Only Idiots Make Guarantees

> And, I’m not an idiot, so obviously my “guarantee” that New Orleans would lose to the Lions was just a clever attempt to put the reverse jinx on the Saints to make sure they would win. I can’t believe I even had to explain that, I thought it was pretty clear from the start. I only wish I had thought to do this several weeks ago, maybe the Saints would have actually made the playoffs. I guess I underestimated the power of the Scale of One to Gus Johnson. That’s a mistake I won’t make again.

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of the Lions, and their descent into the depths of NFL history, there’s something that I need to bring up. I’ve seen and heard people use the word “overfeated” to describe the Lions. As in, instead of winning all their games and going undefeated, they’re going to lose all their games and go overfeated. Overfeated…as if it’s the opposite of “under-feated”. The only problem here is that underfeated isn’t actually a word.

Let’s over-analyze this for a second. A “feat” is some kind of achievement, like say…winning a football game. So to be “defeated” is to be denied that achievement, or lose the football game. To be “undefeated”, you would have to never have been denied the achievement. Following that line, to use the word over-feated seems to suggest someone achieved too much. For example, a lot of people thought the Patriots were overfeated last year, so they rooted for the Giants to win the Superbowl.

Why can’t we just say the Lions are plain defeated? Or un-feated? Or if you want to use the word over, just say the Lions are over-defeated. Or maybe the Lions can somehow win their last game so we won’t have to use any of these ridiculous terms. You know, I blame Linda Cohn for this whole thing.

On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I rate this a John Madden.
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Mental Wanderings for 12/18/08

> I had a couple of random things I wanted to comment on, but nothing worth writing a whole post about.

--Last night, Chris Paul got a steal in his 106th straight regular season game, setting an NBA record. As a Chris Paul fan, I think that’s great. But, seriously, who keeps track of these kinds of stats? Even Paul said it was a weird record to have. On a related note, I hear Kevin Garnett is closing in on an NBA record for most regular season games in a row where he made a teammate cry.

--I read online that Tom Coughlin did some jumping jacks at his press conference the other day. But, something tells me that Coughlin’s the kind of guy that would call those “side straddle hops” instead of jumping jacks.

--So, apparently Tiger Woods’ caddie had some disparaging words to say about Phil Mickelson earlier this week. This morning on Sportscenter, Linda Cohn actually referred to this as “Caddygate”. As if I needed another reason to dislike Linda Cohn.

--Charles Barkley says racism is to blame for Auburn hiring Gene Chizik, who is white, instead of Turner Gill, who is black. I’m not one to question the wisdom of Charles Barkley, but I wonder what’s to blame for Auburn not hiring any of the other half dozen or so more qualified white dudes they interviewed.

--I think it’s time the NFL lifts its ban and allows centaurs to play in the league.

--Now that Reggie Theus was fired as head coach of the Sacramento Kings, I wonder if he’s going try to get his old job back as head coach of that high school team from “Hang Time”. No word as of yet if the Kings are going to replace Theus with Dick Butkus.

--A coach for Ole Miss was arrested recently for allegedly punching a cab driver and yelling racial slurs at him. Frankly, I find it hard to believe this guy would shout racial slurs at anyone.

And that's about all my brain can handle for now.

On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I think this rates a Pat Summerall. Read full post...