Chris Johnson

The Afternoon Before: Fantasy, gambling make NFL bulletproof

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I continue to get closer to game time with this. This week, it’s because of a writing assignment for my day job, and taking down my Halloween decorations – which takes longer for me than it probably does for most. Regardless, I’ll try to scale this a little earlier in the week (i.e. not within 12 hours before the games start).

Fantasy/gambling

I work for a website devoted to a sport other than football, and it’s always the same routine when I work on Sunday. Everyone sits around and lobbies for the Colts to throw it to Pierre Garcon, or for the Giants to offer goal-line scraps to Brandon Jacobs, or some such.

Some might have been surprised by last Monday’s ratings, when a horrible Jaguars-Titans blowout beat a good Rangers-Yankees playoff game in the ratings, but it’s really not a shock if you think about it. Fantasy leagues and gambling have become the bedrock that forms the foundation for the entire sport of football.

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The Afternoon After: The irrational hatred of Favre

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Here are my weekly thoughts on the game of football, with my standard disclaimer that I don’t profess to know a whole lot about the sport. Apologies for its lateness – baseball, some Halloween activities and hanging out with Larry Johnson (post forthcoming) got in the way a bit.

"Text me" on a Favre jersey? This doesn't even make sense

It’s amazing to see the fall of Brett Favre, considering the heights he came from.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not an enormous fan of Favre’s apparent heavy-handed attempt at simultaneous sexual harassment and adultery.

But the visceral jubilation I’ve seen for the destruction of Favre’s legacy is baffling to me. It seems to stem from a deep-rooted dislike of Favre that has grown over the years, and one that seems somewhat outsized.

I mean, if you took out of context the euphoria on Twitter after Favre threw an interception on Monday night against the Jets, you’d have thought we caught Osama Bin Laden.

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The Afternoon After: Keeping Vick in perspective

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A little later than usual due to Tuesday’s Drake concert, here’s my weekly football thoughts. Since I do picks now, I think a little later in the week is okay. As always, a reminder that I am genuinely far from a football expert, but I do enjoy the social constructs of the game.

Thrill ride 

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that winning in sports is the great cure-all, the ultimate social antidote. It really doesn’t matter what you do, it seems, provided you’re good at your sport. Michael Vick is the epitome of that notion.

For a guy universally panned after having done reprehensible things, he’s sure made a comeback as far as the opinion-shapers in the media are concerned.

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The Afternoon After: Specter of pain remains a constant presence

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Here are my weekly football thoughts. No LT sightings this week.

Feeling his pain

Pain is such a part of life that we take for granted the times when we don’t feel it. Never again will I do that after a year in which much of it was spent dealing with injuries of various sorts, and mine were brought on solely by running, the repetitive stress of pounding your lower body against the pavement again and again.

Football pain is on a whole other plane. And in a sport predicated on sheer physicality and enormous husks crashing into each other haphazardly, something catastrophic can happen in an instant. Other sports have injuries, obviously – I have a colleague who acutely observes that all pitchers are injured by sheer definition of what they have to do to play the game – but it’s nothing like what we see in football.

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The Afternoon After: Greatness randomly pays a visit to Houlihan’s

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Here’s my weekly look at the week’s football action. I’ll reiterate as always that I don’t claim to have any particular insight into the game itself.

About an hour before Houlihan's, LT was at the 50-yard line at Giants Stadium

As has become my usual policy, I took in the early games at Houlihan’s, a stone’s throw from Giants Stadium. I’ve become quite a fan of their “tuna wontons,” and it’s a laid back way to go out to watch the games without dealing with a bunch of screaming maniacs.

Right after the 1 p.m. games ended, I noticed an enormous man who looked markedly like Lawrence Taylor across the bar. When I got a little closer, there was no question that one of the greatest football players of all time had shown up at my new Sunday haunt, fresh off receiving an ovation at the 50-yard line at his former team’s final game at Giants Stadium.

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The Afternoon After: Falcons paying for feeding into Curse of 370

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Here are my thoughts after another Sunday spent at Houlihan’s, which was once again a good time – the tuna wontons continue to deliver, and they actually remembered from two weeks ago what beer I preferred and told me to “come back soon.” I believe I just may be ready to make the jump… to regular. Stay tuned.

The 370 curse claims another victim

With players getting bigger over the years as conditioning and science dictate, and the crushing hits getting ever more debilitating, the days of one running back carrying the mail have wound down – with a few notable exceptions. (Basically just Chris Johnson, who avoids contact by breaking untouched touchdown runs all the time, and Adrian Peterson)

The Atlanta Falcons are a perfect example of why.

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The Afternoon After: Staring down defeat the best way to learn to win

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Lots to talk about this week. Let’s get right into it.

Act like you've won it all before? One of these men has

As the Saints and Colts chase perfection, they’re doing it in a different fashion than the Patriots two years ago, and that’s probably a good thing, as they’re experiencing adversity.

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The Afternoon After: Despite scrutinized decision, all good in the hoodie

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I’ll be honest, football took a real back seat for me over the weekend behind boxing and basketball. But let’s give it a go. Consider this one to be “two afternoons after.” As a result, short update this week.

Not only did he lose the game, he lost the hood on his sweatshirt

When someone who’s generally regarded as an unlikable genius makes a decision that simply doesn’t work out, the natural instinct is to jump all over the opportunity to pan him. That’s exactly what happened to Bill Belichick this past Sunday.

I’m here to tell you that I had no problem with his decision to let The Great Brady attempt to complete a two-yard pass to win the game on 4th and 2. I thought it was the right move.

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The Afternoon After: If Peterson is ‘All-Day,’ CJ is ‘All Year’

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As usual, my thoughts about the weekend’s NFL games based on whatever I saw – I’m cheating by posting this “The Night Of,” but it’ll still be valid tomorrow afternoon.

Objects in the rear-view are actually farther than they appear

I’m in a fantasy football keeper league. Last year, I had the good fortune of drafting Chris Johnson, Matt Forte and Andre Johnson. As such, my partner and I came to a crossroads this year, and long story short, we ended up with Forte, Andre Johnson and Tom Brady.

With every week that goes by, I realize that we let the wrong guy go, which will haunt me for years. Lost in the uncreative media’s need to embrace one guy – namely Adrian Peterson – as the best running back in the NFL is that Chris Johnson is quite possibly better.

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