North Arlington All Stars

1st and 10

Random post about sports. You probably won't hear me talk about sports ever again, so enjoy.

For two guys who claim to be sports columnists (Bayless and Paige), a guy who hosts a morning sports talk show (Crawford) and a network (ESPN) that is devoted to sports 24-7 (well, at least when they aren't talking about NASCAR), the ubiquitous segment called on ESPN's daily Cold Pizza, 1st and 10 sure doesn't make any sense. I mean, NONE. Maybe someone can explain it to me, but here's what I've been able to figure out so far.

1. 1st and 10 is an obvious football reference. Cold Pizza is a sports show on ESPN, so there is that, plus there is a little zebra striped official in a graphic at the bottom of the TV screen moving one end of the "chains" so yeah, football. I just wanted to establish that in case someone tried to come back and try to say, "1st and 10 doesn't refer to football"
2. The first topic to be discussed is known as "1st and 10". The next topic is called "2nd and 10" Huh? Bayless and Paige must be so evenly matched that they didn't make any progress one way or the other.
3. After 1st and 10, we move to 2nd and 10. I mentioned that. No progress is made, so still "10 to go". So then why did the official guy in the graphic move the "chains"? Shouldn't it be 2nd and 9, if the "chains" were moved one unit?
4. What does the 10 have to do with anything at all? There aren't 10 questions (which is what I thought at first, although that would have meant having an 8th down, which is TRULY stooopid). Can you get a first down somehow? I don't think so.
5. On the segment I just watched, at least 2 of the questions were about basketball, not football. Maybe they should change the segment to be basketball themed and call it "10-pointers" (keep in mind that the number 10 doesn't really have anything to do with anything) . Then for each new question, a graphic would show a basketball player shooting a "10-pointer". What is a 10-pointer? I actually think there was such a thing on that MTV Rock and Jock basketball game.

No sense. At all. In fact, it seems to be nothing but pure laziness.

• "Someone gimme a name for this segment - quick!"
• "Um, how about 1st and 10?"
• "OK, go with that."

How about this for a name: "4 questions. Which are sometimes about sports."