NFL
The Sports Guy's Thursday NFL Pick
Every Thursday afternoon in the Triangle for the remainder of the 2011 season, Bill Simmons will make his pick for that night's NFL game. Here's his pick for Week 10 (home team in caps).
Every Thursday afternoon in the Triangle for the remainder of the 2011 season, Bill Simmons will make his pick for that night's NFL game. Here's his pick for Week 10 (home team in caps).
We figured the best way to sort through this article was a few rounds of point/counterpoint. Let’s start with the sleep apnea thing, OK?
Here at Grantland, we love the following things: shenanigans; debauchery; costumes; fun; Skittles; TP-ing your house. So this year, we're going all-in on All Hallows Eve.
It's time for the First Annual Grantland Halloween Costume Contest!
Because, really, Halloween is the best of the holidays, as long as you don't count Christmas, Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and Flag Day. So dress up like the Busch Stadium Rally Squirrel! Make your dog wear a baseball jersey! Or go to a kegger as the Ghost of Big East Past! Wow, I literally just came up with that last one. Just try to top it.
Here's how this will work: This week/this weekend, send us pictures, a short description of your costume, and your location, and we'll enter you in the game. (e-mail address: Triangle@Grantland.com, subject line: Grantland Costume Contest!) Early next week, the best entries will be featured here, on The Triangle. We'll vote on a winner (I guess), who will (maybe) be awarded a bag of Famous Amos cookies from the Official Grantland Snack Cabinet as a prize. Bonus points for puppies dressed like hockey players, solid NBA lockout-concept costumes, and girls who find ways to dress like an athlete and not look like a slut. Demerits for Al Davis costumes. Too soon.
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We have very few rules for the BS Report, but this is one of them: Any time an NFL team does something completely and utterly insane, we send out a bat/pod signal for the NFL Network's Mike Lombardi. When news broke today that the Raiders were trading one (and possibly two) first-round picks to Cincinnati for the Artist Formerly Known As Carson Palmer, we took this up a notch by sending bat signals, flares and even fireworks before Lombardi finally noticed, then emerged from a tape room in the NFL Films studio to talk football with us. We ended up dissecting the Palmer trade, the 2011 season, the playoff picture, what Lombardi would have done differently had he gotten the Niners job, whether the Niners are for real, and even Al Davis' legacy, before deciding that the NFL Network should spin Lombardi off into his own channel.
Find Tuesday's podcast here:
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Bill Simmons is the editor-in-chief of Grantland, the host of the BS Report and the author of the recent New York Times no. 1 best-seller The Book of Basketball. Follow him on Twitter and check out his new home on Facebook.
Read more of The Triangle, Grantland's sports blog.
Contact us at triangle@grantland.com
Broadcaster Al Michaels makes his triumphant return to the B.S. Report to discuss Bill’s popularity in Jerusalem, Michaels’ personal history with the late Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, other great owners in the league, and what it’s like to share a booth with John Madden and Cris Collinsworth.
Find Friday's podcast here:
Previously on the B.S. Report:
Al Michaels on the podcast in 2010
Subscribe to the BS Report and the Grantland Network on iTunes.
Bill Simmons is the editor-in-chief of Grantland, the host of the BS Report and the author of the recent New York Times no. 1 best-seller The Book of Basketball. Follow him on Twitter and check out his new home on Facebook.
Read more of The Triangle, Grantland's sports blog.
Contact us at triangle@grantland.com
As Oakland Raiders kicker Sebastian Janikowski hit his third 50-yard field goal in as many quarters Sunday, Grantland editor-in-chief Bill Simmons posed a question to those in attendance:
“Is it time to reconsider how bad of an idea it was to draft him in the first round?”
Reaction was mixed. And, personally, I was not convinced. That’s what made the e-mail I received on Monday all the more confusing.
You’re going to write a sports blog post attempting to defend the Janikowski pick.
I explained that there must be some mistake. I did think it was ridiculous.
Protesting clearly didn’t really do much good. Because here I am, defending what has been called the worst pick in the history of the NFL Draft.
The Reader E-mail of the Day comes to us from Dustin in Richmond, Va. Dustin e-mailed our EIC, Bill Simmons, to take issue with something Cousin Sal said during a B.S. Report podcast, regarding the praise heaped on the late Al Davis, following his death. What follows is not only a rebuke to Sal's statement, but a fierce defense of Davis' much-maligned personnel moves in the last few years of his life (with minimal editing).
If you have something you'd like to share with the class, feel free to contact us at triangle@grantland.com
What is one to make of a Jewish person who is fascinated by Adolf Hitler? How do we comprehend a man who goes out of his way to study the most hated thing he can imagine? In 99.9 percent of all possible scenarios, such paradoxical absorption would be dark and meaningful. It would be twisted and bizarre, and it would be perceived as the ultimate manifestation of self-loathing. Unless, of course, the Jewish person in question was Al Davis. Then it makes perfect sense. Of course Al Davis was interested in the Nazis. Of course he was. Somehow, it would have been more surprising if he hadn’t been.
1. University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla.
2. Randy Shannon, former head coach, University of Miami
The story that got me was the one about Nevin Shapiro attempting to throttle a school compliance director in the press box. I mean, we can theorize ourselves into knots at this point about the ramifications of Yahoo! Sports' phenomenal investigative work on Shapiro. We can say this happened because amateurism is an unsustainable ideal and we can blame the NCAA for policing an antiquated system in the way Paul Blart patrols a Cinnabon stand. We can disparage Miami president Donna Shalala for her (apparent) ignorance, and we can cite the farcical hypocrisy of former Hurricanes athletic director Paul Dee. We can call for the napalming of college football as we know it. At this point, nothing seems out of the question.
