We begin Odds & Ends this week with the ongoing controversy of players either kneeling for the national anthem or raising their fists during it and how manufactured the controversy is beginning to feel.

On Monday during ESPN’s second Monday Night Football game between the 49ers and the Rams, the cameras were never even placed on violinist Lindsay Stirling,who performed the anthem. Instead,the cameras went around to Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid,who were expected to kneel during the anthem. They then went over to the Los Angeles sideline to show Robert Quinn and Kenny Britt raising their fists,all while ignoring Stirling’s performance and never once placing the camera on her during the anthem (they showed her before it).

Enough already,media. We get it. Players are sitting out the anthem for whatever reason. Let’s move on. Honestly,I don’t care what players do during the anthem anymore considering the fact that most of the people watching at home aren’t standing for it,either. It’s a controversy that doesn’t feel like a legitimate one because of how manufactured it is and has been and it’s time for us to move on. Let players do what they do and let’s move on.

Does it bother anyone else that Darren Sharper is on the Pro Football Hall of Fame ballot?

The five-time Pro Bowler is on the list of 94 nominees on the ballot for enshrinement in Canton next year. Also on the ballot are Donovan McNabb,LaDainian Tomlinson,Hines Ward,and Jason Taylor.

None of the players listed above is a convicted rapist, except for Sharper. The former safety currently serving 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to drugging and raping multiple women in several states.

While I understand that election is based on what the player did on the field in their playing career and rightfully so, but at the same time someone had to raise a red flag somewhere and wonder why a convicted rapist was on the list. In a time when a player can get suspended indefinitely for beating the shit out of his fiance and beating the hell out of his kid with a twig,there should be parameters when it comes to election to one of porfessional sports’ most hallowed clubs.

It’s doubtful that Sharper is going to get elected,but it makes you wonder exactly what it takes to not even be considered for the ballot in the first place. Sharper should not be on this ballot. I’m sure the many women he inflicted pain and suffering on would agree.

Bills fans seem to me like the most sex crazed football fans in America.

We all saw the photo last year of two Buffalo fans getting busy in the parking lot and it’s happened again this season. Well,sort of.
A snapshot of a couple inside New Era Field making out with the guy reaching into the woman’s pants and grabbing her ass extremely tight. It’s safe to say that these two were making out in an attempt to give themselves all the distractions they could get.

I guess when your team has yet to make the playoffs in the 21st Century, you have to comfort one another as fans and if getting down in the parking lot or grabbing your girl’s ass inside the stadium takes away from the pain of not making the playoffs in a long ass time, then I say let your freak flag fly.

Davis Webb and the Golden Bears had plenty to celebrate about late into the night after beating the 11th ranked Texas Longhorns at home.

As much as I love Cal football and as glad I was that they beat Texas at home, their games are on too damn late.

Kickoff for Saturday’s Cal-Texas game at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley,Calif. was at 7:30 p.m. Pacific and the game ended close to Midnight,and no,it didn’t go to overtime. This was a four quarter regulation college football game.

For me,that’s too late. I know it’s on a Saturday night and I know most of us stay up later on the weekends, but I’m in the minority on that one. I’m almost 35 years old and usually go to sleep around 10:30 to 11 p.m.,this includes weekends. There is absolutely no reason why this game and other games can’t be played earlier. Why not a 6 p.m. kickoff? Or 6:30? Why does it have to be 7:30?

I personally didn’t make it to the end of the game and found out about the team’s win when ESPN scrolled it on their bottom line on Sunday morning. When some of your own fans can’t make it until the end,two things need to happen, play better defense (Seriously,guys,stop someone’s fucking run game) and play your games earlier. Both of those things need to happen.

There are many times that I wish Giants fans would actually boo one of their players and Saturday night,it happened and deservedly so.

Manager Bruce Bochy for some reason decided to go with the worst closer in team history to try and save the game and Santiago Casilla was booed immediately (I think those boos were reserved for Bochy as well,and those are also deserved) and like we’ve seen over and over again this season,Santiago Casilla screwed things up.

Kolten Wong hit a sacrifice fly off Casilla that capped a two-run comeback in the ninth and the Cardinals beat the Giants 3-2 Saturday night.

“I’m having bad luck,” Casilla said. “I was looking for a double play but we lose the game. I try to do my best. I’m not going to be sad or kill myself. It’s a game.”

I disagree,he isn’t doing his best,at least not his best to try and win games for this team. Why he still is called upon to close even after Bochy proclaimed he had “touched that hot stove enough” is beyond me. It’s absolutely time for someone else,and I mean anyone else, to close for this team. My suggestion? How about Matt Cain? Cain doesn’t really have the stuff to be a starting pitcher anymore,so why not use him in a different role that can do nothing but help the team’s cause and even his own cause? Just a thought!

It’s decisions like putting in Casilla and watching him blow it yet again for the Giants that have the boo birds coming out and I hope that the front office heard them Saturday because enough is enough. Fix this!

That’s it for Odds & Ends this week,we’ll catch you next time!