skip to main |
skip to sidebar
With the benching of Kyle Orton, I find myself in an odd spot when it comes to my favorite team, the Denver Broncos. In Tim Tebow, my team is now starting a quarterback who is a really good guy that is beloved by the entire city. That'd be great if he had even a modicum of competence, but sadly he's a fundamentals lacking trainwreck.
The fervor and irrational exuberance behind him is baffling to me. Although I want with all my heart for him to be a great quarterback leading the Broncos to championships, however I believe him to be a severely below average quarterback who will lead us to 5-11 caliber seasons for as long as he is behind center. Whenever the man takes the field, you'd think that he's the Beatles at Shea Stadium. The crowd gushes with the enthusiasm of a 14 year old girl.
The entire city of Denver has a man-crush on Tim Tebow. It's more than somewhat embarrassing, considering his skill set. The passion supporting him has led to non stop booing of Kyle Orton which in turn has led to the inevitable crushing of Orton's confidence. Orton has every right to hate the city of Denver. I wouldn't blame him. The crowd in Denver has booed him unmercifully at the first tiny sign of trouble all season. It has reached the point that he fell apart psychologically, becaming a shell of the quarterback he once was. Before all this drama of, Kyle Orton, while not a great quarterback, was better than Timmy. We've seen this flavor of quarterback psyche destruction happen before in Denver with Jake Plummer falling apart with a rookie Jay Cutler on the sidelines. The Denver crowd has an amazing ability to destroy a quarterback's confidence when there is what they perceive to be a better option holding a clip board.
Orton always was limited and he now has so little belief in himself at that at this point that I'm fine with giving Tebow a shot. In fact, doing so seems to be the only logical thing to do at this point, but don't mistake the Broncos' utter lack of options with me having faith in Tebow's ability. It's great that he's money from inside the 5 yard line, but at some point, an NFL quarterback must actually be able to throw the ball downfield.
The Broncos have nothing to lose this season, they are not putting things together for a playoff run. They may as well use 2011 to discover what exactly they have in their second year quarterback. Sadly, I believe that what they have with Tebow is a first round drafted quarterback who should have dropped to the 3rd or 4th round. Denver doesn't have a quarterback controversy, that requires actual NFL quality quarterbacks. What the Broncos have is a gaping hole at the position.
Here is my problem. I really like Tim Tebow, yet I find his play so astonishingly bad that I constantly find myself denigrating his play to fellow Broncos fans. It is to the point people think I hate him. I need to make this point very clear: I don't hate him, I just don't want him as the quarterback for my favorite team. He doesn't have the necessary skills. His accuracy is laughable, and his release looks like it would be more fitting on a pitchers mound than behind center. I can't say that too loud in this town, as the natives see such statements as sacrilegious, these types of heretical thoughts are worthy of torches and pitchforks. Tim is beloved, and for good reasons, sadly none of those reasons seem to involve his skill at playing the quarterback position in the NFL.
I so badly want to be wrong about this belief. I want Tim to prove that he belongs and that he is capable of leading the Broncos for years to come. I have zero issues cheering for the man. I just think I'm an early adopter to realizing how truly terrible he is. The people of Colorado won't put up with dreadful play and loss after loss after loss from anyone, not even the sainted Tim Tebow. I don't know how long it will take Denver to turn on him, but it will happen. And when it does, know that while I have never believed in him, I do like him. I won't be booing the man when everyone else starts to do so. Just as I'm not irrationally waving the pom-poms for him now. I'll still like him, even as he proves to be what I thought he was all along. No, I'm not going to be the one booing, I'll be the guy with the sad but knowing grin on his face, quietly muttering under my breath, "I told you so."
Episode 132 is a Vertically Striped Radio Halloween Spooktacular that seems destined to take it's place alongside "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."
From a Ghost story for kids from 1973, to a spooky story from Dave Eggers, to Craig's off the board fears involving small children, trips to the grocery store, and Tim Tebow to Jerry Fairish from the LCS Hockey Show regaling us with stories from his haunted past. It's a lot of fun wrapped up in a spooky package with a odd choice for the music recommendation thrown in at the end.
Happy Halloween!
What kind of a podcast would spend almost their entire show discussing Mighty Ducks 3? Oh yeah, this podcast. The He-Man Movie Watchers Club convenes on Episode 131 for it's most ridiculous and longest meeting of all time to discuss a lousy Emilio Estevez vehicle. I'd just like to say I'm sorry for letting this show happen. I really am.
Joe, Nalax, Face and Craig disect D3 in terrible detail this episode. Also, there was some news and a brief discussion of the NBA Lockout. Things then wrapped up with a music recommendation of "Family Tree" by TV on the Radio.
The switchboard was hopping as Episode 130 brought about the much awaited return of 80% Trivia from a year hiatus. The phone lines were jammed as the majority of the show had people calling in to test their wits in categories such as TV Fat Guys, Name that Muppet, Super Bowl losers, Finish the lyrics: Disney Version, and 1980's Video Games.
Two famous streaks were extended...Face always wins and Nalax always gets 60%, The Ed showed up and won the day by somehow managing to get 90%. We also heard from old favorite such as Major Minority, Larry from LCS and Aaron from the No Name Show.
After the game show portion of the program, we finished out with what amounted to an impromptu Ed Show, as Ed regaled us with Edisms such as the video game "Honkey Kong" and the fact that if he could be any Super Hero, he'd be Cookie Monster.
I wrapped up today's show with a music recommendation of Holocene from Bon Iver.
Episode 129 brought up more questions than it answered. Should Craig attend a Special Chinese party with a special story of a 93 years old lady, a special music, a special topic, and a special Chinese food Dim-Sum? Should Craig start cheering for the Broncos to lose? Does Face lose his mind watching Miami Hurricanes football? Where is Sexy Pizza? Why are all these sisters plowing into Moose? What took so long to get rid of Hank Williams Jr? What's the best Facebook song? Who was the Wanker of the Week? And most importantly, WHY DOES EVERYONE WANT TO WATCH MIGHTY DUCKS 3???
I don't know that we answered all these questions, but we did our best to attempt to do so. Craig laid out a challenge to all the alleged supporters of D3: The Mighty Ducks, and Face and The Whale helped him navigate a very choppy and odd edition of the show. The music recommendation was the song "Broken Horse" by Freelance Whales, and if you hang out to the end, you'll hear a dramatic reading of "The Pout Pout Fish"
It was Craig's 35th birthday, and he got the present that he wanted most...The Whale's return to the Vertically Striped Airwaves! We hadn't heard from The Whale on the show since June, and it was glorious to have him back.
Face, The Whale and Craig discussed the greatest day in regular season baseball history...September 28th, 2011. As the Red Sox completed their implosion, and the Rays had a gigantic comeback against the Yankees to complete their gigantic comeback in the Wild Card race, and the guys discussed who they would be supporting in the baseball postseason this year. It's a slightly disappointing field of teams, as no city has gone more than 10 years without a championship in a major sport. We also discussed the trouble with the Cowboys Center snapping the ball willy-nilly, it's almost as if he doesn't care if Tony Romo is ready or not.
Before all the sports talk, Craig discussed the recent trend of the super rich purchasing dinosaurs, and talks a bit about a hot and heavy auction for a T-Rex skull between two Hollywood heavy hitters.
Craig also presented part 1 of his two part series in which he presents NFL teams with tweaks to make their uniforms better. Today was the AFC's turn to learn how they could improve their threads.
Craig finished up with a new edition of "Something to Think About!" which was ended abruptly by a call from our friend The Ed. And then after all that, Craig had a music recommendation of "Right Before My Eyes" from Cage the Elephant's appropriately named album "Thank You, Happy Birthday"
