Monthly Archives: August 2016

Trevor Siemian is the Best Bad Option

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Bryan Cranston will forever be known as Hal and Heisenberg to his fans, but I always enjoyed his role in Argo and mostly for that one scene. I envisioned meetings that John Elway and Gary Kubiak had about the quarterbacks this summer playing out very similarly to the ones our government had on how to deal with the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Elway: “You’re really going to start Trevor Siemian?”

Kubiak: “You gave me Sanchez and two guys who have never started a game. There are only bad options, it’s just about finding the best one.”

Elway: “And you don’t have a better bad idea than this?”

Kubiak: “This is the best bad idea I have, sir. By far.”

I’m sure I’m paraphrasing a tad, but yeah, I bet those meetings were pretty similar. That’s because the Broncos don’t currently have any good options at quarterback. Mark Sanchez continues to be haunted by the mistakes that have doomed his career, which may even cost him a spot on the roster. Paxton Lynch looked very much like a rookie against the Rams, missing open receivers and letting the defense rattle him. That leaves Trevor Siemian, the lesser of three evils. The least defective of a group of misfit toys.

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No Brock, We Are Not Entertained

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That famous scene in Gladiator occurs when Maximus single-handedly decimates an arena of all the other top warriors. He not only murders them without even really breaking a sweat, but he dispatches them in bloody fashion. When there is no one left to challenge him, he throws his arms up and asks the crowd, “Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?” That’s all that was missing from the main event of last night’s SummerSlam.

Brock Lesnar is a terrific athlete and a tremendous waste of talent. His matches are annoyingly one-sided and all too often resemble a Maximus-esque slaughter. You can lay that at the feet of WWE Creative if you want and they certainly deserve some blame for booking Brock as an invincible monster, but the Beast Incarnate does not care if he puts on a good show. He doesn’t give a s**t about your kids and he certainly isn’t concerned with helping other wrestlers get over. When Brock left Randy Orton in a pool of his own blood last night, only to continue wailing on him after the match was over, we may as well have been ancient Romans sitting silently as Maximus asked us if we were entertained.

I can’t speak for everyone, but Eric and I were certainly not that entertained and we have a feeling that many of you weren’t as well.

We had originally intended to do a SummerSlam predictions post followed by a recap, but technology sucks and we’re too reliant on it we weren’t able to. Instead, we had to squeeze this reaction piece together as best we could. You can also see our original predictions so that you can mock our lack of foresight.

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New Era of Raw Getting Stale?

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(Update: Our friend Eric Schreiber is back for more WWE Raw rumblings. He was gone for a couple weeks for reasons he will explain.) 

I decided to group all three of these Raws together with the hope of it getting better, but unfortunately I find myself a little more than slightly disappointed in this “New Era” of Raw. The first Raw after the draft was full of excitement, anticipation, and Surprises (Balor becoming the #1 Contender for the Universal Title and Sasha becoming the Women’s Champ). After such an awesome show, Raw has once again become stale.

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The Hall of Shame

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When it was Randy Grandishar’s turn to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, the committee said, “Sorry, you’re not what we’re looking for.” When Steve Atwater and Karl Mecklenburg deserved to be honored, the committee sent them away. And when Terrell Davis was a semi-finalist and needed to be told yes just one more time to make it where he belongs, the committee shook their heads.

I don’t like to believe in conspiracies and Broncos players being slighted by the Pro Football Hall of Fame is nothing new. However, when Pat Bowlen wasn’t put forward as a finalist by the Senior Committee, I say that something stinks. When Jerry Jones received that spot instead, then there is something very wrong with what the NFL considers to be Hall of Fame-worthy.

Will Mr. B make it in eventually? Sure, but his exclusion in favor of Jerry for next year’s class calls into question the legitimacy of this entire process.

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The Art of Roy

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I could spend a whole blog calling Patrick Roy a quitter or selfish. I could spend another whole blog defending the man who backstopped the first major championship for the state of Colorado. I could kick and scream and bitch or I could sell you the idea that the Colorado Avalanche are better off. But I’m not going to do that.

To put it simply, Patrick Roy stepping down as the Avalanche head coach sucks. The timing was awful and, while it was a poorly kept secret that Roy was a below average NHL coach, it still sucks to lose a man who bled burgundy and blue.

Yes from a coaching stand point the Avalanche are probably better off. And perhaps it was inevitable and perhaps they dodged a (PR) bullet by not having to fire their former star goaltender at some point in the future. But if you came here for me to tell you that everything is going to be alright or to help guide you through who the Avs are going to grab as their new coach, I’m sorry but you came to the wrong place (this might give you some clarity though).

As excited as I am for the future of this franchise, thanks to the likes of Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog and Matt Duchene, I am also very scared. And it’s not because St. Patrick took his puck and went home. It’s how Roy went about quitting that concerns me.

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Broncos Aren’t Backing Down

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The rumors of a decline for the defending champs was greatly exaggerated. The only thing in decline is the media’s ability to accurately predict what the Broncos are going to do. Maybe stop guessing that this team will fail? Crazy, I know. For those of you saying that it was only the Bears, well that’s what good teams do to bad teams. They pummel them in all three phases of the game en route to a 22-0 win. And how about Cody Latimer and Kapri Bibbs showing up big? That’s what we need to see from those guys at this point, and while one preseason game won’t secure anyone anything, it’s a good start. Hopefully they can keep it up.

Here are three other thoughts I had about last night’s game.

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Now or Never for Kapri Bibbs

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One of my favorite Terrell Davis moments came during his rookie season. TD was struggling to crack the running back rotation in training camp and it looked like he was ready to pack it in. As luck would have it, the Broncos were in Japan for a game against the 49ers and Davis couldn’t arrange a flight back to the United States. He wound up staying, played in the game and delivered a crushing hit on special teams that would change his fortunes forever.

Davis caught the attention of the coaching staff with that play and started getting more carries at running back. The rest is history. I love that story because a guy that no one was expecting much from literally forced his way into the starting lineup, and that brings us to Kapri Bibbs.

After running all over the NCAA in 2013, Bibbs was picked up by the Broncos and has spent the last two years trying to make the final roster. There’s no doubt that he’s talented, but that one signature play that will turn heads and prove his worth has eluded him thus far. And time is running out.

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The Sins of Suicide Squad

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Kevin and I often discuss how spoiled we have become by comic book movies. When we were kids, Marvel films were basically non-existent and Batman was suffering through the dark days of Joel Schumacher. We could hardly even fathom a world where the Avengers teamed up on-screen, let alone returned for numerous sequels and solo outings. With Spider-Man back in the fold at Marvel and DC rapidly creating its own film universe, we are as pampered as ever and it shows.

Suicide Squad is not a terrible movie, even if that’s what most critics would have you believe. Nor is it a great one. This mashup of villains is a perfectly accessible experience and if it’s guilty of anything, it just doesn’t reach the bar that Marvel has set so high.

And I think that’s the biggest obstacle that DC has yet to overcome. Their films thus far have been enjoyable enough but are also flawed and divisive, which would have been fine 10 years ago. Now that the market has become so saturated by comic book adaptations and crossovers galore, anything that doesn’t live up to the Marvel standard gets torn to shreds. In my opinion, that’s what is happening here.

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The Curious Case of Cody Latimer

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The annual training camp hype surrounding Cody Latimer has become a running gag of sorts between Kevin, myself and our buddy Ryan. We marvel at how the media comes away impressed with Latimer’s performance during these flag football practices despite the fact that he has accomplished a whole lot of nothing his first two years in the league. In fact, Ryan is so fed up with it that he actually wished death upon the guy. Then he promptly took it back, criticized the media for overhyping Latimer and then before I knew it, Kevin was faced with the horrifying prospect of losing all of his top Pokemon in Pokemon Go for a Magikarp named Cody Latimer.

Yep, things escalate quickly when Cody Latimer’s name gets brought up.

All kidding aside, it’s a rather baffling scenario to say the least. I have no doubt that Latimer makes some big plays in practice and by all accounts he’s a good person, but you know who else possessed those qualities? Kyle Orton. You know who Kyle Orton was benched for? Tim Tebow. I don’t care that it’s a different position because the same principal applies. Orton never performed when it mattered in games that counted and that’s the reason that Latimer has drawn the ire of Broncos fans everywhere, including Ryan.

To borrow a quote from Jon Gruden, having potential just means that he hasn’t done anything yet. When’s he going to do it already? Incidentally, “When’s he going to do it already” is a question that pretty much every girl I’ve dated has asked me, but that’s neither here nor there. Moving on.

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Falling in Love with Her

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Admitting to your friends that the film Her, directed and written by Spike Jonze, is one of your favorite movies instantly puts you into the shoes of the film’s protagonist Theodore Twombly.

“Wait isn’t that the movie where that dude falls in love with a computer?”

“Well actually his OS…”

“His what?”

“OS…Operating System. Like what runs your computer”

“Oh…and you liked the movie?”

Yes, despite the judgment, I did. In fact, much like Theodore fell in love with Samantha, his artificially intelligent operating system, I fell in love with the film about love, loss and acceptance.

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