Monday Mourning

So I normally title my Monday blog: Monday Mourning due to being hungover from a full day of drinking and watching sports, hence the “mourning” because I have to get up, go to work, puke in the bathroom, and subsequently fall asleep in all of my meetings and get absolutely no work done. But today is different, mainly due to the fact that CBS’s and Fox’s regional coverage of NFL games in my area was HORRIBLE. Games that had a spread of +11 with no fantasy implications at all were being aired, so I went and watched polo (you know, the sport where guys on horses trot around and whack a ball with mallets). I had never been to a polo game before but we decided to go due to the possibility of attractive females (there are always beautiful women at horse events). We mingled with a few and made up some elaborate lies that we were just checking out the competition and had our horses stabled a few miles away. We were obviously out of place, with our cheers of “nice pass man!” and “shoooooot it!” but we wholeheartedly plan on attending it every Sunday for the rest of the season – pending what NFL games are on of course.

Sorry about getting off on that tangent of girls and horses, I will actually talk about sports in this column. We’ll start with college football. 4 words: Sam Bradford is good! Did you see his stats by halftime? The Sooners look phenomenal. I’m not as hot on ‘Bama as I was last week, even though Coffee had more yards than the entire Kentucky offense. The news of the week is Ball State cracking the Top 25. Ball State? Really? They won’t be there by the time my column next week comes out. A quick note on a kid that made a huge impression on me: Evan Royster from Penn St. Ladies and Gents, we have a future NFL star on our hands. Everyone needs to watch a Penn State game just to watch this kid run and catch. The match-up to look forward to and help get you through this week: Sooners/Longhorns.

Let’s talk about the lackluster weekend in MMA. I’m not even going to talk about Strikeforce because that league is a joke. Seriously. Did anyone watch it? The only thing they have going for them is “Karate Hottie.” As for Elite XC, wow! If you read Aidan Hopkins column from last Thursday, he called the Kimbo upset – and that’s when we thought he was going to fight Shamrock. A few quick notes:

1)      Ken Shamrock is the laughing stock of MMA. The UFC won’t give him any fights, he gets cut in warm-ups, and he is the announcer for Strikeforce…

2)      Elite XC might be going bankrupt faster than IndyMac did. They had put all of their money on the sideshow that was Kimbo Slice, and he got knocked out in 14 seconds by a guy that isn’t even good enough to fight in the UFC. They have no one left to market as their front man now. I see a merger with Affliction coming soon.

3)      I love Frank Shamrock’s braces and how much crap he was talking right after Ken announced he was being pulled from the fight. Why doesn’t Ken just respond “Hey little bro, I’d love to get in the ring with you and mix it up, but I don’t want the fight to be stopped because you cut your lip on your braces.” Braces are cool… when you’re 14!

Now, on to the NFL: A near thriller with the 49ers and Pats, a huge win for the Dolphins and Redskins, and trouble brewing in Philly (Brian Westbrook’s return ended with broken ribs). Did the Redskins really just knock off the Cowboys and Eagles in consecutive weeks while playing on the road? Unbelievable. Are the Dolphins planning on running the Wildcat offense this entire season? Quick question about the Wildcat offense: Why does Chad Pennington line up at WR? In case Ronnie Brown throws a screen pass to him and he launches it to Ted Ginn Jr. for a 45 yd gain? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to have a mobile QB to run some reverse-passes? Tennessee sure looked strong behind Kerry Collins. I love how ESPN reported that “Vince Young has been promoted to QB. 2 for Sunday’s game.” Promoted? Uhh, last time I checked, Vince has been their starter when healthy. One definite thing can be noted from the Tennessee/Baltimore game though: Baltimore’s defense is as strong as ever. They locked down Chris Johnson and LenDale White more than Helio Castroneves was during his tax evasion hearing (go ahead and google it).

Last, but definitely not least: baseball! The poor Cubbies fell victim to their curse for yet another year. The Dodgers did play out of their mind though. And can I get a raise of hands from my East Coast readers of who took a nap in their office today after staying up to watch the end of the Sox/Angels game? And where did this Napoli guy come from? What a time for him to step up.

I guess I lied about baseball being my last sports topic. Did anyone happen to catch the finals between Italy and USA in Beach Tennis last night? Yeah, didn’t think so. Well, I did. How is this really a sport? It’s a mix of ping-pong, badminton, and beach volleyball. It scores a perfect 10 on the unintentional humor scale – especially at game point when one of the USA players turned to the crowd and explained how he needed them to get loud and rowdy.

Big gulps huh? Well, see ya later. Don't forget to tune in on Wednesday for "Who's Hot Wednesdays?" with special guests Kurt Warner and Seth Petruzelli (the guy who knocked Kimbo out). We'll be talking about Kurt's emergence as a star as well as his partying antics with Leinart. We'll let Seth rebut the comments I made about him in this post as well as have him convince us that his hair isn't the most homosexual thing I've ever seen.