Monday Update: Arizona on My Mind

Gentlemen,

The wife and I spent a very nice, yet very abbreviated weekend in Arizona, and I'm in no mood to work today... That includes writing this. Alas, I hate to disappoint, so I will do my best for you jackals.

The Gameday Thread yesterday was the best I could get set up from the airport with my phone. Blogger does not apparently want people blogging via mobile devices...

I missed most of the days action and had to catch up by reading box scores and watching highlights last night. It definitely does not compare to Red Zone.

Let's just get through this, shall we?

The Vikings
As I mentioned I was mostly on a plane yesterday. I only got home to see the 4th Quarter. I also got my dad's synopsis on the ride home: "Ponder just sucks. He is so bad! He couldn't hit an open receiver in the end zone if his life depended on it." FYI: we played Ponder yesterday in his league, which actually ended up being not bad...

Anyway, sounds like he shot ourselves in the foot whenever we got in the red zone. I saw a stat last night that said we scored a TD on 2/7 red zone possessions, while the Redskins were 3/3. That is basically the difference in the game. That combined with Ponder's turnovers (which have suddenly become a problem) and our inability/lack of desire to throw downfield is what makes me hesitant to get too excited about our local boys.

If they showed a little more killer instinct and took advantage of opportunities to put teams away early, I'd be all aboard. I'm really hoping they destroy Arizona next week...

The Gophers
I gotta say... The West Coast is awesome for TV watching. You get up and something good is on. This game started at 9am for me, which was great because I didn't miss much pool time. I probably should have gone straight to the pool... The way my dad feels about Ponder, is how I feel about Shortell. How many easy throws can you screw up, Ginger???

And now Wisconsin seems to be getting their mojo back and is a virtual lock to play in the B1G Championship game since their division is entirely horrible or suspended. We may as well just assume the Rose Bowl Champions at this point. #ReverseJinx

Maybe Whitey can cheer me up...

Cracker's College Football Corner
1) Well that sucked. Is it me or is Shortell not good? Seems like he misses so many open receivers...

Like I said earlier, there shouldn't be a QB controversy.  Our offense is better with Gray in the game because he improves our running game so much and what he lacks in passing relative to Shortell he makes up by being able to go against defenses that are trying to stop the run.  

2) Over/Under wins the rest of the season: 1.5--what side are you taking?  In other words, will we be bowl-eligible?

I think that is the appropriate O/U.  I'll take the over with 2 wins for no other reason than the knowledge that since 1998 we have only failed to win 2 Big Ten games once (2007) and I remember how bad that team and some of our others have been (and I'm generally an optimist).  We even managed to find 2 wins after firing Brewster at mid-season in 2010.  I can't point to which two games they will be but I think we'll find them somewhere.

3) We get Wisconsin in Madison this weekend... Give me something to feel hopeful about.

The best I've got is that this could be a trap game for Wisconsin.  Last week they played and demolished their only legitimate competitor to represent the Leaders Division in Indy and next week they play Michigan State who has beat them twice in the last two years.  Hopefully, Wisconsin is looking ahead to MSU.

4. B1G Rankings:

1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Penn State
4. Northwestern
5. Nebraska
6. Wisconsin
7. Iowa
8. Michigan State
9. Purdue
10. Minnesota
11. Indiana
12. Illinois

Well, that wasn't very optimistic sounding, if you ask me.. Maybe next week we'll have something to celebrate...

PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE GOD LET THIS HAPPEN

Team Names
This was a good topic, photos always makes things more fun. Speaking of which...some of you have apparently got the Y! Uploader to work, which means you should probably be working in Silicon Valley at this point.

Interesting how we all define ugly... Many of you obviously levied your own personal disdain for your selections. Political viewpoints came into play. We had TWO Badger coaches nominated. And for some reason, many of you seem to associate "Ugly" with "Having a likeness to a cartoon or science fiction character." I'm not sure if that qualifies as ugly, but that's why we vote.

Let's review:

Hillary Clinton

Michael No Moore

Mitch McConnell

Rosie O'Donnell

Bo Ryan

Sam Cassell

Steve Buscemi

Bret Bielema

Steven Tyler 

Nice iPhone capture

Bbbbwwwwaaahhhh.... 

Who had the Best Team Name in Week 6?

***UPDATE: Polls in the blog were messed up. Please vote on the sidebar.***

I've got to go with Michael No Moore. Maybe I'm too literal with this category, but he's the ugliest person on this list by far... He'd be hideous even if he wasn't 400 pounds and super annoying. Since he's all of them, this is a clear winner for me.

Who had the Worst Team Name in Week 6?

***UPDATE: Polls in the blog were messed up. Please vote on the sidebar.***

This is no contest for me. I'm voting for Bbbbwwwwaaahhhh.... First off, Kenny doesn't specifically say, but I'm pretty sure he's making fun of me. Which is fine. I really don't care about being the ass of a joke, which I regularly am. What I do take issue with is using the same old recycled pictures from your Y! profile (year in and year out) rather than putting 5 min of effort into your team name. Let's see.. I could have gone through my old Y! photos too and selected any of the following uglies:
 - A Tuskan Raider
 - Jen Duerre
 - Ned Ryerson (from Groundhog Day)
 - The bad guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark whose face melts off on the end
 - TC Bear
 - Jay Cutler
 - NooShoo Gow
 - Ireen Gow
Know why I didn't do that? Because there's no effort and it lacks originality. And I don't even get what the team name is... Is that what I'm supposedly saying in the picture? Good God, please try next time. This was not a hard topic. Pick and ugly person and send me their photo.
/rant over

This week is a classic favorite: BOTT Possessive Nouns. Favorites from the past include: John's Locked Door, Lunas's Finances, Dewitt's Creepiness, and Bolger's Pink Thing.

Let's be original boys...

The Games

Ike Crabs vs. Ned Titwarmer

• A solid, non-exciting performance for Crabs' team yesterday. Most of his guys in double digits, but no one going crazy.
• Tony Gonzalez finally came down to Earth, if only for a week.
• Rashard Mendenhall came down to Earth too, then apparently went through it and burned to a crisp at the core...
• For Ned, there really isn't much to get excited about... Bradshaw had another good day, and Roddy continues to solidly produce, but his team lacks guys that can win a week for him. 
• This whole matchup bores me. The best part of either team were their benches. Stafford, Maclin, Denarius Moore, and SHONN FREAKING GREENE. All these guys could have dramatically changed this matchup, but instead were rotting away earning zero points for either team.
• I still can't believe Shonne Greene... 34 points. I mean, did he have that many all of last year?
• Ned's team continues to struggle. He narrowly got his first win last week, but  he'll take his fifth loss here as Crabs beats him 92-79. Crabs moves to 4-2.

Rod Jerks vs. Dick Dallus

• A true Toilet Bowl, at least so far.... 
• Dallus team is done for the week, and he scored 47 points. That actually happened.
• 47 points.
• Dallus was hit with bye weeks pretty hard this week, but that's crazy. He actually had 2 guys in double figures (Chris Johnson! and Blair Walsh), which tells you how crappy the rest of his team was.
• No one else got above 5.5 points for him. 
• I can't exactly claim so high scoring crown either. Sitting right now at 51, my team was certainly beatable this week.
• Arian Foster did his best Jerome Bettis impression with 29 rush yards and 2 TD's. 
• Matt Ryan was consistently ranked as the #1 QB this week, yet against Oakland's craptastic defense (in the Georgia Dome!) he managed a meager 9 points. What. The. Fuck.
• Vick would have been a better start with 22...
• I'm going to win this one, mostly because the scheduling gods... I currently lead 51-47 with Mathews, Demaryius, and Nick Novak going tonight.

Juan Coconuts vs. Marcus Whitebread

• Because I missed most of yesterday's action, I had to catch up a lot when I was home by just reading the tickers on the screen. 
• My initial thought was "Wow AJ Green and Vincent Jackson both went off. Coconuts must be having a huge week." Turns out, those were the only guys that really did anything for him at that point. Turner, Ridley, Gronk all were sucking.
• James Jones went the route of Maclin/VJax in the night game. I'm sure Coconuts was doing backflips in his living room.
• Similar story... I was home in time to see the end of the Vikings game and when RG3 trucked down the sideline, and they showed his total stats (passing and rushing), I thought "Holy shit. Who had the misfortune of playing Whitebread this week?" When I checked the matchup, his point total seemed suspiciously low. Then I saw Peyton Manning sitting in his starting QB spot... and I laughed and laughed and laughed.
• Fitz and McCoy played solid enough, but similar to Juan, he really got very little from the rest of his team (and he did not have a James Jones to bail him out at night).
• So... We've got a pretty good one here. Thanks to Mr. Jones, Juan heads into tonight with a healthy 85-55 lead. He has Rivers, while Marcus has the aforementioned Manning and Willis McGahee. Should be fun if Denver can do some things early on...

JoJo Fredricks vs. Kenny Hana

• A semi-Toilet Bowl, if Dallus and I hadn't set such a high low skid mark.
• Kenny made a late week trade to acquire Torrey Smith and Kyle Rudolph, who combined to get him 22 points (or as I like to think of it "2/3 of Jordy Nelson").
• Kenny started Larod Stephens-Howling, and he played bad. 
• Jojo started Kevin Kolb, and he was mostly bad. 
• Starting Cardinals is not a recipe for success.
• JoJo's studs (Charles, Gore, AlfMo) didn't do a ton and thus these 2 find themselves locked up in a tight one...
• Separated by fractions of a point, they are basically tied at 77. JoJo has Matt Prater kicking for him, while Kenny counters with Decker. Another fun one to watch...

Andy Crapswell vs. NooShoo Gow

• The best matchup of the week. This one featured our 2 highest point scorers (so far), and will likely result in having both the Points Bonus and Loser Bonus winners. Sucks to be the loser of this one...
• Andy got a great week from Welker, and good weeks from Doug Martin and Matt Bryant. Everyone else on his team (other than Rodgers, we'll get to him...) wasn't worth shit.
• Gow had a better overall week from his team, but really only got one big standout performance and that was Ray Rice.
• So then we went into the night game with Andy having Rodgers, while Gow had Nelson and Houston D.
• Nearly 80 points later and these 2 find themselves separated by about 5 points, thanks to a late bolcked punt TD for Houston D.
• Gow leads 106-101 and has Gates. Andy has Malcom Floyd and all bets are off on this one... 

Tonight
Three matchups all in doubt tonight. Could be, and hopefully will be, quite a fun evening.

My attendance for tonight is Questionable, at best. I'm definitely going to be a gametime decision. I've got a sick wife and kid at home and I'm not sure it would be in the best interest of my marriage to ditch them for the bar.

But I'm not ruling myself out yet...

I believe Juan Coconuts could make an appearance and has taken an oath to not discuss politics. I'd take the other side of that bet, if someone is willing to wager.

Enjoy the game, boys.