Blog Archives
Take the Super Bowl and shove it
I have turned all my devices to airplane mode. No Super Bowl updates for me. I’m calling it a night before 2030.
I cannot stand the Chiefs. I cannot stand the Chiefs. I cannot stand the Chiefs.
I despise Patrick Mahomes. I despise Patrick Mahomes. I despise Patrick Mahomes.
I really despise Brittany Mahomes. I really despise Brittany Mahomes. I really despise Brittany Mahomes.
My schedule has me in Kansas City AGAIN starting Wednesday afternoon. That was scheduled a long time ago. I’ll be sure not to wear red.
Don’t choke, Eagles. DON’T CHOKE, EAGLES!
Chiefs (maybe) catch another break
The NFL has decided to cancel the Bills-Bengals game, which had to be stopped after nine minutes Monday due to the life-threatening situation involving Buffalo’s Damar Hamlin, who is now conscious. .
This means all the Chiefs need to do is defeat the pathetic Raiders Saturday in Las Vegas and they will have a bye for the first round of the playoffs. If the Chiefs lose and the Bills beat the Patriots, then Buffalo gets the bye, but I cannot see Kansas City losing to Las Vegas and Jerk McDaniels. Sure, the Raiders had a 14-point lead when the teams played at Arrowhead in October, but the Chiefs have had almost three months to adjust, and Vegas waved the white flag by benching Derek Carr.
Patrick Mahomes is living a charmed life: well-endowed between the legs and in the bank, a hot wife who has become a baby machine, and now his team stands to benefit from another’s tragedy.
If the Chiefs play the Bills for the AFC championship, the NFL could force the game to move out of Kansas City to a neutral site, probably Detroit or Indianapolis, since both locales have stadiums with roofs.
To me, the bigger deal is having that week of rest which the Bills won’t have if the Chiefs win. Since the playoffs expanded from 12 teams to 14 in 2020, only one team in each conference gets a bye. The other six teams in each conference have to be dead tired after playing two playoff games following anywhere from six to ten regular season games without a rest.
Sure, the Packers have twice blown it after earning the bye in the NFC, and it didn’t help the Titans a year ago, but the Chiefs benefitted from it in 2020, coming back from the week off to take out the Browns and Bills before no-showing in Super Bowl LV.
I’m avoiding the NFL Network and ESPN this week. No need to ESPN on before Saturday at 1530 (3:30 p.m.), and then there’s Red Zone Sunday at 1200, but that’s it. No need to hear anything else from NFL media, which has forgotten about the 1,600 players who will suit up this weekend and focused on the one who almost lost his life. I understand the concern and desire to receive the latest news on Hamlin, but the games are the thing.
I’m fading. Seroquel does that to you. Time to get off the computer.
The horrible, no good, pitiful time between posts
Sorry for not posting for so long. Then again, what would I post about? Let’s see here…
WARNING: FOUL LANGUAGE COMING.
Trump? Narcissistic son of a bitch. Fucking cunt.
Biden? Lying son of a bitch dictator. Bitches about Trump executive orders, then issues more than any other president in first week of administration. The guy couldn’t wait three hours before issuing his first.
The riots in Washington? Both sides have to own it. Trump incited it, and lefties like AOC egged them on. The American political system sucks, and I hate this country more than ever.
Super Bowl? I hate the Chiefs, but I despise Tampa Bay just about as much as any other NFL team. I have hated the Buccaneers passionately since they treated Tony Dungy like shit. I hate Jon Gruden, I hate Warren Sapp, I hate Derrick Brooks, and I have nothing but disgust for Brady, Gronkowski, and Arians, the lying son of a bitch who told the Cardinals he was retiring for “health reasons”, then came back a year later with Tampa Bay. Fuck you Arians.
The Chiefs played like absolute garbage. Should have forfeited. Mahomes wanted to be with his bimbo fiancee as she was ready to give birth, Andy Reid wanted to be home to make 4,895 excuses for his criminal son driving drunk and almost killing a 5-year old girl, Kelce was bitching about anything and everything, and the Chiefs’ offensive line in the Super Bowl would have trouble blocking Raymore-Peculiar’s defensive line. In case you don’t know, Ray-Pec played for the state championship in Missouri’s highest high school classification in November.
The worst thing about the Chiefs looking so shitty was Brady won his fifth Super Bowl MVP, and the narrative of sycophant media calling him the “greatest of all time” was louder than ever. Please. Brady would have been toast if he had played in Johnny Unitas’ era, when receivers were physically beaten up and down the field and offensive linemen could not use their hands to block.
Even worse was fucking Aaron Rodgers, who is now a climate change expert just because he got engaged to actress Shailene Woodley. Olivia Munn and Danica Patrick are better off without the motherfucker. Besides, I like Willa Holland much more than Woodley as Kaitlin Cooper on The O.C.
I almost got a ticket. I pooped and peed in my pants when I was pulled over. Fortunately I was wearing pants. I have had a couple of incidents wearing shorts where the pee came flowing and got over things.
Valentine’s Day? Need I say more?
The brutal cold? So fucking what? I’d rather that than the heat I’ve dealt with all my life in Louisiana and Kansas. I hated being cooped up, but I didn’t want to subject my 17-year old car to those harsh elements.
I drove to Kansas City today just to get out of Russell and give my parents a few days without having to deal with me. They deserve it.
Everything was good until a few minutes ago.
A side entrance door would not open. Another one did.
Then an asshole whose mask did not cover his mouth tried to race in and get on the elevator with me. The motherfucker was outside smoking with two buddies, and I could smell the stench from a mile away. I panicked and accidentally hit the telephone button in the elevator. Fortunately, the door closed in the son of a bitch’s face.
I hate riding elevators with strangers, especially men. I don’t want to look at them, don’t want to talk to them, don’t want to smell them.
I despise cigarette smoking. Hate it passionately. It is so disgusting. People who do so, including my parents (my dad quit in September 1985; if he hadn’t, he would have been dead by 1995), are beyond stupid. Yes, Pete Rozelle, you were stupid. That’s why you died at 70. Yes, Bear Bryant, you were stupid. That’s why your retirement lasted four weeks. Yes, LBJ, you were stupid. That’s why you had a massive heart attack eight years before Lee Harvey Oswald (probably) made you president, and died before your 65th birthday.
With COVID, I do not want to share a confined space with anyone, period. If I were with someone I knew, I would ask them to ride the elevator first.
Tiger Woods was in a serious car accident today in Los Angeles. Of course, there was an outpouring of sympathy, with many calling him the “greatest of all time”.
Tiger still hasn’t matched Jack Nicklaus’ 18 major championships. And the competition in Tiger’s best days was Phil Mickelson and a whole lot of nothing. David Duval and David Toms won majors in 2001. If you don’t follow golf, you must ask “who the fuck are they?”. Nicklaus had to battle Gary Player throughout his career, Palmer in his early years, Tom Watson and Seve Ballesteros, among others, later.
Tiger is not a G.O.A.T. Neither is Brady.
I hope Tiger recovers from his injuries. But if he never plays another hole, I won’t shed a tear. I’ve had enough of this Tiger being the greatest narrative. Same with Brady. Same with LeBron. Same with Serena. Same with Alex Morgan and the US Women’s Association Football (I ain’t using the S-word) team. Same with anyone who voted for Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire or any other steroid user on their Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.
I had KFC delivered to my hotel this evening. Great call. I grew up one mile from the first Popeye’s, which opened in June 1972, and I still love it. But KFC is a very, very, VERY close second, if not ahead of Popeye’s. My God, the KFC original recipe is incredible. Popeye’s, however, wins hands down with their sides, especially the Cajun rice and onion rings (where you can find them). KFC biscuits are just too hard to digest. Too hardscrabble. Save those for Cracker Barrel, which I find highly overrated.
That’s all for now. Maybe my next post won’t be so gloomy. Pray for it.
I’m back and not better
Again, I’m sorry I went dark after my first full day in Kansas City. The trip to Kansas City was the only thing worth writing about in the last 30 days, so it was probably best I stayed off.
The rest of August was horrible for the most part. Boredom at home, a swollen right foot that required four visits to Dr Custer’s office (plus another next week), no trivia for the past three weeks (by choice) and constant reminders of just how much I suck at life.
Facebook and Instagram are used by too many people as cyberbullying sites. They are used by people who have great lives to beat up those of us who don’t. I get so sick and tired of seeing people scream “I’M MARRYING MY BEST FRIEND!”.
First, if your spouse is your best friend, you’ve got problems. It means you never have had good friends to begin with, or you’re giving up everyone else because your spouse is the only person who matters.
Second, I don’t care. You should post it only to certain people, not your entire friends list, and certainly not publicly, especially if you allow non-friends to view your posts.
Third, I don’t need to be reminded at 44 that I’m hopeless. I blew my one and only chance when I let Renetta get away. Certainly it won’t happen in these parts, where 44-year olds are grandparents, or at least have all their kids out the house.
The 101st season of the National Football League starts tonight when the Chiefs host the Texans.
I will not watch. I have to leave early tomorrow for an appointment in Hutchinson, and one of the teams makes me sicker than coronavirus ever could.
I cannot tell you how much I despise the Chiefs right now. I am sick of hearing about Patrick Mahomes every eight seconds. I get it. He won the 2018 NFL MVP. He led the Chiefs to victory in Super Bowl LIV (making the Chiefs NFL CHAMPIONS, not world champions). He signed a 10-year, $503 million contract. He got engaged to his squeeze who could appear in porn movies and make as much him.
Those are empirical facts.
However, I’m sick of hearing he’s already the greatest quarterback in Chiefs history and will be one of the four best, if not the best, by time he retires.
Yes, he’s probably one of the two greatest Chiefs quarterbacks with Len Dawson, which tells you how much the Chiefs stunk at quarterback from 1972 (Dawon’s last good year was ’71) through 2017. BIll Kenney, Joe Montana, Trent Green and Alex Smith were all good for a year or two, but a lot of others were just putrid.
To me, the greatest quarterbacks played before I was born: Sammy Baugh and Johnny Unitas. Baugh also played defense and punted. Unitas threw touchdown passes in 47 consecutive games in an era where defenders were allowed to push and grab receivers all over the field.
I’ll rank Montana as the best I watched. Four Super Bowls in nine years ends the argument.
The Chiefs hype train is non-stop. It’s a given they will be in Tampa for Super Bowl LV–provided the season gets there–against either Tampa Bay or Green Bay. Hopefully everyone is wrong and it’s the Saints (I’m not giving the Cardinals a shot no matter what the “experts” say) against anyone from the AFC but the Chiefs or Patriots.
I’m going to quit now. I promise my next post will be sooner, not later.
Show Me champions and trouble
Missouri celebrated its second professional sports championship in eight months today in Kansas City, where an estimated crowd of more than 700,000 turned out to cheer on the Chiefs three days after its Super Bowl LIV victory.
In June, the celebration was at the other end of the Show-Me State, as the Blues brought the Stanley Cup to St. Louis for the first time.
Many in St. Louis have jumped on the Chiefs bandwagon since the Rams left in January 2016 to return to Los Angeles. That number has probably grown exponentially since Patrick Mahomes took over as starting quarterback in 2018.
There may be some Bears fans in and around St. Louis, but considering the hatred eastern Missouri, if not all of Missouri, has for the Cubs (and the White Sox among Royals fans), many probably hate the Monsters of the Midway just as well. The Bears played in the Cubs’ park from 1921-70, so there’s a natural tie for that hatred.
Indianapolis is not a long drive east on Interstate 70, but the Cardinals were in St. Louis for 24 seasons before Robert Irsay told the Mayflower vans to drive the Colts’ gear from Baltimore to Indiana. And I doubt any St. Louis football fans would root for another team which relocated.
The Chiefs probably had a sizable St. Louis base from 1988-94 between the Cardinals’ departure for Arizona and the Rams’ arrival. The Chiefs were 4-12 in 1988, the year before Marty Schottenheimer was hired by Kansas City. By 1993, the Chiefs had Joe Montana under center and reached the AFC Championship, where they lost to the Bills.
The Rams were putrid their first four seasons in St. Louis (1995-98). Then projected starting quarterback Trent Green blew out his knee in the Rams’ second exhibition game of 1999, forcing Dick Vermeil to plug in some nobody named Kurt Warner. The Greatest Show on Turf was born, and a little less than six months later, St. Louis had its first sports championship since the Cardinals won the 1982 World Series.
Baseball is currently the only sport where Missouri’s largest cities have a rivalry. The NHL had it for two years with the woebegone Scouts, aka the artists now known as the New Jersey Devils (and the Colorado Rockies in between). Each city had an NBA team, but not at the same time; the Hawks left St. Louis for Atlanta in 1968, four years before the Cincinnati Royals moved to Kansas City. Of course, slimeball Joe Axelson moved the Kings to Sacramento in flagrant violation of the Warriors’ territorial rights in 1985. Had the Warriors had strong ownership in the mid-1980s like they have with Joe Lacob, the Kings never make it to Sacramento. Does that mean the Kings would have stayed in Kansas City? Probably not, because David Stern didn’t mind teams hopscotching the way it was abhorred by Pete Rozelle, Paul Tagliabue, Bowie Kuhn and Peter Ueberroth.
Since 2011, the four professional franchises currently residing in Missouri have won a championship. The Cardinals’ most recent World Series win was in 2011 vs. the Rangers; the Royals got theirs four years later vs. teh Mets.
Missouri may have great sports teams and two wonderful metropolises at opposite ends of I-70, but I don’t know if I would want to live in the Show-Me State. I doubt it.
The biggest problem Missouri has is its nonchalant attitude towards regulating nicotine.
The sales tax on a pack of cancer sticks in Missouri is 17 cents. Repeating: SEVENTEEN CENTS.
That’s one dollar and seventy cents per carton. In Illinois, the tax on one pack of cancer sticks is $2.98. I think Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is a tool and the political cronies in Chicago have ruined the rest of the state, but at least it has one thing right (well, Chicago-style hot dogs are awesome).
Kansas’ tobacco tax is a joke as well, although $1.19 per pack is a lot better than 17 fucking cents. I’m sorry I used that word, but I believe smoking cigarettes is the most vile habit a person can acquire, short of violent crime.
Missouri’s smoking laws are a joke, too.
The state does not have a law which bans smoking in all enclosed settings. Bars in many corners of the state allow smoking wherever, whenever.
Kansas City has an indoor smoking ban, but customers can go out to a patio and suck on their cancer sticks, fouling the air for the rest of us who value our lungs.
The Buffalo Wild Wings at Zona Rosa has a large patio, and upwards of 20 smokers have been known to populate it on a given spring day. If Liz and Lisa weren’t working there, I would have quit going many moons ago.
The patio at Buffalo Wild Wings Shoal Creek is smaller, but there are plenty of smokers there on nice days. For a while, a man named Bill, who was a dead ringer for Michael McDonald, played trivia and sucked down on cancer sticks between questions.
St. Louis and the two major counties which make up the metropolitan area on the Missouri side, St. Louis and St. Charles, have adopted some pretty weak smoking bans. The ban is stronger in the city of St. Louis.
The lack of a tough smoking ban in the St. Louis area is why I stuck to getting White Castle to go when I went to St. Louis last year.
Illinois doesn’t have that problem. Smoking is banned in all enclosed areas in the Land of Lincoln, same as Kansas. As much as I dislike many things about my father’s home state, at least it has a smoking ban.
Missouri’s alcohol laws are also troubling.
There is no open container law. Passengers in a car can drink freely except in the cities with a ban, the largest of which are Independence, Columbia and St. Charles.
Every time the Missouri Legislature debates an open container law, it is shot down by the lobbyists from Anheuser-Busch (InBev). By failing to pass an open container law, Missouri has lost out on hundreds of millions of federal highway funds. No wonder I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis is a death trap–the state doesn’t have the funding because it is too stupid to pass a common-sense law.
That’s all I have the energy for tonight. I am beat.
World Champions of NOTHING
Kansas City is celebrating the “World Champion” Chiefs today with a parade and rally.
For the record, the Chiefs are not “World Champions” of anything, even if every vehicle in the parade is displaying the words “World Champions”.
The Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV, which gives them the right to forever be called “Super Bowl LIV champions” and “2019 National Football League champions”, the same way the franchise can refer to itself as “Super Bowl IV champions” and “1969 Professional Football champions” (1969 was the last year before the AFL-NFL merger).
The Chiefs may refer to themselves as “NFL champions” without a qualifying year until they are eliminated from the 2020 playoffs (or fail to qualify). If Kansas City wins Super Bowl LV next February in Tampa, the Chiefs may continue to use NFL champions without the year.
The Patriots lost the right to call themselves NFL champions without a qualifying year when they lost to the Titans in the wild card round. New England can refer to itself as NFL champions of 2001, 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016 and 2018, but must use the qualifying years. And it cannot call itself a “world champion”, period.
No NFL (or AFL) champion has the right to call itself a “world champion”.
The NFL has never had a franchise in a country other than the United States of America. Save for a few exhibitions in the early 1960s, no NFL team has played a team from the only other major league on earth which sponsors gridiron football, the Canadian Football League.
Two of the other major North American sports leagues use “World Champions” when they should not.
The NBA has referred to the winner of its playoff tournament as “World Champions”. At least the league no longer refers to the final round of the playoffs as the “World Championship Series” as it did through 1985.
Major League Baseball has sponsored the World Series since 1903, with two exceptions (1904 and 1994). Every World Series winner I know has referred to itself as a “World Champion”, even though MLB has never had teams in countries other than the USA and Canada. North American champions is also inappropriate since no World Series winner has played a champion from Mexico, Cuba or another country.
The Associated Press expressly forbids its publications from using “World Champions” to refer to teams. It is SUPER BOWL champions, WORLD SERIES champions and NBA champions.
Baseball and basketball can easily determine a world champion the way FIFA does with the Champions League.
The National Hockey League has it right. Gary Bettman and his predecessor, John Ziegler, never refers to the winner of the Stanley Cup Finals as the “World Champions” of hockey. That team is the STANLEY CUP champion or the NHL champion.
Here’s something to keep in mind about the NHL. A team can win the Stanley Cup X number of times. However, a team cannot win Y Stanley Cups. There is only one Stanley Cup, and unlike the Vince Lombardi, Larry O’Brien and Commissioner’s trophies, a new one is not made each year.
Therefore, the Blues are attempting to win the Stanley Cup for the second time, not their second Stanley Cup. Got it?
Back to football.
There are two world champions of football. They are the French Men’s National Team and the United States Women’s National Team. France won the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and the USA won the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
Every Super Bowl ring is a FRAUD, since every one says “World Champions”.
Super Bowl, Kobe, impeachment…blah blah blah
Thank God the Super Bowl kicks off in 23 hours and 30 minutes, give or take. Enough talk about Patrick Mahomes. Enough talk about the Chiefs looking for their first Super Bowl victory in 50 years. Enough asking Len Dawson about Patrick Mahomes. If you live in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and parts of Iowa, Arkansas and Oklahoma, you may not realize the 49ers are in the Super Bowl as well.
The Chiefs have been the sole focus of every media outlet in Kansas and western Missouri. If you thought coverage of the Royals during their 2014 and 2015 World Series appearances was excessive, it pales in comparison to the adulation the Chiefs have received. It’s quite the opposite from the other end of Missouri, where the Rams were always a distant third to the Cardinals and Blues during their 21 seasons in St. Louis.
The 49ers are still getting less air time in San Francisco than Nancy Pelosi. People in the Bay Area have witnessed six championships since 2010, three by the Giants and three by the Warriors. Add in the success the Sharks have enjoyed despite the lack of a Stanley Cup, and the 49ers have been an afterthought most of the time since Steve Young’s retirement 20 years ago. There was the trip to Super Bowl XLVII and the crushing loss to the Seahawks in the NFC championship game the next season, but until this year, the 49ers went through their longest downturn since suffering through seven losing seasons out of eight from 1973-80.
If Kansas City wins tomorrow, people in this part of the United States will be hearing about it non-stop until the Chiefs go to training camp in July. Kansas basketball and the Royals will register, but it won’t eclipse the Chiefs.
Andy Reid might retire if the Chiefs win. I would not doubt it. It would allow Kansas City to promote Eric Bienemy and not have to worry about other teams attempting to poach him next January.
If San Francisco wins, we’ll hear about it for a few days, but it will fade. The sports fans of the Bay Area need something good this year, because the Warriors have been reduced to a D-League (sorry, G-LEAGUE) team without Steph Curry, the Sharks are stinking it up, and the Raiders have officially traded Oakland for Las Vegas.
The hype for Super Bowl LIV has been muted. That would normally be a good thing, but not this time.
It’s because almost every sports show, even some on NFL Network, have to mention Kobe.
Yes, Kobe perished last Sunday with his 13-year old daughter, six other passengers, and the foolish pilot who had no business flying a helicopter in thick fog. Sad. Very sad.
However, it happens all the time, and 99.5% of the time, the names of the people on board aren’t mentioned, and it gets all of 20 seconds on the evening news, if that.
I read on the Internet there is a petition circulating to change the NBA logo silhouette to that of Kobe, instead of Jerry West, whose silhouette has been the logo for almost 50 years.
Come on.
Do those who want to make the change realize who brought Kobe to the Lakers? JERRY WEST. Does anyone know of another NBA figure who was as great an executive as he was a player? Hello…hello…
Magic Johnson and James Worthy were both drafted #1 overall by the Lakers, thanks to shrewd trades by West to acquire the picks which helped land them.He took a chance on an unproven assistant named Pat Riley in late 1981 after firing Paul Westhead. He made the trade for Kobe and signed Shaq during the summer of 1996, and three years later convinced Phil Jackson to coach his latest collection of talent.
All 12 Lakers championships in Los Angeles were influenced by Jerry West. Now why should he be taken off the logo in favor of Kobe? Give me a good reason.
Twenty-four second shot clock violations and eight-second backcourt violations have become cool since Kobe’s death, since 24 and 8 were his jersey numbers with the Lakers. To me, that’s making a mockery of the game. Honor him, yes, but don’t do it by disrupting the normal flow of a game.
Golfers have become Kobe worshippers this weekend. Justin Thomas and Tony Finau wore Kobe jerseys during the Phoenix Open. Phil Mickelson, a legend in Phoenix thanks to winning an NCAA championship at Arizona State, smartly skipped out on the Phoenix Open and is playing in Saudi Arabia. Tiger is not playing golf this weekend, choosing to attend the Super Bowl; after all, it’s in his backyard (he lives in Florida, which doesn’t have a state income tax, while his native California has astronomical taxes, especially for rich athletes).
The third and only other thing in the news right now is the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump. No comment.
Red Sunday assured
It will indeed be Red Sunday in Miami Gardens in two weeks.
The Chiefs defeated the Titans 35-24 for the AFC Championship, and the 49ers easily ousted the Packers 37-20 for the NFC Championship to set up Super Bowl LIV.
Kansas City is in the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years, when Hank Stram’s club, led by Hall of Famers Len Dawson, Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier, Emmitt Thomas and Johnny Robinson, defeated Bud Grant’s Vikings, who were in their five-year period without Francis Asbury Tarkenton. The 23-7 final at Tulane Stadium was considered an upset since Minnesota was favored by 13 to 14 points, but the Chiefs (or Raiders, whom Kansas City defeated in the last AFL Championship game) were far superior to the Jets club which defeated the Colts in Super Bowl III. Joe Namath’s guarantee was an upset, because that Baltimore team, even without Johnny Unitas, was great. Looking back, the 1969 Vikings weren’t.
Minnesota went 12-2, yes, but lost to the Giants and Falcons, both of whom went 6-8, and Joe Kapp was the worst quarterback to start any of the first four Super Bowls, and probably one of the ten worst ever. The Vikings had no outside running threat, their receivers were nowhere near as good as the Chiefs’ Otis Taylor, and their offensive line, which featured future Hall of Famers Mick Tinglehoff and Ron Yary, had never faced a defensive line as large as Kansas City’s. Viking losses in divisional playoff games to the 49ers in 1970 and the Cowboys in 1971 proved the offense didn’t work without Tarkenton. Tarkenton came back from New York in 1972, and while the Vikings made three more Super Bowls, they were overwhelmed each time.
The Chiefs’ other Super Bowl appearance was in the first one, which was known at the time as the AFL-NFL World Championship game. The Chiefs hung with Lombardi’s Packers for a half, but self-destructed after the break, and Green Bay went on to win 35-10 in Los Angeles. Packer wideout Max McGee became the Super Bowl’s first unlikely hero with seven receptions for 143 yards and two touchdowns.
San Francisco will be making its seventh Super Bowl appearance. The 49ers’ only Super Bowl loss was in their most recent trip, a 34-31 loss to the Ravens in New Orleans where John Harbaugh defeated younger brother Jim. The former is still in Baltimore; the latter is coaching his college alma mater in Ann Arbor. Few outside Maryland and the Bay Area remember much about the game itself, but instead the power outage at the Superdome during the third quarter.
The 49ers’ two previous trips to South Florida for the Super Bowl were quite possibly the best and worst Super Bowls ever.
The worst was in January 1995, when the 49ers mauled the Chargers 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX, the only Super Bowl to match two teams from the same state. The 49ers were favored by anywhere from 17 to 20 points, and it quickly became apparent they would cover that spread and then some. Two California teams playing in South Florida and a horrible match drove ticket prices way down. The Chargers’ starting quarterback, Stan Humphries, makes my list with Kapp for the Super Bowl’s worst.
Humprhies has a Super Bowl ring as the backup for the 1991 Redskins. Fortunately for Joe Gibbs, Mark Rypien stayed healthy throughout that season and he never needed Humphries in an important situation. Then again, the 1991 Redskins might have won Super Bowl XXVI if Gibbs played quarterback himself. That team was loaded.
The other 49ers Super Bowl in South Florida, Super Bowl XXIII vs. the Bengals, was one for the ages, and in my opinion, the best I’ve witnessed.
San Francisco fell to 6-5 in mid-November following back-to-back losses to the Cardinals and Raiders. Steve Young pulled out a game vs. the Vikings with a 49-yard touchdown run in the game’s final minute in one of the best plays I’ve seen live, but vs. the Cardinals (in their first season in Arizona), San Francisco blew a 23-0 lead and lost 24-23, while the 49ers were scuttled 9-3 at home by the Raiders in Mike Shanahan’s biggest victory as coach of the Silver and Black.
With a Monday Night Football game vs. defending Super Bowl champion Washington, Bill Walsh named a healthy Montana as his starter.
The 49ers were off and running. They routed the Redskins 37-21, then won their next three, including a 30-17 victory over the Saints at Candlestick to clinch the NFC West. In the playoffs, San Francisco earned revenge for a 1987 playoff loss to the Vikings with a 34-9 rout before going to Chicago and crushing the Bears 28-3 despite a wind chill of minus-10 Fahrenheit (minus-22 Celsius).
San Francisco was considered an underdog to the Cinderella team of 1988, the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Bengals were 4-11 in 1987, and Sam Wyche (who passed away earlier this month; R.I.P,, Sam) had to win or else in 1988 to keep his job. Cincinnati needed a goal-line stand on opening day to outlast the Cardinals 21-14, but it spurred a 6-0 start and a 12-4 regular season to win the Bengals’ first AFC Central championship since 1981, the year they went to Super Bowl XVI and lost to the Bengals in Detroit.
Cincinnati was powered by 1988 MVP Boomer Esiason, and a powerful running back combination of James Brooks and Elbert “Ickey” Woods, who introduced the “Ickey Shuffle” to the football world. Woods was penalized when he did his dance in the end zone, so he was relegated to doing so on the sideline.
Super Bowl XXIII was the first in Miami in 10 years, and the first at Joe Robbie Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium), which opened in August 1987. Billy Joel performed a fantastic rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner (he repeated it for Super Bowl XLI in the same stadium), but soon thereafter, the sunny skies over South Florida darkened.
Two serious injuries occurred in the first quarter, with 49ers offensive tackle Steve Wallace and Bengals nose tackle Tim Krumrie taken off the field on carts. Krumrie broke a bone in his left leg, an injury so serious an air cast had to be placed over the leg to stabilize it.
The first half produced little offense, with each team kicking a field goal. 49ers kicker Mike Cofer blew a 19-yard chip shot in the second quarter, and at halftime, it was 3-3, the first halftime tie in the Super Bowl.
The Bengals scored the game’s first touchdown late in the third quarter when Stanford Jennings returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown, putting Cincinnati ahead 13-6. San Francisco answered on a Joe Montana to Jerry Rice touchdown 57 seconds into the fourth quarter to forge the game’s third tie.
Rice ended the night with 10 receptions for 215 yards, both Super Bowl records, and easily won the game’s MVP award.
Jim Breech’s 40-yard field goal with 3:20 to go put the Bengals up 16-13. When the 49ers were pinned at their own 8-yard line following a penalty on the ensuing kickoff, hearts across northern California sank, while those in southern Ohio, northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana rose. It looked like Cinderella’s glass slipper would not shatter. It looked like the team with the pumpkin-colored helmets would not turn into pumpkins themselves.
Wyche knew all too well no game was over as long as #16 was in charge for the 49ers. After all, Wyche was the 49ers’ quarterbacks coach when they won Super Bowl XVI seven years prior.
How cool was Joe Montana? As the 49ers huddled in the east end zone of the stadium prior to the first play of the drive, Montana pointed out to his teammates that actor John Candy was being shown on the video board.
Montana Magic was never more apparent than the evening of 22 January 1989 in Miami Gardens, Florida.
San Francisco drove 872 yards on 10 plays, leaving it with third and goal from the Cincinnati 10. With the Bengals focused on Rice, and rightly so, Montana spotted his other top wideout, John Taylor, on a post pattern over the middle. Taylor caught the ball in stride in the end zone with 34 seconds left.
San Francisco 20, Cincinnati 16. Bill Walsh announced his retirement in the locker room after the game, and his successor, George Seifert, led the 49ers to a most dominant 14-2 season in 1989 and a 55-10 destruction of the Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV.
The Chiefs and 49ers are infrequent foes, seeing they play in opposite conferences. They don’t even play much in the exhibition season.
They first played in 1971, with Kansas City winning 26-17 at Candlestick on Monday Night Football. The Chiefs did not return to Candlestick until 1985, and they did not defeat the 49ers again until 1994, when the Montana-led Chiefs defeated the Young-led 49ers 24-17 at Arrowhead. In between, San Francisco won in 1975 and ’82 at Kansas City, and again in 1985 and ’91 at Candlestick.
Their last game was in 2018 at Arrowhead, the game where 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was lost for the season with a serious knee injury. Kansas City won 38-28. San Francisco went 4-12, giving it the #2 overall pick in the draft, which it used to take Ohio State defensive end Nick Bosa, who will win Rookie of the Year or be a close second.
This will not be the first time the championship of a North American professional sports league will be determined by teams from Kansas City and San Francisco.
In the 2014 World Series, the Giants defeated the Royals in seven games. The teams split the first two games in Kansas City, then the Royals won the third at San Francisco. The Giants rallied to win the next two at AT&T Park (now Oracle park), but Yordano Ventura pitched a gem in game six at Kauffman to take the series to the limit.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy called on ace Madison Bumgarner, the starter and winner in games one and five, to relieve former Royal Jeremy Affeldt to begin the fifth with San Francisco ahead 3-2.
Bumgarner totally shut down the Royals until there were two out in the ninth. Alex Gordon singled and went to third when left fielder Gregor Blanco overran the ball. It looked like Gordon would be able to score, but third base coach Mike Jirschele held up Gordon.
Salvador Perez then popped up to Pablo Sandoval in foul ground. Sandoval squeezed the final out, giving San Francisco its third World Series title in five seasons. Of course, the Royals redeemed themselves one year later, with a lot of help from the bumbling Mets.
Let the hype begin.
Thawed and posting
Sorry I went three days without posting. Not much happened to write home about, save for my session Thursday with Crista. Let’s say I was not in the right frame of mind.
I was going to go to Hays tomorrow for an appointment, but I rescheduled due to icy roads. I’m there today, killing time at Taco Bell and playing trivia on my phone. I am going to need Sudafed when I get back to Russell because my nose is stuffed.
LSU’s football team visited the White House yesterday and was greeted by President Trump, who attended the championship game in New Orleans. Joe Burrow, the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback and future Cincinnati Bengal (barring something out of far left field), said it best that political affiliations didn’t matter; visiting the White House on invitation by the President of the United States is an honor.
Too bad too many athletes are turning this honor into a political statement. The Warriors famously refused to visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after their 2017 and 2018 NBA championships because coach Steve Kerr and several players detest Trump. Disgraced ex-Red Sox manager Alex Cora did not accompany the Red Sox after their 2018 World Series championship. Several members of the Patriots and Eagles boycotted following their Super Bowl championships.
The ONLY good thing about the Raptors winning the NBA championship in 2019 is we didn’t have to hear about boycotting Trump. They were warmly received by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Candaian Parliament in Ottawa. Too bad Brian Mulroney was the last Canadian Prime Minister to host a Stanley Cup champion, the Canadiens in 1993.
These teams should be grateful to visit one of the most elegant residences on the planet. It wasn’t always the case.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins, the NFL’s only undefeated and untied champion, didn’t visit the White House until 2012, by which time Richard Nixon, who was in office at the time (and a huge Dolphins fan), had been dead for 18 years, and two of his successors (Ford and Reagan) had also passed on. Three members of the ’72 Dolphins–Jim Langer, Bob Kuechenberg and Manny Fernandez–did not attend because they disagreed vehemently with President Obama. Sadly, Langer and Kuechenberg are no longer with us.
The 1985 Bears were scheduled to visit the White House a few days after winning Super Bowl XX, but the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion less than 48 hours after the victory over the Patriots scuttled that.
Today, there was a short parade on LSU’s campus from the School of Music and Dramatic Arts down Victory Hill to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, where more than 13,000 fanatics stuffed the “Deaf Dome” to greet Burrow, Coach O and all the rest. Two assistants were absent: Joe Brady, now the Panthers’ offensive coordinator, and Dave Aranda, now Baylor’s head coach.
LSU fans should gloat and enjoy it. It may be a long time before another championship.
It’s just coincidence, but LSU has sewn up all four of its national championships in New Orleans, a mere 75 to 80 miles east-southeast of LSU’s campus. If that trend continues, LSU’s next championship won’t come before 2027, since the sites through 2023 have been named, and the college football playoff folks want a large rotation of cities, not a few as used to be the case for the Super Bowl.
Miami , Los Angeles and Houston will host the next three championships. It figures Minneapolis, Detroit and Indianapolis will all host soon, since all those cities have retractable roofs. Charlotte, Nashville, Baltimore and Washington will all want to host, even though the weather is a roll of the dice compared to Florida and California.
A few people posted on social media that LSU clinched its 1958 national championship by defeating Clemson in the Sugar Bowl.
Not true.
However, it was true the Bayou Bengals clinched their championship in the Big Easy, defeating Tulane 62-0 in their regular season finale. LSU did not play the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and thus had to wait out the results from that weekend to find out if they would hold on to the top spot.
When the polls were released 1 December 1958, LSU held a comfortable margin over No. 2 Iowa. That was the final poll for the Associated Press and United Press International. The AP first conducted a post-bowl poll in 1965, went back to ending polling after the regular season in 1966 and ’67, then made the post-bowl poll permanent in 1968. The UPI did not switch to a post-bowl poll until 1974, a move roundly criticized.
The Hawkeyes were awarded the Football Writers Association of American (FWAA) national championship after they defeated California in the Rose Bowl, feeling LSU’s victory over Clemson was unimpressive.
Between 1960 and 1973, Minnesota (1960), Alabama (1964), Michigan State (1965), Texas (1970) and Alabama (1973) all lost their bowl game after finishing first in the UPI poll Minnesota and Alabama in 1964 were also first in the final AP poll. The bowl losses opened the door for Alabama in 1965, Nebraska in 1970 and Notre Dame in 1973 to win the AP poll.
Ole Miss won the FWAA championship in 1960 and Arkansas did so in 1964. Arkansas’ claim is more widely recognized than Ole Miss’, as the Razorbacks were 11-0 after defeating Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl, while Ole Miss tied at home against an LSU team which went 5-4-1. The Rebels also try to claim championships in 1959 and 1962 by retroactive computer polls, but I can count the number of non-Ole Miss fans who count those on one hand. I don’t recognize them.
Notably, LSU was named No. 1 in five other seasons by computer polls or some other methods. The Bayou Bengals don’t recognize those titles. 1958, 2003, 2007 and 2019 count.
The participants for Super Bowl LIV will be determined tomorrow.
I really don’t care for either team in the AFC championship.
I don’t like Nashville, period, and I hated the way the late Bud Adams screwed the good people of Houston by sabotaging the Oilers following their 1993 playoff loss to the Chiefs to ensure fans would stay away from the Astrodome and the NFL would approve the move to Tennessee.
Chiefs fans have become arrogant and entitled the past two seasons. They’re saying it is their right to be in Super Bowl LIV after they were screwed by the officials and the overtime rules in last year’s AFC championship game vs. the Patriots. No, the Chiefs weren’t screwed. Don’t fall behind by an ungodly amount of points on your home field, even if you were playing the Patriots.
If I HAD to pick a side, it would be the Chiefs, since they haven’t been to the Super Bowl since January 1970. Besides, I know a few Chiefs fans, although many have become as cocky as Royals fans were during their glory years of 2014 and ’15.
I don’t like anything about Nashville. NOT A DAMN THING. I hated the place when I visited for LSU baseball games vs. Vanderbilt. Nashville looks down its nose at Memphis as a crime-ridden hellhole whose musical icon could dance and not sing and became a morbidly obese drug addict at the end, and think East Tennessee is nothing but hillbillies riding around with shotguns in the back of pickups. And don’t get me started on how Nashville has an NHL team and Quebec City and Hartford don’t.
Sorry, but I’ll listen to Elvis over any country music which came out after 1989 any time. Last I checked, the University of Tennessee, a nuclear power plant and many hydroelectric plants are in East Tennessee.
As for the NFC, I don’t dislike the Packers, but I would rather not see Aaron Rodgers highlights on NFL Network and ESPN 18 hours a day. Even worse, we’d see more of Danica Patrick than a human should have to. It would be nice for Kyle Shanahan to lead the 49ers to a championship and redeem himself for all the bad calls he made as Atlanta’s offensive coordinator when the Falcons blew that lead to the Patriots three years ago.
Here’s hoping for a lot of red in Miami Gardens. If it is 49ers-Chiefs, I’m wondering if Joe Montana will toss the coin seeing he played for both teams.
It’s been football overload this week. Thankfully after tomorrow night, nothing until 2 February (the Pro Bowl doesn’t count).
Tuning out the Tigers
You would think I would be watching LSU and Clemson play for college football’s national championship (at least for the highest level).
I’m not.
I am so convinced Clemson will win I am not watching.
The game kicked off at 19:15. I am self-censoring. The TV is off. I have set my devices to do not disturb. I am not checking any sports sites. I think I’ll go to bed really early, considering I rose at 05:00 and have a lot of work to get done tomorrow morning.
The last time I self-censored was the night of the 2016 presidential election. I watched some crap on LMN, then went to bed early. I had no earthly clue who had won what state.
I went to bed convinced Hillary would win, just as almost every major media outlet predicted.
It wasn’t until I came upstairs, where my mother had the TV tuned to Today, when I learned Trump won.
When LSU played Alabama for the BCS national championship in January 2012, I didn’t watch the game, but I made the mistake of looking at Twitter. It was there I learned just how badly LSU was getting its ass kicked by Alabama. Of course, a few jerks had to rub it in.
This season, I purposely did not watch most of the first half in LSU’s game at Alabama and the Peach Bowl vs. Oklahoma. I didn’t see a score until I came upstairs, because my mother was watching. In each of those games, the Bayou Bengals built up a big enough lead, making it okay to watch. Not tonight. It won’t be that easy vs. Clemson.
Tonight, no social media, Nothing. If I want to watch the game, I can watch a replay on ESPN+. Something tells me those wearing orange are going to be much happier tonight than those wearing purple and gold.
More sports woe in Houston.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred suspended Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow and Manager A.J. Hinch for the 2020 season for their roles in Houston’s sign stealing throughout the 2017 postseason, which ended with the Astros defeating the Dodgers in the World Series.
Houston was also fined $5 million, believed to be a record for a major sports league due to an on-field incident. Too bad Roger Goodell doesn’t have the guts to fine the Patriots that much.
Astros owner Jim Crane went one step farther than Manfred, immediately firing Luhnow and Hinch. Houston has a huge hole in the rotation now that Gerrit Cole is in the Bronx, but it still has many strong pieces in Justin Verlander, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Corriea and George Springer. The question is who will manage them, and who will step into this mess?
I didn’t mention the Oilers blowing the 35-3 lead in Buffalo in the 1992 playoffs, but I figured you knew about that already. It has been repeated ad nausem following the Texans’ collapse yesterday in Kansas City.
On the other hand, Chiefs fans are convinced more than ever the Super Bowl is their destiny. Mahomes is God. The Titans might as well stay in Nashville. Bring on the 49ers or Packers.
Before the season, a Kansas City Star online poll asked “What would it take for you to consider the Chiefs season a success?”. I don’t remember the exact split, but at least 80 percent said either “get to the Super Bowl” or “win the Super Bowl”. If the Titans win Sunday, mental health professionals will be in high demand in the so-called “Chiefs Kingdom”.
Good night, blogosphere. Hopefully I’m waking up to good news in a few hours…but I have my doubts.
Foots Prints 