Tuesday, November 13, 2007

In praise of meaty quarterbacks

I'll admit: I was prepared for a dull weekend of football as my beloved Patriots took a well-deserved bye from whomping on the entire rest of the NFL. But, lo and behold, the gridiron rose to the occasion and offered up enough excitement to carry me through, ensconced as I was on my couch underneath my comforter and a pile of used Kleenex. Colds suck. However, I will say that being sick this weekend and having to spend my entire Saturday indoors enabled me to justify watching something like 9 consecutive hours of college football on Saturday. Hooray!

First came the unbelievable Illinois upset of previously un
defeated Ohio State. I love good underdog wins, so I'd be excited, except for the fact that the guy I went on the WORST DATE EVER with this spring went to Illinois and I am now permanently biased against anyone affiliated with said university. Yes, this is the guy who was rude to the waitress in front of me, then snuck away later to give her his number, then asked me to take off my hat "so he could see if I was actually cute or not." Oh, and then told me I had terrible taste in movies because I hadn't seen "The Grudge." Oh, and was responsible for the following exchange, which happened at the very beginning of the date and pretty much set the tone for the rest of the evening:

Him: (orders two beers)
Me: (reaches out to take one) Thanks.
Him: Oh, these are both for me.
Me: (laughs, assuming he's kidding)
Him: (looks at me meaningfully, then sips slowly and deliberately from each of the two beers he's holding)
Me: Uh. Right. I'll just go ahead and order my own, then.

Yikes. Painful memories. Sorry, Illinois... you're on my shit list. Permanently.

Afterwards, I watched Florida State blow it in the 4th to lose to Virginia Tech, 40-21, then switched to BC vs. Maryland, which turned into the Eagles giving up another super-disappointing loss and everybody in Boston remembering why we never bother giving a crap about college sports outside of the Beanpot. Sorry, Matt Ryan.


I have to admit, though, that my attention was not focused on the BC game: on another field, miles away, my beloved Tim Tebow was having a career game in what is already a career season for the U of F sophomore.



The Gators rolled over South Carolina 51-31 as Tebow scored
5 rushing touchdowns (nice themed color emphasis there, eh?) and passed for 2 more for a total of 424 offensive yards. Dear lord in heaven. This kid is a beast. I think there may have been a few other players on the field for Florida, but you wouldn't know it; every time the Gators got within the 10-yard line, they pretty much had only one play in mind: let Tim Tebow run it in. I love this kid. I love watching him play. I love watching him drink from those little Gatorade cups with his big, hammy hands on the sideline. I hope he wins the Heisman for this year and every subsequent year, in perpetuity.


Speaking of quarterbacks I love, and transitioning seamlessly to pro football, HOORAY FOR REX GROSSMAN! It pained me so much to see my favorite (despite the incessant mocking I get) QB benched earlier this season, and nothing was sweeter than his spectacular 59-yard pass to Bernard Berrian with 3:11 left in the 4th to lift the Bears over the Raiders; the Bears would go on to win 17-6. I'm so happy. And so is Rex. Look at him smiling up there. Look how cute he is. Doesn't that make you happy?


Ahem. In other NFL news: the Colts LOST AGAIN, which I'm pretty sure was in some way caused by Randy Moss; Matt Hasselbeck looked decent on MNF; Adrian Peterson got hurt but will probably only miss one game; everyone trying to convince you that Cowboys-Giants would somehow be an interesting contest was proven wrong; Brett Favre remained successful in his season quest to prove he can still be a dominant QB as Packers fans remained completely batshit. (Yes, the story is old, but they're still batshit over there.)

Oh, and the Celts are 5-0 as of Saturday. Does winning 82 games sound like an unreasonable goal to anyone? It shouldn't.


Wow... I got through an entire post without mentioning baseball... wait! Crap! Does that count? Does mentioning that I didn't mention something count as a mention? Does mentioning that I mentioned not mentioning something, but without specifically mentioning it, count as mentioning, or mentioning a non-mention?


If you can explain that last sentence to me, you win half of a curried tuna sandwich. Or a packet of Splenda.

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