NBA is almost here. It's time to get excited and ready. I thought I will try and rank all the teams in the league and predict how the season is going to play out. I am going to stick my neck out with my analysis and see how it looks at the end of the season. So I started looking through all the rosters closely and boy, there is some serious garbage in this league. It straight away became obvious why there is so much heartburn and unease over the new NBA - post LBJ syndrome. For those of you that don't know the term, LBJ syndrome is the culture of stars trying to team up with other stars in hand-picked teams. This is something LeBron started with Wade and Bosh last year and everybody else is trying to emulate. It's very clear that NBA is in real danger if this trend continues. While the lockout was more about money than competitive balance, the two are related and competitive balance currently needs some attention and almost justifies the lockout. You can see why the owners freaked out at the Chris Paul to Lakers trade just coming out of the lockout. NBA needs another super-team like the NFL needs a Brett Favre comeback. These rosters also remind me a lot of MLB and that's not a good thing. A talent skew like the MLB will just NOT work in the NBA, not that ti works for baseball.
Almost half the rosters look like garbage and the scary part is, some of these teams will be in the playoffs because NBA lets way too many teams in to the playoffs - at least the MLB is better with that, though they are hell-bent of expanding their playoff counts next season. This also reminds me why NFL is the king. Not only do they have superior parity and competitive balance, they allow only 12 teams in to the big dance and rarely does garbage get in to the playoffs. It happens once in a while, but not always. When a bad team plays another bad team, somebody has to win. So some of these garbage NBA rosters will also sport decent records at the end of this season. But trust me, I see way more Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals type rosters in this year's NBA than in the past. The hope is, these teams can develop, grow and turnaround. But for that to happen, the LBJ syndrome cannot continue and the system should enable these teams to retain the young stars that are already on their rosters or might end up there via future drafts. Let's hope for that to happen.
The objective of this NBA season is not different from last's for most of the fans - basically keeping the dream team in Miami away from a ring. But it is going to be harder this year than last. For all the talk about how last season was a failure for the heat, the reality is, it was a roaring success for the big 3. To win the Eastern conference in year 1 after all the negative attention, chemistry issues and adversity caused by unexpected losing streaks is just amazing. What else did we all expect? If they won it all in year 1, then LeBron would have been absolutely justified in predicting 8 rings when he stupidly said "not 1, not 2 .... not 7." Even now, I am scared he is going to get close to the number because they almost got there in year 1 and are going to be much better in year 2. On the court, their chemistry is going to be much better. Plus, their experience with all the adversity last year and the booing and hatred will probably make this year 2 look like a stroll on the South Beach for those guys. Given all this, I pick the Miami Heat to win the championship this year. I don't want them to, but I am afraid they probably will. I don't see a solid threat for them, though they are not invincible by any stretch of the imagination.
The heat lost to Dallas last year. The mavericks have the look and feel of a one-hit wonder. This is because of their age and also the fact that they lost Tyson Chandler. Speaking of age, the Spurs will be good as always, but they only got older and are not a serious contender. The Celtics are also older and not sure if they can do better than last year. The age bug is also beginning to bite the Lakers. They imploded against the Mavericks last playoffs and took a step back this year when they lost Lamar Odom. Unless they pull a Dwight Howard blockbuster, they may have problems even dominating their own town given that the Clippers are now looking great with a talented, young, athletic front court chauffeured by a stud point guard. While the rest of the league would love to have one good big guy at either the center or the power forward position, the Clippers have a stud PF in Blake Griffin and seems to have lucked into an amazing athlete with a huge upside at center in DeAndre Jordan. Even the Clip-joint may not be able to screw this one up. The Clippers are good, but they need at least a season under the belt with these pieces before becoming a serious contender.
I wouldn't discount the Lakers and the Mavericks completely yet, but the teams that can really challenge the Heat this season are the OKC Thunder in the West and the Chicago Bulls in the East. The baby Bulls will be better with that deep playoff experience last season, but they still need one more offensive weapon. Too bad they didn't add significant pieces this year, though Rip Hamilton will help. The OKC on the other hand have had 2 deep playoff runs and seem to have a complete roster. This is the year for them to breakthrough. I would love it for Kevin Durant to take down LeBron in the Finals. That would be poetic justice like no poet has ever seen before. And it's not a pipe dream. Speaking of pipe dreams, it's sad to me as a Suns fan that I am nowhere near mentioning them as a contender. In fact, it's out of pure respect for Nash that they are even ranked as high as they are in most power rankings on the web. That roster has been decimated by owner Robert Sarver and I just hope they are even in the running for the playoffs. Shame on you Sarver!
Now on to my rankings in each conference.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
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1. Miami - They are my pick to win it all this year. The rich usually get richer in this league. So they got Shane Battier. But I am surprised they didn't get significantly more. They still have issues with the bigs - anybody who signs Eddy Curry have some issues, and at the point guard spot. But their experience from last year will help immensely. Somebody please stop them.
2. Chicago - They have the MVP and a good core, but they need one more reliable scorer. I didn't like the way Miami handled them last year and I don't see any improvement to put them over the heat. Rip Hamilton helps, but they need a healthy, dominant Boozer and a little bit more.
3. Boston - Jeff Green's heart illness is a big blow. This team is old and I would have loved to see them challenge the heat of today with their big 3 when they were 3 years younger. I like the Brandon Bass pickup, but the golden oldies have to handle a compressed schedule and challenge Miami at the end. Not going to be easy.
4. Knicks - Depth is a concern, but the front court talent is just undeniable. Melo, Amare and Chandler is a phenomenal lineup. They are overpaying for all 3, but they can afford to. I think this team is going to surprise a lot of people. I hate to say this, but Steve Nash will look sweet in this team.
5. Atlanta - They have always been an enigmatic team for me. I don't think they have elite talent and they have also topped off talent-wise with all the money invested in their existing pieces. But they are talented enough to be a top 4 team in the L-East. On the positive side, they can party like 1999. They have both Tracy McGrady and Jerry Stackhouse.
6. Orlando - They have taken a step back, but they still have their stud - for now. They can make some noise, but will fall short. Hedo is not giving them what he gave during his first go-around. Rashard Lewis is not worth a lot, but he and a younger Hedo made things work for them. They have to find something new now before losing Dwight Howard.
7. Philly - Jrue is true. The development of Jrue Holiday makes the sixers pretty interesting. A good PG compensates for a lot of things and this sixers team is ready to take the next step this year especially if Evan Turner turns the corner.
8. Indiana - They made the playoffs with just 37 wins last year. They may be in a position to clinch the 8-Th seed this year too. But they are slightly better this year with the pickup of David West. A healthy West and an improved Paul George can get them 37 wins this season - which is a good improvement because this is a 66 game season and not a 82 game season.
9.Milwaukee - Shaun Livingston and Mike Dunleavy make this roster interesting for completely different reasons. Shaun's injury should still be one of the worst ever and is good to see him play again. It seems like Bogut and Jennings have leveled off a little bit. If one of them steps up, they could be a playoff team.
10. Washington - I would love to be a billionaire owner of a NBA team, but I will still cry if I have to pay 20 mill a year for Rashard Lewis. Then again, I might be happy I am not doing the same to Gilbert Arenas for whom the Magic traded Lewis. 20 mill for Lewis is bad any way you look at it, but this roster gives you another reason why it's bad. A young, barren roster like this can use a leader and they have a 20 million dollar guy who is not even close to providing that on the court. Both Lewis and the Wizards will go only as far as John Wall takes them.
11. Toronto - Nothing to really get excited about. This is why the system should help teams like these retain players like Chris Bosh. This is a typical MLB type team with no light at the end of the tunnel yet.
12. Nets - The recent injury to Brook Lopez is a killer. It impacts their performance on the court and their ability to chase Dwight Howard off of it. Deron Williams is a stud. But he is going to be tired carrying these guys around. That means he might want out soon too. Also, he should be super excited to see Mehmet Okur again on his team, or not!
13. Detroit - There is nothing going on with this team right now. If you are a fan, you can pay 100 dollars for bad seats, watch mediocre NBA basketball and wonder why Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva make a combined 18 million dollars. Let me know if you have the answer after watching 33 home games because neither myself nor their GM Joe Dumars have an answer.
14. Cleveland - Last year, they showed us how important one guy can be to an entire franchise. This year, they will show us how not all number 1 picks are LeBron James. Kyrie Irving is nice, but I am not sure if a Dukie can rescue a franchise. Tough spot for the Cavaliers. At least their owner sometimes makes things interesting.
15. Charlotte - Here's another reason why David Stern's rookie age limit makes sense. If a bunch of teams like the Bobcats this year have nothing to offer except their high-priced rookie, I would rather watch a 21 year old Kemba Walker than a 19 year old Kemba Walker. Their owner, the 48 year-old MJ could walk in to their starting lineup and will probably be an upgrade to what they got.
WESTERN CONFERENCE
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1. OKC - They are the team to beat in the west. Their young, talented roster has an amazing balance and variety to it. Westbrook, Durant and Harden are ready to take it to the next level this year.
2. Dallas - The mavs never got any love from anybody and they still don't after the championship. The concern now is that they are aging and old. They are still deep and talented and I love the way they replaced Caron Butler with Lamar Odom. But they will miss Tyson Chandler and J.J.Barea. Both of them meant a lot more to the mavs than what their talent would suggest.
3. San Antonio - It seems like we have been calling them old for the last 15 years, but they still had the best record in the west last year. They did lose to an eight seed in Memphis, but that was probably the worst match-up for them. I expect them to be up there in the west again. Are they a legitimate contender? I don't think so.
4. LA Lakers - They went from adding Chris Paul to losing Lamar Odom for nothing in 2 days. They are in trouble unless they steal superman from Orlando. Metta World peace will lead a bench that lacks depth. They got Troy Murphy, which means they are searching and reaching for answers to some serious questions.
5. LA Clippers - There is so much going on with this team that people are not even talking about the addition of Caron Butler. If this guy is healthy and productive, watch out. Blake Griffin and DJ will develop faster with a PG like Chris Paul and this team will be good this year.
6. Memphis - The west is not as great as it used to be and Memphis should be very relevant in the playoff race this year even if O.J. Mayo and Tony Allen start punching each other again. Zach Randolph makes a lot of dough, but was amazing for them last year. If he stays in his shoes, this year will be no different.
7. Portland - Brandon Roy is gone. Some of their good depth has disappeared. So they are not what they used to be, but are still playoff good. It is LaMarcus Aldridge's team now and they added Jamal Crawford to the mix. I am sure Jamal will shoot them in and out of games as always.
8. Denver - They lost 3 guys to China. Wilson Chandler will be missed, but I am not so sure about J.R.smith and Kenyon Martin. Their talent and depth has to come together under George Karl to make the playoffs. I think they do.
9. Golden State - The big catch of the off-season was Kwame Brown. Not the best way to upgrade a roster, but they have some young talent in the back-court to give the faithful some hope. Mark Jackson has his work cutout with this team.
10. Houston Rockets - They have some depth. Somehow Jonny Flynn always ends up in rosters with too many PGs. The vetoed trade would have given them Pau Gason, but they have some scorers even now. They could get in the mix for the 8-Th spot.
11. Phoenix Suns - It pains my heart to put the Suns here, but they have very little outside of Steve Nash. He deserves so much respect that many ranking have the Suns ranked way higher than their roster warrants just because of him. He is great and he makes others good. But Robert Sarver has made sure even Nash can't help this roster. It's hard to get excited over the Sebastin Telfair signing the year after you let Amare walk last year. Markieff Morris is the only hope this season. Of course Vince Carter is gone. I am hoping that's some addition by subtraction.
12. Utah - Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter give hope for the future, but their present also features young talent. Out of all the rebuilding rosters that are at crossroads, Utah's has the best balance between the future and the present. Of course, that doesn't mean they will have the best future, but it does mean they may continue to win a few games today.
13. Sacramento Kings - They have a lot of young talent that they have been accumulating the last few years, but for some reason it's not all coming together - at least not yet. This should be the year things get better, but it won't. I think they need a new coach and a veteran or two to help the talent gel and grow together faster.
14. Minnesotta - This team is all about the future. Derrick Williams, Ricky Rubio and Wes Johnson gives them hope and even some excitement. And Kevin Love gives them stability and strength in the middle. Don't expect too much out of them this year, but next year might be interesting.
15. New Orleans - It's good the Commish made sure they got Eric Gordon in the CP3 trade. Otherwise, they may be scoring just 50 points a night. This roster is cheap for a new owner to buy, but will also play cheap all season.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Big, Dark, Fun Day in the Bay
The Bay Area has not had a big Monday night football game in a while like the one this week when the 10-3 steelers rolled into the stick to play the 10-3 niners. Many great things happened for the niners on a night that started with darkness all around - literally, as the stadium lost power before the kick-off and then again in the first half delaying the game both times. It was not a great advertisement for the city of SF or the stick, but the niners probably secretly liked the fact that the old stadium they are trying to get out of looked bad. Of course it doesn't really help anything with the new stadium as that's well on it's way in Santa Clara. The delayed start and the interruptions probably didn't help the 2 teams either, but I am not sure if it hurt Big Ben with his injured ankle to the point of affecting the outcome of the game. But the Niners dominated the Steelers anyways. It was a big win for the niners - a defining one this late in the season, coming off a loss to the Cardinals.
There has always been some doubt around the true elite status of the niners despite their impressive record. Unlike the other contenders in the NFC, they don't possess a great offense or a stud QB. Alex Smith's biggest critics are mostly niner fans given what they had to endure the last 7 years with him. So even the niner faithful didn't feel comfortable with the playoff prospects of this team and after the loss to Arizona last week, there was open talk of a one and done playoff date. That is why this MNF game was big, not to mention the actual impact of this win on the standings and the bye week positioning. A tradition-rich, experienced and legitimate contender was coming to town, albeit with a hobbled superstar QB. By dominating them, the niners have reestablished themselves as a worthy playoff contender. Now the fan-base is convinced they can beat anybody at home - except the Packers that is. And they can even beat most NFC teams on the road, except the Packers and may be the Saints. They needed this confidence boost. The media and the fans had to truly believe that the niners are a true contender, but it was even more important for the players and the coaches to win a game of this magnitude for some positive reinforcement.
The niners defense is truly elite. The most amazing stat of the year is not all the gaudy numbers the QBs are putting up against soft pass defenses, but the fact that the niners have not allowed a single rushing TD in 14 games. It has gotten to a point where offenses have stopped trying to rush in the red zone against them. That's respect. As good as this defense is, it's hard to imagine them bottling up a Drew Brees or an Aaron Rodgers and that's why they were expected to be one and done in the playoffs unless the offense started scoring with some consistency. The best part of the Pittsburgh game for them is the fact that the offense showed up. Alex Smith looked more comfortable making some tough throws, though he did miss a few easy ones as always. They scored twice in the red zone and that was two times more than what they usually do. Of course, things are week-to-week in this league and the niners can come crashing back to earth next week at Seattle. The seahawks are no joke at home and the niners will have trouble, but they still needed this one against the steelers.
As for the rest of the NFL, it was a bizarro weekend as the packers finally lost at Kansas City of all places and the colts finally won against the Titans. New York had a rough weekend with the giants losing at home and the jets getting crushed by Philly. The eagles are surprisingly still alive in the muddled NFC East. Oakland had a rough 1-point loss at home and if not for the end of Tebow magic against Brady and the Belichicks, they would be in a world of trouble. They still are, but there is hope for the silver and black in a division that's tightening up every Sunday. The other big news of the weekend was Drew Brees abusing another defense and virtually assuring himself of besting Dan Marino's single season passing yardage record. This is the clearest sign yet that the game has become almost too easy for the QBs and the passing game over the last several years. Marino's record stood for 27 years, but now is under serious threat from 4 QBs, all in one season - Brees (for sure now), Brady, Rodgers and even Eli Manning. If that's not enough proof, Cam Newton is threatening Peyton Manning's rookie passing yardage record and he and Andy Dalton have become the first pair of rookies ever to pass for more than 3000 yards in a season. It must be hard playing corner-back or safety in the NFL these days. Imagine having to defend a Dan Marino every other week.
There has always been some doubt around the true elite status of the niners despite their impressive record. Unlike the other contenders in the NFC, they don't possess a great offense or a stud QB. Alex Smith's biggest critics are mostly niner fans given what they had to endure the last 7 years with him. So even the niner faithful didn't feel comfortable with the playoff prospects of this team and after the loss to Arizona last week, there was open talk of a one and done playoff date. That is why this MNF game was big, not to mention the actual impact of this win on the standings and the bye week positioning. A tradition-rich, experienced and legitimate contender was coming to town, albeit with a hobbled superstar QB. By dominating them, the niners have reestablished themselves as a worthy playoff contender. Now the fan-base is convinced they can beat anybody at home - except the Packers that is. And they can even beat most NFC teams on the road, except the Packers and may be the Saints. They needed this confidence boost. The media and the fans had to truly believe that the niners are a true contender, but it was even more important for the players and the coaches to win a game of this magnitude for some positive reinforcement.
The niners defense is truly elite. The most amazing stat of the year is not all the gaudy numbers the QBs are putting up against soft pass defenses, but the fact that the niners have not allowed a single rushing TD in 14 games. It has gotten to a point where offenses have stopped trying to rush in the red zone against them. That's respect. As good as this defense is, it's hard to imagine them bottling up a Drew Brees or an Aaron Rodgers and that's why they were expected to be one and done in the playoffs unless the offense started scoring with some consistency. The best part of the Pittsburgh game for them is the fact that the offense showed up. Alex Smith looked more comfortable making some tough throws, though he did miss a few easy ones as always. They scored twice in the red zone and that was two times more than what they usually do. Of course, things are week-to-week in this league and the niners can come crashing back to earth next week at Seattle. The seahawks are no joke at home and the niners will have trouble, but they still needed this one against the steelers.
As for the rest of the NFL, it was a bizarro weekend as the packers finally lost at Kansas City of all places and the colts finally won against the Titans. New York had a rough weekend with the giants losing at home and the jets getting crushed by Philly. The eagles are surprisingly still alive in the muddled NFC East. Oakland had a rough 1-point loss at home and if not for the end of Tebow magic against Brady and the Belichicks, they would be in a world of trouble. They still are, but there is hope for the silver and black in a division that's tightening up every Sunday. The other big news of the weekend was Drew Brees abusing another defense and virtually assuring himself of besting Dan Marino's single season passing yardage record. This is the clearest sign yet that the game has become almost too easy for the QBs and the passing game over the last several years. Marino's record stood for 27 years, but now is under serious threat from 4 QBs, all in one season - Brees (for sure now), Brady, Rodgers and even Eli Manning. If that's not enough proof, Cam Newton is threatening Peyton Manning's rookie passing yardage record and he and Andy Dalton have become the first pair of rookies ever to pass for more than 3000 yards in a season. It must be hard playing corner-back or safety in the NFL these days. Imagine having to defend a Dan Marino every other week.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Off Season Fun
Sometimes in sports you have days during the off-season when there is so much activity and excitement around trades, free agent signings and assorted discussions that you feel like you are having more fun than being in-season. Yesterday was one of those days as both baseball and basketball featured some big news around player movement. First, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim signed Albert Pujols to a 10 year 254 million dollar contract. It should be tough for Pujols to stomach just a 254 million dollar contract considering his agent was angling for 300 mill at one point! But in all seriousness, it's amazing teams are still throwing that kind of money at stars. We all thought the days of 250 million dollar contracts are over in MLB since the twice disastrous A-Rod signings. But always count on a owner or a team to go above and beyond and shock you. To be fair to Pujols, if anybody can command that rage of salary in this day and age, it's probably a generational hitter like him. With that said, I don't like this signing and the Angels will regret this sooner than later.
The Angels are a big market team with deep pockets. They just signed a 20 year TV deal with Fox sports for 3 billion showing us how these big money teams work and why they even take these risks. But I still don't like this signing. Pujols is great, and he has had phenomenal numbers since his first year with the Cardinals in 2001. He spent 11 amazingly consistent seasons in St. Louis and hit .300 with 30 home runs and 100 RBIs every single year except the last one - in 2011, he had 99 RBIs and batted .299, narrowly missing the bar. But he is suspected to be a couple of years older than his reported age and he will slow down way before the 10 years runs out on this contract. He can be a DH in the AL, but he won't be worthy of 25 mill in another 5 or 6 years. Also, the problem with baseball is, you need more than a superstar or 2 to be able to win. We see more and more "teams" winning the world series rather than individuals and stars. Yankees may be the exception to that rule, but then they can afford a team of superstars each making around 20 mill.
Of course pitching is an essential ingredient too and the Angles do have that - for now. They even signed C.J.Wilson in another big money signing yesterday. But, can one 25 million dollar hitter carry your entire lineup? If he doesn't, can you go and sign another 15 or 18 million dollar hitter? The answer here is a "no" for most teams and this is the difference between the Yankees and the others in my opinion. You probably knew the Yankees pay almost 15 mill a year to Jeter, but did you know that he was their 6-Th highest paid player in 2011? A-Rod, CC, Tex, A.J and Mo pulled a bigger paycheck than him and Posada was not far behind. I doubt if Angels can do that. That's why deals like these are too risky and bad deals for most teams. It's sure to disappoint unless everything goes perfect. I expect this deal to look bad in 2 years and downright horrible in 5. As an A's fan, it is disappointing to see both the Angels and the Rangers involved in an arms race with rumors of the Mariners jumping in for Prince Fielder. The A's may have nothing to offer next year in this division, but I don't think the Angels are all set for the future either with Pujols. Lets see if my crystal ball works.
Bad deals and big market spending splurges are common in baseball, but are not foreign to the NBA either. I have always maintained that the NBA's system is way better than MLB's and may be even the NFL's, but the league still needed a protracted lockout to tweak things. One reason for that is, the NBA just does not break the bank like the NFL does. But the owners also need to be saved from their own stupidity just like in baseball. The NBA also has a new problem. I call it the LBJ syndrome. Since LeBron James engineered an exit to Miami to play with his chosen superstar teammates, everybody is beginning to do the same. Stars - whether Albert Pujols or LeBron James, always had leverage, but the NBA stars are beginning to hand-pick exactly the town and teammates and it's getting to be ridiculous. First it was the whole LeBron saga, then Melo and Amare ended up in NY. And at least some part of the lockout was about competitive balance and parity. So I thought it was funny that the first wave of news out of the lockout was all about Chris Paul and Dwight Howard ending up in LA with the Lakers. So much for NBA parity and change.
And then the trade for Chris Paul apparently happens with Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol ending up in different towns. That's when something even more bizarre happened. The commish vetoed the trade. This totally opened up a can of worms to say the least. Everybody has an opinion on this and it's going in all directions. The only reason the league could step in is because they technically own the Hornets in a strange arrangement. So the other owners all own a piece of this franchise and when they objected, the commish (over) reacted. To me, there are only 2 issues with the veto. If all the owners collectively own the Hornets, are the Hornets supposed to do whats best for the Hornets or whats best for all the owners? If the owners want to do whats best for all of them and if they think not sending CP3 to the Lakers is good for them, then do it by all means. But to me, it feels like the only way to manage this setup is to let the Hornets operate independently and do whats good for that team. Believe me, this trade was not bad at all for the Hornets. If the owners should have vetoed any trade involving the Lakers, it was the Pau Gasol one with Memphis a few years back.
This trade was fair for all the parties, In fact, I have seen many "best back-courts ever" fail miserably and the Lakers acquiring it at the cost of Gasol and a lot of size is neither here nor there. Of course, these days we all have a soft-corner for new super-teams because they can probably keep the original super-team - the hated Miami Heat away from winning it all. The Paul trade in and of itself didn't scare me all that much. But the Lakers were also just setting up to go after Dwight Howard and that would have been a scary super-team down the road. The owners were hot and bothered about the rich getting richer, but the Lakers in this case are just able to get Paul because they know he will re-sign there and hence can afford the risk of renting him in his free agent year. There's no way to prevent it when they are a storied franchise in a big market with a lot of money and Kobe Bryant. Life is always going to be unfair. I don't mind the owners trying to make it as fair as they can, but they over-reacted in this case coming out of a contentious lockout. The bigger problem here is the LBJ syndrome like I said - Dwight Howard is now saying he wants to be traded to the Nets. You can try to solve it with systemic changes, which I hope they did with the new CBA. But they can't eliminate it right away and they can't do it right here, right now when the LBJ syndrome is at it's peak. And they definitely shouldn't use their flawed arrangement with the Hornets to try and accomplish that.
The Angels are a big market team with deep pockets. They just signed a 20 year TV deal with Fox sports for 3 billion showing us how these big money teams work and why they even take these risks. But I still don't like this signing. Pujols is great, and he has had phenomenal numbers since his first year with the Cardinals in 2001. He spent 11 amazingly consistent seasons in St. Louis and hit .300 with 30 home runs and 100 RBIs every single year except the last one - in 2011, he had 99 RBIs and batted .299, narrowly missing the bar. But he is suspected to be a couple of years older than his reported age and he will slow down way before the 10 years runs out on this contract. He can be a DH in the AL, but he won't be worthy of 25 mill in another 5 or 6 years. Also, the problem with baseball is, you need more than a superstar or 2 to be able to win. We see more and more "teams" winning the world series rather than individuals and stars. Yankees may be the exception to that rule, but then they can afford a team of superstars each making around 20 mill.
Of course pitching is an essential ingredient too and the Angles do have that - for now. They even signed C.J.Wilson in another big money signing yesterday. But, can one 25 million dollar hitter carry your entire lineup? If he doesn't, can you go and sign another 15 or 18 million dollar hitter? The answer here is a "no" for most teams and this is the difference between the Yankees and the others in my opinion. You probably knew the Yankees pay almost 15 mill a year to Jeter, but did you know that he was their 6-Th highest paid player in 2011? A-Rod, CC, Tex, A.J and Mo pulled a bigger paycheck than him and Posada was not far behind. I doubt if Angels can do that. That's why deals like these are too risky and bad deals for most teams. It's sure to disappoint unless everything goes perfect. I expect this deal to look bad in 2 years and downright horrible in 5. As an A's fan, it is disappointing to see both the Angels and the Rangers involved in an arms race with rumors of the Mariners jumping in for Prince Fielder. The A's may have nothing to offer next year in this division, but I don't think the Angels are all set for the future either with Pujols. Lets see if my crystal ball works.
Bad deals and big market spending splurges are common in baseball, but are not foreign to the NBA either. I have always maintained that the NBA's system is way better than MLB's and may be even the NFL's, but the league still needed a protracted lockout to tweak things. One reason for that is, the NBA just does not break the bank like the NFL does. But the owners also need to be saved from their own stupidity just like in baseball. The NBA also has a new problem. I call it the LBJ syndrome. Since LeBron James engineered an exit to Miami to play with his chosen superstar teammates, everybody is beginning to do the same. Stars - whether Albert Pujols or LeBron James, always had leverage, but the NBA stars are beginning to hand-pick exactly the town and teammates and it's getting to be ridiculous. First it was the whole LeBron saga, then Melo and Amare ended up in NY. And at least some part of the lockout was about competitive balance and parity. So I thought it was funny that the first wave of news out of the lockout was all about Chris Paul and Dwight Howard ending up in LA with the Lakers. So much for NBA parity and change.
And then the trade for Chris Paul apparently happens with Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol ending up in different towns. That's when something even more bizarre happened. The commish vetoed the trade. This totally opened up a can of worms to say the least. Everybody has an opinion on this and it's going in all directions. The only reason the league could step in is because they technically own the Hornets in a strange arrangement. So the other owners all own a piece of this franchise and when they objected, the commish (over) reacted. To me, there are only 2 issues with the veto. If all the owners collectively own the Hornets, are the Hornets supposed to do whats best for the Hornets or whats best for all the owners? If the owners want to do whats best for all of them and if they think not sending CP3 to the Lakers is good for them, then do it by all means. But to me, it feels like the only way to manage this setup is to let the Hornets operate independently and do whats good for that team. Believe me, this trade was not bad at all for the Hornets. If the owners should have vetoed any trade involving the Lakers, it was the Pau Gasol one with Memphis a few years back.
This trade was fair for all the parties, In fact, I have seen many "best back-courts ever" fail miserably and the Lakers acquiring it at the cost of Gasol and a lot of size is neither here nor there. Of course, these days we all have a soft-corner for new super-teams because they can probably keep the original super-team - the hated Miami Heat away from winning it all. The Paul trade in and of itself didn't scare me all that much. But the Lakers were also just setting up to go after Dwight Howard and that would have been a scary super-team down the road. The owners were hot and bothered about the rich getting richer, but the Lakers in this case are just able to get Paul because they know he will re-sign there and hence can afford the risk of renting him in his free agent year. There's no way to prevent it when they are a storied franchise in a big market with a lot of money and Kobe Bryant. Life is always going to be unfair. I don't mind the owners trying to make it as fair as they can, but they over-reacted in this case coming out of a contentious lockout. The bigger problem here is the LBJ syndrome like I said - Dwight Howard is now saying he wants to be traded to the Nets. You can try to solve it with systemic changes, which I hope they did with the new CBA. But they can't eliminate it right away and they can't do it right here, right now when the LBJ syndrome is at it's peak. And they definitely shouldn't use their flawed arrangement with the Hornets to try and accomplish that.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose
"Friday Night Lights" is a critically acclaimed sports movie, TV series and originally a book. One of the best lines from it is "clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose". I am constantly reminded of it when I watch Tim Tebow. He has been THE story of this NFL season since he started playing and it just keeps getting better for him and the Broncos. His record is 6-1 and today at Minnesota, he even demonstrated his passing skills. Another game on the road, another late-game thriller, another comeback performance and another win. Tebow sure seems to have clear eyes - he rarely throws interceptions and this may not be the most complicated or sexiest explanation, but his low turnover number is one of the main reasons behind Denver's success. We know he has a full heart. Actually he is all heart, toughness and grit. Also, his heart is probably filled with Jesus too. Tebow seems like a really well-behaved kid committed to his faith. And of course he sure can't lose right now. Denver right now is convinced that there is no way they can lose a football game and I don't blame them.
I have no dog in this fight, but I still can't look away. That's the power of this Tim Tebow story. I am not a Denver fan. As a matter of fact, I have not liked them all that much since the day they kicked Jake Plummer - my favorite Sun Devil, out of town. I know that a lot of people are Tebow fans and want to see him succeed just because of his (and their) religious faith. But I am not religious like him and hence that's not an endearing factor for me. I do like him because he seems like a decent, well-behaved and humble human being, but his journey this season is fascinating to follow regardless of your affiliations. On the one hand, you have people who think he is God's gift to football who can win any game just with his intangibles and on the other hand, you have football experts who say he can't throw the ball to save his life. And Tebow is constantly proving both sides right! He is winning in unconventional ways and when you are quarterbacking a team to a 6-1 record after taking over at 1-4, it can't all be an accident or a lucky coincidence. He deserves more than some credit.
It almost feels disappointing if he has a good game and they win like he did today. It's a much better story if he wins while just completing 2 passes or throwing for just 60 yards or something crazy like that. He seems to be winning in all these different ways and has the Broncos leading the division. A team that at one point was the worst team in the division is now tied with the Raiders and is leading via the tie-breaker. That division has completely flipped in 12 games with Denver on top and San Diego at the bottom. The Raiders had an embarrassing loss today at Miami. With most of Oakland's talented offensive play-makers hurt, and with their trip to Lambeau coming up, this may become Tebow's division to lose. Raiders are a better team - especially on offense, but Carson Palmer is definitely missing his speedy receivers and they need Darren McFadden back. Plus Denver's schedule is slightly easier than Oakland's. Raiders are officially in a dog fight and their home losses to Kansas City and Denver may come back to bite them.
At the end of the day, AFC West will be won by the team that has clear eyes, full hearts that refuses to lose.
I have no dog in this fight, but I still can't look away. That's the power of this Tim Tebow story. I am not a Denver fan. As a matter of fact, I have not liked them all that much since the day they kicked Jake Plummer - my favorite Sun Devil, out of town. I know that a lot of people are Tebow fans and want to see him succeed just because of his (and their) religious faith. But I am not religious like him and hence that's not an endearing factor for me. I do like him because he seems like a decent, well-behaved and humble human being, but his journey this season is fascinating to follow regardless of your affiliations. On the one hand, you have people who think he is God's gift to football who can win any game just with his intangibles and on the other hand, you have football experts who say he can't throw the ball to save his life. And Tebow is constantly proving both sides right! He is winning in unconventional ways and when you are quarterbacking a team to a 6-1 record after taking over at 1-4, it can't all be an accident or a lucky coincidence. He deserves more than some credit.
It almost feels disappointing if he has a good game and they win like he did today. It's a much better story if he wins while just completing 2 passes or throwing for just 60 yards or something crazy like that. He seems to be winning in all these different ways and has the Broncos leading the division. A team that at one point was the worst team in the division is now tied with the Raiders and is leading via the tie-breaker. That division has completely flipped in 12 games with Denver on top and San Diego at the bottom. The Raiders had an embarrassing loss today at Miami. With most of Oakland's talented offensive play-makers hurt, and with their trip to Lambeau coming up, this may become Tebow's division to lose. Raiders are a better team - especially on offense, but Carson Palmer is definitely missing his speedy receivers and they need Darren McFadden back. Plus Denver's schedule is slightly easier than Oakland's. Raiders are officially in a dog fight and their home losses to Kansas City and Denver may come back to bite them.
At the end of the day, AFC West will be won by the team that has clear eyes, full hearts that refuses to lose.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
HarBowl
All the talk in the NFL right now is about the HarBowl on Thanksgiving night. The niners are playing the Ravens and the Harbaugh brothers are (head) coaching against each other for the first time. NFL put this game on Thursday night for this storyline, but now this contest is also a premier game of the week since the niners are much better than expected under Jim. Not only are they good, they actually have a better record than the Ravens at 9-1. The Ravens are still the favorites here since the game is at Baltimore and since the jury is still out on the niners. San Francisco's defense is definitely great, but their offense - especially the passing game is still shaky. The Ravens are inconsistent themselves, but their offensive talent is a little more legit than the niners. If the niners win this game on a short week, we better put them in the contender circle for good. They are not Packers yet - no team is. But this game can establish them firmly in the second tier with the other good teams. They will still not have a Drew Brees or Tom Brady playing QB for them, but they may have the best defense in a league without many dominant defenses this season and that should count for something. This game should be a great night-cap on Thanksgiving.
The day games feature the usual dates in Dallas and Detroit, but Detroit is good this year for a change. This makes the turkey day games really interesting as all 6 teams involved won last week. Of course, Dallas should still win against Miami easily, but the Dolphins have been playing way better lately. Undefeated Green Bay is going into Detroit and that should be a good one. Nobody will be surprised if the Packers lose as Detroit will be up and ready for this one against their division rival. Detroit had a great game last weekend and they might have even found a running game in Kevin Smith. The NFC north has some of the best arms in the league with Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers and the now injured Jay Cutler. This game should feature a lot of bombs from both QBs and should be a lot of fun. The Bears were playing really well too and it's too bad Cutler is hurt. Denver released Kyle Orton - a former Chicago Bear, today. It's a smart move. They are hoping Chicago will pick him up and pay the rest of his salary saving Denver some cash. John Elway decided to cut Orton, but is still refusing to completely endorse Tim Tebow. Elway seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place.
In college, USC beat Oregon by a field goal to put the BCS in a high-speed spin cycle. Now the top 3 teams are all from the SEC and the prospect of a Alabama-LSU rematch looms large. Arkansas is third and they play LSU next. Things will get really interesting and confusing if Arkansas upsets LSU and Alabama wins the iron bowl against Auburn. In that case, Arkansas has to be ahead of LSU and LSU beat Alabama. But Alabama can't drop from 2 to 3 after a win against Auburn. Also Alabama has already beaten Arkansas. This means Alabama will jump to 1, Arkansas 2 and LSU 3. This is not because that's how they rank on the field, but because that's the ranking that looks the least stupid. If this is not an argument for a playoffs, nothing else can be. I am not a BCS hater. In a non-playoff world, BCS is a decent effort to implement a system, but it just doesn't work because it's dealing with a problem that is intractable. So you need a playoff and you need to decide all this on the field. But I have to add that I do see the argument that playoffs will dilute the value of these weekly games. If there was a playoffs down the road, I will not care all that much about the LSU-Arkansas match-up this weekend. The fact that this game can eliminate LSU does adds a lot of juice to the contest and that's not a bad thing. But that juice is not worth all the squeeze and we need the playoffs in College football, period.
The day games feature the usual dates in Dallas and Detroit, but Detroit is good this year for a change. This makes the turkey day games really interesting as all 6 teams involved won last week. Of course, Dallas should still win against Miami easily, but the Dolphins have been playing way better lately. Undefeated Green Bay is going into Detroit and that should be a good one. Nobody will be surprised if the Packers lose as Detroit will be up and ready for this one against their division rival. Detroit had a great game last weekend and they might have even found a running game in Kevin Smith. The NFC north has some of the best arms in the league with Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers and the now injured Jay Cutler. This game should feature a lot of bombs from both QBs and should be a lot of fun. The Bears were playing really well too and it's too bad Cutler is hurt. Denver released Kyle Orton - a former Chicago Bear, today. It's a smart move. They are hoping Chicago will pick him up and pay the rest of his salary saving Denver some cash. John Elway decided to cut Orton, but is still refusing to completely endorse Tim Tebow. Elway seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place.
In college, USC beat Oregon by a field goal to put the BCS in a high-speed spin cycle. Now the top 3 teams are all from the SEC and the prospect of a Alabama-LSU rematch looms large. Arkansas is third and they play LSU next. Things will get really interesting and confusing if Arkansas upsets LSU and Alabama wins the iron bowl against Auburn. In that case, Arkansas has to be ahead of LSU and LSU beat Alabama. But Alabama can't drop from 2 to 3 after a win against Auburn. Also Alabama has already beaten Arkansas. This means Alabama will jump to 1, Arkansas 2 and LSU 3. This is not because that's how they rank on the field, but because that's the ranking that looks the least stupid. If this is not an argument for a playoffs, nothing else can be. I am not a BCS hater. In a non-playoff world, BCS is a decent effort to implement a system, but it just doesn't work because it's dealing with a problem that is intractable. So you need a playoff and you need to decide all this on the field. But I have to add that I do see the argument that playoffs will dilute the value of these weekly games. If there was a playoffs down the road, I will not care all that much about the LSU-Arkansas match-up this weekend. The fact that this game can eliminate LSU does adds a lot of juice to the contest and that's not a bad thing. But that juice is not worth all the squeeze and we need the playoffs in College football, period.
Monday, November 14, 2011
It just takes 2 to win
There are many interesting stories from the sports weekend, but none more fascinating than what happened in the Denver Broncos game at Kansas City. Tim Tebow won a game as the starting quarterback by completing just 2 passes out of 8 attempts. You heard that right and that has never happened in the history of the league. A professional quarterback won a NFL game by completing just 2 passes the entire game. Sure, one of that was for a 56 yard TD, but how do you win a game completing just 2 passes? May be Tebow does have God on his side. May be he has good karma going for him since he seems like a decent human being. Of course it helps the Chiefs just threw for 140 yards themselves and it took 2 QBs to accomplish that as Matt Cassel might be out for the season with an injury. But seriously, even I am beginning to believe in some of that Tebow magic and the supposed intangibles he brings to the table - the "it" factor. That's the only way to explain the stats behind this win. That and the fact that Denver has suddenly become a top-tier rushing offense. They rushed for over 244 yards and Tebow himself ran effectively as always. They have changed their offense to suit Tebow and are now 3-1 with him as the starting QB. He still doesn't look like a NFL quality QB, but does he have to if can beat teams with 2 completions?
Speaking of elite QBs, tonight on MNF, Aaron Rodgers and the Packers dismantled the Vikings as expected to go 9-0. The Packers offense looks as smooth as a hot knife through soft butter and there is no stopping them - at least not yet, definitely not tonight. I didn't expect this game to be competitive and didn't even care to watch it closely and the Packers proved me right. Rodgers is going to shred some records this season and the only question is, which ones. The weather is going to get worse soon on the East coast in general and in Green Bay in particular, but I don't think it's going to matter a whole lot with this offense. They are the exact opposite of the Denver Broncos right now. The Packers don't run the ball all that well, but they don't seem to have any need to. The Niners surprisingly own the second best record in the league after beating the Giants on Sunday. The jury is still out on how elite the Niners are despite their 8-1 record, but they do have a good defense and might end up with a bye week in the playoffs and just one more home win in the playoffs might take them to Lambeau field in January for a NFC championship game. Can Jim Harbaugh and the Niners cash this season in for a date with the Packers deep in the playoffs? This is going to be a very interesting question the rest of the way in the NFC.
In the AFC, the Patriots beat the Jets to shut Rex Ryan up possibly for good this season. They are 5-4 and are not a horrible 3-6 like the "Dream Team" Eagles, but they are looking up at too many teams and may not make it to the big dance if Mark Sanchez keeps playing like this. Their defense is definitely overrated. The AFC is a little messy right now. Ravens seem to be able to beat only the Steelers and the Steelers look great except when they play the Ravens. Patriots had fallen off from their pedestal only to bounce back against the Jets. All this led to some talk about the Houston Texans possibly being the best team in the AFC. Too bad that this talk was followed by the news that Matt Schaub may be done for the season. It seems like the Texans and Schaub are some kind of jinxed. We have been waiting for them to bust out and it seems like they may not make it even this year unless Matt Leinart plays halfway decent. We will find out next week. With the NBA staring at a "nuclear winter", we have to start focusing on college basketball way before March to keep us occupied between the NFL games. Glad there is Thursday night football the rest of the way. Speaking of college, Stanford lost to Oregon in football and that pretty much ends their and Luck's BCS aspirations. Boise State lost as well and we may end up with another LSU-Alabama game for the championship. Nobody wants it, but we might just get it.
Speaking of elite QBs, tonight on MNF, Aaron Rodgers and the Packers dismantled the Vikings as expected to go 9-0. The Packers offense looks as smooth as a hot knife through soft butter and there is no stopping them - at least not yet, definitely not tonight. I didn't expect this game to be competitive and didn't even care to watch it closely and the Packers proved me right. Rodgers is going to shred some records this season and the only question is, which ones. The weather is going to get worse soon on the East coast in general and in Green Bay in particular, but I don't think it's going to matter a whole lot with this offense. They are the exact opposite of the Denver Broncos right now. The Packers don't run the ball all that well, but they don't seem to have any need to. The Niners surprisingly own the second best record in the league after beating the Giants on Sunday. The jury is still out on how elite the Niners are despite their 8-1 record, but they do have a good defense and might end up with a bye week in the playoffs and just one more home win in the playoffs might take them to Lambeau field in January for a NFC championship game. Can Jim Harbaugh and the Niners cash this season in for a date with the Packers deep in the playoffs? This is going to be a very interesting question the rest of the way in the NFC.
In the AFC, the Patriots beat the Jets to shut Rex Ryan up possibly for good this season. They are 5-4 and are not a horrible 3-6 like the "Dream Team" Eagles, but they are looking up at too many teams and may not make it to the big dance if Mark Sanchez keeps playing like this. Their defense is definitely overrated. The AFC is a little messy right now. Ravens seem to be able to beat only the Steelers and the Steelers look great except when they play the Ravens. Patriots had fallen off from their pedestal only to bounce back against the Jets. All this led to some talk about the Houston Texans possibly being the best team in the AFC. Too bad that this talk was followed by the news that Matt Schaub may be done for the season. It seems like the Texans and Schaub are some kind of jinxed. We have been waiting for them to bust out and it seems like they may not make it even this year unless Matt Leinart plays halfway decent. We will find out next week. With the NBA staring at a "nuclear winter", we have to start focusing on college basketball way before March to keep us occupied between the NFL games. Glad there is Thursday night football the rest of the way. Speaking of college, Stanford lost to Oregon in football and that pretty much ends their and Luck's BCS aspirations. Boise State lost as well and we may end up with another LSU-Alabama game for the championship. Nobody wants it, but we might just get it.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Action is always better than inaction
The dust is slowly settling down on the sad and disturbing sex scandal at Penn State University. The scandal has erased the 46 year coaching career of Joe Paterno in a matter of days. There are several lessons in this sordid saga, but if there is one takeaway from Joe Pa's firing, it is that action is always better than inaction, especially when the aforementioned action can prevent some bad things from happening to innocent people. The disgusting part of this story and what got Joe Pa fired is how little people did to help the helpless kids and how easily and for how long Jerry Sandusky got away with some of the gravest crimes you could think of. If you read the grand jury report, you see how many people - big and small, were made aware of the sexual abuse over many years and they all did next to nothing. Given his power and influence, Joe Pa had to be fired for not having done more to stop this pedophile.
All the people who saw Sandusky do those despicable things should be ashamed of themselves for not reacting the way they should have. Not acting or reporting Sandusky to the authorities not only let him off the hook that one time and hurt that one kid, but it probably gave him more confidence and encouragement to continue perpetrating his crimes. He then begins to think, "people have seen me do these horrible things right here in the Penn State locker room and I am still not in jail, let alone not yet killed or even punched in the face!" So his fear and shame reduces and he continues to do more of the same. These guys basically empowered a pedophile. This is why we should always act when we can stop something bad. Always act when we can do something good. Inaction only makes bad things worse and worse things vile. It is somewhat sad to see Joe Pa go out this way after all these years. It's never fun to see a legend fall like that. But he had to go because he failed to do all he could to protect the kids.
Speaking of vile, Google's example for the usage of the word is "as vile a rogue as ever lived". They should put Jerry Sandusky's face next to it. It is indeed the best description of him. It is pretty obvious from the grand jury report that this guy had a method and a scheme for meeting, befriending and abusing kids and he deployed this pattern repeatedly. He used Penn State's football program and his access to it's resources as an effective tool in the process. This is why Penn State looks really bad. Even if Penn state was not aware of a lot of the details, they had enough to treat him as a "suspect" since 1998 and they still didn't do anything and let kids get assaulted right under their nose for many years. What were they waiting for? There is no conceivable answer to this question and that's exactly why everybody from Joe Pa to the President of the university have been fired.
As if this scandal is not dirty enough, the fact that Sandusky used a charitable foundation for kids called The Second Mile to meet and recruit his victims makes me sick to my stomach. That's just messed up. And the story can apparently get even worse if you believe all the ugly rumors floating around and I don't even want to go there. It's easy to sit on our couch and judge everybody from Joe Pa to Mike McQueary to the AD and the president. But if we find ourselves in such situations, I hope we all do the right thing. Lets use this scandal to reinforce the value of positive action, integrity and strength of character. There are no substitutes for these. Sometimes in life, silence and walking away may appear like the easy way out, but abdicating our responsibility never works. It only leads to more problems and headaches down the road, not to mention that you shouldn't be able to walk away with a clear conscience in the first place. Untimely silence will even get you fired for a crime you didn't commit and Joe Pa can attest to that.
All the people who saw Sandusky do those despicable things should be ashamed of themselves for not reacting the way they should have. Not acting or reporting Sandusky to the authorities not only let him off the hook that one time and hurt that one kid, but it probably gave him more confidence and encouragement to continue perpetrating his crimes. He then begins to think, "people have seen me do these horrible things right here in the Penn State locker room and I am still not in jail, let alone not yet killed or even punched in the face!" So his fear and shame reduces and he continues to do more of the same. These guys basically empowered a pedophile. This is why we should always act when we can stop something bad. Always act when we can do something good. Inaction only makes bad things worse and worse things vile. It is somewhat sad to see Joe Pa go out this way after all these years. It's never fun to see a legend fall like that. But he had to go because he failed to do all he could to protect the kids.
Speaking of vile, Google's example for the usage of the word is "as vile a rogue as ever lived". They should put Jerry Sandusky's face next to it. It is indeed the best description of him. It is pretty obvious from the grand jury report that this guy had a method and a scheme for meeting, befriending and abusing kids and he deployed this pattern repeatedly. He used Penn State's football program and his access to it's resources as an effective tool in the process. This is why Penn State looks really bad. Even if Penn state was not aware of a lot of the details, they had enough to treat him as a "suspect" since 1998 and they still didn't do anything and let kids get assaulted right under their nose for many years. What were they waiting for? There is no conceivable answer to this question and that's exactly why everybody from Joe Pa to the President of the university have been fired.
As if this scandal is not dirty enough, the fact that Sandusky used a charitable foundation for kids called The Second Mile to meet and recruit his victims makes me sick to my stomach. That's just messed up. And the story can apparently get even worse if you believe all the ugly rumors floating around and I don't even want to go there. It's easy to sit on our couch and judge everybody from Joe Pa to Mike McQueary to the AD and the president. But if we find ourselves in such situations, I hope we all do the right thing. Lets use this scandal to reinforce the value of positive action, integrity and strength of character. There are no substitutes for these. Sometimes in life, silence and walking away may appear like the easy way out, but abdicating our responsibility never works. It only leads to more problems and headaches down the road, not to mention that you shouldn't be able to walk away with a clear conscience in the first place. Untimely silence will even get you fired for a crime you didn't commit and Joe Pa can attest to that.
Monday, November 07, 2011
Game of the century was mising a QB
The highlight of the sports weekend was supposed to be the LSU-Alabama college football game. ESPN has been hyping it for over 2 weeks and even called it the game of the century - partly in jest, but they were also semi-serious. The game itself was not bad. It was close as LSU won it 9-6 in overtime. That's 15 points total from 2 teams and they needed OT to do that. I understand the defenses are good, but the offenses were horrible. For all their greatness, these 2 SEC teams have no offense or a QB worth looking at. It's ironic that this game comes a couple of week after the 49ers defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois said that Stanford QB Andrew Luck's stock would drop if he played against a SEC defense. He may be right, but how can SEC teams dominate their league without any decent QB? Also, how great are these SEC defenses anyways if the quality of the QBs they are facing, at least this year, is so bad?
The somewhat unfortunate truth is that defense wins championships and a SEC team may very well win the BCS championship this year too, propelled by the athletes playing defense. But they need a good QB and a decent offense to test them out. That's not happening in-conference this year and it definitely didn't happen in that game last Saturday. Now the national focus moves to the Bay Area as Stanford is hosting Oregon this weekend in their toughest test of the year. If they win, they stay undefeated and move closer to a BCS championship appearance for Andrew Luck. Oklahoma state is undefeated too, but the conventional wisdom says that they will eventually lose to Oklahoma, though that game is at home. Let's see if Luck pulls it off against the speedy ducks and get us all closer to a SEC-Pac 12, offense-defense culture clash for the championship.
In the NFL, interesting unpredictability continued. This is one of the main reasons for NFL's popularity - upsets like the Saints losing to the Rams last week. Parity results in weird results sometimes and this week was no different. The real head scratchers were Denver's win at Oakland, Miami embarrassing Kansas City and to some extent, Chicago beating Philly tonight. The Eagles and the Bears are not that far apart talent-wise, but after last week's demolition of the Cowboys, people were ready to re-anoint the Eagles as the Dream team. So it was pretty impressive that the Bears went into Philadelphia and took all that momentum away. Both Jay Cutler and Matt Forte are playing very well right now. As for the Eagles, they are done. They may have to go 7-1 or something to have a shot at the playoffs. Doable, but not practical because they are already 3 games behind a good Giants team for the Division and 3 games behind a good Lions team for the wild card.
Just when the entire NFL was ready to kick Tim Tebow out of the league, the Broncos beat the Raiders on the road and ran all over them. Tebow didn't pass great, but he ran very well and also threw for 2 TDs against a Raiders defense that played extraordinarily bad. They let some of Tebow's receivers roam around wide-open in those TD drives and they could not stop either Tebow or Willis McGghee on the ground. They didn't just give up 8 or 10 yards every play, they seemed to get gashed for 20 to 60 yards a pop in that second half. The only explanation I can come up with is, the Raiders disrespected Tebow's passing prowess so much that they put 8 or 9 guys around the line of scrimmage and that actually hurt them. It made things easy for the Broncos receivers and the running game found huge, open lanes if they got past the first level of defense around the line, which they seemed to do repeatedly in that second half.
Tough game for Carson Palmer who made some good throws and looked decent. I am sure the media would have been very high on his performance if he had won because he had impressive numbers - more than 300 yards and 3 TDs. But without that win, his 3 interceptions stand out. Good for Oakland that both Kansas City and San Diego lost too. They have to regroup in 3 days and play the Chargers to open the Thursday night schedule. I was also slightly surprised at the NY teams winning on the road. The Jets won at Buffalo and Giants won at New England in a game that resembled their Super Bowl contest from a few years back. Joe Flacco led the Ravens to an impressive road win at Pittsburgh to stop some of their momentum. That division is heating up. With all that said, the biggest news in sports right now is also it's ugliest. The sex abuse scandal at Penn state is shocking and lets wait for more details before making judgments.
The somewhat unfortunate truth is that defense wins championships and a SEC team may very well win the BCS championship this year too, propelled by the athletes playing defense. But they need a good QB and a decent offense to test them out. That's not happening in-conference this year and it definitely didn't happen in that game last Saturday. Now the national focus moves to the Bay Area as Stanford is hosting Oregon this weekend in their toughest test of the year. If they win, they stay undefeated and move closer to a BCS championship appearance for Andrew Luck. Oklahoma state is undefeated too, but the conventional wisdom says that they will eventually lose to Oklahoma, though that game is at home. Let's see if Luck pulls it off against the speedy ducks and get us all closer to a SEC-Pac 12, offense-defense culture clash for the championship.
In the NFL, interesting unpredictability continued. This is one of the main reasons for NFL's popularity - upsets like the Saints losing to the Rams last week. Parity results in weird results sometimes and this week was no different. The real head scratchers were Denver's win at Oakland, Miami embarrassing Kansas City and to some extent, Chicago beating Philly tonight. The Eagles and the Bears are not that far apart talent-wise, but after last week's demolition of the Cowboys, people were ready to re-anoint the Eagles as the Dream team. So it was pretty impressive that the Bears went into Philadelphia and took all that momentum away. Both Jay Cutler and Matt Forte are playing very well right now. As for the Eagles, they are done. They may have to go 7-1 or something to have a shot at the playoffs. Doable, but not practical because they are already 3 games behind a good Giants team for the Division and 3 games behind a good Lions team for the wild card.
Just when the entire NFL was ready to kick Tim Tebow out of the league, the Broncos beat the Raiders on the road and ran all over them. Tebow didn't pass great, but he ran very well and also threw for 2 TDs against a Raiders defense that played extraordinarily bad. They let some of Tebow's receivers roam around wide-open in those TD drives and they could not stop either Tebow or Willis McGghee on the ground. They didn't just give up 8 or 10 yards every play, they seemed to get gashed for 20 to 60 yards a pop in that second half. The only explanation I can come up with is, the Raiders disrespected Tebow's passing prowess so much that they put 8 or 9 guys around the line of scrimmage and that actually hurt them. It made things easy for the Broncos receivers and the running game found huge, open lanes if they got past the first level of defense around the line, which they seemed to do repeatedly in that second half.
Tough game for Carson Palmer who made some good throws and looked decent. I am sure the media would have been very high on his performance if he had won because he had impressive numbers - more than 300 yards and 3 TDs. But without that win, his 3 interceptions stand out. Good for Oakland that both Kansas City and San Diego lost too. They have to regroup in 3 days and play the Chargers to open the Thursday night schedule. I was also slightly surprised at the NY teams winning on the road. The Jets won at Buffalo and Giants won at New England in a game that resembled their Super Bowl contest from a few years back. Joe Flacco led the Ravens to an impressive road win at Pittsburgh to stop some of their momentum. That division is heating up. With all that said, the biggest news in sports right now is also it's ugliest. The sex abuse scandal at Penn state is shocking and lets wait for more details before making judgments.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Tony La Russ is gone, Andrew Luck is on.
The World Series is over and this is when the NBA typically starts up and fills up our sports calendar. But that's not to be this year as the NBA lockout has already taken away the month of November from us. It's now starting to hit the fans where it hurts and that's not good for the NBA long term. Until last weekend, we had the world series and it got more interesting as it went on. That game 6 when the cardinals came back from 2 runs down twice with just a strike away from elimination both times was amazing. I would have said that something like that will never happen, but we all saw it actually happen. That resulted in a game 7 and of course game 7's are always fun and exciting. The rangers couldn't recover after that tough game 6 loss and Chris Carpenter sealed the deal. I felt bad for Ron Washington - world series losses 2 years in a row, but that cruel game 6 loss made it much worse. There was also the cute story of Davide Freese, a local St. Louis kid, ending up as both the NLCS and the world series MVP. He sure is living the dream right now. The biggest news though was the retirement of Tony La Russa. We will miss him. An innovator like that is hard to find in baseball dugouts more so than in other sports.
The world series ushered us into the weekend and of course football took over as always. Stanford went into USC and played a whale of a game. Andrew Luck is an absolute stud. He threw a pick-6 very late in the 4-Th and still managed to bring them back to tie the game and later won it in 3 overtimes. He looks as NFL-ready as anyone I have ever seen in college. I have had my share of infatuations with college QBs that I thought would be good pros and have been right sometimes and wrong other times. For instance, I always thought Aaron Rodgers will be great and Akili Smith won't be any good. But I also thought Cade McNown will be good and Cam Newton won't be any good. Of course we all seemed to have missed on Cam. But Luck seems different from everybody. The way he runs, passes, his mechanics, demeanor and everything seem destined for NFL greatness. As high as I was on Aaron Rodgers at Cal, he did throw like a college kid and I thought he needed some seasoning in the NFL before busting out. Luck on the other hand looks like he could start this Sunday and have a 250 yards, 2 TD, 2 interception game for any NFL team.
College QBs are coming in more and more ready for the NFL. This trend really started with Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco and it seems to continue with Cam Newton, Andy Dalton and even Christian Ponder. But Andrew Luck is just on a different level of college quarterbacking. It totally makes sense to "suck for luck" and if I were the Colts, I would definitely draft him even if it means pissing Peyton Manning off. Top QB picks don't sit on the bench for long these days and Luck definitely wouldn't, given his immense talents. Manning is no dummy. He foresees all the controversies and might prefer the Colts don't draft him if Manning is planning to play 4 or 5 more years. But the prospect of going from Manning to Luck is just too good for the Colts to pass up. I would draft him if I had a chance, keep him behind Manning for a year or may be 2 and then trade Manning away if he is still healthy and playing. I thought Herm Edwards was way out there in the left field when he suggested the Colts trade Manning, but after seeing Luck last weekend, I am convinced it's not a bad idea at all. Even Luck can be stashed away in the bench for one season and that's what I would do before eventually trading Manning away. Let the kid learn for a year from the sheriff, but let's avoid the whole Favre-Rodgers drama.
On Sunday, the Colts continued their losing season and inched closer to winning the "suck for luck" sweepstakes. The Dolphins are giving them a tough fight. Miami even lost to Tim Tebow last weekend. He is playing really bad right now and some experts are even claiming he is the most immature and confused, young QB to have ever played in the league in 20 years. I am not sure if I would go that far, but he sure is looking clueless right now. And that lions player who "tebowed" after the sack is indeed causing a lot of stir. It was a classless move for sure, but he was just trying to mock Tebow and not his religion. If Tebow's celebratory move was something else, he would have done that instead of the prayer move. But still, what he did was classless because it does involve religion and always keep away from such sensitive, personal issues when it comes to a stupid sack celebration. In other games, the Cowboys embarrassed themselves and the entire Dallas metropolis with that performance Sunday night against the Eagles. Even more surprising is all that struggle Philip Rivers and the San Diego chargers are experiencing this season. They lost Monday night and that offense looks horrible for the most part. Rivers better fix it soon or they can kiss the AFC west title good bye.
The world series ushered us into the weekend and of course football took over as always. Stanford went into USC and played a whale of a game. Andrew Luck is an absolute stud. He threw a pick-6 very late in the 4-Th and still managed to bring them back to tie the game and later won it in 3 overtimes. He looks as NFL-ready as anyone I have ever seen in college. I have had my share of infatuations with college QBs that I thought would be good pros and have been right sometimes and wrong other times. For instance, I always thought Aaron Rodgers will be great and Akili Smith won't be any good. But I also thought Cade McNown will be good and Cam Newton won't be any good. Of course we all seemed to have missed on Cam. But Luck seems different from everybody. The way he runs, passes, his mechanics, demeanor and everything seem destined for NFL greatness. As high as I was on Aaron Rodgers at Cal, he did throw like a college kid and I thought he needed some seasoning in the NFL before busting out. Luck on the other hand looks like he could start this Sunday and have a 250 yards, 2 TD, 2 interception game for any NFL team.
College QBs are coming in more and more ready for the NFL. This trend really started with Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco and it seems to continue with Cam Newton, Andy Dalton and even Christian Ponder. But Andrew Luck is just on a different level of college quarterbacking. It totally makes sense to "suck for luck" and if I were the Colts, I would definitely draft him even if it means pissing Peyton Manning off. Top QB picks don't sit on the bench for long these days and Luck definitely wouldn't, given his immense talents. Manning is no dummy. He foresees all the controversies and might prefer the Colts don't draft him if Manning is planning to play 4 or 5 more years. But the prospect of going from Manning to Luck is just too good for the Colts to pass up. I would draft him if I had a chance, keep him behind Manning for a year or may be 2 and then trade Manning away if he is still healthy and playing. I thought Herm Edwards was way out there in the left field when he suggested the Colts trade Manning, but after seeing Luck last weekend, I am convinced it's not a bad idea at all. Even Luck can be stashed away in the bench for one season and that's what I would do before eventually trading Manning away. Let the kid learn for a year from the sheriff, but let's avoid the whole Favre-Rodgers drama.
On Sunday, the Colts continued their losing season and inched closer to winning the "suck for luck" sweepstakes. The Dolphins are giving them a tough fight. Miami even lost to Tim Tebow last weekend. He is playing really bad right now and some experts are even claiming he is the most immature and confused, young QB to have ever played in the league in 20 years. I am not sure if I would go that far, but he sure is looking clueless right now. And that lions player who "tebowed" after the sack is indeed causing a lot of stir. It was a classless move for sure, but he was just trying to mock Tebow and not his religion. If Tebow's celebratory move was something else, he would have done that instead of the prayer move. But still, what he did was classless because it does involve religion and always keep away from such sensitive, personal issues when it comes to a stupid sack celebration. In other games, the Cowboys embarrassed themselves and the entire Dallas metropolis with that performance Sunday night against the Eagles. Even more surprising is all that struggle Philip Rivers and the San Diego chargers are experiencing this season. They lost Monday night and that offense looks horrible for the most part. Rivers better fix it soon or they can kiss the AFC west title good bye.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Hallf Of Fame Mess
Tony La Russa is a hall of famer and by all accounts, a smart guy. He lost some credibility when he got busted for DUI a few years back and couldn't recite the alphabets in order, but that's neither here nor there. I guess we can let a little DUI go when the resume is as impressive as La Russa's. He has been a very successful baseball lifer who is smart and unique with his strategies. He also does a lot of good things off the field like his work with animal rights groups. But yesterday's game 5 of the world series was a disaster for Tony. Good for him that he is a hall of famer. If the other manager, Ron Washington had been involved in this mess, the baseball experts would have buried him alive. The Texas-St. Louis world series is getting bad TV ratings as expected, but Tony might be reviving the interest all by himself with some crazy controversies.
Speaking of TV ratings, baseball ratings are obviously down and it's a fascinating fact that 14 million people watched game 1 and that's less than half of the 30 million people who watched the world series in 1971. That sounds like a bad stat if you think about the almost 100 million people added to our population since then and the millions of additional HD TV sets in circulation today compared to the seventies. But the context has changed too. We have 700 channels today and people's TV watching habits have changed considerably. So 14 million is not bad and the interesting stat that proves this point is, the world series in 71 was the eighth highest rated TV show that year and guess what! The 8-Th highest rated TV show in 2010 was the World Series as well. We just watch TV differently these days. It's a fragmented audience.
Anyways, the story of the world series right now is the bullpen communication issue ad the phone fiasco. The Cardinals could not get the right pitchers up and ready in the bullpen and every time Tony went to the mound to replace the pitcher in the critical 8-Th inning, he seemed to get the wrong guy sent. It sounds bizarre to say the least and Tony called it embarrassing. Apparently he asked for Motte on the phone and the bullpen coach heard it as Lynn. That's the only explanation. How amazing that a championship game in a 7 billion dollar industry was decided by a bad telephone call? Sometimes in life, crap happens, especially when people instead of machines are involved. But for La Russ and the Cards, these bad mistakes happened at the most inappropriate time yesterday.
There was also another issue with a bad hit-and-run call that apparently Pujols called himself. That's not looking good for Tony right now either. We are learning new things now even in this day and age of 24-hour sports TV and radio where every angle is analyzed a million times daily. Apparently, it's pretty common to have star players call their own hit-and-run sometimes and that's exactly what Pujols did - at the wrong time in this case of course. Also, it's apparently common to have bad phone connection and communication issues with the bullpen. We just don't care enough to learn about all that unless it's the world series. In any case, the Cardinals are now going back home trailing 2-3. They still got 2 games at home and I expect them to push this to game 7 if not win it in 7. It's been an interesting world series so far despite the lack of widespread interest among fans.
In the NFL, it was not a great weekend of football across the league last weekend. The national TV games were horrible as if to help the world series with it's TV rating. Baltimore and Jacksonville forgot how to play offense Monday night and the Sunday night game between the Colts and the Saints looked like one of those college pre-season games between a football superpower and a no-name school - Ohio State V Youngstown State or something. Who wins a pro game 62-7? And these 2 teams were in the Super Bowl less than 22 months back. I have always said (and blogged) that the best examples for the term "franchise player" you can ever find are Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning and Tim Duncan. LeBron too was going to be that guy in Cleveland before he took his talents to South Beach.
Peyton is now proving this point with his absence. The perennial power Colts are 0-7 and all they are missing is this one guy named Peyton Manning. How (franchise) player is that? May be Colts got a little older, may be some talent left, may be their offensive and defensive lines have regressed in ways that the average fan usually can't detect, but there is no way this team is a sub-500 team with Manning, let alone a 0-7 team. That's how great that guy is and quarterbacks are that important in the NFL. Not only is he affecting the Colts, he has single handedly destroyed NBC's TV ratings twice already. They have had 2 unwatchable Sunday night games that they couldn't get out of and those 2 would have been major "blockbusters" if only Manning was playing. The only positive coming out of this for the Colts fans may be that they luck into Luck - Andrew Luck.
Speaking of TV ratings, baseball ratings are obviously down and it's a fascinating fact that 14 million people watched game 1 and that's less than half of the 30 million people who watched the world series in 1971. That sounds like a bad stat if you think about the almost 100 million people added to our population since then and the millions of additional HD TV sets in circulation today compared to the seventies. But the context has changed too. We have 700 channels today and people's TV watching habits have changed considerably. So 14 million is not bad and the interesting stat that proves this point is, the world series in 71 was the eighth highest rated TV show that year and guess what! The 8-Th highest rated TV show in 2010 was the World Series as well. We just watch TV differently these days. It's a fragmented audience.
Anyways, the story of the world series right now is the bullpen communication issue ad the phone fiasco. The Cardinals could not get the right pitchers up and ready in the bullpen and every time Tony went to the mound to replace the pitcher in the critical 8-Th inning, he seemed to get the wrong guy sent. It sounds bizarre to say the least and Tony called it embarrassing. Apparently he asked for Motte on the phone and the bullpen coach heard it as Lynn. That's the only explanation. How amazing that a championship game in a 7 billion dollar industry was decided by a bad telephone call? Sometimes in life, crap happens, especially when people instead of machines are involved. But for La Russ and the Cards, these bad mistakes happened at the most inappropriate time yesterday.
There was also another issue with a bad hit-and-run call that apparently Pujols called himself. That's not looking good for Tony right now either. We are learning new things now even in this day and age of 24-hour sports TV and radio where every angle is analyzed a million times daily. Apparently, it's pretty common to have star players call their own hit-and-run sometimes and that's exactly what Pujols did - at the wrong time in this case of course. Also, it's apparently common to have bad phone connection and communication issues with the bullpen. We just don't care enough to learn about all that unless it's the world series. In any case, the Cardinals are now going back home trailing 2-3. They still got 2 games at home and I expect them to push this to game 7 if not win it in 7. It's been an interesting world series so far despite the lack of widespread interest among fans.
In the NFL, it was not a great weekend of football across the league last weekend. The national TV games were horrible as if to help the world series with it's TV rating. Baltimore and Jacksonville forgot how to play offense Monday night and the Sunday night game between the Colts and the Saints looked like one of those college pre-season games between a football superpower and a no-name school - Ohio State V Youngstown State or something. Who wins a pro game 62-7? And these 2 teams were in the Super Bowl less than 22 months back. I have always said (and blogged) that the best examples for the term "franchise player" you can ever find are Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning and Tim Duncan. LeBron too was going to be that guy in Cleveland before he took his talents to South Beach.
Peyton is now proving this point with his absence. The perennial power Colts are 0-7 and all they are missing is this one guy named Peyton Manning. How (franchise) player is that? May be Colts got a little older, may be some talent left, may be their offensive and defensive lines have regressed in ways that the average fan usually can't detect, but there is no way this team is a sub-500 team with Manning, let alone a 0-7 team. That's how great that guy is and quarterbacks are that important in the NFL. Not only is he affecting the Colts, he has single handedly destroyed NBC's TV ratings twice already. They have had 2 unwatchable Sunday night games that they couldn't get out of and those 2 would have been major "blockbusters" if only Manning was playing. The only positive coming out of this for the Colts fans may be that they luck into Luck - Andrew Luck.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Three lessons from the football weekend
Another entertaining football weekend is in the books. The story of the weekend for me was how 3 common football and sports theories were played out right in front of my eyes. These are well-founded theories that have been around forever, but you still see several games where you can't clearly connect the play on the field with these theories and the teams also routinely overcome some of the mistakes and eliminate the effect of these theories. Take for instance the theory that penalties are a killer. It's no breaking news that it's not a good thing if you are moving backwards instead of forward on a football field, but players do commit these penalties sometimes because they are convinced they can overcome it. Most penalties are just mistakes, some are emotional acts, but players do cross the line intentionally at times because they kind of know the down, distance and the score and they think their team can overcome it when it's all said and done. The Oakland Raiders are a good example of this. They have always been notorious for their penalties, but lately, they also have a better record in games in which they commit a lot of penalties than their cleaner games. Weird stat and it sure doesn't give the Raiders much inspiration to play disciplined football.
But the Arizona State Sun Devils were not as lucky as the Raiders on Saturday night against the dangerous Oregon Ducks. The Devils had their hands full against the Ducks on the road, but their many mistakes and bad penalties didn't help the cause. Lesson 1 from the weekend was a particular sequence in this game which in my opinion clearly took the game away from the devils and handed it to the ducks. It was towards the end of the second quarter and ASU was driving down for a score eating good chunks of yards every play. They were already leading 17-14 and were poised to go up 24-14. Brock Osweiler completed another pass to Gerell Robinson to Oregon's 22 and they were almost in the red zone. That's when Robinson committed a stupid penalty and killed the Devils. He got up after the catch and kicked the defender who was on the ground. The penalty took the ball back to Oregon's 37 and Osweiler's next pass was intercepted. Oregon scored and went into the half leading 21-17 instead of trailing. The momentum shifted for good. Robinson's penalty didn't make Osweiler throw the interception, but I strongly believe that this interception would not have happened if the ball was on the 22 yard line instead of back at the 37.
Oregon's speed is just too much and it's just amazing to watch that offense. It's even hard to track the ball on TV as they fake, shift, move and option you do death. They are impossible to beat at home and they always play much better in the second half. All things considered, ducks probably would have put the devils away anyways, but I clearly saw how a stupid penalty can change the momentum, kill a drive and finish a team off prematurely. When I saw that penalty, I became one of those alums you see at the stadium yelling at players saying things like "I pay your scholarship, get your act together you idiot". That always cracked me up and now I was feeling the same anger at Robinson. He had a good game statistically, but he screwed up big time with that penalty. That was a great lesson on penalties and how and why they hurt. Too bad ASU had to suffer through it.
The second lesson of the weekend came on Sunday in the form of an interesting game between the niners and the lions. This game was as good as advertised and the niners won a big one on the road. Conventional football wisdom always says you win with rushing, defense and by playing the field position. This is exactly what the niners did all game. Jim Harbaugh is all about playing conservative, disciplined football and he did the same at Stanford too. Alex Smith and that passing offense is not reliable, but I was still surprised how committed Harbaugh is to his philosophy and how he followed it to a tee from start to finish despite various situations where it would have been easy to start chucking the ball all over Ford field. Many teams win with defense and rushing, but the discipline with which Harbaugh has his team playing right now is pretty striking and impressive. He deserves all the credit in the world for having the niners at 5-1 with basically the same team as last year. It's impressive to see his football philosophy built around defense and rushing considering he was a pretty good quarterback.
Speaking of Harbaugh, he was also the man behind the lesson number 3 from the weekend. Coaches and front office types are constantly asked to stay in their shoes so as to not take attention away from the players and the game on the field. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is the best example of this as he is constantly accused of talking too much, getting in too much trouble and taking away from his team. Coincidentally he lied low last year and the Mavs won the championship. Harbaugh proved to be that guy this weekend when, after the game, he got carried away and gave an excited pat on the back and an aggressive hand-shake to lions coach Jim Schwartz. Schwartz exacerbated the situation by chasing Harbaugh as if he was going to fight him, but Harbaugh definitely broke protocol and misbehaved to start it all off. Both men were at fault, but an important lesson for Harbaugh is that he definitely took attention away from the team and the game. "Handshake-gate" has been the story on sports radio and TV all day across the nation. Even in the bay area, people are forced to talk about it instead of celebrating one of the biggest wins for the niners in many years or talking about the potential for this interesting team. Neither coach got fined and I am fine with that. You can't fine people for bad etiquette. But Harbaugh made a mistake and hope he now understands that he has to save his emotion for the locker room. This is a clear proof of how distracting such behaviors can be.
But the Arizona State Sun Devils were not as lucky as the Raiders on Saturday night against the dangerous Oregon Ducks. The Devils had their hands full against the Ducks on the road, but their many mistakes and bad penalties didn't help the cause. Lesson 1 from the weekend was a particular sequence in this game which in my opinion clearly took the game away from the devils and handed it to the ducks. It was towards the end of the second quarter and ASU was driving down for a score eating good chunks of yards every play. They were already leading 17-14 and were poised to go up 24-14. Brock Osweiler completed another pass to Gerell Robinson to Oregon's 22 and they were almost in the red zone. That's when Robinson committed a stupid penalty and killed the Devils. He got up after the catch and kicked the defender who was on the ground. The penalty took the ball back to Oregon's 37 and Osweiler's next pass was intercepted. Oregon scored and went into the half leading 21-17 instead of trailing. The momentum shifted for good. Robinson's penalty didn't make Osweiler throw the interception, but I strongly believe that this interception would not have happened if the ball was on the 22 yard line instead of back at the 37.
Oregon's speed is just too much and it's just amazing to watch that offense. It's even hard to track the ball on TV as they fake, shift, move and option you do death. They are impossible to beat at home and they always play much better in the second half. All things considered, ducks probably would have put the devils away anyways, but I clearly saw how a stupid penalty can change the momentum, kill a drive and finish a team off prematurely. When I saw that penalty, I became one of those alums you see at the stadium yelling at players saying things like "I pay your scholarship, get your act together you idiot". That always cracked me up and now I was feeling the same anger at Robinson. He had a good game statistically, but he screwed up big time with that penalty. That was a great lesson on penalties and how and why they hurt. Too bad ASU had to suffer through it.
The second lesson of the weekend came on Sunday in the form of an interesting game between the niners and the lions. This game was as good as advertised and the niners won a big one on the road. Conventional football wisdom always says you win with rushing, defense and by playing the field position. This is exactly what the niners did all game. Jim Harbaugh is all about playing conservative, disciplined football and he did the same at Stanford too. Alex Smith and that passing offense is not reliable, but I was still surprised how committed Harbaugh is to his philosophy and how he followed it to a tee from start to finish despite various situations where it would have been easy to start chucking the ball all over Ford field. Many teams win with defense and rushing, but the discipline with which Harbaugh has his team playing right now is pretty striking and impressive. He deserves all the credit in the world for having the niners at 5-1 with basically the same team as last year. It's impressive to see his football philosophy built around defense and rushing considering he was a pretty good quarterback.
Speaking of Harbaugh, he was also the man behind the lesson number 3 from the weekend. Coaches and front office types are constantly asked to stay in their shoes so as to not take attention away from the players and the game on the field. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is the best example of this as he is constantly accused of talking too much, getting in too much trouble and taking away from his team. Coincidentally he lied low last year and the Mavs won the championship. Harbaugh proved to be that guy this weekend when, after the game, he got carried away and gave an excited pat on the back and an aggressive hand-shake to lions coach Jim Schwartz. Schwartz exacerbated the situation by chasing Harbaugh as if he was going to fight him, but Harbaugh definitely broke protocol and misbehaved to start it all off. Both men were at fault, but an important lesson for Harbaugh is that he definitely took attention away from the team and the game. "Handshake-gate" has been the story on sports radio and TV all day across the nation. Even in the bay area, people are forced to talk about it instead of celebrating one of the biggest wins for the niners in many years or talking about the potential for this interesting team. Neither coach got fined and I am fine with that. You can't fine people for bad etiquette. But Harbaugh made a mistake and hope he now understands that he has to save his emotion for the locker room. This is a clear proof of how distracting such behaviors can be.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Theo, the "curse slayer"
Theo Epstein is apparently going to the Chicago Cubs. Can you imagine this guy's potential legacy if he wins a championship in the north side of Chicago? Can he kill the Cubs' curse after doing all of that in Boston? He would be the first official curse slayer in the history of sports. He went in as a kid to run the Redsox with his moneyball philosophy and won 2 championship. He became the proverbial "he doesn't have to ever pay again for a drink in that city" guy in Boston. But it's amazing how much of a pressure-cooker Boston is and how short people's memory are. After the historic collapse in September, I don't want to say people wanted him fired, but he had a bunch of problems on his hands. To be fair to the Bostonians, may be it was more a function of the collapse than people forgetting the 2 championships Theo brought home. Whatever it was, Theo has decided to move on. I can see why he would want to go to Chicago because the opportunity to do this at another storied franchise like the Chicago Cubs is unique. Also, even if he wins more championships in Boston, the payoff will not be what it was in 2004. So it's time for Theo to try something new and fresh. I am sure both teams will be fine as Boston will probably try to retain his deputies and continue with the program. The Cubs on the other hand can use Theo and his program. It may not guarantee them a championship, but I am sure Theo will take them closer to one.
On the field, the baseball playoffs have been interesting, but probably not the most watched. With the North Eastern teams like Boston, New York and Philly eliminated, I am sure the TV ratings are not pretty. But some games have been thrilling. Too bad the DBacks couldn't win on the road, but it took the Brewers 10 innings to eliminate them in game 5. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were just too much for the DBacks the entire series. I would like the young Brewers to march on and win it all, but I don't know if I can handle their stupid "beast mode" after every big play. There have been many stupid sports celebrations, but this might be the worst! It's interesting how more and more of the MLB playoffs have moved to cable, much like what happened with the NBA a few years back. NFL seems to be marginalizing all other sports on TV. A Milwaukee-Detroit World Series would be MLB's worst nightmare from a TV ratings perspective and we might just get it. Detroit did lose game 4 today in 11 innings and is now trailing 3-1 to the Rangers. Nelson Cruz is killing them. He has homered in 2 11-Th innings in this series. What are the odds of 2 games going 11 innings in a 7-game series and featuring the same guy homering in both 11-Th innings? Bud Selig would say "only in baseball" and he might even be right, but I am not sure if anybody except Bud is watching these games.
The best news for MLB might be the NBA lockout. NBA seems to be committed to it's self-destructive ways and the league just canceled the first 2 weeks of the regular season. It took more than a decade for the league to recover some of it's lost popularity after the previous lockout and Jordan's retirement, and another lockout is the worst thing they could do at this stage. Thanks to LeBron's talents the last few years at Cleveland and then his stupidity surrounding his "taking his talents to south beach", NBA regained some of it's viewership. The playoffs last year was especially interesting because people had a set of villains - Miami Heat, to root against and they watched the show on TV. Now, the NBA decides to throw it all away by pissing off it's customers. Mainstream America, for the most part, hates NBA and it's players for whatever reason. Some of it is justified, but some of it is just perception and prejudice. But the point is, NBA cannot afford to anger and distance them further. NFL possibly can get away with it, but NBA can't. NBA's owners seem to be oblivious to this and are hell-bent on getting a good financial deal. They should be committed to getting a good deal, but I wish they had the common sense to be committed to not losing even a single game as well. That's apparently too much to ask and now, nobody cares that the NBA is locked out. Hopefully, some of us will care if and when they start playing again.
All this means more time for NFL and college football. There are a couple of states in the union doing great right now - Wisconsin and Michigan. Detroit is especially having a whale of a time in sports. The Detroit Tigers are in the ALCS, the Lions are 5-0 after many years of abject failure and even the Michigan Wolverines are 6-0 and are ranked pretty high. Same story in Wisconsin. The Brewers are in the NLCS, Packers are the only other undefeated team in the NFL with a 5-0 record and the Wisconsin Badgers are 5-0 and ranked 4-Th in the nation. Life is good in the mid-west. Both the Lions and the Packers are in the same division and they don't play their first game until Thanksgiving. I can't wait for that game. Should be a great one after years of bad Detroit football on turkey day. We may be looking at 2 undefeated teams that day or may be 2 teams with a combined 1 or 2 losses. There are other markets seeing a football revival as well. It always feels good to see small market Buffalo do well. Bay Area is enjoying a good season too as both the Raiders and the Niners are looking good after many years. Just like the Packers and the Lions, the Raiders and the Chargers don't play until late in the season and I expect those 2 games to be great and meaningful too. Who would have thought the game of week 6 would be Niners (4-1) at the Lions (5-0). Acid test for both maturing teams, but I expect the Lions to win at home. In college, ASU is going to Oregon for a matchup of ranked teams. Nobody beats Oregon at home. ASU's only hope might be that Oregon's RB LaMichael James might miss this game with an injury. It's a challenging game for the Devils with or without James. Lets see how they handle the pressure.
On the field, the baseball playoffs have been interesting, but probably not the most watched. With the North Eastern teams like Boston, New York and Philly eliminated, I am sure the TV ratings are not pretty. But some games have been thrilling. Too bad the DBacks couldn't win on the road, but it took the Brewers 10 innings to eliminate them in game 5. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were just too much for the DBacks the entire series. I would like the young Brewers to march on and win it all, but I don't know if I can handle their stupid "beast mode" after every big play. There have been many stupid sports celebrations, but this might be the worst! It's interesting how more and more of the MLB playoffs have moved to cable, much like what happened with the NBA a few years back. NFL seems to be marginalizing all other sports on TV. A Milwaukee-Detroit World Series would be MLB's worst nightmare from a TV ratings perspective and we might just get it. Detroit did lose game 4 today in 11 innings and is now trailing 3-1 to the Rangers. Nelson Cruz is killing them. He has homered in 2 11-Th innings in this series. What are the odds of 2 games going 11 innings in a 7-game series and featuring the same guy homering in both 11-Th innings? Bud Selig would say "only in baseball" and he might even be right, but I am not sure if anybody except Bud is watching these games.
The best news for MLB might be the NBA lockout. NBA seems to be committed to it's self-destructive ways and the league just canceled the first 2 weeks of the regular season. It took more than a decade for the league to recover some of it's lost popularity after the previous lockout and Jordan's retirement, and another lockout is the worst thing they could do at this stage. Thanks to LeBron's talents the last few years at Cleveland and then his stupidity surrounding his "taking his talents to south beach", NBA regained some of it's viewership. The playoffs last year was especially interesting because people had a set of villains - Miami Heat, to root against and they watched the show on TV. Now, the NBA decides to throw it all away by pissing off it's customers. Mainstream America, for the most part, hates NBA and it's players for whatever reason. Some of it is justified, but some of it is just perception and prejudice. But the point is, NBA cannot afford to anger and distance them further. NFL possibly can get away with it, but NBA can't. NBA's owners seem to be oblivious to this and are hell-bent on getting a good financial deal. They should be committed to getting a good deal, but I wish they had the common sense to be committed to not losing even a single game as well. That's apparently too much to ask and now, nobody cares that the NBA is locked out. Hopefully, some of us will care if and when they start playing again.
All this means more time for NFL and college football. There are a couple of states in the union doing great right now - Wisconsin and Michigan. Detroit is especially having a whale of a time in sports. The Detroit Tigers are in the ALCS, the Lions are 5-0 after many years of abject failure and even the Michigan Wolverines are 6-0 and are ranked pretty high. Same story in Wisconsin. The Brewers are in the NLCS, Packers are the only other undefeated team in the NFL with a 5-0 record and the Wisconsin Badgers are 5-0 and ranked 4-Th in the nation. Life is good in the mid-west. Both the Lions and the Packers are in the same division and they don't play their first game until Thanksgiving. I can't wait for that game. Should be a great one after years of bad Detroit football on turkey day. We may be looking at 2 undefeated teams that day or may be 2 teams with a combined 1 or 2 losses. There are other markets seeing a football revival as well. It always feels good to see small market Buffalo do well. Bay Area is enjoying a good season too as both the Raiders and the Niners are looking good after many years. Just like the Packers and the Lions, the Raiders and the Chargers don't play until late in the season and I expect those 2 games to be great and meaningful too. Who would have thought the game of week 6 would be Niners (4-1) at the Lions (5-0). Acid test for both maturing teams, but I expect the Lions to win at home. In college, ASU is going to Oregon for a matchup of ranked teams. Nobody beats Oregon at home. ASU's only hope might be that Oregon's RB LaMichael James might miss this game with an injury. It's a challenging game for the Devils with or without James. Lets see how they handle the pressure.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Al Davis will be missed
NFL's week 5 started with the sad news of Al Davis passing away. He was an one man show with the Oakland Raiders and was one of the most controversial figures in all of sports. What made him interesting was that he was one of a kind and also the last of his kind. I suppose that's redundant because one of a kind by definition means there's nobody else like him, but it's also worth mentioning he is the last of his kind because you won't see sports owners like him anymore. He was a football lifer who became an owner. Ownership groups are becoming more and more corporate as it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to own teams these days. Most owners are Home Depot CEOs or Bank One co-founders. They may have a pure football guy in their group as a minority owner and even let him be the managing general partner and the face of the franchise. But the days of pure football lifers like Al Davis becoming the all powerful, majority owner of a major sports franchise are long gone. Davis was the owner, GM, head scout, head coach (in hiding) and the primary decision maker for the Raiders for several decades. It's hard to imagine the Raiders without Al Davis or a setup like that in the sports landscape moving forward.
The Raiders lost all of their identity last Saturday and they have to recast themselves now. For better or for worse, Al was the heart, soul and face of the franchise. He did not have a lot of success the last decade or so and has been facing severe criticism both within and outside the Raider nation with many of his decisions. The worst move in my opinion was letting Jon Gruden go after he revived the franchise coming off a few horrible years. Instead of holding onto the only guy who was able to manufacture any success in Oakland in recent years, Al traded him away to Tampa Bay and it came back to bite him the very next year in the Super Bowl. Even Al's famous slogans like "commitment to excellence" have become the butt of ridicule over the last few years. But with all that said, the man deserves a lot of credit for his body of work. He has seen a lot of success during his career and he built the Raiders brand all by himself. He was always independent, ingenious and relevant. Love him or hate him, you could never ignore him. He was never afraid to be in an island and challenging the NFL power structure was his past-time. I found it funny how he was always the only one or may be one of 2 or 3 owners who consistently voted against many proposals in the ownership meetings. He had a mind of his own and you were either with him or against him.
All that aside, Mr. Davis's real contribution as far as I am concerned is how forward thinking and color and gender blind he was. He was a pioneer when it came to hiring black coaches, recruiting from little known black colleges, giving breaks to Hispanic coaches and hiring women executives. He was consistently ahead of the curve on each of those progressive issues and in some cases, he was ahead of the world around him by 20 or 30 years! It's funny and sad at the same time that the NFL is still struggling to create opportunities for black head coaches while Al Davis hired one in 1989. That's what I will remember the most about the man. Al was definitely a maverick and dominated every aspect of the Raiders. He did have a giant ego and some things like the problems he had with Marcus Allen made him look petty. His drafting the last decade have made us all scratch our heads many times and made us wonder if he was holding onto football a little too long. But the progressive and minority-friendly program he ran singularly makes him an impactful and unique legend in the sport controlled by good-ole, billionaire boys.
The Raiders won the game last weekend at Houston on the last play. The game was close and could have gone either way, but winning it was the only way the Raiders could have honored their owner. It was also fitting that Sebastian Janikowski and Darrius Heyward-Bey - 2 of the most controversial and confusing Al Davis draft picks from the last decade, made significant contributions in the victory. It's been really interesting to see how coach Hue Jackson has been using Janikowski's legs this season. His ability to kick long field goals is having a significant impact both on the games and the way Jackson approaches certain situations in a game. May be the godfather was right in making the polish cannon his 17-Th overall pick in the 2000 draft. Speaking of Jackson, he has been very emotional all week since the news and understandably so. He was another one of those Al Davis hires and he seems to be doing pretty well right now. The Raiders are 3-2 and both Davis and Jackson deserve a lot of credit for what this team is doing. With Davis now gone, nobody knows who is going to or who can run the football side of the Raiders. A lot is going to fall on the shoulders of Hue Jackson and that's way too much for a first year head coach to handle. Hope the Raiders figure it all out soon.
For now, all the talk in the Bay Area is still about Al Davis. Mr. Davis, as he liked to be called, will be sorely missed.
The Raiders lost all of their identity last Saturday and they have to recast themselves now. For better or for worse, Al was the heart, soul and face of the franchise. He did not have a lot of success the last decade or so and has been facing severe criticism both within and outside the Raider nation with many of his decisions. The worst move in my opinion was letting Jon Gruden go after he revived the franchise coming off a few horrible years. Instead of holding onto the only guy who was able to manufacture any success in Oakland in recent years, Al traded him away to Tampa Bay and it came back to bite him the very next year in the Super Bowl. Even Al's famous slogans like "commitment to excellence" have become the butt of ridicule over the last few years. But with all that said, the man deserves a lot of credit for his body of work. He has seen a lot of success during his career and he built the Raiders brand all by himself. He was always independent, ingenious and relevant. Love him or hate him, you could never ignore him. He was never afraid to be in an island and challenging the NFL power structure was his past-time. I found it funny how he was always the only one or may be one of 2 or 3 owners who consistently voted against many proposals in the ownership meetings. He had a mind of his own and you were either with him or against him.
All that aside, Mr. Davis's real contribution as far as I am concerned is how forward thinking and color and gender blind he was. He was a pioneer when it came to hiring black coaches, recruiting from little known black colleges, giving breaks to Hispanic coaches and hiring women executives. He was consistently ahead of the curve on each of those progressive issues and in some cases, he was ahead of the world around him by 20 or 30 years! It's funny and sad at the same time that the NFL is still struggling to create opportunities for black head coaches while Al Davis hired one in 1989. That's what I will remember the most about the man. Al was definitely a maverick and dominated every aspect of the Raiders. He did have a giant ego and some things like the problems he had with Marcus Allen made him look petty. His drafting the last decade have made us all scratch our heads many times and made us wonder if he was holding onto football a little too long. But the progressive and minority-friendly program he ran singularly makes him an impactful and unique legend in the sport controlled by good-ole, billionaire boys.
The Raiders won the game last weekend at Houston on the last play. The game was close and could have gone either way, but winning it was the only way the Raiders could have honored their owner. It was also fitting that Sebastian Janikowski and Darrius Heyward-Bey - 2 of the most controversial and confusing Al Davis draft picks from the last decade, made significant contributions in the victory. It's been really interesting to see how coach Hue Jackson has been using Janikowski's legs this season. His ability to kick long field goals is having a significant impact both on the games and the way Jackson approaches certain situations in a game. May be the godfather was right in making the polish cannon his 17-Th overall pick in the 2000 draft. Speaking of Jackson, he has been very emotional all week since the news and understandably so. He was another one of those Al Davis hires and he seems to be doing pretty well right now. The Raiders are 3-2 and both Davis and Jackson deserve a lot of credit for what this team is doing. With Davis now gone, nobody knows who is going to or who can run the football side of the Raiders. A lot is going to fall on the shoulders of Hue Jackson and that's way too much for a first year head coach to handle. Hope the Raiders figure it all out soon.
For now, all the talk in the Bay Area is still about Al Davis. Mr. Davis, as he liked to be called, will be sorely missed.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Playoffs are here
Baseball playoffs are here and this is definitely a fun time of the year. We get to share our attention between the baseball playoffs, college football and the NFL. Baseball is not exactly the most popular or fun sport during the regular season and I don't spend a lot of time watching those games. But playoff baseball is riveting and usually a lot of fun. I am looking forward to it this year since the Arizona Diamondbacks have made it. Also, the exciting and strange way in which the regular season ended by eliminating the Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves has definitely help raise the interest in this post-season. The Red Sox were leading the Rays by 9 games for the wild card in early September and still managed to lose it with just one strike to go in the season. They lost a one-run lead in the 9-Th and ended up losing to the Orioles 4-3. The Sox went 7-20 in September to achieve this meltdown. The Rays on the other hand came back from a 0-7 deficit in their final game to beat the Yankees 8-7 in 12 innings to win the wild card. That was an amazing and unbelievable sequence of events that put the Rays into the playoffs! The Braves went 9-18 in September to lose their playoff spot as well on the last day to the Cardinals. Both wild card races had spectacular finishes and historic collapses. Now we have the Rays and the Cards in the playoffs and no Braves or Red Sox. Braves will be fine, but some big names are going to lose their jobs in Boston.
As for the playoffs, the fun starts tomorrow with the AL games. Justin Verlander and C.C. Sabathia are the headliners for day 1. That should be a fun matchup. The D-Backs kickoff October baseball on the first of the month and Ian Kennedy will take on Yovani Gallardo in Milwaukee. The Brewers have home-field and that can be a challenge for the snakes since the Brew-crew just does not seem to lose at home. Both teams have solid pitching as most playoffs teams tend to do and the Brewers have MVP candidates Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder in their lineup on top of that. That should make them the favorites, but thats why they play the games - to defy logic and numbers and to create new records. A lot rides on Kennedy in game 1. In the other NL contest, Philly should be an overwhelming favorite over the Saint Louis Cardinals with that pitching. Halladay goes in game 1, but it doesn't get any easier for the Cards after that as Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels will attack them just as effectively as Halladay. The Phillies should be the favorites to win it all with that pitching, but again, there's a reason why we actually play the games. Just so that the Dbacks can upset the Phillies and then the Yankees! I am sure this playoffs will throw us a few more astonishing moments just like the ones we saw yesterday when the Sox and the Braves wrapped up their historic collapses. Bring it on!
Football weekend is almost upon us. Pittsburgh crushed 16-Th seeded South Florida today to set the stage for a fun college weekend. ASU has re-entered the top-25 with an impressive win over USC last weekend. They should continue that trend when they host Oregon State. The big games of the weekend are Alabama-Florida, Clemson-Va Tech and Nebraska-Wisconsin. Thats a great way for Nebraska to start their life in Big 10 with a visit to the 7-Th seeded Wisconsin. Madison will be ready for that. SEC football at the swamp is always fun and they will welcome Alabama this weekend. UCLA at Stanford will be a fun, late night, Pac-12 contest as well. In the NFL, Patriots at Oakland promises to be one of the great match ups along with Detroit at Dallas and Pittsburgh at Houston. All 3 games featuring surprising teams in Oakland, Detroit and Houston that have not been in the playoffs the last few years, but have all looked good the last 3 weeks. The headliner will be the Jets at Baltimore, but the real action might be in those other 3 contests. The Raiders can definitely shock the Patriots since they can run the ball. Run DMC is an absolute monster and the Pats are going to have issues stopping Darren McFadden. Brady will be a handful for the Raiders as well and the team that commits the fewest mistake should take this one. Not a path-breaking theory, but I think it's going to be the case with this one given the Raiders tendency to commit mistakes and penalties. If they stay in their shoes, they have a shot.
As for the playoffs, the fun starts tomorrow with the AL games. Justin Verlander and C.C. Sabathia are the headliners for day 1. That should be a fun matchup. The D-Backs kickoff October baseball on the first of the month and Ian Kennedy will take on Yovani Gallardo in Milwaukee. The Brewers have home-field and that can be a challenge for the snakes since the Brew-crew just does not seem to lose at home. Both teams have solid pitching as most playoffs teams tend to do and the Brewers have MVP candidates Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder in their lineup on top of that. That should make them the favorites, but thats why they play the games - to defy logic and numbers and to create new records. A lot rides on Kennedy in game 1. In the other NL contest, Philly should be an overwhelming favorite over the Saint Louis Cardinals with that pitching. Halladay goes in game 1, but it doesn't get any easier for the Cards after that as Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels will attack them just as effectively as Halladay. The Phillies should be the favorites to win it all with that pitching, but again, there's a reason why we actually play the games. Just so that the Dbacks can upset the Phillies and then the Yankees! I am sure this playoffs will throw us a few more astonishing moments just like the ones we saw yesterday when the Sox and the Braves wrapped up their historic collapses. Bring it on!
Football weekend is almost upon us. Pittsburgh crushed 16-Th seeded South Florida today to set the stage for a fun college weekend. ASU has re-entered the top-25 with an impressive win over USC last weekend. They should continue that trend when they host Oregon State. The big games of the weekend are Alabama-Florida, Clemson-Va Tech and Nebraska-Wisconsin. Thats a great way for Nebraska to start their life in Big 10 with a visit to the 7-Th seeded Wisconsin. Madison will be ready for that. SEC football at the swamp is always fun and they will welcome Alabama this weekend. UCLA at Stanford will be a fun, late night, Pac-12 contest as well. In the NFL, Patriots at Oakland promises to be one of the great match ups along with Detroit at Dallas and Pittsburgh at Houston. All 3 games featuring surprising teams in Oakland, Detroit and Houston that have not been in the playoffs the last few years, but have all looked good the last 3 weeks. The headliner will be the Jets at Baltimore, but the real action might be in those other 3 contests. The Raiders can definitely shock the Patriots since they can run the ball. Run DMC is an absolute monster and the Pats are going to have issues stopping Darren McFadden. Brady will be a handful for the Raiders as well and the team that commits the fewest mistake should take this one. Not a path-breaking theory, but I think it's going to be the case with this one given the Raiders tendency to commit mistakes and penalties. If they stay in their shoes, they have a shot.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Moneyball
I watch my share of movies, but am not a big movie guy. I don't think I have ever been as excited for a movie as I am for Moneyball. The movie is finally out, many years after the book and has actually gotten great reviews. This is the movie about the Oakland Athletics and Billy Beane, my favorite GM in the game. I read the Moneyball book years back and it was definitely a page-turner. I expect this movie to be equally good and hope it doesn't make me cry! I miss those Oakland teams and how good they were with those big 3 - Hudson, Mulder and Zito. They had a small payroll, actually very small. But they also had those pitchers and Eric Chavez, Miguel Tejada and what appeared to be a very sturdy farm system. All of the big 3 and Chavez and Tejada were drafted by the A's and they also had Rich Harden and Joe Blanton coming up. And don't forget closer Houston Street, shortstop Bobby Crosby and outfielder Nick Swisher - all guys homegrown and pretty good. Beane always went out and made some great mid-season trades to rent players for the stretch run. And he would let him walk after the season and accumulate more draft picks for more moneyball picks.
The book explained that strategy among many others. It explained the A's love for walks, OPS and college players. It also explained why they thought high-school prospects are risky, bunts are bad, and defense is over-rated. It all made sense to the A's fans when the book came out because they were witnessing all this in real-time. The team was full of home-grown, young, cheap talent drafted by A's and they were winning big. The book credited all this to A's love for sabermetrics and A's trust in numbers and statistics. It also ridiculed traditional drafting techniques, scouts and old-school GMs and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Fast forwarding to the here and now, many of those people are taking a lot of pleasure from the troubles Beane and the A's are in. Very surprisingly, all of Beane's magic seems to have evaporated. May be it's bad karma! The A's teams since 2007 have been bad, uninteresting and boring. They have really not even showcased any top, young talent to be stolen by the richer clubs. They seem to bring up young players, but none of them seem to really stick out. There was a lot of hope for their pitchers this year after last year's performance, but they seem to have all taken a step back.
The primary problem for Beane is that the entire league is now into sabermetrics and the Moneyball book is a big reason for this. Between the book and the championship success of the Boston Redsox - another moneyball team, the rest of the league seemed to have followed suit. Billy Beane was not the first or the only one to rely on stats back in the day, but the book promoted him as a genius and popularized the concepts. This has led to all the other teams following suit. Many scouts and GMs are upset with Beane because they were all offended by some of the scenes in the book. The primary criticism of Beane is that he never won anything big - the A's have not even been to the World Series under his watch. The other complaint is that the book (or the movie) doesn't give much credit to the top talent they had - the big 3 pitchers especially. Their point is, the top talent they had were all high on most people's draft boards, with or without moneyball and hence Beane can't take much credit for those. Most of the true "moneyball" picks on the other hand, have not done much in the big league. I used to wonder about that myself as the book spent entire chapters on certain players as if they were surefire diamonds in the rough that the A's and A's alone spotted. But I have not heard of those players at all since then. So the critics say the A's were successful because of Hudson, Zito and Mulder and not because of moneyball or Beane's genius.
As always, the truth is somewhere in-between. To be fair to Beane, he did pick most of those star players and they may not have been entirely moneyball picks, but I am sure Beane followed some of his drafting policies on them as well. Secondly, I think the whole point is how he was winning an unfair game and you can't dismiss all that just because he never won the big one. Boston did win big because they backed up the moneyball numbers with the most important numbers that matter - zeros on the paychecks making up that big payroll. Theo Epstein is also a moneyball guy and Beane actually recommended him when Boston was hiring after Beane turned that job down himself. I wonder if it was a bad decision on the part of Beane to have rejected that offer in retrospect. At that time, the theory was, Beane with those resources will be more scrutinized and will look less like a genius and of course, it was also going to be hard to handle that crazy east coast media and the RedSox pressures. But Theo erased the curse of the bambino and brought a championship to Boston. He will never have to pay for a drink again in Boston. If Beane had won that ring - no guarantee he would have, he would be an even bigger star just because of the name recognition. Epstein was just a kid back then and he earned his stripes with that ring. Beane on the other already had the stripes. The stripes would have only gotten brighter, thicker and deeper. Hope he doesn't regret that decision and end up going to Chicago where they are looking to hire a GM to erase their own curse and Beane is on the shortlist of candidates.
Beane does deserve credit for revolutionizing the game to some extent. He was one of the early adopters of sabermetrics and the moneyball idea has definitely "crossed the chasm" now. It's mainstream to the point the A's can't work the system anymore. Beane in some sense shot himself in the foot with the book and also his success in general. Most of his critics are just bitter and they are being sadistic in enjoying his recent struggles. Moneyball definitely had it's share of good ideas and he deserves credit for it. They have to learn to give the devil it's due. Sure, the book does mock the traditional scouts and the baseball hierarchy - sometimes unnecessarily, but thats just the arrogance that personifies the whole jock and sports culture. Beane is just an ex-jock and his critics should cut him some slack. He is now facing an uphill battle. All of his competitive advantage is gone as richer teams are doing what he is doing, but with a lot of cash that the A's don't have. He has also learned to incorporate more traditional techniques these days as he has realized pure moneyball can't do it alone. Plus, I am not even sure what the Oakland A's want these days as a franchise. They are dealing with stadium issues, potential moves etc. Sometimes I wonder if they are self-destructing for a reason - to force a move or a new stadium or something. That would be sinister, but thats all part of the business of sports. Whatever it is, I wish Beane the best of luck, I hope he stays with Oakland and I expect him to be back with a decent product on the field soon. It's time for him to re-invent himself and if anybody can do it, he sure can.
If Beane leaves the A's, there is always the option of hiring Brad Pitt as their next GM!
The book explained that strategy among many others. It explained the A's love for walks, OPS and college players. It also explained why they thought high-school prospects are risky, bunts are bad, and defense is over-rated. It all made sense to the A's fans when the book came out because they were witnessing all this in real-time. The team was full of home-grown, young, cheap talent drafted by A's and they were winning big. The book credited all this to A's love for sabermetrics and A's trust in numbers and statistics. It also ridiculed traditional drafting techniques, scouts and old-school GMs and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Fast forwarding to the here and now, many of those people are taking a lot of pleasure from the troubles Beane and the A's are in. Very surprisingly, all of Beane's magic seems to have evaporated. May be it's bad karma! The A's teams since 2007 have been bad, uninteresting and boring. They have really not even showcased any top, young talent to be stolen by the richer clubs. They seem to bring up young players, but none of them seem to really stick out. There was a lot of hope for their pitchers this year after last year's performance, but they seem to have all taken a step back.
The primary problem for Beane is that the entire league is now into sabermetrics and the Moneyball book is a big reason for this. Between the book and the championship success of the Boston Redsox - another moneyball team, the rest of the league seemed to have followed suit. Billy Beane was not the first or the only one to rely on stats back in the day, but the book promoted him as a genius and popularized the concepts. This has led to all the other teams following suit. Many scouts and GMs are upset with Beane because they were all offended by some of the scenes in the book. The primary criticism of Beane is that he never won anything big - the A's have not even been to the World Series under his watch. The other complaint is that the book (or the movie) doesn't give much credit to the top talent they had - the big 3 pitchers especially. Their point is, the top talent they had were all high on most people's draft boards, with or without moneyball and hence Beane can't take much credit for those. Most of the true "moneyball" picks on the other hand, have not done much in the big league. I used to wonder about that myself as the book spent entire chapters on certain players as if they were surefire diamonds in the rough that the A's and A's alone spotted. But I have not heard of those players at all since then. So the critics say the A's were successful because of Hudson, Zito and Mulder and not because of moneyball or Beane's genius.
As always, the truth is somewhere in-between. To be fair to Beane, he did pick most of those star players and they may not have been entirely moneyball picks, but I am sure Beane followed some of his drafting policies on them as well. Secondly, I think the whole point is how he was winning an unfair game and you can't dismiss all that just because he never won the big one. Boston did win big because they backed up the moneyball numbers with the most important numbers that matter - zeros on the paychecks making up that big payroll. Theo Epstein is also a moneyball guy and Beane actually recommended him when Boston was hiring after Beane turned that job down himself. I wonder if it was a bad decision on the part of Beane to have rejected that offer in retrospect. At that time, the theory was, Beane with those resources will be more scrutinized and will look less like a genius and of course, it was also going to be hard to handle that crazy east coast media and the RedSox pressures. But Theo erased the curse of the bambino and brought a championship to Boston. He will never have to pay for a drink again in Boston. If Beane had won that ring - no guarantee he would have, he would be an even bigger star just because of the name recognition. Epstein was just a kid back then and he earned his stripes with that ring. Beane on the other already had the stripes. The stripes would have only gotten brighter, thicker and deeper. Hope he doesn't regret that decision and end up going to Chicago where they are looking to hire a GM to erase their own curse and Beane is on the shortlist of candidates.
Beane does deserve credit for revolutionizing the game to some extent. He was one of the early adopters of sabermetrics and the moneyball idea has definitely "crossed the chasm" now. It's mainstream to the point the A's can't work the system anymore. Beane in some sense shot himself in the foot with the book and also his success in general. Most of his critics are just bitter and they are being sadistic in enjoying his recent struggles. Moneyball definitely had it's share of good ideas and he deserves credit for it. They have to learn to give the devil it's due. Sure, the book does mock the traditional scouts and the baseball hierarchy - sometimes unnecessarily, but thats just the arrogance that personifies the whole jock and sports culture. Beane is just an ex-jock and his critics should cut him some slack. He is now facing an uphill battle. All of his competitive advantage is gone as richer teams are doing what he is doing, but with a lot of cash that the A's don't have. He has also learned to incorporate more traditional techniques these days as he has realized pure moneyball can't do it alone. Plus, I am not even sure what the Oakland A's want these days as a franchise. They are dealing with stadium issues, potential moves etc. Sometimes I wonder if they are self-destructing for a reason - to force a move or a new stadium or something. That would be sinister, but thats all part of the business of sports. Whatever it is, I wish Beane the best of luck, I hope he stays with Oakland and I expect him to be back with a decent product on the field soon. It's time for him to re-invent himself and if anybody can do it, he sure can.
If Beane leaves the A's, there is always the option of hiring Brad Pitt as their next GM!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Thank the honeymoon
When somebody is new at their job, we always use the term "he is still in his honeymoon period". San Francisco 49'ers coach Jim Harbaugh had a classic honeymoon moment last weekend. The niners were leading and playing really well against the Cowboys when they stalled at about the 37 yard line and settled for a 55 yard field goal with over 11 minutes to go in the game. The kicker nailed it, but the boys committed a penalty - the kind of penalty that would typically be considered back-breaking. These are the penalties that gives life to a stalled offense and drags the defense back on to the field and asks them to now defend an even shorter field. It was a 15 yarder and offered the ball to the Niners offense at the 22 yard line. Harbaugh surprisingly declined the penalty and instead decided to tag it to the kick-off. I was shocked to say the least. Sure, it was a long field goal, but it was a 15 yard penalty. Even if the offense didn't move an inch from there, it would have given the niners a 39 yard field goal, which you would assume is pretty easy to convert in this day and age of HGH enhanced athletes. If it was a 5 yard penalty, it would have been a different story. The worst case scenario would have been a retry on a 50 yard field goal and who knows if the kicker converts again. But he declined a 15 yarder. This decision basically meant Harbaugh had no faith in his offense. The only way this penalty was going to hurt the niners was if the offense either fumbled the ball, threw an interception or got sacked way behind or sacked multiple times and gave it's kicker another long field goal. All things a decent offense and an average QB can avoid.
Bad things can happen and does happen to NFL offenses every Sunday, but you can't play or coach scared. There is a difference between being conservative and being scared and Harbaugh was scared in this case. He was scared to put the ball in his offense and Alex Smith's hands. He was scared that his offensive line was going to screw up. All valid concerns given the talent on that side of the ball, but if you can't accept the ball on their 22- yard line, you have bigger problems. Being conservative or even scared is not going to save your season in that case. To be fair to Harbaugh, Brian Bilick on TV was not sure if he should take the penalty either. The logic was that you don't take points off the board. I am sure there is some unwritten rule somewhere for coaches on this and thats why Bilick was very familiar with it. But Harbaugh followed the rule to the T. The niners went up 24-14 at that point and the Cowboys went onto tie the game and won it in overtime. Interestingly, Harbaugh was scared for his offense and his team losing the game, not for his job. From a job security perspective, it was safer to take the ball back because a turnover then would have been Alex's or Gore's fault and not his. By making this decision, it was all Harbaugh's fault. Thats a level of cunning he doesn't have to resort to in his 2-Nd game as a head coach and hopefully never. But it is also because this is just his second game, that he gets away easy. He better be glad he is still in his honeymoon period because if Mike Singletary or Mike Nolan had done this closer to the end of their coaching tenure, the niner faithful would have roasted them over the coals.
This game also made a hero out of Tony Romo and rightfully so as he came back with a broken rib and played real well to put the boys over the top. He went from goat to a hero just like that and all the toughness questions were erased overnight. Thanks to his honeymoon, Harbaugh is not facing too many tough questions either. The niner faithful is still busy scheming how to get Alex Smith out of town! Across the bay, the Raiders are also dealing with the aftermath of a tough defeat they snatched from the jaws of victory. They let the Bills score in every possession in the second half to the tune of 35 points and lost a game they were dominating in the first half. Jason Campbell played real well even without 3 of his top receivers and his top TE. I don't ever remember the top 4 pass catchers being hurt and out. Good for the Raiders, none of them are that good anyways! They seem to have replaced them rather easily. The Bills and Ryan Fitzpatrick are playing great right now. Next week's Bills-Pats contest should be an high-octane affair and might surprise us just like last week's Bills-Raiders. In Carolina, Cam Newton continues to impress. He threw for more than 400 yards again. I am glad I predicted it will happen again, though I didn't expect it so soon against the world champions. He is hosting the Jaguars this Sunday and Blaine Gabbert is going to start for the Jags. That an interesting storyline for the weekend for sure. Arizona Cardinals lost a tough one on the road, but the overall outlook for the team still looks good. Kolb is doing well and the Rams are not doing great. So the Cards can easily make it to the playoffs if they don't self-destruct.
Overall, the Lions, Redskins and the Bills are looking better than expected and the Rams, Chiefs and the Colts are looking worse than expected. Week 3 will clarify things much more. Bring on week 3!
Bad things can happen and does happen to NFL offenses every Sunday, but you can't play or coach scared. There is a difference between being conservative and being scared and Harbaugh was scared in this case. He was scared to put the ball in his offense and Alex Smith's hands. He was scared that his offensive line was going to screw up. All valid concerns given the talent on that side of the ball, but if you can't accept the ball on their 22- yard line, you have bigger problems. Being conservative or even scared is not going to save your season in that case. To be fair to Harbaugh, Brian Bilick on TV was not sure if he should take the penalty either. The logic was that you don't take points off the board. I am sure there is some unwritten rule somewhere for coaches on this and thats why Bilick was very familiar with it. But Harbaugh followed the rule to the T. The niners went up 24-14 at that point and the Cowboys went onto tie the game and won it in overtime. Interestingly, Harbaugh was scared for his offense and his team losing the game, not for his job. From a job security perspective, it was safer to take the ball back because a turnover then would have been Alex's or Gore's fault and not his. By making this decision, it was all Harbaugh's fault. Thats a level of cunning he doesn't have to resort to in his 2-Nd game as a head coach and hopefully never. But it is also because this is just his second game, that he gets away easy. He better be glad he is still in his honeymoon period because if Mike Singletary or Mike Nolan had done this closer to the end of their coaching tenure, the niner faithful would have roasted them over the coals.
This game also made a hero out of Tony Romo and rightfully so as he came back with a broken rib and played real well to put the boys over the top. He went from goat to a hero just like that and all the toughness questions were erased overnight. Thanks to his honeymoon, Harbaugh is not facing too many tough questions either. The niner faithful is still busy scheming how to get Alex Smith out of town! Across the bay, the Raiders are also dealing with the aftermath of a tough defeat they snatched from the jaws of victory. They let the Bills score in every possession in the second half to the tune of 35 points and lost a game they were dominating in the first half. Jason Campbell played real well even without 3 of his top receivers and his top TE. I don't ever remember the top 4 pass catchers being hurt and out. Good for the Raiders, none of them are that good anyways! They seem to have replaced them rather easily. The Bills and Ryan Fitzpatrick are playing great right now. Next week's Bills-Pats contest should be an high-octane affair and might surprise us just like last week's Bills-Raiders. In Carolina, Cam Newton continues to impress. He threw for more than 400 yards again. I am glad I predicted it will happen again, though I didn't expect it so soon against the world champions. He is hosting the Jaguars this Sunday and Blaine Gabbert is going to start for the Jags. That an interesting storyline for the weekend for sure. Arizona Cardinals lost a tough one on the road, but the overall outlook for the team still looks good. Kolb is doing well and the Rams are not doing great. So the Cards can easily make it to the playoffs if they don't self-destruct.
Overall, the Lions, Redskins and the Bills are looking better than expected and the Rams, Chiefs and the Colts are looking worse than expected. Week 3 will clarify things much more. Bring on week 3!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tom and Cam define week 1
I don't know what was more ridiculous. Tom Brady throwing for 517 yards or Cam Newton throwing for 422 yards. Where's the defense? What happened to the theory that offenses take longer than defenses to get into the groove, especially coming off a lockout shortened training camp? Brady shredded the Miami defense Monday night and he didn't even need Chad Ochocinco to do anything. It was beautiful to watch Brady throw those pin-point passes that hit his receivers in stride every time. Whether he is making passes at a super model or throwing passes to Wes Welker, I guess Brady knows what he is doing. I don't care how many more rings he accumulates, I will rank Brady second only to Peyton Manning, but I have to say, he is an elite quarterback and he was totally on-point Monday night. This league is definitely becoming more and more QB, offense and pass friendly and I am not complaining. You can't breathe on a quarterback these days and the corner-backs can't do much of what they used to do a decade back. All of that is beginning to show in the numbers. Brady threw for 517 yards and there is talk of him eclipsing Dan Marino's single season record for yardage (5084 yards) this season. Of course both Brady and Manning have already surpassed Marino's single season TD record. Too early for such discussions this season, but with the new NFL, I wouldn't be surprised if Dan the Man loses more of his records. Week 1 featured 5 games where both QBs threw for more than 300 yards. Thats almost 1/3-Rd of the league. Thats not counting Kyle Orton and Matthew Stafford who also threw for 300+ yards in their respective games.
The most surprising QB performance was Cam Newton's 422 yards. The rookie from Auburn was supposed to be so mediocre in year 1 that even a star WR like Steve Smith was barely drafted in most fantasy leagues. Their passing offense was supposed to struggle as Cam was expected to suffer through a steep learning curve despite his amazing physical tools. Coming into the NFL, he didn't look ready, but he showed us last weekend why the Panthers spent their first pick on him though there was some talk of other QBs possibly being more ready for the NFL than him. All last week before the games, most experts picked Cincinnati's Andy Dalton to have a better game than Cam in week 1, but they were not even close to being correct. Cam looked like Michael Vick without the dogs and was throwing long darts all over the field. He also ran for a TD and at 6'5", 248 pounds, this guy is going to be something else if he keeps this up. Of course thats a big question mark because he did all this to the Cardinals defense. I would like to think he is that good and the Cardinals defense is not that bad for selfish reasons, but I am afraid the truth is somewhere in-between and the Cardinals defense might just be that bad. We will know more this weekend as the super bowl champs will try and contain Cam and they should do a much better job than the Cards. It was good that Kolb and the Cards won their first game together, but the story of that game was definitely Cam Newton. Does he have another 400 yarder in him this season? Looking at the league right now, I have to say yes. Either way, I will be watching what he does rest of the way.
Some of the bigger games last weekend gave us some interesting results. The Baltimore Ravens pummeled the Pittsburgh Steelers much to my delight and sent the reigning AFC champion running for cover and searching for answers. Nothing good came out of that game for the Steelers except a new Tomlinism - "There is a fine line between drinking wine and squashing grapes. Obviously last weekend we were grape squashers.” I don't even know what that means, but it sounds so cool! Sunday night game between the NY Jets and the Dallas Cowboys was interesting for just one reason. Both QBs did exactly what their reputation would suggest. Mark Sanchez didn't seem to do much, but he won a big game as always. He should be the most unimpressive QB with the most impressive wins against better QBs. As for Romo, it was the same story as always - great for 3 quarters and major mistakes when it mattered most. QBs always get too much credit or too much blame for victories and defeats. Case in point - Mark Sanchez. He gets a lot of credit though the Jets mostly win despite him, not because of him. But Romo truly lost that game for Dallas. He fumbled at the goal-line once and then threw an interception with less than a minute to go in the game. He forced the ball to Dez Bryant, who was limping and covered by Darrelle Revis, one of the best corners in the world. Sometimes, Romo just gets blamed for the loss, but this time he earned it. I think his problem is simple. He doesn't take ball security in the clutch seriously. He needs a shot of seriousness injected into him in the 4-Th quarter to cure his nonchalance. He has to learn to protect the ball all game, but 10 time more securely in the 4-Th. Lets see how the boys respond against the Niners next week in Jim Harbaugh's second game as the head man in San Francisco.
The most surprising QB performance was Cam Newton's 422 yards. The rookie from Auburn was supposed to be so mediocre in year 1 that even a star WR like Steve Smith was barely drafted in most fantasy leagues. Their passing offense was supposed to struggle as Cam was expected to suffer through a steep learning curve despite his amazing physical tools. Coming into the NFL, he didn't look ready, but he showed us last weekend why the Panthers spent their first pick on him though there was some talk of other QBs possibly being more ready for the NFL than him. All last week before the games, most experts picked Cincinnati's Andy Dalton to have a better game than Cam in week 1, but they were not even close to being correct. Cam looked like Michael Vick without the dogs and was throwing long darts all over the field. He also ran for a TD and at 6'5", 248 pounds, this guy is going to be something else if he keeps this up. Of course thats a big question mark because he did all this to the Cardinals defense. I would like to think he is that good and the Cardinals defense is not that bad for selfish reasons, but I am afraid the truth is somewhere in-between and the Cardinals defense might just be that bad. We will know more this weekend as the super bowl champs will try and contain Cam and they should do a much better job than the Cards. It was good that Kolb and the Cards won their first game together, but the story of that game was definitely Cam Newton. Does he have another 400 yarder in him this season? Looking at the league right now, I have to say yes. Either way, I will be watching what he does rest of the way.
Some of the bigger games last weekend gave us some interesting results. The Baltimore Ravens pummeled the Pittsburgh Steelers much to my delight and sent the reigning AFC champion running for cover and searching for answers. Nothing good came out of that game for the Steelers except a new Tomlinism - "There is a fine line between drinking wine and squashing grapes. Obviously last weekend we were grape squashers.” I don't even know what that means, but it sounds so cool! Sunday night game between the NY Jets and the Dallas Cowboys was interesting for just one reason. Both QBs did exactly what their reputation would suggest. Mark Sanchez didn't seem to do much, but he won a big game as always. He should be the most unimpressive QB with the most impressive wins against better QBs. As for Romo, it was the same story as always - great for 3 quarters and major mistakes when it mattered most. QBs always get too much credit or too much blame for victories and defeats. Case in point - Mark Sanchez. He gets a lot of credit though the Jets mostly win despite him, not because of him. But Romo truly lost that game for Dallas. He fumbled at the goal-line once and then threw an interception with less than a minute to go in the game. He forced the ball to Dez Bryant, who was limping and covered by Darrelle Revis, one of the best corners in the world. Sometimes, Romo just gets blamed for the loss, but this time he earned it. I think his problem is simple. He doesn't take ball security in the clutch seriously. He needs a shot of seriousness injected into him in the 4-Th quarter to cure his nonchalance. He has to learn to protect the ball all game, but 10 time more securely in the 4-Th. Lets see how the boys respond against the Niners next week in Jim Harbaugh's second game as the head man in San Francisco.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Crazy, good stuff
We are just 2 weeks in to college football and a game into the NFL and we have already had multiple reminders of why we love our football. Saints-Packers on Thursday was everything you, me and the NFL wanted (times 10) out of the season opener. Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers put on a show and the Saints almost pushed the game into OT on the very last play. A high-scoring, fun game devoid of offensive mistakes that stayed close till the very last play. Could Roger Goodell have scripted a better season opener to emerge from the lockout? Don't think so. Exciting game, but if I were a fan of either of those teams, I would be a little concerned about the defense. Granted, they were both going against a great QB and good offenses, but it didn't look like they can stop a whole lot of teams. The Saints especially looked really weak on defense as Rodgers did whatever he wanted. I will reserve judgment for another week so that I can see these defenses in action against another team, but neither defense looked to be of Super Bowl quality on Thursday. Thats great news for fantasy owners with Brees on their roster. I think he might have to have an even better season than expected for the Saints to be any good. The fun will continue Sunday with Pittsburgh-Baltimore and Dallas-Jets being the headliners. Philadelphia at Saint Louis and Detroit at Tampa Bay are the other intriguing match-ups. Well, it's week 1. Each and every match-up looks appetizing to me. Everybody is ready to roll. Especially Adrian Peterson and Troy Polamalu - the 2 veteran superstars who were given huge extensions the day before the season.
College football was not a slouch either in it's week 2. ASU started off a fun weekend with an OT win over Missouri on Friday. Great win for Pac-12 and good exposure for ASU as they try to creep up the top-25. Of course it would have been an awful game for ASU if they had lost. They gave up a 14 point lead and almost lost the game in regular time. Luckily, they won it in OT after making it a nail-biting affair. Michigan and Notre Dame played an amazing game like they always seem to do lately. They combined for 3 TDs in the last 2 minutes and Michigan's stud QB Denard Robinson sealed the deal with a TD pass with 2 seconds to go. Tough loss for the domers as they were leading comfortably at one point in this game, which was the first night game at the Big House. It was a great college game between 2 storied programs in an awesome atmosphere. Instant classic in front of 114,00 fans, college football's record crowd. Michigan's rival, Ohio State scraped past Toledo 27-22 and Texas survived BYU 17-16. South Carolina and Georgia played a fun one in Athens as the Ole' ball coach won on the road and added on to Mark Richt's pain. Auburn upset Mississippi state 41-34 in the other marquee SEC match-up. Speaking of the SEC, it continued it's dominance over the Big 10 today as Alabama crushed Penn state and Joe Pa 27-11. Out west, Oregon bounced back from their loss at LSU with a win against Nevada as they dropped 69 points on them. Cal, Stanford and USC, all won their week 2 match-ups as well. USC won the first ever Pac-12 conference game. They beat Utah 23-14. Cal won a good one against Colorado but it was a previously scheduled non-conference game and won't count in the conference standings. Interesting twist.
Aside from the great action on the field, the other big news in college has been the conference re-alignments that has the Big 12 pretty much disintegrating soon. First, Pac-10 added 2 teams including Big-12's Colorado. Now, Texas A&M is trying to bolt to the SEC. Call me a traditionalist, but I don't like too much change in such matters. I miss my Pac-10. I always liked the geographical integrity of our conference. It was all West coast though Arizona is not technically a state on the Pacific coast. Now, thats all gone. I guess Utah and Colorado still qualify as "West coast", at least in the eyes of some East coast honks, but all geographic logic are under threat as the SEC is now getting Texas A&M and Pac-12 might still bring in Oklahoma, though the conference is denying that possibility. Hope we don't end up with Boston College in Pac-16 and the BYU in the SEC in 2015! There is now a threat of a lawsuit and all kinds of rumors in Big-12 and unfortunately, Pac-10 was the initiator of all this confusion. I am still amused that Pac-10 had issues with the almighty dollar because they were nestled away in the West coast with late night games and not so committed fan base in some schools, but they are the ones growing. They were apparently not generating the same revenues as some other football-crazed conferences, but they went and poached from Big-12 instead of the other way around. I guess tradition and the Pac-10 label is still strong enough to help them breakup other conferences, with or without top-of-the-line revenue. Utah and Colorado should help the Pac-12 because it brings 2 entire states on board and those states will tune into football as not much else happens in those hoods. The only good news for the NCAA with regard to re-alignment is that it takes attention away from all the scandals that dominated the college football's off the field newswire. Of course the action on the field is compensating for everything off the field.
College football was not a slouch either in it's week 2. ASU started off a fun weekend with an OT win over Missouri on Friday. Great win for Pac-12 and good exposure for ASU as they try to creep up the top-25. Of course it would have been an awful game for ASU if they had lost. They gave up a 14 point lead and almost lost the game in regular time. Luckily, they won it in OT after making it a nail-biting affair. Michigan and Notre Dame played an amazing game like they always seem to do lately. They combined for 3 TDs in the last 2 minutes and Michigan's stud QB Denard Robinson sealed the deal with a TD pass with 2 seconds to go. Tough loss for the domers as they were leading comfortably at one point in this game, which was the first night game at the Big House. It was a great college game between 2 storied programs in an awesome atmosphere. Instant classic in front of 114,00 fans, college football's record crowd. Michigan's rival, Ohio State scraped past Toledo 27-22 and Texas survived BYU 17-16. South Carolina and Georgia played a fun one in Athens as the Ole' ball coach won on the road and added on to Mark Richt's pain. Auburn upset Mississippi state 41-34 in the other marquee SEC match-up. Speaking of the SEC, it continued it's dominance over the Big 10 today as Alabama crushed Penn state and Joe Pa 27-11. Out west, Oregon bounced back from their loss at LSU with a win against Nevada as they dropped 69 points on them. Cal, Stanford and USC, all won their week 2 match-ups as well. USC won the first ever Pac-12 conference game. They beat Utah 23-14. Cal won a good one against Colorado but it was a previously scheduled non-conference game and won't count in the conference standings. Interesting twist.
Aside from the great action on the field, the other big news in college has been the conference re-alignments that has the Big 12 pretty much disintegrating soon. First, Pac-10 added 2 teams including Big-12's Colorado. Now, Texas A&M is trying to bolt to the SEC. Call me a traditionalist, but I don't like too much change in such matters. I miss my Pac-10. I always liked the geographical integrity of our conference. It was all West coast though Arizona is not technically a state on the Pacific coast. Now, thats all gone. I guess Utah and Colorado still qualify as "West coast", at least in the eyes of some East coast honks, but all geographic logic are under threat as the SEC is now getting Texas A&M and Pac-12 might still bring in Oklahoma, though the conference is denying that possibility. Hope we don't end up with Boston College in Pac-16 and the BYU in the SEC in 2015! There is now a threat of a lawsuit and all kinds of rumors in Big-12 and unfortunately, Pac-10 was the initiator of all this confusion. I am still amused that Pac-10 had issues with the almighty dollar because they were nestled away in the West coast with late night games and not so committed fan base in some schools, but they are the ones growing. They were apparently not generating the same revenues as some other football-crazed conferences, but they went and poached from Big-12 instead of the other way around. I guess tradition and the Pac-10 label is still strong enough to help them breakup other conferences, with or without top-of-the-line revenue. Utah and Colorado should help the Pac-12 because it brings 2 entire states on board and those states will tune into football as not much else happens in those hoods. The only good news for the NCAA with regard to re-alignment is that it takes attention away from all the scandals that dominated the college football's off the field newswire. Of course the action on the field is compensating for everything off the field.
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