Stretch Marks in the NFL.

Things are getting interesting in the NFL. Not sure if week 15 did much to clear the playoff lineup and eliminate pretenders, but it did give us two amazing endings. After all these years, one would think we have seen anything and everything in the NFL, but these two endings looked oddly crazy and unique to me. I am talking about the endings in the Steelers-Patriots game and the Cowboys-Raiders game. Both included a well-intended stretch and a not-so-obvious rule deciding the game. The Pats-Steelers game was better than expected and was clearly the game of the year given what was at stake. Antonio Brown's injury in the first half was unfortunate for the Steelers and Brady orchestrated a 2-minute drive that we all saw coming two quarters away. But one mistake Brady did was, he left too much time on the clock for the Steelers. I thought Ben had a shot at a tying field goal, but my man JuJu busted a long one to give Steelers a real shot at a TD and a possible win. Ben then hit his wide open TE esse James in the middle who lunged into the end zone for what we thought was a game clinching TD. 

Unfortunately for the Steelers, the ball hit the ground and slipped and shifted in James's hands. He had not been really touched or made a football move yet, whatever that means. So, it was ruled as an incomplete pass. This has happened before and probably will happen again, but you couldn't help but think that it absolutely looked like a catch through and through. Thats what makes this rule shaky and crazy. I see they are trying to make the concept of a catch fool-proof in the age of replays from 10 different angles, but they might have complicated this too much and taken intuition and common sense out of it. They have to fix this rule again and make it better. But then again, knowing the NFL, they may take a few years to admit and react to this. Ben still had 2 more plays to do something or at least take the field goal on 4th down and get to play an OT. Of course he throws an INT on third down and ball game Patriots! As always the breaks go the Pats way. But it does only because they make their own breaks. They are well-coached, practice hard, play smart, and are disciplined. 

Then on Sunday night, the Raiders were in a similar situation as the Steelers. They were deep in the red zone with the game clock winding down and trailing just by a field goal. A TD there would have ended the Cowboys season for all practical purposes. Instead, what happened pretty much ended the Raiders season, which you could argue was already on life support anyways. Carr drove the Raiders well in that final drive and got close to the finish line. He took off on a scramble and was so close to the pile on. Naturally, he dived and stretched to try and put the ball over it, but ended up fumbling the ball into the end zone as he was also hit by a defender just as he was stretching. A fumble into the end zone is a touch back and ball game Cowboys! Just like that, a touch down and a win became a touch back and a season ending turnover for the Raiders. This rule is actually well thought out and has many reasons for the way it stands, but it's still a little bit of a surprise to the casual fan every time it happens. Thats because the offense always get the ball when they fumble out of bounds, but not in the end zone. 

Now with Ezekiel Elliott coming back, there is a sliver of hope for the Cowboys, but it's still an uphill climb. We can't really blame Carr for the stretch because he saw pay dirt and was so close. How do you not lunge for the glory play? Sure, it's risky, but it would be hard to not make that attempt and play another down instead, though that is the smart, disciplined play. The funny part is, funny only if you are not a Jets fan that is, Austin Seferian-Jenkins has had 2 TDs taken away from him this season due to both these rules in 2 different games after what appeared like a solid catch on both occasion. I later heard that in New England, the players are not allowed to stretch the ball for yards. Thats amazing to me and thats why Hoodie is going to the hall of fame. This is exactly the kind of stuff that makes sure the breaks during the game always goes their way. Remember I said they make their own breaks! Their coaching and discipline make sure they don't make the mistakes and of course when the opponent does make those mistakes, the Pats are ready to pounce on it. It's not an accident. I am sure some Pats receivers still stretch for first down and touch downs and you could even argue you have to depending on the time, place, and situation. For example, on 4th downs if you are short. But I want to watch closely and see if this team rule is indeed followed closely by the Pats. I believe it.

Shameless!

The Oakland Raiders decided to move out of Oakland to Las Vegas last week. It was a sad day in the Bay Area. It was a day the locals were hoping will never come though it always seemed imminent. The Oakland stadium issue and the relocation threat, especially the LA story, has been hanging over the Raiders’ head for years, maybe even a decade. But it still feels like this relocation came quick and fast in somewhat of an unexpected way. That’s because the Raiders didn’t seem to have the money or the clout with the NFL to make a move happen. Cities like LA couldn’t muster any realistic plan for years and the NFL didn’t seem to want the Raiders back in LA anyways. As bad as the stadium and the financial realities were at Oakland, the fans were still hoping the Raiders are stuck there by default. And when Las Vegas came calling, it looked like an unrealistic negotiation trick at first if not a circus act since sports leagues have religiously avoided Vegas. And then the Vegas plan hit a couple of snags as well. But they eventually came up with the money and the requisite NFL vote to move them happened fairly quickly after that. Oakland is understandably shocked and upset.

The real culprit here might be the NHL. They seem to have opened the flood gates as far as putting a pro franchise in Vegas goes and they made it infinitely easier for the NFL to follow suit. I do think the holier than thou, pretentious snobs in the NFL might have hesitated to go to Vegas if they were the first sports franchise moving there. Of course, everything has a price and when Vegas came up with $750 million, NFL owner’s jaws and probably their draws dropped and they sold their soul in a minute. The Raider are expected to still play in Oakland for 2 or 3 more years since this thing came so quick and there is no landing spot for them in Vegas until the new stadium gets built. Unlike the Rams or the Chargers, the Raiders get to play in the same old city for better or for worse until the new behemoth gets built in Vegas.

The net-net of this is, 3 NFL teams have moved geographies in about a year or so. What kind of a league is this? The sad part is, NFL is neither apologetic nor ashamed about any of this. Sports teams are civic entities. A huge part of their customers and supporters are spending money on them because they belong to Oakland or Boston or Phoenix in their eyes. It’s not just another business along the lines of a Google or a Pepsi. People don’t search on Google because it is based out of Mountain View and I don’t even know where Pepsi is headquartered. Whereas everybody associate the Raiders with Oakland, Cowboys with Dallas etc. This is why billionaire owners of these teams shamelessly go to the city asking for money in the first place. Google and Pepsi are not asking for public funding for building their cubicles and conference rooms. Sure, cities do lure the corporations sometimes with tax breaks, cheap land, etc. for the jobs, but it’s only sports team that ask for straight cash (as Randy Moss would put it) from their host governments to run their core business. 

So, what are you, NFL? Are you a civic entity or a business? You have no right to ask for money from Vegas or Oakland or anybody else if you are a pure business. If you have the gall to ask for hundreds of millions of dollars from a city, have some decency and morality and show some concern for the local fan-base, your primary paying customer who have supported you for decades! You can’t have it both ways. And don’t even try to turn the argument around and say if the teams are a civic entity, cities like Oakland must pay public money. They don’t have to because the city will and can still will go over and above and help its sports team, the civic entity, in many ways. They can give you some land, invest in some infrastructure, and public transportation around the stadium etc. The idea of public funding to the tune of 100’s of millions of dollars for a sport stadium is a big no-no and such an outdated idea. Out of the many things you have to love about California, the fact that it’s the hardest state to get public money for sports stadiums is a true badge of honor. Even a sleepy suburb like Santa Clara barely voted to fund the stadium for the Niners, an incredibly beloved and popular team in the area. And look how that’s working out. There are all kinds of challenges and controversies in the city as they are still figuring out some of the financial details many years since the shovel hit the ground.

Asking for public funding and black-mailing the hometown is pure greed on the part of these billionaire businesses. And of course, who is going to stop now if cities like Vegas are stupid enough to line up and scratch a 750 mill check. Vegas has so many tourists and hotels that they can generate a lot of money by charging us tourists for this stadium grant. At the end of the day, we are going to be paying for it when we travel to Vegas. The whole thing is a racket and it made a little more sense when mom and pop were running the sports team in a prosperous America and didn’t have much money to refurbish an old, dilapidated home stadium. It doesn’t make any sense in today’s economic climate in our country to donate tax dollars to a 10+ billion dollar sports league just so that they could build better and newer stadiums every 3 months to generate more millions for themselves.

The fact that our richest and also the greediest sports league, the NFL, has uprooted 3 teams in a year from their hometowns and treated their paying customers like garbage tells you all you need to know about the National Football League. They should be ashamed of themselves if they have even a shred of integrity, which of course they don’t. Only the Dolphins owner seems to get it as he was the lone dissenting vote against the Raiders’ move. The other leagues are no saints, but at least the NBA made sure the New Orleans franchise didn’t ditch that town after hurricane Katrina. Maybe NFL was a little nice to New Orleans too, but NBA I thought was also very dignified and decent in the way it handed the Sacramento Kings. At one point, they were all but gone to Seattle, but the stakeholders worked some magic to pull it back.

NFL is apparently not into such feel-good stories. The only story they feel good about is going to the bank and cashing the checks. I like Draymond Green’s idea suggesting the fans should boycott the Raiders in Oakland. I total agree, but like my cousin pointed out, it’s just April and we are all already waiting for the first NFL Sunday. He says nobody is boycotting anything and I agree with that take too. NFL is king right now, but not for long if they continue in this arc. NBA is coming hard and fast! All of this reckless greed will catchup to the NFL sooner or later. But sports today, unfortunately, is the last surviving legal monopoly in our economy. They can and often do get away with murder and the Oakland Raiders are the latest casualty. On the bright side, at least the Oakland Athletics seem serious about staying in Oakland and there is new momentum on their stadium front since the Raiders news broke. The city might even pitch in. At least baseball gives the city 81 dates of jobs and beer sales as opposed to the measly 8 dates that the NFL brings to a 2 billion-dollar stadium.

NFL Layoffs - Mild-Card Weekend!

The NFL playoffs kicked off this weekend. This is usually the best part of the dog days of winter and the only thing to look for post holidays. This year's wild card matchups however were the most under-whelming I could think of in years. In a QB driven league, the AFC side of the bracket featured 3 backups or backup of backups. Yes, I count Brock Osweiler as a backup of his own backup! Derek Carr could have been a refreshing breath of fresh air in this year's playoffs, but his injury took all the intrigue out of the upstart Raiders. I like Connor Cook, but it was not fair to expect a rookie QB to win a playoff game on the road in his first ever NFL start.

The Raiders at Texans game got the earlier start time on Saturday and those teams are even lucky it was on live TV! The best part of this matchup was the post-game interview on ESPN when Houston's Jadeveon Clowney showed up and physically dwarfed the ex-players on the set including Randy Moss, who is no chopped liver himself at 6' 4". It's just amazing to see how big and strong pro athletes actually are.  Houston did win as expected with Brock looking better than usual. Not sure if we should credit the Raiders D for that, but Brock will remain the starter next weekend at New England. He sure earned it Saturday, but I don't see it happening again for him or the Texans against the Patriots.

Neither the Saturday night matchup between the Lions and the Seahawks nor the early Sunday game between the Dolphins and the Steelers were any better in terms of excitement or intrigue going in. None of these 3 games surprised us as they all stayed true to expectation. The Lions pretended like they were close, but didn't do anything to take advantage of Seattle's weaknesses or the opportunities presented. The best part of the Pittsburgh game was as usual watching Le'Veon Bell, the slowest fast runner in the NFL. This guy's patience and how long he waits behind the line of scrimmage for holes to open up before hitting them at full speed is a sight to behold. I have never seem anything like that. His style is unique.

The best game of the weekend was as expected the Giants at Packers. The final score was a 38-13 blowout, but the game was real close well into the third quarter and the QB play in the form of Aaron Rodgers was well worth the price of admission. A-Rod was on fire starting with that Hail Mary at the end of the first half. The Packers D shut out Odell Beckham Jr.  and now he has got all off season to shoot shirtless selfies on party boats in Miami. What a circus that Miami story was and these tools doubled down with a shirtless workout in the frozen tundra before the game. I don't know what these guys were thinking. But then again, they are not paid to think and are not the sharpest tool in the shed. OBJ is a piece of work and he needs to cleanup his act.

Thus ended the wild card weekend, which was more mild than wild making these playoffs more of a layoff so far before the real contests kickoff next weekend. The Patriots get another bye week with the Texans coming to town, but the other 3 games should be decent. In the meantime, we got the college football championship game tomorrow. This one should be a doozy as Clemson and Alabama hookup for the second year in a row. That rarely happens  in College football and I expect it to be better than even last year when Alabama won 45-40. Vegas thinks Alabama will win easily, but I expect Deshaun Watson to step up and make it hard for Alabama. I am hoping and expecting a close, injury-free contest to cap off a good college season.

Football is rolling already.

The NFL season kicked off in style and is off and running in full force already. We got some great games, fantastic finishes, and good story lines as always. The Carolina at Denver game on Thursday night kicked things off  with a close finish. Despite my reduced expectation for that game, it gave us fans exactly what we wanted. Trevor Siemian's play and Cam Newton's beating were the headlines from that game. Cam is an absolute baller. He had a great game despite the monster hits he suffered. Both the man and his game are large and the zebras are having problems officiating him appropriately. Some of the hits were brutal, especially for a QB, and the flags were nowhere to be found. This may change how the Panthers play Cam in the near future. They need to protect him. They should cut down on his scrambles and runs, though a lot of his hits in this game happened in the pocket. But why increase his exposure anyways? He is too important for the reigning NFC champions. Big win for Denver and Siemian. The Broncos have a good team with that defense and a running game centered around C.J.Anderson.

It's been a while since the Raiders were the top story of the week. They sure were the headliner this week as coach Jack Del Rio went for 2 and a win at the end of regulation instead of a tie and overtime. I have never seen that in the NFL. Definitely not in week 1 with a young team trying to make the playoffs for a franchise coming of several horrible years. You see such calls once in a while in college but only towards the end of the season in the NFL with real bad teams that have nothing to play for. Del Rio nailed it here and this win should give the Raiders a tonne of confidence and self-belief. Saints D is horrible and the Raiders D didn't play much better either, but the Raiders are going to truly believe they are playoff-bound after this road win. It's about time for the silver and black. Packers, Chiefs, Giants, Lions, Cowboys, and the Patriots won close and exciting games on this fun NFL Sunday.

That last game in that list between the Patriots and the Cardinals was a heart-breaker for us Cards fans. Kicker Chandler Catanzaro missed what should have been a game winning field goal. The Super Bowl dreaming Cards lost to Hoodie who came in without his pretty boy QB, super star TE, and couple of other key players and still stole a win. Tough loss for the Cards who have to be now satisfied with a good week for David Johnson coupled with a decent performance by Carson Palmer and live to fight another day. They better win next week against Tampa Bay. Dolphins almost knocked off the Seahawks, but "almost" doesn't get you a "w" in the standings. The Monday night games were duds as  Pittsburgh crushed Washington and the Rams looked so horrible that the LA fans probably want them to move back to St. Louis after just one game. The Rams made the 49ers look like world beaters. Blaine Gabbert and the Niners offense were turrible as Chales Barkley would say, but they still won 28-0. Kaep's protest is spreading as many NFL players either kneeled, locked arms, or raised their fist during the anthem even on 9/11. Peaceful protests continue. As always, injuries in the NFL blows and Keenan Allen's season-ending ACL tear was unfortunate. Poor guy can't catch a break.

NOff Season

I call the NFL's off-season, NOff season - No off-season. NFL has been taking up more and more of our attention during the spring and summer months the last few years and this off-season has been even more interesting and engaging. The reason being there is way more talent and big names in this free-agent class than usual. There were several people waiting with bated breadth for NFL's new year to begin on March 12-Th. There were transactions like the niner's Alex Smith trade that were informally finalized earlier, but had to be formalized officially after that day. A flurry of activity followed. We have to start with the Super Bowl contestants who are clearly moving in opposite directions. The champion Ravens dropped a lot of change on Joe Flacco. Thats the good news. But now Flacco might have to pass to himself, try to catch the pass, and play defense after the interception. They have gutted their defensive roster with Ray Lewis retiring, Ed Reed on his way out, and with Dannelle Ellerbe, Paul Kruger, and Cary Williams walking away. In addition, they traded Anquan Boldin to their Super Bowl enemy San francisco 49'ers. 

Niners were already having a good off-season because of the surprisingly high draft-picks they got in return for Alex Smith from Kansas City that added to their already rich basket of picks in the upcoming draft. Then they used a lowly 6-Th round pick from that basket to score Anquan Boldin from the Ravens. The niners need a speedster and Boldin is not one. But he is a great receiver and it's a smart pickup. They also had to match the Seahawks, who had a great season last year and have added Percy Harvin to the mix. He is a great talent, but I think they overpaid for an injury-prone receiver. The NFC West just became very interesting with 2 legitimate contenders for the ultimate prize. I am also happy for Alex Smith ending up at Kansas City with Andy Reid. I like Andy Reid as an offensive coach. For him to pursue Alex Smith is in and of itself a vote of confidence in Alex because Reid knows QBs. He has a track record of making stars out of mediocre QBs and thats good news for Alex Smith. KC is also making several other moves and they already had some talent that under-achieved last year. They could be a surprisingly decent team in 2013.

The niners are also mentioned in the Darrelle Revis trade, though Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the only serious suitor as of now. Atlanta and Denver Broncos are the other 2 teams that improved themselves a lot among the elite teams to keep up with the niners and the seahawks. The Falcons let go of Michael Turner, but signed a slightly younger Stephen Jackson out of Saint Louis. With Tony Gonzalez un-retiring, the Falcons are locked and loaded for another impressive run. The Broncos lost Elvis Dumervil, but they did add solid talent in the form of cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Wes Welker. Peyton Manning should be delighted to see Welker in the slot to go with all the other talent he has at his disposal. The patriots are playing with fire in letting him go to their rival and instead signing Danny Amendola. Danny is younger and talented, but is also injury prone. There are also reports that Brady took a pay-cut to help the Pats sign free agents like Welker and he is now disappointed that they let his friend walk. I think Bill Belichick's ego is now getting in the way of smart team-building. They have also cut Brandon Lloyd and if they don't re-sign him, their receiving corps might be real thin.

Those are some of the interesting stories of this off-season so far. The Super Bowl champion seems to be headed for a rebuilding effort and at the other end of the spectrum, so are the Oakland Raiders. They didn't have a lot of talent to dump, but they seem to be dumping whatever little they have. They have cut receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey and defensive back Michael Huff, both former first-round picks. They have also let Brandon Myers - Carson Palmer's primary safety valve, walk to NY Giants. The black hole is going to feel like a bottomless pit for a year or two. Poor Carson Plamer. He might start missing his "glory days" in Cincinnati. There are rumors that they might cut him too. Terrelle Pryor starting in the NFL might be the best argument for a NFL minor league system. There are also rumors that the Raiders might draft Geno Smith. I like Geno Smith way more than Pryor, but Palmer might have to stay to even make the Raiders remotely watchable. In any case, there are several moves to go for all the teams between now and the draft.  With Ed Reed, Charles Woodson, Osi Umenyiora, Dwight Freeney, and possibly Brian Urlacher still available in free agency, it looks like a pro-bowl roster from a few years back. So the noff season shall continue unabated.

The Season is Over for Some

The first day of the year 2012 was also the last day of the NFL season for a bunch of teams. As the season of giving wound down today, the NFL season also followed suit. It was an interesting feeling having both Christmas and the New Years on a Sunday this year. I liked it more than waking up on New Years and watching the college Bowl games. But not sure if the Raiders and the Cowboys liked what happened today. Both had a "win and you are in" situation and both blew it. Raiders had a set of more complicated options entering the day, but it boiled down to an elimination game as the day progressed. And they got eliminated even after Tebow was exposed and the Broncos lost. The Raiders have had a tough season with the demise of Al Davs, the injuries and renewed hope when they got Carson Palmer, but they just were not good enough to win a bad division. They could not stop the Chargers today on defense and didn't score enough TDs on offense. Palmer threw for a good game, but they still stalled a lot in the red zone. And of course the special teams did it's bit by letting the Chargers score a TD as well. Overall, a tough loss and a rough season for the Raiders given how the other teams in the division gave them all the opening they can to help them.

Raiders had some ugly losses late in the season, but the killer ones were the home losses to bad divisions teams in Kansas City and Denver in the middle of the season, around the bye week, coming off of a season ending injury to Jason Campbell. With Campbell or even with Palmer at practice for a couple of weeks, they win both those games. If they win those "easy" games, they finish the season 10-6 and the story is different. The week 17 Chargers were a lot more challenging than those 2 teams back then, but the Raiders just were not dealt the right hand those 2 games. So after going 6-0 in the division last year, they went 0-3 at home and 3-0 on the road in division. Thats strange and a typical Raiders stat. Speaking of typical Raiders stat, they have to fix the penalty situation. They beat all kinds of records with penalties this season and the top 10 all-time infamous list is littered with Raiders teams from all eras. It's an amazing contrast to see the discipline of the niners under Harbaugh across the bay and this Raiders team, which is probably more talented than the niners on paper. Of course, they need McFadden on the field to prove that. I am excited to see Palmer with a full training camp next year, but there was some karma at work here this season as he refused to suit up for the Bengals and they are now in the playoffs with the rookie Andy Dalton at QB while Palmer will be sitting at home watching.

Denver lost ugly and still backed into the playoffs. Tebow looked horrible and there is just no way Pittsburgh gets beat by him next week - at home, on the road, in Iceland, it don't matter. Denver has a home game due to the weird NFL rules, but Big Ben and Polamalu will be ready. Seattle might have upset New Orleans last year at home, but Pittsburgh V Denver is just too lopsided. If he wins next week, Tebow magic is for real. I am looking forward to a couple of upsets in the playoffs next weekend. Cincinnati Bengals should be able to beat the Texans on the road. Texans are a better team when healthy, but they never are. The Giants eliminated the overrated Cowboys today, but the Atlanta Falcons come into town next week and that will be a whole different ball game. The Falcons are on a roll and if the Giants blink, they will be joining the other New York team - the Jets, at home. It feels good not hearing the loud mouth Rex Ryan and the Jets in the playoffs. They are a overrated team with an overrated quarterback and they better improve and shut up if they want to take the next step. Mark Sanchez is a decent guy, but just not a good QB. Darrelle Revis said he doesn't know who Giants receiver Victor Cruz was a couple of weeks back. Cruz first helped eliminate Revis, Ryan and the Jets. And today, helped kick out Rob Ryan's Dallas Defense out of the playoffs. Now the Ryan brothers should be seeing Victor Cruz in their nightmares all off-season and rightfully so.

The wild card round starts Saturday and I expect the Saints to take care of the Lions at home. The Lions are good, but they have the unenviable task of stopping Brees in his house and that ain't happening. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati should join their division rival Baltimore the week after in AFC's final 4. The other game is a "pick em" for me as I wouldn't be surprised if Atlanta wins at NY, though Matt Ryan has trouble on the road. Green Bay will be playing everybody at home down the road, but looking at their defense, I am concerned. I think the Saints can shock them in the NFC championship game, but they have enough offense to beat anybody else including the niners who have the best defense in the NFC. It's more of a tossup in the AFC with the Ravens, Pats and the Steelers. I like the Ravens to join the Packers in the Super Bowl when it's all said and done. A Saints or Patriots appearance there wouldn't shock me either. It's a different playoffs without Manning and the Colts. The Colts locked up the top pick in the draft. Let's minimize the drama and pick Andrew Luck right away. That will give them time to decide what to do with Manning if and when he comes back. He should come back and may be play for another team. The way the game is these days, both Luck and Manning might throw for 5000 yards next season. Two dudes, Brady and Brees beat Marino's mark this season and Stafford threw for more than 5000 yards as well. There were more 5,000-yard passers in the 2011 season than there had been throughout NFL history prior to this season. Rodgers sat out today. Otherwise, there would have been 4 QBs with more than 5000 yards. I'd say Marino's record still stands just like Hank Aaron's in baseball, though for different reasons.

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.

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.

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.