TERRY MOSHER
CAM NEWTON
It’s time to go back to the Boneyard to empty my busy mind with hundreds of thoughts that bounce around in my head and create not only headaches but a rainbow of emotions from love, the foundation of everything, to frustration and anger.
I believe that the Seahawks will likely lose Sunday when they collide with the Carolina Panthers in South Carolina. It’s just a tad bit more than a gut feeling. I think Cam Newton grew up (finally) after he led the Panthers on two 80-yard scoring drives in the fourth quarter to rally from behind and beat the Seahawks 27-23 on Oct. 18 at CenturyLink.
That victory, I believe, convinced him and the Panthers that he could successfully lead the team, and since then they have been almost untouchable. He can be rattled. As most quarterbacks can. But if the Hawks can’t get to him enough times, it could be a long day.
The Panthers will also have Jonathan Stewart back at full strength and he is Beast Mode 2. Stewart, of course, played football at Timberline and Oregon before going to the Panthers in the first round (13th overall pick) in the 2008 NFL draft.
Then there is Beast Mode 1. Marshawn Lynch, who was booed out of Buffalo where he was charged with hit-and-run of a woman at 3:30 in the morning, is a strange dude. He resists authority and has oppositional behavior that makes it difficult to know what the heck he will do at any given moment.
Pete Carroll, who could peacefully manage Attila the Hun, has somehow done the same with Lynch. Carroll has the unique ability to manage different personalities while getting the most out of them without causing friction or bad feelings to surface. He has done that with Lynch, getting the man who hits-and-runs most of the time on the football field to be one of the best, maybe the best, runner in the NFL after contact.
The Hawks don’t need Lynch on Sunday, but because he is so good they are better off if he plays. The question is – and there always seems to be a question with Lynch – will he take the bus to Sea-Tac with the rest of the team when they take off for Carolina on Friday?
Who knows?
Sports shock jocks on radio today tried to make a case for there being a split between Lynch and upper management within the Seahawks’ organization and that was the reason he skipped out at the last second last week as the team trekked to Minnesota to earn a hard-fought 10-9 victory in what was an ice bowl.
It really doesn’t matter at this point if there is because the likelihood of Lynch being asked back next season is close to nil. The Hawks have a guy, Thomas Rawls, if he is healthy, who is a younger version of Lynch, and from all appearances a much better guy to like than the mystery man.
We all love predictions and I am as fond of them as anybody, so here is mine for Sunday’s game – Panthers 24, Seahawks 13. You can take that and $5 and maybe be able to buy a cup of coffee.
The Washington Huskies are at Arizona Thursday in a 6 o’clock game that will be shown on Fox TV. Arizona has had the Huskies’ number for years now and it will be difficult for Lorenzo Romar’s young team to win this game. But you never know with this Husky group. They are very athletic and are not old enough yet to develop a huge fear of failure. So maybe they can pull it off and improve their Pac-12 record to 4-0. If they do the rest of the conference will begin to develop some fear.
These young bucks do have a weakness. They don’t have a big, physical presence in the middle. Big-time college programs get to big-time status by that physicals bruiser, that rim protector, who will not only get rebounds but put some fear on anybody entering the paint.
I also don’t believe that Andrew Andrews is a good enough point guard to keep the Huskies in the conference race. Good teams – no, great teams – have great point guards who can handle pressure, can pass and set up the offense and still be a threat to score if needed.
Andrews can score. He’s proved that over and over again. But I think we will see when he’s face with really good defenders his point-guard abilities will be diminished. But, like the prediction above, you can take that with a grain of salt, too. He may prove me wrong yet.
You know, I have developed a fear, a fear that we may elect in this country a man (or woman) who will destroy us. I’m not going to name the two men on the Republican side who lead that party’s polls because it makes me sick, frustrated and angry just to mention their names, but we are going to be in bad shape if one of those two get elected.
Actually, I don’t have a 100-percent positive vibe for anybody who is running for president – Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Independent. I’ve gotten to the age (old) where I think I would be a better candidate than anybody who is actually running. Talk about fear. That should scare everybody.
The one thing that this race tells me is that we are as divisive as a nation as we have ever been. I see people on the left and right write things on Facebook that are awful and mostly untrue. These people believe what they write, too. They are passionate about their positions, and that leave me unsettled to say the least.
If this wasn’t so sad and horrible it would be funny, but just the other day I saw the same story about the U.S. sailors being held in Iran posted by a person on the right and by a person on the left. The one on the right just ripped President Obama apart something horribly for the situation and the one on the left held up the story as an indication of all the good things about President Obama.
That, to me, is a clear indication of just not only how divisive we have become in this country, but how cemented in very different positions we have become. People on all sides see the same picture and reach very, very different conclusions.
I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that some of the positions on the right are extremely racist. And that is just coming from that one candidate I won’t name, but also many of the Republicans in Congress. They won’t tell you that, but they don’t have to because just by their actions, or inactions, they show their true selves.
It’s terrible that in this country we still make evaluations of people because of their different skin color. Most of the time it’s not clearly evident, but when you step back and think about it, you know it is.
That brings me to the time many, many years ago when I was 19 and going to college back East. I and three of my buddies stopped at this beer garden, which was just a couple hundred yards from the house I grew up with in New York State.
The four of us sat down at a table and waited and waited and waited for a waitress to show up. She came after about a half-hour and she quickly said she couldn’t serve us unless we had photo ID.
Well, back then, back in the late 1950s, our driver’s license did not have photos. So when we couldn’t produce photo IDs we got up and left. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I had stopped in there before and knew well the owner and his wife.
I got halfway to the car when it hit me: they refused service to us because one of us was black. That really upset me. That had never happened to me before. This was a first.
The next day I went solo to the beer garden, but I didn’t go to get a beer. I went to lay into the owner for what he had done. When I got done spilling my emotions out at him, I told him I would never come back to his place and I would encourage those I knew to also boycott him.
I never did go back, and now the place is gone, as is the owner and his wife. It hurts me to this day what he had done. My black buddy was the nicest guy, a sweetheart. He didn’t deserve that just because his skin color was different. And that goes for our President. You can genuinely differ on his policies, but when you use his skin color as a reason to oppose everything he does and blame him for everything you think is wrong, then that is shameful, horrible and just plain wrong.
That’s enough for today. I have a basketball game to watch and a magazine and a book to read. And I feel better now that I have gotten rid of some of my thoughts. Take care.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.