Week 11 Power Rankings, CMRP, and Weekend Pillow Fight

Get it, Kansas City? I’m saying your team is soft.

It’s that time once again, readers. After a surprising loss by Philadelphia, the second-straight win by Utah, and the creeping realization that mediocre-to-shite Arizona will probably sail into the playoffs, the arena league is on its head. After the jump, the musings of ESPN’s Gary “The Grampinator” Horton, terrible football betting advice in the form of the ironically-named Can’t Miss Random Pick, and, of course, your Weekend Pillow Fight that this week is more like a pair of impending smackdowns.

Instant replay? The future is now!

Pictures and sound, prerecorded and transmitted via radio beams!

The Arena Football League is pioneering a new technology, and will introduce it just in time for the 2008 playoffs: using the videofilm machines already in place to verify the outcomes of questionable plays on the field. By making a recording of the game-in-progress, videofilm technicians will be able to pull film from close calls to review the recordings of varying camera angles in “slowed time motion” to verify that the correct calling on the field is made. The Arena Football League is referring to this unheard of achievement of futuristic technological ingenuity tentatively as “instantaneous gametime moviefilm review for accuracy”.

Thus far, reactions to the advance have been mixed by fans of the Arena Football League, as some welcome the advance, and bemoan the fact it has taken so long to make the necessary innovations, whereas other question its possible effect to the sanctity of the game, its referees, and its inclusion mid-season, the effects of which we will not fully understand until the system of videofilm-confirming reviews are introduced this post-season.

Verily, the future is here!

 

This is going to be awkward

100% Twisted Steel

Oh boy.

Tonight could be awkward. I haven’t talked to Griesen in, like, months.

Philly could be on their way to the Arena Bowl, Georgia’s struggling without me… I don’t want Chris to think he’s my Ryan Leaf but…

Maybe I shouldn’t call.

Will that make me a dillweed?

Gee, sports are hard.

Week 10: Ranks, Pillows, and Picks: I’m in training again!

I’ve been here before!

It’s painfully close to the end of the week, so you know what that means - blogging on company time! All your favorites, from Grampa Gary’s Power Rankngs to Can’t Miss Random Pick and Weekend Pillow Fight await you after the jump:

Da Coach Says…

“Man, that’s really the last time I go to Cesars… what? We won? ¡Victoria!” 

Week 9 Power Rankings, CMRP, and Pillow Fight: OH CRAP moving really blows edition

WHERE IS THE WINDEX?

MOVING IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. SO IS MOVING RIGHT BEFORE ATTENDING THE KENTUCKY DERBY.

Since my ride is picking me up shortly and I have 10 minutes’ worth of internetz access, we’ll forget Grampa Gary this week and just summarize the week thusly:

THE GOOD: Philly, Chicago, New Orleans

THE BAD: Cleveland, Georgia

THE UGLY: Kansas City, Utah, your mom

CMRP: New Orleans over Georgia. Tasty!

WEEKEND PILLOW FIGHT: Kansas City? UTAH? BLARG!

 

TC may have something cooking for you kiddies - have a great weekend, enjoy the games, and when in the infield at the Derby, always help strangers saran-wrap their friends to portable toilets.

Philly wins in blowout; VooDoo woo NY Times?

Dear God, grant us the strength to hold this pose for the NY Times photographer.

For anyone interested, the New York Times (”All the News That’s Fit To Print Online Which Technically Isn’t Printing But We Use the Word in the Sense of ‘Publishing’ but Hell if We Change Our Motto”) website is running a front page, above the ‘fold’ (”All the News ah Eff It You Get the Joke”) story about Danny Wimprine and the surging New Orleans VooDoo. Central thesis: Danny Wimprine is a really nice guy (like other AFL QBs we know and love), New York doesn’t have an arena football team so far as they know, New Orleans is still rebuilding (who knew?).

Also, last night’s Game of Unbeatens wasn’t nearly as close as we thought it might be, Philly laid down the smack, beating Dallas 57-28.

Dallas Desperadoes owner Jerry Jones was reached for comment:

Joooooooooooooon [Bon Jovi]!

Unbeaten teams! Monday Night (Arena) Football! Point/Counterpoint! Dallas at Philly!

Better stand tall when they’re calling you out. Don’t bend, don’t break baby, don’t back down.

BY FAR THE MOST INTERESTING GAME THIS YEAR…

Two unbeaten football teams… playing each other! The novelty!

APPARENTLY THERE IS SOME SORT OF RIVALRY…

Remember last year when Graziani’s shoulder was separated? And then ESPN played the clip from every conceivable angle five times a game? And what Graziani sounded like when getting blindsided (kind of like a cow being buried under sacks of government-subsidized potatoes)?

DID WE MENTION THESE TEAMS ARE BOTH UNBEATEN?

This is kind of a selling point to snag some viewers tonight (8pm E, ESPN2/ESPN360.com)!

POINT/COUNTERPOINT AFTER THE JUMP!

Even though TC is currently in rehearsal!

Week 9 Power Rankings, CMRP, and Weekend Pillow Fight: Let’s get meta!

Coming up with fresh ideas is tough, just ask Brett Ratner. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this nugget by Neal Pollack on Slate regarding things such as weekly power rankings, mock drafts, and MVP races being signs of lazy sports writing (ironically, similar points have been made on Slate in the past) and overall detrimental to the appreciation of sporting in general. Fair enough. Then, yesterday KSK’s Big Daddy Drew posted an NFL draft preview on Deadspin that suggested anyone bemoaning the surplus of mock drafts can, in his parlance, choke on a dick. Fair enough.

Both articles made me further question qualms I’ve had about my weekly riffing on the occasionally disjointed Gary Horton AFL ramblings from the WWL, and gave me an idea to keep this feature fresh.

Maybe next week.

Week 7 Power Rankings, CMRP, and Pillow Fights: JM is in training right now!

I’m at Excel training right now! Time for some good ol’ fashion blogging! Grampa Gary, you’re getting roasted in bold after the jump!