MMBM: How Come We Cheer Sean McVay For Resting His Starters In The Preseason, But Vilify Bill Belichick When He Does It In The Superbowl?
There’s a new disturbing trend in the NFL this year- one thats ruining the fan experience, and setting a dangerous president for all the youngsters out there watching that practice is meaningless. I’m talking about The Los Angeles Rams decision to sit their starters for the entire preseason. The dozens of LA fans that come out to preseason games didnt pay $2 to sit around stoned all day watching Sean Mannion, they paid to sit around stoned watching Jared Goff. I mean can you imagine the outcryif the Patriots benched there starters for a meaningless presesaon game instead of the Superbowl? Goodell would have a field day.
My high school coach use to tell me every spot is open for compeition every year it dosen’t matter how much worse I was then the guy in front of me. Iron Sharpens Iron but instead your just turning your roster into a bunch of tools. We went 2-7 my last year but imagine how much worse we could of been if our coach didnt make the starters do Oklahoma Drills at halftime of our intersquad scrimmage.
Of course this is nothing new- the Chargers have basicaly taken off the first 4 games of every season dating back to like 2008 but this time the Rams are doing it in exhbition games. Its ruining the competitive balance of the league and the punishment should fit the crime Sean McVay should be forced to play his backups for the first 4 weeks of the NFL regular season. If they start preseason week 3- they start regular season week 1.
You think your so cute Sean? We have a little saying around here- “The Standard is The Standard.” And to me, your setting a standard that is not, in fact, the standard. The standard your choosing to set is beneath what your standard is, which will make your new standard lower.
The arguments for resting your starters are as follows, and I will hereby debunk them:
Argument 1. You dont want them getting hurt, or worse- injured.
Argument debunked: Your more likely to get killed driving to a game then you are on a football field. In fact the human body develops callouses by getting beaten over and over again- its why Ive never had a cut on my penis. What McVay is doing is creating a bunch of Hollywood soft bodies. In fact I would submit its much more dangerous to mix together volitile parts like Ndamukong Suh, Aaron Donald, Aqib Talib, and Marcus Peters for the first time in week one. Would you just throw baking soda and vinegar together in a enema before getting a couple reps in with a fake volcano first? Of course not so why should you do that with your football team. These four guys have never played together and they dont have that Terminator recognition of friend or foe built in just yet. Cant have Talib taking the turnover chain away from Marcus Peters- someones going to end up shot.
Argument 2. You dont want to give away your playbook for the regular season
Argument 3. Your players bullied you into resting them all preseason
Actually this might be whats happening
Say what you want about Jeff Fisher but his players and everyone else in the world knew exactly what you were going to get out of him on every single play for 20 yrs straight. He played every game like it was preseason week 4, the prefect model of consistency. The league has integrity issues to begin with and they dont need boy genius Sean McVay outfoxing himself by playing possum when it comes to this.
On to the rest of the column
Road Grader of the Week: Geno Atkins
The Geno Atkins diet requires you to thow your engaged blocker around like hes a big bag of gluten. In this particular move they call it a 3 technique because your literaly having a threesome with the offensive lineman and the QB. Just making the guard the lucky pierre in your eiffel tower and taking him to poundtown.
10 Things I Know I Know
1. The New England Patriots, not the Bills Mafia, should be tried under a RICO proscution- they are now offically nothing more then a modern day La Cosa Nostra. Tom Brady and his omertia vow of silence regarding all things Alex Guerrero culmnated this morning with a abrubt hang-up on WEEI when they asked if his trainer was on the plane, then on the sidelines, and then probably if he dreams about him. Also Brady still has yet to repsond to allgations (made by me just now) that Alex Guererro would be aloud to sleep with Giselle. My theory on all this is that there is no Alex Guererro- he is a red herring meant to make people think Tom Brady has a nutritionist when in realty his good buddy Donald Trump has him hooked up with the entire Russian National doping team. Alex Guererro is the Kaiser Soze of the modern day NFL- the greatest trick the devil ever played was making the rest of the league think there was a rift between Tom Brady and Bill Belchick.
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2. Lots of takes out there regarding the passing of John McCain, and Im startled by the disrepsect shown to him by many in the media- everyones calling him a Lion of the senate I guess just because in terms of swing states he also went 0-16 in 2008. Obama on the other hands gets to be called a Giant of the Senate on account of he was 2-0 verse Patriots. Just something to consider, politically.
3. According to Jimmy Johnson whose name literaly means Dick Don,g preseason football is basicaly a handjob
I would say preseason is more like a dry hump, your struggling to get in rhythym, you practice with a bunch of music thats so loud you forget people are watching you but you know good things are going to come with enough reps.
4. The Cleveland Browns are offically kings of the preseason. They are riding a 7 game preseason winning streak dating all the way back to over a year ago. There a undercover good team as you can see by the way they lei’d a Hawaii 5-0 beatdown on the Superbowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. Cleveland has a sneaky homefeild advantage its like going into Lambeau in february or into St Petersburg in 1942. You shouldnt be aloud to operate heavy machinery for 5 hours after hearing Joe Buck say the words Browns Preseason Game
5. Bob Wylie made some great points on HBOs Hard Knocks last week. We won two world wars with soldiers who did sit-ups, push-ups, and jumping jacks so why do football players need to stretch before practice? If our sciencists had spent all that time stretching atoms instead of just straight up breaking them we never would of discovered nuclear weapons and we’d all be speaking French right now. (My hypothesis is the Germans would of forced us to learn French as punishment and also because they have like forty words for “surrender” like the Inuits do for snow).
6. Once again the NFL is on the bleeding edge of new technolgy- this year there pioneering something called “The Green Zone”
Interesting because the orginal green zone was is Baghdad which literaly translates to Sack It- kind of a strange coincdence for it to beused in obvious passing situations. Basicaly this is one step closer to just turning football into a giant video game, pretty soon Roger GOodell will introduce a create a player option where fans can sign up at a NFL fanzone in Times Square to impregnante Olivia Manning.
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It points towards a bgger issue with our nation called gamification thats making its way from shcools to sports, to silicon valley. Basicaly when you gamify something you encourage poeple to do meaningless tasks because you make it feel like there winning at something. Like putting a sticker on the wall because your kid wiped there butt without getting any poop on your toothbrush. But what about rewarding kids for making other people feel unhappy? The only reason a sack feels so good is because the QB feels so bad. Schadenfreude is a concept the Germans are running laps around us with
7. The New England Patriots continue to lead the league in making veteran players retire after spending like a day in there team facilties. They have a higher dropout rate then the Navy SEALs. When you set foot in the door of Patriot Place your handed a helmet and a iphone with the notes app preloaded onto it and you have to pick which one you want to use to get out of there. The Pats are like a first date where the other person immedately tells you they want 5 kids- you ether gets busy leaving or get busy getting busy. Decker not ready for a long-term commitment just yet
8. After Michelle Beadles announced she wouldnt be watching football this year I announced a reverse boycott where I would take it upon myself to watch TWICE as much football in a effort to protect the shield. Now shes out at Get Up leaving Mike Greenberg in limbo. Filling in for Beadle will be Jen Lada, Maria Taylor, Laura Rutledge and Dianna”Queen of the NFL” (nickname i invented just now but have a feeling it will stick) Russini. Its obvious where this is all heading- Golic is coming back like the Ultimate Warrior sprinting into the ring at summerslam to send a massive dropkick to all the haters who have prematureley thrown soil on Mike Greenbergs grave, knowing full well he has a aversion to any sort of dirt. Im pretty sure Greeny is going to ask to be supsended for all eternity in a giant vat of hand sanitizer like a precog from Minorty Report except instead of precrime he can tell if someones about to be served a sandwich that has mustard that might be a little to tangy for his taste.
9. Fake Warren Buffet tweet going viral today:
Since this is a fake account logic dictates that instead you should do the oposite . In fact, the smartest people I know do none of these things
Smartest people I know
1 know the standard is the standard
2 do a next man up when their star gets injured
3 use fullbacks
4 never stretch because preventing injuries just protects players who were going to get hurt anyways
5 punt on third down
6 look at blood as KY jelly for shedding o-linemen
7 Tie there ties in septuple windsor knots before going on television
10 Lots of questons still remain unanwered after 3 preseason games but a big one is exactly how much gas Adrian Peterson has left in his tank and if the amount of gas he has has been siphoned illegally from fetuses due to his stem cell therapy, or whether or not the gas is unleaded, how big his tank is, what his gas milage is, and wether or not he would be better served becoming some sort of hybrid. Of course its not to late for Peterson to become a change of pace back, hes certanly switched things up before in the past. Washington DC is the perfect landing spot for him- with Snyders penchant for selling rotten peanuts and expired beer it is the optimal place to load anyone up on gas.