January 2014 Pickups

[the 'stache]

Thank you, Mike.

Nope, it's a screenie from a Tecmo Bowl ROM. If you go to tecmobowl.org, you can download a NES emulator and play the game on your computer. Members of the website update the ROM every year for new players, trades, team moves (so it has all the current teams instead of the teams back when Tecmo Bowl was sold), etc. There's also an editor, so you can put yourself on the team should you choose. You pick your jersey #, position, set your attributes, and even pick which picture you want. You can also pick which plays are in your team's "playbook".

Naturally I made myself Rodgers' backup, because while I had to suffer through the indignity of watching Seneca Wallace, Scott Tolzien and then Matt Flynn play quarterback in the 8 weeks Aaron was out injured, I didn't have to do the same in the game. I run like Kaepernick and throw like Rodgers, Peyton Manning or Tom Brady.

Edit: George, those autos are beautiful. Especially the Bench. Unfortunately, players nowadays don't sign cards that nicely. The last really great signer was Griffey Jr. I understand these guys sign thousands of cards, but they're being paid a lot of money to do it, so you'd think they would take their time to do it right.