Category Archives: Football

Holiday Horrors: The Giants Sing Holiday Halftime

For other Holiday Horrors posts, click here.

When you think of sports teams recording songs, you no doubt think of the Golden Era of Athletic Musicianship: The 1980s. “The Superbowl Shuffle”. “Let’s Go Mets”. That Jamaican bobsled song. True classics that have stood the test of time.

But there were several earlier instances of a team lending their golden pipes to musical projects. In 1969, all 28 NFL teams recorded a collection of holiday favorites. If the cover of this version is any indication, the project was initiated by the players’ union, not the NFL itself. You’ll also notice that Santa loves good ol’ smash mouth football, as he tries to gouge out a running back’s eyes.

I have only heard one song from one of these collections: “Jingle Bells”, as sung by the New York Giants on The Giants Sing Holiday Halftime. In the early 70s, Jean Shepherd often used this song as bed music while be told a Christmas tale, and sometimes just played it straight up.

I will give the Giants this: They certainly sounded like they were into it. Though the spirit might have been willing, the throats were weak. Very weak. Especially since the arranger decided to modulate the song to higher and higher keys as it went along, a decision that stretched the Giants’ already limited singing skills past their breaking points. I would say they should’ve stuck to their day jobs, but they weren’t that great at that, either; the Giants went 6-8 in 1969.

You can hear the original tune at the Jean Shepherd fan site FlickLives.com by clicking here. They also have a clip of Shep explaining why he enjoyed playing it so much, which you can listen to here (although he misidentifies the offending team as the Jets).

Strange Anomaly Renders Monday Night Football Speechless

mnf.jpgMINNEAPOLIS–Football fans tuning in to Monday night’s battle between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings, which featured Brett Favre’s first start against his former team, were treated to long stretches of silence. The culprit, according to scientists, was a psycho-energetic anomaly known as a “word squall” that rendered ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast team incapable of speaking the phrase, “He’s just having fun out there!”

“We’re still not sure what causes the word squall phenomenon,” said University of Minnesota physicist Jeff Gunderson. “Our theory is, sometimes the atmosphere is so filled with a certain series of words that it literally becomes saturated with them. In the leadup to the Packers/Vikings game, so many people had spoken that particular phrase that the air could not handle it any more.”

Unable to physically utter those words proved trying for the play-by-play men. During the second quarter, Mike Tirico stammered, “Favre…looks…looks like…it kinda seems as if he’s…enjoying himself…on the field.”

As the teams headed to the locker rooms for halftime, Jon Gruden had similar difficulty. Each time he attempted to say the word “fun”, it came out as “funicular”. “I have no idea what that word means,” he said. “Jaws, I’m scared.” Ron Jaworski attempted to calm down Gruden by mentioning how much game film of Favre he’d watched over the years.

The situation came to a head in the game’s waning minutes, as Favre aired out a pass to a receiver deep down field that fell incomplete. Unable to explain such a play by means other than a phrase they could not say, the broadcast trio began foaming at the mouth, then collapsed in a heap. All three were rushed to nearby hospitals and are listed in stable condition.

Gunderson said that the word squall seemed to have passed sometime last night, sufficiently enough for Dick Vitale to use the phrase 742 times on Mike and Mike in the Morning. But this remains one of the worst incidents he’s ever seen. “Almost as bad as last year, when we had one involving the phrase ‘oh what a play by Jeter!’, and Michael Kay had an aneurysm.”

Bill Belichick: GOTOPressConference

belichick_PC.jpgCoach, the Patriots didn’t put up any points at all in the second half, and they were limited to three field goals in the first half. Was that due to the Jets’ defense, or is Tom Brady still rusty?

They have a good team no doubt. They have some players on that team, and those players executed.

Coach, did you feel your team was sufficiently prepared to play the Jets this week, or did your players maybe take this game for granted?

Our players always come to play. We don’t take any opponent for granted. This team needs to execute.

Coach, even though Julian Edelman had a good day, do you think the absence of Wes Welker hurt the Patriots?

Everyone who played came here to play, and that is why sanitize on the pancake drip.

Huh?

Salmon fish stain curbstone Archuleta.

Patriots PR Man: Sorry, folks. We just upgraded his operating system, and it’s a little buggy.

BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME

Patriots PR Man: Here, let me try force quit…

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO QUIT ‘BELICHICKOTRON-2003’?

Patriots PR Man: Yes. Ugh, I hate this. Just watching the little CPU Usage register…I hope the file recovery feature works this time.

YOU CHOSE TO QUIT THE PROGRAM. DO YOU WANT TO SEND AN ERROR MESSAGE?

Patriots PR Man: No. Does anybody read those things? Now, let’s see if this works…

EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

Patriots PR Man: Oops, had it set on Dalek. Okay, here we go.

Execute. Execute. We need to execute. And also execute.

Patriots PR Man: There, back normal. Let me know if his casing gets too hot. Sometimes the hooded sweatshirt blocks his vent and he gets overheated.