Remain Calm! All is Well!

• News

Thank goodness this week is almost over.  At times, I’ve felt like Kevin Bacon trying to calm that unruly mob from Animal House, screaming “Remain Calm!  All is well!”  Only to be trampled to a flat piece of flesh on the concrete.

Now we know why the Raiders didn’t vote on the new CBA, right?  It’s never easy losing your two of your better players, and, as a fan, it sucks.  It especially sucks when everyone is snickering about it. But hey, Al Davis is either hated or loved so I guess it is to be expected.  Anyway, lets get to some things that have been bugging me recently, shall we?

1.) This is why Adam Schefter is a complete asshole and a tool.  Here is what he wrote on his twitter page about the Raiders: “49ers committed $16 mil in 2011 to Akers, Rogers, Goodwin, Whitner, Edwards, Williams. Raiders committed $16 mil in 2011 to Michael Huff.”

You know why this pisses me off?  Cause it’s completely, 100% NOT TRUE!  Here are the details of Huff’s contract thanks to Silver and Black pride (via Jerry McDonald, a beat writer for the Raiders): “The deal reportedly includes $12 million in guaranteed money. The guaranteed money comes in the form of a $7.315 million signing bonus, $685,000 base first year salary and a guaranteed $4 million base salary in 2012. The deal carries a light 2011 cap hit of just over $2.5 million.”

So where exactly is Schefter getting his $16 million in 2011 alone number from?  Who knows.

But that’s the problem with people using ESPN as their news source.  They “report” whatever they want and if it happens, great, and if it doesn’t happen, no biggie. (See, the NNAMDI TO THE JETS! NNAMDI TO THE JETS! cluster F that was last week’s programming).

Still, it’s a lot to pay for Michael Huff, but hey, he actually wants to play for the Raiders and it’s not my money.  Why do fans care about what their owners pay for players anyway? Speaking of which…

2.) Can we commend Osi Umenyiora for his stand against NFL owners?  The owners ALWAYS ask players to honor their shitty contracts and then as soon as that player gets hurt, they rip up the contract and are only on the hook for the “guaranteed” money. So when you see in the media that a player signs a 7 year $70 million contract, they are not going to see anything close to $70 million. They’ll get something close to $30 million (still a shit ton of money, sure).

Now, let’s look at DeSean Jackson.  Here is a player who absolutely has outperformed his crappy rookie contract.  But instead of giving him a huge bonus and extension (at least as of writing this post), the Eagles go out and spend a ton of money on players who haven’t done anything for them yet.

Instead of helping out a player who basically fuels their passing game (well, him and some guy named Vick), they spend money on free agents.  I’d be pissed off too if I were DeSean Jackson.  And who does the general public blame in all this?

DESEAN JACKSON!  He’s the “greedy” player who wants to get paid.  It’s total BS and a total double standard.  You outperform your contract, you must honor it. You get hurt or start to suck, we (the owners) don’t have to honor a thing.

Instead of spending millions on unknown free agents, the Eagles need to take care of their best WR.

3.) Can we talk about a plot hole in that movie The Rock?  When Goodspeed is in San Francisco, he explains that he needs to brief the Navy Seals on how to disarm the rockets and the FBI and Seal guys tell him that it won’t be necessary cause he is going with them since he is the weapons expert.

Now, the viewer is led to believe that disarming the rockets is going to be a really complicated process that the Seals wouldn’t be able to grasp in such a short period of time.  But when they get to The Rock, all Goodspeed does is whip out a phillips head screw driver, take out the green balls of VX poison gas, asks Connery to hold them, then reaches in, grabs the chip and smashes it.

THAT’S IT?  THAT’S ALL YOU HAD TO DO?  Why the hell didn’t he just tell the Seals that in the first place?  Then he could swoop in after they took over the rock and clean up the gas?

Now, I understand they wanted an expert to go with them on the trip with them in case anything unforeseen happened (like all of them getting worked by the mercenaries in the shower…that sentence sounded weird), but still.

4.) Speaking of Seals, if you haven’t yet, I highly recommend reading the New Yorker piece on how we got Osama bin Laden.  It is really, really well written and very interesting.  My favorite parts?

a.) The White House ordered sandwich trays from Costco to watch the events unfold.  Really?  Sandwich trays from Costco?  They couldn’t have sprung for something a little more fancy?

b.) There is a guy in government named “McRaven.”  How awesome is that name?  As one who always loves a good “Mc-something” name (Nails McNutsack, Balls McBalls, Mad Dog McPhearson, Trey McCool), I really loved McRaven.

c.) They brought a dog along for the raid which made me laugh, cause I thought how funny would it have been if they brought along a dog like mine, a mini-golden doodle.  That doodle would’ve been thrown out somewhere in the Pakistani desert for sure.

5.) I’m re-watching Freaks and Geeks right now, and while it can’t be called the best TV show ever cause it only lasted one season, I do think that it might be the greatest SEASON of television ever.  But Cindy Sanders, holy crap is that chick annoying.  The casting director hit home runs with Busy Philips, Seth Rogen, Linda Cardellini, James Franco and Jason Segel, but they really struck out casting Cindy Sanders.

That’s all folks!  Until next time…