Bob Costas Being Bob Costas

     Just incase you missed it, above is the video of Bob Costas's halftime rant on how guns are evil.  Bob Costas is a giant condescending douche.  While you could argue it took balls to take a stance on such a big stage the medium was completely inappropriate.  People aren't tuning into Sunday Night Football to hear your hot takes Bob they're watching to see grown men scramble each other's brains.  He should be saving shit like this for his show on NBC Sports.  Then again, I guess he did something right because instead of talking about the Sunday Night Football game a lot of people are talking about him which is exactly what he wanted.    

     I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Jevon Belcher's heinous acts had much more to do with his scrambled brain than it did that he owned a gun. When Chris Benoit went berserk and smothered his wife and kids and hung himself where was the outcry for pillow control? It couldn't have been that Benoit's brains were scrambled it has to be America's terrible pillow culture.  Blaming the gun is taking the easy way out.  Why try to analyze a person's mental state when you can just blame it on the inanimate object?  The NFL is taking all these precautions to limit head injuries but (at least from what I'm aware of) do little to protect/improve players mental-health.  There's a really good article on Deadspin in which a friend of Jevon outlines all the things that were off with Belcher mental-health wise.  Hindsight might be 20/20 but there's no denying that to some extent his health was being overlooked.    

Sox Sign Napoli To A 3 Year $39 Million Deal

    I realize it's the middle of football season but there's really not much for me to say about the Patriots until postseason starts.  Until the everyone else in the AFC East gets their shit together the regular season is a formality for the Pats, so I figured I'd give you my take on newest addition to the Red Sox.
     First off, I love this signing.  Is Napoli worth thirteen million? No but this is a shitty free-agent market so teams are going to have to overpay for players or not sign them at all.  Napoli fills a huge hole in the Red Sox line up.  Batting wise he's something the Sox have neglected in the past few years, a right handed power hitter.  Ever since Manny left the Sox have been lacking in right handed hitters, and despite playing in Fenway Park have almost exclusively pursued left handed hitting free agents.  No one is going to mistake Napoli for Manny Ramirez at the plate but he is a good addition nonetheless.
     In addition to being a good right handed bat he fills a gaping hole at first base for the Sox.  He is also a viable option to DH if/when Ortiz goes down and will probably see some action behind the plate at some point in the season.  Let's not forget that two years ago, had the Rangers won the World Series, he would have been World Series MVP.  He's a guy that's proven he can play when the spotlight is on and that's why I believe he will do well in Boston.  Simply put, the Red Sox are a much better team now then they were this time yesterday.  With just a three year contract he's not going to be a huge burden if his stats fall in a couple years and while 13 million a year might be excessive it's not my money and it's what team's should expect to pay in this mediocre free agent market.

David Stern Just Doing His Thing

ESPN: The NBA's most powerful man and its most respected and iron-willed coach plunged into an unexpected battle of wills Thursday over a basic tenet: A coach can decide what is best for his team.

San Antonio's Gregg Popovich sent stars Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, plus key role player Danny Green, on a commercial flight home instead of playing them in a nationally televised game against the Miami Heat so they could rest ahead of the Spurs' Saturday home game against the league-leading Memphis Grizzles.

NBA commissioner David Stern issued a statement before the game started apologizing to fans and saying, "This was an unacceptable decision by the San Antonio Spurs and substantial sanctions will be forthcoming."

     David Stern sucks.  There's no other way to put it.  He's just a shitty person.  I'm not saying he's stupid or immoral, just clueless.  Commissioner Stern's head is so far up Lebron's ass he doesn't know which way is up.  Would this be an issue if Popovich sat his players for the Magic game?  Both games are equally meaningless November basketball games between two nonconference teams, but I guarantee Stern doesn't do anything if this happened against the Magic. Greg Popovich's job isn't to win meaningless basketball games in November, it's to win basketball games in May and June when it really counts.  Now Stern might have had a semi-decent argument had this game been a blowout.  Patrons (I refuse to call anyone who roots for the Heat "fans" they're all frauds) at the game paid top dollar to watch professional basketball and had the Spurs sent out a team that struggled to put up 70 points they would have been justified in griping a little. This was not the case however as the Spurs were able to keep pace with the Heat and it was a one possession game with less than 20 seconds left.  Regardless of  the competitiveness of the game, it is still Popovich's right to do as he pleases with his players, especially in a MEANINGLESS November basketball game.