The Sports Curmudgeon

Detroit Lions safety, Kenoy Kennedy, pled guilty to a DWI charge and will go to a final sentencing hearing in January. Part of the plea agreement was that sentencing would not happen until after the NFL season was over; Kennedy could spend up to 90 days in jail if the judge so rules. In the Holiday spirit, I have to ask for some mercy here. This man has played all season for the Detroit Lions; they are 2-13 at the moment; the whole team has been the subject of ridicule and disgust all season long. Hasn’t this man suffered enough?

When the NY Giants suffered a bunch of injuries to their defense in mid-season, they explained away their losses saying that the ship would right itself when the injured players got back – at least the ones who were not out for the season. Last weekend, the Giants’ defensive players were back and they needed to win the game. That defensive unit - - the one that would be the season savior - - merely allowed two running backs to go over 100 yards and suffered the ignominy of watching the Saints hold the ball for 41 minutes of the game. I think the Giants are a flawed team with a coaching staff that has worn out its welcome in the locker room and in the city. It may be time for the team to start over from scratch…

Now that the Vikings are eliminated from the playoffs, I guess you can say that a portentous omen sitting out there came to naught. When the NFL announced that Prince would be the halftime entertainer at the Super Bowl this year, there had to be Viking fans out there thinking this would be the year of “The Purple Reign”. Well, the Vikings can sit home and sing along with the rest of the country because they won’t be playing football in January - - let alone February.

Speaking of Prince, he went through a phase where he wanted to be known as “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince”; that was far too large a handle and so it became shortened to TAFKAP. I’d like to suggest that he be referred to as TSOURIS – which is a Yiddish word meaning grief, aggravation or woe. In this case TSOURIS would stand for “The Singer Of Unbelievably Raunchy, Icky Songs”. Hey, it’s just a suggestion…

Going into the final weekend of the NFL season, there are three playoff spots that are unclaimed. Eleven teams have a shot at those three spots. The five teams in the NFC who are all in a position to claim the final playoff spot in that conference have records of 7-8. None of them play each other so it is possible – though unlikely – that all five could lose this week and a team at 7-9 would make the playoffs in a “non-strike” season. That’s not parity; that’s not even mediocrity; that’s just plain awful. Were that to happen, I believe the NY Giants would be the sixth NFC playoff team and were that to happen, the Giants would be in the playoffs having lost seven of their last nine games.

By the way, even if one of those teams gets in through a victory on Sunday, that would give the NFL yet another 8-8 team in the playoffs. Ominously, that will be the eighth team with an 8-8 record to be in the playoffs. The last time this happened was in 2004 when the Rams and the Vikings both went to the NFC playoffs with 8-8 records.

If both the Raiders and the 49ers lose this weekend, the two teams from the SF area will have a combined record of 8-24. That’s pretty miserable but what makes it worse is that last year those two teams had a record of 8-24. I think the operative expression for SF football fans should be “Yuck!” It might be an even more disgusting turn of a phrase emanating from those same SF football fans who simultaneously contemplated the wonders of Stanford football …

The Lions and the Raiders both have 2-13 records going into the final game of the season. The overall first pick in the draft will belong to one of these teams. Both teams need to upgrade at multiple positions so the player selected first must not be viewed as a franchise savior; no player could possibly turn those teams around by himself. The last time the Lions had the overall #1 pick was in 1980; they took Billy Simms; he was a fine player for them until he ruined his knee. Amazingly, the last time the Raiders had the overall #1 pick was well prior to the merger between the AFL and the NFL. It was in 1962 – just before Al Davis took charge of the team. The Raiders took Roman Gabriel with that pick but Gabriel didn’t sign with the team.

The Eagles are drawing lots of attention at the moment. Here’s why the Eagles are generally a good team; they draft very well. I count twenty players on the roster who either start or who make significant contributions to the team that were drafted by the Eagles and whose career has been with the Eagles. (I count Jeremiah Trotter here even though he did play for the Redskins for a brief time in the middle of his career.) Above that, there are three young players on the team who have not gotten much playing time yet but who were high round picks and who could be significant contributors in the future. The ability to scout and to draft well is an under-appreciated factor in team success.

It is currently fashionable to dismiss the Indianapolis Colts. And no one can possibly praise their rush defense or their loss to the Texans last weekend. But before everyone gets carried away, please look at the overall picture for a moment. The Colts are 11-4; exactly 3 teams in the NFL have a better record at the moment. Two of their losses came on long field goals with zero time left on the clock; one of those field goals was 60 yards in length. Granted, the Colts should have had those games out of reach and did not, but they are two last-second field goals away from a 13-2 record. The Colts are a flawed team, but they aren’t stumblebums.

In the world of college athletics, the NCAA will hold a convention in January where they will take up some critically important issues including limitations on text messaging as a component of recruiting. There is one proposal out there that would “completely eliminate” the use of text messages and communication through websites such as “MySpace” but would continue to allow e-mails and faxes as proper media for recruitment. A competing proposal would allow text-message-recruitment to continue to be used but only from 4-8 PM on Mondays through Fridays and from 8 AM to 8 PM on weekends. Folks, the NCAA is going to debate this and probably vote to enact one of these regimens. For this, the head of the NCAA earns about $1M a year. Can you spell S-I-N-E-C-U-R-E?

I ran across an item that makes me think that Rod Serling is about to step forward and tell us all that we are in The Twilight Zone. If Ohio State wins the national championship over Florida, Jim Tressel’s contract as head coach at Ohio State is null and void. That contract is less than a year old and it would surely seem as if his potential to win the national championship is why Ohio State hired him in the first place. So, if he succeeds at the ultimate task in the position he was hired to do, he will no longer be in that position. But, if he loses the game to Florida, then he stays in the job. What genius at Ohio State thought that was a good idea?

By the way, if you believe in trends, Ohio State has a long uphill battle in the game against Florida. Ohio State has never – as in not ever – beaten an SEC team. The Buckeyes have played seven SEC teams in Bowl Games going back to 1978; they’ve lost them all. The good news is that the last loss was only by 4 points and that is the closest of any of the games so Ohio State may be on an upswing here…

Finally, a note from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“Venus and Serena Williams are in Palm Beach County court related to a breach of contract lawsuit against them. In a separate matter, the sisters are accused of not being as good as they once were and of having an annoying father.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…