Bye Bye 2009

The sports year is ending and Tiger Woods and the Phoenix Suns are probably the happiest that the month of December is in the books. It has been a brutal month (plus a few days) for Tiger. Not only has he been busted for all kinds of "transgressions", he is probably not involved in any new "transgressions" the last 5 weeks and that in and of itself should be really tough for this guy considering his now impressive rap sheet! He will be back at some point in 2010 and I wonder if thats the first time we will see him in public or on TV. This Woods story will probably go down as the biggest story of the year. But even otherwise, it has been a very eventful year is sports as always. It's been so long and so interesting, I don't even remember what happened in the early parts of this year. The last few weeks and months have been very exciting to say the least.

In college football, Urban Meyer abruptly resigned last Saturday citing health problems, then decided he would instead take an indefinite leave of absence. I was shocked by that whole sequence and it showed us how everybody have their own closets in the cupboard and how we as humans take too much stress and pain on our shoulders for no good reason sometimes. I hope he changes his lifestyle and approach to coaching and life when he comes back. Otherwise, he should just stay retired and be happy - not that happiness is that simple to achieve even for a millionaire like Meyer. Texas Tech fired Mike Leach for mistreating a player and I can't even believe some of the things he has done is even possible in this day and age. Strange dude!

The Bowl Season is in full swing and seems like it has been in full swing since Thanks-giving for crying out loud! The best result so far has to be Arizona losing to Nebraska 33-0. Even as a Pac-10 honk, I can't help but rejoice when the wildcats lose this bad. The Pac-10 in general has looked bad so far, but Oregon should take care of the suckeyes tomorrow in the Rose Bowl and restore some West coast pride. Either that or lets hope LeGarrette Blount punches Jim Tressel in the face after the game. That would be a perfect start and end of the year for Blount and of course for me if a suckeye gets punched. Time to bring on the real bowl games though starting with the New Year. There are still enough garbage games including a Jan 6-Th matchup between Central Michigan and Troy. What are those 2 teams waiting for? Shouldn't that bowl game be played on Dec 6-Th instead of Jan 6-Th? I don't get it.

The other defining aspect of this month has been the Phoenix Suns' 7-9 record after a blistering 14-3 record in November (and late October). This was expected given their brutal December schedule. They did have 2 bad losses - at home against OKC Thunder and on the road at Golden State. Otherwise, they could have been 9-7 and that would have been a good record given the tough schedule. The scarier part has been how their defense has dropped back to the old pathetic levels. They were playing much better defense earlier in the year, but they can't stop anybody again these days. With all this said and done, the Suns should go 12-4 or 11-5 again in January against that weak schedule. But it won't matter unless they get back whatever little defensive mojo they had for some time. Lets see how it goes. Of course January primarily means the NFL playoffs and thats what we are all waiting for.

Happy 2010 folks.

The imperfect Saints

Interesting upsets in the NFL this weekend. It started with the Saints shockingly losing at home to the Cowboys last night. Nobody saw this coming and more than the loss itself, the way the Saints lost was surprising. It was not a shootout that the boys won 44-42. Instead the boys shut down the Saints offense. Brees was held to one TD and less than 300 yards passing. The Cowboys defense got to him early and often. It was a very impressive effort by the Dallas defense. I didn't see this earlier in the season. DeMarcus Ware showing up and playing in this game was in and of itself a big boost for the Cowboys after his neck injury last week. When you are 13-0, you are good, but you are also lucky. The Saints got their lucky breaks in this game as well, but the Dallas defense would not let them score. Now the talk is, what can the other teams learn and copy from the Cowboys to stop the Saints. The Saints will be fine. I still expect them to be in the Super Bowl. Not many teams can do to them what the Cowboys did on Saturday.

The upset special should have started Thursday itself when the Jacksonville Jaguars were leading the Colts late into the second half. They let the Colts off the hook and blew a golden opportunity. Now the Colts are the only undefeated team in a weak AFC. There are around 2 million teams in the league right now with a 7-7 record. Throw in a couple of 8-6 teams, thats a lot of mediocrity right there. But I guess it's fun for the fans to follow these teams. I expect some strange teams to make the playoffs over the next 2 weeks. It would be amazing if the Tennessee Titans made the playoffs after their pathetic start to the season. The Raiders added to the "upset-fest" by beating the Broncos in Denver. The Broncos are done for all practical purposes (I don't care if they even make the playoffs). In the NFC, Minnesota had a chance to put some pressure on the Saints for the top spot, but instead they put some pressure on themselves by losing to the Carolina Panthers and their QB Matt Moore. Both Favre and AP looked listless in this game. They have now lost twice on Sunday Night Football over the last 3 weeks. Apparently Favre and Brad Childress also had some arguments over Favre getting pulled out of this game.

Green Bay lost a WILD one in Pittsburgh. Big Ben threw for 503 yards and 3 TDs and A-Rod threw for 383 yards and 3 TDs. If the Packers had won, the Cheese-heads would have been all excited about passing Favre and winning the division over the next 2 weeks. Now, slowly the talk about Favre's age, shoulder and arm strength is starting back again proving once again our sports media is more fickle than a 15 year old girl. I am more amazed at what his addition to the team has done to All-Day. Adrian Peterson is not where he used to be or needs to be. All the passing has taken the ball away from AP's hands and he is not able to make an impact on the game anymore. He still had a powerful TD today, but nothing more. The Vikes have to put the ball back in his hands and use Favre selectively like they used to in the first few weeks. That should be the recipe. The stud RB in the league right now is Chris Johnson. Dude is unstoppable in the open field and is probably the biggest threat on a football field outside of Peyton Manning this season. Johnson is still under-rated and not many people will even recognize this dude on the streets. Arizona won at Detroit, but not that convincingly. The media is on their case for inconsistency. Just bring on the playoffs and shut these fools up.

Two teams moving in different directions

My favorite teams are in the midst of interesting stretches right now. The Arizona Cardinals played the Vikings Sunday night and absolutely dominated them. Kurt Warner showed us once again that when this guy is in rhythm and if you give him time, he is as good as anybody. Brett may be Favre but he wasn't half as good as Warner last Sunday. The Cards offensive line was brilliant and Warner sliced and diced the Vikes at will. Those 2 receivers - Anquan Boldin And Larry Fitzgerald are ridiculous! They are just too good, too big, too fast, too strong and too tough. They made the Vikings corners look stupid. The coners had no clue how to cover them. Fitz is also a classy guy who gives a lot of credit to Boldin despite being a superstar himself. This Cards team is peaking ahead of last year's schedule and I hope they are not peaking too soon. Nobody is beating Drew Brees in the NFC this year and the Cards are not viewed as a serious threat. But I will take Warner and these Cards over anybody else in the NFC, except the Saints.

The Suns on the other hand have lost 4 out of 5 and they have another brutal 6 game stretch with only Washington being an "easy" game. Yesterday they lost to the Mavericks. It's always tough for me to see the Suns lose to the Mavericks. Or the Lakers or the Spurs for that matter. It would be interesting to see how the Suns do at home against these cats. The Lakers are not quite 20-1 as like Reggie Miller had predicted, but they are a close 17-3. They are clearly the class of the league, but the Suns are suddenly 3 games behind them and have also dropped to the 4-Th seed in the West behind the Lakers, Denver and now Dallas. I think they'll stabilize and should still have a shot at the number 2 seed in the West. These 4 teams plus Portland are the elites in the West with San Antonio being the wild-card. I expect them to be an elite team by Feb or so, but for now they look mediocre. In the East, Orlando, Boston, Cleveland and Atlanta are at the top. I think those 4 teams are here to stay.

Here comes the road bump!

The Suns season has been flawless until this week. We knew it can't go this way forever and the inevitable bad stretch was coming, but it seem to have come already. They went on the road again and this trip did not go too well. They lost at New York yesterday and at Cleveland today. They are 0-2 in December after a smashing November. It's not that they are losing that is a cause for concern here, but the how, when and where they are losing thats disturbing. Both these losses were blowouts. In fact 4 out of the 5 Suns losses so far have been blowouts on the road. But who loses to New York? They are a horrible 4-15 and thats after the win against the Suns. Not only did the Suns lose to them, they got blown out by their ex-coach. If that was not motivation enough, they had a BIG game today against their old friend the BIG aristotle. Unfortunately, that was not enough to pick them up either. They got blown out again and they scored 14 and 15 points in the first 2 quarters for a grand total for 29 in a half. Thats pathetic to put it mildly. All of the Cavs scored and torched the Suns in this one. They didn't even need LeBron, who had a 12-8-10 night.

Whatever it is that the Suns are suddenly ailing from, they better snap out of it soon because they are entering a tough stretch including the Lakers at home on Sunday. Thats followed by Dallas, Orlando, Denver, San Antonio and Portland. Ouch! They may be lucky to come out of that stretch playing 500 ball. Lets see how it goes. Nobody seems to be in the same league as the Lakers right now, but the Suns at least had the record. That may not be the case when this stretch is done. The Lakers might put some distance in the standings too. Lets strap on the seat belt for this stretch. Lots of other news in the sports world right now. In college, Bobby Bowden has been forced out and Charlie Weis has been fired. Tiger Woods has been caught in some family "transgressions" and girls are coming of the woodwork with juicy stuff. TMZ might be all set for months with this story. Dude is busted. Tomorrow is the civil war between Oregon and Oregon state. This one is for all the marbles with a rose bowl berth on the line. The fans up there are nuts already and a game of this magnitude should pretty much drive them over the edge. It should be a good one, but Oregon should win.

No more answer

Kind of a sad day in the NBA today. One of my favorite players decided to hang up his sneakers in an unexpected move. Allen Iverson is retired. This may not be a permanent retirement because I am sure he will come back if somebody offers him a job. But unfortunately, nobody wants him right now and he has decided to retire at least for now. His reluctance and refusal to come off the bench is definitely stupid and it's sad he is not willing to give up on that. If he is willing to come off the bench, I am sure he will have a job. He was unemployed and it is definitely a more honorable option to retire than be unemployed for someone at his level. But as a fan, retirement hits you a little differently than him just being unemployed. I feel kinda sad and disappointed. AI was an exciting, fun, speedy, entertaining, small guard who played hard and hurt most of the time. You won't find too many "answers" like him under 6 feet.

AI is 34 years old and for a guard, he is a little old. I would compare him to a big guy like Shaq who is 37 now because small guys rely a lot more on speed than big dudes. But Shaq is still employed and is a starter. In fact, there is no question about Shaq ever coming off the bench, though that might happen now given how well the Cavs are playing without him the last few games! AI is at a stage where he is too old for young teams that are in a rebuilding mode. A team like Memphis had no business signing him in the first place. But then again, it's the same team that traded for Zach Randolph and traded away Pau Gasol. So who's really surprised if the Grizz wants to bring in AI for a year to sell tickets or whatever. But then why would you not start him? Thats a classic case of the front office and the coaching staff not being on the same page. AI should be willing to come off the bench, but for Memphis, I am not so sure. I think both sides were at fault on this.

If he is not a good fit for a young team, he would have been a great fit for a contender who can use a little offensive firepower. But 2 problems there. First, AI is refusing to come off the bench. Contending teams would love a player like that off the bench. Secondly, AI has always been a focal point in his team. He is also a guard who needs to have the ball in his hands a little too much. Good teams are probably afraid he would be too disruptive. Sometimes in life, perception is reality and AI definitely is a victim of how he is being perceived. With his off court issues and his history, teams were already reluctant to touch him and his refusal to come off the bench shoved the good teams away from him for good. Shaq is old, Shaq's game is disruptive too, but he is a good seed and a team player. Teams don't think the same of AI. I still hope somebody will pick him up and he'll un-retire. Dude is still quick and can cross fools over in a split-second, but he has to be willing to make some compromises. As you can tell, I am sympathetic to this guy and his style of play and his toughness is a big reason why people like me support him. He is a little guy with a lot of heart.

The Answer entertained us for years and I am thankful for that on this thanksgiving eve.

LSU's blunder

LSU lost a very interesting game yesterday after committing a comedy of errors. They were driving, trailing by 2 and with time running out. They first got into the field goal range, but the QB got sacked. Then they ran a bone-headed screen play that got stuffed well behind the line of scrimmage. These 2 plays took them back out of field goal range. Somewhere along the way, they also burnt a lot of clock because they apparently called a timeout that they thought was awarded, but it actually went unnoticed by the zebras. They eventually took that timeout later in the drive anyways. Finally they were left with a few seconds on the clock and were forced to go for a hail mary. The pass fell short of the goal-line, but was miraculously caught by one of the LSU receivers. The clock stopped with just a second to go. This is when all hell broke lose. LSU was just not in a position to get the field goal unit in there before the college clock restarted after the first down. So the QB didn't know what to do and he ended up taking the snap and spiking it. There was no way he could have saved a fraction of that remaining second by spiking the ball. I don't know what he was thinking. He should have just run a legitimate play and went for the TD. Instead the game ended on a spike by LSU. Strange indeed. I don't know how LSU did not have the field goal unit ready to run onto the field and kick the ball in that situation.

After last week's 4-Th and 2 call by Bill, there were more coaches in the news this college football weekend. There was the whole LSU mess above. Then there were two more head-scratching 4-Th down calls. Stanford's Jim Harbaugh decided to go for it on fourth-and-8 late during the big game and turned the ball over to Cal. In the Ivy league, Yale went for a fake punt on fourth-and-22 and failed miserably. They ended up losing the game too. But more than these 2 coaches, the coach in real trouble is Charlie Weis after Notre Dame lost to UConn. You are in trouble if you are at Notre Dame and you are losing to a service academy and a basketball school. Many casual sports fans may not even know Navy and UConn have football programs, but Notre Dame keeps losing to such powerhouses. I don't think he should survive this and I don't think he will. May be the Domers can go after Jon Gruden again. I like him on ESPN and I will miss him stretching out every syllable of every name (Tony GON-ZA-LEZ), but he might be fun to follow in college. But then again, Buffalo Bills also want him and I am not sure if he is really interested in working for less money in a college setting. It's a great idea for someone who wants to build a program and become a legend at a college town with slightly less pressure than the pros. But thats the only reason for someone who has NFL opportunities to go for it. You can become a hall of famer in the NFL and you can make a lot of money, but you can never become a legend at a single town in the pros. Ten years is the most a coach can survive at one place in pros these days.

Speaking of the pros, another NFL sunday in the books. Colts and the Saints win again to go 10-0. Colts win a close one at Baltimore. The Ravens had a shot in this one, but a late interception didn't help. A Ravens win would have fit in well with the other upsets this week. Kansas City stunned Pittsburgh in OT and Oakland beat Cincinnati. Oakland was just hoping for an OT, but the Bengals fumbled the kickoff after the Raider's game-tying TD. Raiders then kicked the field goal to win the game. There was another OT game this weekend prompting more discussions about the NFL overtime rules. Giants beat the Falcons to hand them their 5-Th straight loss. Matty Ice tied the game on a 2-minute drive, but he never saw the ball again after they lost the OT toss. There were more fun, close games this weekend compared to last week. Philly beat Chicago 24-20 in Sunday night football. Cutler seems completely off. I guess the coaches have him all confused after those interceptions. Now he seems to be over-throwing all his receivers all the time by about 5 yards. Nobody can catch these balls including his blazing fast receivers like Johnny Knox. The game of the week was probably between Detroit and Cleveland, 2 bad teams. Mathew Stafford threw for 422 yards and 5 TDs including his first game winning drive. This kid is good. Keep an eye on him. Brady Quinn had his first decent game of his career - 304 yards and 4 TDs. At the other end of the spectrum, Brett Favre had another phenomenal game throwing for 4 TDs. The worst game of the day was Dallas beating Washington 7-6. I think the Florida Gators can beat the Redskins by at least 10 points.

Kurt Warner left the Cardinals-Rams game because of a blow to his head. Cards won 21-13, but I hope Warner is back healthy soon.

Nelly strikes again

The Golden State Warriors are a mess again. The trouble started when they did not re-sign Baron Davis last off-season and got worse when Nelly stopped coaching or caring sometime during last year. Not that he is a great coach to begin with, but if he doesn't have top talent and is not interested in putting in the work, you got no shot. I didn't have a big problem with them letting boom-dizzle walk. He is injury prone and can go south on you both mentally and physically anytime. So I kinda saw the W's point in not paying top dollars over too many years. But the problem was, he took them to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years and the Warriors probably needed him more than any other team. In any case, Baron is gone now and Nelly doesn't have a top point guard in his roster.

Nelly is a very different type of coach. He definitely makes the game fun by playing a high-scoring style. Thats his strength. He brings a fun, attractive brand of basketball to town. But he does not quite run a specific system. His offense is very different from Mike D'Antoni's run and gun for instance. Nelly lets them run and shoot the 3, but in the half court, he pretty much lets his guys play one-on-one. He does not run many plays or draw up creative stuff. He basically relies on great talent or he tries to exploit mismatches - both are different forms of one-on-one basketball. So without talent, he is useless. When Baron left, the W's lost their prime talent and the leader on the court. Nelly over the last decade has basically been relying on Nash and Baron Davis and Dirk Nowitzki. He doesn't have that kinda talent right now. Nelly also doesn't trust young players. And he is pretty erratic with substitutions. You can see all these issues with the current Warriors and the impact of all these issues on a young team is not a pretty.

So Nelly doesn't have the talent and is not interested in putting in the work. The Warriors season really went south when Stephen Jackson went Jacko on the W's. Captain Jack had to be demoted and eventually traded to Charlotte - seems like you can dump anybody on MJ the executive. But apparently thats not the last or the only Warriors issue. Now there are rumors that Monta Ellis is unhappy and he complained to Nelly that he keeps blaming him for all problems. There are rumors that Anthony Randolph is not that happy either since he doesn't play much. If the Warriors are forced to trade either Monta or Randolph, it would be an amazing case of history repeating itself. Nelly would have the distinction of destroying the same franchise twice within a span of 15 years. He traded Chris Webber, his best player back then and now he will be trading Monta or Randolph, his best player on the current roster.

Warrior fans are too scared to even think of this scenario. They are very upset at Nelly and want him out. There' an amazing consensus that the coach got to go and the fans think he should take the GM and the owner out with him as well. It is an horribly run franchise top to bottom and Nelly is of absolutely no help. But who is going to fire him given that he hired the GM and not the other way around. It's pretty sad for the Warrior fans who are one of the most loyal fans in the league. Even now, more fans show up at the Warrior games than even some playoff teams in the league. I heard that the commish D-Stern is concerned about the Warriors (mis)management. It's basically a mess all around in the Bay.

Speaking of the Bay Area, the Raiders are also in the news for all the wrong reasons. The league's worst QB has been benched finally. Stephen Gostkowski has replaced JaMarcus Russell as the Raider's starting QB. The Raiders will be slightly better now, but nobody will notice anyways. Who cares if you lose 23-7 or 23-13. There was a Thursday night game tonight between Carolina and Miami. NFL needs to stop this Thursday game nonsense. Not many people are watching this and is messing up the fantasy games too. Back to the NBA. The Suns lost an easy one today at New Orleans who were without Chris Paul. The Suns dropped the ball on this one. May be they were still hung over from the big Houston win. Pau Gasol is back for the Lakers and is in mid-season form already. He had a 24-13 night today and this Lakers team looks scary good!

Dumb Belichick

It's a good thing Bill Belichick is Bill Belichick. He has the resume and those super bowl rings to survive the stupid call he made with the game on the line Sunday night. It was one of those typical Colts versus Patriots classic that was as good as advertised. Colts were trailing 34-21 in the fourth quarter when they scored once and kicked the ball away to the Patriots with less than 3 minutes to go. The Colts trusted their defense instead of going for an onside kick. Indy had all 3 of their timeouts plus the 2 minute warning. Pats got the ball and started the drive on the wrong foot by taking a timeout. It's very rare that the team thats ahead needs a timeout in that situation. They ran on the first down for minimal gain and gained 8 yards on a pass play on second down. Colts stopped the clock both times. Pats couldn't complete the pass on third down. Everybody, including the Pats special team thought hoody will punt the ball away. Instead hoody shocked the world by deciding to go for it on 4-Th and 2 from his own 28 yard line! On top of it, he took his third and last timeout to set the play up. They went for a short pass, that was completed, but Kevin Faulk juggled a ball a little bit after touching it well beyond the first down marker. He then caught the ball as he was being tackled backwards and he landed short of the first down with no clarity on where actually did he have possession of the ball. The ref did not give him the spot and the first down and the Pats turned the ball over to the Colts on downs.

I actually thought Faulk got the first down despite the bobble, but the ref was not in a position to see it. Hoody could have challenged the call if only he had a timeout. And the clock was just beyond 2 minutes and hence was not eligible for a review from upstairs. The ball went to Manning on the 28 yard line and of course he scored the winning TD after milking the clock expertly for a 35-34 win. This was a shocking end to a game that the Patriots seemed to dominate and it was a stupid coaching call for sure. I love aggressive coaching and going on fourth downs and I have always maintained that Belichick and the Patriots are one of the most aggressive teams in the league despite Belichick's defensive background. I have seen them going for it on fourth down under similar situations and actually making it. But that usually happens further down the field and not at their own 28 yard line. Most coaches would even be scared to pass the ball on those 3 downs, but may be they'll do it considering they are turning the ball over to Manning, one of the best QBs ever, if they don't get the first down. And of course the hoody is absolutely going to pass the ball around on the first three downs given that he has hall-of-famers Tom Brady and Randy Moss on that offense. But he took it too far when he chose to go for it on 4-Th down as well. And it was not 4-Th and 1 either. It was a good, long 2 yards. You cannot run the risk of giving Peyton Manning a short field with the game on the line. Of course Belichick is facing the music everywhere and most experts are ripping him apart the last day and a half.

The irony of the whole thing is that the Pats actually got the first down. The ref just missed the call and the hoody is paying the price. I love it! I can't believe how most coaches on TV are supporting him. I guess it's a fraternity and they want to stick together. Some of these coaches will never go for it on 4-Th and 2 even if their life depended on it and they are saying it was not a bad decision by the hoody. Even Gruden on monday night football was saying how going for it is much better than giving the ball to Manning even it that dude has to go 70 or 80 yards. Well, he just had to drive 28 yards because of this stupid decision and hows that better than making him drive 80 yards? Now we all get a new phrase - "don't pull a Bill Belichick". Speaking of MNF, the Cleveland Browns are horrible. They literally put me to sleep. I was watching the game and I suddenly woke up on my couch wondering what happened. Cleveland Browns offense is what happened and I turned the TV off to proceed with my night. The Chicago-San Francisco and the Dallas-Green Bay games were also pretty mediocre this week. Dallas and Green Bay were both surprisingly ineffective on offense and Dallas lost the game.

The other surprise of the week was Denver losing to Washington and now they are tied for first with the resurgent Chargers. San Diego will eventually win that division when its all said and done. Cincinnati is going to win it's division too after they went into Pittsburgh and punked them even without a great game from Carson Palmer and that offense. The Saints and the Vikings are still rolling. There was another interesting coaching call in the Jaguars-Jets game. The Jags were trailing 21-22 and were facing a second-and-6 from the 10 with less than 2 minutes to go. Maurice Jones-Drew took a handoff up the middle and could have easily walked in for a TD. But he went down and took a knee to give Jacksonville first-and-goal from the 1 with about 1 1/2 minutes left. Jets were out of timeouts and this move allowed the jags to milk the clock all the way down. They kicked the winning field goal with 0's on the clock. Smart move. Jags coach Jack Del Rio even mimicked Herm Edwards's "you play to win the game" in the post-game news conference. What's up with these coaches pulling references from legendary rants from fellow coaches? Last week, Arizona's Ken Whisenhunt made fun of Dennis Green's "we let them off the hook" line. Keep it up coaches. In other news, college basketball is kicking off and ESPN is doing a beautiful thing. They have a 24 hour kick-off marathon. Best idea ever. Unfortunately, I may not get to watch any of it. But I still love the idea.

TCU, Boise State and the BCS

The big game this weekend on campus was no. 16 Utah at no. 4 TCU horned frogs, whatever the words horned frogs mean. TCU dismissed Utah 55-28 to stay where they are. Number 6 Boise State crushed Idaho 63-25. Cincinnati won 24-21 and will probably stay at number 5. That leaves 3 mid-major schools in the top 6. I guess the parity in college football is for real. At least Cincinnati is in a BCS conference - Big East. Big East is not a great football conference after the whole ACC expansion a few years back, but it's still the Big East. But the BCS is being turned upside down by TCU and Boise State. They are saying Boise State may still not make a BCS bowl game because TCU is ahead of them and it will be too much to put both of them in. That would be a shame if these teams stay undefeated and still don't get a chance to play in a major bowl. But then again BCS has alway been a shame and a scam like this wouldn't be a major surprise. I sure hope both these schools stay undefeated and both get invited to the big dance. And I want both of them to defeat the major schools they would be playing in the BCS bowl games. I can definitely see them handling the Georgia Techs and the Cincinnatis of the World. I see only 3 elite teams in the nation right now - Florida, Alabama and Texas. TCU and Boise State should be given a shot ahead of any of the other mediocre schools.

In the Pac-10, the roller-coaster ride continued today with more somersaults and up and downs. Arizona lost to Cal, and I am of course happy about it. Actually, Arizona never had a real shot at the Rose Bowl given how difficult the last few games on their schedule was going to be including the rivalry game against ASU. Speaking of ASU, another week, another Pac-10 loss - this time at Oregon. They played with their 3-Rd string QB who was running around like a chicken with it's head cutoff. Athletic dude, but had a tough time at Oregon. The shocker was USC losing to Stanford at home once again. I guess no more hype for USC QB Matt Barkley on ESPN and thats a good thing, actually a great thing. Pac-10 currently has a reputation of being very deep. I guess it's because USC beat the suckeyes and the Domers and UCLA beat Tennessee and Washington almost beat LSU. Otherwise, the so-called experts will be trashing Pac-10 as always given the lack of a dominant team and since they don't have any idea who will beat who on a given weekend. I think Oregon will make it to the Rose Bowl and will handle the suckeyes easily. There are only 2 good weeks of college football left as far as I am concerned. The conference championship week where Florida plays Alabama and the BCS bowl week. Thats about it. The Heisman race has also turned upside down since the beginning of the season. Now it's Alabama's Mark Ingram's trophy to lose. He had another big weekend this week - 147 yards and 2 TDs in Alabama's 31-3 win at Mississippi state.

In the NBA, couple of rookies are on fire. Milwaukee's Brandon Jennings and Sacramento's Tyreke Evans are both having an awesome season. And thats not just by Rookie standards, but by "veteran standards". Today, Jennings blew up big time. He dropped 55 points on the Warriors. He scored 16 points in the fourth quarter and nobody is even talking about that because he scored an amazing 29 points on 12/13 shooting in the third. I have watched a lot of basketball, but that was one of the most amazing individual performance I have ever seen. I can't remember anybody on fire quite like this - not even Kobe or Melo or LeBron. 6/8, 10/15 may be, but not 12/12 before missing a 3 at the end of the quarter. That was fun to watch. This game was surprisingly entertaining and was one of the better NBA games this season. Both teams were pretty on with the Bucks taking it 129-125. The Suns are back tomorrow against the Raptors and that should be a high-scoring game too. They fell flat on their face against the Lakers on Thursday. It looked like they had mentally given the game to the Lakers and didn't really believe they can beat them that day. They are now 8-2 and since the Lakers lost the next day at Denver, they are still on top of the Pacific. Both of Suns losses have been blowouts on the road on the back-end of back-to-back games. I guess they got no legs on those days.

Lets bring on the Colts-Patriots tomorrow.

Big games all over

Lot of big games this week across the board. We had the Magic-Cavs contest today. For the first time since the start of the season, the Cavs seems to have gotten something tangible out of Shaq. He has really not been a differentiator up to this point. But he was brought in just to deal with the size at the top of the East, especially Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett. Tonight, the original superman went against the new and improved superman and the old veteran came through. Shaq put Howard in foul trouble early and that derailed the Orlando Magic. Thats exactly what Shaq is supposed to do. Shaq may not be what he used to be, but he is still a big man and you have to foul him to deal with him sometimes. Unfortunately for the Magic, the wrong guy was fouling him and Dwight got in foul trouble before he could even work up a sweat. Shaq was in foul trouble too, but the Magic need Dwight way more than the Cavs need Shaq. Vince had a good game, but between Bron and Mo, the Cavs got 64 points. This may be the recipe for Cavs if they want to beat the Magic and the Celtics - Shaq plays some D and gets some big bodies in foul trouble, some scoring help for the king from the role players and the king being the king. If all of this come together, Cavs can win a lot of games even in May and June against the elite teams.

The next big game is tomorrow between the 8-1 Suns and the 6-1 Lakers. This has been a rivalry forever, but the last few years have been fun until Lakers got too good for the Suns. Now the Suns have a tremendous record and would love to measure themselves against the Fakers. I think they got a shot given how good they are playing. Their 8-1 record is no fluke with Nash balling like a man possessed. Nash reminds me a lot of Peyton Manning. Both thse guys seem to know exactly what to do on the field at all times. They seem to have complete control over the offense and have the ball and decision making in their hands most of the time. Speaking of Peyton Manning, the real big game is in the NFL this weekend when Tom Brady takes him Patriots to play the Colts. This has been an yearly event for a while and these 2 franchises have been so good for almost a decade now that this game feels like an AFC championship game regardless of when it's played. I would like the Colts to win, but I think the Patriots are going to hand them their first defeat. The pats are coming together nicely and the Colts secondary is decimated. Randy Moss should have a field day against this secondary which is without Bob Sanders again. They have traditionally been bad whenever this guy is out. This game should be a good one and worth watching for sure.

Suns are rolling

The NBA season couldn't be going better for me. The Suns are looking awesome. They are 6-1 and that win on Friday against the Celtics in Boston was huge. This might be the best Suns team of this era actually. It is slightly better than the D'Antoni teams of 2004-2008. They took a step back last year under Terry Porter and the window seemed shut, but they seem rejuvenated and the new pieces fit them perfectly like a glove. So they have improved significantly because of the intangibles and chemistry though the talent has not been upgraded a whole lot since last year. In fact, on paper, the team lost a lot of talent with Shaq. But with this team and this system, give me Channing Frye over a 37 year-old Shaq any day of the week and twice on game days. Frye is just perfect for this system. He is tall, he can run and he can shoot the 3. He gives them much needed size after a long time.

Jared Dudley is the other piece thats fitting in nicely right now. He is averaging 8.5 points and 3.7 rebounds off the bench and plays good D and brings a lot of energy. Kudos to Alvin Gentry for playing the bench. Thats the difference between D'Antoni and Gentry and this is exactly why this team seems better than even D'Antoni's Western conference Finals teams. Of course Steve Nash is still the heart and soul of this team. He is playing better than ever. He is raining assists all over the court and is playing even better than his MVP years. Grant Hill and J Rich are doing good as well. Amare is getting back into shape and this team will get even better if Amare gets more explosive. Lets see how this team does long term. It is still the best show in the NBA. It's fun to watch these guys run.

I was watching the Warriors game the other day and I realized it was not even a NBA standard game. It felt like a crime to charge people 70, 90, 110 bucks for those tickets to watch a product like the current Warriors - bad talent, poor chemistry, horrible coaching and sub-par shooting. Of course watching Nash and the Suns everyday on TV doesn't help my perception of other teams. It' just a huge drop-off when you watch Nash do his magic and then go watch a dysfunctional team like the Warriors. Nelly might be destroying that team for the second time in 15 years and I think he should be fired. He doesn't have the talent in that roster to continue with his zero-coaching, one-on-one, jump shooting system. They seem legitimately confused and seem to have no plays or sets to execute. They came out of a timeout in one game with a shot drawn up for Mikki Moore. Are you kidding me?

This is no way to run a young team which doesn't have a legitimate point guard, but actually has some talent that could be coached and improved. There is no Nash or Baron Davis to run the show for Nelly on the court and no Nowitzki to hit the jumpers. He has a rookie point guard for God's sake, but Nelly still doesn't get off his butt and coach a lick. I love Nelly and I love the fact he always makes the game exciting. But at this time and place, with this particular Warrior team, he is a horrible fit and needs to be fired. No way around it. As for the rest of the league, the Lakers and the Celtics are rolling and so was Denver before losing 2 straight. Melo has started the season white-hot and so has Kobe. The King and the Cavs have started a little slow, but are playing slightly better now. May be that game in New York will wake him up for good. They should be fine when it's all said and done.

You get what you pay for

The Yankees proved again that you get what you pay for. They are scratching the check for the league's most expensive first baseman, third baseman, short stop, catcher, starting pitcher and relief pitcher. And yesterday, they won their 27-Th championship after a break of almost a decade behind all those horses. We expected the Yankees to win it all from day 1 of this season - or any other season for that matter. And then we spend the rest of the season hoping they won't win. This is what the sport of baseball has come down to these days. Yankees and 2 or 3 other teams spend all the money and accumulate all the talent. If that talent comes through, they win. If not, they go out and spend more money and accumulate more expensive talent next year. The rest of us just watch this spectacle with a profound sense of detachment.

This year, the Yankees stars delivered in the playoffs and they closed the deal. C.C.Sabathia and A-Rod were awesome. Mo, Jeter and Pettitte were their usual self and only Tex was a little down in the World Series. Hideki Matsui became the first Japanese-born player to win the World Series MVP award and we almost forget this guy in that roster. I guess he only hit .615 in the World Series and why would anybody talk about him? The Phillies played well and gave us some interesting moments, but Chase Utley could only take them so far all by himself. Ryan Howard was no good in this series and they absolutely need the big guy. Their pitching was good, but not as good as the Yankees outside of Cliff Lee. In game 6, Pedro had nothing to offer. Everybody was his daddy on this day. Cole Hamels finally got his wish and the season ended.

It was an interesting season for A-Rod for sure. He started with a full-blown steroid scandal and hit rock bottom in terms of his image and popularity. Ironically, this is the season he finally comes through in the playoffs and the Yankees win it all. Now the fans will finally start embracing him as a hero. Thats how unpredictable life is. Finally the half a billion dollar man has one championship. Lets see if he gets more. The new Yankee stadium has also come on board in style. In other MLB news, San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum is facing misdemeanor marijuana charges following a traffic stop in his home state Washington. I am normally not too exited or surprised by such news about athletes, but his one is shocking! Lincecum looks like a 12 year old and I can't believe he actually drives a car.

In the NBA, I am happy with what I have seen so far in the Phoenix Suns. They are 4-1 and are looking good. Steve Nash is carrying the team and he might be playing better than even his 2 MBA MVP seasons. They were undefeated, but then Orlando on the road on a back to back night killed them. This team will probably be bad on most of it's back to back nights given the age and the playing style. But so far, everybody is doing great. Hill and Nash are looking very good, Amare is coming around and Channing Frye and Jared Dudley are godsend for this team! Frye will probably never be as good as Shaq, but for this team he is a much better fit. This team might be better than what experts were saying initially. Tomorrow, they are playing one of the 2 undefeated teams, the Boston Celtics. If the Suns want to make statement, this is the game to do so. The other undefeated team in the league is Denver and they are good too. The Cavs are just 3-3. A .500 record is probably good enough to get into the playoffs in the L-East, but thats not what the Cavs are playing for. They better start putting up some numbers.

Packers worst nightmare

I never thought I would see the day when Brett Favre gets lustily booed on entering Lambeau field. Brett Favre is sitting pretty at 7-1 and might even make it to the Super Bowl this year, but one has to wonder how did he ever mismanage things to the point that he is the most-hated man in Green Bay. The dude used to own that town and state, but now they have to deploy additional security for his games at Lambeau. I visited Green Bay couple of years back and I wrote about Favre and Green Bay (http://goodcynicsports.blogspot.com/2007/09/green-bay-rocks.html). I feel weird quoting myself, but in that note, I said "The other striking part of the trip to me was how Brett Favre absolutely owns Wisconsin". Boy, how quickly things have changed. Today, the Packers wanted to beat Favre and the Vikings badly. But their worst nightmares came true. Favre threw for 4 TDs and played a great game. He has now thrown for 500+ yards and 7 TDs in the 2 games against Green Bay, both wins. He clearly gets up for these games and I can see how the Packers hate his guts now after these 2 losses. He is just being a massive pain in the butt for them. Aaron Rodgers probably wanted to win these games badly too, but he fell short again. The Vikings are clearly better than the Packers in most phases of the game, but not by much. I feel like the Pack could have won one of these games if A-Rod had taken some more risks and didn't hang onto the ball a little too long. That boy needs to roll the dice a little more. The objective of the sport is to win and not to throw 0 interceptions. In any case, the circus is over, but the Packer fans are even more pissed now. It is what it is I guess.

Speaking of interceptions, look at Kurt Warner - 5 ints and one fumble. Instead of bating Jake Delhomme, Warner became Jake Delhomme today! Cardinal's inconsistency is amazing and for the most part, it just seem to mirror Warner's inconsistency. If he is in rhythm and is given time to throw, he is one of the best in the league. But every now and then the bad Warner shows up and he can clearly compete for the worst in the league. After beating the Giants at NY last week, they lost to the lowly Panthers at home. The Panthers have pretty much handcuffed Delhomme and I think the coach has a heart-attack every time he steps back to throw the ball, but they didn't even have to pass today. They ran all over the cards. It's good the cards play in such a bad division. They will probably win the division with a 9-7 record just like last year. The second best team in their division - Niners, went in to Indy and almost pulled off an upset. But they fell short because the coaching staff didn't trust the passing game enough. Alex Smith drove them down for a TD just before half-time in a 2-minute drive. But it felt like the coaches wouldn't unleash him the rest of the way. They should have because the defense had bothered Peyton Manning enough to keep in check. Its amazing I am saying this because Peyton had 347 yards passing. He is one of those greats like LeBron or Kobe. We often say Kobe had a bad game, but you look at the box-score and you'll see 30 points and 6 boards. Same deal with Peyton. He looked a little off, didn't finish many drives and didn't even throw a TD, but he still had 347 yards. The Niners lost a golden opportunity to make a statement today. Indy is still undefeated. Denver lost today to Baltimore to drop out of the undefeated status and the Saints play tomorrow. At the other end of the spectrum, Rams won today after a loooong time and so did Tennessee.

Another frustrating game in the World Series. The Phillies fought hard and played catchup all night. They finally tied the game in the bottom of the eighth, only to give up 3 more runs in the top of the ninth. Brad Lidge looked awesome to start the ninth, but the Yankees mounted an attack after 2 outs. A-Rod drove in the winning run and Posada added 2 more to finish off the Phillies. They are now done and it doesn't really matter what Cliff Lee does tomorrow. The guy to blame to me is Cole Hamels, who really let them down yesterday. Spotted an early 3-0 lead, if only Hamels was even half as effective as the ace he was last year, the Phillies would have won yesterday. They played a great game today, but the Yankees came through in the ninth. Chase Utley hit one more HR against C.C.Sabathia. Thats now becoming a serious "ownage". But the series is pretty much over and the Yankees will win. On the bright side for the folks in Philly, the Eagles crushed the Giants in the morning as Eli and the boys have lost 3 straight. DeSean Jackson - the pride of Cal is awesome and this Eagles team is officially dangerous. No wonder they have turned it around. You lose to the Raiders, you get a serious wake-up call. Speaking of Cal, they beat ASU on Saturday. Devils lost a close one and was frustrating to watch the final few minutes. The Pac-10 now is firmly in the hands of the Oregon ducks. They crushed USC yesterday and the Ducks have recovered from their season opening loss at Boise State. If you really think about it, Boise is no mediocre mid-major. It's a legit top ranked team and the same can now be said of Oregon. Lets see how high they can get with their ranking.

Split is all the Phillies get

Whenever a team you like wins the first game of a playoff series on the road, you immediately get greedy and want a 2-0 lead going back home. I don't necessarily like the Phillies, but I hate the Yankees enough to be a full-fledged Phillies fan in this World Series. Cliff Lee was tremendous in game 1 and dominated the "Cleveland bowl". Both game 1 starters were ex Cleveland Indians and both pitched very well. But CC was no match for Lee on this day. I loved Lee's nonchalant plays on the field too with a couple of come-backers and popups. But in game 2, the tables got reversed. Pedro pitched good, but A.J.Burnett was better. He pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball and Girardi turned the game over to Rivera for the last 2 innings. Seems like Girardi has no faith in his bullpen outside of Mo and Mo shut the door on the Phillies. All things considered Phillies are probably happy to go back with a split and even happier to have beaten CC in game 1. Now onto Cole Hamels and Andy Pettitte. Great pitching match-ups and evenly balanced teams in this series. I think this is going be heck of a World Series.

NBA is rolling and Cleveland is 0-2. Thats the headliner. They lost at home to Boston and then lost again at Toronto despite the King's triple-double. Shaq is doing OK, but the team doesn't look sharper or better than last season. They better start winning soon or Cleveland will be in all sorts of trouble with LeBron's impending free agency and all other distractions. The teams that are looking good so far are the Celtics, Nuggets and of course the Fakers. Reggie Miller is saying the Fakers will be 20-1 after their first 21 games. That will make this NBA season a living hell for me. Hope they don't do that well and rather settle for something more mediocre like 17-4! Melo is playing like a man possessed for the rich and creamies. Following the footsteps of Kobe and LeBron, this guy has also become a truly committed professional with an eye on the prize. Of course KG is always a "man possessed" and his Celtics are one of the several serious contenders this season. With all that said, we need the Cavs to get in the mix and do their thing. The Suns are 1-0 after a close win against the paper-clips. Nash looked great in the money quarter. They open the home schedule tomorrow against the Warriors.

In the NFL, another Favre versus Green Bay weekend coming up. Thats always fun and never gets tired. I hope they meet again in the playoffs. I think A-Rod and the Packers take this one. Tennessee has named Vince Young their starting QB and the Niners have turned over the keys to Alex Smith. I am happy for Alex Smith. I don't know him personally, but from all accounts, it seems like he is a great guy. Of course he has not been a great QB up to this point, but he is going to be better now. How much better we will see. Denver-Baltimore, Atlanta-New Orleans and Giants-Eagles are the other premier match-ups of the weekend. We have never had 3 undefeated teams this late in to the season and 2 of 3 might win again this weekend. Denver might lose, but then again we keep under-estimating them and they just keep winning. There are still 3 winless teams as well in the league. The good news is one of the 3 teams will definitely not lose this weekend. Tampa Bay has a bye this weekend. Good for them and even better for us the fans,

NBA is back and so is Alex

The NBA starts tomorrow. Wow, time just flies! It just feels like yesterday that the 2008-2009 season ended. The good teams this year are loaded. They all got better. Cavs got Shaq, Lakers got Ron-Ron, Boston got Sheed and the Spurs got RJ. Even Magic minus Hedo plus Vinsanity should be interesting. These teams are going to fight it out from day one. There are truly 4 serious contenders and they are going to be focussed from day 1. And so should we as fans. The next week or so is the best part of the sports calendar. The World Series is beginning. NBA is starting and the NFL is in full flow. All 3 pro leagues that matter are in play and so is college football. Good times indeed. The Suns open their season Wed against the Clippers. SI has picked the Suns to be the 8-Th seed in the West. I expect them to be 6 or 7. They are going to score a lot a win a lot of regular season games this year. But I guess thats why I am called a fan.

Alex Smith is the other guy who is back. He subbed in for the Niners against the Texans and is now named the starting QB for next week. I think he is going to be much better this time around. There were way to many blowouts in the NFL last weekend. Too many bad teams these days. The Rams, Lions, Jaguars, Titans, Raiders, Bills, Redskins, Panthers, Bucs, Seahawks and the Chiefs are all horrible. And the Bears are fast joining this list. They got pummeled by their old friend Cedric Benson and Carson Palmer at Cincinnati. The league is so bad that the Jaguars lost 0-41 to the Seahawks a couple of weeks back and are still 3-3. Among he good teams, Favre and the Vikes finally lost against the Steelers at Pittsburgh. Now Favre is going to Green Bay next week and thats gonna be fun. The one surprise result of the weekend was Dallas beating Atlanta rather convincingly. I guess the boys came out of the bye week well prepared. They controlled Matt Ryan pretty well and Romo was awesome. Miles Austin is probably the find of the season for them. The two plays of the weekend were Adrian Peterson absolutely leveling that Steelers DB and Reggie Bush jumping and covering 6 yards in the air laterally to get to the end zone.

The Yankees took care of the Angels and are now in the World Series again after a few years. This is the first trip for A-Rod. He is on fire and is getting the ultimate respect on the field with things like the opposing team walking him in the ninth inning when leading by just a run. It's him and CC and Mo and Andy Pettitte and Jeter doing their thing - a healthy mix of the veteran Yankees and the new ones getting it done. But the Philles are no joke. They are loaded with guys who hit 30 home runs or more during the regular season up and down their lineup. And they wont be star-struck because they were in the World Series last year and they won it and they totally expect to win it again. I want the Phillies to win, but I am afraid the Yankees will win. Either way, I think the series goes 6 or 7 games.

Anyways, time to go get the NBA league pass on TV.

A-Rod is a Yankee God

On a rainy and chilly night at the new Yankees stadium, A-Rod continued his post-season heroics. What a difference a month makes. A-Rod went from being a choker to Mr.October in a matter of a couple of weeks. Rodriguez hit a tying homer in the 11-Th inning and the Yankees won the game in the 13-Th on a Maicer Izturis error. Angels are making a lot of errors these days. They better start catching the ball when they get back to Anaheim. They are playing a team thats loaded top to bottom and you can't give them many chances. Yankees are so loaded that even A-Rod doesn't seem to feel the pressure of carrying the World on his shoulders anymore and that may be the reason for his success. Mark Teixeira has been a God-send for A-Rod and every time they walked Tex to get to A-Rod during the regular season, I think A-Rod relaxed a little bit more. He was not expected to be the man anymore and he liked it that way.

But the truth is, there is no real basis for the "clutch player" and the "choke artist" tags. I understand sports, and even life for that matter, is mostly mental and guys handle pressure and the stress in different ways. But the bottom-line is, if you are good, you are good and if you are bad, you are bad. And A-Rod is very good. So it was just a matter of time before he came through in the playoffs. This is also why I think Derek Jeter is good, but over-rated. He plays for the Yankees and plays 10+ playoff game almost every year. Of course his post-season stats are going to be on-par with his career stats with such a large sample size. Most guys in other teams can't get to play in these many playoff games and their sample size is very small. So the stats are going to be hit or miss, but mostly miss because the playoffs also brings you good pitchers and great competition. Chances are, you are not going to have great stats if you just play 5 or 6 playoff games in your career. But if you play 100 games or so, things even out. So A-Rod's numbers will only get better as he plays longer for the Yankees and gets more and more post-season opportunities.

A-Rod and C.C.Sabathia are carrying the Yankees in these playoffs and A.J. Burnett was not too shabby today either. The Angels needs a masterful pitching performance in a game or two if they want to turn this thing around against A-Rod and this offense. May be Jared Weaver in game 3 can be that guy. Actually Teixeira is hitting just .100 and both him and A-Rod combined for a 1/11 night today. But that 1 hit was A-Rod's homer. If Tex gets going as well, the Angels will be in trouble. They lost a golden opportunity today and they can't afford to do this again and lose game 3. The Dodgers and Phillies play game 3 tomorrow. It's Cliff Lee against Hiroki Kuroda and you have to think the Phillies are the favorites. But thats why they play the game and lets see what happens. This might be a good time for Manny to come out of his .111 funk.

Pretty Passes

Another Monday night, another fun game. This one featured the Jets and the Dolphins and their 2 young QBs. They combined to score 5 TDs just in the fourth quarter and there were many pretty long bombs from both. Chad Henne is not as highly rated as Mark "Sanchise", but he has a strong arm and throws a pretty ball. I am not sure how good he is gonna be, but he sure looks like the QB of the future for the Dolphins right now. Couple of weeks back I wrote about the Dolphins being completely incapable of big plays and that hurt them against the Colts though they ran the ball great. With Henne, the same team looks different. Henne has a live arm unlike Chad Pennington and with Ted Ginn Jr. lined up wide, they have a legitimate deep threat now. Both Henne and Sanchez threw several deep balls in this game and both looked good. It felt like this could be a rivalry in the future and I am glad the Dolphins won. I love their wildcat. Once again, it couldn't be stopped and the Jets defense got killed. The rookie QB on offense was least of their problem. It was their defense that got pummeled in this game.

Speaking of pretty passes, the Manning brothers threw several more this weekend. Another 300+ yards for the older one and a filthy 36 of 44 passing night. Eli pretty much had an off day playing the horrible Raiders. But one of his long passes to Steve Smith in this game was the best pass I have seen this year. Both the Mannings are undefeated and so are Vikings, Saints and the Denver Broncos. Unusually large number of undefeated teams right now and there are also many bad teams in the league. The bad teams this season look really horrible and thats probably why so many of the top teams are undefeated. The Bills, Browns, Chiefs, Raiders, Titans, Ram and the Bucs are all HORRIBLE! This list doesn't even include the Lions and thats how bad these teams are. The Lions at least show up and compete and give people good games these days. The Browns beat the Bills 6-3 last weekend and put everyone of us to sleep. But the top-line in the league is great right now and I can't wait for the Saints-Giants game next weekend. The winner of that game probably will be in the Super Bowl, but the Vikings are very much in the NFC mix as well. So are the Falcons. They looked great last weekend crushing the Niners 45-10.

The big game of the weekend was Broncos hosting the Patriots. Denver came up big and shocked the Pats. Kyle Orton actually threw for 330 yards and outplayed Tom Brady. Wes Welker had a good game, but Randy Moss was nowhere to be seen in this one. The Pats are nothing great this season and I think the hoody might have out-smarted himself with his roster moves in the off-season. Too many shake-ups on the defensive side and now Junior Seau is coming back from retirement for the third time. Even Brett Favre is saying "Come on!". Cincinnati shocked Baltimore and the Bengals are now leading the AFC north. Carson Palmer is driving them down the field in the clutch every week and they are for real, especially given Pittsburgh's inconsistency. As long as Palmer is healthy, they will only get better and more consistent and confident. Arizona won and are beginning to look good. So did Seattle with Hasselbeck coming back and throwing for 4 TDs. Cards should now have a shot at winning this division given the Niners shocking embarrassment against the Falcons. But I expect the NFC West to be a 3 team race all the way to the end. In the East, Donovan McNabb came back from his injury and won in style - his very first pass was a TD. The Cowboys on the other hand needed overtime to beat the lowly Chiefs. The Boys are in trouble.

Sweep, sweep, sweep

The MLB playoffs are full of sweeps. 3 strong teams - Yankees, Angels and Dodgers swept three mediocre teams - Twins, RedSox and the Cards. The Eagles finished the quartet with a 3-1 win over the Rockies today. There have been some interesting finishes in these playoffs so far. The best and the most satisfying end was to see the RedSox and Papelbon blow the save in game 3 at home. The Angels scored 5 runs in the last 2 innings as Papelbon converted a 2 run lead into a one run loss. The inconsistent RedSox just picked a bad time of the year to have another one of their bad stretches. Now they are done and the TV dudes don't get their Yankees-Sox ALCS. Even I would have loved to see it. It's been a while.

As for the aforementioned Yankees, A-Rod is living large right now. Between dating Kate Hudson and batting .455 in the playoffs and the 6 RBIs in one series, it's hard to question this guy. All the doubters and haters have to be quiet right now. He is known for disappearing in October, but now he is the best player in the playoffs. Of course, he needs to be at least half as good as what he has been so far in the next 2 rounds to really cement his place in October, but he has started strong and without him, there would not have been a sweep. In game 3, he tied the game up with a homer in the 7-Th. Carl Pavano of all people was pitching a shutout in to the 7-Th, but A-Rod turned the tide for the Yankees.

Another 9-Th inning miscue happened today as Houston Street blew a save against Ryan Howard and the Phillies. Street had saved 35 out of 37 games, but now he has to deal with this loss the entire off-season. He lost the game on Saturday too and the Eagles stole 2 playoffs games on the road with 9-Th inning wins. Street has blown 3 saves this year and all of them are against the Phillies. Hope these 2 games don't affect his head permanently. It's tough being a closer in this sport. He probably feels like if not for his mistake, the Rockies could have forced a game 5 and even advanced. Matt Holliday probably does and should feel the same way too. His error in game 2 was a killer. The Cards never recovered and were eliminated at home. I was expecting a lot from that series, but the Dodgers cruised rather easily. Now on to the Eagles for the Dodgers. The Yankees have to face the dreaded Angels and they are hoping the result will be different this time around.

Clutch Troubles

The Yankees have been walking off on the the Twins at the new stadium all season long. Today in game 2 of their playoffs series, they did it again. This was the Yankees' fourth walk-off victory over the Twins this season and ninth win in nine games. Thats amazing to me. A-Rod has some serious post-season mojo going for him right now. He hit the game tying, 2-run bomb against Joe Nathan in the 9-Th to send the game to extras. The other stud, Mark Teixeira, hit a line-drive home run in the 11-Th to one of the shortest parts of the stadium to win the game. That thing reached the fence is no time. It was a short and low ride for that baseball. Suddenly A-Rod is a post-season savant. It would be interesting to see how the haters handle his success now. Me personally, I hate the Yankees more than I hate A-Rod and I can handle his success. The Twins are now in trouble. Down 0-2 and nowhere to go, but back home.

The Angels on the other hand are doing great against the BoSox. They are up 2-0 after 2 strong pitching performances by John Lackey and Jared Weaver. Both Lester and Beckett have now lost and the RedSox nation should be gripping big time. The Angels always lose to the RedSox, but win against the Yankees. May be it's going to be the reverse this post-season. In the NL, Matt Holliday was both the hero and the goat as the Cardinals lost a game they almost won against the Dodgers. He hit a home run in the second, but dropped a game ending catch in the 9-Th that turned out to be a rally-starting error for the Dodgers who ended up winning the game 3-2 instead of losing it 2-1. Brutal game for the Cardinal fans. In the other series, the Rockies and the Eagles are tied up and the series should be fun as it moves to Denver. I mean fun for us, but not for the players or the fans in the stadium and the temperature there is supposed to plummet to the thirties.

Tomorrow in College, Florida @ LSU. That should be a good one.

Game number 163

We always say the MLB season is a marathon and not a sprint. I guess Detroit and Minnesota decided the marathon was not long enough. They extended it by one more game today and then they extended today's game number 163 beyond the usual 9 innings. Minnesota finally won it 6-5 in 12 innings. Both teams let many chances slip away before Minnesota clinched it in the 12-Th on a hit by Alexi Casilla who is batting .198 for the season. Perfect end to a disastrous slump by the Tigers. I thought this race was over a while back. But the Tigers found a way to miss the playoffs after leading the division by 3 games with 4 games to go. Miguel Cabrera didn't help by partying with the enemy between games during that final weekend series and then coming home drunk and fighting with his wife. Too many controversies for one weekend. At the end of the day, or rather the season, Tigers loss ends up being Twins gain and they won the tie-breaker this year unlike last year when they lost to the White Sox. This is the third straight year with a one-game playoff in baseball. It's an interesting way to get us primed for the real playoffs.

The playoffs start tomorrow with 3 games. Twins have to go into the Bronx and face the game's top lineup less than 24 hours after winning an extra-inning game. I always thought the league was tough on these teams playing the one-game playoff by scheduling the real playoff game the very next day. But only today I learnt that the Yankees actually have the right to choose when they start their playoff - tomorrow or the day after. Of course they chose tomorrow because that puts the most pressure on the Twins. Not that the Yankees need these things on their side to win it all. They should be able to handle the Twins pretty easily. They have won all their 7 games this season against them and they should win 3 more though they may lose one game in the process. They better win the series. After all, they have the game's highest paid catcher, first baseman, third baseman, shortstop, starter and reliever ! No wonder the Yankees always say anything less than a championship is a failure. What a stupid system MLB is running. It's like a football team having the highest paid QB, RB, WR, linebacker and cornerback in the same team or a NBA team having the highest paid point guarrd, shooting guard and power forward in the league. I don't think that'll happen in those sports, but anything goes in baseball. It's not all about the Yankees though. The Rockies play the Phillies and the Dodgers play the Cards tomorrow as well. I pick the Cards, Rockies, Yankees and Boston to advance.

Bring on the playoffs anyways. Best way to spend the time between the NFL games is to watch playoff baseball. And did I mention the NBA pre-season has started too! Nothing wrong with that.