Remember the very first post on this blog, when I said I was
going to keep the sports references to a minimum? Well, I’m not doing that today. In fact, I’m doing something else that I
rarely do: writing something and posting it on the same day. I like to take my time to make sure
everything looks good, flows together, and makes some sort of sense before
putting it up for everyone to read. I
also like to post about stuff that I feel is somewhat important. But this time, I have a few things on my
mind, and I just feel like posting somewhat aimlessly, even if I end up
basically talking to myself with this post.
This is the type of stuff that happens to me sometimes. It’s also been a while since I posted
anything on here, so I wanted to throw something up just to make myself feel
good. Yep, it’s one of those days. My blog, my rules. This should be fun. Or frightening. Whatever.
Let’s just get started. Here are
a few thoughts that have crossed my mind over the past 24 hours or so.
The
Manning/Luck/Colts fans debate (going strong since 2011): The national
media, along with seemingly everyone in Indianapolis,
is abuzz again over Peyton Manning after he and the Denver Broncos won the AFC
Championship game yesterday. With Manning
leading his team into another Super Bowl, debate has once again been sparked
over whether the Colts made the right decision by releasing Manning in 2012 so
they could draft Andrew Luck. Since the
debate was such a big national sports story a couple years ago, I won’t rehash
it, but I will link to something I wrote that January (before Manning’s
release) so you can see my breakdown of the organization’s options. (It is fairly in-depth, so don’t feel
obligated to read it all – although I do consider this to be one of my better
pieces of writing.) Now that some time
has passed, we can better evaluate whether or not the Colts made a good move,
and I believe they did. Consider the
fact that Manning would have been owed $17 million last season and $18 million
this season in comparison to the $4 million-$6 million (approximate) figure
owed to Luck. Going into the 2012 draft
– when Luck was taken – the Colts had little cap space to work with (the number
I heard was right around $10 million).
And this was after they had released four long-time starters in an
effort to free up cap room. By some
miracle, they managed to keep Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, and Reggie Wayne
(who later admitted he was about to sign with someone the Colts fans “wouldn’t
have been happy with” – perhaps the Patriots).
If the Colts had kept Manning, they likely wouldn’t have been able to
pay a top overall draft pick while signing the rest of their rookies. They certainly would not have retained all
three of the aforementioned veterans, and they quite possibly would have lost
two or three of them. Consider the
patchwork job in free agency that would have followed, and Peyton would have
either been seriously injured or supremely frustrated by the end of the 2012
season. Either way, the Colts would have
been in awful shape. And without Denver having Manning this
year, we may have watched Reggie Wayne and the Patriots (try not to throw up)
march into the Super Bowl. You think it
might be awkward watching Peyton win a Super Bowl with Denver?
Imagine Reggie winning one with New England
(yikes!) while the Colts are coming off a 5-11 season with no healthy
quarterback. That could have been a very
real possibility. Instead, the Patriots
are out of contention (for this year), and the Colts’ future looks fairly
bright. I rest my case.
Richard Sherman’s
Attitude Era (2012-present): In the other relevant game this weekend, Seattle punched its ticket to the Super Bowl by beating San Francisco. Immediately afterward, Seahawks cornerback Richard
Sherman cemented his place in the Trash Talk Hall of Fame by completely
disrespecting Michael Crabtree (and Colin Kaepernick and various 49ers coaches
by extension). After making a play that
sealed the outcome of the game, Sherman
made reference to Crabtree as a “sorry” receiver and indicated that throwing
the ball to his side wasn’t smart (here’s the full interview). To his credit, Sherman has been at the top of his game over
the past couple of seasons (a four-game suspension for performance-enhancing
drug use notwithstanding), and he has earned the right to call himself the best
in the league. Now, while I don’t mind
players mixing it up a bit every now and then, what happened yesterday was over
the top. If you want to talk about how
good you are, that’s fine. But showing
up your opponents like Sherman
did is something I have zero respect for.
If he says something like, “Hey, Crab, you got nothing!” during the
game, that’s fine. But calling people
out like that in a public forum is crossing the line. Here’s how I see this playing out. Every player has an up-and-down career arc,
which means every player eventually declines (assuming they don’t retire or
suffer a career-ending injury at the peak of their powers). And the more feathers you ruffle on your way
up, the more flak you’ll get on the way back down. With Sherman’s
antics reaching sky-high levels, I expect a ton of receivers to return the
favor once his skills start to fade. Any
opposing player that beats him for a reception is liable to let him hear about
it. I would hate to be in his shoes when
that happens. And the worst part about
it is that his coach (Pete Carroll) lets it happen. In fact, it’s probably encouraged. Coach Carroll wants his team to play with an
edge and show swagger, and they definitely do.
It’s what makes them great, but it could also be what eventually gets
them in trouble. All it takes is a
couple of bad games to get everyone in a sour mood, and with all of those big
egos, the team could implode. Stay
tuned, folks. These guys are destined
either for greatness or disaster.
Crazy Facebook
promotions: If you listen to radio promos, watch TV commercials, or read
online ads, you notice certain phrases that product pushers use to sell people
something. Many times, they grab someone
(could be a real customer, could be an actor) to give a testimonial about how
well something worked for them. You
probably know some of those phrases by heart now. I have seen these for a while in comment
sections of large web sites (especially YouTube), and I occasionally receive
spam emails with that stuff included.
It’s becoming more prevalent as time goes by, but what has really
baffled me recently is when I see this stuff on Facebook. I am seeing several status updates saying things
like, “I didn’t think this could happen until I tried (insert product/supplier
name).” When I see stuff like that, it
immediately sends up red flags. Right
away, I start thinking, uh-oh, did
someone hack into this person’s account?
Are they going to start pushing this stuff constantly? Am I next??
Will people try to post this stuff on my timeline?? What’s going on??? It’s really weird. It almost feels like some of my friends are
turning into walking advertisements.
Honestly, I’m a little creeped out.
If someone did it as a joke, that would be one thing. But this is really happening. People are posting things that sound exactly like canned pitch lines. Should I be concerned, or am I just getting
paranoid? If you’ve seen one of these
things, let me know what you think.
Until next time, I’m out. I’m
stopping this post before I lose my mind.
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