This was an eventful and action-packed sports week with many ups and downs, but the latest news is a bit of a downer. ESPN NFL expert Chris Mortensen announced he is suffering from throat cancer and is taking a sabbatical. I don't know him personally, but he comes off as a decent guy on TV and I am going to miss him. These guys actually spend more time in our living rooms than some of our dear friends and we develop an attachment towards them whether we like it or not. This is a sad news and I wish Mort a speedy recovery. Hope to see him soon in his bus tours across the NFL training camps. A lot happened between last week's wild card weekend and the bad news from Mort. The NCAA championship game, a NFL move to LA, and a bunch of interesting head coaching hires in the NFL.
It turned out Vegas did get the Wild Card weekend right with all 4 road teams winning. I got 3 of the 4 games right with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers putting me in my place in Washington. It wasn't even close for the Washington no-namers. To be fair, we might have gotten the games right, but 2 of those 4 were coin-flip games. Seattle was incredibly lucky that Blair Walsh missed a game-winning chip shot field goal. Adrian Peterson had a costly fumble in this low-scoring game first and then supposedly didn't rush to the right to set Walsh up at his preferred right hash for the game ending field goal. He cut back left hoping for a first down. He fell a yard short of the first down and won't have an opportunity for a meaningful carry for another 8 months. The dangerous Seattle team gets to live another day.
The Cincinnati Bengals lost in an even more excruciating way than the Vikings as a series of unfortunate events gave 30 free yards and the game on a platter to the Pittsburgh Steelers. A questionable penalty called on the troubled Sun Devil Vontaze Burfict and a bone-headed penalty by Pacman Jones ended the Bengals season and almost got Marvin Lewis fired. He survived, but paid the ultimate price for signing talented nut-jobs like Pacman. Sometimes, these players hurt you at the most inappropriate moments. Pacman sure was incited by Pittsburgh Steelers' coach Joey Porter, who is no choir boy himself, but such excuses don't win games, smart, disciplined plays do. Bengals have to start all over again next season without their OC Hue Jackson, who is now the head coach upstate in Cleveland.
Now on to the divisional round, which is arguably the best football weekend of the NFL season. The Arizona Cardinals will be hosting the Green Bay Packers for the second time in 4 weeks. They crushed the Packers the first time around, but the Packers looked a lot better last weekend at Washington. Aaron Rodgers can always become a serious problem for any defense, but I still think the Packers have not improved that much in a month to pull off the upset on the road against a potent team. They will make this much closer than last time, but the Cards should win. I expect the same with the Pats - a close game with the home team winning. Chiefs are rolling and I won't be surprised if they win against a shaky Pats team. But if Brady can't beat Alex Smith, hoodie will figure out a way to.
On Sunday, the lucky Seahawks are going into the Panthers. I have no idea who will or even who I want to win in this one. I am always up for a good Seattle loss and they are a dangerous team for the Cards to face if the Cards do make it to the NFC Championship game, but if Seattle wins they have to come to the desert. I don't mind the Panthers winning, but that means the Cards will be going to Cam's house and deal with the dab and the nene. Leaving my and Cards preferences aside, this is an amazing matchup and anybody's game. The Hawks are good on both sides of the ball, but they looked beatable last weekend. Their run ends here and the Panthers will finish the job that the Vikes started. The Steelers-Broncos game is also hard to predict only because of the injuries to Big Ben and Antonio Brown. With them healthy, I would have no hesitation in picking them to beat Peyton Manning, who looks more ready to shop for Centrum silver than play in the NFL playoffs. But I give the Broncos and that defense a slight edge at home against a hobbled Big Ben and a Brown-less Steelers.
On the coaching front, aside from the Browns hiring Hue Jackson, Dirk Koetter (Bucs), Ben McAdoo (NYG), Adam Gase (Dolphins), Chip Kelly (Niners), and Doug Pederson (Eagles) have all landed on their feet and grabbed one of the top jobs in America. The most fascinating among those hires is Chip Kelly in San Francisco for his second shot. The ownership and front-office that had issues with Jim Harbaugh is hiring another guy with a questionable personality. On top of his personality, he is also known to have issues with managing players his way. The jury is still out on his unique, up-tempo offense and the Niners have Colin Kaepernick, who they were expected to get rid of, but might fit the aforementioned offense a lot better than most other QBs. Do they now keep him? How will this all shake out? We will find out in the next 6 months. Niners also have around 50 mill in salary cap as well.
The other big news this week was the St. Louis Rams getting the approval for their LA move. How ironic is it that Stan Kreonke, the guy from Missouri who was brought in as a minority owner by the LA owners when the Rams moved into that region is now spearheading the move out of St. Louis back to LA. It's a smart business decision and he is not even asking for a whole lot of public funds in LA. Looks like he will sink 1.8+ billion of his personal money into this stadium. He will make enough money in return for years to come, but the real returns will be in terms of the equity and his franchise's value. If the Clippers are worth 2 bills in LA, god knows how much the Rams will be worth in 5 years with that spanking new stadium in Inglewood. Good for Stan and as always, the fans lose, despite the city of St. Louis promising public funds. To quote someone in St. Louis, "we are throwing money at the stripper and she is throwing it back in our face."
It's Stan's business and he can do whatever he wants, but sports teams are civic entities and there needs to be better checks and balances on uprooting a team from it's city. NFL does have strong bylaws and wordings around encouraging teams to stay in their communities, but those seem to be just words. None of that really matters when cash-money comes knocking. Now, San Diego is supposed to work it out with the Rams and move in to those new digs. That leaves the Raiders out and they are back to square one. They don't have a lease in Oakland as of today and San Antonio is back in the picture. Raiders owner Mark Davis keeps talking about Raider-nation as if it's some form of an universal entity not bound by any geographic boundaries. The Raiders do have bit of a distributed following due to their multiple moves and catchy colors, but can he be any more disingenuous and delusional? He is trying to convince us that Raider fans are a thing with or without Oakland. Thats his way out of town, if he needs one. The Raider fans in Oakland are not too bothered either because they are either too cool to care or they are convinced the Raiders have nowhere to go and will stay back, at least for a year or two. Let's hope for the best here. I am sick of the business of sports treating the paying fans as the least relevant entity in the World.
I would be remiss if I don't mention the NCAA Championship game last Monday. Alabama won over Clemson in an instant classic. I was really impressed with Clemson QB Deshaun Watson. Alabama's Jake Coker kept pace with him and it was amazing to see how many big plays this game featured on both sides of the ball. Nick Saban is not quite the legend that Bear Bryant is, but his resume is already better. He is playing in a more competitive era with a playoff. It's hard to believe that Bear Bryant actually lost his final bowl game and still won a couple of championships back in the day. It was indeed a different time and place and Saban is already at 4 rings versus Bryant's 6 at Alabama. Saban has one more from LSU. He is indeed a super legend in the making.
It turned out Vegas did get the Wild Card weekend right with all 4 road teams winning. I got 3 of the 4 games right with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers putting me in my place in Washington. It wasn't even close for the Washington no-namers. To be fair, we might have gotten the games right, but 2 of those 4 were coin-flip games. Seattle was incredibly lucky that Blair Walsh missed a game-winning chip shot field goal. Adrian Peterson had a costly fumble in this low-scoring game first and then supposedly didn't rush to the right to set Walsh up at his preferred right hash for the game ending field goal. He cut back left hoping for a first down. He fell a yard short of the first down and won't have an opportunity for a meaningful carry for another 8 months. The dangerous Seattle team gets to live another day.
The Cincinnati Bengals lost in an even more excruciating way than the Vikings as a series of unfortunate events gave 30 free yards and the game on a platter to the Pittsburgh Steelers. A questionable penalty called on the troubled Sun Devil Vontaze Burfict and a bone-headed penalty by Pacman Jones ended the Bengals season and almost got Marvin Lewis fired. He survived, but paid the ultimate price for signing talented nut-jobs like Pacman. Sometimes, these players hurt you at the most inappropriate moments. Pacman sure was incited by Pittsburgh Steelers' coach Joey Porter, who is no choir boy himself, but such excuses don't win games, smart, disciplined plays do. Bengals have to start all over again next season without their OC Hue Jackson, who is now the head coach upstate in Cleveland.
Now on to the divisional round, which is arguably the best football weekend of the NFL season. The Arizona Cardinals will be hosting the Green Bay Packers for the second time in 4 weeks. They crushed the Packers the first time around, but the Packers looked a lot better last weekend at Washington. Aaron Rodgers can always become a serious problem for any defense, but I still think the Packers have not improved that much in a month to pull off the upset on the road against a potent team. They will make this much closer than last time, but the Cards should win. I expect the same with the Pats - a close game with the home team winning. Chiefs are rolling and I won't be surprised if they win against a shaky Pats team. But if Brady can't beat Alex Smith, hoodie will figure out a way to.
On Sunday, the lucky Seahawks are going into the Panthers. I have no idea who will or even who I want to win in this one. I am always up for a good Seattle loss and they are a dangerous team for the Cards to face if the Cards do make it to the NFC Championship game, but if Seattle wins they have to come to the desert. I don't mind the Panthers winning, but that means the Cards will be going to Cam's house and deal with the dab and the nene. Leaving my and Cards preferences aside, this is an amazing matchup and anybody's game. The Hawks are good on both sides of the ball, but they looked beatable last weekend. Their run ends here and the Panthers will finish the job that the Vikes started. The Steelers-Broncos game is also hard to predict only because of the injuries to Big Ben and Antonio Brown. With them healthy, I would have no hesitation in picking them to beat Peyton Manning, who looks more ready to shop for Centrum silver than play in the NFL playoffs. But I give the Broncos and that defense a slight edge at home against a hobbled Big Ben and a Brown-less Steelers.
On the coaching front, aside from the Browns hiring Hue Jackson, Dirk Koetter (Bucs), Ben McAdoo (NYG), Adam Gase (Dolphins), Chip Kelly (Niners), and Doug Pederson (Eagles) have all landed on their feet and grabbed one of the top jobs in America. The most fascinating among those hires is Chip Kelly in San Francisco for his second shot. The ownership and front-office that had issues with Jim Harbaugh is hiring another guy with a questionable personality. On top of his personality, he is also known to have issues with managing players his way. The jury is still out on his unique, up-tempo offense and the Niners have Colin Kaepernick, who they were expected to get rid of, but might fit the aforementioned offense a lot better than most other QBs. Do they now keep him? How will this all shake out? We will find out in the next 6 months. Niners also have around 50 mill in salary cap as well.
The other big news this week was the St. Louis Rams getting the approval for their LA move. How ironic is it that Stan Kreonke, the guy from Missouri who was brought in as a minority owner by the LA owners when the Rams moved into that region is now spearheading the move out of St. Louis back to LA. It's a smart business decision and he is not even asking for a whole lot of public funds in LA. Looks like he will sink 1.8+ billion of his personal money into this stadium. He will make enough money in return for years to come, but the real returns will be in terms of the equity and his franchise's value. If the Clippers are worth 2 bills in LA, god knows how much the Rams will be worth in 5 years with that spanking new stadium in Inglewood. Good for Stan and as always, the fans lose, despite the city of St. Louis promising public funds. To quote someone in St. Louis, "we are throwing money at the stripper and she is throwing it back in our face."
It's Stan's business and he can do whatever he wants, but sports teams are civic entities and there needs to be better checks and balances on uprooting a team from it's city. NFL does have strong bylaws and wordings around encouraging teams to stay in their communities, but those seem to be just words. None of that really matters when cash-money comes knocking. Now, San Diego is supposed to work it out with the Rams and move in to those new digs. That leaves the Raiders out and they are back to square one. They don't have a lease in Oakland as of today and San Antonio is back in the picture. Raiders owner Mark Davis keeps talking about Raider-nation as if it's some form of an universal entity not bound by any geographic boundaries. The Raiders do have bit of a distributed following due to their multiple moves and catchy colors, but can he be any more disingenuous and delusional? He is trying to convince us that Raider fans are a thing with or without Oakland. Thats his way out of town, if he needs one. The Raider fans in Oakland are not too bothered either because they are either too cool to care or they are convinced the Raiders have nowhere to go and will stay back, at least for a year or two. Let's hope for the best here. I am sick of the business of sports treating the paying fans as the least relevant entity in the World.
I would be remiss if I don't mention the NCAA Championship game last Monday. Alabama won over Clemson in an instant classic. I was really impressed with Clemson QB Deshaun Watson. Alabama's Jake Coker kept pace with him and it was amazing to see how many big plays this game featured on both sides of the ball. Nick Saban is not quite the legend that Bear Bryant is, but his resume is already better. He is playing in a more competitive era with a playoff. It's hard to believe that Bear Bryant actually lost his final bowl game and still won a couple of championships back in the day. It was indeed a different time and place and Saban is already at 4 rings versus Bryant's 6 at Alabama. Saban has one more from LSU. He is indeed a super legend in the making.
2 comments:
Great job! All your picks were dead-on (not just the winners but also the fact that all four games would be close). The Centrum silver line made me chuckle. :-D
I think coaching is the least of the 49ers' problems. But if Chip Kelly can make personnel decisions here (like he could in Philadelphia) this move could cause more harm than good.
I don't feel bad for St. Louis for losing the Rams. Didn't they steal the Rams from Los Angeles to begin with? At least now the Rams finally belong (geographically) in the NFC West. I'm not sure if L.A will embrace professional football (I doubt they would have paid for the stadium) but I guess it'll depend on how good the team is. They're in a tough division and I don't see them making the playoffs any time soon. Although the NFL is all about parity so things could change sooner rather than later.
Pats-Broncos and Cardinals-Panthers should be fun to watch! I'd be very surprised to see Denver in the Super Bowl but Arizona-Carolina seems like a coin flip.
Don't know much about throat cancer but I hope Mort can fight it and win!
Yes, the Rams move makes a lot of geographic sense and the NFC-West teams will all be on the West coast now. That is a plus. NFL is indeed all about the parity. Things change overnight. Look at Carolina. Went from 7-8-1 to 15-1 this season. Rams could easily be the team to beat next year. They looked pretty scary for a couple of weeks even early this season.
Post a Comment