In part 2 of the Lance Armstrong interview, Oprah will reveal she routinely takes performance enhancing fudge.

{Current Mood: Dead… for real… because, you know, I actually exist}

[Title Credit: @TheFakeESPN, Photo Credit: @JuanElway] [No RG2+1 mentions in this blog but that picture was too good to not use]

*[yawn] Morning, everyone. [grabs coffee pot, pours cup of Manti Te’o jokes morning drank]

See what I did there? I refrained from making light of this whole Te’o situation (save for my 'current mood'). Warning: it probably won’t last too much longer so enjoy it while you can.

Thinking about this whole situation, a few things pop into my head. First of all, JJ Zachariason beautifully summarizes the three main schools of thought regarding this whole ordeal:

@LateRoundQB: “Te'o is either 1) Incredibly naive 2) The best liar in football 3) Gay”

As much as I want to believe one of these things, anyone who has known me for a while or has read anything I’ve ever written for this website knows I don’t like to be forced to succumb to the same schools of thought as everyone else. So, until proven otherwise, I’m going to talk myself into believing that this is the biggest, most elaborate hoax this side of the Truman Show.

Once Te’o decides to open up about this issue and finally give us his side of the story, this whole conspiracy theory will most likely be ruined. But that’s why I’m here: to come to the conclusions that no one else is mentioning.

Who’s to say that somebody didn’t organize this well-thought-out ruse complete with a full cast of characters to account for all possible plot holes, fake Twitter accounts, and most importantly, real people posing as fake people?

The question that no one has answered and that no one seems to want to answer is whether Te’o actually ever met this girl that he believed to be a real person. What if this whole thing is like one, big, screwed up future season of The Joe Schmo Show?

What if there actually was a girl out there who agreed to play the part of Lennay Kekua and meet up with Te’o in the event he comes out and says that he actually did meet, in person, this girl who he believed to be someone else?

What if she looks suspiciously like the girl whose likeness was used for the Lennay Kekua Twitter account, Facebook page, Youtube channel, Instagram account, and/or whatever else was created to make her seem as authentic as possible?

What if there are more people in on this whole thing than are letting on? How else would you explain Reagan Mauia’s comments of having actually "met" this girl before? And while it’s true that he never came out and said whether or not he actually met her in person (unless I missed that part of it somewhere), if it comes out that he has, who’s to say that he didn’t get duped as well by someone posing as this girl?

Or who’s to say that he wasn’t in on the entire thing from the start? I don’t know many Hawaiians, so I don’t know how they think, act, or plot revenge on their own people in the event of a situation that calls for plotting revenge.

Far-fetched? Not as much as you may think considering I just thought up the conspiracy theory you just read. All it takes is one really ambitious person that cares enough and/or hates Manti Te’o enough to make this all happen as seamlessly as possible.

Regardless of how this all turns out, there’s one talking point that needs to be mentioned that hasn’t been brought up yet… and that’s the fact that someone is going to cash in on this thing big time somewhere down the line by making a major motion picture out of it.

Manti and Friends: THE MOVIE!!! Learn to love it, because it’s coming. If we can immortalize Joe Paterno in movie form, it’s only a matter of time before someone writes the Manti Te'o story for the big screen.

This whole ordeal reaffirms a common belief that real life is crazier than fiction because, sooner or later, fiction has to make sense. This means that the only downside to a future Manti Te’o movie is that it won’t accurately capture the confusion this whole thing has created to this point or the talking points that have come up.

Ok, I can’t hold it in anymore. I have to share two Te’o related funnies that I found: this from @JuanElway: 

And this:

-MOVING ON-

We move on now to another guy that people want my opinion on: 

I’ve read countless articles as to why the Chip Kelly signing is both a good and a bad thing for the Eagles. I’ve read countless articles as to why his system, or a variation of it, would or wouldn’t work in the NFL whether or not he has a mobile QB on his roster. So I won’t bore you with any of those long-winded opinions, choosing instead to focus on an aspect of this story that has gone largely unmentioned.

What’s to keep Chippy from pulling a Nick Saban and leaving the NFL for a better college coaching opportunity in two years? Does anyone know if he, like Saban, had a clause put into his contract that would allow him to do so if he realizes that he’s in over his head as a guy with no NFL coaching experience and barely any coordinator or head coaching experience at the FBS collegiate level?

Last year, the big rumor was Chip Kelly to the Bucs before he changed his mind. This year he already went on record saying he would stay with Oregon and then changed his mind seemingly out of nowhere. If I’m an Eagles fan, I would be very concerned about this.

Of course, none of this is applicable if he gets fired. But, in the event this whole experiment backfires, I truly feel that they’ll give him more than two years before they fire him. The reason being the same reason why I think this is the best hire Philly could’ve made (yes Joan, I know you wanted Lovie but here’s why that would’ve been a bad idea).

It was obvious to me that the Eagles threw in the towel on the Andy Reid era by the time their Week 17 meeting with the Giants came around. If you think for one second that the players either didn’t know or didn’t care that they’ve owned the Giants in NJ over the last few years and were undefeated at Metlife Stadium to that point, then you’re severely misguided. **Hell, the Bucks knew that they hadn’t beaten the Suns in Phoenix since February 21st, 1987 before last night. Point: players know these things.

They had a tiny chance to save Reid’s job with a win that would’ve absolutely guaranteed that the Giants wouldn’t make the playoffs and they rolled over. They may deny it and may not have realized it, but it happened. They knew that change was necessary. And rather than go the retread route and bring in a guy like Lovie, Gruden, or Whiz, they went all in on the guy that would create the most buzz. And that, more than anything else, is what the Eagles need: something different. It’s the same reasoning behind why I feel the Chiefs will draft Geno Smith #1 overall. They’ve tried the retread QB route and it has failed every time. It’s time to draft a franchise QB (although I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Reid trade for Nick Foles just to inspire competition).

From a football perspective, I don’t care what kind of system Chip implements. But, whatever he does, he has to bring in Dennis Dixon somehow.

Sportswunderkind.com has a great piece talking about three quarterbacks that could run a Chip-Kelly style offense in the NFL (http://sportswunderkind.com/3-potential-quarterbacks-for-chip-kellys-nfl-offense/). Even if you don’t plan on using any of these guys if you bring them in, the threat of that Chip-Kelly style QB has to be there so that other teams can gameplan around it. And if it’s Dixon they bring in, other teams have to account for the fact that the learning curve would not be steep at all being that he played under Kelly at Oregon and knows how to run the type of system that people expect Kelly to run.

And again, even if they don’t run a Chip Kelly-style system in Philly, if you have a QB like Dixon on your roster, the threat of that kind of play is always there, especially if the guy you bring in played under you in college. 

From a Giants fan perspective, this scares the crap out of me because of the potential for a new, indefensible (at first) hybrid offense that can come from this man's crazy brain. 

-MOVING ON-

@LateRoundQB: “Fairly certain this will be the tipping point that OWN needs to stop existing."

Not much to say on my end regarding Lancelot except this is going to make for some very awkward fan mail from young kids to have to answer to. Some examples, provided by the fine folks at jukeleft.com:

The first one is still my favorite. 

-MOVING ON-

We end today with three more topics that Andrew Lamberti people have expressed interest in hearing my opinion on. 

1) Though he has sucked for over a decade, Norv Turner keeps getting offensive coordinator jobs because he has been a great coordinator in the past. Of course, if you gave me Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin, I'd be a great coordinator too.

And he keeps getting head coaching jobs because there are too many inept NFL franchises that like to go the retread NFL coach route and will give him another chance somewhere down the road if he and Chud (hee hee, Chud) can help turn this team around. Some people will never learn that there's a difference between being able to be a coordinator and a head coach. 

2) A Harbaugh bowl would be very intriguing. 

On one hand, you have the guy who benched his passable starting QB in order to partake in this new "read option era" with his freakishly athletic QB. I know a lot of 49ers fans that didn't know how to take the move because they had been so successful with Smith, but last year represented the team's ceiling with Smith. CK may or may not ever lead this team to a Super Bowl but if the risk pays off and they at least make it there in his second year, it's further than Alex Smith got them in seven seasons. It represents my "we need something different" theory that I've touched on a few times. 

On the other hand, you have the guy who canned his offensive coordinator midway through the season which inexplicably decided to finally benefit this team once the playoffs came around after looking like a bad move early on in the process. Jim Caldwell, the same guy who almost led the Colts to both a perfect season and a winless season has made Joe Flacco look elite. 

The big question is whether either or both of the aforementioned moves will lead the brothers Harbaugh over the hump and into battle for the Lombardi trophy. Karma tells me no, so I'm going with the Falcons and the Patriots as my official picks for this weekend. 

We can analyze all we want. I choose to now pick games based on these karma-type factors that everyone else likes to overlook. Can anyone reading this seriously tell me that they picked the Ravens to flat out upset Denver after doing all the research and taking into account everything that told us that the Broncos were the better team and the right side to play (@JoeGiglioSports: don't answer that because I know you actually did call the Ravens upsetting Denver)?

That line of thinking almost backfired on me last week when I picked Atlanta but no one seems to give them a shot against the Kaepernicks. I even read an article from C.D. Carter talking about how Kaep is no longer even a value pick for next year's fantasy drafts. I think this is the week Kaep finally gets exposed. If Russel Wilson isn't allowed to win a playoff game in the Georgia Dome as the road team on his first try, neither is Kaep. I know Rodgers did it, but he's obviously in a different class than Wilson or Kaep. 

As for the other game, all I know for sure is that if the Patriots win, it means that karma struck again and the last second field goal that the Ravens made to beat the Pats in Week 3 didn't really split the uprights. I think a lot of people feel the Ravens are due and too many people want to see murderer Ray Lewis win another ring. I don't feel either of these things and predict that Belichick takes Harbaugh and his team for a nice, long ride on the ROFLcopter.

I know Mr. Dan Sohler also wanted my thoughts on the games this weekend, so there ya go. One stone > Two Birds. 

3) I can't accurately judge whether the Knicks and Pistons playing overseas is good or bad for the NBA or for those two teams in general. I can accurately judge that this hurts my fantasy basketball team this week because I only have Melo for one game. At least I'm still wh00pin ass >:)

Deuces,

-Ray-

*Credit: @suss2hyphens

**It’s not often that I can say that something happened in the world of sports that hasn’t happened in my entire lifetime. I was born on May 7th, 1987 which means that the Bucks hadn’t beaten the Suns in Phoenix since before I was born. There’s your mind-blowing stat of the day.