I guess it wasn’t enough already. New Salon column on this week’s press conference, the closest thing we’ve had yet, or are likely to get for a while, to a truth commission.
There was also one about Brett Favre’s latest retirement the other day, speaking of stories that we’re all ready for them to go away.
Salon column from Monday about the game — the Steelers won, case you didn’t hear — and one from Wednesday arising from the debate about Kurt Warner and the Hall of Fame in the comments section of Monday’s piece.
Someone on Facebook pointed out that I never really came out for or against Warner as a Hall of Famer. That’s true. I’m kind of agnostic. I don’t really have a feel for what really constitutes a Hall of Famer in sports other than baseball. Coming at it like a baseball guy, Warner has a rockin’ peak but not enough good years for my taste.
But I don’t know. For all I know the Hall is filled with guys who only had three or four great years. Football careers are short and injury-filled.
I lean no on Warner, but am willing to be convinced. That’s why I said I’d love to see a comparison of Warner with other great quarterbacks, but adjusted for era. I already know that he threw for way more yards than Bob Griese. I want to know if he was really better.
Bob Edwards asked me on the radio who I was picking in the Super Bowl. I told him the Arizona Cardinals. Noting that President Obama is taking the Pittsburgh Steelers — since he’s a lot more likely to get votes in Pennsylvania than in Arizona — Bob said, “You’re going against the leader of the free world.”
I said, “It’s a hard habit to break.”
New Salon column. Trying to get all zeitgeisty.
A bit late in the game to post it, but I had a busy day. You? My new job is being the guy in charge of Salon’s cover, a responsibility so awesome I often wear pants when on the clock. Today was kind of a 10-hour sprint, with constant updates from our crack team of reporters and commentators.
And hang on, I’ve been joking around so that sounds like a joke about the crack team. Not a joke. Our writers are really good.
So it would have been enough a crazy day, but I had to do it with a very bored 5-year-old hanging around. Thank you, San Francisco Unified School District, for randomly abdicating your responsibility of educating my kid on one of my busiest work days of the decade. Thanks for that. I’m sure the staff is much more developed now than it was on Monday. Whatever that means. I don’t know what it means but I think beer is involved.
Buster was actually a champ, only demonstrating stir-crazy, cabin-fever like behavior on a couple of occasions. I did get a chance to take him out to lunch at Starvin Marvin’s on Geneva, where we had really good cheeseburgers — and watched the inauguration parade.
Every once in a while Buster would walk into the room, see Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer on the TV and say something like, “Man, why are those guys still talking?”
A nation was wondering about that right along with you, son.
It’s the second time ever that two teams with single-digit wins have met to see who goes to the Super Bowl. The first was the Ice Bowl, the 1967 NFL Championship Game in Green Bay when the Packers beat the Cowboys on Bart Starr’s sneak. And those two nine-win teams only played a 14-game schedule.
I can’t figure out if the Cardinals and Eagles are historically mediocre for teams advancing so far or if they’ve advanced historically far for teams so mediocre.
I have a few lifetime goals. I mean, I have some silly ones like raising my kids well and doing meaningful work, that sort of thing. But I have some really important ones.
I’d like to see a no-hitter in person.
I’d like to pick every baseball division winner some year (I once came close, in the three-division era, when I got three, and the fourth team, the Tigers, should have won but crapped out down the stretch).
I’d like to pick every NFL division winner some year (I’ve never been within two zip codes of this).
I’d like to go 11-0 picking NFL playoff games some year. This is the most realistic of my goals, including the silly ones above, but I don’t think I’ve ever done better than 8-3. I didn’t have a lot of confidence going in this year that I’d do it. I never do. But I thought I had a good chance to get through Saturday, because I didn’t think much of the Cardinals or the Chargers, and I thought the Colts were playing well.
My perfect record lasted three hours. Actually, less than that because it was pretty apparent well before the end that the Falcons weren’t going to come back. Where did that Cardinals performance come from? They played defense and everything. And the Falcons looked rattled and jittery.
Oh well, I’m going to regroup with some simpler, more attainable goals than the 11-0 playoff thing: Clear the clutter off my desk and make a million dollars.