Quinnessential

The first two times Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Roman Quinn took the mound to pitch it wasn't serious. The Phillies were so far behind that the game was out of reach; and, rather than use a real pitcher in a game they no longer had any chance to win, they called upon Quinn to come in and get as many outs as he could and at the same time provide a little comic relief for the fans who hadn't already left. But this time it was different. This time - late last Friday night (Aug. 2) at Citizens Bank Park - with the clock about to strike midnight and with the Phillies out of options at pitcher, Quinn was brought in to pitch in a tie game in the 14th inning against the Chicago White Sox. Well, to the surprise of no one, this didn't end well for the Phillies; but they didn't go down without a fight. In fact, even though they saw the home team lose, the fans still at the park at that late hour were glad they still were, because the last two innings turned out to be the most entertaining part of the game.

If you had told Quinn when he woke up that morning that he was going to have the chance to be the winning pitcher in the game that night, he would have asked you what you'd been smoking. But in sports - and especially in baseball - these three words are always so true: you never know.

DG176

If you are an NFL team that begins a season by losing its first 2 games, you are already in deep trouble. And if you start with 4 straight losses? Well, history says you might as well pack it in and start getting ready for the next season, because ... Since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule (up from 14) in 1978, there have been 118 teams that began the season 0-4 and only one of them went on to reach the playoffs that year. So you can imagine the tension and desperation in the air in a game where the teams on both sidelines are 0-4 .....

It was Sunday, October 8th, Week 5 of the 2017 NFL season. Warm and humid weather greeted the 0-4 Los Angeles Chargers after making the 2,400-mile, cross-country flight to face the 0-4 New York Giants at MetLife Stadium. Jokes were made about the matchup being the "Game of the Weak" or "Game of the Meek". If it had been between most other 0-4 teams, CBS would have done whatever possible to broadcast the game to as few people as possible; but since it was between teams representing the two largest television markets in the nation, the game was televised live to millions more than it should have.

Actually though, despite their records there were a couple of things that made the game very much worth watching. RB Melvin Gordon (photo above) had his first 100-yard rushing game of the season and scored the winning touchdown for the Chargers; it was the second NFL meeting between old Muck City rivals Travis Benjamin and Janoris Jenkins; and, rather incredibly, not one, two, or three, but four Giants wide receivers were knocked out of the game due to injury. And oh, right, there was one other thing too: the dreads.

DG175

Dread Gallery #175 features more photos from the 2017 NFL season and includes a variety of things - some odds and ends followed by several shots to remind you just how painful playing in the NFL can be.

1. Everybody, including the game officials, thought that RB Andre Ellington scored his 1st TD of the season on this play early in the 2nd quarter in Week 4. CB Rashard Robinson knocks Ellington out of bounds, but not until after Andre gets both feet inbounds and has control of the ball for a 12-yard reception on 3rd and goal ..... but then the replay official nullified the TD, ruling that Ellington lost control of the ball when he hit the ground. The ruling was dubious, because the video was inconclusive; and in those cases whatever the game officials call is supposed to stand. But not this time. So instead of the Cardinals taking a 7-3 lead, they settled for a FG on the next play to tie it 3-3. Despite having the TD taken away Ellington made the dread stars list for the only time all season, finishing with 104 total yards (18 rushing, 86 receiving) on 14 touches as the Cardinals defeated the 49ers 18-15 in overtime.
http://arizonasports.com/story1263650/cardinals-andre-ellington-overturned-touchdown-catch/

Quarter Ton, Full Power

They tip the scales at a combined weight of a quarter of a ton (give or take a few pounds), so what they did should come as a surprise to no one; but that doesn't make what they did any less impressive. It was the late evening/early morning of May 14/15, so you might have missed what they did. I was tuning in to various things on television and changing channels often. At times I made it to the telecasts of the MLB games between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Arizona Diamondbacks and between the Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco Giants - but just not at the right times; so it wasn't until a couple of hours later, while watching the nightly highlights show on the MLB Network, that I found out about what they did. Who are they? And what did they do? Well, the photo collage above is the giveaway answer to who they are - 1B Josh Bell of the Pirates and 3B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Blue Jays. And in their respective games that night they both blasted a pair of mammoth home runs, with the shortest of them measuring in at 438 feet.

DG174

During my 2017 NFL dreads focus I put in CAPITAL letters the names of 212 players whose dreads are long enough to be seen when they have their helmets on. That's an average of about 6.6 per team and 13 per game. So it's inevitable that at some point in nearly every game players with dreads from opposing teams will bump into each other. And that's what dread gallery #174 is all about. These are many (but not even close to all) of the instances from the 2017 season where players with dreads from both teams found their way into the same photos.

1. And we'll begin with a couple of instances that  RB Todd Gurley went up against players with dreads in Rams games vs. NFC West division foes.
On 3rd and 2 during the 1st quarter in Week 3 49ers LB Ray-Ray Armstrong, after running behind TE Tyler Higbee on a pick play, turns on the jets trying to catch up but doesn't get there in time to prevent Gurley from scoring his 2nd TD of the game - a 7-yard reception that puts the Rams back in front 14-7. Gurley, who scored his 1st TD on the game's 2nd play from scrimmage, added a 3rd TD before halftime and finished the game with 149 total yards (113 rushing, 36 receiving). Armstrong, starting in place of the injured Reuben Foster, had several other close encounters with Gurley. 4 of Ray-Ray's 6 tackles (4-2) were tackles of Gurley, including 1 TFL. Leading 41-26 midway through the 4th quarter, the Rams barely held on to get the road win 41-39. Here are some of Gurley's highlights in the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVc3tVAUluo

Delaneys star in episode of February Foolishness

If you are a basketball fan, surely you have heard of March Madness, the term used to describe some of the unlikely, unbelievable, improbable, and impossible things that happen in the month of March every season at the end of tournament games everywhere, but most notably in the NCAA's popular Division 1 Men's Tournament. Well, maybe you did or didn't know it, but March Madness has a close relative that goes by the name of February Foolishness. Although games in February lack the life-or-death urgency of tournament games, they don't lack for some of the same crazy, bizarre, and absurd finishes. I mean just look at some of the things that just happened this February. You'd be a fool to think any of them were possible - until they actually happened, that is.

DG173

We are just a few more ticks of the clock away from turning the calendar to 2019; but I'm still not done with 2017 yet. Not even close. All I can do is apologize for being so late; but it's just that I spent so much time saving photos from the NFL's 2017 season that I don't want to have done it for nothing. Therefore the next several dread galleries will feature lots of those photos. And in dread gallery #173 we'll be looking at lots of photos of players with their helmets off. The photos are from before, during, and after the game; and we'll do them in that order.

1. Falcons DE Takkarist McKinley's dreads had several different looks during his rookie season; but probably they never looked better than they did here on opening day, as he signs autographs for Falcons fans at Soldier Field before playing his first NFL game. Being eased back into action after recovering from offseason surgery on his shoulder, McKinley played just 14 snaps and finished with 2 tackles (1-1) in his debut as the Falcons defeated the Bears 23-17.

200 X 3 = 8

If you answered 'false' to the title of this post, good for you. You aren't clueless when it comes to basic arithmetic. But this ain't no math quiz. Instead it's my crystal ball's own special way of alerting me of the feat accomplished by a certain running back with dreads. Almost immediately after the end of the AAC championship game three weeks ago (on Dec. 1), CB2 was displaying something right for a change rather than one of its ridiculous predictions. In flashing blue and gray lights, no less, were the numbers that are nonsense to the mathematician but which make perfect sense to any Memphis Tigers football fan. The numbers indicated that RB Darrell Henderson (jersey #8) had just rushed for at least 200 yards in a game for the 3rd time this season. Obvious, right?

Fly Champion Fly

Before the start of the season they were 40 to 1 longshots to win Super Bowl 52. After they got off to a blazing start (10-1 in the season's first three months), some said it was only because they had played a weak schedule. When they lost their starting quarterback in Week 14 to a season-ending knee injury, they were written off, declared finished as contenders for the title. Then after finishing with the best record in the NFC despite losing their starting QB, they were underdogs in both of their NFC playoff games - even though both were at home. And finally in Super Bowl 52 the mighty New England Patriots marched up and down the field, ripping their defense to shreds while racking up a Super Bowl record 613 total yards; and yet they still could not be beaten. They, of course, were the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles, champions of the NFL after knocking off the Patriots 41-33 last February for the franchise's first ever Super Bowl victory.

Ace of all trades

I remember seeing a highlight of one of his touchdowns back in Week 2, and I saved a photo of him scoring another TD in Week 5 (first photo below on left); but it wasn't until a week after that, after reading an article from USA Today, that I started to take any notice of Laviska Shenault. With part of the article's headline reading "... football player chose his dreadlocks over hoops ...", I couldn't help but notice. That's the kind of headline I like to see.

Actually though, I hate it when an athlete is put in a position like that: cut off your dreadlocks, or else. I guess now, in this day and age of "anything goes" hairstyles for athletes, it happens much less often. But back when he was in high school in Texas a few years ago, it happened to Shenault. The school's basketball coach had a team rule that prohibited players from having their hair in dreads. And so Laviska, with his dreads too important to him to cut off, took the "or else" option, saying goodbye to basketball instead of his locks. And because he did, basketball's loss turned into football's gain, specifically the Colorado Buffaloes' gain.

FSU vs. The U? .... Nothin' new

For real this Turnover Chain thing the Miami Hurricanes have had going on these last two years has been so much fun that I'm surprised the NCAA hasn't passed a new rule that forbids it. For years college teams have rewarded players for making big defensive plays in various ways: perhaps with a WWE-style championship belt or a sledgehammer or any number of other things. But when The U introduced its Turnover Chain during the 2017 season, it pretty much left all other teams' devices of celebration behind in the dust.

Get an interception, or recover a fumble, or force a fumble that results in a turnover, and when you come off the field after the play a big, shiny, gold chain is draped around your neck. Weighing in at nearly 7 pounds, the Chain is too heavy to be a part of most players' personal collection of bling; but it's the perfect size to wear proudly on the sideline while celebrating your big play until it's time to take the field again. The Chain became nationally famous last year while the Hurricanes were racking up a whopping 31 turnovers, a total topped by only two other FBS teams. Evidently the lure of being honored so lavishly was too irresistible for Canes defenders to pass up.

2017 NFL House Calls

If you were to glance at a list of the NFL players who scored the most touchdowns in 2017, you would (if you were like me) notice that there was a player with dreads at the top of the list, and another one in the #2 spot on the list, and another one in the #3 spot, and another one tied for the #4 spot. You also would have noticed that of the 11 players who scored 10 or more TD, more have dreads (6) than not (5). Those 6 players with dreads combined to score 79 TD last season, and 46 other players with dreads had a combined 140 TD, meaning that a player with dreads took one to the house 219 times during the 2017 regular season. The total of 219 is just under 18% of the 1,225 touchdowns scored by everybody in 256 games.