Super Bowl means down time

Super Bowl these days comes with a 2-week hype break. This is a very excruciating time for Sports fans where suddenly we don't have football after almost 5 months of continuous football. Plus we have to put up with 24 hour sports outlets analyzing every conceivable angle of this game. By Friday of the first week, we have suffered information-overload and we know what the 3-Rd tight-end on the bench is eating for breakfast! NBA is the only other sports league in business (I don't count the NHL) and it is still in it's early season mode. Actually NBA doesn't get serious until the second round of the playoffs. So not many people care about it in Late January. May be because of all this downtime, there have been too many controversies the last couple of weeks.

It started off with people ripping apart Ladainian Tomlinson for his behavior during the AFC title game. Some people questioned his toughness, but most people were critical of his demeanor during the game where he just sat their with his helmet and didn't really mingle with the team. Also with Philip Rivers playing hurt and injured, LT looked worse in contrast. Jim Rome was saying on his how LT went from the best ever guy to a bad seed in just a week. I think this has been going on the entire season. I am a huge LT fan, but I have been feeling that he was getting a little "too big" lately. You can't really blame these guys. The money, the attention and the deification is so bad these days in the sports world, even great guys like LT lose their bearings a little bit as things get to their head. I expect Dwayne Wade to be the next classy star making the turn to ego-town. Hopefully LT learns from this controversy and comes back down to earth.

The real controversy involved the golf channel hottie Kelly Tilghman suggesting that one way for young players to deal with the challenge posed by Tiger Woods would be to "lynch him in a back alley". Thats real poor choice of ward. I can't understand how she can be so dumb. I think sometimes these people really say things that are on their mind and get in trouble. May be she really wants to lynch Tiger. Who knows. She got suspended etc, but this was a disturbing one. The other controversy was with ESPN anchor Dana Jacobson. She got liquored up at a roast for Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic and said "F**k Notre Dame. F**k Jesus". My first reaction was, who hosts a roast for Mike and Mike? What have they done to deserve a roast and when do I get one for myself? Secondly, this was offensive, but not as disturbing as Kelly's words. Dana was drunk and stupid and she got punished appropriately.

These chicks must just shut up and do what they are hired for - look good on TV. I am not a sexist and I love talented female sportscasters as much as the next guy, but lets call a spade a spade. Most of these chicks are just eye candy. I respect talent when I see it. In fact, I think ESPN should turn over their entire football operation to Suzy Kolber, Chris Mortensen and Ron Jaworski and fire all the other clowns. Thats how good Suzy is, but these 2 chicks getting in trouble in the same month is 2 female sportscasters way too many.

The other guy to get in hot water was Saint Louis head coach Rick Majerus. He made some pro-choice comments on abortion, leading to condemnation by Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke, who suggested that officials at Saint Louis University take "appropriate action" against him. Apparently they don't want a Catholic school to employ him. This is ridiculous. Leave the fat man alone. He has a right to his opinion and I don't think that every employee at Catholic schools conform to all of their beliefs. Why force just this guy. Makes no sense whatsoever. This issue got some air-time too on Sports talk because of the Super Bowl downtime. Bring on the game already!

King-V-Mamba

Last Sunday featured some great NBA games on ABC, especially the Lakers-V-Cavs game billed as a Kobe-LeBron match-up. These match-ups rarely live up to the hype, but this one did every second of the way. Not only was it a close, well-played game, the stars played very well start to finish. Actually Kobe and LeBron were spectacular. On top of that, they guarded each other for long stretches of the game, which made it even more fun. Stars rarely guard each other. This is because you don't want to tire out your top scorer on the defensive side chasing the other team's super star and more importantly, you don't want your star to be in foul trouble. But these stars are unique. Kobe always steps up to the plate on both ends of the floor and takes pride in his defense. Thats part of him trying to wear MJ's mask and trying to be him.

These days LeBron is much the same way. LeBron was not too committed to defense (and many other things) until this year. He was getting by on raw talent. In fact, he was accused of sleep-walking through the first-half of last season. It's amazing he could still take the Cavs all the way to the finals. People like Bill Walton also said he was exposed in the Finals. What he means is, LeBron has a long way to go and a lot of work to do. The good news is, the work seems to have started in earnest last summer. Some kind of a switch seemed to have gone off. May be it was the sweep in the finals or may be the time he spent with great players in the Team USA deal. I personally think it was probably the time he spent with Kobe and realizing how hard Kobe works and how committed he is to basketball greatness.

Whatever it is, LeBron has been a much improved player since the start of the season. He is leading the league in scoring and is working hard on both ends of the floor. I am especially impressed with his effort level on defense. The results have been impressive and he is again single-handeedly carrying the Cavs to great places. This game was a great show for LeBron. He was good, aggressive from the start and did a decent job defending Kobe for stretches. Kobe was Kobe and was unstoppable as always and he tried his best to defend LeBron too. At the end, LeBron hit a clutch shot on Kobe and Kobe surprisingly missed a close lay-up that would have tied the game. W for the King and L for the Mamba. LeBron ended up with 41-9-4 on 16/32 shooting and Kobe had 33-12-6 on 10/21 shooting.

All in all a great NBA game to watch and this is what ABC wants every Sunday on it's network. I have always said a Kobe-LeBron finals can save this league and this was a taste of that. But you know what - I wouldn't be surprised if a NASCAR rain delay out-drew even this game! Thats where NBA is right now.

Still Standing

The NFL power weekend is almost here. The Chargers are still standing along with the Pats, Pack and the G-Men. Surprising line-up in the NFC and a not so surprising one in the AFC. People expected these AFC teams to be real good in the pre-season before the Chargers opened the season all shaky and disjointed. Once they righted the ship, they got back to where they originally belonged. I still can't believe the way they ended the Colts season last weekend in Peyton's house.

The Chargers have to play at an extremely high-level to repeat that kind of an upset this weekend. The Pats are no Colts. They are more talented, healthier, deeper, smarter, are on a roll and they'll be playing with much more help from the home town weather than the Colts. LT has to have a great game and more importantly, Norv Turner needs to be very good. Hoody usually out-coaches everybody and Norv has a tendency to be out-coached in big games. Thats not a good combination for the lightning Bolts. I am not sure if it's good or a bad thing if Rivers doesn't play. He is not that good, plus Billy Volek used to be good the last time I saw him start games for the Titans. Plus the Hoody might have less dirt on him to game plan against. I wonder if Volek plays instead of the River-man, if he can go in there and surprise them like A.J.Feely did for the Eagles. In any case, my heart is with the Bolts, but my brain says Pats move on to the Super Bowl.

Packers are on a roll as well, But so are the Giants. Brett Favre and the Packers have been the story of this NFL season. People have been waiting for them to come back to Earth but they are still flying high. They are as legit as they come and that offense with Ryan Grant, Greg Jennings and Brett Favre is awesome. They have a strong D to go with it and are a dangerous team for anybody. Too bad we don't get to see the Pats go into Lambeau to play the Pack in the Super Bowl. That would have been awesome. The Pats probably are better in a neutral site, but a big game like that at Lambeau would have been real nice for the fans. Of course, I am not assuming that either the Pats or the Pack are a lock for the Super Bowl. The Giants and even the Chargers have a shot at screwing things up for these teams. The Giants have a lot of momentum as well and they seem to have a QB in Eli who finally seems to know what he is doing. The Giants will not be intimidated going into Green Bay for sure. Should be a good game, but I pick number 4 to play in his third Super Bowl.

Surprises in the NFL

I have been complaining that the NFL this season has been bland, one-sided and predictable. We all kinda got this feeling that the Pats were going to win it all since week 5 or 6. That might still happen, but this weekend's playoffs produced spectacularly shocking results. There were 2 big upsets, but a third one - Packers big win was a little unexpected to me as well. I am sure the frozen tundra played a role in the bad performance by the Seahawks. I expected the Seahawks to put up a better fight, but the Packers surprised me.

The Packers dominated this game and looked awesome. They ran the ball up and down the Seahawks throat and Ryan Grant seems to have solved all their rushing problems. Brett was efficient and effective like he has been all season and now we get to see him in the NFC championship game. Can't complain. The theory that this Packers team cannot handle the Green Bay weather sounds silly right now. The Seahawks are at a crossroad. Not sure what's going to happen with their coach and Shaun Alexander seems done. Surprisingly quick and steep fall for the former MVP.

The Pats killed the Jags pretty methodically. Brady completed 26 of 28 passes for an amazing 92% efficiency. What's up with this guy? He is beyond white hot right now. The only thing more ridiculous than this stat is the Jags defender saying post-game that "Brady is not all that". I wish that was true too, though I am not able to defend my anti-Brady sentiments any longer. Brady does seem like "all that" and some this season. Anyways, this moron's contention was that it was all dump-off and check-downs and that any QB can complete these passes. Well, apparently that was his defense's strategy - to force Brady into dump-offs by doubling Moss and taking away the deep-ball. Brady took what the Jags gave him and absolutely annihilated them. Dunno what else this defender wants him to do. Shut-up after a loss and go away.

The real shocker of the weekend came on Sunday when the Chargers lost LT and Rivers to injuries. They lost everything except the game! They came back and beat the Colts behind Billy Volek. Crushing loss for Peyton despite 402 passing yards. Tough season for the Colts. Things never went their way this season since Marvin's injury. I still didn't expect them to lose at home to the Chargers, but their execution was not as good as last year in any facet of the game. At least with Peyton, you got a shot every year. As for the Chargers, Norv Turner is looking good right now. Every down they play from this point on is a bonus and should be regarded as such by even their fans. Lets see if they can upset the Pats with LT and Rivers back from their injuries.

The most controversial upset of the week was Tony Romo's loss to the younger Manning and the Giants. Who would have thought that Eli would be playing this late in the season while Peyton is at home. Anyways, Romo is in a lot of hot-water because of his alleged vacation during the break with dumb-ass Jessica Simpson in Mexico. Romo does have some issues. Just slow the heck down and lie low. Why can't you wait until the end of the season for the vacation? Just "enjoy her company" at home until then.

I don't understand why he is always pushing the controversial buttons. He either truly doesn't care or may be he is also a publicity hound. I think he is good guy. He probably just doesn't care and his point to us may be is "I am not doing anything illegal or even against team rules. So what's the big deal and what's your problem?". The problem is, life is 80% perception and 20% reality and you got to worry about the perceptions as much as you do with reality. Every playoffs seems to bring it's own set of issues to this guy's door-step. The Cowboys did look good for a half and then came out in the second half looking like the entire team had been to Mexico on a vacation with Jessica during the half-time! America's team can now go anywhere in the world on vacation and nobody cares for the next 7 months.

LSU finishes on top. Pats may join them.

After a whole bunch of churn in this year's college football season and a very entertaining topsy-turvy ride up and down the weekly rankings, LSU finished pretty close to where it started the season - at the very top. They were either 1 or 2 at the beginning of the season right behind USC and they ended up winning the championship at the end. The funny thing is, LSU and USC were probably the best teams at the end of the season and they ended up at 1 and 2 in the final USA today poll. USC was 3-Rd in the AP poll behind Georgia. Too bad for USC that they lost 2 games and dropped out of the championship run somewhere mid-season. After all the upsets this season, it would have been real strange if LSU and USC played for the ring after all.

I was a little disappointed when the BCS match-ups came out initially because LSU-OSU is a traditional powerhouse match-up and I would have preferred something totally off the wall like Kansas-West Virginia or Missouri-Georgia or something. That would have established true parity at the end of a truly unique college football season. Plus I knew OSU will lose for sure. A real weird match-up would have also dealt a blow to NCAA and the TV networks ratings wise. I am always for landing body-blows to the NCAA. After watching Notre Dame getting crushed in one BCS bowl game after the other for ratings reason, it would have been ironic if they had ended up with a non-traditional, low ratings match-up for the BCS championship game. BCS ratings were not too impressive anyways this year with the championship game dropping down 17.2% from last year. Plus most other BCS games dropped in ratings as well because of these lesser-known team teams playing in those games.

Now all the football eyes are on the NFL. Great games this weekend with the Chargers playing the Colts and the Jaguars playing the mighty Pats. This weekend is always the best NFL weekend of the season. The number of games goes down after this weekend and the quality of the games are usually better than the wild-card weekend where we do get the same 4 games. The Chargers beat the Colts at home earlier in the season in a weird game. The Chargers offense didn't do much but their D and special teams won the game for them. Manning threw like a million interceptions in that game and still almost won it. That victory is now a huge burden for the Chargers. The Colts are going to be extra motivated and are at home. There's no way Manning has such a bad game again. If you add all of that up, the Chargers should be a huge under-dog in this one. The only saving grace for the Chargers is that they are a better team now than they were then. But I pick the Colts by at least 10 in this one.

The Pats-Jags is a culture clash and should be a good one. I don't think America still realizes how good the Jags are. There is something special about this team. Great defense, great toughness, heart and great coaching. I expect a tough one for the Pats. They still win, but only after a bloody dog-fight. In the NFC, the games should be equally fun. The Dallas-Giants game should be a high-scoring affair and as always, the Giants will live or die based on which Manning shows up - Peyton-Junior or the Anti-Peyton. It's 50-50 with Eli and the Giants will lose either way. But if Eli plays like Anti-Peyton, this will be ugly. Otherwise this will be a fun game to watch. The Packers-Seahawks game takes Holmgren and Hasselback back to Green Bay just like a few years back when Matty won the OT toss and called his shot on the microphone only to see his pass get intercepted and run back for a game-ending Packers TD. He'll keep his pie-hole shut this time, but will desperately try to avenge that defeat. The Hawks or on a roll and are definitely in this one. I pick them to win it in an upset.

Suns and their foes

The Suns have had a unique basketball team the last 4 seasons. A fun, high-flying offensive minded team that can't be stopped. It's an unfortunate truth in all of sports that defense wins championships. I have tried to live in denial of this fact for years, but it is a reality in sports. Defensive minded teams not only win championships, but they also tend to contend for a long time as long as their core talent stays together. Thats not the case with offensive teams.

Couple of things always happen with unique, offenses like the Suns. First of all, other teams start copying the style. There is always a danger of some team eventually learning to play the style better than the original. Secondly, after a couple of years, these offenses get figured out. For example, in the NFL, teams the Rams of the Warner-Martz era was the best show on turf for a while, but before you know it, their run ended. The reason is that the defenses around the league figure out ways to slow such systems. This never happens to great defenses because defense by definition is reactive and the onus is on the offenses to stay a step ahead and they can't do that forever.

The Suns are still a step ahead. It's not easy to stop the Suns though they are pretty much "figured out" in the sense teams know what they want to do. But stopping them is easier said than done. Teams have tried to adjust to the Suns offense by doing things like sending everybody back on defense instead of crashing the offensive boards etc. Things that are usually considered a violation of basketball common-sense, but necessary evil when you are playing the Suns. There is still no stopping the Suns for the most part.

But lately, there have been a team or two that seem to trouble the Suns every-time and I find that very interesting. This could just be a case of bad match-ups, but it's also possible it's something more. Obviously the Suns troubles against the Spurs, especially in the playoffs are well chronicled. I would just explain that as the Spurs being a better team. They play great defense, but they have Timmy Duncan and hence more championship caliber talent. But the number of teams that the Suns have troubles against is slowly increasing.

The Suns lost to the Hornets couple of days back. This is the second time they are losing to this team. They have also lost to the Fakers twice and are having problems handling the Warriors these days. These are all good teams, but is there a pattern here? Are teams beginning to learn to "match-up" better against the Suns? Before you know, you'll start hearing talks about how the Suns window is closing. Of course the Suns have a old team and this version does not have a lot of time on it's hand. But often times, the window doesn't close as much as other team's window opens up a bit wider. In other words, you are as good as you have always been, but some other team just passed you by. Both the Hornets and the Lakers might be en-route to accomplishing this.

So the questions is, are these teams just one of those difficult match-up for the Suns? Or are they just great teams with an ability to beat anybody on any given night? Or have they specifically figured out the Suns system? Or are these teams flat out getting to be better than the Suns period? I guess these are the questions that will be answered this spring in the NBA playoffs. The bottom-line is, the Suns better win one this year or things could get much tougher in a hurry.

"Who-Cares" round of the playoffs

While the Pats, Colts, Boys and the Packers are chilling at home and waiting for their next opponent, the NFL wild-card playoffs are starting this weekend. It feels more like a "who cares" round this year more than in the past. I don't think the wild-card teams ever had a great shot at winning the Super Bowl in the NFL, but they seem to have even less of a chance this year mostly because of how good the 4 teams with the bye are. I would say the Packers are the most vulnerable among the 4 at home and the Chargers and the Jaguars are the best teams playing this weekend. I still don't know how and why the Tennessee Titans made the playoffs. Wasn't the AFC supposed to be the better and tougher conference? In the NFC, Washington sneaked in and is now playing Seattle with the Giants playing the Bucs. Decent games though none of these teams seem to be in the same class as the Cowboys or the Packers and even those 2 teams in turn are not in the same class as the Colts or Pats.

With all that said, it's still the NFL playoffs and I can't wait for it to begin. The games will be fun and the Jville-Pitt game in particular should be a dandy. Two good teams that play a physical style and look like a mirror-image of each other slugging it out for all the playoff marbles. This one will be close, but I am tempted to pick Jville. San Diego should handle VY And the Titans. They better, or else Norvell will be in a world of trouble. Chargers need to win a playoff contest one of these days. In the JV, I like Seattle and the Giants to get the job done this weekend. Two teams on a roll though not great teams by any stretch of the imagination. The Bucs aren't too bad either. At the end of the day, the games will be fun and somebody will move on to lose in the next round.

The Bowl season is also winding down. I have been ignoring it ever since Texas man-handled my Sun Devils! But the bigger bowls in Jan are always fun. Some surprising results and upsets made it even more fun. I can't believe Michigan ended the season by beating a good SEC team in Florida featuring a Heisman winning QB after beginning this season with a loss against Appalachian state! Talk about night and day. I suppose the guys really stepped up to send Lloyd Carr off in style. In the Fiesta bowl, number 11 West Virginia crushed the 3-Rd ranked Oklahoma in another upset and how pissed are the West Virginians now? If they are this good, how the heck did they lose to a bad Pitt team at home with a national championship berth at stake? What a waste of a season. Well at least they got their BCS dollars and embarrassed a big name program like the Sooners. Easier said than done for most schools. Number 8 Kansas took care of number 5 Va-Tech in an interesting game at the Orange Bowl.

The college football season was crazy with multiple upsets and great parity this year. I am happy some of these lesser known schools continued their good run in the bowls and showed the nation their wins during the regular season were no flukes. Rose and Sugar stayed true to form as USC crushed Illinois at Pasadena and Georgia took care of business against a over-matched Hawaii squad. Now all eyes are on the BCS national championship game. I pick LSU to win, win big and win it in style against the Suck-eyes. Michigan's upset not withstanding, I don't expect this Big-10 team to beat a real good SEC team like the tigers. OSU better hope it's not a repeat of last year's final.

Happy New Year (to everybody except the Pats)

2007 was a rough year for sports, may be the roughest in recent memory. Between the dog killers, crooked refs and roid-heads across all athletic endeavors, no sport or league - minor or major was spared major embarrassment. I am sure all league commissioners are excited to turn the page on the calendar, not that 08 is going to magically erase all their problems. As we enter 08, MLB might still have the bigger problem of the 3 followed by the NFL and the NBA. Nobody since the start of the season has made the crooked ref a big issue for the NBA except for the trash-talking by the fans at the arenas fter bad calls. People seem to be quite indifferent to NBA's Donaghy issue. But then again, isn't indifference the biggest problem for the association? People seem to be indifferent to the league in general since number 23 retired back in the 1900s!

So may be NBA still has the biggest problem in terms of it's popularity and market value. Even LeBron's trip to the finals didn't help anything. That was quite shocking to me and I am not sure what can resurrect the NBA if the King can't. My last hope now is a LeBron-Kobe finals, but then again, Kobe in the Finals is not what we should be counting on considering how he managed his career in 07. I still love this game, but the rest of America doesn't seem to. It would be interesting to see how many people stayed away from the TV or the NBA arenas because of the crooked ref. Lots and lots of people post messages to the effect "the game is always fixed", but most of them sound like disgruntled fans of losing teams that night or "conspiracy theory" fans who always thought NBA was fixed, but they now feel vindicated and are coming out and are being louder because of the recent scandal.

I still ranked NFL's problems higher because the dog fighting is just not going away. Vick is very much in the news and so is Pacman and NFL can't kick them away. I am sure NFL's king status among sports is as strong as ever and apparently their Pats-Colts regular season game was a ratings bonanza like never seen before. Personally I think the NFL has some issues to deal with. I felt like I could not watch most of their games on any given Sunday. I have always felt like NFL's version of parity is flawed and it was just a road to mediocrity. This year it has come true. The league is full of mediocre play and the QBs suck big-time! This can't be healthy for the league in the long run. NFL needs to tweak it's bad financial system to fix this. They should move towards a more flexible salary cap structure like the NBA. What parity are we talking about when teams are going 16-0. Even if we agree that it was a function of one extremely well-run franchise, what about the quality of the other teams in the league? Except the Colts, Cowboys, Chargers, Packers and may be the Jaguars and the Steelers there are no teams worth watching.

I am not talking about teams with chances of winning it all. I know thats just an handful in every league. But it's just the Patriots in the NFL and only a handful of teams are even watchable in this league. We could swap the other lower-half teams in the playoffs with a completely different set of teams and I don't think we will even notice. Anyways, it's all good for the Pats. They went 16-0 though they had some difficulty in some contests. This is what gives us pats-haters some hope. The Giants played them tough in the final contest and almost beat them much like the Eagles and Ravens before them. The Pats might be beatable after all. They are one team that probably is sad 2007 is over. They had an awesome year and they can only hope 08 is even close. Can they go 3-0 now to win the big one? Lets see. In the spirit of the New Year, I would like to see the glass half-full. The good news with their 16-0 is that we don't have to deal with the 72 dolphins and their champagne bottles anymore. Also, the spy-gate thing still hovers over the Pats. I think any number of 40-0 trashing of teams could not have washed away that asterix. I like it that way.

Speaking of the asterix, MLB has been carrying one for around 10 years now. Mitchell report only made it bolder and bigger, but lets see how the MLB reacts. It's still entertainment and people show up for games, but MLB and their experts just don't seem to get the long-term effects of this roid-era. There's a huge loss in opportunity costs with scandals surrounding historic figures like Bonds and Clemens. It's hard to quantify this, but it's strange that a history-rich and history-dependent sport like Baseball doesn't seem to understand this at all. They seem happy to collect the gate receipts and the check from FOX and pretend like the roid-era has had ZERO impact. Good luck with that assumption.