DaveZdyrko.com

I really miss having DirecTV and NFL Sunday Ticket. I hope some day that you can get ST on ANY service provider because I simply cannot have DirecTV at my current residence so it’s not even an option. This is pissing me off something extra fierce today because I’m stuck with two completely horrible games yet again. On one channel, I have the option of watching the Pats v. Texans, which is particularly exciting today because Tom Brady has already been pulled and Brain Hoyer is playing QB. Yeah, quality NFL shit there. My 2nd option? It’s an exciting nail-biter! The Vikes are already up 24-0 on the Giants and it looks like it’s about to get worse and it’s not even half-time yet. Thank you, NFL, for making me watching these two piece of shit games that truly show off the quality of your product. Thank you!

The game I’ve been slaving away on — Quick Hit Football — made Game Pro’s list of the Top 15 Sports Games of 2009! We still got a lot of work to do, but I hope we can come through with something that’ll be truly amazing.

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!

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.

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.

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.

I had to “watch” the game via Gamecast because the Pats were the only game on at 1PM today, but the Dolphins game against the Chiefs drove me crazy nevertheless. Thankfully, I was able to follow it while blowing shit up in Mercenaries 2 or I might’ve gone insane. They managed to pull yet another rabbit out of their hat and are now the first team in history to win 10 games in a season following one which they won 1 or less.

I’m still a bit pessimistic about their chances at beating the Jets, but it’s pretty simple for them — if they win they’re AFC East champs and in the playoffs, if they don’t, they’re most likely left out in the cold. After last year’s 1-15 disaster, I honestly couldn’t have wished for anything better than this. I’m proud of them either way and it’s been a very fun year of watching them play.