The Barrister

Welp. Hurricane Sandy is upon us, I’m holed up in Central Massachusetts in probably the first of many moments of overprotective parenting, The Scizz is ragestorming at the flippancy of twitter in a time of potential crisis, Yachtsman and Apologist are playing video games like the two brave burnouts they are, Outlander is cursing the fact he had to work and remain in close proximity to certified morons, and The Continental is currently cruising the aisles at her local supermarket in the hopes of bedding some hurricane tail.

Just so we’re all clear about the current state of things. 

Don't Worry. I'm Here To Help.

This past week/weekend brought yet another slate of highly entertaining soccer, with MLS playoff implications to be decided, Champions League and Europa action, and a Merseyside Derby that will have my blood boiling for at least another week. Or, at least until I have consumed at least a dozen or so adult sodas in rapid succession. 

On top of the events on the pitches of the footballing world, news has come out that NBC Universal has successfully obtained the American television rights for the English Premier League, and their announcement has made it clear that American fans should expect expanding coverage and, more importantly, options to watch all games in real time. While the skeptic in me reigns supreme, especially after the coverage fails during the Summer Olympics, I’m looking forward to what this might look like next year. 

And, as Grant Wahl mentioned on Twitter today, this deal may spell bad things for the NHL’s market share if they don’t fucking get their act together. Interesting stuff, in any event.

On to the steaming hot takes!!

The Scizz

I'm going to keep this pretty short this week because I have a gajillion tasks to accomplish before I head to State College this weekend for Ohio State/Penn State, but more on that later. (In Jim Gaffigan voice: GASP! He must support child rapists because that's what all PSU fans do! For shame.)

The Buffalo Bills suck. There is no way around it. Sure, 3-4 isn't the worst position this team has been in over the past 12 years of playoff drought, but I have almost no confidence left in this team. They have been blown out three times (once when they had a commanding first half lead), lost another that was 100% in their control to win, and won another that by all means should have been a loss. The latter two falling mostly on a shitty coaching staff that appears to have no clue how the 2012 NFL works. In short, this is not good. I could go on more about last week's debacle, but the Apologist did a pretty solid job already. I will say that immediately after the game, I wasn't even that upset. As soon as Fitz threw that god-awful pick, I knew the team was doomed. I guess after all of these terrible years, I have become mostly numb to the stupidity I see from Buffalo week in and week out. The only time I even got remotely ragey about the Bills this week was after I saw a Stevie Johnson jersey on the Subway, and started thinking about those two awesome touchdown strikes Fitzpatrick had, and then pictured that interception again. 

I. Just. Don't. Get. It. 

For better analysis, check out Michael Necci's wrap-up over at Buffalo Wins, which I can't link to because my apparently my employer feels that site is inappropriate. Odd. (Sidenote: I mentioned on twitter this week that I want to poach this guy for DGWU and name him "The General." Then I remembered he is a Lakers fan and pictured Dwight Howard being beheaded French Revolution style while I cheer on and Necci cries in terror. Jesus, I'm a terrible person.)

Anyway, this week should be about enjoying yourself and not thinking about this shit-stain team and the agony they cause. That's my goal for this week's Bye Week Bonanza. YOU'RE WELCOME.

The Continental

Welcome back for round two.  To recap, last week I asked whether or not one should have any qualms nailing someone who has the same name as an immediate family member.  The long and short of it is that you are all in solidarity with mankind's quest to lay pipe, and I should feel no shame banging someone who shares my father's name.  Thanks for enabling me, scumbags.  

Unfortunately, the inspiration for my query was not at my local watering hole for the Tennessee game.  However, I did proceed to drink heavily, naturally, and by 4pm I was a shell of my sober/rational self.  Should you need verification please consult my twitter timeline.  Instead of drinking another bucket of Coor's Light by myself during the J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS game, I ended up in Brooklyn.  The day pretty much ended with me YELLING at a giant about John Starks, rewatching Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. New York for the fourth time while eating soup out of a plastic container with chopsticks, and smoking hand rolled cigarettes.  

My life, ladies and gentlemen.  

Question from last weeks comments: What exactly are Burger King pants? - DAKUNT

Excellent question DAKUNT, and now I am slightly tinged with regret that I did not choose "The Cuntinental" as my halfassed attempt to hide my identity.  Not like I needed any help being vulgar, but there's a freebie insult for you guys if you hate me.  

Ok, so Burger King pants are those shitty fucking $6 pants from Steve & Barry's that all fastfood, gas station, and janitorial employees wear.  The Outlander noticed this due to the many WNY Burger Kings he frequents (not as many as Harrington though AMIRIGHT!).  But yes, it bears mentioning that in addition to a lack of a depth of character, emotional stability, or backbone, Mike Harrington also lacks a sense of style, as evidenced by his Burger King pants and this photo:

The Apologist

Hello, everyone. It's good to see you all.

It's been a while. I've been away for a very long time and for that I am sorry. I hope you'll find it in your hearts to forgive me.

From the time LeBron hoisted his championship trophy to the time my Orioles saw their fairy tale season come to an end, I haven't been able to string together more than three sentences about sports. I could tell you about the ups & downs of my life over the last few months, but one of my co-contributors brought a human being into the world during that same stretch and outproduced me by about 287-0. So no excuses. All I can say is, well, I apologize.

Hug?

Ok, you're right. It's too soon.

Who am I kidding? Five people noticed I was gone and four are other members of the Deeg. The Continental's never heard of me. Let's move along.

The Barrister


Oh fiddlesticks in the meadow with the cows as they're coming home, it's 5 am and I can't sleep and I wager my son will wake up by the time I finish this poor excuse for a post and I have to be at church in 4 hours and woohoo! fatherhood!

Much of this may not make any sense. Also: Apologist may be posting on the heels of this, so with any luck barely anyone will read it. Also also: I do not intend to use impeccable punctuation, grammar or spelling. So be sure to hop on the comments to make yourself feel better by pointing out my errors. Only pimple-faced trolls make it a habit of starting fights on the internet, anyway.... /ignores clear hypocrisy of that statement /takes yet another bite of now stale baptismal cake from last week /gulps down half glass of milk mixed with my vanishing integrity

The world of world football marches on, despite my wish that it would take a slight break while I try to get some fucking rest, and this week was chock full of action and, happily, not the typical slate of depressing results. There are a couple of games to still happen this morning -- Roma plays, I believe, which would satisfy lingering Michael Bradley lust if I hadn't just watched Mr. Clean in USMNT action; and QPR is at home to surprisingly strong, but waiting for the other shoe to drop, Everton. Neither of these matches I will watch, though if anything all that interesting happens, I reserve the right to usurp Aps' post with a hastily slapped together update with some bad jokes about Italians and/or some BonerJamz references to my love for Timmy Howard. 

On to the hot takes!!*

The Deeg


What a busy week it has been at DGWU Sports! Between news of the NHL Lockout and our battles with the various personalities at WGR for refusing, as is their custom, to engage with viewpoints other than (a) their own, or (b) those of the mouthbreathers who call into WGR and make it their mission to express their vehement disdain for everything in the world, there was a LOT to discuss when we gathered Wednesday night. More shots were fired and kindling put onto the world of Buffalo sports media so that we can continue to watch it burn. Heh. Sports.

Oh, and there are those Buffalo Bills, too, which is actually where we started in segment one as we recapped the shit show that was Sunday with the Deeg. Bills @ Cardinals was by no means an enjoyable time, but recapping the fun times we had and the trainwreck of a game ended up being pretty fun/depressing/rage-inducing.

In segment two we welcomed Colin Bruckel, one of the founders of TheHosers.com, a site we have linked to for a while and which provides stellar insight about the legal issues surrounding professional hockey and, in particular, the CBA. Colin's assessment of the current CBA negotiations was as interesting and well-presented as any I've heard, and it is an understatement to say that we were lucky to have him on. I would note, however, that since our discussion took place before the NHLPA presented its own offers to the league (and before Bettman rejected them immediately), you'll want to keep an eye on his site for more hot legal takes. Or you could continue being ignorant and just keep listening to the superficialities of sports talk radio.

Segment three brings it back to our wheelhouse of inappropriateness and ill-conceived sports takes as we talk the USMNT's win on Tuesday, the NBA's new policy restricting pre-game celebrations, Apologist's suicidal ideations following the Orioles' elimination from the playoffs, and our predictions for the Bills/Titans game this weekend. I must add that we had intended to talk more about (read: make fun of) Shawne Merriman's return to Buffalo, but had to toss that to the back burner so we'd have time to talk about the more pressing issues of gloating about our intellectual superiority over talk radio hosts. It's a burden, really. In any event, I'm hopeful that Merriman's second tenure in the 716 will give us plenty of opportunities to point and laugh. 

Musical interludes this week are provided by Broken Bells, Gov't Mule & REO Speedwagon, as well as - of course - The Jambrones. 

Download here and stream below, or check out our Libsyn page or iTunes button below where you can get all of our archived podcasts and subscribe for future hot, aural takes.

The Scizz

That game made my eyes bleed.

I honestly feel that's all I really need to say about last week. Yes, a win is a win, but good God that was ugly. How terrible is it that we are so desperate for a winning team, that we are attempting to convince ourselves that this team still has a shot at the playoffs. It's asinine. I want it just as much as anyone else, but stop telling me I'm supposed to just be happy about last week and move on. No way, not with that attempt at football I saw on Sunday from Ryan Fitzpatrick. Nooooooooope!

Let me give you a little bit of my own personal point/counterpoint I experienced in my head Monday morning. This is what happens when optimistic Scizz meets Ragestorm Scizz. I’ve been studying the same crazy homeless man on the L train for the past three weeks and think I have this whole arguing with yourself thing down pat. I think you can figure out which personality is which.

Phew! That was a close one. Nice to finally get a big road win.

KOLB AND SKELTON ARE PILES OF SHIT!! THIS TEAM IS GAAAAAAAARBAAAAAAAAGE!!!!!

Whatever, it was nice to see an improvement of the running game. Sure, Chan should have probably handed the ball off at least another 8 – 12 times, but the ground game was established well enough to even let the Bills’ shitty quarterback make a few key passes in the 4th quarter.

BUT WHY DOES IT MATTER WHEN THE QUARTERBACK IS SO SHITTY HE ALMOST SINGLE HANDIDLY COST BUFFALO THE GAME??!!!!?!?!?!?

This is a good point, Scizz. I noticed you tweeted at one point that nobody else was to blame for the team’s deficiencies except Fitz. I have to agree it was comical that he was under/over throwing all of his receivers to the point that every wideout through his arms up in disgust at least once. Maybe Chan has finally realized the QB issue and made the play calling suit their style more? They definitely didn’t abandon the run.

THERE WAS STILL 5 WIDE SETS ON SECOND AND SEVEN. THIS INJUSTICE MUST NOT BE OVER LOOKED!!! OH YEAH, AND LET’S HAVE GIANT WASTE OF FUCKING MONEY BRAD SMITH THROW A DEEP BALL ON WHAT COULD BE CONSIDERED ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PLAYS OF THE GAME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

You’re right. That play call was ridiculous, but it’s nice to see a coach have the guts to take chances like that. Years ago we hated milquetoast Jauron, now we chastise Chan for doing the opposite. Anyways, how about that defensive line? Mario Williams looked like an animal, and even the great white joke, Chris Kelsay got a safety.

First of all, FUCK CHRIS KELSAY!!!! NOTHING HE EVER DOES IS GOOD! HE GETS NO RESPECT!!!!!! AND MARIO NEEDS MORE THAN TWO GOOD GAMES AGAINST SHITTY O-LINES TO GET MY RESPECT!

Yeah, it was nice to see Williams put together another great game, but not enough credit is given to Kyle Williams and Dareus for plugging up the middle.

FUCK THAT!!!! I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE DOUCHEBAG FANS WHO KEPT TWEETING “Ooooo still mad at the Mario contract, haterz? Looks like he proved all ya’ll wrong!” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! 16 GAME SEASON MEANS CONSISTENCY AGAINST ALL FOES. NOT JUST O-LINES THAT LET IN 22 SACKS OVER THREE WEEKS! FUCKING TWATS!

Agreed. Those people are twats. At least he is playing well against those shitty teams. Remember Fitzpatrick is playing shitty against almost everyone and the linebackers and secondary (minus Byrd) are a constant liability.

WHY DID YOU REMIND ME OF THAT! SDKFHEFHNMFSMDFBEFJKQHENFJQWEFHEJK3FBMNDBCKJDHFJKEBJFBEJFRH3JK!!^*$#@!!!!!

Ok, calm down. At least Nick Barnett had two sacks !

GAAAAAAH BILLS MAFIA LEEEEGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEND!! HAAAAAAAAAATE  HAAAAAAAAAA  /head explodes.

Let's move onto some analysis, shall we?

The Continental

I figured before I start spouting off what will undoubtedly be regrettable and reprehensible advice, I should introduce myself.  I am The Continental, and I'm from a town smaller and shittier than yours in Western New York.  Why The Continental?  Well, because like the breakfast I'm not warm, and like the airline I have a spotty safety record and require intense negotiations before entering a merger.  That or I'm a degenerate creep, you decide.  Now I rep the 718, pretty much as well as any white girl can.

Since I'm a Bills and Sabres fan I am also quite adept at hating myself, which could also be one of the reasons everyone thinks I'm Jewish perhaps?  Who knows. But moving to New York has offered me so many more opportunities to sulk; Enter the Knicks, Mets, and St. John's basketball.  (PS. Fuck you Syracuse turncoat shit sippers.) Onto the questions!

"Who is your daddy and what does he do" -- @ScottyMCSS

Retired school teacher, athletic enthusiast, and steeply banked in that old man alcoholism of Western New York. Every summer he used to throw down so many cases of Genny Cream, it was incredible.  Now that he has retired, his pension money is going straight to Labatt Blue Lights. You know how LBL introduced the Labatt Blue Light Lime? Well, my father thought it was bullshit they were charging more for a case of LBLL than LBL, so what is a retired science teacher to do?  Experiment.  Now he buys LBL's and throws in lime juice, which of course took him a while to get the exact ratio right.  My mother, who's still with him is either a saint or has a prescription pill addiction.  (PS: make a better Arnold reference next time, I'm no scrub.)



"Now that I don't have 3 hrs a night paid to do nothing, when's the best time to do my scrapbooking?" -Matt Ellis aka -@SabresScratch

Scrapbooking is no longer trendy in the ladyverse.  It is too time consuming and you actually have to do something with your hands.  Pintrest.  Pintrest everything.  Bitches love Pintrest.  But to you Matt Ellis, I think Tumblr is definitely more your game.  Why?  Porn, lots of porn.  Porn everywhere.  Real porn, not just lady porn.  Lots of any kind of porn you want.  A solid 45% of my porn consumption comes from Tumblr.

"Dear Continental, why do the Bills suck and why are all women insane? I assume these can be answered similarly." -@fgif

The Bills are bad because life isn't fair and women are crazy because life isn't fair.  You need to work with what football gives you.  Get blackout drunk, puke on a Jets fan, and enjoy spending time with your friends, because at the end of the day football and related activities make life more fun until we die.  Most importantly it's a safe place where it's okay if you get black out drunk before 3:30pm.  But honestly, we're just waiting for the perfect season to come along so we're biding our time, right?

Women? You just need the correct calibration of crazy.  Is she crazy in bed?  Almost always good.  Is she crazy to your friends and family?  Eh, how crazy in bed is she?  Basically what I'm saying to women everywhere is be nasty in bed and men will overlook all the lady-shit we love and they hate (Bravo TV, Ru Paul television shows, leaf peeping, dinner parties.)  Not a straight up freak?  Try harder!  But this bartering system also works with Die Hard and Lethal Weapon movies, so sit there and keep your mouth shut and he will mostly do the same the next time you want to watch Real World/Road Rules Challenge. And again, significant others make life more palatable, more so than football, so we keep at it because we're just waiting for the perfect one for us to come along/come on.  WORD PLAY!


"Miss continental, every sports team has a player that all the husky gals LOVE. Who is that player on the Bills this year?" -@boner_shorts

The thing about husky gals, especially husky gals still in the 716 is they totally lack a sense of proportion.  Odds are they think they could land Stevie with their "Mizz Thang" g-string peeking over their too tight denim miniskirt at whatever bar on Chippewa is hosting DJ Anthony from KISS 98.5 these days. That or the husky gal wants to feel positively waiflike and would go for a mega husker like Kraig Urbik or Erik Pears.  I'm guessing these girls will only sleep with white boys, but this could just be residual bias from my backwater hick-town. 

And here's where I want to ask you degenerate creeps a question in what I will call:

"Are you there Deegers?  It's me The Continental."

Where do you loyal Deegers stand on sleeping with someone who has the same name as an immediate family member? 

Drop your offensive answers in the comments or e-mail/tweet me to be posted next week. Keep those questions coming!

The Barrister

Yesterday, following a night where I got little sleep due to fatherly duties and an ill-conceived desire to bait racist Obama-haters on the internets at 4 am, I awoke to a familiar theme in my Twitter feed from a familiar source.  Jeremy White, WGR morning show pocket rocket, was criticizing the NHLPA and players for their (alleged) insistence on portraying themselves as victims. He doesn't think fans - not most fans, but ANY fans - buy that kind of meme, and he thinks fans - not some fans, but ALL fans - will eventually turn on the players as a result.  In a stunning bit of word gymnastics, he criticized the NHLPA for a PR strategy while, in a subsequent response, claiming that PR is irrelevant. 

This wasn't the first time I heard something similar from him about how stupid the players are to whine about their situation and about how their "playing the victim" routine is bound to backfire. I haven't seen much about the owners "whining" (as if a forced work stoppage was anything other than a petulant tantrum in grownup terms) in his critiques, of course, so you're definitely right, before we continue, to question whether I chose a nonstarter and whether an employee at the "Radio Home of the Buffalo Sabres" would bother conceding any points about the quality of the players' position in this whole fiasco. (More on that in the future, I'm sure...)

Though, perhaps stupidly, I chose to engage. I had points to make, what with White's consistent anti-labor diatribes and my general sympathy for those wishing to adhere to contractual principles of fairness. Out of character for me, I had enough restraint to make my points without calling Mr. White a douchebag or fascist or idiot or any number of things that I thought then and have thought since. I'm a documented asshole, and these are the kinds of things I think sometimes.  I went to law school, in part, to channel my energy more constructively so people would like me more.  So, I tried to be nice, tried to be persuasive, and generally found myself colliding with a brick wall of contrarian nonsense in consistent support of NHL ownership's power grab. Huh. #StateSponsoredRadio

Using my conversation with White as a point of reference, Outlander talked yesterday about how disappointing WGR and the Buffalo News tend to be with their lockout coverage - something not exclusive to WNY - and how it's especially disappointing given the general sophistication (meaning attention to details, not necessarily expertise or general intelligence) of Buffalo hockey fans. Outlander made the point, long obvious, but no less true, that we deserve better.

Outlander also left the door open for future debate. And since the lockout may or may not be close to ending, and since my conversation with Mr. White, by it's nature on twitter, was character limited and, perhaps more importantly, unavailable to fans of the Deeg not on Twitter, I wanted to take an opportunity to flesh a few things out. 

And since I (and others) already did the polite discussion routine to no avail, I can't promise I'm not about to be a huge dick right now. You've been warned.

The Outlander

I really thought it was going to take longer than one week and what, two games before I’d tweak out and put fingers to keyboard about the NHL lockout. I mean, between the play-calling from the head coach, the defensive schemes of the mustachioed DC, the inability of the quarterback to throw anything aside from a screen pass, and the general douchebaggery of the CEO and ownership, the Bills certainly give us plenty to talk about, though substantively little to cheer about. There are our fantasy football teams, the baseball playoffs- which should certainly keep the soulless parasites that cheer for the Yankees and Cardinals fairly entertained, and a wildly engaging college football season which I have attempted to encapsulate to fill our hockey void. As for the frozen game itself, we got a team an hour down the Thruway stacked with Foligno, Girgensons, and McNabb, as well as numerous college hockey options both inside the area and- thanks to increased television exposure- outside the area.

In most conversations during the summer I anticipated I wouldn’t really give a shit until November and that my personal prediction (a season that starts with the Winter Classic) wouldn’t be too irritating anyways. After all, under such a scenario, you have numerous young players who have taken their licks in basically the AHL on steroids, and veterans who have played against each other in quality European leagues. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that this is just fucking stupid. There’s so much goddamned white noise being spewed at us from every direction; it’s enough to wear down even the most diligently informed fans, mostly because NO ONE is talking to the diligently informed fans. I’m not talking about those of us with law degrees or experience in contract negotiations, I’m simply talking about the many of us who like to stay informed on the negotiations, the developments. No one is talking to us. In that way it really parallels the non-stop squawking that so many tire of during the never-ending Presidential election cycle (yours truly not included, as any of my poor twitter followers are acutely aware). The candidates and their surrogates aren’t speaking to those who scour the internet for news or who have solid opinions on what the social safety net should look like, they’re going after the meathead in Massilion, Ohio whose brother got laid off in 2008 and needs someone to get angry at. It’s why juries never want too many educated people; just one or two who can be swayed and then sway their ignorant and apathetic colleagues.