Holiday season usually mean some combination of family, travel, and sports. I didn't travel to meet family this year and hence my season was more skewed towards watching sports on TV. This time of the year, we have the NFL ramping up, fantasy football peaking or waning depending on how the playoffs treated you, bowl games, and the Christmas Day NBA games. Speaking of Bowl games, there was a great one tonight at Orange Bowl between Michigan and Florida state. Michigan lost by a point. Jim Harbaugh is a great coach. What he has done at Michigan in 2 years is as impressive as what he did in each of his previous stops. But he does seem to suffer a little bit from the bridesmaid syndrome. He takes teams almost to the very top, but falls just a little short in the Super Bowl or the crucial Ohio State game or the Orange Bowl. It doesn't seem like he is screwing things up, but bad luck seems to follow him at the worst of times. However, you can't blame it all on bad luck as some of his failures might be due to his offenses being conservative and not explosive enough to score in the clutch against good defenses. For a former quarterback turned head coach, his teams are pretty defense and run oriented and conservative on offense. In any case, congrats on a good season and let's see where he takes his program. If he stays that is. He is always linked to high profile NFL openings.
In the NBA, the Warriors-Cavs Christmas Day game is still reverberating across the league. It was great theater and good TV. NBA should have been happy with the show and the TV ratings for that game. It even drew more viewers than the Ravens-Steelers game for the stretch they overlapped. However, NBA did get killed later with the other games going against the NFL. This game in Cleveland was very reminiscent of the thrilling finals these teams played in June in more ways than one. I was very impressed by the intensity of this game from the get-go. It felt like the game 8 of the finals! Unfortunately for the Warriors, the result and the ending felt like the finals too. They came from way ahead to lose a close one. Losing a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter is never a good look, especially for an elite team. Houston Rockets' GM Daryl Morey and the analytics crowd will tell you that it's statistically rare for teams to lose when they are ahead by more points than the number of minutes remaining in the game. Thats true for a normal team, let alone a star-studded championship contender. With all that said, I don't think the dubs have a lot to worry about. They dominated the game even with Curry being MIA. They should be able to handle these Cavs. Unless of course it's an one possession game at the end and the ball in in Kyrie Irving's hands. All bets are off in that case.
In the NFL, the Christmas weekend was great this year with a full slate of games on Saturday plus a couple of games on Sunday and Monday Night Football. This week 17 is going to be weird since it's hard to even figure out which teams have anything to play for. Many stars are going to be resting and the gamblers are going to have a hard time picking winners. Ironically, the best team in the league, the New England Patriots, might still have to play and win since the Raiders are right on their heels and the number 1 seed is still in doubt. The Raiders and Chiefs have a lot to play for as well. The only real contest is the Packers @ Lions Sunday night for the NFC North title. There is still some intrigue on the NFC side, though I won't bore you with all the details including how the TB Bucs can still make the playoffs if 8 things break their way including a tie. The AFC playoff on the other hand is all set and only the seedings are on the line this weekend. The NFL TV ratings since the elections seem to be back on track, but a lot of it seems to be because of the Cowboys. This will continue into the playoffs and we can expect a massive Super Bowl if the Boys make it that far. But the AFC playoffs might have some interesting TV numbers as we have 3 backup QBs among the 6 playoff teams - Matt Moore, Matt McGloin, and Tom Savage. Whether they throw the ball to their receivers, opposing cornerbacks, or into the dirt, some of us will be watching for sure. But will America watch? Happy New Year to everybody and lets usher in the NFL playoffs and find out.
In the NBA, the Warriors-Cavs Christmas Day game is still reverberating across the league. It was great theater and good TV. NBA should have been happy with the show and the TV ratings for that game. It even drew more viewers than the Ravens-Steelers game for the stretch they overlapped. However, NBA did get killed later with the other games going against the NFL. This game in Cleveland was very reminiscent of the thrilling finals these teams played in June in more ways than one. I was very impressed by the intensity of this game from the get-go. It felt like the game 8 of the finals! Unfortunately for the Warriors, the result and the ending felt like the finals too. They came from way ahead to lose a close one. Losing a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter is never a good look, especially for an elite team. Houston Rockets' GM Daryl Morey and the analytics crowd will tell you that it's statistically rare for teams to lose when they are ahead by more points than the number of minutes remaining in the game. Thats true for a normal team, let alone a star-studded championship contender. With all that said, I don't think the dubs have a lot to worry about. They dominated the game even with Curry being MIA. They should be able to handle these Cavs. Unless of course it's an one possession game at the end and the ball in in Kyrie Irving's hands. All bets are off in that case.
In the NFL, the Christmas weekend was great this year with a full slate of games on Saturday plus a couple of games on Sunday and Monday Night Football. This week 17 is going to be weird since it's hard to even figure out which teams have anything to play for. Many stars are going to be resting and the gamblers are going to have a hard time picking winners. Ironically, the best team in the league, the New England Patriots, might still have to play and win since the Raiders are right on their heels and the number 1 seed is still in doubt. The Raiders and Chiefs have a lot to play for as well. The only real contest is the Packers @ Lions Sunday night for the NFC North title. There is still some intrigue on the NFC side, though I won't bore you with all the details including how the TB Bucs can still make the playoffs if 8 things break their way including a tie. The AFC playoff on the other hand is all set and only the seedings are on the line this weekend. The NFL TV ratings since the elections seem to be back on track, but a lot of it seems to be because of the Cowboys. This will continue into the playoffs and we can expect a massive Super Bowl if the Boys make it that far. But the AFC playoffs might have some interesting TV numbers as we have 3 backup QBs among the 6 playoff teams - Matt Moore, Matt McGloin, and Tom Savage. Whether they throw the ball to their receivers, opposing cornerbacks, or into the dirt, some of us will be watching for sure. But will America watch? Happy New Year to everybody and lets usher in the NFL playoffs and find out.
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