A Pox on All Your Houses!

The Big 10. Pussies.
The Big XII. Douchebags.
The Big East. Dickheads.
And of course, the Pac-10...Fuck them, too!

The aforementioned collection of jabroni collegiate football conferences decided to vote AGAINST the will of the people and opted to stick with the current BCS format, ensuring several more years of head scratching, hair pulling, teeth gnashing and the like from fans across the country. Read more.

Only the SEC (best conference in college football!) and the ACC (eh, not-so-much-the-best...) wanted to sack up and go for the proposed four-team playoff system.

You'd think all these guys would be tired old farts bitterly complaining about changing their ways. Well, they kinda were...except for Mike Slive and John Swofford, commissioners of the SEC and ACC, respectively. They're the guys pictured on this post, from left to right. Shit, Silve looks like he's old enough to have played against Red friggin' Grange and even he knows the score: the people want to have a definitively crowned national college football champion. End of story. Sadly, the commissioners of the above pussy conferences tabled those plans until 2014. At the earliest. Shit.

Here's the quote from the AP story emphasizing their biggest gripe with the proposed playoff:

"College football's leaders are concerned a playoff would turn football into a two-semester sport and lessen the importance of a regular season that now has a do-or-die feel to it from week to week."

Newsflash, fellas: you're NOT turning this into March Madness! College football will NOT turn into a two semester sport. The championship game could be played by mid-January AT THE VERY LATEST. Of course, that's if you guys agree to speed things along during the season with the schedules. Isn't the BCS Championship Game in the first week of January already? What's another week, guys?

And you're also worried about losing the do-or-die vibe that makes college football great? Second newsflash, numbnuts: losing one game still means you're likely out of the running! Then again, LSU did make the title game last season with two losses, but that was under your lame ass system. They still would have made it under this new (and better) format, but there would have been a lot less pissing and moaning from the public at large...except for the state of Georgia. That's about it. But fuck Georgia, anyhow...

Chiming in on the Saints' Draft!

Well, it only took three f*cking days, didn't it?

Ralph Malbrough at WWLTV.com has posted his thoughts on the Saints' '08 draft:

Did the Saints get lucky when their school girl crush for Glenn Dorsey was rebuffed by the Kansas City Chiefs?

For the record, I’m not knocking the infatuation. If you read this column, then you know I was all for the Saints moving up to get Dorsey but even my love for Dorsey didn’t include parting with a 2009 1st round pick. By the way the Chiefs were incredibly stupid not to accept the Saints offer. While Dorsey will probably be spectacular the Chiefs are so far from being good an extra 1st round pick next year was something they shouldn’t have passed on.

So instead of Dorsey the Saints swapped picks with New England and selected Sedrick Ellis from USC. If the experts are right then it’s a really solid move.

Five years ago when the Saints moved up to draft Johnathan Sullivan I don’t recall Mel Kiper or Mike Detillier saying once Sullivan got his money he would take fat and lazy to a whole other level so let’s hold off on calling Saturday’s move brilliant.

I just wonder in a few years if Saints fans will be lamenting the fact Dorsey got away or laughing how lucky the Saints were to get their second choice?

The rest of the Saints draft is like any other in that we have absolutely no idea what they got.

2nd round pick Tracy Porter can fly but is undersized and can’t tackle according to Mel Kiper but Deion Sanders will go in the Hall of Fame never making a tackle except by accident. The Saints need corners that can cover. Tackling is just a nice bonus.

Two other interesting things from the Saints draft happened that are concerning.

They still don’t have a really good tight end because the trade for Jeremy Shockey never happened and they didn’t draft one. The Saints offense will never be great without a good tight end. Plus, the key to winning the NFC South is beating Tampa. To beat Tampa you have to solve the Cover-Two defense.

You do that by either having a power running game or throwing to the tight end in the middle of the field vertically.

When Deuce was healthy the Saints would pound him at the Tampa front to soften the defense but counting on a healthy Deuce doesn’t seem realistic and the Saints still lack a tight end threat.

Call me concerned.

If you disagree re-watch the Colts and first Tampa Bay game from last season. The Saints struggle big time against fast cover two teams.

The second thing that happened was to me way more troubling: The Saints drafted a kicker.

This means I may be deprived of enjoying a full season of the human bobble head known as Martin Gramatica. Do you realize if Taylor Mehlhaff beats out Gramatica we won’t get to enjoy seeing Gramatica celebrating 30yard 1st quarter field goals like he just won the World Cup?

This is completely unacceptable.

The summer kicking competition is Good (Gramatica) vs. Evil (Mehlhaff).

It’s nothing personal Taylor, it’s just Gramatica is comedy gold.

Ralph Malbrough is a Saints and Hornets fan living in Houston. He can be reached at ralphmalbrough@hotmail.com

Hornets Win! Hornets Win! Theeeeeeeeeeeeee Hornets Win!

So Byron Scott gets his (justly deserved) Coach of the Year award and the team proceeds to rip out Mark Cuban's heart over the next two hours? Nice. Chris Paul rocked a triple-double and David West added 25 points in the Hornets' 99-94 win over Dallas. So...the Hornets actually made it to round two of the playoffs? Uh, what do we do now?

Oh yeah, we get the Spurs next. Greeeeeeeeeeeeat...'The Flopper' Manu Ganobli, Tony 'Frenchie' Parker, Bruce 'The Bastard' Bowen and 'Tim-May!' Duncan. Bring it on, fellas. I would have hoped the Suns could have forced a game six, but oh well, they didn't have it in them. They seemed to know the Spurs had their number. But here's the thing about the Hornets: they don't KNOW the Spurs are SUPPOSED to go on in the next round. The Hornets have no 'sword hanging over the head' fear of the Spurs.

And now that Charles Barkley has come out and said he'll no longer sleep on the Bees, it's a watershed moment for Hornets' fans.

Awesome Sports Commercials...

Day two of the NFL Draft...and I'm posting this today? Well, I need time to get my facts together to formalize my OFFICIAL OPINION on the Saints' draft. I'm sure Ralpha Dog will come up with something well before I do.

This is more or less my post for coping with a sunburn and hangover. Enjoy! (Oh, and these are listed in no particular order...)

Nomis: 'Damn Boots'


Creative soccer ad, hat tip to The Offside Rules.


Gatorade: "Like Mike" (The Original)



Nike: Michael Jordan, "Failure"


An inspirational ad from MJ that gets little or no play from the public at large. The "Like Mike" bit, or "Larry V. MJ" or "MJ versus himself" commercials are always among the first to get mentioned as the best Jordan ads.


Nike: Michael Jordan, "Maybe"


Newest Jordan commercial. I like how he's putting shit into perspective with these ads. It's weird that I'm getting sage like advice from the most corporate athlete in the history of the world.

Nike: Michael Jordan, "Play Your Game"

Forecast: This Draft Sucks!

By Ralph Malbrough

I’m not really excited for the Draft. Yeah, I said it.

I began this column six years ago specifically for the Draft. In fact, the year the Saints picked Johnathan Sullivan, I did eight different Mock Drafts. Eight! Me not loving the draft would be like Dean Martin not loving booze or Adam ‘Pac Man’ Jones not ‘making it rain.’

How did this happen?

It’s not like I’ve joined the dark side and think the Draft itself is somehow lame. I still love all the glory that is the NFL Draft. From Mel Kiper’s hair, Mike Detillier at Saints’ Draft Fest, the attire of NFL players at the ridiculous round table on ESPN, and words like “upside,” “difference maker” and “point-of-attack,” I still love the Draft. I just hate This Draft. It’s incredibly boring.

The Dolphins made a guy, Jake Long, who looks like a slightly above average right tackle the first pick. Yawn.

Sure, defensive tackles and offensive linemen are important and all but throw in the fact the Saints pick tenth in a draft with seven really good players and let’s just say I’m glad each team will only have ten minutes to make their picks. At least when the Saints are on the clock and all the elite defensive players are gone, the wait to see what unworthy player they’ll select will be short.

You know when I realized this draft was awful? When I heard Sports Illustrated’s Peter King wax on and on about Boston College’s Matt Ryan and how great he’s going to be – that’s when it hit me. The experts are hyping up average players because no one wants to say, “Boy this year’s class is really mediocre.”

Matt Ryan threw 19 interceptions in a bad ACC and yet all the draft analysts are in nearly perfect agreement that he should be a top ten pick. Just because an average looking girl is in a room filled with ugly ones doesn’t mean she’s Cindy Crawford. That pretty much sums up the 2008 Draft.

So Matt Ryan is the best of bad quarterback group and he gets $25 million? In three years when he’s a backup and assumed the mantle of Joey Harrington 2.0, don’t say you weren’t warned. So go ahead and talk yourself into Keith Rivers, Mike Jenkins or Aqib Talib, but if ever there was a year to overpay to move up this is that year.

The Saints should be willing to part with any pick from this year’s draft to move up and grab either Glenn Dorsey or Sedrick Ellis.

And don’t tell me trading away multiple draft picks ruins a franchise for years. If that’s true, then how come the Saints won a playoff game the year after Mike Ditka traded away the entire 1999 Draft for Ricky Williams? In a draft this pathetic, I don’t want a pocket full of maybes; just give me one possible star.

The Saints should be trying to win now. For the first time in the team’s history the Saints have a quarterback capable of winning a Super Bowl. So win now already. Besides, trading up is way more exciting than drafting Xavier Adibi in the third round.

Mickey Loomis, go and get Glenn Dorsey and make the dullest draft in years fun…at least for us Saints fans.

Ralph Malbrough is a Saints fan living in Houston. He can be reached at ralphmalbrough@hotmail.com

Does Byron Scott's Kid Do Parties?

Two hat tips for this one:

1. to 'You Been Blinded' for finding it and posting it originally...

and

2. to 'The Big Lead' for linking it so I could find it...

Byron Scott's kid rappin' away...

So are the VooDoo next in line to get a printable flyer?

Hey, that vaunted brain trust that provided Saints fans with ads foretelling a 'Black and Gold Super Bowl!' prior to the NFC Championship Game (dumbest. fucking. idea. EVER.) has ACTUALLY gone out and done something good: albeit a month too late...and that's get on the Hornets' bandwagon.

WWL-TV created a Hornets flyer saying "Hands Up for the Hornets!" It's not exactly "Bless You Boys" but it's definitely a step in the right direction. I just want to know what took these guys so long to wake up and get moving on this thing.

I definitely want the local print and TV media to be in full support of the Hornets, even if New Orleans will always be a football town.

Can't wait for Hornets-Mavs, Game 3 on Friday night. I might turn on the TV at work to catch the action. (Shhh! Don't tell my employers...)

John Hollinger Doesn't Know Who Ric Flair Is?

Since Wednesday's column from ESPN Insider John Hollinger is likely to be all "insiders only" within a couple hours, I decided to cut and paste the relevant source material for this post:

NEW ORLEANS -- "Woo!"

That's what the Hornets' PA announcer says every time Chris Paul scores, or assists, or makes some other nice play, and then the crowd follows it up with one of their own.

And the Mavericks have to be darn sick of hearing it, because in the first two games of this series we've had more wooing than Romeo and Juliet.

The rest of the time, Hollinger is singing the praises of the Hornets and how the Mavericks couldn't seem to do anything to stop CP3.

But those first three lines tell me that for all of his grand, mathematical equations to figure out who was the most efficient power forward between 1991-1999 with last names beginning with a vowel...he certainly doesn't know his pop culture.

Uh, Mr. Hollinger? That "Woo!" sound you're hearing is a sound byte of The Nature Boy Ric Flair.

Need a refresher course on who he is, John?



You're talking about the 16-time world heavyweight champion! The limousine ridin', jet ridin', kiss stealin', high-flyin', wheelin', dealin' son of a gun! You don't have to like it, Hollinger, but you better learn to love it cause it's the best thing going!

There you go. Now go and devise a formula telling me that Ricky Steamboat was the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all-time, sir!

Wooooo!

Avery Johnson: Dead Coach Walking?

Ummm, Chris Paul must be on a 'Get Avery Fired' campaign.

Mark Cuban looked about as happy as a fat guy at a Weight Watchers meeting.

Paul had 32 points and 17 assists and the Hornets did whatever they felt like doing.

Hell, Mo Pete dropped a dozen on the Mavs.

I'm not saying this series is over but how exactly are the Mavs going to win four of the next five games?

NBA teams that win the first two games win the series more than 80% of the time. I saw that stat on ESPN News this morning while eating a Pop-Tart

By the way, I guess defending Chris Paul isn't as easy as NBA experts like Bill Simmons thought.

(Note: if there was a magic formula for stopping CP3 I'm guessing an NBA coach would have figured it out by January.)

The best news: If the Hornets wrap this up quick, they get plenty of rest to face whoever survives the Spurs-Suns war.

Good times

Bruins suck! Get Simmons a towel to cry and bleed on!

Always nice when it's someone other than me calling out Bill Simmons. Have I mentioned that I love Kissing Suzy Kolber? And I thought I detested Billy BaRoo...

Eric McErlain at AOL Sports decided to blast Bill for his recent bandwagon Bruins tirade. Good times, Bill. Good times.

Hey! A Byron Scott for 'Coach of the Year' post!

It's not that Bill Rhoden of the New York Times lays out the groundwork for Mr. Scott deserves the honor (which he does in full), it's that he's so nonchalant in stating that CP3 ought to be the MVP of the league as well.

Here's to you, Bill Rhoden, (woo-woo-woo)...

Shockey to the Saints? (shaking head in disgust...)

So, when Shockey gets hurt, he'll be sitting up in a suite, drinking a couple vodka tonics with some lady friends from Bourbon Street? Uh, thanks but no thanks, Jeremy.

NOLA.com: Shockey value? The Saints want to know. He's NOT worth a second-round pick. He's a malcontent. Do you really want a guy with that much potential outside trouble coming to New Orleans?

Think about this way: Reggie Bush's contract is up in four years, and the only way I see him staying with the Saints is if they make the playoffs at least twice more in that span and don't get blown out along the way. If Shockey comes in, Sean Payton is taking a risk that he could become a distraction cost the team games in the long run, which could affect Reggie's decision to stay in New Orleans.