So Odell Beckham, Jr. has gone from one of the NFL’s most popular players to an unrepentant brute dirty-play enthusiast in one ill-considered afternoon.
Even when he was nearly a hero, by scoring the game-tying touchdown in New York’s 38-35 loss to Carolina (in which the Giants trailed at one point, 35-7), he was still a villain because he repeatedly wanted to go all homicidal on Panther cornerback Josh Norman.
In fact, let us put his afternoon in perspective for you. Carolina’s Cortland Finnegan, who gets a royalty anyone in the NFL tries to instigate a fight, said this:
“He may have something in his blood . . . maybe it's female related.”
And he STILL wasn’t as big a villain as Beckham, because Norman was right when he said after Beckham sought him out for a deliberate post-play helmet-to-helmet hit, “The guy ran 15 yards down the field, dead-on collision. The play was all the way to the left side. He came back and was hunting, and it was just, like, malicious in every way. I hope the league office gets a chance to review the film and see what they can do, because players like that don't deserve to be in the game.”
On the other hand, he’s Odell Beckham, Jr., and though it’s safe to suspend him now that the Giants have been declared playoff-dead, he’ll probably get off with a fine.
Happy times.
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At the other end of the smoking NFC East dump, Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins, who is now the hero Bryce Harper has never quite managed to be, tweeted this out after the Indigenii (cq) beat Buffalo:
“Things I like: 1 (Original Americans) win.
“2 Shake Shack after a (Victims Of European Expansion) Win
“3 Hearing ppl say ‘You Like That’ while eating Shake Shack after a (First Nations) win!”
I think someone either has, or is angling for a Shake Shack deal. And will have it by mid-week.
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Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers chief glowerer-without-portfolio, explained the nature of football after his team rallied from a two-score deficit to beat Denver:
“We stopped kicking our own butts.”
That would be considered a halftime adjustment, as well as a testimonial to the team’s joint flexibility and odd sense of fun.
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And now, even though this a football Sunday, let’s tap into movies –- and no, not THAT movie. It is the vomit-coated FIFA hagiography, “United Passions,” which though it is more than a year old and still considered one of the worst things ever described as film, won these two reviews, from leading actor Tim Roth and director Frédéric Auburtin.
First, Roth:
“The film is awful. I hated doing it, it was the wrong film but for the right reasons. I had two kids in college so I had to make a decision and it was probably poorly judged, but once you make that decision, you have to follow through. It’s a hard road, being in something you don’t want to do, but I’m glad I did it for my family.”
Yay whoredom.
Now Auburtin:
“Now I’m seen as bad as the guy who brought Aids to Africa or the guy who caused the financial crisis. My name is all over [this mess] and apparently I am a propaganda guy making films for corrupt people.”
Boo whoredom. But yay whoredom, as he apparently has kept the money too.
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The Peoria Rivermen and Columbus Cottonmouths of the SPHL (Sucker-Punching Hockey League) met Saturday night and did what made Slap Shot great.
Wacky violence, and lots of it.
After Columbus forward Craig Simchuk steamrolled Peoria goalie Kyle Rank and knocked him unconscious, brawls permeated the final two periods of a game the Rivermen won 7-1. Afterward, though, Peoria head coach Jean-Guy Trudel accused Columbus coach Jerome Bechard of ordering Simchuk to take Rank out. From the Peoria Star:
“He ordered his team to hurt Kyle Rank. He will deny it, but he was yelling from the bench (in the first period) he was gonna do it, everyone heard it,” Trudel is quoted by said. “Bechard should never coach in this league again. What happened tonight was despicable, an embarrassment to the SPHL. You start yelling you are going to hurt the goaltender, and then the first shift of the second period your guy goes out and does it. No player in his right mind is going to do that unless he is ordered to do it.”
Jean-Guy, meet Odell. Odell, meet Jean-Guy.
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And finally, this may be a minority opinion, but Jarryd Hayne wasn’t saving the 49ers from the 49. Now, or ever.
