The Boys are fired up to discuss NFL’s week 4 games, so much so that they start off talking MLB playoffs. TM’s week 4 Soundaaa gets the NFL talk going. They finish up with their Week 5 Picks.
Remember to call us with your questions/comments/suggestions for the show #708-316-8822…
Folks, it’s finally here. No more talk of PSIs, legal complications or pool covers. Football, real football, will be played this week. Can you believe it? It seems like a very long time ago that we had a slew of games to anticipate, watch and digest. If you read the site you know that I’m not big on sports but football is without question my favorite. Football, to me, is easy to follow due to the short season and less games. Alongside the regular season comes arguably one of the most difficult games I play all year: fantasy football. This year, I’ve opted to enter into three different leagues, including our Binge Football League. While three teams makes it tough to keep track of three-times as many players, it also makes for more fun. FF has always been about stats, and stats are, essentially, dice rolls. No matter how much they may not what to admit it, guys who play Fantasy and criticize us geeks for playing video games are hypocrites. But I digress. Here are my teams this year:
For my first draft this year I went RB/WR/RB/RB/WR in the first five rounds. It served me relatively well here but I had some serious reaching to do after that in a 12-team league. I have a lot of faith in Jeremy Maclin and Brandin Cooks this year and I reached in earlier rounds to get them, but overall I’m ok with this team. I’m hoping Sammy Watkins Sophomore year is an improvement and fingers are firmly crossed on both Dorial Green-Beckham and Ryan Mathews.
Easily my most important league, this team is in the league I’m commissioner for. Last year, the league’s first, I took a devastating Week 13 loss to keep me out of the playoffs, and this year I’m looking to come back strong. In this draft it was 3 RBs then everything else afterward, and I think overall this is my strongest draft of the three I did. Philip Rivers was a 12th round pickup, and Allen Robinson was in the 13th. The only reason I have two TEs on the team is because Tyler Eifert was still hanging around in the 11th round, something I couldn’t pass up just for the value. Again we have the repeating theme of Cooks/Maclin. I’m going all in on those guys so hopefully it pays off. Actually, in this draft I was targeting the Landry/Cooper combo but someone sniped both of them before I could get to them. Still though, I have my ultimate sleeper in there with Brandon Coleman, a guy I grabbed at the end of this draft with ease. I think his size and cadence with Brees is going to be special this year alongside Cooks.
Finally, we have the Binge Fantasy Football League draft where it was a mixed bag. Again, going with the RBs up front and everything else to follow, we’ve got Cooks and Brown but no Maclin here, which I’m ok with because I was able to snag Amari Cooper. The Jeremy Hill/Latavius Murray tandem was great but Le’Veon Bell actually fell to round 2 where I picked him up. I’m a little too rich at RB but that was by design for trade bait later. I’m fully hoping Arian Foster is the beast he was the past few years because he was picked up somewhere between rounds 5-7 (Luke will have a more detailed breakdown for you this week). My only really questionable pick was Scott Chandler at TE, but I’m hoping the Patriots are going to that very successful two TE spread set they ran back in the Hernandez/Gronk days. If that happens, I can see Chandler becoming an important red-zone target, but like any odd pick it’s all chance.
So what do you guys think? Good drafts or bad ones? Yahoo’s grading system gave me a C-, B and C+ respectively, but I was actually pretty happy with all three teams this year considering all three were in 12-man leagues. What say you? Binge on!
Guys, football season is almost here, and to commemorate, I’m taking you on a trip down memory lane. Since I can’t think of anything worthwhile to write about, I’m hooking all of you up with some seriously legitimate Awards-caliber shit. That’s right, here it is in all its glory, the New England Patriots first Super Bowl win highlight film from NFL Films. Enjoy and Binge On!
It’s difficult for me to be objective in this matter, but I am going to really try here. I’ve been here defending the wall since this story broke with a few moderate mentions here and there, most notably when Luke invited me to the Binge SportsCast to give some thoughts on the sordid saga of Deflategate, or how I will now and forever refer to it, Deframegate.
There’s a lot of venom being spewed in all directions right now and I feel like it’s important to look at everything in perspective and get this out of our collective consciousness before real football finally starts. Look, I get it. The Patriots have (unless you’re the Giants) successfully bested you some time in the past decade-and-a-half. They are the Scarface of the NFL in the eyes of everyone not living in New England or central Florida (there’s a huge demographic of New England transplants living down there). At some point over the past 15 years the Patriots probably at least beat you, if not completely dismantled you morally and spiritually. The hatred for them rivals that of America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys, which was also brought on by a run of solid wins. Look, success breeds envy, and if you want to cheat yourself of enjoying one of the greatest athletes of his sport go to work, then good on you. Nothing I say will change that, and I don’t aim to. Pissing in the wind isn’t a hobby of mine.
While the media has been the true center of this entire story, I think it’s an important thing to observe this whole debacle from a distance. There are may suspicious goings on throughout this whole affair. As a die-hard Patriots fan, even I will admit that. McNally taking the game balls into the bathroom before play is a little odd, but so is finding out that the NFL edited a supposedly “Independent” investigation before it was released to the world. Brady destroying his cell phone doesn’t look great, but when you read in the Wells report that Ted Wells told him he didn’t need the phone, nor would that effect his decision, it makes you suspicious as to why the NFL is outrightly lying about what is happening here.
As a fan of football, all I really want is to go to games, enjoy myself and smack talk with friends and family via fantasy football every year. Personally, I don’t think that’s too much to ask of the sport. I’ve spoken before about my adoration for the team and Brady in particular because I have a connection to this team from an early age. It’s frustrating hearing people try and convince me that the team are a bunch of cheaters. The truth of all of this, though, is that for those who actually know the details of Spygate, that was an issue of arrogance on Belichick’s part, and even his statement earlier this year at the press conference regarding air pressure measurement affirms his stance that the rule they broke was, in his eyes, silly. But in the case of Spygate, you had a situation where the team was caught, told to move their cameras to another angle and carry on. Belichick refused, and his ego unfortunately led to that scenario. I understand that, I can move on from that. Moral of the story there is don’t be an arrogant prick.
Cut to the AFC Championship Game against the Colts this year. The Patriots manhandled the Colts for what is becoming an annual party with a blowout win. The next morning, a story gets out about balls being under-inflated and Brady says on sports radio “Well, I’ve just about heard it all.” with a laugh and verbal shrug. Fast forward a few months and Brady is suspended for being “at least generally aware” of football deflation. Think about that, NFL fans. If tomorrow Peyton Manning’s limo driver kills someone in a car accident after dropping Peyton off at home, wouldn’t it be insane to think that Peyton was “generally aware” of the crime, and likely to be thrown in prison alongside the driver? That is the precedent Roger Goodell and the league are standing on at the moment. At this point in the game, court documents and emails have confirmed that the NFL and, specifically, Commissioner Goodell, are lying through their teeth. They’re doing this because they know they can, and backing down now would make the man look even more useless.
While nothing is likely to be done about this, I believe the league’s true intention with all of this hoopla was to keep the NFL in the news throughout the offseason and, most importantly, deflect the real issues that need to be addressed. Does anyone care about domestic violence now that we can point at Brady and the Patriots and cry “Cheaters!”. The NFL’s concussion issue, a potentially $700,000,000 lawsuit, hasn’t been mentioned since January (to my knowledge) because it’s a lot more fun and satisfying to look the other way and try and get one over on the World Champions. Sheeple, take notice, we’re being played.
Was Brady “generally aware” of deflating footballs? My answer is no. I don’t think the guy had anything to do with it, and frankly I don’t see the evidence to be damning towards him. Can anyone prove, one way or the other, that anything happened? Where you fall in this whole debacle is largely based on your level of butthurt. I will say though, that for the first time, I sympathize with Saints and Dolphins fans. If this level of incompetence was similar to what you folks went through in the Richie Incognito and Bountygate scandals then I have to give all of you fans an apology, because if your team was railroaded the way mine is being right now then the NFL has a much more damning issue than some footballs with low air pressure.
Football PSI, Cobain: Montage of Heck and The Superhero Bubble
Timing is everything, and as I write this article news is breaking of the punishment for Tom Brady and the New England Patriots regarding the football PSI scandal (I’m done using “-gate” terms for this shit, it’s annoying). You guys know me, I’m a die-hard Pats fan and I have no shame in admitting I have issues with how this entire debacle came together, was propagated by the media and continues to leave Patriots-haters salty. Look, human beings make mistakes. If there truly was evidence found implicating Brady and the team in some sort of wrongdoing, I’d walk away, angrily, but I’d get on with my life. Because of what was found in the Wells Report and the media’s reaction to and reporting of the findings, this is a sad day for the Patriots and the NFL. The message that was sent with this ruling was clear; wife-beaters, child abusers and possible murderers are a-ok, but if you may be “generally aware” of a ball being deflated, you have committed crimes against football and you must be tarred, feathered and shamed in public.
If you’re someone who Brady has repeatedly spanked over the years and you don’t like the guy, that’s fine. You have that right, and frankly if I didn’t have Brady as my QB I’d probably hate the guy too. The problem with this ruling is the precedent for rules and guidelines in the NFL does not exist, and furthermore isn’t clear. Why is this important? Because it now says that without any good reason if tomorrow Odell Beckham Jr. is found to have used deer antler spray on his inner thigh that contains an illegal substance the league has deemed unuseable the commissioner can have his first-born and enact Prima Noctra. It’s bullshit, and while you non-Pats fans may be happy that you won’t have to deal with Brady for potentially a quarter of next season, you should all be just as pissed as I am. The PSI rule being broken carries a $25,000 fine with it, which for some reason is being overlooked in this case. Whatever, I can’t go on about it any further, but I will say this here and now: next season is tainted. Whoever gets the Lombardi (and I include the Patriots in this) needs to have an asterisk next to their title, standing for the non-Brady handicap. Fuck Goodell. #FreeTomBrady.
Kurt Cobain of Nirvana (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
So much piss and vinegar this week! It has a lot to do with the fact that moments before I read my special boy Brady is suspended that I saw Cobain: Montage of Heck, the documentary about Kurt Cobain’s life. While I found the documentary to be understandably one-sided and curiously absent of any interview with Dave Grohl it was still affecting and disturbing. Kurt was clearly a broken individual with a tough background, but at times the documentary seems to be using that as an excuse for how he treated others and, ultimately, what led to his suicide. Still though, I can’t help but find the documentary to paint a pretty vivid picture of the type of person he was, while maybe ignoring some of the more unsympathetic aspects of who he was. 8/10 all day.
Finally, I, like many of the people on this planet, got to see Avengers: Age of Ultron, and like many I felt a little underwhelmed by the film. I’ve grown up in the golden age of the superhero. I never read most of these comics but with the first two Spider-Man films, the first two X-Men films and Nolan’s Batman trilogy I have become a huge fan of these cinema landscapes. It was a given that I’d like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and at this point these films have a certain level of quality to them that sticks the landing every time. As a non-comic book reader, I can’t appreciate Vision embracing Scarlett Witch on screen the way some others can, but I do appreciate the fuck out of my boy Paul Bettany getting to beat some ass on-screen. What I’m getting at with all of this is that we are very spoiled right now. If you like superhero stories, you’re getting at least one good one a year for the foreseeable future. The bubble, however, is about ready to burst, and while I think I’m in for the long haul on most of these even I can see where in the wrong hands these stories can start to fall apart. Ultron felt like the lead-up to another Marvel film rather than a story on its own merits, which was disappointing. The first Avengers had finality to it. By the end of that film, all the characters went on a certain journey and concluded that adventure in a satisfying way, with some laughs, serious thrills and enough strands of future stories that setting up the next few films didn’t seem like a gimmick. Ultron was too full of gimmick for me. Why bring in Andy Serkis for two scenes? So he can have his arm ripped off and set up Black Panther. Tony Stark wasn’t held accountable for creating Ultron in this film? That’s just so he and the Cap have something to fight over in Civil War. There’s a lot of intentional story-threading here and it’s a little disappointing that there was so much intent put on that rather than just making this story work well. All that being said, I still enjoyed the movie as entertainment, it just didn’t have the resonance the first one had with me. Still though, I’ll go 8/10 just because Paul Bettany is my boy. How much longer will these films be good? That remains to be seen.
One last time: fuck Roger Goodell. I will be protesting this ruling in my own special way, so stay tuned for that, but as always, Binge On!
Yes, it’s that time of year again, the one day where everyone gets to feel like they have a little Irish in ’em. St. Patrick’s Day is, like all other holidays, an excuse to drink, and while we here at Binge Media scoff at the idea of “just drinking on holidays”, it’s easy to forget that there are many folks who absolutely loved the holiday for what it represented to them: their Irish heritage. Yeah, it’s bastardized and commercialized, as all holidays are, but on St. Patrick’s Day I don’t make a special point to drink or go out. I usually think about my Grandad, the man whose namesake I carry on (he was Jr., I’m IV) and who, in his own way, proudly wore his heritage on his sleeve. How, you may ask, does a red-blooded Irishman enjoy his people’s holiday? Well, I’ll tell you…
Do the Dew, indeed. Grandad’s been gone for a few years now but every 17th of March I make a special point to crack open my bottle of this angelic nectar and throw one back for the old man. Tullamore Dew was his drink of choice and it makes for a nice accent to a well-made meal. Speaking of which…
Corned-beef and cabbage is the staple here but I must admit I can’t stand the stuff. Any meat that isn’t properly murdered and cooked before being served is questionable at best. Call me Ron Swanson but I need my beef dead, dead and then charred before I’ll touch it. Rather, I go with old reliable:
In the same vein of there being multiple ways to skin a cat, I go for the luscious Pastrami sandwich. The one pictured above would do, but I have my own special method for grilling the rye bread and adding the thinly sliced Clausen pickles INSIDE of the sandwich that really drive this sucker into the endzone. Call me sentimental but every year all I can ever think of is Grandad and how he used to celebrate the holiday, and while it’s great to go out and get shitfaced from time-to-time, I choose to honor my Grandad and drink responsibly. Maybe it’s not as glitzy and glamorous as all you fuckers out there were expecting but I feel like it’s the proper amount of celebration for a holiday such as this.
Now that that’s done with, time to talk shop. Ladies and germs, welcome to the 2015-2016 Hottie Draft! All you fuckers are gonna burn this year! If it wasn’t for Said Helal I would have taken all y’all BabaDIIICK munches with ease, and if you think this year is any different guess again. I can understand you’re all full of hope and promise, but anyone in the BABADIIICK Division better be on notice: you’re competing against Binge Media’s Sons of Anarchy Prediction Contest Champion, to say nothing of the glorious Patriots victory (Ammon and TM can suck it) that will continue into the next football season. Yes, be ready for my BABADIIICKING of y’all bitches.
On a more serious note, this year I’ve decided to bequeath all of you with a special bonus for being in the draft. I will be creating Facebook banners for the Hottie Draft featuring your team name (which will be the name the guys gave you in the original announcement posting on the site) and your three hottie selections. What I need from YOU is to contact me via Facebook (Jack Falvey IV) and PM me if you want a banner. I won’t go through and do them if you don’t ask, so get on that shit if you want in! They will look sick and will provide ample dinner conversation as well, so it’s a win-win-win for everyone.
Next week I have some time to myself and I will be catching up completely on Banshee and possibly some flicks, but I would also like to mention my PSN gamertag is MovieFreak4702 and if anyone has Helldivers, hit me up, yo! Binge On!
When I was 13 years old, I started watching football. At the time, there was a lot of strife and stress around me (more than a kid that age should have to deal with in hindsight) and football was an outlet for me. This predated my discovery of the film world and gave me something to look forward to week after week. The year was 2001 and it was immediately after 9/11 that I remember getting together around the TV once a week to sit and root for the New England Patriots, a team led by quarterback Drew Bledsoe, a guy whose name I was familiar with from passing conversation. I remember watching that first game where Bledsoe went down and being pretty much lost, as his was the only name I knew on the team. Of course, this was the game where backup quarterback Tom Brady took the field against the AFC East rival New York Jets. The Pats lost that game 10-3, but the subsequent season saw the Patriots rallying to get to the Super Bowl, and for the first time in the event’s history, choosing to be introduced as a team.
There was something that even to this day gives me chills about the Pats taking the field here. The focus on team effort and performance was front and center, and the Pats went on to their first Super Bowl victory in team history. Within the following three years they would win two more.
I’ve been lucky to grow up at this time in Boston sports history. I’m no huge Sox fan, but I love going to Fenway. The Bruins are what they are, and again, not big on hockey but I enjoy watching a game now and again. The Celtics, never really been much into basketball either. All that being said, Boston and New England has been spoiled over the past 15 years, and I have to believe it was rekindled with this first Super Bowl win. The Pats have been consistent, quality and dominant for a long time, but their two Super Bowl losses, in the eyes of many, were chinks in the armor, proving that despite all the effort, the Pats were human after all.
I remember watching the first Pats/Giants Super Bowl and experiencing the David Tyree helmet catch in disbelief. I still can’t believe that catch happened, but it did, and it was a hell of a play. It sucked for us, but it was a hell of a play, I would never take that away from the guy. Then the second Bowl where we gave the Giants a safety that ended up being the death-blow was also crushing, but admittedly not as much as the first one was. So cut to this past Sunday, where the emotion, intensity and dedication to this team reached its apex.
Much like the Seahawks, the Patriots are, in their better seasons, a team of athletes. Everyone has a part to play in order to secure the win, and I think this Super Bowl proves that the team has to be able to perform and do their job when asked to. I give credit to the Seahawks and Pete Carroll for sticking to their in-your-face aggression for all 60 minutes. I can even understand why he called the throw at the end of the game instead of handing the ball off to Beast Mode for the go-ahead touchdown given the situation he was facing. You had a classic case of a player making a world-class play when he had to, and that is just the way it goes. It sucks, Hawks fans, and I almost feel for you, but talk to me when you get robbed in two different Super Bowls then I’ll try and squeeze out a fucking tear for you.
It was a big game that could have easily gone the other way, but it didn’t. Ammon, here and now, hats off to the team. Seriously, this is no bullshit. I really thank you for the competition and most of all for Michael Bennett jumping over the line and helping us secure the win in the end. Also, for allowing Russell Wilson to make that bonehead throw and cost you the game and/or the rarefied air the Patriots exist in of winning back-to-back Super Bowls. Most of all, thank you for this:
Luckily, this is it for a while on Pats talk, so I’ll be back to my usual bullshit next week. Binge on!
This week was a big week in movie news, detailing reports on upcoming reboots, thus spit-balling hate from movie fans of all ages (well, mostly those ages who grew up in the 80s). And for every reboot bomb that was dropped, I couldn’t help but think… welcome to the club! Horror fans have been living in remake/reboot hell for the last 10 years! Reboot outrage wasn’t this high for FRIDAY THE 13TH, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, THE OMEN, or THE STEPFATHER. I was seeing red during all of these reboot events, but maybe having lived through them for awhile, the latest reboot news honestly didn’t fill me with rage… but rather, serenity. I’m actually OK with them. Whoa! Calm the fuck down! Let me explain.
Reboots aren’t the same as remakes. Disney is not remaking RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. They want to make a new Indiana Jones adventure because they own the franchise and the rights. It makes total business sense, and as a HUGE fan of the Indiana Jones series, I’m fuckin’ really excited to see a new Indiana Jones movie. Listen, they can’t have Harrison Ford or Steven Spielberg come back because… KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS sucked cock. It really did. It really does. Don’t believe me? Watch it again. It’s the one film of the series that gets WORSE after every viewing. I want to see another Indy adventure, but I don’t want to see Ford at it again. CRYSTAL SKULLS was embarrassing. He’s too old and he don’t give a fuck anymore. Give us somebody new, and if that’s Chris Pratt… I’m totally OK with it!
The opening of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is the opening of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. And it was awesome. I had my doubts about Pratt before GUARDIANS because I thought he was too goofy, but he pulled it off. And he looks like he’s gonna pull it off in JURASSIC WORLD. So they want him as INDIANA JONES? He has the look, he has the charisma, I say… go for it! Just think of it as history repeating itself. Ford was Han Fucking Solo. Pratt was Star Fucking Lord. Now they’re both gonna live in the annals of history as Dr. Jones? People should be more worried about who’s going to direct and write the new Indy movie, not who’s gonna play Indy. Also, if they can’t get Pratt… my vote goes with Bradley Cooper. Stew with that for a minute!
The same sort of shit goes with the new GHOSTBUSTERS. They can’t make a GHOSTBUSTERS 3. Harold Ramis is dead. The rest of the guys are old. Have you seen Dan Aykroyd lately? Yeesh. Only Bill Murray is keeping his acting chops active, but… Ramis is dead. So having the original cast return is never going to happen. But a new Ghostbusters team? Taking over the reigns of the old Ghostbusters team? And they’re not the younger, hipper, version… but rather SNL alumni who also just happen to have vaginas? I’m down. I don’t know why, but I’m totally fine with having a new team of Ghostbusters and having them be women. Handled right, they could have a new GHOSTBUSTERS series on their hands. If I had concerns at all, it’s of director Paul Feig. But you know what? BRIDESMAIDS was great. THE HEAT seemed to nail the buddy-comedy genre. He’s not Brett Ratner. So it’s a total win in my eyes. The original was directed by Ivan Reitman, a director of comedies, so it only makes sense. Again… this is history repeating itself, not the present shitting on the past. You want shitting on the past? See the above-mentioned horror remakes. Because those were fucking remakes (and total abominations)… INDIANA JONES and GHOSTBUSTERS are reboots. There’s a difference! Plus, keep in mind, that these new movie in no way effect the original movies that you hold so dear and close to your heart. So calm the fuck down already.
The other bit of news that dropped was the trailer for the upcoming FANTASTIC FOUR movie. Or rather, FANT4STIC. Who cares? It’s based on a comic book, so fuck you and your ‘this is a remake of the 2005 movie’. It’s not. Call it a reboot? Sure. I guess. It’s just another adaptation of an old-ass comic book. Miles Teller. I still hate you, but WHIPLASH was amazing. If he doesn’t suck here, maybe I’ll become a Miles Teller fan. No movie should ever be sold with “From the studio that brought you…” because the studio doesn’t fucking matter. They could as easily said “From the studio that brought you ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED” as they could say “From the studio that brought you DIE HARD”. It’s just stupid. I’m done with comic book movies, so I don’t give two shits about this one, but I will say that it looks better than both the 2005 version and its 2007 sequel. So at least it has that going for it.
Finally, the Super Bowl. The Seahawks will win because they’re the better team (truthbomb!) and they have class (double-truthbomb!). Plus, Brady and Belachick can each eat a bag of Badadiiiiiicks! That is all. Go Hawks!
Hey guys, I apologize this is coming in so late in the day but unfortunately, in case you hadn’t heard, there’s some snow outside and I’ve been shoveling like a goddamn Moreno all day. So, in place of some redundant comments about the few flicks I’ve seen over the past week, I will leave you with the below memes and video and say GO PATS!!!
