The Old Fashioned… 3-Point Play

The TOF3PP will typically consist of two points from the world of sports (The Bucket), and one current pop culture observation (The And 1).

The Bucket

The QB position in Washington D.C. continues to hinder the team from truly bearing some semblance of a professional football team – one where week in, week out the team’s in the game until the final possession. Not surprisingly, the head coach position is also still up in the air as the Jay Gruden era continues to ebb and flow.

Victories against the undefeated Falcons in Week 5, and a bounce back win against the New York Jets the subsequent week could have settled a lot for both Jay Gruden and the struggling Kirk Cousins – the worst graded player of Week Six by ProFootballFocus. However, Cousins’ fourth game out of six with more than one INT is one of the more easily noticeable reasons for the fan base being back in an extremely familiar position in mid- to late-October. That’s watching a team whose loss total has already doubled its number of wins.

Fortunately, the Redskins play in the NFC East and it usually takes a full 16 games to decide the division winner!

The appalling development here is that now my Sunday entertainment, or escape, is now rapidly beginning to mirror the typical Monday-Friday topic of the day. Racial matters. Black and white inequality. Workplace discrimination.

Overnight, seemingly, we moved on from Cousins’ career win-loss record, his current 6/8 TD/INT ratio, or maybe even the fact he was given the hook in 2014 after a similar string of performances. Now, the focus is beginning to shift to whether Robert Griffin III has been given a fair shake. Has he been treated accordingly by coach Gruden? Is Gruden more upbeat with Cousins in light of his penchant to throw picks in bunches?

ESPN’s Bomani Jones  has emerged as the prime arbiter, skillfully phrasing his questioning of Cousins’ merit to continue as the starter, but largely being labeled by some of his peers as only a race-baiter. Jones is just playing the race card. One could ignore Jones for bringing a racial component into our wonderful world of sports, but his main question he poses is valid and level-headed: Exactly what has Cousins done to be considered a starter with no chance to be demoted?

I don’t have the time or energy to get tangled up in whether Jay Gruden, or the NFL, or its fans have a problem with black quarterbacks. I’m interested in something being salvaged from a season that’s teetering on becoming solely about how high the Redskins will be picking come draft day.

I just have two simple issues:

1. I would like to hear an interview of team president Bruce Allen. Most of the organization’s current problem areas were put in place by him or were decisions of his.
2. I want to know why fans of the Redskins were told in August/September that Gruden was going to incorporate some mobile QB (is spread offense a better phrase) aspects into his version of the West Coast offense for RG3, and that the progress of doing so was coming along well.

We do need to keep in mind this is the Washington Redskins, and the team “culture” tends to stay in a murky state. How can the blame for the 2-4 start be assigned to any one thing? Key offensive players have been hurt (DeSean Jackson and Jordan Reed) for multiple games, the offensive play has declined with each week, the running game has stalled out, and not much punishment has been meted out by the defensive front of late.

Part of me strongly believes RG3, in the right offense, is still the best option but Gruden’s leadership style seems to be built either on unwillingness or the inability to adjust on the fly. I’m going to stay above the fray regarding the developing racial discussion involving the QB position, I’m content riding out all 16 games with Captain Kirk (in Gruden’s offense) at the helm, I’m not going to continue complaining about Alfred Morris‘ increasingly limited role on the team, but I’m growing confident we’ll being see yet another completely new cast in D.C. in 2016.

The sports world continues to move on from the action in the closing seconds of the bewildering conclusion to the Michigan State versus Univ. of Michigan game October 17. Honestly, the magnitude of everything that was undone by Blake O’Neill’s botched punt was… was… well, Michigan fans just had no idea the program would be vying for a CFB Playoff spot in coach Jim Harbaugh‘s first year on campus.

This lost to Sparty was an immense setback to a season that was unimaginable just a few months ago, but I got the sense that this was not an Appalachian State moment – I don’t foresee such mistakes becoming commonplace on Harbaugh’s watch. U of M fans had somewhat been conditioned to believe the Wolverines were the type of program that the Appalatian State loss could happen to on any given Saturday.

The MSU loss was a tough pill to swallow, especially losing to a to a team that was soundly defeated, but the most troubling issue was hearing about the reported death threats received by O’Neill. We know it’s the usual situation for most social ignorance; the actions of a few overshadowing the many, or in this case the entire Block M family. However, the cowardly acts of hatred were short-lived, and now that time has healed this season’s major wound the young Aussie has begun speaking to the press.

Hearing the kid talk through the play, learning about the support he’s received from his head coach and his classmates in the game’s aftermath, and seeing his eagerness to take the field with his teammates again was uplifting. I’m a huge boxing fan and I’ve witnessed a couple of fights throughout the years where a fighter persevered against a higher classed opponent to earn a bad loss, but their courageous performance in the bout propelled the fighter into greater opportunities in his next couple of fights. I believe O’Neill is now poised for some great football moments as his career unfolds. Who knew another punt from the MSU would outshine his 80-yarder from earlier in the game!

The And 1

The 2015 BET Hip Hop Awards show aired last week, and I refuse to waste anybody’s time speaking on any of the event’s highs and lows. I’m not taking the high road or anything, I just didn’t watch the show to be able to discuss anything I saw with my own eyes.

I did my usual… I waited until the cipher talk heated up on social media and then I searched YouTube for good clips of a few of the game’s seasoned vets I support, as well as the occasional underclassmen or two that’s successfully separating him or herself from the pack.

This year I think I stopped with the ciphers anchored – if not by their position in the lineups then based on the strength of their bars – by The Roots’ Black Thought and Def Squad’s Redman the self-proclaimed “Cash Cow”.

Afterward I skimmed through some random lists of the night’s winners I found on the internet, and I really only had one thought.

Couldn’t BET take a cue from The Grammy’s and/or the American Music Awards’ handling of lesser known or emerging genres of music by eventually recognizing those genres’ best artists, and one year award who I guess would be referred to as a backpack or conscious emcee or emcees? I guess the organizers do something similar with categories like Impact Track of the Year (Kendrick Lamar “Alright”) or Best Mixtape (Future 56 Nights), but those are essentially still two names from the haves of the game.

I’m talking about an award for some production from Apollo Brown or Statik Selektah, a single by Action Bronson or Skyzoo, or a collaboration like Gangrene. A nod to an artist that’s been active for 20 years like a Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, or a Talib Kweli.

Who knew that 20-something years later after firmly earning a seat at the table, hip hop would be waiting for something billing itself as hip hop to acknowledge it?

Maybe I’m expecting a little too much and I should credit BET for awarding J Cole’s 2014 Forest Hill Drive with Album of The Year. Maybe, if I’m writing this it’s already too late.

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