The Sports Curmudgeon®

The Randy Moss assault and battery situation should play itself out in the next 10 days at a hearing. Therefore, I will reserve final judgment there with regard to his continued status as a functional member of society. I would like to comment on one part of the statement that Moss made with regard to the matter. He said in part:

“In my whole entire life of living 30 years, I’ve never put my hand on one woman, physically or in an angry manner.”

Let’s acknowledge the unusual syntax there and use that observation to conclude that the statement did not come from a PR-person or his lawyer. I am even willing to take it at face value for the moment. Nevertheless, let us not forget that on at least one occasion, Randy Moss put the hood of his car on a woman who happened to be on traffic control duty because she would not allow him to go where he wanted to go. It may not have been his hand that he used, but he did try to make a woman into a hood ornament. Having said that, we should know a lot more about the current situation very soon and the fact that no criminal charge was forthcoming at the outset of this matter makes me want to reserve judgment.

The lack of a criminal charge in this case reminded me of the humongous rush to judgment by the authorities in the Duke Lacrosse case. The thought of that case reminded me that I had heard nothing about Michael Nifong for a while so I went to Google and came up with this tidbit:

He filed for bankruptcy recently and listed his assets at $243,898 and his liabilities at $180M.

He must be counting all those civil suits against him as lost causes to come up to that figure for his liabilities.

Jason Garrett will remain with the Dallas Cowboys as their offensive coordinator even though there are reports he was offered the head-coaching job in Baltimore and he spent a lot of time interviewing for the Atlanta job. Frankly, I think he made a smart career decision. Both Baltimore and Atlanta are football teams that have quarterback problems – to be most polite about it – and the lack of a competent quarterback is the surest way for someone reputed to be an “offensive genius” to be exposed as an idol with feet of clay. Financially, he made a smart choice too; if reports are accurate, he will make somewhere between $3.5-4M as an offensive coordinator, which is the same salary range inhabited by Wade Phillips and several other NFL head coaches.

There is one potential downside to this deal for Jason Garrett – if you are predisposed to dislike him in the first place for some reason. I do not know Jason Garrett from Jason and the Argonauts; but if I wanted to think ill of him, I could think that he was nothing more than a mercenary here using the interest in him as a head coach to get a huge pay raise. I doubt that is the case, but if other NFL owners perceive it to be the case, that would not be good news for Jason Garrett. “Mercenary” is not a label one would like attached to one’s persona when heading out on the next job search.

Meanwhile, the Colts ownership announced that if Tony Dungy retires, they will give the job to Colts’ assistant coach, Jim Caldwell. Since Caldwell is Black, the Colts can make that announcement and not have to go through any interview processes to comply with the “Rooney Rule”. And that is just fine with me. At the same time, remember this situation – even if Dungy stays and Caldwell doesn’t get the job – as evidence that the “Rooney Rule” has nothing whatsoever to do with interviewing “minority candidates”; it has only to do with interviewing/hiring Black coaching candidates. If it were about “minority candidates”, then the Colts would be required to interview some other minority individual like Sonny Sixkiller. If there is an under-representation of Blacks in the NFL head coaching ranks, there is also an under-representation of Native Americans there too.

The NFL will play another regular season game in England next year. Whatever. Last year, the “London game” was played in a downpour on a field that was pretty miserable. This year, the game may return to Wembley Stadium in London or it might be located at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Both are soccer venues. A British acquaintance of mine wondered why the NFL chose to play on a soccer pitch in the first place. According to this person, the NFL should play on a rugby pitch where the grass is longer and the grass is far sturdier. When I told him the selection of the venue was based on the number of seats in the stands, he said that there is a rugby pitch in South London, Twickenham, that has almost as many seats as Wembley Stadium. I am sending a letter to the NFL today or tomorrow offering that suggestion which will surely be ignored.

We have an early nominee for Parent of the Year coming from the state of Wisconsin. Last weekend, a father wanted his seven-year old son to wear a Green Bay Packers jersey on the day of the playoff game against the Seahawks. The boy refused to wear the jersey. At this point, you would think there was a “What Would Dr. Spock Do?” moment; or perhaps, a “How Can Mom Intervene To Resolve All This?” moment. Sadly, that is not the case.

Dear ol’ Dad took duct tape, taped the jersey onto his son, and then used tape to restrain the kid for about an hour. Finally, the police arrived and arrested the father; and when he was released from jail, the kid’s mother got a restraining order against Dear ol’ Dad. A spokesperson for the local gendarmerie said that “other domestic issues have arisen” with regard to this family unit. To which my immediate response was, “You think…?”

Speaking of Green Bay and playoff games, I wonder if the networks give the cameramen and the “audio guys” on the sidelines something akin to “battle pay” when they do games with weather conditions such as the ones expected in Green Bay on Sunday night? Don’t be surprised if the temperature is zero at kickoff time; and at night, it usually gets colder – not warmer – as time goes on.

The PGA will hold the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic this weekend. According to one report I read, none of the top 20 golfers in the PGA rankings will be playing there despite purse money of $5.1M. I am sure you did not know that Charlie Hoffman is the defending champion here because none of the top golfers showed up last year either. I suspect that 99% of the people in the US do not know Charlie Hoffman from Charlie the Tuna.

The rumor in the soccer world is that Luis Figo (he was the FIFA Player of the Year in 2001) will be leaving Inter Milan in the Italian Serie A and coming to MLS to rejoin his former teammate David Beckham on the LA Galaxy. Figo is 35 years old and does not start for Inter Milan and actually doesn’t play all that much any more. However, if the deal is worked out, I fully expect the MLS acolytes to convince themselves that Figo is the second best player in the world today - - behind St. David of Beckham of course.

If this rumor turns out to be true, I hope this is not the strategic direction mapped out by the folks who run MLS. The old NASL tried to do this back in the 1980s bringing older players with lots of accomplishments on their résumés to the US long after their skills had eroded. It worked briefly then - - and the important word there is “briefly”. When Beckham signed with MLS, some British commentators said that MLS was roughly equivalent to a pub league in England; that is an exaggeration to be sure, but it shows the esteem in which MLS is held in a place where soccer dominates the sporting landscape. Signing players with credentials from the past like Figo might dispel that kind of notion about MLS, but then MLS may come to be regarded as soccer’s “Geriatric Circuit.” I am not sure that is a huge step forward in terms of image and perception.

Finally, a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald regarding Bill Parcells’ arrival in South Florida:

“Parcells’ hiring by Miami generally was lauded, but not more so than among pun-loving South Florida newspaper headline writers with visions of Tuna Helper, Tuna Surprise and Tuna Melt-down (et al) dancing in their heads.”

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

Comments(5)

Here is the link to a very good column by David Whitely of the Orlando Sentinel on the Congressional baseball hearings and the sudden outbreak of ADD among baseball players.

I commend it to your reading…

Comments(0)

About 40 years ago, there was a kid’s show on PBS called Hodgepodge Lodge. Given the motley assortment of things to talk about today, I feel as if I should broadcast this from the set of the old Hodgepodge Lodge program.

Alexander Ovechkin recently signed a multi-year contract with the Washington Capitals with a total value of $124M. There’s no doubt that Ovechkin is a hugely talented player and that his youth – he is only 22 years old – will allow the Capitals to promote him as the image of their squad for a long time to come. I do wonder, however, if it makes sense to pay a single player an amount of money that may just be in excess of the value of a half-dozen franchises in the NHL.

Bodog.com is an Internet wagering site – among other things. They have odds posted already regarding who will win next year’s collegiate football championship game. At the moment, USC is the favorite at 3-1. However, right behind them are Florida, Georgia and Ohio State at 6-1. If this is a portent of yet another Ohio State presence in the BCS Championship game, can I suggest that Ohio State take a sabbatical from that grind for at least a few years to let the memory of its recent shellackings fade ever so slightly from memory? Three or four years in the Independence Bowl ought to do it…

Here is your term-paper assignment for your course in NBA Happenings. Keep this to 5-7 pages of text please…

Compare and Contrast:

The Knicks team votes to suspend Stephon Marbury because he went AWOL on the team because he heard he would not be starting a game but Isiah Thomas overrules the vote and plays him anyway.

The Bulls coach suspends Joakim Noah for a game because he yelled at an assistant coach; then the players vote to suspend Noah for an additional game and the coach goes along with that vote.

Speaking of those Chicago Bulls and their interim coach, Jim Boylan, there is more than a mild uproar in Chicago over the fact that some of the Bulls’ players were caught on camera laughing and joking on the bench in the midst of a game where they were being blown-out by 20 points. After the game, Boylan said that the team offense is anemic and the team defense is soft. This guy would like to be the long-term coach of the Bulls so imagine what he really thinks of their on-court performance/effort.

For extra credit on that term paper assignment above, give me 250 words or less on the following:

What did the firing Scott Skiles as coach of the Bulls accomplish? Recall, he was too intense to relate to this squad…

As the Roger Clemens PR process continues to unfold, I become more and more confused. Maybe someone can explain to me how I am supposed to reach the conclusion that Clemens is the victim in all of this and not a steroid user when his carefully scripted statements and events start to contradict themselves. For example, he started out with the position that he did not know anything about what was or might be in the Mitchell Report until it burst forth on the sporting landscape on December 13. He was shocked – SHOCKED – to find his name associated with unseemly behavior; it was a dark moment in his life.

Then later, we learned from Clemens lawyer that Brian McNamee had called an associate of Clemens agents – the Hendricks brothers – on December 5 “to apologize” for what he had said to Mitchell and his cohorts and that call had been brought to Clemens’ attention on December 9. All of this was a prelude to Clemens’ lawyer sending a couple of his investigators to talk to McNamee prior to the release of the Mitchell Report. I can’t imagine how he was shocked by the Mitchell Report.

There is still plenty of time to determine just how much of what Brian McNamee said is true and just how much of it is false. But one does have to wonder just what “Team Clemens” is thinking in terms of trying to build support/sympathy for its client with these kinds of contradictions.

About that 17-minute phone call that was covertly taped by “Team Clemens”, am I the only one who thinks the act of doing that was underhanded/sleazy at best? Moreover, what in that taped conversation was supposed to convince me that McNamee is the only bad guy in this whole mess? Just asking…

Here is what “Team Clemens” has succeeded in doing so far. They have made Barry Bonds look good. And Bonds is not paying the folks on “Team Clemens” - - as far as we know.

Now that Congress has called on the DoJ to investigate the veracity of statements made by Miguel Tejada to Congressional investigators with regard to Rafael Palmiero’s assertion that Raffy tested positive for steroids after he got a Vitamin B-12 shot from Tejada, you have to wonder how Astros’ GM, Ed Wade, feels now. Wade just concluded a trade for Tejada in which he gave up five players/prospects.

During the Congressional questioning of Donald Fehr earlier this week, did you notice how Fehr answered lots of questions? He’d begin by saying something along the lines of “Well, if the question was whatever, then my answer is …” How come none of the Congressthings asked a follow-up question along the lines of:

“That wasn’t my question. Let me ask it again much more slowly so that you can understand it, Mr. Fehr, and then you can answer it truthfully - - since you do recall that you are under oath…”

There was a report in the Orange County Register that 22 of the college football Bowl Games are tax-exempt entities despite corporate sponsorship and huge payouts to the participating schools and fat salaries to organizing staffs. Here is my question:

Which publicity-hungry committee of the US Congress will notice that one and run with it? Talk about a way to increase tax revenues…

Finally, here are words of wisdom from Steve Rosenbloom’s blog on the Chicago Tribune website:

Congress wants the Justice Dept. to find out whether Miguel Tejada lied about using steroids. Congress also wants the Feds to find out who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb.

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

Comments(0)

An early entrant into the Dumb Bunny of the Year competition has to be Pacman Jones. Eleven months ago, he got into enough hot water over a shooting incident at a Las Vegas strip club that he earned a year’s suspension from the NFL. He did not spend those eleven months in a monastic existence; hell, he wasn’t even able to stay away from the police for all of that time. Now, the Atlanta papers report that he was involved in another “incident” where he allegedly punched a woman - - wait for it - - at a strip club. To complete his exacta, the woman who alleges that he punched her is a lawyer.

I am not a prude; I do not believe that strip clubs are a sign of the impending apocalypse. Nonetheless, I do not frequent strip clubs for the same reason that I do not watch porn. I do not consider that sex is a spectator sport. I have no interest in evangelizing my beliefs in this area; adults should make their own decisions here. However, in the case of Pacman Jones, this man ought to find ways to sublimate whatever it is that he derives from going to strip clubs and find a way to accrue those benefits/pleasures to himself in the privacy of his own home. I suspect that is what an adult might conclude in this situation.

I do not want to go all “Weather Channel” on you here, but when you prepare to watch the Packers/Giants game on Sunday, you might want to put on a pair of long underwear. It may be cold enough in Green Bay for some of that cold to leak out through your TV set into your home. [Aside: I’m a scientist by training; I know that can’t happen; but if it could…] On Friday and Saturday, the overnight lows will be sub-zero; on Sunday, it will warm up all the way to 8 degrees before “cooling off”; kickoff in Green Bay will be after sunset.

So, what is the over/under on the number of guys in the stands sufficiently “lubricated” that they will be seen shirtless on TV?

Last weekend the Colts and the Cowboys showed up for their games with records of 13-3. Both of them lost. Do you think that the Triskaidekaphobia Society of America members said, “I told you so”? Yes, I know that the Packers were also 13-3 for the regular season, but two out of three isn’t bad…

Of the four teams with first round byes in the playoffs, three of them rested their starters in the final game of the season for most if not all of the game. Two of the three teams that rested players lost. In addition, the Giants played their starters for all of their final game against the Pats and then obviously played the starters in the wild card round of the playoffs. The Giants have won both of their playoff outings. So much for the certitude of the “resting your starters” hypothesis…

By the way, give some credit to Jimmy Johnson. On last Sunday’s FOX pre-game show, he said definitively that he thought the Packers were the best team in the NFC and not the Cowboys. I presume that means he will be picking the Packers to win this Sunday, but he made that call a week ago.

The Colts lost on Sunday because their defense was just miserable. Not only were they off balance for much of the game, but their tackling left a whole lot to be desired. The NFL fined an umpire, James Quirk, a game check for throwing a linebacker to the ground during a game. [Aside: Was Quirk the inspiration for the Bud Light commercial where the official sacks the QB to get a Bud Light or vice-versa?] Given the way the Colts’ defense played last weekend, they may have wished they had signed him during their bye week to play defensive back.

Before I am accused of piling on the Colts here, please recognize that they are the first team in NFL history to win 12 or more games in five consecutive seasons. In addition, Tony Dungy has had his team in the playoffs for nine straight seasons (in Tampa and Indy); the only other NFL coach to do that was Tom Landry. Whether you love or hate the Colts, those are two praiseworthy accomplishments.

The Chargers opened as a 15.5-point underdog against the Pats this weekend. Without trying to reconstruct the spreads for every conference championship game, I just know that has to be unprecedented in the time of the NFL’s 12-team playoff format. Last week, the Pats opened as 11.5-point favorites against the Jags – and the line expanded through the week. The Pats won but did not cover.

Speaking of the Chargers, if my understanding is correct, they are free and clear to leave San Diego at the end of the 2008 NFL season. There is no deal in place to build them a new stadium; the current stadium has been designated as “unsuitable and unredeemable”. If I am correct in that assessment, look for a boatload of jockeying and posturing and PR driven events over the next six to eight months in San Diego.

Imagine for just a moment that the Chargers do leave town. Where might they go? If they move anywhere other than Los Angeles, that would leave the NFL with exactly zero teams in all of SoCal; can the league really allow that to happen? Could the Chargers move to Toronto – giving the NFL an international footprint? Would that necessitate a realignment to prevent Toronto being in the AFC West? Can Portland support an NFL franchise? Would they want to try? The elephant in the room has to be Las Vegas… This might all become very interesting over the next few months.

Some columnists and commentators have gotten themselves in high dudgeon over the fact that Kelly Tilghman still has a job at The Golf Channel after her inappropriate remark about young golfers needing to “lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley” to improve their position within the PGA. Some of them are calling for a boycott of The Golf Channel. Here is the fundamental problem with calling for a boycott in this situation.

If I wanted to join them in their boycott, I would first have to patronize The Golf Channel so I could then stop watching it. Given the ratings, that would seem to be the case for the vast majority of people in the US. It’s hard to organize people to boycott something they already ignore.

Finally, an observation by Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel:

“Last word: Now that Tony Romo has become Jessica Simpson’s new boy toy, isn’t it only a matter of time before he stops barking out the signals and starts lip-synching them?”

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

Comments(5)

Since we will have Round Two of the Congressional hearings into steroid use in baseball starting today, let me give present the one small interchange within the hearings that I really wish would occur. This is the only version of fantasy baseball in which I indulge:

Rep. Chatterbox: Mr. Clemens, I remind you that you are under oath. Are you ever going to play major league baseball again?

Roger Clemens: No.

Rep Chatterbox: Great. Now, can you find a way to disappear, shut up and never bother anyone ever again?

Roger Clemens: I don’t understand the question…

Rep Chatterbox: Sir, I assure you that the American people will be happy to have you keep your face out of their face for all of the rest of eternity if you are no longer a baseball player. In case you misunderstood, the cheers you heard had only to do with your ability to throw a baseball; they did not mean that people love you. They do not.

Roger Clemens: Uh …

Let me try to catch-up with doings in other niches of the sports world. Moreover, allow me to take the easy way out here. I will present you with two short items written by others, which summarize neatly and concisely the scope of what is going on:

“Heard this story before?

“Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona claims that 600 of his personal items — including his FIFA award for best player of the 20th century — that are being used in an ‘M10’ traveling exhibit are rightfully his, and he wants them back. Plan A is the lawsuit he filed against the tour promoter in Buenos Aires.

“Plan B, no doubt, is a phone call to O.J. Simpson.” [Dwight Perry, Seattle Times]

“Marion Jones’ attorneys, desperate to keep her out or prison, say she has suffered enough. For instance, they say sportswriters all over the world have portrayed Jones ‘in the worst light.’ I’m here to make it right. Even though Jones made a mockery of the Olympics, hoodwinked her millions of fans and sought to disgrace anyone who didn’t buy her lies, she looked good in a track suit.” [Scott Ostler, SF Chronicle]

In case you missed it, OJ Simpson is headed back to jail because he allegedly violated the terms of his bail. Supposedly, he contacted one of the other people involved in the incident pending before the court after being told specifically not to do that. A friend said this was a prime example of a star athlete acting out his exaggerated sense of entitlement. That may be; there could be other motivations such as:

Maybe OJ thinks playing prison football with Michael Vick would be a fun thing to do.

Maybe OJ has a thing for Marion Jones and figures she has time on her hands at the moment.

Maybe OJ has a hot lead on the real killers and that lead says they are in the Las Vegas municipal jail.

The Cowboys’ loss to the Giants last weekend was historic in one sense and has been trivialized in another. The historic part is that the NFC’s #1 seed had never lost its first playoff game since the NFL went to the 12-team playoff format. The Cowboys just did that; this team made it to the history books. Much of the rest of the hysteria over their loss is somewhat silly.

Let me tell you what I think of the “Jessica Simpson Factor”. Folks, she is Jessie “the Ditz” Simpson for heaven’s sake; she is not Helen of Troy or Delilah. If every NFL QB who ever “spent leisure time in the company of hot women” were jinxed, then every game would probably wind up as a 0-0 tie. There is a silver lining for the NFL in the Cowboys’ loss; now they can add Jessica Simpson to the Super Bowl halftime show without any fear of jinxing any QB who happens to be in that game. Of course, one would have to ask why anyone would want to have her in the halftime show in the first place…

Terrell “Teardrop” Owens said that the Romo/Simpson dalliance in Mexico was no big deal and that “Teardrop” even bought the plane tix for the lovebirds to atone for jokingly calling Simpson a “distraction” after the Eagles beat the Cowboys in December. Since I do not have access to “Teardrop’s” credit card statements, I have no idea if he actually did that. However, I will say that when “Teardrop” talks about distractions with regard to a football team, he is speaking from experience and with the aura of huge expertise. As a typical second-grader might say, “Takes one to know one…”

The question related to the Cowboys/Giants game that seems not to be under great scrutiny at the moment is a simple one. How can a team that had 12 – twelve, I say – Pro Bowl caliber players on the field lose to an injury-riddled team with an inconsistent – often called “choking” – QB? Here is the short answer. The Cowboys do not really have 12 Pro Bowl players; the voting for the Pro Bowl is as meaningless as the game itself and that is a high standard of irrelevancy to be sure. Roy Williams – for example – cannot cover a mattress with a bedspread and he is one of the NFC Pro Bowl safeties. Yeah, right…

Finally, here is another note from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Clemens update: The Rocket, in his campaign to hold his breath and turn purple until everyone believes he didn’t use steroids, has just reached ‘mauve.’ “

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

Comments(2)

I must begin with a correction today. Last week, I said that John Harbaugh was the Eagles’ special teams coach and that the Eagles’ less than stellar showing on special teams this year would not seem to enhance his résumé to become a head coach in the NFL. That was wrong. Harbaugh had been the Eagles’ special teams coach – successfully – for many years but ceded that job last season to become the defensive secondary coach. Mea culpa! Thanks to the readers who pointed this out to me.

If you are looking for a word to describe Ryan Grant, try “resilient”. He committed two massively costly fumbles in the first five minutes of Saturday’s game against Seattle putting the Packers down by two TDs in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea. Then all he did for the rest of the day was to score two TDs on his own and run for 201 yards in a dominating performance. The Packers scored touchdowns on the six consecutive possessions after his two fumbles at the beginning of the game.

If you are looking for a word to describe Tom Brady, try “methodical”. The Jaguars were determined not to let the Pats complete any long passes and with one exception, they did just that. However, that makes the defense vulnerable to short passes and runs. Brady never became impulsive; he just stayed with what worked. To the Jags, this loss must have felt as if they had been nibbled to death by a herd of ducks.

If you are looking for a word to describe the Chargers, try “fortunate”. Their two interceptions of Peyton Manning passes were both unscripted and unscriptable. The play of Billy Volek as the substitute QB in the fourth quarter was above and beyond any level that anyone other than a member of the Volek nuclear family could have hoped for.

If you are looking for a word to describe the Cowboys, try “self-immolation”. The Cowboys’ offense committed penalties at the worst possible times unless you consider that the Cowboys’ defense also committed penalties at the worst possible times. In addition, Tony Romo took sacks when he was out of the pocket and should have thrown the ball into the fifth row of the stands while also standing in the pocket and committing intentional grounding with little pressure on him.

By the way, those two incomplete passes by Tom Brady for the entire game on Saturday both hit the intended receivers in both of the receivers’ hands. In addition to describing him as “methodical”, you might also describe him as “accurate”.

It was a big deal when Bret Favre passed Dan Marino’s records for most yards passing in a career and most completions. Understand, in those records, none of Favre’s playoff statistics count. In his lengthy career, Favre has started 21 playoff games and through Saturday’s contest, he has completed 419 passes for 5075 yards and 37 TDs. Not too shabby…

It has been de rigueur to point out how Boston and its environs have been dominating the sports scene for the last year – Red Sox, Pats, Celtics, Boston College. Once again, from Curmudgeon Central you get to see the world through the other end of the telescope; consider the Miami/South Florida area:

Dolphins go 1-15 for the season and basically “start over” as a team.

Heat are 8-29 so far this year and the only reason they are not the worst team in the NBA is that the Timberwolves are slightly worse.

Marlins are deconstructing their team again – only this time they did not win a World Series just before setting out on that path.

University of Miami football was pathetic last season.

Florida International was one of the ten worst Division 1-A football teams in the nation.

The NHL Panthers are under .500 and are only in “contention” because they are in a division where every team is at or below .500.

You have heard of “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” with respect to sports. Well, Boston and Miami represent “the apogee and the perigee of sports”…

Somewhere near the perigee of NFL job opportunities has to be the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. The team stinks and the fan base rises above apathetic only during playoff seasons. Bobby Petrino took an a 40% pay cut (approximately) and plenty of body shots to his reputation – whatever that may have been – just to get out of that town and out of that job. Other than the fact that Arthur Blank has more money than anyone could possibly spend in the next four lifetimes and can – if he chooses – shower it on a coaching candidate, why would anyone want that job?

I read in the Chicago Tribune that Bears’ GM, Jerry Angelo, has some ideas for next season that he believes will return the Bears to the playoffs and maybe the Super Bowl. Good for him, that’s his job. However, one of those ideas is baffling. He told the Tribune that he thinks Devin Hester should play more WR next year and should return fewer kicks. I do not get that at all. Special teams’ coaches around the league have to figure ways to keep the ball out of Hester’s hands on return plays because he is so good at them; if Angelo has his way, the Bears will keep the ball out of Hester’s hands on return plays on their own. The special teams’ coaches on all of the Bears’ opponents for 2008 are probably saying novenas in the hope that Jerry Angelo’s idea will find favor in Lovie Smith’s strategic construct for the Bears.

The ratings are in for the BCS Bowl Games. I said they were uninteresting and unappealing right after the schedule was announced and it seems as if lots of people agreed with that assessment. For the four games on FOX, ratings were down 13% compared to last year; for the ABC coverage of the Rose Bowl, ratings were down 20%. Why are these TV ratings important? Well, once you recognize that NCAA football decisions are driven by monetary considerations above all else, falling ratings will eventually turn into stagnant revenues. And that is the point where someone will have to come up with a new idea to heighten interest - - such as a playoff system for college football…

Speaking of college football and the season just past, what was the biggest surprise of the season? The four nominees are:

1. Appalachian State beating Michigan on opening day.

2. USC losing to 41-point underdog, Stanford.

3. West Virginia losing to 27-point underdog, Pitt, with a trip to the BCS Championship Game on the line.

4. The utter ineptitude of Notre Dame.

Finally, here is a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald regarding a personnel move by the Miami Heat:

“The Heat cut Penny Hardaway. Has a man’s nickname ever better described his contribution or value to a team?”

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

Comments(0)

You could make the argument that the opening week of the NFL season is the best weekend of the season because everything starts there and there hasn’t been a pro football game of any consequence for more than six months.

You could make the argument that Thanksgiving weekend is the best weekend of the season because it brings you 3 games on Thursday, as many as 4 games on Sunday and another one on Monday night. That means one could see half the teams in the league over the span of five days.

Nevertheless, for me, the weekend coming up is the best of the season. There are four playoff games; they all matter; the teams are all good ones. In the complex calculus of quantity and quality, this weekend is at the top of the list.

Last year, the Colts won the Super Bowl with an offense so prolific that it did not matter that the Colts’ defense was less than average. This year, the Colts’ defense allowed the fewest points in the entire league; interestingly, I’d be surprised if half of the people watching NFL football games on any given Sunday could name the Colts’ defensive coordinator. In addition, the Colts’ defense did not allow any QB to throw for 300 yards in a game against them all season long. One other team did that, the Oakland Raiders. There is a fundamental difference however. The Raiders’ defense against the run was so pathetic that teams rarely had any incentive to throw the ball around the stadium.

People have noted the huge impact Randy Moss has had on the Pats’ offense this year but until I ran across these stats I did not realize just how huge that impact was nor did I recognize the degree to which motivation could raise or lower his game. Moss caught 23 TD passes this season; last year, the Pats had 24 TD passes as a team. This year’s “attentive” Randy Moss caught almost as many TDs as the entire team did last year. Meanwhile, last year the “inattentive” Randy Moss languished in Oakland where he needed to inspire himself to be disinterested. Last year, the Raiders passing offense generated 7 TDs in toto. The moral of this story:

Focus matters.

Steelers’ fans continue to heap scorn on offensive coordinator, Bruce Arians, for his supposed boneheaded play calling against Jax last weekend. Believe me, I understand that Jax won the game and I was befuddled at the time when the Steelers went for a two-point conversion from the 12 yardline by calling a QB draw. But before we assign Bruce Arians to the same quadrant of coaching acumen occupied by the likes of Richie Kotite and Wayne “the Brain” Fontes and Joe Kuharich, let’s look at that game as a whole. The Steelers scored 29 points; over the course of the season, the Steelers’ defense allowed just under 17 points per game; it would seem to me that the offense did its job. In addition, Arians called plays that generated about 100 yards more total offense than the Jags managed to accrue in the game.

Here is a suggestion for Steelers’ fans:

Take a far more critical look at the coaches/players on the defense and special teams that found ways to give up 31 points to a Jacksonville team that averaged only 25 points per game.

When the Lions fired Mike Martz, I suggested that he would probably not want for job offers to be an offensive coordinator in other cities. He has already found a job for next year in SF where the offense was anemic. Actually, that’s probably describing it politely; the Niners scored fewer points than anyone else in the league – less than 14 points per game. Martz has to be successful next season by comparison because in addition to being the lowest scoring team in the NFL, the Niners ranked last in the league in total yards (237 yards per game) and in passing yardage (145 yards per game). I do not know how they ranked within the league on this next stat, but it cannot be very good; the Niners only converted 31% of their 3rd down plays. It would be way too much to expect that the Mike Martz system will turn that team into an offensive juggernaut overnight, but expecting them to improve on that showing is not asking all that much.

I have read that John Harbaugh is under consideration for some of the NFL head coaching vacancies. Harbaugh was the Eagles special teams coach last season and to be tremendously polite, the Eagles’ special teams stunk out the joint. Does anyone recall the opening day game against the Packers, which the Eagles lost because they could not put anyone out there to field a punt? They didn’t need to return the punt; all they had to do is fair catch the ball and not trip over their shoelaces going to the sideline and the Eagles would have won the game. So the coach of that unit now is projected to be someone cut from head coaching cloth? I do not get it…

Did anyone tune in to see a moment or two of the reincarnated version of American Gladiators this week? I probably watched a total of 10 minutes and have saturated my interest. I do have a question though:

Would anyone like to wager on the proposition that there are steroid tests and blood tests for HGH involved in the production of that program? I’ll bet there are none.

Kelly Tilghman will serve a two-week suspension from The Golf Channel for her remark that young golfers hoping to beat Tiger Woods might want to lynch him in a back alley. In no way can I be convinced that she was advocating that as a strategy to be implemented by young pro golfers; she used a careless and insensitive choice of words and imagery. She needed to apologize and she did. She needed some form of censure and she got it. And maybe – just maybe – there is a small nugget of good news in all of this.

About thirty years ago, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder lost his job permanently for making remarks about the breeding of slaves in the US. About twenty years ago, a golf commentator – cannot recall his name right now – lost his job permanently because he said that women golfers did not putt as well as men because their breasts got in the way. Just last year, Don Imus was fired from his syndicated radio program for making unwarranted comments about the players on the Rutgers women’s basketball team. [Nine months later, Imus returned to the radio with a greatly reduced syndication network.] Now Kelly Tilghman will serve a two-week suspension for her remarks. And maybe – just maybe – this is good news in that there is a realization that ill-tempered and ill-advised words are insufficient social offenses to generate the social version of “the death penalty” for people who utter them.

I want to be clear here. I do not agree with any of the remarks made by any of the folks I mentioned above; I do not think any of them should have been said in the first place. I also believe that Kelly Tilghman is receiving a punishment that is approximately commensurate with the offense that she committed. And maybe – just maybe – that is a good thing.

Finally, I really have gotten tired of driving behind cars and minivans with bumper stickers proclaiming that the owner of the vehicle has an honor student at Wherever Middle School. Just once, I would like to see a parent admit that they have an honor student enrolled at the Jenna Jamieson Institute for Carnal Pleasures.

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

Comments(3)

Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote an excellent column on baseball and steriods and Roger Clemens and …

It is well worth your reading.

Comments(0)

A couple of months ago, I wrote that I would not be surprised to see the New Orleans Hornets relocate because New Orleans is not a basketball town and does not support the Hornets all that well. I got responses telling me that I had my head up my butt and that I didn’t know anything. Well, let us look at what has happened in the past couple of months:

The Hornets are a good team. In the tougher Western Conference, if the playoffs started today, the Hornets would be in.

I do not check the attendance figures for every Hornets game, but I have yet to see a sell-out in New Orleans. Last night, the Lakers came to town; that’s two good teams playing each other with a marquee player on the visiting squad. There were about 1600 empty seats if the reported attendance actually measured the folks who showed up.

The team and the state of Louisiana just reached an agreement to keep the Hornets in town for the next seven years. Nevertheless, there is an escape clause in the deal for the team if they do not draw an average of 14,375 folks for games between Dec 1 2007 and the end of next season. Capacity in New Orleans is 17,200 so the trigger point is to play to 84% capacity.

This is not something that would need to be done in a “great basketball town”. But it goes even deeper than that. The State of Louisiana did not want to take the chance that the fans would stay home and so they put in penalty clauses that could cost the Hornets’ owner as much as $100M if he opted to leave based on those attendance triggers. New Orleans will keep its NBA team because the state is bribing them to stay and the state is trying to make it financially disastrous for them to try to find a new home. Such are the happenings in that “great basketball town” called New Orleans.

Speaking of the NBA, there sure is a basketball renaissance brewing in Portland. The Blazers seem to have shed the thuggery image; and in the absence of Darius Miles, they seem to be playing team basketball and winning. Have the Blazers joined the list of contending teams in the NBA West? It certainly seems so – and it is all the more impressive that they will likely make this year’s playoffs without Greg Oden playing even a minute for them.

Starting next season, the Blazers will have a very young nucleus of very good players in Oden, Brandon Roy and Lamarcus Aldridge; truth be told, Steve Blake and Jarrett Jack ain’t bad either. I believe the Blazers owe Darius Miles about $24M between now and the end of his contract in June 2010; they would be well advised to pay him that money to stay two time zones away from this team – sort of what they are doing with Steve Francis except they are paying Francis even more money to stay away.

Portland is good and young; other really good teams in the West are good and older. When the Blazers are matured and ready to become a force majeure, the players that make the Spurs, Mavs and Nuggets so good now will be in the twilight of their careers. Portland is a team on the rise not just at the moment but also for the next few years.

The report out of Florida is the Michele Wie spent almost two weeks there last month with her swing coach, David Leadbetter. After Wie’s disastrous season in 2007 where she was more likely to shoot in the 80s than she was to shoot par, Leadbetter is cautiously optimistic about this season where he hopes she can play more and avoid injuries such as the one that befell her last year. The question for the coach would seem to come in the case where Michele Wie has a season that continues to fall way short of the promise she once had as a golfer. In that case, how much of the blame will be heaped on him by the people who have handled Wie’s career to date? You know they will not be heaping any blame on her or on themselves…

I read somewhere that the London Olympics costs have spun out of control to the tune of about 400% so far. Originally, the estimated costs to host the games in 2012 were set at $6.1B. That is a lot of money no matter what level of economy has to generate it. The latest cost figure – and remember we are still five years away from the Opening Ceremonies in London – is $19B plus a $5.6B contingency fund for overruns which is already mostly committed. What started out at $6B is now in excess of $24B - - and counting. Nonetheless, cities are still vying to host the 2016 Games. Here are some questions for the citizens of those cities to pose to their elected officials – in the cases where the cities in question have such luxuries:

1. If the 2016 Games will really cost more than $25B, where will revenues of that magnitude flow from sources outside our own economy? Without some expectation of that happening, the Games cannot begin to pay for themselves.

2. The folks who sold the London Olympics to Londoners and the British government pulled a low-ball $6.1B figure from a nasty bodily orifice. Where are the estimates for the costs of the 2016 Games coming from?

Here’s another Olympic note. The folks running the Beijing Olympics take a very dim view of scalping tickets. They say that the resale of any tickets for the big events like the Opening Ceremonies is “illegal” and according an item on the website for the Games, “'’People who engage in criminal activity will be subject to firm punishment according to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China.'’ You can find Internet sites offering Olympic tickets to the Opening Ceremonies for as much as $15,000. If you spring for that, you just might be a party to an illegal activity according to Chinese Criminal Law and be part of that “firm punishment” suggested above. Since I think that the Opening Ceremonies in the Olympics are about as entertaining as oral surgery, I will pass on that opportunity, thank you very much.

Finally, a comment from syndicated columnist, Norman Chad:

“This whole business of lowering the lights, flashing the strobes and bringing the players out through fire and brimstone with a backdrop of chilling music has to stop. Sure, the Bulls once got away with it because the payoff was “Michael Jordan!!!” but, frankly, when your starting five is, say, Andre Iguodala, Reggie Evans, Samuel Dalembert, Willie Green and Andre Miller, you should introduce them IN THE DARK.”

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

Comments(2)

I was rooting for such a horrid game in the BCS Championship Game that there would be a clamor for a real championship tournament in college football. Naturally, I wanted that to happen; it would have moved things toward a football playoff system, which I want, and it would give me a game to ridicule in these rants. That did not happen – even though the game was hardly one for the ages or anything resembling a “nail-biter”. So, you would think I’d be down in the dumps on this matter at the moment. Not at all…

To my rescue comes a name from the past - - Michael Adams, President of the University of Georgia. If he is a dim bulb in the marquee of your memory or if you haven’t been reading these rants for more than a few years, Michael Adams was the guy who hired Jim Harrick Sr., to coach basketball at Georgia. Then Adams relaxed the nepotism rules to allow Jim Harrick Jr. to work for his father and create the infamous basketball course that was worth credits toward graduation at Georgia where one of the final exam questions was, “How many points is a 3-point goal worth?” Of course, when the academic scandal at Georgia broke, Michael Adams expressed his profound shock and deep concerns. This guy is a piece of work!

Well, Michael Adams has now decided that a football playoff is necessary particularly since LSU is the titular champion and not Georgia. He wants an eight-team tournament using the major bowls as a way to winnow the teams down. He sent a letter to his bud – the animitronic suit dummy known as Dr. Myles Brand – suggesting that the NCAA seize control of the football playoff system and freeze out the BCS folks. The likelihood of that happening is about the same as Hillary Clinton and Rush Limbaugh getting themselves entangled in some kind of love triangle … [shudder]

Did someone in the back of the room ask why all this makes Michael Adams an even larger hypocrite than he has previously demonstrated himself to be? Here’s why… Last year, the President of Florida proposed a football playoff system; the “Florida Plan” was built on the NFL playoff model; it was not exactly the same as Michael Adams’ inspiration. The SEC Presidents shot down the “Florida Plan” last year and one of the vocal leaders of the opposition was - - of course - - Michael Adams.

President Adams, here are two things you ought to consider as you bloviate around the country with your “plan”:

1. Georgia was not a credible candidate for the BCS Championship Game because it did not win its conference AND it did not even win its division of its conference allowing it to compete for the conference championship.

2. You say that the BCS “sells out” to the networks who then turn the Championship Game into a Beauty Contest. That is so far off base you would need a telescope to see the base. If the networks really called all the shots, there would have been a tournament/playoff in place in addition to all the bowl games about twenty years ago.

I have taken my fair share of shots at Isiah Thomas over the years but someone pointed out to me that I have not really recognized one of his major accomplishments. Therefore, I would like to take a brief moment here to pay tribute to Messr. Thomas for his achievement of this prodigious feat. In the past year, he has managed to find a way to make the Knicks’ organization appear to be even worse off the court than they are on the court. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not easy to do.

We found out yesterday why Roger Clemens’ lawyer said they had to “check schedules” to see if Clemens might be available to testify before the upcoming Congressional hearings regarding the Mitchell Report. Yesterday, Clemens told folks that he would be withdrawing from the pro-am round of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in order to testify. I’m sure glad the lawyer checked with Roger first to see which one of those two “invitations” he wanted to accept. I would also love to hear the phone conversation between Roger and the lawyer regarding which “invitation” to accept. I wonder if the tape would have the lawyer saying, “Roger, just tell me what to do…”

Fans in Dallas and New England may be lulled into a false sense of security this weekend since the spreads on those games are a full TD or more. It has been a long time since the top seed in both conferences has made it to the Super Bowl; the last time it happened was in 1993. Is this the weekend that one of those teams makes a surprise exit from the playoffs?

I want to make one “sort of political comment” here. Actually, it has to do with TV coverage of politics. We had company for dinner last night and as my long-suffering wife and I were cleaning up, we had the political commentary/coverage of the New Hampshire primaries on the TV to “keep us company”. It took us a bit more than two hours to finish the cleaning up and in those two hours, we heard gasbags wheezing and pundits bloviating over a primary election that was decided by less than 10,000 votes. The talking heads made it out to be an event of historic in proportion; they praised the candidates’ speeches after the results were tallied such that you would have sworn that Daniel Webster had been reincarnated; they portrayed the “clash of ideas” in these campaigns as if it were equivalent to the Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858. Let me say this clearly and simply:

The six-hour pre-game show for the Super Bowl is over the top and needless at best. Nevertheless, after last night, I do not want to hear about the endless blather from football pre-game programming unless that commentary also features broadside blasts at the political coverage of trivial events on TV. What happened last night in terms of “history” was really small potatoes; it may or may not have been even close to the “historic” implications of the upcoming Super Bowl.

Finally, Dwight Perry had this item in a recent column in the Seattle Times:

“The saddest bottom line in the NBA: The Timberwolves have 4 wins, 27 losses — and 15 guaranteed contracts.”

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

Comments(2)