The indecision is over.

The good news is, Dwight Howard takes Steve Nash closer than ever to a championship. The bad news is, another big market, high profile, large payroll team took a superstar away from the small market Orlando Magic. The worse news is, that rich team that just got richer is the dreaded LA Lakers. If Nash made them better, Howard definitely makes them a legitimate contender. Howard tried his best to help LeBron out by taking over the title of the "most hated player in the NBA". He has been a disaster the last 9 months or so with all the drama surrounding his on-again, off-again trade requests and his upcoming free agency. Everybody was tired of this garbage, but it is finally over now. On the court, Howard is a legitimate superstar, though the player he is replacing - Andrew Bynum, is not bad either. Bynum is actually better than Howard in terms of offensive post moves, but Howard is better in every other category. Dwight is more athletic, is a better rebounder, a better defender, and an awesome shot-blocker.

The biggest benefit for the Lakers that Dwight brings might actually be the intangibles - especially in 2012 when he is expected to miss some time and will hopefully and slowly get back to his original form coming back from that back surgery. As messy as Dwight's divorce from the Magic was, he is still much more mentally stable and mature than Bynum. Bynum comes off like a immature punk and doesn't inspire a whole lot of trust and confidence despite his immense physical gifts. Dwight also has the hype of a superstar and that raises the championship profile of the Lakers. This can translate into better focus and performance on the court since the players, along with the fans, now believe they are true contenders. Belief is a necessary, though not a sufficient condition for success and the Lakers, including Kobe Bryant, definitely believe they are better today than they were last week. Now it's up to Dwight and his teammates to make it happen.

The Laker fans better be happy they didn't have to give up Pau Gasol in this trade. I like a nucleus of Kobe, Nash, Gasol, and Bynum better than Kobe, Nash, and Howard. Of course Kobe, Nash, Gasol, and Howard is even better. Add Metta World Peace, Antawn Jamison, Jordan Hill, and Steve Blake to this mix, it's a pretty impressive roster. I think a healthy Dwight Howard makes them a contender and puts them on par with the Heat. The biggest loser in all this might be the Oklahoma City Thunder. They lost a golden oppurtunity to win a title when they lost to the Heat and LeBron, who was under so much pressure. They did have a good draft, but they have to rely on their youngsters maturing and getting better to compete with this super-team now in LA. The Lakers are old and aging, but it's definitely a super-team now. Nash has not lost a whole lot and Kobe is still very good. So both the Thunder and the Heat better be scared of them.

The other issue here is that the NBA spent a lot of energy this time last year trying to come up with a system that creates a level playing field and prevents these super-teams in big markets. LeBron's "decision" has really created this culture of stars trying to gang up with each other and hoping to win a championship while also making the big bucks. The problem with this is, these consolidations are usually posbbile only in the big markets due to both logistical and financial reasons. Also, it creates a bigger gulf between the haves and have-nots as talent accumulates in a few NBA cities. So this trade has fans questioning the NBA's new system. But to be fair to the NBA, the full effect of their new rules will take effect only in 2013-2014. In fact, the only saving grace here for the Laker haters like myself is, even the filthy rich Lakers may not be able to afford the luxury tax for this roster in 2013. This roster is purely a play for Kobe's 6-Th ring and they have to deal with the fiscal issues when they show up. My early guess is, they may try and get rid of Gasol when they have to eat the luxury tax poison pill, which is definitely coming. But for now, all is well in LaLa land. As for the rest of us, nobody cares!

Billy is Back!

Oakland Athletics have won 7 straight. They are one of the best teams in the league right now. They are 16-2 in July and the East Coast is finally noticing after they swept a 4 game series against the Yankees - all one run wins, some of them walk-offs. Speaking of walk-offs, thats the specialty of this team. They have so many walk-offs that fans actually expect them to win a game if they enter the 8-Th or 9-Th inning tied or trailing by a couple of runs. They hit timely homeruns, though it's a different guy every time. Yoenis Cespedes and Josh Reddick can hit for power, but the rest of the team actually can't hit to save their lives, unless it's the ninth inning. People were confused about the Cespedes deal at that time, but Billy Beane knew what he was doing. What great pickups both Cespedes and Reddick were. The other A's hitters can't really hit, but they do take a lot of pitches and the A's pitching is phenomenal. In other words, a typical Billy Beane team.

Billy has been off the radar for a few years now. In fact, the movie moneyball did very well, but it came off as being a little untimely for baseball fans because Billy had not done much in years and the A's were pretty bad when the movie came out. They have not done much since going to the ALCS in 2006, towards the end of the big-3 era. Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson were already gone. Barry Zito was still around, but we knew he would be gone soon too. We were hoping there would be a new big-3 in Rich Harden, Joe Blanton and Dan Haren - Haren coming over in the Mulder trade. But then Billy let them all go too. He then went on a rebuilding spree as one rebuilding led to another and thats never a good sign. That only means your first rebuilding (or the second) didn't work. Territorial rights and San Jose became the defining concepts for the A's. The A's attendance and their revenues were falling and the team was spending even less than the original moneyball days. 

Billy almost looked like a sadist as he seemed to trade away anybody the fans liked and developed an attachment too. And last off-season was almost comical as he traded Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez and Andrew Bailey to get even younger and cheaper talent. It's one thing to let expensive stars like Albert Pujols or Roy Halladay walk, but Billy was saying he can't even afford young guys whom the rest of America barely even knew. He was clearly trying to rebuild the big league roster while also stocking his farm system, but these things are always a hit or miss and fans were understandably skeptical. It looked like the A's were just going younger and cheaper hoping to move a decent version of the team to San Jose a few years down the road. But Billy's moves have come to fruition much sooner than expected. These kids, especially the pitchers, are winning and dominating in the bigs while there is more talent hiding in the minors. Some of these rookies got promoted due to injuries and when the injured pitchers come back, Billy is going to be loaded with pitching.

And the great thing about Billy is, he will always go for it in the middle of the season if they have a shot. It's been a while since he rented a Jermaine Dye or a Johnny Damon for the stretch run, but he didn't have a need for it. Now that they are within striking distance, he is working the phones again. He almost got Hanley Ramirez before the Dodgers stole him. It will be interesting to see what he does and which bat he gets and who he trades away. I think he wants to retain the cheap, young talent for a few years but is also interested in winning this year. His street-creed is back and it's great to hear the media singing his praises again. Billy has done a great job this season and his eye for young talent is unparalleled. I expect great things from him both at the trade deadline this year and the next couple of years. It is also a challenging situation this year with the stupid, 1-game, wild-card playoff. But like somebody said, it's better for the weaker teams than a long series - similar to march madness. I think Billy is buying this theory as he is going after it, though he knows this roster is not a legitimate contender.

One of these days, we will see Billy Beane operate with a bigger budget. It will be a fascinating sight.

Double Whammy

All good things in life must come to an end, but I didn't know some bad things begin at the same time. Thats what I call a double whammy. We all knew Steve Nash's time in the desert was winding down. The ownership group pretended like they wanted to extend him, but even as suns fans, we didn't know if we even wanted him to stay with the suns. It was a vexing issue as the cheap suns made sure that Nash won't be able to retire as a sun and a champion. We had to pick one or the other. We wanted Nash back with the suns because we love him. Also, who doesn't want a point guard who can dish out 10.5 assists a game to wannabe NBA starters? God only knows what he would have done last year with real NBA talent around him. 

The other part of me did not want Nash back because the suns ownership didn't deserve him. They have refused to build a talented roster the last couple of years despite several opportunities to do so and why waste more of Nash's time here? He is clearly chasing a championship - the only thing missing from his stellar resume, and the suns are just not in a position to help him with that. Also, even from the team's perspective, given where they have dragged the team to at this juncture, whats the point of having a 38 year old Nash in the roster? They are probably better off going on a full rebuilding mode like they are doing right now. Mediocrity is a bad place for NBA teams. You better be very good or horribly bad - win now or accumulate high draft picks. The suns ownership seemed to be committed to making the team horrible last year and Nash single handedly thwarted their plans with his brilliant play.

It turns out the suns didn't really want to keep Nash anyways. While Toronto offered him 36 million over 3 years, the suns offered him 12 million for 2 years. I thought thats what the suns Gorilla made! It's hard to call a 6 million dollar a year salary an insult, but this one truly was. So it was up to Nash to pick either money and nationalism in Toronto or settle for marginal and imaginary championship hopes in New York. Or thats what we thought until he dropped a bombshell out of nowhere. He decided to go to the lakers. How can that be? How can the sun's most revered star be playing for the lakers of all the teams, a team he himself said would be tough to suit up for. Nash's current stint with the suns was defined by a hot rivalry with the spurs and the mavs at times, but the lakers are the perennial villains. A powerful division rival like no other and Steve Nash ends up there. 

The trade itself is not bad for the suns and I guess thats why they agreed. 2 first and 2 second round picks are decent for an aging star, though the lakers picks are only going to be in the late 20's. Nash's age makes this easier for the suns because they are strengthening the lakers just for 2 or may be 3 years and not for the next 10 years and the suns will be rebuilding for the next couple of years anyways. It gives Nash a legitimate shot at the championship. Good for him, but I am not rooting for the lakers. May be this makes it easier for me to root for the lakers if they do end up meeting the heat in the finals, but I dont know what to do with Nash now. I will definitely be watching the lakers - they just became one of the most entertaining teams in the league. But I can't say I will be rooting for the lakers to win day in and day out. That just goes against my basketball DNA.

It's going to be weird seeing him in a lakers uniform and even weirder to see the suns without Nash. He defined the Phoenix suns for the last 8 years way more than any single player including Charles Barkley did during their time. He controlled the game on the court and was the face of the franchise off it. Something tells me Michael Beasley is not the replacement for Nash that the fans were looking for. Thank god at least Goran Dragic is back! A familiar face and a decent point guard who learned under Nash. I will be watching the suns with a detached attachement next season. I am sure I will come around soon, but it will be strange for the first few weeks. 

On the court, Nash's impact on the lakers will be huge. He will make life easier for everybody around him like he has always done in his career. Gasol and Bynum will be much better on offense. He will even make Kobe better if he lets him. Nash will definitely take some pressure off of Kobe and will help keep him fresh and even possibly help extend his career. Nash is not an asset on defense, but the lakers have 2 seven footers to protect the rim. He does not make them the favorites or put them ahead of the heat or the thunder, but I will pencil in the lakers and the thunder for the western conference finals next may. The NBA regular season is long, but Nash just made sure the other teams in the west don't have much to play for. We might as well start the thunder-lakers series tomorrow.

The shock of seeing Nash in a lakers uniform will take a while to wear off and I will never totally embrace it. I was going to root for him to win a championship if he ended up with the knicks or even the mavs and I was hoping the thunder will come after him for selfish reasons, but he is now with that one team I can't root for. I am not going to wish him good luck, but I will whole heartedly thank him for all those brilliant years with the suns. He will always be a Phoenix sun and one of the best ever.  We are all witnesses to the end of a glorious chapter in Phoenix and the beginning of another inglorious chapter in Los Angeles. They say it will get worse before it gets better. And it just did for us suns fans. Double whammy indeed.

King's Court

NBA has finally become the king's court. King James is now a champion and has put an end to a burning, 2-year debate about his true worth as a basketball player. His physical tools and basketball skill-set were never in question, but fans and experts alike questioned his will to win and mental fortitude to take and make shots in the clutch. Honestly, a lot of it was wishful thinking on the part of the fans as LeBron lost their support with the "decision" and they were rooting for him to fail more than they were convinced he was a "failure". It has taken a herculean effort from LeBron to win the championship and change that perception. If you think about it, it din't take long for him to win in Miami. The heat made it to the finals in his very first year in Miami and won the championship in year 2 - pretty impressive if you ask me.

But 3 things made this a rough 2 years for LeBron. The moment the big 3 came together, anything less than a championship was not going to be enough. So a finals appearance last year did nothing for them. Secondly, when LeBron stupidly insinuated they will win "not 6, not 7", but 8 championships, he had to get started from year 1 to get anywhere close to it. So a finals loss to Dallas last year sent the league into a anti-LeBron frenzy unlike anything we have seen before. Last but not the least, LeBron was tentative and ineffective at crucial times last season raising all kinds of question about his toughness. But year 2 changed everything. The guy had a phenomenal regular season and backed it up with a legendary post-season. He put up some ridiculous numbers and carried the heat in these playoffs. It was not an easy playoffs by any means and LeBron stepped up several times to push them over.

Things started going LeBron's and Heat's way when he clearly established himself as the Heat's alpha-dog. DWade was the Scottie Pippen this season and that clarity unleashed LeBron in both tangible and intangible ways. The Heat coaching staff deserves some credit too since I am sure they rolled the ball LeBron's way this season during some situations where the ball would have probably gone to Wade last year. One of the funniest chants targeted at LeBron last year was when they shouted "Scottie Pippen" at his face. I was not even sure who should feel more insulted by it - LeBron or Scottie! Pippen is one of the all-time greats in this game and his name was routinely used as an insult. That tells you how talented LeBron is and how impactful Michael Jordan was as Pippen's teammate. A determined LeBron at the wheel this year was just unstoppable and the thunder and Durant had no answers for him in the finals.

LeBron is now a champion and winning shuts up a lot of people. The question now is, will the so-called haters disappear? I don't think so. They will be quiet and won't be able to trash-talk as much, but they are not going to wake up tomorrow and become LeBron fans. I am a LeBron-hater myself and I still don't want him to win any more titles with this heat team. Ironically, we became haters only because we loved his game more than LeBron himself. I wanted him to stay in Cleveland and I was convinced he could have won a championship there with any front-office with half a brain. In fact, it was LeBron who didn't think he could win in Cleveland. I had more faith in LeBron's game and his future in Cleveland than LeBron himself and I was upset at him only because he quit on the Cavs and ganged up with other stars in Miami. So how much of a hater am I? The haters are going nowhere. But the NBA should be a little concerned about some people not watching the NBA now since the biggest story in all of sports over the last 2 years is now history.

The other interesting question is, are we staring at a dynasty here?  My gut says no. I would have been more willing to bestow dynastic powers on the thunder if they had won the championship, but the heat don't look like a dynasty to me. I am not sure if this is just wishful thinking on my part, but I do feel like they had a few lucky breaks go their way in the east this season and their salary cap situation is obviously not great either. Given LeBron's immense talents and with Wade in his supporting cast, this can easily become the next dynasty, but I don't see a big gap between them and the other contenders. The thunder and even the bulls and the pacers will be chasing them with all they got, not to mention teams like the Lakers and the Spurs. Next year will be the key to see where LeBron takes them and how the thunder improve and take the next step. Also, dynasties have been hard to come by in the NBA since the days of the Spurs and the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. LeBron can change it all, but he has to show us he is a dynastic star.

Another NBA season is in the books now. It was indeed fun. The end result was what I expected and dreaded at the beginning of the season. The enduring image of this season will be LeBron's game 6 at Boston. Thats when he took the next step and eventually cemented his legacy with a finals MVP to go with his regular season MVP, first team all-NBA, and first team all-defensive awards. Great season by a great player. It took him a while to get here, but the information age and the twitter generation made it feel longer than it actually was. LeBron owns the NBA right now. He is no fluke and we may never see another LeBron in the future. It is must-see TV when an athletic freak with immense talent wins it all and claims his rightful place at the top of his sport. But MJ has set the bar so high, LeBron's chase of greatness has only started and will continue next year. Where he goes from here will be as fascinating a story as how he got here. And we will all be watching and following this journey.

For all the marbles

Sports is supposed to be unpredictable.  We love it because it's the ultimate reality show. You don't know whats coming next except that it will be something new. But an Oklahoma City Thunder V Miami Heat NBA finals does not score a lot of points for unpredictability, though it does work at every other level. NBA, more than any other league throws a predictable championship series at us more often than not. A 16 team tournament where every series is a 7-game marathon tends to promote consistency, excellence and is not very upset friendly. As much as every playoff game is fun and exciting, the better team always finds a way to win the series. Spurs surpassed the Thunder in the Western standings and became a legitimate contender during the regular season while the Celtics tried their best to derail the Heat in the playoffs, but we eventually got what we expected and wanted at the beginning of the season. This is the logical finals for this year. LeBron and Durant were 1 and 2 in the MVP voting and are going to be the stars of this generation. It's about time we got this matchup in the NBA finals.

We never got a Kobe-LeBron NBA finals - which would have killed at the box office, but it's just hard to create a cross conference rivalry. Celtics-Lakers with Bird-Magic were the exceptions, not the rule. It's far more easier to have intra-conference rivalries like Bulls-Pistons,  Pacers-Knicks or Kings-Lakers. One of my many problems with LeBron's "decision" was that he deprived us of potentially epic LeBron-Wade match-ups in the eastern playoffs. So it's great if a Durant-LeBron rivalry starts rolling right now.  Durant is in the mould of Tim Duncan a little bit and I am not sure if he is as big a draw as LeBron or Kobe, but he is definitely the second best player in this league. His team is young, athletic and well-rounded - much like himself. He is a humble superstar who has carried his team farther every year and anything less than a finals appearance would have disappointed a lot of the Thunder fans this year. Finals is where he belongs and as much as I would have loved to see the golden oldies of Spurs and Celtics go at it one last time, this is the series that has the potential to set the table for the next decade of the NBA.

The Heat were always expected to get here and even win. The Celtics gave them all they can handle but they couldn't handle LeBron. NBA needs the Heat in the finals. I don't think the league office cares who wins the finals, but the ratings will be good as long as LeBron plays the last game of the season. In fact, I would make an argument that if the NBA is just looking at future ratings, a Heat loss in the finals would be better than a Heat win. It keeps the stories and controversies going. Last year was the perfect recipe for the NBA. Heat makes it to the finals, but loses. Another 5 years of that, David Stern will be smiling his way to the bank every July. Of course LeBron will probably kill himself if that keeps happening. He will try his best to put an end to the finals losing streak tight now. He seems ready to roll and his game 6 against the Celtics shut a whole lot of people up and probably put some fear into the Thunder as well. If he recreates that even a couple of times this series, it will be over in a hurry.

LeBron will continue to be an enigma until he wins it all, but we knew that game 6 was very much in him. As a matter of fact, he showed us that side of himself way back in 2007 against Detroit as a 22 year-old when he scored his teams final 25 points. That was when we all loved the King. Along they way, he seemed to have lost more than he gained and now people question his capabilities in the clutch and call him a choker. To be fair to the critics, LeBron does disappear sometimes and one has to wonder how much of that last year was him not realizing his role in the team and wondering how he should work with Wade in the 4-Th quarter. But as this year winds down, it's becoming very clear that Wade is the second fiddle and this is LeBron's show. Coach spo will still roll the ball to Wade in the clutch once in a while, but LeBron can do whatever he wants with the ball in this finals because he has earned that status throughout these playoffs. He is an unique talent and the Heat are better if he is Batman instead of Robin.

All of this adds up to one thing - no more excuses for LeBron. The haters and doubters will always be there - may be I am one too, though I do realize and respect his immense basketball talents. But it's LeBron's job to shut us all up. He has the game, and now he has the authority and the credibility to dominate for his team and it's his job to carry Wade and Bosh to the finish line. If there is any doubt in his mind about this reality, history will repeat itself and it will be Durant lifting the trophy at his expense like Nowitzki did last year. Isn't it ironic that those 2 guys have very similar game? Nobody has LeBron's game and lets see if he maximizes it in this series. Of course, it is not all about LeBron since the Thunder are no chopped liver. They will have a big say in what happens in this series and they do have a legitimate shot at winning this. All I am saying is, LeBron can win it all and the only way he wins is if he realizes that only he can win it for the Heat. I personally don't want him to win - I would rather see Durant celebrate. But this is a golden opportunity for LeBron to seal the deal after 2 failed tries in the finals.

If LeBron lets this one slip away, his championship future is uncertain and unpredictable. It won't be as bad as losing to the Celtics but the Heat might still have to break-up the big 3. If the Thunder win, the Heat and the rest of the league are in big trouble because OKC is young and will only get better. At least the Mavs last year were old and all of us predicted accurately that they are on the way out. But this Thunder team is very different. If they win now and lock up my man James Harden and Serge Ibaka, this is a dynasty in the making. The Thunder have home court in this series and Vegas is picking them to win. They are a far more well-balanced team than the Heat, but they don't have LeBron. Plus, they are a jump shooting team. They have to minimize those 6 for 26 games that Westbrook and even Durant sometimes throw at us. The other concern with a team like this woud be that they are not ready and are just happy to be in the finals. I don't think thats the case here. Durant and his city are ready and hungry. So we should get a killer finals between a hungry Durant and a desperate LeBron. I can't wait

Oh, Thunder in 7. Thats what I want. Thats what I expect.

The Heat is on!

For all of us Heat-haters, the heat is really on. The Bron-Wade show is in full swing now as the Indiana Pacers seem to have unintentionally hit the activate button on them. Things looked bleak for Miami as the Heat lost Chris Bosh to injury. They then lost 2 playoff games at home and on the road to go down 1-2 to the Pacers. Wade couldn't throw a stone into the ocean standing on south beach, but he could scream at his coach in public causing a minor scandal. All the talk was about him and how he was injured and possibly close to being "done". One hack even wrote about how he is a 30 year-old going on a 33 year-old body because of all the reckless forays in to the paint throughout his career. He has always played like a bigger Allen Iverson, but it looked like all the injuries were beginning to catch up to him. Slowly, the talk about breaking up the big-3 started creeping in and it might have even become a reality if the upstart Pacers eliminated them in the conference semis.

But game 4 against the Pacers might have turned the entire history of the Miami Heat around. Suddenly, Wade started playing like a 30 year-old in a 25 year-old body after starting the game horribly. And for the first time ever, LeBron and Wade were completely in sync and playing off of each other. They have traditionally been taking turns on offense and just watching the other guy do his thing if it was not his turn. Not anymore. They are blending very well and setting each other up like never before. The Heat have not lost ever since. 3 straight wins against the Pacers and another one against the Celtics in the conference finals. Suddenly, Wade could do no wrong - except for the pink pants in the presser, and LeBron of course has not done much wrong all season. The Pacers were not mature or talented enough to challenge the Heat. And now it looks like the Celtics are not young or talented enough for that task. LeBron is literally laughing at their faces like they are some JV team. Of course, this is the playoffs and the momentum can swing with every game. And I sure hope it swings Boston's way after game 2.

As a LeBron fan turned LeBron hater since the day he took his talents to south beach, these are some scary times. When Chris Bosh got injured and the Pacers gave them a lot of trouble, it seemed like this was going to be another lost season for the Heat. You never want teams to lose because of injuries, but it was only Bosh who was injured and the world wants LeBron to lose. Now, it looks like Bosh's injury has brought the Wade and Bron closer and made them scary good. The only hope now is for the Spurs or Thunder to beat them in the finals just like the Mavs did last year. Spurs are the better team, but I feel like the young Thunder team might give the Heat more trouble. Even as a Suns fan, I have a lot of respect for Tim Duncan, coach Pop and the Spurs. I wouldn't mind them winning another ring as the Duncan era comes to an end. But now, I want the Thunder to advance just because I think they will match-up well with the Heat. Whoever makes it, I will be rooting for them against the Heat. The hatred for the Heat is way down from last year, but the dislike for LeBron still continues.

LeBron won the MVP this season, but he is actually having one of the least appreciated, best statistical seasons ever. Nobody really cares to sing his praises all that much because this is LBJ post "The Decision". This guy on the court is just amazing. There is nothing he can't do. I am totally surprised at how easily and thoroughly he has made the Heat his team. Dwyane Wade is a top-5 talent in this league and LeBron makes him look like a much-inferior side-kick. I was wrong about LeBron when he moved to the Heat. I predicted that he would take a back-seat to Wade in scoring while dominating every other category. But LeBron is so good that he is dominating everything on both ends of the floor including scoring without really trying to be selfish. Even he was saying that the big-3 wouldn't win too many MVPs because they had to share everything. Well, LeBron just won his 3-Rd and neither the other 2 nor the rest of the league could do anything to prevent it. All that he is missing right now is a ring and the question is, can the Heat pull it off this year? I think it gets much tougher if they don't seal the deal this post-season. I still don't want them to win. I have not forgotten or forgiven "The Decision" and neither has America for the most part. Lets see if the basketball gods have forgiven him.

Football, RIP 1869 - 2020?

American football as we know it is in deep trouble. It's at the crossroads and the irony is, it's also at it's zenith as far as popularity and revenues are concerned.  How is this sport so popular and also deathly sick at the same time? It's basically in this predicament because of safety and health concerns and rightfully so. One of my favorite football players, Junior Seau, passed away last week and it's suspected to be a suicide. It was a sad day made worse by the images of his mom crying in front of the camera. Why can't the media at least leave the family alone for a few days? Lets save that topic for another day and time. But, we still don't know if his suicide was due to a concussion induced brain damage. Football players dying young is a sad reality thats getting a lot more attention these days. The shocking suicide of Dave Duerson last year and his text message asking for his brain to be researched for football related damage were chilling reminders of what happens to these athletes post-football.

The NFL, just over the last 9 months, has gone through a big cultural change both on and off the field right in front of our eyes. The rules have evolved over the last few years where safety and security have become a primary concern - especially with hits on the QBs and the receivers. People have been complaining for over 10 years now about how you can't even touch the QBs anymore. These safer rules have also slowly expanded to cover helpless receivers coming over the middle. We have heard many arguments over "dirty hits", "the new flag football" and suspensions, but the cumulative effect of all these rule changes showed up glaringly on the field during the 2011 season. Dan Marino's single season record of 5084 passing yards stood for 27 long years, but was broken by 2 QBs this year. Marino was the only QB until 2007 to have ever thrown over 5000 yards in a season and there have been 4 such seasons since then. Both Brees and Brady beat his record in 2011 and Stafford was the third QB to go for more than 5000 yards. Eli Manning and Aaron Rodgers were not too far behind and even a rookie QB, Cam Newton, threw for over 4000 yards. All this in a lockout affected season where the offenses were expected to take longer to come together. If this does not tell you that the game has changed on the field, nothing will. The new rules have made the pass offense way too easy.

Then came the "bountygate" during this off-season. Many NFL players will tell you that bounties are and were common in the NFL. But this controversy is another proof that the game has to and is changing. After all the suspensions and the commissioner's non-stop rhetoric for years about player safety, they just could not keep quiet when the news came out that the coaches put bounty on player's heads. So the Commish did come hard on everybody involved as expected. With a bunch of court cases already lined up against the NFL for concussions, this is not something they could ignore. It was about protecting themselves from more lawsuits more than anything else, though I am not sure if they accomplished that. Can you imagine Brett Favre or Kurt Warner suing the league over the "bounty" hits? The NFL has always been facing lawsuits concerning health and also facing criticisms about it's pension and insurance support for retired players, but the recent spate of concussion and head-trauma related lawsuits are far more serious. Over 1500 players claim that the NFL hid the dangers of concussion from them. This includes several prominent retired players like Jamal Anderson and it's sad to hear their stories. Jamal Lewis and Dorsey Levens retired fairly recently and they say they suffer from a lot of bad side-effects already. 

We live in a different world today. The knowledge and the research around health and our body is way more sophisticated now than it was even 15 years ago. The strides the health sciences have made during that time is pretty impressive and football as a sport may just not be a good fit for the new world. We can even think of this as a part of our evolution. A brutal and violent sport like football may become untenable soon as we reach new levels of awareness and consciousness. That is why football as we know and love today may be dead soon. It is already a different game than it was 15 years back, but is going to look a LOT different soon. All it takes is for the NFL to lose one or two of these multi-million dollar concussion lawsuits and it will be a full-on crisis for the league office. They have to get creative and make the sport a lot safer while still keeping it interesting for the fans. The sport is incredibly popular right now, but the abuse it subjects it's athletes to cannot be justified for long. This is why talk shows and ESPN are spending hours this week talking about this issue. Popular topics include asking parents if they will let their sons play football. 

In fact,we will start seeing changes at the grassroots level soon. Some high-school might discontinue their football program due to safety concerns and soon, it will be 10's of high-schools and who knows where the momentum takes us from there. Nobody wants to see young men suffer traumatic head injuries knowingly. NFL athletes are dying young at an alarming rate. They are getting bigger and stronger by the day and the heavier athletes are more likely to die before 50. It's not all about the head injury, but NFL has a bunch of issues that seem to kill it's millionaire men long before their time. NFL's popularity is at an all-time high and is making multiple billions of dollars. They will try not to kill the goose that keeps laying the golden eggs, but sooner or later, they have to re-invent this sport. I will personally put the over-under on football's demise at year 2020. We will still have a game that resembles football, but it will look a lot different. We will miss the current version of football, but we will be glad to see young athletes walk away with most of their faculties in tact.  I know I will be OK with it. 

Is this the end?

The Suns were eliminated form the playoffs yesterday. It's actually pretty impressive that they were even in contention given how the season started, but the schedule makers did them no favors in the last week. Going in to Utah and grabbing the playoff spot from the Jazz was not going to happen, but the real problem might have been the bad losses against horrible teams through the season, especially before the all-star break. This made the Suns season and home finale against the Spurs irrelevant, but I watched it completely for one reason. This game could have potentially been Steve Nash's last one in a Suns uniform. All good things comes to an end at some point, but I am not ready to close the book on Nash's Suns career. He had an amazing season and but for Rajon Rondo going nuts in the last month, he would have won the assists title at age 38. To quote Delonte West, "how playa is that!" Steve Nash has done a lot for the Suns, but having this roster at .500 this season and almost in the playoffs should be his signature accomplishment.

Suns owner Robert Sarver didn't give Nash much support either this year or last and I consider that to be a criminal waste. Now, he is hoping to retain him next season. How exactly is Nash supposed to convince himself to stay in Phoenix? As a Suns fan, I hope he does stay, but should he? The roster is barren and Sarver has not shown any inclination to spend and chase free agents. The Suns salary does drop from 64 to 31 million this off-season, but that also excludes Nash and Hill. Worse still, it includes 17 million for Josh Childress, Hakim Warrick and Channing Frye. 6 mill for Frye is not horrible, but the rest is dead money. The upcoming free agency class is not stellar either so I am not sure what "darth sarver" is going to do. The good news is, it doesn't take a lot to build a playoff team if Nash is in the mix. All they need to do is re-sign Nash plus sign a couple of young studs - preferably a power forward and an athletic wing. They will be back in business.  Marcin Gortat is an asset and having him in the middle makes things a lot easier when it comes to rebuilding this puppy.

But the Suns still won't be a championship contender next season in all probability and how do you make Nash stay for this project? Especially if other real contenders like Miami come after him. Nash is so good, he will instantly add to any team - even a bonafide contender like Miami. We won't know for a couple of months, but I wish Nash the best of luck as he navigates this final free agency of his illustrious and amazing career. He not only played great and put up some amazing numbers, but also constantly entertained and captivated us. It was great to hear the Suns faithful chant "we want Steve" when he was sitting on the bench in the 4-Th against the Spurs. Suns fans have been a little spoiled with Nash and have not ben showing up in force to see him this season. The Suns have been drawing much better on the road than at home. Coach Gentry put him back for a minute just for a curtain call. Hope it's not Nash's last one in a Suns uniform. He says he wants to ball for 3 more years, I will give him 2, but I will take all 3 years if it's in a Suns uniform.

The other intriguing part of this game was that the Spurs were in town and they rested their big 3 for the game. No big surprise there, but the interesting story was that they were in Phoenix and they left earlier in the morning back home with coach Pop. Spurs already have the best record in the West and they decided to completely skip today's game and tomorrow's @ Golden State for some solid rest back home. And Pop joined them too for "personal reasons". I don't know what Pop is dealing with, but it appears to me like they would have played the big 3 if the Suns were still in the playoff hunt. The usual controversy about resting stars at the end of the season is how it affects the other teams fighting for a playoff spot. For instance, if the Suns were still in the running and the Spurs rested their studs, Utah Jazz would be really unhappy about it. So may be Pop was willing to play them to avoid that whole controversy. Or may be he genuinely wanted to eliminate the Suns given all the old rivalry. Unlikely, given that I would rather play this Suns team than handle the crowd in Salt Lake city. But since the Suns were already eliminated, it all became a moot point. So Pop could rest them all with a clear conscience, and he decided to do it. Thats my read of the situation. I could be totally wrong, but I thought it was interesting how they all flew back home earlier in the day.

Day after Manning

March Madness is in full swing, but it is getting squeezed a little bit this year with all the other things happening this march. Because of the off-season lockout, the NBA trade deadline slipped into mid-March and the tiring Dwight Howard saga dragged on and on. Finally, there were a few interesting trades, but nothing earth-shattering happened. But the Peyton Manning courting really is the news of the season and it made the NFL free-agency infinitely more intriguing than usual. Not only was he the big name on the market, but he was also blocking many other QB signings since every team that needed a QB and some that didn't went after him with gusto. Finally, he has made the decision. He has decided to suit-up for Denver. The Niners were a late entrant - at least officially, as they clandestinely worked Manning out and now are caught up in a drama involving Alex Smith. Denver is the winner here as they get Manning despite having a phenomenon named Tebow on their roster. Manning is going to cost way more than what I would have originally guessed for a 36 year-old guy coming off of a neck injury. But he is still going to excite the Denver fan-base and the other suitors can only wonder what might have been if he had picked them.

The Niner situation is interesting. Denver had a good, choir boy QB under contract and if Manning had flaked out on them, they just had to kiss and make up with Tebow. He is the type who would have said all the right things and played his rear-end off as always. The problem with the Niners is, they didn't have a starting QB under contract. Alex Smith was a free-agent himself. So they were going after both Manning and Smith after a season of love affair between coach Harbaugh and Smith. Hence the secret workout with Manning that eventually leaked. It did stay a secret rather long for this day and age. The fact that they did it in secrecy tells you they wanted to hide it from someone and Smith is the only possible target of this secrecy. Ordinarily, going after Manning is a great PR move for the team and thats something the team would want on the front pages. So the assumption here across the bay is that the Niners wanted to hide it from Smith. The only reason I am not entirely sure about that is that Manning and Smith also have the same agent - another nice twist to the story. I can't imagine Smith's agent helping the Niners double-cross him like that. Either Tom Condon is the worst agent ever or the Niners kept Condon out of their courtship of Manning as well by dealing with Manning directly and asking him to keep his own agent in the dark so that Smith is in the dark too.

We may never know what happened behind closed doors and how much Alex Smith knew or if he was upset about the whole drama. But it is providing an interesting sideshow to Manning's free agency. Now, the focus is on what happens to Alex Smith and the Niners. There is a 3-year, 24 million contract on the table and he may have to settle for it eventually. The leverage has been shifting every 6 hours in this story and right now, since the Dolphins signed David Garrard, the Niners seem to have the upper hand again. This should be resolved in a day or two. I almost want Alex Smith to sign with another team and stick it to the Niners. He can also fire Condon while he is at it. But I don't think any of that will happen. Also, I like both Alex Smith and coach Harbaugh and want them to continue their marriage by the bay for at least one more year. It will be interesting to see what they do next season with that defense back in full strength and with Randy Moss and Mario Manningham added to the receiving core. The Niner fans are in a funny situation here too as they desperately wanted their team to go after Manning. I guess they were not careful what they wished for. The Niners did chase Manning and lost. Now the fans are reduced to sweating the Alex Smith signing and understandably so. Hope all ends well for them. As for Manning, the next steps are about figuring out the number of zeroes in his contract. There will be many, but the details will be interesting. Then the Tebow trade drama can begin in earnest.

In the NCAA tournament, we have the sweet 16 all setup. For all the talk of madness, all four 1 seeds, two 2-seeds, two 3-seeds and three 4-seeds are still dancing. There is a 6 and 7 seed in the mix, but the interesting ones are 10-Th seed Xavier, 11-Th seed NC State and 13-Th seed Ohio. There are also 4 teams from the state of Ohio - the first time any one state pulled that off. There is also the remote possibility that Xavier and Cincinnati - the two teams that had an ugly fight earlier in the season, may end up meeting in the championship game. There are enough 1 seeds that will prevent that from happening, but keep an eye on that. The best day so far in the tournament was the Friday when Lehigh and Norfolk State took care of two 2-seed including the hated Duke. Unfortunately, both those 15-Th seeds got blown out on Sunday in the round of 32. Thats how the tournament rolls. You never know who's going to win and when. Thats why you watch it and watch it closely. As for my bracket, Missouri shredded it when they lost to one of the aforementioned 15-Th seeds, but I can take solace in the fact that even President Barack had Missouri going pretty deep.

End of a great era

The event that seemed impossible even 6 months ago happened today. The Indianapolis Colts released Peyton Manning. We knew this day was coming the past 3 months, but we never thought this was even a possibility until November 2011 or so. It's amazing how quickly things can change and like Kevin Garnett once deliriously shouted "anything is possible"! Manning and owner Jim Irsay appeared together and parted ways as friendly adults in an emotional news conference today. I thought they handled it in a classy manner given the circumstances though Irsay had some juvenile moments in this saga during the past few months. It was of course staged and had it's awkward moments from the point he picked him up yesterday from the airport, but it was done the right way. And the emotion, at least from Manning's side seemed real and genuine. It doesn't matter who you are, it's going to be tough to walk away from a place you have been working at for 14 years. And in his case, it's a workplace that made him incredibly rich, successful, famous and a living legend. He had some fun times there to say the least, including that super bowl win and it was definitely a tough day for him to cut that chord today.

Manning came in as a can't-miss rookie in 1998 and went 3-13 while showing several flashes of brilliance. The very next season, he threw for more than 4000 yards and helped the Colts go 13-3. The rest as they say is history. He pretty much became the face, heart and soul of the Colts and the city of Indianapolis for the next 14 years as the Colts kept winning many, many games. He took a mediocre franchise in a basketball town and made it the premier football franchise in the league. I once blogged that when you say "franchise player", the guys who are on the top of that elite list - the creme de la creme, are Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning and Tim Duncan. Their impact on the city and the franchise is way beyond what they did on the field for the duration of their career with the club. Unfortunately for the Colts, Manning's career with them is already over. The good news for them is that they have another can't miss prospect coming their way in the form of Andrew Luck. Another number 1 pick just in time to replace a legend. Reminds me of the Spurs scoring Tim Duncan with their number 1 pick many years after David Robinson. Of course, the circumstances there were different and Duncan and Robinson could play together and win a ring, but it is still interesting that the Colts are able to go from Manning to Luck. It will be totally unfair to expect Luck to be Manning-good, but even if he turns out to be a decent starting NFL QB, the Colts have nothing to complain.

It was the combination of availability of Luck, the high price-tag on Manning - $28 million for this upcoming year, and Manning's age that made this the right decision for the Colts. As they say, father-time is undefeated and Manning is the latest athlete joining that fight. Even without the four neck surgeries, you would think he has probably 2 good years left on the football field and if you are the Colts, you definitely go with the younger Luck. It will be interesting to see Luck play and evolve. Manning's shadow will definitely follow him for a while. The good news for Manning is that, he seems to be recovering well and capable of playing in the NFL again. If he can play, there will be no shortage of suitors for him. The entire NFC West, except the St. Louis Rams are in the list of teams somewhat to extremely interested in Manning. He is so good, he can pick his team and can also influence the receiving corps around him. We don't know how this will end for Manning, but it sure looks like he will have a new start at a new place soon and all eyes will be on him. The hype machine will be in full flow, and deservedly so. When Brett Favre started with the Jets, we were all watching and that season didn't end great for Favre though he had some good moments. Of course, he was spectacular with the Vikings the next year before fading away in 2010 when he was 40 years old. Manning is a little younger now than Favre was when he left the Packers, but he is also coming of major surgeries which was never the issue with Favre. But Manning will also not miss training camps and avoid starting the season late like Favre used to. So it will be interesting to see Manning in 2012. We already have a great story waiting for us to start the NFL season.

Ceilin

Now that the Linsanity train is barging ahead at full speed, the real questions are about where this train is headed and how fast will it get there. What is Lin's ceiling? Will Linsanity ever end? If so, when? All fascinating questions. I am enjoying Linsanity and want him to succeed big, but I am also realistic. The guy is averaging 20+ points and 10+ assists in this stretch of 15 days. That's straight-up Steve Nash digits. I would call those MVP numbers and hall of fame lock if only he keeps it up for 15 more years! But that's not going to be easy for Linsanity. As much as he looks like Nash in that offense and pick-and-roll, he is far away from Nashty. Nash is a way better ball handler with much better court vision and shooting. Lin might be a slightly better defender and may be a better finisher around the rim because of his body type, but he is not close to becoming a Nash overall. It's almost unfair to compare the 2 at this point, though Lin's numbers over the last 15 days definitely push us towards that comparison. He can be a poor-man's Steve Nash if he keeps it up and that's a compliment.

Lin is also averaging more than 6 turnovers a game and that's the result of his suspect ball-handling. This is exactly why his career thus far has taken the route it has. Jason Terry spoke yesterday about how anybody who plays 45 minutes and gets 20 shots is going to put up some numbers. Well, it's not that simple and it sounds disrespectful of Lin - you need to be good and prove yourself a little bit before they give you 20 shots, but still Terry has a point. There are several guards buried on NBA benches that are probably quicker and more athletic than Lin and may even score 20 every night if given a chance. They may not be able to pass quite like Lin that makes him a little special, but they are at the end of the bench primarily because they will also turn the ball over 6 times a game - just like Lin. That's not acceptable nightly in the NBA. I am sure these were the concerns that kept Lin on the bench until a unique set of circumstances forced him on to the floor. Credit Lin for making the best of this opportunity. Winning solves a lot of problems including 6 turnovers per game and that's his biggest ally these days.

If you want a specific answer for when will Linsanity end, I would say it will slow down significantly if and when the Knicks go on a 5 game losing streak and if Lin is still averaging 6 turnovers over that stretch. That won't work well. Just to give you a reference, the Warrior fans are often upset with Stephen Curry for some careless turnovers and he averages about 3 per game. Lin is almost twice as bad. This is also why I wouldn't be too critical of the Warriors for letting him go, though they desperately tried to get him back after releasing him. They do owe us an explanation for drafting Charles Jenkins in the second round of last year's draft and keeping him over Lin. Of course nobody would have released him if they knew he could do all this, but you can't blame the Warriors entirely because they have Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry and Lin would have never got this opportunity with them. Even with Linsanity at it's peak, you have to say Curry is a better ball-handler and a more reliable shooter than Lin. This won't make sense now for a lot of fans, but it will when Lin cools off a little.

Lin is currently in one of those dream runs with his shooting and scoring which will eventually slow down. His vision and assists will probably stay, but one of my basketball savvy friends made a great point. Right now Linsanity is not just living a personal dream, but is also energizing the entire city of New York including his teammates. They are all enjoying this run and attention and who doesn't want to ball in front of Kevin Costner and Mark Zuckerberg? But once the hype dies down, his teammates won't cut as hard. They won't run and jump so well on fast-breaks and this could slow Linsanity. His assists numbers might go down too but the real danger is, his turnovers might stay right where they are or even get worse as teams throw better defenders on him. This is the short-term ceiling and challenge for Lin. If the Knicks keep doing well this year, Linsanity may very well take us all the way through this season. We may have to wait until next year for this to settle down. Or, it will slow down in a hurry if the Knicks go on a 0-5 stretch. In either case, it has been a lot of fun and the NBA has been a huge beneficiary here.

Long term, he can improve his shooting and ball-handling and sky could be the limit for this kid if he works hard. He has a shot at being a starting guard in this league as long as there are other number 1 options on the team. In the worst-case, he will be a great, change of pace guard off the bench who can impact games in a major way. Bill Simmons calls that role for Lin, J.J.Barea 2.0. Lin is still young and when he signs a decent contract, he will be able to afford the best trainers and coaches and will definitely get better. After all, even Nash was not born with all his skills. He has worked like a maniac to acquire them. If Lin has shown us anything over the last 15 days, it's definitely that he is hard-working, smart, tough, humble and has incredible heart. These are priceless intangibles that will serve him well in the tough, competitive world of the NBA. Lin will make something out of Linsanity. I wish him well and things will be fine as long as we don't expect him to be a career 20-10 guy winning 8 out of every 10 starts. Whether he gets there or not, his journey so far has been absolutely fascinating and fun. I am sure commish Stern is smiling on his way to the bank everyday the last 2 weeks.

Twitter gone wild with #linsanity

NBA has a it's own version of Tebow-mania and this is even better because Jeremy Lin is a lot more of an improbable star than Tebow. The Palo Alto born, Harvard educated, Taiwanese American is taking Madison Square Garden and the NBA by storm. He has now had 4 great games and tonight's 38 points and 7 assists were against Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers. The Knicks won and Bryant learned quickly how good this guy is after pretending to not know him yesterday. How can the great Kobe Bryant be aware of the lowly Lin? Well, he knows him now that Lin dropped 38 on his face and sent the Lakers away losers. He is quick, smart, crafty and talented. He is also humble and classy. He has a goofy shooting motion, but is currently shooting 53% on the season. He is definitely a good fit for that system with Mike D'Antoni like every talking-head is saying and I have to say, as somebody who watched the Suns for years with D'Antoni and Nash, Lin does look a little like Nash in that offense. Of course, he is not as great as Nash with either his shot or his vision, but he sure is playing well in that system. He deserves a lot of credit for making the most out of a friendly system.

There have been other rags to riches stories in the NBA with undrafted rookies and so on, but Linsanity is different because of his background. If this was a black kid from Wichita state, he won't be the national phenomenon that Lin is now. This is an unique situation and he seems like a good kid. Great story for the NBA just in time after the Super Bowl. Lin has been lucky with all the injuries with the Knicks. It is going to be interesting when the stars come back. Amare will only make him better. With an athlete like Amare running with him, he will do better and this offense will look even more like the Suns offense back in the day. Amare knows how that works and he will fit in. The real trouble is Carmelo. He is fast earning a valid reputation of being a ball-stopper and he can stop Linsanity on it's tracks. NBA is a star driven league and you would be foolish to pick the coach and an unproven player ahead of one of the biggest scorers in the league. But if D'Antoni and Lin can keep this going, I would strongly consider trading Carmelo away. I know I am getting way ahead of everything here, but I like D'Antoni and now Lin enough to say that if Melo doesn't fit in, ship him out. Knicks have been losing big and he was not a good fit for that system long before linsanity started crushing twitter. Melo forces a different system on you. The other issue for Lin is going to be when Baron Davis comes back. At this point, the starting job should be Lin's to lose and I think it will be. It is amazing that we are talking about Baron Davis backing up Jeremy Lin. That's how far this guy has come in exactly a week. Enjoy the ride Mr. Lin.

We live in a twitter and smartphone age of instant gratification and constant attention and Lin is the biggest story going right now. Speaking of the smartphone age, the biggest stories coming out of the Super Bowl last weekend were all stupid reflections of where our culture is headed right now. The first one was about Gisele sticking up for her husband Tom Brady and thrashing his receivers. The wife or the girlfriend bad-mouthing teammates is the worst look for an athlete and at first, I was shocked the image conscious Brady let that happen. Then I looked at the video and she was not even talking to a camera. She was just chatting with a bunch of friends, but in this day and age, you have to assume somebody is shooting and recording you and that's exactly what happened to her. It was a probably embarrassing that it got out and she should be careful in the future, but the way the media handled it, it sounded like she criticized Wes Welker in an interview with Bob Costas on national TV. Brandon Jacobs and the Giants responded and I am not sure if they even knew the context or were just misled by the media's coverage of it. Then comes the Gronk dance without the shirt. That is a bad look for any guy on a normal Friday night in July, but once again, it got out on youtube and everybody made a big deal out of it. But it was a party thrown by the owner of the Patriots and he was dancing with his teammates. Bad, but not the worst thing like the media made it out to be. If the players can't party after a Super Bowl loss, why are the owners hosting one? Where's the accountability there?

Giants 2 - Patriots 0

New York Giants have won their second ring and sent the Patriots back home with another tough Super Bowl loss. The game went exactly as I expected it to, but it featured less scoring drives than I expected. I expected to see a little more scoring back and forth, but the Super Bowl jitters and preparedness on the part of both defenses kept the score in check. Plus the lackadaisical play of the Giants at times didn't help either. Giants don't seem to play with focus and a sense of urgency until things get really desperate. That's their only weakness. It's also a bad reflection on Eli as he seems to share that trait as well. He is not as obsessive and consistent at his craft like a Brady or his big brother Peyton. He does come through in the clutch and so does his team, but they don't play consistently good justifying their talent level. That's true during a game - even the Super Bowl, and that's also true during the course of a season as they go on 4-game losing streaks and 6-game winning streaks because of the same inconsistencies in their focus and performance.

I thought the Giants were really the more complete team. But their inconsistency and Hoody and Brady's drive to extract revenge were the top 2 reasons why the Patriots had a shot - a real shot. But even Hoody and Brady couldn't overcome the talent differential. Some people say that it's a huge credit to the Hoody that this Pats team even made it this far with a horrible defense. Of course the offense is always in good hands with Tom Brady, but that defense had no business being in the Super Bowl. At the end, they came close, but a Wes Welker drop here and an Aaron Hernandez drop there made sure they don't win. Poor Wes Welker is getting a lot of flak for the drop, but it wasn't a great pass by Gisele's husband either. We are used to seeing Welker catch difficult passes like the one he dropped, but it was thrown behind him. Brady also threw an interception earlier and had a mediocre fourth quarter after a brilliant first 3.

Eli on the other hand was his usual self. Good for 3 quarters and great in the fourth. His pass to Mario Manningham was another special Super Bowl play that we may never forget. It was a key play, but it was nowhere near David Tyree's catch in the previous super bowl either in terms of the impact or the difficulty. It was a perfect throw and a great catch that beat good coverage. Eli and Tom Coughlin both are legends now in the biggest city in the world and are ready for the Hall of Fame. I am happy for Coughlin because he is an old-school disciplinarian and it's good to see old school values still succeed. I also like him as a coach. Only issue I have with him is, he has to share some blame for the team's attitude and lack of focus at times. But overall, he is a great coach and of course the New York media will be firing him by week 8 in 2012. Speaking of 2012, can't wait for the off-season to see where Peyton Manning ends up. If that guy can play even at 80% of what we have seen of him in the past, he should be shaking up the power structure of the entire league. I am not a big fan of this sort of drama, but I am willing to endure the ESPN circus for Peyton. He is worth it. He deserves it. Even though his little bro has more rings than him.

This will be a "Giant" Super Bowl.

Giants 31 Patriots 27. That's what I am calling in this weekend's Super Bowl. It should be a good one, a fun one and also a close one. But should also be an easy one for the Giants to score the requisite points at the end to take care of the Patriots. The Patriots, Brady and Belichick are never easy to deal with as adversaries, but I do not respect their defense this year. Giants are a more complete team and that defensive front can slow down Tom Brady on at least 2 or 3 drives this Sunday. But I can't say the same about the Patriots defense. Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin are no joke. Manning and those receivers should be able to move the ball and score enough to win. Gronk's ankle is not helping the Patriots either. He is one guy on the Patriots nobody seems to have an answer for. But a hobbled Gronk only helps the Giants defense, which doesn't need a whole lot of help in the first place. All this should add up to a second Super Bowl for Manning and the Giants. Considering that the Giants beat the Pats the last time they were in this dance, I am sure Brady is itching to beat them and extract some revenge.

This is a major Super Bowl as it will help establish some legacies either way. If the Patriots win, that puts Tom Brady in the QB stratosphere along with Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw with 4 rings each. He is already guaranteed a tie with Elway for the most SB appearances. This will also let hoody join Chuck Noll as a 4 time champion. Both Brady and the hoody are first-ballot hall of famers anyways, but a win this Sunday will put them in a special balcony in that hall of fame. It's also a big game for Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin. They are both borderline hall of famers right now - more Coughlin than Manning, but Eli will be there soon. But a second Super Bowl fast-tracks both of them. If he wins Sunday, they can start fitting that hideous yellow jacket for Eli instead of waiting to see if he is worthy of it in a few years. Coughlin never seems to get enough credit and this ring will change that forever. He already has 2 Super Bowl rings - one as an assistant, and his most impressive achievement might be taking the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars to 2 AFC championship games. This Super Bowl is big for both sides.

May be that's why this week has been all about Peyton Manning! Some of it is just coincidence since his little brother and his biggest rival are putting on a show in the house he built in Indianapolis. But he has already given one interview - may be that was just a promotional gig for Gatorade, but the news that he has been "medically cleared" also came out this week. That could have definitely waited till after the Super Bowl. He says this week is not about him, but the more he says it, the more it is becoming about him. Makes you wonder if he is jealous of his little brother and his biggest rival. It is a little surreal to think Eli might have more Super Bowls than Peyton in a couple of days. Peyton is still going to be better QB than Eli. That argument won't start until Eli wins his third SB. But for now, it looks like Peyton will be back at least trying to play in the NFL next year. He will have to do it somewhere else and not in Indy. It seems very unlikely Peyton will get to play and win another Super Bowl at a new place. Hope Jim Irsay put an end to this drama in Indy soon. The low-point of this saga was when Irsay said recently that he and Manning are, on a competitive scale of 1-to-10, "both 11s." Yes, you and one of the best QBs ever are of course on the same level of competitiveness. Lets list that under "things you get to say if you have 100's of millions of dollars in the bank."

No Super Bowl for the Niners and the Ravens

The Giants and the Patriots are getting ready to re-enact Super Bowl 42 in a couple of weeks. The combination of a missed field goal by the Ravens and a made field goal by the Giants on Sunday prevented a Har-bowl. Tough day for the Harbaughs, but I ain't shedding a tear for that family. They have it pretty good with both brothers making millions as prestigious head coaches in the NFL. Considering there are only 32 of those jobs in the entire world, the Harbaughs hold 6.25% of all NFL head coaching jobs under the sun. So they will be fine. But life is all perspective and I am sure that entire family is feeling horrible this week given the way both teams lost. Jim Harbaugh made his family's catch-phrase the 49'ers war cry - "who's got better than us?". Well, the real answer is - Tom Brady. The guy got another Super Bowl trip gifted to him by the Ravens. He sure is talented and a great QB and is rarely outplayed by other QBs, but Joe Flacco actually outplayed him and looked good against that horrible Patriots defense. Brady was going against the better defense, but he didn't even have a passing TD in this game - something that's unheard of this season.

Flacco's throw to Lee Evans that would have won the game at the end of the game was just perfect. In fact, it was a little too perfect as it fell on Evans lap and surprised him just enough to let a defender knock it out of his hands. One could still argue that Evans controlled the ball and then fumbled it. And that should have made it a TD because the ball broke the plane. But the zebras thought otherwise. As if that's not enough of a good fortune for Brady, hoody and the Patriots, the Ravens then miss a game tying field goal that would have at least sent the game to OT. Poor kicker Billy Cundiff missed a short, 32 yard field goal and lost the game for his team. I liked how his teammates, especially Ray Lewis stuck up for him and said all the right things. I am beginning to like Ray Lewis more and more as he ages and moves away from the murder scandal back in the day. But I do feel for that team because Ray Lewis and Ed Reed are getting up there in age. They had a great shot at another Super Bowl appearance but Cundiff kicked it away. There is no guarantee they get there back again - not in that division with the Steelers. There is also some talk about how the scoreboard in the Patriots stadium threw Cundiff off with the wrong down and distance information. You can't help but wonder if this is another "hoody-gate" in the making. But the Ravens season is over anyways.

In San Francisco, the game did go to overtime unlike the AFC championship game, but Kyle Williams fumbled a punt and stopped the hearts of the home crowd. It was a shocking moment, but you immediately felt for Kyle because he joined Ravens' Cundiff as the other goat on that day. This was even worse than Cundiff only because he kneed a punt earlier in that game committing a costly turnover. Nothing justifies the stupid fans sending him death threats after the game, but it was a tough day for Williams even otherwise to have turned the ball over twice. Niners pride themselves on their turnover differential, but they were 0-2 in this one with both credited to Kyle. Of course, his teammates came out and stood by him. It is indeed a cliche to say "it's not one man's fault, we win as a team and we lose as a team". Obviously a costly mistake at the end of a game like that has a much greater impact and is harder to recover from, but Kyle's last fumble was truly not the 49'ers main problem. I wouldn't blame him at all for that defeat. They had several opportunities to put that game away and the 49'ers offense couldn't get it done. All they needed was a field goal and Williams would have been in the locker room celebrating instead of fielding that ill-fated punt if only the offense had done it's job.

The way that game ended proved one more time how much of a team game football is and even a mistake of that magnitude exposed more of a team's problem in it's entirety than anything else. In fact, I would say Kyle's first turnover where he kicked a ball that he didn't even catch was more stupid and even more damaging in the big scheme of things. He had no reason to hang around that ball and it was a big momentum changer in the game. The NY Giants hang on and move on to the big game behind some strong performance by their wide receivers. The niners WRs caught one pass for 3 yards the entire overtime game and that was the difference. Credit goes to Eli Manning, Victor Cruz and Hakeen Nicks and the blame goes to Alex Smith and Michael Crabtree. The best quote about this game was by Bill Romanowski when he said "Michael Crabtree was an ornament in this game. He might as well have hung out on a Christmas tree." Both defenses were awesome, but the Giants passing offense with Eli Manning is in elite hands - pun intended. It was a disappointing end to a great season for Jim Harbaugh, but they should be proud of what they accomplished this season. Now it's time for them to go get a receiver to help Alex Smith. The challenge for the niners and their fans is that in today's NFL, there are no guarantees that this team - or any other team for that matter, makes it to the Super Bowl or even to the playoffs next year.

The NFL power structure changes every year due to 4 main reasons. First, the player churn is too high in the NFL, thanks to the hard salary cap and non-guaranteed player contracts. Secondly, NFL is a brutal sport with a very high risk of injuries and that's always a factor with many teams every year. Thirdly, NFL schedule is short and a bad stretch here or there can doom a team's playoff dream unlike what happens in the NBA or the MLB where the more talented teams bubble up to the playoffs eventually. Last but not the least, NFL teams play an unbalanced schedule and people don't realize that it's almost like teams play in a different league every year. First place schedule is vastly different from a 4-Th place schedule and niners will have a tougher road next year. So nobody knows where the niners end up next season, but this is a great start and they do have a great coach, which is a great thing to have. The closest thing to a guarantee of consistent success in the NFL is a great quarterback. Even Brady and Manning don't go to the Super Bowl every year, but good QBs like that at least get you enough wins to make the playoffs consistently. The niners don't have that in Alex Smith, but they better stick with him, give him a receiver and see where this thing goes. In Harbaugh they should trust.

More on the Super Bowl soon.

Can I get a Har-bowl!

What I want for the Super Bowl is a Har-bowl, but I think we will end up with a Brady-bowl. I expect the Niners and the Patriots to hold on at home in interesting championship games in the NFC and the AFC respectively. That would lead us to a Brady-bowl where ESPN will feed us a whole lot of Tom Brady for 2 weeks. They don't know this guy named Alex Smith playing out west for the Niners and to be fair to them, Brady is a much bigger star anyways. But not sure if I can handle 24 X 7 Brady love-fest for 2 weeks. Of course what I would like to see instead is a Har-bowl though some people have raised valid concerns about how that would be as bad as the BCS championship game - a repeat game between 2 offensively challenged teams with good defenses. It's not unlikely that we will get this super bowl considering defense wins championships and the Niners and the Ravens have the best defenses in this final 4. I have always liked the Harbaugh brothers and I can totally handle them for 2 weeks leading up to the super bowl. Now that both what I want to happen and what I think will happen are obvious, the NY Giants are the odd team out and ironically, they may be the most complete team left in the dance.

NY Giants definitely have a shot in San Francisco, but I have to go with the home team with the better defense here. And their offense didn't look too shabby either last weekend as Alex Smith sliced and diced the Saints twice in the last 4 minutes. The Giants offense and Eli at QB are better than what the Niners have and their defense is decent too, but everything New York is a little overblown by the predominantly East coast media. I like their front 4 on defense, but the Niners are no slouches either in that department. The NY bandwagon is especially full now since they beat the champions in Green Bay. But the Niners are tougher in every sense of the word. The Niners defense hit people like this is your grand father's NFL, and they know how to deliver those old-school blows without the new-school flags. They routinely knock out running backs and I would be concerned if I was Ahmad Bradshaw. The weather is going to be soggy and I never liked the theory that rain affects the offense. It's hard to play defense too in the rain as defenders have to react and move depending on where the receiver goes. But at the line of scrimmage, the defenders are pushing forward and the offensive line has to back-pedal. So the weather affects both sides and it depends on the position you play. The only added challenge for the offense is holding on to the slick ball in the rain and avoiding turnovers. All things considered, I think the road team is going to be uncomfortable here and the Niners should sneak through.

In the AFC, Joe Flacco is under a lot of stress because of his performance last weekend against a strong Texans defense. He should do a lot better against a weak defense in New England, but the question is, can he match Brady and the New England offense who just look unstoppable? Ravens don't seem to have any answer for Rob Gronkowski - actually no team does, and Gronk is just one of many options at Brady's figer-tips. Add to that the extra motivation the Pats have against the Ravens since they got embarrassed at home by the Ravens in the 2009 playoffs behind Ray Rice's 83-yard touchdown run on the first play from scrimmage. Ray Rice might have to pull something that spectacular again to hang with this Pats team. I would give Ravens a better chance if their defense was more consistent and fearsome. They have a good D, but some of it is just good reputation even while their on-field performance has been inconsistent. Never count the team with the better defense out, but all things point to a repeat Super Bowl appearance for the hoody. A NY Giants V NE Patriots Super Bowl will be awesome considering what happened a few years back, but give me Niners this year. And good luck to Ravens who have the unenviable task of preventing the hoody from going to his 18000-Th Super Bowl.

49'ers are the story of this round

The Divisional round of the NFL playoffs are in the books. Many things happened this weekend - some expected, some unexpected, some I like, some I don't. But the best game of the weekend and the most impressive win was San Francisco 49'ers beating the New Orleans Saints in thrilling fashion. The Niners faithful is used to seeing these fantastic finishes orchestrated by Joe Montana and Steve Young. But it was Alex Smith at the wheels this weekend and he drove them right past Drew Brees - the real mayor of New Orleans, to the finish line. There were 4 TDs in the last 4 minutes as both teams exchanged punches, but Alex Smith dealt the final blow as he drilled a pass to Vernon Davis with very little time left for Brees to mount another attack. It was a perfect throw in traffic, very reminiscent of Steve Young's game winner to Terrell Owens back in the day. And just like TO, Davis did great to hold onto the ball in traffic and teared up on the sidelines.

Large, strong, rich, grown men crying like a baby while making a winning play - tells you all you need to know about the drive, passion and effort that these guys put into this game. We may think they are spoiled millionaires and they may even come off as thugs who are "too cool for school" sometimes. But make no mistake about the fact that they didn't become a professional athlete in the NFL without an incredible passion and burning desire to be the best at what they do. Most of them have a winning, genetic lottery ticket in their hands, but it aint as easy as we sometimes think it is to cash that ticket. While years of frustration and disappointment welled up Davis's eyes, it was actually a much greater moment for Alex Smith who has been discarded as a bust by the Niner fan base for a few years now. Jim Harbaugh trusted this guy, invested in him and Alex Smith has more than done his job this year. He is a good guy by all accounts and I am happy for him to have come through twice in the clutch like that. Harbaugh deserves a lot of credit for going for a TD in that final drive when a field goal would have sent the game to OT. That's intelligent aggression from a conservative coach and this is why Harbaugh rocks.

The other big news of the weekend was the elimination of the Green Bay Packers at home. Some people expected it because of how good the Giants have been lately. Others expected it just because somebody has to lose at home and the Niners won the first game of the weekend and it didn't look like the Patriots or the Ravens were going to lose at home. The home teams were 7-0 before the Packers defense decided to play flag football for 3 hours. Their offense was surprisingly not on-point either and that combined with a couple of untimely turnovers killed them. It should be disappointing to be 15-1 in the regular season and not even make it to the NFC championship game. But this goes to show how difficult it is to repeat in the NFL. That defense did not deserve to win though. My first reaction after the season opener between the Saints and the Packers was that neither team looked Super Bowl bound with that defense. This weekend, both of them helped me pat myself on the back for that prediction.

The Packers game also showed why we always say "defense wins championship". It does because offense can have a bad day and you need to stop somebody to win. More importantly, offense controls the ball and some weird things and bad turnovers can happen at random times in games and you need the defense to stop the other team and get the ball back. This is exactly what Packers couldn't do today as Ryan Grant fumbled with about 7 minutes to go and with the Packers trailing by 10. The game was over right there for all practical purposes, but it definitely was over for the Packers with that defense. The Giants now proceed to the NFC title game. There is something about this team, the coach and the QB that results in a lot of wins. None of them get a whole lot of credit, but they win a lot. People can keep doubting Eli Manning all they want, but you can't spell elite without Eli. If he keeps this up, he might have more rings than his big brother. Coach Coughlin is not too shabby either.

In the AFC, both games fell short of expectations. Tebowmania came to a screeching halt at New England as expected. Tom Brady kept finding his favorite tight-ends to the tune of 363 yards and 6 TDs. Proof number 19052 that the NFL is a different sport right now. QBs are throwing for 6 TDs in 3 quarters in playoff games. Of course no such luck for Tebow as his limitations were exposed and his ride stalled. He is still not ready and I am not sure what Elway and Fox are going to do with this runaway train that's not really going anywhere. Ravens now have to try and stop Brady and I don't think that's going to happen either. Joe Flacco just like his draft mate Matt Ryan has many questions hanging over his head and he didn't answer many of them today at home. I doubt if he does on the road. They beat Houston, but didn't look good doing it. I think their defense is overrated too and are now living on reputation more than consistent performance. But the games next week will be a true test for the Ravens. Actually it will be for all the teams involved. When you are playing for the right to go to the Super Bowl, you will be tested.

Time to Eat Crow

It's not often that I am wrong with 3 out of 4 picks. In fact, it's hard to do. Of course impossible things always seem to happen when we are dealing with Timothy Richard Tebow and he was one of the reasons I was wrong with 3 of my road picks this wild card weekend in the NFL. Tebow has been proving many experts and their theories and pontifications wrong. Today he added one more theory to the list - NFL playoff overtime rules have changed. Not today and not under his watch as Tebow ended the game and the Steelers season in overtime with not just one possession, but just one play. It was a 80 yard bomb down the middle - the middle left vacant by the Steelers secondary as they crowded the line of scrimmage expecting another 1-St down run. Tebow hit Demaryius Thomas in stride and he did the rest. With the new rules, each team gets a possession if the first score is a field goal. But it's still sudden death if that score is a TD or a safety. Tebow time today produced a TD in 11 seconds and made the new rules irrelevant.

The other team still deserves a possession in my opinion and this rule change is a step in the right direction, but only a small step. May be this game will force NFL to expand the new rules even further. But all that's neither here nor there. This game was all about Tim Tebow. He played a superb and complete game. This was not one of those games where he looked like a deer in the headlights for 3 quarters and pulled out some weird magic in the last 3 minutes to win the game. This was almost the opposite and Big Ben actually had to bring the Steelers back from behind to tie it in the 4-Th. Tebow was great from the beginning to the end. He did make some mistakes and missed some throws as always, but he also made some terrific plays - to the tune of 316 passing yards, 50 yards rushing and 3 TDs. Those are some superstar numbers. Coach John Fox deserves a lot of credit. Not only did he finally unleash Tebow and satisfy his boss, John Elway, but he has also been steadily figuring out ways to use him right throughout the season. Not easy considering that his previous QB was very different from Tebow.

In this game, Fox had Tebow throwing long balls almost exclusively. Brilliant strategy as Tebow may not be the best thrower or reader of defenses. So just don't have him throw those intricate, short passes down the crowded middle. Instead, go for the longer routes which are safer, especially since the Steelers like most other teams crowded the line of scrimmage to stop Tebow and the run and most outside receivers were just single covered. And credit Tebow for hitting almost all of those long balls beautifully. 316 yards on 10 completions proves my point. At one stage in the game, I was wondering if Tebow even attempted a pass less than 30 yards. Big Ben was brilliant as always, but was hobbled. In addition to all the injuries coming in, they lost a couple of key players during the game and they couldn't overcome all of that. I could use that and the fact that they still almost won the game as an excuse for my bad pick, but I won't. Honestly, I would have still picked the Steelers even if those injured guys were all out coming into the game. I thought Ben and Troy would be way better than the Tebows and they were not. So I have to eat crow. Speaking of Troy, I am a big Polamalu fan, but he looks done. Was he even in this game?

I picked Atlanta and Cincinnati to win on the road as well. It turns out that all road teams lost and the wild card weekend eliminated all wild card teams too. So both the home court advantage and the playoffs seeding are alive and well up to this point. Atlanta was an abomination today. That team will be going to Green Bay next weekend if only they knew how to rush for a measly yard when they really need it. In a season where the coach got in trouble for going for it on 4-Th and short against the Saints and stalling, he did that twice in this playoff game and the Falcons stalled both times. They can't do 3-Rd or 4-Th and 1 and it's mind boggling given all the talent on the roster. Giants abused them on both sides of the ball and left Matt Ryan and Mike Smith with a lot of questions. Now the Giants get to go challenge the defending champions in Green Bay. It will be a fun game, but that's a tall order for anybody. In the AFC, Cincinnati went into Houston and their immaturity and inexperience got exposed on the road. The Houston rookies outplayed Cincy's rookies and won behind another solid outing by Arian Foster - 153 yards, 2 TDs. How do guys like Arian Foster and Isaac Redman go undrafted?

The 49'ers will be hosting the Saints next weekend in probably the most intriguing of the match-ups. It's all offense versus all defense. Saints and Drew Brees are putting up ridiculous numbers week in and week out. 400 yards is becoming the norm for this guy even in blowout victories. That used to happen once in a while in the old NFL only when good QBs were chasing a big deficit. Now, any decent QB can drop a 400 on you and of course Brees is great. Drew Brees is becoming a legend and civic treasure much like Marino, Elway, Montana and Manning. He might even be ahead of Brady on that front. He is the man behind that offensive machine and that city. But despite all the gaudy numbers, this offense doesn't look to me as special as the "greatest show on turf" Rams or the Vikes with Moss and Carter or even the Patriots when Brady threw for 50 TDs. I feel like the Saints offense is as much a product of today's rules as they are a product of an innovative offense or phenomenal talent. Also the fact that there are 3 or 4 other offenses this year that are not far behind the Saints takes some bloom off of that rose. I look at it as proof number 12551 that the offensive game has changed and gotten a lot easier that this Saints team could put up those kind of numbers. Proof number 12552 would be that Tim Tebow threw for 316 yards in his first playoff game. But let's not suggest anything even remotely critical of Tim Tebow right now.

One last bowl

This is the week of the BCS before we transition to the NFL wild card weekend. When the bowl schedule came out, it' didn't look too appetizing this year. Part of the problem was that the BCS championship game is a rematch that really didn't get a whole lot of us excited. There were a couple of good match-ups, but it looked like slim pickings. But the BCS bowls since the New Years day have been pretty good. Wisconsin-Oregon stayed true to form and Oregon won in a thrilling Rose Bowl. Then the best game of the BCS season was as expected the Fiesta Bowl featuring Stanford and Oklahoma state. Andrew Luck had an amazing game, but lost anyways. I like David Shaw - Stanford's coach, but he went far to the right - too conservative on this one. Shaw let a red-shirt freshman decide the game with a 35 yard field goal and sure enough, he kicked it away right in to Oki state's hands.

Given that these are not professional kickers making millions for these field goals, this is equivalent to a 45 yarder by NFL standard. You then add 5 more yards for the high-pressure situation - it should actually be higher for the college kids, but I will keep it at the standard 5 yards for both the NFL and college. I would say this was a 50 yarder for the kid by NFL standards. You should not be depending on 50 yard field goals to win games, not when you have Luck driving your car and navigating it beautifully. Shaw went ultra-conservative at the wrong time and let a lot of plays and timeouts go to waste. One of my pet peeves in football is coaches stalling way too early on their final drive and asking their kickers to boot long, hard field goals. Never made sense to me. And Shaw paid the price. The game went to OT and state won it there with a field goal of their own after the Stanford kid missed another one. Luck should be disappointed, but I think his NFL career is still in good hands.

The Sugar Bowl was also an overtime affair as Va Tech figured out a way to lose after out-gaining Michigan all game. A win in the Sugar Bowl is a great start for the Brady Hoke era for the big blue, but they better get ready for some serious challenges down the road as Urb is coming to Columbus. Hoke is happy to have Denard Robinson on his side though. The Orange Bowl was a rather weird affair where West Virginia scored 70 on the Clemson tigers. Clemson showed us how to score 33 points, win the first quarter, tie the 4-Th, and still lose by 37. If only they figured out how to defend that stupid toss play that West Virginia ran a million times. All this leads us to the title game Monday. It's a rerun and I expect the result to be the same as well. LSU is really the better team though Alabama's Nick Saban is the better coach. Lets just hope it's better than a 9-6 snoozer. By the way, I also expect the Pittsburgh Steelers, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals to have won their way to the next round of the NFL playoffs by the time this championship game rolls around.

The Season is Over for Some

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

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

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

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