Grit, Guts, & Glorious Winners

Sorry, for the lack of posts, but is’s moving time up north.  Hopefully we can get back to ignoring work to write 1000 word posts on a blog that no one reads soon. That’s the kind of productivity that our non-existent readers expect from us.  I leave you to ponder the apycolypse that is surly upon us, now that Rick Reilly is allowed to guest host PTI.  The Marrioti-Reilly endgame is surly soon to come.

Brett Favre is a dick. Everyone knows that. But what we don’t need are hacks like Gene Wojciechowski pretending he isn’t. Wojo can’t understand why the crazy Packers would rather not lose a 24 year old quarterback,  one they had spent 3 years developing , for a sycophantic over-the-hill 38 year old quarterback, who has had one good year out of the last three or four.

Wojo thinks the Packers owe Favre for not coming into training camp and competing with Aaron Rodgers. He forgets the 3 billion dickish things leading up to this point, or that Favre didn’t go to training camp because his little feelings were hurt, not because he is an awesome guy. Because he is not an awesome guy. Remember the whole huge alcoholic doped-up adulterer thing. No? Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.

Here are some of my favorite stupid things that Wojo says.

And nice job on accusing the Vikings of tampering (the Vikes were cleared of any wrongdoing). Plus, wasn’t it interesting that someone leaked a story that Favre allegedly called the Vikings on a Packers-issued cell phone (also untrue).

Isn’t it also interesting that Wojo is making the same kinds of libelous accusations that he is accusing Farve of making? Plus what’s interesting about the cell phone story, it is just a boring caveat to an all out media fuck-fest.

If this were a divorce, then Favre would be the one getting the alimony. The Packers were so eager to ditch the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yards, touchdowns and victories by a QB that they reduced the bidding war to two teams (the Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers).

First he left out interceptions. Writers always do.  Which is interesting, because interceptions are probably only record the Peyton isn’t going to break. Also, they didn’t reduce the bidding war to two teams, they talked to the only two teams outside of the division interested in trading for Jesus Farve, like you know every other single team in the NFL would.

Instead of Favre — who earlier last season helped lead the Packers to the NFC Championship Game and finished second in the league’s MVP voting — Thompson would rather have three quarterbacks on his roster with a combined zero NFL starts. He’d rather have Rodgers than the most durable quarterback in the history of the game.

Remeber Wojo, helped, that’s a key word here. Since Ted Thompsen is so fucking awesome at drafting players, basically everyone else from last years good young team is back, and will be around for a while. And being a durable quarterback isn’t the same thing as being a good quarterback.  Favre is thirty fucking eight, even if he has a good year this year, he will either actually retire(least likely) , pull the same shit he did this year(most likely), or more than likely really fucking suck when he comes back next year. Remember a lot of things went right last year for Farve to have a good year.  He played behind the top ranked O-line on passing plays. His wide receivers lead the league in yards after catch (which the quarterback doesn’t have any control of).  He will have neither of those things next year, which means he is going to have a substantially worse year, on top of normal regression to the mean.

But if I’m a Packers fan, I fly my team flag at half-mast today. Or better yet, raise a Jets flag.

They’re only $20 at Jets Shop.

Are you a fucking idiot? Your team trades one player, a player who should be retired anyway, and you think they should become Jets fans? What should they do when Favre actually retires? Come crawling back? Root for his beer-league softball team?   Remember a lot of these packer fans actually own the fucking team! I hate the packers and I think that’s pretty fucking cool. Yet, you are encouraging them to become bandwagon fans, bandwagon Jets fans, because their hero dicked around with their team enough to get traded.  A guy who gives so little of a shit about them that he wanted to play for the Vikings, again, because at best his feelings were hurt.  Fuck that guy, and hell, fuck you to.

Love,

DJ Fabulous Fred

Person Gene Wojciechowski

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Editor’s disclaimer: This article is pure speculation. However, consider that the Red Sox traded two of their top prospects just so they could swap their best player for a worse player. What other explanation is there?

Theo: (Sits alone in a diner.  He checks his watch, yet again.) Oh, where could he be?

Manny bursts into the room.  He pauses for a moment to admire his grand entrance, and then smiles at Theo gently, oh so gently.

Manny: (still smiling) Theo; did you see me, when I came in just now? That was awesome!

Theo: Why, yes Manny! Why, yes it was. Please have a seat.

Manny: Okay beautiful. (Manny sits down).  How are you doing today?

Theo: Ok, Manny ok. Well that’s not true. Something has been bothering me.  I noticed you sneaking out of the apartment last night. I need to know… where did you go last night? Manny… where did you go?

Manny: Oh you see, I go down to ballpark, to work on hitting balls far, you know.

Theo: Manny, I know that’s not true. I checked with the security guards, you never showed up to the ballpark last night.  It was HIM wasn’t it.  It was the Big Papi, wasn’t it?

Manny: I’m sorry baby, but Manny just needs something more sometimes,you know. It’s just Manny being Manny, you know.  YAY, everything’s okay now.

Theo: I’m sorry Manny, but I can’t let it go. Not this time.  I am going to trade you to the Dodgers, while unloading two of our best prospects, just so we can get Jason Bay in return. Sweet, sweet, Jason Bay.

Manny: NOO! Don’t do it, Theo! That’s a terrible trade! I can be better, I promise!

Theo: I already did it, Manny. Thirty-five minutes ago.

Well, it must have gone something like that anyway.

Looks like it’s pretty much over.

Finally.

Brett Favre has been a fixture for the Packers for, well, a long time. Longer than I can remember. I really liked having him as a quarterback and am uncertain about his departure.

But the retirement bullshit has been too much this season. I’m sick of it causing distractions, coloring every news report about the Packers, and causing all of football to turn into a game of he said she said mumbo jumbo.

I’ve already talked about it. Anyone with half an inkling about football has talked about it. It’s not worth it to spend much time on it.

However, reading about/watching/ listening to the Packer fanbase tear itself and the players, mostly metaphorically, to pieces causes me pause.

It reminds me why I wanted to get away from Green Bay so badly when I was younger.

Some things Packer fans need to realize/consider:

1) Good and evil, absolutes, dichotomies, and the like do not exist. Especially in football.
2) One player does not make a team… Actually, maybe that is true in cycling (but then one player makes a whole sport). It’s not true in football, though.
3) Regression toward the mean, regression toward the mean, regression toward the mean.
4) Stop yelling stupid, ill conceived, uncouth things at Aaron Rodgers. Wait until you see him play in an actual game to hang him. It’s what I’m doing!
5) The Packers organization is not the devil. Mike McCarthy is a winning coach. Ted Thompson has made sound decisions in the draft and in trades.

Have you heard of AJ Hawk, Greg Jennings, Aaron Rouse, Mason Crosby, and James Jones? Those, among others, are players he drafted. Remember Ryan Grant? I think, you know, those fellows might be good at football. Really. Open a book for once, you’ll see.

So, yeah. The coaching staff and management is not evil. They aren’t trying to destroy the team. That is, in fact, the opposite of their job! That would be like a famous chef attempting to make a chili that is not delicious (unthinkable and impossible). However, if you think that Brett Favre is the sole component of the Green Bay Packers, I can see how you would think the staff is trying to destroy the team. So, finally…

6) If you are not a Packer fan because someone other than Brett Favre is now the quarterback, you are bad at being a Packer fan. When you are a fan of a team, really a fan, you support that team one way or the other. High or low. Winning or losing. Without gunslingers or with gunslingers. You can criticize, but stating that you are no longer a fan of a team because they have a new quarterback probably means that you weren’t ever really a fan. You were probably a fair weather fan. And don’t know about the eighties.

(PS: If any of you “I hate the Packers now because TT AND MM ARE TRYING TO KILL MY BRETT, the gunslinger, blah blah blah, I have season tickets but will never again use them” fans somehow actually have season tickets, can I buy them? I will use the hell out of them.)

I can’t handle reading more about Brett Favre’s un-retirement, or about the accompanying idiocy of some vocal Packer fans not-fans, or about what Peter King thinks he thinks about Brett Favre’s awesome abs.

Looks like it is almost over. Phew.

We, those of us kind-of-rational Packer fans, can now, I hope, get to watching Aaron Rodgers hurt himself coming off of the bench destroy Brett Favre’s team eat a hotdog play a game involving a ball as the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers.

It’s about damn time.

It’s time for our Friday Conversation! Value Adjusted Phineas chooses the topic this week, so here we go!

Value Adjusted Phineas: I’d like to talk about something pretty dear to my heart today: endurance sports. I like them a lot.

As a kid, and now, I was never particularly “talented” or…uh…”passable” when it came to sports that involved things like kicking, throwing, catching, or doing anything involving other human beings. Normally, my adventures with these sports begin with me getting hit in the face.

Endurance sports, though, I’ve been able to manage those. I can typically do things like running, biking, inline skating, and cross-country skiing without getting a black eye. Endurance sports are great. They’re highly accessible, easy to learn, and pretty darn good for the ol’ cardiovascular health.

As a result of this stance, I’ve always wondered why there’s so little focus on endurance sports in our world. In the world of sports reporting, there’s nary a mention of endurance sports, despite the fact that there’s something going on in endurance sports at just about any time of the year. The only time the Tour de France even gets mentioned on ESPN anymore is when someone is caught cheating.

Perhaps more important, the world of sports education turns a blind eye to endurance sports. In school, gym class consisted of: football, soccer, basketball, racket sports, weight lifting, field hockey, and baseball. If there was time, there might be a unit that involves running.

I mean, my high school was in Wisconsin. We have, what? Three months without snow in the year? Have a unit on cross country skiing! It’s only 6 miles to one of the finest sets of trails in the mid-west! But, no, we have a unit where we go to a local bar and bowl, instead.

This lack of attention makes very little sense to me, especially in schools. Lifelong activity is VERY VERY VERY important. Why focus on activities that require specialized skills and multiple participants when individual activities with huge health benefits and low barriers to participation exist?

DJ Fabulous Fred: Well, I don’t think our aversion to endurance sports is anything surprising. For one, endurance sports are boring and hard. At the same time.

Look at American attention spans, we can’t pay attention to 45 minutes of soccer. We need commerical breaks at five minute intervals in everything to even begin to pay attention. We like to do activites that we like to watch, and no one likes to watch endurance sports.

When was the last time anyone said “Oh man, did you see when Chris McCormack’s nipples started bleeding in hour five of that triathlon? That was fucking awesome!”. Never, that’s when.

Anyway, we all know that endurance sports are just a testbed for the performance enhancing drugs that will create our next generation of supersoldiers

Value Adjusted Phineas: Wait. Are you claiming that cross-country skiing is boring? One could make the argument that it is hard, but I would counter: cross-country skiing is no harder than trying to hit a ball the size of a fucking orange when it is thrown at you by some barbarian in your gym class (2x your size).

But…boring!? You would claim that cross-country skiing is boring? You would call THIS boring!?

DJ Fabulous Fred: Ohh, the old exclamation mark-question mark combo, you’re bringing out the big punctuation guns. Well, yes, I do think cross-country skiing is boring. You have to remember that most of us weren’t born in northern Wisconsin. Most of us didn’t grow up cross-country skiing. Most of us don’t consider lutefisk a food group. Most of us don’t look like this:

(Value Adjusted Phineas)

I mean, looking like that, how could you not like cross-country skiing? I do like the ironic mustache by the way.

Value Adjusted Phineas: The Swedish Chef is an upstanding member of the world community, and I, as a person of Swedish descent, am proud to share his heritage.

But, fine. If all you fat fucks don’t want to take my advice and pay attention to or try cross-country skiing, or any other sport that actually requires you to MOVE YOUR FUCKING ASS MORE THAN 100 FEET AT A TIME for that matter, that’s fine by me. You guys have fun dying of cardiovascular disease.