Bye Bye 2009

The sports year is ending and Tiger Woods and the Phoenix Suns are probably the happiest that the month of December is in the books. It has been a brutal month (plus a few days) for Tiger. Not only has he been busted for all kinds of "transgressions", he is probably not involved in any new "transgressions" the last 5 weeks and that in and of itself should be really tough for this guy considering his now impressive rap sheet! He will be back at some point in 2010 and I wonder if thats the first time we will see him in public or on TV. This Woods story will probably go down as the biggest story of the year. But even otherwise, it has been a very eventful year is sports as always. It's been so long and so interesting, I don't even remember what happened in the early parts of this year. The last few weeks and months have been very exciting to say the least.

In college football, Urban Meyer abruptly resigned last Saturday citing health problems, then decided he would instead take an indefinite leave of absence. I was shocked by that whole sequence and it showed us how everybody have their own closets in the cupboard and how we as humans take too much stress and pain on our shoulders for no good reason sometimes. I hope he changes his lifestyle and approach to coaching and life when he comes back. Otherwise, he should just stay retired and be happy - not that happiness is that simple to achieve even for a millionaire like Meyer. Texas Tech fired Mike Leach for mistreating a player and I can't even believe some of the things he has done is even possible in this day and age. Strange dude!

The Bowl Season is in full swing and seems like it has been in full swing since Thanks-giving for crying out loud! The best result so far has to be Arizona losing to Nebraska 33-0. Even as a Pac-10 honk, I can't help but rejoice when the wildcats lose this bad. The Pac-10 in general has looked bad so far, but Oregon should take care of the suckeyes tomorrow in the Rose Bowl and restore some West coast pride. Either that or lets hope LeGarrette Blount punches Jim Tressel in the face after the game. That would be a perfect start and end of the year for Blount and of course for me if a suckeye gets punched. Time to bring on the real bowl games though starting with the New Year. There are still enough garbage games including a Jan 6-Th matchup between Central Michigan and Troy. What are those 2 teams waiting for? Shouldn't that bowl game be played on Dec 6-Th instead of Jan 6-Th? I don't get it.

The other defining aspect of this month has been the Phoenix Suns' 7-9 record after a blistering 14-3 record in November (and late October). This was expected given their brutal December schedule. They did have 2 bad losses - at home against OKC Thunder and on the road at Golden State. Otherwise, they could have been 9-7 and that would have been a good record given the tough schedule. The scarier part has been how their defense has dropped back to the old pathetic levels. They were playing much better defense earlier in the year, but they can't stop anybody again these days. With all this said and done, the Suns should go 12-4 or 11-5 again in January against that weak schedule. But it won't matter unless they get back whatever little defensive mojo they had for some time. Lets see how it goes. Of course January primarily means the NFL playoffs and thats what we are all waiting for.

Happy 2010 folks.

The imperfect Saints

Interesting upsets in the NFL this weekend. It started with the Saints shockingly losing at home to the Cowboys last night. Nobody saw this coming and more than the loss itself, the way the Saints lost was surprising. It was not a shootout that the boys won 44-42. Instead the boys shut down the Saints offense. Brees was held to one TD and less than 300 yards passing. The Cowboys defense got to him early and often. It was a very impressive effort by the Dallas defense. I didn't see this earlier in the season. DeMarcus Ware showing up and playing in this game was in and of itself a big boost for the Cowboys after his neck injury last week. When you are 13-0, you are good, but you are also lucky. The Saints got their lucky breaks in this game as well, but the Dallas defense would not let them score. Now the talk is, what can the other teams learn and copy from the Cowboys to stop the Saints. The Saints will be fine. I still expect them to be in the Super Bowl. Not many teams can do to them what the Cowboys did on Saturday.

The upset special should have started Thursday itself when the Jacksonville Jaguars were leading the Colts late into the second half. They let the Colts off the hook and blew a golden opportunity. Now the Colts are the only undefeated team in a weak AFC. There are around 2 million teams in the league right now with a 7-7 record. Throw in a couple of 8-6 teams, thats a lot of mediocrity right there. But I guess it's fun for the fans to follow these teams. I expect some strange teams to make the playoffs over the next 2 weeks. It would be amazing if the Tennessee Titans made the playoffs after their pathetic start to the season. The Raiders added to the "upset-fest" by beating the Broncos in Denver. The Broncos are done for all practical purposes (I don't care if they even make the playoffs). In the NFC, Minnesota had a chance to put some pressure on the Saints for the top spot, but instead they put some pressure on themselves by losing to the Carolina Panthers and their QB Matt Moore. Both Favre and AP looked listless in this game. They have now lost twice on Sunday Night Football over the last 3 weeks. Apparently Favre and Brad Childress also had some arguments over Favre getting pulled out of this game.

Green Bay lost a WILD one in Pittsburgh. Big Ben threw for 503 yards and 3 TDs and A-Rod threw for 383 yards and 3 TDs. If the Packers had won, the Cheese-heads would have been all excited about passing Favre and winning the division over the next 2 weeks. Now, slowly the talk about Favre's age, shoulder and arm strength is starting back again proving once again our sports media is more fickle than a 15 year old girl. I am more amazed at what his addition to the team has done to All-Day. Adrian Peterson is not where he used to be or needs to be. All the passing has taken the ball away from AP's hands and he is not able to make an impact on the game anymore. He still had a powerful TD today, but nothing more. The Vikes have to put the ball back in his hands and use Favre selectively like they used to in the first few weeks. That should be the recipe. The stud RB in the league right now is Chris Johnson. Dude is unstoppable in the open field and is probably the biggest threat on a football field outside of Peyton Manning this season. Johnson is still under-rated and not many people will even recognize this dude on the streets. Arizona won at Detroit, but not that convincingly. The media is on their case for inconsistency. Just bring on the playoffs and shut these fools up.

Two teams moving in different directions

My favorite teams are in the midst of interesting stretches right now. The Arizona Cardinals played the Vikings Sunday night and absolutely dominated them. Kurt Warner showed us once again that when this guy is in rhythm and if you give him time, he is as good as anybody. Brett may be Favre but he wasn't half as good as Warner last Sunday. The Cards offensive line was brilliant and Warner sliced and diced the Vikes at will. Those 2 receivers - Anquan Boldin And Larry Fitzgerald are ridiculous! They are just too good, too big, too fast, too strong and too tough. They made the Vikings corners look stupid. The coners had no clue how to cover them. Fitz is also a classy guy who gives a lot of credit to Boldin despite being a superstar himself. This Cards team is peaking ahead of last year's schedule and I hope they are not peaking too soon. Nobody is beating Drew Brees in the NFC this year and the Cards are not viewed as a serious threat. But I will take Warner and these Cards over anybody else in the NFC, except the Saints.

The Suns on the other hand have lost 4 out of 5 and they have another brutal 6 game stretch with only Washington being an "easy" game. Yesterday they lost to the Mavericks. It's always tough for me to see the Suns lose to the Mavericks. Or the Lakers or the Spurs for that matter. It would be interesting to see how the Suns do at home against these cats. The Lakers are not quite 20-1 as like Reggie Miller had predicted, but they are a close 17-3. They are clearly the class of the league, but the Suns are suddenly 3 games behind them and have also dropped to the 4-Th seed in the West behind the Lakers, Denver and now Dallas. I think they'll stabilize and should still have a shot at the number 2 seed in the West. These 4 teams plus Portland are the elites in the West with San Antonio being the wild-card. I expect them to be an elite team by Feb or so, but for now they look mediocre. In the East, Orlando, Boston, Cleveland and Atlanta are at the top. I think those 4 teams are here to stay.

Here comes the road bump!

The Suns season has been flawless until this week. We knew it can't go this way forever and the inevitable bad stretch was coming, but it seem to have come already. They went on the road again and this trip did not go too well. They lost at New York yesterday and at Cleveland today. They are 0-2 in December after a smashing November. It's not that they are losing that is a cause for concern here, but the how, when and where they are losing thats disturbing. Both these losses were blowouts. In fact 4 out of the 5 Suns losses so far have been blowouts on the road. But who loses to New York? They are a horrible 4-15 and thats after the win against the Suns. Not only did the Suns lose to them, they got blown out by their ex-coach. If that was not motivation enough, they had a BIG game today against their old friend the BIG aristotle. Unfortunately, that was not enough to pick them up either. They got blown out again and they scored 14 and 15 points in the first 2 quarters for a grand total for 29 in a half. Thats pathetic to put it mildly. All of the Cavs scored and torched the Suns in this one. They didn't even need LeBron, who had a 12-8-10 night.

Whatever it is that the Suns are suddenly ailing from, they better snap out of it soon because they are entering a tough stretch including the Lakers at home on Sunday. Thats followed by Dallas, Orlando, Denver, San Antonio and Portland. Ouch! They may be lucky to come out of that stretch playing 500 ball. Lets see how it goes. Nobody seems to be in the same league as the Lakers right now, but the Suns at least had the record. That may not be the case when this stretch is done. The Lakers might put some distance in the standings too. Lets strap on the seat belt for this stretch. Lots of other news in the sports world right now. In college, Bobby Bowden has been forced out and Charlie Weis has been fired. Tiger Woods has been caught in some family "transgressions" and girls are coming of the woodwork with juicy stuff. TMZ might be all set for months with this story. Dude is busted. Tomorrow is the civil war between Oregon and Oregon state. This one is for all the marbles with a rose bowl berth on the line. The fans up there are nuts already and a game of this magnitude should pretty much drive them over the edge. It should be a good one, but Oregon should win.