Twilight of a career and a nemesis

Wow, a lot has happened since I last posted something, time to recap the goings on of the last week:

An open letter to the 2013 version of myself

The main reason for the current hiatus is because after events of last weekend, it took a few days to get the buzzing in my head to subside and regain the will to live. Every year I tell myself I’m going to take it easy, then every year something amazing happens that causes large numbers of people (chiefly me) to lose their minds. The last thing that I wanted to do this past Saturday was return myself to the city that had beaten the tar out of me for the previous 48 hours, but promises had been made and needed to be kept.

Since suffering through what may have been the worst Sunday of my life, I’ve been saying that next year is going to be different. But since no one believes me, and I don’t completely believe myself, that needs to go down on paper for posterity’s sake.


From: The 2012 Mayor
To: The 2013 Mayor

RE: Saturday, March 16th 2013

Mr. Mayor,

This letter is being written to request that you cease-and-desist from any excursion within the borders of St. Paul, Minnesota on Saturday the 16th of March, two-thousand and thirteen. As you know, this will be the last Final Five Saturday in history, and also likely the observance of the St. Patrick’s Day holiday, since the Pope does not like drunks stealing his thunder. Frankly, after consulting with some affected parties, most notably yourself this past Sunday thru Tuesday, we simply do not believe you have the wherewithal to handle three days of extreme mirth back-to-back-to-back.

Now, before you protest, it should be pointed out that this is a fair offer, still allowing full participation on both Thursday and Friday. It’s time to face the fact that you simply can’t handle the rigor of this schedule. Your simply too old for this kind of thing, and frankly, have some impulse-control issues that don’t jibe well with the environment. As evidence of this, we offer the following:

At 1 PM Sunday, you checked your back account balance, and would’ve wept openly, had you not been such a stoic and virile man.

At 11 AM Sunday, you remarked to a friend “Next year we need to plan ahead and get some cyanide capsules, would make for an easier morning” and were only half-kidding.

At 11:30 PM Saturday, you stepped away from a conversation with several strangers to locate a group of friends who’d just been there “15 minutes ago” in your estimation. Actual time of departure: 8:30 PM.

Between 10-11 PM Saturday, we have unconfirmed reports of you dancing to country music.

From approximately 7-8 PM Saturday, you traded rounds and engaged in a discussion with an individual who’s number you entered into your phone under “Jameson”. You’re not sure whether this is because his actually name was Jameson (unlikely), he bought you a glass of Jameson, or he worked for Jameson in some capacity. I think we’d both agree that this is a poor system if any sort of follow-up is intended.

Around 5 PM, you looked at the patrons surrounding you in a bar and wondered how all these high school kids had gotten in. Then the logic hit that they all must be 21 or over, and along with it, the realization that you could possibly be closer to one of their parents age than their own. This is unlikely (hopefully), but possible, and that bummed you out.

But I didn’t have to tell you this, because I happen to know for a fact that last week you heard “Pour Some Sugar On Me” on the oldies station and came to this conclusion yourself. You don’t go to bars that play thumping music and are filled with guys in Affliction t-shirts, stop trying to hang with the 20-somethings on St. Paddy’s!

Listen, there’s no shame in admitting you've slowed down, every great wide receiver eventually lost a step, every dominant pitcher a few miles off his fastball. You’ve had a great career, hold your head high, not Hall of Fame worthy, but definitely multiple All-Star appearances. No Pedro in his prime, but Johan? Potentially. Not to mention, you’ve got some years as a crafty veteran left in you, just gotta pick your spots and keep that ice bucket handy. Surround yourself with the right team, you might even get that title that’s eluded you so far.

However, should you choose to ignore this warning, you do so at your own peril. The next letter that I dash off will be to the 2030 Mayor, instructing him that if you did venture to St. Paul on St. Patrick’s Day 2013, he should travel back in time, take a hair sample from your junior-high self, go to wherever in time the have viable cloning techniques, create 3 or 4 copies of you, bring them back to next March 16th and beat the holy hell out of you. If time travel is not available yet, then he’s to figure out a way to post the message forward to a future point when it is, he should be able to handle that, it’s 2030 after all.

I know all this sounds complicated, but trust me, it’s foolproof, test me if you don’t believe.

Kind regards,

The 2012 Mayor


Tebow-Jack
The other thing I had to bring up this week was the demotion of my two least favorite NFL QBs from starter to backup, within mere days of each other!

On October 24th of last year, I named Tim Tebow the Official Nemesis of Loserville.  Obviously, that had a powerful impact, as nothing's quite gone right for him ever since (sarcasm!).  But that position was only vacant in the first place because Tarvaris Jackson, who'd been ruining my football life for several years, was no longer wearing a Vikings uniform.

Now I'll cop to the fact that I had a few moments of "how in the world is this happening" enjoyment courtesy of Timmy Two T's, but in general his success just royally pissed me off.  Never more than when he beat the Steelers in the playoffs, then predictably got killed in New England, robbing the football watching public of a chance at a good playoff game, because he could not throw a forward pass.

Tarvaris never really did anything noteworthy, much less miraculous, his only crime was quarterbacking the NFL team I rooted for.  He was picked too early and thrust into a situation he wasn't ready for, by an arrogant alleged QB guru, who probably thought he could teach a ham sanndwich to run a successful two-minute drill.

T-Bow is a star, T-Jack is a nonymous, but when you think about it, they're pretty much the same guy.  They can do some things here and there that make you think "this guy might be a player", but then you actually take a good look and realize that on a long enough timeline, it will never work out.  The running part is okay, the throwing part is ugly, and most of all, nobody but the most deluded fan would truly believe that either is a long-term answer.  Even their career stats are pretty similar:

Jackson: 38 TD, 35 INT, 77.7 QB rating
Tebow: 17 TD, 9 INT, 75.1 QB rating

(And let's be honest, Tebow's TD/INT ratio was inflated by a complete refusal to pass, to put this in perspective, you and I both have zero career interceptions, think about it)

The Broncos and Seahawks confirmed what everyone already knew this week, when they signed Peyton Manning and Matt Flynn, respectively, to be their new quarterbacks.  The Flynn signing is especially satisfying to us Vikings fans.  It not only gets a capable backup out of Green Bay, but also pokes holes in the ridiculous comments coming out of Seattle about Jackson never really getting a chance in his time as a Vikings.  That one perked up the ears of the state with a collective "Oh yeah?  Well, we shall see about that."  In my NFL preview post last September comparing teams to movies, I wrote this for the Seahawks:

Seattle (5-11) / “Pulp Fiction” – Not the whole movie, just the pawn shop basement scene playing on a loop, since every Seahawks fan will be feeling like Marcellus Wallace by the time this year is over

And yes, in case you were wondering, in that analogy, Tarvaris is Zed.

Now T-Jack can dust off his clipboard, and Tebow his all-Wildcat playbook, just the ways things ought to be.  I must say, life without T-BowJack playing QB for NFL teams sounds good to me, and feels like a bit of a victory over poorly-throw wobblers into the turf everywhere.  Although I am not completely ready to put a stake in the heart of Tebowmania just yet (great idea to put that guy breathing down Sanchez' neck, how could that backfire?), it does seem to be over.

Now, onto the important business of picking a new nemesis, a position of that stature cannot be wasted on a backup quarterback.