NOff Season

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

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

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

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

NBA's stretch run

I have not blogged a whole lot about the NBA this season. When your favorite team - Phoenix Suns in this case, is playing a robust .344 ball, it's only natural to lose a little bit of interest in the league. But the interest in the NBA peaks only around this time anyways. Actually, it really peaks about a month from now when March madness is over and the playoffs are just around the corner, but people do start following it a lot more after the Super Bowl. The storyline for the rest of the season is whether or not the Lakers make the playoffs. Thats both good and bad. The good news is, the Lakers are struggling to make the 8-Th spot. The bad news is, once again the sports-world is almost exclusively obsessed about a big market team and it's prospects. Of course there are enough stars in LA to hold everybody's interest. Kobe is a "big market" all by himself! The worse news is, the Lakers probably will sneak into the playoffs. But I don't think they are going anywhere even if they do get in.

The Lakers are 4 games behind the Golden State Warriors for the 6-Th spot, but they are only 1.5 games behind the 8-Th spot. How cool is it that the Lakers are the 3-Rd best team in the state of California? I am pretty sure it will stay that way. The Warriors have had some issues lately with losses piling up due to a tough schedule and road games, but the schedule is easing up now and they should stay above the Lakers, who are playing better these days. Both Houston at 7 and Utah at 8 are good teams but the schedule is going to determine if and when the Lakers overtake them. The lower half of the West is fascinating with some new blood in there. It will be fun to watch the Warriors and the Rockets compete in the playoffs. As it stands today, Warriors play the Clippers, who they have owned in the regular season and Rockets will play the Thunder pitting James Harden - the pride of Arizona State, against his old team. I sure can live without Nowitzki and Kobe in these playoffs, but not sure if commissioner David Stern wants to.

In the East, the Heat and LeBron look unstoppable. They have won 16 straight and LeBron hit the game winner to clinch the game yesterday. That would have been big news last year when LeBron was relentlessly criticized for being genetically incapable of being clutch. It's amazing how 12 months and a championship can completely change perception and reorient the conversation. Now, those discussions sound absurd. Credit LeBron for putting in the work and perfecting his game. LeBron is single-handedly removing any and all drama from the Eastern conference playoffs, though I still have some hopes for the Pacers who have beaten them twice in the regular season. But the playoffs are different and the Heat's only challenge might  have to come from the West. Unfortunately, it won't come from my Phoenix Suns. The only thing I am looking forward to with the Suns is, I want them to disprove ESPN's Bill Simmons' assertion that the Suns will have the worst record in the league. Thanks to the Charlotte Bobcats, Simmons is going to be wrong, but not by much. Simmons by the way was ranked as the most powerful sports media personality by Sports Illustrated. I was pleasantly surprised. It's a good list with a lot of great names - Barkley at 2, Bob Costas at 3, Jon Gruden at 5, and Adrian Wojnarowski at 6. Congrats Bill Simmons.

King's League

LeBron James is good. I know I am not breaking any news with that. But what has always been interesting to me is, how well his career has stuck to the script and followed the plan when it comes to greatness. That's not easy considering how improbable the plan looked and how complicated the script read given the unprecedented hype and expectations he carried into the NBA. There has never been an athlete who has met such levels of hype. And that's despite the fact that no athlete has ever had to deal with as much hype as LeBron and they still always fall way short of expectation. You could make an argument that LeBron has even surpassed the ridiculous hype since being called "the chosen one" when he was just 17-years old. He made it harder on himself with the whole drama off the court around his free agency and made some enemies across the nation, but his game on the court never deviated from the golden script a whole lot. Most people's anger and hatred seemed to have dissipated with the championship last year as Americans love a winner more than anything.  There is still some lll-will around him for having "taken his talents to South Beach" - including your truly not totally pardoning him yet, but at this all-star break, LeBron's star is at the highest it has ever been.

LeBron's game has constantly and consistently improved over the years, though not at the pace some people expected at times. But some of that might be media and other's fault and not LeBron's. There were some legitimate concerns about his killer instincts and toughness that he finally answered during last year's playoffs. There were a couple of games against the Pacers and the Celtics where he dominated the game and just wouldn't let his team lose. The Heat were slowly and surely becoming his team throughout last season, but that playoff run put the finishing touches on the change of ownership from Wade to LeBron. It was not Wade's house anymore and he was merely renting a room from LeBron, a room that might have even been smaller than Bosh's sub-let. LeBron didn't look like he needed Wade a whole lot as he showed he could do everything Wade did including hitting clutch game winners, only better. The championship victory erased many concerns. The toughness gene might still be missing, but the perception has changed forever. Perception is often reality in life, especially when it comes to abstract intangibles in sports like "being clutch" or "having heart." With the MVP trophy and the ring last year, LeBron was the "king' for real finally.

This season, LeBron is taking the next step, the very existence of which was not a guarantee considering how great he was already. Where do you go from that impressive 2012? LeBron is going right to the GOAT discussion - Greatest Of All Time. He is bringing everything in his arsenal together and with the addition of more low-post polish and championship experience, he is putting up numbers that challenges all conventional wisdom around basketball efficiency. I don't know if 40's are the new 30's, but shooting 60% may become the new 50% as LeBron is making 60% look normal and simple. He is currently averaging above 56% shooting for the season, which is unheard of for a wing player. Even MJ has not shot that high for a season, though we are not sure if LeBron can hold on to that through the end of this season. But he just came off a ridiculous stretch where he averaged over 30 points and 60% shooting for 6 straight games.  Thats efficiency and domination at historic levels not even taking in to account all the other things he does on the court - namely the rebounds, assists, and the defense. This obviously has kicked off a "is LeBron is the greatest ever?" debate. And the question reached the GOAT himself.  Michael Jordan is celebrating his 50-Th birthday today to coincide with NBA's all-star game. So he has been on TV quite a bit and had to deal with a variant of this question.

While it's still not polite or smart to compare LeBron to Jordan himself, we are not too far away from that discussion. I don't think LeBron will be able to accumulate 6 championships like MJ, but if he gets to 3, we have to entertain the comparison because of every other number LeBron is going to put up. This guy is going to accumulate some numbers that will be hard to argue against. But the comparison between LeBron and Kobe was a topic Jordan had to weigh in on this week. He said it was a tough one, but he will go with 5 over 1, meaning Kobe's 5 rings makes him better than LeBron's one. I think thats people taking the easy way out though I do see the logic of using championships as a tie-breaker if the comparison is tight. We may do that for LeBron V Jordan 4 years from now. But that argument is a cop-out here with Kobe for a couple of reasons. LeBron to me is way better than Kobe and thats not to take anything away from Kobe, who is great in his own right and is probably a top-10 player in the history of the game. But Kobe has never even sniffed the levels of efficiency that LeBron is playing at right now. And, Kobe's 5 rings are way different from Jordan's 6 in that it includes Shaq's 3. So, LeBron in my mind is a ring away from putting Kobe firmly in his rear-view mirror and probably 2 rings away from challenging his airness himself for the best ever because he is going to have all the other numbers on his side. He is true basketball royalty and 2013 will be remembered as the year when he entered the GOAT discussion. That in and of itself is an impressive achievement and a good reason to watch the rest of this NBA season.

A dark, ravenous Super Bowl

ESPN is featuring Michael Jordan highlights in it's sportscenters to commemorate his 50-Th birthday.  That's when you know the Super Bowl is over and we are in one of those sports dead-zones on the calendar. ESPN always goes to MJ for help during these challenging times. It was a great Super Bowl to wrap up the football season. Some things in the Super Bowl worked out as expected - the game was close and Beyonce was hot. There were a few surprises - a long power outage and the niners lost. I wanted and expected the niners to win. The interesting thing was, the niners were down but never out. Joe Flacco was on point in the first half and threw for 3 TDs. The vaunted niners defense looked toothless and fell behind 21-6 when Beyonce started dancing at halftime. The niners had made a habit of coming back from large deficits with Kaepernick at the helm and with the Ravens defense being good but not great, everybody assumed it was only a matter of time before the niners made a comeback in the second half. But Jacoby Jones retuned the second half kickoff back for a TD to put the Ravens up 28-6. The niner faithful was worried, but still hopeful. That's when the power went out.

It was ironic that the niners, who suffered through an embarrassing blackout one Monday night last season on national TV against the Steelers at their home at candlestick, were now experiencing a blackout in the middle of the Super Bowl. NFL was caught unawares at the biggest event in all of sports. The delay was more than 30 minutes and something happened to both the teams during that break. The niners started coming back furiously when the game resumed and by the time the 4-Th quarter rolled around, we all had a tight game on our hands. Kap was playing a perfect second half and the Ravens looked lost and confused. If the niners had won the game, the NFL would have been in trouble because the power outage would have been the focus as far as why the ravens lost. Luckily for the NFL, the niners came back but not all the way back. They had a shot at the end to win and it would have been an all-time classic if they had sealed the deal. It was still a great super bowl, but the comeback story fell short. The niners had multiple shots at the goal line at the end, but a ravens blitz on 4-Th down stopped Kap from throwing the go ahead TD. Harbaugh wanted a holding call, but Michael Crabtree didn't get it.

Lot of the niner fans are still upset at that non-call and some others are more bothered by the missed penalty on the kickoff return by Jacoby Jones. Whatever it was, it's nothing more than water under the bridge now and only Flacco and the Ravens are still smiling. There is some talk about Jim Harbaugh's lack of composure during the game. I wonder what the media would have said if he had won. Even the niner fans are now questioning his demeanor. In reality, that was and will continue to be a non-issue. Both Jim and the niners should be good for a few years. It's a young team with a younger QB who looks like a superstar in the making. The real concern is, their defense has been giving up tonnes of points every game since the last couple of games of the regular season. Their secondary is week and the league seems to have figured them out. This league is a copycat league and every team is now ripping them apart. It is now on Trent Baalke and Jim Harbaugh to make some adjustments with free agency and all their draft picks. Flacco had no issues against this defense and earned himself a well-deserved MVP trophy. I have always been a Flacco fan. He is sometimes elite, often unreliable, mostly understated, sporadically arrogant, and definitely clutch. The ravens have to pay him through the nose now that he is a super bowl champion and a free agent. At least they don't have to pay Ray Lewis anymore. The Ray Lewis era is officially over with him going out on top. We can only hope Ray stays retired and doesn't pull a MJ on us.

Who's got it better than the fans of the HarBowl? Nobody!

HarBowl is for real and almost here. I love everything about this Super Bowl, which is now less than 2 days away. Some people in the media were put off by the very thought of the harbowl from day 1, even before any of the expected overexposure started. Super Bowl stories tend to run it's course in a couple of days and bore us for 10 more days as the non-stop hype machine bombards us for 2 straight weeks. But I was happy to hear the harbowl stories of brotherly love on ESPN instead of it being Ray Lewis's retirement channel, 24 X 7. Both are strong story-lines, but brothers coaching against each other in a Super Bowl is beyond fascinating and may never happen again. Only thing better could be the Manning boys playing each other in the big game and time is running out on that ever happening, though we have 2 years of clock left on it. I also like it because these 2 guys are great coaches, and I don't usually throw around the word "great" without meaning it. Jim Harbaugh is flat out a witch and his head coaching record in both the college and the pros speak for themselves. 

John Harbaugh is even more fascinating. I have always been intrigued by his success given that he started of as a lowly special teams coach in the NFL. For him to go into that Ravens locker room with strong personalities like Ray Lewis and Ed Reed and earn their respect and build an identity for himself takes some serious leadership and people skills. It's not surprising anymore given that he has been successful and nothing builds credibility in sports quite like winning, but coaches like him rarely survive the first 2 or 3 years. I knew he was a stud when he established himself in that town beyond those first couple of years and of course, he will become a legend if he wins the Super Bowl on Sunday. I can't even imagine the mindset of his parents during this Super Bowl. I am glad they got a news conference too during the hype week. They deserve it and their mindset as they watch their 2 sons compete is as good a side-story to follow as anything else. As for the sons, John is a lot more level-headed and normal while Jim is a football psycho. That almost makes me want to pick the older and saner John to win, but Jim is a better coach. Plus he has the better roster. So advantage Jimmy boy.

Speaking of the rosters, the game itself is going to be very interesting and tight. I am expecting a high-scoring game and mistakes will decide it. Turnovers are a story in any football game, but it's going to be even more of a factor in this one as I expect it to be close and swing back and forth. Kaepernick seems to be everybody's favorite QB all of a sudden and Joe Flacco has been playing great in these playoffs too. The Ravens defense has improved over the course of this season, but I don't think they are still good enough to stop what Kaep and Harbaugh will throw at them. The niners do have a far superior defense, but at a neutral venue, against a good offense, I expect them to be good, but not great. Plus Flacco plays well ONLY in big games and all he needs to do is connect on a couple of long bombs to put the Ravens in a good spot. I expect him to do that and I expect Kap to keep up with him and the guy throwing a bad pick or 2 wil decide this game. Or may be a fumble. The running backs in the game are worthy of a lot of attention too, but Frank Gore and Ray Rice have not gotten much airtime due to the other stories in play. Late in the season, their backups LeMichael James and Brandon Pierce have become effective X-factors too. There is enough talent on the field on both sides of the ball to make this Super Bowl a classic. I expect a TD win for the niners. 31-24, San Francisco 49'ers.

In Harbaugh I trust. I meant Jim Harbaugh, but I would neither be surprised nor too disappointed if it ends up being John Harbaugh.

Suns are a hot mess.

The Phoenix Suns don't have any championships banners in their rafters, but they have always been a reputed, classy franchise. A lot of that credit goes to their long-time, now ex-owner Jerry Colangelo, who tried his best to field a winner most of the years. They have had some impressive, albeit futile, playoff runs including a 13-year playoff streak between 1989 and 2001. And who can forget the 7-seconds or less teams with Nash and Mike D'Antoni that kept us wildly entertained until a couple of years back. Of course, the committed fan base and the weather in Phoenix were also definitely instrumental in establishing the Suns as one of the top franchises because the free agents always wanted to play for the Suns.  But their current owner Robert Sarver is single-handedly making the Suns a laughing stock of the NBA. After decades of chasing the Lakers and their championships, Sarver has decided that the Suns are better off chasing the ghost of the other LA team, the Clippers. Now that the Clippers seem to be headed to sustained excellence with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, Sarver is working on making the Suns the new Clippers and is making tremendous progress. 

To be fair to the Clippers, I don't think even they have had a week quite like last week for the Suns. Sarver and the front office decided to part ways with coach Alvin Gentry - like it was his fault this roster is not competing with the LeBrons and Durants of the world. After removing the only thing (in their minds) between Michael Beasley and the MVP honors, namely Alvin Gentry's coaching, they decided to  achieve the impossible and make this Sun's season even worse that it already was. They hired Lindsey Hunter out of nowhere and made him the head coach passing on a couple of viable and practical options on their bench - fan favorite Dan Majerle and old timer Elston Turner. I was surprised Lindsey Hunter was even available to coach. I thought he was still a backup point guard at Cleveland or Toronto or somewhere. But all kidding aside, Hunter might become the next great coach in the NBA, but the way the Suns GM Lance Blanks handled this was horrible. It was so unexpected and offensive that both Majerle and Turner walked away from their jobs. The Turner situation got even worse as he wanted to come back later and now the team is paying him to stay away from the team the rest of the year. 

Forget drafting top talent and attracting great free agents, the Suns can't even hire interim head coaches without messing things up. As if this drama was not enough, there are also reports of Blanks and Jermaine O'Neal getting into a profanity laden argument in the locker room. To borrow from ex-Suns great Charles Barkley, "Cotton Fitzsimmons is rolling in his grave." The good news is, the Suns are just 4.5 games behind the Lakers. But the bad news is, both teams are horrible and the Suns have the worst record in the west. I don't even remember the last time I saw the Suns this far down the NBA standings.  They are 15-30 and Sarver didn't open the wallets even when Nash was winning him 55 games a year. What can we expect him to do in free agency with this team? Their rookie Kendall Marshall doesn't look anything like a high lottery pick and their new head coach doesn't have any coaching credentials, at least not yet.  This situation looks like it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. There are no quick fixes in sight. The Suns will be hosting Steve Nash and the Los Angeles Lakers tomorrow. Nash has not added much to the Lakers or their record, but the Suns definitely miss him badly. The most interesting part of the remainder of this Suns season might be seeing the Suns fans respond to Nash when he visits them. This is how far the once proud franchise has fallen.

Sarver, please sell the team and save the franchise. Take your millions and give back our team.

Where has all the parity gone?

Parity. This has been one of NFL's selling point for over a decade now. Parity means every team has a shot at a great season every year. Teams go from top to bottom and bottom to top in no time and there is no stability in the NFL power structure from year to year. But surprisingly, this years conference championship games will feature 3 of the 4 teams from last year's games. This is a rarity in the NFL. In the NFC, no team has been been able to get to the championship game in back to back years since the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005. But the San Francisco 49'ers are back and ready to roll, albeit with a different quarterback this year. In the AFC, both the Patriots and the Ravens are back. That has not happened in a long time. Where did the parity go this year? I am surprised, but I am not complaining because we have 2 great games waiting for us this weekend. A re-run of championship games only adds to the intrigue and the rivalry.

The Ravens almost beat the Patriots last year - if only Lee Evans had squeezed that TD pass. But "almost" is nowhere near the promised land. They want to go further this year, but the problem is, they are on the road again and the Ravens have been a little worse this season overall than last. They didn't earn a bye week like last year and had to win a close one at Denver to get here.  But they are motivated to extend Ray Lewis's career - who he is retiring after this season, and they always seem to play well against the Patriots. Flacco doesn't inspire a lot of confidence on Sundays, unless he is playing against the Patriots in the playoffs. The Ravens need him tomorrow more than ever because Brady will get his scores one way or the other against a shaky Ravens defense. The Patriots defense is not much better, but they do stop the run and that means Flacco and the receivers better show up and chuck the ball all over the yard. I expect a tight, high-scoring game. I think the Ravens will win this one. I don't want to see Brady and Belichick in the Super Bowl again, though I wouldn't be surprised if it happens.

Just like the Patriots, it's no surprise the niners are in the championship game, though they got there behind Colin Kaepernick after benching Alex Smith for no good reason except Kaep is better. The niners brought back the same team this year - especially on defense, and their only challenge was supposed to be a tougher schedule and possible injuries. They had to face a little bit of both and the schedule especially made sure they didn't end up at the top of the NFC standings again. So they have to now go to Atlanta unlike last year when they hosted the NY Giants. The Giants showed them that a road team can win and the niners hope to do the same this year. In fact, everybody seem to expect that and the niners are a 4 point favorite on the road. Nobody seems to respect the Falcons and after the near loss last weekend against the Seahawks, they expect the falcons to crash and burn against a slightly better opponent. As good as Russell Wilson was, Kaep is a better physical talent though not as poised and mature as Wilson - no young QB has ever been that poised. But Keep's stock is high right now and that combined with the niners defense gives them the edge.

I expect a close game here as well. As good as the niners defense is and even if they stop the run, which they probably will, Matt Ryan and those talented receivers will not go away without making some noise. Kaep has to stay on top of his game and not not get flustered or intimidated. It will be a test, but he has shown he is capable of passing such tests. The real problem for Atlanta is that they are too happy just to be here. They feel like a huge monkey was removed off of their shoulders with that playoff win last weekend. The niners are way more focussed and motivated to do bigger and better things. If Kaep plays a good game, the niners should win this one. I pick the niners to win and the underdog Ravens to show Vegas that the 7.5 point spread is uncalled for. A Har-bowl would be great for the media except for the Harbaughs themselves. Their parents would obviously be conflicted and confused, but I am sure Jim Harbaugh would hate all the attention. I don't know much about John Harbaugh. He looks a little more normal and less psycho than Jim, but it will be tough on him too. I say bring on the Har-Bowl. I want it and expect it. It's both my preference and prognostication.

Pissed off for greatness

Ray Lewis is still balling. His career is alive and kicking for at least one more week after the Ravens beat the Broncos and Peyton Manning today. He is not the same player he used to be even 5 years back, but I am happy that his 17-year career is continuing for now. Ray Lewis is an amazing story of redemption, especially from my perspective. We live in a culture that loves winners and we forgive any kind of sin as soon as the accused athlete wins the Super Bowl or the World Series or the NBA championship. Nothing makes us fans forget a murder or a rape faster than a championship ring and MVP honors. But I am personally pretty unforgiving when it comes to these athletes with a sketchy past. I sometimes think I need to be a little more willing to give people a second chance - everybody needs one at some point. For some reason, Ray Lewis is one athlete who has come full-circle in my book from the bad guy who was accused of murder to an interesting, talented, and almost an inspirational figure I have learned to like. And it has very little to do with the fact that he was a Super Bowl MVP the season after he got into legal trouble.

I am a Ray Lewis fan for many reasons. He has kept his nose clean since the incident. He invokes the name of God, which many guys do especially after running into legal issues. They either truly find God during their troubled times or their agent tells them to become more godly to fix their public image. But Ray sounds genuine when he talks about God or anything in general - not that his godliness is relevant or important to me. His genuine passion about life and football is endearing and he has been consistent with that passion for more than a decade now. His teammates seem to love him too and his talent on the field of course speaks for itself. Guys who are such high-level performers definitely work hard and have a level of drive and love for the game that is hard to dislike. On top of that, Ray gets high marks for his leadership skills from everybody around him. Last, but not the least, I have become a big fan of his inspirational speeches. The man can talk. Both his style of delivery and the content of his words make for some great sound bites. If you have not seen the video below of Ray talking to the Stanford basketball team before a game last season, I would strongly recommend it.

"Pissed off for Greatness" and "effort is between you and you" may end up being 2 of the classic quotes ever. Ray is nowhere near greatness at his age right now, but Joe Flacco might be considered great as of today. This guy is the most inconsistent quarterback in the league and today, he beat Peyton Manning - on the road, in cold weather, under hostile conditions, with impressive numbers, and long touchdown passes. Flacco might be a better quarterback in the playoffs than the regular season. That definitely seems to be the case with road games as he goes AWOL on the road during the regular season. But the guys just wins playoff games and every time we say he is not elite, he looks super elite. He has won playoff games in every year he has been in league and thats a pretty impressive stat for any young quarterback. He may be the only elite, inconsistent, playoff tested, and unreliable winner in the NFL.  He is going back to the conference championship game and so are the Harbaugh brothers. They are both in the championship round just like last year and the talk of Har-Bowl shall begin in right earnest.

Colin Kapernick was brilliant today in a game that presented a weird vibe for the Niner fans going in. They felt very diffident with some injury concerns and with an unproven, young QB at the helm. While Kaep had shown some promise, he had also shown his inexperience and made some "rookie" mistakes.  It was only to be expected that he would face his toughest challenge under the glare of the playoff lights against a MVP caliber QB in Aaron Rodgers. Sure enough, he came out and threw a pick-6 and I bet most Niner fans imagined the worst from Kaep and the niners the rest of the way. But he shrugged it off and was just unstoppable the rest of the way. He is just unbelievably FAST! One expert called him "Cam Newton with a brain" a few months back and he looked every bit like that today. The Packers had no answer to his legs as he out-rushed Michael Vick and every other quarterback in the history of the game with 181 rushing yards. He showed why Harbaugh and some fans are excited about him. While his inexperience is what made Harbaugh's mid-season QB switch scary and confusing, his innate talent and abilities were never in question and it was all showcased in full tonight. His legs were awesome, but he also made some throws that Alex Smith can never make. In fact, very few QBs in the league can make those bullet passes with accuracy. Good day for him and the Niners and a bad day for the Packers. Their defense was bad and their offense and special teams had one crucial turnover each that donated points to the Niners in the first half. Now we get to see Kaep in the NFC championship game next week. Good for the kid. He better be "pissed off for greatness" next week.

Not so wild weekend.

There is playoff football and then there is good playoff football. Unfortunately we didn't get the later in the NFL this weekend. The best weekends in the playoffs are the wild card and divisional rounds because we get 4 games spread over both Saturday and Sunday with no scheduling conflicts on TV. Of those 2 weekends, I usually prefer the wild card weekend even more than the divisional round. The divisional round usually features better teams, bigger names and more hyped up match-ups, but sometimes those teams are so good and well rested, they end up blowing out the visitors at home. The wild card games tend to be closer and exciting. Not the case this year, though the final scores do look decent in all 4 games. Cincinnati almost beat Houston, but they never seemed like they were in the game. Not with the red-head Andy Dalton throwing for a paltry 127 yards to go with an interception and with Arian Foster running all over them for 140 yards and one "namaste". It was also a repeat of the playoff match-up from last year and this one was even less exciting. I am happy Schaub finally got his first playoff action and earned a victory. Of course the Patriots will put the Texans out of their misery next weekend.

I was personally looking forward to the Saturday night contest between the Packers and the Vikings. While I did expect the Packers to win at home, I expected some fireworks from Adrian Peterson. But just before the game, Christian Ponder was surprisingly declared inactive. Ponder is no Joe Montana, but he a'int no Joe Webb either. Despite some people predicting that such a last minute start for Joe Webb might even be a plus for the Vikings given his running abilities, we were left to ponder if we would have gotten a better game with Ponder behind center. All-Day and Joe Webb started well, but the Packers wrested control soon and poor Joe was clearly over-matched. He tried to donate the ball to the Packers a couple of times early, but the Packers didn't take it. Of course they didn't need it as they won it rather easily. All-Day almost got to 100 yards, but he couldn't get it all done by himself. Webb was no help and we didn't get the marquee matchup I was expecting with 2 MVP candidates - All-Day and A-Rod, in the mix.

Ironically, I thought the closest game of the weekend was the one with the widest margin score-wise. Andrew Luck moved the ball well against the Ravens in Ray Lewis's last home game ever, but the Colts just could not score TDs. 3 field goals can beat Flacco if he is on the road, but not at home. The Colts had another health episode with their offensive coordinator Bruce Arians ending up in the hospital on game day. Tough season for them, but nothing to be ashamed of. Great performance by Luck all year. Let's see where they go from here. More on Ray Lewis later. He probably deserves a separate blog post all by himself. In the final game of the weekend, the story ended up being RG III's knees. He started very well and the Redskins were up 14-0, but the game then deteriorated into a sloppy, no-fun contest for a couple of quarters until Lynch went Beast Mode. He first fumbled at the goal line and then atoned for it with a great TD run. Russell Wilson was great in that game too. He is just solid and always under control. RG III twisted his knee and left for good in the 4-Th quarter after laboring around due to a lesser knee incident in quarter 1.

This happened on the same day when news leaked that the doctor didn't agree with some of the procedures Mike Shanahan followed or did not after RG III got hurt the first time around. So Shanahan didn't handle RGIII right when he first got hurt, then he let him come back a few games earlier than he should have, and then didn't take him out on time when he got hurt again in this game. Thats a trifecta Shanahan doesn't want on his resume. Good to know Shanahan treats the million-dollar, future of his franchise worse than his pet hamster. I know it's not a concussion, but looks like the NFL coaches are still behaving like it's the 70's when it comes to other injuries. The games were so mediocre this knee-gate is the biggest story for this week. Let's hope for better games next weekend. The BCS championship game today sure was no help to starving football fans. Notre Dame lost 14-42 to Alabama showing us all why it should have been Oregon playing in that game. I can't stand the SEC hype, but it's hard to make that argument if SEC teams keep winning the title every year. 7 straight for the SEC and 3 out of 4 for Nick Saban and Bama.  I don't know if nice guys finish last, but bad guys do seem to finish first in the BCS. As you can tell, I am not a big Saban fan, but Congrats anyways.

All Day, rookies are Chuck Strong.

Around this time of the year, you always hear people say "this year flew by fast!" We say that every year, but I do believe 2012 went by extra fast. May be it's because I was busy this year and had some good times. And that includes me making the Super Bowl in both my fantasy football leagues. I won one and lost one if you are wondering. I wanted to win both because the odds of somebody making 2 Super Bowl in 2 fantasy leagues in the same year is so slim and winning both would have only made the story that much more impressive. But I can't complain and I don't want to bore people with my fantasy stories either. In the real NFL, the regular season concluded today. Another year in the books, though the calendar year still has one more day. The story today was Colt's head coach Chuck Pagano returning to the sidelines. It's a heart warming story made better by the fact that the team seems to truly respect and like him and are winning for him and with him. They made it to the playoffs after the horrible season in 2011 - before Pagano, Luck and the gang got there. How good are these guys to make this kind of an immediate impact!

There are 3 rookie QBs playing next week in the playoffs with RG III and Russel Wilson joining Andrew Luck. That might be the most impressive stat of the year. Gone are the days when rookie QBs, even future hall of famers, were good for 10 to 12 losses. Now, if you get the right one, you can win 10+ with some good coaching and decent talent around them. These 3 QBs have been fantastic all year and they are all different. Wilson started slow, but is finishing very strong. He evolved from a game manager to a game changer right in front of our eyes. Wilson, Marshawn Lynch, and their stellar defense carry each other and the Seahawks may be a scary team in the NFC playoffs. Andrew Luck is the most traditional among the 3 rookies. He is an incredibly good passer for a rookie, but he does have some ugliness with his interception and completion percentage numbers - much like you would expect of a rookie QB. But his 4000+ yards passing and the innumerable 4-Th quarter comebacks have put the Colts in the playoffs despite a bad defense and a non-existent running game. 

RG III is the most sensational of the gang. He has put up some impressive numbers both with his arm and legs all season and is part of a balanced team much like the Seahawks, but very different. The Redskins, led by the 2 rookies - RG III and RB Albert Morris, eliminated the Dallas Cowboys today in the very last game of the regular season to win the division and make the playoffs. Romo and the Cowboys are staring at another miserable off-season as Romo threw some horrible interceptions and lost an elimination game once again. They are in trouble. They can't be doing this every year. Something has to change. They need a real GM and a new head coach. Romo is talented, but needs to be reined in. That simple! The strange part of that division was the Giants missing the playoffs altogether. How does that team with a supposedly buttoned-up, disciplinarian coach in Tom Coughlin and so much talent be so inconsistent and wildly unpredictable? They did end the year at 9-7 - better than the Cowboys, but no playoffs for either team.  The division was won by the Redskins whose coaching staff deserve a lot of credit for building an unique offense that perfectly leverages their rookie QB's strengths.  They won 7 straight to make it to the playoffs and will host Russell Wilson at home. That means at least one of the rookie QBs will be playing in the next round of the playoffs too, which will be amazing. 

With all that said, the real story of this season was All Day, Adrian Peterson. He almost obliterated Eric Dickerson's long standing yardage record with that reconstructed knee. For him to come back from that gruesome knee injury in less than a year with the ferocity and effectiveness he displayed leaves me speechless. Too bad he fell just 9 yards short of the record, but rushing for more than 2000 yards is always impressive, with or without a damaged knee. I can't wait to watch this guy in the playoffs. His performance almost put the unbelievable story of Peyton Manning's amazing comeback in the back burner. How about Manning leading the Denver Broncos to the top seed in the entire AFC behind a 11 game winning streak? He went from a shaky 2-3 start to a 13-3 record in no time! With the Texans choking away their season-long lead in the last 2 weeks, the Broncos are now owners of home-court throughout the playoffs. The rookie QBs and All Day are over-shadowing Manning now, but won't for long. A Manning-Brady AFC championship game seems very likely and I can't even imagine the attention and hype that game and Manning will get if and when that happens. To quote the Jets linebacker Bart Scott, "can't wait." 

Bizarro NBA

Christmas defines the holiday season and on the sports calendar, it also signifies the unofficial start of the NBA season. People start caring about the NBA starting with the Christmas day games on network TV. Actually, given NFL's popularity these days, it's more like the NBA gets some momentary attention on Christmas day, but sports fans still don't really care about it - or anything else for that matter, until the Super Bowl is over.  It has gotten to a point where Nuggets coach George Karl actually suggested NBA should permanently open on Christmas day like they did after the lockout in 2011. That will never happen, but we did get our filling of 5 games on ESPN and ABC on Christmas day. The Lakers seemed to be energized by Steve Nash's return and won their fifth straight against a tough Knicks team but they lost again on boxing day. This team is still in a flux. There is widespread belief that they will right the ship and be there at the end, but experts are also coming around to agreeing this Lakers team may not be a contender after all and they are probably staring at a first round exit. I think the ceiling for this team might be the second round or may be the Western conference finals if they get lucky, but nothing more.

The real story in the league is LA's other team. The LA Clippers have won 15 straight and have the best record in the league. It's truly the bizarro world in the NBA this season with not only the Clippers but also the Golden State Warriors in the top 5 in the Western conference. Whats happening to this world? Actually, both these teams are for real and legit. The Warriors have a great collection of young talent in Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, and Festus Ezeli to go with their potential All-stars in Steph Curry and David Lee. They have good chemistry, great shooting, and David Lee's activity and smarts keeps the painted area friendly and hospitable. The Clippers on the other hand have totally taken the next step from last season when they gained legitimacy with the Chris Paul trade. They lost a  lot of their depth in the trade for him, but they have built their bench back up in less than a year.  Now they have Lamar Odom, Jamal Crawford, Eric Bledsoe, Grant Hill, and Chauncey Billups with some of those guys still not even back from injuries. I don't consider them to be contenders or better than the Thunder, but they should be in the final 4 in the West, which basically means the final 5 in the entire league counting the Heat.

With Nash aging and balling with the enemy in Laker-land, Chris Paul might be my favorite player in the NBA right now. This guy has an amazing attitude and phenomenal leadership credentials to go with a superstar game and is fun to watch when he is running with those athletes he has on his roster. CP3 is the best PG in the league right now. He is always connected to Deron Williams because of their draft class, but Deron seems to be getting more recognition for being a coach-killer than for being a point guard as the Nets fired their coach Avery Johnson today after their slump in December. I was expecting the Nets to be a force this year, but it looks like the East will still be a playground for the Heat and the Bulls, once Derrick Rose is back. The other team I am wishing well is the Houston Rockets. I like both James Harden and Jeremy Lin. Harden is having a great season and Lin seems to be turning it around lately. Thats a fun team to watch and I hope to see them giving some contenders a lot of trouble in the playoffs. NBA is always fun. It would be even better if my Phoenix Suns are winning, but we will be entertained by the NBA this year anyways.

NFL needs some elbow room

2 straight weeks in the NFL, 2 tragic deaths with serious collateral damage. Kansas City Chiefs' Jevon Belcher killed his girlfriend last weekend before taking his own life and orphaning his baby daughter. This weekend, Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Brown, a practice squad linebacker was killed in a car crash. The driver was Josh Brent, who ended up in jail for intoxication manslaughter. But the NFL kept playing like nothing ever happened. Games were not even postponed for an hour, let alone canceled for the weekend. Football is big business and every game is like an event of epic proportion. Aside from the national TV impact of these games, there are many other problems with postponing any single game. There are a lot of people who travel long distances for watching these games. The travel impact for regular season baseball and basketball should be so trivial compared to football, though I would guess baseball travelers out-number the basketball travelers. Fantasy football is a huge part of football's popularity whether or not the NFL wants to accept it and missing a game this time of the year will screw up a whole lot of fantasy playoff races too. Of course, the fantasizers have to handle it like the player was injured or the team was on a bye and I think it's manageable.

The biggest problem NFL has when it comes to postponing these games is that, at this point of the season, the schedule has absolutely no slack. The bye weeks are over and it's wall to wall games until the hype week leading into the Super Bowl. I suggest they give up the hype week and introduce an extra bye week between week 17 and the playoffs.  That way, NFL can postpone some games to "week 18" if need be and the Super Bowl will still be on the same weekend and the season doesn't have to stretch further out. The hype week is overdone anyways. The Super Bowl guests can afford to have one less playboy party during that week. NFL needs that extra week in-season. I believe they should have rescheduled both the games affected by deaths the last 2 weekends. It's just basic decency to do so. Especially last week when Belcher killed himself in the parking lot of the stadium in Kansas City. I was surprised the NFL didn't postpone that game to Monday night. That would have at least been minimally symbolic and NFL didn't even extend that courtesy. In the NBA, they could play games on back to back nights and in MLB, they could even play 2 on the same day. And there are empty days during their long seasons to squeeze games when necessary. NFL season is just 17 weeks and is a brutally physical game. It's impossible to play more than once a week and there are no slack weeks in the schedule. Time to introduce that slack at the end of the season.

As for the on-field action, the Cowboys won the game against the Bengals on a last second field goal on this emotional day and I could only imagine the pressure the kicker was in as he lined up for that kick under those strange circumstances.The Cowboys continue to be one of those enigmatic teams and they win when they should lose and vice versa. The New York Giants, the other enigmatic team from the same division crushed the New Orleans Saints and pretty much confirmed that Drew Brees won't be in the playoffs this season. RG III has a knee problem which threatens his status for the next game. Not a great news for yours truly who was counting on him for the fantasy playoff run. The Redskins definitely need him to continue the magical run as well in the nation's capital, where he is being rightfully accused of single handedly reviving football. The other rookie who is making magic in Indy won again. It's going to be an interesting rookie of the year contest between Andrew Luck and RG III. The MVP contest is also going to be tight the way Adrian Peterson has been performing lately. He is an amazing specimen. He is going to give Peyton Manning a serious run for his money. Coincidentally, both are eligible for the comeback player of the year too since they are both back from serious injuries. After 14 weeks, I would split the vote between those 2. I pick Peterson for the MVP and Manning for the comeback player, though the final vote, I suspect, will go the other way.

To Kaep or not to Kaep

The call Jim Harbaugh had to make a couple of weeks back was indeed tough. He decided to switch to Colin Kaepernick, who finally lost a game today against the Saint Louis Rams. Kaep made 2 or 3 costly mistakes that betrayed his inexperience. This is not to say Alex Smith is a better QB or even that he would have won the game against the Rams, but Smith probably wouldn't have made those exact mistakes. He could have made 2 or 0 or 10 other mistakes, but not those specific ones. Kaep ran back almost 20 yards and ended up in his own end-zone taking a safety. Even if Smith wanted to make that same stupid play, he couldn't have because he is not as athletic as Kaep to run away from the pass rush for 20 yards backwards. The other big mistake was Kaep's pitch to Ted Ginn Jr. deep in his own territory that flew over Ginn's head resulting in a fumble recovery and a TD for the Rams. That was a bad play-call more than anything else, but it was still Kaep's fault for not executing it right. It's hard to speak in hypotheticals, but a seasoned QB like Alex Smith would have had a lot more experience making such pitches, or any other play for that matter. Kaep is inexperienced and that increases the exposure to risks of all kind as we saw today.

This was the most baffling part of this whole saga for me especially if we rewind the clock 2 weeks back going into the Saints game, which Kaep eventually started, played well, and won. I was surprised at the media and some fans even asking for Kaep. Young QBs are going to lose you some games just on their own. That's true for even top prospects like Andrew Luck and RG-III. You pay that price and accept that risk for the rewards down the road. Colts, for instance, are hoping to be a perennial playoff contender between 2014 and 2025 or whatever and they are more than happy to let Luck take his lumps in 2012 and crash and burn and learn. They probably cheer every time he throws a pick because a smart, talented QB like that is going to learn from it and get better every day. They don't care a whole lot about their win-loss record this year, though that is changing fast with the way Luck is already leading them to the playoffs. Same with the Redskins and RG-III. Kaepernick is in the same growth phase too, but the difference is, his team is not. The niners are a legitimate super bowl contender in 2012 and they cannot afford losing a game or 2 because of Kaep's immaturity. A single loss could be the difference between the niners hosting the NFL championship game or a playoff game at the stick versus going to a hostile environment on the road. That's no joke. The safe option would have been to stick with the veteran Alex Smith and mitigate the risks. Why fix something that ain't broken?

On the flip side, I do agree with all the expert's analysis that Kaep's upside is probably better than Alex and he has the potential to be a deadlier, better, and a more accurate passer than Smith. Harbaugh obviously agrees with that given that they traded up to draft him last season and he has been sneaking him in through those wildcat packages all season, much more than Rex Ryan has been doing with Tebow. Harbaugh finally slowed down the wildcat experiments when it clearly started affecting Alex Smith's rhythm, but then Smith got hurt and we all got to see Kaep play complete games. Harbaugh couldn't resist putting his boy in and taking the risk hoping for the rewards of the higher upside. I am sure he agonized over this decision. On the one had, he had a QB in Smith who had won him a tonne of games including the playoff game against the Saints last season where he was brilliant, and was completing over 70% of his passes this season. On the other hand was the perceived limitations of Smith which were exposed by the NY Giants in the other playoff game last season and the hope that Kaepernick does not suffer from the same limitations. If Kaep was going to be the future, why not start the future today? But the safer choice would have definitely been to stick with Smith for this year and if he loved Kaep that much, turn the reins over to him next year right from the start.

Super Bowl contenders don't change their starting QBs halfway through the season. Most super bowl contenders are not led by first year starters either. I am not saying Kaep cannot do it for sure this year and it will all play out soon in front of your eyes. Dan Marino and Tom Brady have taken their teams to the Super Bowl in their first year as starters - Marino as a rookie and Brady won the Super Bowl as a second year, injury replacement much like Kaep. But it's definitely not a common occurrence. My gut says it won't happen with these niners either. I pick Kaep and the niners to fall short of the Super Bowl again making us wonder what would have happened with Smith at the helm. I think Kaep will play well, show flashes of brilliance, and realize some of that potential everybody sees, but won't go all the way this season. The real unlucky guy is all this is Alex Smith. Not only did he lose his job to a concussion, he lost it while having the best season of his career and as a league leader in completion percentage. Things always seem to work against this guy. Harbaugh doesn't seem like the sentimental type, but many people say he should have gone back to Smith out of loyalty and fairness. But some people agree with him and say he should stick with the guy he thinks gives him the best chance to win the Super Bowl and that clearly is Kaepernick in Harbaugh's mind. So he went with the bottom line - loyalty be damned. Nice guys finish last. Harbaugh is a lot of things, nice is not one of them. But he might now have to deal with some bad karma.

5 games does a season make.

ESPN can go overboard with a lot of analogies, comparison, and obscure stats. But it was interesting when they drew up analogous situations in other sports to illustrate LA Lakers coach Mike Brown's firing just 5 games into the season. It's apparently equivalent to a NFL coach getting fired before the end of the first game of the season or a college football coach getting fired in the 3-Rd quarter of their season opener. Or a baseball manager getting fired after 10 games. They got him even before I got around to my first NBA blog post of this season - it's just been over a week into this NBA season. All crazy stats, but I still can't totally condemn the Lakers brass for letting Mike Brown go this early. Granted, it's totally mind boggling that a coach with a brand new team in terms of it's key players got fired after just 5 games - way before those guys even got to learn to play with each other with any level of comfort. One of the key guys, Steve Nash had been hurt for 3 of those 5 games, Dwight Howard is returning from a serious back surgery, Kobe is hurt and both Kobe and Dwight missed most of the preseason. I think we have all heard enough on ESPN about them implementing a new offense too. Give all this, it should not surprise anybody that they started the season 1-4.

But their talent is so good and the expectations are so high, Brown got popped even in these circumstances. I have never been a big fan of Mike Brown. He is supposed to be defensive minded and seems like a decent guy, but I have always found him to be completely unimaginative, especially on offense. Nothing path breaking on defense either, but I find him to be really clueless on offense. It's now fashionable for these so-called experts to knock on the Princeton offense that Mike Brown tried to incorporate this season. I don't mind the Princeton offense, but Mike Brown seemed to have adopted it just because he wanted something and had no clue what to do on offense with the pieces he got. Of course with Nash, Kobe and Howard, Princeton is a not a great fit anyways. It's not just the losses that got him fired but the fact that he was generating less than the sum of the individual parts he had on his hands with his unimaginative coaching. To quote Bill Simmons, Mike Brown single handedly stopped LeBron James as his coach for years in Cleveland. That would be funny if it were not so close to the truth. Throwing the ball in LeBron's hands at weird spots on the floor and having the other 4 guys watch it from even weirder corners was his offense for years.

There is only one basketball and it's never going to be easy to get the most out of all 4 stars the Lakers have on their roster. But if you can't win with both Kobe and Howard shooting more than 55% from the field, there are some basic structural issues. I wouldn't trust Mike Brown to fix those even if he is not responsible for creating those. To be fair to Brown, the Lakers do have some issues with this roster despite all it's talent. Nash is not very useful if you don't let him generate a lot of your offense, which he sure can. But with Kobe and Howard, is that the right way to go? May be, may be not. One approach would be to run more and let Nash be the creator, and when they do go half-court, let the system, Howard and Kobe take care of things with Kobe also being the closer. Whatever it is, I think they have to maximize their productivity on offense to be able to win. Nash is a defensive liability and Pau is not an asset on the defensive end either. Even MWP is not what he used to be as a defender. I think there is an opportunity here for the Lakers to be great offensively and halfway decent defensively and it's going to take some coaching to make that happen.

Laker faithful is already begging for Phil Jackson to come back. They were chanting the Zen master's name as the Lakers blew the Warriors out tonight. I would personally love to see them hire Mike D'Antoni, who should have Nash and even Kobe's blessing given his familiarity from Italy and from the recent Olympics. Granted, defense wins championships and D'Antoni will only make them weaker there but he will solve their offensive problems. There is also an argument that though D'Antoni would have more talent in this roster than he ever had with the Phoenix Suns, these are not the same athletic types that will do well running up and down in his system. Plus, Kobe and Nash are older and may not survive that system and this roster doesn't have the three pointing shooting he needs either. MWP bricking another three is probably the Laker fan's worst nightmare. With all that said, Nash and D'Antoni operating with Kobe, Pau and Dwight will be a lot of fun to watch! If it doesn't work, who cares. It's the Lakers' problem anyways. It's a win-win as far as I am concerned.

Giant Pitching

The typical post-season script in baseball reads "pitching wins championships". It may not play out that way every year, but the San Francisco Giants definitely stuck to the script in these playoffs. The Giants have now won 2 out of the last 3 World Series and one more in the next 2 years, we will be using the D word - dynasty. They are already in the New York Yankees territory. In roughly the last decade (since 2002), the Giants have been to 3 World Series and that's one more than any other team including the Yankees. They were clearly powered by their pitching in 2010, led by Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, carrying a sub-par offense which came alive a little bit during the post-season. This season was different, almost weird. The Giants pitching was still good, but the dominating ace we expected in Tim Lincecum was nowhere to be found the entire season. In fact, he ended up in the bullpen for the post-season while Barry Zito was named a starter. That was something we could have never guessed 6 months back. The pitching staff still had enough bullets even with a mediocre Lincecum, but all of them seemed to slip up and struggle a little towards the end of the regular season. Their offense was not stellar, but they scored a few more runs in the 2012 regular season than 2010, though with the help of far fewer home runs.

The Giants looked shaky because of these reasons going into the playoffs and they promptly fell behind 0-2 against the Reds after 2 home games. They then came back and shocked the Reds by winning 3 straight. They again fell behind 3-1 to the Cardinals and that's when things shifted decisively in the Giants favor. Barry Zito, of all people, was slated to start the elimination game on the road. After giving the Giants close to nothing in 6 long, expensive years, Zito inexplicably shut the Cardinals down. The Giants never look back from that point on. Their pitching took off from there as every starter wanted to and believed he could do what Zito did. Beginning with that Zito start in Saint Louis, the Giants pitched 4 shutouts in 6 games and gave up just 1 run in another game during that stretch. Ryan Vogelsong recaptured his form and was dominant throughout the playoffs and the rest of the rotation joined him at different points led by Zito. When Detroit rolled into town for the World Series, they were punched in the mouth by a pitching staff that was nasty at the start, nastier at the end with their closer Sergio Romo and everywhere in-between via their stellar bullpen. The big, bad Detroit lineup just looked fat and out of shape in this series as triple crown winner and potential AL MVP Miguel Cabrera hit .231 and Prince Fielder hit .071.

The Giants survived a strange season and a mediocre Tim Lincecum. They survived losing closer Brian Wilson at the start of the season and Melkey Cabrera to steroids in the middle of the season. They survived all the money spent by their division rival Los Angeles Dodgers and crazy trades. They survived 6 elimination games - 4 of them on the road, and a triple crown winning opponent in the World Series. Buster Posey can now say "I win the World Series if I play more than 100 games in a season, period!" He turned their 2010 season around and was a big part of that World Series run. He will probably win the NL MVP this season and the Giants have another ring. Buster got hurt and played in only 45 games in 2011 and the Giants promptly missed the playoffs. Posey is the real deal. For all the talk of Brian Sabean not drafting a decent position player, he might have found a hall of famer in this guy. I am happy for Sabean. As an A's fan, there is no question in my mind that Billy Beane is the best GM in the league. But I have always believed the Bay Area is home to the best 2 GMs in the entire league. I am glad Sabean has been vindicated twice in the last 3 years after a long wait. I am also happy for Ex-A's and Beane find Marco Scutaro. He stood tall and carried the Giants in the NLCS. Great team work, great season. Congrats to the San Francisco Giants.

NFC Best

Parity is the word that makes NFL great. Lots of good things come out of parity, though it does have some negatives like it enables mediocrity across the league more than greatness in some teams. But one of the things parity leads to is last-to-first and first-to-last transformation of teams overnight. As rosters are bunched together so closely on the talent-scale, an addition here or a subtraction there of a couple of talented players or even some solid experience can alter the NFL landscape dramatically. This is why we see a whole bunch of new teams making the playoffs every season. The best example of this phenomenon this year is the NFC West. This conference was the worst just 2 years back. Seattle won it with an unheard of 7-9 record in 2010. A rookie quarterback, Sam Bradford, in a bad team almost won that division that year. Then in 2011, Seattle moved sideways, St. Louis took a step back, and Arizona went nowhere like they have been doing since Kurt Warner hung up his cleats. Jim Harbaugh grabbed the division by it's throat and made the niners the team to beat.

But this season, the NFC West has been the best division in all of football. Everybody expected the niners to be a Super Bowl contender. The seahawks were expected to be slightly better.  We knew Jeff Fisher will make the rams better, but not right away and we didn't know what to expect of the cardinals. Fast forward to the here and now, this division has the most wins in all of football - 15, with 3 teams tied with a 4-2 record at the top before the Thursday night game. The niners are still an elite team, their embarrassing loss to the New York giants last weekend notwithstanding. I am not even sure if there is anything embarrassing at all in any kind of loss to the Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning led giants. They are still the most under-rated coach-QB combo in the league. The seahawks and the cards are much better than originally expected and the rams have improved dramatically, at least on the defensive side. And all these teams will have some staying power through the season since they are all built on solid defense. All the offenses in this division are shaky, but defense wins championships and defense doesn't disappear easily either.

The niners-seahawks game tonight took on an added meaning because of the records and how difficult this division is expected to play the rest of the season. The game was a defensive struggle as expected, but the physical running game of both teams had some success against the other defense. It was fun watching Marshawn Lynch and Frank Gore run wild on great defenses, but that's what winning teams do. Frank Gore ended up with the better numbers and the niners won the game, but this game is going to repeat itself multiple times this season as the niners, cards, rams, and seahawks defenses lock horns. This was the niners first division game of this season, though the seahawks are already done with all of their road, divisional games. Nice win for the niners before they go in to the desert for a Monday night showdown with the cards. This game was a little bit of a letdown for the Seahawks after their impressive win over Tom Brady and the Patriots, but this season is still going according to plan for them for the most part. Their quarterback Russell Wilson is no joke. I have been waiting for him to lose his job to Matt Flynn, but he is a fighter and is here to stay.

In baseball, yankees lose, the-e-e-e yankees lose!

Busy Weekend

This is a fun time of the year when baseball playoffs intersects with America's real past-time - football. Playoffs are the only time when we really pay close attention to baseball these days and there were quite a few interesting baseball games the last few days starting with the new wild-card games on Friday. The weekend was packed with baseball playoffs competing with college and pro football. I navigated away from the NFL to catch the A's play and lose a tough one Sunday afternoon, a game decided by wild pitches and a costly error. Both the A's and the San Francisco Giants have pulled one back today to stay alive at 2-1. The giants are in a tough spot with 2 more to go on the road. The A's are at home, but might have to face Justin Verlander in game 5 - that's no fun. But the A's had a great win today with Brett Anderson coming back from a 20-day injury layoff to pitch great right under the playoff glare and Coco Crisp robbing Price Fielder with a great catch to make up for his 2-run error on Sunday. The other 2 series are both tied at 1-1 going back to their respective home fields for 3 games. Those home teams - Nationals and the Yankees, are feeling good about themselves.

Can you believe that the NFL season is almost 1/3 of the way done already! The niners re-established themselves as the favorites again after back-to-back weeks of dismantling AFC East teams. Neither the jets nor the bills are respectable teams, but the way the niners embarrassed them speaks volume about the capabilities of the niners and Jim Harbaugh. I am a big Harbaugh fan, but he is truly a psychotic football nut. He is probably impossible to deal with in person and looks like an arrogant and haughty control freak. But he is a football genius. The niners have this athletic quarterback Colin Kaepernick who is even rumored to be the future of the franchise beyond Alex Smith. They drafted him in the second round in 2011 and he has a big arm too. So Harbaugh unleashed his legs on the Jets to out-Tebow them. While ESPN has been waiting for Tebow-time with the Jets for the past several months, Harbaugh shows them how it's done. He posts a shut-out on the Jets and Tebows them for good effect. Of course, that made some of the niner faithful - those who are always looking to get rid of Alex Smith, ask for Kaeprnick to take over. So Harbaugh unleashes Alex Smith against the Bills at home. He completed 18 out of 24 for 303 yards and 3 TDs - very un-Alex Smith like numbers. Looks like Harbaugh has made this year his personal experiment and he is not even using all his weapons yet. I am sure he is saving Randy Moss for the later half of the season and the playoffs.

Niners do have one loss, but it's on the road against the Vikings, a Vikings team that looks increasingly legitimate with every passing week. They have Adrian Peterson back running effectively and Percy Harvin doing everything. Christian Ponder is playing good too. The play of young quarterbacks has been a great story of this season. RGIII, who got hurt this week, may have the most impressive numbers, but several young guns are lighting it up. Playing quarterback has never been easier in the NFL, and these talented guys are taking full advantage. Andrew Luck defeated Aaron Rodgers and the Packers and is looking like the real deal. Ryan Tannehill also looks like the guy Miami has been searching for ever since Dan Marino retired. Tannehill is finally known for more than just his beautiful wife. Even 0-5 Cleveland's Brandon Weeden looks good and the Browns fans might finally have some hope. Second year guys Dalton, Ponder, Locker, and even Gabbert are all looking solid. The only 2 guys that I don't trust are Cam Newton and Russell Wilson. But Russell Wilson is winning now, though I feel Seattle may be slightly better off with Matt Flynn. That day might be coming, but for now, all is well in the rookie land. With 10 out of the 32 teams in the league featuring either a rookie or a second year QB, the league is looking like a Chuck E. Cheese.

Moneyball II

The Oakland A's swept their final series of the season against the big, bad Texas rangers yesterday and ended up at the top of the AL West standings - the only day the entire season they were at the top and not a bad day to be in that position. With a 55 million dollar payroll and a bunch of kids, they did the unimaginable against teams with twice or thrice their payroll. I don't think anybody except Billy Beane and I expected this! That's a shameless plug for myself, but I did expect this team to do better than what most people predicted. That was just based on my trust in Billy Beane's approach last off-season and had nothing do with my knowledge about these players. After all, apparently even Billy Beane didn't recognize some of these players when he crossed paths with them for the first time inside Oakland Coliseum. Of course, I would not have been surprised if they went 62-100 and finished last either because that's what the experts told us. It's a great story that the team came together and achieved this with a bunch of rookie starting pitchers. I can't remember any team succeeding at this level with so many rookie starting pitchers and pitching was and is their strength.

Billy Beane deserves all the credit for this team, even more than the original moneyball teams. He traded away kids to acquire even younger kids and accumulated so many quality arms. The pitching depth of the A's is quite impressive and I am sure most baseball fans around the country can't even name 2 or 3 of A's starters - even today, not just when the season started. All of their veteran pitchers are either hurt or suspended, but they still have enough depth to keep winning. Beane deserves a lot of credit because he seems to have acquired the right kind of arms. Pitching prospects are dime a dozen, but successful prospects who turn out to be good are rarer than you think. Beane seems to have found the prefect group and seem to be paying even less than a dime for his dozen. The baseball establishment is not on board with all things Billy because of the moneyball hype, but he earned this one the hard way. And his quote at the end of the season ain't bad either. “We set out to create a team whose future was better than its past,” Beane said. “In the process, we made a team for the present.” And this team looks good for the future too. America better get used to names like Yoenis Cespedes, Josh Reddick, Daniel Straily, AJ Griffin, Jarrod Parker and Tommy Milone. They are here to stay.

This team had no business even being one of the 2 wild cards according to most experts, but they ended up winning the division at the end, that too after trailing the Rangers by 13 games at one point in the season. Their gift for all this - a tough series starting on the road against the Detroit Tigers and Justin Verlander. They actually have a better record than Detroit, but they still have to start the series on the road because of the unique 2-3 format this year to squeeze some time for the extra wildcard games by cutting the travel day out of the old 2-2-1 format. This new format will be dangerous for all these higher seeds opening on the road, but especially for the A's since they have to face Verlander and Max Scherzer. But they will come back home and I am sure will make a series out of it. Speaking of the one-game wildcard series, the idea made no sense to me at first, but now I realize I missed the point. Of course nobody from MLB did a good job of explaining the logic behind it either at the start of the season. Now that I saw it work through the entire season, I get it and actually love it. It totally restores the prestige and value of winning the division, which the first wild card took away back in the day. In fact, that was Bob Costas' argument against the first wildcard for years. With the addition of the second wildcard, of course teams want to win the division just to avoid that dangerous one game elimination game. Texas and Oakland swapped places on the last day and are in completely different worlds right now. The wildcard world is not fun for the teams involved.

A's are now getting ready for the playoffs to deal with Verlander and Miguel Cabrera. Congrats to Miggy on the triple crown. It's a special achievement that clinches the AL MVP for him. Sorry Mike Trout.

NFL Replaced!

The thing replacement referees are replacing very effectively is all the on-field stories happening in the NFL. They are the singular story right now in all of sports, especially this Monday night when one of their calls decided and ended the game. Considering this game involved 2 good NFC teams, both looking to be playoff bound, that call could very well have a significant impact on this entire NFL season. With all that said, my summary of this issue is as follows. I am not completely on board with the theory that this call conclusively proves that the replacement refs are responsible for everything that ails our society from cancer to world hunger. The reason I say this is because everybody makes mistakes and this particular "simultaneous possession" call is not that easy where we can assume the regular refs would have nailed it. I can easily see the regulars missing this too. Plus, the replay review didn't help here either due to a variety of reasons. So beating up the replacement refs is not the point of this incident for me. Of course, there are several other calls over the last 3 weeks that are more worthy of beating these refs with than this particular one. But if the point is beating the NFL up at a philosophical level over this whole fiasco, then I am 100% on board.

The important point here is, the referees are a very significant part of this game and the league has woefully underestimated both their importance to the game and the difficulty of their jobs. Today, a call decided a game and possibly playoff positioning and this is what the NFL has been claiming and assuming will never happen. It can no more deny the fact that the referees are way too important and the league has to get it's act together and employ the best referees running their games. It's no different than having the best players playing in this league as opposed to some high-school kids. These replacement referees are trying their best and have the best of intentions, but they are put in a difficult situation. The game is fast, the pressure is unrelenting, and the scrutiny is intense for these referees. They are rookies with no experienced shoulders to lean on.The problem is not them, but it's the league that thinks these refs are more than enough to police these games. Even I thought the concerns over player's health because of these replacement referees were a little over-stated, but the calls they make do decide these games and it's no joke. After seeing how skirmishes are breaking out all over the field because the players think the refs are too scared to throw flags on them, I am coming around on the safety issue too.

In this day and age of twitter and 24 hours talk radio, there is so much negative focus on these guys and the issue is over-hyped. But the underlying message is simple and valid - NFL needs to fix this issue NOW. It is totally taking away from the action on the field, which is always great in the NFL, but has been especially entertaining in the early part of this season. Take for instance this Monday night game. The Seattle Seahawks defense was spectacular and they sacked Aaron Rodgers 8 times in the first half. The Packers offense definitely don't look the same and have some issues. But they showed us why they are still a great team when they came back in the second half and started moving the ball behind a new game-plan - no-huddle and running with Cedric Benson. They went ahead and would have won but for the bad call at the end, which may not have even been  the worst call of the game. There was a roughing the passer and pass interference call - both also against the Packers, that were also controversial. It was a good game culminating an awesome, but now controversial NFL weekend. The NFC West looks like the best division in all of football as Arizona is one of 3 teams in the entire NFL that are still 3-0. The Niners lost a bad one in Minnesota, but they are still good and between them, Arizona and Seattle, it should be a fun, tough, defensive struggle out west. Hopefully we will have real referees calling these games this fall.

Cutler sometimes plays like he deserves to be cut.

Week one of NFL is in the books and now that we have Thursday night football every week, we are already in to week 2. The bad part about Thursday night football is that I seem to be 25 points behind in my fantasy league even before Friday arrives. That used to happen in the second quarter of the first set of Sunday morning games. The only thing worse than losing in fantasy is losing it early on a Thursday. But that apart, Thursday night football is beautiful. Especially this week with Chicago and Green Bay renewing their divisional rivalry. Cutler kicked off the fun by wishing the Packers' secondary "good luck" for stopping his awesome passing game. I don't know if that fired up the Packers defense, but what we saw Thursday was a defensive unit that looked very different from the one Frank Gore and the Niners gashed last week. Clay Matthews and the secondary made Cutler and his offensive line look confused, clueless and mediocre. Cutler threw 4 interceptions and yelled, screamed and bumped J'Marcus Webb, the offensive lineman who was over-matched against Matthews.

While I do think the media is over-reacting to the bump, Cutler's general demeanor and attitude is very objectionable and sometimes his game is even more unacceptable. He has a cannon for an arm and plays like he is the Bears' savior from heaven on some days and then looks like one of those million-dollar arm, 10 cent brain QBs on other days. This Thursday was one of those 10 cent days for Cutler. Green Bay avoided a 0-2 hole and is now sitting much more comfortably than last week. Cutler on the other hand is again on an island with all kinds of question marks hanging over his head. He is over-rated and dumb. He has to fix his mental approach to the game if he ever hopes to maximize his immense physical talents. Green Bay proved they are a good team and their win this week makes the Niners win last week look even better. Of course, the Niners have to beat the Lions this week at home in the original bump-gate contest to cement their status. It's week to week in the NFL and the Thursday game proved that again. We don't know for sure if the Niners are that good or are the Packers got that much better in a week or are the Bears that bad. Time will tell.

Lots of scoring in week 1. That made the fantasy football owners feel good. The Niners, Ravens, Patriots, Texans, Cowboys, Falcons and the Broncos are some of the teams that looked good. The Falcons-Broncos game this Monday is going to be a great one. Speaking of the Broncos, it was good to see Peyton Manning play well and win. I still felt like his arm was not where it used to be, but his mental capacity is so good, he managed the game well and seems to have adjusted to whatever his new physical realities are. The other QB who caused a lot of excitement was RG3 who went into New Orleans and outplayed Drew Brees. Luck threw for 3 interceptions and lost the game in his debut, but I saw some good things from him too. I expect both these rookies to be great by the end of the season. Flacco and the Ravens showed us their no-huddle offense as advertised and it looked great against the Bengals. Great test for them in week 2 at Philly. If they can handle that secondary and that defense, they will join Niners as the other favorite and both teams will try to make Harbowl a reality. But the season is long and I am just happy that the fun has started.