Monday Morning

" I WANT WINNERS." -Mike Singletary, on billboards all over San Fran and neighboring cities

"DO YOUR JOB." -Only sign in the Browns building when Bill Belichick was in Cleveland

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy." -Dale Carnegie

Fantasy

I would like to start this post out by ranting about how unfair fantasy football is. This is my first fantasy football league I am undertaking this season. And so far, the experience has been horrible. Talk about a crab shoot. I can't believe how much luck is involved. It's all luck. There is absolutely no skill involved in this fairy tale football league. I dumped Miles Austin this week, after 3 nice weeks of 1 point, 0 points and 0 points. Nice effort, you realize you're a fringe receiver in this league right? You realize you're making 500 grand and almost none of it is guaranteed right? Might wanna start playing a little harder. Give poor Tony Romo a target out there. In my league, he had 46 points yesterday. Cut Nate Burleson this Thursday and replaced him with Hakeem Nicks. Hassleback comes back, throws 4 touchdown, 2 to Nate, and despite Hakeem Nicks' 10 point week (solid), Nate had a nice 30 point week. You just can't win. Look I'm all about showing off my having a good feel about the NFL and its players chops, which I thought I would be able to do in this league, but that's the exact opposite of what this is. It's like the lottery.

Browns

Hats off to Eric Mangini and the Cleveland Browns for racking their first win of the season yesterday. They should be 2-3, are we all clear on that? Isn't that funny. For how horrible and bad they are in every area, management, staff, coaching, players they could be 2-3 going into the steel city this week. When you're rebuilding, like the Browns are trying to do, it's about momentum and small victories. And yesterday was probably the smallest victory in league history. But you can't take it away. It's a start. They aren't gonna go 0-16. The owner for the Bills is a pioneer. A great guy. A hall of famer. But I would have fired Dick Jauron in the tunnel after the game last night. What a travesty. Then I would have sat at the biggest exit with a suitcase full of money and given every fan in that stadium their money back, tickets to the next home game and told them the Buffalo Bills will be ready to play next week.

Broncos/Bengals

I made 2 nice calls this weekend. Bengals to win outright. Broncos to win outright. Cedric Benson, who knew? This goes back to my fantasy qualms earlier. Guy is having a hell of year. Probably didn't go til round 10. Now if we re-drafted he'd be a top 8 pick. Just a first class win by the Bengals. On the eve of a tragedy in the sudden death of Vikki Zimmer, wife of defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, the Bengals pieced together a ballsy performance. My thoughts and prayers are with the Zimmer family. Same goes for Josh McDaniels and the Broncos. It must have felt pretty good to beat your mentor. Brandon Marshall, a pariah all spring and summer is being the beast he has shown himself to be the last two seasons. When the game starts, he's blue. It's as simple as that. You can't tackle him. Isn't it amazing how open guys are on the Broncos every play? Middle of the road players by the way. Running wide open. Every play. With a marginal quarterback throwing them the ball. They are so well coached on offense. Would be pretty cool if the Browns were like that.

NBA

Memo to David Stern: jokes getting old with freezing out the NBA officials. I realize that the NBA isn't the NFL. And not every team is worth a billion dollars if they were sold tomorrow. And a lot of your teams are in trouble financially. But fucking pay the refs already. This is a joke. Sack up. Swallow your pride. And give your guys the money they deserve. I don't know what they are asking for. I don't care to know. But get them under contract. And let them do their jobs and make a living. Because if this doesn't get settled soon, it's gonna be big trouble. I watched the first half of the Suns and Warriors the other day. Talk about slop fest. Absolutely no flow. Bad calls left and right. These jokers had no clue what they got themselves into. Channing Frye is a unbelievable fit on Phoenix though. Pick and pop player. Knocked down a couple 3's. Let's Amare control the paint and gives him ton of room. Unselfish. A nice pickup for the Suns. And did anyone catch Captain Jack's effort the other night? 9 minutes, 5 fouls, 1 technical--and on top of all that excused himself after the technical by walking into the locker room. Where do we think that guy is gonna land? Any leaders? Mavs?

JOSH MCDANIELS

The Broncos are 5-0 folks. And surprise surprise, the guy who writes these posts had a feeling they might be a pretty good team. He was laughed outta the bar by a few of his friends. Other friends questioned his eyes and brain through text message or email. But I tried to stay positive and stick with my belief. And they have rewarded me with the chance to send a lot of very arrogant and sarcastic text messages back to friends.

I am a big Josh McDaniel honk. I think he's a really good young coach. He knows a lot about offense. His organizational plan has paid big dividends so far. He has hired a lot of great assistants. Mike Nolan has made that defense aggressive and sound. He is batting .1000 so far. He was laughed off of every NFL Live show, every local radio show, everything imaginable this summer. But it's the fall baby. It's football time. And he has been a great leader and put his team in a nice position so far in their very winnable division. He has the attention of the 53 in the room. And that's all that matter. The players respect him and trust him.

WEEK 5 NFL PICKS

PEEPS WHAT'S HAPPENING--BEEN A WEEK SINCE I WROTE ABOUT ANYTHING. SORRY A LOTTA WORK CAME ACROSS MY DESK THIS WEEK. I WILL BE AROUND TO WRITE ABOUT SOME OF THE WEEK THAT WAS LATER TODAY. I AM HOPING TO REDEEM MYSELF THIS WEEK PICKING NFL GAMES.

IT WAS A REALLY SLICK MOVE BRAGGING ABOUT HOW HOT I WAS PICKING NFL GAMES AGAINST THE SPREAD. IT'S NEVER A GOOD IDEA TO ADVERTISE YOUR FORESIGHT TO THE GAMBLING GODS. BECAUSE IF YOU DO, THEY'LL REWARD YOU WITH A 7-7 WEEK, AND YOU'LL BE LUCKY TO GET THAT. LOOKING AT THESE LINES THIS WEEK IS A TELLING SIGN OF HOW BAD SOME TEAMS ARE, INCLUDING OUR BELOVED BROWNS. I THINK THIS IS A YEAR WHERE YOU'LL SEE SOME 20 POINT LINES. I CANT REMEMBER A TIME WHEN THERE WAS THIS MANY TEAMS, NAMELY 4-6 TEAMS THAT WERE SO MUCH WORSE THAN EVERYONE IN THE LEAGUE. I MEAN, THE BROWNS COULD GO 4-12 AND HAVE THE 6TH PICK IN THE DRAFT. THE RAMS, BUCS, CHIEFS, LIONS, RAIDERS ARE HORRIBLE. THE PANTHERS MIGHT BE TERRIBLE. THE JAGS MIGHT BE BAD. AND THE BROWNS ARE BAD. WE'LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

BROWNS +6
VIKES -10.5
CHIEFS +8
PANTHERS +4
EAGLES -15
GIANTS -15.5
BENGALS +9
STEELERS -10.5
NINERS -2.5
BRONCOS +3
TEXANS +5.5
JAGS +1
TITANS +4

FINS +2

LAST WEEK 7-7
SEASON 39-22

SPREAD PICKS (ON NO SLEEP)

Bengals -5.5
Texans -9.5
Titans -3
Ravens +2.5
Giants -8.5
Lions +10
Bucs +7
Colts -10
Jets +7
Fins +2
Niners -9.5
Cowboys -3
Chargers +6.5

Vikes -3.5

Last Week 10-6
Season 32-15

RULES OF THUMB

If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep. -Dale Carnegie

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst. -Dale Carnegie

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” -Christopher Columbus


The Hills

Sadly, and by sadly I mean one of those moments where you lay in bed and really start evaluating your life and how you are approaching it, I watched the season premiere of the Hills early Wednesday morning. I caught the 1:30am repeat and was hooked immediately within the first 2 minutes of the show. And during this show, 2 major things came to mind. Number one, Kristen Cavallari is SMOKING hot and during this 22 minute show was probably one of the top 5 hottest girls walking around this Earth. The second thing I thought of is I could have thought of and written this show over the last X amount of years and still had time to do other projects. Are the creators of this show swimming in a pool of money in their mansions in Malibu or do they just have a hot tub filed with 100's as opposed to a pool? It's easy to see why so many people are addicted to this show. It's aestetically beautiful. There is something in the way they shoot it that just draws you to it. And what a simple concept. You take one of the hottest chicks in the game right now, and you just write her a character and is freaking hot and nuts. Within 5 minutes of the show starting, Kristen had to be physically separated from a verbal altercation with Audrina (smokeshow). It was edge of your seat theater. I am gonna try my best and hardest not to get into this absolute waste of time and life series, but I gotta say it's gonna be tough. Kristen is gonna go after Audrina's old dude. It's gonna be quite the season with Kristen back as the alpha dog of that fabricated creation that they try to sell as real life drama. Sit back and enjoy!

Delonte

Delonte West in training camp today on day 3. Nice to see. Like my buddy Josh said the other day--that guy has to be on a basketball court. That's the only place he can ever be. The Cavs will have their hands full again this year trying to keep that guy on an even keel.

Tim Tebow

I made a huge omission on Monday with my review of the football weekend not mentioning the Tim Tebow hit. I cannot believe I didn't cover that as I proclaimed it "the biggest moment in college football of the last 5 years" when it happened. You got a steady dose of the sappy Florida fans in the house looking very concerned. Coeds were crying. Mothers were crying. I think new born babies in Gainesville were crying. But that was a seminal moment in what has been a shitty college football year. My immediate reaction, and I am still holding onto this belief is that he is not going to be ready for at least 2-3 games. I think this is the kinda thing that is gonna linger longer than they anticipate and Tim Tebow is not going to be himself for at least a month maybe more. It seems like he kind of dodged a bullet and is recovering nicely. Urban Meyer has been pretty mum on the issue. He has said a couple positive things, but even if he knew he was in trouble he would be saying the same things. Meyer is very Belichick-ian, and he's not letting anything get outta his camp. But this definitely creates a nice little wrinkle. It will be interesting to see where the top teams go from here. I hope he can come back and play at a high level with no cobwebs or rust. But quick side note here: let's go ahead and make this guy from Kentucky pee in a cup this week right? Is it just me? I know he had a free crack at a guy looking downfield. But we're talking about Tim Tebow here. A 6'5, 260 pound mountain. The greatest college player of his generation. One of the strongest guys in college football, who was in a balanced drop back position. And this guy hit him high and put him horizontal like he was some guy from intramural flag football. Maybe it's just me. Obviously his adrenaline was running high, but even he had to be surprised at that pop.

Tyler Thigpen

I wrote a hand written letter to Bill Parcells yesterday discussing that I had championed Tyler Thigpen as a guy who can play quarterback in the NFL at a high level in my blog before the draft and once during the summer. I told him I urged the Browns to trade for him. I told him I think he's a good prospect who needs someone like Bill Parcells to believe in him and put him in the right system. He has shown flashes of spinning it all over the field at a high level. I told him since I was on the same page with you, and you're the frickkin Tuna, that you should offer me a job in your scouting department as soon as possible and pay me a lotta money to make personnel decisions for the Fins. I will keep you updated on his decision.

Rules of Thumb

I really enjoyed making my way through this book called RULES OF THUMB by Alan Webber. Instead of giving you his background, I am just gonna say this: go check it out of your library. It's setup so you don't have to read it all, you can just take bits and pieces from it. Here's a few couple quick hits with my analysis.

Rule #36--Message to entreprenuers: managing your emotional flow is more critical than managing your cash flow.

-The biggest threat to starting your own shop in something isn't running out of cash, it's going out of your mind! The emotional ups and downs of starting your own business are like The Magnum circa 1996. Every day matters. Every decision matters. Your first job is staying sane. Your second job is making money. There is nothing more difficult than trying to create something that doesn't exist yet. Think team, team, team, and always remember that nothing is so serious that you can't laugh, especially at yourself.

Rule #41--If you want to be a real leader, first get real about leadership.

-Amazon offers 284, 928 titles in its leadership library. Let's not get confused about leadership here. It's not men in high places. It's not the 3 shmucks at some investment bank. It's not the guy who ran GM into the ground. It's people who are demonstrating real leadership qualities. People who don't know all the answers, but are asking all the right questions. The company with the most leaders at all levels wins. Check your ego at the door. Be authentic. Listen. Lead by example. Knowing it ain't the same as doing it.

Rule #43--Don't confuse credentials with talent.

The paradigm right now, at least to me, is everyone is going after and recruiting the same guy or girl. This person has an MBA from Harvard or Wharton. It doesn't make much sense. The hungriest people usually don't go to those business schools. Same way with hoops or college football if you wanna think about that way. Not everyone can be USC football or North Carolina hoops. It's the coaches that have staffs and assistants with good eyes for talent that are having great success. Hire for attitude. Talent matters. Reward grit. Reward character.

NFL, NBA TRAINING CAMP

“Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake.” -- Napoleon

"So we living life like a video, where the sun is always out, and you never get old, and the champagnes always cold, and the musics always good, and the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood..." --Jay-Z

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” -- Scott Adams

What's going on everybody. Sorry for the delay. I have been stuck in LA. Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian's wedding was quite an affair. Those two kids are silly in love. I really think they are going to make it. Anyway I had to take the red eye back this morning and was anxious to talk about the football weekend. We also have NBA training camps opening today. Always exciting.

1. It's Tuesday afternoon, and Jim Zorn is still employed. I thought he would be fired on his way to the tunnel after he shook Jim Shwartz's hand. Then I thought for sure during the Sunday night game. Then I thought for sure 9am Monday morning. Then I thought for sure during the first half of the Monday night game. O well. It's safe to say that his seat is blistering hot. I gave him some love last season, but he has not performed at a high level so far this season. He and his team have to run off a very nice streak and make the playoffs in the NFC in order for him to keep his job. Not an easy task. One thing's for sure, The Daniel will be very busy in the next couple months finding his next football coach.

2. Little blurb on the bottom line last night about how Kevin Garnett has been running and playing with his teammates over the last week at the practice facility. Talk about an under-reported story! I know the Boston media guys love the Red Sox, and it's all Red Sox all the time until they are eliminated, but KG is a big deal too. Where was this question all spring and summer: "Mr Ainge, have you seen Kevin Garnett run in the last 6 months?" "Have you seen him jump?" "Has you seen him do anything explosive with any amount of confidence?" Might have been worth noting. As for me, I think he is in trouble. Just from watching his 10 second soundbyte last night during media day, he spoke with a lot of uncertainty and worry in his voice. I don't think that thing ever gets right. And I think he misses games frequently with chronic aches and tendinittis. KG holds all the big cards in the eastern conference. I think we'll know pretty quickly where the season is headed once we see KG.

3. A couple player's grievances filed against Browns coach Eric Mangini this week. That's never a good thing. A tough week last week for the Mangenius as the $1700 dollar fine he chucked on a guy got huge press, and an unnamed agent was quoted as saying that there is growing dissent among players around the league and Eric Mangini and the Browns organization. To top it all off, The Browns got waxed by the Ravens and are headed for a top 2 pick, as they are getting votes for the worst team in football. The sad part for Browns fans is that this isn't gonna go away any time soon. Eric Mangini is gonna have the keys to this castle for a little while. As I told my buddy Bub this morning, Randy Lerner likes Eric Mangini as much as you and I like Leighton Meester and January Jones. Lerner is enamored with Mangini's vision of how a football organization should be run, and is gonna give him some time to make that vision real.

4. I took a huge beating from a couple of my good friends when I routinely talked about trading Delonte West and Mo Williams this summer. I am not gonna name the friends. But here we are Day 1 of training camp, and a guy who makes 5 million dollars a season and is slated to start on a team that is gonna contend for a title is not at training camp. D West is a colorful guy, and I know he has had to battle demons I couldn't even imagine. But this a reason why you trade a guy like him when you can. If Ron Artest didn't play in the NBA, West would be the craziest guy in the league. This situation that happened recently is obviously a little more severe, but I think guys close to the Cavs organization have seen similar issues on a day to day basis. I know this seems like a small blip. And I hope that it is. But not a great Day 1 if you're Danny Ferry or Mike Brown.

5. I am hotter than Drake and Kid Cudi with my picks against the spread in the NFL. The Panthers screwed me in that second half or it would have been a great NFL picking weekend. I'm bound for a couple bad picking weeks soon, but so far so good.

6. The Golden State Warriors are the biggest mess in the NBA. For being possibly the most talented team in the league in terms of individuals, I do not see this ending well. Clueless owners. More clueless management. A coach who just shows up 10 minutes before the game starts. Low character guys who make a ton of money. Hang around with that team for a little while, and you'll stop watching the NBA. I expect Captain Jack to be traded, as well as Monta Ellis. Steph Curry is in a tough spot. Good thing he seems to be a great guy with a good support system.

7. I am really hoping that Manu Ginobli has healed from all his injuries. He's a no questions asked top 12 player in this league when healthy. For the Spurs to matter, he has to avoid injury and keep working his way back into shape throughout the season and be ready for the playoffs.

8. This Stafon Johnson accident is unbelievable. It looks like he going to be okay. Thank God. But geese what a freaky thing. I can't even imagine how that went down, even though if you have ever been a weight room before you know how easily that could have happened. When you think about it, it's amazing that it doesn't happen more often. But hopefully, he will make a full recovery and be able to use his voice again. Fight on SJ.

9. O hey NBA junkies, probably should touch on this: the potential NBA referee lockout. Yea, that's not a big deal, it's a HUGE DEAL. Let's hope both sides can get their act together in the next month. Haha, thinking about it, maybe replacement refs wouldn't be so bad. It would definitely be better for the fans. For the players though, that's an entirely different story. And the players are gonna be none too happy if this contract dispute doesn't get resolved before they get going in November.

10. Under the Radar NBA teams I am most excited to see play:

1. Thunder
2.Rockets
3.Wizards
4. Clips
5.Wolves

Week 3 Picks

Ravens -13.5
Jets -2.5
Texans-3.5
Eagles -8
Giants -6.5
Skins -6.5
49ers +7
Patriots -4.5
Bears -2
Saints -6
Chargers -5
Steelers -3.5
Broncos -2
Cards -3

Panthers +8

Last Week 10-6
Season 22-9