500 Channels and There's Not A Damn Thing Worth Watching

Lately my girlfriend and I have discovered that quality TV that both of us can stand is difficult to come across. Sure, there are some excellent shows like Breaking Bad that come across 13 weeks out of the year. But that's a paltry 13 hours per year, and maybe 5 shows are even worth that small bit of commitment. The Killing might be good, but so far it's slow and boring. Mad Men is awful and I don't get its success. Setting alone does not make a show good, I'm sorry to inform you. Justified is allegedly pretty good but its not really going to draw my girlfriend in. The Walking Dead might be the best show on TV, but there have only been six episodes and it's a show about fricking ZOMBIES. Since the start of 2010 we've lost:

Lost: I didn't watch it but Lord knows the rest of the country did so it counts: Ended

Terriers: A really good show with a really terrible title that no one watched: Canceled

24: The end of an era, and not a moment too soon: Ended

Two and a Half Men: It's easy to hate on this show because it's so formulaic yet so popular, but I pretty much watch the syndicated old episodes every night because it is entertaining and there really aren't any alternatives when it's on: Star Meltdown/permanent change

Guiding Light/All My Children: Just kidding: Canceled.

I'm no TV critic but that's three shows I did watch and a fourth I could have theoretically been watching suddenly removed from the system. So between the sporadic nature of TV airing and the removal of a bunch of good shows at once, we had to do something, so we become Netflix instant view customers. This was an awesome decision, at first. It enabled us to watch:

Damages: Good, not great, show that evidently is Satellite-only now for some reason.

Prison Break: Thoughtless drivel (at least after about the first 10 episodes, which are very well written) that jumps the shark but is still entertaining.

Arrested Development: 2nd best sitcom ever after Seinfeld.

Cheers: 3rd best sitcom ever.

Sons of Anarchy: Looking forward to watching this even though I couldn't care less about motorcycles or the people that ride them.

And that's basically it. It's a bunch of stuff I've now already seen and one new show I'm only somewhat excited about. The movies on there generally suck, with an occasional random gem. So what does that leave us to watch? Should we get HBO again? When we had it, it kinda sucked and I don't miss it. The Wire and The Sopranos were worth extra money. Treme, Game of Thrones, and Boardwalk Empire aren't. So HBO's out.

Obviously I watch plenty of sports. But sports are not on 24/7, only bad talking head shows about sports play all the time. Not to mention the dirty little secret that about 80% of sporting events are dead time or commercials, unless you use a DVR, in which case less time is wasted and the problem with finding something to watch ends up becoming accordingly compounded. So what's left? Together, my girlfriend and I can watch either:

A: Law and Order: SVU: Does this show really need an explanation? Always watchable, never great, a time-killer.

B: Game Shows: Wheel, Jeopardy, and Family Feud are the only ones watchable, and Price Is Right comes on at a terrible time and obviously isn't worth recording.

C: Reality TV: And this is the part where I want to get rid of cable and work on an oil-rig or something.

Reality TV essentially distills the worst parts of our nation's culture into 30 minute segments that are such train wrecks that you can't look away. Obviously, there are a few shows that are a little bit better than that. You have American Idol, where teenagers look to fast track music careers, and obviously that's fine, even if it's unwatchable live and you have to fast forward 40 minutes of every hour with the DVR. You have The Real World, where seven or eight really stupid young adults, often with personal problems that no one gives a shit about, come together in a major city to fight with one another and fail to hold their liquor. You have Jersey Shore, which was quite entertaining at first until these people became celebrities and got really stale. And you have The Real World/Road Rules challenge shows, which are constantly riveting and should be on twice a week year-round like professional wrestling. Apparently, people still watch Survivor, the Apprentice, and The Amazing Race, but I only watch those if I'm trying to fall asleep at 9:30.

Then, there are the celeb-drama reality shows like Surreal Life, Celebrity Rehab, Real Housewives of *insert stupid place that's trying to be stereotyped here*, and anything involving a Kardashian. The Kardashian shows are so scripted that they might as well be sitcoms, only they're so bad that they couldn't get away with being sitcoms. These are all so unwatchable that they fail to merit any discussion at all.

And then there are the shows that we watch, not because they're good, but because there's nothing else on: Hoarders, My Strange Addiction, Freaky Eaters, Taboo, Sister Wives, and a show I've always hated but now watch because of all the above reasons discussed: COPS.

Here's my rundown of each show. Is that something you might be interested in?

Hoarders: I've tweeted this before; if you need to feel better about your own life, you should watch this show, because there are always bigger losers than you. Basically, this show depicts people as having some void in their life, and then deciding it's a great idea to fill that void with either material possessions, animals, or both. In actuality, it shows that people are too god-damn lazy to take their trash out, and/or too god-damn stupid to realize their trash is actually trash. Either way, years pass, their homes are unlivable, they have no social life at all, their families hate them, and this show is in no way depressing. The people that hoard animals are 100 times worse. There's one episode where this obese man has like 35 rabbits destroying his house, that he's renting from unsuspecting yuppies. The man shouldn't just be evicted, he should be jailed for destruction of property, but instead he has a "disorder". They clean the house up, he gets therapy, and he STILL GETS TO LIVE THERE! Another lady lives on disability but can't stop adopting dogs from a shelter, to the point where she can't feed or clothe her teenage daughter. Most of the animal episodes are about cat ladies, which again, merit no discussion.

My Strange Addiction: This show takes on people that can't stop violating a social norm. One episode involves a college-age girl that isn't bad looking who is unable to stop sucking her thumb. My prediction for her life is that she ends up adopting 30 cats and is featured on Animal Hoarders, giving her the rare distinction of being a two-time reality TV loser. Another episode features a she-male that can't stop bodybuilding. My question is, are not all bodybuilders addicted to bodybuilding? Is that not required to actually be a bodybuilder? Does addiction have any real meaning at all in this case? But the best episode of this show, or any show really, features this gem of a human being:

You're probably wondering if what she's got in her hand headed to her mouth is in fact what it looks like. Well, it is. This woman eats toilet paper. And apparently a lot of it. A half a roll a day according to the show. She apparently likes the way it dissolves in her mouth. So naturally my girlfriend and I, with our "don't knock it until you try it" mantra, decide that we too would like to experience the alleged magic of eating toilet paper. Our verdict: it's really gross and quite possibly the dumbest behavior one can engage in. It's basically like eating cotton, and your gag reflex immediately kicks on. Unless you're this woman, who must be incredible at oral sex since she clearly has no gag reflex at all.

Freaky Eaters: Basically it's just My Strange Addiction, but limited to weird eating habits, like drinking 30 sodas a day. Difficult to try something like that without ending up in the hospital. Maybe one day I'll try to drink 30 MGD cans, at least I'll be drunk and sick, as opposed to just sick. And no, I don't drink MGD, it was just the first shitty beer that popped into my head.

Taboo: This show tends to involve disgusting rituals of aboriginal tribes, such as the tribe that covers their young boys with thousands of tiny cuts so that the scarring looks like croc scales. Because that sounds fun and attractive. I would totally not fight a guy from that tribe though, they can't possibly think anything hurts after going through that. Basically, this show is an exercise in trying not to vomit.

Sister Wives: This show documents the lives of a Mormon polygamist family. It was interesting for about 10 minutes, but it turns out that Mormons, while extremely nice people, aren't very fun to watch on TV. The idea behind the show is to answer questions about a polygamist lifestyle, but it fails to answer any of my questions, such as:

1. How does a guy go about dating when he is already married to three other women? Does he essentially say to the first three wives: "Bitches, you're not pleasing me, so I'm going to go date a 24 year old and then MARRY HER and bring her into this home with you."? How does that work?

2. How does a guy afford four luxury automobiles and a mansion when he has four wives and twenty kids? Was he a Mormon pop-star from the eighties that no one knows about?

3. How does a guy manage to be confident enough to land his wives without any help from alcohol or drugs? This question would probably be answered by the answer to question two.

So, not unlike Terriers, they got the name of the show wrong. The show should be called "Biggest Badass Ever", if "badass" were an appropriate word for a Mormon person to use or be described as, which it isn't. Again, it's possible these questions I have would have been answered had I kept watching, but I was too busy catching reruns of COPS to stick with it.

COPS: Only the greatest show of all time. As you know, during this program, either a COP is being a huge dick to minorities, or someone does something incredibly stupid that gets them arrested. No one looks good on this show. And then of course, Campus P.D. takes the effective COPS formula and waters it down to show rent-a-cops citing 19 year olds for underage consumption, which is a stupid law that will never be changed because no one over 21 gives a shit. Where Campus P.D. shines is that in approximately 70 percent of all clips there is a hot, scantily-clad co-ed that is being questioned or detained, which is a decided upgrade from scantily-clad meth-toothed old people. So there's that.

Enjoy your weekend!

NBA Playoffs Thoughts

Most people I know don't care one bit about the NBA for various clichéd reasons. "It's predictable." "They're all thugs." "They're too good." "They don't try hard until the end of games." "There's no contact." "I prefer college."

My thinking - it is predictable, but only because the playoff system the NBA has in place actually does its job. There aren't more thugs than any other professional sport other than baseball. They are really good, which is kind of the point, although I can see where this leads back to predictability. During the regular season, starters don't try that hard until the end of games because the season's too long, I'll give that criticism some merit as well. There's no serious contact, because it's basketball, and it's kind of hard to have serious contact in a sport where by definition a foul involves contact. Those of you that prefer college? That's a post for another day. All I'll say is that college basketball is an unwatchable product unless you're a degenerate gambler, in which case it's the best thing you could ever hope for.

The point of all of that is that these NBA playoffs have only been predictable if you've watched the league religiously since you were seven years old (for those who need to know how old I am, that would be 1991). Those of us that have know when a team gets old in a young man's game, that team falls, and falls hard. The Lakers were the favorites entering these playoffs because suckers didn't realize they were old. While no one could predict Pau Gasol would get dumped and play like crap all playoffs (that's what I heard), the rest of the team didn't look as good as last year, while three teams jumped into contendership thanks to free agency signings, trades, and maturity (and all three are still alive, so by definition they are in fact contenders now). Only the Mavericks were ever thought to be contenders before this season. Every changing of the guard in the NBA since 1980 with the exception of the Lakers leapfrogging everybody by drafting Magic (and two years later, Worthy) has involved at least one team of the previous generation getting old. The Pistons won in 1989 and 1990 breaking through because Jordan's Bulls weren't ready and the Lakers and Celtics lost key players due to injury (read: they got old). The Bulls then improved, swept the Pistons in 1991 and beat the Lakers in 5 games in a very convincing title run through the league's 4 previous champions, which sounds good on paper until you realize that both the Lakers and Pistons were old.

The Rockets obviously won in 1994 and 1995 under dubious circumstances involving the NBA's best player trying minor league baseball during his basketball prime (I saw one of Jordan's three home runs for the Barons in person and it was one of the most random cool sporting experiences one could ever have), so we can throw that out. Not to mention, those Rockets teams were pretty good, and it's a shame we didn't get to see them against Jordan's Bulls. My memories might have been tainted by the fact I owned Hakeem the Dream basketball shoes in 4th grade, which saved me probably a thousand dollars over the course of my life as they taught me $140 basketball shoes actually don't help your jump shot.

Of course, the Bulls won three more, meaning they had an eight year, six championship run as the premier team in the league, unlike anything seen in the modern NBA. All other timeframes had two or more real contenders (Lakers/Sixers/Celtics, Lakers/Pistons/Celtics, Bulls, Lakers/Spurs, Pistons/Spurs, Lakers/Celtics). The Bulls were the only team that could win the title in the years that they did. But eventually, they got old, which broke them up far more than infighting with the GM or Phil Jackson not being resigned. They had no more title runs left in them.

Fast forward to 2011. The Spurs, winners of four championships in the post Jordan-era, had the league's best record this season. Traditionally, this would require a great deal of respect from opponents. But the Grizzlies coach, Lionel Hollins, actually tanked games at the end of the season so the Grizzlies would face the Spurs. They did face them, and they won convincingly. Hollins was blasted at the time by the talking heads for publicly disrespecting the great Spurs dynasty, but he deserves a lot of credit for seeing what was becoming increasingly obvious as the playoffs rolled around:

The Spurs were really, truly, painfully old.

Meanwhile, the Lakers, winners of five titles in the post-Jordan era, had trouble dealing with an injury depleted Hornets team, in a series where Chris Paul looked like he might regain his status as the best American point guard in time for the Olympics. That Hornets team was, at best, the 14th best team in the NBA this season. If that didn't forebode the ass-whupping (or evisceration, depending on your level of sophistication) the Mavericks were about to put on the Lakers, I don't know what would.

The Mavericks really aren't that great, as we're going to see tonight and the rest of this series. The truth is, the Lakers got old.

Finally, the Heat, the new Big Three, the rockstars, the "what is wrong with the NBA" team of the moment, beat a still competent Celtics team in five games. Both teams have a boatload of All-Stars and terrible benches. Neither team could possibly win the title this season. The Heat are the worst team left standing. The Celtics of the past three years would have beaten them. You know what that says to me?

The Celtics: OLD!

So when people say this has been the most unpredictable playoffs in recent memory, they're right. But they're not that right. In March I got to see the Thunder hammer the Wizards in Verizon Center. I told my friend who came to the game with me: "you just watched the 2011 NBA Champions." He told me there was no way the Spurs or Lakers wouldn't win. He clearly forgot that those teams are old.

The weird thing is, I still believe the Thunder will win the title, in spite of the fact that Russell Westbrook has devolved into a bad version of Dwayne Wade. In March, he was the best guard in basketball, and I don't think it was that close. Sure, Derrick Rose won the MVP and Dwayne Wade has been incredible, but Westbrook was transcendent in March.

In spite of Westbrook's regression, the Thunder still only lost Game 1 on the road by nine on a night when their coaching staff forgot to come to the arena. The plan to single Nowitzki and force him to win on his own will work over seven games, but with Joey Crawford refereeing and calling an enormous number of fouls, it's up to coaches to adjust to those conditions. If Dallas wins this series, it'll be because Carlisle badly outcoached Brooks. But the real reason the Thunder will win the series? The Mavericks are prehistorically old. They're actually the oldest team in the entire NBA by average age.

And forget about the East winner beating either team. The Bulls were exposed last night for what they are: strong defensively, broken offensively. The Heat will be run off the floor by either West bench, and truthfully, it's doubtful they can even beat the Bulls anyway.

How do dumb people end up in charge of large organizations?

If you read Bill Simmons at all, you probably know that one of his ongoing jokes at present is his consistent bashing of the Minnesota Timberwolves' beleaguered GM, David Kahn. Up until last night, I never really thought he was as dumb as his reputation states. Yes, he drafted Ricky Rubio without making sure he would be willing to leave Europe, and yes, he drafted Jonny Flynn over Stephen Curry and Brandon Jennings. Dumb moves, for sure. But his comments after the NBA Draft Lottery last night that I just saw on SportsCenter have launched Mr. Kahn into the discussion for the dumbest person working in sports today.

Kahn: "This league has a habit, and I am just going to say habit, of producing some pretty incredible story lines," Kahn said. "Last year it was Abe Pollin's widow and this year it was a 14-year-old boy and the only thing we have in common is we have both been bar mitzvahed. We were done. I told Kevin: 'We're toast.' This is not happening for us and I was right."

First of all, David Kahn, you're not just disparaging the NBA with your remarks, you're disparaging Ernst and Young, only probably the most reputable major accounting firm operating in the United States today. Ernst and Young handles the lottery process, not commissioner David Stern or his cohort Adam Silver. Then you drag a teenage boy with a nerve disease down with some indecipherable remark about not having anything in common with him? Who the hell cares if you have anything in common with him? What does that have to do with anything? And do you really believe that the NBA rigged the lottery to get the number one pick to WASHINGTON? Clearly, you've never lived here. Nobody helps Washington.

I'm sure David Kahn didn't mean any ill will toward any of these people, and made his remarks out of frustration that he didn't get the number one pick. But did anyone explain to him that having the worst record only guarantees a 25 percent chance at the number one pick and only guarantees the number four pick? He's supposed to be IN CHARGE OF AN NBA TEAM! Mike Tirico and Doris Burke have a better understanding of the lottery process than this guy.

The comments might make a bit more sense if there were a clear superstar to take first in the upcoming draft. There isn't. Kahn's already passed on two point guards in Jennings and Curry (OK, not a point guard, but close enough) that are already better than Kyrie Irving will ever be. Derrick Williams had one monster game in the NCAA tournament and everyone thinks he's the next Blake Griffin. These are the consensus two best players in this draft and the Wolves are going to get one of them. Whoever the Wolves end up with, won't help them. So what difference does it make if they pick first or second? They actually are saving money by picking second.

So having logically picked apart his comment, the true reason I have a problem with it is that it naively undermines the credibility of the NBA league office right as a labor dispute is about to begin. Less informed observers (and sadly, a percentage of ESPN personalities) are going to actually believe this dreck. It's one thing if someone like Bill Simmons invents draft lottery conspiracy theories. Hell, I watched the 1985 Lottery and it looks pretty rigged. Maybe it was rigged. It was clearly a stupid way to go about operating the lottery and, accordingly, they went to an independent firm to properly manage the event. But for a working GM of a team to suggest such chicanery is highly inappropriate.

For a man in a position of authority in this league to say something this stupid calls for his immediate resignation, as he has offended the accounting community, the teenage boys with nerve diseases community, and the people with brains community. Will this blog post be the most uproar heard about this? I hope not.

I'm baaaaaack!

In the last nine months or so I know I've written zero blog posts and that's really either sort of awesome, or sort of pathetic, depending on how you look at it. In that time I've moved, discovered love, found what I want to become professionally, drank less, fucked more, tweeted plenty, bought a new couch and TV, become a shit ton less interesting, and basically changed completely as a human being.

In spite of all of that it's an enlightening proposition that none of that matters when determining how I feel about the idiotic NFL lockout, the incredible NBA playoffs, or the giant clusterfuck that the UFC stumbled into with their incredible mishandling of matchmaking over the last couple of months. Sports are a weird thing in that they're always interesting regardless of what's going on in them. Perhaps that's why the blandest, most horribly boring individuals are the people that tend to cover sports in this country. I can understand a need to crave attention in a society that seems to dote on a given few, sometimes without regard for talent. I've been there, and it's a crappy place to be.

I might be back, but I'll be damned if I'm going to write with any sort of an agenda. I'm going to law school, and this is just going to be an exercise helping me to attain that goal. I just want to have a good time and write some decent stuff, for lack of a better term. This blog initially was a place for me to place my strongest opinions in a real format and that hasn't changed. Here's hoping that the willingness to do that for free won't waver this time.

A love letter to Dana White and the UFC.

I just kind of feel like the WEC is the MMA equivalent of Triple-A baseball. And it's sad, because it's the best organization in the world in two very exciting divisions.

So here it is, Wednesday night, prime time, WEC 50, a title fight on Versus, a network that has done nothing but promote this organization since it began carrying it. And I live in an urban environment where I subsequently have done nothing but attempt to get casual football fans to follow MMA. And oddly enough, everyone loves it. Any fight with Brock Lesnar, Rampage Jackson, Anderson Silva, George St. Pierre, BJ Penn: Cards featuring stars such as these I have no trouble getting all of my friends behind. In 2010, sports are all about marketing stars and making new stars. And sad to say, in the entire history of WEC, the only star to ever been made is Urijah Faber, who is not the top fighter at 145 lb at the moment, though possibly has more mainstream endorsements than every other MMA fighter combined at this point. Subsequently, I can't get anyone to watch WEC. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Only the hardcore fans are watching WEC.

So naturally the geniuses at Zuffa, owners of both the UFC and WEC, decided to promote a stacked card on Versus, a channel that Dish Network doesn't even offer on its basic package, on a Wednesday night, a night when the demographic that any MMA broadcast should be targeting should probably be more attentive to wives and children than to dudes banging in a cage live on a fairly unavailable channel. I am pretty interested to see what the rating is for the show, because it can't be very good, and it could have been a lot better had a little bit of foresight been applied...

I am the one hardcore MMA fan in my entire group of friends in Northern Virginia. I went to the sold out UFC Fight Night in Fairfax in January and paid 85 dollars to sit in the nosebleeds with no other friends at Patriot Center for a fairly crappy card. I try to market it as best I can to my friends who are less educated about the sport, but I am held captive by the cards that are offered. It is extremely difficult to convince my girlfriend to accompany me to the bar on a Saturday night, and pay a combined 10 dollar cover to watch a good UFC card with friends, much less an average or bad card. If it were my sole decision, I would watch every MMA card, because it is the most entertaining sport outside of football, and generally there is at least one great fight that is worth the time and effort, if not more. However, I do not live in a vacuum, and I have to convince others to watch as well, or otherwise, I can't legally watch my favorite sport without either sitting at a bar by myself (not advisable) or spending a huge amount of money to watch it at home (even worse).

My girlfriend was absolutely riveted by the Anderson Silva/Chael Sonnen fight at UFC 117 on August 7. She loved that a fighter that I, and the rest of the world thought had no chance of losing could be threatened for an entire fight by a guy who was essentially a nobody. The only other sport that offers this sort of a thrill to non-fans is college football, a sport where Appalachian State can knock off perennial power Michigan, or a Boise State can beat Oklahoma in a BCS bowl game. I was wearing a UFC 82 T-Shirt that night and even though I saw in person that a good wrestler like Dan Henderson or Chael Sonnen could take a round from the great Anderson Silva, I never imagined that anyone could take four in a row or actually come close to winning. My jaw stayed dropped for about twenty solid minutes. Then when Silva won in the fifth and order was restored, I saw something I never expected. The casual fans thought that Josh Rosenthal jobbed Sonnen, and were angry at the outcome. But the craziest thing emerged from this fight.

My girlfriend knew Silva would win in the fifth, and thought Silva was working everyone.

You have to understand, my girlfriend is the only person I’ve allowed in my life that is significantly smarter than I am. This was the third UFC card she’d ever watched, and the second involving Silva, as she watched the Damian Maia fight, which I might be the only person on Earth who thought was an awesome fight (another argument for another day). She has a black belt in Taekwondo (who doesn’t? I should probably work on one since I know four), and thus has an interesting perspective on a sport she doesn’t actually follow or care about in the slightest. Naturally, at the start of the fifth round, when the entire bar is contemplating a world with Chael “The World’s Most Pissed Off Real Estate Agent” Sonnen as the 185 lb champion of the world, my girlfriend drops this bomb:

“Uh, babe, look at Silva’s poise, guard, and limbs. Sonnen is reckless. And…..tap.”

It was incredible. I’ve watched all 117 numbered UFC cards. That might out me as something of a fight dork, but it’s true. I’m no amateur in following this sport (don’t quiz me, I haven’t watched them all twice, but Joe Rogan’s performance on UFC 17 is something we should all watch daily as a prime example of what happens when one goes to work stoned). But naturally, my girlfriend made me feel like a jackass after the third card she ever watched. It was like my mom telling me to watch Jordan make the jumper at the end of Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, only if Karl Malone was assaulting him from behind with a crow bar. There isn’t a great cross-sport comparison, just know that I felt like a moron.

So anyway, back to tonight. We’re out at a bar and I wanted to get back to the house for the 9 PM ET start for WEC 50, a card I was nearly as excited about as the stacked UFC 117 card, which might be the greatest card in the history of the sport. Did my girlfriend, the “choke whisperer,” the one who I felt might have been empowered considering she totally made me look like an ass after the last card we watched together, a whole 11 days ago, give a shit?

Nope.

And that’s the stigma of WEC. I watched the card tonight as she slept. Great card, as always, because the lighter divisions are generally fantastic. But you can’t market a second league to casual fans on weeknights in my age demographic that have to be up at 5 AM ET and go work. If Dominic Cruz had been fighting Joseph Benavidez for the 135 lb UFC Bantamweight Championship of the world, on a Saturday night, you’d better fucking believe people like my girlfriend would care. People like me would make sure of it. But WEC is a tough sell, and it’s time to kill it.

If UFC had 7 weight classes, we wouldn’t have these awful cards where a punch-drunk Chuck Liddell faces off with an underweight Rich Franklin as a TUF finale main event. People are supposed to want to pay money for these cards, and if people like me don’t want to, then who exactly does? Over the past four years UFC has averaged 13 numbered events per year. With 7 weight classes, we could feasibly have every card contain a title fight. This is what all fans want, hardcore and casual. Dana White and the Fertitta Brothers, it is time to do everyone a favor and strengthen your flagship product with the talent you already have, as quite frankly, no one wants your secondary product.

My hometown and football

I grew up in Johnson City, TN, a mid-sized Southern town in the Appalachia segment of the Bible Belt. The church I grew up attending actually taught that the NFL played on Sundays in an attempt to distract believers from worship and hinder church attendance. One byproduct of this line of thinking is that college football, despite the level of play being generally worse than that of the NFL, is infinitely more popular. The University of Tennessee Volunteers are the athletic kings of my hometown, and everything stops on Saturdays for them. Peyton Manning visits a country club near my parents' house for a charity auction every summer, and each time he does I get 700 pictures in my email inbox from my dad of the guy wearing a goofy visor and polo shirt signing autographs for awestruck 55 year old fat guys. The local media follows Jason Witten around as if they were some sort of redneck TMZ-lite. No one cares about the Colts or the Cowboys, but everyone cares that these were Tennessee Volunteers that made it big in the NFL.

Not surprisingly, college football became my favorite sport from a very young age. Growing up, my dad wasn't as fond of the roughly two hour drive to Knoxville to fight crowds as I was, so as a compromise he bought season tickets to East Tennessee State University's fledgling I-AA program, which constituted a 7 minute drive from our house in south Johnson City. To be fair, they played indoors in an ill-conceived disaster of a football facility affectionately called the "Mini-Dome", which despite being a total failure in every way to an adult observer, was perfect for a seven year old kid to learn the ins and outs of football without my dad having to worry about weather or crowds.

I owe a lot to this program. When I was twelve, in 1996, the Bucs (yes, that's right, the geniuses from my hometown decided to name the football team located in their landlocked mountain town after pirates) went on a little bit of a tear and actually made the I-AA playoffs. In fact, they went 10-3, losing only to the national champion Marshall Thundering Herd, who jumped to I-A the following year; Montana, the national runner-up and 1 seed in the playoffs, and their money game, East Carolina. While that doesn't sound like a whole lot now, that Marshall team played in Johnson City that year at the Mini-Dome. And they had a 6'5" wide receiver no one knew. Yet.

Randy Moss. Age 19. On Astroturf. Before he won the Biletnikoff Award, was a first-round draft pick, was the catalyst for the highest scoring offense in NFL history, ran over a meter maid with his car, coined the phrase "straight cash, homey", faked mooned Green Bay Packers fans on national TV, nearly drove Joe Buck into cardiac arrest, became the most logical member of the Oakland Raiders ever cast, then set the NFL single season TD reception record as a member of the 2007 Patriots. One of the five greatest receivers ever to play the game of football and someone criminally underrated because of his pedigree and stupid off-field antics. The most dominant offensive player on two of the five best offenses in NFL history. In my town. Did I mention it was on Astroturf?

When TV analysts comment about prospects, they talk about "the eye-test". Basically, that means that a prospect looks fantastic regardless of past performance and you can see him accomplishing the same feats again against better competition. No one, and I mean no one, will ever pass the eye-test the way Randy Moss did that day against ETSU. I watched Kobe score 31 in the second half of an NBA game while on vacation in Orlando during the lockout season of 1999 and predicted the eventual three-peat as a precocious 14 year old. But Randy Moss, now that was SOMETHING.

Fast forward to the fall of 1999. My dad suddenly decided he was OK with going on road trips with me and suggested one Friday night we go to Furman the following morning to watch ETSU take them on. After all, it was only a two hour drive from Johnson City and Furman was pretty good in the SoCon, the conference ETSU played in. Of course, the Tennessee Vols were defending national champions at this time and it was a similar drive, but I won't hold that against Dad. He was much more into ETSU football than UT, and he was driving. So we go to Greenville, SC, and my college search ended before it even began. Furman became the standard I held every other college to when I visited, and I was too young and sheltered to appreciate urban college settings, so Furman was where I eventually ended up. The game itself was whatever, but it's odd how dumb things like that shape your life.

In 2003, the ETSU football program ended due to budget cuts. Interest had always been minimal thanks to the shadow of the great program in Knoxville, and rather than continue to compete with such a juggernaut of a program, the leadership of the school elected to shut it down. As I went on to get my business degree I started wondering what it would have been like if the program had been run properly. Thursday night non-conference games, $5 general admission, unrestricted parking, gimmick giveaways worth attending for, increased concession prices, and an effort to time games so that they didn't conflict with UT Vols games would have saved the program over the long term. They did none of that, which indirectly helped Appalachian State, located one hour from Johnson City in Boone, NC, become the quasi-famous I-AA juggernaut that beat Michigan in 2006 as part of a three-peat national title run. As a degree holder from ETSU (I finished my MBA there last fall) that level of modest prestige and fame would be nice. While it is highly unlikely that the program would have ever reached such heights, not even trying to do so is pretty disheartening.

I went to the last game they played in the Mini-Dome against The Citadel, and the handful of people there were very distraught about this avenue of entertainment being taken from them so unceremoniously. A lot of them undoubtedly were able to attend college because of that program. That program lives on in the NFL through the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, Mike Smith, as well as through Dallas Cowboys safety Gerald Sensabaugh, who transferred to UNC to finish his college career. While I'm not one of the 50 people still clamoring for ETSU football to return, as people didn't go to the games when it was there, the product on the field wasn't very good, and the school has adjusted to attract students that aren't concerned about football, it was a pretty special part of my growing up.

Don't Run Fat Albert Out Of Town Quite Yet

As a resident of Northern Virginia and a longtime Tennessee Titans supporter, I have been insanely entertained by the off-season "saga" involving perennial Pro Bowl defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth and new Redskins Head Coach Mike Shanahan. Haynesworth has been labeled a fraud, a pariah, and a fatass by the Washington media and Redskins fans who are friends of mine for his failure to attend mandatory OTA's over the summer after receiving a $21 million roster bonus in April. This is all rather confusing to a Tennessee supporter who watched Haynesworth be the best defensive player in the entire NFL the two seasons prior to his arrival in the DMV. Now he can't even pass a shuttle run test at training camp and will not be allowed to practice until he does, which is overshadowing everything else happening at camp. While this is a shame, in the long run, this is only a symbol of the Redskins' problem, not the problem itself.

As a Titans fan, I knew that losing Haynesworth would prove to be detrimental to the success of their defense in 2009, and boy was it ever. According to pro-football-reference.com the 2008 Titans were ranked second in scoring defense at 14.6 per game, second in turnover differential at +14, and seventh in total defense. This squad managed to have the best record and scoring margin in the NFL, in spite of being 28th in passing offense. In other words, this team was defense first, running second, and passing never, a recipe that might have been effective in 1976, but hardly a traditional model of success over the past 15 years or so. In 2009, everything flipped, and the club started the season 0-6 before re-inserting Vince Young into the starting lineup and making Jeff Fisher look like the biggest idiot in the league for not doing it sooner. For the season, the Titans were 16th in scoring, roughly the same as they were in 2008. Without Haynesworth, the defense was 28th in scoring defense. 28th. Egads. No further analysis necessary.

What fueled the 2008 Titans' defensive attack was the ability to rush the passer with only the front four linemen, enabling aggressive play by the defensive backs and permitting the linebackers to cover short passes and defend the run. The defense was dominant in spite of being vanilla on a regular basis, as few blitzes were needed. As great as this defense was, only three members were invited to the Pro Bowl: Haynesworth, Cortland Finnegan, who emerged as an elite corner that season in spite of the fact that he is tiny and struggles with bigger receivers (such as Andre Johnson, who torches Finnegan and every other Titans defensive back twice a year), and Chris Hope, a strong safety who played well, but won't be confused with Ronnie Lott anytime soon. The defense had other notables, including longtime veteran standout linebacker Keith Bulluck, injury plagued but always intense defensive end Kyle Van Den Bosch, and free safety Michael Griffin, who got in the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement with seven interceptions. While this defense certainly had a lot of talent and depth, it was based on Haynesworth up front being effective. With him gone to Washington in 2009, the Titans couldn't stop a high school team and at one point lost 59-0 to the Patriots with largely the same group other than Haynesworth.

But in spite of all the greatness Haynesworth exhibited in 2007 and 2008, it was hard to justify the contract the Redskins gave him. There was no reason to pay a defensive lineman the kind of money Haynesworth received regardless of his ability or character. Haynesworth has Hall of Fame ability. I know this from having watched his two previous seasons prior to his coming to Washington in 2009. But the money the Redskins guaranteed Haynesworth could only be a good investment if he produced in the manner he produced in 2007 and 2008, years in which it could be strongly argued that the guy was the best defensive player in all of football, for the entire life of the deal. Haynesworth was age 26 at the start of the 2007 season, so the Redskins did sign him at the traditional athletic prime age of 28. Unfortunately, in football, the average career lasts a shade over 4 years, and it was clear to anyone that watched the Titans' 2008 romp through the AFC South (and their stomping of eventual Super Bowl winner Pittsburgh late in the season) that the probability of Haynesworth maintaining his outstanding form for any significant period of time wasn't great. Well, clear to anyone not working in the Redskins front office, anyway.

The Redskins have failed over the past ten years for three major reasons. One, they sign free agents to deals that are based on past performance, not forecasted future results. If Albert Haynesworth was a Pro Bowl player for the entire life of his contract, he still would be overpaid. There was no chance that Haynesworth would be able to live up to his part of the bargain. He isn't even the worst example of Snyder doing this, as at least he can still be an elite player and isn't in his thirties. The Redskins essentially paid Haynesworth for being a great Titan. Second, there is no continuity in terms of schemes or personnel, because the owner fires the front office every other season. Since Dan Snyder bought the team in 1999 the team has had seven coaches, including Steve Spurrier of my hometown, Johnson City, TN; and famed NASCAR owner Joe Gibbs (OK, that was uncalled for as he won three Super Bowls, but he'd been out of football 12 years when they hired him). There's no rhyme or reason to these hires or fires, it's all the whim of the owner. And franchises that operate on the whim of the owner rarely win anything, unless a trade involving Herschel Walker takes place that yields an insane number of draft picks (not likely anymore). Despite this ineptitude, the fanbase would rather blame a player, who came from and was a part of winning traditions at both the college and pro level, rather than ownership for creating this situation. And that brings us to the biggest major problem concerning the Redskins: the fanbase enjoys bitching about being bad, and would follow this club no matter what Snyder does. How else could a club be second in the NFL in revenues while going 4-12 last year? Snyder's making money hand over fist because no one is holding HIM accountable for running a proud franchise into the ground. When you have a cycle of enabling, you fail. The Wall Street Journal wrote last year that Washington fans were jumping ship. Clearly the author of that piece has never entered a bar in the DMV. This place is rabid for the Redskins, and that won't ever stop, no matter how long they are terrible.

Incredibly, in spite of Mike Shanahan refusing to let Haynesworth practice in training camp and learn the change to the 3-4 defense, I have a feeling Albert Haynesworth is about to show some people what he is capable of doing. What he does on the football field is command double teams and routinely beat them. In other words, he's done in a 4-3 exactly what a nose tackle does in a 3-4. Mike Shanahan has handled this situation as if he were Bear Bryant and could pull Haynesworth's scholarship on a whim at Alabama. When you hand a guy a check for $21 million, you empower him. When you hand him a check that large and at the same time say "oh, by the way, we know you've never played nose tackle in your life but that's what you're going to do for us, suck it up and come practice, we paid you and we own you", rather than sitting down with the man you've just empowered and explaining team goals, then you're asking for this situation. I'm not saying Haynesworth is right. I think he's handled this situation like a pompous, idiot athlete, and the damage to his life and career is real and permanent. But let's see what happens on the field before we draw and quarter a man who can't complete a shuttle run. As Allen Iverson once said, "we're talking about PRACTICE!"