Though I’ve taken to calling notoriously disruptive receiver Terrell Owens, “He Who Shall Not Be Named,” for the havoc he caused for my beloved Philadelphia Eagles after Eagles fans embraced him following his great 2004-2005 season with the Birds, there are still some fans who are excited – or at the very least optimstic – about the recent arrival in Buffalo.
One such fan is my best friend Brendan Sorg. A Western New York native like myelf, and a Bills fan essentially from birth, I asked Brendan how he felt about his Bills taking in such a high-risk (and potentially high reward) player.
Here’s What He Wrote:
Time Out: TO to Buffalo?
It’s been over 9 years since the Buffalo Bills lost in devastating fashion on the infamous “Music City Miracle” play in their last playoff appearance. Since that time I’ve seen my beloved Bills drift in and out of NFL relevance. We’ve been a competitive team most years, typically over-performing for parts of the season to finish a game within .500. We’ve endured the Willis McGahee and JP Losman debacles and the tenure where Marc Levy and Ralph Wilson teamed up to give us the oldest (I mean most experienced) GM/Owner tandem in NFL History.
Last season, the Bills created a lot of Buzz when they opened the season 5-1 (mostly because 4 of those wins game thanks to games with the Rams, Raiders, Seahawks, and Jaguars). The Bills came back to reality and their lack of experience caught up with them. They finished 0-6 in the Division and 7-9 overall.
The disappointing end of the season led the usually conservative Bills brass to take a big free agent swing and sign Cowboys outcast receiver, Terrel Owens, to a one-year contract over the weekend.
Initially I responded like the rest of America: “The Bills? Really?!” Then I saw the press conference. When TO proclaimed that he “left America’s team for North America’s team,” I had a good laugh, then I paused…and thought…and concluded…this might work.
Buffalonians have immediately embraced Owens because it signals a new kind of hope that Bills fans haven’t seen in years. The national spotlight on Buffalo…in March? Whether reality or not, a perception is created that Buffalo can once again the big free agent. With season ticket sales slipping, Owens is one of the rare NFL “entertainers” that can attract national broadcasts and put fans in Buffalo (and Toronto) in the seats. And on a young team, Owens brings the passion and competitive nature that if channeled and managed carefully, can be infectious to the team.
And we still haven’t yet touched on the best part of this signing…he only got a one year contract!
In the next year, due to the Owens experiment, we’ll learn the following about the Buffalo Bills:
- Are they indeed one playmaker away from being a legitimate playoff contender;
- What kind of wide receiver can Lee Evans be with a legitimate weapon on the opposite side;
- Now with a plethora of weapons (Evans, Owens, Lynch, Parrish), does Trent Edwards have the skills and mental toughness to be a franchise quarterback; and
- Will Dick Juron be entrusted with the head coaching responsibilities in 2010.
I believe whole-heartedly the Bills have much more to gain than lose in this relationship. Should the Bills miss the playoffs again and TO holds up his legacy as a coach and quarterback killer, Buffalo will be no worse off than if they had another 7-9 season without Owens and were looking to replace Juron and Edwards. But if they win with Owens, it’s not only an aging receiver’s career that will be rejuvenated – but along with it one of the NFL’s great franchises.
If you’re a betting man, remember: No one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills.
This documentary had a lot in its favor before I slipped it into my DVD player to watch it before Idol tonight. For one, I’m a sucker for sports documentaries like this so it would have taken a lot for this doc, produced and directed by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, to turn me off. After a long day of work, full of the usual end-of-journalism hoopla with talk of layoffs, wage decreases and furloughs, I was in the mood to be distracted and boy was I.
While Yauch gets much of the limelight, the real star of this film in the soundtrack. Yauch masterfully uses a slew of modern hip hop hits (and even a Beastie Boys classic) to masterfully enhance every jump shot, block and dunk to something of a masterpiece, often cutting together the same play from multiple camera angles at multiple speeds. The sound editing in this film is also nothing short of amazing. There are several moments in the film when all of the noise is cut except for the subtle thud of footsteps and the pounding of the ball on the ashpalt as a player moves down the court.
As a basketball film, Yauch’s movie is incredibly entertaining. Where it starts to get a little dicey is when Yauch attempts to comment on the use of basketball as a vehicle for social advancement for some of the inner-city players and the incredible hype forced upon the incredibly young by the interage age, typified by a comment made in the film by someone that anyone with an internet service can have a recruit ranking website. The film that “Gunnin…” will most often be compared to is 1994’s Hoop Dreams, but its a much less effective social commentary, more style over Hoop Dreams’ incredible amounts of compelling substance. Instead this movie feels like am more stylish version of 2001’s “Preps: Chicago Hoops,” a show on Fox Net that followed a handful of Chicago-area prepstars – including Eddy Curry and Duke guard Sean Dockery – through their senior year.
The ineffective social commentary aside, this film is stylish, funky and endlessly entertaining. A must-watch for the avid or even casual basketball fan.
Grade: A solid B+
It should come as no surprise that the people I follow on Twitter are as diverse as my interests. I follow everyone from Raptors Center Chris Bosh to Rob Huebel of Human Giant to S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster to Former Top Chef contestant Richard Blais. I’m hoping to get something going on the blog where everyday I post the day’s Top Tweets as voted.. well, as decided by me.
Here are today’s Top Tweets.
I got turned onto this Portland, Oregon band by Rainn Wilson of The Office who recommended them highly and I was not disappointed. The lyrics are insane and gorgeous and the harmonies are pitch perfect, well-timed, effective and at times haunting. They remind me of all the classic rock that everyone loves but I can’t get into because the recordings are so lo-fi. Yeah I know that’s a stupid reason not to like CCR or any of those old standby classic rock bands but it is what it is.
This band also has an excellent facial hair to band member ratio with no less than 3/4 of the band rocking pretty mean beards. There’s a lot to like about that.
If you download 2008’s Furr and don’t like it, there’s a chance you’re either a) functionally retarded or b) dead inside.
Recommended to start : Furr, Black River Killer, Sleepytime in the Western World.
Below is the band’s 2008 performance of Furr on Conan.
In the vein of Nick Hornby’s 2003 novel Song Book, I wanted to write the occasional blog posts about things that I’m into, beit bands, television shows, appliances, kitchen tools and gadgets or in today’s case, an amazing beer. What follows is an albeit short explanation beyond my love for a certain Japanese pale lager.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a big drinker. To append the previous disclaimer, I’m not someone who drinks a ton often. I’m not the guy who’s going to wake up on a Sunday morning in a bathtub in an XS Emerson, Lake and Palmer t-shirt with crude doodlings of various intimate body parts scribbled across his epidermis. That being said, I do enjoy a good beer (or in the case of Miller High Life, a good, cheap beer.)
Japan’s cultural contributions to live in the States is typically limited to Hello Kitty, Ichiro Suzuki, well-made quality automobiles, sushi, Haribo Gummy Bears and beautiful-looking televisions. People don’t often associate The Land of the Rising Sun with quality brew. Those people haven’t tried Sapporo Premium or its maltier sister Sapporo Reserve.
Available in every grocery store, including Wal-Mart, most people look past Sapporo thinking that while the Japanese do a number of things well (hit streaks, make cars that run forever, etc.), crafting quality isn’t usually considered one of them. They’re nuts. Think the Original King of Beers only with much more body, and a bolder, crisper, smoother taste.
I hadn’t tried this beer, touting itself as Japan’s Oldest Beer (a fact somewhat confirmed by Sapporo’s WikiPedia page, which claims that Seibei Nakagawa, a German-trained brewer, produced the first Sapporo Lager in June 1876 as the first brewmaster of the Kaitakushi Brewery) until this year. Having become somehwhat bored with the chilled selection of beers in the cooler of my local Publix, I opted to take a chance on the Japanese beer with the same cultural reticence of those who’ve yet to try the lager no doubt harbor. What I found was a beer that was full of body, smooth and lacked the bite and nasty aftertaste that I’d foolishly expected going in. Sapporo is available for the cost of most imported or micro-brewed domestic 6-packs. I paid $8.99 for a sixer at Publix on Saturday.
Sapporo Premium is somewhere in the top 5 of my favorite beers of all times and I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t tried Sapporo to trying turning Japanense. Feel free to applaud my reference to late 70’s New Wave legends, The Vapors.
With everyone chiming in on and what their favorite (and least favorite) Super Bowl ads were last night, I thought I’d throw in my two cents on what my favorite spots were from last night’s surprisingly epic game between the Steelers and Cardinals. I’ll spare including links for the commercials I liked the least, namely all of Budweiser’s ad, even the one featuring Conan O’Brien, a guy that I think is always funny except in this ad, which I thought was otherwise pretty stupid. The combination of the dreadful Clydesdale ads and that douchebag with the telestrator really made Budweiser the night’s big loser for me.
Without further adieu, the best of Super Bowl ‘09 ads:
Career Builder
Though I find the repetitious nature of this ad a little tiring, the combination of the koala getting punched and the woman riding the sea lion is one that made me laugh harder than I had laughed at anything all night.
Audi
Simply put, this ad appeals to the 10-year-old in me that loves Jason Statham and car chases.
Pixar’s Up
Though I still think this ad plays a little too much like a Pixar’s greatest hits reel, this movie looks like unbridled wonderful, though I’m still not sure exactly what it’s about.
Cars.com
This was an ad that I really liked but was kind of on the fence about as to whether it was one of my favorites of the night. I really liked the set up but felt like the end fell really short. The ad feels a little too ambitious for Cars.com.
