#-1: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -3). This is the weakest survey in recent memory. Yeah, I know the Goph volleyers won their Diet Coke Classic by beating the other three opponents (Tulsa, Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Iowa St.). But the club dropped a set to each of them. The Cyclones I might understand; the Golden Hurricane and ... uh, Panthers? ... absolutely not.
Only three of their seven wins have been sweeps, and it's not as if they've been playing a Murderers' Row of non-conference opponents. Arguably their best competitor so far, Louisville, they lost to in four sets -- at home. As I have said before, there is something seriously, seriously wrong with this team, and I don't know what the hell it is.
They finish their non-con slate at the Toledo Tournament, and the tomato cans set up for the U. are Duquesne, the host Rockets and Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne. They should beat all of them by the minimum nine sets. Guess here is that they don't, not even close.
#-2: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -5). According to this breakdown of the Big Ten teams' performances before beginning conference play, the Gophers are on the outside looking in. Marquette may be the biggest scalp so far, but losing at Ole Miss and Auburn two weekends ago may hurt them, especially if the Rebels and Tigers are sitting on the bubble with the Goofers at season's end.
I have no idea if their split to begin the B1G at the Michigan schools helps or hinders the squad. At least both games went past regulation. In Friday's game against Michigan, the U. lost 2-1 on a free kick in the 94th minute. But on Sunday afternoon at Michigan St., Sophomore Midfielder Josee Stiever cleaned up a Gopher corner kick in the 93rd minute to eke out a 1-0 win.
They have only one game this week, and it's their conference home opener, against Iowa, Saturday at 7. I might be there, or I might be entertaining a friend of my sister's, one whom my sis warned me was "arrogant." And I get to meet her? Wow, what an honor! (wanking motion)
#-3: Twins (Last Week: -4). I was tempted, very tempted, to slot the Twinks before the Gopher gridironers. It has been a thankless season, especially the back half, so why make gratuitous messages slamming the team now when I really haven't before? Well, Mother Nature postponed games in Cleveland Wednesday and in Chicago Friday. Since the Twinks were still in the middle of the series (serieses?) they made up for them by playing doubleheaders against both the following day. And they lost both doubleheaders. Two, not just in the same week, but in three days. Is that a record or something? I'll bet that's the first time that has happened in Twinks franchise history. There has been a lot of suckiness to go around, but having days off before losing a pair in the same day back-to-back intensifies the suckiness. That's such an embarrassing achievement I wanted to drop them lower.
Alas, they managed to win -- not just one game but two, thereby finishing the screening week a 2-5. The last game Tuesday night was won in comeback fashion but not before Closer (and until now indefatigable player) Glen Perkins pissed away his second save situation in four days. On Saturday night he gave up a home run to the White Sox's Jose Abreu. Last (Tuesday) night the Twins were leading 2-0 going into the top of the ninth when Perkins served up a three-run home run to J.D. Martinez to give Detroit a 3-2 lead.
That was when I turned off the radio and said, Fuck it, I'm going to sleep. (My body forced me to shut down; fell asleep around 9:30 I think, woke up briefly at midnight, then slept all the way to 5:45.) Then, this morning, I went on ESPN.com and saw that the Twins actually came back from their choke to win 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth! And they did it off the bat of Aaron Hicks and the feet of Pinch Runner Chris Herrmann, the former of whose ground ball to shortstop and the latter of whose feet beat the throw from short capped off a rare come-from-behind victory. I guess I should have kept the radio on for the bottom of the 9th; after all, it was Joe Nathan who was pitching for Detroit and choked back the game to us.
Speaking of Perkins, tweets today say he's getting his neck checked out. Must be from all those home runs he had to turn around to see after he gave them up. They finish their three-game series against the Tigers tonight (Wednesday night), then continue their final homestand of the season with a weekend trio vs. Cleveland and, in the final series at Target, a three-game set against Arizona starting on Monday.
#-4: Gopher football (Last Week: -2). Well, I guess they're not going to the College Football Playoff. I don't mind the team challenging itself by playing a true road game at TCU (take notes, SEC -- if you have opposable thumbs), but yeah, it would have been nice to win, and if not, to make a game of it, not lose 30-7. Meanwhile, starting Quarterback Mitch Leidner is hurt. He'll play at home against San Jose St. this Saturday afternoon, but if he's not at 100%, there's 0% chance this team will do anything.
#-5: Vikings (Last Week: -1). Well, fuck, what else can you say about the latest Worst Week Ever In ViQueens History? The loss to New England in the first game at TCF Bank Stadium is a complete afterthought. (I want to note, however, that the Vikes lost by the same score as the Gophers, 30-7.)
As someone who got the shit beat out of him to the point where he could no longer function as a normal person in society, I am horrified by the allegations of physical abuse by Adrian Peterson. But I also know that a lot of people believe that all All Day was doing was disciplining his son (or at least a boy he fathered; he's like the Shawn Kemp of the NFL with all the kids he has) and he absolutely did nothing wrong. And I have to admit that if he switched his son for shoving a boy away from a video game ... well, I would've been pissed off at my son, too. Probably a good reason, then, not to be a father.
Tons of people are pillorying the NFL for their actions over Peterson as well. I truly believe that the accusations would be shocking if what happened was the only thing that happened off-the-field with The Shield this week. But that it came as a chaser to a second video of Ray Rice knocking out his then-girlfriend (and now-wife) seemed to amplify the outcry over Peterson. I'm not saying it's all overblown. But I think some of it is. And, to be perfectly honest, I think much of the venom towards the league is unwarranted.
First of all, there is a thing called due process. Many times I don't like it at all, but when people demand the NFL do something, the reason that they don't (or don't fast enough to many people's liking) is that the subject in question has rights and that many of them are codified in a contract or agreement that prevents them from taking swift action without a vetted process and/or without swift retribution by the NFL players' union or the owners of the team he's playing for. While the outrage is genuine and, for the most part, correct, I sense a mob mentality growing. I don't totally blame Commissioner Roger Goodell for the actions of Rice and Peterson. And while the reaction hasn't been the greatest, calls for his resignation, to me, distract from the real perpetrators of these heinous crimes, Rice and Peterson themselves.
Moreover, the NFL is a business. They make billions of dollars, and we give them those billions in order to be entertained. I'm not sure why there is such moral anger over a business. On the one hand we demand the league to be judge, jury and executioner, but when the NFL actually acts like a behemoth, we go, "You people are just football, don't act all high and mighty." I really believe there is a hypocrisy going on by the public who want blood splatter on The Shield, and then demand said blood when it's Sunday. You either like the NFL or you don't, and you don't have much of a right to jerk it around according to your morals which, in my opinion, seem to escalate at a whim.
And by the way, I don't understand why the NFL, nor Vikings Owner Zygi Wilf, just go ahead and admit that the about-face in regards to barring Rice from the league and suspending Peterson and Carolina Panther Greg Hardy (for beating his pregnant girlfriend) was because the public didn't like it. They are a business, and businesses have to make decisions in order to stay in business. So they take action, the public doesn't like, so they change course and do something else. That's the way shit gets done, people. You got pissed off, and you demand change, and you get it! Any bitching that the league or its teams should have known better damn well know that if they unilaterally cut star players 1) they will incur the wrath of the players' union and 2) their team will lose, which means people (probably the same people who demanded that player be cut) will bitch about them losing because they hastily cut their star player. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I'm angrier with the Wilfs for not admitting that the NFL decided to put Peterson "on a list" because sponsors weren't going to give them money anymore. If they say that, people would understand. Goodell caught hell for saying the NFL made a mistake when they initially suspending Rice only for two games and after they instituted a new domestic violence policy. I really believe he was being honest. Now about being honest about whether or not he saw the second video before he said he did, I can't say. I'm just saying that as big and bad as the NFL is, people suck, too.
And what of Peterson? Honestly, his legacy is intact. He's going to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and he'll make it to the team's Ring of Honor ... just, oh, five or ten years after he would if we didn't know that he smashed his boy's head against the dashboard while in the car. (Wow.) What he did on the field will never be touched, even if he gets cut tomorrow. And when all is said and done, even though his physical abuse of the children he's fathered will forever taint the man, the legend of Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Viking will be enshrined no matter what happens. This will be the next Kirby Puckett, a man whose fans will want to remember only in the arena, and will scream so loud that it will keep the real truth of the monster out of the uniform in the shadows.
Oh yeah -- Minnesota visits desperate (and 0-2) New Orleans Sunday. If it turns out that Drew Brees likes to eat orphans, it wouldn't completely surprise me.
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