Don't Do That to my Johnny

    With a motion of his eyebrows Sunday, Kyle Shanahan sent Johnny Manziel on a 40 yard slap in the face.
    When I first saw the play, I loved it. In a nut shell, Johnny pretended to be mid-conversation with the coach yards from the sideline and first-string quarterback Brian Hoyer hit him with a quick 10-step seem down field. He ran twenty more before a light hit put him out of play.
    Brilliant. Johnny Football gets his first big yards in the NFL.
    Wait. But he did that as a wide out. That's not how we wanted this to happen.
    Now it's settled and I'm not happy. Johnny Football was used as Johnny Chimpanzee.
    The Heisman-winning rookie quarterback's first real call-to-action was nothing more than an act. And I will not stand for it. It looked like a mediocre shot at making the enormous sales of his jersey seem worth while. This embarrassing media stunt made my stomach churn.
    Manziel has worked his entire life to be an NFL quarterback. Quarterback. So the Browns should let him do that, even if now that means holding the clipboard.

We Are Rolling

    I'm lounging in a grey pair of Champion sweatpants, eating a bowl of Cinnamon Pecan Special K. That bowl sits about 500 miles from Washington, D.C. and 5,500 miles from the areas in the Middle East where U.S. airstrikes fell this morning.
    President Barrack Obama just addressed the press from the White House lawn, and really failed to give new information. I felt as if he had nothing more to offer than the articles I read before the brief conference.
    Obama spoke on the events carried out this morning, but didn't speak much on what happens now. A single morning of bombing cannot do much more than anger the people referring to the U.S. as a killing machine.
    So what comes now? It seems like the word we in the media wait to hear is war. A lot of meaning packed in three letters. But it seems difficult not to use the label, even if the commander-in-chief hesitates to say it again.

Pick Up That Chin, Matt

    Bad ideas come in all forms.
    I have quite a bit of work to do today, but I chose to spend last night at the bar with my buddies. That wasn't the best display of judgment, but after a breakfast sandwich and a Gatorade, I'm feeling alright. I don't think it was that bad of an idea.
    What I think is a very bad idea, is American Matthew Todd Miller allegedly entering North Korea in an effort to experience life in their infamous labor camps.
    "Mr. Miller was accused of entering North Korea with the “ambition” to deliberately violate North Korean law so he could experience life in a North Korean prison and later become a firsthand witness about the human rights conditions in the North, The A.P. and The Choson Sinbo reported." --NYT
    While believing anything from North Korea seems silly, I do believe this claim. It's just a weird thing to make up. So I have to assume Miller did actually incriminate himself for this cause.
    I'm curious how quickly the 25-year-old regretted this nifty idea.
    Quick scenario: I'm  an advocate of gun control. Do I shoot myself in the leg in order to tell the world how awful it felt?
    But in all sarcasm, he looks like he's pretty happy with his decision.

Despite my criticism of this ludicrous play call, I will be the first to buy Miller's memoir in six years. I have a decent title in mind: How To Ruin Your Life For Dummies.

We're Better Than This

    I'd have to bet that at the moment, I look like a journalist. Sometimes I don't, but in this rolling chair, coffee in my left hand and sweaty mouse in my right, I think I fit the part.  

    Today's the first day I've ever felt embarrassed by this. 

    As everybody and their dog might already know, yesterday morning TMZ released a video of (former) Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice viciously striking his then fiance in an Atlantic City elevator. And when I say vicious, I mean it.

    Now, Ray Rice should go to prison. But that's not the point of this blog.     

    The video TMZ released was from February. Anybody in tune with the sports world has known about the incident since then, when an original video showed him dragging her limp body from the door. 

    Disgust was a word I described Rice's actions with when I first heard about abuse. It still is, but now it's old news.

    Today, I use disgust referring to TMZ for rekindling this fire in such an insensitive and unprofessional way. 

    Modern media gets no respect, and it's because of things like this. The story here is not what's on the video, but what happened to the video during these investigations. The story is how the entire NFL claims this is the first time they have seen the tape. What we should be wondering is why it took a video of the actual contact that knocked out Janay for the league to suspend Ray. We all knew this happened. 

    TMZ decided to release the video on their site. That's all. No concern of newsworthiness, or the impact it would have on the now married couple.  

    Some "news" sources are just plain scummy and I hate that outside of the media world, the media world is all the same.