Sports

How shocking was the past week in sports?

By January 17, 2013June 18th, 2018No Comments
lance manti

lance manti

I don’t know if you heard, but some things happened this week in sports.  As I sit here writing on Wednesday night, I’m already pretty sure that this is the oddest week in sports in our lifetime.  Any one of this week’s events would have made it a surprising week, but this is the week that just won’t quit.  So, here is a recap of the week (plus Saturday. Thank you, stupid NFL playoff schedule) and just how shocking it was on a scale of 1-10.

The NFL playoffs are for idiots. 5

Stupid people said: Peyton Manning always has a bad game in the playoffs in cold weather.  He’s gonna suck and the Broncos are gonna lose.

Smart people said:  Peyton Manning was always on the road when he played outdoors in the playoffs in the past.  He is used to Denver, and has a real defense supporting him.  Besides, the Broncos haven’t lost since week 5.  They will be fine.

Stupid people said: The Patriots killed the Texans last time they played.  They’re gonna do it again.

Smart people said:  The Texans are a very good team and hopefully learned something from getting destroyed the first time.  Also, the cold weather favors a running team over a team that is more reliant on the pass.  The Texas will at least make it a game.

The stupid people were right, and the smart people were wrong.  Peyton sucked, the Texans sucked, my playoff predictions sucked.  I’m man enough to admit when I was wrong and I was.  I can live with it, just as long as we can all agree that the Patriots cannot possibly win it all again.  I hope.

Lance Armstrong took steroids. 2
Lance Armstrong admitted to taking steroids. 9

Lance Armstrong is like that rich popular kid from high school that seemed to get away with murder and never got caught.  Meanwhile, you got busted every time you had a duffle bag of Busch Lights in the trunk of your Jeep (thanks, John).  Everyone knows what he was up to, but somehow Lance just kept getting away with it.  He was able to dodge every drug-testing agency that came after him, and arrogantly shoved it in their faces.  Still, no matter how good Armstrong was at avoiding guilt, no man is a match for the journalistic might of Oprah.

I don’t really care that cycling is a dirty sport (or that it is a sport at all, for that matter), but it’s nice to see the rich popular kid finally go down.

The Chicago Bears hired a coach from Canada. 7

The Bears said they wanted a head coach that would improve their offense.  My Canadian sources tell me that, in the CFL, teams get two tries to get a first down before they have to punt.  At least that will make the Bears more efficient. 

Manti Te’o’s girlfriend isn’t dead.  She was never alive. 22

Here is a three-step guide to becoming a Heisman finalist if you’re a college football player that doesn’t play a glory position.  1) Be on a high profile team.  2) Get your face in front of every camera you can find – before games, after games.  Know where the camera is during games so you can look right at it after plays. 3) Have a friend make up a fake girl that you then date.  Claim the girl dies hours after a real relative dies (just to really drive the point home).  Play off of people’s sympathy for you to get your face in front of even more cameras.  BAM, you’re in.  Celebrate by taking the National Title Game off.

In an intensely disturbing tale that totally ripped off the movie Catfish, lies and fake twitter accounts came crashing down on Te’o Wednesday afternoon.  Notre Dame responded saying ‘Uh, yeah.  We’ll look into that.  Surely, it’s not Te’os fault though’.  Te’o said, ‘I had no idea my girlfriend wasn’t a person.  I WAS TRICKED’.

You know what? I believe both of them.  This certainly wasn’t some sort of sick ruse by Te’o to get more attention.  He had no idea his girlfriend wasn’t real.  He is clearly a victim.  When he said that they locked eyes and exchanged numbers after a game at Stanford, what he was trying to communicate was, “my friend made her up so that my story would be tragic and make me more likable”, and when his dad said that he talked to her on the phone and that she visited them in Hawai’i, he was trying to say, “I sure can’t wait for my son to be rich”.

I blame the media for distorting their quotes to make it sound like the things the Te’os were saying were facts.  Poor guys.

Yeah, so that was the week (plus Saturday) if you missed it. Top ranked Duke losing to NC State and #2 Indiana losing to unranked Wisconsin didn’t even make the cut of most shocking moments.  I sure hope the rest of the week is less exciting.  I really need to stop watching ESPN.