Yes, we know, we’re way late. It doesn’t have anything to do with something we’ll get to in a moment. It’s just been a matter of it being relatively cold here in the greater Austin metroplex. And like a giant lizard or some other cold-blooded animal, we’ve been curling up and conserving body heat. (We also fell into a time sink Tuesday night reading the archives of Damn Interesting. But that’s another story.)
But the cold spell is starting to break. After the jump, this week’s TMQ. Plus: viewer mail!
So about that thing we said we’d get to: we get letters. One of which was from Kevin, who left a long comment earlier this week on our December 19th TMQ Watch:
Why such a bitchy attitude about someone else’s column? Is TMQ on your enemies’ list? I don’t get why you feel the need to vent in public about something so subjective. It seems to be a big waste of your time. Are you jealous of Easterbrook’s achievements compared to yours? I don’t see TMQ generally wasting readers’ time attacking other columnists. There is a lesson in this, perhaps?
I submit this as a long-time TMQ reader, who has always found the column engaging, informative, and interesting whether or not I agree with it all the time. I only came across THIS column while searching Google for an archived TMQ column to check on something I’d missed or forgotten. Figured I’d leave a critical comment, FWIW. By the way, I have a hard time with your formatting discerning what is quoted material from TMQ and what is your own text. That doesn’t help you present your case.
We see that it’s time to remind folks of our mission statement, which we didn’t run this year:
Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy Easterbrook’s column. I’ve been reading it since he was over at Slate, and find it to be one of the high points of my week during the period it runs. But I’ve been thinking for a while now that someone needs to highlight and respond to various things in TMQ.
Sometimes, Easterbrook does good work; he spent much of last season discussing the NFL’s response to head trauma among pro athletes, and I felt he was right on target. Sometimes, he uses his column to argue for things like increased Federal vehicle mileage requirements, and I think someone needs to respond to those arguments. Sometimes, he uses his column to go off on various SF TV shows for their lack of plausibility. And sometimes, Easterbrook just goes completely off the damn rails.
To be blunt about it, someone needs to respond to Easterbrook, especially when he goes off the damn rails. As far as we can tell, the Weekly Standard, while it has a “respond” button, doesn’t actually do anything with those responses.
As far as “I don’t see TMQ generally wasting readers’ time attacking other columnists. There is a lesson in this, perhaps?”: we pretty regularly see Easterbrook taking both other sports columnists, and the media in general, to task in his TMQ columns. (For example, this column‘s discussion of “eras”, this one‘s discussion of precise predictions, or his annual rundown of NYT corrections.) So we’re not sure where that comes from.
As far as “discerning what is quoted material from TMQ and what is your own text”, direct quotes from TMQ are formatted with blockquotes. If we miss one, let us know in comments. Does anyone else have this problem?
And we’re happy to tolerate disagreement and discussion in the comments section. Hell, we welcome it, as long as you follow the rules: treat everyone with respect, no personal attacks on others, no spam. It is through dialog that we develop values.
And with that out of the way: Sunday’s games were good. (We didn’t see any of the games, but our TV situation is moving closer to resolution. The New Orleans-Vikings game in particular sounds like a thriller, though we’re disappointed that the Saints lost.)
Thanks for giving us another reason to hate that show, Gregg.
Ding!
Defense trumps offense. Stats. Sweet: Philadelphia’s goal line stand. Mixed: Jacksonville-Pittsburgh, New England-Tennessee.
Speaking of being “bitchy”…
The keys to Titans at Patriots: quick snapping, staying on the ground, not jamming receivers.
The keys to Saints at Vikings: the Saints failed to convert on 3rd and 1 at the 33 second mark. Drew Brees had an awful first half, but an excellent second half. Lots of sweet plays.
Ding! And Marcus Williams wasn’t the only one who screwed up on that play.
Hollywood is obsessed with people hanging by their fingertips.
We think “Ghostbusters” is at least arguably a SF film. (Also, we hate the neologism “sci-fi”.) And we kind of want to see this giant sentient pig movie, but does pork make good jerky? (Serious question: we don’t make a lot of jerky, but most of the jerky we see is beef based. There’s the occasional exotic animal, but we can’t recall ever seeing a pork-based jerky product. Looking around, it appears that Cabela’s sells a ham jerky, though we’ve never noticed it there. Also, if you put enough maple and brown sugar on anything…hell, we bet we could sell maple and brown sugar flavored cardboard. It’d go well with chocolate covered cotton.)
Keys to Falcons at Eagles: going for it on fourth down and going for two.
Hidden play: Foles to Jeffery right before the half.
Three of the four weekend games entailed a clock favor to the home team.
The league issued a statement saying that the NFL, not the home team, is the employer of the clock operator. Uh-huh. Sure.
Kind of goes back to last week’s discussion of betting and officiating, no?
Keys to Jaguars at Steelers: Pittsburgh expected to beat Jacksonville and lose to New England. “They just forgot the beat-Jax part.”
Ding! (Hey, isn’t it time for TMQ’s all undrafted unwanted all pro team?)
Challenge game theory. The 500 Club.
“Single Worst Play of the Season—So Far”: chicken-(salad) kicking by Mularkey and the Titans.
Weeks ago, the “Authentic Games” metric also forecast a Super Bowl of New England-Philadelphia, Pittsburgh-Philadelpha, and Kansas City-Minnesota. So much for that metric.
We’ll be back next week. Hope you enjoyed the column, Kevin.