The Football Fan’s Diet

By Matt DeReno
On The FFD

The Buffalo Bill’s wide out Terrell Owens recently vented in the wake of his first “catchless” game since his rookie year. On several shows, he complained that the media was goading him into throwing players under the bus and they were out to get him. But, he wouldn’t do it you see. He took the high road. However, he didn’t stick up for the play calling of Alex Van Pelt, the Bill’s O-coordinator, which in many ways is damnation by silence. Nonetheless, you know what? I love it when they goad TO.

Eventually, T.O. will slowly undermine the Bills.

Like his stint with the cowboys, it is hard to blame him individually for any one particular transgression. After all, he always has an excuse. He walks the fine line over and over. But, if you step back and look at the big picture, the line is almost always crossed.

His pattern of effect is detrimental to team cohesiveness. Now that he has unofficially griped about something, the process will begin anew in Buffalo. Inevitably, he will be packing his cleats next year at the latest. My hunch is that this is the last stop for T.O. He will end up on some reality TV show after his poorly managed NFL career is in the books.

My Inner Fat Slob is much like T.O.

Towards those ends, I had another workmanlike day on the FFD. Exercised, ate within reason, met my goal and became healthier for a day. But, like T.O., my Inner Fat Slob is talented. It can put up points in a blink of an eye.

By Matt De Reno
On The FFD

PITTSBURGH – The BigEastClubHouse.com has an interesting article pointing out that Syracuse is a lot better than most of the pundits would have predicted before the season started. I for one thought starting the ex-basketball point guard Greg Paulus, was merely a stunt, a gimmick, to get fans energized about Syracuse football again. Turns out, it was a legitimate move. Syracuse is clearly a team not as horrible as everyone thought and has the wagon headed to greener pastures.

I would like to think “not being as bad as I thought” is the parallel storyline of my Season III on the FFD so far. However, it is too early—way to early.

Yes, I have run off 4 consecutive winning days and I started this damn thing on the most difficult of days for me personally: Friday. I don’t have to look at my numbers from Season II to know that the Friday, Saturday, Sunday stretch typically correlates to being outscored by my Inner Fat Slob.

Nonetheless, I think I am headed in the right direction. However, it should be noted that yesterday I stopped by a local bar to give my Dad a lift home from his routine hour (or two) of social hobnobbing. Now, obviously one beer is not a bad price to receive as wages for giving a family member a lift and though I would never ask I never turn down a free beer as a matter of principal. Four beers is even better. In any case, this “evening diversion” is the reason you see the Beer Field Goal on this posting (I will give up a FG on days I drink beer).

All in all, I am off to a great start. Of course only time will tell if the FFD will be a success; Same with Syracuse’s season for that matter.

Link to BECH article…

By Matt DeReno
On The FFD

PITTSBURGH (As if I go anywhere else) – Today’s rant concerns the Steelers. First, The Good Lord Almighty must be very happy with the Steelers becuase they clearly didn’t do any work on Sunday and those kept the sabbath day holy. At least I chalked up a “W” in my first week to get back to the FFD.

What started out last week as an exciting weekend in football, both at the collegiate and Pro levels, turned out to be a gut-wrenching stretch of wasted hours in front of the boob tube. Both my Pitt Panthers and Pittsburgh Steelers bungled, mismanaged and generally found ways to loose on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Nonetheless, I completed my first week on the FFD with a Win. Although it must be stated that this was a “combine week.”

A “combine week” for the uninitiated (and judging by the site visitor statistics there are a lot of you) is when you start the FFD midweek and therefore don’t have enough days to score a full week. For example: I started my Season III on Friday. Because this is so far into the week I decided to call this my “combine week” and will begin Preseason Week 1 on Monday (today). One benefit of a combine week is that you don’t really need to count the “W” or “L.” I put a “W” on this posting merely to create reasons of neurological tomfoolery. Does that make sense? So on that note, I fared well.

Now then, since I wrapped up the first week of the “combines.” Here is how my scoring card for this week looks like now:

By Matt De Reno
On The FFD

PITTSBURGH – I watched the Pitt game yesterday as the Panthers traveled to N.C. State to nab what I surely thought would have been a rare fourth victory only four games into the season. I thought they were going to roll right over N.C. State. I had every reason to believe that was going to happen at the half. And, I was wrong.

Pitt’s star freshman tailback, Dion Lewis, tallied 2 TDs by halftime and was well on his way to the Heisman trophy race. Bill Stull was playing good enough to win. How could they lose?

Well, Pitt’s supposedly vaunted D, had a meltdown. They gave up 322 passing yards and 4 TDs to the Wolf Pack’s explosive reincarnation of Rodney Peete — a sneaky, darting QB by the name of Russel Wilson.

Wilson burned them every which way you could imagine in the second half. Man, it was enough for me to want to go stuff my fat face. However, I didn’t. Pitt had a meltdown, but I was surely not going to have a melt (as in a cheddar melt, turkey melt, you name it). I wanted to, but I didn’t.

Well, losses like this happen and you have to move on. However, my suspicion of why the D simply broke down in the second half: I have to say – they looked like out of shape slobs for crying out loud!

I mean, I haven’t seen this many guys that go a good three bills, with guts this big since—I don’t know—lady’s night in the South Side. These guys need to get on the FFD!

Okay, now that I ranted… Here is hoping my Steelers go Vick on the Bengals today.

Read all about Pitt’s Meltdown

Read more Big East Football on The BigEastClubHouse.com

By Matt DeReno
On The FFD

Yes, I am a huge Steelers fan (literally and figuratively). However, I have, as of late, become much more into the excitement of college football. My favorite team, and this may not come as a massive surprise, is Pitt. My favorite web site to follow Pitt is a relatively new one: BigEastClubHouse.com.

(Full Disclosure: I designed this web site – that is why it kicks ass.)

I think Pitt is better than most of the nation thinks right now. They are loaded with talent and off to one of their best starts yet as Coach Dave Wannstedt’s efforts to rebuild the football program are beginning to pay off. In that regards, Pitt takes on NC State this weekend; should be a fairly interesting contest. I am confident Pitt will pull out a victory. Me on the other hand? How will I do this weekend?

I am not nearly off to the start Pitt is this fall.

In fact, I can’t really even say I started yet at all on my new Season III. Instead, I have simply made piss poor excuses about putting off the permanent adoption of a healthy lifestyle. This morning was a little different however.

Today I went through this here FFD site and revamped nearly everything about it. I reclassified all the old postings as merely belonging to Season II. Now, from here forward, it will be Season III. Funny, but I never thought I would need to do another season after Season II. I thought I would be the next freaking “Hoff” for crying out loud. Turns out, that was totally bogus.

Like Pitt, I am rebuilding a healthy program that sadly had been neglected for far too long. And just like Coach Dave Wannstedt and the rebuilding of the Pitt Panthers is taking shape, perhaps it is around Season III, when I will start to show some true promise and results based on the hard work I have put in numerous times only to watch it evaporate as I guzzle a beer. After all, Season I, was a horrid failure. I can’t escape that fact. However, Season II, was a playoff caliber season. I went to a Bowl Game you could say. Hmm. Maybe that could be a nice spin on the Football Fan’s Diet.

In a shorter version, you could go to a Bowl Game based on how you did. That could be like a 10 week program and you can decide if you landed a New Year’s Day Bowl Game or merely one of the second or third tier Bowls.

Whatever you do, avoid the Bowl of Chips. Or, if you drink too much, the Toilet Bowl. It is nice to know that my penchant for bathroom humor is still alive and well as I embark on a serious attempt to get into a third Season on the FFD. Here it goes. Now, I wonder what Bowl Game I will go to? I wonder if my inner Dave Wannstedt will get the job done this year?

Finally, go check out the BigEastClubHouse.com. You can never have enough football in life!

By Matt DeReno
On The FFD

Okay, the Steelers lost, but lets not get way overblown it. I lost too last week. I felt awful. Actually, it all went downhill on Friday. From there, I was a non-stop eating machine. Why? I am not quite sure? However, during this week, I aim to make that change now. In fact, I am going to give this FFD one more fresh start. I simply can’t get started on a week like I had last week. The end from Friday to now was absolutely ridiculous and shameful for that matter and yes Miller Lite could very well have been a culprit. In the end, I have to think that Jeff Reed missed a copy field goal and the Steelers lost. I missed my own field goals and fumbled a bit. This week, I aim to get started for real. Sorry – it is taking so long. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Ceasar didn’t get fat over night either (I am not sure what I meant by that). In any case, let us hold out hope that the season is still young and so are we.

PITTSBURGH – Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook sort of relishes that Jerome Bettis is not shy about throwing his teammates under the bus in a new weekly column for SI.com. Hey, from what Cook cited, it didn’t shock me at what Bettis said. The offensive line stinks — that is pretty much what Bettis’ comments came down too.

For my money, I think Bettis was the greatest big back in the modern era (since we started counting Lombardis, a formula which annoys a Cleveland acquaintance of mine to no end).

But anyway, in terms of getting thrown under the bus, I throw my health uner the bus yesterday. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Yes, I had an early beer or two or three. Then some grub later that evening that put me over my DGO, which is my daily game day objective.

Much like Bettis, I have to call it like I see it.

PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an interesting article about Big Ben Roethlisberger as being the new comeback QB. Apparently, he is on pace to, looking at the career numbers, to break John Elway and Dan Marino’s record of comebacks. Ben has 18 in five seasons. Elway has 49 in his career. According to Scott Kacsmar of pro-fooball-reference.com, Marino has the most.

Well, I need a comeback this year. Not this week. However, given the middle months of 2009, I need a comeback. Yesterday was a good step in that direction. I worked out and didn’t even have a brew. That is a TD, plus a FG. I shut out my Inner Fat Slob.

By Matt DeReno
On The FFD

Hey, Steelers halfback Willie Park took a lot of heat this past week for his miserable 13-carry, 19-yard game against the Titans. Even I had to say, Fast Willie – what the fuh?

However, if the media is paying any attention to my dieting efforts over the course of the last offseason, I am sure they are saying “Matt, what the fuh?” I mean, I was worse than Willie’s ground game in Week 1 of the real NFL season.

Hey, The Steelers did win Week 1 and you know what: that was , perhaps, the best team they could possibly face all year. On that note, then perhaps, my obstacles from the past several months, which saw me gain back a good bit of weight (though not enough to make me lose hope), were put up by a foe who could be one of the best I will face ever. So, as Willie Parker will not be defined by one game, so I will not be defined by one poor offseason.

On that note: yesterday was a 10. It feels good to get the legs back. Now, here’s hopping Willie finds them this coming weekend against the Bears!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09258/998091-66.stm

Fast Willie Looks Slow?

By Matt De Reno
On The FFD

PITTSBURGH – Well, The Steelers are back in action and that is good. Me, well, I have a lot to recover to get back on track and it is not going to be easy. Man, I was looking at my so-called “Off Season chart” this morning…. Man, it is climbing back up there rapidly. From the low in June until now, there is like a 30lb. difference? Wow, is that genetically possible? I hope the truth is somewhere in between.

But what has the offseason taught me then? That I can work my butt off, but that it is not permanent? The better solution is to slowly work my way toward excellence. Once there, maybe then, I can stay the course and build a healthy dynasty much like the Steelers have done.

Towards those ends, I plan to hit the gym every morning at 6 am come hell highwater or Pittsburgh snow. For now, I will listen to Mike and Mike in the morning and see if I can get the Football Fan’s Diet back on track.

Inspirational to some degree: I ran into friend in Pittsburgh’s Oakland section of town yesterday. This guy had commented to me earlier in the year back at an event called the Summer Institute about how much weight I had lost. This inspired him, presumably, to drop twenty himself. Clearly, it looks like I gained it. Hey remember my secret back then. He said, so you still counting those points. Hmmm….. . Well, I got away during the offseason. Now I am back to a life of counting TDs and FGS. I have to revisit this thing the way it worked.

I am determined to make it work for the long term now. How can I do that? Well, I need to focus inwardly and enjoy the simple things in life – such as Mike and Mike in the morning, a Ben Roethlisberger pass to win a Super Bowl. Oh, Boy. Here I go again. On January 1, it is my modest hope to get back to the level I had reached at the completion of Season II.

Now, I also have to clean up this damn site. There is outdated charts and podcasts and all sorts of stuff. Give me some time on that my friend and I hope you can get back on the road of health if you had fallen off.
 

Other than that my friend, it is early in the AM. I got some Bruce playing and the inspiration is slowly building up. Man, I heading into another part of the year, where there is nothing but holidays. But, hey, that is every part of the year if you think about it. Let’s see what I can do to get it back.