We apologize for the delay in this week’s TMQ Watch. Allergies or a cold or something are still kicking our butts. It is our profound hope that, when science perfects the uploading of consciousness to machines, they choose not to emulate the human sinuses.
(Drainage!)
(On the other hand, are the sinuses necessary to fully emulate human consciousness? Is consciousness itself a chaotic system, with a sensitive dependance on initial conditions? Would leaving the sinuses out of the emulation change the nature of the emulation?)
But we digress. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
(Worth noting before the jump: this week’s TMQ, and by implication, this week’s TMQ Watch, may contain possible spoilers for “Breaking Bad”, “Under the Dome”, and “The Bridge”.)
The first 827 words of this week’s column are a rundown of the five remaining undefeated teams, and what makes them special. Could this be the year TMQ is forced to retire his 1972 Miami Dolphins item? We’re not betting the farm on that, but we think this part of his column is actually worth reading. If we were to summarize it:
- Kansas City is lucky this year, and was unlucky last year.
- Seattle is mentally tough. And “Defense starts comebacks, offense stops them”.
- New England can plug just about anyone into their system and make it work. (Plus their first three wins were against “lower-echelon teams”. But they did beat Atlanta on the road.)
- New Orleans loves the limelight, and has a solid offensive line.
- “The Broncos are as hot as any NFL team has ever been” due to Manning and a ” fantastic pass-wacky offense”. But their defense is only so-so.
Noted:
Stats of the Week No. 7: Matt Schaub has thrown interceptions returned for touchdowns in three consecutive games.
Sweet: “undrafted utility player Danny Woodhead” for San Diego against Dallas, Coby Fleener for Indianapolis against Jacksonville. Sour: Chicago at Detroit (chicken-(salad) kicking).
Mixed: the Schaub interception. Really, what was Houston thinking here? TMQ claims the play was radioed in by the Houston coaches, but we’d like to see a citation for that. “Play-calling was consistently sour.” Indeed. WTF, Houston?
Mixed special teams play: Oakland.
Matt Labrum. the football coach at Union High School, deserves praise.
Who is the stupidest law enforcement officer in television crime?
TMQ’s answer: Hank Schrader from “Breaking Bad”, though he has unkind words to say about the detectives in “The Bridge” and Sheriff Esquivel from “Under the Dome” as well.
Hamlet, call your office, please.
“…Would love to hear the announcer describing how Jordan Cameron blocked Cameron Jordan.” Uma, Oprah. Oprah, Uma.
Boutique cupcakes at $3 a pop are bad enough.
Gregg, have you looked at the price of cake pops? Are those even a thing where you live? Seriously, go get a cake pop, and you’ll be happy to pay $3 for a cupcake.
Colorado State, by contrast in 2011-12, had a football profit of zero on revenue of $8.9 million.
TMQ keeps beating on the idea that the big schools shouldn’t be paying “cupcakes” to come in and lose. We don’t necessarily disagree with that, but we wonder if part of the problem – one that TMQ is not addressing – is that there are a lot of D1 schools that shouldn’t be D1 schools.
On a related note, should college football players get an annual stipend? TMQ thinks this is a “slam dunk”. We’re inclined to agree that this would be a fair thing to do, but that’s a gut reaction. We’d like to think about this some more.
In 2011, the NCAA proposed that it would allow a $2,000 annual football stipend. This has not taken effect because small colleges, where athletic money is tight, vote against it. The rule could be revised to apply only to football factories, where money is plentiful — $3,000 per year to every scholarship football player at a Division 1 school would cost $255,000, less than many assistant coaches earn.
How would the NCAA decide who is and who isn’t a “football factory”? And if this is the fair thing to do, and your school can’t afford $255,000 a year, maybe your school shouldn’t be playing college football.
One worry is that the football factories will use the fact that small colleges blocked a stipend regime as an excuse to break away and form a superconference where education means absolutely nothing.
We keep wondering why this hasn’t happened already.
The 500 Club. The 600 Club. The 700 Club. The 800 Club:
…hosting Prairie View A&M, Stephen F. Austin gained 827 yards and lost.
Hey, how about that exciting San Francisco – Jacksonville matchup in London?
(crickets)
The Steelers might be at the end of a talent cycle, with an offseason housecleaning in prospect.
We’re inclined to agree with this as well, though we admit to a strong personal bias against the Steelers for various reasons. We do suspect this may be the end of the Roethlisberger era, and would like to suggest a trade to the Steelers: their first-round draft choice for Matt Schaub.
(What? This seems perfectly reasonable to us.)
Untouched touchdowns. “Your columnist always sends back an entrée that insists on an ideological dialogue.” In driving rain, California-Oregon was played.
In the 19th century, liberals loved radical Republicans. Liberals now loathe the same group.
Harvard has a $32 billion endowment, so why are you giving them money? San Francisco went for it on fourth and inches and won.
The current solar cycle is not matching projections.
This gives us an opening to mention our new buddy detective series we’re pitching to USA Network: “Suave and Debonair”. (Pronounced “Swave and De Boner”.)
(Short shameful confession: up until about two weeks ago, we thought “leitmotif” was pronounced “let me off”, not “light motif”. To be fair, “leitmotif” rarely comes up in our conversations.)
What’s wrong with the Falcons? We’re considering adding Atlanta to our list of “constantly promising and constantly underperforming teams”, right next to San Diego.
On the road again, the Bills are on the road again, losing games my friend…
The fair catch kick. Football’s rarest play.
You can also tweet to me on this or any topic using @EasterbrookG — finally, I am paying attention to Twitter, having consulted an expert (a high school kid) who coached me up.
Remember, folks, that’s @EasterbrookG. This is going to be fun. Heck, we might have to join Twitter just for this.
Concussions:
Well, that seems tautological.
But wait! Isn’t that exactly the opposite of what he just said: “more head hits occur in practice than in games”?
(Also: TMQ book mention, though this one is relatively subdued and tasteful.)
Hey! Remember that mention above of “The Bridge”? Let’s kick it around some more! (We haven’t seen an episode of “The Bridge” but we were kind of intrigued by the early reviews. We’re kind of disappointed by TMQ’s assertion that the show has abandoned the Mexican/American angle that made it more interesting to us.)
Well, you know, ABC tried a cop series set in Detroit. It was derivative of “Homicide: Life on the Streets”, got stupid fast, and was cancelled in the first season.
Because there’s no violence in Canada.
(Edited to add: We come up with a word count of 7,133 words in this week’s TMQ, not counting photo captions, the poll, or the “about TMQ” at the end of the column. Of those 7,133 words, Easterbrook spent, by our count, 824 words, or 11.5% of his column, bashing a TV show.)
Remember TMQ’s Twitter test of his “game over” prognostication powers? Ooops, he did it again…and failed.
Adventures in officiating: Terrell Suggs didn’t do anything wrong, “Baltimore offensive linemen consistently were lined up illegally; zebras only flagged this once.”, and why did they call pass interference on Philadelphia?
Indiana of Pennsylvania 20, California of Pennsylvania 7. Hey, IUP is 4-0! And the Slippery Rock game is October 12th.
Reader mail: clean diesels emit more carbon dioxide than gas.
That’s a wrap, folks. Tune in next week, when we hope the mold and ragweed are gone, TMQ tries another “game over” on Twitter, and plugs his book again.
My wife and I watched the entire first season of The Bridge, and I feel that Easterbook’s characterization is inaccurate in several respects:
* The series of murders is investigated by a task force including the FBI, a Mexican police officer, and an El Paso police officer. Hardly “a couple of local cops”.
* The Mexican cop does indeed have a past connection to the serial killer, which is revealed more than halfway through the series. He does not mention it because the identify of the killer is not known for several episodes, and the real killer is not initially included in the list of suspects because he has no prior history of violence and was reported dead several years previously.
* The Mexican/American angle turns out not be a major element of the serial killer plot thread, although crimes were committed on both sides of the border and law enformement from both sides had to cooperate to stop the killer. But there are several plot threads of US/American crime that have been percolating in the background, mostly involving secondary characters. After the cops finished the serial killer case, one such thread suddenly became more urgent and was the subject of the last few episodes. Others will clearly be addressed next season.
Thank you, AT. Do you recommend watching “The Bridge”?