FMTMQR: The more things change...

Actually nothing changes, ever, because this guy is a repetitive, unoriginal, faux-intellectual piece of garbage.  How many times can you keep reading my same old comments on his same old terrible writing/analysis?  I know I always say I'm going to stop doing these, but this year I really might have to.  Let me know in the comments if you really think this is worth my time or yours.  (Not trying to beg for affirmation, but really, kind of begging for affirmation.)

TMQ is reporting on an exclusive basis that during the first half of the Washington-Philadelphia game on "Monday Night Football," Chip Kelly shouted into the Eagles' helmet radio, "Mr. Sulu, engage warp six!"

*crickets*

In other football news, Peter King of Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports 

Another man who knows a little something about long-winded uninsightful writing!

has decided he will stop using the franchise name "Redskins," shifting instead to "the Washington team." TMQ has been on this bandwagon for a decade, and it's nice to have company on a bandwagon. (Some sousaphones would be nice, too.) 

Find a more perfect example of a terrible TMQ joke.  I dare you.

King's decision shows he listens to his conscience. The world would be a better place if more people with insider status listened to the voices of their consciences.

In the context of this particular issue, the problem isn't powerful people not listening to their consciences.  It's powerful people who really don't give a shit about racial slurs.  Their consciences aren't coming into play.  

/stops writing post and watches Eminem's "Guilty Conscience" music video because that last line reminded me of it

Two weeks ago, this column called the moniker "Doomed, doomed. No chance this team name survives." 

As long as Dan Snyder is alive, the nickname will be just fine.  He's 48.  He's just as horrible as Al Davis, who died at 82.  I'm tempted to post a link to that horrible picture of Davis bleeding at that press conference a year or so before he died, but I won't, because maybe some of you have eaten recently.  So anyways, we can expect the nickname to maybe change in 2049, depending on who Snyder gives the team to in his will.

Tick…tick…tick. That's the clocking ticking down on what this column will call the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons until its new name is trademarked.

*crickets*

Just remember this column's motto: All Predictions Wrong or Your Money Back. TMQ is free, so if any of my predictions actually proved correct, you would receive -- oh, never mind.

*crickets*

The asteroid capture plan would require a new heavy-lift rocket unimaginatively called the Space Launch System, with roughly the power of the old Saturn V. Dull names are a symptom of the lack of vision at today's NASA. 

That is the whitest sentence ever written.

The space station is just the International Space Station: it might as well be called the Please See Disclaimer Space Station. SLS is the dumbest rocket name ever. How about calling it Artemis? She was the sister of Apollo.

1) Who gives a flying rat's fuck

2) No, this is Artemis:

This problem stretches broadly across the football factory landscape: Boosters and the sports press fixate on game performance, avoiding the issue of the education that big universities are supposed to be providing to football players to justify their indentured status. Monday's noon "SportsCenter" led with 12 minutes -- a long time in live broadcast terms -- on Texas allowing 550 rushing yards in a loss at BYU. This was spoken of as some kind of calamity. The calamity in the Longhorn football program is that in the most recent year, 46 percent of African-Americans graduated. That was not mentioned.

There's no sportswriter out there who is better at being on the right side of an argument conceptually, and still managing to make you want to punch him in the face for the way he expresses his thoughts.

Buck-Buck-Brawkkkkkk: The Bills entered their opener on an incredibly lame 3-25 streak versus New England. Trailing the Patriots 10-0, home crowd roaring, Buffalo reached fourth-and-2 on the Flying Elvii 44 -- and punted. You don't need to know anything else about the game.

Fuck you.  Fuck you twice.  Fuck you with a Space Launch System rocket.  Fuck you, you fucking ass fucking hole.  I do not have time to do it this week, but sometime in the coming month, I am going to go through the game logs of the previous weekend's games, and find every team that punted in opposing territory on 4th and short and won the game.  And then I'm going to post them here, and I'm going to email them to Greggggggggggggg, with the subject line "Some thoughts about scientific inaccuracies in Back to the Future."

The Big-Bad Character in "Under the Dome" Was Bald -- Coincidence? The hit summer series "Under the Dome"

BWHAHAHAHAHA

In "The Simpsons Movie," the solution to a town under glass was Homer Simpson. If Homer appears to save the day in "Under the Dome," perhaps he will explain how a river flows through Chester's Mill. The impenetrable dome is said to cut off the outside world and extend to bedrock, rendering it impossible to tunnel in or out. So where is the river water coming from, and where is it flowing to? Clouds float by. Breezes gently waft through the trees of Chester's Mill and cause 

He's still doing this.

Because the night was unusually hot for Denver, kickoff temperature was 70 degrees higher than when Baltimore visited in the playoffs. Not counting kicking-play specialists, the Ravens started five gentlemen from below the testosterone-pumped level of Division I; Sunday, Dallas would also start five from below the football-factory level.

Could be an editor's mistake, but is there supposed to be a line break there?  I, like you, find it CAPTIVATING that it is hot in the summer and cold in the winter in Denver.  But what does it have to do with SMALL SCHOOL NON-GLOREE BOYS?

Denver used aggressive defensive tactics, keeping six or seven men on the line of scrimmage, big-blitzing on third-and-long. 

How did they not lose by 60 points?  

By the second half, the Broncos' front was noticeably outperforming Ravens offensive linemen. Bear in mind -- big-blitzing usually works early in the season and fails late.

No support for this.  No citation, no evidence.  Just a throwaway assertion to support his long-held and utterly retarded thesis.

The Football Gods Chortled: 

Oh indeed they did wax wroth so forth, verily!

Jacksonville lost 28-2 at home to Kansas City, which was last season's worst club. 

Actually, they were both last season's worst club.

Remember, Jacksonville is the team that's too good for Tim Tebow.

Remember, every team in the NFL, and most in the CFL, is too good for Tim Tebow.  But of course TMQ is carrying water for Tebow; that's a contrarian thing to do right now, and implying that Tebow could actually be a successful NFL QB over the course of a full season, and without the benefit of a very good defense, a great kicker and several miraculous breaks is a Smartest Guy In The Room thing to say.  Next on Gregg's list of things to be snarky about: MOST OF YOU PROLES HAVE NO IDEA THAT REX RYAN IS ACTUALLY A GREAT COACH.

Located in Cambridge, Mass. the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers intramural air pistol. Located in Claremont, Calif., Pomona College and its next-door neighbor Pitzer College field combined teams known as the Sagehens; here is their angry-grouse logo. That the University of South Carolina's sports nickname is the Gamecocks has long led to snickering about the women's teams, though Gamecock in this usage refers to Revolutionary War hero Thomas Sumter. A sage hen can be of either sex, but just as the South Carolina nickname makes the women's teams sound male, the Pomona-Pitzer nickname makes the men's teams sound female. This alone may be enough material for a college gender-studies course.

*crickets*

Just another example of how college football brings out the worst in everyone

Fans. Administrators. Journalists. Broadcasters. Heisman voters. They're all reduced to complete fucktards every year by some kind of issue stemming from college football. This year it's the whole Cam Newton thing. Well I guess I probably shouldn't have included fans on that list I just made- NCAAF fans are complete fucktards year round regardless of what's happening in the world of their sport. But I just wanted to make it clear that they, too, are affected by this mostly unimportant debate about did he take money, was he eligible, etc. (I say it's unimportant because of the degree to which college football is rotten to the core. I'm guessing that Newton was, in fact, ineligible this year. Who cares? Every team in the FBS probably had five ineligible players this year. Every SEC team probably had ten.) Anyways, let's let Kevin Scarbinsky from the Birmingham News give us his $.02 about what it means that 100ish voters left Newton off their ballots.

Remember the Moral Majority? That conservative political action group of fundamentalist Christians led by the evangelist Jerry Falwell? Lobbied for things such as prayer in school and against things such as the Equal Rights Amendment?

Founded in 1979, it had a nice run until it dissolved in 1989.

Topical.

At least it lasted longer than Urban Meyer.

Despite how strongly I feel about Urban Meyer-specifically that he is the biggest piece of shit we've seen in the last ten years in the world of sports-that's a lame joke and I refuse to so much as chuckle at it. Also, this is instance #1 of Auburn Superfan Scarbinsky wearing his colors on his sleeve. Because, you know, that's good journalism and such.

Unfortunately, we've discovered recently that the Moral Majority has an illegitimate offspring whose passion is college football.

Call this outfit the Moral Minority.

It's a single-issue group whose sole mission was to make sure that Cam Newton didn't win the Heisman Trophy by the biggest landslide ever.

Please.

Write more single sentence paragraphs.

Any Bill Plaschke can tell you that they're a great way to get your point across.

People notice your sentences.

Mission accomplished.

Exactly.

Also, isn't it great to imagine him conceptualizing this? "Hmmm. I'm upset that some Heisman people didn't vote for Newton. I hate how they're trying to take this stupid moral stand. What's my intro going to be? How can I cleverize the ever loving shit out of this?" (Five seconds pass.) "Got it. Moral Majority reference. Boom. WAR EAGLE."

O.J. Simpson's records for highest Heisman point total and largest Heisman margin still stand.

Gotta hand it to the Juice. He's hard to beat at the ballot box, inside or outside a jury room.

See, that's mildly funny. Where was the heart attack reference in his earlier swipe at Meyer? That could have saved the joke.

As he should have, Newton did win the 76th stiff-arm statue Saturday night as the best player in college football, running away from the other finalists as if they played defense for South Carolina.

Instance #2 of colors on the sleeve. Take that, other team that my team beat this year. My team is better than you.

The third Heisman winner in Auburn history won every voting region, even the West, the home of the three other finalists.

Lolz to that. Wow, can you believe that Newton was able to win a region that contained voters who ostensibly are bigger fans of not one not two but THREE other candidates?!?! Amazing. Good thing there weren't five or six other candidates from the West, though. No way could Newton still win the region with that many other players dividing up the hometown votes.

Of the 781 ballots that contained Newton's name, 729 of them - a whopping 93 percent - put him in first place. That brings up a question for the 24 voters who placed Newton second and the 28 who put him third.

What were you guys thinking?

They're probably Oregon, Stanford, or Boise fans. Or conference loyalists from the Pac-10 or WAC. Unanimous Heisman winners are kinda hard to find because of biases like those.

By any measure, Newton's victory over the runner-up, Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, was a landslide of Reaganesque proportion. But if you're keeping score at home, do the math. There were 886 ballots returned, and 781 of them had Newton's name on them.

That means 105 voters did not vote for him. They didn't vote for him in first place, second place or third place. They didn't vote for him at all.

This seems like a good time to clarify why I'm writing this post in the first place. I don't have a strong stance one way or another on what those 105 voters did. On one hand, I think that's a pretty lame way to make a statement, especially since the #1 most important thing voters are supposed to decide on is: who is the best player in the country? Plus, shady as it looks, he was officially cleared by the NCAA. So that's got to count for something when you're checking boxes on a ballot. On the other hand, I think the Newton snub voters have a point if their statement is supposed to be directed at the NCAA rather than Newton himself. The NCAA is a huge piece of shit. So anything which calls attention to that fact, which this kind of does, is fine with me. Additionally, the Heisman mission statement talks about players having integrity, or some shit like that, so I suppose that's a leg those voters might be able to stand on. Anyways. The whole reason for this post is: say what you want about those voters, either way. But don't say it like this asshole does. He's a fucking dunce.

They didn't overlook him. It's impossible to overlook a 6-foot-6, 250-pound quarterback who led the SEC in rushing and the nation in passing efficiency, who's harder to grasp than smoke and harder to stop than a runaway cement truck.

Hooray for purple prose. Also, it's hard to tell whether or not this whole sentence is supposed to list the reasons Newton was the best choice for the award, but if we assume it is, I didn't know measurables were now something we voted on. I hate it when announcers/sportswriters are talking about some player who's really good and the first thing they list is the player's height or weight. Whoop-de-shit. I know that Matt Ryan is 6'5". I know that James Harrison is 250 lbs. of muscle and steroids. I know that David Eckstein is 5'3" and 80 lbs. You don't have to keep telling me. Measurables have little to do with those players' abilities. Unless you can measure the size of Eckstein's heart, of course.

So the holier-than-thou 105 omitted him, which means they tried to send a message to him or about him.

Welcome to the Moral Minority.

Thanks for remaking your lame and antiquated reference.

They argued that they wanted to preserve and protect the Heisman, as if it were the Nobel Peace Prize.

Well, as far as college football awards go, it kinda is the Nobel Peace Prize.

They said they wanted to prevent the Heisman from being returned to sender for the second time in five years.

That's reasonable. Sure, the NCAA cleared Newton for now (so that he wouldn't be taken out of the SEC or BCS title games, which would probably cost the NCAA a lot of advertising money both now and in the future), but what if they change their minds a few years from now? Kinda makes the award look a little less shiny when you keep giving it to people who shouldn't have been allowed to win it.

Their argument: What if the NCAA cleared him too soon?

My counterargument: What if you smeared him too soon?

Awesome, logical response. If the Moral Minority (we'll call them the MM- it just sounds right) is wrong: Cam Newton still wins the Heisman. The voters kind of look like judgmental assholes. NCAAF continues as before. If Scarbinsky is wrong: Cam Newton should have never been eligible for the Heisman. It is eventually taken from him. Auburn's SEC (and National?) title is vacated. Everyone involved looks like a total asshole. There are reasons the MM are being lame- this is not one of them.

Better to base your vote on the facts, as most of us did.

Like the fact that Newton is harder to tackle than smoke. And that he's 6'5".

Also- it is a fact that Newton's dad solicited money from Mississippi State in exchange for Newton's services. It is also a fact that doing so is an NCAA violation (see NCAA bylaws 10.1(c) and 10.4) if Cam Newton was at all involved or aware of those negotiations. And finally, it is a fact that the NCAA's ruling regarding Cam's eligibility is hilarious. Apparently Cam had NO IDEA what his dad was doing; he was never in any way aware of any pay-to-play negotiations regarding the school he would end up transferring to. When his dad told him "Son, I'll talk to MSU for you," he though pops was just going to ask about what kind of food the dining halls serve and if the girls are purdy or not.

The Moral Minority's rush to judgment was mirrored Saturday by the 12-member panel of the Football Writers Association of America that chose an All-American team that included two quarterbacks. Neither of them was Newton.

The FWAA named Boise State's Kellen Moore as its quarterback and Michigan's Denard Robinson as an all-purpose back.

IT'S NOT FAIR! BOO HOO! WAR EAGLE!

The Football Writers, though, had no problem naming Oregon's LaMichael James as their All-American running back, despite the fact that he was arrested on domestic violence charges, pled guilty to misdemeanor harassment and was suspended by his head coach for the season opener.

Here's what he didn't do: violate NCAA rules by trying to get a school to pay him to transfer there. Obviously James is an asshole. He's also an asshole who is (probably) still an amateur athlete.

Just goes to show. Some football writers can't spell hypocrisy. Others have trouble defining it.

If all members of the FWAA were required to abide by NCAA rules, and then all of them broke those rules, and then refused to elect Newton to their All-American team, yeah. That would be pretty hypocritical. Just goes to show you that some sportswriters named Kevin Scarbinsky have trouble defining hypocrisy. I think the word he was looking for was "inconsistency," and even then, it wouldn't be correct.

This is the second FWAA snub of Auburn this year. After stripping USC of its 2004 national title, the Football Writers declined to award their trophy to that season's No. 2 Auburn, leaving the title vacant instead.

Christ, is this guy a Patriots/Red Sox/Celtics fan or something? Stop bitching already. I'm sorry it feels like the world is against you. Get over it.

You have to wonder. When Auburn beats Oregon in the BCS Championship Game, will the FWAA give Gene Chizik its precious Grantland Rice trophy the next morning, as is the custom?

More colors on the sleeve. In a pretty assholish tone, too. Note the sarcastic use of "precious." I think Auburn is a better team than Oregon and will probably win the title game, but if they don't, hoo boy, this dude is going to hear about it from me. I'm going to taunt the shit out of him via email. Because like the title of the post says, college football brings out the worst in everyone. That includes me.

Or will they keep it until Auburn is certified as 99 44/100 percent pure by the NCAA, the FBI, the CIA and Interpol?

You can't be too careful about these things.

Ask the Moral Minority, which now has a tiny victory over Cam Newton.

All he has, big picture, is a very large trophy.

Basically his closing argument is the equivalent of yelling "SCOREBOARD" at another team's fans after your team has beaten theirs. Awesome. I hate Kevin Scarbinsky, I hate Gene Chizik, I kind of hate Cam Newton, I especially hate the NCAA, and I hope Auburn loses to Oregon (both of whom I kind of hate) by a million points in January.

Most of all I hate college football fans because they're the party most responsible for the hype and excessive attention that fuels mindless bullshit like this article and the events surrounding it. If your favorite sport is college football, there is an 80% chance you are a complete waste of skin. (That number jumps to 99% if your favorite team is in the SEC, Big 12, or Big 10.) Go tape a knife to something and run into it. I'll be over here hoping and praying that the NFL doesn't skip the 2011 season due to labor problems, lest you dipshits get an even bigger slice of the media pie next fall.