YES! YES! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE IS BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!! Excuse me while my peeps and I celebrate…
As far as predictions go, I have my 9ERS and the Broncos in the Super Bowl. This year I will finally be able to call us the SAN FRANSIXCO 49ERS!!!!!!
Still loving my PANTHERS too…
Whoop whoooop!!! It is not football season but hey at least we have the 2013 NFL S.chedule!!! I have some planning to do :-}.
Below, I have listed the most intriguing game or games of each week. Let me know what you think!
Week 1: Seahawks @ Panthers. Russell vs Cam. Yes!! Packers @ 49ers. Second year in a row these two teams have met in week 1. Should be another good one. Ravens @ Broncos. Now this is an interesting matchup. Interested to see how the Ravens look after having that yard sale in the off season.
Week 2: 49ers @ Seahawks. Kaepernick vs Russell. 49ers D vs Seahawks O. 49ers O vs Seahawks D. Nuff said.
Week 3: Chiefs @ Eagles. Andy Reid going back to Philly will be the big story. I am interested to see how these teams bounce back after disappointing seasons last year. Texans @ Ravens. For reasons other than Ed Reed going back to Baltimore, I think this matchup will show us a lot about these two teams
Week 4: 49ers @ Rams. Lets hope the game does not end in a tie, again! Seahawks @ Texans. Once again, two prolific D’s are featured. Looking forward to seeing if the Seahawks O-Line can contain the Texans JJ Watt. Bears @ Lions. The Lions Stephen Tulloch predicts that the Lions will bounce back this season. We will see.
Week 5: Chiefs @ Titans. Yeah, no one pays these teams any attention but hey it could be a good game! Broncos @ Cowboys. By week 5, we ought to know which Cowboys team we are dealing with. Texans @ 49ers. How can you not be excited about this game?
Week 6: Giants @ Bears. The Bears have been underachieving for a few years. Lets see if they can bounce back. Redskins @ Cowboys. Romo better win this game. I mean his $108 million dollar arm should be able to do it, right? Colts @ Chargers. I keep holding out hope that things will turn around for Philip Rivers out in Diego. Keeping my fingers crossed!
Week 7: Bears @ Redskins. This has the potential to be a great matchup. Then again, it has the potential to be a blowout. Broncos @ Colts. Peyton’s singing, “I’m coming home. I’m coming home. Tell the world, I’m coming home!!!” Ravens @ Steelers. One of the best rivalries in the game right now. Lets hope it does not lose its luster with all these roster changes.
Week 8: Redskins @ Broncos. I fully expect #18 to slice and dice the Redskins D. Love watching “The Surgeon” work.
Week 9: Steelers @ Patriots. Everyone is always gunning for the Patriots. The Steelers are no different. Colts @ Texans. Interested to see what young Andrew Luck can do against that Texans D. Bears @ Packers. Another classic rivalry.
Week 10: Seahawks @ Falcons. I am sure the Seahwaks want payback for losing their NFC Divisional game to the Falcons with less than a minute left. Still shaking my head on that one. Panthers @ 49ers. My two favorite teams. Go 9ers! Go Panthers!
Week 11: Jets @ Bills. Welp, for years these teams have been pretty terrible. Not expecting it to be any different this year sooo yeah, should be a good game! Falcons @ Bucs. I think the Bucs are going to be a much better team this year. They could challenge for the NFC South crown. 49ers @ Saints. Hope they are not already dishing out Kaepernick payments.
Week 12: Saints @ Falcons. Another NFC South matchup. Broncos @ Patriots. Peyton vs Brady. Yep, that is all you need to know. 49ers @ Redskins. Kaepernick vs Griffin III. Yep, that is all you need to know.
Week 13: Packers @ Lions. I hope this is a good matchup. Watch, one of these teams is going to be not so good. Haha. Saints @ Seahawks. Can not remember the last time I have seen the Saints play in Seattle. Lets see how they handle the 12th man. Jaguars @ Browns. Another one of those these teams typically are not very good so this matchup should be.
Week 14: Seahawks @ 49ers. At this point in the season, this game could very well decide who wins the NFC West.
Week 15: Texans @ Colts. At this point in the season, this game could very well decide who wins the AFC South. Ravens @ Lions. I am just interested to see what the Ravens look like at this point in the season.
Week 16: Falcons @ 49ers. At this point in the season, this game could very well decide who gets is the #1 seed in the NFC. Plus, the Falcons are probably still bitter from last year’s NFC Championship debacle. Bucs @ Rams. The Rams were slowly improving last year. Too bad no one paid them any attention.
Week 17: Redskins @ Giants Eagles @ Cowboys NFC East matchups! Could the division title be decided the last week of the season???
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALLLLLLLLLL??!!
October 26, 1993. I still remember the breaking news from the sporting world that day. It was the day the Carolina Panthers were born and it was also the day I became a fan. In case you missed the memo, yes I am a 9ers and a Panthers fan regardless of what you say. You still can not question my fanhood!!! On this same day, I watched Jerry Richardson, owner of the Panthers, guarantee that the team would win a SuperBowl within their first 10 years of existence.
Fast forward to February 1, 2004, nine years after the Panthers first season(the Panthers started playing in 1995), SuperBowl XXXVIII(38). The Carolina Panthers vs. the New England Patriots. Could my Panthers really keep Jerry’s promise? After the way things had unfolded for my Panthers in the playoffs, anything was possible.
My Panthers easily dismissed the Dallas Cowboys in the first round to advance to a divisional playoff meeting with the St. Louis Rams. My Panthers were leading by 11 with three minutes to go when the improbable happened. The Rams tied the game!! In what will go down as one of the most exciting games I have ever watched, my Panthers managed to get the job done on the first play of the second overtime. QB Jake Delhomme hit WR Steve Smith in stride, the middle of the field for a 69 yard TD to send my Panthers to the NFC Championship. The clip of Delhomme celebrating that TD will never get old. Classic Jake :-}.
Next up was the opponent that stood between my Panthers and the SuperBowl, the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles would play without their workhorse RB, Brian Westbrook and would later lose QB Donovan McNabb during the game due to an injury. My Panthers won 14-3 to advance to the big game.
Besides the fact that my team was playing in the game, one of the main reasons that this game stands out is because I was in Charlotte to watch the game. A friend was invited down by another friend and my friend invited me to come as well. Keep in mind that I lived a little over two hours from Charlotte and I had to be at work at 8:30 the next morning but of course that was not going to stop me from going to Charlotte for the anticipated celebration. We ate. We laughed. We cheered. We covered our eyes when Janet played peek-a-boo. And with about three minutes to go and the game tied, we began to prepare for the trip to downtown Charlotte to celebrate Jerry’s promise. We had full confidence in our team. Then former Patriot Adam Vinatieri happened. With four seconds left, he shattered the dreams of Jerry and millions of Panthers fans along the East Coast with a swift kick that sent the ball through the uprights and sent the New England Patriots home with the Lombardi Trophy.
As I drove home that night, well morning, I began to laugh because I could only imagine what time I would have been leaving Charlotte if we had won. I wondered what I would have told my supervisor when he would have caught me sleeping at my desk. I decided I would have told him the truth. He knew I was a die hard and he was a great sport when he lost our bet during the NFC Championship game(he was an Eagles fan). If we had won, I surely would not have been productive that day but it would have been well worth it!!!
The news that came out of Kansas City Saturday morning shook me to my core.
At first the news was very vague. Kansas City player commits suicide. My stomach churned when I read it. As the hours passed, the news got worse. The player shot and killed his girlfriend that morning. Stomach churned. The player committed suicide at the team facility. Stomach churned. The player committed suicide in front of his head coach and the general manager. Stomach churned hard. The player thanked his coach and general manager for all they had done for him before he committed suicide. Stomach churned hard, again. As a result of the player’s actions, a three month old girl is now an orphan. Tears fell.
The story read like something out of Hollywood. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy and girl have baby. Boy and girl lives end tragically. Only this was happening in real life and real lives have been impacted forever, including mine. Sounds kind of crazy, right? It was hard to escape the news of the story on Saturday. It was all over the internet and tv. Family and friends were talking about it. Strangers were talking about it. While no one could seem to grasp what happened, everyone seemed to be asking the same question: why?
Why would a 25 year old NFL player commit such a heinous act? Why would he leave his child in this world with no parent to raise her? Why would he commit suicide in front of his coach? Why? Why? Why? Unfortunately, the why’s will probably never get answered. We will probably never know why the player decided on Saturday morning that life was no longer worth living. As I have skimmed the internet over the past 48 hours, I have seen plenty of comments calling the player a punk, a coward and a murderer, the latter which is true. While the situation is beyond my understanding, I have been compelled to experience sympathy for the player who had a lot of life to live. From what has been reported by the people who knew him, he was confident, happy, quiet and a true gentleman. Many have expressed that they saw no signs that the player was troubled or suicidal. The irony lies in the fact that before the player went into that place that those who knew him had not seen, he was true to his known character, thanking his coach and GM for what they had done.
If you really sit and think about it, you may be compelled to sympathize the way I have. The player had to truly be in a deep, dark hole to not even see a glimmer of hope. A hole so deep that at that point in time, his daughter, whom by all accounts was the love of his life, was not even worth living for anymore. The thought of a hole that deep leaves a lump in my throat. Can you imagine being in a hole like that? It makes my heart ache. I have wondered if this was a result of something in his past that has scarred him. I have wondered if he felt he could not talk to anyone about what he was experiencing. I have wondered if he felt that as a man he could not express how he was feeling. Often I hear men say that they are taught that they have to be strong and not show a lot of emotion. Well, I think that is silly. Showing emotion does not make you any less of a man. In my opinion, NOT being able to show emotion makes you a weaker man. There is nothing wrong with a man crying., There is nothing wrong with a man admitting he is struggling with a particular situation. There is nothing wrong with a man asking for help. NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
We live in a world where everyone is suppose to be strong. No one is suppose to hurt. We live in a world where we are so caught up in ourselves that we do not make time for the people who are important to us. We think they will always be here. We live in a world where we are too busy to pick up the phone and have a conversation. We have time for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram though. We live in a world where if we do not understand a situation, we like to make assumptions and jump to conclusions. We rarely take the time to truly assess the situation. This is the kind of world that squeezes people and leaves them feeling like there is no hope. This is the kind of world that leaves people feeling helpless. This is the kind of world that leaves people feeling like the only way it will get better is if they are not here. That is the kind of world that we live in but there is another side of the world that shows its face. This world is a good place with good people with good intentions.
Remember when I said earlier that this situation impacted my life? I am a very strong, independent woman. Just ask my mama. Or my aunt. Or my cousins. Or my best friends. I do not like to ask for help. I do not like to talk a lot about issues or situations that are bothering me. I do not like for people to see me cry. I know there is nothing wrong with being vulnerable but I do not like it. It is human nature to be that way but that does not mean it is right. We all play a role in this world and a couple of years ago I learned my role. Upon the revelation, I vowed to become more open about things that are going on and to not be ashamed of trials I have had to endure on the way to my destiny. However, this situation made me realize that I have a lot more growing to do. I will never be an open book to the public. Wait, let me refrain from saying never. I do not know if I will ever be an open book to the public but I have renewed that vow I made to myself years ago. I owe it to myself and those who love me. So do you.
The deaths of Kasandra Perkins and Jovan Belcher should be a wake up call for us all. A call to talk. A call to reach out. A call to love. A call to share. A call to care. A call to love. A call to action. Lets all do our part to answer the ringing that we hear. Someone’s life could be on the line.
Hey! Hey! Hey!! Welp, I did not like the way I structured The Weekender last week so I am back to my old format. Here we go!
All it took was three days for “The Lake Show” to implode. They fried Coach Mike Brown on Friday, let rumors swirl that Phil Jackson was coming back then announced the hiring of Mike D’Antoni this morning. I have no words.
The Falcons fell from the ranks of the unbeaten. Mercury Morris popped open another bottle of champagne.
My 9ers tied the Rams, 24-24. Yes, I said TIED!
Texas A&M went into Tuscaloosa and ended(maybe) Bama’s hopes of repeating as national champs. The legend of Johnny Football continues to grow.
The college basketball season kicked off on Friday. Watch out for the Wolfpack!!
Kansas State & Oregon are now 1-2 in the BCS standings. I want Oregon to play for the championship because I know their uniforms for the championship game are going to be tiiiiiiiiiiight.
It was announced this morning that Lance Armstrong resigned from the Livestrong Board of Directors on November 4. Even though I understand why he did it, I wish he had not and I hope he can now live in peace.
Antron Brown made history this weekend becoming the first African-American to win a major racing title. You may now refer to him as Antron Brown, NHRA Top Fuel Champion. Respect.
Three stating QB’s left the game yesterday with concussions: the 9ers Alex Smith, the Bears Jay Cutler and the Eagles Michael Vick. Prayers going up for all.
Brad Keselowski held onto his first place spot in The Chase for the Cup. He can clinch the cup next week with a finish of 15 or better but that was nothing compared to what happened off the track…
Four time champion Jeff Gordon intentionally caused a wreck with Clint Bowyer…then the pit crews threw down on pit row. Wildness!!
The Texans marched into Soldier Field and punched the Bears in the mouth, in the rain. As Roland Martin likes to say, #BullsOnParade.
It has been reported that the maximum number of years the Texas Rangers will offer Josh Hamilton is three. Looks like Hambone will be playing somewhere else.
Former Washington State receiver Marques Wilson quit the team on Saturday after alleged abuse by Coach Mike Leach and his staff. Why do I feel like I have heard this story before?
The Panthers lost to the Broncos. The Panthers O-line were the biggest losers, allowing Cam Newton to get sacked seven times.
My Wolfpack is bowl eligible. I hope we do not get a “cold” bowl!!
The NHL….SMH.
Until next time….TOODELLS.
New format to The Weekender. Here it goes…
Wolfpack, LSU, tataskinz, cowgirlies, g-men lost. Bears D scored again and again. Bama & Notre Dame came back and won. Oregon beat USC in a shootout. Knicks gave NYC something to smile about. Jimmie Johnson won to keep his lead in The Chase. Panthers, Steelers, Dirty Birds, Seahawks and the Broncos won. Bama and K-State are still 1-2 in the BCS. And still no hockey.
Until next time….TOODELLS.
Kassie Nette's Korner 