By Sam Handler | Saturday December 15th 2007, 10:54 am
I’m back from college for six weeks (Carleton is on trimesters), and I got a job at a movie theater to help pass the time/earn some money. Up until last night, I didn’t like the job very much. I was bored most of the time when I was at the theater, usually reading for most of my shift. That all changed Friday night. A reenactment of my internal dialogue:
This job is boring. This job is boring. This job is boring. Oh shit, customers. At least I’ll have something to do. Why is that old guy saying “I’ve met you a few times, I’m Steve?” to that guy? “Nice to see you.” How is this man answering that with such poise? He clearly doesn’t know who Steve is. What did Steve just say about a California boy in Colorado? Woops, customers. Whoa. WHOA. HOLD THE PHONE. Is that? Who is that? NO! NO WAY!
I say “What can I get for you?” He says “2 for Into the Wild.” WHOA JOHN LYNCH IS SEEING AN ARTSY MOVIE. Should I tell him nice game? He did have a big hit. But we lost, he’s probably here for an escape. I don’t want to be that guy. I won’t say anything about that. I say “any popcorn, candy, soda, beer, wine?” He says “Uhhhh. Can I have some red vines, and what do you want (to wife).” “I’ll have some Dots and um…a medium…um…can I get three quarters Diet Pepsi one quarter Diet Dr. Pepper?” YEAH YOU CAN, I’LL MAKE JOHN LYNCH’S WIFE ANY CRAZY DRINK SHE WANTS. “Yup. That it for you?” John Lynch says “Can I have a small Sierra Mist too?” “Yup.” So I get ‘em their snacks etc, then John Lynch hands me his silver AmEx, which I covertly inspect for his name. HOLY CRAP JOHN LYNCH DOESN’T HAVE A WALLET OR A MONEY CLIP, HE JUST WRAPS 20 DOLLAR BILLS AROUND HIS IMPORTANT CARDS. WHAT A GENIUS. Not a black card? Really? Oddly enough, the card reader doesn’t like his AmEx. So he gives me another one, which works fine. John Lynch is signing a credit card receipt. Whoa. John Lynch’s autograph. Should I ask him for one? No, I don’t want to be that guy. John Lynch walks away. HOLY CRAP JOHN LYNCH! Was I taller than John Lynch? That’s not possible…I think I was! I’m as tall as John Lynch, maybe taller!
He came back for a medium popcorn. The other guy working asked for his autograph.
So to recap, John Lynch likes Red Vines, Sierra Mist, medium popcorns, and John Krakauer novel adaptations. He also dislikes wallets and money clips. I’m roughly John Lynch’s height, though I’m not as ferocious a hitter.
By Gabe Stein | Thursday December 13th 2007, 12:59 pm
Got in some trouble recently with an obnoxious driver when I was trying to “be a responsible person taking a cab.” Now I can’t take cabs, but I still want to be responsible and not drive home after my frequent nights of drunken fun. That’s where you come in?
Qualifications:
-Responsible
-Valid Colorado driver’s license
-Know who Todd Sauerbrun is
-Don’t mind light physical abuse
-Turn off the stereo when told
-Comfortable working with criminals
Meet me outside the Cherry Cricket at 2am this Friday, bring resume. If I wake up at home instead of in a cell, you’ve got the job!
By Sam Handler | Monday December 10th 2007, 6:48 pm
Todd Sauerbrun was cited for “general assault” on Saturday and apparently spent some time in detox, which I find hilarious. Who else could it have been though? Try to name one player Broncos player more likely to be cited for “general assault.” Exactly. Wouldn’t you figure the more violent players to be more criminally inclined? Todd Sauerbrun and Sebastian Janikowski probably have a criminal kicker convention every offseason btw.
By Sam Handler | Wednesday December 05th 2007, 9:37 am
Travis Henry isn’t gonna be suspended for drug abuse next year, which is a definite positive. In reviewing this NFLPA story about his legal battles, it’s apparent that Henry got off the hook by attacking technicalities in the drug policy, rather than proving he didn’t do drugs. Basically, he’s being let go because an “expert of [his] choosing” wasn’t present at the initial, incriminating drug test. Apparently Henry also did an independent polygraph and hair test to prove he was innocent and gain Mike Shanahan’s support, but I’m not buying it. If the internet is to be believed, both of those tests can be beaten. Plus, look at how short Travis Henry’s hair is:
Just saying.
Relatedly:
Travis Henry played some nose guard in high school and was a Bills fan despite growing up in Florida. Nose guard? Really?
By Sam Handler | Friday November 02nd 2007, 12:29 pm
Jarvis Moss busted his leg in practice yesterday. Dude broke his leg, tore some ankle ligaments and is out for the season. Fuck. His rookie year wasn’t spectacular, finishing with 12 tackles and a sack in six games, but his injury will only sideline him for three to four months, so he’ll be able to work out for most of the offseason.
In related news, Rod Smith’s out for the year too. Balls.
On the plus side, the Nuggets are 1-0 and should win tonight against the Timberwolves. Randy Foye is out for a few weeks and won’t be playing this evening, and the Garnett-less T-Wolves are in a rebuilding mode.
By Sam Handler | Wednesday August 15th 2007, 10:43 am
So I was doing some thinking today while listening to the radio, and I had a sudden epiphany. Mike Vick’s gonna be a Raider. In light of Vick’s plan to spend a year in jail, Mark Moser was saying that the negative publicity generated by Mike Vick’s doggy day care operation would prevent post-slammer employment. That seems wrong to me. If Al Davis is still alive in a year, Mike Vick will be a Raider.
Here’s why Vick will be a Raider once he gets out of the cooler:
-Vick has character issues and a criminal history
-Vick has a great 40 time
-Al Davis is secretly a crazy cat lady, so he’s got no beef with Vick treating dogs badly
By Gabe Stein | Monday January 15th 2007, 12:28 pm
On New Years Eve 2007, Darrent Williams, a second-year pro and starting corner for the Denver Broncos, was shot and killed outside of a night club in Denver. It would have been tragic had anyone been killed that night. But because it was Darrent Williams, because Denver is really Bronco Town, it turned into a painful loss and a horrific reality check for the Broncos, the city, the NFL, and the fans.
That day, Michael David Smith was the first to cover the story on the Fanhouse, and he reported it as news, only adding the word ’sad’ to describe the incident. It was a commenter on the blog who first brought race into the picture, and it wasn’t isolated. In fact, four of the first five comments on the blog were negative. Instead of being incensed by the violence and pure stupidity of the incident, these people were trying to find a way to blame Darrent Williams for the gun wounds that killed him. They all found a way to do it through race.
Let’s pause it right there. I am white. I am a member of middle-class, white America, and because race has become such a sensitive issue on this topic, I have to preface the rest of my post with this disclaimer: I’m white, and I’m going to talk about race.
I feel it needs to be done because no one has gotten to the bottom of the issue, and that’s become a real problem for me. Four days after the shooting, Dave Krieger wrote a column in the Rocky Mountain News about race. He cited hip-hop culture as negative, and blamed society for not giving African-Americans enough of a chance to break out of, as he called it, “drug-infested urban neighborhoods” like Williams had done as kid growing up in Ft. Worth, Texas.
Two days later and four days after that, he called on both fans and players to support anti-gang charities and reported the Broncos’ offer of $100,000 for information leading to arrest and conviction. All noble causes, to be sure, but throughout Kreiger’s coverage, he hasn’t been able to draw any meaningful conclusions. In my opinion, he’s skirting around the issue and encouraging behavior that, though well-intended, masks the real issue.
The closest Kreiger came to a definitive statement on race was saying that white people cared about this incident only because the black person who was shot was a member of the Broncos. Sadly, that’s true. Krieger went on to write about how our culture glorifies sports figures, but he didn’t address the real issue.
The real issue is entwined in the fact that had Darrent Williams been just another black 24 year-old shot outside a night club, the coverage of his death would have lasted twenty seconds on the nine o’clock news and two short articles in the newspaper - one when the murder was reported, and one when the police announced they couldn’t find any suspects. If a white person had been killed at 2am on New Year’s Eve in the first homicide of 2007, it would have made the front page. The real issue is manifested in the power and anonymity of the blog, something that I’m in a unique position to look at. The issue is in the commenter who posted on the blog saying that all blacks are good for is violence, and the subsequent commenters who agreed with the first.
This goes far beyond the fact that whites only care about this murder because Darrent Williams was a popular football star. The incident brought to the surface a startling dichotomy of the true nature of race relations in American society. On the one hand, the terrible truth is in fact that whites would not have cared about any average black man killed outside a night club at 11th and Grant on New Year’s Eve. There would be no public mourning and no profound community outreach. But on the other hand, this ordeal has brought the racism that was previously allowed to permeate only at the darkest depths of American society bubbling to the top with a new rage. Because if any average black man had died a week and a half ago, there would be no national news segments, no thousands of articles, and no blog post. In short, absolutely no one would know or care about the murder. The comments would have never been made, and the thoughts would have stayed deep inside their owners.
The statements on the Fanhouse expose it, but those same ideas are swimming through the heads of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions or tens of millions of white Americans. The thoughts remain because these people have never been told that it isn’t okay to view America as a two-tiered society, with “honest, hard-working” whites at the top, and “unscrupulous, gang-banging” blacks on the bottom. And Denver is hardly a vestige of the old south. In a fairly integrated, mid-western city, Darrent Williams’ murder has proved once again that multiple forms of racism are still doing fine, right here in America.
In 1994, Ali Kahn, a professor at Washburn University, wrote about institutionalized racism in the United States. He talked about the Civil Rights Movement and how all it had done was force racism under the floorboards. He talked about how when oppressors control the rights of the oppressed, the oppressed really have no rights at all. Some have called him a conspiracy theorist, but this tragic situation with Darrent Williams makes his writing look a lot more truthful. At this awful circumstance where tragedy and fame have met minority, the racism is literally seeping from the floorboards of society. Racism isn’t gone from this supposedly modern, liberal society. In fact, it’s worse - it’s been hidden from the masses, and it’s taken a high-profile tragedy like this to expose it.
And that’s why you won’t find a solution in, as Krieger suggests, giving “other young African-Americans a chance to do the same” as Williams. Not only does Krieger not explain what he means by this, but trying to somehow step in and “help” blacks succeed in the world is exactly what allows the racism to exist. It allows whites to feel they’ve done their share eliminating racism, and to ignore the real problems.
No. The first thing we need to do is acknowledge that the problems exist. The best way to “honor [Williams'] memory” is to recognize the racism it exposed and use that exposure to confront it head on, instead of trying to write ’subtly’ about race and leave people to continue throwing money at problems because it’s a convenient way of life. The truth is, donating to anti-gang programs is going to take some kids of the street and help them out. But the racist sentiment that still exists in this country won’t be eliminated, and the frustration and institutionalized poverty that causes much of the gang activity won’t be gone.
That said, we also can’t forget that a person brought us here. So now I’ll join in with the hundreds of other unrecognized people on the blog who aren’t mentioned here because they responded with the best of the human spirit. This was a horrible murder that ended the life of a very wonderful, popular, and talented human being far too soon. May he rest in peace.
Few and far between, and possibly non-existent, are the Broncos fans who don’t understand that Jay Cutler is this team’s “quarterback of the future,†an overused and oft ESPN-mentioned term implying inevitable glory and greatness and playoffs and super bowls and dynasties and perfect seasons. Or at least super bowls. I’m currently a student at Alabama, an SEC program that had to play Cutler’s Vanderbilt every year, and people down here will tell you about how good of a quarterback he was, about how well he played against the nation’s best college defenses, about how he was able to make seemingly gimme games against lowly Vanderbilt much more interesting than they had any right to be. But last Sunday night wasn’t about Cutler, it was about the Broncos QB actually currently starting. So for at least one more game, and almost certainly for the rest of the season, let’s talk about Jake the Snake Plummer.
The headline of the game was certainly the defense, but in a second. The area of real concern for Bronco fans witnessing two games of stagnant offensive production was, well, offensive production. For anyone who watched Jake these last two seasons, his game was unsurprising: stretches of lackluster, inaccurate passing contrasted by bouts of solid, accurate passing, punctuated by a few big-play throws (the perfect laser TD strike to Javon Walker at the end of the second quarter) and culminating in the stats of an average game. Jake has been playing games like that since he’s been Bronco. What made that a very impressive game for Plummer was, just like most of last season, that he did not make a mistake. Rather, for someone seemingly about to lose his job to a hot-shot golden rookie, Jake looked very cool. He played that game business-as-usual, and in this case business-as-usual meant none of the deadly interceptions that hurt the Broncos so badly so many times in 2004. Even more impressive, and what made the game a huge success for Jake, was how well he played when the Broncos seemed stuck on getting the ball inside their own 10 during the third quarter. John Madden kept saying how badly the Patriot defense needed to force a turnover, but Plummer never gave it to them. He did an excellent job of eluding pressure, looking downfield, and either hitting the open guy or throwing it away. That was a crucial performance during a stretch where one interception could’ve easily reversed momentum and lost the Broncos the game. Whatever the critics will say about his stats, (and make no mistake, I do not exclude myself from that group) Jake showed a poise and resiliency that will keep him #1 on the depth chart all season long.
Javon Walker played extremely well, and is clearly a huge upgrade over Ashley Lelie. He offers the deep threat of Lelie, yet with his prodigious size and strength, he is both an effective blocker and can make the muscle catches in the middle of the field, two aspects sorely lacking in Lelie’s game. His TD catch at the end of the second quarter was just ripped from the hands of the DB. Lelie would not have made that catch. His other huge TD catch showed his elusiveness and speed in the open field, and broke the game for the Broncos.
On the ground, Tatum emerged from the Bell controversy as RB #1, and celebrated with a great game. He was able to consistently grind for 5-6 yard gains, and occasionally bust off the 20+ yarder, allowing the Broncos to keep the clock running even as they weren’t consistenly scoring. We haven’t sent the last of Mike Bell, but Tatum will stay #1 as long as he has game like that. More impressive considering the stinginess of the Pats rush defense.
But, like so many times last year and into the playoffs, the defense won this game for the Broncos. The Patriots were never able to establish a ground game, putting all the more pressure on a Tom Brady basically devoid of weapons. Brady was only able to throw for a deceiving 320 yards, much of which came when the Broncos were camping back in prevent. The rest of Brady’s stats were from slants and quick-outs thrown underneath Denver’s safeties. When it was clear that the running came wasn’t working, Belichick looked for the huge pass play to swing momentum and throw up some explosive points. Yet, every time Brady looked downfield, blanket coverage by the Broncos DBs and/or timely help from the safeties stymied his deep throws. Overall, the defense looked excellent, making stellar open-field tackles and taking good angles on almost every play. Rare was the missed Bronco tackle, and Brady’s 7-something yard slants were never given opportunity to develop into big plays. A very impressive performance by the Denver D.
Go back to the beginning of the 2005 season. Game 1: A hugely disappointing loss on the road/a bad performance by Plummer. Game 2: A narrow victory against a division opponent/a lackluster performance by Plummer. Game 3: A defining prime-time victory/a mistake free Plummer. Might as well be the beginning of this season. In 2005, Plummer shook off his lousy start to end up with the best year of his career and a 13-3 Bronco regular season.
Hopefully that 2005 trend can extend to 2006 leading to a super bowl in 2007. If they can’t, there’s always a Cutler-led 2008.
By Gabe Stein | Friday September 01st 2006, 1:49 pm
Just to let you know, we’re doing our second podcast ever over at the FanHouse. It’s a two-parter that’s billed as a season preview, where we go through the schedule, analyze the matchups, and make our predictions. I think you’ll find it pretty absurdly hilarous.
Anyhow, check out the first part now over at http://broncos.aolsportsblog.com. The second part will be up at the same place around 3:10 p.m. mountain time.
I’ll bet you’re wondering where that flurry of that football coverage that we started a few weeks ago has gone. And I have the answer for you: our services have been acquired by AOL for a new and interesting blog experiment called the fanhouse. We’ll still be posting to the Zone about other sports, and will ocassionally have a really fresh article on something Broncos-related. But most of our stuff will be over at AOL.
Where can you find us? Easy: http://broncos.aolsportsblog.com. It’s still being set up, but since it’s supposed to go live tomorrow, and other people are doing it, I figured I’d let you all know. Please add this to your bookmarks, or feeds, or what-have-you, and get ready for a great Broncos season.
About DSZ
Everyone at the Denver Sports Zone is a fan just like you. We delight in expressing our love for Ian Laperriere, re-enacting Jake's road rage incident, pretending we can play basketball like Carmelo, and screaming 'Chooooooo' from the upper deck. We also put our passion into producing the most original, entertaining and in-depth Denver sports coverage on the net, so you don't have to go anywhere else to get your fix. Welcome to the Zone.
