The End of the Hernandez Saga
Well that was not the news I expected to see Wednesday morning. The Aaron Hernandez saga is more or less done now. I’d hope at least. Not exactly the ending I’d wager most of us expected.
So Hernandez was found dead. Hung himself in his cell. That’s awkward. It’s kind of a strange feeling. I’m not happy about it, even if he was a bad person. But I’m not really sad either, because he was a murderer. I mean, he killed someone. Yeesh. If anything I’m sad about the whole story. It’s such a depressing story on the whole. His daughter is the biggest loser in all of this.
He had just won a trial. He was acquitted of the double murder. He had an appeal of the Odin Lloyd killing coming up, which after being acquitted of the double doesn’t seem all that out of reach that he might win something out of that. It seemed like if anything, he had a little bit to possibly look forward to. His lawyer seemed optimistic about him and said that he seemed in good spirits. Of course, I feel like the “They seemed to be doing pretty well, I don’t know where this came from” is a common line from friends of suicide victims. I won’t lie, first thought when I heard about it: he was killed and made it look like a suicide. Maybe I’ve seen too many prison movies.
I could have made a lot of really dark jokes about this whole thing. I’ve certainly cracked a few among my close friends. I bet some of you are probably disappointed I didn’t do something darker. But something about it sort of just depresses me, so I settled for an egotistical self insert comic. I make a lot of suicide jokes on the comic (mostly hanging ones!) and it’s easy to sort of forget that it’s an actual problem. I will likely to continue to make them because I still find humor in the darkness there, but it feels wrong to be too mean about it when it actually for real life happened, even to a bad person.
So yeah. At least now it’s over, unless the weird rumors about his sexuality have any weight. I’m probably going to leave that alone even if it’s not, because somehow him killing Lloyd because Lloyd knew about this supposed Bisexuality and having a depressed lover in prison just makes everything that much more depressing.
Have a great weekend guys!
He was indeed a waste of talent along with other things as well. Also guess I did wasted that Aaron Hernandez post in the previous comic but whatever.
Speaking of Goodell fining a dead person, notice how in cemeteries there’s always seem to be a food vendor right outside? At least from where I live there’s always a food vendor right outside of the cemetery.
Maybe dead are really loaded?
I think you did fine with the sad (for the audghter and how odin Lloyd’s git screwed by an outdated situation law)of suicide.
Daughter and Odin Lloyd’s family getting screwed because Massachusetts state law prevents the Lloyd family from reusing evidence that was used in the orginal trial if/when they try to seek damages).
I remember reading a story right after the initial conviction detailing his life leading up to the murder, interviewing people he grew up with, that sort of thing. Apparently he was a good kid, nice, a bit of a dumb goofball, but never got into any real trouble. Then his dad died from surgical complications when he was a teenager, and he was never the same. He became angrier, started hanging out with a bad crowd, started getting into trouble, and the rest is history.
If one twist of fate in an operating room goes in a happier direction, Aaron’s just the calm, reasonable guy to Gronk’s party animal, rather than another dead prison inmate. More importantly, Odin Lloyd is alive and well, and his family hasn’t suffered an unimaginable loss. I can’t exactly say I feel bad for Hernandez, because the man was a convicted murderer, but everything about this story is just tragic.
That’s really sad when you learn the backstory. Doesn’t excuse Hernandez’s actions at all, but it does at least help explain them. Grief does change people, and there’s no grief more profound than the loss of a loved one. Nevertheless, I do still strongly believe that people can help control how they change and react to grief. It’s too bad Hernandez allowed his grief to change him into someone who caused that same grief to others. Like you said, this story is just tragic through and through. It’s been a string of tragic events for over 10 years. Let’s just hope the tragedy stops here, and his sweet daughter is able to buck the trend. 🙁
Arena recap wk2/preview wk3 (Baltimore is on a bye this week, DC was on a bye last week).
Let’s start with fuck the mark lewis. Fuck The Refs. And FUCK MARK LEWIS. Who’s mark lewis? He’s the new storm kicker, 2nd oldest player on the league at 37, and misser of more than half of his 7 extra point trys. Lewis went 2/6 with a pick-2 pass on a bad snap (but unlike Garo Yepremien in SB 7, it was an actual pass straight into the numbers of a Soul defender) meaning he essentially scored 0 points in a game with 8 storm tds. Combine that with 2 floaty onside kicks so bad not even Brandon Boykin would fail to recover, and you have the recipe for a shitty kicking performance. Onto the refs. First there was an inadvertently blown whistle on a Philly pick-6 return, fucking drifting in a fumble recovery by the storm defense (drifting is when defensive end goes outside of the box. The box is a 5×5 yard zone defensive lineman and linebackers can only leave if either they are blitzing, a pass has been thrown, or only in the case of one of the 2 linebackers; known as the Mac linebacker, a FB/TE has gone out for a pass), and being blind to hashmarks not once, but twice. With about 4 minutes left in the one possession game (Philly led 43-38 and had the ball), Soul QB Dan Radnbaugh threw a screen from inside the hashmarks of the Tampa 6 backwards 2-ish yards to Philly WR Shaun Kauleinamoku (SK for short) near the wall (sideline) of the Tampa 8. SK was at the 6&1/2 yard-line, had to fully extend backwards to get the ball, and pratically tossed it forward as it hit the ground. Then Tampa DB Cortéz Stubbs picked the fumble off of the ground and jogged it back to the endzone unchased with no ref whistle. The refs then called it incomplete instead of a backwards pass and Tampa ball/Tampa TD. Tampa immediately challenged, to which the tv commentators agreed in unison, along with the fans, Tampa, and even Philly (the Philly offense hung their heads down in shame as they were coming off of the field) that it was a fumble with possession going to Tampa. The refs went into the replay booth (broadcasts of arena games show the refs reviewing the call), asked for a camera view at the line of scrimmage (even though it was obvious Radnbaugh threw a backwards pass), didn’t get that view (camera views are limited in the Arena League), and declared inconclusive evidence despite, even at the angle the refs had, the obvious backwards pass. Once the refs confirmed their original call of an incomplete pass, the announcers were flabbergasted, I was pissed, and Storm QB Randy Hippeard nearly got ejected from the game for doing what most of the fans were doing (myself included) cussing the refs out. Philly went onto score thr next play, and the 2 teams traded scores for the rest of the game, and the with the final score being Philly: 56; Tampa: 52. At least the Storm look competent this year and Storm WR Joe Hills extended his TD catch streak to 70 straight games (although just barely).
OK, so who else has seen the rumor floating around about a technicality in Massachusetts law coupled with his old contract that will wind up netting his daughter a whole bunch of money from the Patriots. It all sounds too fantastical to me, but it would be an interesting wrinkle if true.
1) Even if his estate did get money from the Patriots, his lawyer bills would probably consume a lot of it, or the estate would just immediately get sued by the various surviving family members. The daughter would probably see nothing.
2) Apparently Hernandez filed a grievance with the union after the Pats cut him. That grievance was settled, which most likely means he is not contractually owed anything, regardless of whether or not his conviction holds up. So, it’s not going to happen.
(Continued). Onto Baltimore @ Cleveland.
Well, that didn’t take long as GENO SMITH THE LINEBACKER has returned to his rightful position as Cleveland’s qb after spending the first 2 games at Mac Linebacker due to Shane Boyd getting just a large enough boo-boo to not be considered a healthy scratch despite playing like shit (just like Josh McCown). Seriously though, the Cleveland Gladiators deserve their own booth at ‘The Injured Reserve’ because this is 2nd-straight year that they have lost their entire secondary (4 players), two lineman, and two qbs for the season (or at least half) by the end of week #2, with none of players getting injuries in both years. Otherwise, Baltimore @ Cleveland wasn’t too crazy, even with Baltimore WR Reggie Gray’s last-minute TD catch to give Baltimore a 52-49 win. Also, I was wrong again, because Shane Carden never played Bortles, but he did lose to UCF when Bortles was a rookie in J’ville. Baltimore and Tampa: 1-1; Cleveland: 0-2; Philly and Washington: 1-0.
Speaking of Philadelphia and DC, they’re playing each other tonight at 7pm (viewable on either Monumental Sports Network or ArenaFootballLeague.com). Washigton QB Eric Meyer (and what would have happened If Mark Sanchez grew out his Fu-man-chu and NEVER SHAVED IT) leads his team as they host Philly and Dan Radnbaugh in the Verizon Center at 7pm Eastern Standard Time. Odds-makers have Philly by 9 with an O/U of 110 (59.5-50.5). I’d take Philly by 10 and the Over.
The CBS Sports Network game, also tonight at 7pm, is Tampa hosting Cleveland. Odds-makers have Tampa Bay by 8 with an O/U of 120 (64-56). Arvill Nelson (GENO SMITH THE LINEBACKER) is a fucking magician (think 2011 Tim Tebow), so I’ll take Cleveland by 1 and the Under
One more thing to add onto the Tampa-Philly game: Kendrick Ings broke the all-time Storm record for all-purpose yards in a game with 359 (212 on kick returns with 1 td; 147 receiving with 3 tds) yards and 4 tds. Kendrick Ings is a mini-beast to go along with Joe Hills the big beast.
Next week I’m just gonna make a youtube vid for this shit and leave a link in the comments, because these are getting annoying to scroll through, and (long as to type up)even for me (unless y’all prefer these long reads; please let me know which is better: video with link or long-read)
I think a link would be better with a short recap to go along with it. Admittedly these can be annoying because they have nothing to do with the actual comic. It was especially bad here because this comic’s subject matter was a lot more depressing than usual, so an Arena Recap just feels horribly out of place.
Thanks for the advice, I’ll try that next week
The link would work better
I’ve read your comics on the Raiders move but that is one of the only moves I agree with. Mark Davis just does not have the money to build his own stadium unlike almost all of the others. The Collosium is incredibly old and they have to share it with an MLB team. He is also keeping the team in Oakland for two full years which is much longer than the others did/ are doing.
Assuming there was no Code Red from up high, I think there are two likely culprits for his suicide: CTE and/or solitary confinement.
CTE is pretty doubtful. He didn’t play all that long and CTE really only tends to manifest in such ways a while after retirement. The solitary though. I could see that doing something. He seemed like a pretty social person.
There are high school football players with CTE.
Huh, I’ll be damned. I hardly ever hear of it in anyone younger than 40-50.
Why haven’t you made fun of the Eli situation? I think that it’s hilarious that the two biggest controversies surrounding the Mannings are Peyton mooning someone and Eli trying to keep his own memorabilia.
Can’t stop. Won’t stop.
One thing I remember learning about depression and suicide is that, ironically, suicide risk is higher coming out of the “trough” than it is at the bottom of the trough.
http://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/the-geno-smith-redemption/
And here I was expecting a 13 Reasons Why spoof where Aaron Hernandez leaves tapes to Tom Brady, Belecheat, and Kraft. Sad times, sad times.