12.30.2012

December 30, 2012

Another week, another winner for The Playhouse, which easily cashed with Seattle +1. For the year, that makes the Super Play 20-9-2 (69 percent). We don't mean to deluge our four readers with a calvacade of self-indulgent missives week after week, but all false modesty aside, that's a pretty fantastic four-month run. At the beginning of the season, the notion that we could have pulled off something like this would have rightly been considered laughable and absurd. (Full disclosure: We don't exactly have a good record of successfully handicapping football games and probably never will, having consistently lost money for years online or in Vegas, where we were previously headquartered for three years beginning in 2007). So as happy as we are with our good fortune this year, it no doubt represents an outlier to what has otherwise been a lifetime of ill-conceived angles and dopey, alcohol-infused prophecy.

Meanwhile, the Seahawks are really, really good, and while we are not willing to lock them into the Super Bowl, as so many fans and members of the media up here have, there is not a visiting team in the league that should be giving points at Century Link. Not one. Not the 49ers. Not the Packers. Not the Broncos. The electric atmosphere coupled with its unique geographic location have always made Seattle a tough place to play. Now that the Seahawks are a smart, well coached and physical football team it's even more difficult -- if not impossible.

Before getting to today's Super Play of the Day we have compiled a list because lists are fun. Most importantly, lists are much easier to formulate than an entire essay, which done well, takes time and effort -- two things we are not willing to expend this morning. The following is our final, half-assed attempt of what has been a great year thus far:



Five things we do not want to see in 2013

  • Jamie Moyer pitch: Moyer, who made his major league debut in 1987, is an absolute star off the field. In 2000, he started the Moyer Foundation, a non-profit, Seattle-based organization that lends support to children in need, and has been heavily involved in other philanthropic pursuits going back even further. On the field, however, he's a total train wreck, and despite his age (50) and ineffectiveness (he's awful), he continues to insist that he wants to pitch somewhere in 2013. Please don't.
  • Tim Tebow in the headlines: The third-string quarterback on a terrible team continues to lead SportsCenter on a daily basis. Just the other day, Seattle's Richard Sherman, who is arguably one of the five best defensive players in football, won his appeal of an NFL-mandated four-game suspension for failing a drug test. The implications of the decision were huge, cementing the league's hottest team as an unlikely Super Bowl contender heading into the upcoming playoffs. ESPN, however, felt the 6-8 Jets and their clusterfuck quarterback carousel was a more important story, leading SportsCenter with Tebow's reaction to Mark Sanchez getting the start in today's meaningless game against Buffalo. 
  • Tiger play golf like an also ran: Tiger Woods is a noted bad tipper and confirmed terrible husband and father. Despite repeated promises to make an effort to better relate to fans, he remains remarkably defiant in his interactions with the press and aside from signing five autographs per tournament instead of his customary none, he is just as big a horse's ass today as he was three years ago. Still, he is golf, and for all the talk surrounding the ascendance of Rory McIlroy, no one moves the needle like Tiger. The sport desperately needs him to become a permanent fixture at the majors again if it wants to maintain its relevance on the national stage. 
  • College basketball: We'd argue that never has the gap in talent between the NBA and college basketball been wider. The product is just simply terrible. The University of Arizona, for example, is undefeated and ranked no. 4 in the most recent polls. Yet, legendary coach Lute Olson, conservatively speaking, had 15 teams better than this current version of the Wildcats. Its sad, too, because The Crew at one time were huge college hoops fans. As it stands now, we can't tell you the last time we watched a regular season game from start to finish.
  • People dying in mass shootings: This is very clearly a bad thing, and whatever the cause, we don't want to live in a country where this is a regular occurrence. 


Super Play of the Day

Cowboys-Redskins under 49

No comments:

Post a Comment