From a Brooklyn Basement

Niners Week Four Awards: The I Am Confused By This Team Edition

Posted on September 29, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

A day later and after having read pretty much every recap on the internet (Note: that second part definitely isn’t true—the internet is big), I still don’t really understand what happened on Sunday. At no point during that game did I think that the Niners were going to win, and yet somehow the score at the final whistle was Niners 26, Eagles 21. Let us delve into the strangeness.

The Jerry Rice Award (Most Dominant Player on the Field): The Defense

After last week’s depressing loss, I blamed the offensive line and the secondary in equal measure, noting that not only were our DBs not holding up in coverage, but our front seven wasn’t generating any pass rush, further hanging those DBs out to dry. Well, our O-line still sucked today, but what a difference a week makes for the defense. Vic Fangio’s unit held an Eagles offense that came into the game averaging more than 30 points per game to ZERO POINTS (Philly’s three touchdowns came on a blocked punt, a pick-six and a Darren Sproles punt return). What’s more, the Niners didn’t allow the Eagles to even cross midfield until Philly’s penultimate drive—and on that very drive, the D stood up to its greatest test, stopping the Eagles on the one-yard line and forcing a turnover on downs to preserve a tenuous 26-21 lead.

The numbers are staggering. Nick Foles was 21 for 43 for 195 yards and 2 picks, and looked terrible. Shady McCoy, probably the best running back in the NFL now that Adrian Peterson beats children, had just 17 yards on 10 carries. Philly had just 213 total yards, barely more than half of San Francisco’s—and it’s not like the Niners offense was exactly a well-oiled machine in this game. For the first time all season, our secondary looked good—especially Antoine Bethea and Perrish Cox, who picked off Foles’ final pass and also came up with an insane fumble recovery in the second half. And while the Niners only had one sack, they generated a ton of pressure on Foles, thanks to beastly performances from Aaron Lynch, who looked good in the Aldon Smith role, and Justin Smith, who crushed Foles on Bethea’s interception and generally looked like the monster we’ve come to know and love.

Justin Smith SMASH!

Does this mean that the 49ers defense is back to the dominant level we’re used to seeing? Fuck if I know. Frankly, it’s very possible that the Eagles, despite the gaudy stats and 3-0 record they brought into this game, actually suck. I’m not sold on Foles, and as Grantland’s Bill Barnwell pointed out, “The Eagles’ three wins have come over the Jaguars and two teams whose only wins are over the Jaguars.” (Note: Indy won yesterday, so that’s no longer strictly true.)

Still, after the second-half debacles of the last two weeks, it was an encouraging performance.

The Jekyll and Hyde Award (Schizophrenic Player Whose Inconsistent Performances Are Probably Going to Put Me in the Grave): Colin Kaepernick

The pick-six Kaep threw to Malcolm Jenkins was one of the worst throws you’ll ever see. It was Romo-esque, a throw that has you screaming “NO!” the moment it leaves his hands. But then again, the throw to Frank Gore—on which Kaep scrambled nearly to the left sideline, then turned and, off the wrong foot, across his body, fired a ball all the way back across the field to a wide open Gore—is also a throw that has you screaming “NO!”, a throw that basically no quarterback at any level should ever make. And that one turned into a 55-yard touchdown. Am I going to give you a GIF of that play? You’re goddamn right I am.

Just sheer insanity. The truth is, Kaep looked like shit for a lot of this game. There was a guy in the bar where I watched the game who started calling for Alex Smith. (Note: That guy is a fucking idiot.) Some of these struggles are on Kaep, and some of them are on the offensive line, which gave up four sacks and seems like they maybe don’t like their QB, because otherwise why are they letting the large men on the other team hit him so much? But he did get some help from players like Gore—who rushed for 119 yards in addition to that awesome TD—and our next award winner.

The Dwight Clark Award (Player Who Makes an Insanely Athletic, Clutch Touchdown Catch): Stevie Johnson

I was a huge fan of the trade for Stevie Johnson this offseason, and while he only caught one ball today, it was a HUGE catch. Midway through the third quarter, the Niners drove deep into Eagles territory, but looked like they were once again going to stall in the red zone and settle for a field goal. But on third down from the twelve-yard line, Kaepernick rolled left and saw Johnson in the front corner of the end zone. He zipped the ball high and to the outside, where the defender would have no shot at the ball. Really, no mere mortal wide receiver should have had a shot at this ball either, but Johnson reached up and caught it, somehow keeping the tiptoes of both feet inbounds. Touchdown.

You score a TD like this, you’re getting an award in my column

Ye gods, what a catch. That’s what we got for a fourth-round draft pick, y’all.

The Reverse Emmitt Smith Award (Most Beloved Opponent): Randall Cunningham

I don’t feel particularly strongly about the Eagles, but I must admit a slight soft spot for them, because the late ’80s, early ’90s Eagles employed my favorite non-49er of all time, the great Randall Cunningham. Randall was an evolutionarily superior quarterback, a freak athlete who ran for more than 900 yards in a season, who once had a 91-yard punt in a game, who would leap over defenders to get into the end zone, bounce off linebackers to throw touchdowns. Just watch this video:

Watching Randall play was like watching a video game come to real life (and his character in Tecmo Bowl was the most dominant player in that game, save perhaps the immortal Bo Jackson). I loved Randall so much that when I was a kid I had a No. 12 Cunningham Eagles jersey—and I’ve never even been to Philadelphia. One of the reasons I’m such a staunch Kaepernick supporter is that when Kaep is playing well, he gives Niners fans a little taste of what it’s like to have the Cunningham magic in our lives. Keep scramblin’, Randall.

The Al Davis Award (dysfunctional football team): The Santa Clara Raiders

Not all my thoughts on this game are happy. As I’ve mentioned several times, the offensive line was not good. The pick-six, not good. The blocked punt and the Sproles punt return for touchdowns? Not good. The ten penalties for 80 yards, not good. The wasted timeouts—especially the insane Kaepernick timeout on fourth down before a punt—not good (though the wasted timeouts in general are a trademark of the Harbaugh 49ers). The decision to run Gore straight up the middle on third-and-five when the Eagles still had one timeout, thus letting Philly get the ball back with a minute and a half left? Not good. There was still a lot of Santa Clara Raiders behavior in this game.

Overall Rating For This Game (On a scale of Zero to Twelve Anchors, in honor of San Francisco’s favorite beverage): 4 Anchors

A loss in this game would have put the Niners at 1-3, further burying them in the NFC, and would surely have incited a cacophony of howling among Bay Area fans and media this week. So it’s good that didn’t happen. On the other hand, I’m still not sure this team is actually good. It’s possible to make the playoffs by simply sucking less than other teams, but that’s not really a good way to go about trying to win a Super Bowl.

Posted in football, Sports | Tagged football, NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, san francisco 49ers | Leave a comment

Niners Week Three Awards: The Our-Team-Might-Not-Be-Good Edition

Posted on September 22, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

Ugh. I don’t even have to say that wasn’t fun, because Jesus, anybody that watched the Niners get outscored 17-0 in the second half (making the aggregate score of our second halves so far this season a fan-fucking-tastic 52-3) knows that wasn’t fun. I gotta be honest, the way this game played out made me feel pretty pessimistic about the prospects for this team for the rest of this season. Let me explain why.

The Joe Montana Award (Coolest Player on the Field): Annie Norwick

After such a disheartening loss, I feel the need to start with something positive: the bar where I typically spend Sunday afternoons, Finnerty’s, turns into a crowded, messy shitshow during Niners games. I do not say that as a criticism; I love the place. It’s just that there’s only so much the staff can do to combat the onslaught of drunken assholes—some Bay Area transplants, some tourists from the West Coast who’ve heard about the bar on KNBR, some overflow from the Boston bar next door (I wish I was kidding. Dear Boston sports fans: Please go kill yourselves.)—that storms the gates on Sundays. But I want to give a shout out to the best bartender on the planet, my dear friend Annie, who I met when I started going to Finns back in 2010, who saved seats for my crew and kept the mimosas and Anchor Steams coming all afternoon. No matter what happens with the Niners, Annie, you’re the best.

VIP, yo

The Adam Walker Award (Player Most Responsible for the Loss): The Secondary and the Offensive Line

I’ve said repeatedly that this season boils down to whether or not Colin Kaepernick can live up to his potential and play like an MVP-level quarterback. The really scary thing about this Sunday’s game is that it showed that might not be true, because Kaep played pretty damn well, and we still lost. He had a couple of possible interceptions get dropped, but still he went 29 for 37 for 245 yards and a touchdown, with no turnovers. He looked great when the Niners were in the no huddle in the first half, and he also ran for 54 yards—on a couple of occasions escaping sacks with scrambles that made him look like the quarterback version of Barry freaking Sanders.

Kaep gets dragged down at the end of his ridiculous 2-yard scramble

That brings up issue number one: The offensive line, a strength of this team throughout the Harbaugh era, has not looked good this season. Kaep was only sacked once on Sunday—though it was in a crucial moment—but he was hurried on more than a dozen of his throws, and was harried throughout the second half.

As bad as the offensive line was … the secondary: Ye gods. They got absolutely carved by Drew Stanton—DREW STANTON!!!—in the second half. Jimmie Ward got torched repeatedly, Chris Culliver for some reason can’t turn his goddamn head around on a sideline route, and Antoine Bethea seemed to fuck up the coverage on every play. The secondary has been a relative weakness for the last few years, and my attorney argued that our corners really aren’t that much worse than Carlos Rogers and Tarell Brown. I don’t know enough about the minutiae of NFL secondaries to really argue (although they sure seem particularly piss-poor to me so far this season), but one point my attorney did make that is totally valid is that the Niners used to be able to make up for a weak secondary with a devastating pass rush. Except now we don’t have Aldon Smith, meaning the Niners are blitzing a lot more to try to get pressure, which has led mostly to receivers getting open against single coverage and personal fouls on our pass rushers. Good times.

The Greg Roman Award (Because it might be time for Greg Roman to go): Big Surprise … Greg Roman!

I don’t get the offensive game plans at all. The Niners came out no-huddle, spread wide, which fits Kaep’s skills to a “T,” and torched Arizona throughout the first half. And then they abandoned the no-huddle. And even after they slowed the pace, where were the running backs? Frank Gore and Carlos Hyde (who looked like a monster on his second-quarter TD run) combined for nine carries. NINE CARRIES! The Niners seemed content to use Kaep as the main ball carrier, repeatedly running QB sweeps, which seems like a great way to get Kaep hurt. And we all know what happens if we lose Kaep:

DOOM!

The Al Davis Award (dysfunctional football team): The Santa Clara Raiders

I thought this was a one-time award to be given as a rant against the posh new Silicon Valley digs of Levi’s Stadium. But then the Niners went and committed nine penalties for 107 yards, raising their total to 25 penalties for a mind-boggling 225 yards over the last two games. The two personal foul calls on Patrick Willis were completely insane—on the first one, he didn’t even knock Larry Fitzgerald down, and the second was a completely routine hit on Drew Stanton just after he released the ball. But the secondary committed several penalties that showed they haven’t adjusted to the league’s emphasis on downfield contact (or maybe it just shows that our secondary sucks), and Anquan Boldin’s 15-yard fourth-quarter penalty couldn’t have been worse timed, as it took the Niners out of first-and-goal at the five and led to a long-distance field goal that was blocked.

I could make Raiders jokes all day. And believe it or not, I really do try not to overreact to individual games, no matter how pissed off I may be about losses. But the crazy number of penalties the Niners have committed in the last couple of weeks shows an extreme lack of discipline, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the coaching staff is starting to lose the players. I hate to bring this up this early in the season, but EVERYONE knows that this is a Super Bowl or bust year for Harbaugh. Is the team starting to see the writing on the wall? Are the players starting to check out? Does Harbaugh already have one foot out the door? We’ll find out over the next few weeks.

The Deion Sanders Award (two-sport performance): The San Francisco Giants

Neon Deion put up a .285/.346/.444 line for the Giants in 2007

Prime Time is the only player to have ever suited up for both the Niners and Giants, so I felt it was important to hand out an award to note that not only did the Niners lose, but the Giants finished getting swept in San Diego with a pathetic 7-2 loss. The Giants are still probably going to get into the Wild Card playoff game because the National League is garbage this year, but they’ve blown any chance of catching the Dodgers, and they’re in danger of having to travel to Pittsburgh for that elimination game. The worst part is, unless the Giants can somehow take two out of three in LA this week, they’re going to have to watch the hated Dodgers clinch the division right in front of them. Great week for Bay Area sports fans!

Overall Rating For This Game (On a scale of Zero to Twelve Anchors, in honor of San Francisco’s favorite beverage): 0 Anchors

Because after a day like that, you don’t even get to have a beer. Have fun at work on Monday.

Posted in football, Sports | Tagged football, NFL, san francisco 49ers | Leave a comment

Niners Week Two Awards: The Shitshow Edition

Posted on September 16, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

That was a lot less fun than Week One. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the second half of that game was the least fun half of Niners football since the first half of Super Bowl XLVII in 2013.

I’m also going to be honest with y’all: Even by my normal standards, my Sunday night at Finnerty’s was an inebriated, distracted shitshow of epic proportions. I’m not gonna get into details, but suffice it to say that I mostly wasn’t watching the game, except when the people around me would groan and I would look up to see a replay of Colin Kaepernick throwing an interception or Brandon Marshall scoring a touchdown. Let’s just give those two guys awards and get this over with.

The Adam Walker Award (Player Most Responsible for the Loss): Colin Kaepernick

Everybody knows that I’ve been driving the Kaepernick bandwagon since he usurped Alex Smith to become the starter with a fantastic performance on Monday Night Football in November 2012. That game was against—wait for it—the Chicago Bears, and Kaep, in his second start against the Monsters of the Midway, played the worst game of his pro career, probably his life. In the first half he killed two possessions in Bears territory with turnovers—one interception, one fumble—preventing the Niners from putting the game away. And in the second half he threw two more picks, each time giving the Bears the ball deep in Niners territory, leading to Chicago touchdowns. Credit where credit’s due: A couple of those interceptions were great, great plays by Bears DBs. But even on those plays, Kaepernick made terrible throws.

Great play. Still a terrible throw

The crazy thing is, Kaep is so athletic, and so dangerous in the hurry-up offense, that even in a game where he was horrific, he still had a chance to pull off the comeback victory. If Crabtree—who Jim Harbaugh has repeatedly claimed has the best hands in the NFL (Brandon Marshall, I’m sure, disagrees)—catches that fourth down pass on the goal line, we might be having an entirely different conversation today. I’m not apologizing for Kaep. He was TERRIBLE in this game. But Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees have all had four turnover games in their careers. I’m still on the Kaepernick bandwagon. But he was the biggest reason we lost this game.

The Emmett Smith Award (Most Hated Opponent): Brandon Marshall

I was tempted to give this to the officials, because JESUS CHRIST, but this one’s going to have to go to Marshall. The one reason for a Niners fan to fear the Bears coming into this game was the terrifying combo of wide receivers, Marshall and Alshon Jeffery. And the biggest reason I was hyperconfident about this game was that those guys were both hurt, with pregame reports saying the odds were 75 percent that neither would play. They both ended up playing, and for most of the first half they looked like guys who were hurt. Jeffery in particular looked like he couldn’t run at all. Then Marshall made that absurd one-handed touchdown catch right before halftime, and spent the second half just abusing Jimmie Ward.

I mean … Jesus

Hey Harbaugh and Fangio, here’s a thought: Maybe you shouldn’t try to single cover a 6-foot-4 All-Pro wide receiver with a 5-foot-11 rookie safety. Just a thought!

The Al Davis Award (Money-grubbing, dysfunctional football team): The Santa Clara Raiders

I feel like I haven’t quite properly expressed my rage about that game yet. Well, here comes the rant. First of all, those who watched the game on TV will note all the beautiful shots the broadcast showed of San Francisco. Guess what, NBC? THE NINERS DON’T PLAY IN SAN FRANCISCO ANYMORE! They moved 45 miles south, to Santa Clara, in an attempt to vacuum up as much of that sweet Silicon Valley cash as they could. Here’s what the “scenery” surrounding Levi’s Stadium looks like:

I can see Google!

So the Niners left one of the most beautiful cities in the world, where they had won five championships, to move to a shitty suburb full of rich douchebags trying to sell bullshit apps to even richer venture capitalist assholes (to be fair, this is what San Francisco itself is turning into). It’s the sort of thing that Al Davis, who sued the NFL to allow him to move the Raiders to LA because he wasn’t happy with the Coliseum, then just barely more than ten years later moved the team back after extorting the city of Oakland into building the atrocity that is Mount Davis, thereby ruining any chance that the A’s would ever get a new stadium, would do.

And what did the Niners look like in their first game at their fancy new digs? A team of felons (Aldon Smith is suspended, and Ray McDonald played despite an ongoing domestic violence investigation, a story that dominated the pregame broadcast, thereby taking the attention away from the fancy new digs). A team that committed an absurd 16 penalties for 118 yards (even if some of those penalties were bullshit, like the phantom holding call on Anquan Boldin that erased Frank Gore’s long touchdown, a disciplined team does not get 16 flags thrown against it). A team that turned the ball over repeatedly, lost its cool on the field, and generally looked dysfunctional, prompting scores of frustrated Jim Harbaugh faces that I’m sure non-Niners fans were gleefully laughing at during the game.

That’s right. They looked like the Raiders. The Santa Clara Raiders.

So here’s a roll call, Hit ‘Em Up style: Fuck Santa Clara. Fuck Levi’s Stadium. Fuck Silicon Valley. Fuck the tech industry. And especially fuck the Raiders, who we have now become.

Overall Rating For This Game (On a scale of Zero to Twelve Anchors, in honor of San Francisco’s favorite beverage): 2 Anchors

Late in the second quarter I texted my attorney, “We have played like shit and we’re up 17-0. The Bears suck.” I stand by that statement. The Niners should have been up 28-0 at halftime, and instead they let the Bears hang in the game and then gave it away. The Bears suck. On Sunday night, the Niners sucked harder. The worst part is that we had a chance to grab an early division lead thanks to the Seabitches losing earlier in the day, and we fumbled the opportunity away like Kyle Williams trying to field a punt.

Time to wrap this up. I award this game two Anchors: the first one for the bottle that I broke on the bar so I could slash my wrists after the final whistle, and the second for the bottle that I popped first thing Monday morning to help me get out of bed and survive a day of work.

What a shitshow.

Posted in football, Sports | Tagged al davis, chicago bears, Colin Kaepernick, Levi's Stadium, oakland raiders, san francisco 49ers | 3 Comments

Niners Week One Awards: Las Vegas Edition

Posted on September 9, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

My Niners got off to a good start this week

The moment the NFL released its 2014 schedule and I saw that my beloved San Francisco 49ers were opening the season in Dallas against the team I hate most in all of sports, the Cowboys, I knew I was going to watch it at a sports book in Las Vegas. And so it came to pass that I spent Sunday afternoon sitting at the Umami Burger/sports book at the new SLS hotel, screaming at Dallas fans and watching the Niners deal the Cowboys the ass-whupping they so richly, eternally deserve. Let’s hand out some awards for that performance.

The Eric Davis Award (Player Who Breaks the Cowboys With an Early Return Touchdown): Chris Culliver

For those who don’t remember, the Niners played the Cowboys in three consecutive NFC Championship games from 1993 to 1995. The Cowboys won the first two of those games, and the Niners bounced back to win the third, in San Francisco, on the way to their last Super Bowl title. On the third play of that game, Niners cornerback Eric Davis intercepted a Troy Aikman pass and ran it back up the right sideline for a 44-yard touchdown that set the tone for a 21-point first quarter outburst that effectively buried the turnover-prone Cowboys. Yesterday, on the second play of the game, Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray fumbled, and Niners cornerback Chris Culliver picked up the ball and ran it back up the sideline for a 35-yard touchdown that set the tone for a 21-point first quarter outburst that effectively buried the turnover-prone Cowboys. Sometimes it’s a good thing when history repeats itself.

The Joe Montana Award (Coolest Player on the Field): Colin Kapernick

As I wrote in my season preview, I think the Niners’ chances this season mostly boil down to whether Kaepernick can be an elite, MVP-level QB or not. Well, he looked pretty great on Sunday, assertively throwing the ball downfield to several different receivers, completing 16 of 23 attempts for 201 yards, and making a classic Kaepernick highlight play, evading a sack and throwing a dart of a 29-yard touchdown to Vernon Davis. Kaep took more hits than I’d like, and I think we have to be a little concerned about the offensive line, but for one week, all is well with the Niners QB.

The Justin Smith Award (Big Guy Who Breaks Things): Justin Smith

There are a lot of questions about the Niners defense coming into this season, due to the injury to NaVorro Bowman and the suspension of Aldon Smith. But the Niners still have Patrick Willis, who picked off a Romo pass in the end zone, and Justin Smith, who had two sacks, dominated the line of scrimmage, and generally looked like the Justin Smith we’ve gotten used to watching the last few years. If the 35-year-old defensive tackle still has something left in the tank, it’d go a long way toward making up for the absences of Bowman and Aldon Smith.

The Emmett Smith Award (Most Hated Opponent): Jerry Jones

The Cowboys looked truly pathetic in that game. Everyone knew their defense was going to be bad this year, but coming into the game, I was worried that the Niners were going to get sucked into a shootout, as San Francisco’s defense has serious depth issues thanks to injuries and suspensions. Well, Dallas’ defense was just as bad as we expected, but their offense looked wretched, too. Tony Romo made terrible decision after terrible decision, throwing three picks, and I thought he looked like a guy who was scared of getting hit (it’s pretty reasonable for someone who had back surgery recently to not really want to get hit by 300-pound defensive linemen). Frankly, it was comical, an aspect that Deadspin picked up on.

Do I have any sympathy for Romo? Absolutely not. He plays for the Cowboys, so as far as I’m concerned, there is no level of suffering and indignity great enough for him. But as much as I enjoyed watching the Cowboys get publicly degraded and humiliated on national TV (with Troy Aikman in the broadcast booth, no less), I’m mad at Jerry Jones, the nutball Dallas owner who assembled this pathetic roster, because I can’t tell if Sunday’s game should make me feel great about the Niners prospects this season (I’m one of the few people who is unreservedly on the Niners bandwagon this year), or if I have to chalk Sunday’s result up to the possibility that the Cowboys might be the worst team in the NFL. Screw you, Jerry Jones, you senile, hooker-mongering, inept douchebag.

Teeheehee

The Double Down Trent Award (Grown Man Who Behaves Like a Complete Jackass in Public) : Justin Goldman

That’s right, I’m giving myself an award. Every time any group of guys goes to Vegas, the Swingers references inevitably start flying. Vegas, baby. Vegas. But the Swingers scene that’s relevant for this award isn’t the Vegas one. It’s this one.

Why? Because when I was in the sports book, surrounded by fat Cowboys fans, watching the Niners just tear their team a new asshole in the first half, I was pretty much behaving like this the entire time. Standing on my table, screaming at the top of my lungs, being the asshole in the bar. It was glorious. By the time it was over, I needed a post-coital cigarette.

Overall Rating For This Game (On a scale of Zero to Twelve Anchors, in honor of San Francisco’s favorite beverage): 8 Anchors

Normally only a playoff win would get an eight Anchor rating or higher. But I hate the Cowboys so much—more than every other sports franchise combined, and I hate a lot of sports franchises—and that was such a thorough dismantling that I don’t even care that it was a Week One rout of a team that’s probably going 4-12. That was everything I want out of a Niners-Cowboys game

Posted in football, Sports | Tagged Dallas Cowboys, football, NFL, san francisco 49ers | 3 Comments

2014 NFL Season Preview

Posted on September 4, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

I got my Niners preview out of the way on Tuesday, so now, with the Packers and Seabitches set to kick off the season tonight, it’s time to take a look at the rest of the league. Will Seattle repeat? Fuck no! Can the Niners breakthrough? Hopefully, maybe! Will a couple of sucky last place teams from last year bounce back and make the playoffs? Always! Will I get torched in my fantasy leagues and get knocked out of my office suicide pool by Week 3? For sure! Will I be dragging a hangover into the office every Monday morning for the next four months? Puke city! Welcome back, football! Yeah, bitch!!!

On to the picks:

AFC EAST

New England, 11-5: Tough schedule, and who knows how long Brady can keep it up, but they’re still the class of this division.

New York Jets, 8-8: Rex Ryan can coach, but he just bugs me. I actually like the Jets, but when I look at their schedule, it sure seems to spell 8-8.

Miami, 6-10: I keep picking Miami to make the playoffs. This is the year I stop. Which of course means they’ll go 10-6 and snag a Wild Card spot.

Buffalo, 4-12: Sammy Watkins is probably gonna be great, but didn’t they go a little overboard? Aren’t there are a ton of other holes on this roster?

AFC NORTH

Cincinnati, 10-6: They’d be the best team in the AFC if they had a quarterback.

Baltimore, 8-8: The Flacco contract is the gift that keeps on giving. To the rest of the AFC, that is.

Cleveland, 7-9: I had this whole thing written about the Cleveland renaissance and Johnny Football and I was going to predict the Browns would sneak into the playoffs and make a run, but then they decided to start Hoyer and Josh Gordon lost his appeal. I’m gonna go ahead and save my Browns playoff pick for next year.

I still kinda sorta believe. Next year.

Pittsburgh, 6-10: The Steelers had a great run, for a very long time. But it’s rebuilding time.

AFC SOUTH

Indianapolis, 12-4 (Homefield Advantage): Andrew Luck continues his ascent to the top of the NFL pyramid.

Houston, 9-7 (Wild Card): Am I really predicting a team with Ryan Fitzpatrick will make the playoffs? Well, Andy Dalton makes the playoffs every year, and Houston has tons of talent elsewhere on the roster. (J.J. Watt AND Jadeveon Clowney? Ye gods.) They’ll also benefit from this horrendous division.

Tennessee, 5-11: Uh … I got nothing. Here’s a picture of a giant cowboy boot with my name on it in Nashville.

Jacksonville 3-13: Blake Bortles=Blaine Gabbert. I have never been more sure of anything.

AFC WEST

Denver, 11-5 (First Round Bye): The Broncos will still score a ton of points, and their pass rush will be fearsome, but their schedule is VERY tough.

San Diego, 10-6 (Wild Card): The Chargers are the team that benefits from me not having the balls to pick Cleveland. At least I get to run a picture of their QB wearing a bolo tie.

Philip Rivers, you are a golden god

Kansas City, 6-10: They feel like the classic crash-back-to-earth team, don’t they?

Oakland, 3-13: Everyone knew Matt Schaub wasn’t the answer, but throwing rookie QB Derek Carr to the wolves seems like an even worse idea. They look like the worst team in the league to me.

NFC EAST

Washington, 9-7: Their defense is horrid, but I think RG3 will come back strong this season, and I believe they’ll score points. I was going to banish them to the cellar for karmic reasons, but really, what would be more perfect than this team making the playoffs and forcing Daniel Snyder and Roger Goodell to spend Wild Card week answering question after question about their ridiculous racial slur of a team name? Please let this happen.

Seriously

Philadelphia, 8-8: I think the Eagles are going to come back to earth a bit this year. They’ll miss DeSean, they’ll miss the last-place schedule they played last year, and they’ll miss the crazy season Nick Foles had that isn’t getting repeated. I could also be wrong about all of this and they could go 12-4 and get a bye. Remember: I don’t know shit.

Dallas, 8-8: I mean, 8-8 is the Cowboys’ perpetual destiny at this point, right? As much as I want this entire team to go to hell forever, I suppose I’ll settle for purgatory.

New York Giants, 6-10: They’re depending on 33-year-old interception machine Eli Manning to have a bounceback season. Let’s just say I’m skeptical.

NFC NORTH

Green Bay, 13-3 (Homefield advantage): I don’t believe in their defense, but Aaron Rodgers is still the best quarterback alive, and just look at their schedule. As long as Mr. Discount Double Check stays healthy, this season is a cakewalk for the Cheeseheads.

Minnesota, 10-6 (Wild Card): Every year there are one or two last place teams that bounce back and make the playoffs, and the Vikings seem like an obvious choice to me. They got the most NFL-ready QB in this year’s draft, Teddy Bridgewater, and as soon as they wise up and plug him into the lineup, he’ll be handing the ball to Adrian Peterson and throwing it to Cordarrelle Patterson. I just don’t get why he’s not starting right away.

Detroit, 8-8: The Lions fired Jim Schwartz, and everyone assumed they’d get a real coach and suddenly play up to their talent level and make the playoffs. Then they hired Jim Caldwell.

Chicago, 6-10: The Bears are going to lose a lot of shootouts, and then Cutler will get hurt, and then they’ll lose a lot of blowouts.

NFC SOUTH

New Orleans, 10-6: The Saints still have Brees and Graham and Rob Ryan leading the defense. I don’t see how they slip up in this division.

Atlanta, 8-8: Part of me wanted to give the Falcons the division, but I’m scared off by their injuries and defense.

Carolina, 6-10: The Panthers lost talent and they won’t have the luck they did last year. This might get ugly.

Tampa Bay 6-10: This has already gotten ugly.

NFC WEST

San Francisco, 12-4 (First Round Bye): See here for my extended thoughts.

Seattle, 12-4 (Wild Card): The Seabitches and Niners are the two best teams in football. Last year Seattle caught every possible break, and the Niners got just a little bit unlucky. That evens out this year.

Arizona, 8-8: I know they were good last year and they have a lot of talent, but Carson Palmer.

St. Louis, 7-9: I had the Rams as a playoff contender, and then Sam Bradford went and tore his ACL again. Their defense is going to be ridiculous, but how are they going to score any points?

PLAYOFFS

AFC WILD CARD ROUND

New England over Houston 35-13: And it might not be that close

San Diego over Cincinnati 27-10: This rematch of last year’s Wild Card game ends with exactly the same score. Man, this isn’t as fun as what I wrote when I was picking the Browns: Andy Dalton throws three picks. Johnny Football leads a fourth quarter rally, throwing a Montana-to-Clark-esque touchdown pass off of a broken play in the final minute to win his first playoff start. JOHNNY FOOTBALL! AMERICA! If that happens, I will be really happy, and fucking furious that I backed off from my pick.

AFC DIVISIONAL ROUND

Indianapolis over San Diego 35-31: Andrew Luck outduels Phil Rivers in the dome.

Denver over New England 27-14: I don’t see what has changed from last year’s AFC Championship Game.

AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

Indianapolis over Denver, 30-29: Peyton Manning goes back to his old stomping grounds—and passes the torch to Andrew Luck.

NFC WILD CARD ROUND

Seattle over Washington 30-10: Nobody remembers that the Seabitches would have lost their opening playoff game in D.C. (well, Maryland) two years ago if RG3 hadn’t gotten hurt. Does that mean I think the Washington Unnamed Professional Football Team will win this time around? Um, no.

New Orleans over Minnesota 31-17: I think Bridgewater will be good this year, but do I think a rookie QB can go into one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL and win his playoff debut? Um, no.

NFC DIVISIONAL ROUND

Green Bay over Seattle 24-20: Aaron Rodgers restores order to the universe. Fuck you, Seabitches.

San Francisco over New Orleans 31-20: A rematch not only of the Niners’ epic 2011 Divisional Round victory—still the only game that has received a perfect 12-Anchor rating in my weekly Niners Awards—but also of last year’s ridiculous Ahmad Brooks game that I will go to my grave believing cost San Francisco a Super Bowl Championship. This time there won’t be a bullshit penalty, or a need for Vernon Davis heroics.

NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

San Francisco over Green Bay 23-20: Because what does Colin Kaepernick always do?

SUPER BOWL

San Francisco over Indianapolis, 30-27: It’s a year early for Niners fans who would love to see the team win a title in their sparkly new stadium 50 miles from San Francisco, but we’ll happily take the first title of the Harbaugh era. Colin Kaepernick takes MVP and Kaepernicks all the way to Disney Land and the White House.

Yup

Posted in football, Sports | Tagged football, NFL | Leave a comment

2014 San Francisco 49ers Preview

Posted on September 2, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

Hooooooo boy, here we are. This week I’m drafting fantasy teams, putting together an office suicide pool, and prepping an opening weekend trip to Vegas. So how do we feel about the return of football, Jesse Pinkman?

And yet, as the 2014 football season envelopes us in its warm, loving grasp, it’s not all gravy. Specifically, my beloved San Francisco 49ers are facing a harsh reality: They have been the best team in football over the last three years, but they haven’t won the Super Bowl. One the one hand, they’re a genuinely talented, deep, dangerous team. On the other hand, they’re another year older, and the possibility is very real that the window may be closing and that this could be a make-or-break year for this collection of players. Plus, they keep getting arrested for beating women, drinking and driving, and threatening people with brass knuckles. Good times.

So what is it? Is this the year the Niners break through, or will this campaign see this roster begin to unravel? In the spirit of this either-or conundrum, Let’s take a look at some Pros and Cons for the 2014 San Francisco 49ers.

PRO: The Niners still have one of the best head coaches in the league, and they have maintained continuity on their coaching staff.

Harbaugh makes some pretty good faces. And has some pretty good khakis

CON: All the innuendo flying around this offseason made it pretty clear that Harbaugh is angling for a huge new contract—which ownership seems disinclined to hand down until he wins a Super Bowl. Beyond that, this is his fourth year as the Niners’ coach, equaling his tenure at Stanford for the longest he’s stayed in a coaching job. He’s a restless dude, and there’s just been too much smoke about his dissatisfaction this offseason for me to believe that there isn’t some fire there. And while continuity on the coaching staff is nice, count me among the people who are dubious about offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s game plans. I was really hoping he’d get a head coaching job somewhere last offseason. I don’t know how many two-yard Bruce Miller receptions I can take this year.

PRO: With Michael Crabtree healthy, Anquan Boldin back, Stevie Johnson acquired (I LOVE this pick-up), Vernon Davis ending his holdout, and quality depth in Brandon Lloyd, Quinton Patton, Bruce Ellington, and Vance McDonald, the Niners have given Colin Kaepernick a ton of weapons to throw to.

CON: Boldin is old, and all it takes is an injury to Crabtree (who has had a lot of them) or Davis to make this group look shaky again. I still don’t see a true deep threat among those receivers. I really like Johnson, but the Niners haven’t exactly made a habit of using three-receiver sets the last few years. Will Roman and Kaepernick get the most out of these weapons?

PRO: The Niners locked up Kaepernick with a team-friendly contract extension. The team believes he is primed to take a major step forward this year, and there has been talk that they’ll open up the offense to take more advantage of his skills—and the aforementioned receivers—this year. And he doesn’t get cold.

CON: The Niners still don’t have a quality backup QB. I briefly thought a Harbaugh-coached Blaine Gabbert could be better than the Jaguars version, but the preseason confirmed that he is, in fact, still Blaine Gabbert. This means that the Niners are once again just a Kaepernick injury away from the season being a complete fucking disaster. Which means that the team will probably still be pretty conservative with him. In other words, I’ll believe those rumors about the offense opening up when I see it happen.

PRO: Frank Gore appears to be fighting off Father Time, and is going into a contract year.

CON: You never know when a running back is going to lose a step—it happens overnight. And with Kendall Hunter getting hurt, LaMichael James still being unproven after two years and missing most of the preseason with an injury, and Marcus Lattimore still not able to play, there are a lot of question marks behind Frank the Tank. Carlos Hyde looked good in the preseason, but he’s never taken a regular season NFL snap. Maybe the Niners will have to open up the offense after all.

PRO: With Joe Staley and Mike Iupati, the Niners have the best left side of an offensive line in the NFL.

CON: The rest of the offensive line has question marks. Anthony Davis is coming back from shoulder surgery; they’re replacing a solid center, Jonathan Goodwin, with Daniel Kilgore (rookie Marcus Martin will miss at least half the season with a knee injury); and while Alex Boone finally ended his holdout a few days ago, who knows if he’s in game shape? This offensive line is a bit shakier than it’s been in the past.

PRO: The Niners have the best linebacking corps in the NFL

CON: Well, on paper they do. But NaVorro Bowman is out until at least November after suffering a gruesome knee injury in the NFC Championship game, and if we’re being realistic, he’s unlikely he’s going to be the dominant player we’re used to seeing when he does return (I’d expect him to give the defensive equivalent of Crabtree’s performance last year). Aldon Smith is suspended for the first 9 games, which obviously hurts the pass rush, and at this point can we depend on him not to behave like a jackass off the field? And Ahmad Brooks, who I love, is 30. At least we still have Patrick Willis.

PRO: Eric Reid was a stud as a rookie last year. Antoine Bethea seemed to be a canny offseason signing. First-round draft choice Jimmie Ward is promising. Tramaine Brock was solid last year and earned that contract. Chris Culliver was statistically one of the best corners in the NFL in the 2012 regular season.

CON: Reid had two concussions last year. Can Bethea provide the same run support as the departed Donte Whitner? Jimmie Ward is a rookie, and even talented rookie DBs usually struggle. Brock is still relatively inexperienced. Culliver is my least favorite Niner ever, thanks to his making homophobic statements before Super Bowl XLVIII and then spending that game getting torched by the Ravens on every single fucking play. Also, he’s coming back from ACL surgery. The secondary has long been the chink in the armor of the Niners’ defense, and that sure looks like it going to be the case this year—especially with the pass rush a question now.

PRO: Based on their pedigrees and preseason efforts, Tank Carradine and Quinton Dial look like they could be legitimate contributors on the defensive line.

CON: Glenn Dorsey tore his biceps and is probably out for much of the season. Ian Williams is still working his way back from the ankle injury he suffered last year. Justin Smith turns 35 this month. Ray McDonald is probably going to get suspended after he got arrested for beating up his pregnant fiancee last week. If Carradine and Dial can’t come through, the defensive line looks awful thin.

Put it all together, and where does that leave us? For the first time in at least three years, the Niners will be fielding a defense that looks vulnerable. This will be especially true in the first half of the season, when they’ll be missing Bowman and Aldon Smith. Looking at their opponents early in the season, we see Dallas (with Tony Romo and Dez Bryant), Chicago (with Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffery, and Joe Forte), and Philly (with Chip Kelly and Shady McCoy) all in the first four weeks. And then Peyton Manning and Denver in Week Seven, right before the Niners’ bye. Sooooo … this team’s gonna have to score some points.

The good news is that they should be positioned to do so. I think Gore and Hyde will be a nice one-two punch at running back. I think Crabtree will play like he did during Kaepernick’s first full season as a starter (if you look at his per-game numbers during that half-season, they were Pro-Bowl-caliber). I think Boldin, whose game depends more on strength and smarts than athleticism, can put together a similar campaign to what he did last year. I believe Stevie Johnson will be a huge addition. I even believe that Roman and Harbaugh will open up the offense, at least a little bit, because they have weapons, they know they’ll need to score more, and there’s a general sense that, in his third season as a starter, and with a new contract on the books, it’s time for Kaepernick to make the leap and become an elite starting quarterback. Kaep has his detractors around the league (mostly pundits who criticize his ability to read defenses), but I have been an unabashed supporter of his from day one, and I believe that he is going to make that leap this year. If he can do that, then I think the Niners can overtake the Seabitches to reclaim the incredibly tough NFC West, and from there go on another Super Bowl run.

Kaep's gonna have to be Superman this year

Kaepernick will have to be Superman if the Niners want to play in the Super Bowl

That’s the bottom line. The Niners will go as far Kaepernick can carry them. Just please don’t let him get hurt. I’m gonna go walk around New York City knocking on every piece of wood I can find now.

Check back in on Thursday for my thoughts on the rest of the league, along with predictions for the regular season and my Super Bowl pick.

Posted in football, Sports | Tagged football, NFL, san francisco 49ers, Sports | 3 Comments

On Tom Waits and Robin Williams

Posted on August 12, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to write something about the Tom Waits song Come On Up to the House. I dearly love the song, and it has one of the best music videos I’ve ever seen.

At first glance, it’s pretty easy to read as a traditional gospel song. The first verse includes lyrics like “Come down off the cross, we can use the wood,” while a cross is being painted on the arm in the video, and the titular house seems to refer to heaven, as seen in the chorus: “The world is not my home, I’m just passin’ through/You gotta come on up to the house.”

And yet, as I sit here and listen to this song, I’m not really thinking of it as a gospel tune. This isn’t because I’m an atheist—I don’t think you have to be religious to love gospel music. It’s because I’m thinking about Robin Williams.

I always liked bearded, scruffy Williams

I’m not normally someone who is affected by celebrity deaths. But when I saw the news about Williams, I let out an audible “Whaaaaat?” Twitter proceeded to basically become a worldwide memorial to the actor and comedian. Everyone has a Williams performance he or she loves—whether you were a fan of his frenetic standup routines, or you were a kid for his genie in Aladdin, or you love his understated, against-type performance in Good Will Hunting, or Dead Poet’s Society made you want to seize the day … you get the point. Williams touched so many of us, mostly because he made us laugh. Laughter, as Patch Adams went to great lengths to convey, can cure a lot of ills.

Unfortunately, the ills laughter can’t heal are often the ones that ail those people who make the rest of us laugh. History is littered with examples of comedians who had extremely fucked up personal lives, and Williams is a classic case. He was an alcoholic, he had problems with drugs. He had apparently been battling a deep bout with depression when he decided, yesterday, to take his own life.

And so I was listening to Come On Up to the House. Listening to Waits, in his inimitable growl, sing:

“Does life seem nasty, brutish and short
Come on up to the house
The seas are stormy
And you can’t find no port
Come on up to the house

There’s nothin’ in the world
That you can do
You gotta come on up to the house
And you been whipped by the forces
That are inside you
Come on up to the house

Well you’re high on top
Of your mountain of woe
Come on up to the house
Well you know you should surrender
But you can’t let go
You gotta come on up to the house”

Those lyrics—and the way they paint themselves across the body in the video, like tattoos, or scars—make me think of Williams’ depression, his mountain of woe, and the way he allowed the forces inside him, including his addiction—something Waits, himself an alcoholic, surely understood—to defeat him. As someone who has had my own issues with depression and alcohol, I can also relate.

And then I think about that last line. “You know you should surrender, but you can’t let go.” That could be read as proselytization, an appeal to embrace faith in god. That probably makes the most sense. But I see it a little differently.

I’ve always thought of suicide, among other things, as the ultimate surrender. Listening to this song and thinking about Williams, I’m thinking about how he surrendered. I’m thinking about how he let go of this world that had stopped being his home.

Anyone who would judge or blame Williams for his suicide doesn’t know how torturous depression can be. The world that Waits says is not his home is one in which depression takes over, one that makes this life seem nasty, brutish, and short. But if we don’t let go, we can do more than just pass through. Who knows what would have helped Williams? I’ve always found that things are better for me when I can live in the moment. Maybe he just needed someone to remind him of the small, good things. Say, the idiosyncracies.

I’m not saying he needed a therapist, or even that simple reminders like in this scene would have been enough. I’m just saying that for people who are sad or depressed, it usually helps to have someone to talk to. Someone to make you laugh. I wish someone had been able to do for Robin Williams what he did for so many of us. I wish he hadn’t felt like he had to find another house.

Posted in Current Events, Music | Tagged Come On Up to the House, Mule Variations, music, Robin Williams, suicide, Tom Waits | Leave a comment

An Album I Love: Tape Deck Heart

Posted on July 28, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

Punk has never really been my thing. And I really can’t stand pop-friendly punk (I distinctly remember back in the ’90s wishing that Blink 182 would die in a fire).

Beyond that, it also feels like I shouldn’t like the whole phenomenon of punk-rocker-making-a-sensitive-acoustic-record albums. It feels like an entire cheat of a genre, the sort of thing that would be sneered at by hip music fans. Except, wouldn’t Elliott Smith’s debut album, Roman Candle, which he recorded on the side while he was in Heatmiser, have fit exactly in that category at the time? And wouldn’t Faithless Street, Whiskeytown’s debut album, which came about when Ryan Adams quit playing punk and started playing country, also sort of fit that description? And since I love both of those albums, and Smith and Adams are two of my favorite artists, don’t I have to admit that this is a genre I like? And wouldn’t that explain why Frank Turner’s Tape Deck Heart has been one of my favorite albums of the last year or so?

Setting aside the question of genre, Turner, much like Smith and Adams, can really write a song. Before he became a musician, Turner studied at a prestigious English prep school and then the London School of Economics. This is a guy who has read a book or two. He spent the early 2000s playing in hardcore punk bands, and then switched his focus to folk.

That’s all the time I’m going to expend talking about Turner’s previous career, because I haven’t gotten that deep into the catalog. I’m mostly concerned with Tape Deck Heart. Sonically, it does a nice job of blending the folk and punk influences—acoustic guitars, confessional songs, but also uptempo, sometimes shouted hooks. It’s the songwriting that really makes this record great, though. First of all, you could easily classify it as a break-up album, and y’all know how much I love those. You can see the brokenheartedness in songs like The Way I Tend to Be, which features a jangly acoustic chord progression that slides high up the guitar neck and then works its way down and lyrics like “And then I catch myself/Catching your scent on someone else/In a crowded space/And it takes me somewhere I cannot quite place.”

And then there’s the song Plain Sailing Weather, which opens with the lyrics, “Just give me one fine day of plain sailing weather/And I can fuck up anything.” Not a lot of explanation needed there.

But Tape Deck Heart is more than a break-up album. It’s an album about growing up, about taking stock of your life as you begin to leave your youth behind. Turner is the same age as I am, and much like me, he seems to have left a swath of destruction in his wake. The lead single and opening track of the album, Recovery, opens with the lyrics “Blacking in and out in a strange flat in East London/Somebody I don’t really know just gave me something/To help settle me down and to stop me from always thinking about you/And you know your life is heading in a questionable direction/When you’re up for days with strangers and you can’t remember anything.” It’s a break-up song, and a song about dulling the pain with substances, and it’s a song that acknowledges that “it’s a long road up to recovery.” But it’s also a hopeful song that features the great line “Broken people can get better if they really want to/Or at least that’s what I have to tell myself if I am hoping to survive.”

That’s not the only song that includes a surveying-the-wreckage narrative. The second song on the LP, Losing Days, includes a verse that goes like so: “And I used to think that I/Would never live past twenty five/And when you think like that, each day/Is a gift if you survive/But I’ve survived too long for my side of the deal/And as I reach that shore I’m not sure how to feel.” As someone who has mostly followed the mantra “live every day like it’s your last”—often to justify my questionable decisions—that’s definitely a sentiment I can relate to.

Of course, the album isn’t entirely serious. A bunch of my favorite tracks appear only on the extended version, and I think they’re worth talking about because they display Turner’s lighter side. There’s We Shall Not Overcome, a quirky play on the folk standard We Shall Overcome that works as a sort of anthem for the freaks and geeks, with its chorus, “The bands I like don’t sell too many records/And the girls I like don’t kiss too many boys/The books I read will never be bestsellers/Yeah, but come on fellas at least we made our choice.”

Then there’s Time Machine, about building a time machine out of a DeLorean (you know he won me over right there). It’s a funny tune about traveling through the years as “an amateur historian,” but one that becomes poignant when he admits he’s really building the machine to go back a couple of years to the beginning of a broken relationship, “Before life quietly dismembered/All the best things about you and I.”

And then there’s the song that I really love the most, an acoustic ditty called Tattoos. I’m not even going to quote any lyrics—just give it a listen.

That’s Turner in a nutshell. His songs are smart and funny and catchy, and it’s easy to find yourself in them—at least if you’re anything like me. Some people don’t get it, and some people don’t care. Some of us, we have tattoos.

Posted in Music | Tagged Frank Turner, music, Tape Deck Heart | 1 Comment

The Silliest of NBA Silly Seasons

Posted on July 15, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

Generally speaking, you don’t get cell phone reception on subway trains or in stations in New York. One of the exceptions to this rule is on the F line in Brooklyn, where the train comes above ground for two stops to pass above the Gowanus Canal. On Friday afternoon, my train came up out of the tunnel into the 4th Avenue/9th Street station, and Twitter exploded my phone. Two other guys, complete strangers who happened to be sitting near me in the car, fished in their pockets at the same time I did, and at the same time said “Oh shit.” You know what we saw.

LeBron: “I’m coming home.” @SINow exclusive in the words of @KingJames: http://t.co/KEdJv3blqe

— Lee Jenkins (@SI_LeeJenkins) July 11, 2014

For more than a week since the end of the season, the sports world had waited with bated breath for LeBron to decide between continuing his run in Miami and returning to his hometown of Cleveland. People went insane, posting things like this:

Web developer friend’s take on the http://t.co/dXsyYmTPNh stuff: pic.twitter.com/3d8UPEXrTj — Matt Borcas (@mattborcas) July 10, 2014

The Onion had my favorite take, announcing that LeBron was considering joining Al Qaeda. In the end, LeBron announced that he would not join Ayman al-Zawahiri or Pat Riley and would instead go home, with a lauded Sports Illustrated essay in which he talked about the importance of bringing not just a championship, but economic hope, back to Northeast Ohio. He deserves every bit of credit for that. Of course, it was also a sound basketball decision: With Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh getting older and the team unable to effectively upgrade elsewhere, the Heat had no chance to improve over the next few years—meaning LeBron wasn’t winning another title there. Meanwhile, by going to the Cavs, he joined a team with young talent that can improve over the next few years (more on this in a second), and gets to stay in the far, far, far more forgiving Eastern Conference. LeBron got to make a good basketball decision and he gets to go home with a hero’s welcome. He played it perfectly. And then the other dominoes started to fall. Among them:

Carmelo Anthony: Well, this one didn’t have anything to do with LeBron. Melo was ALWAYS going back to New York, and not because of the “I’m a Knick at heart” bullshit. There was just no way he was walking away from the extra money the Knicks could give him. Does he care about the money more than winning a title? Obviously. If he wanted the best basketball fit, the best chance to win a title, he would have gone to Chicago. Now, I don’t totally fault him for this. Most of us would take the money too—especially if we’d grown up in what might be the most violent, impoverished, fucked-up neighborhood in America.

I wish he would have gone to Chicago, but like I said, I don’t blame him. Just calling it like it is.

Houston Rockets Schadenfreude: I don’t know why I hate Houston so much. Actually, yes I do. 1) It’s in Texas—fuck Texas; 2) they have the most insufferable star in the NBA, who subjected us all to the two-year Dwightmare; 3) James Harden, who should be awesome, has devolved into a thoroughly unlikable player—whiny and pouty on offense, maybe the worst defender in the entire NBA; 4) Daryl Morey acting like he’s smarter than everyone else (note: yes, I’m aware this is how Billy Beane acts—sports fandom is not a rational thing). So to watch Houston give away Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin, miss out on the Bosh signing that might have made them a real title contender, and then in the process let Chandler Parsons, an overrated but still good player, walk? I enjoyed all of this immensely.

What I’m probably going to enjoy less than this is the resolution of the Kevin Love situation. My beloved Golden State Warriors could have traded for Love a month ago, but they dicked around and wouldn’t just put Klay Thompson in the deal and make it happen, and now Cleveland can suddenly put together an offer that’s better than what the Dubs can (especially if they throw Andrew Wiggins in the deal), at the same time offering Love an even better situation (playing with LeBron and Kyrie) than he would have had in the Bay. Goddammit. I really wanted to spend the next five years watching Curry and Love run pick and rolls.

A fleeting dream?

If Kevin Love ends up on the Cavs because the Dubs wouldn’t give up Thompson, I’m going to murder someone.

So the balance of power has shifted, at least somewhat, across the league. Miami went from being the favorite in the East to probably being a second-round out. Cleveland might now the favorite in the East. Chicago could have been the East’s best team with Melo, although the signings of Mirotic and Gasol mean they’re the team that’s most likely to challenge the Cavs anyway, if Derrick Rose can actually still play basketball. Indiana? We’ll see what happens with Hibbert and Stephenson.

Meanwhile out West, the Rockets took a step back, the Mavs have likely improved (though they’re probably not a true contender). The Dubs squandered a chance to become a true contender. And none of this matters because the Spurs will probably win the West anyway. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Posted in Basketball, Sports | Tagged basketball, Carmelo Anthony, golden state warriors, Kevin Love, lebron james, nba | Leave a comment

A Midseason Bay Area Baseball Review

Posted on July 8, 2014 by fromabrooklynbasement

What with the NBA Playoffs (and Silly Season, which I’ll be writing about soon, I promise) and the advent of this awesome thing called the World Cup, I haven’t gotten around to writing report cards for my beloved Bay Area baseball teams yet. So, with the teams passing the mathematical midpoints of their seasons last week, and the traditional seasonal midpoint of the All Star Game happening a week from today, and of course a four game Battle by the Bay series kicking off last night (the A’s took the opener 5-0), now’s as good a time as any. We’ll start, as my life in the Bay Area did, on the eastside of the Bridge.

There’s been a lot of this in Oakland this season

The OAKLAND ATHLETICS have, with a season of impressive performances and one monster trade, established themselves as a consensus World Series favorite. There have been a million articles written about the performance, so I won’t belabor this too much. Basically, they’ve used an adherence to roster depth, an uncanny ability to evaluate other teams’ minor leaguers, and smart managing by Bob Melvin to build a team that not only has the best record in the Major Leagues, but one that has posted a run differential that, at this point in the season, would mark them as one of the 10 best teams of the last 50 years.

As anyone who has read Moneyball knows, A’s GM Billy Beane evaluates the season in trimesters. The first third is to figure out what your team is, the second third is to improve it, and the final third is to make your run. After the first third, Beane saw what everyone else in baseball did: A deep team that scores tons of runs thanks to powerful performances by All Stars Josh Donaldson, Brandon Moss, and Yoenis Cespedes (along with a bunch of less publicized contributions up and down the lineup), great defense and solid pitching. Even when something went wrong—new closer Jim Johnson imploding in the first week of the season—the A’s just elevated Sean Doolittle and have seen him notch 61 strikeouts and just 2 walks on his way to earning an All Star berth.

But Beane also saw a team that could stand to improve. Specifically, with two starting pitchers going down to Tommy John surgery during Spring Training, the team’s rotation, which has pitched admirably, was still thin, headed up by the relatively unproven Jesse Chavez, Sonny Gray pitching in his first full season, and Scott Kazmir just more than a year away from being an injury wreck who was almost out of baseball. So Beane pushed his chips into the middle of the table and acquired two starters from the Cubs, former Notre Dame wide receiver/mountain man (seriously, he’s enormous)/personified spelling bee question Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel, who had pitched almost as well as Samardzija for Chicago this year.

Say what you will, he does look like a playoff pitcher

Say what you will, he does look like a guy you’d want on the mound during the playoffs

The deal isn’t without its risks, as the A’s gave up one of baseball best prospects, Addison Russell. Personally, I was crushed that the A’s gave up a shortstop of the future who also totally has a pornstar’s name, and I was hoping if they were going to pay that high a price that they’d get David Price, but they unquestionably solidified their rotation, and Samardiza looked great in winning his first start with the A’s, throwing 95–96 with tons of movement and giving up just 4 hits and 1 run in 7 innings against Toronto. And really, it was a trade they sorta had to make. They’ve been knocked out of the playoffs in excruciating fashion two years in a row, and the window for this group of players, as it always goes with the A’s, probably starts to close after this year. They needed to beef up the rotation to compete with the Tigers— Justin Verlander, who has shut out the A’s in Oakland in Game 5 two years in a row, astutely noted that they made the trade with the Tigers in mind—and now they’ve done it. Will it be enough? We’ll see, but you can’t fault Billy Beane for taking his shot. This team’s time is now.

And then there’s the SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS. Sigh. Things were going so well. At one point they were 42-21, on pace for 108 wins, with by far the best record in baseball. As many writers around the internets noted, however, they had gotten more than their share of good luck early in the season, and regression to the mean is a bitch (Check out this Jonah Keri piece for more detail). The bats, which had been driving in an uncanny number of two-out baserunners and generally blasting balls over all sorts of fences, went cold, and the bullpen, which had been absolutely nails, fell apart. The continuing struggles of Sergio Romo make me so sad I don’t even know what to do with myself.

I love this guy, but he really needs to stop hanging sliders

And then there have been the injuries: Brandon Belt—who really had the most Beltian first month of the year ever, with a ridiculous hot streak and an awful slump—missed two months with a broken thumb, Marco Scutaro has missed the whole season so far, and Angel Pagan is back on the DL again.

Add it all up, and the team fell apart with an old-school-Giants-style June swoon that knocked them all the way out of first place, behind the fucking Dodgers. In a call back to last season, virtually the only highlight in an awful stretch of baseball was a Tim Lincecum no-hitter against the Padres. Actually, let’s go back further: with Lincecum winning three straight starts, giving up just one run across 23 innings, and the team losing nearly every other game, it felt like 2008 all over again.

Here’s the thing, though: It’s not 2008. The Giants aren’t as good as they played for the first two months, but they’re not as bad as they were in June. Taken as a whole, they’re probably exactly where they should be. And if the playoffs started today, they’d be in it (in the one game Wild Card playoff, anyway, which is exactly what I predicted before the season started). It’s not a team that’s a clear-cut World Series favorite in the way the A’s are—but then again, they weren’t in 2010 or 2012, either. All you have to do is get in the dance to have a chance.

The Giants don’t have an Addison Russell in their system, so they’re mostly going to have to rally with what they’ve got. That means they have to hope for Posey and Sandoval to step it up in the second half (fairly likely), Pence to keep it going (I’m cautiously optimistic), Morse to arrest his freefall of a slump (I’m less optimistic), Madison Bumgarner to keep being a horse (definitely), Matt Cain to have a second half resurgence like last year (definitely possible), Tim Hudson to continue being one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball (a mortal lock) and Vogelsong to continue his Renaissance and Lincecum to keep pitching like the ace he has been recently (who the fuck knows?). Will all of these things happen? No. But the Giants just need a few of them to happen to get them back to the playoffs. So as of July 8, I’m going to say that the prognosis for October baseball on both sides of the Bay is pretty damn good.

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