"Yeah, Here We Go"

Last night during a great Thursday Night football game I saw and heard something I haven’t in such a long time! No, it wasn't Dak screming "Yeah, Here We Go" for the hundreath time this year. Infact it was Joy, pure joy from one Al Michaels. I want to thank the Cowboys and Seahawks for bringing life back to the legendary Al Michaels face and voice! What a game, maybe it was because both teams had a week to prepare from playing on Thanksgiving! Maybe it was because there were two good offenses on the field. It could have been that it was just two good teams finally playing on Thursday night! Who knows the real reason but I’m thankful for what the Cowboys and Seahawks did last night. I have one tiny guess on why Al was so joyful last night… is that one of Al Michaels overs he has been betting all year finally hit and paid off. Headed into last night’s game the under was hitting at a 74% rate this season! That’s insane! After Dallas kicked a field goal on the opening drive, I said to myself “yeah here we go” again but then Geno Smith threw a Jackson Dart to a streaking DK Metcalf and I said to myself with way to much excitement in my head voice “Yeah! Here we go!” The game proceeds to go back and forth all night with sooo many pass interference penalties, at one point I thought I heard the overjoyed Al Michaels say that they “were on pace to break the record for most penalty yards in a game!” In the end Both teams combined for 257 yards of penalties! But who cares, it led to more points and a very happy and awake broadcast booth for what seemed to be the first time all year! The game kind of came down to the wire but Dallas eventually put an end to the underdog Seattle Seahawks run and won the game 41-35. Maybe the best prime time game I have seen all year and with a rejuvenated Al Michaels on the call made it that much better.

Al Michaels has had one of the most legendary broadcast careers you could possibly ask for! He has called countless great Super Bowl games, World Series, NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals but He arguably has one the greatest calls in sports history! Let me set the scene… the year was 1980 and it was a different world. The Soviets were the powerhouse in world hockey and seemed unbeatable but not on a cold faithful night in February 1980 in a little town called Lake Placid, New York. A scrappy underdog of a team showed up with a chip on their shoulders ready to take down the world hockey power. Who’s that team you ask? It was The USA Olympic team. They didn’t just show and bow to Boris Mikhailov and the Soviets. No, the US team lead by Mike Eruzione went skate to skate with the Soviets and pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports history and as the clock ticked down to zeros a young enthusiastic broadcaster by the name of Al Michaels spat out some of the greatest words ever spoke into a microphone…. “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” I get Goose Bumps just thinking about it and I wasn’t even alive when this happened! Maybe it’s the Minnesotan in me that cares about that Olympic run more than I should but it is the stuff of fairy tales and Al Michaels will be forever etched it that moment in time almost more than the players. By the way I tried looking up the origins of goose bumps and I clicked on an article that was just full of a lot of big words like vestigial and piloerectors that I know nothing about but what I took from it, the dumbed down version for someone like me was, that Geese have bumpy skin and that’s why it’s called goose bumps…. I mean I guess that makes sense… 

There was something about hearing Al’s voice on the broadcast, the game felt bigger, the atmosphere felt alive, and the stories told throughout the night felt more meaningful but now Al has been left to whittle away and live out his final broadcasting years on a streaming platform that nobody likes, in a booth on Thursday night football that nobody over the age of 36 is watching! Now I know it’s mostly his own fault for switching to Thursday Night from the cushy gig that was Carrie Underwoods Sunday Night Football just for some extra money. But just as surprising as the Shane Falco lead Washington Sentinels we get a game like last night to restore hope and faith in Al Michaels and America that there can be good Thursday night games it just has to be a week after Thanksgiving we’re both teams have had time to prepare unlike the normal Thursday night games that look like the players are still exhausted from the beat down, they took the week before! 

So, in the end I just want to say thank you from every America who has figured out how to watch Thursday Night Football on Prime and from the bottom of my McDonald’s Double Quarter Ponder clogged heart to The Dallas Cowboys, The Seattle Seahawks, Geno, Dak and the refs for ensuring that one of our great national treasures could enjoy at least one Thursday Night game that he could get excited about and not want to fall asleep in the booth during the middle of Dak’s “Yeah Here We Go” cadence! 

The Toilets Could Smell The Field!

Monday Night Football, The Chicago Bears vs The Minnesota Vikings, The Passtronaut vs The Master Of Screens, get excited for a prime time spectacle live from US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Holy Shit! Excuse my language but how else are you supposed to describe last night’s Monday Night Football game without using the word shit in it. What an amazing spectacle of trash that took place inside of US Bank Stadium last night. Joe Buck couldn’t have been happier when that game concluded. I think the toilets inside of the stadium could smell the of the amount of feces coming from that field last night and that was just after Jim from section 110 blew up the bathroom after he consumed three chili cheese dogs in the first quarter. I’m pretty sure higher ups at Netflix had an emergency meeting last night. They were trying to figure out who leaked their secret formula of how to get people to watch shit television. I’m Done with stand up comedy routine. But in all seriousness this game is the reason why they invented streaming services. That game got so bad that by the fourth quarter I left my local watering hole to head home where I opened my prime app on my fire tv stick and began watching Psych for the 15th time this month, it was the one where Shawn and Gus go under cover on a Singing Competition show to figure out who is trying to kill the Simon Cowell like judge. Ahhh what a great episode, comedy gold… Don’t you judge me, that’s a great show!

I couldn’t believe how many screen passes were thrown last night from both quarterbacks. It would take the sun 100 years to break through the stadium because there was so much sun… “screen” on the field. I’m sorry, that was a really awful joke. Justin Fields is 8-27 as starter, is it safe to say that he isn’t that guy in Chicago? Now I know it’s not all his fault, he clearly has no time at all and up until this year he hasn’t had a true number one wide receiver to throw to, but I just don’t think he can read the field very well. Someone who throws that many screen passes must have some reason for it. Is it that the coaching staff doesn’t trust him to throw the ball down the field, I mean those receivers can’t be covered on every play. I’m not a QB expert and I don’t pretend to be by any means, but it doesn’t take a passtronaut to figure out that Justin Fields is looking at his first read and if that isn’t there he instantly rolls out and is scrambling for his life. I have no clue, but what I do know is he is fun to watch, doesn’t mean he is good, but he is fun to watch. I could see him ending up in a place like Atlanta trying to rejuvenate his career and that would be good for him. If the Bears do get the first overall pick via the god-awful Carolina Panthers who just fired another coach, they would be crazy not to take an all-world prospect like Caleb Williams. I think Justin Fields days are numbered in Chicago but hopefully he can end up with a new team that can help him rejuvenate his career.

For the Vikings fans in here reading this I just have one simple question for you… Do you miss Kirk Cousins now? If last night told us anything it was that Josh Dobbs is a traveling journey man for a reason. I said this a few weeks ago but ill say it again it’s an amazing story from a remarkable guy, but man Kirk would have gutted that defense last night. That game shouldn’t even have been close. The Vikings defense played an outstanding game like they have all year to hold the Bears to nothing but fields goals, but Dobbs and that Vikings offense couldn’t find a way to put 14 measly points on the board. He missed wide open receivers left and right including Jordan Attison on a deep pass that would have most likely won them the game. He’s fun to watch, he can scramble unlike Kirk but when you scramble you have to find and hit the open man. Kirk is the last of a dying breed, the stationary QB that can gut a defense with his arm and only his arm because between us I don’t think he can run over 5 MPH on a good day. The Vikings need to find a way to resign Kirk because this team is good enough to make some noise in the playoffs, especially with the defense playing the way it has this year.

Monday Night Football can you please use your right to flex games out. You have the power, use it. Otherwise, I’m going to find myself watching more Psych than I need to. Flexing a game doesn’t always guarantee a better match up or even a better game, I know this, but I think we could all tell from the get-go that this was going to be a rough night for everyone involved. I know Joe Buck loves coming to US Bank Stadium but maybe he will think twice when glances at the Monday Night lineup sheet and sees that The Bears are on the schedule. Here’s to hoping next week’s Monday Night game is better than last weeks…. Holy Bleep I just looked at next week’s game and it’s the Bengals without Joe Burrow vs Sunshine and the Jaguars. Never mind can we have rematch between Bears and Vikings at least that game was close… Please Disney call in the big guns and give us a better game than that. Well, if they don’t change the game, I think I might have a Psych viewing party at my house next Monday, I know the perfect episode. It’s one where Shawn and Gus go undercover as football players to figure out who killed the team’s kicker… Oh man I love that show.

Indiana Jones And The Curse Of The Chargers!

What the hell is going on in LA? I’m not talking about the city in general which seems to have its own set of issues, I’m not even talking about the Sean Mcvay (Mcbay) coached Rams who are struggling because they haven’t had a first-round draft pick since what seems to be the 1980’s but they did get Super Bowl win out of it. I’m talking but the LA NFL team that moved there from San Diego that nobody cares about, The San Die… The LA Chargers! It has been one amazing run of blown close games, one after another. Its not just this year even though this year has been bad even for the Chargers standards. This has been happening for decades. I thought the close game losses week after week would have stopped when Phillip Rivers and his nine kids decided to retire and leave town for good. But no, Phillip decided to pass down this curse to Justin Herbert just like Phillip will pass down the art of not wearing a condom to his kids. Phillip was stuck in a 1:20 left in the 4th quarter, down 4 with no timeouts purgatory that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. In your best announcer voice try saying this aloud “and the Kanas City Chiefs nail another field goal to take the lead by 4 over the Chargers. Here we go again Jim, the Chargers are down 4 with no timeouts and Phillip Rivers has to drive the length of the field with 1:20 left on the clock, can he do it?” The answer was always no! He would get close and either run out of time or turn the ball over. I truly felt bad for the guy because it was every week, if it was every once in a while, I wouldn’t feel so bad but it was week, after week, after week at 6:30 pm central I would see an exhausted, red faced, very sweaty Phillip Rivers trying his darndest to bring his team down the field to win the game but he would just come up short every time. I can say without any remorse that I haven’t felt worse for any QB in my life more than Phillip Rivers. For all the crap Phillip got over his years of playing, he was actually a really great quarterback besides the fact he passed this horrible sickness, curse, disease, or whatever you want to call it on to Justin Hebert.

Justin Herbert has been fantastic to start his career from his beautiful, flowing, blonde locks that would make Yani and Fabio jealous (if you don’t know who Yanni is do yourself a favor light some candles preferably Sun & Sand from Yankee Candle, warm up the bath water and look up the song “In The Morning Light” and play it from the nicest set of speakers you own, you thank me later.) to his NBA Small forward 6’6” frame to his arm let rivals the best quarterbacks in the league. Boy it sounds like I’m gushing over this man reading his tinder profile… For good reason though he’s that good, he has the stats to back it up too. Just for some reason Justin Herbert and the Chargers can’t seem to win these close games. He is having the same problems finishing games that Phillip had. Just stuck in impossible situation that take miracles to get out of. It must just be a franchise curse that has been passed down through the generations. Nothing says curse more than The Chargers blowing a 27-0 lead in the playoffs last year to Sunshine from Remember The Titans. There is something else at play here, something out of the control of the Chargers franchise. I’ve seen the Light House I know about curses and what they can do to people and this my friends, seems like a curse. By the way if you haven’t seen the Light House, give it a watch one of the most messed-up movies I’ve ever seen and that’s saying a lot because Willem Dafoe has made some truly strange films in his time. Now I could spend the time to shit on the head coach Brandon Staley and how I have no idea how he still has a job. But that’s for another day… One quick comment though while I have a second, How does he still have a job, don’t you think someone should tell him to stop going for it on fourth down on every series no matter field position and someone from the Chargers organization might want to send him Will Hunting to teach him how to count to twelve… by the isn’t he a defensive coach what the hell is he doing with offense, worry about not giving up 27 points to the Tennessee Titans with all-pros scattered across the field… Just a thought. I’m not going to shit on the guy…

The question then becomes If you have the great offense, with the great QB what is going on its either bad coaching, a bad organization or there is a curse and if it is a curse which I think it is, How do you break a curse though especially one as strong as this one seems to be. First, I would call Indian Jones he seems like he knows what he is doing when it comes to curses, but boy oh boy is he a hard man to get a hold of. If he was busy in deep in a cave looking at fossils of prehistoric birds somewhere on the tip of Argentina, I would next try calling Theo Epstein who knows a thing about breaking a couple of sports longest and most historic curses. But if he doesn’t answer I would finally open my laptop and just start to google how to break a curse and I would come up with something like this… According to the website yourtango.com by a writer named NyRee Ausler, there are 8 ways to break a curse or a hex. 1. Take a rosemary bath, 2. Do a smoke cleansing, 3. Create a protective salt barrier, 4. Cleanse your aura with citrus, 5. Place lemons on an altar, 6. Burn bay leaves, cinnamon, and Dragon’s Blood incense, 7. Pray on it, 8. Use garlic, chili, sage, and black salt. I’m not sure about a few of those but they seem like some really solid ideas that are worth a shot, especially the rosemary bath one, turn on some Yanni and wash the curse away, I don’t know about you but that sounds like the perfect night to me. Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, there seems to be a slight problem with a rosemary bath, I’m not sure if this is the goal of a rosemary bath but it seems like I’m seasoning myself for a cannibal like Jeffrey Dahmer to come around and eat me… Never mind I’m out on that idea… But If I were the Chargers, I would try anything at this point. That got dark quick, Holy Shit I need to stop watching that Dahmer documentary on Netflix its really messing with my brain.

In all sincerity I do truly hope the Chargers can figure out a way to make this franchise relevant because they are wasting so much talent down there in southern California. From Keean Allen, Austin Eckler and Justin Herbert on the offensive side of the ball to Khalil Mack, Joey Bosa and Derwin James on the defensive side of the ball. This talent pool is good enough to win a Super Bowl and I hate to break it to you it won’t last forever. So, listen up Chargers organization and listen good, If fixing the problem means hiring Will Hunting to teach Brandon Staley math than do it. If it means firing Brandon Staley and hiring Bill Belichick, then do it. If it means hiring Theo Epstein to be your general manager even though he probably knows nothing about football, then do it. If it means hiring NyRee Ausler to be a consultant, (that person really seems to know their stuff) then do it. I don’t care what you do to fix the problem but please don’t let another great QB with a great flock of hair, who is fun to watch because he actually throws the ball down the field go to waste because your organization doesn’t seem to know what they are doing. Get it together for your sake, for Justin Herberts sake, for the NFL’s sake but most importantly for the viewers sake who doesn’t want to be stuck watching Justin Fields throw screens for negative four yards all night long. By the way Indy got back to me (that’s Indian Jones in case you’re wondering, only his closet friends and family call him Indy, humble brag) he said he has traveled all around this great planet and has seen some of the strangest, most compelling curses the universe has to offer but nothing comes close to the curse that the Chargers have and there is nothing he can do about it.