Dear 2021

 Dear 2021:

In 15 or so hours we say goodbye, and thank God for that. All the unkind things we said about 2020 -- Get the (bleep) outta here, and (Bleep), you're still here?, and (Bleep) (bleeper) (bleeping) (bleep-bleep) -- we're now saying about you.

It's as if 2020 responded by saying "(Bleep) you, I'm going to put this 2021 mask on and stick around for another year! How you like THEM apples, (bleepers)?"

Well ... we don't.

I mean, you began, 2021, with our raving, delusional Previous Occupant sending his mob of gun-toting loonies to attack the seat of American government, a scary but pitiful attempt to overturn his blowout election loss. Some called it an insurrection, some called it a failed coup, but mostly it was just a ginormous temper tantrum -- the Previous Occupant's Beer Hall Putsch, if you will, only dumber.

A few days later, the actual winner of the election was inaugurated. And a couple of days after that, as if you couldn't stand to leave us alone for EVEN A MNUTE, Henry Aaron died.

Yeah, thanks for that, 2021. And thanks for killing Don Sutton and Elgin Baylor and Marty Schottenheimer and Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Wayne Gretzky's dad, too. And John Madden and BETTY WHITE?

That was a sweet signoff to the year. Bastard.

No, 2021, you were not the response we were looking for when we said "At least it won't be 2020 anymore." Instead, you replied, "Oh, yeah? Watch this."

To repeat myself: Bastard.

Oh, and thanks for the Bastard Plague, which stuck around and then mutated and turned the Olympics into Citius, Altius, Fortius, Emptius, and now is trying its best to ruin the NBA and NHL seasons and the NFL playoffs. 

Good stuff?

Well, we did get Helio Castroneves' fourth Indy 500 win, and Tiger Woods and his son Charlie playing golf together, and the Astros losing another World Series. Ghislaine Maxwell, sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein's pimp, got sentenced to the hoosegow for procuring underage girls to sate Epstein's pedophilia. And we finally got the hell out of Afghanistan, even if the Biden administration botched the exit.

That was good, 2021. But then, of course, you had to give us degenerates like Trevor Bauer, and crazy people like Kyrie Irving and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, and all the loony anti-vaxxers who've so helped muck up Sportsball World. Oh, and a few more mass shootings from the usual collection of psycho gun nuts.

Doesn't quite come out even, 2021. And so out the door you go.

And please DO let it hit you in the hindparts on the way out.

(Bleep) you,

The Blob

Product placement

 The coolest thing that happened in Sportsball World yesterday was not Purdue beating Tennessee in overtime in the Music City Bowl, although that was pretty cool, and epic -- come on, Aidan O'Connell threw for 534 yards and five touchdowns, people -- and the best of the Mobile Phone/Lending Institution/Tax Preparer/Chicken Sandwich bowls so far.

No, sir. The coolest thing that happened was South Carolina coach Shane Beamer bravely taking it like a man as his players dumped a vat of mayonnaise on his head.

This happened because Beamer's Gamecocks beat North Carolina in the Duke's Mayo Bowl, which is another of those awful corporate shill bowls but which actually had some fun with it by dumping Duke's product all over the winning coach. This had to be extraordinarily gross for poor Beamer, but his team won so he was able to smile his way through it.

Meanwhile, Wyoming's players dumped a bucket of french fries on head coach Craig Bohl's head after the Cowboys beat Kent State in, what else, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. And so a trend has apparently begun that could eventually end in tragedy.

I mean, pouring a bucket of mayonnaise or french fries or, I don't know, shredded W-2s on the head of the TaxSlayer Bowl winning coach is one thing. But, good lord, what if there's someday another radial tire bowl? Or, worse, another lawn implement bowl, aka the fabled Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl?

I can see the screaming, black-bordered headlines now ...

WINNING COACH TRIMMED TO DEATH IN TRAGIC SEARS CRAFTSMAN FOUR-PLY LAWN IMPLEMENT BOWL CELEBRATION.

'At Least He Went Out With His Edges Straight,' Grieving Players Say.

Or, you know, something like that.

Bowled over

 So now we know the truth, or at least MY truth.

(Because we've all got our own truth now, apparently. It's like those personalized coffee mugs you see here and there, with BRENDEN and KATEE and CAYDEN and MADYSON printed on them. Choose the truth with your name on it and let's go!)

Anyway ... my truth says this: The Bastard Plague hates all these useless bowl games, too.

This after the Holiday Bowl was canceled because too many UCLA Bruins players showed red for the Plague, and the Bruins pulled out hours before kickoff. This reportedly annoyed their opponent, North Carolina State, which apparently really, really, really wanted them some Holiday Bowl.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 issues have also canceled the Hawai'i Bowl, Military Bowl, Fenway Bowl and Arizona Bowl. This meant eight more deserving schools, some proudly  carrying the laurels of 6-6 campaigns, did not get their postseason reward -- although one hopes the players still scored their bowl swag, which now will have added value as collector's items.

And, yes, the Blob is making light of all this, and it probably shouldn't. The schools, even the 6-6 schools, actually do relish playing in these games, even the Cricket Celebration Bowl and the PUGB Mobile New Mexico Bowl. And even if some of the 6-6 schools (ahem, the Blob's alma mater, Ball State) subsequently demonstrate they had no business being within a nautical mile of a bowl game.

Nevertheless, they consider these games a reward for an almost-successful season, so who is the Blob to make light of that. Nor should it make light of this new surge in COVID-19 cases, which have not only wreaked havoc with Sportsball World but are again overwhelming our beleaguered health-care system.

The worst of it is this new variant (known as "Omicron," or "Fresh Hell") has taken advantage of America's Bastard Plague fatigue, and the fact the anti-vaxxers and other fringe loonies appear to be winning the war for hearts and minds. They've gone full Braveheart mode over employer vaccine mandates, turning a simple work rule in the face of a national health crisis into some sort of soul-crushing tyranny.

Only people who've never known actual tyranny can do this, of course, and by God are they good at it. Meanwhile the national death toll is up over 800,000, and Cincinnati's mayor has declared a state of emergency because the Plague has so depleted the fire department.

In Indiana, meanwhile, where hospital beds are down to nothing again and new 'rona cases are at levels unseen in nearly a year, Gov. Eric Holcomb seems to have lost his patience with the loonies in his own party and elsewhere.

In the statehouse, Repubs are pushing a bill that would outlaw private employers mandating vaccinations, a mandate in itself. And Indiana, in its usual bullheaded way, continues to have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation -- which seemed to particularly frustrate Holcomb the other day.

One could almost imagine, listening to him, that after his news conference he went off to  a soundproof room and screamed "What the (bleep) is wrong with you boneheads?!"

Goodness. It seems I've strayed down a rabbit hole here.

("No s***," you're saying)

In any case, the Bastard Plague is wrecking stuff again, even the Fenway Bowl. But at least it couldn't stop the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, where a team that went 3-6 in the Big Ten (Maryland) ball-peened a team that went 4-4 in the ACC (Virginia Tech), 54-10.

Perhaps that's a bowl game that should have been canceled. Or at least played with a running clock, please.

A coach takes his leave

 John Madden's burden was always that he was too good at his second act. It made people forget how good he was at his first act.

And that was the act that mattered most to him.

Madden, who died suddenly Tuesday morning at 85, won 16 Emmys as a broadcaster and got his name on a video game that launched an entire genre, but before all that, and mainly, he was a football coach. If you cut him, he bled Xs and Os. If you gave him access to a telestrator, he ...

Well. We all know what he did with that.

He became famous for the way he drew all over your TV screen like a toddler coloring outside the lines. If much of the world knew him as that guy, and the guy who traveled everywhere on a bus because he hated to fly, and the guy who said "Boom!" all the time with unrestrained zeal, it was the football coach in him who informed all that.

Casual observers of the Madden phenomenon might be shocked to learn he wasn't just a novelty act as a coach. In 10 years prowling the Oakland Raiders sideline, his teams won 103 games and a Super Bowl and played in seven AFC title games. His .759 winning percentage remains the best in NFL history among coaches with at least 100 games -- better than Lombardi, better than Landry, better than Shula or Noll or Walsh or Belichick.

The youngest coach in NFL history when Al Davis handed him the reins at the age of 32, Madden was just 42 when he turned in his clipboard. It left him with a whole pile of life still to live, and consequently his broadcasting career lasted three times longer than his coaching career.

So that's how the world came to know him, mainly. He was the cheerful rumpled man who explained the game in layman's terms, and who sold you beer and food and power tools on the tube, and who became, well, a celebrity.

He lived in Gilda Radner's old apartment in New York, and befriended Yoko Ono and her son, Sean Lennon, and made an NFL fan out of Elton John. 

And yet, that's not why the flags aren't at half-staff at the Pro Football Hall of Fame today.  Nor is it why all those old Raiders are mourning today.

They're mourning because John Madden was their Hall of Fame coach, and they loved him long before the rest us did. And that's his most enduring legacy.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 16

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the double-vaxxed, boosted, masked, asymptomatic Blob feature of which critics have said "I don't care! Stay away from me!", and also "You're sick! I can tell you're sick! I cast you out! Out, I tell you!"

1. "OK, who wants to play offensive line tonight? Lucky fans now eligible with negative test!" (The New Orleans Saints, who played the Dolphins Monday night missing 20 players because of Bastard Plague protocols)

2. "Woo-hoo! My first NFL start!" (Saints backup-backup quarterback Ian Book)

3. "Aaaaahhh! Aaaaaahhh!" (Ian Book, running for his life in the Saints' 20-3 loss, in which the Dolphins sacked Book eight times)

4. Saints' O-line lineup: Joe Bob, Jim Bob, Tim Bob, Tom Bob and Bob Bob.

 5. Meanwhile, the Colts!

6. Beat the Cardinals despite being depleted themselves, thanks in part to Carson Wentz's stellar outing.

7. Live look this week at Colts' quarterback Carson Wentz, who's unvaccinated on a team that now has 14 players in The Protocols. 

8. "See? We can so win!" (The Bears)

9. "Yeah, but it was just the Seahawks." (America)

10. "Why don't THESE teams have 'rona issues?" (Also America, watching the Jets beat Jacksonville in the Relegation Bowl)

Blue echoes

 The Blob makes no claim to seeing patterns in things. Mostly I'm just an old guy who remembers stuff.

And so I see Carson Wentz make throws when he needs to and Jonathan Taylor lug it for 100-plus yards for, like, the eleventy-hundredth time, and I see the Colts outlast the Cardinals on the road for their eighth win in the last 10 games. And it reminds me of something.

It reminds me of 2006, kinda.

And, please. Pay special attention to the "kinda."

That's because the Blob is not going to go off its meds and declare these Colts are going to wind up winning the Super Bowl, the way the 2006 Colts did. But the way this team is winning games jogs my memory, kinda. And the memory it jogs is the way the 2006 Colts won that Super Bowl in the rain in Miami.

They did it, kinda, with defense and a running game.

They beat the Chiefs 23-8, the Ravens 15-6 and held the Patriots to 13 points in the second half to reach the Super Bowl. Then they held the Bears' offense to 10 points in the 29-17 Super Bowl win.

And, yes, Peyton Manning did Peyton Manning things in that playoff run. But Dominic Rhodes and Joseph Addai gave Manning a run game, too, going over 100 yards between them in each of the Colts playoff wins.

In the Super Bowl, Rhodes lugged it 21 times for 113 yards, and Addai got the call 19 more times for 77 yards. He also caught 10 passes for 66 yards.

That should have made him the Super Bowl MVP, in the Blob's opinion. But Manning was named the MVP because quarterbacks are almost always the Super Bowl MVP unless they actively soil themselves -- and besides, this quarterback was Peyton Manning.

Now, Carson Wentz is not Peyton Manning. He's never going to be Peyton Manning.

But Jonathan Taylor is Jonathan Taylor -- i.e., the best RB in the league this year -- and he's doing exactly what Addai and Rhodes did together in 2006, which is put up 100 yards every week in the stretch run. And the defense is putting the brakes on people just enough for Taylor and Not Peyton Manning to get the W. And these Colts have bounced back from a 1-4 star -- kinda (that word again) like the 2006 Colts bounced back from a 3-4 regular-season finish to win it all.

Again, the analogy isn't perfect. And this is not the Blob saying 2006 is going to happen again. 

All I'm saying is there's a resemblance -- a blue echo, if you will. And it's ... kinda  interesting.

Have a merry, everyone

 Christmas Eve now, and at last a break from Crazytown 2021. A brief pause, if you will, for those of us who do so to observe the birth of a Prince of Peace whose grace transcends the madness of kings and wanna-be kings.

Which is to say: Happy Merry Holidays Christmas, everyone. Health and good fortune and every other blessing to you and yours from the Blob, which occasionally can be less glib than usual if it really tries.

This being Christmas Eve, and Christmas Eve being the province of such things, here's one of the Blob's yearly traditions -- a snippet of Dickens I always recycle on this date:

"Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him."

Merry Christmas.