My apologies to the Browns, Shout out to Manny and baseball playoff and NFL week 4

"That moment, when you meet someone and court them, invest your time and energy, introduce them to your parents and if you're lucky 6 months later but more than likely years later, you realize, this mutha fucka crazy"!!!! - an old white lady sitting at the slot machine

They don't want to admit it. Can you blame them? After spending 10 hours a day for months researching, evaluating, interviewing and testing. Giving them millions of dollars and the proverbial keys to your car, it's hard to say... 'Hey, We picked the wrong guy'. That's exactly what the Minnesota Vikings and Cleveland Browns did. In drafting Christian Ponder and Brandon Wheedon. They picked the wrong dudes. They know this, but they have invested so much time and energy, they can't admit it. 'Your starting QB threw 3 int's against one of the worse teams in football... at home.... in a must win situation' is no different than 'he/she just showed up at your job, cause you didn't return a phone call cause you were in a meeting' sumtin' just ain't right.

Sure they hope things turn around but in most cases they are pulling for an injury and that's exactly what both teams got. An injury to Brandon Wheedon allowed them to start Brian Hoyer who actually outplayed Wheedon in the pre-season. Now they have an excuse, "We think Wheedon, has a chance to be a fine QB in the NFL, but right now Hoyer gives us the best chance to win" This conversation is held almost yearly, think Russelll Wilson and Matt Flynn who was just signed to a fat contract by the Seattle Seahawks. Think Michael Vick with the Eagles who traded Donovn McNabb to hand the keys over to Kevin Kolb and 2 weeks into the season, they were like "ummmm, hey Kev, what had happened was..." Now the same thing is happening in Minnesota.

Christian Ponder: I have bruised ribs, but I'll be fine
Head Coach Leslie Frazier: Naw man, we don't want you to get worse so we're gonna start Matt Cassell
Ponder: But I'm fine
Frazier: No you ain't

(It's important to note that Leslie Frazier was the most underrated player in the league as the starting cornerback for the 1985/86 most dominant defense ever Chicago bears before he blew out his knee on a needless reverse punt return during Superbowl XX, which systematically started their downfall from dominance, I'll always be a Frazier fan)

My point is, unless Cassell lays an egg. Ponder is out in Minneapolis. Sometimes the best thing that can happen to a franchise is an injury. I like to call it the Wally Pip (he was the player that played 1st base and sat out a game and then never returned cause one Lou Gehrig took over, blah, blah) Sometimes you just gotta be ballsy and go hey, I know we drafted a guy with the 3rd overall pick, but he doesn't fit so let's see what we can get. What I'm saying Cleveland Browns is that I'm sorry, I blasted you last week, for trading your "franchise" running back in Trent Richardson and promoting your 3rd string QB to starter. Saying there is no way you score over 10 points and you flat out won. I've never been to a Cleveland Browns training camp and barely pay attention to you as a team. So I was wrong and admit it. This may not work out for you but Kudos to your huge ones

"Sure you can hope that crazy mo fo, rekindles a flame with their ex on facebook and leaves you but sometimes you just gotta grow a pair and cut them loose" - an old black man at a bus stop

Mariano Rivera the greatest closer of all time went out in the classiest way you can ever go. I envy that, in the sense that someone can work so hard and dedicate themselves to the craft that they love, get everything they could out of it and have everyone that matters to you acknowledge it. That's something we should all strive for... The pursuit of happiness

That being said a fantastic article was written about Rivera being overrated and I couldn't agree more http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9718373/mariano-rivera-overrated-well-beloved-respected

The Baseball playoff are just around the corner and who would I be if i didn't have my fearless predictions. My formula, the process of elimination in one sentence or less:

AL
Oakland A's rely too much on the long ball
Detroit Tigers bullpen is too unreliable
Tampa Bay Rays not enough offense
Cleveland Indians are the Cleveland Indians

Which leaves the Boston Red Sox

NL

Pittsburgh Pirates can't see Liriano and Burnett as being World Series aces
Cincinnati Reds Dusty Baker is unlucky in the playoffs
Atlanta Braves don't have enough clutch hitting
Los Angeles Dodgers reminds me too much of the 2011 Phillies

Which leaves the St. louis cardinals

Boston in 7

So the baseball playoffs are about to start, the NHL is about to jump off, NBA training camp starts today, College Football teams are done playing cream puffs and the NFL is well, it's the NFL. I feel like Jim Kelly when he had to choose between all his asian hookers in Enter the Dragon... he took them all.

NFL Picks:
Denver -10.5 over the Eagles - Manning in the regular season is the safest bet in the game boo
Dallas - 2 over San Diego - I like Dallas this year especially on the road
Bengals- 4 over Cleveland - I know I touted the Browns but the Bengals don't have Christian Ponder
Colts- 8 over Jacksonville- The Jags maybe the worse football team ever
Redskins-3 over Oakland- Slowly RGIII is putting it back together

last week 3-4
overall 9-7
Til next week, dueces

You can catch Kevin Bozeman every Sunday night on Foxsportsradio.com and XM 247 at 10:15 pm cst

Listen to Kevin every Sunday morning on 560wind.com form 10am-noon on the Mike North pre-game show

Catch Kevin Bozeman every Wednesday and Thursday morning on the Mancow show www.mancow.com

For stand-up tour dates go to kevinbozeman.com