13
Dec
2010
VIDEO: Josh Wilson picks off Matt Schaub to salvage win for Ravens
Great, great photo (Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun)
Crazy game tonight in Houston, as the Texans battled back from a 21-point deficit in the 3rd quarter to tie the Ravens and send it to overtime.
Matt Schaub had a huge night for Houston, finishing with 393 yards and 3 TDs in mounting the comeback, but his luck ran out on the second possession of OT. That’s when Schaub attempted an ill-advised pass (while backing up in his own end zone), which Josh Wilson gleefully picked off and returned 12 yards for the game-winning score:
VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP
1
Dec
2010
VIDEO: Andre Johnson mic’d up for Finnegan brawl
(AP Photo via USA Today)
The NFL Network’s Sound FX program comes through in the clutch once again, having mic’d up Texans’ WR Andre Johnson for Sunday’s now-infamous clash with the Titans. In the piece, we get to hear the build up to Johnson’s brawl with Cortland Finnegan from AJ’s perspective.
Among the more juicy bites, we hear Johnson telling the refs to watch Finnegan hitting under his facemask, which brought us this exchange:
Johnson: “Hey ref, No. 31, when he gets frustrated …”
Referee: “Oh believe me, I watch him every play, everywhere.”
Later, we hear Kevin Walter telling Johnson, “you got 31 following you”, which he clearly is aware of by that point. And perhaps most interestingly, what appears to be right before the play where Johnson erupted, Matt Schaub warns his team not to get baited into anything by the notoriously chippy Titans:
“Listen up, keep your poise now. They’re gonna try and get us to do some dumb s#!t. Let’s keep mashing ‘em and keep your poise.”
Moments later, Johnson unleashed three haymakers to Finnegan’s head.
WATCH THE ANDRE JOHNSON SOUND FX VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP
29
Aug
2009
Living in oblivion
Because you care: My fantasy football draft gets underway in 2 hours and 28 minutes.
There’s an undercurrent of self-defeat in all of this.
After last season’s debacle, I promised to never to play fantasy again.
Reason #1: My teams have sucked horribly, painfully, year after year. Some of the worst fantasy teams ever assembled—last season ended with somebody named Chet Orley-Francine at quarterback and Aunt Jemima running the ball.
Reason #2: I just couldn’t get past the fact that I was a 35-year-old man who was regularly unsettled about my “team,” it’s riddled lineup, and inability to “win football games” on my computer.
As my contingent of oft-injured, mid-tier clowns tanked week after week, I felt my rich disdain for the entire operation bloom.
One thing about fantasy: it seems to me that if you get out of the gate slow, with a bunch of players unable to find themselves, you have about as much a chance at outshining your peers as Lauren Conrad at a Mensa convention.
"LC" and fantasy football contribute equally to this society.
My 2008 fantasy start was grizzly. I lost my opening three games by a combined four points–two of those games were lost by a fraction of a point. The scoring system was such where a runningback, for instance, could score 22.7 points in a game (suggesting–to me, at least–that this entire process took itself far too seriously). By Week Four, it was over: I lost by 70 points, the victim of my own poor administration (I was out of town for the weekend, and mistakenly started three bye players, a mid-malaise Chad Ochocinco, and Chelsea Clinton). Sitting at 0-4, looking up at a flock of 4-0 and 3-1 teams, my Matt Schaub-led band of hobby horses spiraled violently downward.
This Schaub guy (who I’m told, again, is a “sleeper”) drove me to drink. Week after week, he sabotaged my fake team: I’d play him and, in real life, he’d get the flu ten minutes before gametime, leaving the quarterback slot VOID. Thanks, Matt. So, I’d sit him, and he’d come in—randomly—and throw three touchdowns. I’d fall for it, play him the next week, and he’d burn up the field for 47 yards. By Week 8, I was floating.
I have a hard time imagining my grandfather, fresh out of World War II, deciding to spend his fall playing fantasy football. It certainly speaks to the complete ease most of us live in today. I’ll get flamed for suggesting that we’re in “languish” mode—yes, yes, I know: many adults who spend way too much time twiddling around with their fantasy football lineup also hold successfully hold down full-time jobs, engage in relationships as parents and spouses, and contribute to a local charity (or tavern). That said, I just can’t get past the absurdity of it all. Human beings were meant for more than this.
