Every week I'll be here to reveal and review some of my favorite moments from the internet. Whether it be binging television shows, streaming sports or simply getting lost in a YouTube rabbit hole, I'm here to give you my top picks every Friday, as well as the perfect pairing to get into an optimal headspace for them. This week, we're embarrassed that we're watching preseason football and every show about football while preparing for another grueling season of avoiding fantasy football conversations.
Hard Knocks
Recommended Pairing:A sixer of Bud Lights, a concussion, and some sweet HGH.
I was an elite talent in backyards and cul-de-sacs growing up, honest to god.
Through middle school I legitimately thought I would be playing college ball with a decent shot at the NFL. I was, in my own modest terms, a generational talent that could out run, out catch, and out throw any kid in the neighborhood. I was lean, quick, and stronger than all the other kids my age. You simply couldn't get two hands on me, much less tackle me.
For a brief yet glorious moment in time I was an unstoppable force. Basically, I was Bo Jackson in Tecmo Super Bowl.
Then freshman year in high school I put pads on for the first time and knew almost immediately, under a painful wave of acceptance, I knew I wasn't born to run around and dodge jacked up meatheads through two-a-day hell week practices while men with whistles and mustaches yelled at me. Fuck that noise. I was put on this earth to dick around for a living writing jokes and scripts.
Fifteen years (and fifty or so pounds later) I can still chuck a football down the field with decent precision, but my brain and my joints are thankful I was too silly of a human to take sports too seriously. I still love football though, always will.
Football is a ballet of brutal violence; Four quarters of war orders scripted by old men executed on the field by loyal young soldiers. And one show really captures why it's our nation's obsession - HBO's Hard Knocks.
It's amazing to see the raw talent and power of these athletes first hand as coaches scrape off tiny imperfections of wasted movement from their game. The speeches, the drills, and the strategy of course are secondary when you also get to see that these giants are just real people, full of jokes, drama, and fears.
This season a team has come back to my town and I'm fully on the bandwagon, especially since we have a defensive lineman that believes in mermaids but not dinosaurs.
Ballers: Season Two
Recommended Pairing:Expired Percocets and bottle service.
I don't understand the appeal of this show, and I've seen every episode. It is currently the leader in the category of my least favorite show I have seen every episode of, narrowly beating out Scrubs –
and the logical predecessor to Ballers, the one true king of all televised douchebags, Entourage.
Let's be real, this show is essentially Entourage without the fun, friends, or snappy repartee from Jeremy Piven. (Was he not available?) Instead we have a neutered version of Rob Corddry taking up the tiny bit of screen not occupied by Mr. Johnson's neck, lats, and biceps. It's a show lost somewhere between trying to be a comedy and trying to portray a realistic version of life in and around the NFL yet somehow manages to be neither.
Which is crazy because Rob Corddry is hilarious.
And Mr. The Rock can be funny and charismatic as well.
It's just that neither of them can save an episode because it's really not a very good show. The characters are thin, their motivations are heavy handed, and there's not nearly enough nudity to compensate for the lack of provocative storytelling.
I think the best part, honestly, is that after every episode HBO does a slick recap featuring the writer and executive from the show, Evan Reilly.
Why in god's name does every episode get the "Inside the Episode" treatment? Who needs any of this recapped?
Every week I watch the show and think, "Man, I gotta stop watching this." Then I giggle through the recap like I'm on MST3K, "Oh I see. In the episode where he's afraid of getting a brain scan, he gets a brain scan, but he's afraid of getting the results because getting a brain scan is scary... especially since, and we can't stress this enough... It's scary for former football players to get brain scans. Thanks Evan!"
It's absurd. I can't stop watching. Help me.
Fantasy Football Alternatives
Recommended Pairing:Earplugs and a can of Mace.
When is fantasy sports going to stop being a thing? Or at the very least, the most important thing on a Sunday?
I miss being able to just watch a game, enjoy the action, and make fun of how stupid the commentators are.
Luckily the boys over at Reddit have started a great new tradition for guys like me with, "Shit the Announcers Say" –
A weekly recap thread of all the non-sequiturs, unironic flubs, oddly sexual innuendos, and flat out idiocy that pours from the mouths of these professionals each week.
Here's a few of my favorites from last year.
Mayock: “I’ll give you a golf analogy.” Hicks: “Okay." Mayock: “……He’s like a really good golfer.”
Gruden: "Mike, did you ever see the movie 'Cast Away?' In that movie, Tom Hanks' only friend was a ball named Wilson. In this game, Russell Wilson's only friend is a football."
Ryan: "Russell Wilson puts that one right into the honey hole."
I get it, you're up there forced to talk for three straight hours. There's no way you're getting through an entire game without saying something borderline idiotic, but these guys repeatedly say some of the dumbest stuff you hear each week. That's so much more interesting to me than hoping that the 3rd string tight end catches a touchdown late in a blowout.
Whatever. Football's back and I wish I didn't give a shit.
