Old guy rules

 It's been a tough go lately for those of us in the late autumn of our years, because our old-coot powers have been diminished by proxy. Sour 40-year-old coot Aaron Rodgers is playing like the sour 40-year-old coot he is. Fifty-eight-year-old Mike Tyson fought like a 58-year-old against Jake Paul (but raked some serious cabbage for that farce). And so, and so forth.

On the other hand ...

On the other hand, we've still got Alex Ovechkin.

The Great 8 is 39 years old now but still schooling the kids out there in the National Hockey League, or at least he was until he banged knees with Jack McBain of Utah last night, and went down with a lower-leg injury that will keep him out of the lineup for a bit. So his pursuit of the uncatchable -- Wayne Gretzky's career total of 894 goals -- is on the shelf until further notice.

"Why do you say Gretzky's 894 career goals is uncatchable, Mr. Blob?" you're saying now.

Because until Ovie started playing like he was 19 again, it pretty much was.

Last season, see, he was playing like the literal graybeard he is, and Gretz's 894 was still in a galaxy far, far away. But something happened in the offseason. The Blob doesn't now what it was, exactly, except to speculate that somewhere Ovie got hold of some magic old-coot potion that, like spinach for Popeye, transformed him into Super Coot.

Until he went down last night, see, his Washington Capitals had played 18 games so far this season. Ovechkin had scored 15 goals in those 18 games -- the 14th and 15th coming last night, when he uncorked a pair of seeing-eye rockets that originated in 1997 or something. That gave him 868 career goals, just 26 adrift of Gretzky.

It also gave him his 100th career multi-goal road game, 17 more than anyone in history.

So raise your glass of Ensure to the man, fellow coots. I can't speak for any of you, but I feel an extra spring in my step this morning. 

Although that could just be a touch of the rheumatiz.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 11

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the swaggeringly vindicated Blob feature of which critics have said "Not so fast with that 'vindicated' business, asshat", and also "Why don't you swagger on over here and let my fist vindicate your face?":

1. "Get rid of ME, will you? Ha! I'm as timeless as the three rivers!" (Mike Tomlin, whose Steelers are now 8-2 and first in the AFC North a year after people were ready to run him out of Pittsburgh)

2. "Get rid of ME, will you? Ha! Joe Flacco can sit his wrinkly old ass down because I'm back, baby!" (Demoted Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, who returned to the Horsies' lineup and had his best game as a pro in a 28-27 win over the Jets)

3. "Get rid of ME, will you? H- Oh, wait ..." (Daniel Jones, after the Giants finally benched His Royal Cruddiness in favor of, um ... Tommy De Vito?)

4. "Hey, what's with the question mark? And enough with the Danny De Vito jokes, ya bums." (Tommy De Vito)

5. In other news, the Chiefs!

6. Lost to Josh Allen and the Bills, which means they won't go undefeated, which also means a bunch of old coots with walkers and such once again get to say they're still the only undefeated team in NFL history.

7. "Suck on that, Rozelle!" (The old coots, aka the 1972 Miami Dolphins)

8. "Wait, what?" (Also the coots, upon being reminded Roger Goodell, not Pete Rozelle, is now the commissioner of the NFL)

9. "Yes! No more Aints for us! We're movin' up to the big time!" (Various paper bags, excited at the prospect of being donned by fans of the Dallas Cowboys after America's Team pooped on the carpet in front of their home fans and the entire country in a 34-10 loss to the Texans on Monday Night Football)

10.  "See? We're not the only ones who suck!" (The Jaguars, the Browns, the Raiders et al)

Un-Bearable

 OK, so maybe it's not just Aaron Rodgers who owns the Bears. Maybe it's the entire Green Bay Packers franchise, for whom Rodgers was playing that time he beat the Bears and taunted the Ditkaheads with his infamous declaration of ownership.

I say this after the Bears blocked and tackled and ran and passed their ancient nemesis to a standoff in Chicago yesterday, only to lose 20-19 when the Packers swatted a last-second, game-winning field goal attempt into oblivion.

You could almost hear the late Dikembe Mutombo, the czar of blocked shots, cackling at the sight. You could also almost hear the Packer who blocked the kick, Karl Brooks,  snarling, "Get that weak s*** outta here!"

And you likely could hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from Winnetka to Naperville because FOR GOD'S SAKE THE BLEEPITY-BLEEP BLEEPING PACKERS BEAT US AGAIN.

The hell do the Bears have to do to beat these cheese eaters? Raise Bronko Nagurski from the dead? 

After all, everything they had to do to win Sunday, they did. Caleb Williams, last seen being flattened like Wile E. Coyote run down by an Acme truck, completed 23-of-31 passes for 231 yards, ran nine times for 70 more yards and was sacked only three times. Four Bears receivers caught at least of four of Williams' throws, led by D.J. Moore (7 for 62 yards) and Rome Odunze (6 for 65). And the Bears led 19-14 with under five minutes to play.

Still, they lost. In the most Bears way possible.

First, Jordan Love led a desperate Packers drive that ended with him plunging one yard for the go-ahead score with 2:59 showing. Then Williams led the Bears right back down the field to set up Cairo Santos -- who'd already made a 53-yarder -- with a 46-yard kick to win it.

And then ...

A blocked field goal as time expired? Really?

"Aw, hell, he prolly woulda missed it anyway," disgusted Bears fans are likely saying this morning.

The fatalism is well-earned, certainly. The loss, after all, was the Bears 16th to the Packers in the last 17 meetings, and a record 11th straight. In a series that goes back 103 years, neither team had ever won 11 straight until Sunday; the last time the Bears beat the Packers was 2018, when Donald Trump was in the White House the first time.

Fun fact to know and tell: Packers head coach Matt LaFleur has never lost to the Bears. He's 11-0 lifetime.

Complementary fun fact to know and tell: That of course means Bears coach Matt Eberflus has never beaten the Packers. He's 0-for-5 in the closest thing the NFL has to an actual rivalry.

"Another reason to get rid of Eberflush," Bears Fan is likely saying now.

And also: "So if the Packers own us, does that mean the McCaskeys are finally out?"

At last a silver lining.

Of contracts and such

 One of my best friends grew up in the Detroit 'burbs, and, because Detroit is Hockeytown, his family has had Red Wings season tickets since goalies started wearing masks or something. A long time, in other words.

Anyway, for years, their seats were next to an odd duck named Bob, whose chief characteristic was a virtually impenetrable pessimism. No matter how bright the silver lining, Bob never lost sight of the cloud. He therefore became known as Black Cloud Bob.

Which is taking the long way around the barn to say I guess you could call me his spiritual kin today.

The other day, see, Indiana University handed first-year football coach Curt Cignetti $64 million (and potentially $72 mill) to continue coaching the Hoosiers through 2032. This is on account of the fact Cignetti is 10-0 right out of the box and has the Hoosiers ranked fifth in the country, their highest ranking since the Rose Bowl season 57 years ago.

All the reports on this development have said essentially the same thing: Indiana has "locked up" Cignetti with a long-term deal.

My take: This is great news. But locks can be picked.

This is not to say Cignetti, at 63, is going anywhere any time soon. But coaches' contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on these days, which means the "locked up" part is only theoretical. Some high-gloss program comes calling with a bigger wad, Coach Locked-Up will become Coach Jailbreak before you can blink twice. 

It happened to Notre Dame three years ago, when Brian Kelly kicked out a window and escaped to LSU. And if it can happen to Notre Dame, it can surely happen to Indiana.

Of course, the whole idea of extending a coach's deal is to put a firewall between the coach's current school and any potential poachers. The longer and fatter the deal, the more a competing school (or pro team) would have to pay to buy out a coach's contract.

 That was undoubtedly Indiana's goal in making Cignetti not only one of the highest-paid coaches in the Big Ten, but the highest-paid employee in the school's history. That, plus Cignetti's age, should almost certainly keep even the wealthiest poachers at arm's length.

Still ...

Still, almost certainly is only almost certainly. So it could happen. Has before, after all.

In which case, I guess you can call me Black Cloud Ben now.

Or, you know, a few less printable names.

Bayou bungles

 Your LSU Tigers lost another football game yesterday, this time to a sub-.500 Florida team in The Swamp, and somewhere in America some Rudy undoubtedly said "Gee, that's a shame." And then chuckled a bit.

This is because if you're a Notre Dame alum or subway alum, betrayal is not to be tolerated. And when Brian Kelly, the winningest coach in the school's history, fled Domerville because LSU threw a wad of cash at him, he went from being plain old Brian Kelly to being Judas IsKellyot.

Nobody leaves Notre Dame for some other lame school, or so the thinking goes in South Bend. Nobody.

But that is calcified reasoning in these transactional times, when everyone and everything has its price. It may still be the halcyon days of yore for Domers of a certain age, but not out in the world. So LSU poached, Kelly agreed to be poached, and off to Baton Rouge he went.

Where his chances at a national title have not as appreciably improved as he perhaps thought.

Instead, Kelly went 10-4 in his first year and 10-3 in this second, and LSU wound up in the Citrus Bowl and something called the ReliaQuest Bowl. This was considerably more than a stone's throw from the College Football Playoff, let alone a national championship.

This year?

Well, the Tigers started 6-0, and now they're 6-3. And Kelly, who has a disagreeable tendency to throw his players under the bus when the going gets tough, is back at it again.

Yesterday, he laid into wide receiver Chris Hilton Jr. at one point, apparently using the word "uncoachable" in his tirade. Then another LSU wideout, Kyren Lacy, was caught on camera yelling at Kelly later on.

Good times there in Geaux Tigers country. Gooood times.

In South Bend, meanwhile, Marcus Freeman has the Irish rolling at 9-1, and yesterday they handled Virginia 35-14 on Senior Day. It was their eighth straight win since the increasingly inexplicable loss to Northern Illinois, and seven of those have been by 18 or more points.

Next up are unbeaten Army and then USC, and if the No. 8 Irish get past those two they'll be 11-1 and a CFP lock. In Baton Rouge, meanwhile, Kelly will presumably still be battling his own team and getting more and more heat from an LSU fan base that's wondering when, if ever, they'll get a return on their investment.

You might call that karma, if you're a loyal son of Notre Dame. And be sorely tempted by the sin of schadenfreude -- aka, gloating.

I'm thinking those loyal sons will risk it, though.

Fight of the Centur ... zzzzzz

 Well, now. If that wasn't exactly what the Blob told you it would be a couple of days ago:

... I think it's more likely they'll trade a few non-nuclear punches until (Mike) Tyson's 58-year-old legs go away, and then (Jake) Paul will hit him and Tyson will go down. Or they'll just wallow around to an ultimately unsatisfying end.

Remember that?

Yeah, that was me. So as much as I loathe saying "I told ya so" (an obvious lie), I told ya so.

Jake Paul jabbed.  Tyson threw a few punches that looked like ... well, the kind of punches a 58-year-old man would throw. And after three rounds his 58-year-old legs went away  and they wallowed around for five more unsatisfying two-minute rounds until Paul, 31 years Tyson's junior, was declared the winner by an easy unanimous decision.

If you watched this made-for-TV show on Netflix and came away feeling you'd been had, you can't say I didn't warn you. 

This was never going to be anything but another Netflix special, like "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" except waaaay slower. Only geezer/codgers like me thought it would be anything else, mainly because we've all too many action films in which 72-year-old Liam Neeson kicks the crap out of the bad guys. 

Alas, that only happens in the movies.

In real life, it was convenient Paul and Tyson didn't climb in the ring until almost 11 p.m., because what happened after that was the perfect bedtime story. Sent all us suckers who watched it right off to dreamland. You'd have thought Netflix could have at least thrown in a couple of dance numbers to liven things up, but, nah.

Dancing With The Scars this was not. Neither was it the Fight of the Century, unless it was the 11th century and everyone in it was long dead.

Fight of the Century?

More like Fight of the Centur ... zzzzzz. Hope you slept tight.

Timeless

 Some things will always be, and a few of them we know. The sun will rise in the east.  Batteries will die when it's most inconvenient. And the next time you hit the McDonald's drive-thru, the shake machine will be broken again.

Here's one more: We'll open a sports page or website on a given morning, and there will be LeBron James, putting up another triple-double.

He did it again the other night, compiling 35 points, 12 rebounds and 14 assists to carry the Los Angeles Lakers on his back again. It was his third triple-dub in a row. He's been playing in the NBA for 21 years, and next month he'll be 40 years old.

So, yes, he is timeless, or as close to it as mortals ever come. Man discovers fire; LeBron goes for 35, 12 and 14. The Roman empire falls; LeBron drops 28, 12 and 10 on the Alaric Avengers. Wars come and go; civilizations rise and fall; the Wright brothers fly ...

... and LeBron rings up another triple-dub. He just goes on and on, like that Buick Skylark you've had since 1978.

And I suppose this is the part where someone even dumber than me would stir up The Debate again, but I'm not goin' there. The old heads say Michael Jordan is the undisputed greatest basketball player in history, unless it's Kareem. I won't argue. I mean, I could, but it's as pointless as arguing with a Trumper. They know what they know, and what they don't know they don't want to know.

What I will say is this: Lebron James is the greatest basketball player in history who's in his 22nd NBA season and turns 40 next month.

Jordan played 15 years and turned 40 in his last season, too, but he'd become primarily a jumpshooter by then. In his last season, with the Washington Wizards, he averaged 20 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists.

Kareem? He played 20 seasons and turned 42 in the last one, when he averaged 10.1 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.0 assists. He was a shadow of his former self that last year, playing just 22 minutes per game.

As of this morning, LeBron James, 39 for another month, is still logging 40.8 minutes per game. And he's averaging 24.3 points, 8.1 rebounds and 9.4 assists -- the latter of which places him third in the league in the season's early stages.

Did someone say "timeless"?

Oh, you bet. Go back 15, 16 years and dial up footage of him, and he's virtually the same player he is now. Except for the slings and arrows of advancing age, he's still doing a lot of the same things on the floor he did as a 22- or 23- or 24-year-old.

And that, boys and girls, is damn remarkable. So here's to him.