The Sports Curmudgeon

As soon as I saw Aaron Rodgers step on the field last night, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. No, I didn’t have any money on the Packers. No, I didn’t think that the game would turn into such a blowout that I would not be able to watch the second half. What flashed through my mind was that we would be in for at least one week – and maybe a full six weeks – of stories about how Brett Favre’s iron man streak may be coming to an end. Lo and behold, CBS Sportsline’s website this morning has the link to a story where the tease is “streak being jeopardized”.

Folks, I have no animosity toward Brett Favre; I wish him no misfortune of any kind. At the same time, I do not have a man-crush on him nor do I think that his consecutive game streak in the NFL is a thing of such importance that when – not if but when – it ends the world will be a diminished place. It will have to end some day; if that day arrives next week, so be it. This is not a reason to inundate every sports fan with columns describing the portent of doom nor will it be reason to pen elegies about its passing when it happens.

During the time-outs and commercials in the Packers/Cowboys game last night, I flipped over to TNT to see the Celtics/Knicks game. At one point midway in the 4th quarter, the score was 89-43. The Knicks are one of the cornerstone franchises of the NBA and the people who built that franchise up from nothing have to have a large measure of disgust in their gut at the moment – whether they be in the Celestial Skybox looking down or somewhere on the planet we all inhabit. The Knicks are irrelevant now. And if even half of the stories about the bizarre actions of management of that team off the court are true, then it would seem that the only “quick fix” for the franchise would be for David Stern to prove that he really is the smartest man in the world by finding a means by which the league can exercise “eminent domain” over the franchise and usurp ownership.

For those who say that the Knicks are merely going over a “rough spot”, my response is:

Yes, and Britney Spears has had an “unfortunate year” behind the wheel and with issues regarding the custody of her children.

Here is a quote from Stephon Marbury regarding the hostility of the Knicks fans toward the team in Madison Square Garden. After you read it, try to imagine how much Thorazine they would have to pump into you to get you in a similar state of confusion:

“If people feel like they need to come here and do that, then that’s what they’re going to do. I don’t even think they know why they’re booing.”

I am absolutely certain the Knicks’ fans know why they are booing. Moreover, if that debacle against the Celtics last night had been in Madison Square Garden, the boos might have been audible even out to the planet where Stephon Marbury resides.

Since I mentioned David Stern above, an item in the Chicago Sun-Times quoted Stern on a Chicago radio program. He was asked about putting an NBA franchise in Las Vegas and if gambling was the obstacle. Stern said:

‘’I must tell you that my view on that is I’m not afraid of gambling per se; I’m afraid of criminals.'’

That’s a great sound bite that has no actual – you know – meaning. Las Vegas and its legal gambling do not mean there is a higher percentage of criminals there than there are in places where the gambling is done illegally. Since I mentioned the Knicks above, is it a mystery to anyone that there is gambling – on sports and NBA games specifically – that goes on in New York City? Is it also a revelation to anyone that there are criminals in NYC? Of course, these things are there just as they are in every city in the US whether or not there is an NBA franchise there. If David Stern is really “afraid of criminals” and thinks it best to keep NBA franchises away from cities where there are criminals, then NBA fans in NY, Boston, Philly, Washington DC, Detroit, Chicago and etc. should start to worry.

I ran across a statement attributed to Michael Strahan about the NFL random drug testing procedures. Strahan said, “Sometimes it’s kind of uncomfortable when you have to drop your drawers in front of a grown man and use the bathroom.” Maybe I’m parsing and deconstructing his statement too much here but the first time I read it I wondered if he would mind as much if the “other person in the room” were other than a “grown man” - - say a “teenage boy” or a “grown woman.” I know; I need to up my level of medication…

With the rumors that Raiders’ coach Lane Kiffen might be a candidate to become the head coach at Arkansas next year, here’s something he might think about in terms of changes from the pro game to the college game. The Raiders won last weekend to bring their record to 3-8. They have five games to play. He can tell the Raiders that if they go 3-2 in their final games this year, then the Raiders will be bowl eligible.

For those of you who look for karma in the world consider this:

The college football season began with Appalachian State beating Michigan.

Appalachian State’s nickname is “The Mountaineers”.

West Virginia may play for the BCS National Championship in the final game of the season.

West Virginia’s nickname is “The Mountaineers”.

Coincidence - - or destiny?

I think it is more than a bit unseemly for Michigan to ask for permission to talk to LSU coach Les Miles about changing jobs when Miles still has two more games to coach at LSU this season. There is not much anyone can do to prevent such impropriety but that does not make it right. If Miles is really interested in the Michigan job and wants to prepare himself to take over there, then he can lose whatever bowl game LSU gets into this year. After all, that’s what tends to happen to Michigan football teams…

Here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Security at Giants Stadium will be beefed up at Jets games, Newsday reported, after complaints that male fans gather on a concourse near Gate D at halftime and shout at women to show their breasts.

“Police won’t reveal their plans, but it’s reportedly a cover-2 scheme.”

If that is a version of the cover-2 scheme, would it be appropriate to say that Janet Jackson’s performance at halftime of the Super Bowl was a cover-1 scheme? Just asking…

Finally, here is another item by Dwight Perry:

“With the Writers Guild of America out on strike for the first time since 1988, pundits warn, it won’t be easy finding any contemporary jokes on television.

“With the obvious exception of the Rams and Dolphins.”

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

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College football teams and their fans can look at their schedules and know for sure that they will have a big rivalry game down the road on a specific date. They can let the emotion build for months; the preparation for those games is always intense and thorough. At the moment, we have an analogous situation building in one segment of the TV talk-show industry. In the last week or so, we learned that Michael Vick will stand trial on 2 April 2008 on state charges relating to the dogfighting incidents. Yesterday, OJ Simpson and co-defendants entered pleas of “not guilty” to charges stemming from the Las Vegas hotel/memorabilia incident about 3 months ago and that trial is set for 7 April 2008.

Can you imagine the anticipation and the preparation amongst the folks that produce the daily Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren shout fests? You have to know that Larry King’s people are scouring the Internet looking for obscure people who have written lengthy – if not necessarily informative – pieces on this “memorabilia” incident and/or OJ Simpson and/or sports memorabilia and/or dogfighting and/or whatever to be on the program and to answer questions while Larry King stares at them feigning interest in their answers. Next April will give those folks a bumper crop of “stuff” for their programs; you can hear them licking their chops already – and quietly praying that no one cops a plea in the interim.

When I heard the news about OJ’s plea and the upcoming trial, two thoughts crossed my mind:

1. Will the “memorabilia angle” give Pete Rose a couple of paydays as a commentator on one of these meaningless talk programs?

2. Do you know anyone who would want to buy any OJ Simpson memorabilia? I don’t. So, why is it valuable?

Yesterday I posed a dilemma facing the 1976 Tampa Bay Bucs and whom they might root for if this year’s Dolphins threatened to go 0-16 for the season. Today, let me pose a different hypothetical situation.

Assume this year’s Pats lose a game and the 1972 Dolphins record remains on the books and they get to drink their champagne. Now fast forward a couple of years and imagine that the 2010 Miami Dolphins are 15-0 and playing their last game. Do the ’72 Dolphins root for or against the latter-day Dolphins? [My guess is “for them” publicly and “against them” privately.]

Yesterday, Jeff Gordon posed a rhetorical question in his blog on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website. He asked, “Who in their right mind would ever kick the ball to Devin Hester?” Well, I am fairly confident that Mike Shanahan and Todd Sauerbrun have learned their lesson; I would bet money that they will not be kicking to Hester again this weekend. Of course, the Broncos are playing the Raiders this weekend so that would be a most difficult thing for them to do even if they wanted to…

Every once in a while, it’s useful to go back and look at a previous event that generated a lot of hooting and hollering when it happened and see if it was worth all of that. Turn the clock back to August of this year when the Eagles released Jeremiah Trotter before the final cut to set their roster. There was a lot of rhetorical gassing about that decision and time given to the fact that perhaps Trotter had not been told why he was being cut and so forth. So, what’s the rest of the story?

Jeremiah Trotter signed with the Tampa Bay Bucs and is on their roster. He has been active – that means he put on his uniform – for one game this year. There is no indication that he made it to the field in that game because he recorded no stats for that day. So perhaps, the reason the Eagles cut him is that he is no longer close to the Pro-Bowl caliber linebacker he used to be; and perhaps, the reason they never explained why he was cut is that they did not want to demean him by explaining that.

In NFL action this week, the Dallas/Green Bay game is clearly the best one on the docket and the Jets/Miami game is clearly the worst. Nevertheless, there are three other games that ought to catch your attention:

Jax/Indy is a game of importance because an Indy win will virtually guarantee them the AFC South title while a Jax win will give the teams an equal record with four games to play. The Colts won handily in the first meeting of these teams back in September so there is an “intra-divisional revenge” angle here. Keep an eye on this one.

Atlanta/St. Louis is a game of no importance except in the jockeying for position to get a high draft pick next April. These are two bad teams; probably the one that makes the last mistake will lose the game. There might be some humor value here.

SF/Carolina should be about as compelling as a lecture on the culinary traditions of the Visigoths. Avert your eyes…

When the Pats were installed as 22-point favorites last week against the Eagles and then the line climbed to 24 points, people talked about how that was a historically high number. This week the Pats are a mere 21-point favorite over the Ravens. However, the Pats are on the road this week. A friend of mine will always bet the home team if it gets a touchdown or more in the spread; he must be salivating over this game…

There has been a whole heap of discussion this week about NFL scheduling and telecasts centered around the NFL Network doing the Dallas/Green Bay game and around the possibilities of moving the Redskins’ next two games around in the aftermath of Sean Taylor’s killing. [That is not going to happen.] Thinking about scheduling reminded me of what a hugely bad deal ESPN negotiated for itself in the last round of auctioning for the MNF rights. Let me summarize:

ESPN pays the NFL $1.1B for 17 regular season MNF games. [Maybe with that opening week doubleheader on MNF it comes to 18 games?]

Therefore, it costs ESPN $58.8M per game for the television rights to the game. That number does not include a dime of the costs they incur to produce the game or move their stuff and their people around the country to put it on the air.

Even if they could sell 100 ads for the game, it would take a cost of $580K per ad to break even on the rights’ fee alone. I don’t think they get 100 add slots and there’s no way they would command $580K per slot given the ratings the programs draw. “Break-even” is not happening…

Then you add to the nonsensical economics of the deal that ESPN is not in the “network rotation” to get the Super Bowl every once in a while nor does it get the “flex scheduling” privilege that NBC gets for the Sunday Night Football package. NBC gets both of those benefits and pays only $600M per year for the same number of games. Wouldn’t you love to play high stakes poker with the guys who negotiated that ESPN deal?

Finally, here is a comment from syndicated columnist Norman Chad regarding ESPN color analyst, Ron Jaworski:

“Jaws breaks down film so well, if we showed him Army surveillance video from Afghanistan, you’ve got to figure he’d be able to track down bin Laden.”

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

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Last year at the suggestion of a reader, I tried to list the five worst performances by NFL teams on any given weekend. Given all the changes going on here in Curmudgeon Central this year, I had forgotten about that until last weekend and I want to bring it back for at least one encore appearance. In no particular order:

The Carolina Panthers generated less than 200 yards of offense and held the ball for only 20 minutes. That loss dropped their record at home this year to 0-5. The cumulative score in the five home losses is 136-54. The operative word here is “ugly”.

The Tennessee Titans managed only 10 first downs against a less-than-fearsome Cincy defense. The operative word here is “lethargic”

The Arizona Cardinals lost in OT because they could not get their field goal team on the field in time for a try and no one was sufficiently aware to call a time-out. The operative word here is “inept”.

The NY Giants gave up 4 sacks and 4 INTs (three of which went back for TDs) and blew a chance to take a commanding position in the NFC wild-card race. The operative word here is “pathetic”.

The NY Jets’ performance – when combined with the tryptophan in the Thanksgiving turkey – made it impossible to stay awake for the conclusion of their game with Dallas. The operative word here is “awful”.

Even my long-suffering wife, who cares less about NFL football on TV than she does about the plight of forest animals who suffer from dandruff, has noticed an emerging silliness in NFL broadcasting. It is now fashionable to say that teams need to learn how to win; even she has overheard the talking heads say it enough times that she has reacted to that nonsense. Even she realizes what bunch of hoo-hah that is. I read recently a line from an NHL coach that I will paraphrase here because I did not save it; this puts the “learn to win” business in perspective:

I figure that if we score one more goal than the other guys, we have a pretty good chance to win.

That’s it. That’s what a team needs to “learn” when it needs to “learn to win”. If a team comprised of 45 active players and myriad coaches cannot grasp that concept after about 100 milliseconds of thought, their total IQ would not qualify them to get a driver’s license.

The Chicago Bears and the NY Giants meet this weekend. Here is a Quick Quiz for all of you:

Which of the two starting QBs in this game – Rex Grossman or Eli Manning – has had more scorn heaped upon them by fans and local press in the past two years? [500 words or less…]

Yesterday, I referred to this year being named the International Year of the Dolphin by the United Nations and the plight of the Miami Dolphins. In his column in the Seattle Times yesterday, Dwight Perry noted another potential nexus between the Miami Dolphins and the United Nations. Great minds run in similar channels?

“Using stun guns is a form of torture, the U.N. Committee against Torture has declared.
But, as Taser apologists were quick to point out, it’s still a lot less painful than owning Dolphins season tickets.”

Raiders’ RB, Justin Fargas ran for 129 yards against the Chiefs last weekend; that is his third 100-yard game for the season. He has been with the Raiders since coming out of college in 03 and seems to have been hiding his candle under a bushel if I can go Biblical here for a moment. The Raiders have spent time and money going after free agent RBs – Lamont Jordan and Dominic Rhodes – to give themselves a semblance of a running game. Meanwhile, Fargas has been there on the bench all along. Now before Raider fans begin to think that the potential solution to their QB woes has been sitting on their bench all along for the past couple of years, let me say, slowly and in monosyllabic terms, that it has not…

If you ever wanted to get into the business of parsing the phrase “most valuable player” to infuse it with the meaning of “valuable to his team”, take a look at what happened to the Tampa Bay offense last weekend when Jeff Garcia had to sit out the first three quarters of that game. Putting this as politely as I can, when Garcia is out of the game or playing injured, the Bucs simply have no ability to move the football. In the second half of last weekend’s game, they gained a total of 15 yards on offense on five possessions.

Meanwhile in Denver, it seems as if the Broncos defense has taken a year’s leave of absence. When they gave the Bears 37 points last weekend, it was the 4th time this year the Broncos’ defense had surrendered 35+ in a game. Only one other team in the NFL has done that - - and that team is 0-11 at the moment.

The Green Bay/Dallas game on Thursday night will be the premiere game of the weekend. Since the beginning of the “Super Bowl Era”, neither the Packers nor the Cowboys have ever started a season with a 10-1 record and now they meet in a game where both are 10-1. I found these stats in the LA Times:

Packers started the 1966 season with a 9-2 record. They went on to win the first of the Super Bowl games at the end of that season.

Cowboys started three seasons (77, 92, 95) with 9-2 records. They went on to win the Super Bowl at the end of all three of those seasons.

The game at the other end of the football spectrum this weekend is the Jets/Dolphins game where the teams bring a combined 2-20 record to the field. This looks to be the Dolphins’ best shot at a win for the year; they are at home against a team that just isn’t all that good. So tell me, whom will the 1976 Tampa Bay Bucs be rooting for here:

Do they root for the Jets so that Miami still has a shot to go 0-16 and eclipse the ‘76 Bucs’ 0-14 record for futility?

Do they root for the Dolphins so that the ‘76 Bucs will continue to be remembered for anything at all?

You make the call.

Finally, here is a comment from Dennis Miller on his Sports Unfiltered show regarding the success of Boston sports teams recently:

‘’The Red Sox won the World Series, the Patriots are undefeated, the Celtics are in first place. The last time Boston got this cocky, King George sent troops over.'’

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

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There are lots of things that happen in the sports world that are worthy of ridicule and scorn. That’s why it is not difficult to find material for these many rants. However, the killing [and it may turn out to be a murder and not merely a killing] of Redskins’ safety, Sean Taylor, demonstrates that events on the field/court/pitch/wherever are not nearly as important as we make them out to be. Perhaps, the reason for the rabid reactions of sports fans everywhere is precisely because the ultimate stakes of the contests are so trivial. Were the games actually matters of life and death to fans, there would probably be far fewer fans.

In the past, I have had a few things to say about Sean Taylor that have not been flattering. Some of his prior behaviors led me to call him a meathead. In light of the events of yesterday and today, I must say that nothing that he did in his life merited the horrible end to which his life came. Rest in peace, Sean Taylor.

The Dolphins/Steelers game last night was a farce. The condition of the field in Pittsburgh made a mockery of a professional football game. The Chunky Soup commercial - where the players are in the mud at the corner of Halas and Landry Streets - portrays better playing conditions than the surface last night. The field had a consistency somewhere between quicksand and a bog. The final score of 3-0 was a blessing because if the Steelers had missed that late field goal, there could easily have been a 0-0 overtime tie.

The Dolphins took an 0-10 record into the game and started Ricky Williams at running back. Talk about desperation… Think about this; if the Dolphins had been 10-0 – or even 8-2 – and were challenging for a bye in the playoffs, do you think they would have added Ricky Williams to the roster and put him on the field so quickly? Me neither.

One of the talking heads on ESPN or NFLN said that the Dolphins were “looking for something positive” as they went into the final phase of the season. Here is something positive for them:

Ricky Williams drug testing history.

Here is why I think the Dolphins were so eager to get him on the field. The Miami roster will probably need a complete overhaul in the next two seasons. The defense is still effective but it is aging; the offense is a mess. If Ricky Williams were to show that he is still a top-shelf running back when he is eligible to play, the Dolphins would have an asset that they could trade to acquire young players and/or draft picks from a team who would be willing to take a chance on Williams’ good behavior in the future. And as long as a player can perform on the field, there are always teams out there who know in their hearts that theirs is the organization to set this wayward soul on the righteous path. Last night was no test for the readiness or the remaining skills of Ricky Williams as an NFL running back.

The Dolphins might take solace in the fact that their plight has been recognized far beyond the reaches of the NFL. The United Nations has declared 2007 to be the International Year of the Dolphin and that body has declared that dolphin conservation is an important world issue. Those UN folks were prescient; they did that even before the Miami Dolphins took the field for the first time this year.

In the last 48 hours, I’ve heard about a dozen different people echo the comment made on the Sunday Night Football telecast that the Eagles may have “provided a blueprint” for the rest of the NFL as to how to beat the Patriots. Certainly, the Eagles gave the Pats a solid and competitive game and the Eagles could have won it at the end. But let us not fall all over ourselves here with the “blueprint” business. If you look analytically at that game, the Eagles provided this “blueprint”:

1. Hold the Pats to 25 first downs and 410 yards of total offense.
2. Hold the Pats to 31 points.
3. Do not throw 3 INTs.

Somehow, I don’t think all of that will resonate with coaching staffs around the league.

The Dallas/Green Bay game this Thursday night will be on NFL Network. For lots of folks, this is the antithesis of “Must See TV” because the NFL Network is only available in less than 40% of the households in the US. I guess that makes it “Won’t See TV” for lots of folks.

The NFL would have you believe that this is the doings of the “big cable TV monoliths” who refuse to put NFLN on their systems. Pish-posh. This is a stare-down between the billionaire owners of the NFL and the multibillion-dollar businesses that are the cable TV providers. There’s plenty of blame for everyone here so when you start to hand out the blame for why you may not be able to see the game this week, be sure to give all sides a heaping helping of that blame.

At the heart of the issue is where NFLN belongs on the cable TV lineups. The NFL wants NFLN in the basic sports packages; the cable companies want it in the premium sports packages. Do not get caught up in the rhetorical flourishes of either side here. This is purely and simply a power play by the two sides regarding the fees that NFLN can generate from the public for the cable companies and the NFL. Moreover, the league is now using a fortuitous scheduling match-up between two teams with 10-1 records to apply pressure to cable companies. Look at the rest of the Thursday night line-up for the season and you’ll quickly notice that there aren’t many games nearly as compelling as this one.

Roger Goodell said late last week that the NFL’s intent is merely to “bring more football to fans”; that is the real reason they created the NFL Network and scheduled Thursday games. Therefore, it might be fair to ask the Commish how taking these Thursday games away from the “over-the-air networks” [FOX, CBS, NBC] brings more football to fans. True, it puts eight more games in time slots where there is no overlap. However, if bringing the most football to the most fans were the objective, how come the networks didn’t get to bid on those game packages?

In any event, how would you like to be a bartender in a sports bar working the Thursday night shift this week?

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

“New York Post reported Michael Vick has bought a place in the Icon, a South Beach high-rise. My question: Who let the dog in?”

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

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Let me start with college football today. I’ve read is several places that Tim Tebow isn’t likely to win the Heisman Trophy because his team has lost three games this season. Let’s ignore the obvious logical disconnect here between the fact that the Heisman is an individual award and the record of the Florida football team as a whole for this season. Let’s look for precedent.

In the late 1950s, the Heisman Trophy went to a gentleman named Paul Hornung. You may have heard of him; he went on to have a Hall of Fame career in the NFL. His Notre Dame team in his Heisman winning year went 2-7. I believe Florida is 9-3 this season. Therefore, precedent would not keep Tebow from winning the Heisman.

Kansas fell prey to the curse of being #2 in the BCS polls last weekend. At least they lost to a ranked team; most of the #2 teams that have fallen before them this year have lost to unranked teams.

Given all of the hype that ESPN devotes to “Rivalry Weekend(s)”, don’t you think that the Army/Navy game would be on at least one of those weekends? After all, that is the most intense rivalry in college football. Oh, you say that ESPN doesn’t have the rights to the Army/Navy game and so they pretend it isn’t there? They wouldn’t do that, would they? Oh, I forgot that ESPN actually stands for the Eternally Self-Promoting Network…

Nick Saban and his Alabama gladiators lost again this weekend to archrival Auburn. When Alabama spirited him out of Miami and made him the highest paid coach in college football, the expectation was that he would win a national championship, win the SEC and beat Auburn. So far, his performance appraisal report would have to be “not fully satisfactory”.

In the baseball world, the White Sox traded Jon Garland to the Angels for shortstop Orlando Cabrera. I don’t want to make Garland out to be the next coming of Christy Mathewson, but I don’t understand why the Sox made him available. Garland is the type of starting pitcher that most teams go looking for – a guy who will give you more than 200 innings a year with a decent earned run average. The White Sox had one of them and decided to trade him away. I guess now they’ll go looking for a pitcher to put in the rotation who can replace Garland…

One such free agent pitcher is Carlos Silva. He started 33 games last year and pitched 202 innings with an ERA around 4.20. The Minneapolis press says the Twins have offered Silva a three-year deal worth around $21M but that Silva wants four years and might command a salary in the $9M per year range. That tells me that an “inning-eating middle-of-the-rotation starter” is a valuable commodity. So, I really don’t understand the White Sox eagerness to make their deal.

People are speculating about what kind of moves the Cubs will make in the off-season. After all the Cubbies were in the playoffs last year and that gives their fans reason to believe that the team is on the verge of the World Series. Here in Curmudgeon Central, one significant responsibility is to acknowledge reality in the face of fandom; the Cubs may not be as close to glory as it might seem at first. Here is the Cliffs Notes version of the NL Playoffs this year:

Cubs lost in a sweep to the Diamondbacks
Diamondbacks lost in a sweep to the Rockies
Rockies lost in a sweep to the Red Sox.

I want to make one comment about the Alex Rodriguez contract mating dance with the Yankees. Remember, he has already earned about $170M on his previous contract originally signed with the Rangers; the man is not nearly destitute. Now he has a deal “outlined” where he will make $275M over the next ten years PLUS incentives. Can someone explain to me in the context of $275M or in the context of a total compensation for playing baseball of more than $400M how an incentive clause for even $1M to be named MVP is even marginally important?

The Ravens/Chargers game yesterday was ugly; it was like watching a hit and run accident. By this time of the season, most of the teams in the NFL are pretty well defined by their records and both of these teams would politely fall into the category of “severely disappointing” and/or “monumentally underachieving”. The Chargers were 14-2 last year; they didn’t lose a boatload of players; they are now 6-5. The Ravens were 13-3 last year; they didn’t lose a boatload of players – but their aging offensive line did get a year older; they are now 4-7 having lost 5 games in a row and they are 0-5 in their division. Sic transit gloria mundi…

Folks, start to pay attention to the Cleveland Browns. You are probably going to see them playing in January. The Browns are 7-4 at the moment; ahead on their schedule are the Cardinals, the Jets, the Bills, the Bengals and the Niners. Those five upcoming Browns’ opponents share a common characteristic at the moment; all of them are below .500 as of this morning.

The Bay Area has not been a home to top-shelf football for more than a decade now. Nevertheless, both the Raiders and the Niners won football games yesterday. The Raiders broke a 17-game losing streak within their division; the Niners won a game so improbably that the scenario was rejected for the football version of the Bad News Bears. The Niners’ game against the Cardinals was in OT when the Cards lined up for a chip-shot field goal, which was good. But the Cards did not get the snap off in time and so they had to attempt a “chip-shot + 5-yards” field goal on the next play. They missed that one. Later in the OT with the Cards backed up on their own one-yard line, Kurt Warner went back to pass; dilly-dallied around looking for an open receiver; took a shot in the back and fumbled in the end zone to have the ball recovered by a Niners’ lineman who was there only because he had been blocked so effectively that he wasn’t part of the meaningful aspects of the play.

The Rams lost yesterday when Gus Frerotte fumbled the snap from center of fourth down inside the Seattle one-yard line with less than a minute to play. Gus Frerotte is probably a very nice man who doesn’t abuse household pets: but in terms of NFL quarterbacking, he puts the “rot” in Frerotte.

Finally, Greg Cote had this comment in the Miami Herald regarding the Alex Rodriguez free agency:

“I read where the Marlins have dropped out of the running to sign highly sought free agent Alex Rodriguez. That reminds me. I have decided to drop out of the running to win boxing’s heavyweight championship.”

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

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Before the guests arrive and the football games commence – and prior to cooking and devouring the turkey – let me make a few football observations as a way to avoid any temptation to turn on the TV and accidentally channel surf through the Macy’s Parade.

There is one game today that ought to be pretty good and it’s the early one for a change. The Packers/Lions game is meaningful in the sense that the Lions need the game to hold onto their place in the NFC playoff race and the Packers are just flat out on a roll. Normally, the early game on Thanksgiving is a snoozer because the Lions have been so bad for the last decade or so, but today is different. Even with a Lions’ win, the Packers are still comfortably in control of the NFC North; but if the Packers win, they are a mortal lock certainty to win the division and make the playoffs. The short week of preparation for today’s game favors the Lions because they were at home last week and did not have to travel after their game last week in order to start their prep work for today.

The Broncos/Bears game later this weekend should be interesting too. These teams define “inconsistency” and both teams need the game. It should be close.

Perhaps the game most important to both teams on the NFL schedule this weekend is the Redskins/Bucs game. A Redskins’ loss could have them looking up at as much as a two game deficit to make the playoffs and there will be only 5 games left to play. The Bucs lead their division at the moment but not by a sufficient margin that they can put it on cruise control. This game should be close too.

The Eagles/Pats game might be interesting in a macabre sort of way. The over/under for the game is 51; it might be interesting to see if the Pats can make the over all by themselves. It could happen. Just to show you how the oddsmakers view the likelihood of an Eagles’ win here, the Pats are -3000 on the money line. As a reminder, that means that you have to wager $3K to win $100 if you want the Pats to win the game without laying the spread. I know about the old “on any given Sunday” adage, but the oddsmakers don’t seem to believe that the Eagles are the team to pull that off on this particular Sunday.

At the other end of the NFL schedule spectrum, the Raiders/Chiefs game might wind up as a 9-6 affair. There was a time when the games between these two teams were events for which you circled the dates on your calendar. It has not been so for a few years now and is certainly not the case for this weekend.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that Adrian Peterson practiced earlier this week and could well play this Sunday. That sounds like good news for the Vikes but other reports say he has a partial tear of his lateral collateral ligament in his knee. The Vikings have lost 6 games already and would need to run the table to have a shot at the playoffs this year so you have to ask why they would even think of risking such a valuable future asset by rushing him back to the field only two weeks after incurring that partial ligament tear. Are you kidding me?

In a totally different vein, I want to recommend a column to you by Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It is a laugh out loud funny column about bear hunting - - if you are a bear, any column about bear hunting is unlikely to cause laughter, but I assume that readers here are more hominid-like than ursine.

In college football, this is another weekend full of rivalry games. In addition, Missouri/Kansas and West Virginia/UConn will have significant impact on the selection processes for the major bowl games and possibly even the BCS Championship Game. Virginia/Virginia Tech and BYU/Utah and Georgia/Georgia Tech and Clemson/South Carolina all have spreads of 4 points or less. These are usually good games even when one team is waaay better than the other, so this year they should be really good ones.

And in that mix, Hawaii/Boise State may be the most exciting game of them all. And the winner might just play in one of the BCS games …

The NASCAR season is finally over; like the NBA, it seems to go on forever and ever and ever and… The TV ratings overall – and more importantly the TV ratings for the races in the “Chase for the Cup” – were down this year for the second consecutive year. The total drop from 2005 is more than 20% and that’s significant. For the last six months, NASCAR has bombarded us with the slogan that “every lap matters”. Well the verdict is in; fewer people this year cared enough about every lap to bother to tune in to watch them.

In the world of boxing, I see that Vladimir Klitschko and Sultan Ibragimov will fight next February in some kind of heavyweight title unification bout. If you can spell both of these fighters’ names without peeking, you are definitely smarter than a fifth grader - - except for the fact that most fifth graders are smart enough not to care about boxing or either of these jamokes.

According to an item in the Vancouver Sun, some prostitutes have filed an application to open a “co-op” bordello contemporaneous with the 2010 Winter Olympics in tat part of the world. Clearly from a customer perspective, there are significant benefits to frequenting a “co-op bordello” as opposed to a “cop bordello”; that should be pretty clear. Now if the city fathers in Vancouver seem to be moving toward an approval in this matter, I can’t wait to hear from the pooh-bahs at the IOC. I don’t know how they could oppose such a thing; after all, they keep telling us that the Olympics are supposed to bring people together…

Finally, here’s an observation from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle about those pooh-bahs at the IOC:

“Jacques “Dream World” Rogge, IOC president, says before the Olympic medals forfeited by people like Marion Jones are passed along to the runners-up, he wants to be sure the new recipients aren’t also drug-tainted. Jacques, in looking for honest Olympians, joins fellow eternal searchers Diogenes and O.J. Simpson.”

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

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As we approach the Thanksgiving Day holiday, allow me to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and to hope that you spend a fulfilling day with family and friends. News events from earlier this week indicate that Michael Vick will not be doing that. Vick reported to jail in advance of his impending sentencing date next month. Forget all the statements made by Vick’s attorney regarding that decision; those are all self-serving morsels of nonsense. What I find sad is that Michael Vick - via his attorneys - came to the conclusion that it would be better for him to spend Thanksgiving Day in prison rather than to be with members of his own family.

In no way do I condone what Michael Vick did; it was barbaric and he deserves whatever punishment the judge hands down. At the same time, it is sad that his life has deteriorated to the point where a family-oriented holiday is sufficiently insignificant/meaningless to him that he might voluntarily choose to skip it in favor of jail time. You can hate his crime; you can even hate him for committing that crime if you choose; you might also feel sorry for him in this one small corner of his life.

About fifteen years ago, Leon Hess owned the NY Jets. Hess was a very rich man who was in his early eighties and he decided to change coaches for his team. As he announced his new coach, he said that the reason he chose that particular person for the job was that he wanted to win a Super Bowl and he realized he didn’t have too much time left. That’s why he hired Richie Kotite. I believe Kotite lasted two years with the Jets and left them with the worst record in the NFL. Hess eventually sold the Jets – never having won a Super Bowl obviously – and is now probably the owner of a team in that “other AFL”, the “Afterlife Football League”. Why do I tell this story? Well, Leon Hess just wasn’t fully in touch with reality at the time he made that hire and made that statement and now, today …

…We may have an analogous situation on our hands. Dan Patrick mentioned yesterday on his radio program that Al Davis told reporters he has no plans to step down as the Managing Partner of the Oakland Raiders and that he wants to win two more Super Bowls before he hangs up the sweat suit. That’s laudable; and frankly, I hope it is an indication that Davis is in better health than his appearance may lead one to believe. However, Davis went on to say that he thinks that the current incarnation of the Raiders is not all that far away from winning those two Lombardi Trophies in the next few years. And that’s where I have to get off the train and wonder about the possible psychedelic interactions of whatever medications he may be taking these days.

The Raiders are a mess at the moment. They are not receiving the scorn they might receive because the Dolphins are so horrid and because their neighbors across the bay in SF are imploding at the same time. Davis would need to exhume and then hire Merlin the Magician to make that team a serious Super Bowl threat in the next two years.

ESPN has a bad game for MNF this weekend. Those horrid Miami Dolphins travel to Pittsburgh to play the Steelers and the Steelers haven’t lost at home yet this year. You know how ESPN works to hype its games/products; and so, you have to give thanks that you don’t work there and are expected to come up with something to make that game smell anything other than putrid. Here’s an idea that will prove to you that advertising and promotional activities are not the way I made my living…

Pittsburgh lost a game last weekend that they should have won; the Jets are almost as bad a team as the Dolphins. Their season could deteriorate quickly if they lose this game this week to another bad team. So this game could be an homage to an old movie that may have been as bad as the Dolphins are this year - - The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.

Yes, I know that dolphins are not fish and are actually mammals related to whales and porpoises. But do you think ESPN would let something that minor stand in the way of a hype campaign?

In the world of college football, the upsets from last weekend moved Kansas up the charts. In the past, I said that they had been fortunate in their Big-12 schedule because they had dodged Oklahoma and Texas; so when Texas Tech beat Oklahoma, I went to see how badly Kansas had beaten Texas Tech. Lo and behold, the Jayhawks didn’t have to play Texas Tech either. They must have a four-leaf clover stuck to a rabbit’s foot in the AD’s office out there.

The loss by Alabama to Louisiana-Monroe last weekend was a shocker. Please ignore the media hype surrounding Nick Saban’s remarks about losing football games relative to disastrous world events. Calling that media frenzy “much ado about nothing” is an insult to William Shakespeare. Forget all of that; but do not forget any of the following:

Alabama finished their scoring very early against Louisiana-Monroe in the 2nd quarter. They were shut out for more than 40 minutes.

With the game on the line in the red zone trailing by 7 with three minutes to go, Alabama had 3rd and two. Then they had 4th and two. Then the ball went to Louisiana-Monroe on downs.

This is the third consecutive loss for Alabama whose record now stands at 6-5.

So, here is the burning question that needs to be asked to all the big moneyed Alabama boosters:

Is this why you “went to the hip” – so to speak – to hire Nick Saban?

I have no idea how much money Nick Saban’s counterpart at Louisiana-Monroe is making to coach the team, but it can’t be anything near the multi-millions Saban is making. Maybe Louisiana-Monroe needs to make a “salary adjustment”? On the other hand, Louisiana-Monroe is the only team to have lost to North Texas this year… So again, you have to ask those Alabama boosters if that’s why they spent the big bucks to bring in Nick Saban?

And the mention of North Texas brings me to a discussion of the worst college football teams of the season. When Utah State beat New Mexico State, that left Florida International as the only winless team in the country with a 0-10 record. FIU has Florida Atlantic this week and ends the season playing North Texas (record 1-9 at the moment) in what will have to be this season’s version of the Rancid Bowl. The combined score of all the Florida International games this year is 395-120; they are a bad football team.

Duke lost to Notre Dame last weekend – scoring a meaningless TD in the final moments to avert a shutout – to run its record to 1-10. They finish their season against UNC who will show up for that contest with a mighty record of 3-8. Unless the game is close, lots of folks should be nodding off by the end of the third quarter.

SMU, Utah State and Idaho are all 1-10 while mighty Minnesota has ended its misery with a 1-11 season. Bad, bad, bad…and bad.

Wasn’t Cal supposed to be the #2 team in the country at one point? At the moment they have a 6-5 record and they lost to Washington last week. There are no polite adjectives that can work in conjunction with the Cal team and their season.

Louisville was also thought to be pretty good at one point this season. They are now 5-6 for the year and they lost by more than 5 TDs last weekend. That’s shameful.

No one ever thought Iowa would be in the BCS Championship Game but lots of the pundits thought they’d be “pretty good”. They closed out a 6-6 season by coughing up a hairball against Western Michigan. Oh well, at least it wasn’t Homecoming … oops, Iowa lost its Homecoming game too.

Temple plays Western Michigan this weekend. At the moment, Temple is 4-3 in the MAC and could have a winning conference record for the season with a win on Saturday. It has been a long time since Temple has had a winning record at anything in football; it’s a score I’ll look for on the crawl during Saturday’s televised games.

Guy Morriss was fired as the Baylor coach this week after five losing seasons there. He seems to fit right in; Baylor has had twelve consecutive losing seasons; so, it’s not all the clear to me why he had to go. In five years his overall record was 18-40 and his conference record was 7-33. There is a fundamental problem; Baylor is perennially overmatched in Big 12 football. They will have a winning season in that conference once in a while when a torrent of serendipity washes through Waco.

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

“Parting thought: I would like to wish everyone an early Happy Thanksgiving. It is believed the first Thanksgiving was held in 1621. Coincidentally, that year marked the first NFL start for Vinny Testaverde.”

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

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Jim Ringo was the center on the offensive line for Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers. He is in the Hall of Fame. Jim Ringo died yesterday. His passing gives me the opportunity to explain to some of the younger readers here how things were “in the olden days”. Jim Ringo didn’t finish his career with the Packers; Lombardi traded him to the Philadelphia Eagles in the mid-60s. At that time in the NFL, Ringo really did go from the penthouse to the outhouse.

Why did Lombardi rid the Packers of a Hall of Fame player? Well, back then there was no such thing as free agency or anything of the sort. If Jim Ringo was to play in the NFL, he would play for the Packers because they owned his rights. Ringo went to see Lombardi about his contract for the new year and made a big mistake; Jim Ringo took an agent with him to the meeting. The story goes that Lombardi met the agent and shook his hand and then excused himself from the room for a moment. When he returned, he supposedly told the agent that they were talking to the wrong person about a contract because Jim Ringo had just been traded to Philadelphia. Those were very different times. Rest in peace, Jim Ringo.

Sticking with the NFL for a moment, Rex Grossman had this to say after the Bears lost last weekend:

“No doubt we’re still competing for the championship. I’m not sure what you’re talking about. We have six losses, which is bad at this point, but by no means are we out of it. We have a couple of home games coming up. We play one game at a time. We’re not out of it until someone tells us we’re out of it.”

OK, I guess someone has to do it:

Rex, you’re out of it. The two operative words in the English language that apply to you appearing in the Super Bowl next February are: Not … Happening.

It’s painful to watch an athlete who used to be very good at what he did try to do it after the skills have eroded. I remember Shaun Kemp when he could jump out of the building; after he got fat and could barely dunk the ball, it was something you wanted to turn your eyes away from. That was true in the final days of Willie Mays’ career when he was stumbling around the bases and not flying. In a similar sense, that seems to be happening to Joe Gibbs. When you watch a Redskins’ game, you almost want to avert your eyes when the cameras go to the sidelines for tight shots of a coach who is already in the Hall of Fame.

First of all, let’s get one thing straight. On game day, Joe Gibbs doesn’t coach the Washington Redskins any more. Maybe he coaches during the week, but I’d need to see that for myself to be completely sure. The team has an associate head coach for offense and an assistant head coach for offense and an offensive coordinator; Joe Gibbs does not call the plays. On defense he has an assistant head coach for defense and a defensive coordinator; Joe Gibbs never called plays on defense. He does not coach the special teams and there are myriad folks on the sidelines and in the booth to handle “details”. Here’s what Joe Gibbs does; he throws the red flag on the field when someone on the sideline or up in the booth tells him to get a play reviewed. And most of the time, the review results in the play standing as called with the Skins losing a timeout.

But Joe Gibbs does lead the NFL coaches in one category. Spitting. Watch him on the sidelines and in half the shots he’s spitting. Other NFL coaches may spit once a game; Gibbs is in danger of dehydrating based on the number of times he spits. Maybe he’s auditioning to become a baseball manager?

I am not – repeat not – suggesting that Danny Boy Snyder should fire Joe Gibbs. That would be a dangerous thing to do in Washington where there are Redskins’ fans who continue to bask in the reflected glory of his teams of 25 years ago. If you think I’m kidding, watch a Redskins’ game and you’ll continue to see the guys dressed in drag with pig snouts on. They’re D-list celebrities in town; they are still relevant here even though “The Hogs” all stopped playing football about 15 years ago. So, let me be clear, Joe Gibbs should not be fired.

And for that minority of Redskin fans who might wish that he would “step down”, let me say that’s not likely to happen. He has another year to go on a contract that will pay him something like $5M next year. To collect that, all he has to do is to let the 20 or so assistant head coaches/coordinators/whatevers do their thing and he can show up on 16 game days to spit and then hold about two “news conferences” a week. Would you “step down” if you had a job like that? I didn’t think so.

A lot has been written about the model of dysfunctionality that is the New York Knickerbockers. Perhaps lost in the nonsense that is going on in New York is a remembrance that Stephon Marbury once played in Phoenix and was traded to the Knicks in a big trade involving about a half-dozen players and draft picks. That trade allowed Phoenix the cap room – and the opening at the point guard position – to sign Steve Nash as a free agent at the end of that season. Talk about an upgrade; Stephon Marbury out and Steve Nash in…

With all the focus on the hot start by the Boston Celtics this season, people seem to have lost sight of how mediocre the NBA Eastern Conference is. At the moment, only four teams have records above .500. In the Western Conference, nine teams are over .500. But as we all know – painfully – the NBA is a LONG season and there are still about a million games to go until the playoffs begin and run for three months.

Lloyd Carr decided to retire as the head coach at Michigan and did so in a very low key press conference. So now the folks in Ann Arbor are out looking for a “new Carr” and they have their eyes on one that has “Les Miles” on it… [Ducking quickly to avoid veggies thrown from the audience…]

Finally, I began this piece telling you about how things were in times past when there were no free agents or guaranteed contracts. Now here’s a comment from Brad Rock in the Deseret Morning News about how things are today:

“Guaranteed contracts are an amazing thing.

George Carlin once said, ‘Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and paid just enough money not to quit.’

If they’re NBA players, the rules are just a little different: They don’t get fired no matter how little they work, and get paid far too much to quit.”

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

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The NY Jets did sports fans a service yesterday. You could tell that the talking heads were revving the engines to hype the upcoming Pats/Steelers game as the “next” game-of-the-year. It will still be one of the best games of that weekend because both are teams that threaten to go deep into the playoffs and there will be more than sufficient hype for the game, but with the Jets win yesterday, we can keep the hype level under marginal control.

Because of the intense focus on the Patriots and their season of excellence, some folks are already peeking all the way ahead to December 29 when the Pats and Giants close out the regular season. It is inconceivable to me how the Pats will not have wrapped up the AFC East title by then; they may already have home field advantage throughout the playoffs secured; the Giants may need a win to make the playoffs because it sure doesn’t look as if they can catch the Cowboys in the NFC East. Will the Pats rest their starters? Count on this; you will hear speculation about this for the next month or so.

However, here in Curmudgeon Central, I like to look at the world through the other end of the telescope. Instead of focusing on what may or may not be an important game at the end of the season, I scour the schedules looking for dogs. And you need look not much further than December 2 when the NY Jets fly south to play the Miami Dolphins in a game that has all the gravitas of a hangnail. No, I do not see yesterday’s Jets victory as a signal of a resurgent team ready to assert itself, make a run, save its season or anything like that. That game in Miami could wind with a final score of 6-3.

The Dolphins epic journey to “stinkdom” continues. No team has ever gone 0-16 in the NFL. The Cowboys were 0-11-1 in their expansion year (1960); the Colts – then in Baltimore – were winless in the strike year of 1982; the Bucs went 0-14 in their expansion year (1976) and the Carolina Panthers once lost 15 games in a row after winning their opening day game. So the Dolphins have milestones to pass on their way down to the Tenth Ring of Stinkitude…

In the Lions’ loss to the Giants yesterday, they ran the ball 11 times for 25 yards. That’s pathetic all by itself. However when combined with the egg they laid the week before, the Lions now have a net of +7 yards rushing in the last two games. That goes well beyond pathetic…

If you would like to understand just why the Niners are stinking out the joint on a weekly basis, consider that they are last in the NFL in points per game (11.3) and last in the NFL in yards per game and last in the NFL in first downs. Yesterday, the Niners ran the ball 16 times for 32 yards. I hope you don’t need a calculator to tell you that’s just miserable or that the Niners gained fewer yards per rush yesterday than even the Lions did. Yes, I know that defense wins championships; but you have to move the ball and score just a little bit…

With two minutes to go in the first half yesterday, the Browns led the Ravens 10-7; at that juncture, the Ravens had zero first downs and a net of minus11 yards passing. The game went into OT with a final score of 33-30; the Ravens ran up 240 yards passing for the game and a total offense of 368 yards. So, where was the Ravens’ offense in the first half?

The Bengals outgained the Cardinals by 149 yards yesterday. Normally, that results in a comfortable win for a team; the Bengals lost by 8. How did that happen? They threw four INTs and lost a fumble and were penalized 11 times; that’s how.

I think I’ve seen this movie before. The Eagles struggle through the first eight or nine weeks of the season; and then, Donovan McNabb gets hurt; and the back-up QB comes in to play heroically; and … The Eagles won yesterday to bring their record up to 5-5 and McNabb hurt his ankle in the second quarter …

Who woke up the Vikings’ offensive line? Even with wunderkind Adrian Peterson on the sidelines in street clothes, they produced 3 rushing TDs and 278 yards rushing offense on 32 carries. Where was this kind of offensive output a month ago?

Even though the Chargers are atop the AFC West, will someone demand an explanation from the ownership level out there about why it was so important to fire Marty Schottenheimer 10 months ago? They aren’t running the ball all that well even with LaDanian Tomlinson back there; Phillip Rivers throws as many INTs as he does TDs now; the fearsome defense isn’t all that fearsome any more. The players are basically the same. So, somebody needs to channel Ricky Ricardo and tell the braintrust in San Diego that they got some splainin’ to do…

And if anyone tries to justify the Chargers’ loss to Jax yesterday on the basis that the game started at what was 10 AM San Diego time, please refer that person to one of the political campaigns for the Presidential nominations ongoing at this time. That’s the only place where that kind of stretch to find an excuse for incompetence is even marginally acceptable.

Enough about the NFL for the moment, MLS played its championship game at RFK Stadium in Washington DC on Sunday between New England and Houston. It drew a crowd reported at 39,859; I watched the first half of that game; judging from the crowd shots, I estimated the attendance at 35K so I don’t think MLS padded the number here. That’s a really nice figure for a game in which the DC team was not involved; there were lots of people in the colors of the Houston and New England teams and there was a large contingent of DC United fans there in that team’s colors.

Importantly, these folks went to RFK Stadium despite the fact that the Redskins were playing the Cowboys later that afternoon. For people who do not live in the DC area, “Dallas Week” is a very big deal here. My long-suffering wife has been known to schedule shopping trips for the afternoon of a Dallas/Washington football game because there are no cars on the roads and no customers in the stores. Nonetheless, the MLS game drew a big crowd. Additionally, these folks showed up even though David Beckham was not involved in the game; they were not there “celebrity watching”. That is a very positive sign for MLS as a sporting entity.

Finally, here is an item directly from the agate-type section of yesterday’s Washington Post – minus the names of the four individual players because naming them does not add to the item at all:

“NCAA – Reinstated Alabama football players … from suspension for improper receipt of textbooks.”

Does “improper receipt of textbooks” mean they were opened?

Note that they were not accused of “improper utilization of textbooks” – like actually reading them or something like that…

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

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With Barry Bonds now under indictment, there is a good chance he will stand trial on the perjury/obstruction of justice charges. We can all wait to see what evidence his lawyer presents in the case to make our own judgments as to whether or not he is guilty of perjury/obstruction of justice or not; I would imagine that it would not be in Bonds’ best interest to drag out the procedures here too much if he has any idea that he wants to play baseball any more. Time will tell. Additionally, if there is a trial, we may get an ancillary benefit from it. In testimony, we may learn who actually did leak the grand jury information to the two SF Chronicle reporters thereby kicking this snowball over the cliff.

Oregon lost to Arizona last night on national TV ending any realistic chance it had regarding the BCS Championship Game and perhaps killing its hopes to play in the Rose Bowl. A first half injury to Dennis Dixon leading to Brady Leaf – Ryan’s little brother – playing QB for the rest of the night sealed Oregon’s fate. I don’t want to gloat about yet another #2 team going down to defeat or to hint that Oregon and/or Dixon did not deserve their ranking; Oregon with Dennis Dixon at QB is a very good football team. However, something happened after the game that demands a comment.

After the game was over – very late here on the East Coast – I was winding down by watching SportsCenter. Eventually, they got to the Oregon/Arizona game that ESPN had just televised and had extensive highlight clips. I wasn’t paying the strictest of attention because I had just seen the game but one of the talking heads – speaking over the video tape so I do not know which one it was – said something about Dennis Dixon’s performance prior to his injury. If I heard it correctly – no, I did not record it – I think he said that Dennis Dixon looked like a man playing with boys. On the assumption that I heard that correctly; and remember, I said I was not paying strict attention here:

Memo to ESPN Editors: In the modern parlance, the phrase “man playing with boys” has an extraordinarily negative connotation. Please assure your on-air folks replace that with “man playing against boys” or “man amongst boys”.

If I heard that incorrectly, then I apologize to ESPN for my error – but continue to suggest that my memo to them has merit on its own.

Speaking of college football, I noted some bad games coming up this weekend in yesterday’s rant. Allow me to add the New Mexico State/Utah State game to the list. Utah State is 0-10 for the season – one of only two winless Division 1-A teams this year. New Mexico State has lost three in a row and two of them were by 5 TDs. That game will be a real treat…

In NFL matters, I read that Oakland Raiders fans “booed relentlessly” last weekend when Josh McCown played QB in the Raiders’ loss at home to Houston. This week the Raiders play Minnesota – in what ought to be a miserable game to have to watch – and the word is that Duante Culpepper will get the start against his former team. With half a season behind them, the Raiders’ braintrust has to have at least an inkling that McCown/Culpepper is not the future of a successful franchise. So, I take from the fact that JaMarcus Russell is still assigned to clipboard duty and baseball cap wearing the following:

His month-and-a-half holdout from training camp has rendered him useless for this season. When/if he gets to start later this year, the Raiders’ season will already have been delivered to the septic tank.

The other “bad game” on the NFL menu for the weekend involves the other Bay Area team. The Niners play the Rams; there was a time when the two games a year between those teams were intense rivalry games of importance. This weekend the combined record of these two teams is 3-15. How far have the Niners fallen? The Rams are 3 point favorites on the road with a 1-8 record for the season. Yowza!

Since the Rams won last weekend, that gives Miami control over who will get the overall #1 pick in next year’s NFL draft. In the history of the Dolphins’ franchise, they have had the overall #1 pick only one time. That was in their first year of existence when the expansion franchise received the first pick in the draft as part of the deal for paying the entrance fee to the old AFL.

The Dolphins play the Eagles this week and set up an interesting dynamic for the Eagles. In their next two games, Eagles’ opponents have a combined record at the moment of 9-9. The Dolphins are 0-9; the Patriots are 9-0. Despite the combined records, the Eagles will not be laying two mediocre teams in the next two weeks…

The best NFL games this weekend should be:

Giants/Lions: Both teams would be NFC wild card teams if the playoffs happened now; both are two games behind in their division races; both need this game.

Browns/Ravens: Always a rivalry game, the Ravens have enjoyed the upper hand in the series. But the Browns look like a team on the rise and the Ravens look like a team headed south. Have they passed by each other yet?

Chargers/Jaguars: The Chargers lead their sorry-assed division by only a game and have looked less than fearsome much of the year. The Jags are tied for second in their division – one game behind the Colts. Both need this game.

Pats/Bills: A rivalry game from back in the AFL days, the Bills have won four in a row and would love to knock the Pats off that “unbeaten perch”. It’s not likely to happen, but the game might be interesting.

Do you realize that when the Carolina Panthers take the field in Green Bay this weekend, there is a real possibility that Brett Favre will be the “young gun” QB on the field? That doesn’t happen all that often for Favre any more…

As of this week, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense ranks first in rushing defense, passing defense and total defense. That is not something that happens all that often; in fact the last time it happened was in 1991 when the Eagles defense led by Reggie White hit that trifecta for the season. Now you’ve probably been conditioned to expect that the 1991 Eagles would have been serious Super Bowl contenders in that year because “defense wins championships” - - right?

Well, the Eagles of 1991 didn’t even make the playoffs. They had a 10-6 record for the year, but that wasn’t good enough. A great defense – and that Eagles’ defense was one of the great ones – can carry a team a long way. But when it has to carry the team and a coaching staff headed up by Richie Kotite, even a great defense won’t be enough.

Finally, here’s an observation from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle about Barry Bonds:

“Barry Bonds says he would boycott his own Hall of Fame induction. That should win him some votes. I will give Bonds this: The Hall of Fame people are idiots for accepting the asterisk ball, unless they’re going to rename the place The Baseball Hall of Fame and Carnival Sideshow. I can’t wait to see the Ted Williams exhibit.”

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

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