Yesterday I was still puzzling over how the Steelers could wallop the Chiefs last Sunday, then come out and play as sloppily as they did against the Falcons. Jason Whitlock has the answer. Turns out some of the Chiefs were...distracted.
It's probably going to take 11 wins to get to the playoffs again this year, and with this team's fondness for turning over the ball inside its 30 and awful special teams play, it's tough to imagine them going 9-1 down the stretch. To maximize that possibility, though, I'm now spending my free time finding out where the rest of the season's visiting teams are staying and cross-booking the dildo queens into the same hotel. Just doing my part.
">
I'm glad I went to the Penguins-Devils game last week. Despite the loss, it felt like the team has turned the corner. Evgeni Malkin's first NHL goal won't have the replay potential of Mario's first shift steal-from-Ray-Bourque-and-deke-goalie-out-of-his-jock-breakaway debut goal, but it's a fine goal nonetheless, all the more because he showed a healthy disregard for the game's unwritten pecking orders by poking forcefully around the nether regions of the estimable Martin Brodeur. Brodeur was miffed that the slow whistle cost him a goal-against and made him into the answer to a trivia question on the night when he'd rather bask in the glow of getting his 450th win.
It's such a sublime pleasure to watch Brodeur work, even when he's stoning your team. His goaltending is so fluid and measured. There's none of the wrenching or jerking that comes with being out of position or being surprised by a developing play. The best point of comparison I can come up with is a character in the Marvel Universe named Taskmaster. Taskmaster is a bit player of ambiguous loyalties who wears a white skeleton mask and cowl and possesses the odd physical and mental ability to automatically mimic any gymnastic of fighting movement he sees. Back in 1987 when Steve Rogers was replaced by John Walker as Captain America, Taskmaster was brought in to teach Walker some high-end moves.
Brodeur is like Taskmaster. It's as if he has memorized every possible permutation of (a) location of his guys, (b) location of their guys and (c) location of the puck. From any given set of circumstances, there are a limited set of possibilities for how the puck will end up coming to the net, and as that set is whittled down by further movements of men and puck, he chooses that one rote sequence of movements that has the highest probability of keeping the puck out of the net. Of course, he starts the series of movements well before the puck is at the net, and so the end result of a glove save isn't just an isolated physical reaction, but the last of a succession of related movements that, when strung together with ruthless discipline and form, are highly likely to keep the other team from scoring. On television, where sometimes only the shots on net are shown, the effect is blunted. From where I sat behind the net, it's stunning how, well, natural he can make goaltending seem.
Do what you will Russ, but the Bucs won't be distracted so easily considering they come from the stripclub capital of the country and those girls on Friday and Saturday nights are 10's. We're coming back I tell you!
ReplyDeleteYeah, Seema, but the Buccaneers have been mathematically proven to be incapable of winning when the temperature is below 40 degrees.
ReplyDeletePittsburgh on December 3rd? Come on, you know where this is going.
Of course, Bruce Gradkowski is a Pittsburgh kid.