Six Things on a Saturday: Divining Artistic Pretensions

It feels like the world has gone off the rails.  It wasn’t this week in particular or anything, but…  wow.

Let’s get to it.

5 Things on a Friday: Skiing the Super Bowl

Happy Friday, friends.  Let’s get to it.

Quick Thoughts: The Titans & the AFC Championship Game

I'm kind of mourning the Titans' postseason today.  Sally and I spent the entire weekend at a singing and dancing competition with our girls.  I found myself sitting alongside all the other Dance Dads all weekend long, impatiently awaiting the start of yesterday's game.  I won't say that fatherly intensity had reached a fever pitch by the time we got to kickoff, but I will note that the hotel bar was crammed to bursting with dads looking for something to think about besides costume changes and jazz hands.

"I definitely shed a couple of tears... I just felt like I could have done more for this team. I love this team, I loved playing football and competing."@KingHenry_2 Thanks Teammates + Fans After Historic Season 📰 » https://t.co/jBf4BrpDEphttps://t.co/14QjFHWwEa

— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) January 20, 2020

That stuff is great and all, but most of us have no idea what we're watching out there.

5 Things on a Friday: Back on the Bandwagon

5 Things on a Friday returns for a special NFL Playoff/MLB Cheating edition.  Enjoy!

I don’t want national media respect anymore. I want them to have to cover the Tennessee Titans in the Super Bowl which is their worst nightmare.

— Two Tone Fanatics (@twotonefanatics) January 14, 2020

Giant-Watch: Preseason Game #1

I don't know how good the Jets' defense is, but Giants rookie QB Daniel Jones looked about a million times better than I thought he would look in his preseason debut.  The Giants' O-Line looked better, too, even when the Jets brought extra pressure.

CFB Roundtable: Final Thoughts on Daniel Jones and the NY Giants

I’ve been back and forth in my head about whether or not to write this.  On the one hand, the Giants draft infuriated me so badly that I feel like I have to talk about it, or else I’ll scream.  But then again, everybody and their brother has already written something about the draft.  It’s not clear that the universe needs my particular thoughts.

Part of the reason that I’m actually doing this, and that I’m doing it here, is that we’ve been over this at some length as an As For Football (AFF) staff, and not to put too fine a point on it, but nothing that’s not directly tied to Army Football is really on the menu over there.  We’ve got two sponsors now, and we’re growing, and things are generally pretty great.  However, our audience is a distinctly Army Football audience.  My dream of doing a weekly CFB Roundtable podcast are on indefinite hold, and any coverage of other teams and/or other aspects of the sports are also out at least for the foreseeable future.  My long-term goal for the site is to cover not only Army Football but also the football that Army fans are watching.  But there’s no consensus as to exactly what that means, nor has any of that stuff drawn enough interest to make it worthwhile.  Meanwhile, we need to actively resist taking focus away from stuff that’s actually working.

I’m not sure how to handle it.  Part of me feels like I should just do CFB Roundtable here, and if there’s an audience for it, maybe that will create some kind of opportunity.  We’ll see how it goes as the season progresses.

5 Things on a Friday: Trying to Move On

Back to work this week.  It hasn’t been an easy transition, and yet here we are.

I hope you all enjoyed your time off.  I know I did.  I already miss skiing.

5 Things on a Friday: Follow the Money

This is kind of a last-minute effort.  Happy Friday!

This feels like it's been a long week, no?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite days of the year.  There aren't any presents to worry about, lots of football is on TV, and we have abundant friends to keep us in good cheer.  It's great!  This year, we're headed over to our friends Bruce and Tammy's house.  I don't even have to grill the turkey because Bruce is doing it.

I'm getting over!

5 Things on a Friday: Bye Week Blues

Tough week without an Army game this Saturday.  Not that the guys don’t deserve a break or even that I and my family don’t have other things that we need to do with our time.  But still.  You wait all damned year for college football season, it’s tough to miss even a week of it.

Oh well.  There are other games, I guess.

5 Things on a Friday: Last Look at Liberty

Hey, ho.  Let’s go.

5 Things on a Friday: @ Duke

We’ve got a game tonight.  You may say that it’s not a big game, but Duke Head Football Coach David Cutcliffe and his players would probably not agree with you.

Duke HC David Cutcliffe says the practice after last season’s loss to Army might have been the best practice of his career. Says he slept well that night pic.twitter.com/MqSNav902m

— Jeff Jones (@JeffJonesSports) July 18, 2018

You think these guys don’t want it?  They circled this one on the calendar before last season even ended.

NFL Previews: Playoff Predictions

I’m gonna keep this real short.

5 Things on a Friday: Showing Your Work

Good morning, folks!  It’s Week 3 of the preseason, which means we might see some actual starters in uniform tonight, and college football kicks off tomorrow!

Hallelujah!  Our long national nightmare is almost over.

NFL Preview: NFC West

Welcome to the fourth and (presumably) final week of the joint Casa Cabeza / Hoosier on the Potomac NFL Divisional Preview series.  Joe has talked some about doing a bonus fifth week in which we make playoff and Super Bowl predictions, and we’ll probably do that, but this week marks the end of the actual work.  

If there’s a post next week, we’ll be straight talking out of our asses.  I mean, that is usually the plan regardless, but it’ll be even more egregious than usual.

5 Things on a Friday: Pics from Our Camping Trip

We're back from vacation today, having spent a few days camping up by Lake George.  It was much cooler up there, but we got rained on a few times.  The trip was a lot of fun, but I'm sort of enjoying being back, too.

How was your week?  Good?

NFL Preview: NFC South

Yay football.  Granted, it’s only preseason, but still…  Some football is better than no football.  I mean, the Giants haven’t looked great, but what can you do?

For those keeping score, this post marks the halfway point in the joint Casa Cabeza / Hoosier on the Potomac NFL divisional preview series.  This week, we turn our attention to the NFC/AFC South.  The AFC South is Joe’s favorite division in that it’s home to the Colts (boo!) and the Titans (yay!), but that’s for later.  For now, we’re talking NFC.

5 Things on Friday: Football Begins!

Truth is, I didn't love the Giants' first preseason game even though it started with a bang.

Welcome to the NFL @saquon! First game, first play!!! #CLEvsNYG pic.twitter.com/OpukgNsiJX

— New York Giants (@Giants) August 9, 2018

After that, things slowed considerably.  The Giants' revamped O-Line looked maybe a little better than they were last year, but their second stringers were terrible, and backup QB Davis Webb, would-be star of the preseason, was not good at all.  Starting QB Eli Manning wound up 4/7 for 26 yards.  He took a sack, made a terrible pass via miscommunication to TE Rhett Ellison that should have been intercepted, and was victimized by two really egregious drops.  One went to a backup wide receiver on a quick out; the other came on a well-timed screen play to RB Jonathan Stewart.  Both should have been first downs.

NFL Preview: NFC North

Welcome back!

This is the third installment of the 2018 NFL Season Preview, a joint project between me and my friend and classmate Smokin’ Joe Sowers over at A Hoosier on the Potomac.  Previous installments can be found at the links below:

 -- NFC North

 -- AFC North

5 Things on a Friday: Bucket Hats for Everyone

Let go!