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 WHEN WE'RE NOT READING THE ARTICLES IN PLAYBOY Any football fan has to read this eye-opening and someone disturbing article in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell.
We got our daily fix of Cuse basketball news from The Post-Standard’s Mike Waters. Believe it or not, the team’s first exhibition game is this Sunday vs. Cal State L.A.
In the mood for a laugh? We recommend Awful Announcing’s Pam Ward Chronicles. They never fail. You might have to scroll down the page some.
The Mules moved to 6-0 cementing themselves as the biggest story of the NFL season through 6 weeks.
Mike Lupica expressed the popular sentiment that Joe Girardi’s over-managing cost the Yankees Game 3 of the ALCS.
Mark Teixeira might not be hitting, but his glove has saved the Yankees time and again this postseason.
The Post’s George King agrees that Tex has been golden with the glove, but says the Yanks 1st basemen needs to start hitting.
 WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT...WE THINK Another week of football in the books, and we learned a lot about who’s legit and who’s just pretending. Here’s how things shake out in our 2nd power rankings.
College Football
 Solid win this week in beating South Carolina 20-6. They’re leaning heavily on sophomore RB Mark Ingram and will need more out of QB Greg McElroy if they want to win it all. The defense, though, is just nasty. Best in football.
 Needed a last minute drive to beat Arkansas at home, but when you’re the #1 team in the country and have a target on your back every week, all that matters is that you walk away with a W at the end of the day.
 The defense has issues (which is no surprise after losing 8 players to the NFL draft), but they stepped up when it mattered most and stopped Notre Dame’s high powered offense on 2 plays from the 4 yard line. Much-hyped freshman QB Matt Barkley had his best performance of the year finishing with 380 yards and 2 TD.
 You might not have realized it with so many good games this week, but the Canes actually played on Saturday too. Nothing impressive in a 27-7 win over Central Florida, but that doesn’t take away from their full body of work.
 Texas is probably better, but Oklahoma was their first good win. After wins at Penn State, at Wisconsin and at home against Michigan, Iowa has better wins than the Longhorns. Texas has Missouri and Oklahoma State the next 2 weeks so this could change quickly.
Pro Football
 Wow. The Giants were supposed to have the best defense in the NFL. Someone forgot to tell Drew Brees. Being in NY, I got to watch New Orleans just absolutely dominate the G-Men from start to finish. If you think Drew Brees is the NFL’s best QB, there are no arguments here. He and Peyton are 1A and 1B.
 Colts bye week combined with the Broncos road win against rival San Diego results in Denver jumping Indy. Denver is 6-0 for the first time since 1998 when they started 13-0 and won the Super Bowl. We never doubted Josh McDaniels. Not even for a minute.
 The Colts are on the road in St. Louis this week. We think they started scoring already.
 Squeaked one out at home against a good Baltimore squad. Adrian Peterson broke 100 yards for the first time in 3 weeks. When he’s doing that, they’re tough to beat.
 Despite Sunday’s ugly loss to the Saints, I still think the Giants are one of the NFC’s top teams. The secondary sorely missed Aaron Ross and Kenny Phillips. With Phillips gone for the season, the G-Men need to find a solution if they want to avoid a repeat performance in the playoffs.
 WE'RE SORRY WE CAN ONLY PICK 1  PATS 59, TITANS 0 This one goes out to the entire Tennessee Titans team after an appallingly pitiful showing against the Patriots on Sunday. In the type of snowy conditions that normally lead to low scoring, run oriented slopfests, the Titans somehow managed to give up 45 first half points before finishing with the largest NFL loss in more than 30 years. So just how ugly was it? Here’s a look at some of the numbers.
- The Titans defense became the 1st team ever to allow 5 TD passes in 1 quarter
- They yielded 619 yards of offense while allowing Patriots QBs to complete 84.4% of their passes
- The Titans offense had more fumbles lost (3) than passes completed (2)
- Those 2 completed passes totaled -7 yards and included a -22 yard pass to Nate Washington
- Vince Young finished with more interceptions (1) than completions (0)
All this, and the Patriots didn’t score a single point in the 4th quarter. Call it whatever you want.
Embarrassing. Pathetic. Despicable.
None of them will really do it justice.
 60% OF THE TIME, THEY WORK EVERY TIME -7: Passing Yards by Kerry Collins and Vince Young in yesterday’s 59-0 loss to the Patriots
0: Pitchers in MLB history with 10k, 0R and 0BB in a postseason game before Cliff Lee did it on Sunday night
3: Home runs by Alex Rodriguez that have either tied the game or put the Yankees ahead this postseason, the most by any player in 1 postseason and tying all-time MLB record
3 1/3: Innings pitched by Washington Nationals #1 pick Steven Strasburg in his Fall League debut (11 batters faced, 2K, no runner reached 2nd base)
4: BCS ranking for Boise State, the highest in school history
5: Touchdown passes by Tom Brady in the 2ND QUARTER of Sunday’s 59-0 shellacking of the Titans
6: Hits in 45 at-bats by the Angels 1-5 hitters through the first 2 ALCS games
7: Hits in 21 at-bats by Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon
9: Completions in 24 attempts by Browns QB Derek Anderson after going 2-for-17 last week
48: Rushes by the Carolina Panthers (totaling 267 yards) in Sunday’s 28-21 win over Tampa Bay; they attempted just 17 passes completing 9
114: Games it took Kurt Warner to reach 30,000 career passing yards, joining Dan Marino as the only QBs in NFL history to accomplish the feat
WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT...WE THINK We finally decided to take our own advice and let everyone play a few games before coming out with our first rankings of the season. We’d tell you how we came up with the stuff, but that would be like Coca-Cola giving you its recipe. Without further ado…
College Football
- Big win to start the year over a very good Virginia Tech team. Convincing win against an Arkansas team that upset Auburn. Dominated Ole Miss on the road. All things that lead to a #1 ranking.
- Nice win on the road at LSU last Saturday. But LSU isn’t as good as Virginia Tech and the Gators other wins include Troy and Charleston Southern. We at TJR prefer teams that choose not to schedule cupcakes.
 Hokies have 2 wins versus resurgent teams; a dominating performance vs. Miami and an ugly win against Nebraska. Only loss came on a neutral site to Bama.
- Brutal schedule. Good conference wins: @ Florida State and vs. Georgia Tech. Great non-conference win against Oklahoma (who’s a darn good team even without Sam Bradford). The loss to Va Tech was ugly, but Blacksburg is an extremely tough place to play.
- Good win on the road against Ohio State has them here. Not a good loss against Washington, but they’ll get somewhat of a pass from me because they played without their starting quarterback. Hey Texas, please play someone good.
Pro Football
- Maybe the best defense in the NFL, and the offense hasn’t missed a beat without Plaxico Burress.
- Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning. Those are TJR’s top 3 NFL quarterbacks.
- Josh McDaniels has Broncos fans quickly forgetting about the summer. 8 new starters on defense – including TJR’s early season favorite for Defensive Player of the Year Brian Dawkins – sure has made a difference
- The offense we all know about. The improved defense gives the Saints a real shot to win it all.
- We’re not even gonna say the quarterback’s name. We’re tired of him. Jared Allen on the otherhand. Wow. Dude is a man-beast. Just nasty.
 - IF 5 IS GOOD THEN 1 IS BAD
4 Straps – To ESPN’S 30 FOR 30 series.
Really intriguing series. 30 films by 30 film makers all covering different topics from new angles. The series kicked off with King’s Ransom, a detailed look at Wayne Gretzky’s trade to the LA Kings. It’s on Tuesday nights at 8pm. DVR it.
2 Straps – To MLB’s playoff scheduling.
Here’s a look at the ALCS schedule:
SUN. OCTOBER 11 – BOTH ALDS END
4 DAYS OFF
FRI. OCTOBER 16 – GAME 1
SAT. OCTOBER 17 – GAME 2
SUN. OCTOBER 18 – (DAY OFF) TRAVEL TO ANAHEIM
MON. OCTOBER 19 – GAME 3
TUES. OCTOBER 20 – GAME 4
WED. OCTOBER 21 – DAY OFF (EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE STILL IN ANAHEIM)
THU. OCTOBER 22 – GAME 5
FRI. OCTOBER 23 – DAY OFF (TRAVEL TO NY)
SAT. OCTOBER 24 – GAME 6
SUN. OCTOBER 25 – GAME 7
Since when does it take 2 weeks to play 7 baseball games? I understand the days off for travel, but the others just make no sense.
0 Straps – To Rush Limbaugh.
He’s blamed everyone else for his ouster from a group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams. The media, the Democratic party, Dave Checketts, and the NFL Players’ Union among others. He even went so far as to say that the situation is “Obama’s America on full display.”
Yes Rush. It’s all them. It had nothing to do with the racist comments you made regarding Donovan McNabb while you worked at ESPN. Absolutely nothing to do with that.
5 Straps – To Peyton Manning.
Is it possible that the Future Hall-of-Famer is better than he’s ever been? Scary to think about, but we say yes.
2 Straps – To the Minnesota Twins for building an outdoor stadium.
Just imagine November baseball in Minneapolis. That’s what’s going to happen the next time the Twins make the World Series. Ouch.
WE'RE SORRY WE CAN ONLY PICK 1  And the Biggest Loser Award goes to…Fox Sports’ production department for creating marketing this absolutely despicable cartoon parody for their NFL pre-game show, which depicts Dallas Cowboys players Marion Barber and Jason Witten, along with Head Coach Wade Phillips, taking cracks at Jessica Simpson for her weight gain.
But The Dallas Morning News writes that Fox and Burger King are apologizing for it, like that makes any difference. Burger King got wrapped into the whole thing when Fox slapped them on the cartoon as the presenting sponsor. Apparently, no one from BK knew about it beforehand.
I’m almost speechless. I don’t understand what the point of it was, and apparently I’m not the only one. Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic discussed it on their show this morning.
The whole thing was just completely tasteless, and we here at TJR hope some heads roll for it.
 WHERE WE TAP INTO OUR METRO-SEXUAL SIDE
 NO WORDS NECESSARY
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