Miracle Covers

Thursday Links

Currently watching the Bears getting called for not one, but TWO delay of game penalties on their 2-minute drill. They actually got called for a delay of game when lining up for a field goal with 6 seconds in the half while they still had a timeout remaining. Someone needs to be fired at half time.

EDIT: Cutler is up to 4 interceptions on the day, one away from completing the Dirty Sanchez. Meanwhile, San Francisco just punted into the end zone from Chicago’s 34 yard line, up 10-6 with 3 minutes to play. Both of these teams deserve to lose.

EDIT2: He did it! INT #5 in the end zone to end the game. As Nick said, “Set a goal and reach it.”

More from the annals of how not to manage a team: We’ve already discussed Allen Iverson, who’s not currently with the team. Thankfully, Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley, “expects him to come back.”

German Soccer giants Bayern Munich were ripped by their fullback Philip Lahm this week:

“Top teams in the Champions League have first-class players in seven, eight positions – we don’t,” Lahm said. “Other clubs have a system, a philosophy, and buy the players accordingly. We don’t. It’s not enough to buy good players, one has to develop a team,” he added. He specifically mentioned the lack of creative guile in midfield, an oversupply of centre-forwards and absence of a second decent full-back. It’s a squad full of big names and even bigger holes. A 13-year-old Football Manager aficionado in deepest Nepal could tell you as much….

What was the club’s response? In a word: predictable.

Lahm was disciplined after he launched an astonishing attack on the club, coach Louis van Gaal and his fellow players in Sueddeutche Zeitung, his words earning him a fine of around £26,000, while a Bayern statement asserted that Lahm had broken an “absolute taboo” in voicing his views publicly.

Also predictable is the official Spanish soccer team of Miracle Covers, Atletico Madrid, who lost to Real Madrid 3-2 last weekend.

Since October 1999, Al Nasr Saudi Club, Al-Ahly, Alavés, Alcorcón, Almería, Anderlecht, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Betis, Boca Juniors, Celta Vigo, Deportivo, Espanyol, Galatasaray, Getafe, Graz, Hannover, Internazionale, Juventus, Las Palmas, Levante, Liverpool, Lokomotiv Moscow, Málaga, Mallorca, Manchester United, Milan, Monaco, Murcia, Nastic, Numancia, Olympiakos, Lyon, Osasuna, PSV, Racing, Rayo Vallecano, Nexaca, Real Sociedad, Real Unión, Recreativo, Roma, Servette, Sevilla, Spartak Moscow, Sporting Lisbon, Tokyo Verdy, Toledo, Valencia, Valladolid, Villarreal, Werder Bremen and Zaragoza have all beaten Real Madrid. Atlético have not. Somehow, every time the big day arrives, they wake up at 6am in a freezing Pennsylvania town all too aware of how it’s going to end.

Switching to tackle football, Mike Singletary & his stopwatch was “upbeat” about Alex Smith’s performance.

Singletary said Monday that “Alex had only one play that was really on him.” He meant a fourth quarter pass intended for Josh Morgan that Smith telegraphed, allowing Titans safety Chris Hope to swoop in front of Morgan for the take-away.

The 49ers rolled out 358 yards of total offense, their second best total of the season. Smith’s 286 passing yards were the most by a San Francisco quarterback this season.

“It was, unfortunately, one of the better offensive performances that I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” Singletary said. “Take away the turnovers, and we have a chance to really have a good offensive game and have some excitement and momentum going forward.”

Mike, the turnovers are what make the Alex Smith Experience so special. Smith literally just threw an interception as I’m typing this, negated by a Bears penalty for lining up offside.

Michael Lombardi wrote about the Giants this week:

Was the loss Coughlin’s fault? Not really, but right now he has a very fragile team lacking in confidence. He knows he needs his team to play at the level it played last Sunday in order to win. To ensure that same type of performance, he took the burden of losing off his players. He can walk into the meeting rooms and honestly tell his team that he was the reason they lost a game when they played so well. This kind of honesty from a leader is called “management of self,” which means that the leader is willing to accept blame and be honest with his team. It also allows him to be critical of his followers when the time is right, assuring that the criticism is heard.

This is a smart move on Coughlin’s part. This method of leadership doesn’t work unless the team plays well — because to accept the blame, Coughlin has to know (which is clear on the film) that his team played well. Walking into the meeting room and accepting blame for a poor effort makes the leader weak and worthless. We see this all the time. We hear a coach say, “This loss is on me. This loss is my fault,” when the team played poorly from the start. To exclude the players from criticism when the team plays poorly is not the kind of leadership that will enhance the leader’s profile with the players. He looks like a fool in the locker room, and the players get the sense that no matter how badly they play, the coach will shoulder the blame. This is not a culture he wants to create.

What better to follow that up with than Lady Gaga? Two awesome covers of Poker Face by Christopher Walken and Eric Cartman.

Where better to brush your teeth than at a soccer game?

A list of the top 100 movies of the decade. I imagine there will be a lot of best of the 00s lists in the next few months.

Really useful primer on the upcoming college hoops season.

Lastly, this preview of this weekend’s Chiefs-Raiders game will likely be more entertaining than the game itself.