My vastly vast and longish long explorative exploration down South has concluded, and my intent was to deliver a list of those notes and observations I made while there. This will have to wait, however, because we have Power Rankings to take care of. That’s right boys and girls. It is time for my quarterly NFL Power Rankings. Since we are now 3/4 of the way through the season and half the teams are irrelevant, I will consequently shrink the size of the list by twelve teams. If one can do basic arithmetic, one knows that we then start at the grand ol' number square root of twenty squared.
20. Miami: Coming in at 20 are those pesky Dolphins who refues to win early on and refuse to lose later on.
19. Pittsburgh: While others have stupidly held the Steelers in high esteem on their power rankings this year, they have always hovered around twenty for me, and we all see my awesome wisdom and my ability to place teams correctly. Pay no attention to the fact that I had the Giants 3rd at the halfway point.
18. Philadelphia: Uh... Uh... Uh... If you have any ideas on why Philly is still in the playoff hunt, contact the NFL's competition committee and propose a rule change. It is okay though; they will now collapse.
17. Jacksonville: They might be 7-5, but they have David Garrard as a QB. They are going nowhere.
16. Carolina: 6-6. .500.
15. Tennessee: Before you attack their being this high, ask yourself this question: do you want *your* team playing them anytime soon?
14. New Jersey Giants: They have lost four in a row and look absolutely awful. The only reason they are here is... uh... well, I am having trouble finding reasons for why they are here.
13. Atlanta: As awful as this team has played recently, they are... nah, they are still awful, but the sheer mediocrity of the NFC means that the team with Michael Vick on the roster gets the edge. Every once in a while he takes over a game--that is better than any of the other 6-6 teams can boast about their QBs.
12. New Jersey Jets: Had I told you the Jets would be this good, this year, before this year became "this" year, you would have likely thought I had my years out of whack. I did tell you that, though, so now you can start worshipping me, butchery of all things grammatical aside.
11. Kansas City: In almost every case, I will take an AFC team with a slightly worse record over an NFC team with a slightly better record. The only exception to this rule is a team coached by Herman Edwards.
10. Seattle: This team is not very good. But they don't have Herman Edwards as their "coach", so I'd take them over KC.
9. New Orleans: They are behind Denver only because the AFC is that much better than the NFC. By the way, how about Reggie Bush scoring 4 times and nearly scoring another time, despite the fact that he holds the football about as tightly as I hold burning hot lumps of coal?
8. Denver: They do not look very good. But they still have Champ Bailey.
7. Dallas: I don't think they are as good as Troy Aikman and Joe Buck would have us believe, but then... that would be true even if they had created the world, parted seas, and invented chocolate.
6. Cincinatti: Cincy might only be 7-5, but obviously I'd take a 7-5 AFC team over a 8-4 team any day of the week. And last time I checked, Herman Edwards does not coach this team.
5. Chicago: You don't want to play a team with defense this good, even if Rex Grossman has been throwing the ball like one of those fat slobs pulled out of the stands at halftime to try to win a house by throwing the ball in a cart ten feet away only to miss ten times. Or something like that.
4. New England: The AFC is once again proving itself far superior in every way, shape and form. The Patriots are once again proving that being boring doesn't mean you lose.
3. Baltimore: They aren't built for the regular season, yet they are stilling pwning the NFC North. Lame netspeak aside, they are simply very good.
2. Indianapolis: This is the regular season, so loss to the Titans aside, they still kick butt--only a matter of time until they get their own back end firmly booted, though. This isn't even one of the better Colts teams in recent history; they have very little chance of Super aspirations (but since Pittsburgh did it last year, I wouldn't count anyone out this anymore).
1. San Diego: I have long held LT is the best player in the NFL; this isn't exactly earth shattering, but... some people were declaring Larry Johnson (who is totally not worthy of initials, people) as the best RB around. Pfft.
Alright folks, now what you have been waiting for! It is the MORT REPORT RETORT!
Three week edition:
Shawne Merriman's suspension is finished. The Chargers are happy to have him back because he is a starter on their team.
The Panthers wish Jake Delhomme hadn't gotten injured because Chris Weinke is their backup QB.
The Giants have had a lot of injuries this year. You could argue that this has made it difficult for them.
Vince Young is a quarterback.
Reggie Bush scored four touchdowns the other day, and this has the Saints excited because they believe scoring touchdowns is important.
Tony Romo replaced Drew Bledsoe as the Cowboys quarterback.
Wait until next week when we hear that Priest Holmes might possibly have a chance of thinking about the possibility of playing next year!
One final note: We all know I have had quite a bit of fun with Rob Bironas, the Tennessee Titans' kicker. I now must applaud him for that ridiculous 60 yarder to beat the Colts. That was impressive. Last time I checked (not that I have ever actually checked this) Joe Nedney has never kicked a 60 yarder. So take that, you two time-torn ACL traitor!
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Spiraling into Control
We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you a public service announcement: the Red Sox owners, general manager, fans and in general everyone having anything to do with Red Sox of any sort, including those who are misguided enough—whether ignorantly or not—to don footwear painted that distasteful color, are a bunch of puling babies. Waa. Waa. Waa.
If there is ever one more cry of “woe is me, the Red Sox aren’t as rich as the Yankees”... if that is ever used as an excuse to make up for the Red Sox pathetic performance in baseball and life in general, the perpetrating puler should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Bucky Dent’s home run until a neighboring supernova destroys the Terran system.
The Red Sox bid 51.1 MILLION dollars to simply gain the rights to negotiate with that Japanese pitcher whose name I will certainly not attempt to spell but sounds like “Motzuzooka”.
As you have been informed by your columnist many times before, the Red Sox have always been whining babies when it came to money. This latest salvo of proof is simply too strong for the mainstream to ignore. The Red Sox are inferior because they are inferior, not because they don’t have money.
Okay, and now the caged beast that is a Yankee fan residing in your columnist’s scary mental capacity will be knocked out with chloroform while we talk about the NFL.
Analysts and commentators are always attempting to determine which teams will play well, which teams are “superior”, which teams are “a cut above the rest”; said analysts sometimes watch hours of tape (coughjawscough) along the way, doing everything possible to gain the knowledge required to say something insightful.
Well that is just dumb, because at least when it comes to the offense, how well a team will do is quite obvious. Just look at their QBs spiral. Yes. The spiral. To unscientifically prove how easy it is to equate “spiral” with “good offense”, I will now run through a random assortment of the NFL’s QBs’ spirals (wow that was a lot of words ending in “s”), and then explain how well their offense is currently doing.
Now before we get onto the meat of this article, one might wonder why this strange correlation between spiraling and winning exists. Wanna know why? BECAUSE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO THROW THE BALL WITH A SPIRAL, BEN WORTHLESSBERGER!
We might as well start there:
Big Ben: His spiral is simply non-existent. He doesn’t have a spiral. He chucks the ball up with all the beauty of the New Jersey Turnpike. So, you ask, how did he win a SuperBowl? First off, he didn’t. His defense, along with Carson Palmer’s knee, Nick Harper, and a conspiracy of referees won the Steelers the Super Bowl. But more than that, you do know he was not the only player to throw a football for Pittsburgh in the big game, and that Antwaan Randle El, who threw one pass that game, threw the only TD pass for Pittsburgh, and also that that TD pass was the prettiest thrown pass from a Steeler all day? Yep. That is why they won. Pittsburgh, thank God for Randle El. In a not-so-coincidental coincidence, the Steelers suck this year. Randle El is no longer on their roster. And one of the games they won was thanks to Charlie Batch, who throws a decent spiral.
Peyton Manning: Here’s an easy one. He throws a perfect spiral whenever he wants to. Their offense is nigh unstoppable. They are undefeated. Spiral, baby, spiral. (Disclaimer: The Colts lost after I wrote this, but that doesn't change anything. Their offense is still unbelievable, and they are still the best team in the league.)
Eli Manning: He throws a very good spiral half of the time, and he throws a Ben Worthlessberger the other half. This explains why he looks brilliant some moments, and downright awful at others. The team shares his spiral’s schizophrenia. Coincidence? I think not. Spirals shape the personality of a team way more than coaches do.
Rex Grossman: Absolutely beautiful spiral. Really. It makes perfect sense his team is so dang high scoring and also 9-1. No, their pathetic competition has had nothing to do with it.
Chad Pennington: Look at that spiral. Seeing as he can’t throw it hard or far, all he can do is spiral it. But that is enough to take a bottom feeding team from last year and make them playoff contenders. Oh how odd. Or not, if you ascribe to spiral theory.
Tom Brady: He throws a brilliant spiral. I think this has worked out well for him over the years...
Daunte Culpepper: No spiral in sight. Also, no Culpepper in sight, thanks to his hideous performance.
Donovan McNabb: He does not have the perfect spiral of Peyton or Rex, but he throws a decently tightly wound ball. His team reflects that with a 5-5 record. Of course, now that he is gone, Philly is dead.
Philip Rivers: This man throws one heck of a spiral. Oh yeah, and his team scored 42 points last week. In the second half. And they scored 28 points this week. In the second half.
Andrew Walters: Uh... no need to explain this really.
Jake Plummer: Throws a very mediocre spiral, if it can even be called that. His offense is anemic. Denver is good thanks to their defense. And their defense is good thanks to Champ Bailey. So... they are good thanks to Champ Bailey. I digress.
Steve McNair: He throws a good spiral when he needs to. Not surprisingly, his play and his team reflect this by only playing well when it is absolutely necessary.
Byron Leftwich: He does not really throw a good spiral, even though his throws are still nice looking. Similarly, his team does not really play well, even though their list of names says they should. (By the way, Leftwich, along with various other quarterbacks such as Donovan McNabb, proves that spirals are not exclusively required for a QB to be good—though they do help in that regard—but they tend to reflect the team’s performance even better than the QB’s. Rex Grossman is another example. He isn’t necessarily terrific, but his team is, thank to his beautiful spiraling pigskin)
David Carr: I have no idea. He is never on TV. Who wants to watch the Texans?
Vince Young: Ah... well... he doesn’t throw a particularly good spiral. His team is not particularly good.
Mark Brunell: His spiral used to be good, now he doesn’t have the arm strength left, and his team fell apart, and he is no longer the starting quarterback, and the moral of the story is: quit when you can no longer throw a spiral.
Brett Favre: Okay, his spiral is not very good, and his team reflects it this year, by also being “not very good”. Yet it is worth mentioning that Brett Favre has never thrown very good spirals, and yet he did used to be fantastic… Uh, no this doesn’t wipe out my theory, for two reasons: Brett Favre has always been an interception throwing machine, and also… come on, one exception isn’t that bad.
Drew Bledsoe: We aren’t sure what his spiral looks like. He never throws the ball. He just hangs onto it like it it’s a sack of gold. Or a bomb that will go off as soon as it leaves his hand. Either works.
Tony Romo: Very respectable spiral, I would say, and his team has played well since he started starting. Heh. Started starting, that’s funny, it—nevermind…
Brad Johnson: He was one of the QBs that led to the discovery of this correlation between spiraling and winning. He isn’t mobile, doesn’t have a strong arm, isn’t brilliant in the head, and yet he wins, because he throws spirals. Also, the Vikings have faltered as of late, and Brad’s passing has been very inconsistent. Several of his throws have been bad ones lately. Not sure why, but the results are clear. Loss of spiral=loss of games.
Jake Delhomme: He has a pretty spiral most of the time, and his team is pretty dominating most of the time. Inexplicably, his team lays huge eggs sometimes, and inexplicably, he throws horrible spirals some of the times. Call me crazy, but that appears to be a cow-INC-ee-dince.
Drew Brees: His spiral is very good. Not surprisingly, he has taken a bottom-feeding team to a 6-4 record.
There are plenty of other NFL teams out there, but to once again prove my bias and amazing ability to simply ignore those teams which no one cares about (let’s face it, no one in Seattle reads my column, so they aren’t going to be offended. And if, by chance someone from Seattle is reading this, it is your fault you live out in no man’s land. Get over it).
The fact of the matter is: spirals=points, plain and simple. Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, learn how to throw, and your team will progress magnificently.
OSU-UM fails to live up to expectations: The OSU/UM brawl was an extremely good game. As a country, we were completely unready for this, seeing as the vast majority of super-hyped games in the country turn out to be complete jokes. Everyone ready for OSU/*insert punching bag here*?
OSU now has only itself to fear…: Before you faint and accuse me of employing a stupid cliché, fear not. I do not mean OSU only has to worry about its own mistakes; I mean OSU literally only has to worry about a former re-incarnation of itself, the 2002 Buckeyes. That team took on heavily favored, high powered Miami and won anyway. The Buckeyes will most likely face a big underdog in the title game, unless Michigan somehow maintains its grip on #2 when USC and Notre Dame play. Props to Michigan for staying there for now, anyway.
Randy Moss isn’t inspired to play for the Raiders: Uh... duh? Why does anyone care about this? Who the heck *would* be inspired to put their body on the line for that sad joke of a team they have in Oakland. Trade him and be done with it, Oakland.
The Record for the record broken most times in a five year period: Marshall Faulk broke the TDs in a single season record. Then Shaun Alexander broke it. Now, Ladainian Tomlinson has a very good chance to break it. And you thought the home run record was meaningless.
See it, then see it again, then see it again, then see it...: Casino Royale was far better than I expected, and I was expecting a lot. Daniel Craig was brilliant, the scenes were brilliant, the plot was brilliant, the realism was brilliant. Dang. The whole thing was brilliant. See it. Now. I don't care if you have already seen it. Go see it again.
New Feature Coming: Everyone get ready for the Mort Report Retort to appear in ensuing articles. In it, you will get information Chris Mortensen would be proud of, such as "He might play, but then again he might not", and "I don't expect the league to fine him, but it is still a strong possibility", and "the Bears are really hoping Urlacher will be ready to play, because he is a big part of their defense" and "I am pretty sure that there is a chance he could be somewhat healthy sometime in the next few weeks"
I am sure you are salivating.
Holiday Special: This will be the last post for three weeks due to extraneous factors known as holiday vacations, so I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! Not that I really understand how anyone could have a "Happy Thanksgiving!" while no football is on, but I digress. (Stop it. I know you want to argue with me about the “no football is on”, but do you *really* want to argue? Think about it... keep thinking. Yeah, you came to the correct conclusion. Thank you.)
If there is ever one more cry of “woe is me, the Red Sox aren’t as rich as the Yankees”... if that is ever used as an excuse to make up for the Red Sox pathetic performance in baseball and life in general, the perpetrating puler should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Bucky Dent’s home run until a neighboring supernova destroys the Terran system.
The Red Sox bid 51.1 MILLION dollars to simply gain the rights to negotiate with that Japanese pitcher whose name I will certainly not attempt to spell but sounds like “Motzuzooka”.
As you have been informed by your columnist many times before, the Red Sox have always been whining babies when it came to money. This latest salvo of proof is simply too strong for the mainstream to ignore. The Red Sox are inferior because they are inferior, not because they don’t have money.
Okay, and now the caged beast that is a Yankee fan residing in your columnist’s scary mental capacity will be knocked out with chloroform while we talk about the NFL.
Analysts and commentators are always attempting to determine which teams will play well, which teams are “superior”, which teams are “a cut above the rest”; said analysts sometimes watch hours of tape (coughjawscough) along the way, doing everything possible to gain the knowledge required to say something insightful.
Well that is just dumb, because at least when it comes to the offense, how well a team will do is quite obvious. Just look at their QBs spiral. Yes. The spiral. To unscientifically prove how easy it is to equate “spiral” with “good offense”, I will now run through a random assortment of the NFL’s QBs’ spirals (wow that was a lot of words ending in “s”), and then explain how well their offense is currently doing.
Now before we get onto the meat of this article, one might wonder why this strange correlation between spiraling and winning exists. Wanna know why? BECAUSE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO THROW THE BALL WITH A SPIRAL, BEN WORTHLESSBERGER!
We might as well start there:
Big Ben: His spiral is simply non-existent. He doesn’t have a spiral. He chucks the ball up with all the beauty of the New Jersey Turnpike. So, you ask, how did he win a SuperBowl? First off, he didn’t. His defense, along with Carson Palmer’s knee, Nick Harper, and a conspiracy of referees won the Steelers the Super Bowl. But more than that, you do know he was not the only player to throw a football for Pittsburgh in the big game, and that Antwaan Randle El, who threw one pass that game, threw the only TD pass for Pittsburgh, and also that that TD pass was the prettiest thrown pass from a Steeler all day? Yep. That is why they won. Pittsburgh, thank God for Randle El. In a not-so-coincidental coincidence, the Steelers suck this year. Randle El is no longer on their roster. And one of the games they won was thanks to Charlie Batch, who throws a decent spiral.
Peyton Manning: Here’s an easy one. He throws a perfect spiral whenever he wants to. Their offense is nigh unstoppable. They are undefeated. Spiral, baby, spiral. (Disclaimer: The Colts lost after I wrote this, but that doesn't change anything. Their offense is still unbelievable, and they are still the best team in the league.)
Eli Manning: He throws a very good spiral half of the time, and he throws a Ben Worthlessberger the other half. This explains why he looks brilliant some moments, and downright awful at others. The team shares his spiral’s schizophrenia. Coincidence? I think not. Spirals shape the personality of a team way more than coaches do.
Rex Grossman: Absolutely beautiful spiral. Really. It makes perfect sense his team is so dang high scoring and also 9-1. No, their pathetic competition has had nothing to do with it.
Chad Pennington: Look at that spiral. Seeing as he can’t throw it hard or far, all he can do is spiral it. But that is enough to take a bottom feeding team from last year and make them playoff contenders. Oh how odd. Or not, if you ascribe to spiral theory.
Tom Brady: He throws a brilliant spiral. I think this has worked out well for him over the years...
Daunte Culpepper: No spiral in sight. Also, no Culpepper in sight, thanks to his hideous performance.
Donovan McNabb: He does not have the perfect spiral of Peyton or Rex, but he throws a decently tightly wound ball. His team reflects that with a 5-5 record. Of course, now that he is gone, Philly is dead.
Philip Rivers: This man throws one heck of a spiral. Oh yeah, and his team scored 42 points last week. In the second half. And they scored 28 points this week. In the second half.
Andrew Walters: Uh... no need to explain this really.
Jake Plummer: Throws a very mediocre spiral, if it can even be called that. His offense is anemic. Denver is good thanks to their defense. And their defense is good thanks to Champ Bailey. So... they are good thanks to Champ Bailey. I digress.
Steve McNair: He throws a good spiral when he needs to. Not surprisingly, his play and his team reflect this by only playing well when it is absolutely necessary.
Byron Leftwich: He does not really throw a good spiral, even though his throws are still nice looking. Similarly, his team does not really play well, even though their list of names says they should. (By the way, Leftwich, along with various other quarterbacks such as Donovan McNabb, proves that spirals are not exclusively required for a QB to be good—though they do help in that regard—but they tend to reflect the team’s performance even better than the QB’s. Rex Grossman is another example. He isn’t necessarily terrific, but his team is, thank to his beautiful spiraling pigskin)
David Carr: I have no idea. He is never on TV. Who wants to watch the Texans?
Vince Young: Ah... well... he doesn’t throw a particularly good spiral. His team is not particularly good.
Mark Brunell: His spiral used to be good, now he doesn’t have the arm strength left, and his team fell apart, and he is no longer the starting quarterback, and the moral of the story is: quit when you can no longer throw a spiral.
Brett Favre: Okay, his spiral is not very good, and his team reflects it this year, by also being “not very good”. Yet it is worth mentioning that Brett Favre has never thrown very good spirals, and yet he did used to be fantastic… Uh, no this doesn’t wipe out my theory, for two reasons: Brett Favre has always been an interception throwing machine, and also… come on, one exception isn’t that bad.
Drew Bledsoe: We aren’t sure what his spiral looks like. He never throws the ball. He just hangs onto it like it it’s a sack of gold. Or a bomb that will go off as soon as it leaves his hand. Either works.
Tony Romo: Very respectable spiral, I would say, and his team has played well since he started starting. Heh. Started starting, that’s funny, it—nevermind…
Brad Johnson: He was one of the QBs that led to the discovery of this correlation between spiraling and winning. He isn’t mobile, doesn’t have a strong arm, isn’t brilliant in the head, and yet he wins, because he throws spirals. Also, the Vikings have faltered as of late, and Brad’s passing has been very inconsistent. Several of his throws have been bad ones lately. Not sure why, but the results are clear. Loss of spiral=loss of games.
Jake Delhomme: He has a pretty spiral most of the time, and his team is pretty dominating most of the time. Inexplicably, his team lays huge eggs sometimes, and inexplicably, he throws horrible spirals some of the times. Call me crazy, but that appears to be a cow-INC-ee-dince.
Drew Brees: His spiral is very good. Not surprisingly, he has taken a bottom-feeding team to a 6-4 record.
There are plenty of other NFL teams out there, but to once again prove my bias and amazing ability to simply ignore those teams which no one cares about (let’s face it, no one in Seattle reads my column, so they aren’t going to be offended. And if, by chance someone from Seattle is reading this, it is your fault you live out in no man’s land. Get over it).
The fact of the matter is: spirals=points, plain and simple. Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, learn how to throw, and your team will progress magnificently.
OSU-UM fails to live up to expectations: The OSU/UM brawl was an extremely good game. As a country, we were completely unready for this, seeing as the vast majority of super-hyped games in the country turn out to be complete jokes. Everyone ready for OSU/*insert punching bag here*?
OSU now has only itself to fear…: Before you faint and accuse me of employing a stupid cliché, fear not. I do not mean OSU only has to worry about its own mistakes; I mean OSU literally only has to worry about a former re-incarnation of itself, the 2002 Buckeyes. That team took on heavily favored, high powered Miami and won anyway. The Buckeyes will most likely face a big underdog in the title game, unless Michigan somehow maintains its grip on #2 when USC and Notre Dame play. Props to Michigan for staying there for now, anyway.
Randy Moss isn’t inspired to play for the Raiders: Uh... duh? Why does anyone care about this? Who the heck *would* be inspired to put their body on the line for that sad joke of a team they have in Oakland. Trade him and be done with it, Oakland.
The Record for the record broken most times in a five year period: Marshall Faulk broke the TDs in a single season record. Then Shaun Alexander broke it. Now, Ladainian Tomlinson has a very good chance to break it. And you thought the home run record was meaningless.
See it, then see it again, then see it again, then see it...: Casino Royale was far better than I expected, and I was expecting a lot. Daniel Craig was brilliant, the scenes were brilliant, the plot was brilliant, the realism was brilliant. Dang. The whole thing was brilliant. See it. Now. I don't care if you have already seen it. Go see it again.
New Feature Coming: Everyone get ready for the Mort Report Retort to appear in ensuing articles. In it, you will get information Chris Mortensen would be proud of, such as "He might play, but then again he might not", and "I don't expect the league to fine him, but it is still a strong possibility", and "the Bears are really hoping Urlacher will be ready to play, because he is a big part of their defense" and "I am pretty sure that there is a chance he could be somewhat healthy sometime in the next few weeks"
I am sure you are salivating.
Holiday Special: This will be the last post for three weeks due to extraneous factors known as holiday vacations, so I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! Not that I really understand how anyone could have a "Happy Thanksgiving!" while no football is on, but I digress. (Stop it. I know you want to argue with me about the “no football is on”, but do you *really* want to argue? Think about it... keep thinking. Yeah, you came to the correct conclusion. Thank you.)
Monday, November 13, 2006
Odd Situation
Everything about Gary Sheffield’s tenure with the Yankees has been strange, and the ending was no different. When attempting to determine an analogy one could use to illuminate the weirdness of Sheffield’s stay, I can’t come up with anything.
And I am very good at analogies. The only thing I can really come up with is the difficulty explaining to a woman what a kick in the nuts feels like. They will simply never understand; there is no frame of reference to help enumerate the singular pain involved with such a tragedy. Even here, though, the analogy is only detailing the difficulty in explaining, not actually explaining.
First things first, when Sheffield first got to the Yanks, he negotiated his own contract directly with George. That is strange enough, but things would get a whole lot weirder.
After slumping for the first month of his first season—along with all of the other Yankee hitters—Sheffield broke out in a huge way in ’04, eventually coming second in MVP voting. Unfortunately, the Yankees also lost to the Red Sox that year in the ALCS, mostly by virtue of the fact that Mariano Rivera, supposedly the greatest closer of all time (well, he is) couldn’t hold a lead. Twice. So Had Mariano Rivera pitched the way he was supposed to, Sheffield would immediately have been a hero in Yankees lore. He came out of nowhere to be an MVP candidate and lead the Yankees in a sweep past the Red Sox to level the Cards and win the World Series…
Err, oops. They got another hit off Rivera.
After that extremely disappointing outcome, Yankee fans began grumbling about Vladamir Guerrero, the much younger and probably more talented right fielder that the Yankees could have signed. Making matters worse, Guerrero won the MVP award in 2004. Sheffield suddenly seemed second fiddle. Quite literally.
Yet in ’05, Sheffield once again posted large numbers, only to watch the Yankees get out-managed in the playoffs and lose yet again. Of course Sheffield’s hitting line was paltry enough that we won’t mention it, besides saying: he stunk.
Yet no one really noticed any of this, because the focus was, is, and will likely be for some time to come, on one guy: A-Rod. So while Sheffield would continue making politically incorrect comments (good for you, Sheff), A-Rod would continue making only politically correct comments, driving everyone—media, fans, teammates included—crazy.
Sheffield then blew up his wrist in ’06 and was out for almost the entire season, when the Yankees landed Bobby Abreu. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that Bobby Abreu plays the same position as Sheffield, is years younger, and costs more, and has a contract that lasts longer.
Thus the awkward “Sheffield playing first” dynamic was born, and we had to suffer through those endless “oh yeah, I’ll do whatever I need to for the team” comments by Sheffield and the “yeah, he can play first base” comments by the Yankee brass, when everyone knew Sheff did not want to play first and the Yankees didn’t think he could play first. Yet because Torre is in love with veterans (not quite a Joe Morgan syndrome, but still creepy), he played Sheff only to watch him embarrass himself in the playoffs.
Then Sheffield started puling about not being traded, even though he had personally negotiated his own deal with the Yankees, where he neglected to include a no-trade clause. Uh-huh. Can we say no leverage? The Yankees wanted him gone, he wanted to be gone, the whole situation was simply strange, and the Yankees traded him for three good prospects who definitely are not worth Sheffield, but who are worth a disgruntled Sheffield who doesn’t have a position thanks to Abreu.
So if a few balls go this way, Sheff is a Yankee hero who won them a title single-handedly. Since they didn’t, he continues on with wandering enigma status, the crusty old hired gun who may or may not make it through the season.
Yet Yankees fans all owe Sheffield thanks for at least one reason: he let us see that swing for more than two years. Oh, what a swing.
Minor Rants Galore:
I seem to be getting long winded in my minor rants lately, and that must be remedied. Due to the fact that I am an extremist, this will be remedied by an extremely high amount of extremely short rants. Yep.
Stop talking stop talking stop talking stop talking!!: Two words for you. Lou. Holtz.
I’m not blaming it on this, but this is why: What is it with athletes divulging injury information, and then making the claim that they aren’t creating excuses for their poor performance? Why else divulge the info, Troy Smith? And A-Rod.
Is everyone equally bad or good?: One way or another, the parity in the NFL is the result of QBs becoming more evenly matched. Peyton is on another planet, so his team is on another planet. After that, there is no run-away favorite for second best QB (no, TOM BRADY DOES NOT COUNT!!), and there is no runaway favorite for second best team. So whether the QBs are getting better or worse, who knows.
After all, a fluke one year will likely be a fluke the next: Florida was a terrific basketball team last year, and they still are, but the Gators were not the dominant team everyone is now making them out to be. They never played anyone in the NCAA tournament, minus maybe Georgetown, who was one rebound away from an upset. Florida will not repeat. You heard it here.
Pour boiling oil on my head, shoot off all my toes…: Watching NBA basketball is painful right now. The players are showing no emotion, because, well, it isn’t allowed anymore. Can you imagine if the NFL did something stupid like the NBA is currently doing with its 200% increase of technical fouls, or whatever the number is? I mean, imagine if the NFL made it so that quarterbacks couldn’t be tackled. We’d all stop watching, wouldn’t we?
Wouldn’t we?
Stupid Things I heard commentators say this Sunday: “They are playing cover 2, so he doesn’t have any help deep” *insert Joe Buck quote here*
For my first trick, I will play an entire game in one half: Carson Palmer: 20-23, 282 yds, 2 TDs, 0 INTs. First half.
I’m an idiot. Kill me please: Joe Buck and Troy Aikman: “This just shows how difficult it is to make the jump from college to the NFL”. They harped on this all afternoon. That explains why Marques Colston, who was playing in the game they were attempting to commentate, is tearing up the league, and had 100 yds by halftime of the Saints-Steelers game. In case you were wondering, Colston played at Hofstra, a division I-AA school. Yeah, I guess that jump isn’t quite as big?
I insult coaches quite often...: So I’ll give them some props when they do a good job. Both Marty Schottenheimer and Marvin Lewis coached well in the game of the year on Sunday. Marty never got conservative, and allowed his team to overcome a 21 point 3rd quarter deficit. Lewis also never got conservative, despite owning that 21 point lead. This was good because had he been conservative, they would have lost 49-28 instead of almost winning. Of course, both defenses played terrible, and you might want to blame that on the coaches, and perhaps in Lewis’ case, you could. The Chargers however, are without super-all-everything-linebacker Shawne Merriman, and you could tell. They got almost no pressure on Carson Palmer. Anyway, good job by both of those coaches.
This seems oddly familiar: In Tennessee, Steve McNair threw a 4th quarter TD pass to complete a come from behind victory. How man times have those words been said before? This time, though, it ends with a victory for Baltimore. Creeeeeeeeepy.
Joe Nedney watch: Joe Nedney, former kicker for the Titans whom I have... ah... spoke of with displeasure in the past (he blew out his knee or something two years in a row while with the Titans) was 4-4 in field goals for the 49ers, as they won 19-13/ Rob Bironas, the Titans kicker, got a potential game winning field goal blocked. Say it ain't so, Joe.
Spiraling out of control: And for my next trick, I will somehow manage to predict team success based solely on how well a ball spirals.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Power Corrupts!
It is that time of year again. Power Rankings time, at the halfway point! Without further ado, let’s get on with it. If you do not know what Power Rankings are, read the introductory edition of my quarterly Power Rankings. Heck, read it even if you simply haven’t read it, because this edition will most likely be inundated with inside jokes referring to the original installment.
TheSportsRant’s Quarterly NFL Power Rankings
32. Arizona: Five weeks ago, I laughed at the pundits for predicting Arizona’s time would come. Have I been vindicated or what.
31. Houston: Orlando Bloom is still better than David Carusoe. David Carusoe is Arizona.
30. Cleveland: The other day, I heard this from Dick Sutcliff, a guy who should stick to commentating tennis: “The Cleveland Browns are improving every week”. Uhh, by “improving”, he must have meant “getting worse”; there is no other explanation, except maybe that Dick Sutcliff needs to stick to commentating tennis.
29. Detroit: Roy Williams, their up and coming receiver (chances are, if you pick receivers for a hundred years in a row, you will eventually get it right at least once) has as big a mouth as all the other receivers in the league; he says the lions will run the table. Don’t laugh people, it isn’t like the Lions have a record over the past five years of... never mind; you can laugh all you want.
28. Oakland: It seems ridiculous having a team that has not even scored 100 points by the halfway mark ahead of four other teams, but they look better than four other teams. This does not bode well for those four other teams.
27. Miami: Joey Harrington beat the Bears; Daunte Culpepper beat the Titans; what a comparison. Anyway, Sean Salisbury, who is usually not this insane, declared that “all of Daunte’s problems were injury related”; somebody shoot me.
26. San Francisco: The only interesting facet of the game last week involved the fact that Joe Nedney continues to be a productive kicker for San Fran, after years of nothing but injuries with the Titans. Somebody shoot me.
25. Tennessee: Vince Young can’t throw to save his life, but thankfully he has been running to save his life. I have hope for this team down the road.
24. Green Bay: They stink, but they still have Brett Favre (pronounced: FARV). This sounds oddly familiar...
23. Tampa Bay: They have beaten the Eagles. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but I thought I would mention it.
22. Pittsburgh: As bad as they are—and they are bad—I’d still take them in a game against any of the other cellar-dwelling, powder puff, cup-cake, barely-NFL caliber football teams. Man, these Power Rankings still seem strangely repetitive; perhaps I was simply so right the first time around, I could have just copied the original rankings... probably.
21. Minnesota: Brad Johnson does not get paid to run, to throw deep balls, to gun-sling the ball into tight spots... he gets paid to *not* make mistakes, yet he has been making a lot of those lately.
20. Buffalo: They absolutely do not belong anywhere near here. See my previous note on the Rams.
19. St. Louis: Throw the Rams, schizophrenia, and a couple good lines into a barrel and you have an SNL sketch.
18. N.Y. Jets: There is really no reason for them to be this high, at all. No, I’m not plagiarizing myself.
17. Jacksonville: You laughed, but I told you they weren’t that great. Now that they have seemingly thrown their eggs in David Garrard’s basket, they are hopeless.
15. Kansas City: Here we go: Herman Edwards fans are crawling out of the woodwork. This team is lucky.
16. Washington: This is still a strange, strange team. They had a strange, strange ending to their last game—a victory, regardless.
14. Dallas: Uh... what can I say about this team... OH I KNOW!!! Terrell Owens... *insert here*!
13. Philadelphia: I warned everyone that their record was deceiving; it isn’t anymore. Too bad they are still # 13 thanks to the lack of good teams in this league.
12. Seattle: This team ranking twelfth is yet another testament to how few good teams play football.
11. New Orleans: This team still feels like Studio 60. They are good, but will they survive anyway?
10. Carolina: Last time, they were 2-2; now, they are 4-4. All hail Sports Illustrated.
9. Cincinnati: Carson Palmer came back quicker than Daunte Culpepper, and he is fine. Cincinnati isn’t fine, but that has more to do with their kerraaaaaapy defense than his magic arm.
8. New England: Did you know that anything Tom Brady touches turn to gold, that he has never committed a sin, won three Super Bowls by taking the entire opposing defense on 1 against 11, has never thrown a bad pass, has a plan to save the environment while simultaneously increasing energy resources, is on his way to curing all the world’s diseases, and—
Oh, dang; he just threw four interceptions. I guess that puts a thorn into the side of all the morons proclaiming him the greatest QB in the game.
007. Atlanta: If I coached the Falcons, they would be better than they are, but then, if I coached the majority of the teams in this league, they would be better than they are—and if I managed the Yankees, they would be unbeatable. That has absolutely nothing to do with the Falcons, Power Rankings, or football in general, but it is so true I must mention it whenever possible.
6. Denver: Champ Bailey is a sick son of a gun. Unfortunately, that other cornerback they have isn’t, and Peyton proved that readily.
5. San Diego: They lost to Kansas City; that is simply inexcusable, and I hate having them in my top five. Yet I have them there, proving once again how few good teams there are in the NFL.
4. Baltimore: This team is good—nothing spectacular about them (they have an above average D and a below average running game), yet they are good. The fact that a merely “good” team can be #4 in the Power Rankings shows once again...
3. Chicago: They got run over by Ronnie Brown last week, helpless offense of Rex Grossman notwithstanding. And if I managed the Yankees, they would be unbeatable.
3. N.Y. Giants: If they would stop creating hospital bed shortages in America, this team would be crazy-good. Unfortunately, their devastation on defense will likely leave them handicapped beyond deep-playoff-run repair.
1. Indianapolis: Can we all just admit that this is the best regular season team to ever play the game? And can we also admit that Peyton Manning is the best QB in the game, period?
Turn your life around and lose: Is there a worse role model for kids than A.I.? Before I get lambasted for that statement, let me clarify: Allen Iverson is a changed man. He passes the ball, is unselfish, doesn’t spout off stupid comments for the media, and is basically more mature than he used to be, in every facet imaginable. The problem here is: his team now stinks (yeah they started off well, but do not kid yourselves, they are not going anywhere particularly great, unless you consider the lottery “great”). Allen Iverson once contended for championships, when he was a childish, irreverent, conceited ball-hog. Now that he has cleaned up his act, the eighty-one-minus-fivers stink. Now of course, there is no correlation between the two, other than a coincidental simultaneity. Yet if a kid is silly enough to look to NBA players as role models—and most kids are—they are probably silly enough to equate “bad attitude, selfishness” with “winning” based on said evidence.
This is exacerbated by the league’s acute focus on its own superstars. The Heat managed to become champs by taking the regular season off, and letting Dwayne Wade carry the entire team in the playoffs, while the league aided and abetted this behavior the whole way with fouls that made me want to jump in boiling oil. What kind of a message is that? “Yeah kids, be lazy, don’t work hard, then let your superstar win it for you”. Uh, please.
The incredibly ironic thing here is that the NBA is super image-obsessed. The new rules on excessive complaining, the dress code, and the barring of high school players all illuminate the league’s attempt to polish its image. Sure, guys. Worry about what they are wearing while you call fouls in such a way that a disinterested team with one good player in his prime can defeat the team oriented Bulls, the team oriented Nets, the team oriented Pistons, and the team oriented Mavericks, even when at least one of those teams—and probably two—were superior.
The NBA has an image. It goes something like this: “We dress well, we don’t complain, we utterly obliterate the need for teamwork.” Good job, guys.
Tom took ‘em all on!: Prior to last week’s Colts/Patriots game, we were once again inundated by morons telling us how Brady is a superior QB because “he won the big games” against the Colts in the playoffs. Uh, hello? No he didn’t. The Patriots were simply better. Peyton was still twice the QB Brady is, his teams simply weren’t as good. The Patriots defense was far superior, and one of the two years, their running game with Corey Dillon was superior. Not to mention the Patriots had both playoff games at home.
Since then, the tide has turned, and the Colts are now the better team. Yet, ironically, the Patriots still have a better defense and they also have a superior running game. So the only thing making the Colts better is... Peyton Manning. Peyton nearly single-handedly takes a team that would otherwise be mediocre, and makes it the best team in the league. I say almost single-handedly because he does have a terrific offensive line.
Nevertheless, he is the reason the Colts are better than the Patriots now, and Tom Brady simply cannot keep up with Peyton Manning. You saw this the other night. Tom tried to be Peyton and he made a fool of himself, throwing four picks to a shoddy D.
One final note: People continually say Peyton “chokes” in the big games. The last time I checked, “choking” somewhat involves being expected to win. Peyton should never have been expected to beat the Patriots, and he wasn’t, even by most of the idiotic analysts and commentators who litter ESPN with the trash they call “writing”. So he didn’t “choke”, he simply lost to superior teams. The exception to this is last year, when they let a downright mediocre Pittsburgh team wipe them out. There were many reasons for this (terrible coaching, Nick Harper’s pathetic job of evading Roethlisberger, too long of a rest for the Colts), but fine, they lost to an underdog in the playoffs. Once. How many teams haven’t done that at least once?
TheSportsRant’s Quarterly NFL Power Rankings
32. Arizona: Five weeks ago, I laughed at the pundits for predicting Arizona’s time would come. Have I been vindicated or what.
31. Houston: Orlando Bloom is still better than David Carusoe. David Carusoe is Arizona.
30. Cleveland: The other day, I heard this from Dick Sutcliff, a guy who should stick to commentating tennis: “The Cleveland Browns are improving every week”. Uhh, by “improving”, he must have meant “getting worse”; there is no other explanation, except maybe that Dick Sutcliff needs to stick to commentating tennis.
29. Detroit: Roy Williams, their up and coming receiver (chances are, if you pick receivers for a hundred years in a row, you will eventually get it right at least once) has as big a mouth as all the other receivers in the league; he says the lions will run the table. Don’t laugh people, it isn’t like the Lions have a record over the past five years of... never mind; you can laugh all you want.
28. Oakland: It seems ridiculous having a team that has not even scored 100 points by the halfway mark ahead of four other teams, but they look better than four other teams. This does not bode well for those four other teams.
27. Miami: Joey Harrington beat the Bears; Daunte Culpepper beat the Titans; what a comparison. Anyway, Sean Salisbury, who is usually not this insane, declared that “all of Daunte’s problems were injury related”; somebody shoot me.
26. San Francisco: The only interesting facet of the game last week involved the fact that Joe Nedney continues to be a productive kicker for San Fran, after years of nothing but injuries with the Titans. Somebody shoot me.
25. Tennessee: Vince Young can’t throw to save his life, but thankfully he has been running to save his life. I have hope for this team down the road.
24. Green Bay: They stink, but they still have Brett Favre (pronounced: FARV). This sounds oddly familiar...
23. Tampa Bay: They have beaten the Eagles. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but I thought I would mention it.
22. Pittsburgh: As bad as they are—and they are bad—I’d still take them in a game against any of the other cellar-dwelling, powder puff, cup-cake, barely-NFL caliber football teams. Man, these Power Rankings still seem strangely repetitive; perhaps I was simply so right the first time around, I could have just copied the original rankings... probably.
21. Minnesota: Brad Johnson does not get paid to run, to throw deep balls, to gun-sling the ball into tight spots... he gets paid to *not* make mistakes, yet he has been making a lot of those lately.
20. Buffalo: They absolutely do not belong anywhere near here. See my previous note on the Rams.
19. St. Louis: Throw the Rams, schizophrenia, and a couple good lines into a barrel and you have an SNL sketch.
18. N.Y. Jets: There is really no reason for them to be this high, at all. No, I’m not plagiarizing myself.
17. Jacksonville: You laughed, but I told you they weren’t that great. Now that they have seemingly thrown their eggs in David Garrard’s basket, they are hopeless.
15. Kansas City: Here we go: Herman Edwards fans are crawling out of the woodwork. This team is lucky.
16. Washington: This is still a strange, strange team. They had a strange, strange ending to their last game—a victory, regardless.
14. Dallas: Uh... what can I say about this team... OH I KNOW!!! Terrell Owens... *insert here*!
13. Philadelphia: I warned everyone that their record was deceiving; it isn’t anymore. Too bad they are still # 13 thanks to the lack of good teams in this league.
12. Seattle: This team ranking twelfth is yet another testament to how few good teams play football.
11. New Orleans: This team still feels like Studio 60. They are good, but will they survive anyway?
10. Carolina: Last time, they were 2-2; now, they are 4-4. All hail Sports Illustrated.
9. Cincinnati: Carson Palmer came back quicker than Daunte Culpepper, and he is fine. Cincinnati isn’t fine, but that has more to do with their kerraaaaaapy defense than his magic arm.
8. New England: Did you know that anything Tom Brady touches turn to gold, that he has never committed a sin, won three Super Bowls by taking the entire opposing defense on 1 against 11, has never thrown a bad pass, has a plan to save the environment while simultaneously increasing energy resources, is on his way to curing all the world’s diseases, and—
Oh, dang; he just threw four interceptions. I guess that puts a thorn into the side of all the morons proclaiming him the greatest QB in the game.
007. Atlanta: If I coached the Falcons, they would be better than they are, but then, if I coached the majority of the teams in this league, they would be better than they are—and if I managed the Yankees, they would be unbeatable. That has absolutely nothing to do with the Falcons, Power Rankings, or football in general, but it is so true I must mention it whenever possible.
6. Denver: Champ Bailey is a sick son of a gun. Unfortunately, that other cornerback they have isn’t, and Peyton proved that readily.
5. San Diego: They lost to Kansas City; that is simply inexcusable, and I hate having them in my top five. Yet I have them there, proving once again how few good teams there are in the NFL.
4. Baltimore: This team is good—nothing spectacular about them (they have an above average D and a below average running game), yet they are good. The fact that a merely “good” team can be #4 in the Power Rankings shows once again...
3. Chicago: They got run over by Ronnie Brown last week, helpless offense of Rex Grossman notwithstanding. And if I managed the Yankees, they would be unbeatable.
3. N.Y. Giants: If they would stop creating hospital bed shortages in America, this team would be crazy-good. Unfortunately, their devastation on defense will likely leave them handicapped beyond deep-playoff-run repair.
1. Indianapolis: Can we all just admit that this is the best regular season team to ever play the game? And can we also admit that Peyton Manning is the best QB in the game, period?
Turn your life around and lose: Is there a worse role model for kids than A.I.? Before I get lambasted for that statement, let me clarify: Allen Iverson is a changed man. He passes the ball, is unselfish, doesn’t spout off stupid comments for the media, and is basically more mature than he used to be, in every facet imaginable. The problem here is: his team now stinks (yeah they started off well, but do not kid yourselves, they are not going anywhere particularly great, unless you consider the lottery “great”). Allen Iverson once contended for championships, when he was a childish, irreverent, conceited ball-hog. Now that he has cleaned up his act, the eighty-one-minus-fivers stink. Now of course, there is no correlation between the two, other than a coincidental simultaneity. Yet if a kid is silly enough to look to NBA players as role models—and most kids are—they are probably silly enough to equate “bad attitude, selfishness” with “winning” based on said evidence.
This is exacerbated by the league’s acute focus on its own superstars. The Heat managed to become champs by taking the regular season off, and letting Dwayne Wade carry the entire team in the playoffs, while the league aided and abetted this behavior the whole way with fouls that made me want to jump in boiling oil. What kind of a message is that? “Yeah kids, be lazy, don’t work hard, then let your superstar win it for you”. Uh, please.
The incredibly ironic thing here is that the NBA is super image-obsessed. The new rules on excessive complaining, the dress code, and the barring of high school players all illuminate the league’s attempt to polish its image. Sure, guys. Worry about what they are wearing while you call fouls in such a way that a disinterested team with one good player in his prime can defeat the team oriented Bulls, the team oriented Nets, the team oriented Pistons, and the team oriented Mavericks, even when at least one of those teams—and probably two—were superior.
The NBA has an image. It goes something like this: “We dress well, we don’t complain, we utterly obliterate the need for teamwork.” Good job, guys.
Tom took ‘em all on!: Prior to last week’s Colts/Patriots game, we were once again inundated by morons telling us how Brady is a superior QB because “he won the big games” against the Colts in the playoffs. Uh, hello? No he didn’t. The Patriots were simply better. Peyton was still twice the QB Brady is, his teams simply weren’t as good. The Patriots defense was far superior, and one of the two years, their running game with Corey Dillon was superior. Not to mention the Patriots had both playoff games at home.
Since then, the tide has turned, and the Colts are now the better team. Yet, ironically, the Patriots still have a better defense and they also have a superior running game. So the only thing making the Colts better is... Peyton Manning. Peyton nearly single-handedly takes a team that would otherwise be mediocre, and makes it the best team in the league. I say almost single-handedly because he does have a terrific offensive line.
Nevertheless, he is the reason the Colts are better than the Patriots now, and Tom Brady simply cannot keep up with Peyton Manning. You saw this the other night. Tom tried to be Peyton and he made a fool of himself, throwing four picks to a shoddy D.
One final note: People continually say Peyton “chokes” in the big games. The last time I checked, “choking” somewhat involves being expected to win. Peyton should never have been expected to beat the Patriots, and he wasn’t, even by most of the idiotic analysts and commentators who litter ESPN with the trash they call “writing”. So he didn’t “choke”, he simply lost to superior teams. The exception to this is last year, when they let a downright mediocre Pittsburgh team wipe them out. There were many reasons for this (terrible coaching, Nick Harper’s pathetic job of evading Roethlisberger, too long of a rest for the Colts), but fine, they lost to an underdog in the playoffs. Once. How many teams haven’t done that at least once?
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Toughts of a showering Sports fanatic...
Basketball preview a few days late and a few paragraphs short: Before the basketball season gets too far in for credibility with predictions, I will declare my opinions quite vaguely and ambiguously, in such a way that they can be interpreted extremely loosely, so that I can pretend to be a genius at season’s end no matter what transpires (season’s end, by the way, is next June. Yeah, it is that freaking long).
San Antonio will surprise everyone this year because despite incredible success in recent years, people still do not believe in this team.
Phoenix is not going to be as good as everyone thought. Amare looks timid, and Steve Nash isn’t getting younger. And they treat defense the same way the A’s treat hitting. (For those who missed by baseball preview article—later marred by cheating pitchers, horrible managers, and fluky World Series victors—that means they treat defense like raw chicken covered in an unknown white powder wrapped in spinach).
Dallas is dang good. Too bad the conspiratorial league doesn’t like “good” teams, but rather superstars, of whom the Mavs are tastefully lacking in. (By the way, this only further proves how good the Spurs are. They manage to win even when the entire league is rooting--and conspiring--for them to lose due to their own tasteful lack of superstars).
Those three teams are the only ones that *really* matter in the West. Plenty of teams are good… but not that good. Except maybe that one team…
And in the East:
Miami will definitely not repeat. And by “definitely” I mean “maybe, pending the decision of the league’s conspiratorial council regarding the feasibility of incrasing the fouls called for Dwayne Wade while pretending to maintain some degree of believability”.
Detroit will be much worse than people realize. They weren’t as good as they looked last regular season, and now they are even worse. Losing Larry Brown finished them. Flip Saunders=not good.
Chicago is now my rooting interest. In a somewhat strange, cyclical allusion to my younger days (who didn’t root for MJ?), I am now rooting for Chicago. I like to root for a team in the NBA that has a chance to do great things, but is not there yet, plays defense, and lacks superstars. Chicago fills those qualities perfectly, much the same way Detroit did in ’03, when my rooting took them to the finals and beat the living crap out of the Lakers. I am not predicting that for Chicago (they don’t have Larry Brown) but I know you were simply dying to be aware of my rooting interests.
Lebron will not equal his statistical magnificence of last year, or, if he does, it will hurt the Cavs.
But does any team from this conference have a chance at winning anyway?
The NBA is the best place to find state-of-the-art (what does that mean anyway?) tanks: I refer, of course, to the king, King James. He is amazing, but after watching him for three years (which seems like a thousand, probably because I could recognize his high school highlights quicker than most pro players highlights), he seems to be built for the new NBA—the one where bullying and raw strength are the norm.
Call me crazy, but I remember a time when skill and speed and agility and a 15 foot jumper made you a superstar, not the brutish, troll-like strength of Lebron. You don’t expect him to blow by anyone. You expect him to blow them up. I can just imagine a conversation between Michael Jordan and Lebron.
Michael: So, you like crossing over to your right or your left?
Lebron: Crossing over? What?
Michael: You know, changing directions to get by someone.
Lebron: Get by them? Heck, that isn’t what I do! I go through them!
If you watch Lebron, he has the following attributes: amazing court vision, extremely good passing, the ability to bull-rush through the lane, a decent jump shot. Besides the passing (which he is inordinately skilled with), these are not the attributes of the star of yesteryear. In the former NBA (where running into your opponent was called charging, not blocking), I don’t know if Lebron would be as good. He doesn’t seem to have the ability to cleanly dribble the ball around someone. He just takes them out.
None of this is knocking Lebron’s talent. For one thing, he might learn to shoot someday (MJ did not have that never-miss fade-away as soon as he entered the league), for another, his passing is unmatched, and finally, he *is* built for today’s NBA, so the question of whether he would have made it years back is Platonic. Yet strangely relevant. Do you get the same satisfaction watching him blitzkrieg his way to the rim as you do when Kobe’s silky smooth moves have him dunking untouched? No, you don’t.
Lebron is amazing, and he will likely only get better. But the legacy of the NBA is dead, if Lebron carries it. He does not continue on in Michael’s tradition, or Magic’s tradition, or Larry’s tradition. He is his own breed, a new type of NBA tank, where you either get out of his way or get called for a block while he moves you out of his way. Watching him is watching greatness, but it is not particularly enjoyable.
You see, that pass is like this lateral incision, and…: In a recent article on ESPN.com, John Clayton gave his usual preview of the week’s ten best NFL games. In his musing regarding the Indy/NE game, he mentioned that “watching Peyton Manning (carve up the Denver defense) was like watching a surgeon operate”.
This is a phrase used constantly by ESPN analysts and writers; TheSportsRant wants to know why. Why does anyone ever use this phrase? John Clayton is by far the best NFL writer that ESPN has. His articles are always informative, well written, and yet not so stodgy as to drain all enjoyment from the pages. They are quick yet have depth. Still, what is he doing using this line?
The big question here is: Who the heck has ever seen a surgeon operate? The only people who are in the room while surgery is being undertaken are the surgeon (plus assistants) and patients. The patients sure as heck are not analyzing the surgery while overdosing on novocaine, and the surgeons perform surgeries because it is their job. They are hardly going to be impressed by simply yet another operation. So why is it “impressive” that Peyton Manning operates like a surgeon? How does a surgeon even operate? Precisely, I assume, and that is where the phrase comes from. But even ignoring the total over-usage of the phrase, it never really belonged in the first place. We use metaphors to help explain things, usually. They aren’t meant to cloud things in doubt. Yet, I would be far more educated by this phrase:
“Watching a surgeon operate is like watching Peyton Manning carve up defenses”.
Wouldn’t you?
The name is Bond. Ian Fleming's Bond: James Bond was never meant to be, at least in the form he appears to us today. The author of the original 007 novels intended for Bond to be a somewhat roughly edged, alcoholic killer with an ironic distaste for killing. The super suave, in-control Bond we know is a movie creation, not Ian Fleming’s creation. Apparently, the upcoming "Casino Royale" is returning Bond to his creator’s imagination.
This is not entirely horrible. The movie looks promising, if somewhat strange in the liberties it assumes with the timeline (the car, the gun, the M are all wrong). What is odd is that they decided to move Bond in an entirely new direction, when he really only needed a good kick in the pants to get back to normal.
It is no secret that Die Another Day was the Arizona Cardinals of the Bond franchise. That movie was horrible. The plot stunk, the acting was not very good, the special effects were mediocre…
Yet Bond films have survived such before (One word: Moonraker). The real problem with Die Another Day was the car. It cloaked. Yes. It cloaked. The moment I saw that car cloak, I knew the movie was done. Finished. Over. Useless. Playing out the string. As Newsweek noted in its recent article on prequels, there are moments in a franchise when you know it is in trouble, and the cloaking car was it.
Yet did one evanescent car ruin the entire series? Of course not. Get a better script, better acting, make the movie a bit grislier, and throw in some classic Bondism where he makes fun of an enemy installation by saying something like “what’s it going to do, disappear?” in order to acknowledge to fan and critic alike that everyone knows the stupid car was a big mistake. Problem solved.
I hold out hope for a terrific Bond flick. Still, it seems an overreaction to say the least.
And this is why North Carolina wants him?: Rich Rodriguez, head football coach of WVU, is purportedly being pursed for the head coaching position at UNC. Now beyond the obvious “why would he want to go there” question (he has a team that will contend for BCS bowls for at least one more season, and UNC is in the dumpster), the other question is: why would they want him? As evidenced by WVU’s loss to Louisville, Rodriguez is not a good coach. He had the best team on the field, without question, yet his team was hardly in the game.
He refused to pass. Pat White was easily capable of picking apart the Lousiville defense (which threw 8 or 9 men into the box consistently), yet Rich did not pass. He didn’t have to go pass whacky, but maintaining some type of balance would, if nothing else, make the running lanes open a bit more.
Not to mention their horrible defense, and copious amount of turnovers, both of which are extremely coaching related. Hopefully for WVU, he takes the UNC job.
San Antonio will surprise everyone this year because despite incredible success in recent years, people still do not believe in this team.
Phoenix is not going to be as good as everyone thought. Amare looks timid, and Steve Nash isn’t getting younger. And they treat defense the same way the A’s treat hitting. (For those who missed by baseball preview article—later marred by cheating pitchers, horrible managers, and fluky World Series victors—that means they treat defense like raw chicken covered in an unknown white powder wrapped in spinach).
Dallas is dang good. Too bad the conspiratorial league doesn’t like “good” teams, but rather superstars, of whom the Mavs are tastefully lacking in. (By the way, this only further proves how good the Spurs are. They manage to win even when the entire league is rooting--and conspiring--for them to lose due to their own tasteful lack of superstars).
Those three teams are the only ones that *really* matter in the West. Plenty of teams are good… but not that good. Except maybe that one team…
And in the East:
Miami will definitely not repeat. And by “definitely” I mean “maybe, pending the decision of the league’s conspiratorial council regarding the feasibility of incrasing the fouls called for Dwayne Wade while pretending to maintain some degree of believability”.
Detroit will be much worse than people realize. They weren’t as good as they looked last regular season, and now they are even worse. Losing Larry Brown finished them. Flip Saunders=not good.
Chicago is now my rooting interest. In a somewhat strange, cyclical allusion to my younger days (who didn’t root for MJ?), I am now rooting for Chicago. I like to root for a team in the NBA that has a chance to do great things, but is not there yet, plays defense, and lacks superstars. Chicago fills those qualities perfectly, much the same way Detroit did in ’03, when my rooting took them to the finals and beat the living crap out of the Lakers. I am not predicting that for Chicago (they don’t have Larry Brown) but I know you were simply dying to be aware of my rooting interests.
Lebron will not equal his statistical magnificence of last year, or, if he does, it will hurt the Cavs.
But does any team from this conference have a chance at winning anyway?
The NBA is the best place to find state-of-the-art (what does that mean anyway?) tanks: I refer, of course, to the king, King James. He is amazing, but after watching him for three years (which seems like a thousand, probably because I could recognize his high school highlights quicker than most pro players highlights), he seems to be built for the new NBA—the one where bullying and raw strength are the norm.
Call me crazy, but I remember a time when skill and speed and agility and a 15 foot jumper made you a superstar, not the brutish, troll-like strength of Lebron. You don’t expect him to blow by anyone. You expect him to blow them up. I can just imagine a conversation between Michael Jordan and Lebron.
Michael: So, you like crossing over to your right or your left?
Lebron: Crossing over? What?
Michael: You know, changing directions to get by someone.
Lebron: Get by them? Heck, that isn’t what I do! I go through them!
If you watch Lebron, he has the following attributes: amazing court vision, extremely good passing, the ability to bull-rush through the lane, a decent jump shot. Besides the passing (which he is inordinately skilled with), these are not the attributes of the star of yesteryear. In the former NBA (where running into your opponent was called charging, not blocking), I don’t know if Lebron would be as good. He doesn’t seem to have the ability to cleanly dribble the ball around someone. He just takes them out.
None of this is knocking Lebron’s talent. For one thing, he might learn to shoot someday (MJ did not have that never-miss fade-away as soon as he entered the league), for another, his passing is unmatched, and finally, he *is* built for today’s NBA, so the question of whether he would have made it years back is Platonic. Yet strangely relevant. Do you get the same satisfaction watching him blitzkrieg his way to the rim as you do when Kobe’s silky smooth moves have him dunking untouched? No, you don’t.
Lebron is amazing, and he will likely only get better. But the legacy of the NBA is dead, if Lebron carries it. He does not continue on in Michael’s tradition, or Magic’s tradition, or Larry’s tradition. He is his own breed, a new type of NBA tank, where you either get out of his way or get called for a block while he moves you out of his way. Watching him is watching greatness, but it is not particularly enjoyable.
You see, that pass is like this lateral incision, and…: In a recent article on ESPN.com, John Clayton gave his usual preview of the week’s ten best NFL games. In his musing regarding the Indy/NE game, he mentioned that “watching Peyton Manning (carve up the Denver defense) was like watching a surgeon operate”.
This is a phrase used constantly by ESPN analysts and writers; TheSportsRant wants to know why. Why does anyone ever use this phrase? John Clayton is by far the best NFL writer that ESPN has. His articles are always informative, well written, and yet not so stodgy as to drain all enjoyment from the pages. They are quick yet have depth. Still, what is he doing using this line?
The big question here is: Who the heck has ever seen a surgeon operate? The only people who are in the room while surgery is being undertaken are the surgeon (plus assistants) and patients. The patients sure as heck are not analyzing the surgery while overdosing on novocaine, and the surgeons perform surgeries because it is their job. They are hardly going to be impressed by simply yet another operation. So why is it “impressive” that Peyton Manning operates like a surgeon? How does a surgeon even operate? Precisely, I assume, and that is where the phrase comes from. But even ignoring the total over-usage of the phrase, it never really belonged in the first place. We use metaphors to help explain things, usually. They aren’t meant to cloud things in doubt. Yet, I would be far more educated by this phrase:
“Watching a surgeon operate is like watching Peyton Manning carve up defenses”.
Wouldn’t you?
The name is Bond. Ian Fleming's Bond: James Bond was never meant to be, at least in the form he appears to us today. The author of the original 007 novels intended for Bond to be a somewhat roughly edged, alcoholic killer with an ironic distaste for killing. The super suave, in-control Bond we know is a movie creation, not Ian Fleming’s creation. Apparently, the upcoming "Casino Royale" is returning Bond to his creator’s imagination.
This is not entirely horrible. The movie looks promising, if somewhat strange in the liberties it assumes with the timeline (the car, the gun, the M are all wrong). What is odd is that they decided to move Bond in an entirely new direction, when he really only needed a good kick in the pants to get back to normal.
It is no secret that Die Another Day was the Arizona Cardinals of the Bond franchise. That movie was horrible. The plot stunk, the acting was not very good, the special effects were mediocre…
Yet Bond films have survived such before (One word: Moonraker). The real problem with Die Another Day was the car. It cloaked. Yes. It cloaked. The moment I saw that car cloak, I knew the movie was done. Finished. Over. Useless. Playing out the string. As Newsweek noted in its recent article on prequels, there are moments in a franchise when you know it is in trouble, and the cloaking car was it.
Yet did one evanescent car ruin the entire series? Of course not. Get a better script, better acting, make the movie a bit grislier, and throw in some classic Bondism where he makes fun of an enemy installation by saying something like “what’s it going to do, disappear?” in order to acknowledge to fan and critic alike that everyone knows the stupid car was a big mistake. Problem solved.
I hold out hope for a terrific Bond flick. Still, it seems an overreaction to say the least.
And this is why North Carolina wants him?: Rich Rodriguez, head football coach of WVU, is purportedly being pursed for the head coaching position at UNC. Now beyond the obvious “why would he want to go there” question (he has a team that will contend for BCS bowls for at least one more season, and UNC is in the dumpster), the other question is: why would they want him? As evidenced by WVU’s loss to Louisville, Rodriguez is not a good coach. He had the best team on the field, without question, yet his team was hardly in the game.
He refused to pass. Pat White was easily capable of picking apart the Lousiville defense (which threw 8 or 9 men into the box consistently), yet Rich did not pass. He didn’t have to go pass whacky, but maintaining some type of balance would, if nothing else, make the running lanes open a bit more.
Not to mention their horrible defense, and copious amount of turnovers, both of which are extremely coaching related. Hopefully for WVU, he takes the UNC job.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Season-After Syndrome
The Ravens—and everyone else—continue waiting for Jamal Lewis to “return to form”.
Don’t hold your breath.
He gained 2,066 yards on 387 carries in 2003. That is a lot of yards. So many in fact, that he joined an elite group of only five backs who had ever rushed for 2,000 yards. The rest of the group is filled by guys with names like “Sanders”, “Dickerson” and “Simpson”.
Jamal Lewis was never was as good as them, but by carrying the ball 387 times in one year, he all but guaranteed himself he would never even be good again.
Since his breakout 2003 season, he has rushed for less than 1,900 total yards, his season high coming when he barely cracked 1,000 in 2004. This is not because he is a terrible running back. He was decent, though not spectacular. Think of a 1250 on your SAT. The reasons for his running demise are obvious, and I can count them. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,... 387.
Running backs simply do not come back from that type of punishing anymore. I don’t know if they ever did, but in today’s NFL, where murderous safeties, assassin linebackers, and 350 lb defensive lineman are the norm... it does not happen. Let us look at a few of those unfortunate players who ran for 2,000 yards in a season, or made an inordinate amount of carries, usually approaching or surpassing 400. These are all from 1980 or later.
Eric Dickerson: This guy was simply strange. I start out with him to somewhat remove an odd exception. He isn’t exactly an exception to the “season after” rule, but he had a roller coaster career. The all-time single season rushing leader had his big season in 1984, rushing for over 2100 yards on nearly 400 carries. The “Season after” was what you would expect from him. His carries decreased, his starts decreased, and he only ran for 1300 yards. Then, he took on even more carries in ‘86, got 1800 yards, and then... he was pretty much done. He averaged 880 yards a season until 1993, when he played only four games. So Dickerson avoided the model somewhat, by having one terrific season after his 2,000 yard escapade, and having another great one later on (sandwiched between half a dozen lousy ones), but the next examples are no so fortunate.
Terrell Davis: He had a monstrous year in 1998, rushing 392 times for 2008 yards (not to mention he also carried the Broncos through the playoffs). His next four years: 211, 282, 701, retirement. He is exactly what one would expect from a running back taking on that many carries.
Jamal Anderson: He did not reach 2,000 yards in 1999, but it certainly was not because they failed to give him the ball. He carried it 410 (!) times. Needless to say, his next season was ruined by injuries, and after three years he was done.
Jamal Lewis: Well you know what happened to him.
Now, there are those two anomalous 2,000 yard runners, Barry Sanders and O.J. Simpson. Both of them played great even after their 2,000 yard seasons, though Barry did retire after one more season (certainly wasn't because he was falling off! See below). What people don’t realize is that they got as many yards as the others, but did it by barely scratching 300 attempts! O.J. carried the ball 332 times for 2003 yards. Barry carried it 335 times for 2053 yards. They both gained their massive totals on significantly fewer attempts than the other members of the 2,000 yard club. They survived, because they got their 2,000 yards by averaging over six yards a carry, instead of simply running for two and falling over for another two, 400+ times.
The running back is a short-lived commodity, obviously. The pounding they take usually necessitates early retirement. Throw in a 2,000 yard, 400 carry season, and they are commentating games even sooner than expected.
The “Season after” syndrome does not only apply to running backs, however. Adrian Beltre is a strong example of a player who will never regain his “previous form”, simply because his “previous form” is most likely the six seasons of mediocrity, and not the one superb outing he showcased.
It also engulfs fluke championship winners, such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Heat. The Steelers are going nowhere this year, thanks to the fact that their improbable run to the Super Bowl last year was due to a shredded knee, a bad tackle, and bad officiating. Now that everyone expects them to do well (myself being excluded from “everyone”, of course), they aren’t. The Heat won last year by taking off the regular season and then letting Dwayne Wade get fouled in the postseason. This year, the whole team knows that can be done, so when Pat Riley is attempting to convince his team that taking off the regular season while staring at Dwayne Wade taking a team 1 on 5 does not work, they can point to last season and say “oh yes it does work!”
Since that did not seem like a good way to end this article, let me simply give you a link to Barry Sanders’ career numbers. I do not know if there has ever been a more consistently fantastic player. Jim Brown, maybe? No matter what, it is a two or three person list. Remember also, that Barry Sanders did this despite the fact that everyone knew he was Detroit’s only serious threat most of the time. Stare in awe, people, stare in awe.
GAAAHHH: Bill Simmons has long held a position of loftiness in my regard due to his amazing ability to discuss *exactly* what I had been complaining, praising, or talking about in days recent. This time, though, it is almost creepy. I mean... Joe-Morgan’s-incessant-Pujols-loving type of creepy. I wrote this in an article a few weeks back:
“On a related note, Chris Berman has got to be stopped. If he injects one more “oh by the way” into a spot where it simply does not fit, he needs to be shot. He’s an okay guy, and besides his incessant “back-back-back-back” (which starts to sound more like a chicken than a home run call), I don’t think he is a bad commentator. But his squeezing, twisting and forcing of “oh by the way” into these spots is sort of like that guy who has obviously never cursed in his life, wants to be “cool”, so he starts dropping f-bombs in all the wrong places, and sounds far more like a moron than he would have had he kept his mouth clean.”
Recently, I had decided to write an addendum to this, pointing out that while Chris Berman is the largest perpetrator, nearly every ESPN anchor/commentator/analyst was using this phrase like beer at a frat party. Of course... Bill Simmons beat me to it.
“(Important note No. 2: I will now be incorporating "andohbytheway" into my columns as mandated by the new company-wide policy that all ESPN personalities must say the phrase "andohbytheway" as much as possible. Andohbytheway, I'm not a big fan of this policy.)”
This is amazing. If Simmons, every once in a while, wrote about something I had thought, discussed or vaguely mused upon, that would be normal. After all, most people can associate with a guy who writes from the standpoint of a fan. In fact, if he wrote things all the time that I think about, discuss, or vaguely muse, it would be merely coincidental. But everything he freaking writes about, I have already thought, said or vaguely mused! He is either stupidly good at writing what the fan thinks (unlikely), or he is an alien with telepathic abilities (more likely). There aren’t any ways around it, people.
Decision Making: Brad Johnson made some horrible decisions last Monday, throwing the game away in the first quarter with two horrific interceptions. They were so horrific that it made me realize that 99% of the interceptions we see thrown aren’t that bad. There are Daunte Culpepper interceptions—i.e. his INT against Buffalo earlier this year—which are painful to watch, and then there are the rest, which are simply slightly misthrown passes. The thing here that is strange is that we usually say “oh what a stupid throw” or something along those lines. Yet, the difference between one of those brilliant Peyton Manning touchdowns, and one of those status quo Joey Harrington interceptions, is... about a foot. No one claims Peyton made a “stupid throw” when he perfectly shreds double coverage. When J.P. Losman does it, however, he was making a stupid decision. In reality, he simply cannot throw the ball as well as Peyton. Had the throw been on the money, we would all be lauding it as a terrific strike.
Along Those Lines: We need to begin charging receivers with INTs when the ball was perfectly thrown. How many times, last week alone, did QBs hit their receivers in the hands or chest, have the ball bounce off, right into a defender’s waiting arms, on his way to touching down? Many a time, to answer my own question. The QB does nothing wrong, yet his passer rating is dropped, and he gets another one of those ugly “INT”s on his resume. Same thing with dropped balls. The QB is supposed to throw it where the receiver can catch it, yet if the receiver drops it... the QB takes the stat hit. This makes no sense. If they can judge everything else—tackles, errors, etc.—they can freaking judge this. If the ball is perfectly thrown and the receiver simply *drops* it, the incompletion and/or interception should not be charged to the QB. It is that simple. They already use "drops" as a statistic, yet the QB is still penalized for an “incompletion”. That is simply hypocritical.
Don’t hold your breath.
He gained 2,066 yards on 387 carries in 2003. That is a lot of yards. So many in fact, that he joined an elite group of only five backs who had ever rushed for 2,000 yards. The rest of the group is filled by guys with names like “Sanders”, “Dickerson” and “Simpson”.
Jamal Lewis was never was as good as them, but by carrying the ball 387 times in one year, he all but guaranteed himself he would never even be good again.
Since his breakout 2003 season, he has rushed for less than 1,900 total yards, his season high coming when he barely cracked 1,000 in 2004. This is not because he is a terrible running back. He was decent, though not spectacular. Think of a 1250 on your SAT. The reasons for his running demise are obvious, and I can count them. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,... 387.
Running backs simply do not come back from that type of punishing anymore. I don’t know if they ever did, but in today’s NFL, where murderous safeties, assassin linebackers, and 350 lb defensive lineman are the norm... it does not happen. Let us look at a few of those unfortunate players who ran for 2,000 yards in a season, or made an inordinate amount of carries, usually approaching or surpassing 400. These are all from 1980 or later.
Eric Dickerson: This guy was simply strange. I start out with him to somewhat remove an odd exception. He isn’t exactly an exception to the “season after” rule, but he had a roller coaster career. The all-time single season rushing leader had his big season in 1984, rushing for over 2100 yards on nearly 400 carries. The “Season after” was what you would expect from him. His carries decreased, his starts decreased, and he only ran for 1300 yards. Then, he took on even more carries in ‘86, got 1800 yards, and then... he was pretty much done. He averaged 880 yards a season until 1993, when he played only four games. So Dickerson avoided the model somewhat, by having one terrific season after his 2,000 yard escapade, and having another great one later on (sandwiched between half a dozen lousy ones), but the next examples are no so fortunate.
Terrell Davis: He had a monstrous year in 1998, rushing 392 times for 2008 yards (not to mention he also carried the Broncos through the playoffs). His next four years: 211, 282, 701, retirement. He is exactly what one would expect from a running back taking on that many carries.
Jamal Anderson: He did not reach 2,000 yards in 1999, but it certainly was not because they failed to give him the ball. He carried it 410 (!) times. Needless to say, his next season was ruined by injuries, and after three years he was done.
Jamal Lewis: Well you know what happened to him.
Now, there are those two anomalous 2,000 yard runners, Barry Sanders and O.J. Simpson. Both of them played great even after their 2,000 yard seasons, though Barry did retire after one more season (certainly wasn't because he was falling off! See below). What people don’t realize is that they got as many yards as the others, but did it by barely scratching 300 attempts! O.J. carried the ball 332 times for 2003 yards. Barry carried it 335 times for 2053 yards. They both gained their massive totals on significantly fewer attempts than the other members of the 2,000 yard club. They survived, because they got their 2,000 yards by averaging over six yards a carry, instead of simply running for two and falling over for another two, 400+ times.
The running back is a short-lived commodity, obviously. The pounding they take usually necessitates early retirement. Throw in a 2,000 yard, 400 carry season, and they are commentating games even sooner than expected.
The “Season after” syndrome does not only apply to running backs, however. Adrian Beltre is a strong example of a player who will never regain his “previous form”, simply because his “previous form” is most likely the six seasons of mediocrity, and not the one superb outing he showcased.
It also engulfs fluke championship winners, such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Heat. The Steelers are going nowhere this year, thanks to the fact that their improbable run to the Super Bowl last year was due to a shredded knee, a bad tackle, and bad officiating. Now that everyone expects them to do well (myself being excluded from “everyone”, of course), they aren’t. The Heat won last year by taking off the regular season and then letting Dwayne Wade get fouled in the postseason. This year, the whole team knows that can be done, so when Pat Riley is attempting to convince his team that taking off the regular season while staring at Dwayne Wade taking a team 1 on 5 does not work, they can point to last season and say “oh yes it does work!”
Since that did not seem like a good way to end this article, let me simply give you a link to Barry Sanders’ career numbers. I do not know if there has ever been a more consistently fantastic player. Jim Brown, maybe? No matter what, it is a two or three person list. Remember also, that Barry Sanders did this despite the fact that everyone knew he was Detroit’s only serious threat most of the time. Stare in awe, people, stare in awe.
GAAAHHH: Bill Simmons has long held a position of loftiness in my regard due to his amazing ability to discuss *exactly* what I had been complaining, praising, or talking about in days recent. This time, though, it is almost creepy. I mean... Joe-Morgan’s-incessant-Pujols-loving type of creepy. I wrote this in an article a few weeks back:
“On a related note, Chris Berman has got to be stopped. If he injects one more “oh by the way” into a spot where it simply does not fit, he needs to be shot. He’s an okay guy, and besides his incessant “back-back-back-back” (which starts to sound more like a chicken than a home run call), I don’t think he is a bad commentator. But his squeezing, twisting and forcing of “oh by the way” into these spots is sort of like that guy who has obviously never cursed in his life, wants to be “cool”, so he starts dropping f-bombs in all the wrong places, and sounds far more like a moron than he would have had he kept his mouth clean.”
Recently, I had decided to write an addendum to this, pointing out that while Chris Berman is the largest perpetrator, nearly every ESPN anchor/commentator/analyst was using this phrase like beer at a frat party. Of course... Bill Simmons beat me to it.
“(Important note No. 2: I will now be incorporating "andohbytheway" into my columns as mandated by the new company-wide policy that all ESPN personalities must say the phrase "andohbytheway" as much as possible. Andohbytheway, I'm not a big fan of this policy.)”
This is amazing. If Simmons, every once in a while, wrote about something I had thought, discussed or vaguely mused upon, that would be normal. After all, most people can associate with a guy who writes from the standpoint of a fan. In fact, if he wrote things all the time that I think about, discuss, or vaguely muse, it would be merely coincidental. But everything he freaking writes about, I have already thought, said or vaguely mused! He is either stupidly good at writing what the fan thinks (unlikely), or he is an alien with telepathic abilities (more likely). There aren’t any ways around it, people.
Decision Making: Brad Johnson made some horrible decisions last Monday, throwing the game away in the first quarter with two horrific interceptions. They were so horrific that it made me realize that 99% of the interceptions we see thrown aren’t that bad. There are Daunte Culpepper interceptions—i.e. his INT against Buffalo earlier this year—which are painful to watch, and then there are the rest, which are simply slightly misthrown passes. The thing here that is strange is that we usually say “oh what a stupid throw” or something along those lines. Yet, the difference between one of those brilliant Peyton Manning touchdowns, and one of those status quo Joey Harrington interceptions, is... about a foot. No one claims Peyton made a “stupid throw” when he perfectly shreds double coverage. When J.P. Losman does it, however, he was making a stupid decision. In reality, he simply cannot throw the ball as well as Peyton. Had the throw been on the money, we would all be lauding it as a terrific strike.
Along Those Lines: We need to begin charging receivers with INTs when the ball was perfectly thrown. How many times, last week alone, did QBs hit their receivers in the hands or chest, have the ball bounce off, right into a defender’s waiting arms, on his way to touching down? Many a time, to answer my own question. The QB does nothing wrong, yet his passer rating is dropped, and he gets another one of those ugly “INT”s on his resume. Same thing with dropped balls. The QB is supposed to throw it where the receiver can catch it, yet if the receiver drops it... the QB takes the stat hit. This makes no sense. If they can judge everything else—tackles, errors, etc.—they can freaking judge this. If the ball is perfectly thrown and the receiver simply *drops* it, the incompletion and/or interception should not be charged to the QB. It is that simple. They already use "drops" as a statistic, yet the QB is still penalized for an “incompletion”. That is simply hypocritical.
Monday, October 30, 2006
This Article has a Point. Somewhere....
While watching more and more and more and more teams fall apart due to terrible coaching recently, an odd question arises.
Why aren’t the players allowed to disapprove of their teams being out-coached?
Jeremy Shockey told the media that his team was “outplayed and out-coached”, and the media exploded like something left in the microwave for too long. Tiki Barber alluded to the fact that the Giants might have been out-coached last year during the playoffs, and analysts began equating his character with feet wrapped in leathery burnt bacon.
The examples of players griping about coaching could be multiplied, but the point is that when a player complains of poor coaching, commentators jump on him, deride him, call him names, question his character, demand he apologize, and usually want him to cure cancer while he is at it.
My question is:
Why?
Why is a player not allowed to question his coach? The reason this strange unspoken rule about never complaining about the coach is so odd is that the coach incessantly complains about the players. Let’s run through a couple coach’s lines here.
“We just didn’t execute.”
This term “execute” means “perform”, “achieve”, “accomplish”, etc. The coach who uses this line is saying “we had the plays, they just didn’t do them right”. In other words, he is shifting all of the blame onto the players! Why is a coach allowed to shift every parcel of blame onto the players, but the player is not even allowed to say something along the lines of “we stunk on the field, our plans stunk, everything stunk”? The answer: such would be sacrilege against the unwritten rule of never questioning a coach.
“We got outplayed. We got our butts kicked”. In other words, my players failed me. These (or similar) are both common lines. Coaches spout them off all the time. They are not even questioned. Usually, analysts and commentators will even talk of the coach’s integrity, because he “wasn’t making excuses”.
HELLO?! Sure he was! Coaches rarely come out and blame themselves. They always say they were outplayed.
Yet, the player is not allowed to mention this.
Now many of you out there are crying “Bull! The players are the ones playing, it is they who have to remain accountable”. Sure, plenty of the time, the players stink it up.
But if nothing is ever a coach’s fault, then no credit belongs to the coaches either. They either do nothing, or they make mistakes. In football, they have an inordinate amount of responsibility. They can win games through their tactics, and easily lose them through blunders. In the game of basketball, coaches are instrumental in not only strategizing, but often in developing players, i.e. sometimes they aren’t getting enough out of the player. In baseball, managers certainly have less influence than football, but as seen in recent years by true Yankee fans everywhere, a manager can certainly lose you a series.
Or two.
Or three.
*dies*
*wakes up*
So, coaches are accountable. Yet players can’t complain.
This is an absurd double standard held by the media at large. I am all for teams keeping complaints within the locker room, and taking accountability as a team, but the coaches are part of that team, and if they are allowed to rag on their players—as they often do—then no one should be crucifying the players for puling about coaching.
A player should be able to say that the team got outplayed and out-coached. Or, if that is not acceptable, than coaches need to shut up, also. I prefer the latter, but since the Bill Parcells of the world will never stop criticizing their players, players should not get the flack they do when they whine about coaching. Sure, they could take the high road and we would all love it. But the coaches deserve the same criticism for tearing their players down that those very players countenance for questioning their coaches.
Ironically, the players are usually right when they lash out at coaches. Let’s face it: they would not whine unless they really felt hampered by an ineffective scheme, so... they were probably hampered by an ineffective scheme. Jeremy Shockey was completely correct when he complained of being out-coached. The Giants were out-schemed, out-thought, and, also, outplayed. He admitted that. He still got torn to pieces by the media.
How come no one tears a coach apart when he says “we just didn’t execute”?
How Dare You Make a Prudent Throw!: Bill Simmons, an author who I obviously have great respect for, just took a massive hit in the credibility department the other day. He complained about Eli Manning’s passes to Plaxico Burress, saying they were all too high, forcing Plaxico to stretch to reach them.
LOL.
So because a QB hits a receiver where only the receiver can catch it, the throw is awful. This is a lot like those passes Jake Delhomme throws, where he makes Steve Smith run half the field to catch the ball. How dare he make Smith utilize his speed? Brilliant, Bill, brilliant. Then again, this is the same Bill Simmons who attempted to explain Seattle’s offense by saying that “four receiver, one back sets” are “unstoppable”
...in Madden. The video game. Yep.
Yes I Know: I promised a Yankee articles regarding five easy ways to fix their team, but they are all so obvious I am debating whether to even write it. What is the point? Smart people already know, and stupid people won’t listen. Although... I suppose one could make that same argument about... everything.
The Other Day: I was looking through my mail the other day, where I saw that the NFL had sent me a notice to inform me that I had been flagged for roughing the passer. Now this was somewhat odd seeing as I don’t play football, much less play football in the NFL. Still, since their touchiness regarding QBs has reached new levels of paranoia, I supposed it is not entirely unexpected. Just as many new mothers have been having nightmares involving Tom Cruise, I assume that the NFL’s mental depravity regarding QBs is widespread in its effects. Yet, when they claim to penalize me fifteen minutes of game watching time, I think they have gone too far.
Is There Any Use for Soccer?: I have now invented one. We need to play soccer with footballs. Seriously. It will only last ten minutes (sort of like the World Cup’s interest level in America), but would you not love to see a bunch of sweaty guys running around trying to predict where the funny-bouncing pigskin will end up? To heck with scoring, defense, and everything else. Just watching those flopping, hand-eye coordination-less guys try to understand the physics of a ball that isn’t round would be worth it.
I Have Neglected My Duties: I do not understand how I let this happen, but it has been weeks since Kramnik’s defeat of Topolav in the "Unified World Chess Championship", and I have not yet let you, the reader, know about it. I sincerely apologize for this gross oversight, and pray that I will be forgiven, and that my column will continue to be read. My God, if ESPN had failed to cover something like this... *shudders*
Well I guess I’m just not at their level yet.
Daunte oh Daunte: It is currently illegal to mention the Vikings’ success this season without first stating that Brad Childress “is doing a great job”. Clearly, the Vikings stunk last year, made no significant personnel changes this year, got a new coach, and are now good, hence the coach is the reason.
Look, I am no Mike Tice fan. He stunk. Someone has to be pretty bad to waste Randy Moss the way he did... and Art Shell is doing. But regardless, the Vikings did not turn around solely due to Brad Childress. Granted, he has contributed; if Mike Tice were still the coach, the Vikings would still stink. Nevertheless, the Vikings actually turned around last year. I am betting you all remember when.
Yep. When Daunte Culpepper went down. Please. Someone explain to me why anyone thinks he is good.
Sometimes I Am SO Right, like, Totally: I have been declaring Ben Roethlisberger’s mediocrity and the Steeler’s mediocrity for some time. Now that they lost to the Raiders in horrible fashion, can everyone just admit I am right? I also predicted the Titans were only softening up the league with their 0-5 start. After two straight wins, they—and my predictions—are looking good. Okay, so I do not think they are going to make the playoffs. Still, putting Vince Young in has given them new life. Since he took over, they are 2-2, with a close, close loss to Indy the only thing keeping them from 3-1 in that span. Not bad for a rookie QB.
Someone Cares, I suppose: The World Series was lacking in a winner for the second time in at least fifty years, with the strike year possessing the only other occurrence. Yep, that is correct; no one won the World Series in 2006. The Tigers did an absolutely terrific job of losing it, though. As for that joke of a team, the Cardinals, they have to be the worst World Series “winner” since... huh. I can’t really think of a worse team.
Why aren’t the players allowed to disapprove of their teams being out-coached?
Jeremy Shockey told the media that his team was “outplayed and out-coached”, and the media exploded like something left in the microwave for too long. Tiki Barber alluded to the fact that the Giants might have been out-coached last year during the playoffs, and analysts began equating his character with feet wrapped in leathery burnt bacon.
The examples of players griping about coaching could be multiplied, but the point is that when a player complains of poor coaching, commentators jump on him, deride him, call him names, question his character, demand he apologize, and usually want him to cure cancer while he is at it.
My question is:
Why?
Why is a player not allowed to question his coach? The reason this strange unspoken rule about never complaining about the coach is so odd is that the coach incessantly complains about the players. Let’s run through a couple coach’s lines here.
“We just didn’t execute.”
This term “execute” means “perform”, “achieve”, “accomplish”, etc. The coach who uses this line is saying “we had the plays, they just didn’t do them right”. In other words, he is shifting all of the blame onto the players! Why is a coach allowed to shift every parcel of blame onto the players, but the player is not even allowed to say something along the lines of “we stunk on the field, our plans stunk, everything stunk”? The answer: such would be sacrilege against the unwritten rule of never questioning a coach.
“We got outplayed. We got our butts kicked”. In other words, my players failed me. These (or similar) are both common lines. Coaches spout them off all the time. They are not even questioned. Usually, analysts and commentators will even talk of the coach’s integrity, because he “wasn’t making excuses”.
HELLO?! Sure he was! Coaches rarely come out and blame themselves. They always say they were outplayed.
Yet, the player is not allowed to mention this.
Now many of you out there are crying “Bull! The players are the ones playing, it is they who have to remain accountable”. Sure, plenty of the time, the players stink it up.
But if nothing is ever a coach’s fault, then no credit belongs to the coaches either. They either do nothing, or they make mistakes. In football, they have an inordinate amount of responsibility. They can win games through their tactics, and easily lose them through blunders. In the game of basketball, coaches are instrumental in not only strategizing, but often in developing players, i.e. sometimes they aren’t getting enough out of the player. In baseball, managers certainly have less influence than football, but as seen in recent years by true Yankee fans everywhere, a manager can certainly lose you a series.
Or two.
Or three.
*dies*
*wakes up*
So, coaches are accountable. Yet players can’t complain.
This is an absurd double standard held by the media at large. I am all for teams keeping complaints within the locker room, and taking accountability as a team, but the coaches are part of that team, and if they are allowed to rag on their players—as they often do—then no one should be crucifying the players for puling about coaching.
A player should be able to say that the team got outplayed and out-coached. Or, if that is not acceptable, than coaches need to shut up, also. I prefer the latter, but since the Bill Parcells of the world will never stop criticizing their players, players should not get the flack they do when they whine about coaching. Sure, they could take the high road and we would all love it. But the coaches deserve the same criticism for tearing their players down that those very players countenance for questioning their coaches.
Ironically, the players are usually right when they lash out at coaches. Let’s face it: they would not whine unless they really felt hampered by an ineffective scheme, so... they were probably hampered by an ineffective scheme. Jeremy Shockey was completely correct when he complained of being out-coached. The Giants were out-schemed, out-thought, and, also, outplayed. He admitted that. He still got torn to pieces by the media.
How come no one tears a coach apart when he says “we just didn’t execute”?
How Dare You Make a Prudent Throw!: Bill Simmons, an author who I obviously have great respect for, just took a massive hit in the credibility department the other day. He complained about Eli Manning’s passes to Plaxico Burress, saying they were all too high, forcing Plaxico to stretch to reach them.
LOL.
So because a QB hits a receiver where only the receiver can catch it, the throw is awful. This is a lot like those passes Jake Delhomme throws, where he makes Steve Smith run half the field to catch the ball. How dare he make Smith utilize his speed? Brilliant, Bill, brilliant. Then again, this is the same Bill Simmons who attempted to explain Seattle’s offense by saying that “four receiver, one back sets” are “unstoppable”
...in Madden. The video game. Yep.
Yes I Know: I promised a Yankee articles regarding five easy ways to fix their team, but they are all so obvious I am debating whether to even write it. What is the point? Smart people already know, and stupid people won’t listen. Although... I suppose one could make that same argument about... everything.
The Other Day: I was looking through my mail the other day, where I saw that the NFL had sent me a notice to inform me that I had been flagged for roughing the passer. Now this was somewhat odd seeing as I don’t play football, much less play football in the NFL. Still, since their touchiness regarding QBs has reached new levels of paranoia, I supposed it is not entirely unexpected. Just as many new mothers have been having nightmares involving Tom Cruise, I assume that the NFL’s mental depravity regarding QBs is widespread in its effects. Yet, when they claim to penalize me fifteen minutes of game watching time, I think they have gone too far.
Is There Any Use for Soccer?: I have now invented one. We need to play soccer with footballs. Seriously. It will only last ten minutes (sort of like the World Cup’s interest level in America), but would you not love to see a bunch of sweaty guys running around trying to predict where the funny-bouncing pigskin will end up? To heck with scoring, defense, and everything else. Just watching those flopping, hand-eye coordination-less guys try to understand the physics of a ball that isn’t round would be worth it.
I Have Neglected My Duties: I do not understand how I let this happen, but it has been weeks since Kramnik’s defeat of Topolav in the "Unified World Chess Championship", and I have not yet let you, the reader, know about it. I sincerely apologize for this gross oversight, and pray that I will be forgiven, and that my column will continue to be read. My God, if ESPN had failed to cover something like this... *shudders*
Well I guess I’m just not at their level yet.
Daunte oh Daunte: It is currently illegal to mention the Vikings’ success this season without first stating that Brad Childress “is doing a great job”. Clearly, the Vikings stunk last year, made no significant personnel changes this year, got a new coach, and are now good, hence the coach is the reason.
Look, I am no Mike Tice fan. He stunk. Someone has to be pretty bad to waste Randy Moss the way he did... and Art Shell is doing. But regardless, the Vikings did not turn around solely due to Brad Childress. Granted, he has contributed; if Mike Tice were still the coach, the Vikings would still stink. Nevertheless, the Vikings actually turned around last year. I am betting you all remember when.
Yep. When Daunte Culpepper went down. Please. Someone explain to me why anyone thinks he is good.
Sometimes I Am SO Right, like, Totally: I have been declaring Ben Roethlisberger’s mediocrity and the Steeler’s mediocrity for some time. Now that they lost to the Raiders in horrible fashion, can everyone just admit I am right? I also predicted the Titans were only softening up the league with their 0-5 start. After two straight wins, they—and my predictions—are looking good. Okay, so I do not think they are going to make the playoffs. Still, putting Vince Young in has given them new life. Since he took over, they are 2-2, with a close, close loss to Indy the only thing keeping them from 3-1 in that span. Not bad for a rookie QB.
Someone Cares, I suppose: The World Series was lacking in a winner for the second time in at least fifty years, with the strike year possessing the only other occurrence. Yep, that is correct; no one won the World Series in 2006. The Tigers did an absolutely terrific job of losing it, though. As for that joke of a team, the Cardinals, they have to be the worst World Series “winner” since... huh. I can’t really think of a worse team.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
You Call That a Sport?!
In honor of... well, nothing, I have decided that the content of this article will consist of the oddities and strange quirks regarding the various sports that seems to question their sport hood all together. I do this because the NFL had no good matchups to write about (Dallas/New York, Cincy/Carolina, Philly/Tampa Bay notwithstanding... okay so I'm a bit sick of football, that's all), the MLB has no good matchups to write about (no, the World Series really doesn’t count), the NBA has not started its season yet, and no one ever cared about hockey. So what else is there to do but make fun of things.
Football: How can football dare to pretend at sportingness when the quarterbacks are not allowed to be touched. Just imagine if the *other* sports didn’t allow the person with the ball to be touched. No one could ever take a charge when Dwayne Wade drives the basket because—ummm, okay, so the NBA sort of has this rule also. But come on, in football, the whole point is tackling the other guy. The fact that QBs are treated as delicately as ticking time bombs strapped to baby carriages holding quintuplets throws mud in the face of the NFL’s “sportiness”.
Besides, football players are all wimps anyway. They are always complaining about “time of possession”, and getting tired, and “wearing the defense out”. Well excuse me, but if the best athletes the NFL has to offer can’t go hard for ten minutes over the course of a game (everyone knows the actual playing time in an NFL game is somewhere around seventeen minutes) then what the heck is this league doing pretending to be a sport? Shame on you, pro football.
Baseball: Well it might seem like I am picking on baseball a bit here, but there are just so many reasons baseball clings to sporthood by the skin of its teeth. I love baseball, but it doesn’t require athleticism, endurance, or, most of the time, attention. (The best players usually possess such qualities, but the fact remains that the game does not require such qualities to compete)
1) Think about what an outfielder does. 99% of the time he is out there, he is doing absolutely nothing. Until "standing there" becomes an "athletic" activity, this is pretty hard to defend.
2) Or, how does it call itself a sport while allowing a guy to sit on his butt the entire time, only taking a few swings every three innings? I mean... I don’t hate the DH, but it does detract from the “sport” aspect of baseball.
3) Most damning are those stupid in-game interviews. How can it be a sport if the freaking managers are babbling with bird-brained commentators the entire time?
4) Last but not least, how can anything which David Wells is able to excel in call itself a sport?
Basketball: How can any league which allows embarrassing conspiratorial debacles like last year’s finals call itself a sport. The Mavericks were better, played better, showed everyone just how much better they were, and yet the Heat won because the league wanted them to win. They had no teamwork, no chemistry,and nothing involving the coordination of fifteen people into a team. They had Dwayne Wade, though. And when a team has a guy shooting a thousand free throws a game... how can you lose? *I* could outscore the Mavericks if I got as many free throws as Dwayne Wade did. Seriously. There were several “fouls” called when he drove the lane despite the fact that the replays showed no one ever touched him. The league went the way of the Heat because the Heat has stars, and the Mavericks do not.
How can it call itself a sport when a team willing to work together not only has to deal with the opposing team, but also with the morons in gray shirts calling stupid fouls for the league’s stars, simply because they are stars? Shame shame shame.
Hockey: Now here is a freaking sport! The guys have to skate and handle a puck at the same time? They beat each other up, get thrown in penalty boxes—
Well shoot. Nobody watches hockey anyway? How could that be. Surely it couldn’t be because they never score and even when they do you can’t tell because the puck is practically invisible. Oh, that is the problem? Hmm. I suppose they could change the color of the puck or something. That didn’t work? Well, how about this. They get rid of the ice, the goals, the goalies, the pads, the sticks, the puck, but keep the gloves.
Then, you would have boxing. And of course, boxing is only a slightly less violent version of gladiators fighting in coliseums.
Just proves that the Romans really did invent everything worth doing.
*Massive Disclaimer: I tend to insult things I like and not those I dislike. Before anyone gets any heinous notions in their head, I will dispel them: I am not a hockey fan, have never been a hockey fan, and until they invent a camera that attaches to the puck, will never be a hockey fan.
Potential: I once wrote a paper on how frustrating it is to see massive potential wasted. The Falcons are running clinic on how to do just that. Can you imagine Michael Jordan playing basketball as a center? How about Babe Ruth as a pinch-runner? Can you see Lance Armstrong as a sprinter? Michael Vick is being wasted.
The guy throws a beautiful ball. I mean, not just any kind of beautiful, but over-bearing beautiful. "The most beautiful I have ever seen in my life" beautiful. Not only that, but it is effortless. The guy just flicks his wrist and the ball streaks fifty yards on a near flat trajectory. Sure, he doesn’t have the most touch on the ball, but who cares. He can throw any dang pass you want him to, but he is stuck in one of those “west coast” offenses, otherwise known as “offenses for QBs who can’t throw”.
Michael Vick can freaking throw, and he is being wasted. No QB in the league is more suited to throwing deep balls than him. He can buy all the time in the world with his legs, and the ball will be 60 yards down the field in .3 seconds. Now, granted, they have terrible receivers, but geez, you need to at least try this. Let him throw. He can.
And get him a freaking receiver. Trade for Randy Moss. You will never, ever, ever lose a game if you have Randy Moss, Michael Vick, and a good coach on the same team. Oh the potential. Oh the waste. I understand Randy Moss might not be feasible due to pesky financial reasons, but... get somebody. The most outlandishly good QB of all time is floundering in a bad system, with bad receivers, and we don’t get to see the most potent dual threat of all time. You know why play-action works? Because for a split second, the linebackers and defensive backs think there might be a run. With Vick, there can always be a run. Just imagine that potential juxtaposed with some deep throws.
Oh the frustration. And I don’t even care about the Falcons. It is simply greatness being pooped upon. Yes, I ended that sentence with a preposition. No, I do not care. Vick’ potential has scrambled my brains.
Another major disclaimer: This is not an overreaction to a single game. I have said this for the last five years. Or however long Vick has played... My brain is still scrambled from trying to calculate the number of undefeated seasons a team with Vick, Moss, and Bill Belichick would have.
Another Disclaimer: I don't think they should try the whole "pocket passer" thing, either. I think he should still run. That is the point. How can anyone defend a team where the guy with the ball is Deion Sanders, Gale Sayers and Brett Favre all rolled into one? At the moment, the Falcons are only utilizing about 35% of Vick's capability.
What a Lull: No NBA yet. MLB is over. No Tennis. Heck, no soccer or golf to mock. All we have is football, and I keep talking about football.
Or at least, I will, until next edition, where I fix the Yankees in five simple steps. In the meantime:
So *this* is why the Yankees lost...: Two words: Kenny Rogers. Yes, I know I said baseball is over, and it practically is. But even the most boring and anticlimactic series since... ever... deserves mention when Kenny Rogers, the bona fide worst starter in postseason history, stands on the verge of a postseason record for scoreless innings pitched. Yet in reality, this simply proves to us once again how gullible sports fans are. No one even hinted at the idea that he might, I don’t know, have been doing something shady. After all, this is totally reasonable pitching from him, given his past postseason performances. And he obviously would never cheat, right? I mean, he has never been accused of it before, and no one ever complained about his general attitude, right? I mean even the camera-men exhort his great manners.
Obviously, had he not been cheating (not that I'm saying he was...), the Yankees would have won game 3. Eh. I don’t know. Torre still would have found a way to blow it.
Oh So Odd: College Football on Saturday re-opened the oddest question in sports. A team got down 38-3, and then won. I watched the first and last drive of Notre Dame’s offense. That was all I needed to see, because apparently, in between, they were not able to simply walk down the field at will. And the reasons for this are... ostensibly the same reasons James Blake can win one set 6-0 and lose the next 0-6. Then again, it is college football. People have drop kicked field goals of off fair catches in college. This isn’t *that* weird...
Doomed to talk about NFL: Eli was awesome, 62 yarders are sweet, was there a more boring close and relevant game in history than Carolina/Cincy, the Raiders are better than the Cardinals which means the Cardinals are really bad but we already knew that, you laughed when I had Jacksonville so low on my Power Rankings but who is laughing now (the Texans, to answer my own questions), the Chargers don’t seem so good anymore, the Colts seem the same as always, the Redskins still stink, and Heroes is not as good as Sunday Night Football, great job screwing up my Sunday night, NBC.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Relax, Guys (You Live on Another World, Known as the West Coast)
There has been a lot of ho-humming and complaining (and a *ton* of guffawing) regarding the Cardinals lately. This is understandable, considering they are 1-5 after the experts almost unanimously picked them to sneak into the playoffs. But after the Cardinals’ epic collapse on Monday Night Football, folks began discussing their epic failure as a franchise, in general. Everyone started talking about the Cardinals in those “they’ll never win” tones. They made the Cardinals sound like Germans in world wars, or the French in any war. They also acted as if this is always the way it has been. Well I am no “expert”—i.e. I’m not paid to be wrong—but it seems like people forgot about this for a long time. Why?
NO MORE BUNGLES! The United States of America dearly misses its Cincinnati Bengals. Yes, they are still around, and yes, they are actually a decent team now, but that is the problem! Everyone enjoyed laughing at the Bengals’ expense. Calling them all types of cheesy names, attempting to describe just how bad they were, and other such national pastimes were highly enjoyable. We used the Bengals like a bully uses a playground nerd. We picked them up, twisted them, threw them in trash cans, stole their money, punched them in the face, and dared them to ever stand up to us. For fourteen years they did not. Now that this fan-team bullying is no longer a possibility... what to do? Well, find a new playground nerd, of course! It will be tough. The Bengals went fourteen seasons without a single job done better than .500. Look at these win “totals” (if they can even be called that).
The Bengals, starting in 1991, continuing up to the Marvin Lewis era, won 3, 5, 3, 3, 7, 8, 7, 3, 4, 4, 6 and 2 games. That is bad. Horrible. Putrid. Intolerably despicable. Think about a team winning an average of 4.5 games every year for twelve years! We just ignored the Cardinals because we did not need another whipping-boy type team. Now that Marvin Lewis has brought the Bengals to respectability, the Cardinals are ripe for the picking. The Bengals pale in comparison to Cardinal-like putrescence. While looking at their past records, I have to wonder, is there anything better than playing on the West coast?
I ask this because it is no secret that Eastern teams get all the press, all the attention, and all the viewers (no I *don’t* feel like staying up until 1 in the morning to watch the Diamondbacks play the Giants!) But then, isn’t this an advantage? For one thing, the winning teams get to play with the whole “nobody respects us” chip on their shoulder, which usually translates to wins in the playoffs regardless of records (why do you think so many wild card teams win? Because they are good? Please do not tell me you are that naïve. They just have the motivation). Even better, the losing teams are almost entirely ignored. Now a team like the Raiders can’t escape this, because even though they are a western team, they are extremely high profile.
But for a team like Arizona, holy freaking crap! It is a darn good thing no one pays attention to them. If anyone had, the Bengals would have been ignored as the penultimate team in the league, instead of the ultimate (for those wondering why I am using superlative adjectives to describe these perennial losers, I’m not. Those words don’t mean what you think they do).
For years, the Bengals were harassed as being the most hopeless team in the league. But just look at the Cardinals! Starting in 1920, when they were playing in Chicago (the Cards have moved around a bit...) they have had five seasons of ten wins or more.
Five!
That means that it has taken the Cardinals 85 years to accomplish what the Colts have done in the last 6. There is bad, and then there are the Cardinals. And even though everyone knows this intuitively, their west coast address has them escaping their full share of insulting. I mean, they don’t have any nicknames like “Bungles”. How does a franchise which has a history of sheer ineptitude like the Cardinals escape that? I mean, thank goodness for the years of 74, 75, and 76. Without those, this team would have last won ten games in a season pre-“Sputnik”. How does one even begin to describe a franchise as bad as the Cardinals?
I’m not sure. I am really good at pejorative ranting, but even this team eludes my imagination. I mean, no mere synonym for “bad” would do this team justice. Maybe we should write a formal apology as a nation to the Bengals, for ever complaining about them while the Cardinals exist. Heck, even the Chicago Cubs are better than the Cardinals. The Cubs haven’t gotten less than ten wins ever! Even in strike years! So those Chicago fans need to stop whining. As usual, I am digressing.
In much the same way that all things unbeatable can now be described as “federerish”, I’d like to simply say that all things incapable of victory could be described as “cardinalish”, but unfortunately St. Louis has a team named the Cardinals poised to play(though also get swept) in the World Series. What to do? This conundrum is baffling. “Arizonish” won’t work because a) it would offend Arizonians, and b) a team from Arizona won the World Series (albeit on a fluky, 1 in a 1000000 hit) five years ago.
Then again, no one else could ever *possibly* be as bad as the Cardinals have historically been, so if you referred to someone else as “cardinalish” it would be like calling George Bush Hitler.
Maybe we should just leave the made up adjectives alone for now.
Yet there is still hope, Cardinal fans (do you really exist? Leave me a comment to prove it...). The Bengals reversed almost 15 years of awful football with one draft pick. Matt Leinart may save you yet. And if not, go find a 6’5”, 230 lb—
Oh you know the rest.
And We Haven’t Even Gotten To: Dennis Green! Wow! What a rant! For those who have not seen it yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBOCE3eue3Y&mode=related&search=
Does anyone have a clue what he was talking about? I don’t! And I am an accomplished ranter. Hmm. That does not appear to be a word. It has one of those awful red squiggly lines under it. Oh well. Back to my main point: what was he trying to say? Anyone can tell the hopelessness of his current situation is overwhelming enough to drive a man insane, and it seems this is the only explanation. He was appealing to a pre-season game? Umm... okay. The Bears are what he thought they were? Since he never clarified, we just have to assume he meant “better than us”. “Crown their (butts)”?
Who crowns a person’s butt?
What Does This Say About...: This type of collapse is like Rome coming down. It had to happen eventually (Arizona isn’t allowed to beat Chicago. It is illegal), but when it does, it is still shocking. It also leaves us with one of those wonderful debates: “Do the Bears look better or worse?” This discussion inevitably comes up after a great team looks awful but manages to win. There are two camps: one says that the obviously poor play is indicative of team weakness. The other says that winning a close game when you aren’t playing well is the mark of a championship team.
Well, I don’t know how many times we could possibly debate that, but when Rex Grossman looks that bad against the Cardinals... well something is weird. Also, many analysts have been exhorting the dominance of the Bears defense, taking over the game in the second half. Well, they did let their team go down 23-3 in the first half. Now I understand that at least a couple of those scores were the fault of Grossman, for handing the Cardinals the ball in or near the red zone. But did anyone watch the first drive of the game? Matt Leinart, a rookie QB, sliced through the Bears defense like it was butter on a hot day, and he did this while missing one of his big wide receivers. You don’t think every offensive coordinator in the league is going to do the same? I can imagine Bill Belichick salivating right now. He has Tom Brady to use against the Bears. And while Tom Brady is still one of the most overrated QBs in history, he is also really really really good. He is particularly good at efficiently marching down the field with spread formations and short passes, which is exactly what Leinart did.
I’m not saying the Bears defense won’t adjust—only that it had better adjust. Games like this can go either way. The Bears discover their weaknesses yet pull out a win and fix them for next game... Or the defense is irreparably damaged. Most likely it will be the former.
But it was the Cardinals...
FOX Pregame Failure: The FOX NFL pre-game show is having ratings problems.
I WONDER WHY!
When will FOX learn that nobody likes Joe Buck? We all think he is the Oakland Raiders of commentary. He is awful. Why do they not only keep him on, but stick his ugly mug wherever they can? The guy is funny on his commercials, and I think he is a decent man... but even his commercials give him away as a fraud. No one would ever want to touch his vocal chords! People can’t stand him. No wonder your freaking ratings are down, FOX. (And no, bringing Jillian back won’t save you)
Speaking of Which: FOX did not bring Jillian Barberie back for their pre-game “weather report” this year. In essence, they said “we don’t want you, go away, your fake weather reports where all you did was show off your mid section are no longer required”. And now they are bringing her back... and she is just okay with it? Is she that desperate? What does she say to all the people who, you know, fired her? “Hey guys, I’m just glad to get this opportunity which is only coming my way because your ratings stink and you are going to appeal to immature male hormones everywhere”?
This is like the awkward conversations where a guy asks an engaged woman to marry him—in front of her family and fiancé. It only happens in movies, because after all, it is just stupid, right? No one would put up with that crap, right? Well apparently, they would. Jillian’s “weather reports” are back...
So Strange: The Atlanta Falcons let Tiki Barber run through them, around them, over them, under them, and everywhere else he wanted to run on Sunday. This is interesting, considering the Falcons were ranked 2nd in the NFL in rush defense. It once again poses the oddest question in sports. How does stuff like this happen? What I mean is this. How does Roger Federer win a set 6-0, and then lose the next set 6-7? How do the Giants get down 24-7, and then come back to win? How does a team destroy the Seahawks one week, and almost lose to the Cardinals two weeks later? How does a pitcher throw 3 no-hit innings, get beat up for five in the 4th inning, and then pitch three more no-hit innings? I understand that the sheer randomness of sports necessitates some fluctuation, but I am awed by the fact that these types of things happen. I suppose I can even understand the Bears, because from week to week, strange things happen. But on the same day? How does a pitcher or a tennis player go up and down so much on a single day? It is crazy. I suppose we are so used to it that it is simply intuitive. That doesn’t mean it makes any sense.
Favorite Quotes of the Week: Tim McCarver, commentating the seventh game of the NLCS last night, had this to say, in the eighth inning, after it had been raining almost the entire game.
"Keep in mind, it has been raining. This might make the infield very wet on ground balls."
Yes. Joe Buck and this clown are the top commentating crew FOX has for baseball. Bill O'Reilly would be more intriguing than this.
My other favorite quote of the week is by Liam Neeson, and it does not regard sports in any way. But it is so fantastic I must share it. Apparently, a while back he referred to the people of Los Angeles, San Diego, or California (I can't remember which one specifically, but it is all the same anyway), like this:
"They are a fascist people, who think they are moral because they jog."
Oh funny times.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Titans Just Softening the League Up
Being the adamant Titans fan that I am, I promised myself I would write at least one article on the Titans this year. Since nothing but awful football, rookie QBs and assaults with cleats have occurred so far, I have had little positive to write about. Who cares. I can always make something up!
The Titans finally got in the victory column Sunday, defeating Washington 25-22. Now besides convincingly showing just how much parity there is in the NFL (the Redskins lost to the Titans, who lost to the Jets, who lost to the Jaguars, who lost to the Redskins), this victory has the Titans right where they want to be. Just ask them.
Coach Jeff Fisher said: “We said at the beginning of the year, that teams who win the Super Bowl, number one, get hot late, and number two, often have records of 11-5 or 12-4. I mean, the Steelers last year stunk, and they won because they got hot late—I believe they won their last four games of the regular season—and they had a record of 11-5. The Patriots in ’02 were no good either, but they won because they finished the season winning four games in a row, and were 11-5. The Ravens in ’01 were 6-4 and hadn’t scored an offensive TD in weeks, but they didn’t lose again. So really, we are right where we want to be. I told the team early on in the season that we needed to lose early so that we could build a big winning streak, and enter the playoffs at about 11-5. Why else would I have started Kerry Collins at QB for the first four weeks? I needed to make sure we lost. Now we are 1-5 and can get on a big winning streak all the way to the Super Bowl.”
The Titan’s rookie QB, Vince Young, agreed. “Coach Fisher was very persuasive in his arguments that being good early is overrated. At first I was skeptical but now I agree. I mean, look at the Dolphins. Sports Illustrated picked them to get to the Super Bowl, and they are 1-5. If we are as good as the team that’s supposed to get to the Super Bowl, we must be good.” Young added, “New Orleans was never picked to win the Super Bowl. I mean, really. No one has them getting to the big game, and they are 5-1. It just shows how records are overrated.”
Young’s sentiments were echoed by other young players, such as running back LenDale White. Said White: “You have to put things in perspective. The early season means very little. This isn’t like college where we had to go undefeated to reach the championship. Here, you are better off sluffing off the early part of the season. That way, you can play with the whole ‘nobody respects us’ chip on your shoulder the rest of the way.”
Certain wily veterans were not so sure, however. Wide receiver David Givens, a free agent from New England signed this past off season, smells something fishy.
“I’m a football player, so I don’t have the greatest memory, but when I won Super Bowl in New England... I don’t know, it seems crazy but I remember us winning a lot. I think we had like, twenty something victories in a row or something. I mean, I understand Coach’s point, sort of. I just think we won a lot more when I was with the pats."
When asked to comment on Givens’ remarks, Jeff Fisher had this to say:
“David Givens is a great athlete, but come on, he is a football player. These guys aren’t very smart. They just need to trust the coaching staff, because we clearly know better than the guys who actually play the game. Our plan is proceeding perfectly. Albert Haynesworth knows what I am talking about. He went to great personal sacrifice to implement our plan.”
Fisher is of course referring to the incident where Haynesworth twice raked his cleats across the un-helmeted face of Dallas center Andre Gurode. Though it seemed a vicious and despicable act of aggression against a helpless victim, it was actually a move of great honor, with the goal of putting the team first. Haynesworth explains:
“Everyone knows I am one of only two good defensive players on this team. And Keith Bullock certainly won’t risk his career for the team. I was worried we were playing a bit too well for Coach’s plan, so I knew I had to get myself suspended for a long period of time. The only way I could think of doing it was ripping a guys head to shreds. I had to, ya know. Man, Keith wasn’t going to get himself suspended for the good of the team.”
“That is the kind of commitment we wish every player on this team had,” Jeff Fisher remarked. “Sure, Albert could have found a lot of better ways to remove himself from games than by trying to kill another player, but we didn’t hire him for his brains. He is dumb as a tree and big as one too, which is the important part.”
Warning to all contenders: the Titans were losing on purpose. Now that they are trying to win, you have some serious problems on hand.
Why Not: Since everyone else seems to have an opinion on Briscoe High, Nike’s new advertising campaign, I will throw mine out there. Others’ opinions have ranged from strange to disgusted to just annoyed. I do agree that an advertising campaign with the slogan “Football is everything” while showing sports icons ignoring school is not a very wholesome message. But beyond that, what the heck is the point of these stupid commercials? They don’t make me want to play football (only stupid kids who lack knowledge of Napolean invading Russia play football), they don’t make me want to buy Nike things (I might then have a forty year old flirting with me) and they don’t make me want to root for Michael Vick or Brian Urlacher (after all, those bums barely beat a highschool team).
Seriously. Jillian Barberie is forty freaking years old, going after an eighteen year old? What? Urlacher, Troy Polomalu, Vick, and LT aren’t enough to win a game against a high school team save for that Hail Mary pass? Speaking of that pass, no team, even in high school, would fall for a run on the last play of the game! There wouldn’t be guys crashing in on LT! They’d all be deep! Seeing as Don Shula is the coach of the team, you’d think he would know this! But football movies conveniently forget this, so why not commercials? (Both Remember the Titans and Gridirion Gang involve teams being surprised by a deep throw on the final play when the team needs a TD to win).
And what on Earth are Deion Sanders and Steve Young doing in the stands? It is a total overload of celebrities. With this many high profile coaches/players lined up, Nike could have done something really interesting. Instead, they give us this nonsensical hodgepodge assortment of stars and celebrities in a strange situation where nobody belongs, football is everything, play action is respected on the last play of the game, and Brian Urlacher doesn’t know what happens when Napolean invades Russia.
Too Much Hair: Larry Johnson pulled Troy Polomalu down by the hair the other day. That was weird. Makes you wonder about Troy’s commitment to the game. If his hair is more important to him than his team... he needs a new profession. Some people were confused because Larry Johnson was penalized for un-sportsman like conduct, but this was for pulling him *up* by the hair after the play was already over. It is indeed quite legal to tackle someone by the hair if it sticks out of their helmet. Weird. Like I said, Troy has some serious soul searching to do with his barber.
Day of Reckoning: The day I have been dreading since the Tennessee Titans so misguidedly passed up on Matt Leinart has finally come. He has completely shocked the world. Except me. I knew he would be this good, I knew he would do this, I knew the Titans were acting irrationally by taking a run-first QB, but alas, one fan knowing it doesn’t make the powers-that-be understand. Curse you, Floyd Reese. Curse you. And if it wasn’t your decision, curse whoever it was that made the decision. You guys deserve to lose. I still hold out hope that Young will be a good QB. But there is a prototype for winning in the NFL, and Matt Leinart embodies it. Tall, smart, accurate QBs who can move around just enough to stay alive while looking up the field. Sure, they didn’t end up winning the game, but it wasn’t Leinart’s fault--he even got them in range for a game tying field goal. He just happens to play in Arizona (the fact that he got Arizona that close to winning is proof of how good he is). *pulls hair out*
Being the adamant Titans fan that I am, I promised myself I would write at least one article on the Titans this year. Since nothing but awful football, rookie QBs and assaults with cleats have occurred so far, I have had little positive to write about. Who cares. I can always make something up!
The Titans finally got in the victory column Sunday, defeating Washington 25-22. Now besides convincingly showing just how much parity there is in the NFL (the Redskins lost to the Titans, who lost to the Jets, who lost to the Jaguars, who lost to the Redskins), this victory has the Titans right where they want to be. Just ask them.
Coach Jeff Fisher said: “We said at the beginning of the year, that teams who win the Super Bowl, number one, get hot late, and number two, often have records of 11-5 or 12-4. I mean, the Steelers last year stunk, and they won because they got hot late—I believe they won their last four games of the regular season—and they had a record of 11-5. The Patriots in ’02 were no good either, but they won because they finished the season winning four games in a row, and were 11-5. The Ravens in ’01 were 6-4 and hadn’t scored an offensive TD in weeks, but they didn’t lose again. So really, we are right where we want to be. I told the team early on in the season that we needed to lose early so that we could build a big winning streak, and enter the playoffs at about 11-5. Why else would I have started Kerry Collins at QB for the first four weeks? I needed to make sure we lost. Now we are 1-5 and can get on a big winning streak all the way to the Super Bowl.”
The Titan’s rookie QB, Vince Young, agreed. “Coach Fisher was very persuasive in his arguments that being good early is overrated. At first I was skeptical but now I agree. I mean, look at the Dolphins. Sports Illustrated picked them to get to the Super Bowl, and they are 1-5. If we are as good as the team that’s supposed to get to the Super Bowl, we must be good.” Young added, “New Orleans was never picked to win the Super Bowl. I mean, really. No one has them getting to the big game, and they are 5-1. It just shows how records are overrated.”
Young’s sentiments were echoed by other young players, such as running back LenDale White. Said White: “You have to put things in perspective. The early season means very little. This isn’t like college where we had to go undefeated to reach the championship. Here, you are better off sluffing off the early part of the season. That way, you can play with the whole ‘nobody respects us’ chip on your shoulder the rest of the way.”
Certain wily veterans were not so sure, however. Wide receiver David Givens, a free agent from New England signed this past off season, smells something fishy.
“I’m a football player, so I don’t have the greatest memory, but when I won Super Bowl in New England... I don’t know, it seems crazy but I remember us winning a lot. I think we had like, twenty something victories in a row or something. I mean, I understand Coach’s point, sort of. I just think we won a lot more when I was with the pats."
When asked to comment on Givens’ remarks, Jeff Fisher had this to say:
“David Givens is a great athlete, but come on, he is a football player. These guys aren’t very smart. They just need to trust the coaching staff, because we clearly know better than the guys who actually play the game. Our plan is proceeding perfectly. Albert Haynesworth knows what I am talking about. He went to great personal sacrifice to implement our plan.”
Fisher is of course referring to the incident where Haynesworth twice raked his cleats across the un-helmeted face of Dallas center Andre Gurode. Though it seemed a vicious and despicable act of aggression against a helpless victim, it was actually a move of great honor, with the goal of putting the team first. Haynesworth explains:
“Everyone knows I am one of only two good defensive players on this team. And Keith Bullock certainly won’t risk his career for the team. I was worried we were playing a bit too well for Coach’s plan, so I knew I had to get myself suspended for a long period of time. The only way I could think of doing it was ripping a guys head to shreds. I had to, ya know. Man, Keith wasn’t going to get himself suspended for the good of the team.”
“That is the kind of commitment we wish every player on this team had,” Jeff Fisher remarked. “Sure, Albert could have found a lot of better ways to remove himself from games than by trying to kill another player, but we didn’t hire him for his brains. He is dumb as a tree and big as one too, which is the important part.”
Warning to all contenders: the Titans were losing on purpose. Now that they are trying to win, you have some serious problems on hand.
Why Not: Since everyone else seems to have an opinion on Briscoe High, Nike’s new advertising campaign, I will throw mine out there. Others’ opinions have ranged from strange to disgusted to just annoyed. I do agree that an advertising campaign with the slogan “Football is everything” while showing sports icons ignoring school is not a very wholesome message. But beyond that, what the heck is the point of these stupid commercials? They don’t make me want to play football (only stupid kids who lack knowledge of Napolean invading Russia play football), they don’t make me want to buy Nike things (I might then have a forty year old flirting with me) and they don’t make me want to root for Michael Vick or Brian Urlacher (after all, those bums barely beat a highschool team).
Seriously. Jillian Barberie is forty freaking years old, going after an eighteen year old? What? Urlacher, Troy Polomalu, Vick, and LT aren’t enough to win a game against a high school team save for that Hail Mary pass? Speaking of that pass, no team, even in high school, would fall for a run on the last play of the game! There wouldn’t be guys crashing in on LT! They’d all be deep! Seeing as Don Shula is the coach of the team, you’d think he would know this! But football movies conveniently forget this, so why not commercials? (Both Remember the Titans and Gridirion Gang involve teams being surprised by a deep throw on the final play when the team needs a TD to win).
And what on Earth are Deion Sanders and Steve Young doing in the stands? It is a total overload of celebrities. With this many high profile coaches/players lined up, Nike could have done something really interesting. Instead, they give us this nonsensical hodgepodge assortment of stars and celebrities in a strange situation where nobody belongs, football is everything, play action is respected on the last play of the game, and Brian Urlacher doesn’t know what happens when Napolean invades Russia.
Too Much Hair: Larry Johnson pulled Troy Polomalu down by the hair the other day. That was weird. Makes you wonder about Troy’s commitment to the game. If his hair is more important to him than his team... he needs a new profession. Some people were confused because Larry Johnson was penalized for un-sportsman like conduct, but this was for pulling him *up* by the hair after the play was already over. It is indeed quite legal to tackle someone by the hair if it sticks out of their helmet. Weird. Like I said, Troy has some serious soul searching to do with his barber.
Day of Reckoning: The day I have been dreading since the Tennessee Titans so misguidedly passed up on Matt Leinart has finally come. He has completely shocked the world. Except me. I knew he would be this good, I knew he would do this, I knew the Titans were acting irrationally by taking a run-first QB, but alas, one fan knowing it doesn’t make the powers-that-be understand. Curse you, Floyd Reese. Curse you. And if it wasn’t your decision, curse whoever it was that made the decision. You guys deserve to lose. I still hold out hope that Young will be a good QB. But there is a prototype for winning in the NFL, and Matt Leinart embodies it. Tall, smart, accurate QBs who can move around just enough to stay alive while looking up the field. Sure, they didn’t end up winning the game, but it wasn’t Leinart’s fault--he even got them in range for a game tying field goal. He just happens to play in Arizona (the fact that he got Arizona that close to winning is proof of how good he is). *pulls hair out*
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