A FEW MO' THINGS, 10/25/12

Hey look, I'm actually updating my blog!  Here's some random thoughts.

-Forget the coach, the receivers, the linebacker, or anywhere else you want to point the finger.  If the Bengals' quarterback play doesn't improve soon, this team isn't winning.

Andy Dalton has a whopping 24 NFL starts behind him.  That's not enough to make sweeping conclusions about whether he's the guy or not.  Clearly, Andy has a lot of really good things going for him, but he's also clearly got a long way to go before he's the kind of QB we want him to be.

So the question becomes, if Andy isn't there yet, how can we expect the team to be as good as we want them to be?

All of the other stuff - the shuffling of wide receivers, playcalling, angst over replay challenges - takes a backseat to the quality of play behind center.  If Andy can make the leap very soon, this season is salvageable, and in the awful AFC, a playoff berth is still attainable.  If he can't, then do whatever you want with any other position on the field and this team is going nowhere.

-I'm into the World Series because I'm always into the World Series.  But it was hard last night, on the first of what would have been two awesome nights for baseball in Cincinnati, to think about what could have been....

(Even though merely thinking about what World Series parking would have cost makes me wince)

-I liked this look at the history of World Series celebrations.

-UC wasn't going to run the table.  And if they did, they weren't playing for the national championship.  The Toledo loss was disheartening, and it may have exposed some flaws that could plague this team all season, but wasn't worth overreacting to. 

If they're going to fire the coach every time they lose a game, then UC is going to be a very unattractive place for coaches to work at.

-"Experts" are really just taking blind stabs in the dark, aren't they?

-I think it's totally okay that I went trick-or-treating when I was 16 years-old.

-Twice in the last two weeks the same coworker has offered me a lefty handshake.  I will vote for whichever Presidential candidate does something to ban lefty handshakes.

-I wish we spent more time making fun of Carlton Fisk.

-The Steelers are going to wear these uniforms this week.  They might be the most absurd-looking things I've ever seen.

-If I was Lance Armstrong, I would've reacted to the news that I'd been banned from cycling by going for a bicycle ride while flipping off random people.

-I'm already tired of talking about hypothetical Reds trades.

-Billy Gillispie once conducted a seven-hour, 15-minute practice.

-I'm going to speak for a class for an hour and 20 minutes.  Watch whatever the hell is happening here.