Suns lose to Knicks

Suns went into New York and lost today like they have been prone to do lately. They didn't get embarrassed like the other day at Boston, but this was bad enough considering they were playing against their old friend and ex-coach Mike D'Antoni. Nash gave him a hearty hug before the game, but his 19 assists were not enough to secure a Suns win. Nash has been raining assists lately, but the Suns are still a mediocre team. Some days they look real good beating the Mavs or nearly-beating the Spurs, but then on other days, they lose to the Knicks.

Terry Porter has made some changes and some people say the Suns are better for it, but things are still not significantly better. The ball goes into Shaq a lot more and they run a lot less, but the defense is nowhere near where it needs to be, Nash gets exposed every night and the others in the team are not much better either. They just don't have the right personnel for defense. For instance, how can David Lee have a 25-16 night with Shaq and Amare in the paint? Amare had a grand total of 4 boards today. I am sure D'Antoni loved how the Lee-Shaq/Amare match-up turned out today. The Suns are nowhere near the class of the Lakers or the Celtics and and with all the changes, this team is still searching for an identity. So I don't know where they are headed, but I would have to guess not too far.

The Suns are really riding one of the most under-rated curses in all of sports. The "Lew Alcindor curse" is now 40 years and counting and it would stick out like a sore thumb in Phoenix if the Cardinals win the Super Bowl. Even Sportscenter referred to Phoenix as a NBA-town last week. Phoenix quite frankly is not the greatest sports-town period these days, but it used to be a hard-core NBA market in the 90's before the influx of all the new franchises. Nobody cared about the Cards back then and the DBacks, Coyotes and Jake Plummer where not in town yet. DBacks got their championship within a few years and if the Cards get theirs next week, the Suns will be left all alone. I hope the Cards win, but I want the Suns curse to end soon too.

In other news, Jeff Kent is retiring. He is the most under-rated baseball player of all time. He is one of the best ever to play at second base, but few people realize that. Dude is not the best human being - who can forget his motor-cylce lie, but he never got credit for all of his baseball exploits. He put up great numbers and it was always credited to him either protecting or playing in front of Barry Bonds. He then went to Houston and now his success was all because of Biggio, Bagwell and Berkman or it was because of the small juice box out there for a baseball park. But Kent went to LA and still put up decent numbers until he got too old the last couple of season. He never got along with Bonds or for that matter with anybody, but Bonds was the only guy who wanted the Giants to re-sign him. Bonds is no fool and he knew how good Kent was and Bonds also knew that the Giants would not spend the money to replace him in the lineup with an equivalent bat. But the fans had no appreciation and thats been Kent's story everywhere. Now he is retired and I would definitely put him in the Hall of Fame.

Supreme Bowl

This is going to be a great Super Bowl. As an Arizona Cardinals fan, obviously I am excited after last weekend. The Cards took it to the Eagles and showed everybody they are very legitimate. Once again, Warner was back in the year 2000 and Larry Fitzgerald was as good as Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce combined. This post season has been the official coming out party for L-Fitz. I mean football people and fantasy geeks always knew how good he was, but he was still not a household name primarily because the Cards are never on national TV. But all that might have changed in that first half against the Eagles. He had three TDs including a beautiful flea-flicker that Fitz caught, stumbled and still took it to the house. Warner and Fitz killed the Eagles time and again. Eagles knew where the ball was going and they still couldn't stop it.

Eagles came back in the second half with a more aggressive blitz package and stopped the Cards offense a couple of times. Phily's offense was also better and they took the lead to shock the home crowd. But Warner and the Cards were ready on this day. That drive in the heart of the fourth quarter that took 8 minutes was just a thing of beauty. The Cards did everything right and scored on a screen play to seal the deal. Suddenly, it felt like we were seeing a entirely new franchise with new players and coaches. This was a new feeling to go through as a Cardinals fan and we should thank Warner for all this. The only downer in the whole thing was Anquan Boldin arguing on the sideline with his coach. That took away from the feel-good story a little bit, but it's par for the course and no big deal in the big picture.

The Steelers made it from the dark side as expected. The Ravens D kept the game close, but the Steelers were in control for sure. Finally, the Steelers intercepted the rookie and put the game away. It was an ugly game and was aesthetically nowhere near as good as the Cards-Eagles game earlier. Despite all the hype for defense and toughness, would anybody actually prefer the Steelers-Ravens game to the Cards-Eagles beauty? I don't think so. Give me Kurt Warner's flea-flicker over a 5 man gang tackle after a 3 yard run any day of the week and twice on Sundays. But this sets up the ultimate Super Bowl match-up - good passing offense against a great defense. We have 2 weeks to break it all down, but all I would say is do not count the Cardinals out.

Go Cards!

It's going to be a great Sunday tomorrow. I have to make sure I watch the Cards-Eagles game one way or the other. It might be another 70 years before the Cards get this far. For all we know, they might be Oklahoma City Cardinals by then. The only thing more intriguing than watching the Cards in the NFC conference game is that they have a shot - a very legitimate shot, at going to the Super Bowl. It is a surprise that they made it this far, but let's not forget this was a weak NFC league this season and I can't see why the Cards can't represent the conference in the big game. The Eagles are not that good either. Both the Cards and the Eagles have only 9 regular season wins and I don't think there's a whole lot of talent differential between the two.

Eagles just have "name recognition" because they have been to many of these games, they have stars like Donovan McNabb, they were expected to be good this year and they started the season strong. But after watching them all season, I would say they are over-rated. So I pick the Cards at home in this one. In any case, the real Super Bowl is probably going to be played in Pittsburgh tomorrow. That game between the Steelers and the Ravens is going to be off the hook. I want the Ravens to win, but I am afraid that Pittsburgh at home is going to win. I grudgingly pick the Steelers at home and either of these 2 teams should be prohibitive favorites in the Super Bowl.

Basketball is fun too these days. Arizona State finally has a team to talk about this season. They won at UCLA today behind a great performance from super-soph James Harden as always. This was ASU's first road win over a top-10 team since 1998. Thats an ugly stat, but in James we trust and today he came through for my Devils in front of LA celebs like Pat Riley and Kevin Love. The story of the day was Jonathan Xavier, the brother of Providence's Jeff Xavier calmly walking onto the court and all the way to the free-throw line to confront the refs after Jeff Xavier's hard fall. That was not even a foul, but the brother was upset I guess. It's kinda scary how easy it is for people to get to the court like that. If people have not seen it yet, they should find it on youtube.

In the NBA, the Magic are on a roll. They walked into LA and punched the Lakers on the face yesterday. Three things stood out for me from this game. It was impressive to see the Magic win on the road in LA and establish themselves as a legitimate contender. They are for real. The second thing was, Dwight Howard showed the national audience how dominant he has become. I almost got a new appreciation for interior defense and strong "big-man" play just looking at him do his thing. It's amazing to see how many shots he changes in the paint and how he patrols the paint. Thats over and above all the rebounds and blocks he is credited with everyday on the stat-sheet.

Last but not the least, Kobe showed us he can still go knuckle-head, good-ole Kobe on us anytime. I can't believe what he was doing the last minute of this game. He followed one bad shot with another and got completely carried away by his drive to one-up his friend Dwight Howard. He took some horrible shots on Dwight when Dwight was on Kobe on a switch or when he was helping with the double team. Kobe had a triple-double but shot a horrible 10 of 26. LeBron looked a lot better than Kobe yesterday dominating the Hornets at home. When LeBron shoots the jumper like that, there aint nobody that can even come close to stopping him. But both the Cavs and the Celtics better be careful with the Magic. They are coming hard and they spanked Denver on the road today.

Warner is the man!

This NFL season might end up being a truly inspirational one for me personally! The impossible might just happen and that means I can make such things happen in my life too. The Arizona Cardinals have a legitimate shot at making it to the Super Bowl. Yeah, thats right. The team that won it's first home playoff game in 51 years last week, which of course means they have never won a playoff game in Arizona, can now go all the way to the Super Bowl. The Cards can definitely beat Phily. Eagles are over-rated and they have almost the same record as the Cards. Plus the Cards got embarrassed on Thanksgiving day in Phily. I am hoping that gives some extra "oomph" for the Cards, just in case being in the NFC conference championship game is not enough motivation for a perennially down-trodden team. I am personally pumped up to beat Phily because that game in Nov cost me quite a bit. I was vacationing in Veags and lost all of the 5 bets I placed on that game.

The Cards have to truly thank Kurt Warner. It's his team, it's his playoff run. Plus it frees Matt Leinart to focus on what he truly cares about - cheerleaders and other hot chicks. There's no way the Cards get here with Matt. As a matter of fact, I think Ken Whisenhunt is over-rated too. Warner, Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin have carried this team on their shoulders. Warner's jump-balls to Fitz is what defines this team. L-Fitz is amazing. He routinely out jumps his double-team and comes down with the ball. I always find an in-form, in-rhythm Kurt Warner to be the most fun QB to watch outside of Peyton Manning. Of course he has many flaws and anything can happen any given week with this guy, but if you give him some time in the pocket, and if he is in rhythm, he can make it rain out there on the field like nobody. He has always been fun to watch since his Rams days. Just don't let the defense touch him, because if they do, the chances are, he is going to fumble the ball or throw it to the wrong team. And he holds on to the ball a little too long at times inviting the defense to get to him often. But with all that said, you give him time, you give him L-Fitz and A-Bold, fun will be had by your fans.

Jake Delhomme is a poor-man's Kurt Warner himself and he had one of those real bad nights which Warner is known to have too, only Jake's was much worse. I felt bad for the birthday boy as he kept completing a pass to the Cards for every 3 he completed to his own teammates. Steve Smith caught 2 balls and the AZ cardinals caught 5. Of course it felt like L-Fitz caught all of Smith's passes and Anquan's too as he ended up with 8 catches for 166 yards. 33-13 was the final score. Bring on the Eagles! The Eagles beat the Giants rather easily. Both the QBs looked lost in the first half, but McNabb and the Eagles offense looked much better in the second half. Giants and Eli have looked horrible ever since Plaxi-glass Buress shot himself out of this season. Now the Manning brothers can completely focus on the Oreo cookie Double Stuf Racing League.

In the AFC, Baltimore and Pitssburgh got it done like I expected them to. The Baltimore game was a little surprising to me. Tennessee actually moved the ball rather easily against the Ravens D, but they kept turning the ball over. The turnovers are no coincidence with the Ravens. They hit hard! I mean they land some blows like they are looking to separate the ball and even some body parts from thje player. This defense can easily carry the Ravens to their second championship in recent years. San Diego went into Pittsburgh and came back empty-handed. Another tough off-season for the Chargers. They need to figure out a few things. I feel sad to even say this, but LT is definitely aging. Rivers looks like he is the real deal, but Norv might be on the hot-seat again. Baltimore at Pittsburgh is going to be insane! If the weather is good, I think the Ravens and the rookie can get it done. Flacco has a rocket for an arm. He didn't do much this weekend, but might have to step up next week for the Ravens to win.

King's World

LeBron James owns the NBA right now. What we are seeing this year is another step in his evolution. Post-Olympics, his attitude, approach and commitment has gone to an whole another level. Defensively, he is probably 10 times better than he was in the past. It's amazing to see him come flying in for a block from the weak side. Tonight, against Boston, he showed the World who the king is. He killed them systematically and his defense on Paul Pierce was stifling to say the least. LeBron is an amazing player. He looks like a cross between MJ, Magic and Malone - an unique combination of speed, athleticism, court vision and strength. Sky is the limit for him. He has the opportunity and the talent to be a bigger name in all of sports than MJ and Tiger in a few years. I am very interested to see where his career goes from here. He might win a championship as early as this season. The Cavs are tied for the best record in the league with the Lakers and they ain't got no Big-3 or Pau Gasol or a Lamar Odom coming off the bench. It's all defense and LeBron.

The Suns won impressively today. They pulled one of those Mike D'Antoni quarters as they shot 17/21 and scored 40 points in the 3-Rd. Shaq had a 25-10 night. He is actually having a great season. It's not quite 2001 for Shaq, but he looks closer to the 2004 version than the 2007 version and thats a good thing. He hit all his free throws much to everybody's surprise. Nash and the Brazilian Blur had great games too. Actually everybody did for the Suns and nobody except Josh Howard looked good for the Mavs. Both the Suns and the Mavs are in that cluster of teams separated by 3.5 games in the West holding the 2-Nd to 9-Th slots. It's brutal out there. These teams look like a contender some of the days, but in reality, they can miss the playoffs altogether.

NFL playoffs are back tomorrow and I expect Baltimore to beat Tennessee and want Arizona to beat Carolina, but it'll probably be Carolina. Arizona can pull it off though, especially if Anquan Boldin is in full strength and they don't get scared of the East coast like they have been all year. These games can get out of hand in a hurry on the road and sometimes Warner lets that happen, but if they keep it close, they can definitely beat this Carolina team. in the other game, the Baltimore D should get the job done. How good is Ed Reed? I think he is a better receiver than half of the receivers in the league. It's amazing how he catches the ball almost every-time unlike defensive backs in the other teams who get their hands on the ball only to drop it on the ground. Tennessee is no joke though. The Ravens need their A-game to beat them for sure and the rookie better show up tomorrow.

It's Florida again

How good is life down there at Gainsville? Florida is just winning NCAA championships like it's nothing. Urban Meyer has won 2 championships in his 4 years there. He probably owns the state right now. For all the hype that the Ol'e ball coach Stever Spurrier got, he just won one championship at Florida. Meyer has already won 2. While the first one was mostly Ron Zook's recruits, this team is all his. Of course I am sure recruiting in Florida is much easier now with both FSU and Miami struggling, but for him to come in all the way from Utah with a new offensive system, and make Florida a better program than it ever was under the ball coach is indeed amazing. Even his opponent on the other sideline, Bob Stopps, has just one ring and the media treats him like he is some kinda God.

It's good the season is over now. I got a little tired of the Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford hype. Tim came on top as Oklahoma lost it's 5-Th BCS game in 6 years. Thats a lot of losing, but thats lot of money for the University too. The real loser in all this in has always been Texas. They beat Oklahoma and still ended up with nothing to show for it this year. Big-12 wouldn't even let them play for their championship. At least the Fiesta Bowl let them play! There is talk now that USC might share this championship. Thats amazing to me. Isn't the BCS supposed to put an end to all the sharing? Anything can happen with BCS if you lose a game. BCS works well only with unbeaten teams. And that too if there are just 1 or 2 of them. But I love this year though. After all the East coast crap about how bad the Pac-10 is and how great the SEC is, I guess they have to respect USC now after the impressive showing of the Pac-10 teams in the bowls. Plus Alabama lost to Utah. Are you kidding me? If Utah can beat Alabama, how far fetched is to imagine USC beating Florida?

We can now close the book on this year's football season and focus on the NFL and the NBA. Cavs-Celtics and Mavs-Suns tomorrow. Good times!

Happy New Year!

New Year means one important thing - we are ready for the NFL playoffs. And I am excited for this year's version more than usual. The main reason for it is how the regular season ended in an absolute perfect way for me. Dallas got annihilated in Philly. They lost 4 fumbles and Romo wanted to give back even more to the Philly community. He threw an interception too. A 44-6 drubbing kept Dallas out and also let Philly in to the playoffs. Both results I definitely can live with. I have always maintained Donovan McNabb is kinda overrated, but I like him as a person and I have a lot of sympathy for him. He had to deal with all the crap TO brought to his life in addition to those Philly nut-jobs. Too much for a dude who has a lot to deal with to begin with being a black QB.

The next best result on Sunday was Miami beating the Jets. Nothing against the Jets and Brett Favre, but Miami's win meant New England was out of the playoffs. Sweet! Plus I am fan of Chad Pennington. Another decent guy who is very accurate and always plays under control. How ironic is it that he was let go in New York in favor of Favre and he comes back to rip their hearts out. Of course I don't blame New York for getting rid of him. His shoulder was indeed shot after the surgery. Even with all that, I always felt like Pennington was one of the few athletes who was relatively comfortable in New York. It should have had something to do with the way he handled himself. Even with a Super Bowl ring, Eli Manning seems overwhelmed by New York on a weekly basis. I am very happy that Chad is taking Bill Parcells' team to the playoffs and they both eliminated the Patriots on the way.

San Diego took Denver to the woodshed Sunday night and clinched a playoff spot which looked impossible just a few weeks back. This led to the shocking firing of Mike Shanahan. I would rather have LT, Philip Rivers and Norv Turner in the playoffs instead of Shanahan, Jay Cutler and their 8-Th string running back. I think the Chargers will give the Colts a run for their money though I expect the Colts to win the game. That game also happens to be the best match-up of the wild-card weekend. Couple of other reasons I love this playoffs is of course because of the presence of Arizona after a loooong time. And they are playing Matty Ice and the Atlanta Falcons. What a turnaround for the Falcons and how great is it to have 2 rookie QBs lead their teams to the playoffs? Ice and Joe Flacco with the Ravens. Finally these teams have some hope at the QB position. Matty Ice seems like the real deal. Lets see what he does in the playoffs against our Cards.

The College Bowl Season is also heating up after 3 bowl weeks and the first 190 bowl games. How many bowl games do they actually have these days? More importantly, how many companies are out there in the World? I heard the names of some companies for the first time ever through the stupid bowl games they sponsor. After all the early season bowl games like the KFC chicken bowl played in the parking lot of the new Yankee stadium in front of 7 construction workers that featured the 11-Th ranked team from the Big-10 and some team from the ACC with a robust 2-8 conference record, now we can watch some real bowl games. I am talking about the USC-Penn state Rose Bowl match-up. I want to watch it for sure to start 2009 in style.

New Day, Same Result

Christmas day was as usual a big day in the NBA today. ABC kicked off it's season with 2 great games. Unfortunately for the Suns, it was a new game, but the result was the same. They played as well as they can against the Spurs and lost at the buzzer to a 3 pointer. Lately the Suns are losing to the Spurs via the dagger 3. Who can forget the stupid 3 that Timmy hit last playoffs. But then again, the dagger 3's have killed the Suns since the days of Mario Elie. This time it was someone called Roger Mason. Pop put him and other 3 point shooters in and the Suns should have played it safe with the 3-point line. Instead J-Rich left Mason to help Grant Hill on Parker's penetration and Tony found Mason for the open 3. Amare was as always ready to let Finley hit a open 3 too, but the ball went to Mason instead. You could say it was bad D, but it does take more than one guy to stop Parker and what are you gonna do? It is what it is and just another loss for the Suns.

The prime-time game was Lakers-V-Celtics. ESPN has been pimping this game forever and I guess it lived up to it. The Lakers team and the fans were ready for revenge after the Celtics embarrassed them in the Finals last season. It was a lot more important for the Lakers to win this one, especially since they were at home. But give them credit. They did win and stopped the 19 game winning streak of the Celtics. Thats no joke. Kobe was great and he repeatedly setup Pau for basket after basket at the end of the game. Of course Pau's ability to score and finish is really what has put this team over the top since his arrival. He is probably the only guy Kobe trusts on offense. Pau even got a key block, which is really not his deal. This is probably a finals preview and it should be a better series this year given that both teams are even better than they were last year. Lakers might have closed the gap, but the Celtics are still better. But of course you need a body or two to guard Kobe.

Cleveland won again at home against the weak Wizards team. They are 15-0 at home. They are a legit contender and the Celtics-Cavs games this season should be as good as the Celtics-Lakers. The Cavs can definitely hang with anybody. LeBron didn't have a great game, but he is a load. It's amazing how many 3-point opportunities he gets in a game. Like Barkley says, when something that big and strong comes at you at full speed, you can't kiss it, you have to hit it! A lot of fouls are like somebody kissing him and has no impact on his shot. Dallas won the night-cap on TNT at Portland. Dirk was impressive, but it's amazing to watch little J.J.Barea do so much for this team. That guy killed the Blazers late in the game. Brandon Roy ran out of magic finally and this was a tough loss for the Blazers. Looks like the Mavs are back to being the Mavs of old. Interesting Christmas day overall. It started with Roger Mason and ended with J.J.Barea.

Yankees are making it rain

The Yanks signed Mark Teixeira today to a eight-year, 180 million contract. Thats looks a bargain if you compare it to C.C.Sabathia's 7 year, 161 million contract and it's an outright steal next to A.J.Burnett's 5 year, 82.5 mill. Between the 3 players, the Yankees have spent more than 420 mill this off-season. Amazing. I like AJ, but has he ever pitched more than 2 consecutive starts without getting injured? CC is good, but why overpay the guy when they knew he didn't have many options? Plus they are assuming a huge risk signing a fat pitcher to such a long-term deal. Considering this and other deals the Yanks have signed over the last few years, I would say Teix is probably one of the better signings for them. He is still young and is a very reliable bat.

Even though I understand the business of new stadiums and why every team wants them, I am still amazed at the amount of money the real big market teams generate out of these mega-stadiums. There are two stadiums thats making a lot of news right now. The new Yankees stadium and the Cowboys stadium in Dallas. These 2 teams are just minting money and I don't understand how people and/or corporations are paying 100 K+ for seat licenses in Dallas. That too in this economy. This whole stadium business is getting out of control. Pretty soon, only the millionaires are going to be able to attend games in person in most parts of this country.

The RedSox are again looking like the Kansas City Royals in front of the Yankees after few years of near-parity in the expense department. You better believe that their ownership group is going to start complaining pretty soon. They were not happy even when they spent 180 mill a year and the Yanks spent 200 a year or something while the rest of the league averaged a robust 60 mill or whatever. Now the Yanks might double the Sox payroll at this rate. The MLB might as well cancel the Yankees V Royals and the Yankees V Baltimore games starting next year. There should be a payroll differential law in Sports. If a team spends more than 3 times the other team, they can't play against each other. That might pretty much mean the Yankees and the Sox have to play each other 162 times a year. ESPN will be happy for sure if that happens.

Speaking of Boston, it's amazing what the Celtics are doing. They keep on keeping on and they are becoming almost as big as the RedSox in Beantown. This team is just too good and I can't wait to see them play the Lakers on Christmas day.

Dallas Lose

Good game this NFL Saturday. Baltimore at Dallas to close down the Texas stadium. The Ravens running backs spoiled the party for the boys singlehandedly. The game was close late in the fourth quarter with the Ravens leading 19-10. The Cowboys scored to make it 19-17 and the crowd was all pumped up for a Romo-powered comeback. But within 18 seconds, the Ravens scored a 77 yard rushing TD. Romo answered back with just 1:36 left in the game to make it 26-24. But guess what. The Ravens scored again in 18 seconds with Le'Ron McClain rushing for a 82 yard TD to put the game away and suck the air out of Dallas. This is not like the Bartimore Ravens at all. They usually don't score this much or this fast. I guess the Dallas D is this bad. This game puts the Cowboys in a tough spot as far as making the playoffs go.

If the Ravens can do this even semi-consistently, I won't be surprised if they go all the way and win the Super Bowl. There are many teams that seem to be coming on late this NFL season. The Indianapolis Colts and the Carolina Panthers come to mind as 2 other teams that may be legitimate contenders after a shaky start to the season. Peyton is in full form right now. He threw for 364 yards and 3 TDs on Thursday to take care of the Jacksonville. I am not sure if anybody wants to play the Colts in the playoffs especially if they get their running backs in gear. The Panthers are another interesting team. Their game tomorrow against the other 11-3 team in the NFC, - the Giants, should tell us more about where both these teams are headed. This is a fun time of the year as we try and get the playoff lineups all figured out.

Deja Vu

It's good to be back blogging again after a short break. I have just been busy with a couple of random things. Many interesting and weird things happened while I was away, but there are 2 things that I find very odd. I could have gone away for 3 years and it's like nothing has changed. I am talking about TO fighting with his QB, offensive coordinator, WR coach and anybody else who comes his way in his own locker room. This is like a flashback of what happened in Philly, which was a flashback of what happened in San Francisco. I feel like TO has been single-handedly keeping the sports media busy for 30 of the last 60 months. ESPN should send him a paycheck instead of sending Screamin' A Smith to ask him some dumb questions. On the bright side, at least TO will not be calling Tony Romo gay like he did Jeff Garcia. Or at least lets hope so because if he did do that, he would be implying Jessica Simpson is a man !! That would be stupid even by TO standard.

The other deja-vu story of the day is Brett Favre starting to talk about retirement again. Enough already !! Shut up and play, make the playoffs and throw an interception to end that playoff game like you always do. I have no use for his retirement story - not until 3 games into the season after the supposed retirement. Unless he stays retired 3 games into the next season, I don't consider Brett Favre gone. He can come back any time to any team and would any of us be surprised? This guy is worse than the poor 60 year-olds who thought they were retiring this year and thanks to the financial meltdown, they can't for the next 8 years. Brett has been trying to retire for 5 or 6 years now. Somebody check what's going on with his 401 K or something! May be he should stop going to Mississippi during the off-season. Of course he wants to get out of there after 6 months and he wants a job in "big cities" like Green Bay. But to be fair to him, he has played really well and I can't believe the Jets can potentially keep the Patriots off the playoff. Thats impressive.

In the NBA, the Suns got J-Rich from the Bobcats for Boris Diaw and Raja Bell. I love the trade for the Suns and I have no idea what MJ is doing there in Charlotte. This gives the Suns some much-needed athleticism and scoring power. They lose the defensive prowess of Raja Bell, but the returns have been diminishing on that front anyways given Raja's advancing age. He'll always be fondly remembered for clotheslining Kobe and may be his jersey should go up on the rafters just for that, but he has not done much in a couple of years. Even his trey was not falling at the same frequency last season. I think Kerr pulled off a good one with this trade and apparently these guys were causing some trouble for the new coach Terry Porter. The Suns defense, if anything, is worse now than it was under Mike D'Antoni and thats a clear indication that the cats are not trying hard enough. There was stretch couple of weeks back when every guard and his mother came into Phoenix, scored 40+ and went back home a winner. I am sure Kerr wants to fix this culture with some new bodies. I like J-Rich. He is a true professional who has gotten better every year he has been in the league. I wish him good luck. Hopefully he can be at the business-end of some of them alley-oops from Nashty!

But the league as a whole is on a roll with the Lakers, Celtics and the Cavs. These 3 teams just don't lose.

Somebody stop the Fakers!

It's amazing how good the Lakers are. In just over 13 months, the NBA power-structure has been turned upside down. The Lakers, who were barely making the playoffs for many years, have gotten to the top of the mountain over the course of just one season. They started the 2007 season as just another team and they ended up in the Finals in June. Now they can't lose this season. They are so good, Kobe is not even in the top 3 scorers in the league and they are still 13-1. Though, to be fair to Kobe, he is still jacking up the same number of shots :-) He is playing 5 minutes less per game, shooting less 3's and taking lesser number of free throws per game.

In any case, Mitch Kupcake has really built some team. He might have gone from the laughing stock of the league to a perennial Executive of the year candidate. It started with his commitment to Bynum and things really came together with the Gasol trade. Since that trade, it seems like the Lakers truly believe they can't lose to anybody. Goes to show you how much of the game is mental. The same guys have been playing much better since last year, though some of it is young guys getting better. Of course having a personality like Kobe on the team sometimes doesn't help the confidence of the kids, but ever since they started winning last season, this team has just been firing on all cylinders. I mean, Lamar Odom comes of the bench and Luke Walton doesn't even play much anymore. Thats how good this team is.

I can't believe I am saying this, but I don't think there is anybody in the West thats in the same class as the Lakers. The Champs are a robust 16-2 in the East and we may be looking at another Lakers-Celtics finals come June. The East is no longer the LEast and the other true contender may also be playing there. King James is the other big news of this season. Dude has been awesome and is probably a year or 2 away from overtaking Kobe as the best player in the league. I mean he may already be the best player in the league and if you were to draft one player for your team, he is the clear choice today. But it's hard to argue against the sheer scoring dominance of Kobe and you still have to say Kobe is the best player in the league. But the evolution of LeBron is going in the right direction for sure. And his exposure to superstars like Kobe in the Olympics has made a better defender and helped make him a more complete player. Cleveland is 14-3 and they may ride the King all the way to a championship this year. Thats how good he is.

Much like the MJ-era, I want to watch Sportscenter everyday just to see LeBron's monster blocks and nasty dunks.

Brand Roy

I am a big fan of Brandon Roy. He is a very unique player who went to college and who came to the league a finished product. He is smart, very versatile, knows how to play the game and makes his teammates better. He is not uber-athletic or a superstar scorer like Kobe or LeBron, but there is this quite efficiency about his game that is almost non-existent in the game today. Plus he is clutch like he showed today at Portland.

NBA is in full flow now and there was a great game between Portland and Houston today. It started off bad, but heated up towards the end. Roy was bottled up for the most part by Ron-Ron, but then he came alive in OT. He made Ron Artest look stupid on one drive to the hoop and then hit the last 2 shots for Portland including the long buzzer-beating 3 from Corvallis, Oregon. Between his 2 shots, Yao hit an amazing jumper that should have won the game for Houston if only T-Mac knew what he was doing when he was defending Roy during that last sequence. Great game and Roy was awesome.

T-Mac did have a great game. I have always liked Aaron Brooks since his Oregon days and he is contributing now for the Rockets. Dude is laser quick. Suns pick Rudy Fernandez had a great game for Portland as well. Good to see the new blood in the league. But the "old" blood ain't doing too bad either. Some huge numbers yesterday for superstars. Our own Amare dropped 49 on Indiana. Tony Parker went nuts with a 55-7-10 night and the King broke out with a 41-9-6 night despite some injury action early in the game. Good stuff going on in the league early.

AI got traded to Detroit for Chauncey Billups. AI had a great presser at Detroit with some funny lines about "practice". I like the trade a lot for Denver. They finally got a PG and someone who might fit with Melo. Speaking of Denver, the NFL thursday games started this week and Jay Cutler lit it up with 447 yards and 3 TDs. Brady Quinn wasn't too shabby either as he threw for 239 yds and 2 TDs. It was good to see the Sun Devil Ryan Torain rush for the Broncos. But the real question is, why is Denver struggling to beat teams like Cleveland? Is this the same team that looked like a Super Bowl contender at the start of the season? That whole AFC West looks shaky this year. Lets see what happens. Tennessee might actually go all the way the way things are right now.

Audacity of Hope

Historic election night in America today. A true watershed moment in history as America welcomes it's first black president-elect. Nobody thought this day was ever going to come. Now it's here and it's real and this is a proud day indeed for America. It tells anybody and everybody that this is still the land of opportunity and in the words of a delirious Kevin Garnett after his championship -"anything is possible!!". I can't imagine how much this means to a new generation of minorities in this country. They can now aspire to be anything they want to be including the President of America. Congrats to Obama and his brilliant campaign for bringing this change and hope and we expect many more changes.

Speaking of hope, the Suns are still hoping to be an elite team. They are 3-1 and today they crushed the Nets. But then again thats neither here or not there. The Spurs are surprisingly 0-3. They lost to the Mavs tonight. A tough schedule so far, but still it's odd to see the Spurs 0-3. Of course they will start their rodeo trip eventually and thats probably when they'll start winning and go on some sort of a run. They'll be fine, especially when Ginobli comes back. Until then, I'll just enjoy the increased scoring I am getting from Timmy for my fantasy team.

The football weekend was good, though I was distracted by the election fun a little bit. Texas Tech upset Texas and kicked them off their number 1 ranking. The longhorns almost got out of their brutal 4-game stretch unscathed, but they stumbled at the last hurdle. Now Tech is ranked all the way up at 2 leap-frogging Penn state. Penn state is pissed, but they need to focus on their schedule and just do their job because Texas Tech will probably lose given their brutal Big-12 schedule. Alabama is at LSU this weekend and thats no walk in the park. So this thing is long from over and I expect several shake-ups in the BCS standings before it's all said and done. If Penn State wants the right to get blown out in the championship game, they just need to hang in there and win their easy games. They'll get their wish.

Phillies win

The weather played havoc with the World series and it finally ended yesterday with the Phillies winning. At least thats what I am told! I didn't watch the later part of this series and neither did America. Between the rain delays and Obama's infomercial, the World Series had nowhere to go and ended up with the worst rating ever. Bad times for Fox with these ratings and with their favorite republicans sinking in the polls. I guess Philadelphia doesn't care. They are getting ready to throw a parade on Friday. Pedro Feliz drove in the winning run and he will be a hero in Philly forever.

Bye bye baseball for now. NBA is in full flow. The Suns are 1-1. They beat the Spurs, but where clearly inferior to Chris Paul and the Hornets. This is what I mean by the Window closing. They may be finally good enough to beat the Spurs, but both of them are not as good as the Lakers or even the Hornets. The defense is still as bad as it has ever been. Suns can't stop most of the guys and that gives confidence to everybody to the point these guys start shooting 3's and never miss. The threes were raining and the home opener went under the loss column. Dallas lost their home opener as well with Houston and Ron-Ron looking good. This should be an interesting season in the West. And East doesn't look too shabby either.

Welcome Back

NBA came back today and not a day too soon. These are good times as the World Series, NFL and the NBA are all on simultaneously. Boston hosted King James and opened the festivities. It was odd to see Paul Pierce cry during the ring ceremony. It's not like he just won the championship today. He has been a champion for months and I can't imagine he is still so emotional about it. But he did have a great game and the Celtics kicked off the season in style. Loss 1 for King James as the Cavs are hoping his growth, team chemistry and Mo Williams will put them over the top this year. Unlikely, but anything can happen with the king.

Kobe and the Lakers kicked off the West coast activities. The big news was the debut of Greg Oden that lasted about 12 minutes. He hurt his foot and had to leave the game. Hope it's not too serious. Lakers and Kobe looked good and won the game. Looks like it's their conference to lose. The Suns have a few interesting games this week and are on TV a lot. But honestly their window is pretty much closed. So is Dallas's and may be even San Antonio. The changing of the guard happened last year when the Lakers and the Hornets came out of nowhere to take the torch from the Suns, Mavs and the Spurs. The Spurs are probably the best placed among the 3 oldies and the Suns open the season against them. Lets see if the games are still fun with the Suns under the new coach.

The weather is playing havoc with the World Series. I lost track of when the previous game ended and when the next one is scheduled. It's a mess, but Philly is sitting pretty anyways. They should wrap it up soon, in the next 3 months. In the NFL, the new Niners coach Mike Singletary is the story. He kicked Vernon Davis off his bench during the game and gave an emotional, impassioned speech after the game. I feel like he is burning too hot right now. At this rate, he will be tuned out by the players by week 14 especially if they don't win more than they lose. He needs to handle himself very carefully. It's easy to coach a winner. It's that much harder to coach a losing team with little talent. He better play this thing tight.

World Series

The World Series has started and not sure how many people care or are watching. Both the Rays and the Phillies are deserving participants and are great teams and have both won a game. As expected, Cole Hamels won his start, but the rest of the rotation is really "advantage Rays". The gritty, gutty Rays were not just going to go away after they lost game 1. They came back in style and won game 2 rather easily. David Price and the the Rays bullpen closed the door on the Phillies. Now the scene shifts to Philly.

In the NFL, just way too much drama surrounding the Dallas Cowboys. It's amazing how ESPN and the 24 hour sports outlets are just creating news out of anything and everything. They want to make this Cowboys story bigger and messier than it really is. The real story of the league should be the mediocrity of the Colts and the Chargers and the resurgence of the Titans and the Bills. Luckily for the Chargers, the Broncos are not pulling away either. The Colts on the other hand are already 3 games behind the Titans. Go figure!

Rays shine through

Game 7 today was a thrilling baseball game that went just like you would expect any game 7 to. It was well-pitched, tense and very well-played and managed. More importantly, it saved us all from watching the stupid Sunday night football game between Seattle and Tampa Bay. Big sports day all around in Tampa, but which moron picked this game for Sunday night? I mean, even if Seattle was as good as originally thought and even assuming we didn't have to endure Seneca Wallace at QB, this was not a marquee match-up in my book.

Anyways, the Rays trailed 0-1 for most of the early innings, but got to Lester in the middle innings and scored just enough runs to win this game 3-1. Matt Garza out-pitched Jon Lester, but barely. The Rays bullpen did what it had to and David Price got them a 4-out save. It was all good in Tampa and it was strange to see all 30 year old front-office dudes on the stage. A modern-day, money-ball era team with a manager who is in to new-age stuff and flawed math. Nice to see them win. What the hell does 9 = 8 mean anyways? Now 9 = 2. Also great to see a new face represent the AL-East in the World Series. I thought this day may never come. Toronto has always been my hope for parity in that division, but Tampa surprised everybody this season. Now onto the World series.

Roach-Sox

Gone are the days when the Red Sox were anything but clutch. We were so used to seeing the Red Sox choke away all their talents and opportunities in the most crucial late season or post-season games year after year. The weight of 86 years of the curse always came crashing on the Sox and their fans at the worst times and they always lost when it mattered the most. The fans then wallowed in their sorrow and wore that curse proudly like it was some sort of a badge of honor. They blamed everybody else for their team's ineptitude and they got to a point where they didn't expect or even want to win. The pressure of the whole situation was too much for the players and the coaches much like it still is for the Cubs with their curse.

Then 2004 happened. As always, they fell to 0-3 against the hated Yankees, but a bunch of players who called themselves "idiots" somehow found a way to stay lose, play well and win the series 4-3. Then they went on to eliminate the curse and win the World Series for the first time in forever. Now you can even kill a roach, but you just cannot beat these guys in an elimination game. They are 9-0 in elimination games lately and thats just amazing. They won 4-2 today behind Josh Beckett to force a game 7. But I still can't believe they won game 5 at Boston after trailing 0-7 in the 7-Th inning. They better lose game 7 tomorrow. Otherwise I am not sure if I can handle the realities of this new World thats been going on for 5 years now. Plus I wanna see MLB and Fox deal with a Philly-TB World Series.

In the campus today, no major upsets except for the 9-Th ranked BYU losing to TCU. Texas beat Missouri easily and USC beat WSU 69-0. Texas now moves on to the next challenge and USC probably has no more challenges left. The best play of the entire day was a ref tackling the South Carolina QB in the LSU game. The QB was running straight into the ref and may be he wanted to protect himself or something, but he clearly lowered his shoulder and leveled the poor QB. May be the ref had some money in the game and was trying to pull a Donaghy on us. Who knows, but it was an awesome tackle.

Speaking of awesome, the Ozzie Guillen skit on Mad TV on Fox is a must-see. Pretty funny.

Dallas in trouble

The Cowboys lost a fascinating game yesterday to the Arizona Cardinals. I like it every-time the Cards win and every-time the Boys lose, but this one was especially sweet. Both Warner and Larry Fitzgerald were awesome and the Cards lost the toss in OT, but still won the game. In fact they won the game on a blocked punt. It was not even a blocked punt. They got the hands on the ball even before the ball hit the punters feet. It turns out the Cards also broke Tony Romo's pinky. Now Dallas is in a serious grip.

I don't know why Dallas seems to think they have to win every game, but seems like thats what they expect this season. Much like their idiot receiver TO who thinks every pass in every game should go his way. Now both TO and his fans have to re-calibrate their expectations with Romo out for 4 weeks or so. Romo is also getting some criticism for potentially losing too much time for a pinky injury. Lets see when he actually comes back. Brad Johnson will take over and I like him, but I am not sure how much he has left in the tank. I feel like I am also a star like Romo since I broke my thumb playing basketball and I have a grotesque cast on my hand much like Romo's. Now all I need is a Jessica Simpson to take care of me. And a few million dollars of course.

Dallas still has 4 wins and they should be fine. They are part of one of 2 divisions with 3 teams with 4 wins each. The other division surprisingly is the NFC south with Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Carolina. Matty Ice is a stud. I can't believe this guy is a rookie. I don't remember seeing too many rookie QB that are this poised and under control. He obviously has the physical talents, but it's amazing to see how good his "mental game" is in just his 6-Th game -check that, actually since game 1. Matt Cassel on the other hand sucks and seems to be going the other direction with every game.

Cassel and bunch of other QBs are DESTROYING my fantasy season. I am in multiple leagues and between Matt Cassel, Matt Hasselbeck, Jack Delhomme and Derek Anderson, I am dead. I have never been this off with all of my QB picks. Derek Anderson finally had a good game tonight as the Browns beat the Champs in MNF. Eli had a bad interception at a crucial time that finished the game off for the G-men. His brother Peyton finally seems to have got back in the groove as he and Marvelous Marvin shredded the vaunted Baltimore D. It looked like 2002 all over again. Manning-to-Marvin was cooking and the DOW was in the 8000's!

In the baseball playoffs, Tampa Bay evened it up against the reliable Jon Lester. Dodgers on the other hand let a great opportunity slip though their hands. Now they are down 3-1 and in trouble. I wish both series were tied 2-2.

Typical A.L.

Tampa Bay evened up the ALCS today in 11 innings. Every post-season you have several games like these which go on forever with a bagful of runs scored by either side. In other words, a typical AL game, only slower because of the playoff pace and more frequent pitching changes in the post-season. This game went on for 5 hrs and 27 mins and surprisingly, a sizable number of fans hung around. Both Josh Beckett ad Scott Kazmir were getting hit all over the park and were still allowed to hang around a little too long. The Bsoton bullpen was a lot more effective than the Rays (yes, I have to stop calling them DevilRays now that they are in the playoffs), but still the Rays pulled this one at the end 9-8. Great drama and this series just got a lot more interesting. Now it's up to the Dodgers to make a contest out of the NLCS.

In College today, Oklahama and Texas played a memorable game. Lot of scoring in this game and the Horns actually had to come back from behind in the 4-Th quarter to win this one 45-35. Great win for the Horns and it qualifies as an upset because it's 5 over 1. This set the tone for another day of upsets. Number 1, 3, 4 and 20 lost. The biggest shocker was Florida embarrassing LSU 51-21. Missouri lost to Oki State and Auburn to Arkansas as well. So Texas should be on top come Monday. The team thats moving up silently is Penn State. This could be a huge comeback year for Joe-Pa as they beat Wisconsin 48-7 today. Lets see where they end up in the polls.

Phillies come through

The Phillies won game 1 of the NLCS against the Dodgers 3-2. It was another one of those typical, well-pitched, NL playoff game. Cole Hamels was awesome. He is fast becoming a superstar ace. America should keep an eye on this kid. Derek Lowe was not too bad either. He was shutting fools down for 5 innings, but then the train came off the tracks a little bit. Chase Utley and Pat Burrell went back-to-back jack to put the Phillies up for good. Man-Ram had another solid game and went 2-4. He almost hit one out off Hamels. It was weird to see Greg Maddux pitch in relief. It might be time for the professor to retire.

This game followed a unique day in the Sports calendar. There was absolutely nothing going on yesterday (Wednesday) because of the day off during the MLB playoffs. NBA pre-season was the only major sport going on and of course pre-season doesn't count. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some college football game somewhere because it does look like they have made College football a 7-day a week sport, but nothing that mattered happened yesterday. I think they had a college game Tues and Thurs, but nothing Wed. This kind of a "dead day" is usually confined only to the day after the MLB all-star game in the summer, but it was noticeable yesterday.

Sports Radio of course needs something to yap about on such days and Adam Pacman Jones readily obliged. He fought with his own "body-guard" in the bathroom and broke some glass. I find it odd that Jerry Jones had employed people to accompany Pacman and keep him straight. Unfortunately Pacman apparently didn't like one of the guys and might have found trouble through the very same guys hired to keep him out of trouble. Excellent ! May be Jerry Jones should accompany and shadow Pacman himself. Might be worth his time. Now it's up to Roger Goodell to make another call on Pacman. Seems like Jerry Jones has bought people off and kept the cops off of Pacman, but I am not sure how he's gonna massage the Commish. For the Cowboys, at least Pacman is keeping TO off the news. I am sure TO will bounce back strong with his own act of stupidity.

Live Another Day

The Angels and the White Sox won today to live another day. The more impressive win was the Angels since they did it on the road in extra innings. It took them 12 innings, but at least they get to play another 9 tomorrow. They almost gave this away as they let 3 runs get in on a pop-fly single. A fly ball that fell in-between 3 guys and none of them went for the ball. Thats freaking 3 runs in a tight playoff game. Thats like gifting 3 TDs in a football game or 30 points in basketball. Poor Joe Saunders was slapped with 3 earned runs because of his idiot teammates. The Angels have to thank Mike Napoli for winning this game. He hit 2 majestic home-runs off Josh Beckett to save the day.

It should be an interesting game tomorrow as John Lackey and Jon Lester are on the mound again after their impressive game 1. In the NL, the Phillies dispatched the Brewers today. I am kinda sad to see the young, exciting Brewers with an energetic fan-base go away, but the Phillies were clearly the better team. I can't believe how good they pitched in this series (or was it the Brewers hitting?) and their hitting is top-notch with J-Rolls, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Pat Burrell, who had 2 homers today. It should be a fun series against the Dodgers who are also on fire right now.

In the NFL, I was disappointed with Chad Johnson not scoring in Dallas. I wanted the whole "kissing the star" drama to go down today, but we were all not that lucky. TJ Housh had 2 TDs and for Dallas, TO scored and had a strange news conference after the game. In Houston, Sage Rosenfels had a horrible day. He was getting the job done and Houston had pretty much won the game when he fumbled the ball twice and let the Colts score 21 points in less than 3 minutes. He went for a dive instead of a slide for one fumble and held on the ball way too long for another. Colts still look shaky as they are repeatedly snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

The other elite team that looks shaky is the San Diego Chargers. LT looks completely shot and the Chargers are inconsistent at best. They lost today at Miami. Can somebody figure out how to stop the direct snap to Ronnie Brown? Thats seems like the most potent play in the entire game right now and I have no idea why. Arizona Cardinals are leading the NFC West after beating the Bills today. Adrian Wilson crushed Trent Edwards and gave him a scary concussion early in this game. It reminded me of another Cardinal secondary, Aeneas Williams, blitzing and ending Steve Young's career few years back. That injury to Trent killed one of my fantasy teams today. Matt Hasselbeck and the dogs called the Seattle Seahawks are destroying my other team. The Seahawks absolutely suck. They were crushed by the Giants 44-6 today. The Giants and the Titans are the only un-defeated teams in the league. Who would have Thunk.

Here's a news flash. Big Ben is a stud. He steered the Pittsburgh Steelers to another big win today. He is getting killed back there, but he always seems to pop back up and calmly score touchdowns when they need them the most. He is fast becoming the most reliable QB in the 4-Th quarter when the game is on the line. The Steelers are one of the top favorites in the AFC since the injury to Tom Brady. The Pats did win today though at San Francisco though they didn't look dominating or anything. Too many mistakes by JTO for SF and Casssel seems to be learning how to find Randy Moss consistently for the Pats. Eagles lost again, this time to the Redskins who just seem to win games for some reason. I don't know what's the deal with the Eagles. Their offense is just too good for them to be just 2-3 at this point. Hope they figure it out.

Busy Saturday

October is a busy month in Sports. Football starts in September and we all focus all our energies on it for a month and forget about baseball. But then when October starts, football is already in full flow, but you got to keep an eye on the baseball playoffs as well because playoffs are always fun. Today was the first weekend of the baseball playoffs and I felt like there were way too many things to watch on TV. Fortunately or unfortunately, some of the football games ended up being blowouts and I watched a lot of playoff baseball.

I was very curious to see Manny in the playoffs at home. He got a hit, but it was not a home-run. But he scored a run with a spirited sprint home from first base. Dodgers swept the series anyways and put the dying Cubs to rest. Second straight sweep for the lovable losers and at least last year, they lost the first two games at Arizona. This year, they won 97 games and had home field throughout the NL playoffs. Still they couldn't even win a game. As for the Dodgers, they look real good. It's amazing how they are doing this behind Manny and a bunch of guys without much help from the "name" guys like Jeff Kent, Nomar Garciaparra, Brad Penny, Jason Schmidt and Anduw Jones. Guys who take a lot of the "green" from the Dodger blue and almost got GM Ned Coletti fired at one point.

Now the Dodgers wait for the winner of the other series thats now a contest. The Brew-crew won their game at home and tomorrow, they can actually tie it up. They didn't hit all that well in game 3 either, but they did enough to support Dave Bush who bottled up the Phillies. Tomorrow should be an interesting day with both the AL series resuming as well. BoSox have a chance to do exactly what the Dodgers did today and sweep the team with the best record in their league. How awesome would it be if Manny and the Dodgers play the RedSox in the World Series. I want that to happen badly, though I am always pulling for the Sox to lose. I will make an exception this year if somebody assures me they'll get to play the Dodgers in the World Series.

Another busy day ahead tomorrow as NFL comes to a living room near you along with the 3 playoff games. Many good NFL games as always, but the one I am looking forward to is Cincinnati @ Dallas. Not so much for the football, but because Ocho Cinco has said he would kiss the star if he scores a TD. I sure hope he scores, because I would love to see that even more than Manny at Fenway. The only thing more ironic than Ocho doing this in Dallas after what TO did there many years ago is the fact that the Dallas fans are now cheering for the same TO and he is one of the biggest stars in town. So now what? Why are the Dallas fans even upset? Speaking of TO, that boy is stupid. He got the ball 20 times last week and still complained about not getting the ball enough. Jerry Jones better fix this thing soon like he fixed his face a few years ago.

College today was kinda quiet. ASU lost as usual and there were no shocking upsets. The best game was the Miami-FSU game, but too bad nobody cares about these 2 programs anymore. The surprise of the day was Vandy beating Auburn and leading the SEC East ahead of Florida and Georgia. Lets see how long they last up there. Alabama almost lost to Kentucky, but survived. The bad news of the week was the Suckeyes beating the Wisconsin Badgers 20-17. That was a minor upset much like South Florida losing to Pittsburgh and Fresno State losing to Hawaii. Number 4 Missouri dismantled Nebraska 52-17 and coach Bo Pelini apologized to the fans. I guess Bill Callahan was not the only problem at Nebraska. In other Big 12 action, both Oklahoma and Texas cruised to big wins today. The red river shootout next Saturday between these 2 teams will be the news all of next week.

Of course the bigger news will be the economy if another 26 financial institutions collapse.

Sabathia loses

MLB playoffs is in full swing and in 2 days we have seen a little bit of everything and a lot of bad defense by the Cubs! The Cubs kicked the ball all over the yard and did not give the Z-man any help. Zambrano is a shaky "concept" at best and he did not have a great day, but then with the kind of work the Cubs did on the field, he had no chance. The Cubs have not won a single game since the Bartman game. Poor guy, he is still shouldering the blame for all of the Cubs ineptitude. Dodgers are sitting pretty at 2-0 and going back home. Man-Ram is crushing a home run a day and life is good in Torre-land.

Philly is also up 2-0, but they have to now go on the road to Milwaukee. The Brewers are really struggling and their savior CC finally came down to earth. It was bad timing for the Brewers as they need him to win a game or 2 in this series to advance. Sabathia didn't get past the 4-Th inning and wife-beater Brett Myers won the game for Philly after Cole Hamels did the same yesterday, only Hamels did it with a even more impressive showing. Brewers need a shot of energy from the home crowd to turn this around, but I hope the team doesn't show up expecting the crowd to do all the work. Brewers have a lot of work ahead of them and they need a spirited performance to stay in this thing.

Both AL series are at 1-0 with Boston winning behind a superb performance by Jon Lester. This is what I love about the playoffs. - you get to see the best pitching out there every day. Jon continued his great regular season with an even better game 1. Game 2 tomorrow should be interesting. In Tampa, Evan Longoria showed us once again he is an absolute stud. The 3-Rd baseman went 3-3 and hit 2 HRs to stop the 2-game "almost-playoff" winning streak of the WhiteSox.

Awesome Climax

The MLB season ended in style today as the WhiteSox and the Twins played a gem of a game that ended with the Sox making the playoffs with a 1-0 win. Typical playoff baseball with playoff tension and it set us all in the mood for the real playoffs starting tomorrow. Jim Thome hit a home run for the only run in the game, though he did look and sound like a 50 year old coach during the post-game interview. Two dudes called Blackburn and Danks pitched a hell of a game. Too bad, one guy had to lose. The Twins were in the playoffs for 2 days, but then they were "unplayoffed" today. Great season anyways for them given all the stars they lost.

Now on to the playoffs. We get to hear the goofy psycho Ozzie Guillen for a few more days. Brewers and Philly kick it off tomorrow. CC can't pitch because he pitched Sunday, but it should still be a good game. Dodgers and Cubs will also be at it tomorrow and the night-cap will feature the RedSox and Angels. Jon Lester - V - John Lackey should be a good one. The Dodgers look like the RedSox-West as Derek Lowe is starting and of course Manny will be the center-piece. Derek Lowe can actually win this game. Well if he is not busy cheating on his wife with some news reporter!

The biggest and weirdest news of the day involved Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders. Al came out today and finally fired Lane Kiffin, He refused to pay the remainder of his salary and made it look like he was firing a scum-bag liar. These 2 are definitely not parting as friends and I have no idea who is lying. Al is saying he spoke with Lane all the time, but Lane keeps claiming he never spoke to Al. He also read some letter that he sent to Lane. High drama in the Bay Area, but who cares since the Raiders have become the laughing stock of the NFL for a few years now. This episode seems like Mike Shanahan all over again - Al firing a young, offensive minded, first time head coach and refusing to pay him. Lane Kiffin sure hopes he ends up just like Shanahan with the rest of his career. But I really doubt if Lane Kiffin will even get a head coaching job anytime soon. As hard as he tried, Al failed to be the first owner to fire a coach this season. The Rams kicked out Scott Linehan even earlier and Jim Haslett takes over in Saint Louis.

Fun has started

It feels like the college season just started yesterday, but it's already 5 weeks old. This season has been kind of quiet on the upset front until now and then this weekend happened. I felt like I was a year younger and it was 2007 all over again. One top 10 team after another biting the dust and some of them looking totally outclassed against so-called lesser opponents. The biggest shocker was what happened in Corvallis on Thursday. Just when Pete Carroll was starting to prepare for his near-guaranteed Championship game in January, the Oregon State Beavers took them to school. They shut them out 21-0 in the first half and won the game 27-21. Freshman Jacquizz Rodgers ran all over the Trojans and made them look silly. He pretty much sealed the USC's season at least for now.

This was followed by an eventful Saturday topped by the stupid blackout in Athens, Georgia. The Georgia Bulldogs went for the black unis and made sure all 90000 fans were clad in black. This was supposed to scare Alabama or something, but the Tide turned the so-called blackout into lights-out for Georgia. They dropped a 31-0 beat-down on the 3Rd seed Georgia in the first half and won the game 41-30. I am sure Nick Saban is still denying that he is coaching at Alabama and might even be pretending like he is still coaching the Dolphins, but he sure is doing a good job at Alabama. He has them ranked all the way up at the 2 spot. I am sure the Bama faithful is thrilled at their coach. SEC is not the conference for safe predictions, but I think their game at LSU on Nov-18 might be the de-facto national Championship. Lets see how it plays out.

Number 4 Florida and number 9 Wisconsin lost to Mississippi and Michigan respectively. Florida probably thought they were now the favorites after the USC loss. So close yet so far. But in this day and age of parity in college football, one loss teams can still go all the way. Last year, it felt like a circular ranking scheme where the top teams lost, dropped down and then again the new top teams lost and the team that dropped down earlier percolated up again to the top. This season could very well be similar. So teams like Florida, Georgia, USC and may be even the Suckeyes could work their way up again if upsets galore. But as of now, Oklahama, Alabama, LSU, Missouri and Texas make up the top 5. Thats some strong showing for Big-12 and how about that Texas-OU game? Can't wait for it. Bring it on!

Great Rental

The real-estate market has been down for a while. House prices have been collapsing and renting sounds more and more like a good idea these days. One rental that was a brilliant idea was the Brewers buying C.C. Sabathia at the trade deadline. The Brewers probably won't retain CC or Ben Sheets next season, but they achieved what they wanted to with that trade - make the playoffs after 26 years. Amazing that they made the playoffs even after firing their coach Ned Yost recently. You see these trade deadline rentals all the time, almost every year. Teams in contention go get somebody for the short-term from the "clearance sale" section of other teams. Oakland A's Billy Beane used to be the expert at this.

It's never obvious how good or bad these rentals work out. Even if the guy puts up good numbers, you can never conclusively say this is why the team made the playoffs and they would have missed it without him. Even with a super successful rental like Manny in LA this year, you can't really put a number on his impact. But there is no way the Brewers make the playoffs without CC - no way in hell ! Forget all the intangibles and the emotional lift he gave the team with his domination every 5-Th day, the raw numbers are just too good. He is 11-2 with a 1.7 ERA and 7 complete games in half a season. Brewers won 14 of his 17 starts - thats .823 baseball. Tell me who else could have done it for them? Even if the guy who CC replaced had been good and pitched .600 or .700 baseball (highly unlikely), the Brewers would have still missed the playoffs considering they beat the NY Mets by just 1 game for the Wild Card. I am not even talking about the fact that CC took the ball today in a must-win game on 3 days rest and pitched a complete game for a playoff-clinching win. CC has been an absolute stud this year and the best rental ever!

I am happy for the Brewers. This took them 26 years and thats way too long for a good fan base. As for the team they eliminated, the Mets shockingly choked away their division lead for the second consecutive season. The NY tabloids are killing them and they dont even care Brett Favre threw 6 TDs for the Jets today. The Mets went 4-6 in the last ten to lose the division to the Phillies. Now Phillies meet the Brewers. Should be a good series except for Network TV. Thats 2 small markets fighting it out. At least the other 2 NLDS features huge markets - LA Dodgers V Chicago Cubs. That should be fun with Manny and his .396 average being the major attraction. In the AL, the White-Sox have a make-up game tomorrow against the Detroit Tigers which will tell us if they need a one game playoff against the Twins for the right to play the DevilRays in the real playoffs. A little convoluted, but should be good drama.

Boys are for Real

Week 3 in the NFL established a few things. The Cowboys are clearly the team to beat. Romo is good, but then again he is always good in the Summer and Fall. When Winter starts and the playoffs roll around, thats when he disappears to Mexico as his game disappears into thin air. But all kidding aside, he is one of the top QBs in the league and he and his offense put on a show last weekend against the Eagles. Their defense looked shaky against McNabb and the gang and we didn't know if that game featured 2 great offenses or 2 bad defenses or both.

It turns both Philly and the Cowboys are not that bad defensively. The Cowboys slowed down A-Rod and the Packers at Lambeau. The Packers offense has been on fire until this game and this game was a little bit of a "come back to earth" situation for A-Rod. By the way, it's funny how the Jets and Favre came down to Earth too this weekend as the Chargers took care of the Jets pretty easily. Anyways, the Cowboys defense did what it had to and stifled the Pack. NFC is the Cowboys' conference to lose right now. NFC East looks unstoppable. The Giants are also on a roll and even the Skins are not bad. What the Eagles D did to Pittsturgh was even more impressive than the Dallas D. They abused Ben Roethlisberger and made Pittsburgh look ordinary. Big Ben spent half the game lying on his back.

The other shocker of the weekend was Miami and Ronnie Brown running all over the Patriots. The Matt Cassel experiment is not going well for the Pats. They miss Tom Brady and they lost 38-13 to a horrible Miami team. Cassel has done nothing for them yet and we are a week or 2 away from Randy Moss going "operation shutdown" on the entire New England area. It might very well be an end of an era in the NFL as the Patriots defense has not looked this ordinary in years. Also the Colts are 1-2 and are looking mediocre right now. They can't stop the run just like a few years back and with Peyton returning from a surgery, the offense looks just a little off. It's amazing how the Colts D tanks every time Bob Sanders doesn't play. These 2 teams defined this era in the NFL and they both may not go far this season. However, I am not ready to bury Manning and the Colts yet. He'll at least get the offense fixed soon.

The new kids on the block are the Tennessee Titans and the Buffalo Bills. Not sure how legit they both are, but they are both 3-0. The Bills almost lost to the Raiders at home, but the Raiders couldn't close the deal. Trent Edwards woke up in time to win this game. I was really impressed with this young QB. The Titans are going to be fine as long as Kerry Collins starts. No guarantees if and when Vince Young comes back. The stories of his emotional problems and mental instability are really bizarre. It goes to show how everybody has their daemons and the rich and the famous are not as happy as we think they are or they should be. Life is challenging regardless of what place you are at. Hope he gets his head fixed and gets back on the field, but the truth is, he is not a good QB yet.

The other bizarre story is this thing going on with Lane Kiffin and Al Davis. Al wants to get rid of him, but is still waiting for him to resign so that he doesn't have to pay him the reminder of his contract. But Lane is saying he will never quit. There is a report everyday about how Kiffin will be fired tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. This is another one of those "only in Raiderland" type stories. Al Davis looks real old these days, but he looks determined to kill the Raider organization before he passes away himself. In other games, Minnesota won it's first game as Frerotte started and played half-way decent. In Denver, Cutler and the Broncos continued their winning ways though the Saints and Drew Brees almost out-scored them in an offensive contest of epic proportions. Tampa Bay won a game behind Brian Griese's 67 passes and 407 yards.

Mike Martz and the Niners took care of Detroit rather easily as JTO is fast becoming the new rage in SFO. Sweet revenge for both JTO and Martz. One of the younger Fords promptly came out and said he would fire Matt Millen if he had the authority - a direct shot at his dad (and Millen of course). But he is about 6 years too late. The only thing more shocking than W being allowed to run this country for 8 years is Matt Millen running the Lions for about the same period. Definitely makes you wonder if there is some truth to Charles Barkeley's theory for such situations - "this guy should have a picture of his boss's wife having sex with a monkey!".

10 is better than 9

Yankees are 9 games behind the Tampa Bay Devilrays. This sentence is such music to my ears I wouldn't mind saying or typing it a few more times. And yes I'll stop calling them the Devilrays only when they make the playoffs, which interestingly enough, is going to happen this year in all probability. The only thing better than the Yanks trailing the AL East leader by 9 might be them trailing by 10. That could happen as early as tomorrow. It's an interesting end to their existence in the Yankee stadium. The last game in the legendary stadium is this Sunday and the Yankees are going to leave their old digs without a playoff game.

The other good thing about the Yankees struggles is that it'll shut ESPN up a little bit. If the Yanks were also good this year, ESPN might run a tribute to the stadium 24X7. Now it'll still be on, but just a little subdued. Personally, I would have liked to watch a game at the old stadium. I guess I missed it. Actually, I was kinda surprised the Yankees even decided to move out. This will never happen to Fenway or Wrigley. But then again the Yankee stadium is quite historic and legendary, but as a stadium, it's not quite the icon that Wrigley or Fenway is. I have not been to any of those stadiums, but I have hung out for a while outside Wrigley and I fell in love immediately.

The lovable losers of Wrigley won another big game today. They came from behind in the 9-Th, tied and then beat the Brewers for another bad loss for the Brew-crew. "Yost is toast" as Yahoo sports put it, but they still have issues. By the way, I love that heading for some reason, though it was very predictable and quite unimaginative. If the Brewers miss the playoffs again, its going to be very disappointing for the Wisconsinites. Luckily for them Aaron Rodgers in his first 2 starts has looked like Dan Marino and Joe Montana rolled into one. The Brewers still have a shot and I hope they cash it in. If not, they could be in trouble soon as CC and Ben Sheets are looking to break the bank in free agency this winter. Of course most of our banks might be bankrupt by then or we the tax payers might be owning them. but thats neither here nor there.

Anyways, back to sports, my DBacks are hovering around .500 threatening no one. They did win against Tim Lincecum today as the Giants wasted another great start from this dude. I have not seen him pitch a bad game all season. He is a true ace. The Giants are doing to him what the Minnesota Vikings are doing with Adrian Peterson. Which brings me to the NFL. I hate saying "I told you so", but I did tell you so. The Vikings have finally benched Jackson and are starting Frerotte just like I asked them to a few days back. It's a no-brainer after Jackson's performance the first 2 weeks. It should be interesting to see this team now if Adrian in healthy. He is missing some practice time this week. Hopefully it's nothing major. The Chiefs are starting somebody called Thigpen at QB. May be they should just request USC's Mark Sanchez to play for them on Sunday after his college games on Saturdays.

McNabb blows it

Another week of football is in the books. College Saturday was a disaster as ASU lost to UNLV long before the so-called "big game" next week against Georgia. They may have been looking ahead, or they may just be bad. It's probably the later more than the former. It was a pretty bad week for the Pac-10 as Cal lost at Maryland and UCLA got blanked 59-0 by BYU. The only good news of the week was the Trojans crushing the overrated Ohio State Suckeyes 35-3. That'll shut them up for a week or 2. The surprising result of the week was Notre Dame beating Michigan 35-17. I mean they are both bad, but I am surprised every time the Domers win these days. Auburn beat Mississippi State 3-2. What? Is this football or baseball from the 1960's?

In the NFL, another interesting week. For the second straight week, Minnesota showed us how to waste the prime of a great running back. They lost 18-15 to the Colts since they couldn't score TDs. Adrian Peterson ran for 160 yards and all the Vikings could do with it was score field goals. Of course if you stay close to Peyton, he is going to pass you by sooner or later and thats exactly what he did. The Vikings D was so good, but you can't keep Peyton down for that long. You got to score TDs and put some distance and pressure on him. I think it's time for Gus Frerotte to step in. It's not acceptable that the Vikings are 0-2, the same record as Kansas City with 10 times the talent except for one QB.

How bad is Kansas City if they are losing 23-8 to the Oakland Raiders? McFadden rushed up and down the field for 164 yards and Justin Fargas and Michael Bush combined for 133 more. For the Chiefs, Larry Johnson looked listless. If he loses his job today, he might not even get a job as Michael Bush's backup. I would set 8 as the over-under for the number of games before Herm Edwards gets fired. His team is pathetic. Another coach in trouble could be Marvin Lewis as the Cincinnati Bengals continued their slide from last season with a 24-7 loss to Tennessee. How can the Bengals score just 7 points with Ocho Cinco, TJ Housh and Carson Palmer?

As for the good teams. Aaron Rodgers is a stud! He had a dream first half in his game against Detroit. He threw for 328 yards and 3 TDs in the game. The Giants won again, but then again it was against the Rams, another rotten team. New England won against Favre and the Jets as they scored just 19 points and won with an all-around game. Thats the new Patriots for you. Matt Cassel is not going to throw for 50 TDs this season and Moss may not run wild, but he'll win enough games as their starting QB. By the way, Sammy Morris had stats of 0 yds rushing and 1 rushing TD. Makes me very happy as the fantasy owner of Lawrence Maroney! Kurt Warner had 361 yards and 3 TDs as both Fitzgerald and Boldin went nuts for the Cards.

The games of the week were clearly the San Diego-Denver contest and the Monday nighter between Philly and Dallas. Philly blew a great chance on the road as they did everything right on offense for a while, but self-destructed late in the game. Donovan McNabb is great, but I got to say, he is still missing something. He doesn't seem to come through at the end. He muffed 2 hand-offs to Westbrook late in the game and the second one came at a very bad time. He seemed to have confused himself and faked a handoff to Westbrook only to actually try and handoff to him after a double-clutch. Of course they didn't connect and the fumble was lost. McNabb looked as good as Romo and the boys, but he just could not finish.

Romo is clearly one of the best QBs in the league. It's amazing how suddenly many of these young QBs are turning out to be very good. Aaron Rodgers, Jay Cutler and Philip Rivers being the other good ones. The surprise to me is Philip Rivers. He was shaky even late last season and he seems to have grown leaps and bounds since the playoffs last year under Norv Turner. Both him and Cutler were near perfect in that Denver-San Diego game. Shanahan pulled a big one when he went for 2 at the end. You almost never see this in football. May be in College once a year, but never in the NFL. Thats shows you his confidence in Cutler and the offense.

But the story of the game were the 2 bad calls that went against the Chargers. The non-call on the fumble at the end before the Denver TD, which even Cutler accepts was a fumble, was a horrible call. It was so obvious that I walked away from the TV when that happened and completely missed the ending because I thought the Chargers have sealed the win with that fumble. I was shocked later when I learnt that Denver won that game. Denver also got the ball on a supposed San Diego fumble in the first quarter which was not a fumble. Turner challenged it in time, but they couldn't overturn it because the replay machine did not work. What the hell is going on with the NFL? I don't know why bad luck always seems to chase Norv Turner. But at least he has a good team and a good QB. They should be fine eventually though LT looks a little hurt.

A-Rod looks good

NFL's week-1 came to an end with the Monday night double-header. Aaron Rodgers looked terrific. Not a surprise to me at all since I have had great hopes for this guy since college. He was accurate and poised. Played mistake free and his work with his legs were an added bonus. It must have felt real good for him when he did the Lambeau leap after a rushing TD. But I was more impressed with his throw low and tight for the passing TD. He went through his reads and threw it to his 3-Rd or 4-Th option at a spot where only the receiver could lay his hands on the ball. Good start, but this is just one game.

On the other side, I can't believe the Vikings went into this season with all the talent in the World, but Tarvaris Jackson at QB. That guy sucks and AD can carry the Vikings to great places if only they get even decent play at QB. These days, teams are just too obsessed with youth and potential and they don't realize that talent, even if old, can take some teams places. This is a side-effect of sky rocketing salaries and the desire of teams to find the next big thing often ignoring the current "good thing" that can help you win now.

Coming back to A-Rod, I always thought he was the better QB in that 2005 draft. The Niners made Alex Smith the number 1 pick and that flawed marriage seems to be finally over. He lost his starting job this season and now he is out for the season with his shoulder problem. What's remaining now is for the Niners to cut him next summer to save some cap and for Alex to end up in the bench somewhere else. He deserves one more shot but it's unlikely he'll get it in San Francisco. In fact, a change of scenery is always good and he is better off somewhere else. Good luck to him. He has some physical tools and lets see what he does with it.

Speaking of injured QBs, Tom Brady is out with both a torn ACL and MCL. Can he come back and do what he is used to doing? I would guess so because he is not much of a runner. He can always hang in there in the pocket and make throws like Dan Marino or something. But it's still going to be tough because the last big-name QB to have this same injury was Daunte Culpepper and we all know what happened to him. He has disappeared into thin air and he is actually retired as of last week. Lets just hope his career continues at a high-level.

On Monday night, we also had the misfortune of watching the Oakland Raiders. They looked horrible. JaMarcus Russell looked real bad too. He can throw long, but has no touch or accuracy and his decision making is suspect. But he is very young and raw and I don't want to beat him up too much yet. But the product that the Raiders put on the field is horrible. Russell actually ended with decent stats, but they couldn't score on offense or stop Denver from scoring on defense. I am not sure how good Jay Cutler and the Broncos are going to be this season, but the Raiders sure made them look like the best team in the league.

Fun, fun week 1

NFL was in full flow today and I am sure a lot of Sports fans gladly welcomed it into their living rooms just like I did today. Many games, many stories, but these are the things that stuck with me.

Obviously the injury to Tom Brady is the biggest news. Reports are saying he is out for the season. Thats a shocker for the New England fans and is also a loss of a bankable superstar for the NFL. Thats too bad. I wonder if Matt Cassel can take over and do very well and dent Tom Brady's legend a little bit. I doubt it though since Matt is very inexperienced and Tom Brady is pretty good. Gone or the days when I used to think Brady was over-rated. He has definitely worked his way up the QB rankings pretty well.

Vince Young left his game with an injury as well, though he is expected to return soon. Tennessee also surprisingly beat Jacksonville.

Chad Pennington started for Miami and was is 1/6 for -1 yards at one point. It looked ugly, but he turned it around later. Ricky Williams also started and I am glad about that. NFL can use more vegan yogis.

Jim Nance was totally confused when Pennington completed a pass to David Martin. For some reason, he thought that was Favre to Bubba Franks and talked about how these 2 guys have done this many times before. Or not! To be fair to Nance, it was a confusing game with both QBs at new places. Even I was sub-consciously thinking Chad Pennington every time I saw Brett Favre take the snap in a Jets uniform because I am so used to seeing Chad at that spot.

Speaking of Favre, he did well. He connected on a bomb to Jerricho Cotchery and then threw the ball up for grabs on a 4-Th and 13 play that conveniently ended up in a Jets receiver's hands. Typical Brett Favre. Fun to watch. I was surprised to see very little from Laveranues Coles though.

Atlanta had a fantastic season opener. Matty Ice's first pass in the NFL was a TD bomb. That should have felt great for the Rookie. Michael Turner ran all over the Lions D and I guess Matty didn't have to do much after that pass, Both these new-comers looked very good for ATL.

McNabb was awesome. He looked healthy and unstoppable. Their Wide Receivers were catching balls all over the field and that has not happened a whole lot in Philly during the McNabb era except for TO. Speedy rookie from Cal, DeSean Jackson had a great game both receiving and returning.

The other half of the Philly game was the horrible St. Louis Rams. I was really sad to see the STL Rams offense. The "greatest show on Turf" days are long gone and they look very ordinary these days. I miss those days with the ball flying all over the place with Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt reeling in 40 yard passes from Kurt Warner or Marc Bulger. Torry Holt caught just one pass in this game and their supposed number 2 receiver, Drew Bennett caught one pass and was hurt right after that catch. It's going to be another long season in STL.

Speaking of the old Rams, Mike Martz has come west to the Niners and has brought a QB with him. J.T. O'Sullivan was not bad. He seems to be very poised and did make some throws that Alex Smith can't or won't. Frank Gore had a great game too. But the Cards just would not give them the ball. The Niners defense had no answer to the Cards run or pass game in the second half and the Cards killed the clock effectively. Seems like Ken Whisenhunt at least for a day was able to bring the Pittsburgh Steelers football to the Cards. The Niners turned the ball over 5 times. Typical Martz offense.

Chicago went in and shocked the Colts as did Carolina at San Diego. The Colts opened a new stadium, but had to go home disappointed. I think they'll be fine, but they didn't look all that sharp today. Big win for the Bears and they may have something special in that rookie Matt Forte.

Here comes the NFL

NFL kicked off the season with the now usual Thursday night kick-off. Two problems this time though. One, the game was earlier than usual because of the stupid Republican National Convention. So it missed prime-time in most parts of the country. Secondly, I would have also scheduled a better game than the Giants-Redskins match-up. The Giants, I have to say, are one of the weakest returning Super Bowl Champs. They were lucky and they peaked at the right time last year to knock off the Patriots. I am glad they did, but still they were not a great team then and they are worse now. Plus, the Redskins have been average to garbage for a while now. I know they have a great football tradition and all that, but I would have definitely kept them out of a national TV season opener.

With all that said, this game signaled the start of the 08 NFL season and we are all better off because of it. The Giants won after an rather impressive start. Eli led them to a TD on their very first drive and it looked impressive. But things slowed down after that and it was pretty much a defensive struggle. In fact, there was no scoring whatsoever in the entire second half. It was a decent game, but nothing exciting. I am expecting better games this Sunday. I am looking forward to many games including Carolina @ San Diego, Dallas @ Cleveland, Minnesota @ Green Bay and Denver @ Oakland. Lets see what happens. The second week of College Football seems to have a relatively flat schedule - kind of an appetizer for NFL this Sunday and the college schedule next weekend. Though Vandy already upset the Ole' ball coach and South Carolina to kick-off week 2. There is Florida-Miami though it is not what it used to be.

Good to have football back

This is a great weekend since we got to welcome football back. Football is the best and the only good thing about the end of summer. It's a sad day when we realize the summer days for the year just flew by, but then we have football to console us. First college and next week the big daddy - the NFL, is coming to our living rooms. How can you complain? We get to play our fantasy football too, which is almost a parallel sporting universe these days.

My fantasy drafts are always pretty late. So I personally flip the switch from no-football to all-football within a couple of days and that elevates my excitement level higher and sooner than a gradual escalation would. Yesterday I got to see some football on TV and today I started my fantasy draft preparation and I am excited as you can tell. After the season we had in college last year, I can't wait to see what'll happen this year. I can't possibly imagine it being better than last year, but I'll take a season half as exciting actually.

Plus Arizona State is ranked 15-Th and they get to play No-1 Georgia at home early. I am both terrified and excited by that game. As for week 1, ASU won easily and so did most of the top teams as you would expect. I thought it was hilarious that Michigan lost their season opener again and this time to Utah after last year's Appalachian State disaster. Different coach but the same result at the Big House. Virginia Tech got upset by East Carolina in another shocker. ACC these days is not what it used to be. I wonder if they want to kick Va Tech and Miami back to the Big East :-)

The other major upset of week 1 was in the biggest game of week 1 - num 9 Clemson V num 24 Alabama. Once again, Clemson disappointed it's fan-base and convinced them that the Tigers and their coach Tommy Bowden are some of the biggest under-achievers in the sport. Bowden may not survive this season. Expectations were real high at Clemson. They may still win the ACC, but losing to Alabama like they did can't help their national title dreams. I guess thats why it's called a "dream". It would be weird if both papa Bowden and Tommy Bowden are pushed out after this season. Could easily happen because Florida State is real bad these days and they need to rebuild.

USC looked impressive on the road at Virginia and the other USC - University of South Carolina under the ole' ball coach didn't look that impressive. Looks like Steve Spurrier is not going to do all that well with SC in the SEC this year as well. But the bottom line is , the scores don't matter, the results of week 1 are just a side-bar. The real story is that football is back in our lives.

Olympic Fever

It's the dog days of summer and the MLB season is meandering along. No disrespect to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays or the Rays or the Buccaneers or whatever else they are called these days, but when they are on top of the AL East, something is upside down in the baseball World and fans need some time adjusting to the new realities. I am not complaining since my long-term dream might finally come true - no Yankees and no RedSox in the playoffs. The Yanks are done, but the Sox might still make it. I am going to keep an eye on for that.

But this is the best time for the Olympics. I mean I have not seen a single complete baseball game since the Olympics started and the games have been very good theater. It's always the same story with the Olympics. Most American mainstream sports fans think "who watches the Olympics" before it starts. But then when the games begin, it's hard to not follow it. Especially these games with all the Michael Phelps hype. While the Phelps-hype did get to be a bit too much at times, his finger-nail finish was amazing. NBC ran the Olympics coverage like Phelps was the only guy in the entire games for a couple of days, but I guess he deserved it. Now that swimming is all done, it should be interesting to see how the Olympics do on TV now.

The only guy who is a bigger freak than Phelps is probably Usain Bolt, the World's fastest dude. I couldn't believe that this guy just gave up after 80 meters and still crushed the competition and set a new World Record. This 21 year-old is going to dominate this sport for a while. I wonder what's the best time he could have clocked if he had broken a sweat in this race. Bolt is a great name for a sprinter too! The other person of interest for me is Nastia Liukin. This cute-looking gymnast is too good on the floor and also carries herself with a lot of class. I was very impressed with the way she carried herself after the tie-breaker with the Chinese chick. Speaking of Chinese, they are crushing the Americans in the Gold medals tally. This has truly been a coming-out party for China in every which way and it's pretty impressive how they have completely turned around their sporting fortunes in the last 10 or 20 years. The other country thats making headlines is Jamaica with their World-class sprinters. The Jamaican girls went 1-2-3 in the Women's 100. Impressive. Lets see how the games end for China. It has definitely started real well for them.

Saga is over

Brett Favre is finally wearing a football uniform and getting ready for the season. The Packers got rid of him and shipped him to NY of all places for an incentive based draft pick thats at a 4-Th round level right now. Based on how well Favre and the Jets do, it goes up and it'll be a first round pick if the Jets make it to the Super Bowl. Of course thats not going to happen. Not a bad deal for both sides all things considered.

ESPN and the media tired us all out for weeks with this saga. Favre was coming back and then it was the Packers not wanting him, then Favre wanted a release, the Packers refused, he wanted to go to a division foe, the Packers were talking to the Bucs and the Jets for a trade, then the Packers wanted to pay him to stay retired, finally he was re-instated, he was going to compete for a starting job for the Packers and finally he got traded the very next day to the Jets. All this gave the sports-shows something to talk about for several weeks.

It was a weird saga throughout. Never has a superstar, who has been this good the previous season, been so unwanted by his own team. We see it once in a while as stars age and the team wants to move on. Bulls for whatever reason didn't mind MJ retiring when he did retire the second time. Dan Marino was kinda pushed out the door too and ironically, he was wooed by the Vikings as well. But better sense prevailed and he retired and stayed retired. But the Packers just did not want Favre back. I guess they like Aaron Rodgers so much and they were sick of Favre's retirement drama for so long, that they literally have had enough.

It seems like the self-absorbed Favre just could not believe the Packers didn't want him and that they had plans to move forward with A-Rod. So he came up with weird requests like "trade me to the Vikings" or "release me so that I can go play for the Bears". The rift between him and Ted Thompson was just too deep for a reconciliation. The best part of the story was clearly the "bribe" the Packers went to Mississippi with. It was called a "marketing deal" for 25 mill over 10 years or whatever under the condition he stays retired. Wow! How badly did they want this guy out of their system?

To be fair to the Packers, there were some significant salary cap and financial implications of him coming back that I think was not adequately understood by the common fan on the street. They had truly moved forward with all that money and there was no going back in their mind. The other issue that didn't get covered here was the Commish getting too involved with this and even delaying the re-instatement so that the Packers and Favre could figure something out. What the hell is his job? I mean the excuse always is "I am doing what's best for the game", but that doesn't mean the Commish can go and shine Brett Favre's shoes. He has no business getting this involved in this mess like he was an agent for Favre or something.

As for the football angle of all this, I think this is a great trade for the Jets, but not necessarily for Favre. Jets had to do it. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain. But Favre doesn't get much out of this. He will have a good game here and there, but it's going to be a mediocre season for him and the Jets. They are not that good with or without Favre, though they are better with Favre. Bucs would have been a better fit all-around, but I guess the Packers wanted to keep him out of the NFC. It would be funny if the Jets turned around and traded him to the Viking. I am sure the Packers put in some verbiage to prevent such things. The bottom-line is, this is going to be a lot of hype and not much else for the Jets and Favre. But it would be fun to see him play again and in another setting. Lot of pressure on the Packers, Ted Thompson and A-Rod, but I think A-Rod will do just fine if he stays healthy.