Cavs lose, J.R. Smith buys cotton candy in Columbus
October 12, 2015Joe Haden likely out Week 6 against Denver
October 13, 2015Happy Tuesday, WFNY!
And what a Tuesday it is, indeed. Any Tuesday that follows a Cleveland Browns win in Baltimore is a phenomenal Tuesday in my book!
For me, this Browns win was something of a sustenance win. It’s the kind of win that can give me enough positivity to carry through the next couple of months. Because make no mistake, the Ravens are not a good team and I still don’t think this Browns team is very good. There simply isn’t enough talent at the skill positions, they don’t generate a pass rush at all, the linebackers often lose contain, and the offense is becoming more and more one-dimensional. So yeah, there are problems that can’t and won’t be fixed this season.
But I don’t want to focus on any of that stuff today. The Browns won in Baltimore! I’m going to enjoy this one for as long as I can. I still remember last season, as everything was falling apart and the season was spiraling down the drain, I could always at least fall back on the win over the Steelers. I was at that Steelers game and the fun, excitement, and emotion of just throttling the Steelers was a sustenance win. I’m hoping this win can do the same.
*****
Terry Bradshaw is my kind of guy
I don’t want to make some kind of joke about how I hate Bradshaw because he was a Steeler. But two things. First, I never saw Bradshaw play with the Steelers.1 I have no connection or feeling about him as a football player with the hated Steelers. Second, this is a serious subject and my appreciation for Bradshaw’s stance outweighs the trivialities of fandom.
As most of you probably know, Greg Hardy returned to the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys this weekend. He returned from a suspension for his role in a domestic abuse case. For those who don’t know, Hardy was charged with assaulting his then girlfriend by choking her, threatening to kill her, and throwing her down onto a bed covered in guns. A judge convicted Hardy of the crime. Yes, convicted. As in, found him guilty. But Hardy, being paid millions of dollars, was able to afford attorneys who were able to secure appeal the decision and get a jury trial. And then, magically, Hardy’s accuser failed to show up for the trial. Obviously those NFL millions were enough to buy his way out of legal trouble.
So Hardy returns from his suspension, and in his first freaking interview with the media, he immediately resumes showing his complete lack of respect for women and a total absence of remorse for what he did.
Thankfully we have people like Katie Nolan, who was among the first to call out Hardy’s comments and the way his comments were covered by the media, the Cowboys, and the NFL as a whole.
It’s a routine thing in sports. High profile athlete treats another human being (often women, but not always) like trash, buys his way out of legal trouble, and then the media pretends like it never happened. When’s the last time you heard announcers refer to the sexual assault charges of Kobe Bryant or Ben Roethlisberger? Or how about when Jameis Winston got on a table and shouted a demeaning phrase just months after being accused of rape and the media more or less chuckled and said, “Well, boys will be boys”. Why are announcers and the media so afraid of holding athletes accountable to some modest standard of decency?
Well, thankfully, Terry Bradshaw isn’t afraid to make a stand and to call out the league and the team owners for their hypocrisy and lack of accountability.
It’s not the first time Bradshaw has made a stand when so many of his colleagues are too afraid to stand up for what’s right.
So while I know that my duty as a Browns fan is supposed to be to dislike Terry Bradshaw. But I’m sorry, I don’t dislike him. I love that he’s unafraid to stand up for what he believes in and to call out those who treat other people like trash.
*****
Check out the latest WFNY podcast!
Craig was kind enough to have me on the latest WFNY podcast2. Craig, Dave Sterling, and I talked about the Browns win in the first half, and then Craig and I discussed the Deafheaven album in depth.
So check out either half of the podcast, or both!
*****
New Music of the Week
With a relatively slow week for new music for me, I decided instead to talk about the new Deafheaven album again! I kid, I kid. Instead, lets talk about another metal band that put out a new album a couple weeks ago and I haven’t had a chance to talk about here yet. That band is Kylesa and their new album is “Exhausting Fire”.
Kylesa are a metal band from Georgia who have been around for quite a while now. They’ve long been one of the more underrated bands for me. They trend in a slow, heavy, Melvins-esque sludge metal sound, with alternating male and female vocals which creates a really unique and interesting contrast and dynamic.
Fans of more traditional metal and some of the heavier 90s bands will probably be able to get into Kylesa. The new album isn’t breaking any barriers or doing anything new. It just kicks a whole lot of ass and absolutely rocks in the Kylesa way. Check it out!
*****
That’s all I have today. Be good to each other out there and have a great week!
17 Comments
well i did get to watch bradshaw’s playing days … i still hate him. but , i always did give him his due for overcoming the “he’s too stupid” thing to be a 4-time super bowl champ. he turned into a decent commentator on fox & at least he’s not afraid to speak his mind.
i hate elway even more … but he does have my respect. hate is a strong word , but can you hate someone & still respect them ?
I don’t know, but I DO have memory of Elway and I DO hate him. Sports hate, of course.
Hardy is a POS.
Good on Bradshaw for calling him out.
First time I remember seeing Terry Bradshaw in action was when he and Theismann ran a towing company in Cannonball Run II.
Good for Terry. That crazy old hillbilly gets a huge upvote for having balls. And when Terry starts, the others look down uncomfortably. No one is nodding their head in agreement, lest they be lumped in with someone who has balls too.
It always reminds me of the insane ball-washing fumbling that play-by-play guys go through when talking about a guy (imagine in Chris Berman’s voice): “Look, I think we all know he’s umm a guy who has had, umm a bit of a rough time (felonious weapons charge), and last year, umm he had some personal adversity (wife beating), but….”
Re Hardy, if an entitled jock gets away with this behavior, if the worst thing that happens to him is that he earns his riches in another big city, a lack of remorse is no surprise. Any more than Josh Gordon could understand why he needed to do anthing more than apologize with wide-eyed sincere face every time his urine came up dirty. (He might even still be wondering why claiming he didn’t know his probation included alcohol abstinence didn’t make everything go away, since the codeine-for-strep seemed to go over ok).
I did see Bradshaw play and his public metamorphosis is pretty remarkable. While he was still playing his demeanor was no less fierce than Big Ben or Philip Rivers, and his interviews weren’t Hee Haw episodes despite the dumb jock rep; his jack-o-lantern grin and hick thing was actually Stage II. And now he’s known as the self-aware clown, someone who can turn on worldly gravitas when no one else will. Good for him. I don’t hate him for the ’70s. He and his teams were so much better than the Browns. If they had underachieved, if he partied his way out of the league, then he would deserve our disdain.
Steroids will do amazing things for competitive advantage.
I have sports hate for all things Elway and Steelers. Bad enough I have family members (in laws) that tell me “hey call my house…we’ll answer after 6 rings”.
so, Steelers were doping and Alzado and the rest of the Browns weren’t?
I hated Elway, but came around in his last year or two, he was just so friggin’ good. Same for Jordan (pre-wiz)
“t’s a routine thing in sports. High profile athlete treats another human being (often women, but not always) like trash, buys his way out of legal trouble, and then the media pretends like it never happened.”
#1 in my book… Ray Lewis
Not sure where I said the Browns were completely innocent of such things. But it’s pretty clear looking back that it was a more systemic thing in the burgh than most anywhere else. Just another thing the Steelers have been better at than us over the years I guess.
That delightful and eloquent commentator over at ESPN? What did he do??
hi HARV … then you probably remember joe “turkey” jones picking up bradshaw by his legs & bouncing his head of the turf & putting bradshaw out for the rest of the regular season. i’m not sure , but i think all he got was a 15-yard penalty … no fine , no suspension.
of course , mike kruczek got the steelers to playoffs & bradshaw won another super bowl.
of course I remember. Sad that that was a highlight of that era because (other than that decent season) the Browns toggled between bad and mediocre. Only Greg Pruitt’s individual heroics quickened the pulse but ultimately it was never enough. To me remembering that sack fondly is like remembering 10 Cent Beer Night fondly, like going for negative attention because that was the only type available. The reason Cleveland fans went ballistic over the Cavs first round playoff series in that same era was because everything else in local sports just sucked.
it was greg pruitt that led me down this path … they were bad in the early 70’s when i started following them … yet i got pulled-in.
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