Rex Ryan to Buffalo! The Horachek Era! More!

The Bills have had an absurd amount of head coaches come and go in the years since the great Marv Levy retired back in 1997.  The multiple combinations of head coaches and quarterbacks since Levy and Jim Kelly (who can forget the Mike Mularky/JP Losman era in '05??) is probably the main reason that the Bills haven't made the playoffs since paranoid whackos began emerging from their fall out shelters after the Y2K "scare".  I really like the hiring of noted foot fetishist Rex Ryan and I hope he sticks around for a while.  I hate the Jets, and yeah the Jets have been a joke the last couple of years, but that has more to do with the way the team was put together rather than his coaching... remember this was the guy who took the Jets to AFC Championship games with Mark fucking Sanchez at one point.  The Bills defense is already the amongst the best in the league and Rex will make it better, plus he got rid of awful Offensive Coordinator Nathanial "Can't" Hackett, so that's really an addition by subtraction.  Granted there is still question marks and quarterback and on the O-Line but the Bills defense will cover up a lot of those patches with their sheer awesomeness.  The thing I like the most about Rex Ryan isn't that he grew up in Toronto, is a Leafs fan and skipped school to see the first ever Blue Jays game at snowy Exhibition Stadium in 1977... it's that he is probably the one guy in the world who hates the New England Patriots just as much, if not more than I do.  I'm looking forward to the Rex Ryan era, at least he has a personality unlike these one and done squids they've churned out over the last 15 years.

While on the topic of football, I rebounded slightly with my picks and went a respectable 2-2 taking me to 3-5 on the post-season.  The Dallas Cowboys really got fucked over yesterday, I suppose that is a bit of karma for the Lions getting fucked over against Dallas during Wild Card Weekend.  The games were a lot better last weekend, well the Dallas/Green Bay and New England/Baltimore ones were, I was watching the Raptors during the Seattle/Carolina game and watching broken down old man Peyton Manning last night was just depressing.  Without further ado here are my picks for the Conference Final games:

GREEN BAY @ SEATTLE

WINNER:

Aaron Rodgers really impressed me yesterday, he is clearly not 100% maybe not even at 60% but 60% of Aaron Rodgers is a fuck of a lot better than most of quarterbacks in the league.  That being said, the Packers have had an awful road record this season (they lost in Buffalo for Christs sakes), and Seattle is easily one of the best home teams in the league... and they are also very, very good.  Sorry Cheeseheads, you had a good run, and a healthy Aaron Rodgers could lead you to a Super Bowl as soon as next year, but not this time.

INDIANAPOLIS @ NEW ENGLAND 

WINNER:

Fuck the Patriots.

It's only been two games but the stink of the Carlyle Era is already starting to come off of the Leafs.  Granted in the first game under Peter Horachek they lost to Washington 6-2 (one empty netter and Bernier let in some softies) but in that Washington game, and especially the Columbus game the Leafs looked a fuck of a lot better, they actually had positive puck possession, and they even out-shot their opponents! They held Columbus to 20 shots on Friday night for fucks sakes, there were plenty of games under Randy that they couldn't hold an opponent to 20 shots in a single period let alone an entire game.  The players are all obviously thrilled to have Randy out of their lives, in the picture above Horachek is wearing a Leafs Camo Hoodie which is typically given by the players to another player who had the best game after a win... so who do they give it too after Friday's domination of the Blue Jackets, none other than Horachek.  Horachek has met with all the players individually for their input, and is going to have weekly meetings with the leadership corps, he is big on having more open communication with his players which is something Randy Carlyle couldn't do because he was too busy trying to figure out how to use a toaster.  Plus Horachek is from Hamilton!! (well... Stoney Creek, but we won't hold that against him).  If Horachek works out for the rest of the year, I don't see why they can't remove the interim label, but it looks more and more like they are waiting for Mike Babcock.

I've calmed down slightly since the whole Kessel-Feschuk fiasco of last week, I still think Feschuk is a squid, anyone who aspires to be the next Damien Cox should be imprisoned.  Pension Plan Puppets had a great article on why Kessel called Feschuk an idiot and their history (for example after the Game 7 meltdown Feschuk said they should trade Kessel to free up room to sign Clarkson... thankfully they didn't trade Kessel and we've all seen how Clarkson has worked out).  Last week there was a massive fucking wank fest in the media, congratulating Feschuk for asking "the tough questions" Feschuk tooted his own horn on Off the Record and on Leafs Lunch on TSN1050... but where were these "tough questions" during Brendan Shanahan's press conference??  After pushing Dave Nonis in front of the vultures when Carlyle was first let go, Shanahan had a press conference a couple of days later, saying the same old bullshit and cliches that you would come to expect from any hockey executive not named Brian Burke.  But there wasn't any "tough questions" for Shanny... like why did you waste a half a season with a lame duck coach? Or what were you fucking thinking not firing Randy immediately following the end of last season. No it was all polite and cordial, it's great that these media vultures can pick on Phil Kessel, who clearly has some kind of social anxiety issues, but when it comes to Brendan Shanahan the questions were all soft balls.  Also why don't these media squids ever get in David Clarkson's face?  The guy is the second highest paid forward on the team and he is completely useless. I am not saying they should do that, but the media likes to pick on Kessel and as a result fans without a brain in their heads listen to these idiots and regurgitate their "hot takes" calling up the Fan 590 and in the comment sections on Facebook.  Only in Toronto where the people making big bucks and not producing get a pass while players like Kessel get shit on.

The Week Ahead: @ Los Angeles (1/12), @ Anaheim (1/14), @ San Jose (1/15), @ St. Louis (1/17).  It's the California Love road trip when I win the lottery I am definitely going to follow the team on this road trip, but since I am broke as a joke I'll have to settle for the amazing 10:30 pm start times... I fucking love West Coast games for that reason.  It'll be the first real test of the Horachek era, as all 4 teams they're facing are in the playoffs, and Anaheim has one of the top records in the league.  As long as they continue to get positive possession totals and keep the shot totals down for their opponents they will be fine.  I also think it's good for them to get out of the zoo in Toronto, sure they'll still have some of the media squids follow the team, but I imagine it'll be a breath of fresh air to get the fuck out of dodge.

The Raptors only played twice last week and we saw two starkly different versions of the team.  Let's face it the Raptors played like complete horse shit against the Hornets, the only highlight of that game was when Tyler "The White Mamba" Hansbrough hit the first 3 pointer of his career (he had been 0/15 from beyond the arc is his 6 year career thus far).  They played a fuck of a lot better against the weak Celtics to end their season long 4 game losing streak.  Last week I said DeMar DeRozan was going to return against Charlotte, but they pushed that back, and there is no word yet on when he will return... they certainly need him.  The best news for the Raptors this week is that games are finally going to be on TSN again! Which means for the first time in fucking weeks our beloved Jack Armstrong is back, so it's time to brush off the rules for the Jack Armstrong Drinking Game.  Jack has been waiting for weeks to let out a few "Helllooooooooooooooooos" and "BAH-CAH-DIS!" and "Get that Gah-Bage Outta Here!!" so if you're going to be playing along tonight make sure you have extra drinks.  I have no problem with Leo Rautins, he is a decent enough colour guy. but fuck bud you don't need to be so boring.  Plus him and Matty D get really pissy and passive aggressive with each other sometimes and it's just awkward.  Leo stick to the studio with Rod Black and let Jack take over from here.

The Week Ahead: vs. Detroit (1/12), vs. Philadelphia (1/14), vs. Atlanta (1/16), vs. New Orleans (1/18).  Should be an interesting week for the Raps, they got some decent opponents coming through the ACC.  The Pistons have pulled a '13-'14 Raptors in that they have gone red hot since trading one of their best players in Josh Smith, I read an article in a Detroit paper today on how they are looking for revenge after the Raptors beat them on their home court in front of more Raptors than Pistons fans, plus there was the whole James Johnson-Andre Drummond fiasco... let's watch that dunk again..

The 76ers are one of the worst teams in recent memory in the NBA so that should be a cake walk.  The game of the week will be the Hawks game on Friday night.  The Hawks are really good and have usurped the Raptors atop the Eastern Conference.  It should be a great game, with the Raptors hopefully showing them who's boss.  They play the Pelicans on Sunday afternoon which is right in the middle of the conference final football games... what genius decided that?  I guess that's why they invented remotes! Either way Anthony Davis, despite having the worst unibrow this side of Bert from Sesame Street is awesome and the Pelicans, despite having one of the stupidest team names in sports are a good young team on the rise in the way tougher Western Conference.  The Raps need to pick up their game defensively, and I think the return of DeMar will really help that.

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