Project Runwaction Football!

Perhaps you've heard, perhaps you haven't, but the Detroit Lions are considering changing their logo and uni colors. Grand Rapids Press writer Brian VanOchten* applauds the idea countering those that might think the Lions are messing with tradition by saying "what tradition?" You can't argue with that. Still, I'd caution supporting a redesign for a few reasons. First, BVO says that the "logo should be simple but modern-looking Lion [you might consider adding an article, so you don't sound like a caveman], much more aggessive but not cartoonish." I say: fat fucking chance. The odds of the new Lions logo looking like a maned unholy union of the Carolina Panthers logo and the Jacksoville Jaguars logo is, like, 99%. I think that the best approach would be refining the existing Lions logo (much like how the University of Wisconsin modernized the previous version of Bucky Badger). In the Lions case, the zig-zaggy mane could be minimized, and the body could be made slightly leaner and meaner; abandoning a silhouette, though, is a mistake.

BVO nails the approach to the uniform, though, when he suggests that team president Tom Lewand might consider incorporating the leaping lion into the "throwback" uniform the Lions wear on Thanksgiving. The blue is darker than the "Honolulu blue" (which, apparently, is what the current blue is called), and the silver's nice. Using the throwback scheme with a refined version of the current logo would be something akin to the New York Giants redesign, which is one of the few successful identity changes in recent memory.

Make it work.

*
Holy hell, look at that glorious bastard. If you told me he was an Eric Wareheim character and not a real-life person, I'd buy it hook line and sinker.

Action Football! on Film

I've seen Any Given Sunday once. In the theater, Christmas day, 1999. I'll admit I've been tempted to watch it again, say, once every two or three years since then, but have never been able to bring myself to do it. (Kind of like The Program.)

Given that I'm just over nine months from 10 years since having seen it, it might be surprising that I remember much of anything from the movie, but that I do is a testament (of sorts) to the impact that a single shot had:

The movie opens with a tight shot of a football. From the sides of the screen, in slow motion, you can see the offensive and defensive lines getting into their stances. The center reaches down and slowly rotates the ball so the laces are against his fingers. I thought to myself, "This had better be a long snap." At the snap of the ball, and the film moves into real-time speed, the quarterback is plainly under center. From that moment on (like, forty seconds into a two and a half hour movie) I pretty much wrote off all the football stuff.

FUN FACT: David S. Ward, director of The Program, also directed Major League II (in which, of course, Omar Epps - who was also in The Program - replaced Wesley Snipes as Willie Mays Hayes) and Down Periscope (remember when people thought Kelsey Grammer could be in movies? And how weird is it that Dr. Pepper's using Frasier Crane - a character off the air for five years - in commercials now? It'd be like Nikon using Stephen Root as Jimmy James from NewsRadio: "I'm super rich and kind of aloof and this is a great camera."). The funnest fact, though, is that David S. Ward's career kind of sucks.

Well, shit.

So much for the Buffalo Bills being Action Football!'s Second Favorite Team (at least as far as I'm concerned; Rochester is fully capable of making is own decisions - the state grand jury said so twice). The signing of Terrell Owens made sure of that.

At least now there's a new topic - discussing the merits of the other 27 teams (the ones that aren't the Bucs, Packers - already faves - Bills, Bears, and Panthers) to fill the AF!SFT role - to feature on the blog or in off-season podcasts.

A-hahahaha!

You have to wonder where this douche is going to end up next. At 35, he's probably got one more good locker room sabotage left in him.