Author: Jack

Today is the national day of mourning for President George H.W. Bush.  Certainly, somewhere in the US, someone will lift a glass and offer a toast to President Bush on this day that commemorates “toasting” in the US.  Eighty-five years ago, on this date in 1933, Utah became the 36^th state to ratify the 21^st Amendment to the US Constitution which ended the Prohibition Era.

Rest in peace, Mr. President…

Last week, the Oakland A’s announced plans to build a new stadium in the Bay Area.  Lord knows; they have needed one for at least a decade now.  The proposed site is a waterfront venue on the bay and the architectural renderings show a cozy stadium with a seating capacity of 35,000 – a number that makes sense for the team.  Consider that the A’s were the hottest team in MLB for about a month or 6 weeks last year and breezed into an AL wild card slot with 97 wins on the season.  Despite that surprising and exciting season:

• The A’s average attendance for 2018 was 19,427.
• That figure represents an increase of about 1200 fans per game from 2017.
• Even with a wildcard team, Oakland ranked 26^th in MLB in attendance.

Certainly, a new stadium will attract more fans to the games than the Oakland Mausoleum – – uh, Coliseum – – will.  But it is unlikely that a new stadium will increase attendance there to the point that the new venue would be too small.  So, naturally the team execs and the architects involved were very upbeat in their presentations and the politicians in the area did not dump all over the proposed plans as soon as they were announced.  Perhaps this is the start of something new for the A’s.

However, there is a sentence in one of the articles abut this proposed new stadium that makes me wonder how all of this will work:

“Transportation challenges could be met in part by a gondola system connecting to downtown Oakland, which certainly sounds like a unique way to get to a ballgame.”

Maybe I am reading too much into this, but that “unique way to get to a ballgame” makes me wonder how difficult it might be to get to that same ballgame by more “traditional means” such as public transit or driving one’s car or teleportation.

The team laid out a schedule that identified groundbreaking in 2021 and the opening of the new venue in 2023.  In order to get to that groundbreaking date, there are a bunch of negotiations with the city and bureaucratic hoops that need jumping through by the end of 2019.  That may sound like plenty of time, but I will wait to raise my glass and offer a toast to the City of Oakland and the Oakland A’s over the final agreement(s) that moves this plan beyond the artist rendering stage.

The A’s have trouble drawing fans to their stadium; NASCAR has even more trouble drawing fans to their TV sets to watch NASCAR events.  Here are some stats to consider:

• In 2005 (the peak of NASCAR’s popularity) 8.5M fans on average watched a NASCAR race.
• In 2016, 4.47M fans on average watched a NASCAR race.  That is a drop of 47% from the high-water mark in 2005.

But it gets worse…

• In 2017, the average number of viewers for a NASCAR race was only 4M fans.
• In 2018, the average number of viewers for a NASCAR race was only 3.3M fans.

From the peak year – 13 years ago – NASCAR has lost 61% of its TV audience.  The problem is that the trend does not show any signs of hitting bottom.  From the already smaller audience figures of 2016, viewership dropped in 2018 by 26%.  These numbers are doubly ominous for NASCAR.

1. The first problem is obvious; with declining numbers of viewers and TV ratings, the networks are going to be reluctant to maintain the level of payments made to NASCAR for TV rights.
2. The dual threat here is that a lot of revenue flows to the various racing teams from “naming rights” and “logo placements”.  The value of those “rights” and “placements” diminished significantly when there are fewer eyeballs out there to recognize/acknowledge the product involved.

I am not one of the folks who watches NASCAR on TV nor do I follow NASCAR very much. Therefore, I am in no position to offer up any solutions to this situation that anyone should listen to let alone consider.  However, I think the numbers suggest that something must be done by the folks who run NASCAR to hold its basic audience and then to start to grow it back a bit.  If the revenue streams from TV and from sponsorships both decline significantly, it could be an existential threat to NASCAR as a sports entity.

Urban Meyer announced his retirement from coaching as a result of a cyst on his brain.  This is the second time he has retired for different health-related reasons.  Notwithstanding those circumstances, Meyer said that it was a “complicated question” when asked if he would ever coach again but that he was “fairly certain” that he would not.  There is no question that Meyer’s teams have been highly successful wherever he has been the coach; there is also no question that more than a few players on those successful teams exhibited some sociopathic behaviors – and at Ohio State, it would appear that one of his assistant coaches also exhibited those sorts of behaviors.

There is no question Urban Meyer was a great college football coach – at four different universities – if all you see are the wins and losses and national championships.  But there is a side of his story that is not nearly that bright; it may not be a “dark side” to the extent that Darth Vader was on the “dark side” but it has its sinister shades.  Personally, I will not be shocked to see him back on the sidelines somewhere down the line…

Finally, as the days get shorter and we approach the winter solstice, consider this comment from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Seasonal Affective Disorder — the ‘winter blues’ — is real, says Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News’ chief medical correspondent.

“ ‘Tell us about it,’ said Bills fans in unison.”

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

 

 

In late October, the Skins were 5-2 atop the NFC East and appeared to be playoff bound.  This morning, the Skins are 6-6 and are one of the teams “in the hunt” for a playoff spot but will have to finish the season with Mark Sanchez at QB – – assuming he too does not break a leg in the next month.  Last night, backup QB Colt McCoy broke his fibula against the Eagles and is out for the year.  Fan reaction to this unfortunate and freakish injury is all over the map:

• Some say this is the worst luck for a potentially great team in football history.  That is patent nonsense.  The Niners lost their first two starting QBs to injury just this year; it is not a once in a lifetime occurrence.  And by the way, this Skins team when fully healthy was a competitive team but hardly “potentially great”.
• Some blame the training staff for the team because the team – according to these folks – suffers more injuries every year than every other team.  I have no stats to prove or disprove that assertion, but I do not know what a training staff might do to prevent the two top QBs from breaking a leg in a game.
• One caller to a local sports radio show attributed McCoy’s broken leg to karma.  This is the Skins’ price to pay for claiming Reuben Foster off waivers.  That is not even worthy of a comment…
• Some have already used this to project that the Skins will not win another game this year and that should be the basis for firing coach Jay Gruden.  If Danny Boy Snyder is dissatisfied with a coach with a losing record over a five-year stint on the job, then he should fire Jay Gruden but firing him because two QBs broke a leg in two separate games this season is beyond stupid.

Let me offer a word here on the idea of the Skins firing Jay Gruden come January.  What is the enticing aspect of the football situation here in Washington that might get a “hot coaching prospect” salivating to come here?  Consider:

1. Alex Smith’s injury may be career-ending.  At the very least, he will miss all the off-season OTAs and may not be able to play at all in the exhibition games.  As I understand Smith’s contract with the Skins, he will count for $50M against the salary cap over the next two years even if he never takes another snap for the team.
2. Colt McCoy’s injury is less serious making him the de facto #1 QB on the roster.  McCoy is one of the best backups in the NFL and could probably be the starter for a handful of QB-deficient teams, but he is not a giant magnet pulling every aspiring NFL coach into the Skins’ orbit.
3. The franchise itself is a mess.  The Skins braintrust needs to give thanks every day for the way the Browns, Bengals and Raiders are run.  The very public misadventures of those franchises allow the Skins’ on-field and off-field stupidities to happen outside the brightest part of the spotlight.

Bottom line:  Danny Boy Snyder can choose to fire Jay Gruden if he wants to do that, but he should not expect any top-shelf coaching prospects to line up at his office door to plead for the job.

Changing the subject to baseball, the Winter Meetings are on tap for next week.  I read a report that said the Cubs were “willing to listen to offers” for Kris Bryant.  Taken literally, I guess you should say that is a smart thing for them to do; there is no harm in listening.  On the other hand, I wonder how letting that kind of speculation percolate in the clubhouse benefits the team.  Kris Bryant is one of the ten best players in the game – and I personally would put him in the top five.  So, I said to myself that maybe Theo Epstein has lost some his “magic touch” when it comes to roster building.  So, I went to take a look at the Cubs’ moves over the last off-season.

• Cubs signed starter Yu Darvish to 6 years and $126M.  He started 8 games last year and had an ERA of 4.95.  Not good at all…
• Cubs signed starter Tyler Chatwood to 3 years and $38M.  Chatwood was coming off a year with an ERA of 4.69 but he did not do that well for the Cubs last year pitching to an ERA of 5.30 over the course of 24 games and 104 innings.
• Cubs signed starter Drew Smyly to 2 years and $10M.  Smyly did not pitch at all in 2017 or 2018 coming off Tommy John surgery.
• Bullpen signings were Brandon Morrow (2 years and $21M), Steve Cishek (2 years and $13M) and Brian Duensing (2 years and $7M).  Morrow pitched well for the Cubs last year; Cishek was underwhelming; Duensing had an ERA of 7.65.
• The pitchers the Cubs subtracted from their roster included Jake Arietta. Wade Davis and Koji Uehara.  Arietta was more productive than all three of the starters signed; Davis had his worst ERA since going to the bullpen but still led the NL in saves and Uehara turned 43 years old doing something other than pitching in the major leagues.

Bottom Line:  Theo Epstein did not cover himself in glory in last year’s off-season.  Maybe he will “listen to offers” for Kris Bryant this year but my advice to him would be to avoid pulling the trigger.

Speaking of the MLB offseason, much of the focus of speculation so far has properly been on the futures of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.  They are both young and excellent players.  However, there are also reports that the D-Backs might be willing to trade Paul Goldschmidt.  If a team is looking for a big bat and a perennial All-Star and that team happens to “lose out” on the Harper/Machado sweepstakes, that team might do very well to acquire 30-year old Paul Goldschmidt.

Finally, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald had this comment about the Red Sox and their World Series parade last month:

“The World Series trophy was damaged by a thrown full can of beer during the Red Sox championship parade. That’s terrible. Talk about a waste of beer!”

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

 

 

The CFP Selection Committee reportedly took until after 1:00 AM Sunday morning to reach whatever consensus is necessary to put Oklahoma in the CFP as the #4 seed joining Alabama, Clemson and Notre Dame in the tournament.  Personally, I would have preferred to see Georgia in that playoff slot based on my eyeball test; but I agree that Oklahoma has a strong case for playing in the tournament.  And as is always the case, there is controversy and angst afoot in the land over who got jobbed and/or who paid off whom to wind up with these four playoff teams.

Take a deep breath everyone:

1. The CFP is not a perfect system; it may be improved upon one of these days.
2. The CFP is a whole lot better – in terms of determining a national champion – than any of the methods used in the past to make that determination.

Please do not yearn for a return to the days of the BCS.  Even worse, do not recall fondly those days when conferences had contracts with various bowl games which – more often than not – precluded any possibility of the two best teams playing one another.  After the bowl games ended, the national champion was selected by a vote of people who had barely ever watched all the possible candidates play football.

There are simple answers to the fans of the schools that believe they were snubbed in this process.  Let me list a couple of them:

• For Ohio State fans:  Do not lose to Purdue by 29 points.  Purdue’s record was 6-6.  And do not give up 51 points to Maryland who went 5-7 for the season.
• For Georgia fans:  Do not lose to LSU by 20 points.
• For UCF fans:  Stop pretending that playing a slate of AAC teams is equivalent to playing a slate of SEC teams or ACC teams or Big-10 teams or Big 12 teams or PAC-12 teams.  It is not.

The announcement of the 4 CFP teams puts the announcement of the myriad bowl pairings in the shadows – – where most of them belong.  The good news this year is that there are no bowl games where the powers that be had to dip below the level of “six-win teams” to fill all the slots.  Unless I have misread the schedule, there is only one bowl game this year where both teams hit the field with 6-6 records.  [That would be the Texas Bowl in Houston on December 27 where Baylor and Vanderbilt will meet to decide which team will end the season with a losing record.]

Out of the panoply of bowl games this year – not including the CFP games of course – there are only a handful that will make me pay anything more than passing attention:

• New Mexico Bowl (Dec 15):  North Texas and Utah State are both 9-3; North Texas has gone north of 40 points six times this year; Utah State has scored 50 or more points six times this year.
• Armed Forces Bowl (Dec 22):  Houston and Army will play in this game.  I enjoy watching Army play football.  If Holiday scheduling permits, I will tune into this game.
• Peach Bowl (Dec 29):  Florida and Michigan should put on an interesting defensive game.  I believe I will be away from home that weekend and I am not sure the game is worth recording for later viewing – – but we shall see.

One big news item from the NFL yesterday is that the Green Bay Packers fired coach Mike McCarthy after losing at home to the Arizona Cardinals.  Recall that the Packers were 14-point favorites in that game despite entering the game with a 4-6-1 record.  There has been plenty of reporting that McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers were on different wavelengths regarding the style of offense and the play-calling this year.  If that is correct, then the onus is on Aaron Rodgers to play a lot more effectively in the remaining 4 games of this season and to be actively engaged in the team’s OTAs and training camp next year under a new coach and a new offensive system.  I don’t know if Rodgers and McCarthy had any significant difficulties, but it certainly has looked to me as if Rodgers has been less intense in his demeanor and approach to games this year.

Another big news item from the NFL over the weekend is the Kareen Hunt situation.  This is a “Ray Rice incident” in the sense that we have indisputable video evidence that Hunt hit and kicked a woman.  There is no doubt about that.  However, there is another sad similarity to the “Ray Rice incident” from several years ago.

• This assault happened 8 or 9 months ago.  There are reports that the Chiefs were aware of the incident and were waiting for the legal process to sort itself out.  When the Chiefs released Hunt, they said it was not evident that he had lied to them about the incident.  I can shed no light on any of that; so, I’ll take it at face value.
• There are also reports that the NFL has been “looking into” this matter for a while now.  And here is where the similarity to the Ray Rice incident from several years ago gets creepy.  Once again, the NFL with all of its investigators and security mavens is unable to find and review an existing video tape of the incident but TMZ Sports is able to do so.

Here is part of the official statement released by the NFL on this matter:

“Consistent with standard investigatory processes, the NFL continues to pursue a complete understanding of the facts.  The NFL’s ongoing investigation will include further attempts to speak to the complainants involved in the incident.  It will include a review of the new information that was made public on Friday – which was not available to the NFL previously – as well as further conversations with all parties involved in the incident.”

The wording “further attempts to speak to the complainants” implies to me that the NFL has not been able to talk to them yet.  The wording “further conversations with all parties involved” implies to me that they have at least exchanged pleasantries with the complainants.  Which is it?

And the elephant in the room is the tape evidence.  The NFL investigators were never able to get their hands on the tape.  Is that because they never thought to ask if one existed?

Normally, one would offer the benefit of the doubt to the investigator here as he/she seeks all pertinent information.  However, the NFL’s history when it comes to dealing with incidents of this type – and incidents where no “indisputable video evidence” ever surfaces – makes any benefit of the doubt difficult.  The cynic in me says this is a likely outcome:

1. Hunt professes contrition for the incident and acknowledges that he has anger management issues.
2. Hunt checks himself into “anger management rehab” and upon emerging from it says that he will undergo continued therapy supervised by Dr. Joseph Flabeetz.
3. No charges are ever pressed related to the videotaped incident and the complainants never reveal why that is the case.
4. The NFL investigation never collects any pertinent information.
5. The NFL punishes Hunt for some or all the 2019 season and then he is reinstated as an eligible player in 2020.

Finally, here is a definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Automobile:  An individual land transport vehicle used mainly to provoke the extension of the human middle finger.”

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

After a discombobulated schedule last week, it feels as if cosmic order has been restored as Football Friday falls on Friday this week.  So, let me tee it up and kick it off…

In college football, the dominant stories of the past week fall into two distinct categories:

1. The Conference Championship Games upcoming this weekend and the implications of those games for the CFP.
2. Coaching changes at schools that are nowhere near sniffing a place in a Conference Championship Game.

Let me start with the coaching changes.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Paul Johnson will retire after whatever bowl game Georgia Tech plays in this season.  Johnson is 61 years old and has been in the coaching business for 40 years.  His first job was as a high school coach the year after he graduated from Western Carolina.  His first head coaching job was in 1997 at Georgia Southern where he was most successful winning two national championships in the division 1-AA playoffs.  After that he was the head coach at Navy before taking over at Georgia Tech.  His overall record as a college head coach is 198-89.

Via con Dios, Paul Johnson.

Another coaching change took place at UNC – to the shock of almost no one.  Juxtaposing Larry Fedora’s nonsensical remarks at the ACC coaches pre-season media day with two consecutive horrid seasons made it a no-brainer to put him out to pasture.  The surprise from UNC was the announcement that Mack Brown would leave the TV studio and return to UNC to take over the program there.  Brown had been very successful in Chapel Hill prior to leaving to take the Texas job.

Hiring Mack Brown raises an interesting question.  Is there a mini-movement within college football to seek out old-timers as coaches as opposed to seeking out the latest/greatest hot-shot coordinators who are still working on their second razor blade?  Consider:

• Mack Brown is 67 years old.  His last time on the sidelines was in 2013.  He won the BCS national championship in 2005 and has a career record of 244-122-1.
• Les Miles is 65 years old.  He just took the job at Kansas a couple of weeks ago shouldering the burden of trying to make Kansas football into something better than a laughingstock.
• Herm Edwards was 63 years old last year when Arizona State pulled him out of a TV studio to run the football program there.  Edwards had never coached at the college level and had been on TV for the 9 years before his hiring.
• Bill Snyder is 79 years old.  He was 70 when K-State hired him back for a second stint on the sidelines there.  Last year, K-State signed him to a 5-year extension to run through the 2022 season when he will be 83 years old.

If this is a trend, when should I expect to hear rumors about Lou Holtz (age 81) and or Lee Corso (age 83) taking over the football program at Whatsamatta U?

Lovie Smith is a youngster at age 60.  Moreover, his tenure at Illinois over the past 3 seasons has been “less than outstanding”.  His record there is 9-27 overall which is not nearly “good”, and his Big-10 conference record is 4-23 which is fairly described as “pathetic”.  Notwithstanding that record, Illinois just extended Lovie Smith’s contract for two more years meaning he will be there for the next 5 years.  Clearly, Illinois administrators are hoping that their football fortunes will take an upturn as Lovie Smith “matures” into his late-60s…

NCAA Conference Championship Games:

(Fri nite) Northern Illinois vs Buffalo – 4 (51):  In MAC-country, this is a big game – meaning it might actually draw 25,000 fans if the weather is decent.  Northern Illinois has lost two games in a row and is still in this championship game.  I just cannot get excited about this one.  If pressed, I would take Buffalo and lay the points, but no one is pressing me…

(Fri nite) Utah vs Washington – 5.5 (44.5):  The winner of this game will play in the Rose Bowl as the PAC-12 champion.  Washington beat Utah 21-7 two months ago.  Both teams rely on tough defense to win games.  I agree with the oddsmakers that the game will be low-scoring and because I believe that I will take Utah plus the points.

UAB vs Middle Tennessee St. – 1.5 (45):  UAB killed its football program and then revived it a couple of years ago; already UAB is in the C-USA championship game.  Other than that, I don’t find much to command my attention.

Memphis vs UCF – 3 (64.5):  The Total Line opened the week at 70 points and has dropped steadily all week long.  The winner is the AAC champion; and if that winner is UCF, it will require a certain set of college football observes to say once again that UCF belongs in the CFP as one of the 4 best teams in the country.  Hi-ho…  I think the falling Total Line is a recognition that the loss of UCF’s starting QB will likely change the way UCF approaches the game.  Purely a hunch, but I’ll take this game to stay UNDER.

Texas vs Oklahoma – 8 (77):  The winner here will be the Big-12 champion.  I like the format of the Big-12 here pairing the two teams in the conference with the best records in the championship game rather than two divisional champions where the strength of the two divisions might vary widely.  Texas won the previous meeting between the teams this year; it was Oklahoma’s only loss of the season.  The stat that is being widely disseminated about this game is that Texas coach, Tom Herman, is 10-1-1 as an underdog over the last 4 seasons.  I do not think Texas will beat Oklahoma again in this game, but I also cannot put any faith in the Sooners’ miserable defense to keep the game inside that number.  I’ll take Texas plus the points.

Louisiana-Lafayette vs Appalachian St. – 16.5 (57):  The winner here is the Sun Belt champ.  I’m sure that matters to alums from the two schools…

Georgia vs Alabama – 13.5 (63):  This is clearly the NCAA Game of the Week.  My first thought was that this spread was a mistake.  Almost 2 TDs in the SEC Championship Game???  Then I went and did some math; Alabama has won its SEC games – not counting the out-of-conference games against Louisville and The Citadel – by just over 32 points per game.  Since I can do that math, so can lots of other folks and that is why the oddsmakers have to put the number that high; if not, the books would be hugely unbalanced.  I think Alabama will win this game and Alabama may indeed blow out the Bulldogs much the same as they blew out other good teams this year such as LSU.  But lay that many points against a very good Georgia team at your peril…

Fresno St. vs Boise St. – 2 (53):  The winner here will be the Mountain West Conference champion; I’ll go out on a limb here and say that “State” is gonna win this game.  These teams met 3 weeks ago; Boise St. won that game at home by 7 points and the total points in that game was 41.  It seems to me that the Total Line here is inflated.  I like the game to stay UNDER.

Pitt vs Clemson – 27.5 (53):  The Panthers have pulled off some stunning upsets over the past couple of years, but if they win this game it will shake the college football structure to its foundations.  Frankly, I was not particularly interested in this game until I saw the spread open at 24 points and jump to this level almost overnight.  I think I’ll tune in just to see how the Panthers approach the game when everyone seems to have given them up for dead.

Northwestern vs Ohio St – 14.5 (61):  If the Wildcats win here the CFP folks will have to do some soul-searching.  They do not want to stage their tournament with no team from the Big-10; that would write off a large college football audience.  But if the Wildcats are the champions, they would bring 4 losses to the CFP.

One more NCAA Game of Interest

Stanford – 3 at Cal (46):  This game was postponed because of the poor air quality in Northern California due to the wildfires there.  This rivalry is sufficient that the game must be played even though it is “meaningless” with regard to any conference championship.  I like Cal at home plus the points in this game.

NFL Commentary:

Two weeks ago, there were lots of close games in the NFL.  This week there were more than a few games that were not in doubt in the 4^th quarter.  Let me start with the games that were not exactly nail-biters…

The Bucs beat the Niners 27-9.  Jameis Winston threw for 312 yards and 2 TDs in the game.  More importantly, he did not turn the ball over even one time.  The Bucs’ defense is hardly fearsome and yet the Niners could not ascend to “double-digits” on the scoreboard.  Maybe – – just maybe – – Nick Mullens is not the second coming of Brett Favre.

The Pats beat the Jets 27-13.  The Pats ran the ball for 215 yards and amassed a total of 498 yards total offense.  This game was not nearly as close as the score would make it appear.

The Ravens beat the Raiders 34-17.  Lamar Jackson led the Ravens to this win playing like an NFL QB instead of a helter-skelter college QB.  He still has a lot to learn about being an NFL QB, but he outplayed Derek Carr in this game.  The Ravens had 242 yards on the ground; they scored on a punt return; they scored on a fumble recovery returned for a TD.  The Raiders have lost 6 of their last 7 games and all 6 of those losses have been by double-digits.  Shudder…

The Browns beat the Bengals 35-20.  The Browns ran off to a 28-0 lead and had it on cruise control for the second half.  The Browns broke a 25-game road losing streak with this win; the last time they won on the road was in 2015.  Both Baker Mayfield and Nick Chubb had excellent games against a Bengals’ defense that just plain stinks.  Andy Dalton suffered a hand injury late in the game and will be out for the rest of the season.  The Bengals season is finito.

• [Aside:  Reports say that Marvin Lewis will be “moved upstairs” at the end of the season and that Hue Jackson – late of the Browns and with a recent coaching record of 3-36-1 – will take over the Bengals.  Good luck with that…]

The Chargers beat the Cardinals 45-10.  Midway through the first quarter, the Cards led this game 10-0; then came the deluge.  Philip Rivers completed 25 consecutive passes in this game; that might be easy if the defensive backs were all peg-legged pirates, but this was nominally against an NFL secondary.  Rivers ended the day 28 for 29 with 3 TDs.  The Chargers are only a game behind the Chiefs in the AFC West and – even if they do not catch the Chiefs – they are solidly in command in the AFC wildcard race.

The Texans beat the Titans 34-17.  The Titans looked good early in the game and then collapsed like a cot under a sumo wrestler.  The game turned with the score 10-7 and the Titans with 4^th and 1 inside the Texans’ 5 yardline.  The Titans went for it; they got stuffed; the Texans took over and ran 97 yards on the first play for a TD; the Titans never recovered from that.  The Texans ran the ball for 282 yards on 33 carries.  That is 8.5 yards per carry.  Even if you subtract that 97-yard run from the total, the Texans gained 5.8 yards per carry.

At least there were some close games last week.  The Vikes beat the Packers 24-17.  After the game, Aaron Rodgers tried to indicate that the Packers’ season was not over and that the team merely needed to get to work and win out for the rest of the year.  Not meaning any disrespect for Aaron Rodgers, but that is not happening; the Packers are cooked.  As I watched this game, the Packers seemed to be going through the motions more than anything else; and I include Aaron Rodgers in that category.  Kirk Cousins had a nice game here on a national stage; he threw for 343 yards and 3 TDs with no INTs.

The Broncos beat the Steelers 24-17.  The Steelers certainly left points on the field in this game.  A runner fumbled the ball out of the end zone before crossing the goal line and Ben Roethlisberger threw a brutally ugly INT from the 1-yardline late in the 4^th quarter.  Both were self-inflicted wounds.  The Steelers had 527 yards total offense – – and lost because they turned the ball over 4 times.  The Broncos are 5-6 as of this morning but look at their remaining schedule; it looks pillow-soft to me:

• at Cincy – – winnable game
• at SF – – winnable game
• vs Browns – – winnable game
• at Raiders – – winnable game
• vs Chargers – – suppose the Chargers have their playoff slot locked up here?

The Broncos might post a final record of 10-6 this year.  From this vantage point, they should finish at 9-7 at the worst.

The Colts beat the Dolphins 27-24.  The Colts are making a serious run in the AFC South.  The Texans are in control there for now, but given the way the colts are playing, the Texans need to maintain their focus and keep on winning.  Andrew Luck threw for 343 yards and 3 TDs in this game, but he also threw 2 INTs to keep the game close.  This has not happened often in recent years, but the Colts’ defense came up big in the 4^th quarter.  With the game in a one-score situation, the last two Dolphins’ possessions resulted in 3-and-out.

The Eagles beat the Giants 25-22.  It was a “tale of two halves”.  The Giants dominated the first half leading 19-11 at the break.  The Giant’s offense ran up 346 yards in the first half and then went into hibernation.  The Eagles ran the ball well in second half to set up key passing situations that Carson Wentz converted when needed.  The Giants had a 2-game win streak coning into the game, but it may have been a mirage; they beat two cellar-dwellers (Niners and Bucs) by a total of 7 points.

The Seahawks beat the Panthers 30-27.  The Panthers have now lost 3 in a row and this was the first home loss this year for the team.  Russell Wilson seemed to be running for his life for much of the game, but he still threw for 339 yards and 2 TDs.  Christian McCaffrey was outstanding in the game with 237 yards from scrimmage and 2 TDs.

The Bills beat the Jags 24-21.  The Jags are not only a bad team, they have no discipline or focus.  That is very odd for a team assembled by Tom Coughlin, but it seems to be the case.  For what it is worth, I am now convinced that Blake Bortles does not deserve any more chances to be the starting QB in Jax or anywhere else.  This is the Jags’ 7^th loss in a row and they fired their OC, Nate Hackett after the game; Hackett is a scapegoat and nothing more; the problem is at QB and the commitment the team made to that QB in the last off-season.

The lack of focus/discipline for the jags was in plain view on a play you must have seen a dozen times by now.  With a Jags receiver tackled at the Bills’ 1-yardline, a scuffle broke out and Leonard Fournette – who was not in the game and was on the far sideline from the scuffle – ran about 50 yards to insert himself in the melee and arrived throwing punches.  He was ejected from the game and is suspended this week.

Oh, but it gets worse…  The Jags had the ball with first down at the Bills’ 1-yardline once order was restored.  Carlos Hyde – in for Fournette – lost a yard on 1^st down.  Ok, that is not the end of the world…

• Next came a false start putting the ball back at the 7-yardline.
• Then, a TD pass was nullified by a holding call that put the ball at the 17-yardline.
• On second and goal from the 17, Blake Bortles ran for 1 yard.
• On third and goal from the 16, Bortles took a sack back at the 24-yardline.
• Kicker, Josh Lambo, then put coal tar on this ice cream sundae by missing a 42-yard field goal.

The Cowboys win over the Saints last night was a classic example of a let-down game for the Saints.  With their record at 10-1 and with a 10-game win streak where they had covered the spread in their last 9 games, the Saints came out at half-volume.  Meanwhile, the cowboys were flying all over the field on defense and never allowed the Saints to generate any rhythm.  The Saints’ offense had been in a position to break the all-time NFL record for points in a season; they were averaging over 38 points per game; last night they scored 10 points.  The Cowboys are in a good spot to win the NFC East and make the playoffs.

NFL Games this week:

Indy – 4 at Jax (47):  The Colts have won 5 in a row; the Jags have lost 7 in a row.  The Jags will sit Blake Bortles (a good move) and replace him at QB with Cody Kessler who is 0-8 in his starts at the NFL level.  Leonard Fournette is out too on a suspension.  I’ll take the Colts even on the road and lay the points even on the road.

Carolina – 3 at Tampa (54.5):  This is a must-win game for the Panthers.  They are on a 3-game losing streak and could lose their inside track to a wild card slot in the playoffs with another loss here.  The Panthers are a miserable 1-4 on the road and they are only 1-6 against the spread in their last 7 road games.  The Bucs are not a factor when it comes to the playoffs; they are already playing out the string.  Tread carefully here if you are tempted to make a wager…

Baltimore at Atlanta – 1.5 (49.5):  This will be Lamar Jackson’s first start on the road.  The Falcons’ defense is not a great unit, but it is better than the defenses that Jackson has faced so far this year (Bengals and Raiders).  The game has more playoff meaning to the Ravens, but this is a dicey call.  If I had to make a prediction, I would suggest taking the game to go Over.

Cleveland at Houston – 6 (47):  These teams do not play one another all that often.  The Texans are 4-0 straight up and against the spread against the Browns over the last decade.  The Browns are certainly playing better under Gregg Williams than they were under Hue Jackson but not as good as the Texans whose 8-game win streak should be extended here.

Buffalo at Miami – 3.5 (40):  This game is in a dead-heat for the Dog-Breath Game of the Week.  The Bills are on a 2-game winning streak and they were the underdog in both of those victories.  They are the underdog here too; is that an omen?  Have the Bills finally put some of the pieces together or have they just been fortunate the last two weeks?  Dolphins are hardly a top-level opponent; we shall see…

Chicago – 4 at Giants (44.5):  Is this a trap game for the Bears?  They are on the road; their starting QB may or may not play this week because he suffered a shoulder injury two weeks ago AND the Bears host the conference leading Rams next week.  Meanwhile the Giants season is over, and the Giants’ offense should be stifled by the Bears’ defense.  Unless, the Bears are looking ahead to next week…

Denver at Cincy – 5 (45):   Both teams are 5-6 but they are headed in opposite directions.  The Broncos’ schedule gives them hope to be a playoff contender late in December; the Bengals can start to plan their Caribbean cruise vacations for early January.  The interesting thing to look for in this game is how Jeff Driskel plays taking over for Andy Dalton.  Other than that, …

Rams – 10 at Detroit (55):  Neither team here is on a hot streak relative to the spread:

• Rams are 1-6-1 against the spread in their last 8 games
• Lions are 1-4 against the spread in their last 5 games

These teams are headed in opposite directions.  The Rams are on track to have a BYE Week in the playoffs.  The Lions are on a vector heading to their familiar spot as the cellar-dweller in the NFC North.

Arizona at Green Bay – 14 (44):  I know the Cardinals are bad; you need not work hard to convince me on that issue.  However, the Packers of 2018 are not nearly a juggernaut and they are a 2 TD favorite here?  I know that the Packers are undefeated at home this year (4-0-1), but a 2 TD favorite?

KC – 15 at Oakland (55.5):  Here is another monstrous spread; the Raiders are 15-point dogs at home against a division rival.  Al Davis just choked on his morning bagel at the Celestial Starbucks when he saw that in the Cosmic Post.  Andy Reid specializes in coming back strong off a BYE Week and the Raiders are just a flat-out mess.  Since Andy Reid took over in KC, his teams are 15-5 against division rivals.  If you ask me to justify that 15-point spread, all I have is this:

• Name a team in the AFC that is clearly better than the Chiefs
• Name a team in the AFC that is clearly worse than the Raiders

Jets at Tennessee – 10 (40):  This game is in a dead-heat for the Dog-Breath Game of the Week.  The Jets are not a good road team over the past two years and they are 1-4 against the spread on the road this year.  The Titans need this game to remain playoff-relevant; the Jets have no such motivation.  Having said all that, this line looks awfully fat for a game where points ought to be hard to come by.  Just a hunch, but I’ll take the Jets plus the points.

Minnesota at New England – 5 (49.5):  This is a very important game for the Vikes if they hope to catch the Bears in the NFC North race.  However, the Pats are undefeated at home this year making this a tough road spot for the Vikes.  The Pats ran the ball a lot last week; I doubt they will do a lot of business against the Vikes’ defense with the run so expect Tom Brady to be airing it out a lot here.

SF at Seattle – 10 (46):  This was the game that Richard Sherman circled on his calendar back in July when training camp started.  This would be his return to Seattle and the game was going to be meaningful because Jimmy G was still the Niners QB and the team was not shredded by injuries.  The Niners are 0-6 on the road and only 2-4 against the spread in those 6 games.

(Sun Nite) Chargers at Pittsburgh – 3.5 (51.5):  This is the NFL Game of the Week.  The game was flexed to prime time from a 1:00PM start.  It is an important game to both teams who have their eyes squarely on the playoffs.  There are two interesting trends at work here:

• Steelers are 12-1 in prime-time games – – 9-4 against the spread
• Chargers are 2-8 in prime-time games – – 4-5-1 against the spread

The Chargers will be without Melvin Gordon here, but I like Philip Rivers with a hot hand in this game.  I like the Chargers plus the points.

(Mon Nite) Washington at Philly – 6 (45):  The Skins need this game to keep pace with the Cowboys – at least for the moment – in the NFC East.  I proclaimed the Eagles as “done” a couple of weeks ago and I stand by that projection here – – even if they win on Monday night.  From a wagering perspective, here are two things to keep in mind:

• Eagles are 3-8 against the spread this year
• Skins are 7-4 against the spread this year

Finally, Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times had this perspective on the Jets’ season so far:

“A motorist arrested on a DUI charge in Wayne, N.J., blamed his .13 blood-alcohol reading on the fact ‘I drank too much because the Jets suck,’ according to the police report.

“On the bright side, oddsmakers say he just might have a better chance of winning than the Jets do.”

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

 

 

The dog ate my homework.  As hackneyed as that excuse is as a way to explain why one has failed to do something that was required, you must admire the excuse for what it is.  It is not something easily disproven – – so long as you have a dog.  The first kid to use that excuse probably got away with it – once.  Did someone in the back of the room say, “Why is that interesting?”  Here’s why…

In Ireland, there is an amateur soccer league where there was a scheduled game between Ballybrack and Arklow Town.  To say that the game would be inconsequential would be to heap praise upon it.  Now, it attracted international attention because of the reason given by Ballybrack for the need to cancel the game.  Ballybrack said that one of its players had died in a motorcycle accident.

The good news here is that Fernando Lafuente is alive and well.  Now the folks who run this amateur soccer league have to figure out what to do with the Ballybrack side.  While they are figuring that out, please consider the downstream consequences of that excuse for canceling an upcoming game.

It is difficult to prove that the putative dog did not eat the homework.  At some point down the line, it was going to be very easy to prove that Fernando Lafuente was still vertical, taking nourishment and exchanging oxygen in the biosphere.  When that happened somewhere in the future, what would be the explanation of the Ballybrack braintrust?

Switching gears …  Croatia won the Davis Cup; this is the second time Croatia has won the Cup; the last time was in 2005.  Croatia is a small country in the Balkans; my long-suffering wife and I visited Croatia last June; the population of Croatia is about 4.2M folks.  When we were there, the Croatian team was making a run in the FIFA World Cup tournament and we saw firsthand the level of excitement and pride generated in everyone as the team progressed from game to game; Croatia was the runner-up in the World Cup tournament losing to France in the final game.  In the Davis Cup finals, Croatia and France were the competing sides.

When I saw pictures of the celebrations in Croatia after the team returned home after winning the final match in France, the scenes were reminiscent of what we saw last summer with regard to Croatian progress to the World Cup finals.  It is a small country, but the people there take their international sports competitions very seriously.

The Alliance of American Football (AAF) held its QB draft earlier this week.  There were 4 rounds in the draft; the league consists of 8 teams.  In the first round, 4 of the teams decided to protect one of the QBs that had been assigned to the team and 4 other teams went shopping in the QB market.  Here are the QBs that were “protected” in Round 1:

1. Atlanta Legends protected Aaron Murray who played at Georgia
2. Memphis Express protected Troy Cook who played at Tennessee-Martin
3. San Antonio Commanders protected Dustin Vaughn who played at West Texas A&M.
4. San Diego Fleet protected Josh Johnson who played at the University of San Diego.

There were 4 other QBs involved in this draft whose names may ring a bell with you:

1. Birmingham Iron took Blake Sims with the second pick in the second round; Sims played at Alabama.  [The Iron took Luis Perez in the first round of this draft.  Perez is from Texas A&M-Commerce.  This could be the AAF’s first quarterback controversy.]
2. Atlanta Legends took Matt Simms with the fifth pick in the second round.  He played college football at Tennessee.  Matt Simms is the son of Phil Simms and the brother of Chris Simms.
3. Memphis Express took Christian Hackenberg with the seventh pick in the second round.  Hackenberg played at Penn State and was a second-round pick by the NY Jets.  That never worked out.
4. The Salt Lake Stallions took Matt Linehan with the third pick of the fourth round.  Linehan played college football at Idaho and he is the son of Scott Linehan – the offensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys.

Moving on …  I understand that Curt Schilling is not the most loveable former MLB player out there and I certainly do not want to associate myself with 99% of his remarks/positions in the social/political realm.  Schilling is sort of like that relative who makes the family Thanksgiving gathering even more pleasant by notifying everyone that he will not be able to make it this year.  I get all of that…

And if that is the reason that Curt Schilling is not getting votes for the MLB Hall of Fame, then shame on the voters.  His situation is not the same as the shunning of players who were proven steroid users or players who were never caught using PEDs but … you know.  One can make the argument – and I have made it in the past – that using PEDs enhance the statistics that form the nominally objective basis for Hall of Fame enshrinement.  The whole concept of PEDs is Performance Enhancement after all.

Curt Schilling has more than a few wing-nut quality stances on economics, social issues and politics; moreover, he is all too willing to share them with folks even when he is not asked to do so.  He is not anyone I would want to spend a weekend with; he is someone who deserves objective consideration for the Hall of Fame.  [Aside:  Steve Carleton in rightfully in the Hall of Fame.  Go and check out the Wikipedia page for Carleton under the heading of “Media charges of bigotry and anti-Semitism”.  The views described there are also of “wing-nut quality.]

Finally, Dwight Perry had this comment in the Seattle Times:

“Fit Pregnancy Club, a New York City gym that opened a year ago, caters only to pregnant women and those with infants.

“It’s also the only gym where ‘water breaks’ takes on a whole different meaning.”

 

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

 

 

The big local story of the day is that the Skins claimed Reuben Foster off the waiver list after the Niners released him in the wake of domestic abuse charges.  Obviously, that is a controversial decision and it illustrates the fact that elite athletic abilities can sometimes trump despicable off-field actions.

• Make no mistake; Reuben Foster’s combination of youth, skill and rookie contract status makes him a top-shelf football commodity.
• Make no mistake; Reuben Foster’s record of behavior off the field goes well beyond highly questionable.  [Apologies to Dan LeBatard there…]

This announcement is fodder for local sports radio yakkers.  To no one’s surprise, one of them did a poll on one of the Internet platforms and equally unsurprising were the results.  The fanbase is split into two camps of relatively equal size:

• 55% said they liked the waiver claim
• 45% said they disliked the waiver claim

In a column in this morning’s Washington Post, columnist Jerry Brewer noted that the team front office was not unanimous in its decision to make this waiver claim and that the team relied to some degree on positive testimonials from former teammates at Alabama who had played with Foster there.  [For the record, there are 5 Alabama alums on the Skins’ roster on the defensive side of the ball.]  I point that out to show that the team reportedly did some ”checking”/”due diligence” before making the waiver claim.

However, there is also a report in USA Today that says only one team in the NFL bothered to contact the Tampa police – where the alleged domestic abuse took place – about what the police knew.  That team was not the Skins; that team was the Philadelphia Eagles.  And you may ask now why that is interesting…

• The Skins have a better record in 2018 as of this morning than the Eagles.  Ergo, the Eagles could have claimed Foster before the Skins had a chance to put in their claim.
• If the Eagles indeed contacted the Tampa police and then passed on the waiver claim, it is fair to ask what they may have learned by that contact.  And what the Skins might have learned had they too contacted the Tampa police.

This situation will not be fully resolved for a while.  I fully expect there to be twists and turns along the way.  This will not be ignored in the environment of the MeToo movement.  And to really add some spice to the stew, this matter is now squarely in the hands of Commissioner Roger Goodell who has not showered himself in glory while handling domestic abuse matters in the past.

Moving along …  When Christian Yelich won the NL MVP Award this year, it created an interesting situation regarding MLB.  Consider:

• The 2017 NL MVP was Giancarlo Stanton.  The Marlins traded him away in a cost reducing move.
• The 2018 NL MVP was Christian Yelich.  The Marlins traded him away in a cost reducing move.

I think I am on relatively solid footing to assert that having two different players who recently won the NL MVP on a team ought to produce a team that generated excitement and enthusiasm in that team’s fanbase.  However, the Marlins traded both players away for economic reasons.  So, that makes me ask once again;

• Is Miami, FL a sufficiently robust market for a MLB team?

In 2017, the Marlins drew 20,295 fans per game for 78 home games.  That is a total draw of just under 1.6M fans.

In 2018, the Marlins’ attendance cratered from that already low mark to an average of 10,014 fans per game.  That represents a drop of more than 50% year-over-year and a total draw of 811K fans.

In the 2010 census, Miami had a population of 399,500 people.  In that same census, other baseball cities were smaller – – and yet provided better team support for the local heroes.  Miami is bigger than:

1. Oakland
2. Minneapolis
3. Cleveland
4. Tampa
5. St. Louis
6. Pittsburgh
7. Cincinnati

[Note:  I left off cities like Arlington, TX and Anaheim, CA from this list.  Those cities are indeed smaller than Miami, but those teams draw from nearby metro areas that dwarf Miami.]

It seems to me that the Miami Marlins ought to be on a short list of teams that MLB should relocate.

Finally, Dwight Perry had a comment recently in the Seattle Times related to a small drop in MLB attendance for 2018 as compared to 2017:

“Attendance at Major League Baseball games dropped 4 percent this season.

“Must have been all those players kneeling for the national anthem.”

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

 

 

Back in May after the NFL Draft but before any team conducted their summer OTAs, the oddsmakers posted the win totals for every NFL team so that fans could bet OVER or UNDER.  Here is a link to an article that summarizes all of those prop bets.

Let me save you some trouble here.  If you add up the win totals for all 32 teams, it comes to more than 256 wins – – which is not possible since there are only 256 NFL regular season games.  The reason for that disparity is that the betting public tends to bet OVER more frequently and more heavily than they bet UNDER.  The oddsmakers are not trying to predict how many games the teams will win; the oddsmakers are trying to set numbers that will get an equal amount of money bet on either side of each proposition so the oddsmakers can make a living on the vig.

Obviously, the smart thing to do there was to bet every team to go UNDER because some of those bets were guaranteed to be good with only 256 games to be played.  Now that we are about 75% of the way through the season, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of those props from last May.

1. The Packers must go UNDER the 10 wins in the prop bet.
2. The Saints are already OVER the 9.5 wins in the prop bet.
3. The Raiders must go UNDER the 9.5 wins in the prop bet.
4. The Falcons must go UNDER the 9.5 wins in the prop bet.
5. The Rams are already OVER the 9.5 wins in the prop bet.
6. The Niners must go UNDER the 8.5 wins in the prop bet.
7. The Chiefs are already OVER the 8 wins in the prop bet.
8. The Bears are already OVER the 5.5 wins in the prop bet.

In addition to these 8 prop bets that are already decided – that is 25% of the universe of possible wagers – there are several teams that can earn a push if they win out for the season.  Take the Eagles for example; they have won 5 games to date with 5 left to play.  The win total in their prop bet was 10; they cannot possibly go OVER but they can still get to a push on the prop bet if they win their remaining games.  There are several teams in that status at the moment.

I will try to remember to do a tally of all these prop bets at the end of the regular season to see how the “strategy” of taking every team to go UNDER would have fared.

Moving on …  When Jon Gruden took over the Raiders last winter, some people thought that the game had changed since his coaching days and that he might have difficulty adapting to the “new NFL”.  Because he had stayed in close touch with the NFL as part of his broadcasting preparations, I did not think that would be a major problem for him, but I did wonder how his “roster philosophy” would fit with the roster that existed in Oakland upon his arrival.  Yes, one can turn over a roster; I understand that.  I also understand that such a process does not happen overnight, nor does it happen without some ”discontinuities”.

With the Raiders’ record standing at 2-9, I think it is fair to say that there have indeed been some “roster discontinuities” that have been less than positive – and I am not talking about the trading of Khalil Mack.  It is more than that…

Jon Gruden’s calling card in the NFL is as an “offense guy”.  I will spot him for the moment the major error that he made in trading away Khalil Mack.  What I will not spot him is the decision to release Michael Crabtree and then to trade away Amari Cooper.  Do not misinterpret; I am not trying to make either one of them out to be the next coming of Jerry Rice or Randy Moss; neither of them is nearly that good.  However, both are significantly better than what Jon Gruden has kept on the Raiders’ roster – or brought to the Raiders’ roster – this year.

Last week, Derek Carr targeted Marcell Ateman 10 times in the Raiders’ loss to the Ravens; no other Raiders’ pass-catcher was targeted more than 5 times in that game.  Ateman is a rookie WR from Oklahoma State; he caught 3 of those passes for a total of 16 yards.  I have a difficult time believing that Marcell Ateman is a better WR than either Michael Crabtree or Amari Cooper.  Maybe that is more than an insignificant part of the reason why the Raiders rank 24^th in the NFL in offense as of this morning?

And speaking of roster moves that look like bad decisions, the Jags decided in the last offseason to give Blake Bortles a 3-year extension at $54M.  It seems logical to interpret that move as saying:

• We were 15 minutes away from beating the pats and going to the Super bowl in 2017.
• Blake Bortles was sufficient to get us to that point.
• If we shore up some other parts of the team, we can get over the hump here.

As I understand that contract extension, the Jags paid Bortles $15M as a signing bonus and guaranteed him $27M over the three years of the deal.  His base salary for 2018 is $5M meaning that he has already pocketed $20M of that $27M guarantee.  With the Jags on the horns of a 7-game losing streak and Bortles being benched this week in favor of Cody Kessler, the decision to commit to Bortles last off-season deserves serious scrutiny.  Moreover, it creates an off-season dilemma for the team again this year.

• Do the Jags bring Bortles back once again as the presumed starter?
• Do they eat the additional $7M they owe him as a guarantee and move on?
• Can they afford the $17M cap hit he will consume in 2019 if they release him?

Finally, since I mentioned the Raiders’ difficulties this season, let me close with this observation by Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“’Super Bowl’ in Oakland now refers to:

• “a game the Raiders used to play in once in a while
• “what owner Mark Davis requests when he goes to the barbershop.”

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

 

 

I will not pretend that I follow Canadian football closely; I do not.  I tune in a game occasionally when other things are less interesting, but I do try to watch the Gray Cup game every year.  It happened yesterday; I recorded it and watched it once the Sunday night game was over.  Congratulations to the Calgary Stampeders as the 2018 CFL champions.  The Stampeders beat the Ottawa Redblacks 27-16.

• [Aside:  When I started viewing the game, I was confused for the first several minutes.  The team wearing red and black uniforms was not the Redblacks; the team wearing the white uniforms was the Redblacks.  Whatever…]

I have had fun in the past with the name of the Stampeders’ QB, Bo Levi Mitchell.  [When I see his face, then I’m a BoLevier…  Sorry about that.]  After seeing him play a couple of times, I think that NFL teams that are “deficient at the QB position” might want to give this guy a chance.  I do not think he is the next coming of Andrew Luck or anything like that, but I do “bo-lieve” that he can play QB better than some of the guys who hold those positions in the NFL this year.

I know that Calgary is a long way from Florida and maybe that is the reason that no one from any of the 3 NFL franchises in that state have cast their eyes upon Mitchell.  Having identified that geographical region, let me say that Bo Levi Mitchell would improve the “quarterback room” for any and all of those 3 franchises.  Mitchell is 28 years old and played college ball at Eastern Washington – the same small school that produced Cooper Kupp for the NFL.

Speaking obliquely about potential sources of quarterbacking talent for the NFL, the AAF – the Alliance of American Football – will hold a QB Draft tomorrow night.  It will be different from the NFL Draft; so, let me explain.

• There are 8 teams in the soon to commence AAF.
• QBs who have signed with the league have been assigned to the teams closest to where they played college football to generate regional interest.  Those QBs now are subject to the AAF Draft.
• The model is “Protect or Pick”.  A team may designate any of the QBs assigned to it as a “Protected Player”; that would take that QB out of the draft.  It also will serve as the 1^st round draft pick for the team opting to “protect” a QB.
• There will be 4 draft rounds.
• There are a few interesting names in the upcoming draft including Christian Hackenberg, Josh Johnson, Aaron Murray and Scott Tolzein.

The AAF will commence operations in February 2019 a week after the NFL season ends with the Super Bowl.  It has a TV deal in place with CBS; it has its franchises geographically skewed toward the south and southeastern part of the country where football is most popular.  The eight teams are:

1. Arizona Hotshots
2. Atlanta Legends
3. Birmingham Iron
4. Memphis Express
5. Orlando Apollos
6. Salt Lake City Stallions
7. San Antonio Commanders
8. San Diego Fleet

It was a disappointing season for Nebraska football.  Scott Frost returned to coach the team he had led to a national championship about 20 years ago and expectations were high.  The Huskers lost their first 6 games and finished the season at 4-8.  Notwithstanding the failure to return to glory, Brad Dickson – formerly with the Omaha World Herald – came up with several reasons that Nebraska fans should be thankful.  Here are 3 reasons that I particularly liked:

“Husker fans can be thankful that the Memorial Stadium hot dogs are made of the finest ground sandhill crane meat available.”

And …

“Nebraska fans should be thankful that the team isn’t involved in one of those Big Ten rivalry games where the winner gets a trophy that depicts a cow’s snout or a hog’s anus.”

And …

“Nebraska fans can be thankful that the new Tunnel Walk is 12 million times better than the highlight of our 150th birthday celebration which consisted of Gov. Pete Ricketts waving a sparkler from atop a hay wagon while screaming ‘Kansas blows!’ in 23 languages.”

Before you ask, I did not cough up any legal tender to watch the concocted golf match over the weekend nor did I go and find out who won what in that competition.  The only reason that a golf tournament borders on watchable on TV is because there are cameras at every hole and one can bounce from place to place to see golfers attempting to put the ball in the hole for most of the time you are staring at the screen.  With only 2 players to follow, the round of golf could take about 4 hours with a total of 10 minutes of “action”.  That is not entertaining; that is not compelling TV.

Finally, here is Brad Dickson once again with an observation about Nebraska Coach, Scott Frost and his family:

“Things I think about when I’m cold: if Scott Frost has a sister and she married former Mississippi coach Hugh Freeze she’d be Susie Frost-Freeze.”

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

 

 

We live in unusual times.  Football Friday falls on a Wednesday this week.  The reasons for that calendar anomaly are pretty simple:

• There are a lot of interesting football games scheduled for Thursday this week that would be moot if all of this happened on Friday of this week.
• Given the social aspects of the Thanksgiving Holiday and the status of our visitor for the holiday, I am not nearly certain that I will write anything on Friday – – let alone a football saga.

The downside of writing on a Wednesday is that all references to spreads and Total Lines are subject to major revision as kick off approaches.  Any references to those sorts of data need to be taken in the context that we are nowhere near the final numbers.  For that reason, I will not try to do a Six-Pack for the week using lines so far in advance of the games.

And so, with that as a prelude, here comes the inaugural “Football Wednesday” for 2018…

NCAA Football Commentary:

This has been an unusual college football season to say the least.  In 2018, we have seen more than a few “blueblood” college football programs suffer from unusually bad years.  It is not unusual for one or two of those bluebloods to have a “down year” – unless of course we are talking about Alabama under Nick Saban – but there have been a lot more than “one or two” this year:

• Arkansas is 2-9.  Among other shellackings, they lost to North Texas by 27 points; Frank Broyles is rolling over in his grave.
• Auburn is 7-4.  Some folks expected them to challenge Alabama for SEC West supremacy.  Auburn – traditionally – is not a 4-loss team heading into the Iron Bowl game against Alabama.
• Florida State is 4-6.  Bobby Bowden would be rolling over in his grave – – if he were actually dead at this moment.
• Miami is 6-5.  In the middle of this season they had a 4-game losing streak an none of the victors in that 4-game streak will be in the CFP at the end of the year.
• Penn St. is 8-3.  Let me just say that the Nittany Lions’ last 4 wins have not been awe-inspiring…
• Stanford is 6-4.  They have lost 3 close games, but it still represents an under-achievement for the Cardinal.
• UCLA is 2-9.  They beat USC but have been trounced in five of their losses.
• USC is 5-6.  They handed Washington St. its only loss of the year; other than that…

Meanwhile, some teams that have not been powerhouses of late asserted themselves this year:

• Arizona St:  The Sun Devils were picked to finish last in the PAC-12 South this year but posted a record of 6-5 including wins over Michigan St. and Utah.
• Purdue:  The Boilermakers are a lot better this year than the “Pur-don’t” teams of recent years.  They beat Ohio State badly.
• Utah:  The Utes are 8-3 and will be the South Division participant in the PAC-12 Championship Game.
• Washington St:  The Cougars are 10-1 for the first time in 20 years – – back to the time when Ryan Leaf was their QB.

Kansas hired Les Miles as its next football coach.  Miles won a national championship at LSU in 2007 and he was the SEC Champion is 2011.  Let me say without fear of contradiction that Kansas is not a school with national championship trophies galore nor expectations that there will be lots of them in the next several years.  Kansas is a backwater of college football.

• The Jayhawks last winning season was in 2008.
• Since 2009, the Jayhawks have not won more than 3 games in any single season.

According to reports, Miles will get $2.7M per year for four years to try to build a football program in Kansas.  It will not be an easy task…

Michigan avoided its “trap game” last week against Indiana.  The Wolverines were sluggish at the start and trailed at the half but rallied to beat the Hoosiers 31-20.  Indiana gained 385 yards on offense which is the most yardage surrendered by the Michigan defense all year.  This week is Ohio State…

Ohio State barely survived its “trap game” against Maryland beating the Terps 52-51 in OT.  That is correct; the Buckeyes surrendered 51 points to Maryland.  This week is Michigan …

The Big-10 honchos must be rooting for Michigan in that game because they need Michigan in the conference title game to be sure of a slot in the CFP.  Ohio State has a bad loss on its resume to Purdue – and it gave up 51 last week to a mediocre Maryland squad.  Michigan also has a loss, but it was to Notre Dame who is undefeated for the season.

[Aside:  If you like chaos and controversy, imagine what happens regarding the CFP Selection Committee if Northwestern wins the Big-10 Championship Game with 4 losses – one of them to Akron.]

Penn State beat Rutgers 20-7.  In that game, Rutgers gained more yards rushing than Penn State did by a margin of 49 yards.  If there were a prop bet on that before the game, I know it would have been at very high odds.

Northwestern beat Minnesota 24-14 in a ho-hum game for both teams.  What is noteworthy here is that this is the 8^th consecutive road win for Northwestern and that is impressive.

Wisconsin beat Purdue 47-44 in triple-OT.  The Badgers’ RB, Jonathan Taylor ran for 321 yards and 3 TDs in the game.

Iowa beat Illinois 63-0.

Notre Dame remained undefeated beating Syracuse 36-3 in Yankee Stadium.  Going into this game Syracuse had given up 137 points in 4 road games; their defense does not travel well.  The field goal scored by Syracuse came with 10 seconds left in the game and it was a 28-yard attempt meaning the ball was about at the Notre Dame 10 yardline.  I guess it looks better to avoid a shutout and kick that field goal rather than admit that the Notre Dame defense was too fearsome on that day.  By the way, the Irish averaged 6.3 yards per offensive play in the game.

Pitt beat Wake forest 34-13 to secure a place in the ACC Championship Game against Clemson.

Miami beat VA Tech 38-14.  The game was close at the half, but Miami dominated the second half 21-0.

Oklahoma St. beat W. Virginia 45-41 in Stillwater.  The winning TD came with 11 seconds left in the game.  This is the second loss for W. Virginia and they play Oklahoma this week.  Here is a stat/trend to consider:

• Since joining the Big 12 Conference in 2012, the Mountaineers have never beaten the Sooners.

Texas beat Iowa St. 24-10 last week.  This game had significance thrust upon it by W. Virginia’s loss.  Given the outcomes of this week’s action, Texas may be part of the Big-12 Championship Game.

Oklahoma beat Kansas 55-40.  Yes, Kansas scored 40 points in this game against the Sooners’ supposed defense.  The Jayhawks generated over 500 yards of offense and RB, Pooka Williams ran for 252 yards and 2 TDs – – averaging more than 16 yards per carry.

UCLA beat USC 34-27 and that means USC will have to beat Notre Dame this week to be bowl eligible.  The Irish are favored to remain unbeaten.

Washington beat Oregon St. 42-23.  The Huskies led 28-3 after the first quarter.  This game was on cruise control after that…

Washington St. beat Arizona 69-28.  The score was 55-14 at halftime.  Cougars’ QB, Gardner Minshew was 43 for 55 for 473 yards and 7 TDs in the game.  The Apple Cup game this week between Washington and Washington St. will determine the PAC-12 North Division champ.

Utah beat Colorado 30- 7.  That makes 6 losses in a row for Colorado after starting the season 5-0 against bad opponents.  The total offense for Colorado was 196 yards including 34 yards rushing on 34 attempts.   Utah is the PAC-12 South champ due to this win and losses by both Arizona and Arizona State last week.

Bowling Green beat Akron last week.  Bowling Green was a SHOE candidate 2 weeks ago and have now won 2 in a row.  That should take them out of consideration for this year.

W. Kentucky beat UTEP 40-16. Both teams were on the SHOE Watchlist last week.  UTEP will stay there for sure.

East Carolina beat UConn 55-21.  UConn gave up 55 points in a game for the 5th time this season.  The UConn defense his historically bad.  I believe the “worst defense” record holder is Kansas in 2015 when the Jayhawks gave up 561 yards per game for the season.  [I only looked back to 2000 so that may be wrong.  However, before that, college football was not as much an offensive game as it is today.]  UConn has allowed 627 yards per game so far this year and there is only one game left.  Let this sink in:

• Even if UConn holds Temple to zero yards offense in this week’s game, it will set the record as the worst defense ever in major college football.

The SHOE Watchlist:

Since the SHOE Tournament will only accommodate 8 teams and since this is the last week of the season, it is time to cut the watchlist down from 12 teams to 10 teams.  Here they are:

1. Central Michigan  1-10
2. Georgia St.  2-9
3. Kent St.  2-9
4. Louisville  2-9
5. San Jose St.  1-10
6. Rice 1-11
7. Rutgers  1-10
8. Tulsa  2-9
9. UConn 1-10
10. UTEP  1-10

NCAA Games of Interest:

(Fri) Texas – 15 at Kansas (49):  Texas could be part of the Big 12 Championship game with a win here and a W. Virginia loss to Oklahoma.

(Fri) Oregon – 17.5 at Oregon St. (69.5): They call this rivalry game “The Civil War”.

(Fri) Oklahoma – 2.5 at W. Virginia (83.5):  The Mountaineers need a win here to be certain of a slot in the big 12 Championship Game because Texas is likely to prevail over Kansas.  By the way, that Total Line is not a typo; it opened the week at 80 points and has been rising all week; one sportsbook has it at 84 points.

(Fri) Washington at Washington St. – 2.5 (49):  The winner plays Utah for the PAC-12 Championship.

Kentucky – 17 at Louisville (51):  This is a much bigger basketball rivalry than a football rivalry.

South Carolina at Clemson – 26 (59): This is a big rivalry game, but it also looks like a mismatch this year.

Syracuse at BC -7 (57):  Will the Syracuse defense make the trip with the team this week?

Michigan – 4.5 at Ohio St. (56):  The winner plays Northwestern in the Big-10 Championship Game.  Michigan’s defense is ranked first in the country; Ohio State’s defense just gave up 51 points to Maryland…

Ga Tech at Georgia – 17 (59):  These games are often much closer on the scoreboard than would be predicted from team records.

BYU at Utah – 11 (44):  This is a rivalry game that does not get the same national recognition as many others – – but it is just as real and just as intense.

Florida – 6 at Florida St. (52):  This has been a much more important game in previous years.

Purdue – 4 at Indiana (65):  This is another rivalry game that does not get all the attention it deserves.

Notre Dame – 10.5 at USC (54):  If Notre Dame wins and is undefeated, they will be in the CFP this year because of their impact on TV ratings.

Auburn at Alabama – 24 (52):  It is not often you see a spread of this size in the Iron Bowl.

NFL Commentary:

The Saints beat the Eagles 48-7.  Last week, I said this game could get ugly; it went well beyond “ugly” and all the way to “grotesque”.  The Eagles offense was only 196 yards and Carson Wentz threw 3 INTs.  The Saints had 546 yards on offense and have a shot at breaking the NFL team scoring record.  That record is held by the 2013 Broncos with 606 points.  As of this morning, the Saints average 37.8 points per game and at that pace would score a total of 605 points for the season.  They have a shot at the record…

The Colts beat the Titans 38-10.  If you doubt the value of Andrew Luck to the Colts compare the way this team plays as opposed to last year’s version of the Colts.  While you are at it, check out the play of the Colts’ OL this year.  Last year, Colts’ QBs were running for their lives more often than not; this year, Luck has actual time to set up and throw the football.  The Titans were just awful in this game and an injury to Marcus Mariotta’s arm is not the only bad thing to come from the game.  The Titans’ defense is what carries that team and they were torched on Sunday.

Those two games above were the only blowouts of the week; the rest of the games were close and most went down to the final possession.

The Ravens beat the Bengals 24-21.  This was the first start for Lamar Jackson at QB and he ran the ball 27 times in the game.  He produced a win but that is not a sustainable offense over the course of a season.  Jackson is a talented runner to be sure, but that is not a formula for success in the long term.  The Ravens ran the ball for 265 yards in this game just a week after the Bengals fired their defensive coordinator.  That helped a lot …  Well, maybe there was some improvement there; the Bengals had given up 500+ yards in each of their previous 3 games and last week, they only gave up 403.

The Cowboys beat the Falcons 22-19 with a field goal as time ran out.  Ezekiel Elliott produced 201 yards from scrimmage.  The Falcons had ample yardage on offense but had to settle for field goals too often.  That has been the story of their season…

The Texans beat the Skins 23-21.  A game-winning field goal attempt by the Skins with no time remaining fell short.  Skins’ QB Alex Smith suffered a season-ending – – and maybe a career-ending – – leg injury in the game.  That makes 7 wins in a row for the Texans; their defense carried the day with 5 sacks and a Pick-Six.

The Giants beat the Bucs 38-35.  Saquon Barkley ran for 142 yards here; the Bucs defense is not good but some of his runs would have worked against any defense.  Eli Manning was 17 for 18 in the game and the Giant’s defense contributed 3 INTs.  The Bucs trailed badly and benched Ryan Fitzpatrick giving Jameis Winston the opportunity to try a furious comeback – – when he almost accomplished.  Once again, the Bucs had 500+ yards of offense and lost the game; that is the 3rd time that has happened this year.

The Steelers beat the Jags 20-16.  Ben Roethlisberger scored the winning TD on a 1-yard run that seemingly took 4 or 5 seconds to happen.  Roethlisberger was intercepted 3 times in the first 3 quarters and then he generated 3 TDs in the 4th quarter to pull the game out.  The Jags led 16-0 and coughed it up.  The Jags ran the ball 49 times in the game indicating to me that they suspected that “Bad Blake” Bortles might show up on that Sunday.

The Lions beat the Panthers 20-19.  Panthers’ kicker Graham Gano missed a short FG and a PAT in the game.  With a minute to go, Panthers scored a TD to make it 20-19.  Riverboat Ron Rivera went for the 2-point conversion to “win the game”; I suspect he was afraid to put Gano out there with the chance to “lose the game” in broad daylight.  Cam Newton missed a wide-open receiver in the end zone on that 2-point try and the game was over.

The Broncos beat the Chargers 23-22 on a last second field goal.  Philip Rivers threw 2 INTs in the game; that is the first time this year he has done that.  Also, the Chargers missed a PAT and lost the game by a single point.  Broncos’ QB Case Keenum led the game winning drive going 85 yards in the final 2 minutes to set up the game winning 34-yard FG as time expired.

The Raiders beat the Cards 23-21.  The Raiders defense held Cards offense under 300 yards – – first time this year the Raiders’ defense has done that.  And the Raiders’ defense had 2 INTs in the game.

The Bears beat the Vikes 25-20.  The knock on Kirk Cousins in DC was that he threw INTs at THE most inopportune moments.  Well, he did that again Sunday night with a Pick-Six that iced the game for the Bears.  Khalil Mack was dominating on defense and Akiehm Hicks from the Univ of Regina in Saskatchewan terrorized the middle of the Vikes’ OL too.

NFL Games this week:

The Rams and the Chiefs get a BYE this week after their Monday night track meet last week.  After seeing that game, I would not mind seeing a rematch in the Super Bowl even a little bit.  I connected last week that I could not recall ever seeing a Total Line for an NFL game as high as 63.5 points.  For perspective, the game went OVER in the 3^rd quarter…

(Thurs) Chicago – 3.5 at Detroit (45):  The Bears were very impressive against the Vikes last week and now lead the division comfortably.  It is a young team with a new coach; it will be interesting to see how they handle this prosperity…

(Thurs) Washington at Dallas – 7 (40.5):  The line opened at 9.5 points and dropped quickly to this level.  Colt McCoy will be the Skins’ QB and as a backup, the Skins just signed Mark Sanchez.  McCoy definitely needs to stay healthy…

(Thurs) Atlanta at New Orleans – 13 (60):  This looked like a much more important – and appealing – game back when the schedule makers put it on Thanksgiving night.  Falcons’ fans like to urge the team to “rise up”; I suspect that the Falcons are grounded for this season.

Jax – 3 at Buffalo (37):  This is the Dog-Breath Game of the Week.  Pay it no attention…

Oakland at Baltimore – 10.5 (43):  This is what one of the readers here calls a “Body Clock Game” for the Raiders; they will kick off at 1:00 Pm EST which is 10:00AM on their body clocks.  Evidently, the oddsmaker does not believe that the Raiders “turned the corner” with their win last week.

SF at Tampa Bay – 3 (54.5):  This is a Body Clock Game for the Niners.  Neither team is very good but there is the potential for lots of points here.

Giants at Philly – 6 (46):  Odell Beckham Jr. said the Giants would win out (8 games in a row) and make the playoffs.  They have now won 2 in a row.  Is this #3 …

Cleveland at Cincy – 3 (47.5):  I wonder if the right team is favored in this one…?  The Bengals defense is non-existent.

New England – 9.5 at Jets (46.5):  The Pats had two weeks of practice where the coaches could remind them that their last game was a loss.  That had to be fun.

Seattle at Carolina – 3 (47.5):  Here is yet another Body Clock Game.  The matchup here features two inconsistent teams; the Seahawks are much less predictable on the road and the Panthers are just plain unreliable.

Miami at Indy – 7.5 (51.5):  The Dolphins are 5-5 but have been outscored by 57 points this year.  The Colts are 5-5 and have outscored opponents by 49 points this year.  This game has wild-card implications written all over it.

Arizona at Chargers – 12 (45):  The Chargers lost last week but are still in a good position to get the first AFC wild-card slot in the playoffs.  They need to focus here.

Pittsburgh – 3 at Denver (47):  The Steelers have won 6 in a row and lead their division by a comfortable 2.5 games.  The Broncos are 4-6 and a loss here would make playoff contention a fantasy.  The Broncos are a lot better at home than on the road; this could be an interesting game. I will label it the Game of the Week.

(Sun Nite) Green Bay at Minnesota – 3 (48):  A loss for the Packers would be far more harmful here than a loss for the Vikes.  Back in September, these teams played to a tie.

(Mon Nite) Tennessee at Houston – – no lines:  Until folks know if Marcus Mariotta can play or if Blaine Gabbert will be the titans’ QB, there will no lines posted for this contest.

Finally, here is a comment from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Receiver Juju Smith-Schuster went trick-or-treating in his Steelers uniform.

“If Bears linebacker Khalil Mack followed suit, just imagine how many sacks he’d bring home.”

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

 

 

The pendulum swings back and forth.  The tide comes in and the tide goes out.  Democrats win elections and Republicans win elections.  Things in nature – and in society – tend to go back and forth around an equilibrium point.  And so, I thought there might be an indicator several weeks ago that the Cleveland Browns would reverse course and begin the process of acting like an actual NFL franchise.

The Browns fired Hue Jackson in mid-season; they obviously need to hire a permanent replacement.  In recent times – actually, for the duration of Cleveland Browns 2.0 – hiring coaches has been handled in mysterious ways.  Since Jimmy Haslam took over the team, he conducted the interviews and ran the coaching search.  He bought the Browns in 2012 and since then, the team record is a stunningly awful 23-82-1.  In that time, Haslam fired Pat Shurmer and hired:

• Rob Chudzinski 4-12-0 for one season
• Mike Pettine 10-22-0 for two seasons
• Hue Jackson 3-36-1 for two and a half seasons
• Gregg Williams as the incumbent interim coach.

The expectation for the Browns was another owner-run coaching search that would continue the goat rodeo nature of Browns’ management.  But then came reports that Haslam was going to step aside and let his newly hired – and well respected – new GM, John Dorsey, run the coach selection process.  That may not sound like a watershed event, but it was.  Dorsey has never been a GM before, but he has been involved in the “football operations” of other teams and has been successful in just about every stop along the way.  Haslam’s track record for coaching hires – and player selections in the draft such as Johnny Manziel – has been universally wrong.  Successful franchises let “football people” run the “football side” and have “business people” (like the owners) involved in the “business side”; then the two sides work together – you know, sort of like a team.

So, I thought the pendulum had reached its furthest point in the direction of ineptitude and would begin to swing back toward competence.  And then in an interview, John Dorsey said he was going to consider anyone and everyone for the job including women such as Condoleezza Rice.  If he said that as part of a stand-up comedy routine, maybe it would work in that context; in just about any other context, it is about as dumb as an inflatable dart board.

Before I get accused of chauvinism, I want to speak directly to the pragmatism that exists in 2018 with regard to professional – or college – football.

• The number of women with head coaching experience in the NFL and in major college football is zero.  There is no pool of experience in which to go fishing.
• The number of women with experience as coordinators in the NFL and in major college football is zero.  There is no pool of experience in which to go fishing.
• Condoleezza Rice is a most accomplished woman and an avid sports fan who has no more credentials as a football coach than Pope John XXIII – – and he is dead.

For reasons that will never be known, the Cleveland Browns appear to have suffered yet one more self-inflicted wound on the “credibility axis”…

Moving on …

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald had this comment about a recent election result in Florida – – one that did not need any recounting of votes:

“Florida citizens this week voted to ban dog racing in the state, meaning some 6,000 suddenly retired racing greyhounds may need new homes. Breathing a well-earned sigh of relief: the mechanical rabbit!”

Twenty players will make their first appearance on MLB Hall of Fame ballots this year.  I think two are mortal locks to be enshrined on the first ballot:

1. Roy Halladay
2. Mariano Rivera

I think the “interesting” player on the list this year is Andy Pettitte.  Here is a link to all of his stats compiled on baseball-reference.com.  Those numbers say he should be a strong contender for the Hall of Fame.  Except we know that he was a PED user for the simple reason that he admitted he was a user.

What will be interesting here is to see how the Hall of Fame voters treat a player who has been identified as a user by his own admission and with an aura of contrition.

Finally, since I mentioned above the Browns’ and their coaching search, consider this comment from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Idle thought: Pardon the cliché, but for another season, Bill Belichick is playing chess while the other coaches play checkers.”

Actually, some of those “other coaches” are playing tic-tac-toe as they seek to learn how to play checkers…

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