Riker’s Block

  • Varsity Letter: Varsity Vernacular

    The following column was published in Wootton’s Common Sense newspaper.   Communication is essential to any sports team. But to the occasional spectator, the athletes on the field may appear to be speaking a foreign language. From playcalls to formations to moves to gear, the language of our sports teams is so strange and confusing…

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  • Black Panther nothing short of brilliant

    Marvel has reigned as the king of the superhero genre for the past decade, routinely producing entertaining and exciting films that always live up to the hype. The studio famous for superheroes such as Iron Man, Spiderman, Captain America, and the Hulk has struck gold with its most recent release, albeit one about a lesser-known…

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  • To succeed, Incredibles 2 must be as bold, dramatic, and heroic as the first

    This week, Pixar released a trailer for its 2018 release The Incredibles 2. Since The Incredibles is my favorite movie of all time, I’ve been waiting a long time and my expectations are sky high. I think The Incredibles 2 will be a booming success for Pixar, but I’ve accepted that it probably, no, certainly,…

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  • Nick Foles, Eagles complete miraculous run to cap off season of underdogs

    When the Philadelphia Eagles, the top seeded team in the NFC and owners of a 13-3 record, neared their divisional round home game against the sixth seeded Atlanta Falcons, most experts said that the Eagles wouldn’t win for one reason- the perceived inconsistency and inexperience of backup-turned-starting quarterback Nick Foles. The next week against Minnesota,…

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  • Not-so-Super Bowls: Imagining the Super Bowls we almost got

    Super Bowl classics are forever etched in the minds of football fans. In Super Bowl XLII, the underdog Giants toppled the undefeated, 18-0 Patriots. In Super Bowl III, Joe Namath guaranteed a victory and then came through as the New York Jets became the first AFL team to win a title. And, of course, last…

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  • Seven Super questions: John and guest Christian predict Super Bowl LII

    Super Bowl LII is less than a week away and the hype is mounting. The New England Patriots, in their third Super Bowl in the last four years, are aiming to become the first repeat champions since the 2003-04 New England Patriots, while the Eagles believe they can pull off a monumental upset behind backup-turned-hero…

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  • Team of Destiny: Vikings Stun Saints, Roll Towards Super Bowl

    Teams of destiny have a defining moment, an instant when all hope seemed lost and the odds were against them but somehow, inexplicably, found a way to win. Look at the 2012 Baltimore Ravens, who used a game-tying Joe Flacco to Jacoby Jones miracle touchdown to upset the Broncos and move towards Super Bowl XLVIII.…

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  • Carson Wentz, this year’s true NFL MVP

    Most Valuable Player is the most controversial award in the sports world. Should it go to the most dominant player? The one with the best statistics? The one whose team won the most games or the championship (all but one winner of Super Bowl MVP were on the winning team)? The one who plays the…

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  • My 100 favorite movies! Riker Scale 2018

    In previous years, I’ve come out with a list of my top 50 movies of all-time. This year, I decided to  expand that total to 100,  including five releases from 2017. Each movie is rated on a scale from 1-100, and since these are my top 100 movies, the range of these are from 77…

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  • Bills in the playoffs? Browns 0-16? The most captivating storylines from the NFL season

    After seventeen fun-filled, exciting, memorable weeks, the 2017 NFL regular season is in the books and only twelve teams remain alive. To recap the regular season, I’ll tackle the seven captivating storylines that caught my attention this fall, plus reveal my playoff predictions. Playoff droughts end in Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Buffalo 2017 was marked…

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