We hope everyone had a good Christmas – or, if you do not celebrate Christmas, a good version of whatever seasonal observance you do celebrate.
In this week’s TMQ, the purge.
No, not that one (though we commend to your attention the “The Purge” episode of “Phil and Lisa Ruin the Movies”), but the annual NFL coaching purge, or as we call it, “Bloody Monday”. After the jump…
This is probably true, and TMQ’s examples of stupid firings are egregious (and also old: he should really find some new ones). But can TMQ make a case that Rex Ryan (4-12 this season, 8-8 last season), Mike Smith (6-10 this season, 4-12 last season), or Marc Trestman (5-11 this season, 8-8 last season) deserved to keep their jobs? The Falcons and Jets were just horrible. The Bears were too – but to be fair, Trestman may not have been their only problem. As for Jim Harbaugh, that’s kind of a special weird case; we call that a firing, sure, but it seems to be more “this didn’t work out, let’s split up and remain friends”, combined with “let us back up a dump truck and give you sweet, sweet Michigan booster money”.
Point being, TMQ’s yearly refrain is that coaches get fired because team owners want to be seen doing something to get better. In some cases, that may be true, but we suggest coaches get fired most of the time because they suck.
By awarding a home postseason contest to each division winner regardless of record, the NFL distributes playoff slots in a moral-equivalency manner that avoids mention of merit.
Yawn.
Stats. Sweet: Baltimore. (And TMQ’s obsession with cold cheerleaders continues.) Sour: San Diego. Mixed: Seattle – St. Louis.
Eliminate the penny! And the nickel! And the dime! No coins smaller than the quarter, cries TMQ! Perhaps a case can be made for the abolition of the penny (though we don’t really see the relevance of “The value of a penny a century ago inflates to a quarter today.”) and rounding everything to the nearest five cents. But abolish the nickel and dime? Nay, we say. One might as well do away with the belt onion!
So you’re publishing this “metric” (which, as we keep saying, appears to be mostly pulled from TMQ’s neither regions) but you lack the courage of your convictions to stand behind it?
Do streetcars make sense? They are heavy and cumbersome compared to buses, yet get stuck in the same traffic. While buses are easily re-tasked as travelers’ habits change, a streetcar can take passengers only where the tracks run. And streetcars are expensive. In some ways the streetcar combines the worst aspects of subways (cost, streets closed for construction) with the worst aspect of buses (stopped by traffic or snow).
Your wacky food this week: burgers at the Ralph Lauren clothing store and restaurant in Paris. While TMQ notes that the “Ralph’s Burger” is 29 euros, he omits that the “Ralph’s Double” is 33, which seems to us to be a better deal. That is, if you’re willing to spend $40 on a burger at a clothing store. We remember clothing stores that served burgers when we were young: K-Mart didn’t charge $40 for them, even in inflation adjusted dollars.
Shake up that groove thang, baby. Politicians wouldn’t know what “the American people” wanted if “the American people” walked up and punched them in the nose (which is not a bad metaphor for the 2014 elections).
(We are reminded of a favorite Douglas Southall Freeman quote:
)
Creep. Easter in 2015 is on April 5th. That’s 100 days: on the one hand, that’s just short of 1/3rd of the year. On the other hand, 100 days to get stuff together and turn out your Easter handicrafts doesn’t seem all that unreasonable. How long does it take to sew a nice Easter dress from scratch? We’d bet on it being closer to 100 days than 30 days.
Getting a press pass in China now requires signing a pledge not to report anything.
That should be no problem for the mainstream media. (Rimshot.)
Hey, wasn’t the New Era Pinstripe Bowl great? And you know why it was so great? Because a team with a 92% graduation rate played a team with an 87% graduation rate and no child rapes in the past three years (that we know about, anyway).
(To be fair, it sounds like it was a close game. But so were the Miami Beach Bowl, the San Diego County CU Poinsettia Bowl, the Duck Commander Independence Bowl, and the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl. In case you were wondering, Navy has a 90% graduation rate. We leave the other schools as an exercise for the reader. Or TMQ.)
This season 76 of 125 FBS schools made a bowl, or 61 percent. The majority were above average!
We’re not clear on how “making a bowl” equates to “above average”.
Children, ask your parents about “radio”.
Thus at the outset, TMQ resolved, first, to write about what actually happens on the field and, second, to watch every game.
I’ve always kept the first resolve. Until 2011, I kept the second — I watched at least most of every NFL game, and each column had at least one item about the tactics employed in every game that week. But keeping the second resolve was a ton of work, considering sportswriting is my avocation, not my profession. Beginning with the 2012 season, I stopped promising an item on every game — though I’ve continued to produce items on around three-quarters of NFL contests, plus many college games.
We’ve always kind of wondered how TMQ could watch every game, given NFL coverage limitations and the number of television sets the Easterbrook family probably owns.
…every Sunday I devote at least two hours to listening to games on the radio.
But if
(aka TMQ’s “hidden plays”), how does he pick those up on the radio? Are his preferred announcers that good? Or does he only pick up the “hidden plays” on the games he actually watches?
City of Tampa clinched the first overall choice. NBA-style tanking was involved.
For the record, Tampa Bay denies this.
Mike Evans and Lavonte David did not play in the second half.
Doesn’t TMQ frequently bash coaches for not sitting starters in meaningless games?
Chicken-(salad) kicking: Washington.
“When a call is challenged, put the decision in the hands of viewers at home.”
Dear Konrad Miller of Austin, Texas: we’re not convinced. Here’s one reason why:
“As for team bias, if generally equal numbers of opposing fans are watching each game, their bias would cancel out in the voting.”
That seems like a statistically unjustified assumption. Do we have evidence that there would be equal numbers of opposing fans watching Pittsburgh and Oakland, to take one example? Dallas – Tampa Bay? Green Bay – Jacksonville?
“…by calling on the wisdom of crowds, lead to better rulings.”
“the wisdom of crowds” made Justin Bieber a top-selling recording artist.
(Oh, by the way, somebody else called out TMQ on his tracking number complaint. Good for you, Scott Yonts of Auburn, Maine.)
Does fracking cause earthquakes? Reply hazy, ask again later. But TMQ still got himself an earthquake rider.
Actually, that’s a sandworm rider, but who’s counting? Also, in case you were wondering what an earthquake rider runs, this article is about a year old, but seems more directly applicable to fracking related quakes.
In other news, TMQ is proud that the NYT has picked up on Chris Christie’s constant travel. We happened to catch part of the Cowboys-Eagles game on TV a couple of weeks ago, and we were frankly startled when we saw Chris Christie standing next to Jerry Jones. “Why?” we cried out to the rock. And the rock cried out, no hiding place.
We’re just a little surprised that TMQ didn’t mention the Bitcoin Bowl, which drew a little over 26,000 people to a facility that can seat a little over 42,000. And the concession stands didn’t take Bitcoin.
The Football Gods Chortled. We’re feeling alright, but we wish we could say the same for Joe Cocker.
Mmmmmhmmm. When Tampa Bay doesn’t play starters in a meaningless game, it’s “tanking”. When Dallas doesn’t pull starters in a meaningless game, it’s “chasing records”. What does inconsistency smell like, anyway?
(We hope it doesn’t smell like this. We’d actually kind of like some Hai Karate, as we remember the commercials from the 1970s fondly. But at $46 plus shipping for a 3.4 ounce bottle, we think it’d be cheaper to use inkjet printer ink as an aftershave.)
In this week’s episode of “Adventures in Officiating”: false starts and trivial contact.
The 500 Club. The 600 Club. Speaking of the 600 Club, we were all set to suggest that 13,677 is probably a sizable percentage of the Bahamanian population: as it turns out, Nassau itself has a population of just under a quarter million. Also speaking of the 600 Club, we kind of got a kick out of this article.
And with that, we’ll wrap it up for this week, while it is still Tuesday. Have a happy New Year, set off as many fireworks as you can, and we’ll see you on the flipside.