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That is all.

The first two installments of this year’s edition of Hard Knocks set the bar pretty high—last week’s piece of Chad Johnson-themed awkwardy goodness was the series’ second-highest-rated episode ever—and yet the third episode managed to…pale in comparison to what we’ve seen so far. No surprise. In fact, with the quarterback competition over and Chad Johnson gone, what the hell is left for the last two episodes? Football? Fuck that shit. To top it off, we only got one shot of Jeff Ireland’s office (in the very beginning no less) and zero—yes, ZERO—Lauren Tannehill appearances. (I assume she’ll return next week to celebrate the announcement of Ryan as the starting quarterback, if she can squeeze it in between video of her removing litter from animal habitats and enjoying board game night at the nursing home.)

Plus, I watched this week’s episode on DVR after catching up with some backlogged shows, two of which included the Comedy Central Roast of Roseanne and Jeff Ross’s new show The Burn. So now I’m in a roast state of mind, so forgive me if some of the notes I jotted down are particularly mean-spirited. If you have any problems, just voice them in the comments, which I’ll readily ignore, just like society does to most people who write on comments sections. Anyway, here is my scattershot selection of the best moments from last night’s Hard Knocks:

-Hard Knocks got it out of the way immediately, so we should as well: “Let’s Spot The Things In Jeff Ireland’s Office!”

-Eraser heads.

I presume Stephen Ross wrote the name in the “General Manager” box of the team media guide in pencil.

-2011-2012 College Scouting Manual.

That explains our draft class this year; he probably just got the book this week.

-A photo of someone fishing, featuring a kid in a Ronnie Brown jersey. I guess NFL Shop keeps trying to unload clearance jerseys onto him as well.

I know how you feel Ireland, those NFL Shop e-mails start to eat away at you like Chinese water torture. I can only delete so many before I’m coerced into buying a Reebok Adewale Ogunleye jersey, size small.

-NFL Network. Now on Cablevision! Between seeing that channel for the first time and purchasing my first smart phone this year, I’ve finally caught up to the year 2006.

-A lot going on in this one:

1. A water bottle. God help us if that thing doesn’t end up in the blue “Recycling Only” bin.

2. One of those cheap calculators Staples throws in for free if you buy $60 in ink.

3. Anyone who can identify what the hell the theme of that page-a-day calendar is wins my Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar bobblehead.

-Ooh, a custom CD. I bet Ireland’s desperate to get them to play his grindcore mix during practice.

-Some notes have been added to the bulletin board. I’m guessing it’s a list of Napalm Death songs he wants on the next mix CD. Also, probably Ryan Tannehill’s new cell number. (Once again, nice job HBO.)

That’s all for our third installment of “Let’s Spot The Things In Jeff Ireland’s Office!”

-The big newsworthy event from this episode was that, following their frustration with the handling of Chad Johnson’s release, veteran players Reggie Bush, Jake Long, and Karlos Dansby (who was already on record voicing his displeasure about the front office’s decision) held a meeting with coach Joe Philbin to arrange some sort of leadership council once the season starts; that way, the leaders can provide a voice for the locker room before any similar decisions have to be made in the future. So once the season begins, look for the Dolphins’ players to have a means by which they can convey their opinions, concerns, and feelings to the Dolphins’ brass before said feelings are immediately disregarded and management does whatever the fuck it was going to do anyway.

-“Hump week: When real pros like Reggie Bush shake off fatigue and go even harder.” Funny, Kim Kardashian used that same line the time she was ready to go five times in one night.

-Just joking, Reggie. He had a rough week, culminating with him finally giving back his Heisman trophy. Kim loved that trophy, because it was the only thing touched by more black men than her. (ZING!)

-I don’t know what Reggie Bush is wearing during these practice drills, but has he considered trying EvoShield, the thinnest, lightest, and strongest custom-molding game-changing protective gear currently used by over 350 pro and college teams across a variety of sports? (We all have to start plugging this on our blogs, right?)

-“Goddammit, who swapped out my Anal Cunt tribute disc with fucking Marley?” – Jeff Ireland, probably.

-Ouch, did John Jerry get ripped for his weight. NFL.com has him listed at 345 pounds, but the coaches were saying he’s closer to 360. 360! Is that John Jerry or Ben and Jerry’s?

-No, he’s just cooling himself off. I didn’t accidentally link to that R. Kelly video again. (I make that mistake ONE time and you won’t let it go.)

-Here’s Jerry puking, which is what I imagine Jim Turner will be teaching him to do after dinner every night until he’s down to 330.

(I almost didn’t run that one. But I did, so here’s your disclaimers: Bulimia is bad. Jerry is perfect the way he is. The more you know.)

-Joe Philbin’s mini-fridge sucks. It’s just Gatorade and bottled water. Granted, there’s not much you can do with a mini-fridge, but at least put a Dr. Pepper in there for show.

-Eric Steinbach stole Philbin’s chair! Twice! This felt uncomfortable. If it were a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, Larry would be fidgeting on that couch and arguing with his guest about the seating arrangement for about 11 minutes.

-The undisputed highlight of the episode was the Rookie Talent Show. I was excited as soon as I saw the premise. If they’re anything like the Dolphins’ recent rookies, the only talent they won’t excel at is football.

-First up, look-alikes:

Kevin Coyle and Freddie Roach.

No, no, no. It’s the players who will all look like Freddie Roach in 20 years. (Yeah, way too soon. I apologize in advance.)

(For the record, I would’ve matched Coyle with a homeless version of David Brooks. Via Google Images, fellow WordPress blogger Sadlyno has a pretty good visual approximation.)

-Joe Philbin and Mr. Mackey.

Clever, but it would’ve been easier to just go with John Malkovich.

-Matt Moore and Nacho Libre.

Not bad, although it’s really only ONE photo of Matt Moore in which he’s the doppelganger of Jack Black’s ninth-most obnoxious on-screen persona. (And that photo was apparently hard to track down, based on the low-resolution image they used. My screenshot doesn’t look any worse than it did on TV.)

The only difference between Moore and Nacho Libre is that people were willing to pay to watch Nacho Libre.

-John Jerry and what I can only assume is a rare vintage photo of Jason Whitlock.

-Jake Long and Katy Perry.

Yeah, I can’t argue with that. The best part is that Jake Long’s the one who will still have a career in two years.

-Hey, Tannehill’s been operating this slideshow the whole time. I think he majored in Power Point at Texas A&M.

-Chandler Burden (either the best or worst name ever) does an awesome Jim Turner impersonation. He should’ve recited the speech Turner will do at the end of the month while cutting Burden.

-Jarrell Root and Isaako Aaitui—as musical act El Guapo—perform a solid cover of Cee-Lo’s ubiquitous 2010 smash. (Major credit for actually doing “Fuck You.” “Forget You” was the worst act of censorship since MTV aired Weezer’s 2001 smash “H-Pipe.”)

I must say, they’ll never have an audience this size when they’re busking in the subway tunnel this fall.

-Jeff Ireland was adjusting three different chairs. Is he OCD? Did each one have to be at a certain angle or something? I’m not making fun; I’m OCD myself. I’m just asking.

Anyway, Joe Philbin makes sure the Rookie Talent Show was “clean” as the two of them stand on a carpet probably covered in semen.

(I always assumed the “late hours spent in the coaches’ office” line was a euphemism for something.)

-I was kinda hoping Joe Philbin would heave all the trash into traffic and cause the litterbug to veer off the road a la Bette Midler on The Simpsons.

-“Staff meeting.”

Why does this team feel the need to state the obvious in writing at all times? Will their jumbotron just read “FOOTBALL” all season?

I’d at least like to think Ireland runs his meetings like Murray on Flight of the Conchords.

-Hey, Pat Devlin got into a frame of this shot! Poor guy. Up until now, the Gatorade bottle received more airtime. (The bottle probably has a better chance of earning a roster spot as well.)

-Here, they appeared to just replace Devlin with either a mannequin or one of those life-size zombie props people place on their front lawn on Halloween.

-An actual list of current Dolphins receivers:

Davone Bess
B.J. Cunningham
Jeff Fuller
Clyde Gates
Brian Hartline
Chris Hogan
Rishard Matthews
Marlon Moore
Legedu Naanee
Julius Pruitt
Roberto Wallace

What a group! I think that uninspiring list of also-rans just made the Browns fans feel better about themselves.

-Vontae Davis is pissed at Steve Smith for blocking after the whistle.

It could be worse: Jonathan Martin forgot to block before the whistle.

-Coach Philbin on the team’s sluggish first half against the Carolina Panthers: “That’s not the Miami Dolphins I was expecting to see in the first 30 minutes.”

Me neither. I was never expecting to see them put up seven points.

-Here are some stills from that “Welcome to Miami” montage set to that pumping EDM song.

I get the feeling Pat Riley definitely played that video during his pitch to LeBron in 2010. The only difference was he probably contrasted it with video of Cleveland, which I assume mainly consisted of tumbleweed, boarded-up factories, and people purchasing ropes and stools.

-My second favorite segment in episode three: The Players’ Day Off:

-Look at Rishard Matthews rocking the Warriors hat. Can he get in touch with Andris Biedrins? The 7-foot Latvian would probably be our No. 1 receiver.

-Jared Odrick spent the day visting his local haberdasher, who promised him he’d be the best-dressed man in the NFL.

Unfortunately, he must’ve forgotten it’s the NBA that instituted a dress code. Nevertheless, it was responsible of him to proactively be making the proper sartorial choices for another season on IR.

(Kidding, kidding. He’s one-for-two in seasons played! Anyway, he could at least wear it to his Penn State alumni dinner. All he needs is some new shoes and the bag to go over his head.)

-Let’s be honest: Jake and Jackie Long threw that fish out the second the cameras left and went to Prime One Twelve.

-Chas Alecxih (my favorite Game of Thrones character) has some buyer’s remorse on the ‘do done at Paul Soliai’s makeshift hair salon. He wisely keeps the eyebrows, obviously learning a lesson from Josh Samuda.

-Les Brown and the missus go on a private airboat tour and reptile adventure. Crews didn’t cut to the third-grade biology class HBO probably forced out of there while shooting.

(By the way, I think I took that airboat tour. We ended up on an island where some Native American dude wrestled a gator while still keeping a cigarette in his mouth. True story.)

-Alright, I finally had to look up who the hell Jamie Lynn Crandall (Brown’s girlfriend) is, because Hard Knocks has shown us about four wives or girlfriends TOTAL this season, and yet the main squeeze of a long-shot tight end has been in every episode. (Yes, she’s hot, but that’s beside the point.)

Apparently, she is a former Miss Utah and, if this unverified Twitter feed is to be believed, a FORD model and “advocate against texting and driving.” (As noble a cause as my endeavor to raise awareness about always using the banister on staircases.)

(The Twitter account also says, and I quote verbatim: “Be-UTAH-ful.” Somewhere in Ogden, a Mormon family just read that and chugged a Fresca in solidarity.)

Anyway, there you have it! Ms. Crandall wants to make sure she rises to the level of fame attained by other Miss Utahs such as [names I’m not even bothering to look up on Wikipedia to use as a sarcastic reference].

-I imagine to be Miss Utah, the pageant committee just tries to find the first girl with a skin complexion darker than a jar of mayonnaise, only with less personality. (ZING again!)

-Cheer up, Matt Moore. You’ll be playing by Week 6. Just watch.

-Plus, he’s rocking a “Beavers” hat. Right on, bro! (I’m told he went to college at Oregon State. Well, it’s still funny!)

-Anyway, tonight’s episode ended with the big announcement we already knew: Ryan Tannehill will be the Dolphins’ starting quarterback. Apparently, coaches saw all the just-barely-above-mediocre play they needed to see to anoint Tannehill as the one deserving of first-team reps and the starting gig.

Tannehill took a seat on top of the sofa still housing the last decomposing shreds of Chad Johnson’s dignity to be informed of the decision by Philbin.

“Everybody’s gonna make it a huge deal and try to blow it out of proportion,” Philbin told his new starter. “Tannehill’s a rookie; they don’t have a great wide receiver; why are they putting him out there; who’s gonna play right side. They’ll come up with a million reasons.”

He later added, “And they’re not bad people. That’s what they get paid to do.” Wait, I was supposed to get paid for spending the last four months writing all the things he just said? Damn it Between the Beers editors!

-Anyway, Tannehill, with a double-strapped backpack and a head held high, strolls down the corridor as “Three Little Birds” plays in the background once more.

Yet the more important callback isn’t the classic Bob Marley song but rather the implicit reiteration of a theme Philbin established in his speech earlier in the episode: “Be supportive.”

In hindsight, it feels like that speech wasn’t aimed at the locker room as a whole but at Matt Moore directly.

Two of the biggest NFL-related stories of the week—pertaining to matters both on the field and off—revolved around the Miami Dolphins. You couldn’t even script the storylines that comprised the second episode of Hard Knocks if you wanted to. (Alright, you definitely could. In fact, I think Playmakers incorporated all of this subject matter nine years ago.) I can only imagine that the documentary crew and producers compiling material for this season have never been so exultant at a career-jeopardizing knee injury to a prospective starting quarterback and a marriage-dissolving domestic violence incident. Let’s get to it:

-Touching on one of the other major NFL stories of camp thus far, Hard Knocks began by using the news of the untimely death of Eagles coach Andy Reid’s son, Garrett, to parallel the similar heartbreaking tragedy faced by Dolphins coach Joe Philbin, whose son Michael drowned this January. (It was mentioned that Philbin’s wife attended Reid’s funeral.)

The Hard Knocks crew deftly touched on a painful chapter of Philbin’s life that had yet to be addressed on the show. At one point, he gets choked up discussing his younger son’s reasoning for why his father should take the Dolphins job that he interviewed for the same month he buried his son: “Michael would want you to do it.”

The whole scene—particularly the shot of him on the phone describing his continuing difficulties at night reflecting on the loss—was evocative, and the revealing look was a reflection of what Hard Knocks can do so well: narrow in on the outsized personalities we see glimpses of on the sidelines every week and provide a poignant, raw view of the person’s character and humanity.

-After being spotted at the facilities well before any scheduled team activities, Les Brown is asked whether he’s just an early guy or if he’s only there because Hard Knocks is filming and he can get more camera time. He informs them he was there before the cameras. How come no third choice: He was loading up on office supplies, autographed memorabilia, and other team-affiliated contraband he could smuggle into his trunk before he’s cut in 10 days. I’m sure his in-laws are looking forward to plenty of Swingline staplers and game-worn Richmond Webb jerseys in the Brown household this Christmas.

-I know it must be incredibly awkward for Charles Clay and Michael Egnew to be reamed out by the guy who couldn’t finish higher than seventh among the tattered remnants of the Big 12, but I couldn’t get over what a pitch-perfect Bernie Sanders impersonation Mike Sherman pulled off in that rant. I can’t even tell which one was on TV railing against the Ryan budget just hours later.

-For the record, I always hate the contrived drama of the players-on-the-bubble plot lines of Hard Knocks, if only because their idea of “bubble” is so broad. There are plenty of long-shots they rightfully follow whose NFL dreams are likely to be shattered by season’s end. But is anyone really on the edge of their seat worrying about the precarious roster spot of Michael Egnew? You know how hard it is to be a third-round rookie and get cut in camp? He’d have to steal a cop car and drive into a police horse, and even then if he showed even a modicum of progress throughout the preseason he’d probably just get a four-game suspension.

-We returned to the three-way quarterback battle of Matt Moore, David Garrard, and Ryan Tannehill, featuring Pat Devlin and the Practice Squad Band. When we last checked in, we were informed that Garrard would be at the top of the depth chart for Miami’s preseason opener. So this week, we see a bunch of shots of Garrard helming the position and earning plaudits from the Dolphins coaches, because HBO apparently thinks their audience failed to read any football news over the past week instead of being informed of Garrard’s injury by Adam Schefter on our Twitter feed ten seconds after the news broke. (It’s also possible they merely showed Garrard’s training camp success to make his eventual downfall more painful. If that’s the case, they’re just dicks.)

-As a form of rookie hazing, Ryan Tannehill was forced to go up in front of a team meeting and sing a brutally off-key version of a Bill Withers classic that conjured up memories of Michael Cera’s impromptu singing performance for a bunch of cokeheads in Superbad.

Meanwhile, rumors circulate that Andrew Luck and Coby Fleener harmonized on a kick-ass version of “Lovely Day” at Colts camp. Sigh.

-This week’s cameo: Bob Griese! He joined Philbin to say nice things about the quarterbacks. Well, Earl Morrall came in for the middle portion of the episode, only for Griese to return at the very end and steal all the glory. (Five people just got that joke. And they were definitely all Dolphins fans. And it wasn’t even a good joke.)

-Haircut time! One rookie had his eyebrows shaved which, coming from a person with highly sensitive skin, made me cringe even more than the final scene of this episode.

-But the winner, hands down, goes to the guy with the penis shaved in his head. Second prize goes to the guy with the condom receipt shaved into his head. (Too soon, I know.)

“Glad we’re such a first-class organization,” Philbin replied upon seeing the phallically-coiffed individual.

Yes, you think the players are bad? Have you seen your boss’s first hits on Google Auto-Fill?

-Speaking of Jeff Ireland, now’s as good a time as any for our second installment of “Let’s Spot the Things In Jeff Ireland’s Office!”

 -Mountain Dew. I would’ve pegged him as a Sierra Mist guy.

-TWO computer screens AND a TV? Well, Mr. Ireland is conjuring memories of a story from The Onion this week.

-The “Intro to Adobe” student that edited this scene did a shitty job of superimposing Peter King’s head onto this other sportswriter’s body.

-Why is Ireland so adamant about “Recycling Only”? There’s only two garbage cans, I’m pretty sure the situation could quickly be amended were such a mix-up to occur. If Peter King throws the styrofoam cup containing his Espresso Macchiato in there, does Ireland just go on a rampage? What if it’s a toss-up recyclable item (e.g. plastic grocery bags)? Talk about ruling with an iron fist.

-Also, it’s going to be around 90 degrees every day in Miami this week. Why is he layered like he’s going ice fishing in Duluth?

-Ooh, a stapler. George Young never used a damn stapler! (Note: The previous claim is unverified.)

-I can’t figure out why Jeff Ireland needs business cards. Is he just giving those out to the pizza guy or the guy who snakes his toilet? Wouldn’t his number leak within .00000001 seconds of handing it out? If you needed to approach his office, wouldn’t you likely have to go through 15 other people before you get to him? I feel like he had a $25 Kinko’s gift card he needed to get rid of and just had them print anything.

-I’m already approaching my word count, so we won’t delve in to why the orange highlighter is set aside from the other writing utensils in the cup.

Tune in next week as we further explore the detritus spread across Mr. Ireland’s desk.

-Chad Johnson is being lectured by Mike Sherman about his public persona and future with the team as an expired clock with zero seconds on it serves as the backdrop. Oh HBO, you managed to outdo your Tannehill-signing-in-front-of-a-Marino-poster loaded metaphorical visual from last week.

-“When they get arrested or get caught doing something, it’s like ‘Oh my God,’ so with me, it’s raw and uncut 24/7.” - Chad Johnson, mentioning arrests on Hard Knocks for the SECOND time before his incident last weekend.

-Last week, I wrote the following:

I’m still waiting to find out who is the random guy the HBO crew gravitates toward because he’s supposedly having a breakout camp even though we end up never hearing from him again. Prediction: Someone in your fantasy league drafts Roberto Wallace eight rounds too high.

Well, not only did the crew focus on camp footage, coach reactions, and an impressive preseason outing against the Bucs from Mr. Wallace, they looked at another wide receiver as well…

-Chris Hogan played lacrosse at Penn State (too soon) and was garnering some attention for his ability to repeatedly get open during practice. Reggie Bush nicknamed Hogan “7/11″ because “24 hours, always open.” Hey, he had the same nickname for Kim Kardashian!

-Anyway, savor the spotlight Hogan. You’ll have a 30 rating on the free agent list of Madden next month.

-Regarding the Dolphins’ dearth of legitimate wide receivers, Ireland tells King, “We’ve got fours, fives, and sixes. What we need is threes, twos, and ones. We have to find out who those threes, twos, and ones are.” He just needs to replace “find out who” with “acquire,” “sign,” or “draft” and our offense is set!

-Some skeleton crew had to tail Matt Moore to the airport just for four seconds of family footage.

-Poor Justin Garrard. (Although with those hands, he might be our No. 3 receiver right now.)

Wait until Roger Goodell finds out Gregg Williams paid Mary Garrard $10,000 to throw at his head.

-Holy shit, that Lauren Tannehill appearance took forever. But HBO jazzed it up by informing us that Mrs. Tannehill plans on getting involved with the Special Olympics and needs her husband to sign some autographs for some of the athletes visiting camp. So now they’re trying to portray her as attractive AND selflessly altruistic. Join her next week as she adopts a litter of kittens from the kill shelter and brings them to St. Jude’s.

-We got to enjoy brief excerpts of the Dolphins’ cheerleaders performing a remake of “Call Me Maybe,” as viewed by the offensive line during a film session.

After the video, offensive line coach Jim Turner quipped that the players’ expressions changed and “the desk was up six inches.” And you thought I was smutty.

-Seriously, they’ve squeezed Tim Tebow and “Call Me Maybe” into consecutive episodes. If there’s a “McKayla Maroney is Not Impressed” reference in the third episode, I give up.

-Also, that video seemed to confuse the fuck out of the girl on the right who happened to be in the ballpit at the same time.

-Mike Sherman on Johnson’s dropped pass: “Dag Nabbit! Dammit!” I’ll say it again: Rex Ryan’s Hard Knocks this ain’t. (Although Tony Dungy must be happy.)

-And I swear I heard someone coin the neologism “Gosh Daggit” earlier. (If anyone can verify this, it’d be appreciated. Perhaps this coach invented a new colloquial P.C. locker room expression, like when Gary Carter invented “F-Bomb”.)

-Hey, Lauren Tannehill’s back! They miked her up and cut to her reactions as she watched her husband’s debut because of course they would. She was joined by Jackie Long, who I assume is some struggling actress the producers hired to play Jake Long’s wife. (Perhaps it was the girl who auditioned alongside Bob Kraft’s girlfriend for that part in The Internship.)

-She also was wearing a Ryan Tannehill jersey. Well that makes one of us.

-It rained heavily during Miami’s preseason debut, as Hard Knocks depicted the inclement weather with shots of wet cheerleaders, which is coincidentally the title of the movie I’ll be watching shortly after completing this post. (Now THERE’S some smut, Jim Turner.)

-“Alright, this is dedicated,” Mrs. Tannehill tells the lady cast to play Jake Long’s wife in the role of “girl sitting next to Lauren Tannehill.” Actually, she’s at a rainy preseason Dolphins game with the crowd the size of a spring workout at Boise State. I can’t argue with her on the “dedicated” claim.

-Ryan Tannehill thinks he’s completed his first touchdown pass to Roberto Wallace, but replays show the ball clearly bounced and was trapped by the receiver. The replacement officials ruled it complete and good for 11 points and an automatic fifth down on their next possession.

-Tannehill is efficient on his second drive, going 7-of-8 for 83 yards and completing an 11-yard touchdown pass to Charles Clay. Shit, we’re talking about actual football now. Sorry about that.

-Following the 20-7 loss to the Bucs, it was revealed that the three-man open competition for the starting quarterback job would likely be a two-man contest the rest of the way, as David Garrard had arthroscopic knee surgery that will likely keep him out the rest of camp.

-Finally, we get to the subject matter that made this the most anticipated episode of Hard Knocks ever. Few particulars were discussed regarding Johnson’s arrest—much more would circulate across various media outlets in the subsequent days than were addressed directly on the show, with Philbin evasively referring to it in a team meeting as “an incident”—but the access viewers were privy to was Hard Knocks at its best and most cringe-inducing.

First, a brief note on this whole sad and shameful story:

“Perception is reality, but you create your perception.” This little throwaway nugget of wisdom was from Mike Sherman earlier in the episode. Of course, he was referring to Johnson’s diva-like tendencies and reputation as a selfish, me-first, attention-seeking player. But Sherman inadvertently stumbled upon a harsh truth about Johnson’s antics, which have always straddled the line between endearing and obnoxious but never dangerous.

I still don’t know the details of what transpired, nor does anyone but the two people involved. By all accounts, it seems Johnson has yet to challenge the account of the story the public has been told. But Johnson has created his own perception his entire career; it always seemed like he was playing the part of a brash, over-the-top football star and just happened to also have talent. Whether it be Hard Knocks or Ev and Ocho, contrary to what he intimated at one point, it always felt like he was putting on a “front”; it was just a really consistent front, and the bits absorbed by the public were all we ever really knew.

My cynicism caused me to doubt the authenticity of this story from the being: Was this just a publicity stunt that backfired? Was this some subplot for Ev and Ocho that unexpectedly went public? Was she exploiting the incident for more attention? As intolerable and inexcusable as any instances of domestic violence are, the two principal players in the case were shaky characters with dubious credibility. But soon reality kicked in: he was arrested and cut from the team, their show was canceled, and she filed for divorce following a Humpdashian-esque 41-day marriage.

The sides of Chad Johnson and Evelyn Lozada that the world was familiar with were nothing more than outlandish caricatures flimsily masquerading as the simulacrum of actual human beings. That explains why this case was as jarring to Johnson (who sincerely appeared shaken up) and Lozada (who, as mentioned, quickly took action on ending her relationship with Johnson) as it was on outside observers. On screen, they were always in control of their perception. This incident required us to deal with the aftermath of when our fictionalized television characters came to life.

-A national story with sordid, unseemly, and dark details surrounding two attention-seeking television stars boiled down to a much more familiar visual in the football environment in which this show is contained: an employer terminating the job status of his employee. Philbin’s struggles to sugarcoat the organization’s decision along with Johnson’s pained facial expressions as his life and reputation unraveled on the same public stage that he so haughtily professed to thriving on was as candid, stark, awkward, and compelling as reality television can be.

This was not the image of the lovable bull-riding, FIFA-playing, name-changing clown Johnson cultivated throughout his career. This was a newly unemployed man, looking distraught, dressed in slippers and sweatpants like someone who just rolled out of bed on their way to get the morning paper, knowing fully well where this conversation was going, and knowing equally well that any response was both futile, necessary, and sure to ring hollow.

The director and editors seemed to think that the visual of Johnson’s locker being cleared out would serve as the harshest image associated with this story, but it failed to capture the weight of the moment as powerfully as what preceded it. Johnson’s looks told the story. This was a man losing way more than a roster spot. It was a man who, for the first time, lost control of his perception.

Raw and uncut. 24/7.

That’s all for now. Next week’s episode is teased with the line, “Chad Johnson is gone, so who will replace him?” Personal drama aside, it’s back to football, and the Dolphins still need a receiver. Who will it be? O.J. McDuffie? A catching dummy from practice? Hologram Chad Johnson circa 2005? I heard we spent a 2012 first-round pick on a guy out of Texas A&M who played receiver. Maybe give him a shot.

This past weekend I got the chance to head down to Washington D.C to catch a double header between the Washington Nationals and the Miami Marlins. This was my first double header and gave me a chance to mark another stadium off the list in the quest to go to every MLB stadium.   These are my thoughts about my day at the  stadium.

As I got off the green line, it was only a short walk before  the stadium came into site. It was the center field entrance and there was a red carpet leading up to the gates to get in. Classy move Nationals, though I soon found out they were for season ticket holders only, I was denied (Didn’t they know I was from Between The Beers?) so I went around to the next turnstile for us common folks.

The ushers handed out small programs at the entrance declaring BEAST MODE IS BACK referring to the return of Michael Morse to the line up.

I did a lap around the stadium first, taking it all in.

Nationals Park is very spacious and open. Maybe i’m used to the clutter at Citi Field  and Yankee Stadium but this was a pleasant surprise. Of course they had ads and sponsorship’s around the park but it wasn’t so much in your face as the other stadiums I’ve been to (Camden,Yankee, Citi). A nice touch was the Jason Werth banner hanging on the building across the street that you could see over the left field wall.

After my first lap we went up to the Score Board Walk. Every Thursday-Sunday, Miller Light holds a happy hour on the Score Board Walk 2 hours before the game. There was a live band, cheap beers and friendly competitions. Oh ya and plenty of BEAST MODE shirts, Michael Morse is a partner in 22Fresh who sells the shirts. This was a ton of fun.  From the top of the walk you can see the entire field and watch the teams warm up. The outfield only has two levels so its close to the field and very fan friendly.

As the game started we made our way to our seats along the third base line, Section 115, Row FF, Seat 15.  It was a scattered crowed, nothing to crazy. I bought a program and went through it in between the beers and innings trying to find some facts out about the stadium and what not and stumbled across this little known fact about X-Factor Xavier Nady.

I’ve heard of athletes changing their date of birth before but this is ridiculous, born November 74th 1978 Xavier?…If that’s your real name!

During the 4th inning is when the best part about Nationals Park happens. The Presidents Race. Out of the center field fence come George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. They take off towards the finish line in this Olympic themed event.  The crowd goes crazy cheering for the mascots as George Washington wins! Having the four mascots is amazing, as they are seen through out the stadium during the game and gives each fan someone to root for. Each race has a different winner except for one thing. Teddy Roosevelt is not allowed to win. I did my research, Teddy has never won one race in the history of the Presidential Race. It is the brain child of one of the top people in the Nationals marketing team and it spawned a huge fan base with tons of “Let Teddy Win” merchandise.  The Nationals even came up with different ways to make Teddy lose, disqualifying him numerous times and even coming up with another mascot, “The Cat” who’s entire existence is to make sure Teddy does not win.

In the video below you can see one of the races Teddy is winning but goes out of his way to body slam another character. AMAZING

**Rumor has it, when and if the Nationals make the playoffs, the team may let Teddy win in order to amp up the crowed even more then they already will be**

The game continued and the Nationals went on to win 7-4.

During the break between games, we met a group of guys who have been traveling visiting stadiums their entire life, much like I want to do. They have been to over 40 stadiums and are making another round at it due to new stadiums popping up year after year. The leader of the pack said that its been the same group of guys every summer visiting the ball parks. He also made sure to mention that one of his friends did not attend the second year of the tour which they give him a hard time over.

As night feel over the stadium and the lights came on Nationals Park filled up with people and it became a entirely new experience. Now I can tell the Nationals were a soon to be playoff team. I guess that’s the perks of going to a double header, a day game and a night game give off two totally different experiences.

This game ended a little differently with the Marlins beating the Nats 5-2  but of course the best part of this game was getting to see a second Presidents Race.

LET TEDDY WIN!!!

Big Thanks To James For The Tickets!

* You will see a sweet pic of me at fan fest in the slideshow, pitching challenge. I hit 59 mph, is that good? Im pretty sure I knew kids on the middle school baseball team that were hitting 59 mph 10 years ago. Only answer is that the game was flawed, must have been. All  I know is I threw all strikes. You hear that David Wright, basically 60MPH right down the pipe, sounds like the perfect home run derby pitcher to me, 2013 call me maybe?

Click to view slideshow.

**Updated list of stadiums visited: Yankee Stadium (Old and New), Shea Stadium, Citi Field, Camden Yards, Nationals Park. At least i’ll be finished visiting ball parks by the time I’m 55, and if the guys I met had any clues to what my future holds, its going to be a lot longer then that.

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Do you remember when the Heat won the NBA Championship? Me neither. And that’s why being a sports fan can absolutely suck: because those fleeting moments of unbridled euphoria quickly give way to the drudgery of our mundane day-to-day existence and the hardships we face as another lost summer wastes away. For me, Mike Miller draining a barrage of threes seems as distant a memory as the cutting of the umbilical cord or the first day of kindergarten or giving a shit about Kony. You really just hold out for the next distraction—in this case, sports—as an outlet through which you can channel all your triumphs and disappointments. In this case, the sport is football. And unfortunately, the next distraction this time around is the Miami Dolphins—my Miami Dolphins. Yes, the moribund franchise whose simultaneous quick-fix/draft-and-develop strategy over the past several seasons has yielded predictably disastrous results to the point where the Bills have passed them in terms of relevance and appeal.

A quick recap:

When we last checked in with the NFL here at Between the Beers—and to remind you of a bygone era where we used to write daily and update content, we at one point offered our readers TWO different posts about a departed Jets offensive coordinator—it was depressing subjects like Bountygate and concussions and Roger Goodell’s boot stomping on a human face (in this example, we’ll refer to the face as “Jonathan Vilma”) that dominated discussions. The highlight was covering the draft, even as I spent the entire week lamenting my team’s pick. Then the NBA playoffs reached their climax, the Mets didn’t suck for a little while, the Yankees didn’t suck at all, we all went to the beach, CALL ME MAYBE, the calendar turned to August, and seeing Trent Richardson listed as a first-round fantasy pick finally shook me from my football malaise.

When we last checked in with the Miami Dolphins, a 0-7 start and pole position in the Andrew Luck/Robert Griffin sweepstakes fell apart at the seams when the Dolphins went on a roll, finishing 6-3 even as embattled coach Tony Sparano was axed with three games remaining; interim coach Todd Bowles guided the team to wins in two of their final three games.

Of course, despite Anthony Fasano’s disgust at the idea of disloyal turncoat fans refusing to bask in the glory of a 6-10, third-place-via-statistical-tiebreaker finish in the AFC East, most Dolphins fans were filled with trepidation and uncertainty upon entering the offseason sans a Super Bowl for the 38th time since 1973. Rather than having a blue-chip, quasi-surefire franchise quarterback fall in their laps to build around—something the Dolphins hadn’t been able to muster up despite trotting out 16 different retreads, castoffs, reclamation projects, overmatched backups, failed draft picks, and whatever the hell Cleo Lemon was in the post-Marino era—the Dolphins were on yet another wild goose chase for that elusive quarterback of the future.

But first, the Dolphins needed a new head coach. They eventually hired Joe Philbin, who had great success as Packers offensive coordinator watching Mike McCarthy call plays for two different MVP quarterbacks. He was offered the job after former Titans coach Jeff Fisher decided a team that averaged three wins per year the last five seasons with an injury-prone franchise quarterback was a better option.

(The Dolphins also passed on my personal preferred choice, no nonsense defensive guru and effusive motivator Mike Zimmer, because he was “too blunt and honest for the Dolphins’ liking.” The Dolphins surrounding themselves with yes men? Who says Bill Parcells didn’t leave his mark in Miami?)

With Philbin in the fold, many outside observers thought the erstwhile Packers offensive coordinator would be reunited with his backup quarterback from Green Bay, Matt Flynn. Flynn famously threw for six touchdowns in the Packers’ Week 17 victory over the Lions, meaning that a package deal of him and Philbin would kill two birds with one stone: a new coach, a new quarterback, a new beginning. After all, there’s no way a quarterback in a league where Derek Anderson and Steve Beuerlein made Pro Bowls might’ve produced a statistical outlier in a sample size of one game. Of course, Flynn deemed competing with Tarvaris Jackson on the depth chart in Seattle rather than being handed the car keys in Miami to be the better option and ended up agreeing to terms with the Seahawks.

But before cycling through the second-string quarterbacks on other teams’ depth charts, the Dolphins scoured the injured reserve list and set their sights squarely on one target: Peyton Manning. It made sense that the Dolphins would not suck just enough in the second half of the 2011 season to miss out on Andrew Luck, then go pick up the declining veteran with four neck surgeries who was cut to make room for the soon-to-be first overall pick. The future Hall of Famer was wooed by fans (who erected billboards and launched a web campaign) and by starfucker owner Stephen Ross, who shrewdly throws piles of money around in a salary cap-driven league where such a strategy is essentially useless.

The only problem was the affection was unrequited. After meeting with the Denver Broncos, Arizona Cardinals, Tennessee Titans, San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins, Toronto Argonauts, Allen Wranglers, the North Korea national team, and a group of scrappy inner city youth who needed a quarterback for their pickup game against their affluent rivals in order to save a community center in their hardscrabble neighborhood from being torn down to build a deluxe condo, Manning begrudgingly held a perfunctory meeting with the Dolphins front office brass in Indianapolis (despite having a home in Miami), reportedly as a favor to Dan Marino in exchange for two dinners at Mendy’s. (Put it this way: If the entire Dolphins organization was one person, they’d be sleeping on Marino’s pullout sofa at this point.)

(I should also point out they thankfully never reached an agreement with Alex Smith, who was rumored to be negotiating with Miami after being jilted by the 49ers when they entered the Peyton Manning fray. Thinking that signing Smith constituted a splash would be like overselling Sha Na Na’s live performance at your boat show.)

With the Dolphins needing a jolt before the NFL disappeared for the remainder of the spring and summer, they settled on the only reasonable solution: a three-man quarterback battle in training camp. First, they chose to retain incumbent starter Matt Moore. They followed that up by signing David Garrard, who was out of football for a year because of a back injury after being cut by the Jaguars just days before the start of the 2011 season; Jacksonville proceeded to trot out a rookie whom Football Outsiders ranked as the worst quarterback in the NFL last year with a minimum of 100 pass attempts.

But the biggest news came when the Dolphins attempted to compensate for the Luck/Griffin misfire by taking Texas A&M quarterback Ryan Tannehill, a converted wide receiver who finished 53rd among Division I-A quarterbacks last year in completion percentage, with the eighth overall pick in this year’s draft. The last time the Dolphins selected a quarterback in the first round of the draft was 1983, when the aforementioned Mr. Marino fell to them. The move reunited Tannehill with his former Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman, now the Dolphins offensive coordinator since his Aggies couldn’t finish any better than 7-6 despite having a quarterback the Dolphins deemed to be only six draft picks lesser than the likes of Luck and Griffin.

And now we’re here.

When we last left Hard Knocks, there were goddamn snacks and hammy melodrama from Mike Tannenbaum and repeated incantations futilely uttered in the hopes of conjuring a certain Revis. The prolonged lockout from last season meant a truncated offseason, and among the much collateral damage from the labor standoff (2011 Hall of Fame Game: Always In Our Hearts) was the absence of a new season of Hard Knocks.

Rumors circulated all offseason as to which team would be chronicled in the latest installment of the series. With teams such as the Falcons, 49ers, Texans, Broncos, Jets, and Redskins rebuffing HBO’s advances, and with Ken Hershman pretending he didn’t see Shad Khan’s hand eagerly raised, the Dolphins were officially unveiled as HBO’s 31st choice selection for the newest season. I assume Ross saw Hard Knocks as a way to give the Dolphins some additional exposure before they start 1-7 and everyone switches over to Ray Allen’s debut around Halloween.

Take solace, Phin Phanatics: You can replace that “Manning to Miami” billboard with one boasting “We’re not the Jaguars!”

Anyway, that lengthy introduction (which really should’ve been its own post) leads us to our review of the first episode. Since Hard Knocks isn’t structured in a way where I can come up with some linear response to what transpired, I’ll be offering quick hit reactions and observations of some of the activity highlighted in each episode, all from a self-loathing Phin fan himself. Without further ado…

-Liev Schreiber intones “The Miami Dolphins are at the beginning of an overhaul” over scenes of a locker room being renovated. It’s a football reality series, who said the metaphors had to be subtle?

-I pride myself on having a pretty decent memory and almost never screw up names, yet I’ve called Joe Philbin “John Philbin” at least four times this offseason. Anyway, he begins with the usual hackneyed piece of locker room coachspeak looking like Rick Scott doing a terrible Don Knotts impersonation.

-Derek Dennis was to Hard Knocks what Chuck Cunningham was to Happy Days.

-Postscript: Dennis was since picked up by the Patriots. I fully expect him to make eight Pro Bowls now.

-Hey, Mike Sherman’s back! And looking like a disheveled Mike Martz!

-Lauren Tannehill, aka Anna Benson 2.0, makes her first appearance within the first 10 minutes. Whoever directs these episodes isn’t stupid.

-She’s also wearing ridiculously short shorts while walking a dog. Once again: Neither she, nor HBO, is stupid.

-Yes, I included a picture. I’m not stupid, either.

As a bonus, a pre-Hard Knocks photo, just so you get an idea of what HBO wants you to be ogling these next five weeks:

-Did I just watch a shirtless Paul Soliai style his teammates’ hair? You’re goddamn right I did! This show is the best.

-Jeff Ireland creepily assembles his roster by himself on a white board. The scene conjured memories of Steve Buscemi’s “People To Kill” list in Billy Madison. (Any scene featuring Ireland applying lipstick was edited out.)

-Hey, we got Eric Steinbach! His “boating under the influence” charge was always my favorite of the nine Bengals arrests in 2006.

-Philbin runs his practices in a way that allows the coaches to constantly be alternating between watching the first and second units, requiring both units to remain on the field at all times with no downtime. Yes, it’s unusual. Nevertheless, shots of an exhausted Vontae Davis after one freaking practice deflated my hopes of an improved secondary.

-Biggest disappointment in the first episode: Stephen Ross. I was expecting him to be standing on the sidelines fully decked out in some Armani suit on a 105-degree Miami afternoon on his cell trying to sell a minority share of the franchise to DJ Khaled.

-I jokingly tweeted some predictions for celebrity cameos that might occur during this run of episodes, and the best we got in the premiere was Braylon Fucking Edwards, the 25th banana from Hard Knocks: Jets. This show has the backing of HBO and the city of Miami and that’s the best we can do? No Jennifer Lopez cameo in which she and Flo Rida perform her new single that I’ll immediately fast forward past on DVR? No turgid locker room speech written by Aaron Sorkin to promote The Newsroom? (And like all things Newsroom, everyone can then turn to social media to complain about it instead of just not watching like the rest of us.)

-Braylon Edwards was wearing an Al Golden football camp shirt.

????????

Not only did he go to Michigan, but NO ONE is excited about the Al Golden era. It looks like Jeff Ireland haphazardly scurried through a church donation bin just to find something Miami-ish for Edwards to wear on camera. It was either that or a Butthole Surfers T-shirt, right Todd?

-Chad Johnson. Chad Johnson, oh Chad Johnson. This is gonna be awhile.

I made fun of this signing when I first heard about it, calling it stunt-casting by HBO that was “so shameless that Miami might as well have signed Lena Dunham or Peter Dinklage to be their fifth receiver.” Even if that was the case, not since Danny DeVito giving It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia an unexpected major boost in their second season and beyond did such casting work out so well.

Here were Johnson’s best moments in the first episode:

1. On his ill-fated stint with the Patriots: “Last year, I took a year off to give everyone else a chance to catch up.”

2. Matt Moore tells us Johnson’s response when the receiver was asked what he’d be doing on his day off: “I don’t know, but I’ll probably be open though.”

3. Johnson tries to convince viewers that his overall track record outweighs his paltry 15-catch season with the Patriots. Problem: Tom Brady threw 39 touchdown passes in 2011, of which the Artist Formerly Known as Ochocinco caught one.

4. This exchange between Johnson and a practice official:

Johnson: “Hey ref.”
Official: “Yeah?”
Johnson: “He can’t cover me.”
Official: “I believe it.”
Johnson: “Appreciate it.”

5. Johnson informs us he didn’t have sex the entire 2011 season because of his substandard play. The drought ended when he scored his first touchdown, but after that their status returned to what Johnson referred to as, “cobweb mode.” I can relate. I too look forward to a season of “cobweb mode,” most likely whether Johnson finds the end zone or not.

6. Fun fact: You may recognize Evelyn Johnson (nee Lozada) from VH1’s Basketball Wives. She was previously engaged to NBA star Antoine Walker before the two called it off after 10 years together. Walker is now bankrupt despite making roughly $110 million in his playing career. Here’s an excerpt from Chris Ballard’s Sports Illustrated profile of Walker, who is now playing for an NBDL team in Idaho:

A three-time All-Star living in a $915-a-month apartment he shares with reserve guard Chris Davis, and playing for a salary of less than $25,000. He has no car, subsists mainly on cold cuts and fast food and plays in front of crowds as small as 155.

Also, it was reported that Lozada makes more in an episode of her reality series than Walker makes on his NBDL contract—a series she only joined because of Walker.

Long story short: I’m shocked—SHOCKED—she and Johnson would be mugging it up in order to receive the lion’s share of the HBO cameras’ attention during the entire first episode. That’s not like them at all.

7. A microcosm of the typical dialogue between the newlyweds:

Evelyn: “What are you thinking? About how gorgeous I am?”
Chad: “You’re really not all that.”
Evelyn: <laughs>
Chad: “Everybody’s decent in their own way, but then you’ve got money, so I’d marry you for that also.”

8. Evelyn discusses their first date being at McDonald’s. Someone jokingly asks if they met at the drive-thru. The sarcastic quip goes right over her head and, in a completely serious manner devoid of even a trace of irony, she proceeds to recall their courtship via Twitter. Johnson apparently was cursing her out for some reason, although refraining from using the “B” word (there’s a lesson there, Kanye). As she put it, hate somehow turned into love, and they lived happily ever until-their-show-isn’t-picked-up-and-they-no-longer-have-any-use-for-each-other.

9. “If you pause Call of Duty for someone, that’s the fucking one.”

I can’t argue with that.

10. “Hey Stu, I promise I’m getting arrested while we’re off.”

We then move to his introductory press conference. Some key excerpts:

11. On a potential second career if he failed to make the roster: “I was thinking about going into porn. Gotta earn a living.” Odds of a Chad Johnson/Evelyn Lozada sex tape have to be -250 right now, no?

12. On his quickness: “Have you been watching? I’m fast as shit.”

13. I’ll admit I’m mildly intrigued at the prospect of a Chad Johnson-Gene Simmons side project. It’d still have to go over better than Metallica and Lou Reed, right?

14. Also, he attributes his black nail polish to a rocker/hippie custom. What the fuck hippies has he been watching? Did he just confuse them with the goths? C’mon Chad, they smell the same but they certainly don’t look the same.

15. On the tutelage of Belichick: “I learned to shut the fuck up. For a year. I never thought I could do it but I did it.”

Never shut up, Chad. I beg you: Never. Shut. Up.

-How did the Dolphins not sign T.O.? Fuck football logic, we’re only talking entertainment value for the next month.

-Later, Joe Philbin lectures Johnson against the use of colorful language. Rex Ryan’s Hard Knocks this isn’t.

-Did they really need to subtitle that Johnson/Philbin conversation? I understood every word.

-The guy with the masseuse was discussing Tebow. Holy shit, they managed to shoehorn him into this series even without the Jets’ participation.

-Also, that scene cut out before the happy ending. HBO’s gone soft. (No pun intended.)

-There were more shots of cheerleaders and bikinis than I remember. Then again, I assume cheerleaders and bikinis are less prevalent in Cincinnati.

-Our first twist: David Garrard is number one on the depth chart for the first preseason game! Also, Pat Devlin’s existential crisis comes to an end when his existence is acknowledged.

-Oh the irony: HBO bends over backwards to NOT ask the Jaguars to do Hard Knocks, and then the most important camp battle might end with a Jaguars castoff winning the job.

-Jake Long: “We gotta have a great fucking day today man.”

Really, he gets 10 seconds? He’s probably our best player!

-Time for a new game: Let’s spot the things in Jeff Ireland’s office!

(I apologize in advance for the crappy iPhone screen grabs.)

-Holy shit is he red.

(Yeah, TWO Simpsons references.)

-“Adversity is the companion of champions or the enemy of the weak.”

Is that Confucius? No, it’s a Newman.

(Alright, we’re even: two Seinfeld references, two Simpsons references.)

-Dell monitor. Smart phone. These might just be props to cover up the Commodore 64 and Apple Newton he’s actually using.

-An iPod Classic and Bose sound dock. My dad has that same setup. I can’t knock it.

-Is that a three-hole puncher? Well, Mr. Ross is certainly splurging at Staples, now isn’t he?

-Is that a helmet signed by Tony Sparano in the upper-left corner of this photo? Does Ireland still keep Sparano’s head inside it?

-What could have possibly been on that coat hanger in that spot?

-“Steve Ross: Owner” Is this something they’re forgetting often?

-Here is something called the Player Enterprise Management System, which Ireland is logged in to access Tannehill’s information. Not as exciting as it initially seemed watching it in real time. No real information (duh, like they’d show confidential data), and the screen cuts off so you can’t see if there’s any fetish porn open on the bottom.

[UPDATE: After perusing the useless information on the top and right side of the screen, I somehow overlooked Ryan Tannehill's cell phone number being broadcast in plain sight on the bottom left. Nice job HBO. Hat tip to Deadspin for catching it.]

Join us next week for a new round of “Let’s spot the things in Jeff Ireland’s office!”

-Reggie Bush and Chad Johnson playing FIFA on PS3 in a hotel room. You gotta love Bush’s perpetual “Holy shit, I escaped that Kardashian Klusterfuck just in time before I became a sports pariah like Humphries” grin he’s been wearing for two years.

-I’m still waiting to find out who is the random guy the HBO crew gravitates toward because he’s supposedly having a breakout camp even though we end up never hearing from him again. Prediction: Someone in your fantasy league drafts Roberto Wallace eight rounds too high.

-I have to comment on that one fan at practice who confidently and emphatically stated, “We all believe in Tannehill. He’s going to take us to the Super Bowl in the next two years. Mark it down.” I talked to at least 20 different Dolphins fans over the course of draft week in New York City and reaction was pretty much split; even the people who endorsed the pick and Tannehill’s potential did so with a cautious optimism. So I should issue the disclaimer that, “The opinions expressed therein are solely those of the individual and do not reflect those of the Dolphins’ fan base at large.”

-As you may remember by my lengthy screed, I was against the Tannehill pick (more so the rationale behind it than the pick itself) but I should emphasize two things:
1. Of course I’m rooting him to succeed.
2. I’m willing to reserve judgment until he has time to develop (I still haven’t given up on Chad Henne to be a viable starter for crying out loud).

That being said, there are a lot of jobs and a lot of publicity depending on Tannehill being good, and good quickly, so regardless of how he’s actually progressing, you’re going to hear a lot of “Wow, he looks great!” and “There’s no reason he couldn’t win this starting job” sound bites emanating from camp just to start whetting appetites. (In an all-too-intentional directorial decision, a shot of Tannehill signing his contract and officially joining the Dolphins featured a triumphant-looking Dan Marino adorning a poster in the background.) From a marketing standpoint, I don’t blame them. If you’re going to do Hard Knocks, you might as well use it to the organization’s advantage. Put it this way: Fans will enter the 2012 season more familiar with the guy considered the first-round quarterback afterthought than with Luck or Griffin.

-Yes, like everyone else, I made fun of the selection of the Dolphins as the team to be profiled on Hard Knocks when it was first announced this spring, predicting it would be dull and uninspired. But let’s be honest: These fly-on-the-wall all-access formats—and by and large, anything even tangentially connected to the NFL—will suck us in, captivate us, and enrapture us. Miami may have been nobody’s first choice, but the producers knew the NFL’s appeal to fans, thus meaning they had 32 acceptable choices all along.

-That’s all for now. I’m very excited to be back and more than ready to divert my NFL focus to activities happening on the field once again. The Dolphins have their first preseason game against the Buccaneers on Friday. Be here next Tuesday for our second recap, unless HBO decides to just follow Chad Johnson around and Bravo launches a new season of Real Housewives of Miami with Evelyn Johnson and Lauren Tannehill. Hell, I’ll cover that too.

Breaking News: Former New York Yankee not allowed to attend the Olympics in London.

After being banned from Yankee Stadium earlier this year Reggie Jackson will not be allowed to attend the Olympics due to his previous assassination attempt on the queen.

Great clip but the point of this article starts at 8:50. Only clip I could find.

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Lets start off on how I’m dealing with my Batman hangover. I saw it yesterday afternoon at a VIP private showing, and when I left, I didn’t know what to think. Were my expectations not met? Was the hype to high? Did I think it was good? I will do my best not to give anything away since the movie only came out 12 hours ago.

I’m torn, obviously it was an amazing movie butttttttttttt I am little disappointed in it.  I mean The Dark Knight was one of my favorite movies and I do not think this was as good.  I’ll give some notes on what I did and did not enjoy.

I 100% enjoyed the fact that you did not have to see the other movies in order to understand Rises. There is tons of back story that helps if you DID see the movies but its not needed due to the amount of flashbacks and clips to help you understand the moments that just occurred and even at times gives characters that ah ha moment they need to make everything come together.

Visually, yes I think it was better then the previous 2 installments. They actually used New York this time in the film which is big since so much chaos happens (may be one of the first times ive seen so much damange done to NY in a film post 9/11)  but of course stopped off in Gotham brother cities, Chicago and Pittsburgh…but is it a crime to say that BATMAN the MOVIE came off to much like a COMIC BOOK? I understand that its the origin of the character and it could have pleased the fanboys at comic con but it just didn’t do it for me. There were some fight scenes between Bane and Batman that if a POW! or BAM! showed up I wouldn’t have been surprised.  I’ll let you guys be the judge but for me the fight scenes came off as punch grunt punch grunt and the close ups of the fights made it looks more as a frame by frame fight, think looking at /reading a comic book. There is also the scene where Bale and Hathaway dance, the slow dance spinning was making me dizzy the way it was shot. 

One thing I did not like was Batman’s new toy The Bat. It look like it came strait out of Avatar and it did not go over well with me. I just wish they used a more BATMAN type of vehicle. I understand the bat mobile isn’t exactly the iconic one but i think the BAT , plane? well call it, should have been less over the top.

The story was great. There were twists and turns,  some veryyyy predictable and some not so but the action of the movie made you forget the predictability and gave you the o yea now I remember I saw that coming when the moments actually come.

The battle between good and evil was perfect once again.

Here is what I thought of some of the main characters of the film.

Bane.

Oh Bane the ginormous super villain/terrorist with the Mortal Kombat  face. Tom Hardy did a great job playing Bane, think about it, all that acting, using mostly his eyes (due to his face being covered). The evil that he showed was unbelievable and even in my opinion came close to the disturbing role of the Joker.The only problem with Bane is his voice, which is for the first 20 min unrecognizable words and grunts. As the movie went on the words starting forming and I could actually understand him which made it better and better to watch him run around tormenting the citizens of Gotham City.  No SPOILER here because it was on most of the trailers so if you want you can skip to the next paragraph, the scene where the football field blows up is perfect. The little boy singing the National Anthem,  Bane slowly walking up from the tunnel, it all gave me the chills prob one of the top scenes from the movie and we get a Hines Ward cameo.

FYI  The plane scene is amazing, maybe one of the best in the movie also. 

Cat Woman. 

Going into the movie I was pissed about Cat Woman from the moment I heard about her so again, I had these thoughts before even entering the movie. I was surprised by Anne Hathaway in her role as Cat Woman.  From the moment she shows up I thought she did an amazing job, she was smart, sexy and mysterious. I just wish she stayed that way. As the movie went on her and Bruce Wayne/Batman form a relationship and the moment , I guess I can say,  she started to become the Cat Woman we know and that I expected before hand. Her role in the second half of the movie is mediocre and she loses that touch we saw in the beginning.

Alfred.

Or shall I call him Confucius. Batman’s conscious of the movie had a lot of emotional moments. He is one wise man and I think someone should start a Twitter account right now and just pump out inspirational and heart felt thoughts on life. He actually almost brought a tear to my eye talking about how much he cared for the Wayne family.

John Blake.

Gorden Levit plays  John Blake a NYC police officer and HUGE Batman fanatic who actually knows who Batman is. I loved this character. Blake looks at Wayne the way any one of us would if we knew a superhero, just staring at him, out of costume looking at him with amazement thinking this is Batman wow.  His  New Yawk accent wasn’t annoying like when most people try to do it and he was very convincing in every scene.  This was another casting I was turned off just because I still see him as the kid from Third Rock From The Sun but he seriously came into his own as a actor in Inception and now Batman The Dark Night Rises, both Nolan films.  He truly was a character to root for.

and ofcourse….

Bruce Wayne/ Batman.

Whats there to say, Bale is to Batman what Connery was to Bond. The best. (Sorry Adam West, just hope Bale doesn’t want to do voice over work for Family Guy in the future)  His voice wasn’t as Batman deep as previous films which is a huge plus, that honor went to Bane as previously stated.  Wayne is broken down in this film physically and emotionally and to take a line from his  father in the original ”Why do we fall Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. ” is what Batman is in this movie. He is not only picking himself back up but putting the weight of a city on his shoulders.

Thinking about the movie and trying to summarize is hard with out giving a lot away. Re-reading what I just wrote, you can really see that i’m nitpicking almost trying to find something wrong with the movie; but like I said in the beginning of the article, I left the movie with an unease of not knowing if I truly enjoyed it. With a movie of this magnitude one cant help but caught up in all that surrounds it. I wish I didn’t build it up in my head to what I expected it to be in that aspect I am a little let down. Overall though, by the surprise of any of you who get to this point I think I convinced myself that I really did enjoy it more than I think and might even go see it again. By that time I will have no problem dishing the scene by scene and you can understand completely how I feel and where i’m coming from.

Note: I HATE PEOPLE WHO APPLAUD AT THE END OF MOVIES, THE ACTORS ARE NOT BEHIND THE SCREEN.

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Cancel Your Cablevision.

Sign a petition.

Crash your Escalade into a pole.

Protest outside Madison Square Garden.

Write a letter.

Drink a 2L Bottle of Soda.

Occupy Small Streets.

Pretend you cared.

Call Congress.

Punch a fire extinguisher.

Buy a condo in Houston.

Sleep on couches.

Eat organic.

Piss and moan.

Sleep on couches.

Just get the fuck over Jeremy Lin.  

Thank you.  That is all.

Thanks for all the help getting views during LINSANITY, but what are we going to do next year?

I mean it would have been linsane not to make a creepy video like this.