Welcome to this week's edition of Under The Fedora, where it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas the off-season.
Now Is The Winter Spring Of My Discontent.
It is an odd off bowl season for me. I’m really not salty about the season that was (give the ball to Zeke!!). 11-1 with a blowout win in Ann Arbor and a New Year’s Day date with the Domers goes in the books as a successful season for me. Yet the Buckeyes’ exclusion from the CFP leaves me with a feeling of discontent that I don’t think I would have had during the BCS era. The loss that left Ohio State out of the playoffs was largely self-inflicted, and I can’t make a strong case that the Buckeyes should have been included. But as pleased as I am with the Fiesta Bowl matchup, I’m having a hard time getting past what might have been. I had a similar feeling in 2013 (pre-Clemson), yet in my heart I knew that those Buckeyes were not a National Championship team. But then again, I didn’t expect the Bucks to make the run they did last year, so you never know what might’ve happened if Chaos had done us a solid during championship week. Anyway, I feel like I’m rambling, and that’s YTown’s 07/10’s thing, so I’ll stop.
Johnny Come Lately
The NFL is a strange league. After nearly a full season of looking like the absolute worst Browns team in history, the Brownies went out and completely dominated the San Francisco 49ers in a 24-10 win that was not nearly that close. All I can say is that the 9ers must be an awful, awful football team. Maybe they do miss Harbaugh after all. Beyond the fact that San Francisco looked like they wanted to be anywhere but Cleveland in December (it could’ve been a lot worse, right?), the most striking thing to me was the continued rebooted solid play of Johnny Future. After his 2-week suspension vacation, Johnny again looked like an NFL quarterback: confident, composed, and competent (we’ll just chalk up that interception at the end of the first half to youthful exuberance—Johnny’s got plenty of that). In a league where the team with the best quarterback wins 71.36% of the time (look it up), the Browns clearly had the advantage at that spot on Sunday (Blaine Gabbert—woof!). That may be faint praise for Johnny, but for a Browns quarterback, everything is relative. My biggest concern with Johnny’s solid performance is that he may do well enough to play the Browns right out of the top pick in the draft, costing them the chance to draft their next Quarterback of the Future (whoever that may be), and then have another off-field incident, forcing the Browns to put him in permanent time-out. Of course the Browns will then bring in a new front office and coaching staff, for whose offensive philosophy Johnny would’ve been a perfect fit. Well, that’s a lot on the Browns and Johnny, but the Buckeyes don’t play for like another month, and it already seems like six weeks since they spanked Michigan in their house (smiles to self).
It’s Not Too Sweet (I Hope)
Channeling my inner YTown, because someone has to, and 07/10’s effort was half-hearted at best: This week’s beer is Not Your Father’s Ginger Ale. I saw this in Giant Eagle yesterday and had to pick up a 6er. I’ve yet to try it, though I intend to tonight. I’m hoping it’s not too sweet. I’ll report back on my findings in the comments.
