The Longest April

This has been the longest month of my life, and considering that when I hit round abouts age 28 that everything sped up like I was headed on the space shuttle of death, that has to count for something.

I mean, for Christ sakes, every day I wake up it's April!  It's been April every goddamn day and...aaaaaannnndddddd...there's still days left!  I swear to whoever the fuck is controlling this goddamn thing that it's been April 26th for like three days now.

I apologize for all the cursing, Mom and Nana, but the month of April has felt like that scene in Payback when Mel Gibson gets tortured by having his feet bludgeoned with a hammer.  Here's another movie reference for all the people that missed Payback, but I also feel like how Rocky looked at the end of literally all of his fights because while he's a champion and stuff...he also gets the shit kicked out of him every time.  It took like seven Rocky movies for them to actually come out and say what the message of the story they were trying to 'subtly show' was because too many people took it as just a movie about some intermediate intelligent Italian mug from Philadelphia that liked to beat the shit out of people.  They actually have him come out and say it's not about how hard you can hit, but how many times you can get hit, and that's what living is.

I'm so thankful that the Rocky franchise finally cleaned that up because I just wasn't getting it, you know?  The message was so subtle and I'm just no good at subtlety so I just want to really, sincerely thank them, for finally letting us know the great mystery behind all of the Rocky movies.  I usually enroll in a different school.  I want to put YOU on YOUR ass, not just see how hard of a beating I can take.  That's just ridiculous.

Maybe I'm warping the message, I tend to do this, it wouldn't be the first time.  But this month has felt like a bludgeoning of hammers and I don't feel victorious for sustaining the blows.  I feel like I just got fucked up by a bunch of hammers.



Anyhoo, a team that's used to taking as many hits as they can and not reaping any of the benefits that Rocky seems to think come with them, the Miami Dolphins went ahead and did what I hoped they would do and that's draft Tua.

Here's the thing: I don't give a goddamn about what the so called 'experts' have to say about Tua.  I don't give a damn that some say he's injury prone or that some say he's the best talent in the draft.  They all contradict one another and just throw noodles at the wall until one of them sticks.  Sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me, where do I sign up?  I might forsake my former dream of being a meteorologist for this piece of pie.

What scares me, and this is true, is that I endorse the pick, in fact, I love it.  Why would that be scary?  Because I'm the kiss of death of any success that the Miami Dolphins should enjoy.  For ten years now, I've been writing about how terrible the Miami Dolphins are.  Through countless players, coaches, assistant coaches, general managers, hell, probably equipment guys, I've been the one constant.  I've been the ONE thing that hasn't changed and that probably marks me for their harbinger of doom.

All these years and it turns out it wasn't Chad Henne, Tyler Thigpen, Chad Pennington, Matt Moore, Ryan Tannehill, Jay Cutler, Brock Osweiler, Ryan Fitzpatrick, or Josh Rosen's fault.  It was mine.  And you can't blame those guys, they're just the ones that have started at quarterback for the Miami Dolphins since a unicorn stud farm started blogging about sports.

So it's gotta be me, right?

Look Tua might be constructed of balsa wood and one day he might get his wish of being a real boy, but what do the Dolphins have to lose in this scenario?  Another name that gets pushed into cheaper jersey sales?  I'm sure the company that makes those are like, "Come on!  Another one?  Let's transfer to Green Bay...or New England."

Too soon?

Nah, it's never too soon to talk about how Aaron Rodgers is getting Aaron Rodgered and that Tom Brady is now a pirate.  It's funny to me, the disparity between sports.  In baseball and basketball, if you're one of the greats and you announce you are retiring at the end of the current year, you get some sort of like farewell tour.  Other teams give you presents, you get endless tributes, and ESPN talks about you constantly.

In football?  You're leaving?!  Fuck you.  Green Bay is that scum bag in high school that says, "Hey, when her and I break up, I'm gonna date you next" right in front of the one they're currently seeing.  Yeah.  Motivation levels should be high after that.

And Brady leaving New England is like those celebrities that escape Scientology.  They can breathe that fresh air finally, they don't have to log how many bathroom trips they take daily, and they can finally have sugar.  And just like Scientology, what does Belichick and New England do?  It's fine.  He was never one of us anyway.  We have 'insert name here' and we're gonna be just fine.  Despite the fact that there's people on the family tree of Jarrett Stidham, who is now their quarterback, that have never heard of him.  "Jarrett?  We thought his name was Jared for years, we put it on every Christmas card!"

Brady with the Buccaneers is going to be like your dad after the divorce.  He might score a couple times but it's going to be depressing and kind of gross.  Especially because he's bringing his best friend, the one that never grew up, along for the ride.



So what does it all mean?  It means I take Tua at face value and if he turns out to be a total bust then Miami has just another box checked.  That's all.  How could you not take someone that could potentially turn your franchise around?  They said that about Tua, not Tannehill, and that's more telling of Tennessee.  Alliteration much?  Much too much.

Float on, graceful swans.

Okay, Maybe We're Done!

Hello friends, and I guess also enemies, I'm back and I wanted to address a few things.  The last post I made was meant as a distraction from all the crap happening in the world right now.  It's not my job, it's just something I like to do.  I like throwing peanuts in people's faces.  It's fun.

However, it's dawned on me over this past week that I can no longer distract you, but rather break down to shit what some of these 'higher institutions' are considering in the light of the Coronavirus pandemic.  I'm not sure if pandemic should also be capitalized, I haven't been through one before.

Essentially, it's become perfectly clear that nobody knows what to do and they are basically playing Madlibs at this point.

Let's start with you, MLB, because you are clearly drinking too much grain alcohol in this quarantine.  The proposition sounds like something a very desperate person would do at the end of their rope and let's keep in mind, their season is just postponed!  It wasn't canceled like the NBA or NHL.  

So here it is, the grand drunken plan, first off, we're all playing in Arizona...in a bubble.  Yep, a bubble.  There won't be any fans and all the players will have to stay away from their families the whole time.  A regular baseball season is 162 games.  I can't imagine they will try to squeeze all those in but still, that's a lot of time away from your family.  Regular baseball life is tough on the family, this is just ridiculous.  Moving on, there won't be any fans in the stadium...but there will be players!  That's right kids, the players will move from the dugout to sit in the stands, six feet away from each other.  We're also eliminating mound visits from the catcher and manager and I can't believe you've let me get this far and I'm still not done yet!  We're also talking about realignment.  We're going to keep how Spring training does it.  In case you are unfamiliar, we have the Cactus and the Grapefruit leagues.  Why?  Because cactus grows in the desert and that's where everybody west of the Mississippi plays and old people love grapefruit so come on down to Florida for the rest!

So how does the playoff dynamic work at that point?  There are fifteen teams in each league.  We're just going to round robin the entire season?  So, when someone wins, do we really care?  Isn't it best to not do this whacky shit and just sit down for a year?!  Hell, if goddamn Pizza Hut can make it through this, I think the MLB will be just fine for a little while.  It's just too gimmicky for me.  I miss baseball, but not this much.  This is too much.

Sigh.

Okay, let's get to you, my most infamous enemy, the NCAA.

Look, it's been no surprise over the years that I have not been a fan of the NCAA.  In fact, I've been on record as calling them the National Collection of Assholes Anonymous.  I'm good at acronyms, what can I say?  But the idea of some conferences operating, because they have the funds, and leaving the rest out, is simply demonic.  Now they haven't come out and said that they're doing this buuuuuuuut let's be rational here, unlike the NCAA.  Some conferences operating is a lot more money than no conferences operating, right?  And what, say it with me, sways the opinion of the NCAA?  Dolla, dolla bills, y'all.  

I'm also going to go out on a limb here, and don't worry, it's a very sturdy ass limb, that these conferences are primarily concerned about college football.  I say that, because, I didn't hear shit when they canceled the goddamn basketball tournament.  And I can't imagine that they're that concerned about the swimmers and soccer players.

All of this is a contingency plan.  It's April.  Who knows where we are come late August?

However, it's April, and I've already heard this shit.  

If there wasn't a time to give money to student-athletes...I'm talking about the ones that have now been banned from their housing units because of the lockdown, and a lot of them, if not most, travel far to go to their school and couldn't just go back to mom and dad's house and are YOUNG and simply...lost.  None of this is right.  It's madness.  I don't want to hear about conferences talking about how some of them can start up and others can't, I want to hear about what they are doing to help, goddammit.  And if they aren't doing that on a conference level, then the NCAA needs to get their heads out of their collective asses and make them do it.  These are kids, that believed in bettering themselves and went to do it, that got screwed because of something that most of us only read in history books.

I'm referring to the plague, which is colloquially referred to as the Black Death, which took place in the 1300's.

The 1300's!!!

Those people thought it was okay to walk amongst rats and just dump your shit bucket out the window onto the street below.

Welp.  No consistencies here.