Parody

You hear that word tossed around a lot these days in sports media. It’s predominantly used to describe the sad and uninspiring state of the NFL. The general concept is all the teams are so similar in player rosters and their game plans, that it has become increasingly difficult for teams to stand out and have 10 or more wins a seasons. For example, look at this year, Indy has yet to win 10 games, and only Dallas, New England and Greenbay have reached that number. The rest of the league is either hovering around 7-4, 6-5, 5-6 or is putting out seasons like the Jets or Dolphins. This is of course in sharp contrast to the chaos unfolding in the college football world, where dynasties were toppled (USC and Michigan) and shoe-ins for the national title bowl were upended at the very end (LSU and Kansas). Does Parody really exist though?

Look at College football the last few years. Everyone picked OSU and Florida to meet, and they eventually did. Last year the NFL was at least more competitive than now, with teams like San Diego and the Eagles making it interesting. What’s changed in the NFL? For one, the playbooks for each coach are too similar. Too many teams are attempting to run modified West Coast offenses, similar to the scheme the Patriots employ, but these teams don’t have the players to execute the plays correctly. Case and Point, look at all of the aging veteran QBs hanging around – Vinny T, Jeff Garcia, Steve McNair, Kurt Wanrer – because the current crop of young QBs doesn’t have it. Look at Eli Manning’s performance this weekend, of the way Carson Palmer and Ryan Phillips have suffered this year, not to mention Grossman and Griese. Until head coaches become bolder in their play calling (like Green Bay has this year), and they stop coddling young QBs, the NFL will continue along the same path. So Parody at the coaching level, and among the young QB’s – in terms of their inability – does exist.

Oh yeah, A-Rod’s contract is now complete. Congratulations, he came crawling back once he realized 1.) he would be as hated as Barry Bonds if he went anywhere else and played for a team that would be unable to field any other quality players behind him, and 2.) no team would pay him what the Yankees were paying before HE decided to opt out during the World Series. Make no mistakes, it was A-Rod behind the announcement of that decision during the 7th inning of the World Series, not Boras. I know I wrote a long discourse on this in my previous blog, but this new idea that A-Rod is coming back because he “cares” about his legacy is completely ridiculous. This is all about money, and managing a miscalculation by his agent. All they needed to do for their desired bidding war, was to sit down with the Yankees (which they didn’t do) and then to go to the press. But once the Yankees stated they would not negotiate, all potential suitors lost the incentive to pay A-Rod what he wanted. Thus, his return to the Yankees. Has anyone else also noticed he has yet to have a productive post season?

On a completely unrelated note, I recently became obsessed with cleaning my apartment. So much so that I devote at least 30 minutes a night to the task, though right before I go out on a Friday or Saturday, I usually spend more than an hour. I use bleach to clean the surfaces in my kitchen and bathroom, and the apartment is so clean that even my parents (who pay cleaning people) commented that it was bordering on ridiculous. Good, but to be honest, I keep it clean for other reasons – mainly for entertaining people on the weekends and to keep myself occupied and not resorting to making cocktails and playing PS 3 or watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes during the week. However, I also have a habit of chewing hangnails on my thumbs. Over the last week, as I was repeatedly using bleach to clean, I noticed that skin around my thumbs was literally corroding off, thanks to my chewing them and exposing them to bleach. I didn’t really notice until my assistant at work actually said “gross,” which prompted me to assign her some meaningless spreadsheet that I didn’t need completed. But later I looked at them, and realized that’s not exactly something most girls would find appealing. Suffice to say, I invested in rubber gloves.