Interesting football stats of the week

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Stats of the Week No. 1: Since Jan. 2012 in the playoffs, Green Bay is 0-5 versus the Giants and Forty Niners, 12-3 versus all other teams.

Stats of the Week No. 2: Terrelle Pyror had 329 of the Raiders' 372 offensive yards.

Stats of the Week No. 3: Home teams Carolina, Cleveland, Jacksonville and Pittsburgh combined to score 28 points.

Stats of the Week No. 4: In the season's opener, Ravens at Broncos, there were a combined 780 yards passing and 123 yards rushing.

Stats of the Week No. 5: Since Bill Belichick arrived, the Patriots are 26-3 versus the Bills and have outscored them by 352 points.

Stats of the Week No. 6: The Browns (2.0) are 1-14 in openers.

Stats of the Week No. 7: At 1:59 p.m. Eastern on Sept. 8, 2013, the Oakland Raiders scored their first rushing touchdown since October 2012.

Stats of the Week No. 8: Green Bay has gone 44 regular season games without a 100-yard rusher.

Stats of the Week No. 9: Stretching back to the playoffs, consecutive Falcons games have ended with Atlanta failing on fourth-and-goal with seconds remaining.

Stats of the Week No. 10: Andrew Luck has appeared in 18 NFL games, and has already led seven fourth-quarter comeback victories.

Another picture that not all my Facebook friends want to see,but some of you will find funny

Man I'm gonna have to come up with something fast and believable

A picture that not a lot of ppl will find funny,but I did

After you realize there is nothing you can do for the deer,this was kinda terrible but brilliant at the same time

Science is better than religion

- In your piece you write, that “Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know.” In fact, mainstream scientific thought has sometimes been wrong, and it is constantly changing and revising itself. So how can you be so sure that science supports your belief that God does not exist?

Ricky Gervais: Science doesn’t concern itself with the non-existence of something. The periodic table of imaginary things would be too big for a classroom- infinitely big in fact, and rather pointless. It’s not trying to prove the non-existence of anything supernatural. All it knows is there is no scientific proof of anything supernatural so far. When someone presents a jar of God it will test it. If it finds some evidence of “godness” it will follow the evidence till it knows everything it can.

The fact that science can say “we don’t know” is exactly my point. Science doesn’t start with a set of convenient conclusions and try to justify them. It follows evidence. In fact, it tries to prove itself wrong. When it can’t, it’s right. Superstition, religion and blind faith cherry pick the evidence and justify the results by changing the goal posts. There are no cover-ups in science. For better or worse it finds stuff out. It has no moral code as such. It leaves those decisions to society. It discovers life saving drugs but leaves it up to you whether to use them or not. It discovers that splitting the atom can release a massive amount of energy very quickly and leaves it up to governments to try it out or not. It finds out what and how and why. It asks can we? Not should we? This is why it baffles me that some god fearers believe that without a god there is no reason to be good. Really?

Another great Ricky gervais response

- @rickygervais: “@Julwee: atheists are more annoying than Jehovas Witness + Scientologists + war + famine”

"The Lord God made them all"
sing along...haha

Why are ppl so against atheism

- I find it odd that so many ppl believe in god without any proof,I'm not saying I don't believe because there is no proof,I don't believe in god because is so absurd to think a super-being created us when there is so much evidence against that notion.
A lot of the founding fathers wanted to get rid of religion cause it was deemed useless.
A lot of the educated people in this world are atheist.
Here is a Ricky gervais quote:“@rickygervais: Why chose something like evolution to deny? Way too much evidence. U look stupid. Chose something with no evidence to deny. That's what I do”

Government at it's best

-5...4...3...2...1... Liftoff for More Government Waste: One reason the national debt keeps getting worse is lack of cost discipline in government programs. Officials know that no matter how poorly they perform, Congress will always give them more money, while no one is ever fired for screwing up. If anything the incentive is to drag feet: Poor performance is rewarded with additional years of funding.

Case in point: NASA's preposterous Webb Space Telescope project. It was announced in 2002 as a project that would cost $1.2 billion (all figures in this item are in current dollars) and launch no later than 2010. In 2006, NASA said the cost had risen to $2.6 billion and the launch date slipped to 2014. In 2008, NASA said the cost was up to $5.2 billion. Last week NASA told Congress that it needs $8.7 billion for the project and cannot launch before 2018.

The new price reflects a sevenfold cost overrun in a single decade. No private business would tolerate such nonsense. Yet no one at NASA or its contractors has been fired or even disciplined for this bungling. Congress just keeps shoveling the money.

If the Webb launches in 2018, that would mean: 16 years just to build a space probe! During that very long period, hundreds of NASA middle managers and their aerospace- contractor counterparts will be handsomely paid to push paperwork about the Webb. The longer they drag the project out -- that is, the worse they perform -- the longer they are well-paid for accomplishing nothing. Former NASA executive Alan Stern told The Washington Post that endless streams of funding increases for bloated projects such as the Webb "rewards bad management." Rewarding bad management is one of the few things Congress is good at!

In a classic Washington bit of make-believe, the House of Representatives appeared to cancel the top-heavy Webb telescope project last spring, zeroing it out of a budget bill. This was when Barack Obama and John Boehner were swearing they would reduce government spending. Canceling the Webb was among the few specific examples of actual savings mentioned by either. This week, the Senate is expected to add back $500 million for the "canceled" project. Much of the work on the Webb is being done in Maryland, and Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski has dutifully carried water for every NASA money request. Mikulski argues that Webb spending creates jobs. So would hiring people to dig holes and then fill them up. Government should either create jobs that are beneficial to society, or cut spending so that Americans can make their own decisions about how resources should be allocated. Creating wasteful jobs is a negative for society.

Bear in mind, it's only 2011. NASA says the new space telescope won't launch for another seven years. There's plenty of time for the price to balloon even more. NASA managers know that no matter how much public money they toss out the window, there will never be any form of discipline.

NASA is not a major part of government -- just half of 1 percent of federal spending. But if Congress cannot impose cost discipline on even this relatively small endeavor, how can Congress ever tackle a $14 trillion debt?

In other NASA news, the agency recently announced plans for a new heavy-lift rocket. Expect the Mississippi congressional delegation to support the project regardless of cost, since the primary engineering work would be done in that state.

The heavy lifter of the Apollo program was called the Saturn V, a wonderfully evocative name. The new rocket is to be called the Space Launch System. I am not making that up -- NASA is so poorly run that it can no longer even come up with good names. NASA might as well have dubbed the project the Big Thing With Flames Coming Out. Amusingly, the agency is touting the planned rocket as "affordable" though the initial price tag is $18 billion. And that's just the lowball. NASA knows that if the program is authorized, then unlimited cost overruns will be approved by Congress.

Speaking of Congress, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows an all-time-low 9 percent of Americans believe Congress is doing a good job. The 9 percent -- who are these crackpots?

Time to change the celebration rule

Watching the ref watching the player after a touchdown to make sure he doesn't celebrate too much is funny-Adventures in Officiating: Scoring on a pick-six against Oakland, Brandon Flowers of Kansas City briefly put his foot on the ball and flexed his muscles. He was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct for "using the football as a prop." Celebration penalties have become ridiculous. Taunting should be penalized, but what's wrong with celebrating? The game is, at heart, entertainment. There is no reason players should not entertain the audience by dancing after a score. Plus, the rule is enforced inconsistently. In the Rams at Dallas contest, Dez Bryant used the ball as a prop to celebrate a touchdown, and there was no yellow. The only way to make enforcement of the celebration rule consistent would be to penalize any show of emotion following a touchdown. That, of course, would be silly. If consistent enforcement of a rule would be silly, the rule is silly.

Who comes up with these movies,nothing to go watch

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I Coulda Been a Computer: The new flick "Real Steel" posits that robots replace people in prizefighting. Presumably, in the tradition of feel-good boxing films, the hero robot, Atom, will be a 1-to-100 underdog against an unbeatable champion. Then by winning, he will gain the affection of a pretty girl robot.

Obviously "willing suspension of disbelief" is required for a movie like this. What seems striking about "Real Steel" is not the implausible premise, but that the action is supposed to occur in 2020. In this flick, just nine years from now, not only will gigantic fighting robots be common in American cities -- Hugh Jackman will find the parts for Atom by scrounging through a junkyard, because well before the year 2020, gigantic used robots are already being tossed out as trash.

As TMQ has noted, Hollywood tends to assume technological advances happening too soon to be probable. The movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," released in 1968, had Pan Am commercial flights to orbit in the year 2001. "Blade Runner," released in 1982, was set in 2019, and depicted super-advanced cyborgs plus colonization of planets in other star systems. "I, Robot," released in 2004, was set in 2035 and had armies of super-strong sentient, clairvoyant robots. Maybe there someday will be boxing robots that trash-talk with each other during weigh-ins. But it's not going to happen in nine years.

Oh those Eagles

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It’s official: The Eagles (1-4) are in major trouble. They have lost four straight. Their run defense is still woeful. They committed five turnovers Sunday. What would have been a great comeback for the Eagles fell short when Michael Vick threw his fourth interception on the Eagles’ final drive with less than two minutes to play. The interception was not Vick’s fault. His pass ricocheted off the hands of Eagles receiver Jason Avant and Bills corner Drayton Florence into the arms of Bills linebacker Nick Barnett.

However, all the Eagles—Vick, the coaches and all the players—deserve blame for a season that is coming unglued. The Eagles’ final error was almost comical. On fourth-and-1, with 1:23 left to play, the Bills coaxed Eagles defensive end Juqua Parker into jumping offside, allowing the Bills to maintain possession and run out the clock. It's an embarrassing mistake in what has been an embarrassing season for the Eagles.

Coach Andy Reid was desperate enough to call for an onside kick to start the second half, with his team already trailing 21-7. These are indeed desperate times for the Eagles.

Halladay gets no run support in a 1-0 loss

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PHILADELPHIA -- There had been so much hope and excitement in February, when the Phillies assembled their rotation for the ages in a once-in-a-lifetime news conference at Bright House Field in Clearwater, Fla.

The 2011 team could have been the greatest in franchise history.

But a once-promising season ended in crushing disappointment Friday night when the Phillies lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 5 of the National League Division Series at Citizens Bank Park, 1-0. The ending was a startling contrast to those joyous moments in Spring Training: Ryan Howard collapsing to the ground as he made the final out of the season, likely tearing his left Achilles tendon; and Roy Halladay, sitting at his locker for more than 20 minutes after the game before slowly removing his uniform for the final time.

Heartbreak. Disappointment. How could this have happened?

"The hard part is you think about all the hard work you put in over the course of the year, all the anticipation, all the excitement," Halladay said. "You have two days leading up to the game today, knowing how big the game is going to be. All of a sudden that kind of dissipates. It's tough. It's hard to have it end like that. You always want to finish happy."

The Phillies -- who finished the regular season with a franchise-record 102 wins and the best record in baseball -- not only failed to win the World Series, they failed to advance past the first round of the postseason for the first time since 2007.

Halladay deserved better. He allowed six hits, one run, one walk and struck out seven in eight innings. He pitched brilliantly.

The Cardinals scored their only run in the first inning. Halladay allowed a leadoff triple to Rafael Furcal, which has been Halladay's glaring statistical anomaly this season. Leadoff hitters in the first inning hit .484 (16-for-33) with one walk against him. Furcal might have caught a break on the play when center fielder Shane Victorino appeared to miss the cutoff man. If Victorino had hit his mark, Furcal might have been thrown out at third base, although manager Charlie Manuel was not convinced it was possible.

Halladay deserves to win a world series ring

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PHILADELPHIA -- Roy Halladay is a man of few words, not one to divulge much about his anxiety after Lance Berkman hit a towering three-run home run to right field, or his relief when Ryan Howard returned the favor and validated Halladay's effort to keep his team in the game on Saturday.

The day before he pitched the Phillies to an 11-6 victory over the Cardinals in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, Halladay was unsure how to answer a question about respecting a red-hot lineup, yet remaining competitive and attacking.

So Halladay recited Shakespeare: "I came here to bury Caesar, not praise him."

Et tu, Berkman?

The moment Berkman's home run to right field in the first inning led Halladay to spike the rosin bag behind the mound could not have been a greater juxtaposition from Halladay's last appearance in the 2010 NLDS against the Reds. Then, he wrapped his arms around catcher Carlos Ruiz, and teammates danced on Halladay's mound after the veteran right-hander joined the ranks of baseball immortals by throwing the second no-hitter in postseason history.

"I couldn't think of a worse start, really, than putting your team in a hole like that," Halladay said. "You get to this point, you're not going to pack it in. And I feel like sometimes, you get in those situations, you try and do too much, and it continues to get worse."

Said Phillies manager Charlie Manuel: "He was kind of like a Rocky movie. He got mad after he gave up the homer. That ticked him off, and he hung in there, and he got going. But he's special. He's everything that people talk about."

Halladay had a 3.66 ERA in first innings this season. From the second inning on, it was 2.14. After Berkman's home run, Halladay retired 23 of his last 24 batters, allowing only a single by Skip Schumaker in the second and sending down the final 21. Rafael Furcal's left-field flyout to end the eighth was the only ball hit out of the infield after Schumaker's hit.

"If you get three runs in less than nine innings against the guy, you've actually made him do worse than he normally does," Berkman said. "That's how good he is. That's why he's making $22 million a year, and that's why people consider him the best in the game."

Halladay was rewarded. Howard's three-run home run in the Phillies' five-run sixth gave them the lead, and Raul Ibanez capped the big inning with a two-run homer to give Halladay cushion he didn't need.

"I know he's in the room, so I don't want to swell his head too much, but that was huge," Halladay said of Howard. "It's starting to get late in the game, and one swing of the bat, you're up. We were able to add on after that, which made my job a lot easier."

Sox are unraveling

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BOSTON -- Terry Francona's memorable run as manager of the Red Sox, during which he guided the club to its first two World Series championships since 1918, came to an end.

"We met with Terry Francona, Theo Epstein and Ben Cherington Friday morning to discuss the 2011 season, ways to improve the club in the future, and Tito's status," the Red Sox said in a statement. "During the meeting, Tito, Theo and Ben agreed that the Red Sox would benefit from an improved clubhouse culture and higher standards in several areas. Tito said that after eight years here he was frustrated by his difficulty making an impact with the players, that a different voice was needed, and that it was time for him to move on. After taking time to reflect on Tito's sentiments, we agreed that it was best for the Red Sox not to exercise the option years on his contract.

"We have enormous respect, admiration and appreciation for Tito and the job that he did for eight years, including two World Series Championship seasons and five playoff appearances. His poise during the 2004 post-season was a key factor in the greatest comeback in baseball history, and his place in Red Sox history will never be forgotten. We wish him only the best going forward."

The Red Sox had until Oct. 8 to decide whether to exercise the $4.25 million option they held on Francona's contract for 2012.

RedSox may be looking for a new coach

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NEW YORK – These men are hired for these jobs in baseball, to manage ballgames for a few hours a night and try not to do anything so stupid that it gets in the way of the actual baseball players.

For the other 21 hours, well, that”s the hard part.

Following a Thursday press conference (that followed a 7-20 September) in which Boston Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein admitted there were issues with player conditioning and preparation, numerous outlets reported Friday morning that manager Terry Francona would not return for his ninth season in Boston.

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The Red Sox had only six wins in September.
(Getty Images)
If true, Francona would not be fired, technically, but his option for the 2012 season would not be exercised.

Francona met Friday morning with owner John Henry, upper management and Epstein, after which the club released a statement that read, in part, “We all plan on taking some time to process the thoughts expressed in the meeting. There are no immediate plans for an announcement.”

Francona left the meeting without comment for waiting reporters. The statement, the events of September, and the end-of-season debriefing apparently would stand for another news cycle.

Francona and Epstein had sat shoulder-to-shoulder Thursday afternoon in a small room at Fenway Park. Each was bent a little at the neck, each crossed his arms across his chest, each blinked at the table too much.

They were miserable. One, or both, seemed on his way out. For good. That much was clear.

Out there, past the old brick of their ballpark, across the ruins of their season, the New York Yankees – the stinkin” Yankees – were readying for October, like seven other teams.

But not the Red Sox, the $165-million Red Sox, the hugely favored Red Sox, the collapsible Red Sox.

How much would you pay for a caught ball?The Sox paid 100 million for a dropped one

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BALTIMORE -- Carl Crawford's Wednesday night could not have been laden with more irony, disappointment or circularity.

It was a ball that just eluded the glove of a sliding Crawford in the ninth inning that plated the winning run for the Orioles, the team whose 4-3 victory was part one of two outcomes that eliminated the Red Sox from reaching the postseason.

With the game tied at 3 and the winning run on second base, Robert Andino hit a liner to left off Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon that Crawford charged. He went into a feet-first slide, keeping his glove low to the ground on the glove-side of his body, his right, but he couldn't snag it.

It was eerily similar to a play from two days earlier that Crawford also could not make, in a 6-3 loss to the O's.

"It was low, so I knew that I had to just try to slide," Crawford said of Wednesday's attempt. "I couldn't dive. I had to try to get up under it, and I wasn't able to. I had to try to make a sliding catch. I couldn't come up with it, though."

The ball stopped dead next to Crawford's glove. He sprung to his feet and fired home, but the throw was well off the mark -- he might not have had a chance to catch Nolan Reimold at the plate anyway -- and the Red Sox walked off in shock.

Time to shift to my playoff team..go Phillies

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Roy Halladay started the Phillies' last postseason with a no-hitter, and he'll have the chance to get his team off to a great October start once again.

To the surprise of no one, the veteran right-hander and 2010 National League Cy Young Award winner was confirmed, in the typical homespun manner of Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel, as the Game 1 starter of the Phillies' upcoming NL Division Series against the Wild Card-champion St. Louis Cardinals, slated for Saturday at Citizens Bank Park.

"I think if you're good baseball people, you should be able to see how we're setting it up," Manuel said. "I shouldn't have to answer that."

He shouldn't, because the numbers speak for themselves. Halladay, who went 19-6 with a 2.35 ERA this season, went 2-1 with a 2.45 ERA, including the opening-game no-no, in last year's postseason run.

He'll be followed by left-hander Cliff Lee, who went 17-8 with a 2.40 ERA and a Major League-leading six shutouts this year. The Game 3 and Game 4 starters are expected to be lefty Cole Hamels (14-9, 2.75) and Roy Oswalt (8-10, 3.86), respectively.

Halladay's last start of the regular season came last Saturday, Sept. 24, at Citi Field against the Mets. He earned his 19th victory by pitching six scoreless innings, allowing four hits and one walk and striking out three. It was a strong tuneup for this coming Saturday, which gives him six days of rest before his team's 2011 postseason lid-lifter.

He expressed confidence in his team's chances after that win.

"It's nice to go in [to the postseason] on a strong finish, even though that doesn't always determine how things are going to work out," Halladay said.

Put away the bats and grab your golf clubs

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BALTIMORE -- The Red Sox had their bags packed for either a one-game playoff at Tropicana Field, or even better, a trip to Texas to start the American League Division Series. But by the end of one final unraveling, they had nowhere to go but home.

This, after the worst September collapse in baseball history.

A surreal month ended in jarring fashion, the Red Sox suffering a walk-off 4-3 loss to the last-place Baltimore Orioles with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

"We should have won that game," said slugger David Ortiz, "but it seemed like everything was going in the wrong direction. So many things happened that you think about -- you're very disappointed."

One strike away from victory, ace closer Jonathan Papelbon couldn't finish off the Orioles, who beat the Red Sox five times in seven games over the final two weeks. Nolan Reimold drilled a ground-rule RBI double to tie the game, and Robert Andino followed with the crushing capper, a line-drive single that Carl Crawford trapped, and then dropped.

"You get in that situation, you hope things go your way. It's a game of inches," Papelbon said.

And that was how Boston's 7-20 September ended, and shortly thereafter, the season.

A.500 team

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CHICAGO -- The Blue Jays' 2011 campaign came to an end on Wednesday afternoon with a ninth-inning comeback in a 3-2 victory over the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field.

Toronto entered the ninth trailing by a run, but loaded the bases against left-hander Chris Sale and scored the tying and go-ahead runs on back-to-back walks.

The Blue Jays' year comes to a close with an 81-81 record under the guidance of rookie manager John Farrell. It marks the fourth time in eight seasons the club has finished at least at .500, but the mark is down from an 85-77 record in 2010.

What if the Rays and the Sox are still tied after tonight

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An actual must win game...The contingency plans are set. Major League Baseball has set up start times for potential Wild Card tiebreakers in both leagues as the regular season comes to an end. Either or both of those games would be played Thursday, the day before the American League playoffs start.

If the Red Sox and Rays finish in a tie for the American League Wild Card, a play-in game would be set for Thursday at 4:07 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field. The Rays went 12-6 against Boston in the regular-season series to earn home-field advantage for the tiebreaker.

Ozzy is out

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CHICAGO -- After eight seasons, two American League Central titles, one World Series championship and countless entertaining moments on the South Side of Chicago, the White Sox agreed to manager Ozzie Guillen's request to be released from his contract. The move allowed the manager to pursue other opportunities.

Guillen is expected to be named the next manager of the Marlins, possibly as soon as Wednesday. Marlins manager Jack McKeon announced earlier Monday that he will retire when the season ends. Guillen had prepared a statement for his blog, "Ozzie Speaks," in the event that a deal with the Marlins became official, but that has not yet happened. The post was inadvertently published for five minutes late Monday night.