Pence's 49ers Protest Reveals Trump's Desperation

VP Mike Pence's protest of 49ers players kneeling during the national anthem of Sunday's game in Indianapolis smacks of desperation. Pence left the football game and tweeted “I left today’s Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event  that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.” (See "Trump Tells Pence to Leave N.F.L. Game as Players Kneel During Anthem" by Mark Landler, Ken Belson and Maggie Haberman, as well as Dave Zirin's caustic "Mike Pence’s NFL Walkout Was a Cheap, Transparent Stunt.")

Trump is proving to be a one-trick pony. He'll do anything to keep his hard-shell white nationalist base intact. And while his approval ratings are not as low now as they were in August following Charlottesville, he's having to go out of his way to gin up spectacles for the hayseeds, spectacles that are not spectacular. Trump is desperate because he won the presidential election last November based on economic nationalism and a sensible foreign policy, neither of which is particularly discernible in his administration. The right Democrat (Cuomo?) should easily beat him.

NFL Week 13: Goodell Caught Lying

Every year I travel down to California to spend Thanksgiving with my father. We run a local turkey trot at the community college and then spend the rest of the day snacking on chips and watching the NFL games.

This year was a treat because of the Seahawks-49ers match-up. Last season's NFC Championship game caused a brief "family feud" between the two of us -- my father thought Richard Sherman's post-game assertion of his superiority thuggish; I accused my father of being racist. The Thanksgiving evening rematch on national television provided an opportunity for me and my father to relive those events and approach the divisional rivalry with more reserve.

As it turned out, the game itself, as one-sided as it was, didn't generate much heat. It was a bitter, bilious Thanksgiving meal served cold to the San Francisco faithful. Seattle dominated in all aspects of play: the defense smothered Frank Gore and the impressive lineup of 49ers receivers, and Kaepernick never found a rhythm; while on offense, the great Marshawn Lynch piled up 100 yards on the ground and Russell Wilson scrambled and connected with receivers for over 200 yards.

All in all it was statement game and that statement was twofold: one, the Seattle defense is back to playoff form; and two, San Francisco is a franchise that has a lot of problems. A Raiders victory next week is not unthinkable.

Next week the shutdown Seattle D will be tested by Chip Kelly's hurry-up offense. Mark Sanchez repeatedly led the Eagles down the field to paydirt at the beginning of the game in Dallas against the Cowboys.

The Dallas D did not have an answer. Sanchez was never harried and LeSean McCoy cracked off huge runs. On offense the Cowboys were never able to establish a passing attack off the strong running of DeMarco Murray. That's how the Cowboys win: they pound the ball with Murray, and then Romo goes to the play-action pass. Murray was able to run effectively in the first half. But Romo was unable to connect to Witten or Dez Bryant. Then in the second half Dallas was too far behind to stick with its run-first offense. Romo is not the player he was; his bad back is a real limitation.

Given what I saw on Thanksgiving, it is not hard to imagine the Eagles in the NFC Championship game.

Somehow Rob Ryan's Saints defense shut them down in the playoffs last season. McCoy was held in check. If I remember correctly, the game-time temperature was in the low 20s;  I think it bothered Philadelphia, even though the Eagles had home field, more than New Orleans. So that is the ticket to stopping Chip Kelly's hurry-up: Stop LeSean McCoy and Darren Sproles and let Mark Sanchez try to beat you. I think Seattle should match up pretty well.

The bombshell of NFL Week 13 is not any victory on the gridiron but the reinstatement, announced yesterday, of Ray Rice by arbitrator Barbara S. Jones, a former federal district court judge.

The basis of Judge Jones' decision to reinstate Rice, as Ken Belson makes clear in an excellent frontpage account in today's paper, "Ray Rice Wins Reinstatement to N.F.L. in Arbitration," is that NFL commissioner Goodell punished Rice twice for the same incident. Initially, Goodell ruled Rice would have to serve a two-game suspension for knocking out his fiance, now wife, Janay in a hotel elevator. Then after video of the assault went viral, Goodell went back and ruled that Rice would be suspended indefinitely. The Baltimore Ravens followed suit by releasing him.

In order to make the indefinite suspension seem credible and not merely a capricious reaction to public outrage Goodell made two contentions: 1) that he never saw the video of Rice knocking out his honeybunch prior to his initial ruling, and 2) Rice misrepresented the incident in his disciplinarian hearing, calling it a slap.

Well, now we know, thanks to Judge Jones's decision, that Goodell lied in characterizing Rice's testimony as misleading. As Belson says,

In the Rice case, after his initial two-game ban drew the ire of fans and women’s groups who thought it minimized what had occurred, Mr. Goodell acknowledged a month later that he had “got it wrong.” He then announced a new policy in which first-time offenders in domestic violence cases would miss at least six games. Judge Jones, in her decision, noted that Mr. Goodell called Mr. Rice then to let him know that the six-game rule would not affect him because he had already been penalized. 

That promise was scrapped two weeks later, on Sept. 8., after the video of Mr. Rice punching Janay Palmer, who is now his wife, became public. That, in turn, led to the appeal by Mr. Rice. 

In her ruling, Judge Jones devoted considerable attention to what Mr. Rice actually said at the June 16 meeting with Mr. Goodell. She said that the commissioner, in his testimony at the arbitration hearing, recalled Mr. Rice telling him in June that he “slapped” Ms. Palmer. Other N.F.L. executives had similar recollections. 

Judge Jones noted that Mr. Goodell’s actual notes of the June 16 meeting were not detailed and did not contain the word “slap” but did contain the word “struck.” More persuasive, Judge Jones added, were the “detailed and careful notes” that Heather McPhee, a players union lawyer, took at the meeting. Those notes include Mr. Rice stating, in quotation marks: “And then I hit her.” 

Judge Jones noted that Ms. McPhee testified she used the quotation marks because those were Rice’s exact words.

If Goodell lied about what Rice said in his disciplinary hearing he's probably lying about when he saw the knockout video. As Belson notes, Goodell has problems:

Judge Jones’s ruling is hardly the last word in the Rice matter. Mr. Goodell’s handling of the suspension is also being investigated by Robert S. Mueller III, the former F.B.I. director, who was hired by the N.F.L. to find out what, among other things, the league knew about the graphic video of Mr. Rice and when. Mr. Goodell has insisted that he did not see that video before his initial meeting with Mr. Rice last June. If that turns out not to be true, the league’s owners, who have thus far stood behind Mr. Goodell, may take a dimmer view of his leadership.

At the very least, the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson imbroglios have forced the NFL to relinquish its privileged status as the final arbiter on discipline. Judge Jones' ruling should put an end to that. As Juliet Macur points out in "Ray Rice Ruling Highlights Roger Goodell’s Missteps," the league office no longer has any credibility:

He threw out Rice’s two-game ban, and made it possibly for good. Yet what he might have thought was a good idea to appease the public has just left the league without ballast. Instead of a strong leader when the league needs it most, he has been an inconsistent and weak one. 

Goodell has made so many mistakes in the case that it is hard to keep track of them. He has been breaking the rules that he has been making up as he goes along. The owners either see that and don’t care because Goodell has made them so much money, or they continue to wear blinders.

*** 

The league is now at the mercy of arbitrators to clean up its messes. Another one next week will hear the case of Adrian Peterson, who was suspended at least until April 15 for hitting his 4-year-old son with a stick and leaving wounds. It is another chance for Goodell to fall even deeper into a hole that has now turned into a canyon.

Earlier in the month Dave Zirin, "Beyond the Drug Raids: Why the Feds Are Fed Up With the NFL," saw evidence that the vast criminal conspiracy that is the National Football League is no longer the sacred cow it once was in Washington D.C.:

Let’s be clear: the recent raid on five NFL teams by the Drug Enforcement Agency to see if teams were doubling as illegal painkiller dispensaries has little to do with concerns about how our nation’s Sunday heroes Novocain themselves for gridiron glory. The fact that the NFL and their teams of doctors and nurses give out prescription pills like Halloween candy and break out syringes to top off sessions of physical therapy has been public knowledge for over forty years. Player memoirs like the 1970s Out of their League, by Cardinal linebacker Dave Meggyesy, and Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Peter Gent’s semi-autobiographical bestseller North Dallas Forty, addressed such things with a nonchalant frankness bordering on the blasé. These practices are also discussed by former players with a shrug as just the price they pay for keeping the trains—those same trains carrying billions of dollars in revenue—running on schedule. Players tend to come from poverty and play an average of just three and a half years on largely non-guaranteed contracts. They will do what they have to do to get out there on Sunday, and teams will be only too happy to oblige. 

The real story here is that these raids happened at all. The NFL employs twenty-six full-time lobbyists and spends about $1.5 million per election cycle to make sure that the feds leave the league alone and no one looks too closely at how the sausages are made. Pro football is supposed to be an entity that operates in a magical constitution-free zone of antitrust exemptions and tax breaks, with numbing opiates in every locker. But those days appear to be as dead as playoff hopes in Oakland. 

A combination of the bumbling Clouseau-esque stewardship of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, public pressure and a never-ending cascade of scandals has created a relationship between the NFL and the federal government described to me by a hill lobbyist as “something south of toxic.” In September they hired democratic operative Cynthia Hogan to head their lobbying operation in an effort at making their relationship with this administration at least better than poisonous, but this is beyond Cynthia Hogan. Hell, this is beyond Olivia Pope. The federal government is out for a chunk of Roger Goodell’s flesh and the evidence of this is there for anyone who cares to look. 

Over the last three months, we have seen the Federal Communications Commission—a body appointed by the Obama administration—both rescind the decades-old NFL blackout rule and threaten to ban the dictionary-defined slur that brands the Washington football team from being uttered over broadcast television. We have seen rage by public officials over how the NFL and especially Roger Goodell has ignored or even covered up issues of violence against women. We have seen Goodell again and again, whether in the Ray Rice domestic violence case or in his recent ruling on Adrian Peterson’s season-long suspension for hitting his child with a stick, careening from one crisis to the next, absent of a moral compass while thumbing his nose at the Players Association, public pressure or common sense. We have seen the open questioning on Capitol Hill of the NFL corporate office’s tax-free status, something estimated to save the league $10 million dollars a year—a move championed by now-retired Republican senator from Oklahoma Tom Coburn. We have also seen the unthinkable: senators asking the “Emperor has no clothes” question of why the NFL gets any special treatment at all. 

When politicians see the once bullet-proof NFL shield, with all of its cultural capital, as a target for scoring easy political points, it speaks volumes all by itself. This humiliating DEA raid is really just a dash a salt on an already simmering stew. Goodell’s league has long carried itself like the sporting equivalent of Goldman-Sachs; simply too big to fail. Those days of anti-accountability are over. Roger Goodell and the collection of owners that pull his string are failing at the most fundamental task of a league built on the broken bodies of its players: keeping people’s attention firmly focused on the field. Now people—and politicians—are looking at what is behind the curtain and scrutiny does them no favors. It is perfectly understandable why many would see conflict between the federal government and the powers that be in the world of football as the Kang vs. Kodos of political battles. But this is a sport that is being victimized less by big government than by their own arrogance and negligence. Whether we are talking about the covered-up dangers of youth football, the plantation economy of the NCAA, or the corporate culture of the NFL, the feds are not done with the people who run this sport. Not by a longshot.

I am doubtful that Goodell is in a death spiral. The Mueller report will likely be a skillful graywash. The power of the league office will be curtailed but not so much that the owners will force Goodell onto his sword.

As for Ray Rice, I will be surprised if any team signs him this season. He is too toxic. There is the "No More" ad campaign, which strikes me as fresh and effective. We are still -- thanks to the popularity of the NFL -- a TV nation. Ray Rice will have to bide his time.

In the "Super Bowl preview" match-up tomorrow between the Patriots and the Packers at Lambeau Field, I like Green Bay. Revis and Browner have been touted as the best cornerback tandem in the league this year. My sense is that Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb will beat them, allowing Aaron Rodgers to connect over the top. Plus, there are the screens to Eddy Lacy. The Packers defense is good enough to slow down Brady. In a scoring contest between Rodgers and Brady, take Rodgers.

NFL Week 2: Long, Bruising Season Ahead

The collapse of the 49ers in the second half of the Sunday night game against Chicago, the primetime debut of San Francisco's new home in Santa Clara, presages a long, difficult season. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was supposed to be there but he was a no show; he wanted to avoid the fallout from the League's botched handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence imbroglio. Since this past Sunday the situation has grown worse, with new players joining Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson in the lineup for aggravated assault against women and children.

This violence has always been there. What's different? What's different is that the National Football League is the center of a fragmenting national identity. The NFL is a huge business; it is the only reason most people watch broadcast television anymore; it is the only thing we do in common as a nation.

That means the players are on a new level now; they are more akin to prominent politicians and movie superstars. There is an eager market for their dirty laundry.

The San Diego Chargers domination of the vaunted Super Bowl Champion Seahawks defense also points the way to a long, bruising season. There will be no coronations.

The Colt 45 Chronicle #67

The goal for the holiday weekend is to post a letter a day from "The Colt 45 Chronicle," a project initiated January of last year (the 2012 season) during the Seahawks playoff elimination in Atlanta. For some reason at halftime, sizzling with mental trauma brought on by the prospect that Seattle's magical young NFL team would soon have their Super Bowl run aborted, I went hunting for a spontaneous prose document I had typed while living as a bachelor in Washington Heights over twenty years ago. I found it in a storage space; next to it was also a collection of letters composed during my first two years in New York City. 

The time was 1988 to 1990. I was married. My wife and I lived in a married-student housing high rise on the campus of Columbia University Medical School. Our marriage was collapsing. The letters chronicle this collapse obliquely; it has to be interpreted through the tea leaves of my constant pining for Berkeley, the college town from whence we came.

There are some persistent themes to these old letters besides waxing for the West Coast: the San Francisco 49ers, Cynicism (I was enamored with the idea that a philosophical school diametrically opposed to Platonism traced back to Socrates, and that school argued that a short cut to virtue existed by observing the behavior of animals) and of course the mundane horror of worklife.

The larger goal is to finish this letter collection off and then move on to the spontaneous prose Shit Stinks, a time of high drama.

Autumn 1988

Roger Craig rushed for almost 200 yards, and they don't telecast a single 49ers game here. So all I can do is read up on a few highlights in the Monday UPI release. I hope I didn't sound too bombastic and yahoo during my recapitulation of the aforementioned brawl. I worry about this, about my frat-boy pride that kicks like a cowboy to get out. But I see it in there and I know what's going on. My new pre-work fantasy is to drive across the country in December, after I quit my job. Take the ol' squeaky stallion on the road at least one more time; see the country during winter; take a different route from this summer's; have a car to tool around California/Oregon when we visit out West. Sooner still, Ashley and I have a trip to Boston in mind -- Thanksgiving -- to pay a visit to her cousin Sarah: smoke some dope, feel sanded down, drink a pot of Turkish coffee, do a set or two of push-ups in the bathroom, and lay on her painted-red wood floor. I've been nibbling at quite a few titles recently. Diogenes Laertius' LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS was this morning's subway selection. I read about Antisthenes and Diogenes of Sinope, the two great Cynic fathers. A lot of Plato bashing, like the time Antisthenes went to Plato's house to call on him but finds him sick and puking; so he says, "Plato, I see the bile, but not the pride." (I like that one.) I also liked the one where Diogenes comes upon a youth sunbathing in an exposed position, and says, "You best be careful boy or someone will spear you in the backside with a dart."

I wake up every morning just before seven. I look over at Ashley and she is wide-mouthed and dead to the world. Snuz is holding down the fort. at the bottom corner of the bed. The radio goes on two-minutes later; if I'm lucky, it's sports talk or the weather or the news; but a lot of times it's rancid fifties "nostalgia rock." I hit that shit off immediately. I keep my eyes open for thirty seconds and I'm awake. I don't have to take a shower because I've done it the night before. Coffee is the first stop. So I do that; put on my clothes; take a shit; wash my face and brush my teeth; go out the door and push the elevator button; drop down with some future Bush voters off to early-morning rounds at Columbia Presbyterian -- I've already got my book out at this point. I walk past all the sullen security guards listening to the radio, and pass through the two glass doors right out into the cold weather. It's a sprint to the subway; someone is gaining on you so try to crank it up a notch and keep pace. And then, Bam! You smell the dirt/grease/electricity and know you're home free. Skipping down the stairs, building momentum, you gird up your loins and pop the turnstiles hard. Then it's an attempt to be Tarzan in the Congo, testing all your faculties, "Is the train coming? Should I make a break for it?" You cock your head, point your ear, watch what others are doing . . . .

I never thought what was after Berkeley, what was after the West; so all this is still pretty shocking. I just did it, we just did it, and now we're here. For a good long while. And needless to say it's too different to like right off the bat. But I really feel that the only thing that is good in me is the West, So every time I feel positive about being out here I automatically begin to feel the demon in me. The West is still the frontier, is still space and freedom compared to this place. I lived in that shithole apartment like it was my life, for five years, with all the toil, like women, and Cain, and Job. I worked hard. Since I was eighteen. And I was just about to figure things out, which was only because I was just about to leave. I wish I could apologize, effusively, like a Pope. To all the people . . . .

Richard Sherman-Inspired Family Feud

I thought it would be illuminating to include an email exchange with my father having to do with the Richard Sherman affair. I am sure this kind of back and forth is going on throughout the country. My father, who ran the half-mile for San Jose State in its track-&-field heyday, is a longtime 49ers fan who had been drifting towards the Seahawks because of my being a Seattleite and a big fan of this Pete Carroll team. (Also, check today's column by the Gray Lady's William Rhoden, "Seahawks’ Richard Sherman, Like Cornerbacks Before Him, Plays Man-to-Man and Goes Toe to Toe".)

Father: Just returned home from S.C. Watched game. You were right. Palesa's emotional body is even more sensitive than my own. We tuned in at the end of the second half, but it was too much for her, so we decided to wait until the end on the fourth quarter to resume watching. It was quite the dramatic ending. Fine! As I said, "May the best team win". We turned off the Sherman thing. Palesa was offended, as was I. No Postmodern rationalization can excuse it. This is perhaps a reaction to my exposure to English education -- Sport, the games of Gentlemen, the refinement of the code of Knight/Kinghood. I'll not wear my Seahawks cap again. Thug, Hitler, Bush, Ghetto talk, gangsterap all go together, ugly. Dredlocks (Rastaman/Higher Man), his sham. Caught on the stage, an arena, Hernandez, bully Dolphins, now this NFL gutter. Forgive me. Not for me! I'm leaving the area. One last gesture, Go Denver! It pains me to say so, Elway, Manning. I hope Seattle eats it. All my love, dad. . . see how the ugly lingers, Aesthetic=beauty. Remember Marley, "College and University graduating thieves and murderers"? Just goes to show our most prestigious (Sherman & Stanford?) educational institutions fail to pass on the importance of Character, and in this case, that Sport is the arena of Gentlemen. All my love, dad 

PS He regrets it even now I bet. If he needs ablution send him down here. I could work it out.

Son: White privilege, Dad, that's what I hear coming from you.

How come you're so offended? Of all the things to be outraged by? All Sherman said was he was the best. And guess what? He is the best cornerback in the league. No question.

I suppose you would have preferred to have the usual bromide of God and country and "Aw, shucks, the 49ers played like champions" served in loving spoonfuls to you in your televisual habitat. If you think Michael Crabtree somehow personifies the English Christian gentleman, you should scan the Internet more often. Fiat lux, baby,

Father: No. Its not about that. Its about ugly. Nobility in victory, not false modesty, but yeah it was a hard played game -- period? So Crabtree got to his football ego. He is still a man. But what is a Man, each, individual man, answerable to no one but himself -- and his God, Perfection, which he will and must answer to some day. He offended two innocent bystanders (Palesa & me) by his vomit of glorified, self exaltation on the NFL stage. I like a good sporting event, well played, hard played. I have no time for that self indulgent trash talk. Its not about Crabtee. Its about Sherman. Its about Sports. Its about Nobility of each and all. As Marley would say, The Rastaman, the Higher Man. And I would add the Buddha Land. Don't give me that gangster talk thing. Noble is Noble. Beauty is beauty. But beautiful body, athleticism, where is it without the spirit of nobility? Where is the beauty in the victory just so difficulty achieved? Silence and victory is sufficient for those who aspire to true victory. To show a dispirited, ugly heart is embarrassing, so two innocent spectators pulled the plug on him. No time for that in our world -- too offensive, in an offensive age. No more NFL for me, no more Seattle Seahawks. I've got to part ways with you on this one. Ugly is ugly, and he was the face of the ugly. What can the internet teach a man in his heart. dad

Son: All I'm asking is that you be a good Buddhist and inquire why it is this so offended you -- don't the Buddhists have a thing about reacting? -- and possibly it offended you -- entertain the possibility, Dad, read your first message -- is that it has to do with racial stereotypes. Tom Brady can chase an official off the field after a game, cursing him for a non-call that would have helped the Patriots beat the Panthers, and no one calls him "classless" or a "thug." This just happened a month or two back. Jim Harbaugh can harangue and grimace and wail and act like a toddler on the sideline -- a one man Greek chorus -- and no one calls him classless and makes demands for "Nobility."

Yet you stick a mic in Sherman's face down on the field adrenalin rushing right after he wins a championship game and despite the fact that he doesn't curse or really say anything offensive people are outraged and can talk of nothing else.

My position is that it struck a nerve in a supine, pacified, televisually hypnotized populace and that nerve was white privilege. We don't want an angry black man on our sacred screens. Gandhi, MLK Jr., Bob Marley, Mandela only, please.

I wish you luck in finding your "Higher Man" in the English Premier League. Adios, king.

****

Huffington Post put up audio this morning corroborating Richard Sherman's version of events that all he said to Michael Crabtree was "Good game." Also, here's a good story from yesterday's Huffington Post.

The Best

Briefly, a few words on the dust-up created by Richard Sherman's post-game interview with Fox Sports Erin Andrews.

Sherman won the game for the Seahawks with less than a minute to play when he batted Kaepernick's pass away from Crabtree in the end zone and into the awaiting arms of Malcolm Smith. It was an amazing, athletic play. (I anticipated that Sherman would have a large role in beating San Francisco.)

For people to be outraged at Sherman, adrenalin rushing after sewing up the NFC Championship Game, calling out Crabtree as a punk and then proclaiming in full throat that he is the best reminds us of something that most of us are already well aware -- shallow, idiotic, race-based snobbery is alive and kicking in "The Greatest Nation on Earth."™

Read Tommy Tomlinson's "22 Thoughts About That Richard Sherman Interview." He's on the money. And then, for a more culturally nuanced critique, check out Dave Zirin's "Richard Sherman, Racial Coding and Bombastic Brainiacs," which appeared on his Edge of Sports blog for The Nation.

One commentator, Javier, on Zirin's blog hit it when he said, 

I’ve never seen the word thug be used to describe Brady’s behavior. In this season, he literally chased down league officials, yelled and cursed calling their decision BS, imagine if at this moment Erin Andrews seeks the interview? Brady is allowed to intimidate the officials, but his character isn’t questioned.

White privilege, baby. The big American bugaboo. That's why I love the Seahawks so much. In this lily white corporate nirvana -- Boeing, Starbucks, Microsoft, Amazon -- that is the Emerald City, Seattle's transcendent professional football team is young and overwhelmingly black.

There is nothing but love for Richard Sherman in this town. We know who is he. We know he is smart, honest, tough -- sensitive, too; a great competitor. He is the personification of what makes the Seahawks new, different.

NFL Week 20: Conference Championship Round

We've arrived at that point in the season which is really the last Sunday for the regular football fan. After the NFC and AFC Championships are decided this weekend, the National Football League enters its High Holy Days, culminating in the most sacred day on the American calendar, Super Bowl Sunday. At which point it is something other than a NFL game. It is more a celebration of excess and hyperbole -- the partying fans who can afford the thousands of dollars to travel and lodge at the Super Bowl host city; the reverential video biographies of key players; the ad buys and TV commercial premieres and corporate executive luxury suites -- all presented in that peculiarly American vernacular that the world has come to know and loathe: bombast cloaking an infantile narcissism engaged in profligate consumption.

But tomorrow the athletes will still be visible through the mass of machinery that it is American capitalism. The Championship games are most of the time far better than the Super Bowl itself. This was certainly true when I was growing up; less so in the last ten years. The NFL has managed to refine its product.

Action begins tomorrow at noon in Denver. The line on the AFC Championship Game is Broncos -5, and that is probably charitable to the Patriots. My only bad pick last week was the Chargers. I went with San Diego because I was so taken with how the Chargers ran the ball in Cincinnati. Granted, Ryan Mathews was sidelined most of the Denver game because of an ankle injury, but Danny Woodhead, who did a lot of damage to the Bengals, couldn't get anything going against the Broncos defense, and neither could Ronnie Brown. To make a long story short, I am impressed with Denver's defensive line. In order for the Patriots to win they have to run the ball with great success. Ridley and Blount and Vereen all need to have big games. Why? Because Brady doesn't have a dominant receiving corps. I don't see New England's rushing attack keeping them in the game. Take Denver. (Oddly, I will be cheering for the baleful Belichik, my go-to bete noire. For me, Peyton Manning personifies corporate America even more so than Tiger Beat Tom Brady.)

The big match-up is the NFC Championship Game where the Seahawks and 49ers meet for the third time this season. I woke up this morning thinking how evenly matched these teams are. Seattle has a superior defensive secondary; San Francisco, better linebackers. The respective defensive lines are about even with Seattle possessing more depth. On offense, San Francisco's line is superior, as are the 49ers tight end and receivers. But Seattle has the edge at running back, though San Francisco has greater depth at the position. This brings us to the quarterbacks. Colin Kaepernick is playing lights out. The last month-plus he has been the X-factor for the 49ers. For Russell Wilson it has been just the opposite. He struggled through the end of the season and looked off in the win against the Saints. The edge here goes to San Francisco.

So on paper -- because of a more potent offense -- one should go with the 49ers. Why then have the Seahawks stayed at -3.5 throughout the week? The 12th Man! Seattle's home field is like no other. You saw that in the second half against New Orleans. Drew Brees had to burn his timeouts because of the noise; he didn't have any left in the final minute of the game, which cost him a trip to the championship round.

Kaepernick has not been able to master the 12th Man. It could be argued that with a difficult road win at Lambeau Field in single-degree weather under his belt, he is primed to silence the mob at CenturyLink. Of one thing I feel certain: Kaepernick will throw an interception or two. He did in both the Green Bay and Carolina playoff games. In the past, when he did this at Seattle, he was unable to recover. Yes, Kaepernick is a different player now. But I trust Richard Sherman and the rest of the Seahawk defense. And I trust the 12th Man. Russell Wilson will right himself -- he has always had solid games against San Fran -- and Marshawn Lynch will run with strength and purpose. The survey of opinion provided by the Sporting News favors the Seahawks because of Seattle's home-field advantage and the wear and tear of three road playoff games beginning to take its toll on San Francisco. I'm taking Seattle. Onward to the Super Bowl!

NFL Week 19: Divisional Playoff Round

Standing in the queue this morning at Starbucks I was greeted by servers wearing handsome Seahawks 12th Man t-shirts. A good omen? Hard to say. My neighbor, the super of the apartment building where I have lived for the past decade, a guy my age and a fellow sports-on-TV junkie, had this to say the other day when I ran into him on the stairs to our third-floor residences: "It is hard to beat a team three times in a row."

Ah, yes. Words of wisdom. But I think it is a tall order for the Saints to come to CenturyLink Field and hand the Seahawks a loss. Granted, last week the New Orleans defense contained the premier running back in the National Football League; and, granted, the Saints own ground game was terrific; -- I am betting that Seattle has too much defense -- a well-rested defense with springy legs -- for the Saints. It will tighter than the Week 13 34-7 blowout, but it will be a Seattle victory nonetheless. Take the Seahawks.

New Orleans at Seattle is the Saturday afternoon game. The Saturday evening game has the Colts at Foxboro Stadium to take on the Patriots. Andrew Luck has been getting a lot of ink after his comeback win over the Chiefs. I don't think that T.Y. Hilton is going to run crazy in the secondary at Foxboro. Though the forecast is for warmer weather tomorrow -- temperatures in the 50s with rain -- I don't see massive breakdowns in a Belichik defense. Combine that with what I think is a potent Patriots rushing attack and the passing of Tom Brady and I say take New England.

Quickly on the Sunday games, I'm taking San Francisco. Kaep is too strong, and the 49ers defense is too cagey. True, the Panthers have a dynamite defense. But the Cam Newton-led offense is mediocre.

I'm going out on a limb and taking San Diego. The Chargers are the hot team now, and they have proven they can win in Denver. I love the Mathews-Woodhead-Brown ground game. And for some reason I think it is Philip Rivers moment.

NFL Wild Card Round Takeaways

A few choice words on the result of the NFL wild card round. The first thing that has to be mentioned is my poor performance. I went 0-4. Last year I was 4-0 for the wild card round. What happened?

Saturday began well for me. I expedited two loads of laundry before 7 AM and then rested until the 1:30 PM (PST) K.C.-Indy kickoff. I was overjoyed by the Chiefs' domination of the first half. Alex Smith played masterfully at quarterback, Knile Davis ran with force for a concussed Jamaal Charles, and the Kansas City defense intercepted Andrew Luck. But in the second half the Chiefs defense collapsed, T.Y. Hilton ran rampant in the secondary, and Andrew Luck looked like he was Canton bound. My takeaway? Don't bet against Andrew Luck when he has home field.

The outcome of the evening match-up of New Orleans at Philly should have been foreseen, but I was bedazzled by the Eagles offense and underwhelmed by the Saints defense. Well, as it turned out, Rob Ryan did a great job keeping Foles-McCoy-Jackson in check. One factor that I did not foresee and was critical to the Saints win was their running game. Though Pierre Thomas was absent due to injury, Mark Ingram and Khiry Robinson showed up big time. My takeaway? The Seahawks will have a tougher game on their hands than the Monday night regular season steamrollering of New Orleans. Look for Sean Payton to establish a ground game.

After staying in bed basically all day Saturday, reading newspaper stories on the unraveling of Uncle Sam's imperial project in South Sudan, I awoke at 6 AM and washed a sink of dirty dishes, scanned the headlines online, and then set out on my "Big Man's Run." I got home and juiced a lime and settled back on the mattress just in time for the start of San Diego-Cincy game. This was the one lousy game of the weekend, and of course the outcome was entirely predictable. That didn't prevent me from making the wrong choice and believing that somehow Marvin Lewis would right himself and that Andy Dalton wouldn't make incredibly poor throws and bad choices at quarterback. My takeaway? Don't pick the Bengals in a playoff game and don't rule out a Charger upset in Denver. The San Diego rushing attack of Danny Woodhead, Ronnie Brown and Ryan Mathews is awe-inspiring.

The final contest of the weekend was worth the wait. San Francisco-Green Bay lived up to the hype. My takeaway? I am a fool to have thought that Kaepernick was going to self-destruct in the single-digit temperatures of Lambeau Field. Kaep is the real deal. The 49ers will roll on. The Panthers defense is tough, maybe the toughest, but Kaep & Co. will find a way to win.

Now, enjoying my first Sunday evening in a long time without the televisual specter of football, I plan to eat dinner and continue my Breaking Bad immersion.

NFL Week 18: Wild Card Playoff Round

In both Saturday games the home team is favored by two-and-a-half points. Kansas City travels to Indianapolis for the first game. And you would think this would be a no-brainer since the Colts dominated the Chiefs at Arrowhead a couple weeks back. But for some reason I'm going with Kansas City. I think the Chiefs reverse their second-half-of-the-season slide and find some focus and mental toughness. I think speedsters Jamaal Charles and Dexter McCluster find sure footing on Lucas Oil Stadium turf, and Brandon Flowers contains T.Y. Hilton. So long as Alex Smith doesn't throw a bunch of interceptions Kansas City rolls on. The Saturday evening game should be a humdinger. The Saints are not known for their prowess on the road. But you know Drew Brees is going to pile up the yards against the Eagles defense if last week Dallas backup Kyle Orton was able to throw for over 350 yards and two TDs. I don't see Rob Ryan's defense being able to contain LeSean McCoy or Nick Foles. Philadelphia should win in a shoot-out. The early game Sunday has San Diego visiting Cincinnati. The Chargers have proven they can beat anybody this year by knocking off both Indianapolis and Denver. Couple this with the fact that Marvin Lewis' Bengals are 0-4 in the playoffs and you can imagine a situation where the seven-point underdog Chargers pull off an upset. But I don't see it happening. What's different about this Bengals team is the depth on both offense and defense. Take Cincinnati. The premiere match-up of the wild card round is the Sunday afternoon game in Green Bay. The Packers can knock off the 49ers. Aaron Rodgers and Randall Cobb are back in the lineup, and Eddie Lacy and John Starks are a potent rushing combination. The weather is supposed to be freezing. It's hard to go against San Francisco. The 49ers have been on a roll lately; along with Denver, they've been playing the best football in the league. But I like Green Bay in this one. The Packers have a habit of underperforming when they are favorites going into the playoffs but surpassing expectations when they are underdogs.

NFL Week 17: "Who is Going to Cure the Heart of a Man in Need?"

Another regular season draws to a close tomorrow. Once again we have traveled from September summer sunshine to the dark mornings of late December, and once again I am left wondering about the wisdom of planting myself hour after Sunday hour in front of the idiot box indulging in all the stress and bliss and passivity of being a fan of the National Football League.

I go through this every year, and every year I end up coming back -- to the TV, to my mattress on the floor, to my Hugg-a-Mars pillow propped beneath my head. I am a vision of the bachelor alone. But I keep coming back not because of the elixir of solitude that the NFL on television offers. I keep coming back because of community. Everyone watches the National Football League; or, if not everybody, a lot of people. There are even a number of women at work who watch the Seahawks. It is a way to attach oneself to his community -- to analyze the games on Monday morning with coworkers; to chat with a fellow competitor during a 5K race about an upcoming game; to compliment a young man on his beautiful knit dark-blue Seahawks cap (as I did on a run this morning). This is why every year I renew my commitment to watching all the games.

Right now on the NFL's web site, Seattle is shown as the top seed in the NFC. This of course is assuming a lot; it's prioritizing the numbers over the trend lines. The trend is that Seattle is faltering. Last week the Seahawks lost their first game at home with Russell Wilson starting at quarterback, and they have lost two out their last three. We could also mention that the Rams have won their last two, and that last year they came very close to beating a Seahawks team (that was much more potent offensively) in their home park. As for the 49ers, they are on a roll, peaking at just the right time. I don't see them losing to the Cardinals even if Arizona has the home-field advantage. I think Carson Palmer will toss some interceptions, and, unlike the Seahawks last week, Kaepernick will capitalize. Take the 49ers.

But back to the Rams-Seahawks game. I spoke with my uncle on Christmas Day. He was a high school quarterback in the San Jose area in the 1960s. He played at the same time and in the same league as Jim Plunkett and Dan Pastorini. He lives in Santa Cruz now and is of course a San Francisco fan. And while he thinks that Seattle has a dirty defense that relies on the black magic of the 12th Man (he also hypothesizes that the fan noise at CenturyLink Field is augmented electronically), he nonetheless feels that Russell Wilson is an incredible quarterback and a winner and that the Seahawks can win if they just leave Wilson enough time on the clock at the end of the game, something the defense was unable to do against both San Francisco and Arizona. Pete Carroll needs to keep his time-outs for the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter.

This made me feel encouraged; that, and my uncle's assessment that Kellen Clemens is not a threat. The line on the Rams-Seahawks game is Seattle by ten. I don't know if the Seahawks cover, but I think they win the game, hopefully in a blowout. Take the Seahawks. They have a lot to prove after their performance against the Cardinals. I think they rise to the occasion.

You Don't Want to Say It, but . . .

Yesterday the dream died at CenturyLink Field when Arizona administered a 17-10 drubbing of Seattle, its first home loss in two years. To be sure, the Cardinals are an excellent team. They have ten wins. But who loses at home, let alone the home of the ballyhooed 12th Man, after picking off the visiting quarterback four times? I'll tell you who. A team with a weak offense. And it was on display yesterday. No speed -- at running back, at the wideouts -- and a quarterback who has trouble seeing downfield. Seattle hasn't been able to move the ball consistently since the first half of the game against the 49ers at Candlestick. And really you would have to look to the game prior to that one, the Monday night demolition of the New Orleans, to find a game where Russell Wilson was in command.

It is not as if there haven't been warning signs. Though Seattle shares the best record in the NFL at 12-3 with Denver, the Seahawks have been the recipients of an amazing amount of good luck this season. Going through their schedule, five games jump out, starting with the season opener road win at Carolina, that easily could have gone the other way. Wins against Carolina, Houston, Tennessee, St. Louis, Tampa were gifts. Turn it around and chalk them up as losses and you're looking at a team that is struggling to end the season at .500.

But Seattle didn't lose those games. The Seahawks kept winning even when they should not have. This created an aura of invincibility locally. You had people coming out of the woodwork to hop aboard the band wagon.

I got off the train downtown after work one Friday night. There was some sort of high school Christmas caroling competition. Pine Street was blocked off to vehicle traffic. Everyone was sporting Seahawk gear. Parents, children, shoppers. It was noteworthy.

At first I was skeptical about Seattle's good fortune, telling a coworker, "You don't want to rely on luck to win games because luck usually runs out by the time you get to the playoffs." But it is hard not to sample the Kool-Aid when your team has the best record in the NFL and your quarterback has never lost at home and it looks certain that the road to the Super Bowl is going to have to travel through Seattle.

And that's what came crashing down yesterday afternoon. The logic that has driven Seahawks fans this season -- as long as we keep winning, we'll secure home field for the playoffs; we secure home field for the playoffs, we're going to the Super Bowl -- was shown to be faulty. The Seahawks led by Russell Wilson can be beat at home. Arizona proved it. The Cardinals did it with a gimpy cast-off quarterback who threw four interceptions.

Arizona did it with defense. The Cardinals stacked the line of scrimmage but also dropped some linebackers into coverage. Seattle receivers were not able to win the one-on-one battles and Russell Wilson was not able to make the throws.

Now, as I see it, a team very similar to the Cardinals, the St. Louis Rams, comes to town on Sunday and, once again, we'll most likely need luck to beat them. The St. Louis defensive line is even better than the Cardinals' and Zac Stacy is a running back who hurt Seattle last time the teams played.

Even if the Seahawks win and get the first-round bye and home-field advantage, Toto in the form of Calais Campbell has pulled the curtain back and exposed Oz. There is nothing at the end of the rainbow. For those of us in the Emerald City who have been assuring each other that "It is our year," Sunday offered a night of fitful sleep.

And herein is the silver lining. Better to be unencumbered of fantasy with one game to go in the regular season. Better to acknowledge that the Seahawks have talons of clay prior to the playoffs. Now, after yesterday, one cannot be blindsided.

This Seattle team is not the juggernaut that at the end of last year racked up multiple 50-point wins on its way to the playoffs. This Seattle team is not nearly as good as the Holmgren team, the 2005 Seahawks, that lost to Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl. This Seattle team, truth be told, is merely a better-than-average team that has found a way to win with an aging power running game, a small quarterback, and no number one wideout. There is some peace in accepting one's limitations.

In a way a loss to St. Louis, another loss at home, which would force Seattle on the road in the playoffs as a wild card, assuming San Francisco wins its final two games, would be a fitting way to enter the playoffs. It would likely entail a trip to Green Bay or Chicago, one that would atone for all the lucky bounces that benefited the team in the regular season. It would mean a long, suffering road to New Jersey. But after the dark, despondent Sunday this bachelor -- a victim once more of emotional transference to the home team -- just went through, I don't think there can be any other way.

NFL Week 15: 49ers on a Roll

The Week 14 showdown at Hunters Point turned out to be a nailbiter as anticipated. San Francisco, regardless of Earl Thomas misplaying Frank Gore's 51-yard fourth-quarter run that set up the winning field, was moving the ball with six minutes to go; Phil Dawson, kicking well, likely would have won the game anyway.

The Seahawks were penalized too much. One in particular, when Michael Robinson was called for a facemask, negated a long run by Marshawn Lynch in the second half. Instead of a first down in San Francisco territory, Seattle ended up punting the ball back to the 49ers. Critical mistake.

But all in all I see a silver lining in the Seahawks 17-19 loss to the 49ers. It will focus the team going into New Jersey to play a potentially dangerous playoff-eliminated Giants football team. That game had all the makings for an upset if Seattle had been tipsy from sewing up the division title by beating the 49ers at Candlestick. Now they are sure to be hungry. I am therefore picking the Seahawks over the Giants.

Other big Week 15 games are the 49ers at Tampa. The Buccaneers are not the same team that lost its first eight games. But San Francisco is peaking. Kaeppernick is playing with confidence. A Tampa upset is a possibility, but pick the 49ers.

Another game with the potential to be good is New England at Miami. The Patriots have run an insane string of comebacks together. Winning games consistently by overcoming large margins in the second half builds character. Tom Brady's Patriots could be a team to watch in the playoffs. Gronkowski's season-ending torn ACL and MCL injury does not bode well though. The 2013 New England could be a one and done. We'll see who shows up on Sunday. I would prefer Miami, but I think the Patriots win.

NFL Week 14: Showdown at Hunters Point

Week 13 concluded with the Seahawks 34-7 Monday night pummeling of the Saints at CenturyLink Field. A message was broadcast to the rest of the National Football League: Seattle is a team to fear.

Now the action shifts to the sunny Bay Area where the 49ers and Seahawks will renew their heated rivalry. Top spot of the NFC West is not at stake because Seattle at 11-1 has a comfortable cushion on 8-4 San Francisco, not to mention one head-to-head victory already tallied, the 29-3 Week 2 Sunday night drubbing the '9ers received at CenturyLink

San Francisco's defense looked in fine form against St. Louis last Sunday, completely shutting down rookie standout running back Zac Stacy. Kellen Clemens was made totally ineffectual at quarterback.

Last year the 49ers ran well out of the pistol formation in the second half; Gore tore off long gains right up the gut of the Seahawks defense. San Francisco held on to win. Alex Smith was still the quarterback then. Kaepernick has never beat the Seahawks as a starter.

This should be a tough game. San Francisco's pass rushers and defensive backs are of higher quality than what Russell Wilson saw from New Orleans; those touch passes he connected on to Doug Baldwin and Zach Miller will be difficult to repeat against the 49ers. Wilson is going to have to run more out of the shotgun.

I think Oakland native Marshawn Lynch has a big game coming home to the December sunshine of the Bay Area. I think Kaepernick continues to underperfom. Take Seattle.

The Remainder of NFL Week 13: Some Big Games for NFC West Teams

The Pittsburgh-Baltimore game turned out to be even better than its hype, providing a little Thanksgiving televisual bliss. The Steelers' final drive at the Ravens' goal line -- the hit on Le'Veon Bell that sent his helmet flying and killed the play on the half-yard line; Roethlisberger's TD pass to Jerricho Cotchery; then the failed two-point conversion to Emmanuel Sanders to tie the game -- made for some riveting holiday passivity. At 5-7 and one wild card spot already spoken for by either Kansas City or Denver, Pittsburgh's hopes of making the playoffs are remote. If Baltimore finds a running game, the Ravens could be a team to watch.

Sunday, a number of games have playoff implications. Arizona travels to Philadelphia to take on the Eagles. The Cardinals are hot at 7-4 having won four in a row while the Eagles have not played their best football at home this season. It is hard to believe that the Cardinals are locked in a battle for second place in the NFC West with the 49ers. I'm not a believer in Carson Palmer. But in a match-up between Bruce Arians and Chip Kelly, I'm taking Arians. The early betting line had the Cardinals by 4 points but then the money moved in the Eagles' direction. Ignore the money. Pick Arizona.

The afternoon game has the impressive Rams, winners of two in a row, traveling to Candlestick to take on San Francisco. St. Louis always plays tough against the 49ers and the Seahawks. The line has the 49ers as anywhere from a eight to nine-and-a-half point favorites. I don't know if San Francisco covers the spread, but I think the 49ers win the game. Take San Francisco.

The Monday night game is a potential NFC Championship preview: New Orleans at Seattle. Last year the Seahawks were flat coming off the bye week. But that involved cross-country travel to Miami. Monday they'll be at home in front of loud, adoring fans with a hunger for the Super Bowl. Drew Brees is masterful in his home dome, but more common playing in cool, rainy weather against a speedy pass rush. The line has the Seahawks by five. Take Seattle in a romp.

NFL Week 11: Three Big Games

Just glancing at the Week 11 schedule, a few games really stand out.

49ers at the Saints. New Orleans put up a lot of points against Dallas last Sunday night. But most of those points came after middle linebacker Sean Lee left the game with a hamstring pull. Then DeMarcus Ware got hurt. Drew Brees will have a harder time with San Francisco. The Saints look good though, and they're at home. If Mark Ingram and Pierre Thomas get any kind of traction running the ball, you've got to take the Saints in the Superdome.

The Sunday night game should be very revealing. Do the Broncos or the Chiefs have feet of clay? Denver at home has always been able to score points even prior to the arrival of Peyton Manning. If Tamba Hali doesn't have a big game and Manning has time to set up and throw the ball down the field, I can't see how Alex Smith and Jamaal Charles keep Kansas City in the game. Though I'd love for Andy Reid to take home the win, I've got to pick the Broncos.

Finally, the Monday night game pitting the Patriots against the Panthers at Charlotte will let us know how good Ron Rivera's Carolina squad is. I think they're playing some of the best football in the league right now. I think that trend continues. Panthers win big.

NFL Week 2: The Ecstasy of Grief

Once I get off the train in the morning I make my way across a skywalk and then down four flights of concrete steps and across International Boulevard to the bus stop. I climb aboard the bus at a back entry and usually sit near an older man who is always reading the sports pages of the Seattle Times. Lately he has been breakfasting on muffins and danish. Earlier in the summer he was making due with the thin gruel of Mariners box scores. Now, I can tell, he's feeling good; he's riding high in bus seat. Why? People are excited here about the Seahawks.

Though it is still very early in the season, it looks like the team is equal if not superior to last year's wild card squad. During Sunday night's demolition (the second in a row) of Super Bowl runners-up and division rival San Francisco 49ers, the off season acquisitions for the defensive line, Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril, played well and made critical contributions. It was the lack of a pass rush in the fourth quarter on the road that was the undoing of the Seahawks last year. 

So things are looking good and people are beginning to chomp down on the hype. A trip to the Super Bowl might be a legitimate possibility. I am wary though. The pain and suffering I experienced was immense with the playoff loss last January in Atlanta . I don't want to relive that. I was detached for the nail-biting opener in Charlotte against the snake-bitten Panthers. But that all changed at some point in the first half of Sunday night's game. My detachment disappeared. Maybe it was the game delay for the lightning storm. By the time play resumed I was completely enmeshed. And it was an extremely satisfying enmeshment. The Seahawks defense shut down the potent Kaepernick-led San Francsico offense, an offense that had steamrollered Green Bay the previous week. And the Seahawks offense got its running game going.

This is what I want to tell you: To be a Seattle fan and to see Marshawn Lynch snap off a crisp touchdown run complete with sharp cutbacks, to sit enraptured at home in front the television as The Beast swaggers slowly into the end zone, really, truly, this is as good as it gets in terms of a communal, cathartic experience. I know the National Football League is a money-grubbing soul-devouring multi-billion dollar behemoth. But underneath it all, the greatness of heroic athletes manages to shine through.

We're not asked to create anything. We're asked to maintain a preexisting order that is based on hierarchy and exploitation. It's a miserable system, an infernal machine. To know that she is free, the worker is allowed to purchase with script objects she has produced by the sweat of her own brow. Freedom also includes viewing commercially televised images. For the most part, this is what we're left with. When it's good we're transported from our horrible lives to something bigger and better, something shared.

NFL Week 1: How to Make Oneself Miserable

A dispiriting opening Sunday to the NFL regular season. Yes, the hometown 'Hawks triumphed, but they did so in unconvincing fashion by relying on Earl Thomas to create a lucky fumble in the fourth quarter. The Panthers DeAngelo Williams was headed for a go-ahead touchdown when he coughed it up and Seattle recovered. The Seahawks then were able to maintain offensive control and run out the clock, something they have been good at since the ascension of Russell Wilson last season.

The vaunted Seattle defense looked okay. Not great, they improved in the second half; in the first half, DeAngelo Williams seemed to crack off five-yard runs at will and QB Cam Newton had plenty of time to set up and throw. But the Seahawks deserve praise for preventing the big play.

On offensive, some unpleasant traits surfaced in game #1. Russell Wilson in his sophomore NFL year does not look as focused as the rookie Russell Wilson; he looks a little cocky and slower to react to pressure, which today was heavy and consistent thanks to an excellent Panther defensive line. Lynch was shut down; he had very few holes through which to accelerate. But Doug Baldwin was dynamite as usual, and Russell Wilson got the job done when it mattered. The Seattle QB is reliable for keeping his team in the game to the end. This is what makes him special. He's a winner.

Now, I'm midway through a good battle taking place at sunny Candlestick. The 49ers and the Pack are duking it out. San Francisco is up 21-14 in the third quarter. Later on it will be Dallas and the New York Giants on NBC's Sunday Night Football.

Before the Packers-49ers game I took the compost and recycling downstairs. Outside it was a perfect sunny West Coast late summer afternoon. I felt lousy. Stiff, unhappy, stressed. This is what a morning in front of the TV watching professional football will do for you -- it will make you miserable.

The Colt 45 Chronicle #25

This letter, number 25, highlights three great loves of mine from my early-20s youth: Thomas Hardy's final novel, Jude the Obscure (1895); the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s; and bar brawling/street fighting. After reading it -- it's deeply embarrassing -- I realize it's from an era long gone. Nowadays such a brawl often ends up with gunfire. I remember that the bar was across the street from the southeast corner of Tompkins Square Park. The evening described took place not too long after the Tompkins Square Park Riot. The letter is addressed to my college buddy Niall who was attending law school back in San Francisco.

Autumn 1988

God, if only we were one pint of the man that Jude was. -- From Arabella to Sue, he drove the length of the gridiron. Taking the ball off tackle, like Roger Craig, high knee action and three linebackers piggybacking, he strode to Marygreen, in the rain, for fucking paydirt. How about the second marriage in the butcher's shop? The blinds were drawn so the morning sun couldn't get in, the booze was still being hooched, and Arabella looked as pretty as a 12-week-old cadaver. Yeeouww! There's a wedding. I got into a fight on Friday with a big fat bouncer at an East Village bar. It all started when he wouldn't let Ashley back into the bar. We had all stepped outside to go to another bar; it was about 1:30 AM; but she had left one her fucking knitted hats, and she had to go back inside and search for it. To make a long story short, I told the guy to let me back in to get it because Ashley had started to freak out -- screaming obscenities and grabbing at the guy. I searched and searched and finally found it, but when I got back outside the situation had elevated into something even uglier than when I'd left. -- Ashley is totally drunk and screaming at the guy; he pushes her, and then Terri goes crazy -- because he pushes Ashley -- and starts hitting this big fat asshole. Okay, so now it's my turn. I see that Terri is going wild and that this guy might slug here. So I step in. We do the obligatory lip-to-lip macho smooch. He thinks he's got a poo-see on his hands. -- I was wearing an Art Quinn tweed and a knit sweater. He started in on the foreplay oration, you know, the "Watta ya gonna do? Are ya gonna party?" shtick. But he became suddenly surprised, eyes changing dilation, when he heard that I knew how to converse in the same tongue. I don't know exactly what my riposte was, but it was something I had said before, in a similar situation, with an equal amount of fuck-you fearlessness. Then, all of sudden, I was being hurled backward, diving and flipping into the rainy-wet sidewalk. Apparently Tweedledum -- big fat asshole #2 -- had grabbed me from behind and tore me down. But that was it; that was all I could take; that was the moment that I saw red; that was the moment that Peter Parker traded in his reporter's badge and his camera for the Spidey suit. -- I shot up -- Tweedledum was shouting, "Nobody fucks with my friend!" -- and I went for Tweedledee. I let out the Bosworth grunt, driving Dee hard, about ten feet, into a parked car. -- He felt like an old sofa bed, a lot of puff padding, and you could feel the thin sinews underneath, springs as thin as guitar string. And I knew my body felt hard to him. I was the road. And I took him off his feet and down to the pavement. And no fear filled my body. I knew he was scared. (Lucky for me, in hindsight, I had been following my eighty-push-up-a-day regimen for that week.) But then Dum ran up and started dropping fists on my head; and the little ladies, Terri and Ashley, came out the woods like screaming furies, long finger nails and crazy energy, making everything a pot of boiling Hollywood water. This gave me an opportunity to get on my feet, which I did, and I started driving into both Dee and Dum. And I knew that I had already won the battle; I knew that they couldn't beat me: I was stronger than they were, spiritually, physically, whatever; and they knew it. They could bloody me and rip at me and go for my eyes, but they knew it wouldn't beat me. My equilibrium was solid. I wasn't wild. I was determined and ready to keep going. So they backed off. There was a lot of shouting and cussing afterward, but they weren't ready to go again. I got a few bruises, on my neck and head, but I fancy that they're worth it.

Super Bowl Recap

Yesterday, I'm sure as many did, I cleaned the cave and purified the shrine and prepared a repast, from a  funky chicken sesame noodles recipe gleaned from the Internet for the Packers-Steelers Super Bowl two years ago and still attached to the refrigerator door by magnetic clip. I ironed shirts watching the pregame show.

Life moves on. The power outage at the beginning of the third quarter was nice, a break in the Ravens steamrollering. We all got to observe the reportorial skills of Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots. When play resumed Kaepernick was the Kaepernick we've come to expect -- strong of arm, fleet of foot and capable of making the right decision quickly.

The 49ers clawed their way back into the game, but in the end they were defenseless against the Flacco-to-Boldin connection; that, and I was not enamored with Greg Roman's play selection at the goal line with the game at stake (even if Crabtree was held).

The Ravens were the better team yesterday, and they deserve the Lombardy Trophy. Allahu Akbar.

Now it's a return to life without the NFL and blissful weekends free of televisual distraction. Hopefully, with two days to read instead of one, I can, in this fiftieth anniversary year of the Kennedy assassination, finally finish the "Mollenhoff Project" that I began three years ago this winter.