Random musings of Jeromey Balderrama
I understand that people are trying to validate soccer as an up-and-coming sport in the US, but the New Mexico Lobos aren’t helping soccer’s case with this (hopefully this video isn’t taken down).
Maybe Elizabeth Lambert is trying to challenge Rodney Harrison as the “dirtiest player” (oh wait, Rodney’s retired, so now it’s Hines Ward).
Geez.
I’m probably not making any big posts tonight due to my attention being focused on the Broncos/Chargers game. Usually I’m able to blog during Monday Night Football, but I’m too focused on this game to collect any thoughts.
As I watch this game, the more I realize how much I loathe the Chargers. I think there are some teams that the national media becomes infatuated with, maybe it’s due to the supposed level of talent, or a specific player they want to rally behind – but it seems like the Chargers are one of those teams that the media is simply in denial about. The Chargers have been pretty sub-par for the last two years, yet the media still tries to see them as a Super Bowl team.
Even tonight, when the ESPN pre-game show was going across their screen, they had 3-4 of the commentators going for the Chargers. Never mind the fact that they’re injured on their offensive line, that Shawne Marriman isn’t the player he once was before he got injured, or that LaDainian Thomlinson has fallen from grace. Somehow they manage to ignore that and still see the Chargers as the darlings of the AFC West, which they’ve penciled into their playoff brackets.
Media infatuation aside, I also loathe the Chargers because of Phillip Rivers and the way he gets a pass for all of his trash-talking that he does. He always looks like a spoiled kid whenever they are on top, but if they face a shred of adversity he’s nowhere to be found.
So yes, it was fantastic watching the Broncos win tonight and continue to prove the national media was wrong: both about the Chargers and about the level of play coming from the Broncos.
Sometimes when you’re at the stadium you miss some great gems like this.
We were in the South Stands, too focused on leaving and didn’t notice McDaniels going North this fired up. Man is that cool.
I know some people may see this and say “Act like you’ve been there before coach”, but I for one am glad to see a coach react the same way that players and fans do after a big win like this. Earned or not, McDaniels has endured a lot of crap from fans and the media since he arrived in Denver. He’s done what was unthinkable back in July and defnitely deserved this moment. Congrats coach, and best of luck being the tar out of the Chargers.
Well the Rockies had a great run and blew everyone’s expectations – especially when you consider that back in the Spring Hurdle got fired because the team was so bad. I’ll be honest: Now that the Rockies are out of the Playoffs, my level of interest in MLB has significantly decreased. I did want to offer a thought, more-so an expansion of something I Twittered about last night before fatigue got the better of me.
The Rockies started playing at 8pm on a Sunday night, with the game ending well past midnight. We’re talking Mountain Time, never mind that we were playing Philly, an Eastern Time Zone team. Yet somehow baseball doesn’t see anything wrong with that.
Look, I’m not in so much denial about the Rockies’ stature that I believe the team warrants the major prime-time spot, and I am somewhat grateful that they re-scheduled the Rockies game to give Broncos fans the opportunity to watch.. but really an 8pm start time?!? Baseball can’t get away with the same tricks that basketball and hockey pull – their games are under 3 hours – and an 8pm start time doesn’t work for playoff baseball.
I’ve heard the detractors of my views (and debated with them on Twitter), that I am being selfish and am unwilling to sacrifice a little to support my home team. Perhaps they’re right, but consider this: Baseball has been in an arguable decline in popularity over the last few decades. Their die-hard fans aren’t getting any younger, and the only way to build your stature is by getting your product in front of as many potential fans – especially kids – as possible. It’s pretty hard to that when they’re all in bed.
I’ve stated previously that the NBA is pretty obnoxious about their playoff scheduling, but in the beginning they’re trying to fit in 8 games. Yet somehow baseball only has to manage 4 games and still finds a way to screw that scheduling up. Baseball is in a tough spot, but they need to start somewhere and accept a few things. For one, accept that you can’t avoid football and may just need to compete with it. If you’re going to play on a Sunday in the fall, you can’t avoid all of their games. Secondly, you need to make sure you’re on in the afternoons on weekends, the fact that you didn’t have a game scheduled on Saturday afternoon is nothing but a missed opportunity. Thirdly, if it’s too hard for you to take 2 games each night and alternate nights, then you maybe should accept the fact that the games will need to run on alternate channels. I know each sports feels their playoffs should run exclusively, but if you can’t manage the 4+ hours your game run then you need to do something.
Today was a long day, a fun day, but a long one. We played a great show at Signature’s Night Club last night which I’ll have to get into a bit more, but a long drive home didn’t get me back into Fort Collins until after 2am. I woke up this morning at 8:30 and started to make my way back to the Mile High City to see the Broncos take on the Patriots. Unfortunately I gave Bethany the illness that I had last week, so she wasn’t able to go. Luckily my buddy Matt was able to drop things and head down to the game with me.
It was definitely a cold one. I dressed in a decent amount of layers: a turtleneck, sweatshirt jacket, and of course my jersey. The sun finally broke out in the 2nd half and made it warm enough to take off the knit hat and gloves.
If you saw the game (and thus the uniforms), you could see that the Broncos were going back to the 60’s, and the stadium crew was trying to go for the same thing as well. Some of the things they did were pretty clever: the Cheerleaders with the 60’s outfits and huge pom-poms, a pep band playing (what I presume is) the Broncos fight song when touchdowns were scored, 60’s music during timeouts.
However there were a few things that completely missed the mark: The big screens (people call them jumbo-trons, Mile High calls it “Thundervision”) showed everything in black & white, and to drive home the point they put it in this obnoxious old TV border. The idea was cute, but there were a few problems: 1) Both jerseys came across as being white on the screen, making it difficult to identify players; 2) Even though they were going with a black & white effect to make things look old, it was still in HD. 3) The typical graphics/ads/screens were pretty much unreadable. It was just one of those things that probably took things too far.
We were treated to half-time show by the CSU Marching Band – more appropriately: the home stands were treated to the show, as that was the only section that could actually hear the band. I didn’t realize just how bad the acoustics in the stadium were until after I heard the band. It seemed that all of the sound got absorbed by those plastic seats, with nothing left to bounce around the stadium.
Old-school experiences aside, it was great to walk out of the stadium with a win – especially one that practically no one outside of Denver was expecting.