By Eric Emery

I’m not into reality TV as a whole, but there is one can’t-miss show in the Emery household: The Amazing Race. This show represents quintessential American ugliness at its best: Americans push locals into doing their bidding, harass customer service people to get what they want, breeze through a foreign culture in 24 hours, and partake of activities on a superficial level while believing their behavior is nearly spiritual.
What if we brought a similar brand of reality TV to the NFL? Let’s take a look.
* Rex Grossman tapes his testimonial saying he “totally cannot believe Olin Kreutz didn’t get him the snap.”
* Before scoring a TD, a player has to eat six fish eyes and call his agent on a Bluetooth.
* Running backs are required to balance a pot on their helmet. And play behind the Bears offensive line.

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Posted on November 29, 2007

By Eric Emery

Every week, half the nation’s football fans work through the classic stages of grief. Here’s what it sounds like.
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Grief Stage: Denial
What It Sounds Like: This is not happening. There’s still time left. If we score and recover an onside kick, we’ll only need one more touchdown and a two-point conversion. Then we’ll only be down by 10.
Grief Stage: Anger
What It Sounds Like: You suck!
Grief Stage: Bargaining
What It Sounds Like: I know I said I’d have it for you today, but I need a little more time. Just a couple days. Really. Ow! Why’d you have to go and do that? You know I’m good for the money. I just have to move some things around. Ow!

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Posted on November 21, 2007

By Eric Emery

This is the time of year when pro football fans get out their calculators and try to decipher which teams are and are not in the wild-card race. In today’s NFL, you see, you generally have four teams worthy of a Super Bowl appearance and another dozen good enough to get crushed in the playoffs by those four teams.
Which teams will be just good enough for such a crushing? Well, in recent years the formula has gotten more complicated. The league now takes demographic data of each team’s city into account. Let’s take a look.
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Washington: Most Murderous 7th, Brain Power 8th, Worst Work Commute 2nd.
Beachwood Analysis: Players enjoy killing people and they are pretty smart about it. The only problem is that they spend a whole lot of time in the car between killings.
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Detroit: Fattest 9th, Most Murderous 1st, Most Sedentary 4th, Lowest Brain Power 3rd
Beachwood Analysis: Players not satisfied to kill people just by sitting on them.

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Posted on November 15, 2007

By Eric Emery

At this point of the season, your team might not be the only team giving up hope. Millions of football fans play fantasy football, and most of those fans have given up on their fantasy football teams too. For those fantasy teams with a 3-6 record, it’s time to look to next year.
But unlike real teams, fantasy teams can easily reinvent themselves by changing their name. The average Beachwood Reporter reader demands a witty, refined name to show off your intelligence. Here are some ideas for next year, by genre.
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TV
* The Peter Griffins
* The Real Housewives of Cook County
* Cavemen
* Flava Flav’s Fifth STD
* The Interventions

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Posted on November 8, 2007

By Eric Emery

Late in the baseball season, my brother-in-law Sal and I discussed an important issue facing sports fans today – Jersey Selection/Wearing Rules. With the holiday season just around the corner, you may consider buying one for you or as a gift. Here are some guidelines to protect your hard-earned money.
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1. Consider purchasing a shirt and jacket instead. Let’s fact it, you might be honoring your favorite player, but you’re simply either too fat, skinny, tall, short, sensitive or violent to pull it off. Wearing the shirt-and-jacket ensemble proves the point – you’re not just some fly-by-night crappy ass fan.
2. The “woman going to a wedding” corollary. Women reading this column know one thing: You never want to attend a wedding wearing the same dress as some other woman. In the same vein, no two people in a group should own the same jersey. When the second person knowingly purchases the same jersey as a friend, the offender shall be ridiculed to the fullest extent of the law. And then some.

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Posted on November 1, 2007