The Bus Arrives - NFL Black Monday, 2012 - Updated

The annual tradition of bloodletting in the NFL is upon us again. No, not the playoffs, but Black Monday.

This is the day when a passel of losing coaches must stand on the curb and be shoved under the bus by team ownership.

Was it their fault that their quarterback stank or their star players got injured? Who cares? We didn't make the playoffs. Start your engines!

Chan Gailey: his team won 16 games in the 3 years he was coach, and the Bills missed the playoffs for a 13th straight season. The pain Chan Gailey is feeling is offset by the fact that he no longer has to live in Buffalo.

Romeo Crennel: a 2-14 season spelled the end for Crennel after just one season as head coach. I've heard it said a few times that everyone likes the guy. Crennel even watched one of his own players commit suicide in the team's practice facility parking lot. After the suicide, here's what the team chairman said, emphasis mine: "I wanted to be there with the team, with the coaches, to let them know I love them and support them and know what they’re going through, and particularly the guys who were present in the parking lot when Jovan took his life. I know this has to be incredibly difficult.” 1 month later: Boo-hoo. Take a hike, Romeo.

Andy Reid: In 2011, backup QB Vince Young called the Eagles a Dream Team. Michael Vick, fresh from a stint in prison for killing dogs, said the Eagles could become a dynasty. Fast forward less than 2 years and Vince Young is broke and out of football entirely, Michael Vick finished yesterday's game on the bench, and Andy Reid has tire tracks on the back of his shirt.

Lovie Smith: There was one person in America watching Minnesota Viking's kicker Blair Walsh closer than anyone else yesterday, and that was Bears head coach Lovie Smith. Walsh had to kick a field goal at the end of regulation in a GB/Minnesota tie game. If Walsh missed the 29 yarder, the game could have gone to overtime, keeping the Bears' - and Lovie's - hopes alive for a playoff berth. Alas, Walsh nailed the field goal, sending the Bears to the golf course and Lovie Smith to the unemployment line.

Pat Shurmur: Who? I know, I know. Okay, it's like this: there's a team in Ohio called the Cleveland Browns. They play football on weekends sometimes. They had a coach named Pat Shurmur. He is no longer their head coach. But he has company: the team also fired their general manager. Happy days around that head office, huh?

Stay tuned, likely more to come.

Update:

And just like that, we have another victim, compliments of the San Diego Chargers:

Norv Turner: I've always thought that he is the quintessential NFL coach. He doesn't win much, doesn't lose much, he's just very good at staying on the NFL coaching merry-go-round, either as a head coach or a coordinator. Every once a while a camera will point at the sideline and you'll go, "Hey, there's Norv Turner." This was Turner's third team as head coach. Watch for him on a sideline near you soon. Incidentally, the team also canned the GM.

You can't turn your back for a second. Here's another one:

Ken Whisenhunt: Football is a harsh, harsh mistress. The Arizona Cardinals were 4 - 0 at the start of the season. This means head coach Ken Whisenhunt must have thought he'd be employed on January 1st, 2013. Nope. The team lost their next nine games in a row. Whisenhunt and GM Rod Graves got canned a few minutes ago.

Jack Reacher - Review

Starring: Tom Cruise / Rosamund Pike

Writer/Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Runtime: 130 minutes

• Good action sequences
• Tom Cruise still on his game
• Werner Herzog as psychopath
• Chevelle SS

When I heard they were going to cancel the premiere of Jack Reacher because of the shootings in Connecticut, I didn't know if it was the right call or not because I hadn't yet seen the film. Now that I've seen it, I know the producers made the right decision.

Jack Reacher is a good hybrid of an action flick and a detective movie, but the opening sequence will make anyone's palms sweat, as a sniper picks people off one by one in a crowded Pittsburgh park. Watching this opening sequence take place, as body after body hit the ground, it was impossible not to think of what the producers were mulling when they cancelled their premiere: Our opening sequence is exactly what people don't need to see right now.

It doesn't take long, however, to settle into the movie and enjoy it for the ride that it is. It's a fairly straightforward story: did the police catch the right man for the shooting? Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) doesn't think so.

An ex-Army cop, Reacher is a now a tough guy drifting around the US. He shuns the trappings of divers licenses, credit cards, and email addresses. Reacher sees news of the shooting on TV and heads to Pittsburgh to nose around. Reacher knows the suspected shooter from his old days in Iraq, and while he believes the suspect is a murdering scumbag, he doesn't think he's the murdering scumbag in this case. Reacher teams up with the suspect's lawyer and slides into the action movie groove: put clues together, beat people up, put clues together, get shot at, put clues together, drive cars really fast, and so on. What's not to like?

The movie is based on the book One Shot by Lee Child. It's a very popular literary series, which means that Jack Reacher himself could have jumped out of one of the books and played himself on the screen and fans would still have grumbled about him being wrong for the part.

I was on the subway last week and heard a man go on at length at how Tom Cruise could never play Jack Reacher (too short, too pretty, he's Tom Cruise, damnit), while the woman he was with nodded in earnest agreement. Neither of them had seen the movie yet, but they were sure that Cruise could never play that character. News flash: he just did.

It bears repeating that movie makers generally aren't interested in being faithful to a book. They may pay lip service to the idea, but what they really want to do is make a movie that makes money. Surprise, surprise.

The Bourne Identity is probably the best example of this, as screenwriter Tony Gilroy was told to not even read the book before writing the script. He was given the title, an outline, and that's it. Robert Ludlum fans may have been disappointed by this, but the movie cashed in for over $120 million. Book? What book?

Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike

My guess is that producers are a little more careful with subjects like Harry Potter and Twilight, if only because the literary youth cult might storm the gates of the movie lot and hang them for changing a character's hair colour. But for action fare, budget considerations and audience projections mean a lot more than satisfying a bookworm's belief that Jack Reacher should be over six feet tall. All things being equal, if Tom Cruise plays Jack Reacher, then Jack Reacher makes money. If some no-name guy who "looks" like Jack Reacher plays him, then the movie might flop. End of casting meeting.

Besides, all of this ignores two things: Tom Cruise is a good actor, and a very bankable action star. He's 50, but could pass on screen for 35, and his skills haven't slipped. Jack Reacher's action sequences are well done and about as believable as action movies allow them to get. It's been known for a long time that Cruise does all of his own stunts, but I read that in this movie he also did all of his own stunt driving. If that's true, then this guy's a damn good driver. He makes a Chevelle SS walk and talk in this movie and let's face it: any movie that has a Chevelle in a car chase is worth half a look.

The supporting cast is good, too. Rosamund Pike is good as the defense attorney, and the chemistry she has with Cruise is on the money. I was glad to see the script didn't go all the way down Love Interest road, though. Robert Duvall turns up for some needed comic relief, and Werner Herzog drops his director's hat in order to do a turn as a European psychopath. Richard Jenkins is in a few scenes as Pike's father, but his talents are entirely wasted in a part too small for him, both literally and figuratively.

Fans of the Jack Reacher book series may not be entirely happy with the film, but they certainly could have received much worse. See it.

Reporter Asks the Right Question

There's times when everyone wants to ask this question. A teacher, a cop, a short order cook, hell, even the president of the United States. Sooner or later, we're asked to do something so trivial and moronic that we just have to ask this question (FYI, the Not Safe For Work lamp is lit):


Angry News Reporter Just Wants to Know What the !#%^ Deal Is - Watch More Funny Videos

Enough with Dave Hodge and The Hacks

Tim Thomas is still taking his lumps for not visiting the White House the other day.

Here's Billy Courtice trying to keep the non-story alive: While Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas set off a firestorm on Monday for refusing the White House’s invitation to visit, the team was not surprised by his absence...."[Expletive] selfish [expletive],” the source told the Globe.

It took me a while to figure out what [Expletive] selfish [expletive] could mean. Hint: if you end with jerkoff or asshat, you'll have an easier time of it.

Over-the-hill hockey commentator Dave Hodge decided he'd throw in his two cents by Tweeting: Don't know if it's fair to point this out, but Tim Thomas has three children named Kiley, Kelsey and Keegan.

What a simple, old hack. You don't know if it's fair to point out that you think Tim Thomas named his kids after the KKK? Then again, it's been so long since anyone cared what Dave Hodge thought about hockey, that's it's probably good to see him wander off into linguistics and race baiting.

But let's be fair to old Hodge. Here's what he had to say in his own defense, as quoted by the CBC: The tweet — and what some saw as a reference to KKK — drew plenty of social media attention and Hodge subsequently tweeted: "To clarify, yesterday's tweet was simply a satirical, tongue-in-cheek observation meant to be humorous and not intended to be offensive."

C'mon. What else could he have possibly meant?

I was watching Pardon the Interruption last night, where two of sports' mature broadcasters reside. Tony Kornheiser thought Tim Thomas should have gone to the White House, while Mike Wilbon didn't care one way or the other. They both said that goalies are like place kickers: they're off in their own world and they're probably a little weird or crazy. Then Wilbon went on to point out just how many people have skipped going to the White House, such as Manny Ramirez, James Harrison, and Larry Bird - Manny because he probably didn't know there was a President or a White House, and Bird because, as Bird himself said, "If the president wants to see me, he knows where to find me."

I have to figure that this story is big only because Tim Thomas is a hard righty who wears Tea Party stuff on his helmet, and therefore he's an easy target for the lefties that tried to make it in journalism, failed, and somehow wound up at the sports desk.

Letter to Dave Hodge: can you and your buddies get over it and get back to reading final scores? Thanks.

Child Abusers Brag About Experimenting with Child's Mental Health

I don't know which is creepier: the losers in this next story, or the fact that I'm so bored with this kind of stuff that I don't feel like writing about it.

Ah, well. Once more unto the breach, so forth:

A British couple who raised their child as "gender neutral" in a bid to break free from stereotyping revealed Friday that their five-year-old is a boy.
Beck Laxton and her partner Kieran, from Sawston in central England, referred to their son, Sasha, as "the infant" and dressed the youngster in ambiguous outfits to keep his sex a secret from friends and strangers.

Laxton, a 46-year-old web editor, told the Cambridge News of her reasons for raising a "genderless" child.
"I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping," she said. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?"

Oh, I dunno. I guess I'll give it a shot: you're an idiot and a child abuser. How does that box fit, toots?

Alert the Media: Tim Thomas Didn't Go to the White House

Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas decided not to take part in the Stanley Cup champs' visit to the White House yesterday. On his Facebook page, he wrote this:

I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.
This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.

Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.

The cynicism is ripe in media circles, so the majority of commentators that I've seen threw out Thomas' "not about politics or party" stuff and just labelled him a "conservative" or, worse, a "tea partier." They prefaced the remarks with the usual mumbo jumbo about how a man has a right to his opinion, and then they crapped all over him.

Kevin Paul Dupont is a good example, breaking out the "but" after a dishonest hat tip to the idea of free expression:

But yesterday was not about politics and government until Thomas made it about politics and government. The day, long set on the calendar, was a day when the Boston Bruins were asked to visit Pennsylvania Avenue to celebrate what they did as a team last season....Shabby. Immature. Unprofessional. Self-centered. Bush league. Need I go on?

No, Kevin. We get it. Tissue?

If you've read my blog for any amount of time, then you know that I hold sports "journalists" in the same regard as mildew on a dishrag, so I'm not surprised by the breathless agonizing over a hockey player not visiting the White House. It has, however, been fun to watch the hacks try to drum up a story and then beat it to death on Twitter.

Muhammad Ali changed his name and said the US was a slave state and Vietnam sucked, and blah, blah, blah. He was left wing and anti-war, so sports writers make that part of his charm. If Tim Thomas had said he was against the Afghan war and that the Tea Party was ruining America, the hacks would have been a little more - what's the word? - considered in their opinions of his politics.

I'm neither here nor there on the political angle. Thomas can believe in Martians and recite the Constitution over dinner while wearing a pink shower cap, for all I care. But let's be real. Hockey is the ugly step child of the four major North American sports. All of the hogwash you're reading about how it's a glorious tradition for Stanley Cup champs to visit the White House is a load.

We're not talking baseball here. Hockey's only been doing it since 1991, or four presidents ago, including Obama. Two of those presidents, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, screwed up the names of the team captains so badly that they've become highlight fodder for every hockey blooper reel ever since (Bill Clinton massacred Steve Yzerman's name, and George Bush asked Mario Lemiuex who he was. Mario Lemiuex, for chrissake).

Here's your story: a hockey goalie didn't go to the White House. Then he wrote something on Facebook. Outrageous!

Here's the video. Fast forward to 2:55 for the part where the Presidents show how happy they are to meet people they've never heard of:

Costa Concordia - No Surprise

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but things have been busy.

In any event, take it from someone who spent a lot of time in and around cruise ships that the Costa Concordia disaster came as no surprise. I'm only surprised that it didn't happen sooner.

Not every cruise ship captain is as reckless as Captain Schettino was, but it isn't the first time I've heard of a ship's captain changing course in order to show off. I knew of one captain some years ago who changed course all the time in order to give the passengers something different than what was written in the travel brochures. Some examples of this captain's work:

1) Pulling to within several metres of a waterfall at a fjord. I don't know how much water was under the ship, but I heard later that it wasn't much.

2) Inviting a friend's sailboat loaded with fresh fish to pull alongside the ship to drop off the cargo. The sailboat's mast got tangled in one of the lifeboat rigs, and for a few minutes it looked like the boat was going to be smashed to pieces against the ship's hull before it got free.

3) Dropping any number of lifeboats/rescue craft into the water, so that the captain, cruise director, photographers, and/or video team, could get pictures of the boat from an assortment of angles at any time. Or so the captain could go water skiing. Yes, seriously.

When I heard the news that the Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized, I wasn't surprised in the least. I'd been waiting for that kind of news for years. I didn't know which ship or cruise line it would be, but eventually one of these idiots had to screw up.

The loss of life is a tragedy. The only good thing that may come out of this disaster is that the butthead captains (and again, not all captains are buttheads) will wake up and realize that they are simply glorified bus drivers. All they have to do is get people from A to B, and that's that. They make damn good money, and they are treated like a god aboard ship. Indeed, they are a god aboard ship. Unless you're the dictator of a small Caribbean island, there is no life like that of a cruise ship captain. Now they just need to remember to flip on the autopilot and stay away from things like rocks and reefs.

While we're at it, it's worth remembering that pilots bring cruise ships in and out of harbour. Pilots are local people that know the waters, and they take over the ship when it is coming to port, or when it's heading for open sea. Once the ship is safely out to sea, a pilot will hop in his boat and say good-bye - or in this case, ciao.

I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure if a pilot ever was aboard that ship. But if there was, it meant Schettino said ciao to the pilot, then headed for shore to say hello to the island, or whatever the hell he was doing before he smashed it up. Point is, cruise ship captains more or less need to know how not to hit anything in open water, but when it comes to the in-close stuff, the pilots keep them safe - if the captains will let them.

Final thought: it was damn nice to hear the audio of the coast guard officer telling Schettino he was a coward. The translation made it obvious that what you were listening to was a man of the sea telling a cocktail party host that his playboy life was over. It's just too bad people had to die to end it.

Photo: CNN