Wow. What a week. I don’t
even know which way is up anymore. Manti Te’o’s girlfriend (the love of his
life) never existed…Lance Armstrong admits (if that’s what you want to call
that performance) to using performance-enhancing drugs and doping. O, and we also
have two conference championship games this Sunday AND the NHL resumes/begins
it’s season on Saturday.
God I love sports.
Sometimes I wish I was
blessed with more athletic ability—more than my 5’9 165 pound frame, with no
vertical leap, no flexibility, and minimal physical gifts that is.
But then I realize how
foolish I am. I enjoy analyzing and dissecting them all so much more. We have a
lot to cover so let’s get started!
How truthful do you think I was in the first part
of my interview with Oprah Winfrey last night?
--L. Armstrong, Marriot Hotel
I took the entire
interview (as of this I have only seen the first part) as extremely
half-hearted. I took it as “if I admit to doing it maybe people will get off my
back, but I don’t want them to know how much of a true asshole I am”.
I also wasn't buying a lot
of the smoke you blew up our asses. I’m putting it as maybe 50% truthful? Lance
Armstong has no credibility. He lied for 15 years. Why should we believe
everything he says now? Thanks for admitting to PED’s and doping…but it’s very late for that, don’t you think?
Armstrong claims he didn’t
bully his teammates into doping yet he also said that he didn’t think
doping/PED’s was cheating at the time? That he wouldn’t be able to win if he didn’t
use them? Give me a break. Don’t insult our intelligence Lance.
A poll just popped up on
ESPN. About 36% said that the interview changed their opinion for the worse. I
can’t decide where I am yet.
A lot of it was
“Yeaaaaa…BUTTT…” or “I mean….I don’t know about THAT…” or “That is true, but
THAT isn’t true.”
There are many
complexities to all of this…Armstong giving and offering donations to
anti-doping agencies which suggests that he was using money to protect
himself…accounts of threatening teammates and investigators…suing people and
ruining them for telling the truth…I won’t get into it all because once again,
it is very complex. I don’t have the resources or haven’t sat down to examine
it all, but I have heard enough to develop an opinion.
Armstrong lied a lot
for 15 years, and he lied a lot again tonight.
Taylor Swift or Mila Kunis?
--S. Kessler (@SKessler11)
What a welcomed change of
pace Steve. This question breaks my heart. Well really, Taylor Swift breaks my
heart. What we can appreciate about both these girls: they are both
naturally beautiful. They don’t have those Victoria’s Secret bodies or flaunt
their obnoxious breast implants.
Taylor has the blonde
hair-blue eyes combo that I am the biggest sucker for. She is that celebrity
that seems so accessible because of her innocence, and so many (like myself)
fall in love with her. Not to mention like her music. But her social life
really weirds me out. She has dated back-to-back 18 year-olds…including a One
Direction kid? Ugh. I don’t like it..
For me, Mila is #1 in the
world so she gets the nod. Just a drop dead gorgeous woman and she doesn’t have
to wear a drop of makeup, as opposed to Taylor who tends to pour it on. Mila’s
eyes are criminal. And when I just saw this picture, I didn’t have to think any further.
Are you more comfortable in the shoes of Matt Ryan
against the 49ers, or Tom Brady against the Ravens and Ray Lewis right now?
--W. Noglows (@WilliamNoglows)
Well what a better time
for me to welcome Will to the Ice Bath team! (Applause)
If you haven’t, check out
his first column.
Back to the question, I’m
more comfortable in Tom Brady’s shoes. To be honest, I am not comfortable in
either of their quandaries this Sunday. But that answer is more general than
specific to these opposing defenses. Brady doesn’t have much to prove. The man
has three super bowls, three MVP titles, eight Pro Bowls, her.
I do however, think this
game will be extremely close and that the Ravens have a very good chance at
winning this game. If I had any money to gamble with, I would be all over the
8.5 points the Ravens are currently getting. Brady has no Gronk which obviously
significantly hurts their offense, but their running game this year is much
improved, and the emergence of the nimble Shane Vereen last week poses some new
challenges for the Ravens. Bottom line, Brady has done more with less against more.
This Ravens defense isn’t what they used to be, and they weren’t exactly
stellar against the Broncos last week.
On the other hand, Matt
Ryan has everything to prove. He is facing a second year Quarterback after he
just escaped with his first playoff win despite his rookie counterpart playing
much better than himself. This 49ers defense is vicious—much
better, faster, and more
physical than the Ravens. If Ryan doesn’t deliver in this game, the “not a big
game performer” will still loom over him.
All eyes on you, Matt
Ryan.
What do you have to say now, bitch?
--C. Kaepernick, San Francisco
This question alludes to
my prediction that the move to make Kaepernick starter will eventually hurt the
9ers and cost them a Super Bowl. I even hoped Alex Smith would get another chance.
I was licking my chops
when the Broncos-Ravens game in OT cut to Kaepernick throwing a pick-six.
See! I told you!!
We all know what happened
after that. Kaepernick rebounded with one of the most impressive playoff
performances in recent memory. He accounted for 444 yards and tantalized Green
Bay’s defense.
For now, I was wrong. I
was very impressed with Colin Kaepernick last Saturday night.
I realized two things
watching Kaepernick play fully for the first time: 1) He is REALLYfast and 2)
He is a much better thrower than I originally surmised. In fact, he was an
exceptional passer last week. He has turned Michael Crabtree from bust to boom,
he has opened up additional running lanes for Frank Gore with the read-option,
and his own running ability causes headaches for opposing defenses.
Right now, the NFL has no
answer for the read-option offense with freaks like Kaepernick and RG3. I doubt
Atlanta’s porous defense will either.
I’m taking San Fran on the
road. Just much the better team…as long as Kaepernick doesn’t fold in the dome.
What do we make of this Manti Te’o story?
--Everyone, United States of America
As a 20 year-old sports
enthusiast, this is the most bizarre story that I have ever come across. And I
spent a good hour pondering, trying to find something as perplexing as this. I
just couldn’t.
So, the whole thing with
Te’o: Not only was he the nation’s top defensive player, the best player and
captain of Notre Dame football, the leading contributor the resurgence of Notre
Dame football, and a Heisman finalist…but he did all of this battling
unfathomable emotions when he was alerted of the death of his grandmother, and
then his girlfriend six hours later. What resolve this young man showed.
We now know, that although
his grandmother did pass away, his alleged girlfriend never existed.
This is where it all gets
dicey. The theories pile on. He claims to have been duped, a victim of a sick
joke by an even sicker individual. Even AFTER he found out that she wasn’t real
on December 6th, there are multiple instances where Te’o references
his ‘girlfriend’ through the media.
And if you have been
watching ESPN at all these past couple days, you have seen the October
interview where Te’o describes in a convincingly evocative tone, the painful
nightly phone calls, the “love of his life,” the feeling of when the phone went
silent, what a great person she was, what a better person ‘she’ made him.
It was just too weird.
Something isn’t right.
Te’o rode this story to
the bitter end, even after he became aware that she never existed. He continued
to use the inspiring story as a vehicle to contribute to the legend of Manti
Te’o, a legend that boasted triumph over unimaginable tragedy.
Te’o lied to us all, duped
us all, even though he claims to have been the victim. Why though? I don’t know
if I can buy the “to get more publicity, to gain sympathy and feed into the
story” theory. Why would he need more publicity? I just don’t get it. If that’s
true Manti Te’o has serious issues and countless questions to answer, questions
from reporters and NFL teams that are evaluating his ability as a player
(Alabama made him look like a scrub) and his overall character.
Could it be…Is Te’o that
naïve? To claim someone that he never saw, to be the love of his life? The man
is 21 years-old, a First Team Academic All-American, he has to be smarter than
this, right? Te’o is the captain of Notre Dame football, a good-looking kid,
yet he subjected himself to an online girlfriend for three years? It’s not like
he would have any trouble getting girls. Wouldn’t a guy that carries a GPA in
the ballpark of 3.4 know that the public would eventually discover this?
But he is also a Mormon, and
seems to be a man of passionate faith, which spins things yet again. Maybe this
kind of behavior (having an online girlfriend) isn’t that weird for him.
And then we throw in that
Te’o’s dad claimed that this mystery girl visited Te’o in Hawaii and on another
occasion. Something is going on here, I smell a rat. There is something more to
this.
Hopefully, one of his
teammates who knows something speaks up. Hopefully someone, anyone who knows
something speaks up.
Hopefully Manti Te’o
speaks up.
-Chris Collins
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@ChrisCollins127
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