by the way

i definitely called the florida loss (doesn't karma suck?), but not the usc game.

well...

as i was doing my obligatory debate reading for the day, i came across this passage by william t. cavanaugh that i thought was incredible:

"An ephemeral particularity is therefore merely the flipside of a dominant universality. Mexican food is popularized in places like Minnesota, but its dominant form is the fast-food chain Taco Bell, which serves up a hot sauce that a native Minnesotan could mistake for ketchup. Nevertheless, just as the food must be universalized and made bland enough to appeal potentially to anyone anywhere, to compete there must be a simultaneous emphasis on its unique qualities; advertised images must be rooted in a particular location, for example, the traditional Mexican culture of the abuelita before the clay oven, sipping pulque and shaping tortillas in the palm of her hand. Anyone who has stood at a Taco Bell counter and watched a surly white teenager inject burritos with a sour cream gun knows how absurd these images are, not just because Taco Bell does not conform to the Mexican reality, but because the abuelita herself is a manufactured image. Today's Mexican woman is more likely to wash down her tortillas with a can of Diet Coke, while sitting before dubbed reruns of "Dynasty." The more "muy autentico" a place claims to be, the more it exposes itself as a simulacrum, a copy of a copy for which there exists no original."

from The Eucharist as Resistance to Globalization.

week one

7-7

Not so accurate on my week-one predictions, eh? Oh well. My fantasy team(s) dominated.

This week, I'll hold it to this: Hate the Raiders, love Adrian Peterson, Vince Young is a baby, the Pats will probably win their division, but they're screwed after that, I'm really disappointed in my San Diego boys, but we'll see how they fare in Denver.


FRANK SUMMERS WHAT???!

The rest of my week one picks...

-Detroit 27, Atlanta 10
Matt Ryan will choke, taking his first NFL snaps. John Kitna is old and washed up, but he will be able to perform against the worst defense in the league last season.

-Cincinnati 53, Baltimore 21
John Harbaugh, Baltimore's new HC, comes into an offense that's always struggled, but with a rookie play-caller. This is what their PR people like to call "a rebuilding year."

-Buffalo 24, Seattle 14
Seattle's got an injured list a mile long, and Buffalo had the seventh best defense in the league last year.

-Kansas City 10, New England 38
Bill Belichick is 3-1 against KC as the Pats' head coach. Returning last year's incredibly potent offense, look for a Superbowl appearance from them.

-St. Louis 14, Philadelphia 24
RB Steven Jackson, recently healed, will not fare well against the powerful Eagles rush defense, who were the seventh best-ranked in the league last year.

-Jacksonville 21, Tennessee 14
The newly structured Jags defense played well in the preseason, and Vince Young will have a bad day against them.

-Pittsburgh 42, Houston 17
Houston has the worst secondary in the league, as well as one of the worst pass rushes. Big Ben will pick them apart.

-Tampa Bay 17, New Orleans 14
Drew Brees has struggled against Tampa Bay's tough secondary in the past, and will continue to do so on Sunday.

-Jets 24, Miami 17
Chad Pennington isn't very good, Brett Favre is. Brett Favre's got a solid receiving corps, Miami doesn't.

-Dallas 28, Cleveland 17
I'm not a Tony Romo fan, but he's got the tools to get it done against Cleveland. Look for TO to get shut down by the secondary, facing constant double/triple coverage, though.

-San Diego 31, Carolina 21
A lot of emphasis is put on Phillip Rivers and the Chargers offense, but look for their aggressive pass defense to be the game-winner here. The Panthers chances are not helped by Jake Delhomme's slow recovery from Tommy John surgery.

Why the Giants will be lucky to be a wild card team

Most people attribute the lion's share of glory to Eli Manning for the Super Bowl XLII victory the Giants enjoyed, but why...? Because he had a decent receiving corps and Plaxico Burress, whose then fading (at best) NFL career fizzled? Because Manning has a lucky habit of forcing the ball to crossing roues on third and long? No. Coming from a Peyton fanboy, Eli's responsibility for the win is a farce.

The Giants defense managed to hold one of the top five offenses of all time to 14 points and under 300 yards. So much hype built up around the average talent on the offensive end of the ball that the Patriots apparently forgot about that whole pass rush thing. The problem for the Giants franchise in 08-09, though, is that two people responsible for the a far disproportionate number of sacks the Giants had, which forced constant hurry situations and bad passes (which led to inflated interception numbers), are not going to be there next season. The Giants had 53 sacks on the season: Osi Umenyiora was responsible for 13, and Michael Strahan 9. As you all know, though, Strahan retired after a long and successful career, and Umenyiora is out for the season with a torn miniscus.

The fact that two defensive ends were responsible for 42% of the team's sacks, not to mention myriad stops in the backfield and no-gain situations, as well as the huge number of hurries forced and constant campout in the offensive backfield, is incredible, and undoubtedly the reason why the Pats could only garner 274 yards, by quite a margin the least on the season. So the Giants are screwed. The only way they can recreate the same pressure on backfields is by blitzing their already cover-strained secondary: Cory Webster and Sam Madison are decent cover-first DBs, but they would struggle in a defense that puts all its eggs in the secondary-blitzing-basket.

My team for the year: Phillip Rivers and his San Diego Chargers. (Mostly because I like Eric Weddle and a healthy LT)