Nice Guys Finish Last: The Leslie Frazier Story

The saying is that nice guys finish last and that proved to be true on Monday morning when the Minnesota Vikings gave head coach Leslie Frazier the axe after his team finished, well, in last place.

The Vikings finished last in the NFC North one year after clinching a Wild Card spot and finishing in second behind the Green Bay Packers. The Vikings finished 5-10-1 in this just completed season which is a steep five win drop-off from the season previous.

Was this five game downturn solely on the shoulders of Leslie Frazier? No, but it’s always easier to fire one guy than to cut 53.

A combination of the NFL’s unequal scheduling (which does lift the bottom up and a big reason why the Vikings made the playoffs in 2012), a horrid secondary, the decision not to put Cordarrelle Patterson on the field earlier plus the regression and insistence of Christian Ponder being the team’s quarterback all equals up to a losing team and someone needing to pay.

Sadly, that someone is Leslie Frazier.

From every reporter to every single player who talks to the reporters, it sounds like Leslie Frazier is an amazing human being. He’s a nice guy and goes above and beyond the duties of a football coach, especially one at the NFL level, when it comes to his relationship with his players.

I won’t try to pretend that I extensively know the ins and outs of how football works and comment on that part of the equation. People smarter than me say that Frzsier’s defensive scheme, the Tampa-Two, is outdated. The obvious rebuttal to that is that everything looks outdated when your defense is one of the worst in the league.

Frazier is the man that gets to fall on the sword. Frazier is the man that loses his job because another man’s job depended upon trying to prove that Christian Ponder was an NFL quarterback.

Rick Speilman owes Leslie Frazier fruit baskets for life after taking the fall for Speilman’s own failed draft pick.

Les Frazier now gets to sit at home and get a paycheck to do nothing for a football season if he so chooses. Speilman gets to choose (or at least help choose) a shiny new coach and a redo on another quarterback, despite the fact that if he would have allowed Frazier to play backup Matt Cassell for the majority of the season we’d probably be talking about the Vikings’ opponent in the Wild Card Round.

I don’t know if Rick Speilman is a nice guy or not, but I’m 99.9 percent sure that Leslie Frazier is.

It’s not a guarantee that if Frazier would have had sole control over his lineups that he would have made the playoffs, but I’m 100 percent sure that a nice guy can finish first somewhere. Now if only there was a place or maybe even a whole state that was known for their niceness.

My Metrodome Memories

metrodome

The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome will close its revolving, blow-you-out-the-building doors and soon be blown to smithereens after the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings faceoff on Sunday. The stadium hosted many events and was the backdrop for many great sporting events, despite being fairly outdated as soon as it was open.

The great sporting events held in the Dome (World Series, Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, MLB All-Star Game, State Football, numerous memorable playoff games), I never was in attendance for. Frankly, most of those great events were before my time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some fond memories of the Metrodome.

–          The first ever professional sporting event I attended was at the Metrodome with my grandpa. I believe it was 2001, the Twins were taking on Jim Thome and the Indians. The give-away that day was a Doug Mientkiewicz shirsey and I adored that thing as a child. That shirsey is the main reason Dougy was my favorite player.

I also copped out a souvenir baseball from Grandpa.  It features a Twins logo and a holographic American flag flying throughout a whole section of the baseball. It still is in a case in my room.

The other reason I remember this game so well is that it’s my first memories of downtown Minneapolis. I remember leaving the game early and Grandpa driving us around downtown, showing me where he used to haul mail for the U.S. Postal Service.

–          Every summer (for the most part), my parents and I have gone to a Twins game ever since my first appearance with my grandpa. We’ve caught one foul ball in our 13-yearish span. From the hand of Brad Radke off of the bat of Detroit Tigers catcher Ivan Rodriguez to the single-handed bare-handed grasp of my dad.

I remember a couple things from that moment. One, the drunk guy behind us proclaiming that my dad had saved his life by catching that screaming liner off of Pudge’s bat. Two, we were apparently on the jumbo-tron, because my dad got a phone-call right after the catch from a kid just a couple years older than me who was also in attendance at the game.

–          The Twins used to annually have an ‘Autograph Party’ out on the Metrodome Plaza. For two or three years of the event a vanload would go to this event. The vanload consisting of my mother, one of my best friends Josh, his mother Jodi, his brother Kyle, his brother’s friend Sam and myself (at least that was the crew for one of the Autograph Party outings). We stood in line for hours getting autographs from current Twins and Twins alumni, all while being only a folding table across from them, which was probably the best part.

–          Twins games at the Metrodome were often a school field trip or incentive for us. I can’t remember if being on the school patrol was required or strongly encouraged, but everyone in third and fourth grade was enrolled in the program. The reward for school patrol was one Twins game a year and I remember that these were always the worse seats that I had ever sat in. One year, we sat in straight away centerfield. The last row of school patrol kids could touch the curtain where the murals of the retired numbers where hanging.  I was in the front rows of that deck and I remember that I could not see Torii Hunter. He was back far enough, that the overhang of the deck would not let me see Spiderman.

That game also featured a group of girls sitting behind me who did not know the first thing about baseball. I remember vividly the girls saying the score was triple-digits to triple-digits (320-120). The girls read the Runs/Hits/Errors column like it was a basketball scoreboard. I remember shaking my head then and I love laughing at it now. I can’t for the life of me remember who those girls were from my school and that is probably a good thing.

–          I attended two Minnesota Vikings games in the Metrodome, because why would you attend anymore now that we have HD-TV? I went to the first one with my dad, and the Vikings were taking on the Detroit Lions. All I remember is that the Lions were down to their third string QB to start the game, that QB (Shaun Hill??? Possibly) not knowing where he was and running out of the back of the end-zone for a safety and hearing Zac Brown Band’s ‘Chicken Fried’ for the first time ever on the ride back home.

The other game I went to was through school, I think the FFA, but I could be wrong. The game featured my two favorite teams, the Vikings and the Denver Broncos. We met in the school’s shop waiting for the bus to arrive, only to find out that we weren’t going to have a bus coming. So the group of us, hoped into various vehicles and drove to Minneapolis ourselves. The vehicle I was in included some of my best buds: Isaac, Austin, and Tipper and we jammed out to Eric Church on the ride to and fro (been hooked on him ever since) and had my first ever Chipotle experience on the way home (also been hooked ever since).

The game looked really good for the Vikings for the first three quarters and then something remarkable happened… Tebow Time. Yes, I was a witness to one of the remarkable comebacks Tim Tebow made with Denver Broncos down the stretch in the 2011 season. #Blessed

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I can’t really pick which one of these is my favorite memory from the Metrodome. They all have a little something special in my heart. Somewhere in the boxes and boxes of pictures my mother has, I’m fairly certain there is a picture of the Twins game I brought my grandma to. It might not be a great picture, but it’s a picture of a memory. Memories last a lifetime even when lifetimes end.

Santa Race Controversy is a Non-Factor

FOX News likes to create controversy; it gets people talking, people like my writing and ultimately draws some eyeballs to their television programs, but there latest scandal is dumb beyond belief.

A FOX News babe said on-air that Santa is definitely white. Of course, anything with race sparks a huge controversy today, but here’s the thing… Children should stop reading now… Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the whole story of Santa is just a really well publicized book and it’s offshoots. It doesn’t matter what race Santa is because he doesn’t exist. At all.

The beauty of this is that Santa can be anything you want him to be. White, black, Indian, green, purple or blue, but it still won’t matter. He’s only in our imaginations where he can be anything we want him to be.

Let’s not sabotage something as precious as a child’s Christmas morning fantasy by making a controversy out of something that simply doesn’t exist.

Your child thinks Santa is 6′ 5″ with washboard abs? Good. The only thing that matters is that child can stay a child and believe in something, before it’s too late.

Don’t you wish you could truly believe in ol’ Saint Nick, again?

Track-by-Track Power Ranking: ‘Garth Brooks’ (1989 Album)

An artist saying that they can’t pick their favorite song of theirs because it would be like picking their favorite child is a pretty commonplace sound bite. It works that way too for the fans of artists, at least right after they announce a world tour.

On Monday morning’s “Good Morning America”, Garth Brooks spilled the beans to long-time friend Robin Roberts that he would be embarking on a World Tour in 2014. Later in the week, Brooks stated on “The Talk” that this tour would probably a three-year endeavor.

It’s hard to try and pick your favorite songs especially of your favorite artist because, in all honesty, they all sound like gold to you, but I’m going to try to do it. An album-by-album track power ranking of all of the songs Garth Brooks has ever released.

Starting from his 1989 self-titled debut to the newly minted Blame It All On My Roots: Fifty Years of Influences box set, so without further a do… The ‘Garth Brooks’ Power Rankings.

10. I’ve Got A Good Thing Going – It’s a little too slow and a little sad, but not the right enough amount of sad and slow. Great cut on most artists’ albums, but it doesn’t quite meet the standard that I set for Garth Brooks material. Don’t worry, he’s got a good thing going, though.

9. Alabama Clay – A country song should tell a story and it does just that. Boy grows up on the farm, moves to the city, moves back to the farm for the love of his life and to raise his family. Little too convenient.

8. I Know One – I really love this song. A fool always being around for a girl is a song that I’m always going to cherish. Kind of a sad little two-step number. Feel depressed, put this little ditty on.

7. Not Counting You – The leadoff single, the only track on the album solely written by Brooks and it made it to number two on the U.S. country charts. It’s a high-energy song to start off the album, there’s just too much good stuff to get it any higher.

6. Nobody Gets Off In This Town –  This song maybe ranked higher than it should be for my own sentimental reasons. I remember listening to this song on vacation in Hibbing, Minnesota at the Greyhound Bus Museum. It’s featured in the museum due to the line, “the greyhound stops and somebody gets on, but nobody gets off in this town”. That moment in that trip to Hibbing has always stuck with me and has made ‘Nobody’ one of my favorite Garth tunes.

5. Cowboy Bill – If a country song is supposed to tell a story, ‘Cowboy Bill’ hits that out of the park. It’s a greatly written story about an ex-cop named Cowboy Bill. All the kids in town become friends with Bill, but none of the grownups believe the stories he tells of being a sheriff… until Bill can’t tell his story anymore.

4. Everytime That It Rains – Kenny Chesney was the one that sang ‘Something Sexy About The Rain’, but Garth beat him to the punch in 1989 with this song. The song looks back at a one-night stand at a roadside café in the middle of a torrential downpour. The listener can hear the rain and is instantly there in the scene.

3. Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old) – Garth Brooks’ first single release was this song and it peaked at number eight on the charts. The song is a classic if not just for the Chris LeDoux shout out in the third verse. It’s a rodeo heartbreak song with a beautiful fiddle solo to start. The same fiddle player George Strait had on his first single ‘Unwound’.

2. If Tomorrow Never Comes – One of the best love songs in the history of country music usually takes second fiddle to the other one on this album, but I firmly believe that ‘Tomorrow’ is on equal footing. It’s beautifully written and unlike ‘The Dance’ it is co-penned by Brooks. ‘Tomorrow’ was Brooks’ first number one hit and features one of the best lines to ever be written: ‘So tell that someone that you love, just what you’re thinking of, if tomorrow never comes.’

1. The Dance – Did you expect any different? It’s highly regarded as the best song Garth Brooks has ever recorded which is probably true.  Of course, ‘The Dance’ made it number one as well. Even non-country music fans know about this beautiful song. I leave you with the best verse from the best song on ‘Garth Brooks’:

Holding you I held everything / For a moment wasn’t I the king / If I’d only known how the king would fall / Hey, who’s to say – you know I might have changed it all.

10 Things You’re Thankful For But Don’t Have The Balls To Say So

Click on Facebook or Twitter and you will see the following in some shape or form, “Happy Thanksgiving!!! I’m so thankful for my family and friends. #Blessed! LOL!”

You look, it’s there.  I might have over exaggerated a tad, but you know exactly what I’m getting at. I love my family and friends as much as the next guy, probably more. If you disagree with that, I’ll fight you and I know I’ll win because my friends and family will back me up. They are that awesome.

Everyone is proclaiming their thankfulness, but here’s the deal, it’s not what they are truly thankful for. I’m right and you know it. I mean if you put me in a room by myself, I’m still probably not the smartest man in the room, but I got this one down.

Here are the top things you and your friends are truly thankful for but don’t have the balls to say it (and why I’m thankful for it):

Social Media – Dear God, I love Twitter. If I don’t want to, I never have to watch another episode of the news, because it is all right there in the palm of my hand and I have it all tailored to my interests. Facebook and I have had our disagreements, but we all use it to see whose gained weight and for that all important relationship status. Instagram in the summer, guys know what I’m talking about.

iPhone/Cell Phone/Music Player –  If I didn’t have my iPhone, I might have to actually have conversations with real people when I walk across campus, but if I throw in my earbuds it’s just me and Bruce Springsteen until the teacher starts yapping. This goes for all the distractions phones bring us, phones get us out of talking to other humans and we hate talking to people in person.

Bad Weather – Every once in a while, you actually have to have a conversation with one of those damned humans that you don’t really know. You have to be thankful for bad weather because it is the one conversational crutch that we all use. You may start off your weather conversation with how beautiful it is outside, but it will soon turn into that big ol’ storm coming in this weekend.

Sports – Another conversational crutch that is so enjoyable to the ones who actually know about sports. Sit in a public space and listen to two people talk about sports and just laugh at how they don’t know anything about their ‘favorite’ team. Ladies, you have used sports to talk to almost every hottie you’ve ever talked to. Admit it.

Internet Videos – Be it cat videos, music videos or pornography, we all watch videos on the internet, some categories more than others. They distract us, entertain us, or make us happy. If you really liked it, you watch it again and can feel the same emotion.

Swearing – We are not saints on this world. 99 percent of us let these bad words fly multiple times a day, to the extent that we could make it into an art form. We are so thankful for these words that it’s almost funny to think about. Let’s face it, your favorite football team missing an extra point is no better summed up then by the f-bomb.

Junk Food – We hate that we love it, but we all love it. That’s why we eat it. It’s so damn tasty, but it makes us fat. It’s a double-edged sword, but Pringles is still in business so we must still be eating them.

Netflix – I know I already hit on internet videos, but Netflix deserves to be in its own little category. Netflix is like our DVRs on steroids. You want to watch all 11 seasons of Cheers in one weekend? You can do it! Seriously, what would you do without Netflix when you can’t fall asleep? Those episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia aren’t going to watch themselves! If you don’t have Netflix or don’t already steal it from someone who does, be thankful that I told you about the service.

Microwave – Go to your fridge. See your leftovers? What are you going to do with those? Microwave them! We are all thankful for our microwaves, because reheating stuff would be so much more of a hassle without them. At that rate you might as well make a full-fledged meal. Best of all, microwaves allow you to basically never make that full-fledged meal to begin with!

Idiots – They are annoying as hell, but they make life so interesting. Every day the news talks about idiots or we talk to our friends about this idiot we saw or we tell our friends how much of an idiot they are. Our world is full of idiots and I can’t thank them enough for being around. I’m thankful for being one.