Consider how often we’re urged to be flabbergasted — or need to have our flabbers gasted — by the logical and inevitable. How often should we be shocked, or even mildly surprised, by the reasonably anticipated?
This week, we were urged to be appalled that 13-0 Florida State finished runner-up in an NCAA Beautiful Baby Contest, thus could not play for the national championship.
It seemed unjust to Florida politicians, who for decades have been unmoved to demand that Florida STATE cease recruiting young criminals with full scholarships and other perks of privilege that provide no long-term educational value, including literacy.
These politicians, after all, are often wind-blown populists, thus they’re threatening to use more state funds to sue the NCAA for not inviting FSU to the no-standards-needed, TV cash student-athletes masquerade party.
But the logical — those familiar with the human condition — knew from the start that a four-team playoff would leave team Nos. 5 (FSU) and 6 (Georgia), and maybe more, hollering for justice.
When NCAA Tournament basketball eventually more than doubled to 68 teams, excluded “bubble” schools naturally cried “Fix!” If you put your ear to the Carrier Dome floor, you can still hear Jim Boeheim whining.
Of course, FSU, undefeated, would scream, ”Robbery!” next season — when the playoffs are 12 teams — the embittered will be the first runners-up. Human condition.
Now, imagine those who sat down to the Niners-Eagles, Sunday late afternoon on Fox. It held an increasingly rare appeal: Two winning teams with healthy first-string QBs. But how could viewers enjoy the telecast without eliminating Fox’s lead analyst, Greg Olsen, already infamous for attacking their central nervous systems?
In the first quarter, after Philly QB Jalen Hurts scrambled out of bounds — in modern TV language, that’s “extended the play by using his legs” — Olsen offered this assessment of the self-evident play:
“Nice job there. We said Hurts is one of the best in the league at extending the play. But after [Niners LB Randy] Gregory’s initial pressure [indecipherable], the ends have to control that edge. They can’t let Hurts escape out of the outside of the pocket. Allow the interior defensive line to hold the interior lanes while the edge-setters keep him contained in the pocket.”
Again, is there even one Fox Sports executive who believes we love such relentless football-as-second-language blather?
To think Olsen could’ve simply said Hurts is difficult to contain which explains why “he’s one of the best at extending the play.” Or better yet, say nothing.
But now consider that this was one of few NFL games that offered two surviving starting QBs, winning teams and the reasonable hope for an attractive game. My rough estimate is that this season three-quarters of NFL games haven’t been worthy of the attention of those who long ago became NFL watchers as a matter of leisure time well spent.
Now, especially in the 1 p.m. Sunday slot, we’re stuck with those “still mathematically alive.”
Sunday night NBC did post a graphic noting that due to its 21-18 loss to the 5-7 Bucs — seen in its entirety here on CBS as a matter of the slimmest of 4 p.m. pickings in service to the Roger Goodell TV Money Method — 1-11 Carolina is “eliminated from playoffs.”
It’s now even illogical to think that a sideline reporter will provide anything worth hearing except unintended farce.
On Wednesday, the Nets beat the Hawks, 114-113, when Atlanta’s Trae Young missed a shot at the buzzer.
YES sideline reporter Meghan Triplett then said to the Nets’ Mikal Bridges, “Take me through that last possession; how important was that last stop?”
Reader Kenny Kaplan wonders if she’d have asked Bill Parcells, after the 1991 Giants 20-19 Super Bowl win vs the Bills, ”How important was Scott Norwood’s last-play missed field goal?’ ”
Chiefs at Packers on Sunday night provided NBC the opportunity to show Santa Claus in the stands — a bare-chested, undressed-for-attention Santa Claus.
TV always reminds those who no longer attend NFL games as a matter of self-respect, avoiding dangerous nighttime winter weather and the pursuit of watching vulgar drunks-free, that they made a wise decision.
But scouring the crowd in search of rewarding those the director wouldn’t allow his family to sit near is another decades-long inevitability that should no longer cause those conditioned to expect no better to suffer the distress that causes excessive flabber in our flabbergasters.
Flabbergastritis is no laughing matter.
Soto sure sounds like another self-absorbed superstar
What I know about Juan Soto, from what I’ve watched and from trusted observers who more frequently watched him play: He’s an enormously talented offensive player.
He’s very difficult for practical, team-baseball, winning-baseball adherents to indulge as he too often doesn’t hustle, too often demonstrates his excessive self-regard and has shown indifference to improving his outfield skills.
If those, in fact, are accurate assessments, the Yanks have purchased another expensive minimalist, thus Aaron Boone should ready the same sad pandering excuses he attached to Giancarlo Stanton.
Graphic of the Week: “Fox Fact: Fordham hosts Tulane [won by Tulane, Sunday] in first matchup since 95-90 win back in December, 2022.” Heck, back in 2022, Fordham used rolled up tin foil as basketballs and Tulane was still a one-lane.
I still don’t get it: Teams are spending tens of millions of dollars for starting pitchers yet they’re not allowed to throw more than six innings while pitching only every five days.
So Rutgers, for finishing 6-6, became bowl eligible and will play in the Pinstripe Bowl. That’s why schools such as RU schedule a Wagner (won 52-3) for a pay-to-slay at home. But will the money paid to Wagner for the stomping equal the money it receives for playing in a bowl game of minimal interest?
Stash that cash: Since early last month tickets have been on sale for Notre Dame-Navy, next year in October.
A bet Hart mustn’t forget
OK, so Knicks guard Josh Hart enjoys betting on sports, specifically NFL parlays. This week, he even told The Post’s Stefan Bondy that Jaguars’ running back Travis Etienne let him down Monday by only rushing for 45 yards when Hart wagered he’d reach 50.
Here’s hoping Hart remembers that when he’s booed and cursed in the Garden for missing a couple of late free throws or dribbling out the clock, depriving gamblers of covering their Knicks’ bet and/or the Over.
Words at play:
Apparently, new Mets’ general manager David Stearns has a tough time speaking plain baseball English. This week he substituted defense with “run prevention.”
Bills linebacker Von Miller was officially charged with “assault of a pregnant person.” I don’t wish to offend anyone, but would that “pregnant person,” by any chance, be a woman?
