Norman Chad

Couch Slouch: Tim Donaghy used to fix NBA games, in David Stern’s NBA. You might remember hearing about this several years back, but it largely disappeared from the public eye. It’s now worth looking at again, if you take a moment out to read Scott Eden’s fascinating espn.com article on Donaghy’s gambling activities.

Couch Slouch:

Couch Slouch: At last count, nearly 2,000 NBA players changed teams last week before the trade deadline. Remarkably, Anthony Davis was not among them.

Couch Slouch: Usually at this time, I provide my annual Super Bowling Viewing Guide (for Super Bowl Parties of Six or More). Ain’t gonna happen. I cannot do this anymore. I cannot sit here and watch the New England Patriots – the Mongol Empire of the 21st century – win week after week, year after year.

Couch Slouch: Before this season, there was a little-noted change in the NBA rulebook that stated, “Defenders shall not impede any shot by an opponent; if at all possible, the offensive player will be allowed to shoot unguarded.” Or so it seems.

Couch Slouch: The Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders are looking for a temporary home for the 2019 NFL season. At this point, a pop-up stadium in Dubai might be in play. The Raiders – often called “America’s Team” because over the last half-century they have contacted every American municipality seeking a housing deal – are scheduled to move to a new, expensive, almost-paid-for dome in Las Vegas in 2020.

Couch Slouch: The NFL remains an easy thing to watch and a hard to thing to listen to. What was once plainspoken is now plain gobbledygook; game analysts turn simple actions into tangled discourse. It sounds like English, but it is a language all its own. Here is a sampling of some fancy-schmancy, newfangled television football terms:

Couch Slouch:

These are 23 (more) facts, tried and true, about the widening world of sports television.

The only popular team sport in America more rigged than college basketball is college football. That’s not opinion, that’s fact; it is incontrovertible, indisputable and inarguable.

Couch Slouch: I am thankful this week, not because it’s Thanksgiving – I hardly ever pay attention to the calendar; heck, I’m still on Daylight Savings Time – but because my body rhythms just tell me to be happy about so many transcendent blessings. Such as…

Couch Slouch: Rising from the ashes of a million cigarette butts, in the shadow of a desert filled with buried body parts, looms the specter of a massive sporting palace partially funded by the largest public stadium subsidy in U.S. history. And people were worried about the midterms?

Couch Slouch: Many NBA observers, understandably, have focused on LeBron James going to the Los Angeles Lakers. Thus, many NBA observers have overlooked Lee Jenkins going to the Los Angeles Clippers. This might change the balance of power in the Western Conference for years to come.

Couch Slouch: My occasional friend, Poker Hall of Famer Eric Drache, recently texted me a trivia question: What is the least number of pitches that a pitcher can throw and complete a nine-inning game? The correct answer will be given at the end of the column.

Couch Slouch: I’m in a bad mood today – Effexor can only unclog the brain drain so much – and most of it is self-inflicted, due to my reluctant, ought-to-know-better, this-is-the-last-thing-I-should-be-doing-with-my-life embracing of Twitter. Twitter is so devilish, the devil won’t use it.

Sports Nation has been divided by the NFL’s tackling issue, which displaced the national anthem issue, which displaced the is-it-a-catch-or-not issue, which displaced domestic violence, replay review and overtime issues, which displaced team-relocation issues, which displaced the 1925 Chicago Cardinals-Pottsville Maroons championship issue.

Couch Slouch: The NHL is back this week, baby! To be sure, it is a poorly calculated gamble to begin a column with the words, “The NHL is back this week, baby!” As a rule, if you’re looking to clear a room, you start talking about either the NHL or the law of diminished marginal utility.

Couch Slouch:

Couch Slouch: High school football participation is down 6.6 percent over the last decade. According to the White House, this is due to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, a shift from coal to solar-power energy and disastrous Obama-era trade deals. Uh, whither high school football?

Couch Slouch: As the NFL begins another flag-waving, player-kneeling, Nike-infested, anthem-ambivalent, Kaepernick-free season, it is important to remember that – on the sideline – in the immortal words of Sly & the Family Stone, it’s a family affair.

Couch Slouch:

Couch Slouch: “How ’bout them Cowboys!” Jimmy Johnson once exhorted. How

Couch Slouch: I was checking my Twitter feed while bathing the other afternoon – I installed an umbrella-type device near the showerhead to protect my iPhone from absorbing any errant shower water – when I came across a simple, sublime sentiment via tweet by veteran Northern California journalist Andy Furillo: “Memo to Trump: America can never be made great again as long as TV maintains the chimera of the definitive strike zone. Get rid of the (expletive) box.”

Couch Slouch: There appears to be a growing crisis in Major League Baseball: Everybody strikes out and nobody goes to games. Of course, I exaggerate. I do this to ensure that casual readers – basically, anyone outside of my immediate family – continue to read on.