Well, perhaps walking is the wrong word.

Jason Street, the wheelchair-bound former QB, and Smash Williams, the egotistical, troubled RB, will be leaving the show in the fall. So much for minority actors.

Where is Herc? He is always so late.

The timing of the announcement makes sense, considering Smash was about to go away for college and Street was about to begin a storyline that no one really wanted to see begun (more on that later, unfortunately). Really, if FNL producers had to choose two characters to leave, Smash and Street were pretty good choices…unless the statutory English teacher was an option.

Their departure, however, will leave several voids in the storylines of Dillon. They were intertwined in so many different aspects of the show, and they have connections to some of the best supporting roles since Arthur Spooner in King of Queens. For instance, have we seen the last of Mama Smash? She won’t really be necessary once her son is gone, unless she plans on marrying Buddy Garrity (note to producers: let’s explore this). What will become of Street’s fast-talking wheelchair friend Herc? We highly doubt quad rugby is paying the bills.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Are Street and Lyla done for good? Whose girlfriends will Riggins have feelings for now? Was Smash ever into Mrs. Taylor? Whom will Saracen boss around at the knock-off Dairy Queen?

Thankfully, we’ll get the answers some time soon, since FNL will be providing both Street and Smash with four-episode story arcs before saying good-bye for good. While it may not be long enough to tie up the loose ends to these two’s complicated pasts, it should at least provide a little bit of closure.

Dillon was not very wheelchair accessible anyway

Street’s loose ends seem decidedly looser than Smash’s. After all, Street is the one who has been through more ups and downs than Tyra’s neckline. Remember the experimental spinal cord shark treatment? The Mexico visitor’s bureau is still trying to recover from that one.

For a kid who started out his FNL career so promising (star quarterback, cheerleader girlfriend, feeling in his extremities), he sure has ended it rather ingloriously (not very good car salesman, soon-to-be absentee father, surly). Though in a sense, Street is a perfect example of the unordinary way that FNL approaches the show. Instead of setting him up to be the invincible jock, the producers squashed his hopes and dreams with one ill-fated neck tackle. Remember the Titans this ain’t.

But you could get the feeling that the tires were wearing pretty thin on Street’s storyline. His character, for all intents and purposes, had jumped the shark. When we last left him, he had miraculously (his words, not mine) impregnated a waitress and vowed his eternal commitment to raising the child (couldn’t he have just left a 15 percent tip like everyone else?). Who knows where you go from there.

It might have been easier on everyone to explain him away in a hastily edited “Street goes soul-searching in his wheelchair-modded Ford Fusion” segment, but producers wanted to reward him with four episodes to say good-bye. In that case, I imagine those episodes will go something like this:

• Episode 1: Street goes to La Maz class.
• Episode 2: Street and Lyla have a fight, which ends with them making out.
• Episode 3: Dillon waitress gives birth to Street’s son, causing Street to go on a five-night drinking binge with Herc, Riggins, and Saracen. Hilarity ensues.
• Episode 4: Landry kills Street.

“House of Payne” might have an opening

Smash’s story may be a little more believable. He has had some of the typical athlete plot points thus far: being arrogant and putting steroids into his rear end. And although his girlfriends have been unusual (bipolar in Season One, white in Season Two), Smash’s story could very well be the same as any number of cocky high school football players.

Smash and Mama Smash politely discuss the ethical and cultural ramifications of interracial marriage.

Smash’s story was just coming to a head when the second season of FNL ended. He was suspended for the remainder of the regular season for legal problems that we have neither the time nor the patience to get into. Let’s just say it involved the Dillon movie theater, bigotry, Applebee’s, fisticuffs, and a Coach Taylor speech. The whole ordeal cost Smash a scholarship at Texas State A&M something or other, but Coach Taylor, being well-connected, got him a scholarship at a rough replica of Sun Belt school.

No doubt when his four episode story arc resumes, Smash will already be in college, partying on weekends and having kids write his papers for him. Isn’t that what college athletics are all about? I can tell you from personal experience that college intramurals are at least sort of like that.

The good-bye from Smash will be a tough one to work out because he may already be away from Dillon and in college when the season begins. Therefore, I imagine that the third season of FNL will conclude the Panthers’ season from where they left off in the winter. The big deal back then was that the team was struggling to make the playoffs, and Smash was unavailable to help until the postseason. Stupid hate crime suspension.

Naturally, the Panthers will make the playoffs, probably on an epic coin flip that Coach Taylor lets Smash call in the air. “Smash chooses heads, baby!” The team’s first playoff opponent? An all-white prep school that Smash’s assault victim attends. The team’s next playoff foe? A team of intolerant Latinos from a border school. The semifinals? Drug testers and KKK members. And in the state championship game, after an epic slate of last-second victories (complete with irreconcilable time clock malfunctions), Smash will score the winning touchdown, ask his white girlfriend to marry him, and watch as Texas Stadium slowly collapses in on itself due to all the political uncorrectness.

I can’t wait for the third season to begin.

Belichick hates Matt Walsh, too

If I saw Matt Walsh in the street, I would kick him square in the shin.

Actually, that’s not true. I kick like a girl, and I don’t know what Matt Walsh looks like. At any rate, my motive still remains: I want Matt Walsh’s shin to taste the sued-toed justice of my low-top Pumas for his defaming my New England Patriots. I guess my words, as they have on so many other occasions, must do my social recourse for me.

Walsh was the key piece in further investigation into the Patriots’ purposed cheating scandal. The golf pro (read: retread) from Hawaii (read: escaping real world responsibility) claimed (read: fibbed) to have video proof of the Pats having taped defensive signals and offensive plays from previous games, including Super Bowl XXXVI (read; the greatest moment of my life).

Turns out, Walsh was full of it.

Commissioner extraordinaire Roger Goodell watched the tapes and found nothing good, not unlike my experience with Prince Caspian. Sure, there were some signals caught on tape, but nothing to the degree that Walsh had presumed. Hoping to steal more time in the spotlight, the fink went for sympathy with his stories of forced video taping and non-consensual recording. Fortunately, everyone was done listening.

I, for one, was done listening back in February when the story first got legs. I’ve been known to scare up some questionable sources in my journalism days (parents, children, running backs with fourth grade vocabularies), but even I know better than to trust the word of bitter former employees. Those who ran with the story obviously regretted it–a feeling (regret) that I’m sure Walsh’s girlfriend felt when he came home from his Spygaffe testimony. Still, the damage was done.

The months of deceit courtesy of Walsh are what irks me most about this whole ordeal. This thing took forever to blow over, and all along, there wasn’t anything to blow. Fans couldn’t put the Spygate issue to bed because this Matt Walsh guy was still out there, putzing it up in Hawaii with his Zappruder films. We Patriot fans dealt with so much unnecessary scorn on account of some nobody who was out to get famous.

What does he have against he Patriots anyway? Walsh got to be a part of the greatest NFL franchise of this decade, and he left the experience feeling bitter and wronged? I would have filmed Jay Fiedler at the grocery store if Belichick asked me, and if the Patriots wanted to fire me, I would have turned right back around and quit so they could save my pension for the salary cap. I am the anti-Walsh. So is every other Patriots fan.

Maybe that is what makes this entire experience so difficult. We were dogged by one of us. That hurts. A member of the Patriots turned on the organization so badly that he nearly tarnished the good name of the franchise. If it could happen to a scrub like Walsh, who’s to say what would happen if someone with credibility and respect did the same? I only hope we never have to deal with a Drew Bledsoe ageism suit.

I’ve become so paranoid and insecure since this whole Walsh thing. I’m angry, I’m upset, and my eye twitches every time someone says the number 19. I need to hear from the only man who can make things right again: Coach Belichick.

“For him to talk about game-planning and strategy play-calling, and how he advised coordinators, it’s embarrassing, it’s absurd. He didn’t have any knowledge of football. I don’t know what his agenda is. There’s not a lot of credibility,” Belichick said in a CBS interview, kicking Walsh in the figurative shin.

caption for photo

Last week, I complained that MLS fantasy soccer was hard. Apparently, I was wrong.

One week and zero roster changes later, I jumped over 1,000 spots in the league standings. You read that correctly. 1,000 spots. I went from 3,312^th place to 2,091^st by doing absolutely nothing more than crossing my fingers and wishing for the pain of fantasy soccer to go away.

I have some theories on how this happened.

• 1,000 people quit. This is the theory that makes the most sense. My meteoric rise would be far less confounding if it occurred as the result of a massive player walkout. Also, I can understand why so many people would want to up and leave fantasy soccer in pursuit of more entertaining, life-affirming things.

• Landon Donovan had a really, really good week. The LA Galaxy star did, in fact, score two goals, but unless goals are worth 250 points apiece, I doubt that his performance alone boosted my standing so high.

• Colossal computer error. Perhaps something went wrong with the MLS fantasy soccer computers. If they are capable of losing the entire rosters of every fantasy soccer player in the world, then I’m sure they are capable of fudging my numbers a couple hundred spots.

• Fate. I guess my fortune could be explained by the universe’s desire for me to win MLS fantasy soccer. Although, I feel the universe has more important things to worry about.

• I do not understand the rules of fantasy soccer. I know for a fact that this theory has validity, but I have a hard time believing that my innocuous rule knowledge could really play that big of a role in leapfrogging 1,000 people. Certainly, this theory explains why MLS fantasy soccer gives me a headache.

This post was written while listening to Pedro the Lion.

Fringe Benefits [People's Golfer]

Friday Night Lights, the oft-loved, not-watched soap-dramedy on NBC, has been renewed for its third season. The Peacock used a partnership with DirecTV to bring back the show.

NBC has made it official — it will bring back “Friday Night Lights” for a third season, and it will do so as part of an innovative partnership with DirecTV.

Fresh episodes of “FNL” will begin airing on DirecTV in October. NBC will show those episodes in early 2009, “soon after the network’s telecast of the 2009 Super Bowl,” according to NBC’s Wednesday press release.

I don’t have DirecTV, but I sure will by October.

Keep these storylines:

• Anything involving Tim Riggins. Riggins, along with Coach Taylor, really stole the show toward the end of season two. The Panthers’ fullback was funny, endearing, and desperate, all rolled into one big ball of bad news. He either needs to be prominently featured in every episode or given his own spin-off. Or both.
  
• Lyla and Christian Radio DJ. This relationship will end badly, probably with a DTR about personal boundaries. Personally, I can’t wait.
  
• Buddy Garrity’s appeal. Garrity went from annoying, pushy booster to pathetic, hard-luck divorcee so fast, I didn’t even have time to remember why I used to detest him. Now, he is so likable, I openly root for him regardless of the situation. Break up that marriage, Buddy. You can do it!
  
• Taylor family. Everything about the Taylor family is great, especially the relationship between Eric and Tammy. They are the Cosby’s of 21st century television.
  

Forget these storylines:

• Interracial relationships. Kudos to the FNL crew for approaching such a difficult topic. That said, can we please move on? I feel weird.
  
• Volleyball. Though the allure of Tyra in spanx is understandable, the whole idea of screen time devoted to volleyball is absurd. What’s next? Math-letes?
  

Deny this storyline ever existed:

• Jason Street and fatherhood. While we’re at it, can we have a do over on Jason Street, too?
  

Bring back:

• Football. As the backbone of the show, football should get more screen time than just a few scenes here and there. Also, I would appreciate it if every game did not come down to a last-second play.
  
• Matt Saracen and Julie Taylor. This couple was great in season one before Julie and her feelings ruined things. Can two people be more perfect for each other? Matt is an emotional mess and Julie could fly off the handle at any moment for any reason. They need to be together.
  
• Landry and geeky girl. When Landry chose Tyra near the end of season two, I was very disappointed. Not only did he take back a girl who will inevitably break his heart, he also said no to a girl who might just be his soul mate. He needs to make things right. It’s not every day you meet a girl who likes Mystery Science Theater 3000.
  

Keep away:

• Waverly. Smash’s bipolar, season-one arm-candy was a little too topical and relevant for a show about hooking up and sports.
  
• The Swede. This homewrecker was entirely forgettable as Julie Taylor’s fling. If she wanted someone with facial hair and a drinking problem, she should have taken her shot at Riggins when she had the chance.
• Landry killing people. Seriously. No more.
  

This post was written while listening to Chevelle.