Ray Lewis: "God doesn't make mistakes." God spending time picking football winners seems like a pretty big mistake.

{Current Mood: Thirsty}

[Title Credit: @Sportspickle, Photo Credit: @NOTSportsCenter]

So,

You know what has to be a terrible feeling? Being on a 24 killstreak on Call Of Duty with itchy balls (Credit: @CondescendingWonka). Not that I would know because I suck at all shooting games so even reaching a double digit killstreak would be an accomplishment for me.

But if I were to ever reach such an accomplishment, there’s one thing that I would NOT say in my post-game media appearance. There’s one card that I wouldn’t play that sickens me to hear EVERY GOD DAMN TEAM say when they win a championship, score an upset win, or defy the odds. This phrase is right up there with “Baby On Board” as it relates to phrases that should be locked inside a portable toilet, set on fire, and pushed off of a mountain.

And that card/phrase is: “NO ONE BELIEVED IN US!!!”

>:\

I’m so tired of “NO ONE BELIEVED IN US! NO ONE GAVE US A CHANCE, BUT WE PROVED YOU ALL WRONG SO SUCK IT, BITCHES AND WE SHOCKED THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!”

This mindset is almost commonplace nowadays and these phrases are more overplayed than that Aaron Rodgers Statefarm classroom commercial and more overused than all of the clever word combinations you’re going to hear over the next two weeks that combine the words “Harbuagh,” “Super,” and “Bowl (which, by the time the Super Bowl arrives, is probably going to make me want to kill myself).”

First of all, when you really think about it, that phrase is non-applicable to anybody that plays on a professional sports team. Somewhere out there, you have delusional fans that believe in you and believe that you can win your sport’s highest honor until you’re mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. If a team gets eliminated from playoff contention and then comes back to make the playoffs that year and win their sport’s championship, THEN that phrase becomes acceptable to use.

If, all of a sudden, I am named the new UFC Heavyweight Champion with no MMA experience whatsoever and having not fought a single time in my life, I will use that phrase and rightfully so. I will use it because not a single person on planet Earth will have believed that I could become UFC Champion under those circumstances.

Everyone wants to be a feel-good story, a hero. I get that. But don’t fabricate all this bullshit about no one believing in you. It’s getting old and tired and sooner or later, no one’s going to believe you. You can’t all be the Super Bowl III-winning Jets (that one’s for you, Kyle).

I feel we’re going to be getting this whole “NO ONE BELIEVED IN US” diatribe moreso from the Ravens than the 49ers, which will give me even more of a reason to root against Baltimore. 

It's not like people haven't been calling either team a Super Bowl contender within the past two years. And I'm sure that there were people out there predicting one of these two teams, if not both, to make it to the Super Bowl before the season started, thereby rendering this argument invalid for either team. Remember this when their players inevitably start playing that card. 

It's a shame because, aside from Reverend Lewis and the only NFL player in history to have graduated from “Ball So Hard University (pukes in mouth),” I wouldn’t mind seeing any other player on that team win a ring. Rice and Flacco are locals (I’m from Jersey for anyone outside of the Tri-State Area that’s reading this), Ed Reed is finally getting a shot at a ring. But the guy I would be most happy to see win a ring on this team is Anquan Boldin.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Anquan Boldin. I’m partial to wide receivers and even though he isn’t a speed demon or a physical freak that’s going to score 16 TDs in a season or break NFL records, he’s one of the most consistently solid players in the league on a year to year basis. It’s good to see that he’s not old and washed up like everyone said he was when he left Arizona, including me.

Thinking back on it now, those of us who were so quick to write ‘Q’ off were probably not saying the same thing about Larry Fitzgerald, who came into the NFL exactly one season after Boldin. The general consensus was that Boldin is “done” while Fitz can succeed no matter who was throwing him the ball in Arizona because he’s so good.

And I give Fitzy credit for putting up decent numbers without Kurt Warner before this past season, but when your offensive line is arguably the worst in the league, it doesn’t matter how good you are or how bad whoever throwing the ball to you is, you will probably not have a good season statistically.

Anyway, I can’t forgive the Ravens for walloping us in the Super Bowl and I can’t forgive the 49ers for beating us in the playoffs in 2003 in “that” game, but I can respect this San Fran team enough to pull for them to win it all at this point.

I’m happy to see a guy like Frank Gore get his chance at a ring after the season he had when, once again, everyone said he was done, including me. Of course, when you have unarguably the best offensive line in the league, your numbers will be exponentially better. Even so, Gore is a very talented player and deserves this chance.

I like Colin Kaepernick (OMG! WHAT A BANDWAGON JUMPING FUCK I AM!). It says a lot about a player to be the reason why you’ll always remember a certain sporting event. For me, I’ll always remember watching Kaep ruin Boise State’s best shot at a perfect season and potential National Championship while he was playing at Nevada. I knew nothing about him before then, but the way he played in that game make me take notice.

Of course, if he didn’t go on to become the newest media darling of the NFL’s eye, I may have forgotten about that fateful night in Boise. But the fact is he's one of the poster children of the new breed of read-option-style NFL quarterbacks. Winning the Super Bowl will only strengthen that argument. And I, for one, wouldn’t mind seeing him win it. 

Except for the fact that he would probably be shoved down our throats via commercial. 

Some say that a 49ers win would justify Jim Harbaugh’s decision to bench Alex Smith, a move that more than a few 49er fans were uneasy about. But even if the 49ers didn’t make it to the Super Bowl, Harbaugh’s decision was validated by Kaep’s stellar play.

Not because they won the division, not because they made it to the playoffs, but because once Alex Smith got healthy, Harbaugh made a gut decision as to who he felt could lead the 49ers to where they wanted to go and he stuck with that decision even when the 49ers lost and Kaep didn’t play well (The OT loss to the Rams comes to mind).

I wasn’t a fan of the move at first because I didn’t think Smith should’ve lost his starting job due to injury. But, like all of us, I can be quick to jump to conclusions. People argue that Alex Smith wouldn’t have led San Fran any further than he did last year. There’s obviously no way of telling whether they would be in the Super Bowl if Smith was still the starting quarterback, but Harbaugh knows that the NFL is a copycat league. His decision had to have at least been partially influenced by the success that this new breed of mobile quarterbacks had this season.

He made an unconventional decision that got a mixed reaction from media and fans alike and he stuck to his guns through good and bad. As much of a douchebag as he seems to be at times, I do respect the ballsiness (new word alert) of the move and hope to see it result in a Super Bowl win. And don’t get it twisted. A Super Bowl win wouldn’t “validate” Harbaugh’s decision to go with Kaep. That decision was validated weeks ago.

And as much flak as people have given Randy Moss over the years, he’s the guy on this team that I would most like to see win a Super Bowl ring. It seems as if he’s finally gotten over the fact that he’s not as good as he was in 1998 and that he’s finally putting his team before himself. I’ve always been a fan of his freakish ability. Now I’m finally a full fledged fan of Randy Moss the football player and would love to see him get rewarded for a great career with a Super Bowl ring to further strengthen his “first ballot Hall of Famer” credentials.

Of course, Moss doesn’t have to win a Super Bowl to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. He’s already accumulated enough career numbers and Pro Bowl appearances to make an inarguable case.

While we’re on the subject of the Pro Bowl, I’d like to point out that it is indeed still a thing. Not that we should care. If the players voted into the Pro Bowl don’t care about it, then why should we?

Not to beat a dead horse into the sky, but when high profile players continuously find reasons to get out of going to Hawaii for an All Star game, it speaks a lot to how pointless the Pro Bowl has become (Of course, this year people may have valid excuses for not wanting to go to a state that’s associated with Manti Te’o).

The one Pro Bowl talking point that I’m going to touch on that really hasn’t been discussed as much as it should be is the fact that, at the current rate, it has a realistic chance of screwing up Hall of Fame voting in the not-so-distant future.

One of the things that Hall of Fame voters undoubtedly look at when deciding who should be enshrined is Pro Bowl appearances. If Andy Dalton winds up playing in nine Pro Bowls as the seventh alternate by the time he retires simply because guys like Tom Brady either got hurt or felt that they were above the game enough to make dumb excuses as to why they would be skipping out on it, what’s to keep someone from giving him a Hall of Fame vote over someone more deserving simply because “he played in more Pro Bowls?”

If you feel that players may not feel that they’re above the Pro Bowl, consider that Matt Ryan is not playing in the Pro Bowl due to the injury he suffered at the end of the game against San Fran yesterday but, according to Mike Smith, he would’ve been able to play in the Super Bowl.

[Update: I wrote most of this blog yesterday afternoon. This morning, I read that Tom Brady is also skipping the Pro Bowl with an "injury" that he undoubtedly would've been able to play through if the Pats had won on Sunday. I love being right >:>]

I believe that everyone who deserves to get into the Hall of Fame will do so eventually, whether it’s posthumously, due to changes in the voting system that will allow more people to be voted in at once, etc. But, at this rate, someone is going to screw up really bad eventually by voting someone into Canton that doesn’t deserve to be there because of something like “Pro Bowl appearances.”

Either way, the fact that Russel Wilson and Andrew Luck will now get the chance to play in the Pro Bowl, and the fact that they undoubtedly appreciate the opportunity more than most, will give me enough reason to at least DVR the game to see them play. So there's that. 

That ends my rant for the day, but here are some fun little nuggets I stumbled upon to end this blog:

-TWITTER NUGGETS-

@TheFakeESPN: Oprah fails to make Lance Armstrong utter phrase "I'm a bag of dicks."

@FauxJohnMadden: When Manti Te'o finds out Tupac is no longer alive, he's really going to be a inconsolable mess.

@NOTSCNHL: UPDATE: Manti Te'o draft stock has dropped dramatically with a #Flyers loss to the #Pens 3-1 #NHL

@NOTSportsCenter: BREAKING: #Pens C Sidney Crosby burned his tongue on some hot soup, is out 6-8 months. At least he made it through one game this year.

@NatePlay60: Cam Newton's Mom just left me for Colin Kaepernick.

@TheFakeESPN: When asked how many fingers were being held up, Steven Ridley replied "35," but then changed his answer to "waffles."

@FauxJohnMadden: LeBron James and the Ravens could win championships 8 months apart.. poor Cleveland.

@NOTSportsCenter: Julio Jones could've been a Brown, but they decided to trade for Phil Taylor, Greg Little and Weeden instead. Good call Cleveland. #SFvsATL

@NOTSportsCenter: PJ Carlesimo is 11-2 with the #Nets. Think that's good? Mike D'antoni took 27 games to get 11 wins with the #Lakers. Now that's impressive.

-PHOTO GALLERY-

We've found Little Jimmy!!! That's all I got. 

Deuces,

-Ray-