Testing the Water

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Skeebers — 36 Comments ↓

The NFL is tiptoeing back to work this week. Although “work” might be stretching the concept a bit. All the players will be doing this week is sitting for a virus probe, waiting in isolation for a couple of days, and getting another probe that will hopefully pronounce them healthy enough to begin six months of beating each other’s brains out.

The last time the 49ers went to the Super Bowl and lost, they followed up with a 12-4 regular season before losing the NFC Title game in Seattle. That game ended with Dickhead Sherman tipping an endzone pass meant for Michael Crabtree into the grateful arms of Malcolm Smith. Sherman then launched into a spit-flying YOU-SUCK!! tirade against Crabtree, and Smith cashed in his luck by getting handsomely overpaid by the Raiders and Niners over the next four years or so.

Nothing much will be happening for the first three weeks. Just conditioning type stuff that young people think will give them a better, more healthy life, and older people realize there’s enough pain and suffering already in life so why beat yourself up and add to it?

Padded practices don’t begin until mid-August. Which means there’s only going to be a couple weeks of real practice until the season starts. Early games are bound to be ragged affairs. If the 49ers manage to get by Arizona in the opening game, they’ll then have games against the Jets and Giants, which should see them get to October with a 3-0 record.

That all presumes the Niners, or one of their opponents, don’t get COVID infestations that are going to throw weirdness into this season every week. Strange times.

Tagged with: 49ers, Dickhead Sherman, Malcolm Smith, Michael Crabtree
Posted in Training Camp

The Football Panacea

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Skeebers — 32 Comments ↓

One more week until Training Camp opens. Maybe. With the restrictions imposed by the governor of California, it’s hard to see the 49ers training in Santa Clara without some sort of dispensation. Arizona and Nevada are the most likely possible destinations.

If that’s the case, this camp will be a bit of a throw back to the Rocklin style camp years. Minus the heat, minus the two-a-days, minus the babe brigade.

When camp opens, we’ll all be putting the ogle-eye on four significant players: RB Jerick McKinnon, Trent Taylor, plus the two rookies, DT Javon Kinlaw and WR Brandon Aiyuk. If all of those guys play well, the team should thrive again this year.

We’ll also be getting constant reports from the medical people vis-a-vis the COVID virus.

Advertisers have become a force of nature this century. Piss off Nike, bye bye a billion dollars in revenue. People have been trying to get Dan Snyder to change the Redskins name for twenty years or more, but when the mega ad agencies threatened his empire this year, he caved in a hurry. Or at least wants everyone to think so. He’s in full-blown spin mode for the moment.

Twitter arrived around ten years ago and provided a sports ticker for steady news about your particular team, but now it’s a site for angst filled young adults whining about their misery and, like the newspaper racket, a place to continually promote negative news which attracts an immense amount of venom spewing commenters and meme artists. Howard Howard Beale’s “Mad as hell …” rant has become the norm.

PFT was a nice little operation from 2001 to 2009, then ceded control to NBC Sports and has gone downhill since.

There’s little doubt that this has been the all time weirdest offseason. We’ll see next week if things begin to stabilize or get even more wacky.

Tagged with: 49ers, Brandon Aijuk, Javon Kinlaw, Jerick McKinnon, Trent Taylor
Posted in FOS Speculation

Waiting for Godot

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Skeebers

Like most of you, I’m sitting here watching to see how this whole thing plays out. The various sports entities are plunging ahead like they are sure there will be a new season, while the various medical entities are doubting any sports will happen the rest of the year, at the very least.

While those two big wig operations are forging ahead, the players are grumbling about all of it. Some will be opting out of the season, the NFLPA will try to muscle into the decision making process, and the fans will end up taking what we can get.

So far, thirty-one major league baseball guys have opted out of playing this season. Don’t know if any NFL types will take that route. A few maybe, but not many, I would think.

Training Camps are set to open in about three weeks. Which would normally get our juices flowing a bit. But we may have to wait until the camps actually happen for any of us to turn that spigot on.

God’s involvement with humanity is always a lively topic of debate between the believers and the non-believers, but even a believer has to question His motives for continuing to reward Bill Belichick when it’s clear to any reasonably intelligent soul that this guy is undeserving of any breaks in life. And yet, there’s Cam Newton falling into Belichick’s lap like a gift from heaven. This is very depressing. I was looking forward to the coming season just to watch the Patriots go back to being a mediocre franchise, kicked around by just about any team on any given Sunday.

Sigh. I may have to re-evaluate my theological indifference this year. Some things should never be allowed to happen in a fair and just universe.

Posted in Mindless Drivel

Through a Glass Darkly

Posted on June 25, 2020 by Skeebers

Baseball is starting up again, with plans for a 60 game season. The NBA plans on having playoffs based on teams’ abbreviated records from last year’s interrupted season. Golf is back, fanless for now. And the NFL keeps insisting there will be a full season this year.

Sure, fellas, whatever you say. We’ll be watching something, for sure, but it ain’t going to be anything like a normal season. The healthiest teams are definite contenders in the playoffs, and this year that might be the sole criteria for the final two teams that are still able to field 22 players.

For the next month, we’ll keep our eyes on baseball. If the teams can get through training camp without a constant flow of players testing positive for COVID and heading to the quarantine corner for two or more weeks, maybe football has a chance. But football has twice as many players as a baseball roster, and all bunched together in locker rooms and butting heads on the field.

Color me skeptical.

Posted in FOS Speculation

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Skeebers

The world has certainly become difficult to cope with this year. Pretty rude, if you ask me. I know you guys rely on me for not much of anything, but it’s getting harder and harder to deliver nothing when everybody seems to want SOMETHING.

We live in a bipolar time now. By day, we hide in our homes from the COVID menace. By night, we gather in huge crowds to protest police brutality. Something’s got to give. Either there will be a big-ass spike in virus infections over the next few weeks, or we’ll discover that medical menace was a tad overblown.

We’re screwed no matter what happens, which is exactly how the media likes us to feel. Doomed. Scared. Helpless and hopeless. Anything to keep the clicks up and the papers selling. We might all be driven to prayer! Egads, how old school.

“New” is all the rage these days. New world order, new virus, new normal. This probably ticks off the advertising/merchandising businesses who have plastered that word on products for years to sell the same junk in a different package and a more upscale price.

Golf is back. Please contain your wild exuberance. Golf is the one sport that doesn’t really need onsite spectators, who are mostly told to shut up while the golfers are playing.

Critical month ahead of us. Baseball’s trying to come back, COVID “scientists” are trying to regain the spotlight, and Black Lives Matter is raging all around the world.

Lord, what a mess.

Posted in Delusional Therapy