Tag Archives: 49ers

ALDLAND Podcast

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With all of you ALDLANDers out there getting excited for the Super Bowl, we had to put out a robust podcast covering that game, and also the biggest game of the weekend, Michigan at Indiana.  Join yours truly and Marcus as we cover everything from x’s and o’s to how dumb Chris Culliver is.  Come for the Super Bowl, stay for discussion of James Franklin being a weirdo.

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

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A question about Super Bowl Media Day
Beyond the Archives: How Big Government Cost Southern Conservatives a Super Bowl Win
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ALDLAND Archives: Why I Hate Harbaugh
Super Bowl XLVII, brought to you by the AARP?

ALDLAND Archives: Why I Hate Harbaugh

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To begin our Super Bowl coverage, we’ve gone to what little exists of the ALDLAND Vault for a classic Bpbrady rant that has aged well. -Ed.

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Why I Hate Harbaugh

October 27, 2011

Recently AD asked me with regard to Jim Harbaugh how it was that one “Michigan Man” could so heartily reject another “Michigan Man.”  Full disclosure: my hatred for various sports stars has not always been rational.  I once hated Cale Hulse with a passion because his last name was too similar to Brett Hull’s.  More recently I have hated Sidney Crosby  for perfectly good reasons, namely his role in the Penguins’ cheating to win the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals.  I like to think that my hatred of Harbaugh is similarly justified. …Read the rest…

NFC Champtionship notes

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The San Francisco 49ers meet the Atlanta Falcons this afternoon in the Georgia Dome to play for the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Hidden between the media’s heavy stereotyping of this matchup are a few nice preview pieces that actually track pretty well those for last week‘s game, as well as my prediction for this afternoon’s outcome:    Keep reading…

Stereotyping the NFC Championship Game

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kaeprnick si coverThe San Francisco 49ers are back in the NFC Championship Game again this year, where they’ll be facing the Atlanta Falcons instead of the New York Giants, and they’ll be doing it with young go-hard Colin Kaepernick instead of old can’t-catch-a-break Alex Smith at quarterback. How is the media treating this meeting between Bay Area bohemians and members of Black Hollywood‘s elite crew?

By rushing to stereotypes, of course.

We go first to Atlanta, where you just know those FalCONS are up to no good. How did they get that way? Atlanta “like[s] players with high ‘FBI’ scores.” Because they’re criminals, you see. At least that’s what that Atlanta Journal-Constitution headline writer would make you click a link to a game-week puff piece on “football intelligence,” which no reasonable person abbreviates as “FBI.”

Let’s head out to Cali, shall we? See what’s pulled those hemp-farmers away from their crystal collections and communal energy vortex long enough to turn them into probably the best team in the NFL this season? What’s their secret? Yoga, of course! And a copy of the Dhammapada– or at least an old yearbook clipping– in every locker.

If playing to the lowest common social denominator isn’t lazy enough for you, how about a tried-and-true sports cliche? We again turn to the Falcons’ hometown paper, where we now find the Durrty Burds’ fans-of-letters grasping at straws, or other print publications, as it were. Knowing that the top seed is outmatched at home on Sunday, they’re putting their eggs in the SI Cover Curse basket, and at this point, why not? Unless it can make Kaepernick and Frank Gore disappear the way it did to the alleged girlfriend of Manti Te’o, though, I think the Falcons are going to be in a bad tangle Sunday.

Super Bowl XLVII, brought to you by the AARP?

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The NFL playoffs is down to its final four teams, and by Sunday night, we’ll know whether Baltimore or New England will be facing Atlanta or San Francisco in the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

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These playoffs have been a Rusty’s Last Call ride for Ray Lewis, whose Ravens somewhat improbably have advanced to the AFC championship game. While their opponent, the Patriots, is a perennial postseason favorite, the Ravens (and not, any longer, the Seahawks) are the hot team of this postseason, and it’s becoming difficult to bet against them– ESPN certainly isn’t. Lewis’ last dance may come Saturday. If not, it will come on Super Bowl Sunday.

If it does, Lewis will share the setting sun’s spotlight with one other notable retiree. If the NFC championship game goes according to the seeding, it will be longtime Chief and current Falcon Tony Gonzalez. The tight end, probably best known for popularizing the crossbar dunk TD celebration, says he’s 95% certain he’ll retire after this season, and while his final act has received markedly less than the gyrating, bionic-armed one of Lewis, the attention he has received has taken care to note just how impressive of a career he’s had.

If the NFC championship game follows the hot hand, as it sure seems like it may, Lewis’ possibly outgoing opponent will one whose superstardom has long since burned low. Randy Moss’ days as the league’s most dominant wide receiver are long gone. His days as an albatross– i.e., his days in Oakland and Nashville– seem to be in the past as well. He’s retired once, and he’s rapidly approaching the end of his one-year contract with San Francisco. There hasn’t been any retirement discussion from Moss (this ambiguous retweet aside), or really much discussion of him in the media at all. Moss’ numbers are way down from his peak-production years, though they’re up over his recent disaster years. It’s tough to know whether the 49ers or Moss will want to sign a new contract for next year– he started only two games this year, the fewest of any season in his career– or if this is it. The only sure bet looks to be that, if this Sunday or Super Bowl Sunday really is Moss’ last game, he’ll treat it a little differently than Lewis will handle his.

ALDLAND Podcast

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So the holidays are over.  The BCS games were mostly boring.  The NFL wild card games were also mostly boring.  You are probably sitting around pondering if life is even worth it any more.  Don’t fear, loyal listener(s), it is.  There’s a new ALDLAND podcast for you to listen to in which we discuss all that boring stuff and make sense of it.  As the great philosopher John L. Smith once said, “SMILE!”

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

Narrow Margin Monday, take 2

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We find ourselves late on a Monday after another weekend of close games. On Saturday, woefully underachieving Michigan State lost in overtime to Iowa as a result of what one local radio host called the worst coaching he had ever seen in his life, and the man is neither young nor inexperienced in the field. In a real upset, LSU threw a monkey wrench in the SEC East race and beat South Carolina 23-21, Kansas State escaped Ames with a 27-21 win over Iowa State, Notre Dame beat Stanford 20-13 in overtime, and Texas A&M squeaked by Louisiana Tech 59-57. Even the Florida-Vanderbilt game was close into the fourth quarter before the Gators and their quarterback ran away with it. More on that game later this week.

Saturday had its share of blowouts, naturally, and the notable ones included Alabama’s 42-10 win at Missouri, which remains winless in its new conference, Texas Tech’s 49-14 embarrassment of one-time national championship contender West Virginia, still-undefeated Oregon State’s 42-24 win over BYU, and Michigan’s 45-0 muddy execution of Illinois on Wolverine homecoming. Michigan hosts Michigan State in another ALDLAND outing, more on which toward the end of the week.

The NFL had its share of close contests too, including the Lions’ overtime win over hapless Philadelphia, Buffalo’s 19-16 overtime win over Arizona, whose kicker hit a 61-yarder to tie the game but subsequently missed a 30-something yard kick to win the game in the final seconds, the Seahawks 24-23 win over New England, Atlanta’s come-from-behind win over Oakland to become the league’s final undefeated team, Miami’s 17-14 victory over the Rams, and Baltimore’s 31-29 capitalization on the Dallas (ongoing) Disaster. Baltimore payed a long-term price for its win, though, sacrificing defenders Ray Lewis and Ladarius Webb at last to the football devil (no, not the commissioner– separate office) in payment for their past defensive successes. Lewis and Webb are out for the season. Other high-flying teams went down in spectacular fashion on Sunday, including San Francisco, 26-3 at the hands of the Giants, and Houston, 42-24 to Green Bay on Sunday night.

In off-field NFL news, Jonathan Vilma, the embattled New Orleans Saint, reportedly will be allowed to play as soon as this weekend, although it isn’t clear if he will. Vilma continues to maintain a defamation suit against Roger Goodell.

In baseball, the final four is set and in motion. Detroit seized a 2-0 lead over the Yankees as the series heads to Detroit with AL strikeout kings Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer yet to pitch for the Tigers. The other road team, St. Louis, has a 1-0 lead in the NLCS battle of the two most recent defending World Series champions, though the Cardinals are down 5-1 in the fourth as I write this.

Narrow Margin Monday

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Excepting the above-depicted forty gambler-point swing victory by Middle Tennessee State University, the Volunteer State’s biggest school, over Georgia Tech, there were a lot of close college football games on Saturday. Michigan State lost by one to Ohio State. Although the internet’s had a lot to say about that game in the way of eye-gouging, taunting, and the pregame game tape exchange, there’s not much to say about the game itself beyond the observation that OSU’s Braxton Miller is pretty good. Even though it was high scoring, West Virginia only beat Baylor by a touchdown in Morgantown. Of course, it was really high scoring. Like 70-63. Big Ten basketball territory. Other top-25 games, though not quite as close, probably were closer than the winning team would’ve preferred. Alabama beat Ole Miss 33-14 in a game that was in reach for the underdogs (underbears?) in the fourth quarter. Washington State put up 26 against Oregon, which is 26 more than Arizona could do. Texas and Oklahoma State went to the wire, and UGA-UT was a one-score game as well. Clemson got back to its winning ways with a 45-31 win over woeful Boston College.

The pros sang a different tune on Sunday, though, at least in part, when Denver found its legs against Oakland (38-6), New England posted 52 on Buffalo, and San Francisco bounced back with a 34-0 shutout of the dead-in-the-water-not-walking-on-water J-e-t-s. There were some close games in the NFL too, as the Cardinals won by three in overtime to inexplicably stay undefeated, and the Saints lost by one to stay defeated.

On the topic of defeats, the U.S. team absolutely melted down on the last day of the Ryder Cup, surrendering a supposedly insurmountable lead. We now return to our regular golf coverage, which, absent Jungle Bird, is nonexistent.

Wild horses at a meat-packing plant Monday

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The NFL conference championship round is set, after Tom Brady’s Patriots and Eli Manning’s Giants brought harsh and decisive ends to special seasons for the Denver Tebows and Green Bay Packers, respectively. In its first home playoff game of the Harbaugh era, the Ravens won a close victory over the Texans thanks, as usual, to their defense, but it was the other Harbaugh whose team played the game of the weekend at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, defeating the Saints in a game that saw twenty-eight points scored in the final four minutes alone, when each touchdown also was a lead-change. While fan favorites and media darlings Green Bay and Denver are out, along with popular championship pick New Orleans, the final four teams offer a lot of excitement. The NFC championship features two teams (SF and NYG) that are peaking right now, and the AFC features a traditional, compelling offense vs. defense matchup (NE and BAL).

The college basketball national picture remains mixed, with Northwestern taking Michigan to overtime and then ending Michigan State’s fifteen-game win streak. Duke, Kentucky, and Georgetown all have shown weaknesses, while Syracuse has maintained a perfect record atop the Big East (ditto for Baylor in the Big XII). Vanderbilt, a top team in preseason rankings, appears to have found its way after falling out of the top 25, although a backloaded schedule means its toughest tests are yet to come.