R A I D E R L E G E N D
The former president couldn't help himself and proceeded to criticize the judicial system. When he was done, his attacks resembled more a clumsily fashioned noose dangling from his guilty neck, than any evidence of innocence.
️ .... And Trump acted like a 3yr old having a tantrum. What a effin embarrassment that this individual was once President, astounding he's able to run to be President again. 
Love the uniforms, the history, the Big House. But damn, you got caught cheating and I can't unsee the video evidence. It would be like seeing footage of the U.S. Capitol attack by Trump Supporters and denying it ever happened. It is a stain on the country as much as cheating is a stain on Michigan Football. You can't just wish it into the cornfield.
Maybe 2025 will give us a College Football champion we can be proud of. Honorable!
But not this season. For now, a Big *asterisk takes a knee next to the 2024 CFP Championship.
Thanks for participating Washington Huskies! You deserved better.
Michigan sign-stealing scandal, explained: Why Jim Harbaugh was suspended (freep.com)
Shoulda, Coulda, What If, If Only ! ! !
The Raiders play their last game of the season today, and Win, Lose, or Tie, it will sadden me. Saddened not because they're out of the playoffs, again, but because I'll miss the thrill they bring me on Sundays. You football fans know what I'm talking about; the thrill of the game, of your team battling against the enemy, with hope for a glorious victory.
If football Sunday does nothing else for a fan, it allows us to scream out our frustrations as well as triumphs in life. We do this not as lone soldiers, but as part of an enlisted, loyal battalion of team supporters. We put on our team hats and jerseys, like protective armor, then proceed to engage the enemies of life. Hopeful for a positive outcome. Whether it be on our own home turf or on the road, in our man caves or in sports bars, we take our positions on the battlefield with a sense of duty and honor.
"We have met the enemy, and they are ours" - Master Commandant Oliver Perry
We hope to win our battles every week, but we know on any given Sunday, anyone can lose to a stronger or weaker enemy. So, the challenge becomes gathering all emotions, minds, and bodies together to heal and prepare for the next encounter. It is as much a battle within as it is without. And to conquer one's self is the ultimate victory. No Fear!
I know comparing the fandom of football to war might seem farfetched and a bit over the top to some. But trust me when I tell you the comradery of team sports spirit, I've only found to be as strong or stronger amongst those in religious fellowship and/or veterans serving their country. From these two examples I must say that football fans are in good company.
Win, Lose, or Tie!
With 12 seconds remaining in the first half and Los Angeles leading 14-3, the Redskins took over at their own 12-yard line. Instead of simply running out the clock, Joe Gibbs inexplicably called "Rocket Screen" -- a screen pass from quarterback Joe Theismann to halfback Joe Washington coming out of the backfield. Anticipating the play, Charlie Sumner, the Raiders' linebackers coach, rushed the speedy, athletic Squirek onto the field as a replacement for Matt Millen. When Theismann dropped back to throw, he turned left, and tossed the ball into Squirek's hands. The linebacker made the catch and jogged five yards into the end zone, untouched. -Sports Illustrated
The name Jack Squirek will live on in the annals of legendary sports plays and moments!
Jack Squirek, a Super Bowl Champion with the 1983 Raiders, has passed away. The linebacker is best remembered for his legendary play in Superbowl XVIII, an out-of-nowhere interception/ pick six of Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann. Every true Raiders fan old enough knows his name, the miraculous play, and the blowout of the favored Redskins in that game.
Squirek may not have had a Hall of Fame NFL career, nine other players on the field that day would later be enshrined. But he is well entrenched on the Raiders list of clutch plays made by players in high stakes moments. The play earned him a place on the iconic Sports Illustrated cover, known for featuring the best in sports.
Jack Squirek wasn't named MVP of the game. That distinction deservedly went to RB Marcus Allen, who ran for 191 yards and 2 touchdowns. Marcus had a miraculous 74-yard reverse run for a touchdown that sits on the Raiders clutch play/ clutch moments list. Today, Marcus is in the NFL Hall of Fame.
Like Marcus on that day, Jack delivered for the Raiders on the national stage in a game for all the marbles. And yes, he and the Raiders ended up with all the Redskins marbles and more.
Rest Well Champ!
Raiders went into Arrowhead Stadium on Christmas Day and silenced the critics and crowd with a convincing win over the Chiefs. It wasn’t pretty like the 63-21 thrashing of the Chargers the previous game. But it had some defensive hints of that historic beatdown, with fumble recoveries and interceptions for touchdowns. And now Kansas City, along with the rest of the league, knows the Raiders defense is no one trick pony show.
On Christmas Day, Raiders defense scored 14 points in seven seconds, giving the Raiders a 17-7 lead at halftime. They then proceeded in the second half to stop the Chiefs offense, limiting Mahomes, Kelce, and crew to a lone touchdown. Also, twice they stopped the Chiefs on fourth-down, forcing turn-over on downs.
Sure, the Raiders offense didn’t get into the endzone all day, but they managed to put together drives, convert on 3rd downs, and keep Mahomes on the sideline when it mattered most. No Patty Mahomes last second heroics on this Christmas Day. The game would end with a few Raiders quarterback kneeldowns to run out the clock.
Night-Night Chiefs fans, and have a miserable Merry Christmas; signed Da Raiders Grinch!
THE LONG-HIDDEN STORIES OF AMERICA'S
BLACK PIONEEERS. THE FRONTIER
THEY SETTLED, AND THEIR FIGHT FOR
THE HEART OF THE NATION
Wow, what a comeback win! The Golden State Warriors were flat early. They struggled through the middle, then turned up their offense and defense late in the fourth quarter. Finally, in overtime, they put to bed what many consider one of the best teams in the league.
Coach Kerr, forced to play his young players, and those guys stepped up and played like veterans. At times the Boston Celtics looked unstoppable early in the game. But down the stretch they struggled to score, looking pedestrian.
Young Warriors player Trayce Jackson-Davis had a coming out party, and may have beern second best player of the game for the Warriors right behind Steph Curry. Trayce (TJD) came into the game and the Warriors instantly looked better. TJD had 10 points and 13 rebounds for the game, his first double-double game in his young NBA Career.
The Celtics were left looking like a child shaken awake from a recurring nightmare. If they're still wondering what happened for them to lose a game they mostly led, it's simple; they got bamboozled by a Golden State Warriors team who are rediscovering their championship medal. Gold Blooded Baby!!!
How does a team that lost an NFL game 3-0 four days ago show up and show out with a team-record scoring victory? Against a division rival team? Well, as Chris Berman always says, "This is why we play the games."
The Raiders and Chargers, both sporting 5-8 records coming in, played an NFL Thursday Night Primetime game that I'm sure non-fans of the two teams weren't rushing home to tune into. With both teams coming off losses and looking to keep their longshot playoff hopes flickering, the stakes were mild. Surprisingly, by the end of the first quarter the hometown Raiders had a 21-0 lead. By halftime they'd doubled it with a 42-0 shutout of the Chargers.
As a card-carrying Raiders fan, I was mostly elated. But the one stab I kept feeling in my side was memory of Sunday's 3-0 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. I love my Raiders, don't get me wrong. But how can a team get shutout 3-0, then turn around four days later to put up record points? It felt like a smack in the face. But dammit, I'll take the friggin smack and live with this incredible Raiders win. It was truly a beautiful Silver & Black beatdown of an opponent.
Granted the Chargers were missing quarterback Justin Herbert, out for the season with a fractured finger, along with WR Keenan Allen. Meanwhile, the Raiders were missing RB Josh Jacobs and C Andre James due to injuries. Also tackle Kolton Miller did not play. This game though, was determined not by the better roster, but a hungering "Will-to-Win" attitude. The Raiders had that attitude, a fire in the belly burning bright, from opening kickoff to the final tick of the game clock.
They won it by scoring on 5 passing touchdowns, 2 rushing touchdowns, a strip sack returned 44 yards by big, rumbling defensive tackle John Jenkins, and a pick 6. Nine touchdowns and No Field Goals.
The big guy's touchdown would have been a game-defining "cherry on top" of a dominant Raiders night, but for the interception made two plays later when cornerback Jack Jones read the offense like a book. Jones jumped the screen, intercepted the ball one-handed, and raced sixteen yards untouched for the score. That right there! was the Ed Sheeran PERFECT execution moment of the game for me.
Baby, I'm dancing in the darkWith you between my armsBarefoot on the grassListening to our favourite songWhen you said you looked a messI whispered underneath my breathBut you heard itDarling, you look perfect tonight
Win, Lose, or Tie
"The Fire that Burns Brightest is the Will to Win!"
The poem is narrated by Rabbi Ben Ezra, a real 12th-century scholar. The piece does not have a clearly identified audience or dramatic situation. The Rabbi begs his audience to "grow old along with [him]" (line 1). He stresses that age is where the best of life is realized, whereas "youth shows but half" (line 6). He acknowledges that youth lacks insight into life, since it is characteristically so concerned with living in the moment that it is unable to consider the deeper questions.
Though youth will fade, what replaces it is the wisdom and insight of age, which recognizes that pain is a part of life, but which learns to appreciate joy more because of the pain. "Be our joys three parts pain!" (line 34). All the while, one should appreciate what comes, since all adds to our growth towards God, and embrace the "paradox" that life's failure brings success. He notes how, when we are young and our bodies are strong, we aspire to impossible greatness, and he explains that this type of action makes man into a "brute" (line 44).
With age comes acceptance and love of the flesh, even though it pulls us "ever to the earth" (line 63), while some yearn to reach a higher plane. A wise, older man realizes that all things are gifts from God, and the flesh's limitations are to be appreciated even as we recognize them as limitations.
His reason for begging patience is that our life on Earth is but one step of our soul's experience, and so our journey will continue. Whereas youth is inclined to "rage" (line 100), age is inclined to await death patiently. Both are acceptable and wonderful, and each compliments the other.
What complicates the philosophy is that we are wont to disagree with each other, to have different values and loves. However, the Rabbi begs that we not give too much credence to the earthly concerns that engender argument and dissention, and trust instead that we are given by God and hence are fit for this struggle. The transience of time does not matter, since this is only one phase of our existence; we need not grow anxious about disagreements and unrealized goals, since the ultimate truth is out of our reach anyway. Again, failure breeds success. He warns against being distracted by the "plastic circumstance" (line 164) of the present moment.
He ends by stressing that all is part of a unified whole, even if we cannot glimpse the whole. At the same time that age should approve of youth and embrace the present moment, it must also be constantly looking upwards towards a heaven to come and hence simultaneously willing to renounce the present.
Robert Browning: Poems “Rabbi Ben Ezra” Summary and Analysis | GradeSaver
Judgment based on deeds alone can never truly estimate a man, because in every important decision of our lives an "unpublished self" finds no expression in our outward act. Duty is not always clear; at times it seems a labyrinth without a clue. Perplexed, we balance in long deliberation the opposing reasons for this act or that, until, forced to choose, we obtain only a majority vote for the decision.
Yet that uncertain majority alone is published in our deed; man's eyes never see the unexpressed protestant minority behind. And when the choice proves wrong, and friends are grieved and enemies condemn and what we did is hateful to ourselves, only one who knows how much we wanted to do right, and who accounts not only the published but the unpublished self can truly estimate our worth.
Peter, who denied his Lord, it may be because he wanted the privilege of being near him at the trial, is not the only one who has appealed from the outward aspect of his deed to the inner intention of his heart: "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee" (John 21:17).
Moreover, even when we choose aright, no deed can ever gather into utterance all that is best and deepest in us. A mother's love is as much greater than any word she speaks or act she does, as the sunshine is greater than the focused point where in a burning glass we gather a ray of it. We are infinitely more than words can utter or deeds express. No adequate judgment, therefore, can rest on deeds alone. A machine may be estimated by its output, but a man is too subtle and profound, his motives and purposes too inexpressible, his temptations and inward struggles too intimate and unrevealed, his possibilities too great to be roughly estimated by his acts alone.
"Not on the vulgar mass
Called 'work' must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
But all, the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighted not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped."
- from the poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning
- an interpretation on Browning's message in the poem
Shohei Ohtani has selected the L.A. Dodgers as his new baseball team. It comes at a hefty $700 mil. price tag for the Dodgers. As a San Francisco Giants fan, I look forward to seeing the phenom go up against my team. The best west coast rivalry in baseball just got an injection of 'must watch' entertainment.
As for the strength of the two ballclubs, Ohtani is a Goliath joining an organization that's made the playoffs eleven straight years, winning one of three world series. Meanwhile, my Giants have been more like David with a slingshot, making the playoffs three times in that same eleven-year period and winning one world series.
But I must admit, with Ohtani joining the already stacked Los Angeles Philistines line-up:
Top 10 Deals ever doled out in MLB:
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