The Sports Curmudgeon

You have to have seen by now a TV segment devoted to some of the great games and performances that happened in Super Bowls held in Miami. The segment that must still be waiting to air is the one that lists the trouble players have gotten into in Miami leading up to the Super Bowl.

Miami is where the Bengals’ RB, Stanley Wilson, went on a cocaine binge and had to miss the Bengals’ game against the 49ers.

Miami is where Falcons’ DB, Eugene Robinson, went out to try to find oral sex the night before the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, he happened to select an undercover police officer as the woman he would ask for such services.

I got to thinking about the ability of players to get into “law enforcement situations” in Miami Super Bowls when a reader sent me an e-mail about Tank Johnson getting a judge to release him from house arrest and allowing him to leave Illinois to go to Miami for the game. The reader thought Johnson was getting preferential treatment because he was an athlete and the judge should not have done this. I agree that it is preferential treatment, but it’s not nearly as egregious as some other examples we’ve seen. However, the reader ended his e-mail with a clever line – one I wish I had been quick enough to come up with on my own:

“… Johnson has the support of the NRA in his upcoming trial on gun charges because the NRA always supports the constitutional right to arm Bears.”

With all the attention and focus on the Cowboys’ coaching search, there is an obvious solution to filling their vacancy – but it is one fraught with danger for the league. Jerry Jones could name himself as the coach of the Cowboys. Hey, George Halas and Paul Brown were rather successful “owner/coaches”; Al Davis coached the Raiders for a while and he’s the moral equivalent of an “owner”. Jones is already the Cowboys’ owner, CEO, President and GM; he spends half the game on the sidelines anyway; he played college football; he can certainly do well in the job interview event. It’s a way to increase the team’s profitability since he won’t need to pay a head coach something in the neighborhood of $4-5M per year. And can he really do that much worse than Dave Campo did?

Here’s the danger for the league… If he does this and the team breaks even next year, it will set up a grand machismo situation for other owners. Follow this line of thought. Hey, if JJ can do it – and Al Davis did it before – why can’t I do it too? It’ll mean more face time for me on TV and if the team wins I won’t have to share the spotlight with some flunky that I was smart enough to hire in the first place; all that jamoke did was do what I paid him millions of dollars to do. And with that thinking – I can’t bring myself to call it reasoning – you could see Danny Boy Snyder prowling the sidelines for the Washington Redskins. Talk about putting one of the longstanding franchises into a tailspin…

There was a lot of positive buzz about the NFL and the NFLPA agreeing to increase their surveillance of players using performance-enhancing substances. Yes, it is a step in the right direction and I think that any area of agreement between the parties here should be put into action. However, I did note a comment from the NFLPA – I think it was Gene Upshaw who was quoted but I’m not positive and I lost the reference – to the effect that they were opposed to blood tests for human growth hormone. When I read that sentence in the report, my immediate thought was:

Why am I not surprised?

A lot has been made of Reggie Bush’s taunting in the NFC Championship Game. He was fined $5K for the act even though he was not penalized for it during the game. And that set off a predictable torrent of comment about what his rights are and what the league’s rights are and etc. I don’t think there’s much debate that he was taunting someone on the Bears defense since he was pointing at someone for the final 10 -15 yards of his run. I also think that he already received a measure of punishment on the field because after his pointing, his gratuitous flip into the end zone and his celebratory dance, he and his team didn’t score again. In fact, they won’t even get to try until sometime next September. That was a far more effective “punishment” than a $5K fine.

Enough football. The Red Sox and JD Drew have finally come to an agreement over an injury clause in the contract they shook hands on about 6 weeks ago. Evidently, the Red Sox can void the rest of the deal if Drew misses a certain number of games due to specific injuries in 2009. Wow, no wonder that took so long to finalize! But now that all is well in Boston, the rest of us can start a box pool on when Drew will miss his first game in 2007 and with what injury. I’ll take May 1 with a tweaked hammy…

Barry Bonds endorsed Pete Rose and Mark McGwire as candidates who should be in the Hall of Fame. The self-interest in that endorsement is so patently obvious that it mocks itself. What might be the equivalent of this outside the sporting world?

Dr. Josef Mengele endorses Jimmy Carter as a Nobel Peace Laureate?

Genghis Khan endorses George W. Bush as a Nobel Peace Laureate?

Donald Trump endorses Whomever as Hair Stylist of the Year?

Finally, here’s Jay Leno’s comment on a recent discovery of a skull that had both Neanderthal and human traits:

“Scientists believe this could be the oldest Oakland Raiders fan.”

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

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In the past, I’ve written less than flattering things about people that I called “the Barbaro acolytes”. I continue to believe that their outpouring of emotion over an injured horse was way over the top. Nevertheless, the fact that Barbaro had to be euthanized despite the struggles of the veterinary team is a sad situation. Barbaro – through his injury and all of the struggles – had become a tragic figure that many people identified with. Barbaro’s passing is not a good thing for horseracing.

I’ve also written more than a few uncomplimentary things about the people who run horseracing – the most recent was a Topical Rant on 1/10/07. Well, those folks are at it again and I won’t use the passing of Barbaro to give them a pass on their latest silliness. Horseracing in Maryland is run by three entities that have a reputation for not agreeing with each other on much of anything – even whether or not the sun came up in the east this morning. The track operators, the horsemen and the legislators would probably cringe at the following notion:

They are working in concert and their actions are completely in sync to drive the horseracing industry in Maryland directly to oblivion.

Recently, the track operators cancelled the Pimlico Special. It is the only race on the calendar other than the Preakness which can pretend to be an important race. Actually, millions of people know about this race even though they don’t know the name of the race – the Pimlico Special was the race where War Admiral and Seabiscuit ran their famous match race, which was chronicled in the recent book and movie on Seabiscuit. The horsemen are glad because they think that the $500K purse for that race will be spread among other races and be available to horses stabled in Maryland instead of going to some outside stable that ships in a top contender for that race. The track operators are glad to cancel the race the very day that the legislature took up the subject of “slot machines at the racetracks” – something that the legislature has opposed forever. The legislators are happy to be able to give speeches for and against slot machines, gambling, slot machines, apple pie and the American way and get coverage for all that hot air.

Meanwhile, quality racing in Maryland took another severe body blow. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here:

Low-grade horses running in cheap races at track facilities that are as inviting as a leper colony will not remain a sustainable industry.

Maryland racing is on that track; it has to find a way to get off that track; canceling races that might actually bring new fans to the track to see top horses in order to spread the money among races that no one wants to see in the first place is not the right business model.

I ran across some TV stats which show that golf on TV is dependent on Tiger Woods participation. When Woods was playing on a Sunday in 2006 – he did that eleven times last year – the average TV rating for those golf events was 3.5. When Woods was not playing on a Sunday in 2006, the average TV rating for those golf events was 1.6. There are two things to take from those numbers:

When Tiger Woods is not playing, the audience is more than cut in half.

When the XFL folded for poor ratings, it drew a 2.1 TV rating. Golf in 2006 was about 25% lower than the XFL in terms of a TV property.

I happened to graze through whatever golf event happened last weekend and saw Charles Howell III walking around and studying a putt. This guy makes a good living as a golfer so you’d think he could afford to buy himself a sandwich once in a while. He looks like a refugee from Darfur. Put him on a seesaw with Edgar Prado and Howell is the one up in the air…

Those golf ratings above don’t paint a hugely positive picture for the PGA. However, those numbers are stratospheric when you compare them to the TV ratings for the NHL All-Star game that was played on a Wednesday night. No, I have no idea why they did that; they just did. Maybe Versus needed to keep its weekend lineup of fishing shows and duck hunting excursions intact? Whatever. On Versus Network, the game drew a rating of 0.7. Maybe those weekend fishing shows have bigger audiences?

The US Figure Skating Championships happened recently too. I actually think that it was more interesting to follow this stuff 15 years ago when you never knew if Tonya Harding had hired some thugs to take out a competitor off the ice - - or maybe even on the ice. There used to be a moment of uncertainty whenever anyone other than Harding was skating; was there a sniper in the audience…?

Tennis is another sport that has had its moment in the spotlight and which is on the decline. Women’s tennis is far more interesting than men’s tennis and the surprising reemergence of Serena Williams in the Australian Open might give the women’s game a serious boost. Meanwhile, Anna Kournikova – remember her – is going to participate in a tennis exhibition in Chicago next month. The exhibition is called “Legends of Tennis”. John McEnroe will participate; so will Jim Courrier and others of that ilk. Now tell me, since Anna Kournikova never won anything other than minor exhibitions, how is she a “legend of tennis”?

Another top women’s tennis player, Justine Henin-Hardenne is going through a separation/divorce. I won’t make light of that because I’ve never known anyone to go through that process without a lot of emotional grief and hurt. But if you go to her official website, you’ll learn from her that she and her husband “have decided to separate; the reasons are personal.” Well, I have to say that I’ve also never known anyone to go through the separation/divorce process for reasons other than personal ones. Obviously, she has no obligation to post on a website all of the things going on in her personal life but that explanation adds zero value. Here’s hoping that the situation resolves itself so she can get back to playing tennis and not having to write about things she doesn’t want to write about.

Finally, here’s a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald regarding the NHL All-Star game:

“If an NHL All-Star game was held on TV and nobody saw it, would it still make a noise?”

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

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OK, the Super Bowl media circus is about to whirl completely out of control; so before I’m reduced to reading about some farmer in Nebraska whose chickens have predicted the last 21 Super Bowl winners correctly in some totally bizarre manner, I want to go through a few things about the Super Bowl and then try to ignore some of the silliness.

In the first Super Bowl game, tickets cost $6 each. And they didn’t sell out the game. The face value of tickets this year is just over $600. There is no worry about selling all the tickets. If you happen to be a season ticket holder for either the Bears of the Colts, the only way you got a Super Bowl ticket is by winning a lottery among all the season ticket holders. Both the Bears and Colts got about 13,000 tickets but most of those tickets (probably 80% of them) went to players, coaches, sponsors and the owners. Season ticket holders for the Bears and Colts probably got less than 5000 tickets in total. Unless, of course they went online to buy them at a slightly inflated price…

I checked on CompleteTickets.com to see what the asking prices are at the moment. The cheapest ticket I could find there was $3,720. There seem to be lots of tickets available for $4200 - $4300. If you want to be “near the 50 yard line”, be prepared to pay something north of those figures. Or you could have one of the Luxury Suites at the stadium which “accommodates up to 50” folks. That will cost you $570,000. Hey, you’re not really going to need that money in your IRA, are you?

During the upcoming week, ESPN will have 90 hours of Super Bowl programming. That’s the amount of pre-game hype for a game that should take less than 4 hours from start to finish. And that’s not all, the NFL Network will broadcast 100 hours of Super Bowl programming during this week. And then there’s the stuff on local stations and sports radio stations and … Prepare for the onslaught. I hope to find enough self-control to avoid jamming knitting needles through both of my eardrums later this week.

A reader sent me an interesting observation from the conference championship games last weekend. In the spirit of full disclosure, he is a graduate of the University of Florida and so his tone had a bit of gloating in it when he pointed out that the two winning QBs last weekend were from the SEC while both losing QBs were from the Big Ten. I hadn’t made that connection until his e-mail arrived. Of course, I had to inform him in return that there was now a 100% guarantee that a QB with an SEC pedigree would be a loser in the Super Bowl. It’s what curmudgeons do.

The last time the Colts’ franchise won the Super Bowl, it was 1971. John Unitas was still playing and the Colts won on a last second field goal over the Dallas Cowboys. That was the only Super Bowl in which the game MVP came from the losing team. Chuck Howley was a linebacker for the Cowboys that day and all he did was intercept two passes and recover one fumble to reel in that MVP Award.

In 32 of the previous 40 Super Bowl games, one of the teams committed more turnovers than the other team. In those 32 games, the team with the fewer turnovers won 29 times. So, if you’re looking to forecast the winner of the game, think about picking the team that will turn the ball over less than the other one. Based on the regular season stats, there’s not much to choose from between the Colts and the Bears. The Colts were a net +7 in turnover differential for the year and the Bears were +8.

Here’s another trend to look at. Ever since the LA Raiders won the Super Bowl in 1983, each and every Super Bowl winner has been in the top 10 in scoring defense during the season leading up to the Super Bowl. There seems to be a logical basis for kind of correlation because to win games it behooves a team to prevent the opposition from scoring a ton of points. On a much shorter time scale, the Bucs led the NFL in scoring defense in 2002 and won the Super Bowl; the same was true for the Pats in 2003; the Pats were second in scoring defense in 2004 when they won again; last year the Steelers were third in the league in scoring defense. For the 2006 regular season, the Bears were third in scoring defense and the Colts ranked 23rd.

Enough Super Bowl stuff, I’m sated already and there are still 6 days to go. I wish this were National Talk Like A Pirate Day because the word “Arrrgh!” is filling my head at the moment. So, let me change the subject…

The Dolphins’ hiring of a new coach fetched this observation from Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel:

“Cam Cameron is the new coach of the Miami Dolphins. Guess the Fins figured that hiring a successful college coach didn’t work, so why not hire an unsuccessful college coach? Cameron went 18-37 as the head coach at Indiana before becoming the San Diego Chargers’ offensive coordinator.”

And the Cowboys’ search for a new coach continues with Norv Turner’s name the one most frequently mentioned despite the fact that Turner has two unsuccessful head coaching stints in his past. Frankly, I think that Turner going to the Cowboys should be declared unconstitutional on cruel and unusual punishment grounds. If he went to Dallas and worked for Jerry Jones, that would mean he will have worked for Danny Boy Snyder, Al Davis and Jerry Jones. That’s just wrong. This man has suffered enough!

I’m sure you’ve heard about 34 bazillion times by now that Lovie Smith is the lowest paid head coach in the NFL. Some folks are very angry that the Bears have not given him a new contract with a huge raise by now even though Smith has another year left on his contract. I surely have no problem with Smith getting a raise such that he receives compensation commensurate with his peers. But will all of the people commenting on this matter with huge doses of righteous indignation take a breath for a moment and recognize that Lovie Smith and his agent took his current deal and agreed to it a few years ago. He did not sign the deal to retrieve a family member from a hostage situation; he wasn’t coerced. So, let the negotiation processes happen and turn down the volume on the righteous indignation.

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

“Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. will feature Britney Spear’ ex, Kevin Federline, in an ad to air during the Super Bowl. Apparently, Nationwide now offers insurance policies in the event you accidentally hear a performance by a talent-less white rapper.”

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

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After last year’s less than laudatory pre-season analysis, I toyed with the idea of not doing one this year. But fools rush in where angels fear to tread; and if you’ve read these rants for any length of time now, you realize that I have a propensity for foolishness. And so, it is now time for me to go back and look at what I predicted four months ago and give myself a grade.

I made all of the predictions here back on 4 September 2006. It shouldn’t take anyone very long to see that was before any of the regular season games happened. Of course, after you see the sorry state of many of these predictions, you’ll not harbor any suspicions that I fudged any of the predictions.

AFC West:

I had the Broncos winning this division “comfortably”. That didn’t happen. I said they’d even have a bye in the playoffs; they didn’t even make the playoffs. However, I did say that it would take a meltdown of Chernobyl proportion by Jake Plummer for them to lose the division; and indeed, he led the Broncos offense so far south that he lost his job to a rookie QB who was clearly not ready to start in the NFL. I gave the Chargers a 10-win season and they exceeded that total by 4 wins; I thought the Chiefs would only win 7 games; turns out they only lost 7 games. And while I had the Raiders last in the division, I thought they’d win 6 games. Take the two they won this year and add it to their wins in September plus October next year and you might not come up to 6 wins. At least I had two things dead on with regard to the Raiders. I said that Aaron Brooks was mistake prone (actually, I said he committed more errors in a month than Jake Plummer did in a season.) and I said that the Raiders offensive line stunk. You have to admit, I had those two things “spot on” as they might say in Britain.

I’ll give myself a C – for the predictions here.

AFC South:

I said that all the talk about Jax being ready to replace Indy as the top dog in this division was pre-mature. I picked Indy to win the division and I said they’d have 12 wins, which was exactly on the mark. I also thought that would earn them home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, which it did not. After that auspicious start at the top of the AFC South, the predictions came apart at the seams. I had Jax finishing second with 8 wins. Once again, I got the 8 wins on the mark, but the Jags lost a tiebreaker with Tennessee for second place in the division. I thought Houston would improve to 5 wins and third place in the division this year. The team won 6 games but finished fourth. I totally missed the Tennessee Titans; I thought they’d win 4 games for the year and they won 8.

I’ll give myself a B for the predictions here.

AFC North:

I thought that the Steelers, Bengals and Ravens would all have 10 wins for the year. The Ravens won 13 games and the other two teams won 8 each. I did say that the Cincinnati Bengals might become known as the Cincinnati Trail Blazers as their off-field shenanigans continued to spin out of control; while I haven’t yet seen anyone refer to the Bengals in that way, you’d have to agree that the off-field antics of these players captured more than its fair share of attention all season long. I did say that Steve McNair’s value to the Ravens would be his toughness and his leadership and not his physical prowess – which is waning. And, I did say that the Browns were out of it from the opening coin toss in September. I said the Browns had little depth particularly at QB; that was on the mark. I said that Willie McGinnest would provide more leadership and maturity to the team than he would add in terms of sacks and tackles; that was on the mark. I said that Charlie Frye seemed to have the tools to develop as a QB; that seems to have missed the mark by more than a small margin.

I’ll give myself a C + for the predictions here.

AFC East:

I had the Pats winning the division with 11 wins. They did win the division and they won 12 games so that looks pretty good. Sadly, I fell for the 2005 late season surge by the Miami Dolphins - - after the games really didn’t matter and when they went up against the soft part of their 2005 schedule. I thought the Dolphins would also win 11 games and make the playoffs. Not only did they fall short of my prediction by 5 whole games, the Dolphins are a team on the brink of collapse at the end of the Nick Saban Fiasco - - er, Nick Saban Era. I had the Bills finishing third – which they actually did – with only 5 wins. But I saved my biggest miss for the NY Jets; I thought the Jets would stink and win only 3 games and be “on the clock” for the April draft. The Jets won 10 games and made the playoffs.

I’ll give myself a D – for the predictions here.

However, I stand by my remarks that there would be huge entertainment value in having NY Jets’ fans “on the clock” for the draft for four months as they dissected each and every possibility as to what the team should do with that #1 pick…

NFC West:

I said that the “Super Bowl Loser Jinx” would be violated this year. I said the Seahawks would not do as well as last year but they would win their division anyway. That was all true. I gave the Seahawks 12 wins and a comfortable walk to the division crown; actually, they won only 9 games and needed a win on New Year’s Eve to lock down their division title. Then I went totally goofy in my NFC West predictions. I actually thought that Dennis Green could squeeze 8 wins out of the Arizona Cardinals this year; that would be like squeezing orange juice out of a spare tire. Let me say for the record that the Cardinals team is flawed and Dennis Green is not nearly as good a head coach as he tends to portray himself as. I had the Rams finishing third with 7 wins; the Rams finished second with 8 wins; that looks like a decent prediction but, in truth, the Rams won games I never thought they’d win and lost some I thought were “gimmees”. I was really surprised by the improvement of the 49ers. I had them winning 5 games only because I wanted something positive to come from the work of Mike Nolan who seems like a good and well-meaning person. The 49ers won 7 games and finished third in the division – ahead of the no-account Cardinals.

I’ll give myself a D for the predictions here.

NFC South:

Even in light of the less than precise nature of the predictions that I’ve chronicled thusfar, let’s just say the crystal ball was REALLY cloudy for this division. I had the Panthers winning 10 games and the division championship based on a tiebreaker. That’s bad enough; the team I had tied with them was Tampa Bay who only won 4 games. Granted, Chris Simms missing the whole year and the absence of anything resembling a journeyman NFL QB in Tampa for the rest of the season made their record one that was below just about everyone’s expectation. I had Atlanta third in the division with 9 wins, which is two more than they actually got. I said then that Michael Vick would have been a great single wing tailback and is a damned fine running back but the problem for the Falcons is that he plays QB and that’s a shame. Oh, and I specifically said the Falcons’ WR corps will not “strike fear into the hearts of defensive coordinators around the league”. I believe that those two statements about the Falcons stand out as irrefutably accurate. Worst of all, I thought the New Orleans Saints would win 4 games for the year and battle the Jets for the first pick in the draft. The only solace I can take with regard to my predictions for the Saints is that I haven’t found a whole lot of other folks who picked them to play for the NFC Conference Championship back in August 2006.

I’ll give myself a flat-out F for the predictions here. The only way they might have been worse would have been if I had predicted that OJ Simpson would have revealed the identities of the “real killers” at one of the NFC South divisional games.

NFC North:

I had the Bears winning the division with 11 wins because they were the “least flawed team” in the division. They won comfortably and had 13 wins for the season. I thought the Vikings and Lions would chase the Bears – which they did if you take my statement literally. Sadly, I had the Vikings with 8 wins and the Lions with 7 wins for the year; they had 6 wins and 3 wins respectively. And the actual second place finisher in the division was Green Bay whom I wrote off as a mess of a team that would have to scratch to win 4 games; they won 8.

I’ll give myself a D for the predictions here.

NFC East:

I had the Cowboys winning the division with 10 wins and the Eagles to finish second as a wild-card team with 9 wins. Actually, the two teams reversed that prediction and both made the playoffs. I had the Redskins finishing third with 8 wins; they didn’t get near that total but I did nail the problems facing the Skins. I said I was “not really enamored with the WRs”; in actuality, the Skins’ WRs were miserable despite the additions in the off-season that were widely heralded. I said the offensive line was paper thin with no reserve strength. Fortunately, the starters played most of the time; but when the reserves came in, there was a noticeable “deprovement” in performance. And I said they had problems at safety with Archuletta and Taylor neither of whom “can be counted on to cover the goal line pylon.” Actually, that might have been unfair since both players are significantly bigger than the goal line pylon and so they could indeed cover it if they could ever catch up to it; but they couldn’t cover an Easter Island statue… I did put the Giants in last place in the division and I thought the reason would be that their defense could not hold up. The Giants broke even for the year finished third in the division and missed the playoffs.

I’ll give myself a C for the predictions here.

After this retrospective, I’m reminded of an observation by humorist/philosopher Evan Esar regarding economists:

“An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.”

Nonetheless, I’ll do it again next season because it’s fun and because I don’t mind admitting my mistakes. I’ve never participated in any political activities for a boatload of reasons one of which is that politicos seem incapable of admitting a mistake. Politicians are folks who are much more comfortable at “hindcasting” than they are at “forecasting”. Consider the words of a consummate politician, Sir Winston Churchill, on that topic:

“I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place.”

That’s sort of like the gambling on last weekend’s games; it’s pretty difficult not to come out ahead. And that’s precisely why they don’t let you bet on last week’s – or last season’s games in the present…

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

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Mike Nifong is the District Attorney in Durham, NC who has been “handling” the so-called Duke Lacrosse rape case. I’m sure you know that he’s dropped the rape charges and that the alleged victim has changed her account of what happened that night several times. Nifong faced a proceeding in front of the NC bar for making improperly inflammatory statements about the alleged violators even before minor things such as indictments/hearings had occurred. Now Mr. Nifong faces added ethics charges that could get him disbarred. The new charges say that he had in his possession potentially exculpatory evidence for the defense but did not reveal that information to the defense in a timely manner. That’s not good. What seems to me to be worse is that he supposedly assured the court on several occasions that he had turned over all evidence to the defense that he had in his possession. Since he is an officer of the court, I suspect that if he purposely lied to the court, he took the severity of his offense up a notch or two.

In a topical rant on this case about 9 months ago, I said that we needed to stop giving breathless attention to press statements released by various people including “prosecutors running for election in Durham”. I stand by that statement now and think that we should let the ethics proceedings play themselves out where they should - - in front of the duly constituted tribunal that hears and decides these issues. This is not something where intense journalistic coverage is going to make things better.

One thing I must say in Mr. Nifong’s defense; he did stop short of accusing the three lacrosse players of the murder of Jimmy Hoffa, the disappearance of Judge Crater or harboring the fugitive, D. B. Cooper.

The Australian Open is nearing its conclusion so there’s actually some tennis news that makes it beyond the agate type in your local sports section. I read in USA Today that 383 male entrants in pro tennis tournaments withdrew from tournaments during 2006. Attention tennis mavens: People don’t pay to go see players who withdrew from tournaments and/or matches that are “walk-overs”. And I refuse to believe that there were that many last-minute injuries/illnesses among these professional athletes. Even if you count 60 men’s tournaments in a year, that means more than 6 entrants per tournament had to withdraw. This may be a large part of why men’s tennis has sunk to the level of “irrelevant” on the sporting scene. The folks who run tennis really need to go back and dig up some of the works of the late, great Walt Kelly. Kelly’s protagonist, Pogo Possum, said it all to his friend and colleague, Porkypine:

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Speaking of tennis, the reigning US women’s junior champion is Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Pity the poor headline writer with only a single column article if she wins a tournament. On the other hand, think of the promotion tennis could run by using her name and asking for people to make anagrams from it; here’s my best entry:

Shake on a savvy alpaca unit

There is a story on ESPN.com about a professional pillow-fighting league. No, that is not a typographical error. The women do not compete in lingerie or anything like that; this is supposed to be real fighting but they have to lead with a pillow before they can punch/kick/whatever. At a recent set of matches in Toronto, the organizers made the distinction between “pillow fighting” and “fighting with pillows”. The sport does borrow one presentational gimmick from pro rasslin; the women involved have “clever” ring names. The current world champion is Champain; contenders for her title include Betty Clocker, Anna Conda and Apillow Creed.

Put Pro Pillow Fighting on TV up against any random early round match in a men’s tennis tournament and I’m not sure which gets higher ratings…

Since I mentioned pro rasslin a minute ago, I think I have an idea for Barry Bonds to pursue once his baseball career is finished. He needs to go on the WWE circuit. With that cranium of his, he could reprise the finishing move of the late Bobo Brazil – the Coco-butt. However, there will be lots of choreography needed here because if Bonds ever actually hit an opponent with that skull of his, the poor guy might be unconscious for ten days.

There is a racetrack in Grand Island Nebraska called Fonner Park. No, I’ve never been there; I’ve never even heard of Fonner Park; I think I know where Grand Island is in Nebraska even though I’m certain there is no ocean or sea anywhere in the vicinity. Anyway, a veterinarian at Fonner Park faces charges that he injected “jittery horses” with vodka to calm them down. Here’s a defense he could offer. Cars run just fine on 10% ethanol so why not horses…?

For those of you who contemplated the possibility that Bob Knight might have mellowed once he passed Dean Smith as the all-time winningest coach in Division 1 basketball, fear not. Knight gave an interview to Sports Illustrated – something he had not done for more than 10 years – and here is what he told SI about his final years at Indiana:

“The last six years there were not good for me. At every one of the three schools [Army, Indiana and Texas Tech], I’ve worked for really good people. But at every one, there’s also been a sorry bastard or two. I should have left [IU] when the sorry bastards came to power.”

Like him or not, Bob Knight remains an intractable curmudgeon. He will not mellow with age like a fine wine; he will simply grow older…

Finally, an observation from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“ ‘Hoosiers’ has beaten out ‘Rocky’ as the top sports movie of all time, in the estimation of chinaview.cn.

“As for the honor of best sports comedy, it reportedly came down to four finalists: ‘Caddyshack’, ‘The Bad News Bears’ and two Oakland Raiders game films.”

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

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Okay, yesterday’s rant was NFL-free. Not today. Today, it’s about NFL coaches. In case you’ve only heard this 727,456 times, there will two Black head coaches in the Super Bowl game this year; there hasn’t been a Black head coach in a Super Bowl game ever before. This fact has already been pounded to death and there are more than eleven days to go until the game. Enough already! In the 40 Super Bowl games to date, there have been 80 head coaches of the Caucasian persuasion. Their cumulative record is 40-40. After this year’s game, there will have been 2 head coaches of color. Their cumulative record will be 1-1. Yet another demonstration of the equality of the races for those looking to make this game into some kind of social statement - - which it is not.

Here’s a slant to Super Bowl hype I haven’t seen yet. Do you think anyone will stick a camera/microphone in Edgerrin James’ face and ask him:

So, just what the hell were you thinking?

Bill Parcells retired. He says he won’t coach again - - but he’s said that before so I’d have to say that only time will tell on that front. His tenure with the Cowboys was better than his recent predecessors’; yet the Cowboys won no playoff games under Parcells. Obviously, I don’t read minds and have no pipeline to Bill Parcells, but I have to think that two situations carried great weight in his decision to retire:

1. He did not need to deal with the likes of Terrell Owens ever again.

2. He did not like what he saw from his team that had a two game lead in the NFC East in early December and responded by losing four of its last five and its last three in a row.

Jerry Jones said he and Parcells would continue to meet and work on the future of the team. That should be good news for Cowboys’ fans if by “continue to meet” Jones means it will happen over the period of time it takes to interview and select the next coach. Owens is due a roster bonus sometime in March/April of this year. The Cowboys better have a coach in place that is comfortable with whatever decision GM Jones makes about Owens and with whatever goofiness GM Jones has in mind for the draft in April. I’m not sure that the Cowboys – as currently structured – are a team on the rise.

The rumors are flying about who will take over in Dallas. Wade Phillips is prominently mentioned; he’s not been successful in a head coaching role twice before. Another name prominently mentioned is Norv Turner who likewise has been unsuccessful in two head coaching stints in the past. However, Turner is a favorite of Troy Aikman who credits Turner for much of his growth/development as a QB. And Heaven knows that Tony Romo might benefit from a coach who was “QB-friendly”; Romo’s never had one of those in the NFL.

They do have a head coach in Oakland. His name is Lane Kiffen. His previous experience in the NFL was one year as a quality-control coach in Jax. No, I don’t know what a quality-control coach does. Maybe he assures that the bagels and lox are fresh when the coaches meet to go over game films early in the morning? Recently, Kiffen was a position coach at USC. His hiring makes sense since the offensive coordinator at USC interviewed for the job and turned the Raiders down; in addition, his colleague at USC – the quarterbacks coach – turned down the job. Think about that; a college position coach turns down one of the 32 head coaching jobs in the NFL; just how unappealing does the situation in Oakland have to be?

Looking at the glass half-full, the Raiders have the #1 pick in the draft and have the chance to select a franchise QB – assuming one is available out there. The Raiders last took a QB with their first draft pick in 1991; that QB was Todd Marinovich; let’s be kind and say that didn’t work out all that well for Al Davis and the team.

Whatever the Raiders do in the off-season, they have to find a way to make their offense productive. I believe that the Raiders scored 12 offensive touchdowns this year; I may have miscounted so I may be off by one – or two at the most. LaDanian Tomlinson scored 31 offensive TD’s this year all by himself; that’s two-and-a-half times more than the Raiders scored as a team.

People point to Al Davis’ previous success in hiring relatively unknown young head coaches and say that Lane Kiffen may be in that mold. He could be; Raider fans have to hope that’s true because there isn’t all that much else in Davis’ recent history to hang one’s hopes on. The last coach in Oakland who was successful over any period of time was Art Shell – in his first incarnation – who got fired in 1994 after six years on the job and a better than .500 record. Since then, Al Davis hired:

Mike White: He lasted two years and achieved mediocrity.

Joe Bugel: He lasted one year; the record was 4-12

Jon Gruden: He took the team to the AFC Championship game (you know that game as “The Tuck Rule Game”). Then Davis was sure he had found the biggest sucker on the planet when he sent Gruden to Tampa in exchange for $8M and four high draft picks. Gruden proceeded to beat the Raiders in the Super Bowl the next season.

Bill Callahan: He lost to Gruden in the Super Bowl and then the team came apart at the seams. Callahan said they were the dumbest team in all of football at one point.

Norv Turner: He got the team with all those extra high draft picks and they turned out to produce nothing of consequence.

Art Shell: Incarnation #2 lasted one year; the record was 2-14.

Enter Lane Kiffen. Unless Al Davis has some magical potion that he’s going to slip into the food consumed by players like Randy Moss and Jerry Porter, Kiffen will find a team that has discipline issues, commitment issues and a horrible offensive line. If Art Shell couldn’t handle this team, what makes anyone think Kiffen can? The fact is that Al Davis calls the shots out there and Al Davis created these problems and most importantly, Al Davis hasn’t found a way to solve them. Shell and his predecessors and now Kiffen are merely along for the ride. The relationship out there is sort of like Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. That’s something for you to look for; when Lane Kiffen holds a news conference, check to see if there’s a hand up his butt somewhere…

There was a time when Al Davis was a creative force in the NFL and someone to be reckoned with in any strategic or tactical confrontation. Those days are gone. If you look at his body of work for the last 5 years – or even the last decade if you will – he’s an owner who ranks right up there with greats such as Leonard Tose. If you’re too young to remember Mr. Tose, go check him out on Google…

Finally, Scott Ostler put the Raiders’ coaching search into perspective in the San Francisco Chronicle recently:

“One good thing about the Raiders’ coaching search (besides that for the time-being there’s no coach for Randy Moss or Jerry Porter to hate on) is that it gets us all well acquainted with the top offensive assistant coaches in college football. In that respect, the Raiders’ search is more like a faculty tea.”

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

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There’s gong to be an absolute tsunami of publicity and story lines and “stuff” about the Super Bowl and the NFL over the next two weeks. So, let me spend some time today talking about other stuff. It’s not like all of us won’t have our fill of NFL items in the near future. Let me point out a couple of the bits of silliness that the NCAA continues to involve itself with. We don’t want those goofs flying so far under the radar that we forget how feckless and venal they are.

So, let’s start with their continuing crusade under the banner of multicultural inclusiveness to banish the nicknames and mascots of schools where such nicknames and mascots might – I said MIGHT – be offensive to some Native Americans. Oh, it’s a noble cause they have taken up indeed… But, the NCAA is totally silent on another issue of multicultural inclusiveness because it is inconvenient for them to say anything about it and it’s embarrassing for them to admit how multiculturally exclusive they are. Let’s look at a couple of facts:

Mike Tomlin’s hiring by the Steelers makes him the sixth NFL coach who is Black. That means that about 19% of the head coaches in the NFL are Black. That’s a bit higher than the population statistics but not as high as the racial mix in the NFL. The NFL adopted rules/procedures to assure that Blacks – not minorities, Blacks – got meaningful interview opportunities for coaching vacancies.

The NCAA has 119 schools in Division 1-A and there are seven Black head coaches. That means that less than 6% of the head coaches in Division 1-A of the NCAA are Black. That’s less than half the population statistics. The NCAA has no rules/procedures to assure that Blacks – or any other minorities – have access to interviews for head coaching jobs.

So, how come no one calls Dr. Myles Brand on the carpet for this? How come people give him a pass for inserting himself into the business of schools when it comes to mascots and names but for looking the other way when job discrimination happens? When will the fawning media types make this man and this organization tackle some real issues of real importance and not only ones with PR value?

Oh and here’s the latest college football edict that will solve lots of real and important issues. Remember about two months ago when Jim Tressel refused to vote in the NCAA coaches’ poll regarding who should be ranked #2 and #3 because he thought it was improper for him to be involved in picking his National Championship opponent? Remember all the foofaraw about that - - as if it mattered? Well the American Football Coaches Association has taken care of all that for us. This is the body that oversees the poll itself and it has now decreed that a coach in Tressel’s situation will not be allowed to abstain.

If there is a karmic force in the universe, please let it be that a coach is in that position next year and that he chooses not to vote. I want to see what the American Football Coaches Association does then. Will they put a gun in the reluctant coach’s mouth and blow his head off unless he marks a ballot? Will they get him fired? Will they not allow his team to play in the National Championship Game? What a bunch of bloviating nonsense. Here’s what a coach can do in that situation without riling up the AFCA by following their rules to the letter:

Vote for neither of the contending teams who might be voted #2 or #3 in the final poll. Keep both off the list entirely. That way, the vote hurts neither team and helps neither team. And the coach voted…

What does the AFCA do then? Oh, I know; they’ll institute another new policy…

Just asking, did you realize that the NBA season is about half over? This is getting close to the time when the games have a fighting chance of being interesting and ones in which most of the players on the floor actually care about playing hard. Let me give you a picture to hold in your mind whenever you begin to think that the early part of the NBA season actually matters. Pat Riley lambasted his Miami Heat team for being unprepared and unwilling to work hard. So what happened when the Heat started to lose more often than it won? Riley took a leave of absence as the head coach and had joint replacement surgery that could have waited until the off-season – or could have been done in the previous off-season. He’ll be back – so he says – about the time that Dwayne Wade and Shaq are back and healthy. Talk about setting an example for the players…

Gregg Drinnan’s column, Keeping Score, in the Kamloops Daily News had this item last week:

“Featured in the Los Angeles Dodgers official 2007 calendar are players JD Drew, Eric Gagne, Kenny Lofton, Bill Mueller, Dioner Navarro and Odalis Perez. None of the aforementioned will play for the Dodgers in 2007.

Look folks, I know that getting things like calendars together takes time and things have to be done in advance of the distribution date. But in these days of “just in time deliveries” and all that managerial control stuff, couldn’t the Dodgers have come a bit closer to reality here?

I read in two different places that Ichiro told some Japanese media folks – I can’t go and read the Japanese sources because the only languages I know are English and Profane – that he doesn’t think the Mariners are sufficiently serious about building a winning club and he might just become a free agent after this year. I hope for my friends in Seattle that this is not true because Ichiro is one of a very few ballplayers who is worth the price of admission all by himself. But if he does become a free agent, every club that is within hailing distance of a pennant ought to be in line to try to add him to their roster. No team in baseball is so good that it does not have room for Ichiro.

Here’s a public service announcement for you. January is National Oatmeal Month. I’m letting all of you know in case you hadn’t celebrated properly yet this month. Since I hate oatmeal – I’d rather lick a mouse – I don’t observe this festive time of the year, but I didn’t want this to slip by anyone who actually eats that stuff.

Finally, an observation from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“The Giants’ problem is that if they Bonds to have a clubhouse pit crew, what if other players demand the same? That would put the Giants over the lackey cap.”

But don‘t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Watching the Bears’ demolition of the Saints yesterday, I noticed that the Bears got significant contributions from three rookies that they drafted last April. I really don’t like the idea of an instant analysis of a teams’ draft the week after it happens because it really does take time (usually several seasons) to see what the fruits of any given draft will be. But when the Bears can go to the Super Bowl and get important contributions from Mark Anderson, Devin Hester and Danieal Manning, that has to mean that the Bears’ scouting and drafting department did a pretty good job last year.

A quick – and absolutely not an exhaustive – survey tells me that three other teams in the NFL had productive drafts last season too. The Houston Texans weren’t all that good this year but they started as many as five of their draft picks for significant games during the season. Yes, I know that these guys were starting for a not very good team, but when you can five rookie starters in a draft, it was a pretty successful weekend. The Ravens started Haloti Ngota and Dawan Landry on their highly successful defense this year - - and their punter was a rookie too. Meanwhile, don’t forget the Jets who drafted two offensive linemen (Ferguson and Mangold) on the first round and started both of them all year long and made the playoffs. Oh, and the Jets found Leon Washington still on the board on the second day of the draft too. Successful drafting is a large part of a successful franchise in the NFL.

In case you have been brainwashed by the Washington Redskins’ front office and have come to believe that the draft is not all that important, please look at the last four teams playing in the NFL this year.

Name the five key players on the Pats; Brady, Seymour, Samuel, Bruschi and Wilfork? If not the top five, those guys are five of the top eight; and all five were Pats’ draftees.

Name the five key players for the Colts; Manning, Freeny, Harrison, Wayne and Addai? If not the top five, these guys are five of the top eight and all five were Colts’ draftees.

Name the top five players for the Saints; Brees, McAllister, Bush, Colston and Smith? If not the top five, these guys are five of the top eight and four of the five – not Brees – were Saints’ draftees.

Name the top five players for the Bears; Urlacher, Brown, Grossman, Vasher and Jones? If not the top five, these guys are five of the top eight and four of the five – not Jones – were Bears’ draftees.

Last week, I read that OJ Simpson said that his book on how he would have murdered his wife and her friend – had he done it of course – was actually written by a ghost writer and he wasn’t responsible for that. Oh swell; that makes things just fine. Let’s review the bidding here. OJ didn’t write the book but stood to profit from it and he was making a TV special on the book for FOX TV and was on the hook to hit the talk shows to pump up the book. So, for something he didn’t do or didn’t write, he was going to go around and fill the air with a lot of fiction because he had nothing knowledgeable to say about the subject - - allegedly. Time to cue Rod Stewart:

“…The honesty’s too much …

NFL teams employ people to provide spin to events to make the team or their players look good. The Cleveland Browns either need to pay their folks a bonus for this spin or fire the lot of them. You make the call. Braylon Edwards has been a huge disappointment to the Browns ever since they took him with a very high pick in the first round. In addition, he’s one of those guys who is never to blame for anything bad that happens; he always manages to deflect at least a big part of the blame to others – coaches and/or teammates. Now the Browns have come to his defense thanks to their spin-meisters. Get this; it’s hard on Edwards having to play in Cleveland because he went to Michigan and Cleveland is an overwhelmingly Ohio State city. Hello? If that’s such a big deal, why the hell did the Browns draft him – or any other Michigander – in the first place? Give me a break!

Michael Strahan and his wife have concluded their very public and very messy divorce action. The court ruled that Strahan’s wife would get $15.3M – half their marital assets – as prescribed in the prenuptial agreement that Strahan’s lawyers gave her to sign. Strahan tried to get the court to give her less; the court said the prenup should stand as signed. So, let me get this straight. Strahan had a set of lawyers draw up a prenuptial agreement to protect him and it wound up costing him $15.3M plus legal fees during the divorce. Where did he find that kind of legal advice?

Remember, I said Michael Vick was just plain stupid for trying to smuggle a water bottle with a hidden compartment onto an airplane – whether or not the secret compartment had marijuana in it. I said it would not help him with his endorsements. Well that seems to be coming true. Air Tran was one company he had an endorsement deal with and it was an Air Tran flight he was trying to board when the TSA inspectors would not let him get onboard with the water bottle. Last week, Air Tran took down one billboard in the Atlanta area that had Michael Vick’s image on it. As I said, this is not good for him; what he did was stupid.

The Dolphins hired a coach – Cam Cameron – last week. I’m glad they did; now I don’t have to worry that someone would call me to see if I was interested in the job. They were interviewing everyone else, so it couldn’t have been too much longer before they got to my name in the phone book. Here’s the strange part about the deal in Miami. According to the papers, Cameron will make $2.5M per year on average for four years. Meanwhile, defensive coordinator, Dom Capers, just signed on for three years in Miami at a reported $8.1M. Do the math folks, the defensive coordinator will make more than the head coach on a per year basis. Does that make any sense to anyone?

Having watched three weekends of good NFL playoff football, I recognized yesterday afternoon one of the things that really adds to my enjoyment of these games. The really annoying crawl across the bottom of the screen with data for fantasy football leagues wasn’t there. What a nice way to start the New Year; would that it would be the case for all of 2007…

Finally, here’s an observation from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald regarding the Dolphins’ coaching search:

“Mike Shula was the most intriguing of the five finalists for the Dolphins job, of course. Older brother David failed as a head coach with the Bengals and Daddy Don is 77. Still, I’m not sure if Mike had the right strategy promoting himself as the Best Available Shula.”

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

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By now, you have to have heard about Michael Vick and his “adventure” at the airport. I’m not going to get into the debate about whether or not marijuana should be legalized or any allegations that Vick was singled out for scrutiny at the airport by the TSA inspectors because of his celebrity status or his race. Those are topics for orators and emoters. I want to examine this event from the standpoint of stupidity.

Michael Vick has a contract with the Atlanta Falcons, which has a total value of $128M if the press reports are correct. I know he’ll never see all of that money because the balloon payments in the final year or two will make his cap number astronomical, but he’ll see well more than half of it if he can just stay with the team. So let’s examine what he’s done recently to stay with the team:

When some hometown fans were on his case after a losing effort at home, he flashed them a double-barreled single-finger salute. This is to the hometown fans mind you.

As the Falcons were tanking at the end of the season, he complained about his teammates and his coaches.

Now he gets caught trying to get a water bottle with a secret compartment past airport security and onto a commercial flight.

I don’t care even a little bit whether or not the “secret compartment” in the bottle contained marijuana. Having a bottle with a secret compartment is sort of like having The Original Whizzonator with you; having it in your possession means that you intend to deceive someone somewhere. Whatever story his lawyers/publicists concoct to explain how this was all a misunderstanding will be nonsense because they will not include the pertinent information here. What he did was stupid beyond belief; what he did jeopardized his long-term contract with the Falcons and his value as an endorser of products and the celebrity status he so clearly needs and enjoys. Let me say it again, he was/is stupid.

How will all of this end? I don’t know, but I can envision one grand crescendo that would rivet the attention of the football world for a year. Next season, Michel Vick, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss join forces to play for the Oakland Raiders; Jerry Glanville – the original man-in-black – coaches the team and Al Davis keeps Glanville happy by going to the games in full regalia as an Elvis impersonator. That gets the Raiders on MNF at least twice, no?

An awful lot of attention has focused on the Miami Dolphins’ coaching search. I guess that’s because of the elongated and mendacious set of events surrounding Nick Saban’s decision to leave the team, but I wonder if it is really worth all the attention. The Miami Dolphins are team on the edge of returning to the abyss. The Dolphins have lived on the excellence of their defense for more than a couple of years now; their offense has risen to the level of mediocrity once in a while but normally has been a boat anchor for the team. It’s been a while since the Dolphins have been relevant. And the key players on the defense that has been carrying the team are getting long in the tooth. If you identify the core players on the defense as Jason Taylor, Zach Thomas, Keith Traylor, Vonnie Holliday and Kevin Carter, then Vonnie Holiday at age 31 and going into his 10th season next year is the “youngster” of the group. I’m not saying that the Dolphins’ defense is about to come apart at the seams because these guys still played at a high level of efficiency in 2006, but any five year program that a new coach implements ought not to have any of these folks as lynchpins at the end of the program.

Some attention is focused on the Raiders’ search for a new coach probably because the team set new standards for dysfunctional last season and because, well, you never know what Al Davis will do. At the moment, if you were in a “word association game” and I said “Weird Al”, you would probably say “Yankovic” if you are old enough to remember his great song parody Another One Rides The Bus. However, it won’t take more than a few more strange moves by the Raiders for “Davis” to be the common response to “Weird Al” in word association games. Last season they had an offensive coordinator who had been running a bed and breakfast for the last umpty-doodle years. What will Al do for an encore? Maybe he’ll hire a medium to channel “The Tooz” as the new defensive coordinator? Maybe he’ll think he’s getting Snake Stabler to be the QB coach but mistakenly hire Jake the Snake to do the job? Any word on whether or not Richie Kotite and/or Jerry Faust have reservations to fly to the Bay Area any time soon?

I’m glad to see that the Chargers did not fire Marty Schottenheimer and that is not because I have any particular affection or attraction to him. It’s just that I would have been very worried for the people of San Diego had they fired him. I would have suspected that there was something in the water supply out there that was interfering with logical processes. The Padres just fired Bruce Bochy after three straight winning seasons and two AL West divisional championships. Prior to this run of success, the Padres had five straight losing seasons but the kept Bochy on board. Had Schottenheimer been fired, I’d have begun to wonder if successful seasons had become the criterion for getting canned in San Diego.

There is one NBA note that demands attention. Kwame Brown had another run in with the police this week; fortunately, it did not involve any charges against him. It seems that he and teammate Ronny Turiaf were out at a club around 2 AM. [Aside: Isn’t this how all of these police incident stories begin?] There was another man at the same club who was celebrating his 30th birthday. This man left the club around the same time as Brown and Turiaf carrying his birthday cake. At that moment, Kwame Brown grabbed the cake and threw it at Turiaf but wound up hitting the birthday boy too. Brown then left in a limo. Just a few comments if I may:

1. If Kwame Brown did what is alleged here, that’s probably the first steal of his career.

2. Given his hands, it’s amazing he didn’t drop the damned cake.

3. He threw it at Turiaf – for whatever reason – and hit the birthday boy. If that doesn’t summarize his NBA career, I don’t know what does.

4. At least he was smart enough to have rented a limo to get home that night. From these actions, I’d not be surprised to learn that some adult beverage consumption preceded these happenings.

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

“Cavaliers center, Zydrunas Ilgauskas dedicated a team-funded reading center in Cleveland. Suggestion: Limit enrollment by requiring students to correctly spell or pronounce “Zydrunas Ilgauskas”.

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

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Last weekend was another good one for Mythical Picks. I made four picks in the playoff games and went 3-1 in those picks. That would have produced a Mythical Profit of $190. For the season, the cumulative record stands at 152-131-4 with a Mythical Profit of $1180.

Did you notice that each and every visiting team covered last weekend and two won outright?

I want to take this opportunity to preach a “mythical sermonette” here. For NFL games this season, I am theoretically ahead by $1180 and there are only three games left to play in the season. So, what’s the harm in doubling or tripling my normal wagers to try to make a killing for the year? Here’s the harm…

An overwhelmingly important ingredient in sports wagering is money management and the reason so many folks don’t succeed over the long run in this area is that money management – at its core – is self-discipline. I set the rules for Mythical Picks back in August/September; I said then that the rules were silly in that I would wager $110 on each game and that I would make a pick in every game. I fully expected to lose for the season given those restraints. But I did this for entertainment value and not as a betting service – and I think I’ve made that clear all during the season.

Therefore, even though this is fictional – or mythical – wagering, it would be a horrible example for me to “up the ante” at this point. If you are betting real money on NFL games – or college football games or basketball games or competitive eating events – you have to set limits on the amount of your wagers and the number of wagers you will make; then you have to stick to those limits. When you fall behind, it is wrong to play catch-up by upping the ante. When you are ahead, the best way to lose your advantage is to press your bets.

Let me relay a story about a visit to Las Vegas during the first weekend of March Madness about 8 years ago. The first day of college action was over and a friend and I were looking over the NBA games to see if there was a line that looked interesting. The Clippers where on the road against the Kings that night; at the time the Clippers were awful and the Kings were pretty good. Those two teams had played the night before in LA and the Kings had clobbered the Clips. The line on this game was Kings – 9 and it looked to me like a mortal lock for the Kings to cover. I convinced my friend of this wisdom and got in line to make a wager for both of us.

Behind me in a long line were four guys who were commiserating about how badly they had lost on the college games that day. They said they needed to find a bet to “get even” so they would have money to play tomorrow’s games. One of them noticed that the Clippers were +400 on the money-line that night and said they would need to bet on that proposition to get their money back. His three compatriots agreed and then they gathered up $800 amongst themselves to bet on the Clippers. That would “get them even” so they were probably down somewhere in the neighborhood of three-grand after the first day of the weekend.

After I made my wager, I stepped to the side and pretended to scan my ticket for errors because I didn’t believe they would go through with that wager. But they told the guy behind the counter they wanted #1234 on the money-line for $800. The guy taking the bets actually said to them, “Are you sure? You want the Clippers on the money-line for $800?” They said yes; he took the money and gave them the ticket.

With about 9 minutes to play in the 2nd quarter of that game, the Clips led the Kings 41-14. My friend said that we could kiss our wager good-bye; I told him to keep the faith because, after all, these were the Clippers. He was skeptical. On the other side of the room, the four “losers” were whooping it up and were already yelling about how they would be kicking ass and taking names tomorrow in each and every one of the wagering propositions.

At halftime, the score was Clippers 49 – Kings 42; in less than 10 minutes, the Kings had closed a 27-point gap to 7 points. The “get-even guys” were still boisterous; my friend was beginning to think we had a chance; I still had faith in the Clippers finding a way to get blown out.

By the time there were only five minutes to play in the game, the Kings led by 15 and were pulling away; they won the game by 21. We covered our modest bet; the four guys had left the sportsbook long before the final whistle. They hadn’t “gotten even”; they were now down approximately four-grand instead of three-grand.

The moral of the story is simple. A bad bet is a bad bet no matter if you are ahead or behind. Chasing after losses by taking long shots to win is not a sensible strategy. Money management is just as important as analysis and handicapping when you are doing sports wagering. So, I’m not doubling or tripling my wagers this weekend because that’s not a smart thing to do.

Now with that lesson in hand, let me be sure to remind you that no one should be stupid enough to take anything here as the basis for making a real wager involving actual money. If you do so, you may need a license to be so stupid; you should check with your local authorities on that.

General Comments:
I suspect that the suits at CBS – the network with the Super Bowl this year – are pulling for a Chicago/New England game. I believe that both Chicago and Boston are in the top five TV markets in the country and more TV sets in the city of the participating teams tend to produce higher ratings. This is not to minimize the ardor of the fans in New Orleans or Indy; it’s just that my guess is that neither of them is in the top 25 TV markets in the country.

From a personal perspective, all I really want to see a good game – translation a game where the outcome is still in doubt in the fourth quarter. But I must confess that I will not be rooting for the Saints to win this weekend. That is not because I have anything against the Saints or because I have any particular fondness for the Bears ever since the retirement of Walter Payton.

No, the reason I will hope for a Bears’ victory is because I know that two weeks of never-ending feelgood emoting about the resurrection of New Orleans after the horror of Katrina will be unbearable. There’ll even be a Weather Channel retrospective on the storm itself, I’m sure. I’ll tire of that nonsense after about the first three stories on it but it won’t go away. By the end of the first week, I’ll probably be in a state where I’d rather watch videotapes of The View and Cold Pizza over and over again for 48 straight hours instead of yet one more sob story about New Orleans. And you know, it’s gonna happen if the Saints win this weekend. The damned storyboards are already up and the camera crews are already assigned…

New Orleans at Chicago – 2.5 (43): If I counted correctly, the Saints have been the underdog in nine games this year and they’ve won seven of those nine games outright. If you believe in trends, you’d look no further than that and check out the money line odds on this game. I don’t think that’s the way to go. The story line here is “top offense against top defense.” The problem is that the Bears’ “top defense” is not what it was before injuries to DT, Tommie Harris, and SS, Mike Brown. Either Ian Scott or Alfonso Boone will have to play much better this weekend on the DL than they have or the Saints will establish the run and make life very difficult for the Bears. Chicago cannot win if they have to play catch-up or if they only have the ball for only 23-25 minutes of the game. On the other hand, if the Bears can play solid run defense and get the ball to the offense in advantageous time and distance situations, the Bears ought to be able to run on the Saints defense with its undersized linebackers. The Bears’ running game isn’t speed and finesse. People say Reggie Bush will be “the X-Factor” in this game. Maybe so. I think the other player who could be “the X-Factor” is Bears’ special teams’ phenom, Devin Hester. He could return a kick or a punt for a TD; he can also muff a couple of punts and give the ball away at just the wrong moment. Hester has six TDs on returns this year; he also muffed three punts last weekend. So if Hester is “the X-Factor”, I’m not sure who the beneficiary of his “X-factordom” might be on Sunday. The Saints put 27 points up on the Eagles last weekend; I think they can put up 20 or more this weekend. The question therefore is this: Can the Bears put up at least 24 points to cover here? Well to do that they’ll need a TD from the defense or special teams and some short fields to work with. I think they’ll get it; I’ll take the Bears and lay the points.

New England at Indy – 3.5 (47): Before everyone falls all over himself declaring that the Colts’ rushing defense has found itself and is now a force majeure, let’s do a bit of analysis here. I don’t have the top-level video for the last several Colts’ games that coaches do, but it is pretty clear to me that one of their “secrets” to stopping the run is to commit lots of bodies to the running area at or near the line of scrimmage; that leaves room to hit pass receivers. The last two opponents didn’t do that; Trent Green could not find water had he been on the deck of the Titanic two weeks ago; Steve McNair didn’t establish a running game he could fake off last week. In fact, the Ravens only ran the ball six times in the second half last week and they were not behind by double digits at any time in the game. I don’t understand why that happened, but it sure made the Colts’ run defense numbers look pretty gaudy. I don’t think that happens again this week against the Pats. Peyton Manning needs to win here to exorcise his worst playoff demons; Tony Dungy needs to win here to bring his career playoff record up to .500. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick need to win here because that’s what they expect to do in this situation. I think all the focus on the Colts’ newly emerged defense and the Pats’ historical defensive dominance of Peyton Manning is wrong. I think there will be points galore in this game; the loser might even score 30. So I want this game OVER. And because there’s more than a field goal’s worth of points here, I’ll also take the Pats with the points – but no parlay. Shop this line if you like Indy; it’s 3 in lots of places.

Good luck.

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

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