AJ McCarron Is Now My Favorite Quarterback Because I Am My Mother's Son

[Sky Diver]

3 minutes ago, slaphappy said:

If they win the super bowl I will be in the market for a rosary made of plastic beads.

 

Pittsburgh may have the terrible towel, but we have the plastic Rosary Beads.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Sky Diver

[JimS]

I appreciate you taking the time to share that story. Thank you. 

[BadLandsMeanie]

32 minutes ago, JoeF said:

That was awesome.....BLM believe it or not--I pray the rosary every day while I am running or on the elliptical.  My mom is my inspiration.  

 

I had no idea McCarron was this dedicated to his faith. Coach Saban loves him--Coach Saban also talks frequently about how his faith formed him and he and his wife funded the Catholic Student Center at Alabama.  Maybe the Saban-McCarron bond is a little faith-based.

 

Bottom line--Coach Saban thinks we got a steal (from a friend with deep ties to the program).  He was pushing McCarron to Daboll.   Also, Belichick did want McCarron to back up Brady.  McCarron wants to start but he knows it's up to him to win the job.  The Bills presented an opportunity the Pats could not, a chance to compete.

 

 

 

 

Wow thanks for all that information JoeF. 

And I have to say I didn't for an instant expect that anybody on the board here would say the rosary!

Are you networked in to the rosary people? I was hatching a plan to tell them about AJ and get them praying for him.

Like his soul and family and important stuff, and that he wins. 

[Buffalo716]

1 hour ago, BadLandsMeanie said:

*** Disclaimer***

 

There is no football in this at all. No stats, no useful information, no insight, and nothing about the draft. It is just coincidences that happened to me lately that seem weird to me. Feel free to skip it you won't miss any important or relevant football information.

 

And it is very long so please do skip it if you want I assure you that you will miss nothing.

 

***End Disclaimer***

 

Anybody with sense wouldn't go posting this stuff about themselves because it is on the weird side. But I never have had that kind of sense when it comes to my Bills posts before, and it is too late to start now.

 

In the last few days AJ McCarron became my favorite NFL quarterback. I think he will be good and I think that for mostly superstitious reasons that I don't believe. I know it is just weird, very unlikely coincidences and I don't believe that they mean anything. Except that I do.

 

 

It all started back in February I was trying to get rid of some extra stuff around the house and going through old storage boxes. And I come across some of my mother's old religious items that I didn't even know I still had. It is a few old, broken, items of junk actually and she passed away over 20 years ago.

I had no intention of saving this stuff.

 

Now my mother was very, very Catholic. Too Catholic if you ask me. Growing up I think we had more religious stuff around our house than many churches. Statues (Several Jesus's, a couple Marys, even a Joseph, and crosses, pictures, etc. Some of the statues even had super fancy little outfits.

 

And we even had a special Risen Jesus statue she put out for Easter. It was 2 feet tall at least. We had a Mary statue in the yard. And the collection kept growing after we kids left the house. We found I bet 100 or 200 rosaries that she made herself because what you do is, make them and send them to the missions overseas.

 

When I was a toddler we had a life size statue of St Jude with glass eyes in the attic. My grandfather had got it from a church somewhere and we were storing it. I don't know what they did with that thing after a while, but I was very glad when it was gone because I was absolutely terrified of it. Just knowing it was up there freaked me out.

 

Now when she died we are all sentimental about all this stuff you know because the emotions are so new but after not long we had to figure out what to do with the stuff. I myself had no need for a baby Jesus all decked out in a sequined outfit, or really any of that kinda stuff. My brother has some of the statues or whatever and the rest we gave to her friends as mementos or whatever way we could pawn it off on people.

 

So what I have here in the box is the broken or damaged stuff we couldn't get rid of. Now if you were raised like I was you know that you can't just put that stuff in the garbage. You have to burn it, bury it, or sink it in water. Things like that which are more respectable. And why I wound up with it still is because I couldn't do that at the time and I put it in a box with other stuff and it just got forgotten about.

And where is it now? I still couldn't get rid of it because the ground was frozen and covered with snow!

 

It's still here! And I don't even go to church. But I am not putting it I the garbage because I am my mother's son.

 

So until the ground thaws I have here: A plastic Baby Jesus statue with no head. A plaster Mary statue with no base on it. Two “scapulars”.

 

A scapular is a cloth thing that shows you are devoted to Mary. It started off in the Middle ages pretty much as a front and back apron that you tied with a sash. It had a use, but was also a symbol. Well over time that became these ones which are shrunk to the size of a postage stamp. So you have these little cloth postage stamp sized things , sort of like a front and back medal with a string between them, except they are made of cloth. You are supposed to wear it under your shirt.

 

Then two rosaries made of plastic and string. In case you don't know a rosary is a Catholic prayer bead made in a circle with a crucifix on there, and you pray your way around it. It amounts to 56 Hail Mary's and 9 Our Fathers or close to that.

 

Anyway this stuff took me back in my memory to all about who she was especially when it came to Catholicism and even more especially when it came to her being very devoted to Mary. She said the rosary every day. Went to church every day. There was a bumper sticker on her front door that said “Pray The Rosary” and so on. She was in a group of rosary ladies too.

 

So that stuff is on my mind and also I don't want to forget about that broken stuff again. I want to bury it when the ground thaws. But also I hadn't really thought about how she was in that way, for a long time. The physical objects bring it back.

 

So that was a few weeks ago. Next, I work in a residential setting. So there are a few TVs and one near the office and I hear whatever this or that person is watching in there regularly.

 

Somewhere around the beginning of the month some guy starts tuning in some channel that has people saying the rosary on it. If you haven't heard the rosary said it sounds kind of like chanting because they say the same prayers over and over again. I haven't heard that in ages. It really took me back because when we were kids my mom and dad made us come in at 7 PM weekday evenings, maybe not all the time but a whole lot of the time, and say the rosary. There was a radio program and we would say it along with the radio people.

 

So picture being nine years old and in the summer and outside having fun and it is, “Sorry guys gotta go and pray the rosary or I will get killed”. I remember waiting and waiting and looking forward to when we got back around to the cross on there which means it was over and I was free again. It takes about 20 -25 minutes.

 

I must have done that hundreds or even thousands of times. I was never the kind of person who would get any comfort or benefit from that. All I got was bored, and I certainly pretty much never did it after I got old enough to not have to.

 

So I remembered all that and how, almost militant my mom was about Mary and the rosary being included in the faith which apparently there is some disagreement over.

 

Anyway in 9 years working were I do I never, ever, once heard anyone play the rosary on a TV or radio. Starting around the beginning of May I been hearing it about 3 or 4 days a week which I have not done for about 45 years when I was a kid at home. But now see, I am at work. Can't get away from it. So I gotta listen. Just like when I was a kid. Life is funny sometimes.

 

 

Except now I can tune it out mentally, I don't have to say it, and I don't have to be bored. But I did think it was an odd coincidence that I find this old stuff of mom's and then right away here comes the rosary. I haven't seen the religious items in 10 or 20 years or so and haven't listened to the rosary in 45 years. Now in the span of two weeks or so I get both. So I thought, I should say hi to mom in the way people do when somebody is gone. I have done that a few times lately.

 

Mostly I have been focused on free agency and the draft like every other right thinking person in Western New York. We didn't get anybody of note in the QB competition we wound up with McCarron who I only remembered as part of the Cleveland Browns fiasco where they inexplicably forgot what time it was and didn't send the trade papers in on time. And that mistake also made it so the Browns still needed somebody and we were able to trade away Tyrod to the Browns.

 

Well they say Beane wasn't really looking for McCarron in particular, and McCarron was kind of limited in his options and so on the 14^th we wound up with him because it fell that way.

 

I took a quick look on google and really I saw a guy with very extensive and maybe not so great art-wise giant tattoos all over his chest and shoulders. Beach, bikini girls, trophy wife. Ok, I get the picture. I was kind of surprised that Beane would pick him to mentor whoever we were drafting because he looked like a party kid to me. Then my QB guru friend told me we got the best of all the veteran quarterbacks going around, except for Garopolo. I said better than Cousins? He said yep.

 

So that was nice. But that was about it for me looking into this guy. Until the Jets moved up to pick #3 a week ago and all of a sudden it looks like we might get squeezed out of a top QB pick, possibly. So I am worried ya see. And I decided to look a bit deeper into McCarron because now he might be way more important to us.

 

I started to read and it says “AJ McCarron is a devout Catholic...”

 

I say whaaa? Party boy is a “devout” Catholic?

 

Then ...“McCarron was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama. He attended Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School from kindergarten to fourth grade”

 

I won't even start with what “Our Lady of Lourdes” meant to my mom.

 

AJ McCarron who made friends with a gravely ill 3 year old little girl called Starla Chapman while he and his family were delivering Christmas presents to the pediatric hospital that had saved AJ's life years before. She gave him a bracelet that said “Just Trust”. He wore it on his throwing hand a week later in the Championship game on national television (they won). She is his God daughter now.

 

 

So what is he doing with all the gangsta tattoos all over his chest? (Sorry I am old(er). Tattoos like that make me think biker, party boy, gangsta). It didn't fit.

 

I'm blowing up the photos to look and there is a big Jesus face on there about the size of a dessert plate. It also says Ma, Pops, God In Control, all kinda stuff like that in the big tapestry of a tattoo he has.

 

And then I saw that there is a Giant Rosary that goes from his shoulders to halfway down his stomach.

 

That last part with the rosary freaked me out. If you look at that tat the cross on his stomach is the cross on the rosary. The beads are all woven into the design of the tat.

 

I'm older like I say, but is it normal for a youngster to have a giant rosary tattooed on his chest?

I know people use them as ornamental. But not like this. I personally never saw anyone do that before in my life.

 

Now if anyone is still reading, I obviously don't expect you to believe that any of this means anything.

I don't believe it myself really. But it is not easy being in my skin to ignore it because like I say, I find the rosaries and stuff of my mom's that I thought I got rid of 10 or 20 years ago. Then I am sitting listening to the rosary most every day which I have not heard in 45 years.

 

And then here comes AJ McCarron with a giant rosary tattooed on his chest right when I have actually, literally, been losing sleep over what will happen in the draft.

 

My mom didn't follow football closely. She only cared about football and the Bills because she knew that I did.

 

I think maybe Brandon Beane wasn't especially aiming for AJ McCarron to be a Buffalo Bill. But I think maybe my mom was.

 

And there is zero doubt that if my mom was going to have a favorite QB, it would AJ McCarron.

 

I don't wanna do it. I don't wanna do it I tell ya! But I gotta.

 

 

AJ McCarron is my favorite NFL quarterback now, because I am my mother's son.

 

GO BILLS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My house is still decorated in Catholic decor lol 

 

My grandmother is pushing 100 and goes to mass daily and my mother is devout as well

 

Praying the rosary can make miracles happen... it's a beautiful thing and if AJ is the answer I'd be thrilled 

 

its just gravy on top that he's a Catholic lol

[Lfod]

I hope your right because if AJ can't produce and Tyrod does better in Cleveland it's going to be a lot of hellfire and brimstone. 

Edited March 24, 2018 by Lfod

[RocCityRoller]

48 minutes ago, Sky Diver said:

McCarron should probably be dead from childhood accident. Maybe he was rescued from death for a higher purpose; to lead the Bills to the Super Bowl.

 

Sometimes it feels like it will take a miracle, doesn't it?

[TPS]

Maybe fate intervened with the Jets surprising the Bills by moving up to #3, making it all the more difficult to get their franchise QB in this draft, and more likely that AJ is the starting QB come September?  Maybe I'll learn the rosary....

[Last Guy on the Bench]

Thanks for the read. Enjoyed it, as I do all of your long ones.

 

Keep it up, and don't let the idiots with the attention span of a chicken get you down. Somehow they still find the time to post in a thread that they don't want to read.

[EmotionallyUnstable]

Thanks for posting. Divine power? Maybe. Coincidence? Probably. Good story. Definitely 

[Enemarty]

Well, I really enjoyed that.  I love it when a nice read can take you back to your ten year old self visiting grandma in the early 1970s.  Now all I need is the odor of a nearby smelting plant and the memory will be complete.  

[Beast]

Whatever the case may be, it was an entertaining read, BLM.

 

Sometimes I wish you had all the posts you made over the years in a book.

 

I’d buy it.

[jkeerie]

Great read, BLM!  I can certainly relate, growing up in a Catholic home.  I also prayed the rosary in my youth and when I was in basic training (AF), my training instructor ordered me to pray the rosary so that it would rain and we wouldn't have to participate in parade the following day.  A half hour before parade was to start, it poured.  My TI never looked at me the same after that.   I don't do the beads anymore.    I also can understand your reluctance to simply discard religious artifacts.  Weren't we taught it was sacrilegious?

 

I just lost my Mom a couple of months ago.  (In fact I just put her Infant of Prague and statue of Mary in a box on the shelf for now, not knowing what I'll do with them.)  She really loved football and she and I especially enjoyed watching the college games together.  Her favorite team was Notre Dame...no surprise there.  RIP to both of our moms.

 

I think McCarron can be good.  He certainly was good in college.  I'm not ready to dismiss him out of hand just because he hasn't been a starter in this league before.  Maybe things are lining up the right way.  You just never can tell.  So I really appreciate your post...your thoughts...your memories...your hopes.   So much shared!  It made me laugh out loud.  Thank you!  I think I needed that today!    

 

    

 

 

 

[yungmack]

Great piece of writing, BLM. I'm old too, maybe older than you, and grew up as well in a "wayside shrine." A full on immersion into Italo-Germano-Irish Catholicism, with bleeding hearts, bleeding sides, bleeding heads, ascending bodies, descending angels and the BVM over all. Catholic school too. And all of it before Vatican II so a completely different, highly mystical Catholicism.

 

BTW, as far as McCarron's Catholicism is concerned, it used to be and still might be true that, like with Orthodox Jews, people with tattoos cannot be buried in consecrated ground. But as far as tattoos of bloody Christs and saints and rosaries go, it's pretty common among Latino gang members in Southern California.

[Augie]

3 hours ago, Bobby Hooks said:

I’m surprised any of these follow-up  posts were able to fit on the first page . 

 

I had to skip the 90% in the middle, there are only so many hours in a day...

14 minutes ago, yungmack said:

Great piece of writing, BLM. I'm old too, maybe older than you, and grew up as well in a "wayside shrine." A full on immersion into Italo-Germano-Irish Catholicism, with bleeding hearts, bleeding sides, bleeding heads, ascending bodies, descending angels and the BVM over all. Catholic school too. And all of it before Vatican II so a completely different, highly mystical Catholicism.

 

BTW, as far as McCarron's Catholicism is concerned, it used to be and still might be true that, like with Orthodox Jews, people with tattoos cannot be buried in consecrated ground. But as far as tattoos of bloody Christs and saints and rosaries go, it's pretty common among Latino gang members in Southern California.

 

That may well have been true at one point, but it does not seem to be an issue now. Nor should it be. Was that even true for the old sailors decades ago? 

[KGun12TD]

I didn't read a word of this post and I know its useless...WHY is this forum filled with such useless info? WHY?

 

[BadLandsMeanie]

7 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

I had to skip the 90% in the middle, there are only so many hours in a day...

I heard that is the same thing you that you say to your woman.

1 minute ago, KGun12TD said:

I didn't read a word of this post and I know its useless...WHY is this forum filled with such useless info? WHY?

 

Well, I think it is mostly because I am here.

 

But also partly because there is nothing happening and no games are being played.

[Augie]

2 minutes ago, BadLandsMeanie said:

I heard that is the same thing you that you say to your woman.

 

So, you’re hearing voices now?

 

Very classy. 

[BadLandsMeanie]

5 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

So, you’re hearing voices now?

 

Very classy. 

If you had read the middle 90% you would know that I was saying McCarron is classy.

 

 

I'm not!     No soft target here "Augie"

 

 

But seriously if you want, I could probably write a children's version for ya.

Edited March 24, 2018 by BadLandsMeanie

[BadLandsMeanie]

3 hours ago, Sky Diver said:

Pretty amazing story.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cincinnati.com/amp/9091569

I sat near him in the Ferg at UA in 2013. He patiently signed authographs and posed for pictures while he was trying to eat lunch. Seemed like a good guy. 

Thank you Sky Diver. That was really interesting. Wow I didn't know it had been that bad.

3 hours ago, slaphappy said:

If they win the super bowl I will be in the market for a rosary made of plastic beads.

 

3 hours ago, Sky Diver said:

 

Pittsburgh may have the terrible towel, but we have the plastic Rosary Beads.

 

2 hours ago, TPS said:

Maybe fate intervened with the Jets surprising the Bills by moving up to #3, making it all the more difficult to get their franchise QB in this draft, and more likely that AJ is the starting QB come September?  Maybe I'll learn the rosary....

If I wind up having to sit in a "Rosary Row" at the Ralph, this whole thing will turn into a nightmare! 

 

I'll do it, I'll pray the rosary if it gets us wins, but I won't like it!

[BadLandsMeanie]

3 hours ago, billsfan1959 said:

I think most sports fans have fallen prey to superstitious behaviors at some point in their lives. I remember watching the Sabres do everything but score against Bernie Parent in the 1975 Stanley Cup finals. They played well, but just could barely get anything by Parent. Then, in a particularly frustrating moment, I walked out of the room. The second I got out of the door, they scored. I spent the rest of the series sitting in a chair just outside of the door, listening to the television from another room...

 

Didn't help...

 

I hope things are different for you (and for the memory of your mother) and McCarron turns out to be awesome!

 

2 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

 

My house is still decorated in Catholic decor lol 

 

My grandmother is pushing 100 and goes to mass daily and my mother is devout as well

 

Praying the rosary can make miracles happen... it's a beautiful thing and if AJ is the answer I'd be thrilled 

 

its just gravy on top that he's a Catholic lol

Thanks 716. I like it that your house is that way. It felt like we were the only ones back in the day  

2 hours ago, Lfod said:

I hope your right because if AJ can't produce and Tyrod does better in Cleveland it's going to be a lot of hellfire and brimstone. 

Oh dear I hadn't thought if that angle Lfod.

2 hours ago, Last Guy on the Bench said:

Thanks for the read. Enjoyed it, as I do all of your long ones.

 

Keep it up, and don't let the idiots with the attention span of a chicken get you down. Somehow they still find the time to post in a thread that they don't want to read.

Thanks Last Guy I appreciate it.,