Green Bay Rocks!

Last weekend was a special NFL weekend for me as I took a roadie to Green Bay to check out the Lambeau field. It was a great trip. Lambeau was as good as hyped. It has it's outside and atrium re-modelled and looking new, but the core of Lambeau looks incredibly simple, charming, old and historic. The stadium has very few luxury boxes and press boxes and stuff, but the rest of the stadium is all bench. It's like a low-end college football stadium. No seats, no cushions and no cup holders. It's just a metal bench and seat numbers for 60000 people. The crowds at Lambeau were great as well. Fans filled the stadium up well before the game started and thats unusual in places like California. The folks show up hours before the game and tail-gate to heart's content. The people are so nice and the whole mid-western hospitality thing is no fabrication. Even 20 year old drunk guys treat their fellow fans with respect and decency.

The game was just the best game we could have picked. San Diego and LT was in town and the finish was one of the best in recent Lambeau history. Favre got the ball with 2:16 to go in the game and trailing by 4. We were all getting ready for a 2 minute drill, but Favre scored the game winner even before the 2 minute warning! He hit Greg Jennings on a short slant which he took to the house. The crowd went nuts and we knew Philip Rivers was not ready for a 2-minute drive, at least not yet. The crowd went nuts again when Nick Barnett intercepted Rivers to put the game away. Incredible game and an unforgettable experience at Lambeau. Great stadium, incredible history, nice people and my only request is, people in Wisconsin should drink a little less :-)

The other striking part of the trip to me was how Brett Favre absolutely owns Wisconsin. I mean I knew he was popular and the best thing going in the Packers roster, but did not realize how much the fan-base loves him. Of course you take him out of this team, the offense is utter garbage. I should have seen at least 30000 people wearing his number 4 jersey, It's like the entire town of Green Bay is wearing his jersey. I have personally never seen anything like this. After visiting Green Bay, I can't believe there has been rumors about him playing in another town. I don't even know how that'll work. I think it'll look as ugly as Marino would have looked if he signed with the Vikings at the end of his career. Favre belongs to Wisconsin and I don't know what those fans will do if he signs with someone else. Speaking of Marino, Favre tied his TD record in this game and that was a bitter-sweet moment for me because I was happy to be part of this historic game, but I am also a big Marino fan.

All in all, I would say go checkout Green Bay if you have a chance.

Say it ain't so Matrix!

The relative quiet of the Suns off-season was broken today, just a few days before the start of the training camp, by a disturbing trade request from Shawn Marion. He says he is upset at the unending trade rumors and the Suns refusal to extend him beyond the two monster contract years he has. He says the Suns almost tried to force him to Boston and he didn't like that at all. I kind of see his point regarding the trade rumors. It is kind of disrespectful. Of course ultimately all of this is about money. I am sure he will be happy if they extend him at whatever price he wants. He wouldn't be this bothered by the trade rumors if he gets paid. From the Suns side, there is no way they extend him. They just don't have the money to pay the luxury tax and thats the only reason he is even in half the trade rumors in the first place. It's not like the Suns really want to get rid of him. Essentially, it's more of a money issue on both sides.

I am upset that there's always something the last 3 years with this team. There is never a smooth season with the Suns even with all this talent and potential. If it's not Amare's stunning injury, it's trying to integrate him back. If it's not Amare, then it's Matrix asking for a trade. I am sick of this and it almost feels like their is a curse around this franchise. All this team is missing after almost 40 futile years is a catchy name for the curse. Matrix says he will show up and play if he is not traded and I totally believe him. I think he will be the same Matrix when he plays and he is just not wired to be a trouble-maker. But you got to wonder what this does to the already fragile chemistry of this team. If Nash takes care of that and Matrix doesn't go "operation shutdown" a la Derek Bell, I think the Suns will be fine. Matrix might actually have his best year this season because he will be playing for a contract. So I hope the Suns keep him and win one finally.

The trade rumors and options are flat-out scary. It's apparently either Lamar Odom or Andrei Kirilenko. I love both these players, but I just realized I didn't love them enough to replace the Matrix with them :-) The problem with both the guys is that they are injury-prone and the Suns don't have the depth to deal with that. I don't remember watching many Suns game without Marion and that'll not be the case with either of those guys. AK-47 will fit this style and will be awesome defensively but he can't shoot to save his life. Odom is a better offensive player and shooter than Marion but can't run. If somebody put a gun to my head and forced me to pick between these 2 options, I might go with AK-47 only because he is athletic and better defensively. Lamar is just not reliable or consistent. But the Suns lose something either way with these trades though both are younger and taller than Marion. There is only one Matrix and AK-47 is the closest imitation. Life will not be the same for the Suns fan without the Matrix.

Interesting weekend in both NFL and college

One of the interesting games in the NFL this weekend will be San Diego visiting Green Bay. I will be visiting cheese country and will be at this game to check out Lambeau field and Brett Favre and I am psyched about that. Plus, it's a San Diego team that needs the W badly against a Packers team thats a surprising 2-0. I would expect the Chargers to win, but you never know with Favre on the field. The Chargers are 1-1 after playing 2 tough games. I sure hope LT gets untracked since I own him in one of the fantasy leagues and have gotten nothing out of my NO-1 pick. He has had problems against 2 top defenses the last 2 weeks.

The best game in the NFC is Dallas visiting Chicago. Defense V offense at Soldier field. These are the top-notch teams in the JV conference also called the NFC. I am really interested in seeing how Romo and TO handle the Bears D. Cincy at Seattle should also be interesting with both teams at 1-1. There are 2 other match-ups between a couple of 2-0 teams that should be one-sided despite what the records suggest. Niners visit Pittsburgh and Indy visits Houston. I can't see the Steelers or the Colts losing, especially the Colts if Houston receiver Andre Johnson is out.

In college, Texas A&M got handled by Miami today 34-17. That should take care of the 20-Th ranking A&M is enjoying right now. This is especially bad for A&M because their Big-12 rival Oklahoma just dismembered Miami 2 weeks back. This weekend has few other match-ups involving some big name schools with not so much of a big game - Michigan State @ Notre Dame and Penn State @ Michigan. Penn State should take care of Michigan easily and one can just hope Notre Dame scores an offensive TD finally.

The game of the week should be the Ole' ball coach Steve Spurrier taking his Gamecocks to LSU. Tough one for South Carolina because LSU looks awesome, but they have to prove they are worthy of the 12-Th rank even in defeat. SEC also features another great top-25 matchup as 22 Georgia takes on No. 16 Alabama on the road. This could be Nick Saban's breakthrough game of the year.

Chargers lay an egg

The unpredictability of the NFL was on full display in week 2 as the football World turned over upside down over and over again. Good games ended up being bad, expected blowouts went to overtime and bad teams won while good teams lost. The biggest surprise was how one-sided the Chargers-Patriots game was. I knew the hooded spy will get his team ready and the Pats will win, but I was expecting more from the Chargers than a 38-14 drubbing. Pats scored first and they intercepted Phillip Rivers the very first Chargers play and the game was over soon after. The Chargers just could not stop the Pats on offense and they were pretty bad on offense themselves. Moss had another great game. The luckiest guys are those who got Randy cheap in fantasy drafts. His stock has dropped the lost 2 years and he was drafted pretty low this year. Those fantasy owners who "gambled" on him now have a top 3 receiver on their hands again. Chargers need to re-group and the Pats may just win the Super Bowl this season.

The greatest game of the week was actually the supposed dog of a game - Cincinnati @ Cleveland. Cleveland had shipped out Charlie Frye after a horrible week 1. Now they were supposed to tolerate Derek Anderson while waiting for Brady Quinn to get ready for the big show. Boy did Derek Anderson have other ideas. He came out swinging and throwing bombs to match Carson Palmer dart for dart. He may not have seen too many 51-45 games even in the Pac-10 at Oregon state. This game saw crazy scoring with very little defense and Palmer ended up on the losing side despite 401 yards and 6 TDs. Anderson had 328 and 5 TDs. Awesome game for the fans as Ocho-Cinqo had 209 yards and 2 touches for the Bengals while Braylon Edwards had 146 yards and 2 TDs for the Browns. I am sure the Browns fans were as shocked as anybody to see their team play like this and win.

Houston, Detroit, Green Bay, Washington and San Francisco are all a surprising 2-0. Keep an eye on Matt Schaub. This dude can play some QB and he has got a great weapon in Andre Johnson who had 120 yards receiving for Houston on 7 catches. Brett Favre is doing what he does best leading the Packers to 2-0 as the Giants fell to 0-2 despite Eli Manning suiting up and playing. Kitna lead Detroit to it's second win as he went out with a concussion, but came back and showed some serious leadership. This team might be the real deal. Again, he's got a stud in Roy Williams to goto anytime he is in trouble. I am not so sure San-Fran is the real deal despite a close 17-16 win over the Rams. Alex Smith looked horrible again and the Niners won again behind a crazy TD by Frank Gore on a 4-Th and 1. Gore didn't dominate either, but that big play took care of the game. Niners were out-gained 392-186 by the Rams, but the Rams as always hurt themselves with crucial turnovers. Washington is 2-0 after beating Philadelphia 20-12 on Monday night. They might have exposed Phily and Donovan McNabb. McNabb looked terrible and the Eagles are now 0-2. By the way, the most shocking 0-2 might be the Saints as they lost against Tampa Bay. Where are Brees and Reggie Bush hiding?

Arizona shocked Seattle with a 23-20 win. Seems like Seattle is going nowhere this season as they let Matt Leinart have a decent game and let Edge rush for 128 yards on 24 carries. As I had predicted, the NFC West games were close, but both games had different results than what I had expected. This is a mediocre division right now and is up for grabs. Oakland surprisingly took Denver to OT despite Josh McCown passing for just 73 meagre yards. Lamont Jordan carried the Raiders with 159 rushing yards and the D scored a late TD to give them a chance to win. Sea-bass kicked a long 52 yarder through in OT, only to see it wiped away by a timely time-out by Mike Shanahan. He made Janikowski kick it again and sure enough, he missed it this time. Denver got the ball back and moved the ball well to give Elam a 23-yarder to win the game. Elam doesn't miss too many of those. Only the Raiders can lose games like this after celebrating what they thought was a winning field goal.

It's all going down in Bean-town

As much as I don't like the East coast bias in the media and the whole New Yrok-Boston nexus, I have to accept that the centre of the Sports universe this weekend is Boston. I am told there's a Nascar race somewhere up there in New England, which I really don't care about. But I do care that the Yankees are playing the Redsox and the biggest game this NFL weekend is San Diego at New England. The NFL schedule is kinda weak this Sunday and this is THE game. Patriots looked awesome last weekend and they'll always be better coached than the Chargers under Norv Turner. Thats just the truth with the video-spying hoody at the helm in New England as much I don't like to accept that. The Chargers themselves won against a very good Bears team last Sunday, but they didn't do it in style. They are on the road here and I am afraid I have to pick the Pats. Vegas agrees since they have made the Pats a 4 point favorite. I just hope the Chargers have home field and win the game in the playoffs when these 2 teams meet again.

NFL schedule is otherwise soft this week. The other mildly interesting games are actually between NFC West rivals - Seattle @ Arizona and SF @ St. Louis. That might either be because the NFC West is so evenly mediocre or because of my West coast bias :-) But this game along with the Minnesota @ Detroit game do have the closest lines with 3 points. No other games are closer and most are at 6 or more. That proves my point about week 2 match-ups. So it might be wise to keep an eye on the Yanks-Sox game featuring Clemens and Schilling. Two talented, old pricks going against each other. These kind of pitching mach-ups rarely stand up to the hype. So lets see how this shakes out. The Sox won the game Saturday behind Josh Beckett's 19-Th win after a classic heart-breaking, late-inning choke job Friday. It was typical Redsox V Yankees because like clock-work, they gave up 6 runs in the 8-Th to blow a 7-2 lead to lose 8-7. Their bull-pen studs Okajima and Papelbon exploded spectacularly and crushed the Boston faithful's heart for the trillionth time in the history of this rivalry. It's amazing to watch this again and again and it never gets boring.

Speaking of baseball, I am cynic at heart as the very name of this URL should suggest, and even I got caught in the whole Rick Ankiel comeback story. How stupid and naive for me to fall for this as the inevitable steroid link comes out just a month later. He apparently got a year's worth of HGH (human growth hormone) and he is now part of the new wave of HGH accusations that are flying around involving a whole bunch of players. It's sad, but should I really be surprised? Baseball is tainted beyond repair right now and I shouldn't be believing or trusting anybody in the sport. I usually don't since I consider myself fairly smart, I am a cynic and I am not into the emotional, mushy, girly stuff that most of our Sports media shoves down our throat. But I really wanted this Ankiel story to be genuine because he seemed like a good guy and he had gone through so much trouble, mostly mental, and to overcome that is impressive to say the least. But this story is tainted beyond repair. It seems like a small injury and a minor surgery have become great excuses for MLB and NFL players to get HGH and explain it away as part of their recovery regimen. What a scam this is becoming.

Notre Shame!

Last week I asked how bad is Matt Leinart if he looks that much inferior to Alex Smith? This is the same question I have with Notre Dame. Hoe bad are they if they are losing 38-0 to Michigan? They look horrible right now and Charlie Weis should be in the hot seat, but he is not. For one, he is a good old boy who can talk his way out of anything. And also he has some goodwill in the bank after his first 2 years, except for the bowls that is. I wouldn't entirely blame the Domers for their Bowl troubles either. They just get invited to Bowl games way above their level just because they are the Fighting Irish and they end up getting exposed. It's kind of like how most people in corporate America raise up to their level of in-competence and not necessarily up to their level of competence. The Domers in Weis's 3-Rd are 0-3 and have had 2 bad blow-outs. It makes you wonder how good is his recruiting. Good programs drop-off, but never like this and thats all recruiting. You got to keep the pipeline filled and is Weis really doing that or did he just coach Tyrone Willingham's recruits to 2 good years? Makes you wonder.

The Big game of the week was USC going in to corn-country to face Nebraska. USC literally ran away with this game with 312 rushing yards. They won 49-31, but it was really not that close as the Huskers scored 2 garbage TDs at the end. 388 passing yards for Sam Keller, the ex-ASU QB now starting for the Huskers. Nick Saban's stock is rising now with Alabama at 3-0. Today his team beat the 16-Th ranked Arkansas team 41-38 with a great drive at the end. Bama lead big, lost it all, trailed at the end and came back to win. Saban is a factor again in college football. Another minor upset was Boston College beating 15-Th ranked Geogia Tech. But Boston college at 21 is a pretty good team. Fifth ranked Florida spanked 22-Nd ranked Tennessee 59-20. The better the Vols do, the better Cal looks since they beat them in week 1. The Vols look bad right now though Cal themselves took care of business today.

Ninth ranked Louisville lost to Kentucky 40-34 is a very interesting game. We know Louisville always plays high-scoring ball, but Kentucky one-upped them today. Few years back, Kentucky celebrated too early against LSU and doused coach Guy Morriss with Gatorade. But LSU quarterback Marcus Randall beat them with the last play of the game. This time that didn't happen as Louisville's stud QB Brian Brohm's 369 yards was not enough on this day. But the biggest upset of the day to me was UCLA losing 44-6 to Utah. Pac-10 has been looking good so far and then this happens to the 11-Th ranked team. To many turnovers killed the Bruins, but thats no excuse. As an ASU fan, I am happy a Pac-10 team is taking a back-seat, but still I don't like ranked Pac-10 teams losing like this. But I am happy this at least happened against another Western team in Utah rather than a East coast team from a big conference. Speaking of ASU, we beat San Diego state 34-13. So far so good for Dennis Erickson as Keegan Herring filled in for leading rusher Ryan Torain with two scores and 163 yards. Hope this keeps up in-conference.

Cheater busted!

After being busted for videotaping on the sidelines, the New England coach Bill Belichick was fined the NFL maximum of $500,000 Thursday and the Patriots were ordered to pay $250,000 for stealing an opponent's defensive signals. Commissioner Roger Goodell also ordered the team to give up next year's first-round draft choice if it reaches the playoffs and second- and third-round picks if it doesn't.

NFL rules state "no video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches' booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game." They also say all video for coaching purposes must be shot from locations "enclosed on all sides with a roof overhead." I think this is as clear as any rule can be. Anybody with an IQ over 45 should be able to read and interpret this right. So-called genius Bill Belichick says he always follows rules and in this case, only his interpretation was wrong. What the hell. How do you mis-interpret this rule? He also added "we have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress". Oh ok. That makes a lot of sense. So what was the video for? Was he making some short films for You-tube? Were they testing their new handy-cam? What is this dude talking about? I hate the Pats, Brady and the hoody and this is another reason to hate these guys. I love the fact there is this taint on this so called dynasty. They are good and they have run a good franchise, but I do believe both the hoody and Brady are way over-rated. Give me Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning any day.

NBA's off-season got worse as Greg Oden had a micro-fracture surgery on his knee and is not out for the season. Thats a shocker. Micro-fracture surgeries are coming out of nowhere these days. Amare's surgery happened 2 years back in the off-season without any warning just like Oden's. Oden went for a routine knee checkup and he is now out for the year. This is bad news for both the Blazers and the NBA which planned to showcase Greg Oden from day 1 against Tim Duncan. As bad an idea as that was - letting the whole World watch Duncan eat him alive on national TV, that season opener loses all lustre now. Wonder if the NBA switches it's schedule around because of this. This is real bad for the Blazers. Nothing to look forward to now.

Cards and Leinart

As a die-hard Suns, ASU and DBacks fan, I always wondered where exactly is my NFL allegiance. The Arizona Cardinals have been so bad for so long that they never got any attention when I lived in the valley of the Sun. They shared the Devils college stadium for years and I remember many, many weekends when the Devil routinely drew more people on Saturday than the Cards did on Sunday. There was really no reason to get too involved with this team as the biggest games of the year typically was when the old NFC East rivals Cowboys were in town and their fans filled the stadium. I even got involved with the DBacks who were not even in existent when I left town. They were still building that giant airplane hanger called BOB in downtown and we couldn't wait for the Baseball team to come to town. The golden years in the history of the Arizona Cardinals was when the local ASU boy Jake Plummer was in town making some serious noise. I loved those couple of years and I ditched the Cardinals again when they decided to ditch Jake.

They have moved to a spanking new stadium last year and I can't wait to check it out. Not so much the team. It's the same story with the team every year since Jake came to town. So much hope and so many people saying "this is the year" every August and so much heart-break and disappointment September through December. A new stadium, a rare big contract to Edge, great young wide-outs, young QB, new coach, nothing seems to fix this thing. This year was really supposed to be it and the league is even pushing Matt Leinart hard. But they started Monday night as always with a defeat - an ugly, inexplicable defeat. The Cards just make it hard for people like me to love them. They lost 20-17 to the Niners who had a grand total of 194 yards. Both offenses stunk it up and I don't believe either team's defense is all that good. It was just incompetent offense and ultra conservative play calling. The Niners spent a lot of money on their corners and they seem to do a good job on Monday containing Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. But the Cards passing attack was just lacking inspite of Edge rushing effectively for stretches.

At the end of the day it was a L for the Cards and they are 0-1. But my main concern is QB Matt Leinart. I have no idea what all the hype for this guy is about. He started the game with a bad interception and never played much better the rest of the way. I understand it's just his second year, but wasn't this supposed to be his breakout season? I have serious questions about his future given his lack of athleticism and arm strength. I also don't understand why the NFL is pumping this guy up like he is Peyton Manning's little brother! When did sleeping around with Paris Hilton in LA make you a great quarterback talent. Leinart better start playing some ball soon or else he will become a laughing stock in this league and end up in some bench sooner than later. I know I am being harsh on this guy, but he looked truly awful. He threw for 102 yards and was lucky to even cross 100 yards for the game. When you are a starting QB on the same field with Alex Smith, AND Alex Smith is having a bad day, AND he is still the better QB, you have some serious issues. Thats exactly what happened to Leinart on Monday. There are days when Alex Smith looks like a career backup and on Monday, Leinart looked like Alex Smith's backup! I sure hope he comes through for the Cards. Otherwise, they have another huge problem on their hands and that'll set them back another 3 or 4 years.

NFL off and running

Only thing better than the NFL is the NFL on high-def. As a new HD owner, I am just blown away by football on HD - both college and the NFL. The games look great and the hotties in the crowd look even better! Week 1 in the NFL was as usual interesting, eventful and gripping. No other league goes from season-opener to mid-season in literally hours quite like the NFL. The season is short, it heats up right away and there is no lull period in the NFL.

I was disappointed a bit with the final score Thursday night as the Saints lost 41-10. The game was close in the first half, but the Colts pulled away in the second. Peyton and the gang were impressive as always, but their defense surprised everybody. Colts D didn't take a step back like everybody had predicted. They look formidable and should be a true contender for sure. Bad news for the rest of the league. As for the Saints, I expected a lot more, but I think they'll be fine. Brees almost had the lowest passing average ever for somebody with that many attempts, but he won't be that ineffective every week. They are just 0-1 now and they should be fine in the NFC.

AFC is just going to be off the hook! The 3 best teams are all in the AFC. While the Pats and the Colts did it in style, the Chargers did it against a good team and a great defense. LT threw a TD and ran for another as the Bears were dispatched 14-3. I almost feel bad for the Chargers because I can see them again finding a way to lose to either the Colts or the Pats in the playoffs. Chargers and their new coach Norv Turner are known for losing games like that. The Pats milked Randy Moss more than any team has been able to in the last 4 years. Dude had 183 yards on 9 catches. Or you kidding me. Where was this last year and why do the rich (Pats) always get richer. Apparently the Pats are stealing signs and will be docked a pick or two in the near future. Nice! I like when bad things happen to bad people! I hate Bill Belichick, but he might just win another ring this year by the looks of it in week 1.

The other interesting game of the week was the Giants at Dallas. It was a shootout of epic proportions as Tony Romo and Eli Manning showcased their talents. I can't believe how good Romo is. That guy has got everything going for him in the sport and his life right now. Dude scored 5 TDs and threw for 345 yards to help the boys win 45-35. What a day for his fantasy owners. Speaking of fantasy, I won one league and lost the other. I won one because of Peyton Manning, but LT had a tough match-up and couldn't carry me all by himself in the other one. Unfortunately, LT has another tough match-up next week at New England.

There was a sad event in the NFL this Sunday in the Buffalo-Denver game which Denver won at the end on a Jason Elam field goal. Denver has a habit of losing season openers but they managed to steal this one at the end. But the story was reserve tight end Kevin Everett getting knocked cold after sustaining a cervical spine injury. It really saddens me to see these NFL athletes, especially bench guys who don't make much money, suffer such serious injuries. They are saying he may never walk again and I sure hope he recovers soon and somehow gets on his feet.

Week 2, same result for Michigan.

Week 2, same result for Michigan

Oregon went in to the Big House and Bicth-slapped the Michigan Wolverines. As a Pac-10 honk, I love that. If you think about it, I-AA Appalachian state beat them last week. So is it really a surprise that a 19-Th ranked Pac-10 team with a great offense like Oregon beat them? I guess the week 1 result could have been an aberration for Michigan, but they did look slow and ordinary. All those doubts were confirmed this Saturday by Oregon. That QB from Oregon Dennis Dixon is a great athlete. Michigan had no answer to him. It's funny how the Wolverines stayed close at 7-11 after the first quarter and even led 7-3 at one point. The fans were jacked up, but the wind was sucked out of them when the Ducks started scoring at will in the second quarter. It was obvious even to the faithful that Michigan is just not good, nowhere near the 5-Th rank they started the year with. Proof number 1758 that the college football pre-season rankings suck.

There were a couple of other big name games that ended up being blowouts as well. Miami lost at Oklahoma 51-13. I almost had to make sure it was not Miami of Ohio when I saw that score. The U stands for un-watchable right now. Notre Dame got crushed again, this time by Penn State - 31-10. The Domers suck this season and I am not complaining. Auburn lost to South Florida 23-26. Another win for the small guys. I am beginning to love this year's college football. It's almost like the NCAA tournament with all these upsets in this pre-season. Texas A&M at 25 almost lost one to Fresno State. You know I am always pulling for the left-coast teams! But A&M pulled it out in triple OT 47-45.

The other laugher was at LSU as Va-Tech lost 7-48. I was not really surprised because Va-Tech didn't really look good last week. They are over-rated at 18. Cal, took a step back after looking awesome in week 1. May be they had a letdown after that Tennessee win. DeSean Jackson had another impressive run on a reverse for a TD, but Cal just won 34-28 against Colorado State. Cal better pick it up when they play the Pac-10 teams. The other close game was the Ole' ball coach and South Carolina at 17 beating Georgia at 23 on the road 16-12. I think College football can use more of a successful Steve Spurrier.

ASU gave me a scare with a 0-14 first quarter. I like the 33-14 final score much better. Thats impressive to shut Colorado out the rest of the way after Q1. Only bad news of the day was the Arizona wildcats winning against Northern Arizona.

Draft number 2

I had my second fantasy draft yesterday. This is the league that I want to win desperately because I have some sort of a curse going in this one. I have done well, I have made it to the Super Bowl a couple of times, but I can never win the championship. I have won the other league twice and it's actually a tougher league in some ways and I have been playing in it for lesser number of years than this one. So I spent some time getting ready for this draft and still ended up with just a decent team, not a great one. Part of the reason is that this is a keeper league where we keep 2 players from last year. My keepers are Peyton Manning and Reggie Bush. Not bad, but I don't have that stellar RB. I have to retain Manning because only an idiot will drop him and last year, I went for broke with Tiki Barber who everybody knew would retire after the season. So I went in to this draft with an handicap in some sense. Also I went to the Super Bowl last year, which meant my pick was pretty low - 10 out of 12.

Given that most teams retained 2 RBs and I picked 10-Th, I was in trouble with the RBs. I think I recovered half way decent, but it might be a challenge. Thank God we voted the keeper out for next season. Anyways, here's my team in the order these fools were drafted, starting with my 2 keepers.

Peyton Manning
Reggie Bush
Clinton Portis
Cadillac Williams
Reggie Brown
Joey Galloway
Chris Cooley
Julius Jones
Deshaun Foster
Brandon Marshall
Robbie Gould
Jake Delhomme
Vikings D
Keary Colbert
Zach Miller

Can't wait for the Colts-Saints game Thursday night. Should be a great game given that the Colts are a little vulnerable after losing a bunch of starters. Should be a great game.

Christmas is here

Fantasy football is here and it might as well be Christmas! I am in 2 leagues and today was my first draft. It's one of the 3 or 4 days a year I wake-up before 9 AM on a weekend! This draft is always early and the other one is always late in the day. But both my leagues do the draft pretty late in the pre-season and I love that. It officially signals the start of the NFL season for me and I don't have to wait long between now and the actual start of the season. I know some fantasy leagues hold their drafts in July and I never understood that. I had a rare 1-St pick today and it was LT all the way. No ifs and or buts about it. The rest of the draft was obviously tougher with the draft snakin' it's way through and I didn't get to pick until 24 and 25 after number 1.

We do an online draft on Yahoo for this league and big-ups to Yahoo for hosting THE best fantasy site on the web - simple, elegant and powerful. I usually make one mistake every year during the draft. I am not talking about the quality of the picks (thats all up in the air at this point anyways) but just some mistake with the execution of my plan or the logistics or something. I won't click on the player before the time expires or have a brain freeze and don't check the bye week or something of that nature. Today's mistake was in the second round which is inexcusable. It's inexcusable for 2 reasons because it's way too high a pick to mess up and also I had so much time between pick no 1 and 24 to plan and execute. Luckily, it was not a costly mistake. I was going to draft a WR and a RB with 24 and 25 and the software picked a WR with the 24 while I was looking at a RB. No biggie since I ended up picking the RB with the 25-Th pick. The software also picked Carolina's Steve Smith as that WR. Not too shabby because Chad Johnson and Marvin Harrison were already gone. It was Smith or TO or Torry Holt. Normally I would have taken Holt, but was a little concerned about his knee surgery. Steve Smith's schedule is softer plus I ended up drafting Marc Bulger as my QB, which means Holt would have made my team too dependent on the Rams and I am glad it's more "balanced" now. So all in all, I am hoping Steve Smith comes through big for me.

I did make some bye week errors again and at one point it felt like all my RBs were off on week 7! I balanced it out later. The other issue was I wanted to protect LT with his backup Michael Turner. I was surprised when someone drafted him in the 10-Th round before I could get him. I thought he was taken too early for a backup. Or May be I messed up by waiting too long. I guess he is not just a backup but a good RB and I am considering trading for him right-away. Anyways, here's my team and it looks half-way decent decent.

1. LaDainian Tomlinson RB
2. Steve Smith WR
3. Thomas Jones RB
4. Marc Bulger QB
5. Jamal Lewis RB
6. Brandon Jackson RB
7. Darrell Jackson WR
8. Bernard Berrian WR
9. Joe Horn WR
10. Owen Daniels TE
11. Brandon Marshall WR
12. Josh Brown K
13. Philadelphia DEF
14. Adrian Peterson RB
15. Jeff Garcia QB

Great Start

I am truly, really, honestly excited that football is here. Had a great start to the College football season. I mean it couldn't have gone any better. First, Arizona State thump San Jose state 45-3. Dennis Erickson era starts off in style. His methods may be shady, but he can get you the results in the college game. I am a big fan of his and I have huge expectations for him. I am glad he replaced the over-rated Dirk Koetter and I can't believe Dirk landed an offensive coordinator job in the NFL with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Devils were led by Ryan Torain rushing for 123 yards and three touchdowns on 17 carries and Rudy Carpenter completing 14 of 20 passes for a modest 197 yards and two scores. Dick Tomey can run from Tucson to San Jose, but can't hide from the Devils! Of course we all know his 8-5-1 record (including 4-2-1 at Tempe) against ASU is nothing but a fluke :-)

The biggest story of the day was the lowly Appalachian State beating the 5-Th seeded Michigan 34-32. No Division I-AA team had beaten a team ranked in the AP poll since it started in 1989. This was a stunner of gigantic proportions at the Big House. Is that sweet or what! I love a Big-10 giant being embarrassed like that though I would rather see Ohio State than Michigan experience this. I can't believe Lloyd Carr survives this. He should start typing up his resume for the off-season. Even Kirk Herbstreit is saying the Big-10 is probably the worst BCS division after what happened to Michigan last year at the Rose Bowl and this game plus what happened to the Suck-Eyes against Florida in the championship game. NCAA football is not known for parity quite like NCAA basketball or the NFL, but there's more and more parity these days. This upset by a division 1-AA team (or non-BCS sub-division of the super-regional or whatever stupid name NCAA has come up with this season) is another proof of parity after what Boise State did to Oklahoma in last year's Fiesta Bowl.

The other great result of the day was Cal beating Tennessee 45-31 at Berkeley. The Bears look FANTASTIC and Jeff Tedford is the man. He is building a legitimate program and has recruited some incredible athletes. His offense should be as good as any other team in the country. Get used to names on that like Nate Longshore, DeSean Jackson, Justin Forsett and Jahvid Best. I am not sure if that defense will hold up, but if it does, they are a legitimate threat to unseat USC. That late-season game in Berkeley should be awesome especially if both stay undefeated which I sure hope they do. Might even be a default national championship game. It was funny ABC also covered the "tree-huggers" in Berkeley who are living on trees to protect it from the University planning to renovate the Stadium. Only in Berkeley!

Of course Baseball kept pace with college Football with it's own big event as 23-year old kid Clay Buchholz pitched a no-hitter for Boston in his second career start. This would be big news anyways, but the fact that it happened to a RedSox pitcher and in Fenway just put it on the ESPN radar all that more. I am sure those chowderheads in Boston went nuts over it. They were all like "what Appalachian state? which Michigan?". Fenway was rocking all night as the kid just had 3 walks.