Cutting It Close, Carbo Loading, And The NFL Injury Bug is Out in Full Force
It’s hot, and it’s the humid hot, not the dry hot!
Help me.
Quick-hitters:
- To fight off the heat, I am enjoying some canned Thai Tea.
At least, the label says it’s Thai Tea. It sure tastes like anything but Thai Tea! Blech!
- It was quite a hallmark day in the world of sports today.
We had the closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games.
We had the Little League World Series match, won by the team from Hawaii (no, I did not watch it).
We had the Redeem Team winning gold against Spain. We had the Men’s Indoor Volleyball team win an emotionally-charged final against Brazil.
(Tangent: You people can pick Michael Phelps as the most memorable aspect of the Olympics. Go ahead and pick the opening ceremonies. Usain Bolt was (pardon the pun…sorta) riveting, and I won’t argue if you think he was the most memorable part of the Olympics.
What is my pick for the most memorable part of the Olympics? It’s gotta be the Men’s Indoor Volleyball gold medal match against Brazil. Watching coach Hugh McCutcheon break down after the victory was somewhat hard to watch, considering the ups (a gold medal-winning team) and downs (his father-in-law being killed by some coward) he has experienced over the past two weeks.
Jason Lezak’s running down—or should I say swimming?—of Alain Bernard is a distant second on my list. Without Lezak’s historic heat, Phelps doesn’t come close to eight golds.)
Anyway, today was a pretty sweet day filled with sporting events. Too bad the last thing I saw last night was the Dodgers’ bullpen choking away yet another victory!
Yeah, I understand that the Dodgers could have provided more than two runs, and yes, the Dodgers’ offense left many opportunies on the table. However, a team that is built on solid pitching HAS TO hold a lead, even a one-run lead!
That’s now four blown leads that have led to losses in the past couple of weeks! Grrrr…
- Back on Friday, while at my desk, I glanced over at the clock on the lower right-hand corner of my screen. Hovering over the clock, I noticed that Friday’s date was August 22.
For some reason, that date stood out in my head. Was it my Dad’s birthday? No; that was on the 16th. Did I have to be somewhere that day? I didn’t think so. What the hell was so important about the 22nd?
Eventually, it hit me; I bought something on July 23rd, and knew that the rebate attached to the item had to be postmarked by the 22nd!
Just to make sure, I called the rebate center (it was 4:10pm when I initiated the call). About ten minutes later, I was thinking to myself, “These guys are going to keep me on hold until 5pm, to screw me over on the rebate!” Finally, a guy picked up, and I quickly explained my situation. He put me on hold (*gulp*), and returned a minute later, saying that the last postmark date was, indeed, the 22nd.
I got to the post office at 4:45, fifteen minutes before the last collection. Whew.
One of these days, I’m gonna miss a postmark date entirely, and not even realize it until a week or so afterwards.
- Either I am in training for a marathon, or I just couldn’t control my eating today. We stopped by Olive Garden for lunch—soup and salad for $5.99 FTW—and I ate the following:
(Tangent: Apparently, it was Plaid Shorts day at Olive Garden. While waiting for a table to free up, I saw no fewer than seven or eight people—only one lady—wearing plaid shorts.)
- 2.5 bowls of soup (two bowls of the Zuppa Toscana, and a half bowl of Minestrone)
- several (four?) breadsticks
- a huge helping of salad
- and peach-raspberry ice tea; I have no idea how many glasses I ultimately had
As if that wasn’t bad enough, for dinner, I had a HUGE bowl of chicken with rice. The grapes I had right before dinner didn’t help matters at all.
I should go run a half-marathon now. It’s the only way I’ll ever burn off all those calories.
- Injuries happen in sports, of course. However, I don’t recall the last time so many big name players have been hurt in the PRESEASON. Just look at this list:
- The Giants’ Osi Umenyiora will miss the entire season with a lateral meniscus tear in his left knee.
- The Redskins’ Jason Taylor will miss 10-14 days with a knee sprain.
- Shawne Merriman’s season (and possibly career) might be over because of two torn knee ligaments (though who knows if the injuries were sustained and/or aggravated during the preseason?)
- Summarizing the NFL front page on ESPN.com…Carson Palmer has a broken nose, Brian Dawkins strained his ankle, the Cowboys lost LOG Kyle Kosier for a month, and the Raiders lost two members of their offense for the season.
- And finally, we have learned that Brett Favre is dealing with two twisted ankles, both of which occurred from all the about-faces he had done during the offseason.
(OK…I made the last one up.)
The only logical thing to do, it would seem, would be to shorten the off-season. And why not? Teams suffer through injuries over sixteen games in seventeen weeks as it is; it’s only logical to assume that an extra four games will cause more injury. Also, it can be argued that extra preseason games give players who may not make an NFL roster more chances to deliver a harder hit on a star player, in an attempt to make an impression on all 32 NFL teams.
Why not have a four week, three game preseason, with one bye week for teams to have non-contact drills? Or what about three weeks, followed by a week-long gap before the regular season? Or how about three preseason games and one full-contact, intra-team scrimmage? Scrapping the entire preseason would be too extreme, in my opinion. On the other hand, reducing the preseason by a game or two might spare some players from the injury bug, saving them for the regular season.