Take on the Jets

I ran into Jets owner Woody Johnson today randomly in the street and instead of exploding on the dismal state of this franchise all I can up with was "time for Tebow".  Although I honestly think they should go with Tebow there are obviously many bigger issues at play including the complete inadequacy of Mike Tannebaum, the inability to have any creativity out of Sporano, the terrible play of Sanchez, the lack of talent on both aides of the ball, the fact that Rex has become a worse coach with every pound he loses but all I came up with was "Time for Tebow" and my buddies who are fellow Jet fans  skewered me for it. 

So then I sat down and looked over what I really think is the issue, namingly the draft which has gotten worse every year since Might Mike drafted Revis. I am not sure if they got cocky by believing all their press clippings, they have been unlucky or if they forgot how to evaluate talent but the last few years are absolutely dreadful

2012 - NEW YORK JETS
RD	SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	16	Quinton Coples	DE	North Carolina
2	43	Stephen Hill	WR	Georgia Tech
3	77	Demario Davis	LB	Arkansas State
6	187	Josh Bush	DB	Wake Forest
6	202	Terrance Ganaway	RB	Baylor
6	203	Robert T. Griffin	G	Baylor
7	242	Antonio Allen	SS	South Carolina
7	244	Jordan White	WR	Western Michigan

2011 - NEW YORK JETS
RD	SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	30	Muhammad Wilkerson	DT	Temple
3	94	Kenrick Ellis	DT	Hampton
4	126	Bilal Powell	RB	Louisville
5	153	Jeremy Kerley	WR	Texas Christian
7	208	Greg McElroy	QB	Alabama
7	227	Scotty McKnight	WR	Colorado

2010 - NEW YORK JETS
RD	SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	29	Kyle Wilson	CB	Boise State
2	61	Vladimir Ducasse	T	Massachusetts
4	112	Joe McKnight	RB	USC
5	139	John Conner	RB	Kentucky

2009 - NEW YORK JETS
RD	SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	5	Mark Sanchez	QB	USC
3	65	Shonn Greene	RB	Iowa
6	193	Matt Slauson	G	Nebraska

2008 - NEW YORK JETS
RD	SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	6	Vernon Gholston	LB	Ohio State
1	30	Dustin Keller	TE	Purdue
4	113	Dwight Lowery	CB	San Jose State
5	162	Erik Ainge	QB	Tennessee
6	171	Marcus Henry	WR	Kansas
7	211	Nate Garner	T	Arkansas

2007 - NEW YORK JETS
RD	SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	14	Darrelle Revis	CB	Pittsburgh
2	47	David Harris	ILB	Michigan
6	177	Jacob Bender	T	Nicholls State
7	235	Chansi Stuckey	WR	Clemson

2006 - NEW YORK JETS
RD	SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	4	D'Brickashaw Ferguson	T	Virginia
1	29	Nick Mangold	C	Ohio State
2	49	Kellen Clemens	QB	Oregon
3	76	Anthony Schlegel	LB	Ohio State
3	97	Eric Smith	DB	Michigan State
4	103	Brad Smith	WR	Missouri
4	117	Leon Washington	RB	Florida State
5	150	Jason Pociask	TE	Wisconsin
6	189	Drew Coleman	CB	Texas Christian
7	220	Titus Adams	DT	Nebraska

2012 is Still incomplete but sure doesn't feel great.  I think there are only two guys who are still on the team and they were drafted like 3 months ago

2011. I give it a C-   Wilkerson is OK but not the big impact we were sold.  Ellis hasn't done much outside that game a few weeks ago. Powell sucks, Kerley is a contributor, McElroy is best known for throwing the team under the bus.  Scotty McKnight  has been yo-yo'd between the roster and practice squad for two years

2010. F.   Ducasse blows,  Wilson is not a first round talent,  McKnight could be good but come-on he has done nothing and Conner has a great nickname and virtually nothing to back it up 

2009. D.  I'd give it an F but all three picks are starters albeit it terrible starters. Sanchez looks totally overwhelmed and is a bottom 10 QB in the league, Greene is maybe the worst starting RB in the league.  When Slauson is the only redeeming part of a draft you are in trouble

2008. F.  Two words Vernon Gholston.  I think we both have the same amount of NFL sacks but he has had a better seat 

Keller is an average TE or a bit below it, Ainge is off the team.  When Dwight Lowery is perhaps your most consistent contributor you are in trouble.  The other two guys are working at McDowels in Queens last I heard

2007. A.  Revis and Harris in one draft is money.  even if the rest of the draft sucked, which it did

2006. A.  D'Brick is overrated but obviously Mangold is fantastic. Leon and Brad Smith were dynamic parts if the offense once upon a time and Eric Smith can hit (although he can't cover)

Out of 40 picks there are three studs (Revis, Mangold and Harris). Couple of very good starters (D'Brick and maybe Wilkerson) and a bunch of duds, a few crappt starters (Slauson, Greene) and a few gigantic busts (Sanchez, Gholston, Ducasse)

There are too many Jeremy Kerley's and not enough Marvin Harrison's

Sent from my iPhone

Take on the funny winter hat

I have to say that one of the worst looks around has to be these new
animal faced winter hats with the long ears. Worst looks might be a
bit harsh as they are actually cute for kids and a hot chick can make
a plastic bag look sexy but when I see a full grown man wearing one of
these things with jeans and a tshirt I cringe and when I see him
wearing it with work pants and a button down I feel like putting him
out of his misery because no adult professional should be caught dead
looking like a second grader

I get that there is this hipster style which I will probably never
understand but how can you look at the mirror and think that wearing 3
foot long dog-ears is even slightly cool.

Take on the shuttered Starbucks

If the weather patterns didn't convince you the apocalypse was coming,
if the fact the Texans are probably the favorites to win the Superbowl
hasn't made you think twice and if the fact that we reelected
Obama with a nearly 8% unemployment didn't seem like a sign that the
Mayans were right then nothing will convince you. But in have another
one.. Yesterday i saw something I have never seen before, the closing
of a Starbucks. It's not long ago when comedians would joke that
they juat opened a new Starbucks inside of another Strarbucks and
before I knew it I walked up to one in midtown manhattan and thought
that they hadn't taken down their Sandy decorations because the
windows were paneled over, the sign was pulled down and the line of
people which would often stretch onto the street was nowhere to be
found, forced to milk their caffeine fix with bodega coffee.
Maybe their landlord had raised the rent, maybe the recession has
been especially hard for coffee or maybe it is a cruel joke but I am
not sure how the hell I am going to make it through the week

Take on PSE&G inefficiency

When I finally got home yesterday after 10 days of sleeping on a couch
because my power was out, I was thrilled. Excited because after
everything we finally were able to settle back down in the comfort of
our own beds and couches and not dependent on other people.
What I wasn't as thrilled about was what I saw as I drove back home.
I saw a bunch of PSE&G trucks with two cranes working on an
electricity pole fixing what would certainly give a bunch of families
like mine some much needed juice. What got me were not the 3 guys up
in the cranes but the 18 guys standing street level. These guys were
all standing around undoubtedly looking to do something but instead
proved again the inefficiency people across Long Island and New Jersey
have been screaming about for two weeks. These guys weren't doing
anything other that shooting the shit and this wasn't happening at
lunch-time. With thousands of people still without power, there just
has to be a more efficient way of utilizing these employees I know
for a fact that there are local lines still down from people's houses
to the pole on the street, you would think a couple of these guys
could be up there fixing those situations instead of discussing how
those four Doug Martin TD's killed them in fantasy that week

Get your crews working PSE&G, this is getting beyond ridiculous

Take on the electronic device storage truck

Sometimes I see a business and wonder why I didn't think of it first.
I can't pretend to invent a new fuel injector or code new software but
I sure as hell could have come up with the electronic-device storage
truck. Some genius decided to park a big van outside of a
high-school in NYC and store kid's cell-phones for the school day
since they apparently can't bring them into school. So this dude
parks his van, collects a couple hundred cell phones at 7:45 for $2-$3
a piece and then hands them back out at 2:30pm and he's probably
surfing youporn on some kid's iphone while doing it

take on the loss

after a grueling 2 years the election is finally over and I'm wondering what the idiots like Karl Rove, Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd are going to be sent back into hibernation for a few months and I for one couldn't be happier

but before that happens somebody is going to have to write the official obituary for the Romney/Ryan ticket although the draft started last night and if the McCain/Palin obituary was any sign, we're in for some good gossip between Gilligan and Mr. Howell. 

They'll say that they couldn't connect with Hispanic voters, that they underestimated the demographic shifts, that Romney seemed out of touch, that Ryan looked like the kind of creepy guy you see in the NYSC locker-room flexing in front of a mirror without a towel on.   They'll say that the momentum that Romney had after the first debate was stopped in it's tracks by a super-storm, they'll blame Chris Christie for going off message, they may blame Ann for her fashion choice or the fact that Mitt's family looked like they were reproduced like rabbits every time they hit the stage.   Maybe they'll blame it on Mormon bias, maybe they'll say that there aren't as many white males to carry an election anymore and maybe they'll blame or give credit for the Dems for their well oiled electoral machine

but one thing they may all forget is that in Mitt let himself go..  maybe it was a desperate attempt to try to connect with the middle class, but Jesus Christ the dude got fat over the last few months.    every time I saw him on stage it looked like he had swallowed another one of this grandkids and by choosing a guy who seemed to have the vision (literally his vision not figuratively) of the guy with coke-bottle glasses who got picked last every time they picked teams in gym.   Maybe the two look a bit too much like the electorate..

People want to see a leader in their president, someone to aspire to, not some disgusting overweight near-sighted sloth and maybe after all was said and done they figured that the Ryan/Romney ticket looked like it wouldn't be able to survive four years of unbelievable pressure  which would have left us with President John Boehner which may have put the country on a path of bankruptcy just in the cost of kleenex

Take on the weather man

I always wonder why kind of qualifications a meteorologist has. It
seems like a weird gig: part time science nerd, part time quack-quack
TV personality and part time guy who stands in a hooded jacket on the
shoreline. I get that we're demanding society and we need
up-to-the-minute news and updates but I have never quite understood
the allure of watching some schmuck standing in 60mph winds in an
orange burka trying to tell you how bad it is. The connection always
sucks, the wind blows into the mic so you get this constant hissing
sound although the looks of feigned concern the anchors back at the
studio is usually fantastic. Nothing like Katie Tong or Ernie
Anastos trying to pretend to give a crap about some 28 year old whose
name they forget as soon as they say it getting his socks wet because
he decided he wanted to be filmed literally standing in the ocean
before they cut to Sal with the Islander score
But the real beauty of it is that in almost all circumstances as said
weatherman (or lady) talks about the winds and rain with hair slapping
them in their face, rain pelting them in the eye while spitting all
over the camera there will inevitably be some dude walking his Irish
Setter in shorts and crocs cutting behind him in his long-shot proving
that more often than not these things are no better than the Hollywood
production of the moon-landing
How long before we get interactive TV that allows the viewer to get
soaked in their very own living room so they can feel like they are
right in the action
I for one can be plenty convinced that the storm is wet just by
getting an overhead shot or maybe by dunking Sam Champion in the pond.

Take on a campaigning president

This is a few days late but I cannot believe that Obama was out in
Colorado campaign last week. I understand that the Presidency travels
with the person and that he can fulfill the requirements anywhere but
standing in front of 500 college kids hours after touring the shore
felt cheap

If he had restarted this weekend than i think I would have been ok
with it but to be on the stump before they had even realized the
devastation on Staten Island quite honestly sickened me. I realize
there wasn't a lot Obama was going to personally do for the area but
to be standing in Denver on the stump 12 hours after being knee deep
in water down the shore was a troubling tableau and this isn't even a
criticism based on Sandy but more one of campaigning while holding
office

I criticized GW Bush for doing it in 2004 so I have to be consistent
and knock Obama too but the thought that the POTUS spends more time
campaigning than governing is just sickening. I get that these
elections are exhausting but watching anybody at any level of
government (governors, senators, congressmen, mayors etc) basically
put their job on hold while they campaign just seems ludicrous and
actually I wonder how effective it really is
I always believe that speaking in front of a crowd of people who are
already going to vote for you in Iowa isn't really helping your cause
what helps your cause Romney can do it because he doesn't have a
day-job but having the country put on hold, even symbolically,
especially during a time of crisis is terrible form

And really what better way to convince people to give you four more
years than having them see you suspend active campaigning and
looking presidential

Take on the color green on packaging

One of the biggest deceptions out there has to be these new food
company packaging. I walk into every supermarket and all the chicken
is now wrapped in containers with these carefully designed green lines
all over them giving them the appearance of being organic when in fact
it's the same hormone injected, triple caged, featherless bird Frank
Purdue usually sells you. But that is where a little perception goes
a long way because with just a couple of green letters and a green
swirl around the logo the same malnutritioned fowl becomes a pampered
hen living off organically grown feed, sleeping on plush pillows and
soothed to Enya with only the work of an effective marketing team and
a not-do-bright public

Same thing with all these "all natural" catch-phrases which are just
devises used to trick a gullible consumer into thinking it's organic

But the worst thing might be "kosher" which somehow stamps quality
onto the product for many folks when in fact it only means the same
slaughtered testosterone filled cow with three eyes got thrown into a
warehouse and blessed by a dude in a black hat ad white shirt
Although at least you are assured there isn't going to be any swine
mixed in with your roid raging bull

Take in gas rationing

With the endless lines for gas something had to be done and after
three days of hell NJ Chris Christie made the call to ration gas by
allowing only certain cars to get gas on even days and others on odd
days. I never quite understood this as it doesn't limit gas usage it
only inconveniences more people. If I have an odd day license plate
and I happened to have November 4th off, I can't use that day to stand
in line. In China they use a slightly different system where they
limit the days you can drive depending on the license plate so every
car is not on the road the same day. This is true rationing because if
limits use, the NJ plan does almost nothing to limit usage only adds a
layer of inconvenience

By the way how do they decide which days people walking up with a gas
canister are allowed gas? Maybe they have to show ID and it's based
in age? 33 on odd days, 34 on even ones. Maybe be height? 5'10 on
even days, 5'11" on odd ones. maybe on waist line. There must be
something they can use

I did think if one good way to limit usage.. People with vanity plates
are denied gas all together because they tend to be complete morons
anyway

Take on the marathon

Forget the election, forget the thousands of people whose houses have
been swept out to sea and forget Tim Tebow, the only thing anybody is
talking about is the marathon. I have heard people say that canceling
it would be a travesty when the only travesty would be having it
I don't want to hear about this race showing the resiliency of this
city because real resiliency is seen in a recovery effort that affects
people's lives. This is the city's premier event to show itself off
but when the only sights are devastation you may not be getting the
bang for your buck

I know the argument the mayor uses about it benefitting small
businesses but really what that is are hotels (which are triple booked
anyway), restaurants (which are packed) and maybe bodegas (which are
out of food). So who we should look to benefit are the people in need
by NOT dedicating a single cop, a single bottle of water, a single
gallon of gasoline to a bunch of guys trying for a personal
achievement

As a veteran of two marathons I know what it takes to train for one
of these things and I know how disappointed I'd be if it were pulled
from underneath me but as a veteran of life I also know that sometimes
things get in the way. I trained for my third marathon three years
ago, had run 13 qualifier races, had completed my 18 and 20 mile
training runs and had the date circles on my calendar and then had it
pulled from me when my daughter was born 5 weeks early. Sure it
wasn't ideal but that happens. Now obviously my own situation was
caused by a positive while this would be done after a tragedy but that
is all the more reason to cancel it.

How we can run a race which starts in Staten Island when people's
houses are still under-water and there are 100,000 houses without
energy is beyond selfish. How we use thousands of cars to drive the
race through Brooklyn when the entire borough is out of gasoline is
ludicrous, how we have ambulances on the course when hospitals are
being evacuated is criminal
Maybe the 2 million people who would otherwise be cheering on the
runners can instead volunteer at a shelter out in coastal Brooklyn
There will be a time to run the 2012 NYC marathon, that time just isn't today

take on the Sandy aftermath

When the lights first went out on Monday it was sort of cool.. three days later it sucks.   I can't tell you how annoying it is to not be able to check my email, charge my phone or wash my balls although I've had it better than most having been shacking up with my in-laws and a hotel in NYC but honestly just looking around it is amazing how long it went from everybody having the 'one for all' mentality to everybody basically wanting to slit everybody else's throat.

It's crazy how short the tempers are as I've seen near fist fights over gas, over water and over wall outlets so people can charge their laptops, iPhones and vibrators.   The greatest thing is that it's getting colder out there and all these poor people are shuttered inside a dirty Starbucks just desperately trying to get 5 minutes of juice before they get shooed out like they are a bunch of disgusting homeless people..  .