The Skolney Blog

We are days away from the Patriots likely winning their sixth title in 18 seasons of Brady and Belichick. It has been horrible. It has been lucky as hell. Lucky. As. Hell. There is not a single Patriots fan who accepts the slightest argument that the last 18 years have been what they are for any other reason than "Brady's the GOAT. Belichick is the GOAT. Best franchise ever! If you disagree you're just a jealous hater." Reasoning with these people is impossible. Sure, not everything has been luck. I grudgingly admit they're very good. But my god, no franchise has EVER had such a long, lengthy run of stupendous good fortune, or luck. It begins in the very game that kicked this whole thing off...the tuck rule game in January 2002. Oakland outplays the Pats in the snow, and late in the game they get a strip sack of Brady and a game-clinching fumble recovery. Game over. Except a replay somehow overturns the call due to an unknown rule that was also interpreted w...

Banned for 7 days for this comment that I don't even know what page it was posted on or even what it's in reference to. I think it *might* have been about Smirk Boy from Covington getting a White House invite. Such BS.

The Oscar nominations are out. And overwhelmingly the biggest talker is that Black Panther is the 1st superhero movie ever nominated for best picture. And holy forking shirt are the MAGAts  mad! Nearly every comment on reddit especially, but also Facebook and even a few tweets I saw, was some sort of whiny bitchfest by people who could not do a worse job of hiding their racism. Accusing the academy of nominating it only for political reasons, which is absurd. BP was one of the best reviewed films of the year in any genre. It was one of the best reviewed superhero movies ever. If all the academy cared about was nominating a "black" film, there were other options out there. There are obviously some who just think that comic book movies, or action movies, or fantasy, are just inherently lesser and should never be nominated no matter.how good they are. There's no getting through to these people. Some bitched about previous comic book films like The Dark Knight or Logan or...

Suddenly people are mad about bad officiating in playoff games changing entire legacies of players and coaches? Drew Brees denied a possible 2nd title. Like this is actually new? Brett Favre retired with all the major.passing records, yet a reputation as a playoff choker. All because he threw an interception in the Superdome, a play that never should have taken place, cause if the refs do their job on that dark day the Vikings, for all their mistakes, have already won that game. Tom Brady's entire career has been aided by bad officiating. The tuck rule game started the whole thing. Call that play correctly, and the Rams probably win a 2nd super bowl. Hell  that franchise might still be in St. Louis. These blown calls didn't just start mattering yesterday. Given the single game elimination setup, the scarcity of games overall, football is the pro sport most impacted by blown calls. One play can swing games, swing careers. Andy Reid has toiled for 20 years as a head coach, an...

Patriots 37 Chiefs 31 Is there an entity in sports more consistently disappointing than the AFC? Everything that happened in that conference this year was just window dressing. It was just rearranging some of the pieces in the latest chapter of the evil empire. So instead of the Jaguars or Steelers or Colts enabling another (NINTH) AFC title it turned out to be the Chiefs. The Chiefs 1st half on offense was an embarrassment. They made their run in the 2nd half, but as with the Jags last year it was fool's gold. Nothing was going to stop the Patriots from winning. Not the Chiefs. Certainly not the refs. My god. How have they ever NOT won a super bowl with the breaks they get, with the calls? Edelman muffs a punt. They say it never touched him. Hogan is given a catch where half the damn ball is on the ground, moving. A Chief defender's arm grazes Brady's upper body(not the head) and it's roughing the passer. After the display in New Orleans today, then this, the lea...

Rams 26 Saints 23 You know, for as ultimately depressing as the Vikings season was, these NFC playoffs were a wonderful salvation. Bears, Eagles, now Saints. All had their fucking hearts ripped out, leaving those dickish fanbases crying. But nothing tops THIS. 9 years almost to the day after the Saints robbed us of our destiny in that same building, it was the Saints themselves being robbed. And yes, they were robbed. That non call was appalling. But FUCK EM! For 9 years we've had to hear those bayou bitches taunting us with "you can't blame the refs" and even calling last year's beauty the "meaningless miracle." Those fans deserve the pain. Ohhh they deserve so much  fucking pain. Cry into your fucking gumbo, you shitheads. There was some eerie parallels going on in this game to the 2009 game. I expected Jared Goff to throw across his body at any moment. But instead, it was Drew Brees, throwing the key pick on the last throw of what had to that poi...

The year's 1st highly anticipated movie, Glass brings together Unbreakable and Split. But this is not M. Night Shyamalan's Avengers. It's not some big action blockbuster. And I think the deliberately offbeat approach to this movie explains some of the hate already being directed at it. It's not the movie you'd expect, but it carves out its own interesting niche. The dynamite opening 20 minutes or so set the scene wonderfully, then we move to he main act, with James McAvoy, Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson all in a mental institution, being treated by Sarah Paulson. Not much more offbeat than having Samuel L. Jackson not utter a single word of dialogue for probably half the film. If you aren't on Shyamalan's wavelength this middle act could seem dull. I was never bored. I only thought some of the Paulson stuff was repetitive, as she tries to convince our lead trio that they are not in fact extraordinary. I knew there was going to have to be some kind of ...

2018 movies I caught.up with: Holmes & Watson: Don't see why this has been trashed that bad. It's very scattershot but it does have some laughs. Mary Poppins Returns: Emily Blunt is charming as hell, but this movie is way too whimsical and frankly there wasn't a single song I really liked. If Beale Street Could Talk: Still something about these Barry Jenkins movies that don't fully click with me. I probably liked this a little more than Moonlight though. This had a little more involving storyline. The cast is very good and the score is terrific. Ben Is Back: This has a very similar premise as the also excellent Beautiful Boy and both seemed to get forgotten about in awards season. It's very good. Julia Roberts hasn't been this compelling in a very ling time, and Lucas Hedges is just a hell of an actor. New 2019 movies: Escape Room: Not a masterpiece, but a bit of a surprise. Has a Final Destination vibe to it with the elaborate setups. Botches the endi...

So....we're not even 3 weeks into the calendar year yet and already this is looking like a fucking doozy.  The Vikings bellyflop against the Bears was technically 2018, but we'll give it the honor of having started this whole recent deluge of misery. Since then, almost every other team in town has contributed to this, except the Twins and the freaking soccer team. It had looked at times like our 4 primary winter sports teams were all at least going to offer us some postseason contention. Timberwolves? At least Thibs was fired and we got that fun win in OKC. But whatever early positive vibes from that have been nuked by that terrible home loss to Dallas and then the flat out disgraceful way they allowed Jimmy Butler and the Sixers to not just blow them off the court the other night but also rub their noses in it, all the while offering nary a trace of pushback.  Wild? They have sort of been doing their usual thing of winning just enough to cling to a playoff spot. But they lo...

I wish I was doing these blogs back then. My blog from that game would have certainly been in all caps and been completely unintelligible. Hard to believe it's only been a year. I've probably watched that play a thousand times since. It never gets old. Every game I went to this season I sort of mentally recreated the play. It's become completely intertwined into my very Viking fandom. I remember the snow on the way to the game. I remember watching the concourse TVs to see the Jaguars get their clinching score in Pittsburgh. I remember the absolute chills of player intros. I remember thinking at halftime that the game was over, that there was no way this defense could blow a 17 point lead at home. I remember that creeping horror when Case threw that ungodly pick. I remember that utter depression when the Saints took the lead 21-20. I remember watching TONS of people streaming out of the stadium. I remember not even being excited by the next drive, cause no way were ...

The so called best weekend of the playoffs wound up mostly a dud. Really these whole playoffs so far have stunk. Two legit good games out of 8, and one(Chargers v Ravens) that stunk until the last 5 minutes. This weekend's duds included a pair of total no shows by the Colts and Chargers. Silly me for thinking the Patriots would have to break a sweat in the divisional round for once. The Rams largely handled Dallas with ease in a game that was mostly a snoozer. Once again the weekend's best game involved the Eagles. It looked early like this ridiculous Foles voodoo magic was going to continue, but the high flying Saints came back and grinded out a win. And this year the final pass of the game worked in their favor. I'm glad this Eagles thing is over. Not that they'll be bad with Wentz, but there is some weird shit they have with Foles. Next week's rooting interest is clear. Chiefs and Rams. This weekend sure disproved the theory that you need to play well in Dec...

I've heard it expressed on 1500 multiple times now, and some fans have picked up on it. "The Vikings should tank 2 seasons from now so they'll be able to draft Clemson's QB Trevor Lawrence." Beyond absurd. I'm sure much of it stems from this never ending hatred of Kirk Cousins that some people are clearly going to never let go of. But good lord, proclaiming two years out that they should intentionally tank the season to draft this kid? First off, we don't know if Lawrence will be some kind of elite pro. About 5 years ago there was a hyped up college QB who everyone just knew was going to be an NFL megastar. That QB? Johnny Manziel. How'd that work out? And he's hardly the only college star who flunked out in the pros. I keep hearing the name Andrew Luck invoked. It's awfully convenient to use one of few cases of a so-called can't miss QB who DID pan out. But even at the top of the draft, QBs are a crapshoot. You just don't know. Lu...

Wolves 119 Thunder 117 Hey whaddya know. You fire the garbage piece of shit coach that everybody hates and who can't coach and you instantly see major improvement, particularly from the one guy said piece of shit coach's presence was most detrimental to. I'm SO fucking glad Thibs was shown the door. And clearly so was Andrew Wiggins, cause he was amazing in this game. He was dominating. He carried this team to a road win over a really good team, without Rose and RoCo, and with KAT in foul trouble. Happy as hell for Ryan Saunders. I would assume a good showing over the last half of the season, and certainly a playoff berth, gets him the full time job. Still might be a longshot, but at least one can root for this team to make the playoffs again.

You come in here last week and end our season, which is your right to do of course, but doing so forces you to play the Eagles, rather than the Vikings who at Soldier Field are always garbage. And now your season is done too, and on a missed kick, no less. So all your cockiness, and all your talk of being the new dynasty in the north, poof! Your cupcake schedule. The Raiders handing you Khalil Mack. The Vikings struggles. The last gasp of the Packers run fizzling. All it got you was a 1st round exit at home. And now we get to see the Eagles get crushed by the Saints. This is the 1st time I've been happy in a week 

Really not that excited, or even terribly interested, in these playoffs. Too many teams to root against, really none to root strongly for. And no Vikings, which I'm still not over. But let's take a crack at this. Wild card round: Seahawks over Cowboys Eagles over Bears Colts over Texans Ravens over Chargers Divisional round: Saints over Eagles Seahawks over Rams Colts over Chiefs (cause God forbid the Pats ever have to play a road playoff game) Patriots over Ravens Championship round: Saints over Seahawks Patriots over Colts Super Bowl: Saints over Patriots

Just a couple days into the new world of dems controlling the house, and the entire right wing has already had a month's worth of meltdowns, with the treasonous orange cocksucker front and center. Naturally the main targets are women. We all knew the right would lose their minds over Nancy Pelosi regaining her speakership. Then we also have Rashida Tlaib saying we're gonna "impeach the motherfucker." And worst of all, my god, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez danced! Do these commie liberals have no shame!!! Dickless Trump of course could not let Pelosi or the new Congress get the attention. His fat ass needs to be the center of attention at all times, so on back to back days he has had impromptu press conferences full of nothing. Just more lies. More empty boasts. This prick isn't even perversely entertaining anymore. He's just a lazy liar. Oh, and he and the rest of the MAGAts were just outraged by Tlaib's words. We can't have those kinds of words....unle...

My top 25 best.... 1. Avengers: Infinity War Arguably the crowning achievement to this point of the MCU. I've seen it like a dozen times so far.and it holds up, even knowing what's coming. Countless unforgettable moments. I'd frankly be surprised if Endgame can top it. 2. Black Panther Ranks right at the top of the MCU's best solo films. 3. Blindspotting Criminally underseen and seemingly forgotten. Like the work of a young Spike Lee, only on the west coast. The climactic scene floored me. 4. Mid 90s Jonah Hill of all people directs a film that felt indeed like it would have fit right in with all those iconic indies of the titular time period. 5. A Quiet Place One of the best horror films maybe ever. It takes a cool premise and does everything right to make it work. 6. Vice Probably the best biopic since The Wolf of Wall Street, and done in a similar style. Madly entertaining. Christian Bale is absolutely incredible as Cheney. 7. Creed 2 Could have just be...