Super Bowl means down time

Super Bowl these days comes with a 2-week hype break. This is a very excruciating time for Sports fans where suddenly we don't have football after almost 5 months of continuous football. Plus we have to put up with 24 hour sports outlets analyzing every conceivable angle of this game. By Friday of the first week, we have suffered information-overload and we know what the 3-Rd tight-end on the bench is eating for breakfast! NBA is the only other sports league in business (I don't count the NHL) and it is still in it's early season mode. Actually NBA doesn't get serious until the second round of the playoffs. So not many people care about it in Late January. May be because of all this downtime, there have been too many controversies the last couple of weeks.

It started off with people ripping apart Ladainian Tomlinson for his behavior during the AFC title game. Some people questioned his toughness, but most people were critical of his demeanor during the game where he just sat their with his helmet and didn't really mingle with the team. Also with Philip Rivers playing hurt and injured, LT looked worse in contrast. Jim Rome was saying on his how LT went from the best ever guy to a bad seed in just a week. I think this has been going on the entire season. I am a huge LT fan, but I have been feeling that he was getting a little "too big" lately. You can't really blame these guys. The money, the attention and the deification is so bad these days in the sports world, even great guys like LT lose their bearings a little bit as things get to their head. I expect Dwayne Wade to be the next classy star making the turn to ego-town. Hopefully LT learns from this controversy and comes back down to earth.

The real controversy involved the golf channel hottie Kelly Tilghman suggesting that one way for young players to deal with the challenge posed by Tiger Woods would be to "lynch him in a back alley". Thats real poor choice of ward. I can't understand how she can be so dumb. I think sometimes these people really say things that are on their mind and get in trouble. May be she really wants to lynch Tiger. Who knows. She got suspended etc, but this was a disturbing one. The other controversy was with ESPN anchor Dana Jacobson. She got liquored up at a roast for Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic and said "F**k Notre Dame. F**k Jesus". My first reaction was, who hosts a roast for Mike and Mike? What have they done to deserve a roast and when do I get one for myself? Secondly, this was offensive, but not as disturbing as Kelly's words. Dana was drunk and stupid and she got punished appropriately.

These chicks must just shut up and do what they are hired for - look good on TV. I am not a sexist and I love talented female sportscasters as much as the next guy, but lets call a spade a spade. Most of these chicks are just eye candy. I respect talent when I see it. In fact, I think ESPN should turn over their entire football operation to Suzy Kolber, Chris Mortensen and Ron Jaworski and fire all the other clowns. Thats how good Suzy is, but these 2 chicks getting in trouble in the same month is 2 female sportscasters way too many.

The other guy to get in hot water was Saint Louis head coach Rick Majerus. He made some pro-choice comments on abortion, leading to condemnation by Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke, who suggested that officials at Saint Louis University take "appropriate action" against him. Apparently they don't want a Catholic school to employ him. This is ridiculous. Leave the fat man alone. He has a right to his opinion and I don't think that every employee at Catholic schools conform to all of their beliefs. Why force just this guy. Makes no sense whatsoever. This issue got some air-time too on Sports talk because of the Super Bowl downtime. Bring on the game already!

King-V-Mamba

Last Sunday featured some great NBA games on ABC, especially the Lakers-V-Cavs game billed as a Kobe-LeBron match-up. These match-ups rarely live up to the hype, but this one did every second of the way. Not only was it a close, well-played game, the stars played very well start to finish. Actually Kobe and LeBron were spectacular. On top of that, they guarded each other for long stretches of the game, which made it even more fun. Stars rarely guard each other. This is because you don't want to tire out your top scorer on the defensive side chasing the other team's super star and more importantly, you don't want your star to be in foul trouble. But these stars are unique. Kobe always steps up to the plate on both ends of the floor and takes pride in his defense. Thats part of him trying to wear MJ's mask and trying to be him.

These days LeBron is much the same way. LeBron was not too committed to defense (and many other things) until this year. He was getting by on raw talent. In fact, he was accused of sleep-walking through the first-half of last season. It's amazing he could still take the Cavs all the way to the finals. People like Bill Walton also said he was exposed in the Finals. What he means is, LeBron has a long way to go and a lot of work to do. The good news is, the work seems to have started in earnest last summer. Some kind of a switch seemed to have gone off. May be it was the sweep in the finals or may be the time he spent with great players in the Team USA deal. I personally think it was probably the time he spent with Kobe and realizing how hard Kobe works and how committed he is to basketball greatness.

Whatever it is, LeBron has been a much improved player since the start of the season. He is leading the league in scoring and is working hard on both ends of the floor. I am especially impressed with his effort level on defense. The results have been impressive and he is again single-handeedly carrying the Cavs to great places. This game was a great show for LeBron. He was good, aggressive from the start and did a decent job defending Kobe for stretches. Kobe was Kobe and was unstoppable as always and he tried his best to defend LeBron too. At the end, LeBron hit a clutch shot on Kobe and Kobe surprisingly missed a close lay-up that would have tied the game. W for the King and L for the Mamba. LeBron ended up with 41-9-4 on 16/32 shooting and Kobe had 33-12-6 on 10/21 shooting.

All in all a great NBA game to watch and this is what ABC wants every Sunday on it's network. I have always said a Kobe-LeBron finals can save this league and this was a taste of that. But you know what - I wouldn't be surprised if a NASCAR rain delay out-drew even this game! Thats where NBA is right now.

Still Standing

The NFL power weekend is almost here. The Chargers are still standing along with the Pats, Pack and the G-Men. Surprising line-up in the NFC and a not so surprising one in the AFC. People expected these AFC teams to be real good in the pre-season before the Chargers opened the season all shaky and disjointed. Once they righted the ship, they got back to where they originally belonged. I still can't believe the way they ended the Colts season last weekend in Peyton's house.

The Chargers have to play at an extremely high-level to repeat that kind of an upset this weekend. The Pats are no Colts. They are more talented, healthier, deeper, smarter, are on a roll and they'll be playing with much more help from the home town weather than the Colts. LT has to have a great game and more importantly, Norv Turner needs to be very good. Hoody usually out-coaches everybody and Norv has a tendency to be out-coached in big games. Thats not a good combination for the lightning Bolts. I am not sure if it's good or a bad thing if Rivers doesn't play. He is not that good, plus Billy Volek used to be good the last time I saw him start games for the Titans. Plus the Hoody might have less dirt on him to game plan against. I wonder if Volek plays instead of the River-man, if he can go in there and surprise them like A.J.Feely did for the Eagles. In any case, my heart is with the Bolts, but my brain says Pats move on to the Super Bowl.

Packers are on a roll as well, But so are the Giants. Brett Favre and the Packers have been the story of this NFL season. People have been waiting for them to come back to Earth but they are still flying high. They are as legit as they come and that offense with Ryan Grant, Greg Jennings and Brett Favre is awesome. They have a strong D to go with it and are a dangerous team for anybody. Too bad we don't get to see the Pats go into Lambeau to play the Pack in the Super Bowl. That would have been awesome. The Pats probably are better in a neutral site, but a big game like that at Lambeau would have been real nice for the fans. Of course, I am not assuming that either the Pats or the Pack are a lock for the Super Bowl. The Giants and even the Chargers have a shot at screwing things up for these teams. The Giants have a lot of momentum as well and they seem to have a QB in Eli who finally seems to know what he is doing. The Giants will not be intimidated going into Green Bay for sure. Should be a good game, but I pick number 4 to play in his third Super Bowl.

Surprises in the NFL

I have been complaining that the NFL this season has been bland, one-sided and predictable. We all kinda got this feeling that the Pats were going to win it all since week 5 or 6. That might still happen, but this weekend's playoffs produced spectacularly shocking results. There were 2 big upsets, but a third one - Packers big win was a little unexpected to me as well. I am sure the frozen tundra played a role in the bad performance by the Seahawks. I expected the Seahawks to put up a better fight, but the Packers surprised me.

The Packers dominated this game and looked awesome. They ran the ball up and down the Seahawks throat and Ryan Grant seems to have solved all their rushing problems. Brett was efficient and effective like he has been all season and now we get to see him in the NFC championship game. Can't complain. The theory that this Packers team cannot handle the Green Bay weather sounds silly right now. The Seahawks are at a crossroad. Not sure what's going to happen with their coach and Shaun Alexander seems done. Surprisingly quick and steep fall for the former MVP.

The Pats killed the Jags pretty methodically. Brady completed 26 of 28 passes for an amazing 92% efficiency. What's up with this guy? He is beyond white hot right now. The only thing more ridiculous than this stat is the Jags defender saying post-game that "Brady is not all that". I wish that was true too, though I am not able to defend my anti-Brady sentiments any longer. Brady does seem like "all that" and some this season. Anyways, this moron's contention was that it was all dump-off and check-downs and that any QB can complete these passes. Well, apparently that was his defense's strategy - to force Brady into dump-offs by doubling Moss and taking away the deep-ball. Brady took what the Jags gave him and absolutely annihilated them. Dunno what else this defender wants him to do. Shut-up after a loss and go away.

The real shocker of the weekend came on Sunday when the Chargers lost LT and Rivers to injuries. They lost everything except the game! They came back and beat the Colts behind Billy Volek. Crushing loss for Peyton despite 402 passing yards. Tough season for the Colts. Things never went their way this season since Marvin's injury. I still didn't expect them to lose at home to the Chargers, but their execution was not as good as last year in any facet of the game. At least with Peyton, you got a shot every year. As for the Chargers, Norv Turner is looking good right now. Every down they play from this point on is a bonus and should be regarded as such by even their fans. Lets see if they can upset the Pats with LT and Rivers back from their injuries.

The most controversial upset of the week was Tony Romo's loss to the younger Manning and the Giants. Who would have thought that Eli would be playing this late in the season while Peyton is at home. Anyways, Romo is in a lot of hot-water because of his alleged vacation during the break with dumb-ass Jessica Simpson in Mexico. Romo does have some issues. Just slow the heck down and lie low. Why can't you wait until the end of the season for the vacation? Just "enjoy her company" at home until then.

I don't understand why he is always pushing the controversial buttons. He either truly doesn't care or may be he is also a publicity hound. I think he is good guy. He probably just doesn't care and his point to us may be is "I am not doing anything illegal or even against team rules. So what's the big deal and what's your problem?". The problem is, life is 80% perception and 20% reality and you got to worry about the perceptions as much as you do with reality. Every playoffs seems to bring it's own set of issues to this guy's door-step. The Cowboys did look good for a half and then came out in the second half looking like the entire team had been to Mexico on a vacation with Jessica during the half-time! America's team can now go anywhere in the world on vacation and nobody cares for the next 7 months.

LSU finishes on top. Pats may join them.

After a whole bunch of churn in this year's college football season and a very entertaining topsy-turvy ride up and down the weekly rankings, LSU finished pretty close to where it started the season - at the very top. They were either 1 or 2 at the beginning of the season right behind USC and they ended up winning the championship at the end. The funny thing is, LSU and USC were probably the best teams at the end of the season and they ended up at 1 and 2 in the final USA today poll. USC was 3-Rd in the AP poll behind Georgia. Too bad for USC that they lost 2 games and dropped out of the championship run somewhere mid-season. After all the upsets this season, it would have been real strange if LSU and USC played for the ring after all.

I was a little disappointed when the BCS match-ups came out initially because LSU-OSU is a traditional powerhouse match-up and I would have preferred something totally off the wall like Kansas-West Virginia or Missouri-Georgia or something. That would have established true parity at the end of a truly unique college football season. Plus I knew OSU will lose for sure. A real weird match-up would have also dealt a blow to NCAA and the TV networks ratings wise. I am always for landing body-blows to the NCAA. After watching Notre Dame getting crushed in one BCS bowl game after the other for ratings reason, it would have been ironic if they had ended up with a non-traditional, low ratings match-up for the BCS championship game. BCS ratings were not too impressive anyways this year with the championship game dropping down 17.2% from last year. Plus most other BCS games dropped in ratings as well because of these lesser-known team teams playing in those games.

Now all the football eyes are on the NFL. Great games this weekend with the Chargers playing the Colts and the Jaguars playing the mighty Pats. This weekend is always the best NFL weekend of the season. The number of games goes down after this weekend and the quality of the games are usually better than the wild-card weekend where we do get the same 4 games. The Chargers beat the Colts at home earlier in the season in a weird game. The Chargers offense didn't do much but their D and special teams won the game for them. Manning threw like a million interceptions in that game and still almost won it. That victory is now a huge burden for the Chargers. The Colts are going to be extra motivated and are at home. There's no way Manning has such a bad game again. If you add all of that up, the Chargers should be a huge under-dog in this one. The only saving grace for the Chargers is that they are a better team now than they were then. But I pick the Colts by at least 10 in this one.

The Pats-Jags is a culture clash and should be a good one. I don't think America still realizes how good the Jags are. There is something special about this team. Great defense, great toughness, heart and great coaching. I expect a tough one for the Pats. They still win, but only after a bloody dog-fight. In the NFC, the games should be equally fun. The Dallas-Giants game should be a high-scoring affair and as always, the Giants will live or die based on which Manning shows up - Peyton-Junior or the Anti-Peyton. It's 50-50 with Eli and the Giants will lose either way. But if Eli plays like Anti-Peyton, this will be ugly. Otherwise this will be a fun game to watch. The Packers-Seahawks game takes Holmgren and Hasselback back to Green Bay just like a few years back when Matty won the OT toss and called his shot on the microphone only to see his pass get intercepted and run back for a game-ending Packers TD. He'll keep his pie-hole shut this time, but will desperately try to avenge that defeat. The Hawks or on a roll and are definitely in this one. I pick them to win it in an upset.

Suns and their foes

The Suns have had a unique basketball team the last 4 seasons. A fun, high-flying offensive minded team that can't be stopped. It's an unfortunate truth in all of sports that defense wins championships. I have tried to live in denial of this fact for years, but it is a reality in sports. Defensive minded teams not only win championships, but they also tend to contend for a long time as long as their core talent stays together. Thats not the case with offensive teams.

Couple of things always happen with unique, offenses like the Suns. First of all, other teams start copying the style. There is always a danger of some team eventually learning to play the style better than the original. Secondly, after a couple of years, these offenses get figured out. For example, in the NFL, teams the Rams of the Warner-Martz era was the best show on turf for a while, but before you know it, their run ended. The reason is that the defenses around the league figure out ways to slow such systems. This never happens to great defenses because defense by definition is reactive and the onus is on the offenses to stay a step ahead and they can't do that forever.

The Suns are still a step ahead. It's not easy to stop the Suns though they are pretty much "figured out" in the sense teams know what they want to do. But stopping them is easier said than done. Teams have tried to adjust to the Suns offense by doing things like sending everybody back on defense instead of crashing the offensive boards etc. Things that are usually considered a violation of basketball common-sense, but necessary evil when you are playing the Suns. There is still no stopping the Suns for the most part.

But lately, there have been a team or two that seem to trouble the Suns every-time and I find that very interesting. This could just be a case of bad match-ups, but it's also possible it's something more. Obviously the Suns troubles against the Spurs, especially in the playoffs are well chronicled. I would just explain that as the Spurs being a better team. They play great defense, but they have Timmy Duncan and hence more championship caliber talent. But the number of teams that the Suns have troubles against is slowly increasing.

The Suns lost to the Hornets couple of days back. This is the second time they are losing to this team. They have also lost to the Fakers twice and are having problems handling the Warriors these days. These are all good teams, but is there a pattern here? Are teams beginning to learn to "match-up" better against the Suns? Before you know, you'll start hearing talks about how the Suns window is closing. Of course the Suns have a old team and this version does not have a lot of time on it's hand. But often times, the window doesn't close as much as other team's window opens up a bit wider. In other words, you are as good as you have always been, but some other team just passed you by. Both the Hornets and the Lakers might be en-route to accomplishing this.

So the questions is, are these teams just one of those difficult match-up for the Suns? Or are they just great teams with an ability to beat anybody on any given night? Or have they specifically figured out the Suns system? Or are these teams flat out getting to be better than the Suns period? I guess these are the questions that will be answered this spring in the NBA playoffs. The bottom-line is, the Suns better win one this year or things could get much tougher in a hurry.

"Who-Cares" round of the playoffs

While the Pats, Colts, Boys and the Packers are chilling at home and waiting for their next opponent, the NFL wild-card playoffs are starting this weekend. It feels more like a "who cares" round this year more than in the past. I don't think the wild-card teams ever had a great shot at winning the Super Bowl in the NFL, but they seem to have even less of a chance this year mostly because of how good the 4 teams with the bye are. I would say the Packers are the most vulnerable among the 4 at home and the Chargers and the Jaguars are the best teams playing this weekend. I still don't know how and why the Tennessee Titans made the playoffs. Wasn't the AFC supposed to be the better and tougher conference? In the NFC, Washington sneaked in and is now playing Seattle with the Giants playing the Bucs. Decent games though none of these teams seem to be in the same class as the Cowboys or the Packers and even those 2 teams in turn are not in the same class as the Colts or Pats.

With all that said, it's still the NFL playoffs and I can't wait for it to begin. The games will be fun and the Jville-Pitt game in particular should be a dandy. Two good teams that play a physical style and look like a mirror-image of each other slugging it out for all the playoff marbles. This one will be close, but I am tempted to pick Jville. San Diego should handle VY And the Titans. They better, or else Norvell will be in a world of trouble. Chargers need to win a playoff contest one of these days. In the JV, I like Seattle and the Giants to get the job done this weekend. Two teams on a roll though not great teams by any stretch of the imagination. The Bucs aren't too bad either. At the end of the day, the games will be fun and somebody will move on to lose in the next round.

The Bowl season is also winding down. I have been ignoring it ever since Texas man-handled my Sun Devils! But the bigger bowls in Jan are always fun. Some surprising results and upsets made it even more fun. I can't believe Michigan ended the season by beating a good SEC team in Florida featuring a Heisman winning QB after beginning this season with a loss against Appalachian state! Talk about night and day. I suppose the guys really stepped up to send Lloyd Carr off in style. In the Fiesta bowl, number 11 West Virginia crushed the 3-Rd ranked Oklahoma in another upset and how pissed are the West Virginians now? If they are this good, how the heck did they lose to a bad Pitt team at home with a national championship berth at stake? What a waste of a season. Well at least they got their BCS dollars and embarrassed a big name program like the Sooners. Easier said than done for most schools. Number 8 Kansas took care of number 5 Va-Tech in an interesting game at the Orange Bowl.

The college football season was crazy with multiple upsets and great parity this year. I am happy some of these lesser known schools continued their good run in the bowls and showed the nation their wins during the regular season were no flukes. Rose and Sugar stayed true to form as USC crushed Illinois at Pasadena and Georgia took care of business against a over-matched Hawaii squad. Now all eyes are on the BCS national championship game. I pick LSU to win, win big and win it in style against the Suck-eyes. Michigan's upset not withstanding, I don't expect this Big-10 team to beat a real good SEC team like the tigers. OSU better hope it's not a repeat of last year's final.

Happy New Year (to everybody except the Pats)

2007 was a rough year for sports, may be the roughest in recent memory. Between the dog killers, crooked refs and roid-heads across all athletic endeavors, no sport or league - minor or major was spared major embarrassment. I am sure all league commissioners are excited to turn the page on the calendar, not that 08 is going to magically erase all their problems. As we enter 08, MLB might still have the bigger problem of the 3 followed by the NFL and the NBA. Nobody since the start of the season has made the crooked ref a big issue for the NBA except for the trash-talking by the fans at the arenas fter bad calls. People seem to be quite indifferent to NBA's Donaghy issue. But then again, isn't indifference the biggest problem for the association? People seem to be indifferent to the league in general since number 23 retired back in the 1900s!

So may be NBA still has the biggest problem in terms of it's popularity and market value. Even LeBron's trip to the finals didn't help anything. That was quite shocking to me and I am not sure what can resurrect the NBA if the King can't. My last hope now is a LeBron-Kobe finals, but then again, Kobe in the Finals is not what we should be counting on considering how he managed his career in 07. I still love this game, but the rest of America doesn't seem to. It would be interesting to see how many people stayed away from the TV or the NBA arenas because of the crooked ref. Lots and lots of people post messages to the effect "the game is always fixed", but most of them sound like disgruntled fans of losing teams that night or "conspiracy theory" fans who always thought NBA was fixed, but they now feel vindicated and are coming out and are being louder because of the recent scandal.

I still ranked NFL's problems higher because the dog fighting is just not going away. Vick is very much in the news and so is Pacman and NFL can't kick them away. I am sure NFL's king status among sports is as strong as ever and apparently their Pats-Colts regular season game was a ratings bonanza like never seen before. Personally I think the NFL has some issues to deal with. I felt like I could not watch most of their games on any given Sunday. I have always felt like NFL's version of parity is flawed and it was just a road to mediocrity. This year it has come true. The league is full of mediocre play and the QBs suck big-time! This can't be healthy for the league in the long run. NFL needs to tweak it's bad financial system to fix this. They should move towards a more flexible salary cap structure like the NBA. What parity are we talking about when teams are going 16-0. Even if we agree that it was a function of one extremely well-run franchise, what about the quality of the other teams in the league? Except the Colts, Cowboys, Chargers, Packers and may be the Jaguars and the Steelers there are no teams worth watching.

I am not talking about teams with chances of winning it all. I know thats just an handful in every league. But it's just the Patriots in the NFL and only a handful of teams are even watchable in this league. We could swap the other lower-half teams in the playoffs with a completely different set of teams and I don't think we will even notice. Anyways, it's all good for the Pats. They went 16-0 though they had some difficulty in some contests. This is what gives us pats-haters some hope. The Giants played them tough in the final contest and almost beat them much like the Eagles and Ravens before them. The Pats might be beatable after all. They are one team that probably is sad 2007 is over. They had an awesome year and they can only hope 08 is even close. Can they go 3-0 now to win the big one? Lets see. In the spirit of the New Year, I would like to see the glass half-full. The good news with their 16-0 is that we don't have to deal with the 72 dolphins and their champagne bottles anymore. Also, the spy-gate thing still hovers over the Pats. I think any number of 40-0 trashing of teams could not have washed away that asterix. I like it that way.

Speaking of the asterix, MLB has been carrying one for around 10 years now. Mitchell report only made it bolder and bigger, but lets see how the MLB reacts. It's still entertainment and people show up for games, but MLB and their experts just don't seem to get the long-term effects of this roid-era. There's a huge loss in opportunity costs with scandals surrounding historic figures like Bonds and Clemens. It's hard to quantify this, but it's strange that a history-rich and history-dependent sport like Baseball doesn't seem to understand this at all. They seem happy to collect the gate receipts and the check from FOX and pretend like the roid-era has had ZERO impact. Good luck with that assumption.

Holiday jeer

Holiday season is supposed to be rough on single people sometimes. I have not really felt this pain though I can see how some single people, especially chicks can feel lonely and depressed this time of the year. To me, Christmas pretty much means the NBA kick-off on ABC. Considering that the Lakers play every year, my mood is directly linked to them in some ways. I am happier if they lose and am a little sadder if they win! So you can imagine how I feel this Christmas day given that not only did the Lakers win, they actually beat my beloved Suns today fairly convincingly.

VERY, VERY disturbing loss for the Suns. They have now lost 10 games this season. I wrote a while back that their loss against the Warriors was disturbing because the Warriors might be the one team that might play the Suns style better and match-up very well with the Suns. This Lakers loss is even worse. First of all, this is not a fluke because the Lakers are now 2-0 against the Suns this season. They embarrassed the Suns at Phoenix in their home opener. At the end of that game, there was even some jawing between Mike D'Antoni and Phillip where D'Antoni said "we will see you again. we are good". Unfortunately, the Suns saw the Lakers again and they didn't see what wanted to see.

The Lakers are actually very good as well. Record wise, the Lakers were even better last year and then they faded away. This trend has been going on for a few years now. I hope it's similar this year, but this Lakers team is different. The reason they are different is their young guys Andrew Bynum and Jordan Farmar. These guys have taken a HUGE step forward this season and are taking the Lakers team with them. The scary part for the Suns is, this is a team on the up and up and they still have Kobe Bryant in his prime. The Suns on the other hand are supposed to win it all this season, but seem inadequate defensively as always and now they can't even handle the up and coming Lakers team. This is the scary part.

This game might have been a changing of the guard moment in some sense. Is it possible that the Suns window is closing shut and now even for the Pacific division crown, they have to fight with the Lakers? The Suns are not getting any younger and the D'Antoni's style can't withstand another non-finals season. There's huge pressure on him and this game exposed the same set of problems - defense, rebounding, lack of size etc. The Lakers look deeper, bigger, better defensively and more complete as a team. Sooner or later, you got to ask the question, "why can't the Suns be a complete team?" and back it up with the question "is this style impeding that?".

I love this style as much as the other guy and I want this style to succeed for the better of the league. NBA has become un-watchable before D'Antoni showed up. Even today, I couldn't watch the Heat-Cavs game despite wanting to watch the Wade-LeBron match-up. The style just sucks. So I want the Suns and D'Antoni to win desperately. Trust me, we will all be better for it. But is this a championship caliber style? Dan Bickley in the AZ republic referenced something I have been amazed by for a long time. Every day I look at the Suns box-score and am amazed that Leandro Barbosa routinely out-shoots Amare Stoudemire. Bickley has been raising a lot of "chemistry questions" and keeps saying that Amare is unhappy with the style. He recently said there's something wrong with it if LB shoots more for the season than Amare. Kind of my point. I don't know how Amare thinks or feels. May be Bickley knows more than me or may be he is just a pessimistic, negative kinda guy who is afraid something bad will happen with this team. But it is weird that this system doesn't really use Amare all that much. He gets killed for his defense, but to me, that only means you got to maximize his potential on offense even more.

I am still not giving up on this season or the style. But I have always been critical of D'Antoni on one thing - not using his bench enough. I think thats is still valid. He has to learn to use his bench -PERIOD. I don't know if he can go to a coaching school at ASU or something, he needs to learn to trust his bench. I have always felt like the Suns in the past have had good talent on the bench, but Mike doesn't use them. Now they may not have that good a bench, but he got to do something anyways. Secondly, he can't just play Diaw like he is some kind of a god. Diaw is not as good as D'Antoni wants him to be. Raja Bell is not what he used to be either. I am almost tempted to say put Raja on the bench and start Brian Skinner. But then again, with this offensive system, thats just not enough 3 point shooting.

Both Van Gundy and Mark Jackson made some interesting comments about these 2 teams towards the end of the game. Van Gundy says that the Lakers will beat the Suns if they play a 7 game series right now. Huge difference from the last 2 years when the Suns won in the playoffs. Mark Jackson also said how the Lakers are deeper and more talented top to bottom than the Suns. Amazing how far the dysfunctional Laker team have come in just 8 weeks since Kobe was rumored to be on the trading block.

As for the Suns, many questions and not too many answers right now. I would say D'Antoni should start with the 3 recommendations I made. 1) Use Amare more. 2) Use Diaw less 3) Use your bench. Infuse new talent.

Air Ball!

Suns lost today at Dallas. It was a fascinating game as always, but the Suns dug too deep a hole to dig themselves out of. They were down by 17 early and fell behind 10, 12, 13 points many times in the game. Still it was impressive how they kept crawling their way back. They were down double digits even late in the 4-Th, but they came back from nowhere and the next thing you know, they are down 3 with 8 seconds to go. This offense is impressive for sure. It can score in bunches. But the Suns couldn't get that tying 3 pointer which would have sent the game to overtime under almost similar circumstances to the game last year which the Suns won in double OT. I would have loved to see the long faces of the Mavs and their fans if that had happened. Speaking of faces, I didn't see Cubes today. But unfortunately none of that happened and the Suns lost the game. In fact, Nash threw up an air-ball despite getting a decent look at a 3 off a good fake. That never happens for Nash especially against the Mavs.

The MP3 did have a great game with 21-18 and setup Amare for some monster dunks. Speaking of dunks, Grant Hill's flush on Diop was beyond awesome though he didn't have a great game. Blur and 3-D didn't have good games either and I thought these two guys killed the Suns today with critical, stupid mistakes. I am getting sick and tired of Diaw turning the ball over. He can't make this many mistakes for a guy with such a high basketball IQ. And Blur seems to have slowed down a bit lately after a great November. Amare and Marion had great games. Marion was all over the place and was awesome defending Nowitzki though the German was unstoppable today. Matrix's effort level was off the charts.

The problem with the Suns is consistency. As good as their offense is, it's really painful to watch their defense. There are stretches when you feel like not a single guy on the floor for the Suns can stop the guy he is guarding and this happens a lot when they play good teams. They are too soft inside and it's just frustrating to see their lack of D and also seeing them get killed on the boards. The Mavs got 19 offensive rebounds today. Pretty ugly numbers for a Suns fan and it's been the same story year after year for this team with respect to defense and rebounding. The only way the Suns can overcome all these deficiencies is through consistent effort on the defensive side. For some reason they can do that in spurts and not consistently. That has to change.

The Suns defense and their rebounding still is not at championship level, not even close. Unless they show the consistency, commitment and high effort levels at that end of the floor, they can't win the championship. The offense is fun to watch, but thats about it.

First big NBA game of the season.

The first big game of the young NBA season happened tonight in San Antonio. Suns were visiting the Spurs and the game was as good as advertised. It was much more important for the Suns to win because they are always looking up at the Spurs plus the Spurs were without Tony Parker. But the Suns had their own handicap since this was a road game for them and they were in the midst of a surprising losing stretch having lost 3 of 4. I should have jinxed them because they had lost 2 of 3 before today since the day I wrote about them having only 5 losses.

They lost at home to Miami and then on the road to the Hornets. That match-up was billed as CP3-V-MP3, but Chris Paul got the better of Nash. There is one weakness of Nash which is getting harder and harder to miss as the Suns try to become a championship team and thats his defense. In any of these great point guard match-ups, he never defends the other star because he just can't. He can't stay in front of Chris Paul or Tony Parker or Baron Davis while those guys can guard Nash. They are not going to stop Nash either, but they can at least guard him as well or as bad as anybody else on their respective teams. The only exception are the Spurs where they put their defensive specialist Bowen on Nash instead of Tony Parker. Whereas with the Suns, we have to hide Nash and use Marion or someone else to guard these PGs. This is one weakness in his game that is big.

Back to the game today. The Suns fought their way through it and toughed it out. It was not easy. It never is with the Spurs. The Spurs were very good and it's just too easy for Duncan against the Suns. He had 36-17 on 15/25 shooting to totally dominate the paint. But the Suns did a decent job defending the rest of the guys and the game was really close the entire 4-Th quarter. Finally, Grant Hill and good free throw shooting took us home. How good has Grant Hill been for this team? He was huge today and he is doing everything. I saw him guard Chris Paul the other day and if he can add to the perimeter defense and free up Raja and Marion in that department, it's a huge bonus. I was not expecting that. His offense has been as good as I had expected but he means more to this team than his numbers suggest. He had 22-7-3 today and hit some big free throws. With Nash having just a mediocre game thanks to Bowen, LB, Diaw and Grant carried the day for the Suns.

Speaking of talented veterans, how good has Finley been for the spurs the last few years? Apparently he is getting 19 million this year from the Mavs and 3 mill from the Spurs. Thats nice. He seems to kill the Suns every-time we play and has just been a huge part of that team since he came in. He has been averaging 25 mins and 10 points the last 3 years. The Suns handled Ginobli, Finley and Barry fairly well today and their D carried the day because they just can't run and gun against this team. The blur had a couple of run-outs, but thats about it in the open court. So they had to dig in defensively to have any shot at winning. I wish the Suns play this kind of defense against every team. If they do, they may beat every other team in the league by 20 points! In any case, it was a big win for the Suns as the Spurs lost their first home game this season. Now on to the second big game of the season as the Suns play the Mavs on Wed. Should be another dandy. To be fair, it will be the third big game this season (and this week) because the Celtics play the Pistons just before the Suns game on Wed and thats a legit big game as well.

NFL week's highlights and low-lights

The real big news of the NFL week happened early in the week with the whole Bobby Petrino fiasco. I can't help but laugh every time I think or read about this. It's a pretty serious issue especially if you are associated with the Atlanta Falcons in any way, shape or form. But I laugh because I am amazed at how weird and strange people can be. They can also be incredibly selfish, utterly tactless and plain stupid. The guy packed up his bags and just disappeared in the middle of the night mid-season in year 1 of his NFL coaching career. I never thought I'll see something like this especially in this day and age with 24 hour news channels and eyes following every move of every sports figure.

Apparently he told Falcons owner Arthur Blank that his heart is still in college and would like to return to college. Blank probably thought he was just thinking aloud and told him we can turn this thing with the Falcons around and he would not give him permission to look at college jobs. Bobby still went ahead and interviewed and got a job and resigned, all within a matter of hours though I am sure he had already spoken to Arkansas before he broached the subject with Blank. It's all a big scam and Bobby just flat-out quit on his team. He got killed by his players in the media the next day. All they got was a note from him in their lockers and he didn't even talk to anybody personally. Weird dude. You have done something real bad when Joey Harrington is ripping you for not doing your job right!

Sen. George Mitchell saved Bobby's ass because by mid week people forgot Bobby and it was all about Georgie and his roid report. One thing that I don't agree with though is how the media over-dramatizes everything by saying things like "oh, how will parents entrust their 18 year old kids with a man line Petrino?". I am sure this is a valid question and there are enough decent families that look at things like that. But lets keep it real. College recruiting is all about cash and strippers. NCAA recruiting is so corrupt, even a man like Bobby Petrino cannot pull it's collective integrity any lower than the depths it has already reached.

On the field, my dream season ended today. I am talking about the Dolphins winning their game against the Ravens and making sure they won't go 0-16. The good news is, Brian Billick should be done in Baltimore after this year. The Pats won against the Jets, but the 50-0 drubbing everybody was expecting never happened. It was probably the weather, but they just squeaked past the Jets 20-10 with Brady throwing for 0 TDs. There were some wild winter weather across the league as teams won games with scores like 8-0. In San Francisco, some guy named Shaun Hill played real well at QB and might end up replacing Alex Smith. New hope for the wine-sipping Niner fans. While in Dallas, Romo actually played like Alex Smith in his rookie season. Don't know why he got so rattled just because Jessica Simpson was in the stands.

The real highlight of the weekend was Brian Westbrook taking a knee at the goal-line instead of going in for a sure TD. This guy is one of the most under-rated players in the league and today he showed he is also smart and unselfish. He broke through for a long run with the Eagles leading 10-6 and less than 2 minutes to go. Right at the edge of the end-zone, he gave up a TD for himself and just fell down and took a knee. Dallas had no timeouts and this sealed the win for the Eagles. He could have scored a TD and gone up 17-6, but then Dallas gets the ball and theoritically anything can happen. Dallas probably would have still lost because it was a 2-score game, but what Brian did was much smarter and surer deal. I wish more players think like this. The other feel good news is, Buffalo's Kevin Everett is recovering surprisingly well from the spinal injury he suffered earlier this season. Thats awesome.

Mitchell Reports

Sen. George Mitchell finally released his roid report on baseball. I didn't read it or get too too deep into it. I am sure it has some solid information and valuable recommendations, but I get the gist of it. MLB, the owners, the commissioner, players and their union did nothing to stop this abuse and they all need to do more, way more to stop the extensive drug use and cheating. What next? The senator is going to spend another 40 million and tell us the sky is blue or the fire is hot? Tell me something I don't know and thats where the names of the players come in! The most interesting part of this whole report for me are the names and I am sure it's that way for most people.

Anybody with a reasonable intelligence shouldn't find the rest of the report too surprising. Call me a sensationalist, but it's just fun to see the names, especially one Mr. Roger Clemens. In fact some people might even accuse Mitchell of releasing all these names just to grab some attention for his report, but who can blame him? He has nothing else to offer in his report that we don't already know. In fact, even Roid-ger Clemens was no surprise to me personally. I am happy this cheater finally got exposed. He is a arrogant bully and I was sick and tired of the media deifying him as a true American hero. I agree with a lot of black callers to radio shows who are saying this is a litmus test for the white media because we get to see how they treat Clemens V Bonds.

Anyways, here's the complete list of tainted players in the report. Mitchell had access only to 3 sources that are under federal investigation including Balco. This only means that the 89 names are just a small percentage of all the roid-heads in the entire game of baseball. It's ironic that at the end of the day, Jose Canseco is the only credible guy in this whole steroid saga.

The following players were connected to steroids, either use or possession, in the report:

Chad Allen
Mike Bell
Gary Bennett
Larry Bigbie
Ricky Bones
Kevin Brown
Ken Caminiti
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Paxton Crawford
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Chris Donnels
Lenny Dykstra
Matt Franco
Ryan Franklin
Eric Gagne
Jason Grimsley
Jerry Hairston
Phil Hiatt
Matt Herges
Glenallen Hill
Todd Hundley
Ryan Jorgensen
Wally Joyner
Mike Judd
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Exavier “Nook” Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
Daniel Naulty
Denny Neagle
Rafael Palmeiro
Jim Parque
Luis Perez
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Stephen Randolph
Adam Riggs
Brian Roberts
F.P. Santangelo
David Segui
Mike Stanton
Ricky Stone
Miguel Tejada
Derrick Turnbow
Mo Vaughn
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Jeff Williams
Todd Williams
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun

The following players were cited under “Alleged Internet Purchases of Performance Enhancing Substances By Players in Major League Baseball” in the report:

Rick Ankiel
David Bell
Paul Byrd
Jose Canseco
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Jose Guillen
Darren Holmes
Gary Matthews Jr.
John Rocker
Scott Schoeneweis
Ismael Valdez
Matt Williams
Steve Woodard

The following players were linked through BALCO in the report:

Marvin Benard
Barry Bonds
Bobby Estalella
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Randy Velarde

Suns playing 762 ball, but could be better

Suns are 16-5 which translates to a .762 winning percentage. Thats pretty good by any standards, but a true Suns fan will tell you it could be better. They have lost so far to Lakers (home opener), Atlanta on the road, Golden State and Houston for a 2-game losing streak and the latest defeat at Minnesota. The last one was against a bad team, but it was one of those last game of a 5 game road trip on a back-to-back night against a bad team. Ultimate trap game. A true championship team should close the deal on such games, and thats where there is a slight concern about this Suns team. But any time you can remember all the losses a month in to a NBA season, your team is doing real good. It means they have not lost a whole lot of games.

The 2-game losing streak in the middle against the Warriors on the road and Houston was a little scary. Especially against the Warriors. The Suns have been blown out of Oakland the last 2 times. The Warriors have scored 45 points in the first quarter in both these games and have given Phoenix a bad taste of their own medicine. This is what is disturbing for me when you talk about the Warriors. They may be the only team that plays the Suns style better than them. It takes a lot out of me to say that some other team plays the run-and-gun better than us, but that could be the case with the W's in some sense.

Actually the Warriors don't necessarily play it better than the Suns, but they do play it better against the Suns. In fact lot of people call them "Suns-lite". They also don't shoot quite as well as the Suns. But they match-up very well against the Suns and are very athletic. I will take Amare and Marion's athleticism against anybody, but the Warriors are more athletic at every other position up and down the lineup. They score at ease against the Suns D and they are very active defensively. Their defense is nothing great, but if they put their mind to it, they can be better than the Suns on D. They are quick, athletic, they dig in and are just disruptive. Plus Nellie seems to be having the scoreboard on his ex-stars. After undressing Nowitzki in last year's playoffs, he killed Nash by making him play D. Baron Davis is too big for Nash and Monta Ellis is too athletic for most of the league. Nellie ran pick and rolls with Baron and Monta and just killed Nash on the defensive end. This is not a good match-up for the Suns or the MP3.

Speaking of the MP3, he has been in MVP form the last couple of weeks. His assists totals in the recent road trip were 15, 17, 18, 19 and 15. Thats amazing! He is now averaging 12.3 assists per game and I don't how he does it. Grant Hill has been an awesome fit as expected and Amare is coming into his own. His dunks are getting better and Dwight Howard is the only guy who has made him look a little weak! That will happen against Dwight. 35-20 easy for D12 against the Suns. The Brazilian blur has been good and Marion has been his usual Matrix-self. Diaw is up and down as usual, but Skinner has been a real revelation.

Overall the Suns are doing alright. Lets see how they do against the Spurs and the somewhat struggling Mavs. Until then, the following AD featuring Nash and Amare might be the highlight of this young season.

Close Call!

The Pats had another close call. They lost the game against the Ravens like 3 times before winning it at the end. They got stuffed on 4-Th and 1 only to see the play get erased by a Baltimore time-out. They got stuffed again, but the play was void because of a Pats false start. This might have been the best false start ever for an offense! They got a third shot at 4-Th down and now Brady converted on a QB run. They faced a 4-Th and change again a few plays later and Brady's pass fell incomplete. But wait. Holding penalty on the defense. First down Pats. This penalty was a killer. Sometimes you got to let the kids play when the game is on the line like that. I hate it when refs do more than their job. Just an hour after this game, I was watching the end of the Magic-Warriors game and they called a T on Dwight Howard for punching the hoop-support with just a few seconds to go. I had to make sure D-Stern had not let Tim Donaghy back in to ref this game. That was a ridiculous call since Howard was not even protesting against a call. He was just frustrated with himself. What are these refs thinking with just a few ticks to go in the game? This holding call was not quite that bad, but still a game-changing one. Since it was on a TE and not a WR I would say let the extra contact go.

Pats scored soon after and the game was over. Even the TD looked suspect with the receiver kinda bobbling the ball though both his feet were inbounds. To make matters even worse for the Ravens, they threw a hail-marry at the end that the receiver actually caught, but he was 2 yards short of the end zone. That should have been a fun game for the Ravens fan. I wish I had tuned into those calls on their post-game show. As for the Pats, the cheaters are still undefeated. They almost seem destined to go undefeated, but they have looked VERY shaky the last 2 weeks. Both Phily and Baltimore have made them look shaky and interestingly, those 2 teams have not made too many other teams look bad this season. I was watching this game in a gym and it was interesting how many people were rooting against the Pats! Not sure if it was an underdog thing or a spy-gate thing or just guys being jealous of Brady, but people outside of New England don't dig this unbeaten Pats team and I like it that way. I don't like Pittsburgh either, but I would be their biggest fan for 3 hours next week when they play the Pats.

Speaking of the Steelers, they were very lucky this weekend as well. It appeared like Willie Parker was fumbling the ball every other carry, but just like the Pats and their 4-Th downs, each fumble was reviewed or erased by something or the other. Either his knee was down a milli-second before he fumbled or his butt hit the ground before the ball popped out or something like that. Grandpa Madden was pining for the good old days when a fumble was a fumble and nobody cared about whether the butt hit the heel before the tongue licked your nose while the ball was rolling out! I guess good teams make their own break.

In other news, the McCown brothers were good on Sunday with Luke winning a game for Tamba Bay and Josh guiding the lowly Raiders against the hated Broncos. I think the Mike Shanahan era in Denver is winding to an end. Not sure what's up with that team. The Raiders used their rookie QB JaMarcus Russell for a few plays though it's running back Justin Fargas who gashed the Broncos. In Washington, Joe Gibbs got a penalty for back-to-back timeouts and pretty much gave the game away to the Bills. They went from a difficult 51 yard field goal to a friendly 36 yarder to win the game. That wraps up an interesting week for the Skins to say the least. The best clips from the NFL weekend was the moves that Adrian Peterson put on a couple of hapless defenders on his way to pay-dirt. This guy is an awesome running back.

Greatness in action

Greatness in action

I have not had the time to blog for a few days. The entire Thanksgiving weekend and since, I thought I have been seeing some tremendous performances on the football field and basketball courts. I am talking really impressive, out of the world type game here. The following guys have impressed me a lot over the last 2 weeks.

Tim Tebow - Florida. This guy is just awesome. A unique (white) double-threat QB. Dude has 29 touchdowns throwing and another 22 rushing this season. It's scary how good the Gators can be the next few years with this guy calling the shots. He is a top Heisman candidate though he is just a Soph.

Run DMC, Darren McFadden - Arkansas. As good as Tebow has been, I would say my Heisman is DMC. I couldn't believe what I saw him do against LSU last weekend. 206 yards rushing against the nation's number 1 team and guiding his team to a win single-handedly. It's amazing to watch the Razorbacks routinely line him up at QB and just directly snap to him without even pretending to have a passing game. I don't remember ever seeing the ball snapped to the RB so often. Thats how good Run DMC is.

The guy in the NFL who is dominating right now is Devin Hester. He scored 2 TDs last week on returns, both is the 3-Rd quarter, to single-handedly rip the hearts out of the Denver Broncos. They deserved every bit of their troubles because they brought it upon themselves. Why would anybody kick to this guy? I would give the ball to Rex Grossman and his offense at the 50 yard line every time rather than kicking it to Hester at the 20 or even in the end-zone. This guy is even more exciting than Dante Hall a few years back because at least that Chiefs team had an offense. The Bears have very little going on either side of the ball outside this guy.

D12, Dwight Howard. If you have not been following the NBA closely, you might have missed the growth of a new beast in the East. He is so good I might start calling the conference East again instead of LEast. Howard is a monster. The guy is so big and so athletic, it's a joke. This guy is almost unstoppable in the paint and he plays exclusively above the rim. He has more dunks this season than entire teams and his guards can just throw the ball anywhere near the hoop and he'll catch and crush the ball through the hoop. Double double is considered a good game and 20-10 is usually superstar numbers. But this guy routinely goes for 30-15 and 20-10 is actually a bad game for him.

Howard kind of reminds me of Amare from a couple of years back when he used to lead the league in dunks. Amare is still dominant, but the knee surgeries have definitely taken some juice out of Amare. Howard is now the vicious dunker and bigs like Amare have no shot against him in head-to-head match-ups. He is an inch or two taller than Amare, plus has a great wingspan for his height. He has never missed a game due to injury and can play defense as well. So that next great big man to follow Tim Duncan is D12. He is a cross between Tim Duncan, Shaq and Amare and in a year or two, he will make Timmy look bad. D12's offensive skills are still a work in progress and is nowhere near Timmy's but he has already started winning their individual match-ups. Imagine what happens in 09 or 2010. Scary!

King James. The other true stud of this young NBA season is Lebron James. This guy has become a triple-double machine and is the MP3 front runner. The Cavs didn't do anything this off-season to improve the team, but why should they if this guy keeps improving like this year over year! He just makes everybody around him so much better and his teammates are just growing in confidence playing with this guy everyday. Again, I think his offensive skills are nowhere near where it can be and it's scary to think how complete a player he will be when he gets there. He may never score like Kobe, but he is going to be a much better player if not already.

Packers are Favre real!

Turkey day means one thing - football. There were 3 NFL games today and they also had a big-time College game between ASU and USC. I would have rather taken the ASU-UofA match-up on Friday after thanksgiving like the old days after looking at this one. ASU looked completely out-classed by the trojans. From the first snap, ASU just could not wrap up the USC guys and bring them down. Awful tackling usually means one thing. The athletes on the other side are either quicker or stronger or both. Unfortunately that was the case today. ASU is still long ways from challenging USC. They had problems tackling and stopping them and on offense, ASU could not run against them at all. The USC pass-rush was also ferocious and with Rudy Carpenter holding on to the ball too long like he always does, the passing game was stuffed as well. The USC line almost killed Rudy. All things considered, this was a great season for ASU and Dennis Erickson, but they aint going to the Rose Bowl. They have lost to both USC and Oregon and that will stop them in most tie-break calculations.

In the pros, it was all about Brett Favre. Dude is looking as good as he has ever looked and he picked the Detroit defense apart with his quick passing. The Packers are spreading the WRs out and killing people with Brett's passes. He is playing at a very high-level and their offensive chemistry is off the charts. The kids are playing hard and their defense is no joke either. Mike Martz and Jon Kitna looked amateurish against the Packers D. Martz needs to go upstairs and do some real work. I don't see his offensive genius with this offense which has enough talent on paper to do some damage. Both their wide receivers are absolute studs - Roy Williams and Calvin Johnson and Kevin Jones and Jon Kitna aren't bad either. In the other game, not sure why the Jets even showed up at Dallas. That game was over long before it started. There's no way the Jets beat the Cowboys. Now the real game is between the 10-1 Pack and the 10-1 Boys next Thursday. It's like the mid to late 90's all over again! Unfortunately none of us can see it because NFL has this game on the stupid NFL channel.

Shake it like a Salt-Shaker!

Another weekend, another major shake-up in college football. 2 top-5 teams lost - Oregon and Oklahoma. Oregon's loss at the hands of Arizona opens the door again for ASU to win the Pac-10. It's still too early for ASU to dream about a BCS berth because they have to play the Trojans on turkey-day and then the slimy Wildcats, but how ironic would it be if Arizona helps Arizona State win the Pac-10? But really it was Dennis Dixon's injury that killed the Ducks. That team has got nothin' goin' on outside that QB. His backup Brady Leaf is pretty good for his last name, but he can't do what what double-D does for that offense. Now the ASU-USC game on Thursday becomes huge. It might be for all the marbles in the Pacific, at least for ASU.

The other big-shot team to lose this weekend was Oklahoma. They lost to Texas Tech and nothing wrong with that. I am not a big fan of Bob Stoops and I like the Texas Tech offense. They just seem to chuck it around year in and year out. This was the 11-Th time this year a top 5 team has lost to an unranked team. How awesome is that? I am loving college football like never before.

No major surprises in the NFL this weekend. New England beat up on Buffalo like a drum and ended with a 56-10 win. They look truly unstoppable. They did not punt the ball even once when their first team offense was on the field. Brady and Moss are playing pitch and catch all over the field, especially in the end-zone. Both Moss and TO had 4 TDs each this weekend. God must have slotted this NFL weekend as the "pure evil weekend" or something. The Colts barely squeaked past the Chiefs and looked mediocre. Pittsburgh lost to the Jets and had to deal with the proverbial "who the hell loses to the Jets?" question while the Chargers lost to the Jaguars and made the Jags look like the best team in the AFC for no reason.

All this means the Patriots have pretty much won the AFC for all practical purposes. Our only hope is for the Colts to get healthy and get good again in a hurry. Otherwise, we might be reduced to watching the hoody go for it on 4Th-and-2 in the 4-Th quarter of the Super Bowl leading 38-10 against the Cowboys. On the bright side, I guess we can get to know which of the 2 evil wide-receivers does the God really like to have a Super Bowl ring.

Celts, King and the Suns

Celts, King and the Suns

The NBA season is rolling and the only disappointing thing for me is the quality of the NBA league pass transmission. Seems like they are down-converting the HD transmission and sending it non-HD in most cases. Some games look horrible on my HD-TV. I wish the League pass moved to HD wherever available. Still it's NBA basketball and is real fun to flip the channels and see a whole bunch of games from all over. I love being able to TIVO every Suns game and watch it whenever I can.

Speaking of the Suns, they are one of the biggest story again with their 7-2 record. They look awesome with Grant Hill. They are fun to watch as always and MP3 Nash is getting better with age like fine wine and Heather Locklear. He is casually dropping 15 dimes a game and if Amare is out, put him down for 30 points as well. There is really not many surprises in the West except for the 9-2 New Orleans. The Spurs, Mavs are right there at the top and Denver and Utah are joining these teams up there as well. The West is BRUTAL as ever, but so far it sure looks like the Suns have nothing to worry about except Timmy and the Spurs. The only other real surprise in the West are the 1-6 Warriors. They sure can turn it around and probably will, but in the West you don't want to dig yourself too big a hole.

As for the L-East, it's all about the Celts. I am happy for KG, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce since I like all 3 of them. They are 8-0 and are looking as legit as any team ever can in Mid-November. Everybody knew they had the talent, but they have resoundingly answered questions about their depth and also how quickly and how well the stars can gel. They seem to have quickly found solid role players and a dependable line-up and are getting solid contributions from Rajon Rando, James Posey, Kendrick Perkins and Eddie House. I think Danny Ainge is well on his way to being voted the Executive of the Year. What he has done is simply remarkable. The reason their chemistry is so good and they are able to dominate this early is KG. I call him the "Nash among big men". He is so unselfish and plays so hard, that building a team around him is easier done than said. Unless you are Kevin McHale that is. KG also plays defense and what more do you want to play winning ball in the NBA? They have the Truth to dominate the scoring, they got Ray Allen hitting the 3's and KG takes care of everything else. It's a perfect mix right now.

The other big story for me is the King. LBJ has come out to play this year. There was some concern last year about how he has taken a step back and was also accused of sleep-walking trough the first half of the season. This year, he looks totally different. He is playing hard, he is playing great defense and is passing even more than before. I can't believe how willingly he sets up teammates for scores. If only Kobe had that skill. If LeBron plays with a high-level commitment, it might be game over for most of the other teams. The Cavs came out West and actually went back home with a 500 record. Thats like playing 850 ball at home against the L-East. LeBron was pretty impressive on the road and he then went back home to beat the Jazz with a ridiculous 40-10-9 game. That was after he had a 39-13-14 game against the Magic in a 117-116 loss. LBJ might take his game one more level higher this season and amaze us even more.

Call me when you are in my block!

There has been a lot of controversy recently around Don Shula calling the Patriots season "tainted" because of spy-gate. The 1972 Dolphins always come off looking petty and juvenile with their Champagne bottle popping celebration every year when the last unbeaten team loses. But I have to agree with Don Shula about the "taint". May be it's just because I hate the hoody and the Pats, but he does seem to have a point. But today, I think I found my most favorite 72 Dolphin - RB Mercury Morris. He was talking trash to the Pats about how they are barely half-way to perfection and all this talk about 17-0 is premature to say the least. He might have came out with the best quote ever. "Don't call me when they're in my town, call me when they're on my block." Thats awesome. I'll be adding this to my lingo pretty soon!

Speaking of the Dolphins, the league re-instated Ricky Williams. I am a big supporter of this yoga-loving, world-travelling, new-age running back. I welcome him back with open arms. The other big Dolphins news is that they are going to start rookie John Beck this weekend at QB. John who? It's amazing how bad the QB talent in this league is right now. Recently I was talking to my friend about our fellow Sun-Devil Jake Plummer, who is busy playing professional doubles handball with his elder brother. I told him that if Plummer comes back, he should have a starting job within 10 minutes. I am a big fan of the Snake, but even grading him conservatively and dispassionately, he is clearly in the top half (top 16) of QBs in this league. I was watching Alex Smith this Monday and could not stomach how low the QB play has dropped even with the proud Montana-Young 49'ers. Here's the list of QBs I would rank higher than Plummer

Peyton Manning
Tom Brady
Drew Brees
Ben Roethlisberger
Brett Favre
Tony Romo
Matt Hasselback
Donavan McNabb
Carson Palmer
Marc Bulger
Eli Manning
Jay Cutler
Jon Kitna

As you can see, I am trying to be real fair here. I have even ranked Jay Cutler and Jon Kitna above him. Why am I in such a giving mood? I really don't know. But the point is, aside from this list, I will argue for Plummer against any other starter in the league today. Give me Plummer over Jeff Garcia or Jake Delhomme. You can have your over-the-hill Warner or Culpepper or McNair or Trent Greene, I'll take Plummer. Leinart and Vince Young and Philip Rivers can't even Carry Jake's jock, at least not yet. Even if you rank some these guys over Jake, he is clearly a quality starter in todays NFL. May be he should come back and make one more team watchable on Sundays.