We all had our smart reaction to the RG3 injury, each and every one. After everyone expressed genuine concern and hope that Robert Griffin would be OK and recover from his "mild" concussion, everyone from the announcers to the fans in the crowd had the same quote: "Now he'll know to run out of bounds and protect himself." It's actually a pretty stupid thing to say.
Think about the hubris we collectively have in making that sort of statement. We're presupposing that Robert Griffin has somehow made it all the way to his fifth professional game as a quarterback without having good judgment for when to duck out of bounds while scrambling on the sidelines. That he wasn't smart enough to calculate the risk-reward ratio of when to step out of bounds or scramble forward for additional yardage until he was concussed by a big hit, which is absurd. Griffin will be more cautious now, apparently, because he's found out that defensive players in the NFL hit hard. Why didn't the Shanaclan warn him of this earlier?
In this week's edition of "The Fabulous and the Flops," we identify the player who needs to accompany Ndamukong Suh to image-revamping school, show some love to the young talent who is making the absence of a major star seem like nothing, and basically make fun of the sloppiest game of the season for a while. Plus: Our coverage of Chris Johnson as either the best or worst player on the field continues!
As we've mentioned before, the best way to make money betting on sports in Vegas is to anticipate the market's moves before they actually happen. When the upcoming week's NFL lines are posted in the Hilton sportsbook on Sunday afternoon, the sharp bettors in Vegas make sure to get their money down on the opening line before the public can shift the line to a less profitable position. This cat-and-mouse game goes on all week as news breaks about injuries and the previous week's action gets placed into its proper context, leading to another rush of action just before the games go off on Sunday morning.
Hey you, yeah you with all the disposable income. You know what stimulates the economy? Casual sports gambling! But we're not throwing you in the deep end without some floaties, here. The Triangle has contracted two of Vegas' most astute handicappers to help you navigate the choppy waters of overs/unders and spreads, going into this first weekend of the NFL season. Here's what they had to say.
Over Labor Day weekend, 10 of the ablest minds at Grantland briefly stopped typing their own names into a Google search bar and devoted themselves to a sad question: Which city's fan base is enduring the roughest stretch in sports right now? Where should the sympathetic among us direct our pity? Or, for the cruel at heart, our Schadenfreude?
Each member of the Most Depressed Fan Base Committee selected their top eight cities, based on factors known only to them, and point values were assigned on a 1-8 scale (most depressed earns eight points, least depressed earns one). The individual lists were then compiled into an overall ranking, which is presented below.
Before we get there, though, some clarification. We're concerned with which cities are suffering now, at this exact moment in time. As William Faulkner once wrote, "the past is dead." (I'm reciting that one from memory — hopefully I nailed it.) For example, the Red Sox World Series drought is irrelevant because it ended, while the Cubs drought holds weight because it's ongoing. You get the idea.
When the voting concluded, 31 cities/geographic areas were represented. Among those who earned just one vote and didn't make the final list were Lubbock, South Bend, San Diego, Baltimore, San Antonio, Chicago, Detroit, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Phoenix, Long Island, Vancouver, Denver, Tennessee, and St. Louis.
In case you were curious, Lubbock came from Chuck Klosterman, and it came without explanation. But his e-mail signature is a picture of Mike Leach as God in a parody of the "Creation of Adam" painting, so maybe that explains it. (In the painting, Chuck replaces Adam.)
