Daily Short #138, February 5th, 2017: Super Bowl Hangover
presented by the Dental Offices of Wendy Swantkowski, DDS
The Absolute BEST in family and cosmetic dentistry for the Houston-Memorial Area
Now Accepting New Patients --- 281-293-9140
You'll have to excuse me for feeling a little scatterbrained and possibly just the slightest bit hungover following an unbelievable Super Bowl yesterday. I'm going to take a page out of Ketch's book and just give a few thoughts from the weekend:
1) I can't believe that Nick Foles and Doug Pederson just beat Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. With Matt Patricia and Josh McDaniels moving on to new jobs, Brady set to turn 41, Gronkowski publicly hinting at retirement and a now-thoroughly exposed as back-end of the defense that looked about as un-athletic as they could possibly come on Sunday night, you'd be crazy not to at least wonder if this could be the end of the road for the Patriots dynasty.
2) Speaking of Patricia, how wild is it that two of the hottest defensive coordinator names on the 2018 head-coaching candidate carousel in Patricia and Eagles DC Jim Schwartz gave up a combined 1150 yards in this one to obliterate the previous Super Bowl record for total combined yards from scrimmage?
3) Nick Foles. Just wow. Make it two former Austin Westlake QBs this decade to become Super Bowl MVPs. The Eagles do have Foles under contract for next season, so the best team in football not only returns its franchise QB in Carson Wentz, but now also has a trade piece in a SBMVP Foles that should command a bounty in trade value. NFL personnel men have probably already sent feelers out to PFWA executive of the year Howie Roseman to gauge the market on him given the QB-needy nature of the league currently. The fact is that Foles has been very good as an NFL QB any time he was received good coaching. The RPO nature of the Eagles offense is particularly suited to his style, but as the NFL is a copycat league, we'll see the continued use of similar principles with all sorts of teams come next season. Foles could fit in a lot of places and you're going to have to pay out the nose to get him. If the Bengals want a 1 A.J. McCarron, what will the Eagles want for their super-bowl winner?
4) How can the Patriots not punt for an entire game and still lose?
5) In a Super Bowl which featured a thousand storylines, my favorite might be Marcus Johnson getting a Super Bowl ring.
The former Longhorn didn't register an offensive statistic - in fact, he didn't even play a snap in the game on offense or special teams -- and given his apparel in the clip above, who knows if he was even active for the game.
DOESN'T MATTER. WON SUPER BOWL.
For a player who's been a consistent underdog story, even dating back to his time as a recruit where his father and family basically willed an offer from Texas through persistence, I can't tell you how much I love this. Fellow Longhorn Jordan Hicks also watched the game from the sideline, but he'll also be getting a ring and a visit to the White House just the same. You can't feel too bad for former Longhorns DL Malcom Brown for missing his shot this year with the Pats as he has a nice ring from last season to tide him over for now.
6) Staying on the subject of the Horns, watching Malcolm Jenkins play last night, it made me realize the importance in today's NFL of a player like Deshon Elliott who can play all over the field as a versatile chess piece at safety. Through the NFL draft process, you're sure to hear some comps between the two. He could go earlier than most are expecting.
7) And speaking of going earlier than most are expecting, how about Holton Hill getting himself a combine invite?
At first, I was skeptical regarding the chances of Hill getting invited to Indianapolis, but many of those worries evaporated after speaking to NFL scouts in Mobile about him. Many scouts love Hill's length and speed, although still worry about some mental mistakes at times versus guys like D.J. Moore of Maryland. The NFL combine has recently come out with new rules disallowing certain players with character concerns from attending the week, but that is reserved mainly for players with histories of alleged domestic and/or sexual violence. For the guys who have had alleged drug issues or failed tests, etc. scouts always want those guys at the combine most to see if they can manage to pee clean for the biggest interview of their life.
8) I had the wrong winner picked in the Super Bowl, picking the Pats -4.5 but most of my other prop-bets hit nicely (no Overtime, Agholor OVER 3.5 catches, Matt Patricia Red Hoodie, Belichick Blue Hoodie, Pink blonde hair for the anthem, Pink no cleavage for the anthem, Carson Wentz on camera OVER 3.5 times) but missed on a few I was surest about: Collinsworth didn't mention PFF at least once on the broadcast?! I thought it was the most epic lock ever that he shill his company at least once on the biggest stage. Also I was absolutely positive that Justin Timberlake would be wearing a headset for his performance at halftime given how much he dances, the logistics of setting up boom stands for multiple staging areas, and the general thought that when you have a ton of backing tracks, you want a head set so fans and viewers won't be able to tell when it is you really singing or if it's the tracks. So much for that. (Thanks to JT for playing the song from Trolls -- "Can't Stop the Feeling" -- it made my daughter's night.
9) Dolphins HC Adam Gase sure "sent a message" to his locker room by trading RB Jay Ajayi to the Eagles mid-season. Now everyone knows that if they act like they don't want to be in Miami, they'll get sent to a Super Bowl Champion.
10) And finally, the time not spent watching the big game this weekend was spent cleaning out a storage unit that has, for the last year, bled me out for almost $1500 of my hard-earned American dollars -- a horror that comes to your realization only when calculating your expenses for taxes, I suppose. That meant it was time to download a new audiobook and get that bad boy emptied out. As much as I'm going to miss football, I always love the spring as it provides extra time to read books and listen to audiobooks. I really enjoyed this one.
Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
This is a true story about the efforts of archaeologists, National Geographic journalists and, eventually, the Honduran government to discover a lost and legendary city in the middle of Honduras' Mosquitia jungle and the effect the trips into the wilderness had on their respective lives and histories. It's an exciting book filled with true stories of fer-de-lance snakes and jungle suspense of all types while also teaching you about the history of Honduras, its indigenous people, and their history with colonial explorers. I listened to it in less than two days. It's a great book, will become a great movie, and I give it 4 stars.
From the Publisher:
ince the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.
Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.
Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.
Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.
Alex's Daily Short Reading List
T1) The Undoing Project (5 stars)
T1) The 4-Hour Work Week (5 stars)
T1) The Accidental Superpower (5 stars)
4) Dueling With Kings (4.5 stars)
T5) The Lost City of the Monkey God (4 stars)
T5) The North Water (4 stars)
T5) The Summer That Melted Everything (4 stars)
T5) Woolly (4 stars)
9) A Beautiful, Terrible Thing
T10) American Gods (2 stars)
T10) The Graveyard Book (2 stars)
12) Stay Interesting (1 star)
presented by the Dental Offices of Wendy Swantkowski, DDS
The Absolute BEST in family and cosmetic dentistry for the Houston-Memorial Area
Now Accepting New Patients --- 281-293-9140
You'll have to excuse me for feeling a little scatterbrained and possibly just the slightest bit hungover following an unbelievable Super Bowl yesterday. I'm going to take a page out of Ketch's book and just give a few thoughts from the weekend:
1) I can't believe that Nick Foles and Doug Pederson just beat Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. With Matt Patricia and Josh McDaniels moving on to new jobs, Brady set to turn 41, Gronkowski publicly hinting at retirement and a now-thoroughly exposed as back-end of the defense that looked about as un-athletic as they could possibly come on Sunday night, you'd be crazy not to at least wonder if this could be the end of the road for the Patriots dynasty.
2) Speaking of Patricia, how wild is it that two of the hottest defensive coordinator names on the 2018 head-coaching candidate carousel in Patricia and Eagles DC Jim Schwartz gave up a combined 1150 yards in this one to obliterate the previous Super Bowl record for total combined yards from scrimmage?
3) Nick Foles. Just wow. Make it two former Austin Westlake QBs this decade to become Super Bowl MVPs. The Eagles do have Foles under contract for next season, so the best team in football not only returns its franchise QB in Carson Wentz, but now also has a trade piece in a SBMVP Foles that should command a bounty in trade value. NFL personnel men have probably already sent feelers out to PFWA executive of the year Howie Roseman to gauge the market on him given the QB-needy nature of the league currently. The fact is that Foles has been very good as an NFL QB any time he was received good coaching. The RPO nature of the Eagles offense is particularly suited to his style, but as the NFL is a copycat league, we'll see the continued use of similar principles with all sorts of teams come next season. Foles could fit in a lot of places and you're going to have to pay out the nose to get him. If the Bengals want a 1 A.J. McCarron, what will the Eagles want for their super-bowl winner?
4) How can the Patriots not punt for an entire game and still lose?
5) In a Super Bowl which featured a thousand storylines, my favorite might be Marcus Johnson getting a Super Bowl ring.
The former Longhorn didn't register an offensive statistic - in fact, he didn't even play a snap in the game on offense or special teams -- and given his apparel in the clip above, who knows if he was even active for the game.
DOESN'T MATTER. WON SUPER BOWL.
For a player who's been a consistent underdog story, even dating back to his time as a recruit where his father and family basically willed an offer from Texas through persistence, I can't tell you how much I love this. Fellow Longhorn Jordan Hicks also watched the game from the sideline, but he'll also be getting a ring and a visit to the White House just the same. You can't feel too bad for former Longhorns DL Malcom Brown for missing his shot this year with the Pats as he has a nice ring from last season to tide him over for now.
6) Staying on the subject of the Horns, watching Malcolm Jenkins play last night, it made me realize the importance in today's NFL of a player like Deshon Elliott who can play all over the field as a versatile chess piece at safety. Through the NFL draft process, you're sure to hear some comps between the two. He could go earlier than most are expecting.
7) And speaking of going earlier than most are expecting, how about Holton Hill getting himself a combine invite?
At first, I was skeptical regarding the chances of Hill getting invited to Indianapolis, but many of those worries evaporated after speaking to NFL scouts in Mobile about him. Many scouts love Hill's length and speed, although still worry about some mental mistakes at times versus guys like D.J. Moore of Maryland. The NFL combine has recently come out with new rules disallowing certain players with character concerns from attending the week, but that is reserved mainly for players with histories of alleged domestic and/or sexual violence. For the guys who have had alleged drug issues or failed tests, etc. scouts always want those guys at the combine most to see if they can manage to pee clean for the biggest interview of their life.
8) I had the wrong winner picked in the Super Bowl, picking the Pats -4.5 but most of my other prop-bets hit nicely (no Overtime, Agholor OVER 3.5 catches, Matt Patricia Red Hoodie, Belichick Blue Hoodie, Pink blonde hair for the anthem, Pink no cleavage for the anthem, Carson Wentz on camera OVER 3.5 times) but missed on a few I was surest about: Collinsworth didn't mention PFF at least once on the broadcast?! I thought it was the most epic lock ever that he shill his company at least once on the biggest stage. Also I was absolutely positive that Justin Timberlake would be wearing a headset for his performance at halftime given how much he dances, the logistics of setting up boom stands for multiple staging areas, and the general thought that when you have a ton of backing tracks, you want a head set so fans and viewers won't be able to tell when it is you really singing or if it's the tracks. So much for that. (Thanks to JT for playing the song from Trolls -- "Can't Stop the Feeling" -- it made my daughter's night.
9) Dolphins HC Adam Gase sure "sent a message" to his locker room by trading RB Jay Ajayi to the Eagles mid-season. Now everyone knows that if they act like they don't want to be in Miami, they'll get sent to a Super Bowl Champion.
10) And finally, the time not spent watching the big game this weekend was spent cleaning out a storage unit that has, for the last year, bled me out for almost $1500 of my hard-earned American dollars -- a horror that comes to your realization only when calculating your expenses for taxes, I suppose. That meant it was time to download a new audiobook and get that bad boy emptied out. As much as I'm going to miss football, I always love the spring as it provides extra time to read books and listen to audiobooks. I really enjoyed this one.
Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
This is a true story about the efforts of archaeologists, National Geographic journalists and, eventually, the Honduran government to discover a lost and legendary city in the middle of Honduras' Mosquitia jungle and the effect the trips into the wilderness had on their respective lives and histories. It's an exciting book filled with true stories of fer-de-lance snakes and jungle suspense of all types while also teaching you about the history of Honduras, its indigenous people, and their history with colonial explorers. I listened to it in less than two days. It's a great book, will become a great movie, and I give it 4 stars.
From the Publisher:
ince the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.
Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.
Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.
Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.
Alex's Daily Short Reading List
T1) The Undoing Project (5 stars)
T1) The 4-Hour Work Week (5 stars)
T1) The Accidental Superpower (5 stars)
4) Dueling With Kings (4.5 stars)
T5) The Lost City of the Monkey God (4 stars)
T5) The North Water (4 stars)
T5) The Summer That Melted Everything (4 stars)
T5) Woolly (4 stars)
9) A Beautiful, Terrible Thing
T10) American Gods (2 stars)
T10) The Graveyard Book (2 stars)
12) Stay Interesting (1 star)
