I Read Something Gross and Now You Have to Read It Too

People ask me a lot how I stay in shape. Actually, no one asks that. Instead, they ask, "How in the world are you so skinny?" The simple answer is that I do the complete opposite of this:

• "Once, while out with his brothers, [Mike Golic] ate eight Grand Slams from Denny's."
• "Another time, while once again out with his brothers, Golic says he ate 240 wings."

Good God. Did 120 chickens have to die to satisfy this man?

Down, Set, What?

My high school wasn't exactly known for excellence. We graduated students at a 33% clip. Our top twenty breakfast regularly featured students with GPAs in the high 2's. At our graduation ceremony, I sat next to a kid who was 20 - he was one of the lucky ones who did graduate. In six years.

I don't want to make the high school experience sound worse than it was. In fact, our high school did feature a few people who went on to do bigger and better things. For example, I write a blog.

But while stories of Turkish Professional Basketball players, gold medalists, and Daytona 500 winners might sound impressive, they're not good fodder for what I do over here at the Drawing Board.

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Our high school football team won exactly one game in four years. One. Something like 24 of us rushed the field, but when we got down there, it was pretty muddy so we all went home. Here's what you need to know.

• The biggest guy on the team had a fake leg.
  
• The previously mentioned guy was also our kicker.
• To recap, the kicker was the biggest guy on our team. The kicker had a fake leg.
• We once gave up 64 points in the first half of a game, failing to record a tackle in that half.
• For two years straight, we were ranked as the worst team in the state.

Go Lions!

eighteen and ONE

Normal blog posting will resume tomorrow. I promise.

That's it for the NFL Season, unless you count the Pro Bowl. But no one counts the Pro Bowl.

It was almost like a movie the way that Eli Manning exacted vengeance not only for his brother, but also brings justice for all. That movie is clearly the Mask of Zorro.

That having been said, I would like to excerpt part of an ESPN Story comparing the 72 Dolphins to the 07 Patriots. I would also like to add to it.

By The Numbers

Category	'72 Dolphins	'07 Patriots
Opponents' record	70-108-4	84-84
Record vs. winning teams	2-0	5-0
Points scored/allowed	385/171	551/239
Passing yards/TDs	2,235/17	4,385/48
Rushing yards/TDs	2,960/26	1,805/15
Super Bowl Result	Won	Lost

That closes the book on that.

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Now playing: Gavin DeGraw - Chariot

Super Bowl Sunday

I had a good weekend. I rectified a few things.






Updated: I added the "Reasons I Will Always Be Single" Label.

New York Giants

I’m torn here. For every good reason to root for these guys, there’s an equally compelling reason to root against them. So I made a list of pros and cons:

Pro: Eli can finally step out of his brother’s shadow and establish himself as his own man. In a poetic way, he can bring about his ousted brother’s vengeance.

Con: We’re not ready to sit through an offseason of Peyton vs. Eli discussions on ESPN. Also, did you know Eli is short for Elisha?

Pro: Tiki Barber will have to stop writing his book. Immediately.

Con: Michael Strahan will write a book.

Pro: The Giants played hard in a meaningless sixteenth game. If they have success, coaches all over the league will have to take those games more seriously to keep their players fresh, like the Giants did.

Con: The words “Tom Coughlin” and “genius” could be mentioned in the same sentence.

Green Bay Packers

These are the happy-go-lucky Green Bay Packers. Their ageless leader, Brett Favre, is a gunslinger who just looks like he’s having fun out there. (You’re obligated to say these things when you mention Favre, I think. Later I’ll make sure I say “backyard football.”) No one hates Brett Favre, the team’s got an obvious appeal and a few Notre Dame connections. I’ve been a fan of kicker Mason Crosby since his days at Colorado. Brett Favre always has a smile on his face (another obligation).

In the past decade or so, the phrase “tainted his legacy” has become popular, and every dude on ESPN used it to talk about Brett Favre in the off-season. Except Emmitt Smith. Emmitt has no idea who Brett Favre is.

I can’t imagine how much contentment Favre must take from shutting all those dudes up. Favre’s improbable season is unmatched – this would be like Jordan leading the 2003 Wizards into the finals. It is also the exact opposite of what Roger Clemens did in 2007.

Favre broke so many records in 2007 that Fox started inventing new ones for him. The guy at the Fox stats department either doesn’t get paid enough or gets paid way too much – I can’t decide yet. But this weekend, Favre set a record for consecutive Saturday playoff games with a touchdown pass over 25 yards in the first half at home or something equally ridiculous.

Dude definitely gets paid too much.

Thing is, Favre’s not out there to break records. He just plays the game like it's backyard football, enjoys every moment, and tries to win games for his team.

Go Pack.

State of the Playoffs

We’re going to shelf Playlist Monday this week so that I can get a few things off of my chest about the Debacle at the Dome and the current state of the NFL playoffs. I’ve always said I should have been a sportswriter. Oh, I never said that? Well I’m saying it now.

Everyone said that the Colts wouldn’t drop a game at home against Phil Rivers. But Billy Volek? Well, I didn’t see that coming.

Marvin Harrison hadn’t played in months. Dungy said there was no reason to rush his recovery, that Harrison would have been ready in a do-or-die situation, but fortunately that hadn’t happened all season.

Fourth-and-five with a minute left? There is no scenario in professional football that could be more do-or-die. Unless of course, Tony Dungy interprets the term entirely literally. Like Harrison would play if a dude showed up with a gun and said, “Harrison plays or you all die.” Seems unlikely that’s what he meant.

Harrison, even hurt, could have run an awesome decoy route. Something analogous to what Terrell Davis, sidled with migraines, gave the Broncos in 1998.

Now I’m left in the predicament of figuring out who to root for next. My preferences:

1. Green Bay Packers

2. New York Giants

3. San Diego Chargers

4. Armageddon

What Should I Read Next?

I go through these phases where I'm big into reading and I'll knock out some 10 books in like a month. And then it'll be four months before I pick up another. Sort of like how I order Chinese food like six times in three weeks and then I won't go near the stuff. Seriously, all the technology in the world and scientists can't figure out how to alter four pounds of rice and chicken so that an hour later it feels like I ate something?

But I digress.

I found the website whatshouldIreadnext.com a couple weeks ago, but it's been less than helpful. It only considers one book you've read and than spits out books about similar subject matter - at least for the most part. But suffice it to say, Michael Lewis's The Blind Side is not even close to the Pro Football Prospectus 2007. One is an awesome sort of Freakonomics-meets-sports-nonfiction-novel. The other is essentially a stat guide.

So now you get to pick. What should I read next?