediocre when you take into account Hawaii has a terrible defense that was outsized on the line by a wide margin
  • USC’s defense looked absolutely terrible, missed tackles and blown coverages galore
  • Hawaii’s offense looked very good, even their 3rd string QB passed for 2 TDs, which is the only solace for USC
  • USC’s offense will only get better, they’ll have 4 effective RBs with four different styles of play, and they have about 6 WRs that when healthy would start anywhere in the country
  • 2 possible Heisman candidates stood out last night as well as a possible third: Matt Barkley and Ronald Johnson looked in sync and ready to go from snap 1, and Tyler looked strong and quick.

THE GRADES:

Passing Offense: B+

Couple of bad drops/deflections, couple of holding calls, but for game 1 on the road, a very good showing

Running Offense: B-

Mark Tyler waited for this opportunity for a long time. He started this year at #4 on the RB depth chart. He showed why he's now #1 after putting up 154 yards rushing and a TD in the opener.

Easy to look good running against Hawaii, should have run for 300 yards and didn’t.  See Wisconsin last year.  Younger Oline but so much talent

Passing Defense: D-

Perhaps deserved an F but the Off bailed them out.  Young secondary looked terrible, blown coverages and hands on defenders all over.  Pass rush was ok.

Running Defense: C

Line looked a little tired toward the end, but that’s what happens when your thin after injuries and key departures.  Room for improvement, especially tackling

Special Teams: C

Only highlight was Ronald Johnson’s (ill-advised) spectacular return, but again against a weak defensive team.  What was the 2 point conversion thing???  Yuck

Overall: C+

Not a good performance against a weak Hawaii team.  Coaches should be worried.  Oline really should have dominated more against a smaller but speedy D.  The Defense looked the part we expected: very young and inexperienced.  Pass rush will look better against normal offenses, this was a quick strike run&gun so the pressure they did put on was impressive.  Tackling should get better as they did not tackle in fall ball, so all kinds of room for improvement there.  And kick a point after for chr sake.  That was embarrassing.


Caption Contest Giveaway!!

What do people want most in life? FREE STUFF! We’ve brought you discounts on tickets, apparel, and golf crap, now we bring you our first ever giveaway. No, hackers didn’t jump on our account and post this, we are really giving something away for nothing more than a few words. All you have to do is think up a good caption for the picture below that we took in China of this guy passed out face first on the cement in a park. Can you believe we saw Yao there, and didn’t even  mention it!?! We have a $35 gift card that can be used for thousands of online products that you will learn about if you win. Nothing is out of bounds for the caption; race, religion, cussing, etc. I’m not sure exactly how many readers we have out there, but I’d bet that your chances are pretty good in winning if you play along.

To enter the contest, either leave a caption in the comments section below (make sure your e-mail is correct) or you can email us using the subject “caption contest” at doinworkstaff@gmail.com. The contest will run through the end of Labor Day weekend, so if you think of a better one than your first submission feel free to submit that one too. We will declare a winner, and notify you via e-mail with your prize. Good luck!