When I first heard ‘Late Registration’ in the fall of 2005, I thought it wasn’t as good as ‘The College Dropout’. Then I listened to it about 25 more times and realized “Damn, this is some amazing music,” and ended up liking it as much as the first album. Tuesday morning, on my way to purchase ‘Graduation’, I figured that would be my reaction again. But after listening to the album from beginning to end, I think its actually better then West’s previous two offerings. The raps are crisper and more elaborate, there are no annoying skits to skip over, and the beats are fantastic. On this CD he combines the great samples from ‘C. Dropout’ and the crazy strings from ‘L. Registration’ to create some insane music.
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As for specific songs, “Good Morning” is a great starter, similar to how “We Don’t Care” kicked off ‘Dropout’. (I loved the Jay-Z “ The Ruler’s Back” sample) “Good Life” is a guaranteed radio-smash, and “Drunk and Hot Girls” might make a hilarious video. (Sample lyric: “Please don’t fall asleep baby, we almost back. Please don’t throw in the car, we almost crashed”) But the best song, without question, was the collaboration with Lil’ Wayne, “Barry Bonds”. The beat is crazy (Sounds kind of like a Just Blaze record), and the lyrics are fantastic (“Top five MC’s, you aint got to remind me. Top five MC’s, you got to rewind me. I’m high up on the line, you could get behind me. But my head so big, you can’t sit behind me.”) I knew it would be good when ‘Ye got together with one of the best rappers out there, when he made a song about a baseball player and when it ended up being track 7 of 13 (Those number have a special meaning for me). But I never expected it to be that good. “Bonds” now stands next to “We Major”, “School Spirit” and “Touch the Sky” as my favorite Kanye tracks, while ‘Graduation’ stands in first as my favorite Kanye album. Anyways, back to football…..
I was reading ESPN.COM last night when I learned the sad news. Now I’m really pissed off. First I wait six months after Super Bowl XLI with this depressing hangover, waiting for the Bears to avenge their defeat and make it back to the big game. Then I have to sit through five weeks of pre-season rumors, injuries and fake-stories, desperately waiting to kick off the real thing. Finally I get one game where the Bears do absolutely nothing on offense, literally give away the game to San Diego, and suffer two season-ending injuries. And now I learn that the entire season has been canceled, and that the only two good teams in the league, New England and Indianapolis, are just going to play each other in Phoenix for the Lombardi Trophy. What kind of crap is that?
Oh, wow, I’m so sorry. That’s not really happening. I just thought that since Peter King at SI, Bill Simmons at ESPN (Two of my favorite writers, by the way) and Dan Pompei of the ‘Tribune’ said that the Pats and Colts were by far and away the two best teams in the league, they had just figured it made more sense to not play the remaining 16 weeks of the schedule.
In reality, the Bears do have time to recover from their horrible start. (And no, there is no part of me whatsoever that is worried that every other team in our division won their first game. Wow, you beat Oakland and Atlanta. I’m scared now.) The losses of Dusty Dvoracek (Again) and Mike Brown (Again and again and again) really hurt, because after releasing Tank Johnson and trading Chris Harris, d-tackle and safety are our thinnest positions. Lets hope Danieal Manning and Brandom McGowan can play big in the secondary, taking some pressure off of new guy Adam Archuletta. And on the line, it is now a MUST that Tommie Harris (Who, for future reference the rest of the season, I have given the nickname T-Pain.) stay healthy. Harris was such a monster on Sunday, and with a thin rotation at tackle, we need big number 91 to be in there for six-teen games.
As for the offense, or lack of it, I blame one hundred percent of the blame on offensive coordinator Ron Turner. While I realize Turner did not throw any interceptions, stop running any routes or fumble any footballs, I felt like he didn’t put the team in a position to win the game. The run game was too predictable (Where were the sweeps, counters or draws?) and the passing game didn’t have any downfield presence to it. With the exception of one deep pass in the second quarter, which Bernard Berrian stopped running on, I don’t remember any Rex Grossman throws over twenty yards. I realize Greg Olsen was out with an injury, but all pre-season long, Bears fans kept on hearing how fast this team would be with Berrian, Olsen, Devin Hester, Mark Bradley and Rashied Davis. Yet none of this was shown versus the Chargers. As I wrote earlier, it’s still early in the season, and there’s plenty of time to fix some of the problems. The concern is how many problems there were.
Five other random thoughts from week one
-Man, that Colts defense was good. I kind of expected the Saints to struggle this season, because I figured that Sean Payton’s offense wouldn’t come as a surprise to so many teams again. But I didn’t think Indy’s D could hold them without a touchdown. I really liked Antoine Bathea, a fast free safety who just kept on making plays.
-Though I have never liked him as a player or person, I have got to say that I’m a bit saddened that Eli Manning is injured. He was playing so well in the Giants opening game versus the Cowboys, and it seemed like he might be on the verge of a breakout year. While some of that success was obviously due to Dallas missing All-Pro corner Terrence Newman, Eli looked like a player deserving of the number one overall pick. He was throwing darts all across the field and really seemed to have control of the New York offense. Even though I don’t really like him, I never like seeing a guy get hurt, especially one starting to come into his prime.
-Of what I saw of the Bears’ NFC North competition, by far the most impressive was Vikings rookie running back Adrian Peterson. Anybody who had watched college football over the past three years knew that this guy was going to be a beast, but it’s a little more shocking when you know that your team will have to face him twice a year for the next decade. AD’s (You’d think his nickname would be his initials, AP. But no, it’s AD, for All Day) performance on Sunday against Atlanta was spectacular, especially that one handed, behind-the-back catch that he ran in for a touchdown. As a fan of football (And somebody who has Peterson on their fantasy roster) I like seeing young player succeeding. But as a Bears fan, I’m kind of worried.
-Is there a worse way to lose on opening day then what the Buffalo Bills had to go through? I’m not going to even discuss what happened to tight end Kevin Everett, who is pretty much paralyzed due to a devastating hit he took. But then to lose on a last-second field goal to a Denver team that barley got their kicking team out to the field in time. That’s just sickening. I blame Dick Jauron. I don’t really know if its his fault, but from first-hand experience, I can guess he messed up some how at the end of the game.
-That was some debut for Randy Moss as a Patriot (nine catches, 188 yards and a nice touchdown), but I’m not getting as caught up in his performance as some other. Three reasons for this:
1) We know from ten years NFL experience that when Moss wants to play, he can be as good as any receiver in league history. And he always likes making a splash when he has something to prove, like starting off with a new team. Remember two years ago, in his first game as a Raider on the Thursday night opener versus New England, he was absolutely dominant. (Five catches for 130 yards, including a 73 yard touchdown). But then he stopped caring, and less than twenty-four months later, he was shipped to the North East for a fourth round pick.
2) It’s not like he was going up against one of the league premier cornerbacks. He wasn’t even facing an experienced player. He was going up against a rookie, Darrelle Revis, who skipped the first two and a half weeks of training camp due to a contact holdout. And the Jets defense was horrible on Sunday. They never even laid a hand on Tom Brady. This week Randy and the Pats face a Charger team that knows Moss from his AFC West days, has a top corner in Quintenn Jammer and is going to get physical with Brady. Lets see how well number 81 does then.
3) The Patriots are now becoming what the Yankees are in baseball, the Lakers in basketball, Notre Dame in college football and Duke in college hoops; no matter what happens anywhere else, the biggest story revolves around one of these teams. New England’s coverage isn’t as bad as those other four teams, but the national media (coughESPNcough) loves to talk about the Pats. Giants wideout Plaxico Buress also played well in week one (eight catches, 144 yards, thee touchdowns), but I don’t see him being mentioned anywhere on ‘SportsCenter’ If Moss is really for real this year, we’ll find out soon enough. But one week is way to early to tell if he’s going to hold up all season long.
Week two picks coming later in the week
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