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Whoa, whoa, back up. This needs more attention. You wouldn't cheer for the Celtics -- a team you supposedly love right now -- just because they signed Kobe Bryant? We need someone to spell out the complete rules of sports fandom. I would hope the team still scored and won but I'd hope that it wasn't because of Kobe. I hate Kobe so much that I just can't back anything that he's involved in. The Celtics would have turned their back on me if they had Kobe. I think that it's possible to root for the team to do well, and still hope the player does not. I had to do that when the Bruins had Josef Stumpel ... I wanted them to win every game, but I didn't want him to score or pick up any assists or anything. (I pretty much just wanted him to be nailed to the bench, and not even get much ice time.)

While I agree that the Jets game was an absolute horrid game to sit through, PK, I do agree with his assessment that the local fans are spoiled. It seems that not many current fans were fans pre-Parcells, so don't remember sitting through seasons with less than 5 or 6 wins. And now that the Pats aren't the best team in football, many fans are kind of laissez-faire about it all. When the team was a dominant franchise, the fans were super loud. But now that they're average, the fans are much more quiet (even though common sense would say make more noise NOW, when the team might need it more.) I also like how he called out the coaches for finally letting the D attack rather than react. The reaction approach works well when the team is fully healthy and people like Harrison, Johnson, Law, etc are there to be doing the reacting ... it doesn't work as well when you have the unproven safety of the week, Monty Beisel, and rookie CBs doing the reacting. And, Dama, not to bring it back up (and not to troll, I swear) ... but in your post that you quoted, you named the 3 division rivals, Atlanta, the Seahawks AND three other NFC teams. But now it's just the the rivals, Atlanta & Seattle that you hate. While I will give you that you've mentioned hating the 'hawks before, I do have to point out that you now seemingly hate St Louis, Minnesota, and Green Bay less. Lastly, since this is seguing to a 'teams we hate' thread, I hate: Denver - going to school out there at a time that the Broncos were killing the Pats gave me enough ammunition to hate them for life. Sharpe's "Call the Nat'l Guard, we're killing the Patriots" shtick makes me sick to this day. Green Bay Philly - I hate most of their fan-base, and the city itself. Normally it'd be the three AFC East rivals, but since none of them are that good right now, it's hard to really hate them.

Why? I mean why get ring of one the unique things TNA has over WWE. Besides, I think the ring looks cool and lets the guys in the X Division, which should be the selling point of the company, do some great stuff. I don't see why it would cause someone not to watch. Speaking as a VERY casual wrestling fan, if I flipped by TNA & saw two wrestlers that I'd never heard of wrestling in a 6-sided ring, with a well-known former Home Shopping Network guy announcing, I'd presume I was watching an American Gladiators/BattleDome type show and probably not watch it. It takes an already predetermined 'sport' and makes it look even less realistic.

I too had no idea Dok Hendrix had it in him. I've seen matches of his from the 80s but never a promo. PS Hayes was never that great in the ring, but he could cut a killer promo. That's what made the Freebirds so great: Gordy & Roberts could wrestle but not speak well; Hayes could talk circles around just about anyone but was very average in the ring. Put the three together, and it was money. RRR, I dig your scenario, but would want to see one slight change: when I think Freebirds, I think Jack Daniels. Hayes would HAVE to insist on JD rather than just beer. /huge Freebirds mark //only the real version with Gordy & Roberts, though, not that crap version with Jimmy Garvin & a masked-Brad Armstong

If any one of those bands had come up individually I might have not disliked them as much as I currently do. But the fact that so many 'garage rock' bands came out in such a short period of time ruined them all for me.

I don't think INT's are the best way to judge a safeties skills. I go more by tackles (particularly unassisted) and forced fumbles. INT's - to me - are more crucial for CB's. I'm not going to bother going to NFL.com to 'research' this but off the top of my head, Polumalo (do I EVER spell that name right?!?) had that great year last year, with a ton of tackles, but had very few the year before and hasn't had many this year. Over a longer career, Reed has been more consistent (I'd say he averages 70something per year). And I'll be honest, I picked him arbitrarily when I referenced his name earlier ... I really just wanted to name an above-average safety that's currently playing to say that Palumalo wasn't as good as. I don't think either are amazing safeties in the grand scheme of things.

Except for the fact that Candice has done more to improve than any other 'diva' in the last couple of years. You could have said pretty much any other woman in the WWE and more accurate than you are w/Candice.

I don't necessarily support the theory, but just playing the Devil's Advocate: maybe it was the view point of one of the Others, such as Goodwin, who just happened to be there when they crashed.

I hate how WWE now refers to all of their wrestlers as just "superstars" even more. No doubt, Downhome. Nothing's funnier than the fact that the WWE calls the other glorified enhancement talent that they have <coughROSEY>cough "WWE superstars". Kind of takes away from the credibility of the word, doesn't it? Makes sense. The question wasn't meant to be a flame or an attempt to troll or anything ... your name just didn't ring a bell so I was a bit surprised when I saw the date you joined.

now THAT we can agree on, my friend! I won't disagree that Reed's overrated, but if I had to field a team to play a game of football with the fate of the world hanging in the balance ... I'd take Reed over Palumalo without a second thought.

I wasn't going to ask, but just have to ... you've been a member for almost 18 months, but only have 34 posts. And one of them is to say how much you hate Christy Hemme (so it's not like you can say you only post in major, important threads). How is it you average 2 posts a month, but manage to waste one on a released diva? /btw, can I reiterate how much I hate the fact that the WWE has conditioned me to call them divas?

Re: Polamalu. I don't think he's terrible. I just don't think he's the amazing safety that a lot of Steelers fans say he is. He's a very good safety who's hyped to be the next Ronnie Lott ... which he's not. He's not even as good as Ed Reed. It's telling to me that the only people who really call Polamalu anything special is Steelers fans ... methinks that a bit of hometown bias might be happening. And a quote from Willis Mcgahee: "I'm over 1,000 yards. That's my highlight of the day. It's out of my hands. If I called the plays, I'd have 60 carries.'' Next time try pretending to care that your team lost, Willie.

I think that's probably part of the reason that they gave it to him. There wasn't really any other worthy recipient, and he's yet to win one even though he's the face of the franchise that's won 3 SBs in 4 years. Might as well give it to him now, in the chance that the Pats plummet and he's no longer worthy.

There's nothing wrong with improvisation, but you gotta have the chops for it. I'll defend Phish more than the Dead ... but is it safe to say that the implication is that Phish doesn't have the skills to improvise well? We'll have to disagree on that one, Czech.

Until Weis went to ND, people around here viewed ND as the most famous Catholic college, but Boston College as 'their' Catholic college. Now that Weis is at South Bend, there seems to be an increase in ND fan-dom.

Polamalu is over-rated. Every week someone blows smoke up his ass, calling him a great safety ... I just don't see it. Look at the TD run in the game yesterday, if he hit & wraps the guy (as every football player is taught from day one) he prevents (or at least postpones) a TD. Instead, he just projectiles himself towards the guy's legs, and then lies there as the guy's momentum carries him into the end zone. Ronnie Lott wouldn't have pussed out on the tackle that way. And re: Woody Paige. I've never heard a more biased, 'homer' reporter than him. Of course he's going to say his beloved Broncos are going to beat Indy.

And they could call it, "The Black Scorpion".

Is that sarcasm?

Seeing as neither band "I expect them to uninterestingly noodle over the same two chords at about 110 bpm for like 45 fucking minutes"? you probably would be wrong with your expectation. They don't take a 5 minute song and play it for 10x longer than it's written. Phish did have a stretch where they dragged some songs on for too long - I saw one show that had a 58-minute song but the song did NOT just repeat itself ad nauseum. (It was more comparable to listening to an entire thematic album than just one song.) I fully recognize that someone might hate "jam bands" (and believe me, there are more that I hate than like) but the idea of hating improvisation is something that I don't get.

From the way that it was worded, it sounds like a mutual decision, rather than a normal cash-cutting release. Maybe she wasn't as thrilled with jumping around the ring in her bra & thong as she thought she'd be.

I don't think that I hate on Kennedy ... I just think that people were way to quick to coronate him as a savior of, or a major player on, Smackdown. He's good but not great in the rign, is above-average at best on the stick, and his finisher takes WAY too much help from the other guy to execute.

My face gets numb when I'm hungover. You're probably just dehydrated. Drink more Gatorade before/during the work-out, and you'll be fine.

Nah man, that was our hobby. Although I'm also in the "being white was cool?" crowd. I don't recall being white ever being cool. White culture hasn't been cool in a long-ass time. As far back as Elvis, white people were getting over my mimicking the black culture. And people are stoned if they think that this is just a non-white occurrence. I shudder to think how many Irish-Americans have either that stupid "Notre Dame Fighting Irish" tat or a 4-leaf clover tat.

Drugs? No life? I'm not a huge fan of the Dead, but I was a huge fan of other hippie bands, so I can kind of get why people like them. Very good live shows, with an evolving & ever-changing set-list and songs that are laced with improvisation, meaning that you - the listener -really don't know what to expect. (for example, I got dragged to a Billy Joel show one time, and as soon as the second set ended the fans started chanting "Piano Man", since they all knew that it was going to be the encore. Talk about anti-climactic, seeing him play the exact version of the exact song that he always played as an encore.) And having said that, I'm actually a fan of about half-a-dozen Dead songs now (Eyes of the World is good, Scarlet > Fire, China > Rider). I find that I dislike most of their songs, but the ones that I like I really like.