TMQ Watch: January 21, 2014.

It is official. It is now impossible for us to care any less about the Super Bowl (or, as some are calling it, “The Pot Bowl”) than we do now.

But we still have this week’s TMQ to get through after the jump…

It’s the Super Bowl the football gods wanted to see — the No. 1 offense versus the No. 1 defense.

A titanic battle of the #14 television market versus the #18 television market. Surely the football gods must be happy.

(345 words down.)

Next week: the TMQ Non-QB Non-RB NFL MVP award. And you can vote for the winner! Yes, you! (We’ve already sold our vote to Deadspin.)

At the intersection of football and politics, an online petition started by Lynda Woolard of New Orleans, seeking to revoke the nonprofit status of NFL headquarters, already has more than 300,000 signatures. It’s worth considering.

No, it isn’t. We plan to touch on this some more in our King Of Sports review, but TMQ has spent the entire season attempting to confuse his readers by equating “nonprofit” tax exempt status with “charity”. Organizations can be non-profits without being charities, and the NFL falls into that category.

Nobody likes taxes. But if the wealthy don’t pay their fair share, then average people must pay more, or the national debt rises.

Who determines what a “fair share” of money forcibly confiscated at gunpoint from other people is? And note that TMQ doesn’t even mention the option of cutting government spending: nope, either you pay more, or the debt rises.

Coburn can push hard because he has announced he will retire at the conclusion of the current Congress. Not seeking re-election, he no longer cares about campaign donations.

And also because he’s from Oklahoma. After all, the NFL poses stiff competition in the professional football marketplace to the Oklahoma Sooners.

Yet in the U.S. Senate, the notion that the very wealthy National Football League should not have a tax-exempt headquarters is too controversial for 98 of 100 senators to touch.

What does TMQ mean by “tax-exempt headquarters”? Is he talking about the building, or the fact that the NFL is a 501(c)6 organization? The 501(c)6 status, by the way, applies to more organizations than just the NFL. Odd that TMQ isn’t going after “business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade”, and other organizations for not paying their “fair share” of taxes.

Sweet: Denver. Sour: New England. Mixed: Seattle – San Francisco.

“Contains no unnecessary chemicals.” You know, the problem with that Nissan Rogue commercial isn’t the wacky disclaimer; the problem is that it’s just a dumb commercial.

What’s the story behind the NFL concussion lawsuit and the judge putting a settlement on hold?

….the deal as it stands would be fantastic for plaintiffs’ lawyers (big payday up front) and fantastic for the NFL (liability shed with no admission of wrongdoing) but not so great for the “actual class members” (many former players would receive little or nothing). The proposed settlement is $765 million for players and $112 million in attorneys’ fees.

Paging Ted Frank.

But for any former player who doesn’t show neurological symptoms or who is less than, say, 65 years of age, opting out may be the way to go. The proposed settlement’s offer to players without current neurological conditions is relatively modest — waiver of future claims in exchange for about $25,000 to $50,000 each….
The league needs former players to waive liability now, before some development in medical knowledge strengthens the former players’ hand. The way for the league to achieve this is to put a lot more money in the pot.

TMQ has a lot more faith in the ability of future medical science to “link the onset of CTE to specific life events”. And would that really make player’s claims stronger? Or would there be more of an argument for “assumption of risk”?

Good gravy. We’re going to have to put up with at least two more weeks of Jersey trivia.

My last meal would be a Millburn Deli smoked turkey sloppy Joe with a Balvenie neat. And if I had to choose between the two, I’d take the Joe.

A “smoked turkey sloppy Joe”? Note: never trust anything this man writes about food again.

Why did Seattle win? Poor San Francisco passing, questionable Harbaugh decisions, good Seattle defense, and fourth down play.

Are football players becoming too big? (And did you know TMQ has a new book out?)

Psychoanalyzing the Patriots could itself be a sport.

We’d rather watch televised golf.

Driven by subconscious oedipal conflict, Welker wanted to slay his father figure, but decided that defeating his father-figure’s team would be more acceptable. In the first Denver-New England game, Welker played poorly and the father figure prevailed.

“subconscious oedipal conflict”? We could go on, but frankly the portion above is an excellent representation of how stupid this item is. We’d suggest skipping the rest and saving yourself 628 words.

Hey, did you know Bob Gates has a book out? Has TMQ read it? We can’t tell; he apparently thinks Gates is a weasel, but the only evidence he cites is from someone else’s review of the book.

TMQ also takes this opportunity to hammer Gates over the KC-X tanker project.

Six years after Gates got on the case, Air Force fighters still are refueled by Eisenhower-era hardware.

And the Air Force still files Eisenhower-era bombers. So what?

(The entire B-24 bomber project — the most-produced U.S. military aircraft ever — took six years from first test flight to final model off the assembly line.)

So if we want to get the KC-46 into service quickly, what we need to do is fight the Nazis all over again.

Why did Denver win? Excessive Belichick cleverness, too much passing by New England, poor New England defense, and chicken-(salad) kicking by New England.

We find it interesting that, the week after TMQ proposed doing away with kickoffs, the idea seems to have gained traction with NFL brass. It kind of makes us go “Hmmmmmmmmmmm”. (And we hate to be mean, but we’re not wild about the reader suggestions.)

Hey hey hey! The time has come to kick “Revolution” around the block again! Apparently now electricity was shut off by “self-aware nanobots” instead of a government death ray? Is anyone paying royalties to the estate of Fredric Brown? (Of course, his view of a world without electricty was much more idyllic.)

His name is Raymond Luxury Law, but it is pronounced “Throatwobbler Mangrove”.

Terrible people and instutitions: Bobby Petrino, Syracuse University, University of North Carolina.

Kibbles ‘n Bits, Kibbles ‘n Bits, we just like saying Kibbles ‘n Bits. (Oh, and they have “grilled USA beef steak flavor.”)

TMQ likes coffee with nonfat half-and-half. The other day, my grocer was fresh out, so I bought regular half-and-half and mixed it with skim milk. This means I made half half-and-half.

Non-fat half-and-half is a thing? Do you really put enough half-and-half in your coffee to where the fat content makes a difference?

We’ve never heard Peter Tork or Davy Jones complain about bananas.

“Adventures in Officiating”: replay needs to be able to review a fumble ruling on the field.

Edelman! Brady! And that’s a wrap for this week. Tune in next week, when we’ll see what kind of totally irrelevant stuff TMQ drags in to cover for a total lack of football. We’re guessing lots of TV show bashing: if we had to bet on specific shows, we’d put money down on “Hawaii 5-0”, “Blacklist”, and “Almost Human”.

Also, remember to vote early and often for the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback Non-Quarterback Non-Running-Back National Football League Most Valuable Player. (As best as we can tell, the name of the network is officially ESPN, and the “Entertainment and Sports Programming Network” name has been dropped. So ESPN really isn’t an acronym. Do you suppose TMQ knows?)

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