Lessons learned from the Patriots 47-12 exhibition romp over Jacksonville

Um, it was an NFL pre-season game.  There are none.  Sorry. 
#15, QB, Ryan Mallett.  #22, RB, Stevan Ridley.

Have you seen these yet?

They've been popping up all over Boston in the past two weeks.  Bicycles available for rent in a rack on the side of the road.  No people involved, you just swipe your credit card.  Sort of like luggage carts at the airport, or the Redbox dvd machines in grocery stores.  But it's not the airport, and they're not dvds.  I haven't looked into the details at all, but my gut feeling is this can't really work in Boston, too many things might go wrong.  The first one being that I haven't actually seen a person riding one yet.  And I get the feeling that by the end of summer all of these bikes will somehow belong to homeless people.

And yeah, the picture kind of sucks, sorry.  But when I took it with the flash on the reflectors on the bikes shined so much that you couldn't even tell what they were.

Pats vs. NFC Pro-Bowl Team: Who Wins?

Pre-season football starts tonight, so today seemed like an appropriate day for this.  I saw a commercial recently for Madden '12, and in the ad the Pro Bowl teams were featured.  That got me thinking about how when I was in High School and we played NHL '94 for Super Nintendo.  When I played with my friends you weren't allowed to use the All-Star teams (or even Chicago for that matter) cause they were just too good.  But football is not hockey.  I have to admit I haven't played video games in a LONG time.  But I think if you were to play a game in Madden '12 with a regular team vs. a Pro Bowl team, the regular team should probably win.  Football is about coaching and plays and teamwork/familiarity.  If this games is a real as it claims the Pro-Bowl teams shouldn't be that good.

So here's where I am going with this: If you put the real life Patriots on the field vs the real life NFC Pro Bowl team, wouldn't New England mop the floor with them?  And how much would you love to see that game?

Don't Ask Joggers for Directions

Yesterday I was out for a run and trying to think of what to write about next, when out of nowhere it fell right in my lap.  A car slowed down coming towards me, and a guy leaned out the window and tried to ask me for directions.  This has happened to me before, but not since I started this blog.  Anyway, I did the same thing yesterday that I have done in the past, I just sort of shrugged and kept on running.  I mean seriously, what do you expect?  One, I have headphones in my ears and I can't hear you.  And two, do you really think it's reasonable to expect me to stop running in order to talk to you?  I'm jogging for a reason, and  if I stop to chat my run is over.  Would you ask somebody swimming laps at the gym to get out of the pool and show you where the locker room is?

When you google "jogger with headphones" a surprisingly small number of relevant images pop up.  These were the only two that were even remotely close to what I was looking for.

I've got a great idea to make fantasy football better

Ok, so one of the worst things about fantasy football is when guys who have been active all week are suddenly ruled out on Sunday 5 minutes before game time.  You lose your match up for the week because your star wide receiver has a tight hamstring and decides not to play at the last minute.  This has nothing to do with paying attention or being well prepared, it's just dumb luck.  So rather than being forced to check your lineup at exactly 12:59 (and sometimes that doesn't even work), why not have this option: setting backups.  If you have them on your bench, you can pre-determine backups for each of your starters.  The site keeps track of the stats for the players on the bench, and if a starter never enters the game then the backup's numbers are plugged in.  Boom, win.

This is the lineup I won my league with last year.  And yes, that is #1 overall pick Chris Johnson on the bench.

The Sox are clearly better than the Yankees right now

I'm not saying this because they had a walk off win last night (the second I saw Phil Hughes coming into the game I started feeling very confident), or because they won 2 of 3 over the weekend.  I'm saying it because it's true.  Boston just has better players.  I honestly don't understand how the two teams have such similar records.  Is it still left over from the Red Sox 2-10 start?  I can't say that I have watched many Yankee games this year, but they just don't seem that good to me.  Is it possible that they've played 100 games against the Royals, Mariners, and Orioles?  Boston going 4-0 vs Sabathia and 10-2 overall against New York so far may or may not be indicative of what happens later on.  But I find it hard to believe that this race will still stay close down the stretch.  Aren't the Yankees living on borrowed time with Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia?  And is Jorge Posada's career over?  It's hard to keep a roster spot as the 3rd DH.

If they can hang around till late September the Yankees might have a shot to win the division though.  Giardi wants home field advantage, and Francona has repeatedly said he doesn't care and just likes to get his rotation set up properly.  But honestly I don't see that happening.

Recycle Sunday: good stuff you may have missed.

The first time I did this I changed the blog format the next day and all the links stopped working.  So here's take two:

- I really like Sportscenter commercials

- new vodka from Pucker marketed for children

- the real story behind Jeter's 3000th hit HR ball

- the best teaching job there is

- Lebron was the 4th best player on his team in the NBA Finals

- agave nectar and Hansel have something in common

- "skinny girl" drinks are a myth

- Oprah has mind control powers

- why it's ok not to respect tourists taking pictures

- Andrea Zuckerman is really old