Heckling Your Friends About a Loss

My friends and I have a pretty intense rivalry over college sports teams. I went to Kentucky and all of them are Ohio State fans (there is one Maryland fan). Needless to say I despise Ohio State and Maryland and take joy in seeing them fail. When you are rooting for your friends’ team to fail, the question always arises how much you should gloat when they come up short (in Ohio State’s case that’s every time they play an SEC team). I have come up with some rough guidelines to follow (not just for college football).

- A Meaningless Regular Season Loss – It is ok to cheer vehemently against their team and rub it in their face when they lose. This loss isn’t critical to their season and it’s fun to heckle a person about games like this as they are unlikely to freak out.

- An Important Regular Season Game – I was watching the Giants-Titans game this weekend with Bobby a diehard Giants fan (He has NFL Sunday Ticket so I got to see the Browns game this way). I was pulling for the Titans but wasn’t openly cheering for them because it would highly piss him off. So instead I’d say things like, “Eli might want that one back” after he threw a left-handed duck into the end zone. He knew I didn’t want the Giants but I wasn’t antagonizing him too bad to the point that violence would erupt.

- A Playoff Game/Bowl Game/Game of Great Significance – If you are watching it with that person keep to yourself and speak when spoken to. You have to give them a grace period of close to a week before you can make fun of them. Personal example – My friend Kahnert (Maryland fan) texted me as UK was floundering in the Elite 8 game versus WVU this year to talk shit. That almost ended our friendship.

- The Most Crushing Loss Ever – Id call this the Brett Favre NFC title game last season. These are games you never bring up to rip on your friends about.

- LeBron James Spurns Their City on National TV – Buy your friend a bottle of liquor and drink it with him.

Holding Back on Vick

One thing we need to do here is all take a deep breath and take a step back from the Michael Vick bandwagon - that includes you Peter King. After reading King's column this week where he said Vick is the MVP of the league right now, it got a couple of discussions started between the Why So Serious writers.

Michael Vick is not the MVP. Not even close. His two wins came over the Jaguars and Lions - arguably two of the worst teams in all of football. In fact, the Jags are the worst team in football and got even worse by their recent signing of Trent Edwards.

Is he playing good football? Yes. But, who wouldn't play good football against these two slapdonks of teams. Everyone is simply blowing up how well he is playing because, a) his past and b) it's Philadelphia so Sal Pal and ESPN will sit there and have a story a day on them.

So, who is the MVP right now? In no particular order, a handful of people I select over Vick are Peyton Manning, Jay Cutler (gulp), Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady.

If the Cleveland Browns Were a Woman

Bobby’s post on the Giants as a chick got me thinking about if the Cleveland Browns were a woman. Instantly, Rosie O’Donnell popped into my head. But I decided to delve a little deeper after their frisky performance on the road against Baltimore. So last night as I was thinking about how shitty an actor Freddie Prinze Jr is (sidenote: I do this every night), I made the perfect analogy for the Browns:

Laney Boggs from She’s All That.

For those of you unfamilar with her this is her premise in the movie according to IMDB, "On the rebound Zach takes a bet from his best friend that he can take up with mousey bespectacled Laney Boggs and get her voted prom queen instead. Great friend, impossible task. Though once Laney scraps her glasses, does her hair, and gets into decent rags, Zach finds himself taking rather a lot of notice of her."

At first glance it is easy to think the Browns suck, just like everyone wrote off Laney as an ugly artsy loser. But, the Browns really aren’t as bad as their 0-3 record might indicate. They’ve been competitive in every game and I have walked away from each game thinking that they blew it, not that the other team beat us. The statistics show through three games the Browns have played their opponents virtually even in total yardage (965 to 943) with the Browns holding the advantage in yards per play (5.4 to 5.1).

Just like Laney became a hottie with the proper coaching on what to wear and who to hang out with, the Browns are just a tad off and would probably have a few wins with better coaching and to a lesser extent better QB * play.

* Seneca Wallace is one of those quarterbacks who are worse than his statistics indicate. I was secretly excited about him coming into this season because he had a career QB rating in the 80s, high completion percentage, and 2 to 1 TD/INT ratio. He has done exactly that for the Browns, but I have no confidence in him. His befuddling deep ball on 3rd and 2 in the 4th quarter that he threw 20 yards out of bounds with no pressure is exactly what I mean. *

The Browns-Ravens game was a perfect example of how the Browns coaching killed them. The 8 penalties the Browns committed, including the brutal neutral zone infraction on 3rd and 5, which sealed the game for the Ravens. Leaving Eric Wright on an island all day against Anquan Boldin when we have other better (ahem, Sheldon Brown) corner options was bullheaded. Lastly, the Browns wasted a precious 2nd half timeout to save a delay of game penalty when they were on their own 1 yard line. The Browns saved a precious 18 inches while we still had 3rd and 29.

I feel like if the Browns had the proper coaching (cough, cough, Mike Holmgren) they might be 2-1 maybe even 3-0 at this point in the season. Just like Laney learned what it took to make herself noticed by guys, the Browns could learn how to win if they had the proper guidance.

The New York Giants Are Now Like ....

That's right. The New York Giants have turned into this. Remember that girl from your high school that was incredibly hot with tons of potential. She was the homecoming/prom queen, captain of the cheerleading squad and going to a top school. Instead when you returned home for Christmas break, she packed on 40-50 bills, dropped out of school and was getting stuffed by the random old dude that used to come to the parties.

Well, that's how I feel about the Giants. When the Giants won the Super Bowl, they were at the top of the world. Returned everyone but DC Steve Spagnuolo, Michael Strahan, Derrick Ward, Gibril Wilson and Kawika Mitchell. The offense was blooming with Jacobs and whoever would be behind him in Bradshaw and Ward looking like the best 1-2 combo in football. Eli has his security blankets in Plax, Steve Smith, Kevin Boss and Toomer. Coughlin and Jerry Reese were credited for having the best minds in the game. The O-line was rated among the best. And there was the pass rush. Oh, the old pass rush.

Now, it's just a bunch of turds flopping around out there. Watching the game against the Titans this week was the complete opposite of old 'Giants football.' There was no discipline, there was no running game and more importantly there was no pass rush. Now, I'm not going to knock the defense for that loss, they did control Chris Johnson sans a late 4th quarter run. But, that team goes as the pass rush goes.

Much like the old smokeshow from high school, she had all the tools - skinny, solid ass, probably a nice rack, all the goodies. The Giants have all the tools up and down the roster to be a Super Bowl contending team - the playmakers, enough experience and mentality. But, like the hottie, they are screwed up on the inside - STD's and being pure bat-shit crazy for the hottie, and for the Giants there is internal fighting, questioning the front office and helmet tossing.

If they don't turn this around soon it'll only get worse and I don't want to find a picture worse than that above.

A New Addition to the Family

The two Why So Serious creators would like to welcome a new addition to the blog: Gil. That's right like Madonna, Seal and Cher he is going by the one name. Gil hails from Chicago and is known for willingly doing anything for Jon Scheyer as well letting everyone know he went to high school with him. Gil currently works in the sports world, as he is on an incredible record pace for most jobs held before the age of 25. Gil was part of the intramural dynasty at UK, winning two three v three's and a five v five. Gil is a die-hard Bears, Bulls and UK fan and will be providing weekly gambling advice as well as an array of posts of game recaps and the business side of sports.

Packers @ Bears Betting Preview

Packers (-3) @ Bears

As a die-hard Chicago Bears fan I hope that Jay Cutler tears up the Packers secondary and Peppers puts Aaron Rodgers in a body bag. Unfortunately, being a realist and avid sports gambler, I think just the opposite is going to happen and the Packers will easily cover. I have several cardinal rules for football betting, but these are the three most important:

1) Don’t ever put money against your favorite team (in this case the Bears)
2) Don’t bet against Peyton Manning in prime time, EVER
3) Always bet against Clemson to win a big game

Rule #1 prevents me from personally betting this game, but the one fact that might make me change my mind is they’re a home underdog on Monday Night Football, and home dogs on MNF are 2-0 against the spread (Chiefs, 49ers) this year.

Now here is some data I found at http://www.point-spreads.com/, which pretty much indicates that the Bears are going to get creamed tonight:

Packers are 8-1-1 ATS in their last 10 games on grass.
Packers are 6-1-1 ATS in their last 8 games as a favorite.
Packers are 6-1-1 ATS in their last 8 games following a S.U. win.
Packers are 6-1-1 ATS in their last 8 games following a ATS win.
Packers are 6-1-1 ATS in their last 8 vs. NFC.
Packers are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games after scoring more than 30 points in their previous game.
Packers are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 road games vs. a team with a winning home record.
Packers are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games in Week 3.
Bears are 11-5 ATS in their last 16 games as a home underdog of 0.5-3.0.
Bears are 4-10-1 ATS in their last 15 games following a S.U. win.
Bears are 2-5 ATS in their last 7 games after allowing less than 90 yards rushing in their previous game.
Bears are 7-18-2 ATS vs. a team with a winning record.
Bears are 3-8 ATS in their last 11 games overall.Bears are 3-8 ATS in their last 11 vs. NFC.
Bears are 3-8 ATS in their last 11 vs. NFC North.

So of the 16 trends listed above, only one shows that the Bears will cover. As a betting man I would say that’s 15:1 the Packers will cover. On the flip side, you could justify betting the Bears under the “well Vegas knows this information too and they’ll adjust the line” strategy. Either way, I won’t be betting this game because I like to keep my sanity and even if they lose by 2 and cover, I’ll still be pissed. Regardless, I expect a cut from your winnings and can provide a mailing address for my check later.

Will Aaron Rodgers win muiltiple MVPs?

** We have asked commenters Dan Reagan and Randy Kern to play a PTI-style oddsmaker on 5 topics that we have chosen. This is the second part of the series. **

Dan Reagan - 15%

My initial reaction to this question was a resounding 0%. Only 7 players in the history of the NFL havewon multiple MVPs. It’s a bit presumptuous to predict this kind of feat for a player who has never won a playoff game, and plays behind a shaky offensive line that puts his life at risk every time he takes a sevenstep drop. However, his chances for the next few years are very good. MVPs only go to QBs or RBs,and there are only a few RBs who get enough carries to qualify these days. Peyton Manning has won 4 MVP’s, including the last two and is on the verge of giving the voters Michael Jordan syndrome, allowing a Karl Malone or Charles Barkley-type to steal an MVP this year or next. This puts Aaron Rodgers in a very small group of players who are on the inside track for at least one. Two’s still a lot to ask for though. Therefore, I say 15%.

Randy - 27%

In the 52 years that the AP MVP (which really stands for "most valuable quarterback or runningback but probably quarterback") has existed, seven different players have won it twice or more (this includes the three years that yielded two winners). So the award has been handed out 55 times, and 16 of those recipients were repeat winners. So if we assume Mr. Rodgers has a 100% chance of winning a single MVP, he has roughly a 29% chance of winning a second, atleast in terms of historical proportions, because 16 / 55 = .2909. Of course, no way could anyone assert that there is a 100% chance him winning the first one...

So how likely is it that he'll win one? I'm not sure how to mathematically justify this sub-number so lets look at some other great QBs. How many MVPs did Marino, Elway, Starr and Bradshaw win? One a piece. How about Montana, Warner, Favre, Young, Unitas? Two or more. Then there's a Kelly and Aikmen, goose eggs. And lets not forget or Gannons, McNairs, and Sipes who snuck one in there when nobody was looking ;)

Based on the above, I'll say Rodgers has a 90% chance of winning at least one MVP. He's the best young quarterback in the game hands down (you could make a case for Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger but Rodgers is two years younger), he posted the 4th highest QB rating in the league his second year of play. And seeing as he's 27 years old, has roughly 11 years of play in him, figuring most elite quarterbacks retire in their later 30s.

So why not 100%? I'm sure we were all ready to reserve Carson Palmer an MVP or two on layaway back in 2005 before he got hurt (yeah, that can happen to anybody). So back to the question at hand...

I'm just going with the historical proportions here. We've got my subjective albeit educated estimate of 90% that he'll win an MVP, so lets go ahead and multiply .9 by my 29.09 from before to determine how likely it is that he'll win another...okay!

26.181

Okay, so he has a 26ish% chance of winning two or more MVPS, is that all? Not quite. My formula is a little flawed because some players (Manning 4, Favre 3) won MORE than two MVPs. Thus the % chance got a little inflated. Sorry I'm not a math wizard that can formulate through this, but atleast I'm logical assesive enough to realize the design flaw. I dont think this is too drastic though, so I'm saying my number is still somewhere between 20-25%.

So enough with the number crunching... There's been a recent trend of players winning multiple MVPs. Prior to Montana winning the award back to back in 89 and 90, only Jim Brown and Jonny Unitas had racked up more than one MVP. Because of this, I feel I'm gonna up my prior percentage range a tad...

I'm gonna say that since he's plays in the present era, and his because he's biggest competition will be Phillip Rivers and an aging Peyton Manning, I'm giving Aaron Rodgers a solid 27% chance of winning 2 or more MVPs.