I am Already Sick of the Eli Manning Hall of Fame Conversation

Eli Manning officially retired from the NFL today. Eli will go down as a two time Super Bowl champ and MVP of each game, undeserved in my opinion. He has something near a .500 winning percentage as a starting QB. He has a lot of career TD’s, but also a lot of interceptions as well. He also griped his way to the Giants, refusing to play for the Chargers if they took him.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not a fan. If his last name wasn’t Manning, and he didn’t play in New York, he wouldn’t have near the shine, or love that has been poured all over him today. I like to think of players I put in his class, guys like Trent Dilfer, Nick Foles, Joe Flacco and Jim McMahon. They all won Super Bowls, had a few good years, but none of them are considered hall of fame players like Eli has been talked about lately. They’re all mid level starting QB’s that played on teams with otherworldly defenses, Nick Foles being the lone exception. The fact that Manning won the MVP twice is lip service to the people who vote on that, and almost always give it to the QB. The first year the Giants won the MVP should have been David Tyree for that insane catch, or even better, the Giants D line should have gotten it for attacking Tom Brady all game. The second MVP should have been Mario Manningham, or Wes Welker for dropping that gimme that would have won it for the Patriots. So, no I don’t think he was anywhere close to deserving of either award.

As for his case as a hall of famer, I don’t think he should even be considered. Take away his two Super Bowl seasons, he is an average, at best, NFL QB. I don’t ever remember him leading the league in any major statistical category. I don’t ever remember him being a real MVP candidate. While the starting QB of the Giants, they were never a contender, even when they won the Super Bowl. They were a wild card team each time. Eli was never must watch TV. He’s more a meme, for those stupid faces he makes on the sideline, than anything else. He was also a dreadful “SNL” host. Everything about Eli Manning, except his last name, screams average. He wasn’t even a real star in college. You may say, but Ty, he was the first pick in the draft. So was Jamarcus Russell. So was David Carr and that dude Tim Couch. Eli Manning was a teeny tiny better version of Jay Cutler, a high draft pick as well, in college. Everywhere he has played, he’s been just okay. I say again, if his name was Eli Jones, with the exact same resume, he doesn’t even get a second thought as a hall of famer.

What’s a shame though, I bet he becomes a first ballot hall of famer, and people point out that he beat the undefeated Patriots, and then beat another Patriots team in the Super Bowl. Eli will benefit from beating this dynasty twice. For no other reason will he get into the hall of fame. Eli Manning is average, doesn’t belong in the hall of fame, I’d rather have 20 guys before I’d even consider him as my franchise QB, but will get in based on his name alone. That’s a real bummer. And call me a hater all you want. But after you do that, look at his stats, and then come back at me to tell me I was right.

My point? Eli Manning does not belong anywhere near the hall of fame.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Ryan Clark Shredding Paul Finebaum is a Moment Worth Cheering For

Now that both of my kids are in school, well, my daughter only goes twice a week for a half day, but still, I will find myself watching some TV if I have some free time, and this morning, I happened to have a little free time. So, I turned on ESPN because I like to catch up on any sports news I may have missed over night. I will say, it is more on just for noise, but sometimes the subject they talking about catches my attention. Also, it helps when there are people on that I like, or despise. This morning, whatever show was on, happened to have people fro both categories for me. So, I actually turned my attention to the screen, and what I witnessed was absolutely amazing.

I loathe Paul Finebaum. I have talked about it plenty on the site. He is a low class Skip Bayless. He is a poor man's Colin Cowherd. He is the type of guy that wished he was good enough to play sports, but wasn't, so now, he is taking all that anger out on TV and current players. Paul Finebaum is a wannabe dipshit that lives in a hot take culture. He is a hack, a phony and a poser. Ryan Clark, on the other hand, I think is great on TV. He played professional football, he is smart, he is passionate and he knows what he is talking about. He also had a solid pro career, a great college career and just seems like a solid dude. He has walked the walk, and he can most definitely talk the talk.

So, on ESPN this morning, I think it was Mike Greenberg's show, Greenberg gave the stage to Finebaum to talk about 2 QB's. First he mentioned the Eli Manning benching. He talked about how Eli was handling this with "grace and class", and is "all about the team". He also mentioned how the Giants should have done this sooner, but still, they did it, and Eli was being a "gentleman about it". Then he shifted to Cam Newton, who is hurt mind you, and proceeded to do his hot take bull shit, and tried to shred him. He said that he was "no good" anymore. That he "only cares about Cam Newton". That Newton has "wrecked this franchise". This was his classic hot take nonsense, with no preparation done for the story, that Finebaum has become known for. He just said whatever was in his pee brained little mind, and just vomited his stupid take all over the stage. After his Newton take, the show shifted over to Ryan Clark, and he proceeded to drag the shit out of Finebaum. He went off. It was glorious. He called Finebaum out on the way he covered and talked about the 2 QB's. Clark made it a point to say that he called Manning "classy", while calling Newton "a train wreck". Never mind the fact that Newton, who gives his all out effort every game night, gets illegally hit all the time and is recovering from offseason surgery. But Finebaum thought it was okay to call him "selfish" and "arrogant". Then when mentioning Manning, Clark made it his mission to talk about how poorly he has played the last 4 years, how bad the Giants have been because he has been unable to accept that his time is up. He talked about all the balls he has thrown away with no one near him to hit him. Clark talked about how Manning's play, on the field, has been selfish. How he only cares about his health, and I couldn't agree more with him. He then talked about all the stuff I just said about Cam, and how he is giving up his body for the game, and all Finebaum could do the whole time was just squirm and squeeze out a wry and despicable smile. While Clark was eviscerating Finebaum another host of the show kept egging him on and saying "YEAH!!!!" the whole time. It was awesome. And for this to come from a guy like Clark, it was perfect. As I said, Clark has been there before. He has played the game at the highest of high levels. He has been in the trenches with these dudes. He knows the game inside and out. And that is something Finebaum will never, ever, ever know.

Finebaum is a trash reporter and a trash TV host. He does not know what he is talking about, and when he gets pushed, and owned by a former player, all he can do is act defensive and say "lets just cancel the rest of the day if this is how it's going to be". I love that Clark and the other hosts of the show let Clark go in on Finebaum. Finebaum needs to be called out as the fraud that he truly is, and Clark did that spectacularly this morning. I am so glad that I tuned in to witness this show this morning. This was great, and I hope it knocks him down all the pegs that he so rightly deserves to be knocked down.

Screw you Paul Finebaum, and thank you Ryan Clark for not letting Finebaum and ESPN continue with their usual nonsense. I am now a Ryan Clark fan for life. This totally ruled. It was wonderful TV.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He wanted to use a special word to describe Finebaum’s views on athletes and what ethnic groups they belong to. What rhymes with fascist tiece of spit?

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Ty Ranks the 2016 NFL Teams: Cold Beer on a Warm Christmas Morning Edition

Day four of my NFL preview. We finally have, at least one team, that I think will be right at .500, or slightly above. These next four teams are either regressing or taking a big step forward. I have a feeling that one of the teams I mentioned today, a lot of the readers will think I'm nuts, but I have a lot of hope. We are finally getting to some decent teams. Okay, enough preamble, let's get to it.

At number 20, I have my biggest shocker, possibly in my whole countdown, the Jacksonville Jaguars. I don't know what it is about this team, but I think they are on their way to becoming hyper competitive. I have liked what they have done the past couple of years, and I know they had a chance to win their division last year, but that division was a joke. But, I have a feeling they could really become a threat in that division sooner rather than later. First off, I think Blake Bortles is on the verge of becoming an upper level QB. He is never going to be elite (ed note: like Joe Flacco), but he is becoming more than just a game manager. He is starting to throw the long ball, and instead of just managing the game, he is starting to look like he can win some games for this team. He was a huge fantasy pick up for me last year too. I wasted a fourth round pick on Peyton Manning, but I feel like I struck gold with my 12th round pick of Bortles. He is going to become very good this season. Bortles also has 2 up and coming receivers that really blew up last year, and I see more good things from them in the future. Allen Hurns and Allen Robinson are going to become pro bowlers and upper echelon NFL receivers. They are fast, have great hands, run excellent routes and get to the right spot almost every time. Then, if he can stay healthy, Julius Thomas is one of the better tight ends in the league. He's big, has good hands, and since he is a former college basketball player, he is good at "boxing" out defenders and getting to balls other tight ends usually have no chance at. At running back, they have one of the better Alabama products in TJ Yeldon. He has great patience, looks for open holes and runs fast, but more importantly, hard. He could be the one Alabama back that can turn into a formidable pro. Their offensive line in commendable as well. On defense, if they can get some of the young guys they have on the field, they could be halfway decent. The defense will still be the problem for a year or two, but when guys like Dante Fowler, Myles Jack and Jalen Ramsey get their feet wet, they could be very good. I really like what the Jaguars are doing, but they may still be a year or two away, but they are coming. I say they go 7-9 this year, and that would be huge for them. They are going to be highly competitive this season.

At number 19, I have the Baltimore Ravens. Talk about a team that could not catch a break last year. Injuries and poor QB play really did them in. They do have good players at the skill positions, but Joe Flacco is not that good (ed note: not elite?). He's too error prone and makes the worst mistakes at the worst time. But, they do have Steve Smith and Breshad Perriman at receiver. Those guys are both good, and Steve Smith, who is old, has seemed to only have gotten better with age. At running back, after the entire Ray Rice situation, he's a monster, they have Justin Forsett, who I think is very good. He can get to the holes and rack up yardage pretty quick. Dennis Pitta is still there at tight end, so they still have a reliable safety blanket. Their defense is still good, but they have suffered attrition. Terrell Suggs is still there, but he may be the lone holdover from their Super Bowl win on defense. CJ Moseley, Jimmy Smith and Elvis Dumervil are all very good, and they signed Eric Weddle for next to nothing after the Chargers let him walk. Baltimore is bound for a turnaround, they are too good of a team with a very good head coach, but they unfortunately are in a division with the Steelers and Bengals, who I will get to next week, and that will keep them in third place. But, they are my first .500 team, because I think they will finish 8-8.

At number 18, I have the New York Giants. The Giants are one of the most annoying teams in all of football, but they seem to be bad one year, then good the next. This season comes after a very mediocre season from them. Odell Beckham, right behind Julio Jones, may be the next best receiver in all of football. He makes some of the greatest catches in the game, and he is a very hard guy to cover. They also have Victor Cruz, who is still good, despite being hurt almost all of last season. Rashard Jennings is a decent running back, and so is Shane Vereen. The problem with the offense is Eli Manning. He is an interception machine, and he makes so many ill conceived throws. Yeah, he has 2 Super Bowl rings, but it wasn't because of him. Their defense has the ability to be good, but they do make a lot of mistakes. Jason Pierre-Paul is an excellent pass rusher, but he also blew half his hand off playing with fireworks, so who knows if he will ever be the same again. Olivier Vernon is pretty good, so maybe he will become the new and improved version of Pierre-Paul. The linebackers are okay, and the secondary is ho hum. Their d line is where it's at for them. They also mercifully let Tom Coughlin go, but their hire of Ben McaDoo is very uninspired. The Giants play in a terrible division, and they could conceivably win with a 8-8 record, but I think they will finish at 7-9. 

My final team today, coming in at number 17, is the team I dislike the most, the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys are so incredibly overrated, it's disgusting. They have a very good team on paper, but they have proven that stuff doesn't matter. Tony Romo is the most overrated QB of all time, hands down. No one has ever been given so much credit for doing nothing other than being the QB of the cowboys. He always chokes in the playoffs, he always makes crucial mistakes, he cannot stay healthy, why do people think he is elite? He is so far from elite, it's preposterous. I'd rather have Eli Manning, Joe Flaco, almost any QB on any team I've already mentioned on this countdown before I'd take Romo. Romo stinks. They do have a good receiver in Dez Bryant, but he is always fighting with coaches and teammates and he can't seem to stay away from trouble off the field. Jason Witten is good, but old, and kind of overrated himself. Their running game in virtually nonexistent since DeMarco Murray left. I also don't buy the Ezekial Elliot hype. He played in a spread offense in college, and those guys don't translate well to the NFL. He may also be a girlfriend abuser with the stories that came out a few weeks ago. The defense played out of their minds two years ago, but they returned to their mediocre form last year. Guys can't stay healthy or out of trouble. Sure, they released that monster Greg Hardy, but they still have head cases like Rolando McClain on their roster. They also have oft injured guys like Sean Lee in their linebacking corp. The Cowboys aren't very good, but they are in the same division as the Giants, Eagles and Washington, so a bad record could very easily win the division. I think the Cowboys will find their way, somehow, to 8-8.

Come back tomorrow for my next four teams and a review of the Louis CK show I'm going to tonight.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He just does not see the little things Romo does to make the Cowboys great. At least that is what the Head Editor thinks. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Millennial Memories From a Decade Plus Worth of Super Bowls

Many of our memories are of the food being better than the game.

With Super Bowl 50 just around the corner, I want to look back at some Super Bowl memories that I have had over the past decade plus. I've watched a lot of football in that period of time and I have some good and not so good memories of Super Bowl's past. I know that I wouldn't get the exact Super Bowl number, so I will just describe some teams and some of the games that I remember and I'm sure that most people would be able to pick the game I'm talking about. First, I want to go back to the early to mid nineties. Those Super Bowl's are some of my very first memories of realizing that this is a big game. I don't so much remember the games, but I remember moments and, more importantly, teams.

First of all, I was a big time band wagon fan when I was a child. Whichever team won the Super Bowl, that was my favorite team and the team I remember being on the bandwagon for the Dallas Cowboys of the mid 90's. Looking back on it now, I despise this team, but when I was a kid, they were the champs, so I rooted for the champs. If I could go back in time, I'd yell at the young me for being a fan of this team. They were so arrogant and so flamboyant, and as I've gotten older, I'm all about "acting like you've been there before". I don't need flash, just score a TD, give the ball to the ref and go to the sideline. That's why I like Barry Sanders so much. That Cowboys team though, save for Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, were all about flash. I loved it as a kid, but as an adult, I don't care for it. But, that Cowboys team, for a young football fan, was so easy to like and say you were a fan.

The team I should have stuck up for back then was the Buffalo Bills. They played the game the way it was supposed to be played, but added that up tempo, no huddle offense. They were a ton of fun to watch and I liked Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas just as much, if not more, than Aikman and Smith. The Bills also had one of my all time favorite players, Bruce Smith. But, they couldn't get over the hump, especially against the Cowboys. The Bills were the only team to make four straight Super Bowls, and they lost all four of them, three via blowouts. Everyone remembers Scott Norwood and wide right, but what I remember most about those Bills-Cowboys Super Bowls, was Don Beebe chasing down Leon Lett and striping the ball out of his hands. That game was an absolute blow out, but Beebe still wouldn't throw in the towel and after chasing Lett down and stripping the ball, John Madden said something that I will never forget, "Don Beebee is the fastest white guy in the NFL". At the time, I thought it was weird and if a commentator said something like that now, it would be a huge deal all over the internets.

Moving on to more modern Super Bowl memories, I remember when the Rams won their Super Bowl while in Saint Louis. They had one of the best offenses in the history of the NFL and I thought that they were going to crush the Tennessee Titans, but that didn't happen. Now, the Rams won, but it was a low scoring slug fest type of game with Mike Jones tackling Kevin Dyson at the one yard line to preserve the win for the Rams. It was their defense, not their historically great offense, that won that game for them. Then, when they played the New England Patriots, led by backup QB Tom Brady, the next year, it was a foregone conclusion that the Rams would win again. They had the much better team and much better players. Then, the game happened and the Patriots won on a last second field goal. People will look back at that game and say that the Patriots only won because of "spygate", but Bill Belichek outcoached Mike Martz and no matter how much "spygate" may have helped them, the Patriots played a much better game and Martz sorely underused his best offensive weapon, Marshall Faulk. That Super Bowl was a great example of one coach being prepared and the other coach being very under prepared. That 's why the Patriots won.

And thus, began the dominating run of the Patriots. Sure, teams like Pittsburgh and my Green Bay Packers and the Seahawks and the Colts have won Super Bowls in this time, but the one consistent team has been the Patriots. They have played in 11 of the last 15 AFC championship games and they've been to 6 Super Bowls, winning four of them. I already talked about them beating the Rams. They've also beaten the Eagles in a Super Bowl. That Eagles team had Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens, but that wasn't enough to beat the Patriots. What I remember most about that Super Bowl was McNabb barfing in the huddle and Owens making great catches and then excuses for why it wasn't his, but everyone else's fault, that the Eagles got beat. I remember their Super Bowl win over the Carolina Panthers. The Patriots should have won that game going away, but Tom Brady threw one of the worst interceptions I've ever seen with a 14 point lead and the Panthers came all the way back to tie the game. Then, their kicker kicks the ball out of bounds, gives the Patriots excellent field position, and they win by a field goal once again. Then, their two losses to the Giants. One, they were undefeated and favored by 10 plus points. There was no way they were losing that game. But, the Giants constantly harassed Brady and they couldn't get their offense rolling. They still had a chance to win, but Eli Manning chucked the ball up in the air, after evading multiple sack attempts, and David Tyree made the best, and his last, catch I've ever seen. He pinned that ball to his helmet and the Giants went on to win by a field goal. Their second loss to the Giants also came down to one team dropping a pass, the Patriots and Wes Welker, and the other team making a miraculous catch, the Giants and Mario Manningham. That drop that Welker had was crushing. Had he caught that ball, the Patriots could have easily salted the clock away. But, that catch by Manningham, on a terrible throw from Eli Manning, was humongous and that kept the game winning drive alive. The Patriots played in last years Super Bowl, and they should have lost, until Pete Carroll and his offensive staff made the worst play call of all time. Why on earth they did not give that ball to Marshawn Lynch on the one yard line is still extremely baffling. But, Brady did pick apart the "legion of boom" and put his team in position to win, as he always does.

Now, I'm by no means a Patriots fan. I'm indifferent when it comes to them, but they have been the one team that has always been there at the end. Like I said, they've been in 11 AFC title games in 15 years, and they've won more tan half of them. This is why they're so prevalent in my recent Super Bowl memories, I will never forget the Packers win over the Steelers, but I can't help but notice how the Patriots are always in it until the very end. They're the most dominating team I've watched and that is why they are the team and they've played in the Super Bowls games that I remember most.

With all that being said, I hope we get a good, memorable game on Sunday so I can start making new memories about a new team, be it Carolina or Denver.

I think it will be Carolina.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. Do you love reading about his memories, well tomorrow you can hear him tell the stories on the X Millennial Man podcast. Read more from Ty by following him on twitter @tykulik.