Gutey to Draft as Many as 12 New Cuties in April

Selection capital. It's the currency of the NFL. After the annual March player auction in which a group of good men are sold to (usually) the highest bidder, the world (the minority of US citizens who still watch the NFL) will turn its naked eyes to the annual selection special. This season is expected to be a special one for the Green Bay Packers, as new General Manager Brian "Gutey" Gutekunst

will have the opportunity to select as many as twelve (12) new cuties to the roster.

When a team has double digit selections in the annual selection meeting it is almost a given that its General Manager will be aggressive in moving up and down the selection meeting to acquire the cuties that best fit the scheme. In the Packers' case, General Manager Gutey is looking to make an aggressive play for a quarterback to put pressure on incumbent malcontent Aaron Rodgers, who is looking for a new contract that will cripple the Packers salary cap for years.

Thankfully, one of Josh Allen (prototypical Gutey Cutie)

 or Baker Mayfield (Green Bay darling and noted "Gutey Guy")

are fairly likely to be available when the Packers make their selection.

Both cuties are absolutely glove-like fits for Gutey and the Packers, as both are noted Trump supporters and gun advocated, which demonstrates their high character and ability to handle the pressure cooker that is Green Bay Wisconsin. While neither QB possesses the raw aura of a Josh Rosen, either are the perfect "Robins"

to Aaron Rodgers Batman

for the next three years. It is fairly well known that Aaron Rodgers enjoys cosplay, and is a noted Adam West fan. 

A cutie such as Allen or Mayfield could learn from Rodgers during the last two years of his contract and through one franchise tag year, before taking over in the last year of his rookie deal ripe for an extension as lead cutie on the Packers.

Some may argue that Rodgers is still in his prime, and there are bigger holes on the Packers defense, which could be filled by a cutie such as Iowa cornerback Josh Jackson or UTSA edge rusher Marcus Davenport. Indeed, in some scenarios the Buffalo Bills have contacted the Packers to offer up a scenario whereby both of these players could be wearing green and gold tights this fall. However, it is clear that the Packers' situation at QB can be described as "unsettled" at best, with lead cutie Rodgers a significant injury risk having missed 34.5% of his starts in the last 5 seasons. By stabilizing the position well into the future Gutey's cuties will be well positioned to save valuable salary cap dollars and compete at the same time.

Although the foregoing approach would upset current lead cutie Rodgers, keep in mind that the time the Packers became aggressive with the QB situation the net result was the lone Super Bowl victory (and appearance) of the introverted era (led by former General Manager Ted Thompson). Now is the time for Gutey's Cuties to put one leg into their tights at a time, adjust that cup and take a QB who is intelligent and ready to learn.

2005 is here again. It's time to throw on a remix of "My Humps"

and Goot Goot Goot for the home team . . . Gutey's Cuties. Make the right move Gutey, take Allen or Mayfield. The smark fans (and us here at Archie's bastares) are behind you with two hands.

Gute Gute Gute for the Home Team

Ted Thompson's reign of terror is over.

I'll start this off by saying that I'm one of "Gutey's Cuties." This hire was hands down the smartest move an NFL franchise has made in 500 years. Gutey is well known as the top evaluator of NFL and college talent in the league, and is extremely aggressive. 

I'm going to put this out there so that it is preserved for eternity . . . 

THE PACKERS WILL WIN SB LIII IN ATLANTA

I also want to acknowledge Archie Manning's Bastards key sponsor Gay Hooters. Without you guys backing us up I don't think we would have lasted all these years as the premier Green Bay Packers blog on the internet. Cheers.

Milwaukee Bucks Follow Up To The Previous Post

I've seen less than one Bucks game this year, but nobody pays me to do this, so you really shouldn't care.  If the Internets are about anything, they are about spewing uninformed opinions on things.  So I don't watch the Bucks, but growing up in Wisconsin, I DO care about their existence, and want them to do well.

So when UCSB brought up the NBA lottery to me, I immediately thought of what the Bucks were going to do.  I spend more time concerned about who the Bucks will draft than I do thinking about the actual season.  The Bucks have largely DERPed their way to .500 for the past 20 years, and have not drafted particularly well with their first pick (GREEK FREAK pending).  The NBA has also conspired against the Bucks (and most other small market teams) for years.  (See the 2001 Eastern Conference Finals #NEVERFORGET).  So here is what is bound to happen.  The Bucks will get whichever pick forces them to take the African Greg Oden, Joel Embiid.  He's tall.  Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins will go on to become legends.  The Bucks will be the 8th seed for the next decade.  David Stern will laugh from his grave. (He's dead right?)

May 20, 2014 - The NBA Draft Lottery Live on Pay-per-View and the WWE Network

Much has changed since we last put digital ink to Archie Manning's Bastards paper.  

2014 has sparked the formation of the foremost sports travel concierge in the industry: VIP Fan Experiences LLC (now accepting bookings for you and your group's sports vacation).  Further, Twitter stock rose, fell, rose again, and fell again, prompting people everywhere to question whether it truly will maintain prominence in the digital publishing industry.  

As the calendar turns to Spring, the NCAA tournament nears conclusion, the baseball marathon has begun, and the Masters is set to tee off without Tiger Woods (RIP); the basketeball and hockey playoffs are about to begin. This year's NBA playoffs will not include the Los Angeles Lakers, who are crashing to the bottom of the league standings set to begin a rebuild of questionable duration.  This very subject prompted a discussion yesterday on the train back from a White Sox game concerning the legitimacy of the NBA draft lottery, a process the Lakers will be taking part in for only the third time. Ever.  

The person I was discussing the aforementioned topic with was convinced that there was too much at stake for the NBA to rig the lottery, in the face of several suspicious outcomes from its very inception in the Patrick Ewing "frozen envelope" draft.  This same person also asked me if I feel that the NBA is fixed in the same manner as the WWE.  For the following reasons I concluded that the NBA is distinguishable from the WWE in that actual games themselves do not have predetermined outcomes, but that the draft lottery is either fixed or manipulated when the process leads to an undesirable business outcome:

The NBA and WWE are in the same core business: providing entertainment to their fans thereby increasing revenue for the company. Both are television programs driven by advertising revenue. 

The two businesses differ in that one has an interest in maintaining an integrity in the outcome of its competitions because research suggests that people would not watch if they knew the games themselves were fixed. The current audiences for the 4 major professional sports leagues are too large to risk the potential backlash that would come from fixing the outcomes of the actual contests themselves. 

Contrast this with professional wrestling in the 1970's and early 1980's. At that time the entire industry attempted to maintain a tongue in cheek aura of legitimacy but the industry as a whole was fragmented into regional promotions with no top-down regulation. Once the McMahon's gained control over the majority of the industry it had nowhere to go but up. So they brilliantly began to privately acknowledge the falsity of the outcomes while promoting the characters as legitimate athletes (they most certainly are). 2 entire generations of wrestling fans have grown up knowing (rather than merely speculating) that the outcomes are predetermined story lines scripted by television writers and the audience has increased. 

With the NBA's entire audience expected to believe the outcomes are real there is too much of a downside to fixing the actual games themselves. Rogue referees like Tim Donaghy and the like that have been linked to game fixing have done so for their own personal benefit, not on directive of the league. Likewise you do not hear any player (active or retired) intimating that he was directed to intentionally negatively impact the outcome of a game. 

As this relates to the draft lottery however, the legitimacy of the league is not compromised by fixing the draft lottery any more than it is by vetoing the Chris Paul trade. Both are black eyes on the credibility of the product, but nowhere near to the degree that manipulating the outcome of the game would be.  Contrary to what NBA spokespeople say, the league is not hiding the fact that the draft lottery is easily manipulable; and therefore implicitly acknowledges that it may not a 100% legitimate exercise. If it were, the entire process would be played out on live television just as the state lotteries are conducted. 

Conducting the process behind closed doors and only revealing the outcome in a packaged presentation allows for the elimination of undesirable outcomes and retrial if necessary. 

If you need hard evidence on whether the draft lottery is completely legitimate look no further than the fact that you cannot place a bet in Las Vegas or in an offshore sports book on who will "win" the number 1 pick in the NBA draft. That should tell you all you need to know. It is in the best business and entertainment interests of the league to occasionally manipulate the destination of players it perceives to be potential future stars.

I've shed 10,000 tears in the past 24 hours. All that I've been living for is gone.

R.I.P.

September 12, 1973 - November 30, 2013

We will forever miss you old friend.  Your star simply burned too bright.  

From all of us at Archie Manning's Bastards, thank you Paul Walker for enriching our lives through film.  

Warning hockey fans - FUCK DIRECTV

I don't know where else to vent, so I'll post on here so that I can guarantee no one will read it.

A couple months ago, I got fed up with Time Warner Cable and decided to make the switch to Directv (free NFL Sunday Ticket was good incentive).  Everything has gone well, until now.

We ordered the top tier package, known as the Premier Package.  We get ALL channels, including all the regional sports channels.  This excites me because that means we have Comcast Sports and almost all of the Chicago Blackhawks games.  The other day, I'm chillin watching the Blackhawks pregame show.  Then, precisely at 6:30 pm, the pregame show ends and the channel goes out.  On the screen they're telling me I'm not a subscriber to that channel.  I begin to scroll through other channels and find the broadcast of the game from the opponents' home channel.  I'm once again told I'm not a subscriber to that channel. 

I begin to understand what's going on here. 

I then check every channel that has an NHL hockey game on it, and none of them work but all the regional sports channels with random crap on work just fine.  I call Directv.  They say its a technical issue and they will have a technician call me and set up an appointment.  Well, this is not a technical issue, which is verified by the fact that as soon as the game is over, all those channels start working again.  Also, a technician never calls.

So, this same bullshit happened last night.  So I called again and told the first person that I need to speak to someone above her in the decision making process.  I finally get some other chick (for some reason I'd prefer to talk to a guy) and I tell her I just want someone to admit that they take these channels off the air during hockey games on purpose, and that purpose is to get people like me to subscribe to NHL Center Ice (the NHL version of the Sunday Ticket).  She eventually admits I'm correct.

I'm upset and not sure what to do.

I'm wondering if this will happen for every NBA and MLB game as well.  If it does, what's the point in having ANY of those regional sports channels?

GREG JENNINGS WINS WAR WITH PACKERS!

OMG This is such a sick burn bro! As a Packers fan, I can't do anything but give you credit where credit is due, and humbly surrender to the master. I really hope there is any way Jennings can allow the Packers to play out the season, and ride off into the sunset forever as a franchise and fanbase. Lesson learned. Lesson learned.

Weird Week For the Manning Family

I'm not sure if I should be excited for Archie Manning?  Feel sad?  Brace for a lawsuit?  The Manning children (less Cooper. My God look at that Google search.  Poor Cooper) are facing off for the fourth time this season (it feels like there is a Manning Bowl every other week.  It's nuts.).  So I imagine Archie will have some drinks and enjoy watching his successful kids try not to die.  The reason I feel bad is that my esteemed colleague Bear has let me know that despite a 2 year hiatus, a Google search for "Archie Manning" reveals that this site is still on the first page of results.  Meaning Archie hasn't done shit for awhile.  I'm not one to talk, a Google search for me probably results in a blank page.

Packers v. Redskins: Horseshoe Is Still Up My Ass

FUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! This evening I will be meeting with an elderly gentlemen to either exchange money for Packers tickets, or get gutted like a fish.  Could go either way! My Craigslist stalking paid off in the form of reasonably priced tickets to the game Sunday.

My brother and I have a long and storied history of going to Packers-Redskins games.  We went to one game in 2007.  Packers won 17-14 on a 57 yard fumble return for a TD by Charles Woodson.  The highlight of the day was the drunken Redskin fan in a Chris Cooley jersey screaming at us all the way to our car about how we had a horseshoe up our ass. I'm not certain how luck had anything to do with beating a team that employed Jason Campbell as its starting QB, but whatever.  To this day, whenever I see anyone in a Redskin jersey I think of this asshole.

PREVIEW:  Pretty excited for this one.  I think the Packers have a pretty clear advantage when they have the ball, and RGIII is a shell of his healthy self at this point.  The Redskins are not going to take advantage of the Packers D like the 49ers did, both because they will be able to be more aggressive with RGIII than they were with Kaepernick because RGIII probably can't beat them by running this week, and because the Redskins simply aren't as good as San Francisco on offense even at full health.  I like the Packers 34-21.

SHIT TALKING:  I'm shocked that Bearflash may be paying for another Packers ticket without actually going.  He has a long and storied history of doing this.  It happened once in 2001.  Bear got shitfaced the night before the game, fell and smashed out his front teeth on a curb.  He was forced to have his teeth fixed instead of going to the game.  Good times were had by all.

REFRESHING!

The time is here again.  That time when I have the Craigslist Green Bay Tickets Classifieds open all week so that I can hit refresh every 10 minutes or so in order to get cheap Packers tickets.  It's actually a little bit embarrassing.  If I wasn't a cheap asshole, or if I didn't have a moral issue with paying people two or three times over face value for tickets, I could go to just about every game.  There is definitely value in going to Lambeau on Sunday afternoon that can't really be defined monetarily. I choose however, to arbitrarily put a ceiling on what I'm willing to pay, in order to avoid being broke or divorced.  On top of a ticket, a guy is easily paying $20 (on the very low end) to eat and drink, even if he's savvy enough to park for free like I am.  In addition to the money, your day is completely shot.  For a noon game, I'm leaving the house no later than 9am, and probably not getting home until at least 4:30.  That's a full day.  It's a fucking fantastic day, but it's nice to sit my fat ass on the couch and watch a full day of football too.  For that reason, I obsessively scour the Internet all week for good deals on tickets.  My system typically allows me to go to a game or two a year without severely overpaying to do it.  That's probably enough.  Since I'm never getting season tickets, it seems like a good way to go about doing it.

At this point, I'm probably not going to the game this weekend barring a change in circumstances.  The absolute cheapest I've seen is around $125, which is $50 over face value.  Shit is just a mess.  Not worth it to me.

PS. As I type this, I'm receiving tweets/texts about tickets available.  I got people watching.  Shit is intense. I gotta go check into some shit.

PPS. I've got a huge problem with dickheads who get 50 season tickets somehow, and then expect to make a $100 profit on every ticket every week.  And then don't go to the games.

PPPS. I've got another problem with people who don't care who they sell tickets to, and we end up with 10,000 Bears fans in Lambeau.

PPPPS.  There was little to no point in this post.  I'm sorry I wasted that one person's time that will read this.

Zombie AMB Update: I'm Still Fat

The other day the family and I (weird. I have like, my own family now.  I'm like Tony Soprano except not from New Jersey and my only crime is poor blogging and a hygiene problem) went to a local Mexican establishment for some bold nourishment, south of the border style.  We showed up around 7 p.m. on Monday, which is pretty late, and the place was basically empty except for a few barflys and like 5 waitresses.  We were seated at a table and we waited around 10 minutes for one of the teenage waitresses to stop talking or whatever the fuck they do and bring us some chips and take drink orders.  I'm going to cut to the chase, and unvail the point of the post, which is the top 4 awesome things the teenage waitress said to me:

1) After making us wait 10 minutes for no reason: "I'm sorry for the wait.  I was busy."  That's a period at the end of the sentence because there was no forthcoming reason why she was busy.  She didn't say "I was washing dishes." or "Nobody told me you were seated in my section." or "I was giving the cook a handy, while I did blow."  Nothing.

INTERLUDE: Thing my 8 month old daughter did: Jammed her hand into the pocket of the apron the waitress was wearing.  Presumably to steal her tips and/or find some food/blow that had fallen in there by mistake.  Daddy is teaching her well.

2) After offering to bring us a second basket of tortilla chips: "You guys were hungry!"

3) "Would you like more tacos? (it was unlimited taco night.  I had inhaled 4 tacos in about 3 minutes) My record is six."  I didn't really think much of it, other than I was mildly impressed she could eat 6 tacos as it was a teenage girl. I turned down the tacos because I was going to puke after the chips, tacos and 24 oz top shelf marg.  My wife immediately smelled out the real meaning, thinking she meant the most anyone had ever eaten.  I called bullshit as the tacos weren't that big.  She came back and my wife asked.  She said it was the most she's ever served anyone in one sitting.  That fucking whore.  Now I regretted not taking the tacos.

4) "I can offer you a free apple chimi for desert."  MY WIFE: "What is that?" TEENAGE WAITRESS: "It's a dessert we offer to people when we screw up."

The moral of the story is that teenage girls are assholes and call people fat.

A Packers Fan Ode To Jim Harbaugh (Zombie Archie Manning's Bastards)

Oh, hello! It has been over two years since I last posted anything here.  As I explained previously, Twitter savagely murdered the blog and its members.  I was reminded today that TWO posts have gone up since my last one in 2011.  I've resolved that never would three straight go up without one from me. Since twitter, and since our kid was born, I've had a tough time getting worked up enough to post something here.  Soooooo, what should I spend this short lunch break discussing?

• Nuclear Physics?
• The situation in Syria?
• Race relations?
• OJSFA?

No, no, those don't seem appropriate.  Ahhhh yes, the steaming pile of shit that is Jim Harbaugh.  /smells glass /rolls around the sweet liquid inside /takes a sip /spits in on the floor.  I'll take a case, please.

Have you ever seen someone try so hard to be a fucking prick as Jim Harbaugh?  He actively goes out of his way to be a dick to everyone he comes across.  You know what though? I'm sure he's a lovely man to his wife and family.  He has to be.  Because there is no way he could function so well in society if he was really as much of a dick as his public persona would make him appear.  So this leaves me with only one conclusion.  He's a FAKE.  A fucking fakey, fake, fakerton.  He's faker than a dude posting under an alias on a blog that was semi-popular amongst close friends 4 years ago, and then went away. 

Everything Harbaugh does is an act.  All the screaming.  All the spitting.  All the "calling out Clay Matthews for being a horrible human being because he made a dirty hit on your QB".  It's all so calculating that I'd almost have to give him credit for it if I didn't want Candlestick Park to collapse on him.

This isn't as good as I hoped it would be.  2 years is a REALLY long time.