Our recent blast of cold and windy winter weather has left us looking forward to temperatures in the 60s and 70s. I am thinking a bit of rain for christmas sounds better than the high winds and wind chill in the 20s.
Whatever the weather, we hope that you and your loved ones will have a blessed and Merry Christmas! On behalf of the Pleak Mayor, Aldermen and Alderwomen and the members of the Pleak Planning & Zoning Commission and the members of the Pleak ESD#6 send out their sincere wishes for a safe and happy holiday season. From our family to yours, We Wish You a very Merry Christmas!
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Tom Brady Torches the Jets with 3 TD Passes! | Jets vs. Patriots | NFL Week 16 Player Highlights
Josh McDaniels is expected to take an NFL head coaching job this offseason after serving as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the New england patriots since 2012, the boston Globe reports.
McDaniels, 40, will "have his choice of jobs" and is "likely to take one" according to the newspaper"s Ben Volin, who mentions there is talk of a package deal including third-year Patriots backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia is also likely to be a candidate for head coaching vacancies, but "isn"t as hot a name as McDaniels right now," per Volin.
McDaniels was a personnel and defensive assistant with the Patriots from 2001 to 2003 before being elevated to quarterbacks coach for the 2004-05 season. He added the title of offensive coordinator with the team from 2006 to 2008 before leaving to become the head coach of the Denver Broncos.
Under McDaniels, the Broncos went 11-17 from 2009-10. He was fired and went on to serve as the St. Louis Rams" offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2011.
HOUSTON -- that the houston texans shifted from dread to jubilation in the split second it took Cincinnati Bengals kicker Randy Bullock to miss his last-second field goal attempt was a microcosm of their season -- one filled with ups, downs and white-knuckle finishes.
Bullock pushed a 43-yard try wide right as time expired, touching off a celebration as the Texans clinched their second consecutive AFC South title with a 12-10 win over the Bengals on Saturday night at NRG Stadium.
Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton engineered a 13-play, 60-yard drive to put Bullock in position to exact revenge against the team that selected him in the fifth round of the 2012 draft and subsequently released him.
Instead, Bullock missed and the Texans (9-6) claimed a postseason bid despite their minus-42 season point differential.
"It doesn"t always look pretty, but at the end of the day we"re 9-6," Texans coach Bill O"Brien said. "We"re 5-0 in the division and we beat a very tough Cincinnati team."
Texans quarterback Tom Savage, making his first career start, twice rallied Houston from behind, including a four-play, 75-yard drive that resulted in the game-winner. He sandwiched completions of 19 and 21 yards to Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins, respectively, around an 11-yard scramble for a first down before running back Alfred Blue darted 24 yards for a touchdown and the lead with 8:41 remaining.
Bengals defensive end Margus Hunt blocked the ensuing PAT, setting the stage for Bullock and the Bengals (5-9-1) to need a field goal to secure the victory. But Bullock failed to deliver as Cincinnati dropped to 2-5 since its bye week.
"That was exactly what I wanted," said Bullock, released by the Texans last season. "I did have the opportunity, I just didn"t take advantage of it. That hurts for me and this team. Obviously, we wanted to win here, so it was incredibly disappointing."
Savage finished 18-of-29 passing for 176 yards and was sacked four times. Dalton passed for 268 yards with a touchdown and an interception and was sacked thrice.
The Bengals were first to find the end zone when wide receiver Brandon LaFell, like Dalton a Houston native, turned a short slant pass on third down into an 86-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown and a 10-6 advantage with 10:45 left to play.
Texans defensive backs A.J. Bouye and Kareem Jackson collided behind the completion, allowing LaFell to build momentum as he crossed the field to beat the rest of the secondary to the far sideline, where raced untouched into the end zone.
That score represented a stunning turn of events, but the Texans were undaunted. Their defense allowed just 294 total yards and Savage found his rhythm in the second half once the Texans employed a no-huddle attack to spark their offense.
"I thought it was getting into a little rhythm," Savage said of the offense. "Completed some b***s. The first half I was just missing some people. Missing some reads here and there and that"s unacceptable."
From the start, the Texans were on their heels offensively, unable to protect Savage and therefore inept are generating any semblance of a scoring threat.
Savage was sacked three times in his first five dropbacks, including on consecutive snaps by Bengals defensive tackle Geno Atkins and defensive end Wallace Gilberry to open the second drive. Houston resorted to a run-heavy attack the remainder of the half, but the results were similar. The Texans mustered 34 yards by the break.
The Bengals weren"t exactly prolific offensively, managing 2.4 yards per play on their initial six drives before compiling a 14-play, 67-yard scoring drive late in the second quarter. That march ended with a 43-yard Bullock field goal at the buzzer, giving Cincinnati a 3-0 lead.
When Bullock faced a near-identical kick later, what has happened to Cincinnati for most of this star-crossed season manifested again.
"The way this season"s gone, when we"ve needed to make a play, we haven"t been able to do it," Dalton said. "It"s not one thing that"s caused it. It"s just the way things have gone this year. It"s kind of been how our season"s been, and it"s unfortunate it"s been that way."
NOTES: After spending the week preparing to return from a right hamstring injury suffered in Week 11, Bengals WR A.J. Green was pulled from a team meeting on Friday and told he will not play the remainder of the season. According to published reports, Green was disenchanted with the news and left Houston. He reportedly has a torn tendon that has not fully healed. ... Texans RB Lamar Miller was inactive with an ankle injury suffered last week against the Jaguars. He had played in 67 straight games and is 26 yards shy of matching his career best of 1,099 rushing yards set in 2014 with the Dolphins. ... Three Texans starters returned on defense: LB Whitney Mercilus (back), LB John Simon (chest) and CB Johnathan Joseph (ribs). Mercilus missed last week"s win over the Jaguars. Simon and Joseph were sidelined for four and two games, respectively.
Brian has been a passionate fan of horse racing since birth. Taken to the races at a very young age, he has been lucky enough to see all the greats in person from Secretariat, Forego, and Ruffian through Rachel Alexandra, Zenyatta, and American Pharoah.
Beforecoming to the Nation, Brian displayed his love for the sport through the development of his horse racing website, which quickly became one of the most popular blogs in the game.As Editor of Horse Racing Nation, Brian authors a daily column as Zipse at the Track, orZATTfor short, and adds his editorial flare to the overall content of the website. Brian also consults for leading contest site Derby Wars, and is a Vox Populi committee member.A horse owner and graduate of DePaul University, Brian lives just outside of Louisville with his wife Candice and daughter Kendra.
Rams vs. Seahawks | NFL Week 15 Game Highlights 12:50 PM ET
Sheil KapadiaESPN Writer
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Covered the Philadelphia Eagles for Philadelphia Magazine and Philly.com from 2008 to 2015.
Covered the Baltimore Ravens and the NFL for BaltimoreSun.com from 2006 to 2008.
SEATTLE -- Following the Seattle Seahawks" 34-31 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, coach Pete Carroll was asked about his team"s inability to show any kind of consistency in recent weeks.
"I dont know," Carroll said. "I keep thinking were going to do right, were going to do well."
Going into Saturday"s game, the Seahawks" biggest reason for optimism was their potential playoff path. They needed to win the final two games against teams that were out of contention to secure the No. 2 seed in the NFC and a first-round bye.
Now that is no longer the case. The Seahawks have dropped down to the No. 4 seed. Three things need to happen for them to get a bye: They need to beat the San Francisco 49ers in Week 17. The Atlanta Falcons have to lose to the New Orleans Saints. And the Detroit Lions have to lose one of their final two games against the Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers.
Unless all of those things happen, the seahawks will be playing at home during the first playoff weekend. And a potential path to the Super Bowl will require three victories -- two most likely on the road.
The Seahawks are a resilient group, but this is looking like a year where they might have too many obstacles to overcome.
They scored three points on six possessions in the first half Saturday. Two weeks ago, the Seahawks turned the ball over six times against the Green Bay Packers. In Week 12, they scored five points in a loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And there have been six different games this season in which the offense has scored one or zero touchdowns.
"To struggle like we did in the first half and then to do everything that we did in the second half to come back and give ourselves a chance to win the game and then not be able to pull it out, its an emotional roller-coaster," wide receiver Doug Baldwin said. "I know that you guys think that were supposed to be robots and we just go out there and run these straight lines, but were humans. We have emotions. This game takes a lot out of us. Were very passionate about what we do, so when it ends the way that it did today, its very draining and exhausting."
Russell Wilson was sacked six times and hit on 14 other occasions against Arizona. The offensive line continues to be the biggest thing holding the Seahawks back. At any given moment, it can just fall apart and cripple the entire operation.
To the Seahawks" credit, the offense caught fire in the second half. But it"s impossible to know how this group is going to perform from week to week, regardless of the opponent.
"We have a lot of weapons on the offensive side, and we have to protect Russell," Baldwin said. "Russell has to get the ball out, and we have to catch it as receivers and run the ball efficiently and effectively. When we do those things, were pretty hard to stop. But we have to do those things in an effective nature and efficiently. That"s what it boils down to."
Meanwhile, defensively, the Seahawks allowed the Cardinals to score on four of their final five possessions.
And for the first time since free safety Earl Thomas went down with a fractured tibia in Week 13, his absence might have cost them a victory.
The free safety in the Seahawks" scheme is responsible for taking away two routes: posts and seams. The Cardinals scored on an 80-yard touchdown when J.J. Nelson got behind Thomas" replacement, Steven Terrell.
"When you give up a post route, you dont play very well," Carroll said. "Thats not good enough. Thats an 80-yard play or whatever the heck it was. Its pretty fundamental for us."
And then there are the other injuries. Wide receiver Tyler Lockett (broken leg) is out for the season. Thomas Rawls suffered a shoulder injury Saturday. And it"s unclear when (or if) running back C.J. Prosise will get back. Wilson has battled through injuries all season and clearly would benefit from a bye.
It"d be foolish to count the Seahawks out. They"ve shown time and again that they can take on obstacles. But since Wilson arrived, they"ve never had a season like this.
They"ll take their shots in January, but in the end, there just might be too much to overcome to get back to the Super Bowl for the third time in four years.
There are two contrary ways of characterizing myth. By far the more common way is negative: a myth is a false or delusory belief or story. Here the aim is to expose the myth and be done with it. To take an innocuous example, the story that young George Washington was so honest that he could not deny to his father that he, the son, had chopped down the cherry tree is a myth because it never occurred.
Taken positively, a myth can still be false, but the significance of it when believed to be true is what counts. The story of Washingtons confessing that he had chopped down the tree attests to the character of the person even as a child. (An American comedian once contrasted Washington to Richard Nixon: weve gone, he said, from a President who could not tell a lie to a President who could not tell the truth.)
Viewed positively, a myth can as likely be true as be false. What matters, to use the line of Joseph Campbell, is the power of myth. But that power does not require that the myth actually be true. Yet myth need not be false. The power of myth transcends its factual status.
The phrase Christmas myths invariably uses the word negatively. What is false about Christmas ranges from the detailed to the fundamental. Strictly, Prince Albert of Victoria and Albert fame did not invent Christmas trees, which had been around the Court for almost a hundred years. More substantially, Christmas might have originally been a pagan holiday and one that centered on the sun. This argument is part of a broader claim that Christianity arose out of Roman religion.
Positively, what is Christmas about? Straightforwardly, it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. (In two of the four canonical Gospels the birth takes place in Bethlehem. In a third it takes place in Nazareth. Only two of the Gospels place the birth in a manger.) The significance of the story is obvious: it recounts the birth of the savior of humanity.
Taken negatively, Christmas is a made-up story. Humans are not born of virgins. Miracles, such as Jesus spontaneously curing the blind, do not occur. Death is final. There is no return fare. Above all, Jesus was not the son of G*d, for there are no gods. Humanists, who pit myth and religion against science, relish amassing these beliefs as unscientific and therefore false.
But there is an alternative positive reading a secular one, one involving neither gods nor miracles. Here the celebration is of the winter solstice, or the shortest day of the year. The date fluctuates between 20 December and 23 December. But it is close enough to 25 December to be tied to the birth of Jesus. The celebration is thus of the forthcoming end of winter and coming of spring.
Who, then, is Jesus? Either the sun G*d or the sun itself. Or more likely, Jesus is either the G*d of vegetation or vegetation itself.
The counterpart to this seasonal approach to Christmas is the seasonal approach to Easter. Here Jesus is, again, either the G*d of vegetation or vegetation itself. As a G*d, his death and resurrection either symbolize or cause the death and rebirth of vegetation itself, the course of which coincides with Easter.
There are celebrations of the winter solstice all over the world. Pagans gather at stonehenge, for example. and many christmas customs, including trees and gift giving, doubtless hark back to pre-Christian times. (Apparently, our forebears especially liked getting electronic gifts, especially returnable ones.)
This approach to myth is comparative, as all theories of myth are. The key theorist here is James Frazer, author of The Golden Bough (1890, 1900, 1911-15). The significance of any myth is the significance of all myths of that kind, such as vegetation or solar myths. The birth of Jesus becomes simply the Christian version of a universal, or at least widespread, story of the birth of the G*d on all whom depend.
Taken cosmically, the birth of Jesus and of kindred figures worldwide is the birth, or rebirth, of the world itself. That in the Gospel of Matthew the wise men seeking Jesus birthplace follow the heavens for directions evinces the scale of the event. It is not merely Jesus who is being born. It is the world, as in the rebirth of the earth after the Flood in Genesis.
In a tamer form the birth of Jesus is merely being commemorated. In a bolder form it is being redone. Jesus is born anew every Christmas, dies every Good Friday, and is resurrected every Easter. Creation is not a merely one-time event but an annual one. Certainly the pagan, or seasonal, approach to Christmas makes the birth of the world a yearly enterprise. True, Jesus grows up, but he is still born anew when resurrected.There is a cycle of birth, death, and birth again.
Featured image credit: Christmas Glass ornament by mploscar. Public Domain via Pixabay.
Tom Brady Torches the Jets with 3 TD Passes! | Jets vs. Patriots | NFL Week 16 Player Highlights
Once you start doing good things week in and week out, said Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler, who had two interceptions and a fumble recovery, you start to conquer teams.
Graphic
Exploring the playoff chances and potential seedings of every N.F.L. team that hasnt been eliminated.
Presumably, the Patriots will face better quarterbacks in the postseason than Petty or his replacement, Ryan Fitzpatrick. Or Kessler, Goff or Siemian. Or Brock Osweiler, Colin Kaepernick or Landry Jones, some of the others who have succumbed to New England this season.
Of the 10 highest-scoring teams besides themselves, the Patriots have faced two Buffalo and Pittsburgh, which played that day without its star quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. That is not their fault, but the mediocrity of their opposition such as the Jets, who through three quarters Saturday had four completions and four turnovers suggests that the Patriots have not been sufficiently tested.
Earlier in the week, the Jets offensive coordinator, Chan Gailey, said that New England had probably the smartest defense the Jets had played this season. Asked to elaborate, Gailey highlighted the Patriots players interchangeability how so many of them can line up in different positions and, by extension, their depth.
The Patriots dumped two productive players, the Pro Bowl linebackers Chandler Jones (in March) and Jamie Collins (in October), in decisions that benefited the teams long-term viability and salary-cap flexibility but initially elicited skepticism.
I thought they traded away their opportunity to go to the Super Bowl, the ESPN analyst Merril Hoge said in a telephone interview. I was like, They could be in trouble. And at first, they were very vanilla, like they were searching. But over the last six weeks, that defense is drastically improved.
The improvement, beginning after a Week 10 home loss to Seattle, coincided with two critical developments: a stretch against three of the lowest-scoring teams in the league San Francisco, the Jets and Los Angeles and the continued progress, and integration, of players like linebackers Kyle Van Noy and Shea McClellin; defensive lineman Vincent Valentine; and cornerback Eric Rowe, who intercepted Fitzpatrick in the second quarter.
Last Sunday in the high altitude of Denver, where New England had lost its three previous games, including last seasons A.F.C. championship, the patriots smothered the broncos in a 16-3 victory. Watching that game, Hoge found himself in an unfamiliar position: He had never heard of one of the Patriots starting linebackers, No. 52, the rookie Elandon Roberts, who on Saturday forced a fumble.
You really cant pick a guy, Jets Coach Todd Bowles said earlier in the week, because they have different guys to make plays.
Hoge said the team that should pose the greatest challenge to New England in the A.F.C. is Pittsburgh, which can clinch its division Sunday by beating Baltimore. Powered by Roethlisberger, running back LeVeon Bell and a cast of receiving options headlined by Antonio Brown, the Steelers can stress every level of New Englands defense. The Patriots smart stunt packages offset their modest pass rush, but a savvy, sturdy offensive line such as the Steelers can neutralize them.
Depending on how the matchups unfold, the Patriots might not even have to face Pittsburgh until the A.F.C. championship game, if at all. With Tom Brady, dazzling still at age 39, New England holds a perpetual edge at quarterback.
But despite Bradys three Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Awards, none of the climactic moments in those games Adam Vinatieris two late field goals against St. Louis and Carolina, Butlers goal-line interception against Seattle involved the quarterback, which is an instructive point.
Brady, as ever, might position the Patriots for glory. But he might need a little help at the end.
