Showing posts with label Monday Night Football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monday Night Football. Show all posts

Thursday, April 25, 2013

2013 NFL Draft: Another Draft day with Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland squandering opportunities left and right; Give me more playmakers! The best defense is a big lead!; @nfl, @SI_PeterKing, @BuckyBrooks


pmanis09 YouTube Channel: ABC's Monday Night Football, opening (1973), with Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford and Don Meredith. Uploaded on October 16, 2008. http://youtu.be/m8fkMkE2Yjg
and over at NBC, largely featuring Dolphins guard Bob Kuechenberg, and with other Dolphins appearing, including Larry Little, Vern Den Herder, Larry Csonka, Bob Griese and at 0:57, the late Jim Mandich, who sadly died almost-two years ago tomorrow...


beaverstuffers YouTube Channel: NFL on NBC, opening (1973). 
Uploaded August 20, 2009. http://youtu.be/nv-datkQYUU

Yes, 1973, the last year the Dolphins really WERE the best team.
2013 NFL Draft: Another Draft day with Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland squandering opportunities left and right; Give me more playmakers! The best defense is a big lead!; @nfl, @SI_PeterKing, @BuckyBrooks
Another Draft day that Dolphin fans hope will be decisive in changing around the fortunes of a once-proud football franchise that has been plagued for too many years with bad management, uninspiring coaching and mediocre personnel that lacks playmakers and a killer instinct. But look who's in charge?
Since we're all friends here on the blog for the most part, I'm going to fill you in on something
you won't be reading elsewhere today on one of the most-magical albeit-unofficial American holidays of the year -the first day of the NFL Draft.

Last night after the watching the Miami-area 11 O'clock news, I had to run some errands and hop into the blog's Time Machine, a.k.a. the South Beach Hoosier Time Machine, to finish something I had actually started a few weeks ago, though technically, is actually still in the future many months from now.

You know how it is with time travel, some words only cause more confusion, which is why star dates are so useful.

So anyway, one of the errands involved finally seeing the new upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness that opens in May, which I'll be seeing in-person next month when it opens, on DVD this December, when the Dolphins 2013 season has pretty much played itself out.


Star Trek Into Darkness - Official Trailer #3 (HD) Benedict Cumberbatch

I bought it to watch it again and then send it to my mother, who is a longtime Star Trek fan, but not so crazy about going to theaters anymore, unless she comes down here to see my sister and I, in which case we'll watch it at my sister's at some point on her visit.

My plan, then, is to watch it after the NBC Sunday Night Football game if that game is a good one, or, instead of the game if the game is not so interesting. 
(Like usual, I'm taping Once Upon a Time, The Good Wife and The Mentalist on the other TV's DVR.)
So, I'm watching the pre-game highlights package and listening to Dan Patrick, Tony Dungy and Bob Costas talk and talk about the various games that took place earlier in the day and sort of wondering what led the Time Machine to this scene of me watching myself lying on the couch, with some newspapers and a can of Coke on the table nearby. 
And how is this trip in any way connected to tonight's NFL Draft?

Well, the Dolphins will have the chance tonight to draft and add polish to a dynamic game-breaking player, but because Dolphins well-meaning but misfiring General Manager Jeff Ireland is who he is -there's no changing those spots- he goes the safe route yet again and the player who could be and should be one of the Dolphins biggest stars of the future, will instead drop some more and ply his trade for another team drafting after the Dolphins.

Ah, Jeff Ireland and the Safe Choice!
It almost sounds like the name of a neighborhood band from North Miami Beach circa 1974, a band where the lead singer is the older brother of one of my friends, but his last name really isn't Ireland, but he just likes the way it sounds.
Lots of class!

In the future highlight I see, Dan Patrick prefaces his pithy comment by saying, "Oh, no. Jeff Ireland may want to close his eyes again because Miami passed on this guy."

And there on the TV screen, on TVs of various sizes and shapes all across the country and all across South Florida, the video is showing someone scoring against the Dolphins late in a heretofore close ballgame, and making the big difference in another Dolphin loss.

Because, as always, there are nice dependable players and then there are difference-makers, and the Dolphins have been plagued for the past 15 years by NOT having enough of them on the field on either offense or defense.

It makes me think after watching videos on YouTube of the NFL in the 1970's, the seasons with the games and scores I still remember because I was there in-person at the Orange Bowl for almost every one, that IF Jeff Ireland had been the Steelers GM in 1974, he'd have passed on drafting John Stallworth in the fourth round because, well, after all, they already had drafted a very good one out of USC in the first round named Lynn Swann.
So let's draft another offensive lineman!

But given who's making the choice, that offensive lineman is NOT named future Hall of Famer Mike Webster.
Four of the Steeler's first five draft choices eventually are enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame.

Such is the difference between GMs who are in-the-know and on draft day, literally, in-the-zone, seeing things that others don't see, and then there are nice guys who still have their jobs after doing a consistently mediocre job because the boss doesn't really like to fire people.

What will be written on Ireland's personnel file after his exit interview?
"Dolphins lack of playmakers!"

Here's a hint: offensive linemen aren't playmakers:

Look up the phrase "Dolphins lack of playmakers" on Google Images and tell me whose photo shows up first.
Really,.just try it.
See, it's not just my opinion, it's an algorithm's learned opinion.

I hope that I'm wrong about this prediction about the Dolphins draft today, and that Ireland, like George Costanza once did, does the exact opposite of what he usually does, but if you know anything about me from reading this blog fairly regularly over the years, and my predictions while at IU and in Chicago and in D.C., you know that I have a ridiculous degree of accuracy when I've had some time to analyze the empirical data, accent the positive, eliminate the negative and throw in some intangibles and just noodle everything through.  

Three teams on December's Dolphins schedule draft after the Dolphins: the Steelers at 17, the Patriots at 29 and the Jets immediately after the Dolphins draft at 12.
Just saying... the best defense is a big lead!


2013 NFL Draft: The perfect strategy for each team to follow
By Bucky Brooks, Analyst, NFL.com and NFL Network
 Published: April 22, 2013 at 03:57 p.m. 
Updated: April 23, 2013 at 05:38 p.m.


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Forty-years ago, Miami Dolphins football in December had genuine significance and gave South Florida a real sense of identity, excitement and togetherness that it had never before enjoyed. I know -I was there. But now...

TIME Magazine, December 11, 1972

Building For The Super Bowl - Miami Coach Don Shula
Forty-years ago, Miami Dolphins football in December had genuine significance and gave South Florida a real sense of identity, excitement and togetherness that it had never before enjoyed. 
I know -I was there.
But now...

Some, including many who should know better, foolishly say that South Florida has become "a basketball town."
That's NOT true, of course, since real basketball towns support both professional AND college basketball with equal affection.
I ought to know, because I've lived in two of them: Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Miami is nothing like them.

Still, given the anemic showing the Dolphins have made on the field the past 15 years, and the equally amateurish, dog-chasing-its-tail sense of ineptitude and stupidity shown by the two most-recent ownership groups off-the-field, it's not easy to rebut those foolish claims with a straight face, especially when the Miami Heat have won two NBA championships in the past 6 years.

What's happened is that the Dolphins have slowly bled the heart and evaporated the soul out of many of their most loyal fans and sent them into hiding underground.
They watch the games on TV, but going to see them in-person, with the current crew in charge, is too painful.

When you know what real professionals look like and act like, because you've seen them with your own eyes, and in fact, have grown up with them, it's very hard to accept second-rate and lackluster effort.
Accept such a consistent lack of fundamentals in basic aspects of the game, or the lack of knowledge of the rules, or lack of personal accountability on the field.
And then to be asked to applaud that?
I know I can't, and I'm far from alone.


nitroradio99 YouTube Channel: Highlights of Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins. December 20, 1970. Uploaded April 27, 2011. http://youtu.be/3wtp94Ffg3w
This 1970 game was the first Dolphins game I ever attended in-person at the Orange Bowl, with my Dad. I was nine-years old, the Dolphins but five.



Jean0987654321YouTube Channel: Intro of 1973 AFC Championship: Oakland Raiders at Miami Dolphins, December 30, 1973. Uploaded May 26, 2012.
http://youtu.be/Z-PjSiKm1-M


monteroed YouTube Channel. Uploaded October 27, 2010
http://youtu.be/ErvySdmZqWY



sluggotv YouTube Channel: Chicago Bears at Miami Dolphins. December 2, 1985. Uploaded May 22, 2011. http://youtu.be/_m0SzNtY9WI

The day of this game I was wearing the same trademark aqua-colored Dolphins cap I'd worn all week around Evanston in predicting that Don Shula was not going to allow the undefeated Bears to come into the Orange Bowl and emerge unscathed.
It was weird how confident I was, but having seen all the '72 Perfect Season home games in- person, perhaps it was the the fight-or-flight kicking in!
And my intuition has always been my strongest trait.


I watched the Dolphins-Bears game from the Norris Student Union at Northwestern University in Evanston, where I had moved that summer, and planted myself at a table underneath one of the large TVs they had on the side of the columns. 

I'd often watch the network evening newscasts there and grab a bite to eat while waiting to meet my friend, ace lifeguard, boater, guitarist and very talented singer Susan Smentek, who worked in the art gallery there, and whom I even watched sing a few times in their bar.
Susan was also my creative arts/film friend muse with whom I finally saw "Back to the Future" with when it premiered back then! 

Susan was the sort of wonderfully kind and well-grounded friend you always hope you have on your side when you need to sort your head out and make some difficult choices.
For me, at that time, Susan was the friend and confidant whose opinion I cared about so much that I'd rather have disappointed my own parents and sisters than her, because she's the one who actually listened intensely, and the one person who helped me and cheered me up more than anyone else did the two years I lived in the Chicago area.

Frankly, much as I'd like to write otherwise, those two years along the shores of Lake Michigan were not the happiest of times for me, as I had to deal with a lot more personal anguish and professional disappointment in a short period of time than I'd ever had on my plate at one time before, despite what I thought at the time had been more than enough planning and preparation on my part before heading up to Chicago.
I leaned on Susan a lot, and though I tried not to over-do it, I know that sometimes it was too much, so those times when I knew I'd really disappointed her, I was really racked by intense pangs of guilt. 

I deeply regret that I fell out of touch with Susan not long after after she visited the Washington, D.C. area around 1994 while touring in support of her CD, Siren Song, and I got a chance to see perform yet again, that magnetic voice of hers as strong and impressive as ever.
Which made Siren Song such a perfect name for her!

And how's this for irony, she now lives in Elmhurst, the very town that I was originally slated to live in when I first moved-up there in 1985.
But if I had, I'd never have met Susan, which proves the wisdom of the saying, "Friends Are God’s Way of Taking Care of Us"
Dziękuję, Susan!

That table at Norris where I watched the Dolphins beat the Bears was the same exact table where seven weeks later, I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger launch and subsequent explosion as it happened, which not that many people there were watching a mere five minutes beforehand.
Yet within 15 minutes, seemed to have half of the Northwestern campus there, much of it consumed in tears and sobs, the rest in varying looks of astonishment and bewilderment.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Happy 60th Birthday, Color TV! We still love you, NOT computer games, Facebook, texting or micro-brewing


RCA video: The Story of Color Television.

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Intro to The Adventures of Superman TV series, starring George Reeves.
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Intro to ABC-TV's Disneyland - 1.18 - Davy Crockett at the Alamo - Part 1 of 4, starring Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen.

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Intro to ABC-TV's original "Zorro" series, starring Guy Williams.
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U.S. network TV color intros from the 1960's.

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Bonanza Season 1, Episode 1: A Rose for Lotta Part [1/4 - HD]
The reason that many families finally bought a color TV -NBC's Bonanza on Sunday nights was in color.

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Intro to ABC-TV's The Green Hornet, starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee

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RCA COLOR TELEVISION 1961 CLASSIC TV SHOWS & COMMECIALS on DVD at TVDAYS.com. My family's first color TV was an RCA model in 1969.
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ABC-TV's The Fugitive "The Judgement" (2nd part) FINAL EPISODE 1967 Act I of IV (In color HD), Aired August 29, 1967. Starring Richard Janssen and Barry Morse. Until 1980, the most-watched U.S. TV show episode of all-time.
The final season was the first in color.

"Tuesday, August 29th: The day the running stopped."

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ABC SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE 1977-1981 (CLEAN).flv
And as everyone recalls, in the pre-cable 1970's and '80's, once a James Bond film had come and gone from the theaters, the first time you'd ever be able to see it again was on ABC's Sunday Movie.
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ABC's Monday Night Football intro (1973)

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ABC's Monday Night Football intro (1979); Frank Gifford pre-game of Houston Oilers at Miami Dolphins

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