Patriots-Giants drinking game: painful memories edition

One streak will end Sunday. Either the Patriots' 11-game winning streak, or Giants' 3-game winning streak against the Patriots.

Throughout the week, few people seemed to actually talk about this game in 2015, instead focusing on games played 4 and 8 years ago, by almost completely different sets of players. For the Patriots, this is a tough road game against a good opponent. And they probably won't make nervous mistakes like so many Pats' opponents have this season. Then again, a 5-4 record in the NFL this year isn't very impressive. Being slightly above average in an incredibly below average league is like repeating the 4th grade and then getting a B-. Who cares?

Speaking of who cares, who cares about my game analysis? Let's get to the drinking game!

The rules...

Anytime a commentator says:
"Super Bowl" = 1 drink of beer
"New York" = 1 drink
"Manning" = 1 drink
"Tom" = 1 drink
"Brady" = 1 drink
"Coughlin" = 1 drink
"Malcolm" = 1 drink
"Chandler" = 1 drink
"Tyree" = 1 drink
"Manningham" = 1 drink (plus the 1 drink for saying "Manning")
"Streak" = 1 drink
"Undefeated" = 1 drink
"18 and 1" = drink beer for 18 seconds, then drink 1 shot of liquor
"Pierre-Paul" = 1 drink
"Fireworks" = 1 drink


Anytime this is happens:
DraftKings or FanDuel commercial = 1 drink (not allowed to do so in New York)
Odell Beckham Jr. catches something with both hands = 1 drink
DeflateGate is mentioned = 1 drink
Shane Vereen catch or carry = 1 drink
Brandon Meriweather dirty play = 1 drink
Tom Brady takes longer than 2 seconds to get rid of the ball = 1 drink
Julian Edelman seems to get concussed = 1 drink
Rob Gronkowski breaks a tackle = 1 drink
Gronk scores a touchdown = finish your beer, spike the can/bottle (bonus points for spiking glass)
LeGarrette Blount breaks a 10+ yard run = 1 drink
Jamie Collins does something freakishly athletic = 1 drink
Chandler Jones records a sack = 1 drink
Touchback = 1 drink
Kickoff or punt return = drink for the duration of the return
Matthew Slater makes a special teams tackle = 1 drink


Anytime this is on screen:
Fall foliage = 1 drink, bonus points if it's pumpkin flavored
DraftKings logo = 1 drink
Highlights of a Super Bowl = drink for the duration of the highlight, then throw up if it was against the Giants
Roman numerals = 1 drink per set of numerals
Highlights of a Giants receiver making a ridiculous catch = drink entire beer, take a shot, snort a line of oxy
Clip of a former Patriots receiver named Wes dropping a catch = finish your beer, pop a Molly, and sign with the Rams
Bill Belichick as a NY Giants coach = drink a giant sized beer, like those Fosters beers
60 Minutes promo = 1 drink per clock tick
Jason Pierre-Paul's bandaged hand = 1 drink
Graphic about Pats' O-line injuries = 1 drink per injured player mentioned
A sign about DeflateGate = 1 drink
The New York skyline = 1 drink
The disgusting wastelands of north New Jersey = 1 drink
Bob Kraft = 1 drink
Kraft talking to someone = drink while he's talking

So enjoy the Pats-Giants game, get lubed up, and please don't play this drinking game because you'll probably die.

Clay Buchholz re-injures elbow celebrating $13 million option

You thought that was a real headline, right? That's how fragile Clay Buchholz is. And the Red Sox have picked up his option for 2016, worth $13 million. Buchholz, when healthy, is incredibly streaky. He can rip off 8 to 10 Ace-like starts, then suck for weeks. From season to season, month to month, start to start, you have no idea which Clay Buchholz will show up. Here is the roller coaster ride of his ERAs for the past 5 seasons: 3.48, 4.56, 1.74, 5.34, 3.26. He's never had consecutive seasons with ERAs within 1 run of each other.

The one thing you can rely on with Clay is that he'll get injured. He's 31 and he's only started 20+ games in 3 seasons. He's never started 30.

The argument for exercising the option is that $13 million isn't a ton of money, and it's only one year. And as I said, Buchholz when healthy is capable of brilliance. So why not? Minimal risk, potential for high reward.

But $13 million is too much for unreliability. I love low risk/high reward ventures. Not when the guy is as inconsistent as Buchholz, and ALSO as injury prone. The injury isn't even a risk, it's essentially a sure thing.

Another reason to not want Buchholz is that due to he unreliability, you're going to have to make sure you have 6 potential starters available. Either that or try to acquire one in June or July when his arm breaks down. And good luck finding a replacement for him if he falls apart in September. By keeping Buchholz, it forces you to also get some form of insurance.

It comes down to this: If he were a free agent, would you want to spend $13 million on him? I wouldn't.

Even as a back of the rotation guy, he's too unreliable. I'd rather have a mediocre innings eater that I could depend on to keep the team in games and preserve the bullpen. Give me 28 starts and 160 innings of decent pitching. With Buchholz it's 10 to 29 starts, and 100-200 innings, some great, some awful.

In 4 of Buchholz's 18 starts last season, he failed to go 5 innings. It was 6 times in 2014. About every 5 starts he'll drop a turd on the mound and you'll have difficulty clawing back to get into the game. Not to mention tax your bullpen in the process.

The only acceptable role for Buchholz is at the back of a rotation that's so strong up front that it doesn't really matter what you have as a 4 or 5 starter. In which case, $13 million is too much to spend on a guy whose role doesn't matter. And it's too much to spend on a guy whose only predictable attribute is that he will get hurt at some point and force you to find someone else to start for him.

DraftKings and FanDuel players should consider suing the Colts for falsifying injury reports

I don't think stretching the truth on an injury report is a big deal. Unless you're the Colts. Unless you're the team that measured an opposing team's footballs without realizing that air pressure is affected by temperature and humidity. Unless you're the team that leaked the story to your mouthpiece Bob Kravitz hours after you got the tar beat out of you (mostly in the half of the game played with "legal" footballs).

It's sort of like arguing with someone online, and correcting their grammar or spelling. Once you do that you'd better make sure you use the right your/you're, it's/its, and then/than. And if you don't, every little mistake of yours is fair game.

Once you open that door of publicly tattling on another team for possibly breaking a rule, you'd better make sure you follow the rules to the letter. All the rules. Each and every stipulation in the book. Such as fully disclosing the nature of your most important player's injuries. As the NFL says "This policy is of paramount importance in maintaining the integrity of the game."

Integrity. The Colts violated a rule that is of "paramount importance" to the game's "integrity."

And it's not just the integrity of football games being jeopardized by the Colts' deception. With the explosion of daily fantasy sports on sites like Draft Kings and Fan Duel, where millions of dollars change hands every week, the accuracy of injury information is now similar to the accuracy of publicly owned corporations issuing earnings reports. Huge amounts of money is at stake. And publishing false injury information is like a company failing to report a loss.

How many people added Andrew Luck to their teams in the past few weeks, under the pretense that he had recovered from an arm injury but was otherwise healthy? What about TY Hilton or Donte Moncrief? How would knowledge of his rib injury have affected people's strategies? And might Draft Kings and Fan Duel have possibly modified their salary cap number for Luck if they'd known the truth?

And who had inside information about the true nature of Luck's injuries? Did any of them have Draft Kings or Fan Duel accounts? Do their friends or relatives?

In this absurdly litigious society, the Colts have opened themselves up to huge legal action. And if you picked Luck for your fantasy team, or might have picked him at a lower price, then you should call your lawyer and file suit.Take it all the way to the 2nd Circuit if you have to.

The rules are the rules, Colts. You're the ones who made a big public deal about the rules a few months ago. Which was especially pathetic since the crux of the story was that the "illegal" footballs were removed from the game, which is also when you started getting stomped on.

You couldn't beat the Patriots on the field, so you decided to beat them with the rule book. And now we see that you suck at that too. Almost as badly as you suck on the field.