Check out my Quick Hit blog about my thoughts on the Miami Dolphins drafting WVU QB Pat White in the 2nd round of this past weekend’s NFL Draft and why it has me super excited for the coming football season.

I’ve put together a little drinking game for the 2009 NFL Draft for my company @ QuickHit.com. Check it out and follow the rules if you truly want to enjoy tomorrow’s NFL Draft — it will be the same game that I will be playing with Brandon & Roger and we plan to be completely plastered before the end of the first round if not sooner!

The football team likely won’t produce a first day draft pick for the first time in ages, but at least the University of Miami has come out #1 in Playboy’s list of top Party Schools for 2009! I guess that’s better than nothing. It’s all about the “U”!

The news that KG will likely miss the playoffs practically ensures a seemingly inevitable title showdown between Lebron James and Kobe Bryant. While this saddens me as a Celtics fan that still had moderate to slim hopes of a repeat, it should be a great thing for the NBA and an exciting series to watch. The highly-touted Lakers versus Celtics match-up last year proved to be a bit of a letdown ratings-wise, but Lebron v Kobe should be able to get ratings on par with the Jordan era Bulls. If not, then the NBA’s funk might be even worse than thought.

The Baltimore Orioles’ dream of a perfect 162-0 season ended today with a 11-2 loss to the Evil Empire, dropping them to 2-1 and 1/2 game out of their one-time stranglehold on first place in the AL East. I guess I can take solace in the fact that this amazing first place and unbeaten run lasted much longer than I had ever dreamed of, but it’s still a sad day and pretty much ends the baseball season. At least the NFL draft and NBA & NHL playoffs are just around the corner!

Most would say that a baseball team going 162-0 is impossible and I would normally agree. But I also thought coming into this season that the Baltimore Orioles being in sole possession of first place this deep into the season and unbeaten at 2-0 was all but impossible, as well. I’ve been proven wrong…so just 160 more surprises in a row and we may have baseball’s version of The Perfect Season!

I don’t get a chance to say it often and when I do it’s typically in April, May or not at all, so please let me have my moment when I proudly scream — how about them first place Baltimore Orioles! My boys roughed up C.C. “not gonna live up to his fat contract except in maybe his waistline” Sabathia and the New York Yankees earlier today 10-5 and are now in a two-way tie for first place in the American League East with the Toronto Blue Jays. Sure, it’s one game and it surely won’t last, as we’ll likely finish yet another season 30+ games under .500 and out of the playoff hunt by the All-Star break, but it’s nevertheless nice to start things off 1-0 and unbeaten against the hated Yanks. Let’s go O’s!

People like to talk smack about the BCS and say how the NCAA Final Four Tournament is SOOOOO much better, but the past few years have SUCKED in college basketball’s tourney. I hope it’s just a dry spell but I’ve been bored out of my mind watching this year’s tourney games and it was the same last year, as well. The only time it’s really any fun at all is during the first two days when there are multiple games on throughout the day, which makes it easy to find exciting games to watch admidst the many stinkers. But when you get deeper into the tourney and there are less options, you get stuck having to watch boring ass blowouts between completely unmatched teams (i.e. – UNC vs Nova and now UNC vs MSU). Here’s hoping for better luck with the Frozen Four this Thursday and Saturday…

I’m not sure why exactly, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the NBA lately. I just started thinking about just how many great players are in the league right now. No disrespect towards Jordan, Magic, Bird, Isiah, Moses, the Mailman or Olajuwan or any of the legends from my youth, but we might be watching the greatest collection of NBA talent right now in the game’s history.

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Maybe it’s just my negativity with my sports teams, but I’m starting to think that the Miami Dolphins are headed to a last place finish in the AFC East this season. Maybe I should be a little more confident with the “trifecta” of Parcells, Ireland and Sporano, but I’ve always seen last seasons’ 11-5 record and playoff berth as a bit of an aberration that was a result of an easy schedule, Brady’s knee, and Favre’s INT-parade.

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One of my many duties at Quick Hit when I’m not designing the football game or giving Brandon Justice massages with happy endings is to do a lot of community-oriented work such as writing blogs and development diaries. Given my background with this site, my old fan sites, Working Designs and IGN.com, it’s pretty much the cake part of the job since I’ve been sharing my thoughts and opinions with the netizens of the World Wide Web for nearly 13 years.

My first significant entry, other than my initial introduction which none of you should need, is my dev diary on Fixing the QB Passer Rating. It doesn’t necessarily do with the development of the game, other than the fact I plan to use the formula in player stats, but it should give you a little insight how my mind works as far as football and statistics are concerned.

Let me just say that my reaction to all this A-Rod shit is “duh!”. The reason being that Jose Canseco hasn’t lied yet and the dumb masses keep ignoring him until something comes out that tells them, “hey, maybe Canseco isn’t full of shit”. I liken it to the idiots on ID4 that appear “shocked” that Area 51 was real even after aliens have already begun invading Earth. Seriously, WTF? Some giant alien spaceships appear all over Earth and then someone says that Area 51 is real and you are shocked? Really? Doesn’t make any sense.

At this point, if Canseco claimed to stick steroid needles into the ass of Jesus I would believe him. He was right about A-Rod and he’s right about more than 2/3rds of the league using it during the early 90s. At this point, it’s non-issue to me. There’s really no way of telling who “cheated” and who didn’t so you just gotta assume that everyone did. It was “legal” in the baseball world, and, according to Canseco, more people were on it than weren’t. A-Rod used, but so did whoever is your favorite player. And, as Kevin Brown proves, it doesn’t matter if the player has muscles or not. Skinny twig bitches used steroids, too.

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There were a few good ones, but my pick for the best commercial during the Super Bowl goes to the Conan O’Brien one. It just left me in stitches.

During the Super Bowl and after one of Larry Fitzgerald’s many miraculous plays, we decided that from now on that he should be referred to as simply, “Better Than You”. The reason being that we figured that when he’s making some of these amazing catches, often with perfect coverage on him by the defensive back, that he must be thinking to himself as he’s going up for the grab, “I’m just better than you”, as he snatches the ball out of the air. He’s just been doing that kind of crap for as long as I’ve watched him play, which goes back to his college days. He’s an amazing player and thankfully he’s a class act character as well.

First, I want to say that I don’t think it effected the outcome of the game. The Steelers won and the chances are that they would’ve run even if the fumble was overturned. Nevertheless, I feel completely ripped off as a football fan that the final play for the Cards was NOT reviewed. Regardless of the outcome, the play SHOULD have been reviewed. I’m pissed that it wasn’t and  that the announcers completely ignored it despite talking about it in depth. It’s embarassing as a fan of NFL football. I feel ashamed and I feel ripped off. This could’ve been on of the greatest Super Bowls ever but it ended up a joke.

I’m proud to reveal that my company’s newly remodeled website has officially launched with our new name — Quick Hit, Inc. @ www.quickhit.com. The name of the game has also transformed from Play Hard Football to Quick Hit Football and we’ve also just announced the signing of former Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach, the legendary Bill Cowher, to be our official voice. A lot of exciting stuff is happening on the professional front and I can’t wait till you guys get to see what’s in store down the road with the game.

I’ve been meaning to blog about this but it kept slipping my mind. After doing a bunch of research and watching the UMass Division 1-AA championship game he won as a head coach, I must say that I’m feeling extremely happy with the Miami Hurricanes’ hiring of Mark Whipple to be Assistant Head Coach and Offensive Coordinator.

He seems to have a great offensive mind and his track record at UMass, Brown and New Haven on the offensive front is astonishing. The praise being thrown his way by guys like Bill Cowher and Andy Reid are also fairly significant and his former players seem to like to throw out the “genius” tag when talking about him.

The only thing that makes me have concern is the fact that it seems a bit odd for someone to be have been in the coaching business for as long as he has without getting any true big-time opportunities, especially if he’s deserving of the overly-used genius moniker. Then again, there could be numerous reasons other than lack of ability that could cause something like this to happen. It’s not like he’s getting any automatic Rooney Rule interviews.

As big of a whooping that we’re getting, it kinda makes me laugh a little amongst the tears that the Miami Dolphins’ are pretty much getting their asses knocked out of the playoffs by the Miami Hurricanes. Ed Reed’s INT return for a TD pretty much ended my hopes and then McGahee’s long burst pretty much put the final nail in the coffin. Throw in Ray Lewis’s excellent play, including his effort in causing that 19 yard loss on the reverse by Tedd Ginn, and today it’s clearly all about the “U”.  Yesterday also saw some big performances by Edge and Antrelle Rolle, so the ex-Canes have done the school proud this weekend.

After the Hurricanes’ debacle in San Fran last night, I had this feeling of impending doom about today’s Jets v Dolphins match-up. The one thing that started to give me hope earlier in the day was the fact that Drew Brees fell 16 yards short of breaking Dan Marino’s single-season passing yards record, despite the fact that Carolina almost GAVE it to him when they booted the kickoff out of bounds with just one second left on the clock. Luckily, Brees choked and threw it short on a wide open pass that would’ve got him one of Dan’s last major NFL records.

While that gave me a lot of hope, the way things were going early on in the Dolphins game had me nervous beyond belief. They were seemingly dominating the Jets, but kept making significant boneheaded mistakes. The Pennington fumble, the Ricky drop on what would’ve been a huge pass play, and the errant pass by Ronnie Brown that could’ve been a potential long TD. Throw in those and all the false starts and offsides and I was beginning to think it just wasn’t meant to be. Luckily, things started to come together. Favre started trying to put his interceptions record out of reach, and we held on to a euphoric 24-17 win.

To be quite frank, I don’t think we have any shot at all at making it to and winning the Super Bowl. We won’t likely make it out of the first round. However, after suffering through a 1-15 season last year, just making the playoffs is a huge victory for me. That said, it’s the playoffs and anything can happen. Maybe we surprise some folks, myself included, and we make a nice little run.

It’s official. Jacory Harris is my least favorite Miami Hurricane in the history of the football program. He’s been so hyped, people have been begging for him to get the start, and he finally got a big shot in tonight’s lame ass bowl game against Cal in San Francisco. He started the game off horribly, then showed some promise in the middle, and then absolutely choked down the stretch to hand the game to the weak ass Pac-10 team.

First, he fumbled inside his own god damn 5 yard line. Take care of the fucking ball you fucking moron! Just take the sack or throw it away, don’t run around with the ball loose like the world’s biggest moron. His idiotic fumble resulted in a Cal TD that gave them a 24-17 lead with 2 1/2 minutes left to play. So, he has a shot to make up for it, right? Well, yeah, except his idiotic play continued.

It began with our retarded offensive coordinator starting off with a straight run play, that netted us nothing and took some time off the clock. Then Jacory, dinked and dunked it 3 times to gain 9 yards and a first down while taking a minute and a half off the clock. Then the brainless wonder takes off running and instead of just stepping out of bounds like he had a clear shot to, he cuts it up field and takes off another 30+ seconds off the clock. He waisted 2 minutes just to gain about 15 yards. Pure genius. I hate him and blame his retarded ass for us losing to Cal.

EDIT: January 15, 2009 — Now that some time has passed, my hate for Jacory has faded. The truth is that it was a fairly meaningless bowl game that the team was expected to lose and, as is the norm with me, I often just get too worked up over any game the Hurricanes lose. I’m back to being a Jacory fan and am now anxiously awaiting for National Signing Day to see if the Canes can land another solid top 10 class!