Remember All Their Faces

TigerBlog saw a commercial for the first of the two Monday night NFL games.

It started out with the predictable "Eli Manning and the Giants take on ...", at which point TigerBlog had hoped it would say "Caraun Reid and the Lions." But no. It had Matthew Stafford instead.

Who makes these decisions?

Reid, after all, is a rookie back up defensive lineman. Why wouldn't he be featured, instead of Stafford, the starting quarterback?

Okay, TB gets it.

Still, Reid is a Princeton grad making his NFL debut. Against Eli Manning, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. What could be better?

Reid is one of two Princeton alums in the NFL this year, along with Mike Catapano of the Chiefs, though Catapano is on the Physically Unable To Perform list to start the year. TigerBlog will root for both of them.

He'll root for the Lions as well. It can't be easy to be a a Lions' fan.

The team last won an NFL championship in 1957, and the Lions are one of four teams to have never played in a Super Bowl. TigerBlog will give you a few paragraphs to come up with the other three.

On the other hand, the Lions seem to be pointed in the right direction. They have the franchise quarterback and enough good pieces around him, and the division they play in isn't overly strong.

Plus, the Lions are owned by the Ford family, the same people who brought you the Ford Family Director of Athletics position at Princeton. So TB will root for them. Oh, and 10-time Heptagonal champion John Mack  - a former OAC student worker - is a huge, longtime, loyal Lions fans, and he deserves a Super Bowl more than anyone TB knows. 

Anyway, the Browns, Texans and Jaguars are the other three who have never been in a Super Bowl. The Browns aren't exactly easy to root for either, and 2014 hasn't quite started off in a fan-friendly way.

So it's Giants-Lions at 7:10 tonight.

Before you watch the football game, you can go to Roberts Stadium and see Princeton take on Seton Hall in women's soccer at 5. It's an interesting start time. It's 5, not 7.

Princeton opened its season with a 5-0 loss to Rutgers Friday night, but it wasn't quite that bad. Princeton was right there with unbeaten Rutgers until it ran out of steam, largely because it was playing Game 1 versus Game 4 for the Scarlet Knights.

This time, the challenge is another Big East team. Oh wait, Rutgers is in the Big Ten. TB has to keep reminding himself of that. Is Seton Hall still in the Big East? Is there still a Big East?

The answers are yes and yes.

Seton Hall has also lost to Rutgers. That score was 1-0.

This will be Game 6 for the Pirates. That's extraordinary. Seton Hall defeated Wagner 3-0 in its opener and has since lost to Rutgers, Rider, Monmouth and Stony Brook - all by one goal. The first three of those losses were by 1-0 scores.

If you want a closer look at the women's soccer team, TigerBlog suggests clicking HERE.

And what will you find if you click there?

Well, if you're a fan of "Orange Is The New Black," you'll get it immediately. It's a video created by women's soccer goalkeeper Darcy Hargadon, who TB believes is not related to the late Director of Admissions Fred Hargadon.

Darcy has done other videos, and she is tremendous at it. This one is her best.

The Netflix show "Orange is the New Black" is about life in a women's prison. It starts out with the song in the video that Darcy did, and it follows the same style as the one Darcy did, only Darcy substituted the faces of the inmates with the faces of her women's soccer teammates.

As for the game, it's a 5 pm start, not 7.
It's the first of two home soccer games this week, with St. John's at Roberts Stadium Wednesday night to take on the men's team. That game kicks off 7.

The women are at La Salle Friday night and then home against Villanova Sunday at 4 in an ESPNU game.

Oh, and the video?

It's really, really well done. Even if you're not a fan of the show.

It's definitely worth the 1:18 of your time it takes to see it.

In fact, here's the link again: Princeton women's soccer, Orange is the New Black.