2012-13 College Football Bowl Season Preview
Last year, I posted the bowl preview I always write for a friend. Since I wrote it again this year, I figured I’d post the new version. I tried to edit for a more...
Category: Football
NFL Football Contest!
Summer’s winding down, and Labor Day’s just around the corner, which means that it’s just about time for football. I was thinking this year we might have a contest to see whose professional gridiron...
I don’t watch football for the violence
Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger writes in Newsweek/Beast of the Junior Seau suicide: If you asked reporters why they were there, they would give some mumbo-jumbo reason that as hard as it may be,...
College Football Bowl Season Preview
Since yesterday was Opposite Day, I didn’t really want to break up the party by posting this, so it got pushed back a day. Then I realized it might actually be Opposite Week. In...
So What Do We Do About College Athletics?
(Note: This is not a real Denard Robinson action figure, even though it should be. It was designed by the insanely-talented Jeremy of The Art. The Art. The Art! He was kind enough to let...
The Indentured Servitude of the Big-Time College Athlete
It is perhaps a little late in the day to be writing about this, given the amount of ink (both real and digital) that has already been spilled discussing it, but you should definitely...
Celebrating Cheese Week
(Forgive me for lack of blogging recently. Overtaken by events and all that.) What a happy coincidence. For me, preparing my weak flesh for the inaugural Big Ten showdown for Nebraska (their opponent: Wisconsin)...
Super Bowl Open Thread
I don’t have a real rooting interest, but I am anticipating a great game. My tentative pick: Steelers over Packers, 28-24. Feel free to throw out any predictions, gambling tips, or jokes at Ben...
Superbowl XLII half-time show
Tom Petty’s half-time show at Superbowl 42 is probably the best I’ve ever seen – maybe the only one I’ve ever liked at all. This is in part because Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers...
The Political Football: Cynical Collapses and Redemptive Comebacks
Joe Lieberman endorsed John McCain for President almost exactly three years ago, at a time when McCain’s shots at the GOP nomination were widely dismissed as DOA because of his reputation as a “moderate,”...
Why I watch soccer
The weekend beckons, so I thought I’d write something about the World Cup. At his personal blog, Jonathan Last links to a pretty apt take-down of soccer evangelists he wrote in 2002, when Americans...
The Polian Connection
After a decade of success relying on Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, and for awhile Tony Dungy, the Indianapolis Colts are sitting undefeated through 14 games. Manning is still there, but Dungy and Harrison are...
This is not a persuasive rejoinder to rigorous sports analysis
Peter King, being snide: There are many reasons why I like the Patriots, but the biggest is that all the statisticians of the world got together the other day and ran all the Pats/Jets...
Football in the Northeast
…which, for football purposes, includes South Florida. In 2005, the Big East – long a basketball-heavy conference – lost three of its five traditionally strong football programs to the ACC, while one of the remaining...
NFL “debunks” player concussion studies
Seriously, this should be a bigger deal. The NFL is literally making shit up about the long-term impact of player collisions:
Our National Drug of Choice
No one is above the outrage cycle. We have now, in our culture, synthesized the two worst elements of pre-9/11 and post-9/11 media: the pre-9/11 obsession with meaningless bullshit; and the post-9/11 obsession with...
The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
I think it’s safe to say that former NFL player Pat Tillman – an Army Ranger killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan – was the first hero of the War on Terror. Like many,...
Bloodsport
Contra Bill Simmons, Malcolm Gladwell’s latest article isn’t 2009’s best piece of sports journalism. In fact, it’s not even the best article about football-related concussions. For that, you’ll have to go to GQ’s “Game...
