Daily Rants | The Sports Curmudgeon

Clipboard Items Today…

I am going to hop around from item to item today in an effort to clear some stuff off my clipboard. I will begin with something pointed out to me by a friend and a long-term reader of these rants. One may point one’s Internet browser to walmart.com and order a casket. Oh, but it would not be just any ordinary run-of-the-mill casket. You can order one tricked out with the logo of the deceased’s favorite MLB team; if you follow this link, you will see the casket that might be the final resting place of a NY Yankees’ fan.

If you spend just a moment gazing at that page, you will see that Walmart will also ship other sorts of themed caskets and even cremation urns. I have never shopped for caskets or urns but I have to say that until the moment I saw what is on the end of that link above, I never would have thought of Walmart as a potential purveyor. I am not shocked to learn that MLB would license its logo and its teams’ logos to a casket manufacturer; after all, that is the last opportunity they will have to generate any revenue from the fan who will inhabit the product.

Since the subject of the moment is baseball, let me turn to another baseball item on my clipboard. The Toronto Blue Jays and third baseman, Josh Donaldson, are headed to arbitration as of this morning. Understand, in the world of baseball arbitration, the arbitrator cannot “split the difference”; he/she must pick one of the two numbers on the table. Often – actually I would say usually – the “team offer” and the “player asking price” are pretty far apart and the degree of separation of the two figures tends to drive the sides to an 11th hour settlement at a middle ground figure because each side recognizes that they have a lot to lose in the arbitration hearing.

Not so much in Josh Donaldson’s case. If reports are accurate, the Blue Jays have offered Donaldson a one-year deal worth $11.35M. Last year, Donaldson made just over $3M so this is a hefty raise after an outstanding season. Donaldson’s asking price is $11.8M; the difference between the two numbers is “only” $450K. I say “only” because I would love to see that amount of money show up tomorrow in my checking account; it is not a trivial amount for us ordinary folk. Nonetheless, from the Blue Jays perspective, the difference here is less than 4% more than what they offered in the first place.

The arbitration process is adversarial. The team puts itself in the position of explaining to the arbitrator why the player is not worth as much as he is asking. It is hard to imagine how that sort of proceeding leads to extended goodwill between the player and the team – and after all, the contract in question is only a one-year deal. I wish I understood what the dynamic was here that prevents either side from agreeing to a “split-the-difference” agreement at $11.575M.

I was watching the NFL Conference Championship Games this weekend with some neighbors and one asked me if I thought RG3 would be signed by another NFL team. I said I was sure he would get a shot somewhere but I did not know where. My neighbor said that it was a shame how much the Skins gave up to draft RG3 because it hurt the team. Well, that is what happens when you make a trade; usually one side of the trade makes out much better than the other side and it is often difficult to make that assessment at the time the deal is under negotiation. However, that comment got me thinking about the draft in 2012 – the year RG3 entered the NFL. At the top of that draft, there were some hits and some big misses:

#1 Andrew Luck:

#2 RG3:

#3 Trent Richardson:

#4 Matt Kalil:

#5 Justin Blackmon:

#6 Morris Claiborne:

#7 Mark Barron:

#8 Ryan Tannehill:

#9 Luke Kuechly:

#10 Stephon Gilmore:

Just in case you needed a reminder that the NFL Draft – or the draft in any other professional sport for that matter – is an art and not a science, just look at the career arcs for what teams thought were the ten most valuable players in the draft in that year.

Here is an item from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Hoops du jour: You’re probably on to something if you get the sense that there aren’t any really good men’s college basketball teams this season. Even the highly ranked ones are having trouble winning on the road. Now that the secret is getting out, I fully expect the game’s mouthpieces to peddle the line about ‘parity,’ the time-honored euphemism to explain mediocrity.”

I agree that there are no great teams out there this year; I would not ascribe the situation to “parity”; I would prefer to think that no coach was able to recruit and retain a roster that is good enough to dominate its opponents. Maybe the incoming freshman class this year is not a great crop of players; that happens from time to time. The reason(s) for the lack of a great team remain a mystery to me.

The question in my mind is what this lack of dominant teams does to the upcoming men’s basketball tournament. There are probably a dozen teams who might actually put together a six-game winning streak and win it all. That is far more than one might anticipate in a more typical college basketball season. Does the increase in serious contenders make the tournament more interesting/exciting than usual or not?

My preference is for there to be a few dominant teams separated geographically to the extent that they never play one another until they meet in the tournament. In those situations, I like to follow the progress of those teams throughout the final weeks of February and in early March to try to figure out which one might prevail if they play each other in the tournament. I doubt that sort of situation will obtain this year and so I will have to “spread my interest” over a wider field of candidates this year. It is not my preference, but I am sure it will turn out to be entertaining.

Finally, in this year’s Super Bowl game, the Panthers’ coach will be Ron Rivera; he got the job when he was hired to replace John Fox in Carolina. The Broncos’ coach will be Gary Kubiak; he got the job when he was hired to replace John Fox in Denver. John Fox is now the coach of the Chicago Bears. Might a coaching change there be the Bears’ path to a Super Bowl?

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

Super Bowl Business Matters…

The participants in Super Bowl 50 are set; the oddsmakers in Vegas opened the betting line with the Panthers as a 4.5-point favorite over the Broncos. And with that, I have given you the salient information pertaining to the next and final NFL game other than injuries that occur over the next two weeks. I point that out because today marks the start of the Football Silliness Season; there are two weeks of time and space to fill and only one game to talk about – because no one wants to talk about the Pro Bowl. Think about it this way:

In the playoffs there are 2 or 4 games spread one week apart.

Now we have 1 game with 2 weeks of time and space to fill.

Sadly, that time and space will be filled with minutiae – because there will be nothing else available. I will attempt to avoid any commentary on the Super Bowl game – other than about the business aspects of it – until I do the final Mythical Picks for this NFL season in 11 days. Would that other outlets would try to do the same…

Here is are two “business items” related to the upcoming Super Bowl game in Santa Clara. The first one comes from a note in Dwight Perry’s Sideline Chatter column in the Seattle Times:

“From the You Just Can’t Make Up Stuff Like This file comes word that the NFL — you know, the league with the $44 million-a-year commissioner — is seeking 500 unpaid volunteers to help assemble the stage for the Super Bowl halftime show.”

Over and above the “$44 million-a-year commissioner”, the NFL is a business entity that has $11-12B in annual revenue whose goal is to have annual revenue in the $25B range in the next 10 years. There is no scenario in this universe wherein the NFL can “cry poor” in 2016. And they are asking for unpaid volunteers… Let that one wash over you for just a moment.

Here is the really sad part; the NFL is going to get those volunteers; they are going to get hundreds of people to show up and do work for them without shelling out a dime. Let me do a little math here.

Let us assume that the 500 folks put in 10 hours each day to assemble the stage.

That means there are 15,000 person-hours involved here.

At $10 per hour, the NFL would incur a labor cost of $150K

Assume the NFL provides a nice catered lunch for the 3 days and you can increase the cost to the league by $50K.

As a benchmark, three days of labor to put the stage together would cost the league about $200K. For a $12B business entity, this cost does not make it past the rounding error on the annual Earnings Statement. And by the way, if you doubled the costs here because the stage assembly takes a whole lot more time than I guessed, you still would not make it to the rounding error status…

The NFL is audacious asking for this free labor; the volunteers who give them that free labor are enablers who encourage the NFL to be as anti-social as they are.

Here is another business-related aspect related to the Super Bowl from the Silicon Valley Business Journal:

“A budget analyst report shows that the City of San Francisco will pay $4.8 million to host the celebration the week leading up to Super Bowl 50, while Santa Clara will see all of its hosting costs covered by the NFL’s Host Committee.”

For those of you who are not familiar with the geography of the Bay Area, the game will happen in Santa Clara where the Niners’ new stadium is. Santa Clara is about 50 miles SSE of San Francisco. The majority of the “events” related to the Super Bowl over the next two weeks will take place in San Francisco. According to reports, Santa Clara will have its costs for public safety, fire and emergency medical services reimbursed while SF will foot its own bills.

The only conclusion I can draw here is this:

The folks who represented Santa Clara in their negotiations with the NFL were a lot more skilled than the folks who represented San Francisco.

Here is a link to an article that will give you all the gory details in these deals.

Finally, the Super Bowl halftime show will feature a group called Coldplay whom I would not know from Hotwork. Greg Cote had this comment in the Miami Herald about another rock group performing at a different sporting event.

“Duran Duran will perform at the tennis Miami Open on Key Biscayne. Which would be exciting if this were, like, the 1985 Miami Open.”

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

NFL Coaching Changes – An Assessment

Now that it is official that the Eagles have hired Doug Pederson as their next head coach, the NFL game of Coaches Musical Chairs is over for the 2016 season – barring some unforeseen happening such as a video catching of one of the league’s head coaches in flagrante delicto with a chicken or a household pet. So, let me do a quick rundown of the seven teams that changed coaches here:

Browns:

Bucs: I am not the biggest Lovie Smith fan on the planet but he did triple the number of wins by the Bucs last year as compared to 2014. It seemed as if he was on the right track. The Bucs’ justification here is that Dirk Koetter would have been hired by some other team and that it was Koetter – not Smith – who was responsible for the play of Jameis Winston. If true, the question now is this:

Will Koetter as Head Coach have the same influence on Winston and his continued development as he putatively had as the Offensive Coordinator?

Dolphins: Losing Joe Philbin in mid-season neither helped nor hurt the team; losing Dan Campbell at the end of the season was not a huge loss. Adam Gase is credited with guiding the Broncos offense under Tim Tebow to a playoff win and with upgrading Jay Cutler’s play in Chicago this year. Let me just say that I think the jury is out on the magnitude of those accomplishments; for example, the Bears ranked 21st in total offense in the NFL last season On the plus side, Gase does not have a hard act to follow.

Eagles: Pederson is an Andy Reid disciple. Three years ago, the Eagles fired Reid who took Pederson with him to KC; now the Eagles have hired Pederson. Is this an admission that they should not have fired Andy Reid in the first place? Here is what Eagles’ owner had to say about Pederson when they announced his hiring:

“We are excited to introduce Doug Pederson as our new head coach. Doug is a strategic thinker, a compelling leader and communicator, and someone who truly knows how to get the best out of his players. All of these factors were what initially attracted us to Doug and we believe that he is the right man to help us achieve our ultimate goal.”

So, how did you not recognize all of this “wonderfulness” 3 years ago?

Giants: Given the tone of Tom Coughlin’s departing remarks, I do not think that he was the one who decided it was time for him to leave the Giants. If that is indeed the case, I am trying to recall a situation where a coach was fired after a decade on the job where he won 2 Super Bowls. Lombardi, Noll, Shula, Walsh and Gibbs were not fired; Jimmy Johnson was fired after 2 Super Bowl wins but he had not been in Dallas for a decade. Moreover, Jerry Jones made that blunderous decision; so there’s that… The good news here – I guess – is that the Giants promoted Ben McAdoo from within.

Niners: Jim Tomsula may be the nicest person in the world but he was underwhelming as a Head Coach. I think Chip Kelly showed in Philly that he has some serious deficiencies when it comes to building and selecting a roster. I think he also showed that he has an offensive system that can work. Remember, he won 10 games with Nick Foles at QB and 10 games the next year with Mark Sanchez playing more than a few games. This is the most interesting coaching change of them all as far as I am concerned because it has the potential for huge success and for flaming disaster.

Titans: I do not think the Titans lost a great coach when they fired Ken Whisenhunt. At the same time, I do not think they hired a great coach in Mike Mularkey. This is Mularkey’s 3rd shot at the head job; in his previous stints with the Bills and Jags, his coaching record is 18-39. The Titans will draft #1 overall this year; they drafted #2 overall last year; the bar for “improvement in 2016” is not set high at all.

While those teams were playing Coaches Musical Chairs, the Lions decided to keep Jim Caldwell on in the head coaching position. During the previous season, the Lions fired all sorts of other folks in positions of authority – GM, team president, offensive coordinator. Hey, they probably also fired the guy in charge of painting the logos on the field for game day. But they kept Jim Caldwell and declared that he was the “right man for the job”. From my perspective, the “right man for the job” of coaching the Lions is the guy who is able to convince Calvin Johnson to come back to the Lions and play next year and forget all that talk about retirement.

It is very much in vogue today to offer up “trigger warnings” to sensitive young souls who might feel uneasy simply at the mention of something unpleasant that may have happened in the past. Well, here is a trigger warning for Lions’ fans:

Both men were great players; both men had gas left in the tank; both men are Hall of Fame quality players; both men spent their entire career with the Lions; both men decided to cash in early.

The Lions could not afford to lose Barry Sanders almost 20 years ago; the Lions cannot afford to lose Calvin Johnson now.

Finally, here is an item from Brad Rock in the Deseret News that will allow me to close on a lighter note today:

“A referee at a Toledo-Central Michigan football contest stopped the game to shush the band and cheerleaders.

“After which he was immediately offered a job as a commentator on the Golf Channel.”

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

Looking Back At College Football Bowl Games

“Spinning the message” is not limited to political operatives and political campaigns – although those folks have made spinning into an art form. Even in sports, folks find it necessary to provide “spin” to events. Consider the now mercifully ended college football bowl season. Some folks like to say that more people paid attention to the games this year than in any year in the past; they neglect to mention that there were more games this year than in previous years. Let me try to be factual here; in order to do that, I have to reveal my fundamental biases with regard to college football bowl games:

After watching a full season of college football, I really am not interested in another game that pairs the fifth place finisher in the AAC against the sixth place finisher in the Sun Belt Conference. By late December, I just do not care about that game.

Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald seemingly shares my biases with regard to the plethora college football bowl games. I will share some of his commentary as I move along here:

“There’s a new type of fantasy football. This is when the NCAA fantasizes that anybody still cares after 40 college football bowl games.”

The reality of all this is that ESPN owns and operates many of the games and it owns the broadcast rights to most of the ones that it does not own and operate. ESPN does this because it needs programming; do not delude yourself that there is even a hint of altruism involved here. Here is another comment from Brad Dickson:

“We’re now at the point in college football bowl season when the ‘E’ in ESPN stands for ‘Enough!’ ”

The fact of the matter is that there were 11 college football bowl games before Christmas last year.

One of those three games with a measurable TV rating, was Utah vs BYU which is a huge rivalry game every year so it had an interest angle that no other bowl game had.

Other than the Utah/BYU game which drew 3.675M viewers, not a single one of the pre-Christmas games drew more than 2.335M viewers.

Moreover, eight of the eleven pre-Christmas bowl games drew fewer than 2.0M viewers.

A full listing of the games and the TV ratings and the number of viewers can be found here. From this compilation of data, we can see that “business picked up” after Christmas probably because folks had more leisure time on their hands after the Holiday and because more of the games involved “better than average teams”.

Nevertheless, if one happened to be grazing through the cable TV channels and came across one of the “lesser bowl games”, it was not difficult to see tons of empty seats in the stands at the game. Do not make a mistake and think that TV is the wrong yardstick to use with regard to measuring interest in these games; folks do not go out of their way to attend them either. The average attendance at all 40 bowl games was reportedly 43,817 and if that number seems astronomically high to you because you saw the early bowl games on TV and could almost count the house, that number is based on the officially released attendance figures. Officially released attendance figures might possibly include the number of tickets given to a local supermarket to give away with a purchase of more than $10 – whether or not the recipient used them to go to the game or used them to light the kindling under the Yule Log. Nonetheless, that average figure is a 2% decline from last year. Here is a link to a report summarizing attendance figures at the bowl games this year. Once again, Brad Dickson:

“Very popular this year: videos of ecstatic kids opening Christmas gifts and finding bowl tickets. My favorite was a kid who received tickets to the Quick Lane Bowl and asked if he could return them and get socks.”

In terms of fan interest, there are certainly a dozen – and perhaps as many as 18 – bowl games that can draw a sizeable TV audience and fill a reasonably sized football stadium to 80% capacity or higher. As for the other games, here is Brad Dickson on the subject one last time:

“I wouldn’t say attendance at the Foster Farms Bowl was not good, but even Foster didn’t show up.”

It is dangerous to compare a bowl game this year with the same game last year as a measure of “fan interest”. Such comparisons are alluring but simplistic. Consider one example only:

Fiesta Bowl this year was a game between Notre Dame and Ohio State.

Fiesta Bowl last year was a game between Arizona and Boise St.

Meaning no offense whatsoever to fans of Arizona and Boise St., can anyone say with a straight face that either school commands anywhere close to the same degree of national attention as either Notre Dame or Ohio St.?

Finally, since Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald provided such a large fraction of the insight here today, let me close with another of his observations – this time about NFL football:

“Jilted St. Louis Rams fans sent owner Stan Kroenke a ‘huge pile of feces.’ I’m thinking this may be a subtle sign that not all fans are thrilled with the team’s move to Los Angeles.

“You know what the Rams typically call a huge pile of feces? The game plan.”

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

Pro Football Hall Of Fame Finalists – 2016

These are the 15 finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 2016 in alphabetical order:

The selection rules and procedures to winnow down the finalists to the inductees are outlined here. The maximum number of inductees in a year is held to eight or less. If I had a vote – which I most assuredly do not – here are the six folks I would put in the hall of Fame:

Don Coryell:

Terrell Davis: A knee injury before the days when surgery could rebuild a knee shortened his career; nonetheless his brief career was very good including one season (1998) where he gained 2008 yards rushing.

Brett Favre: Simply a no brainer…

Alan Faneca: He was an outstanding offensive guard.

Terrell Owens: He was hardly a role model or a wonderful teammate in the locker room, but one cannot deny his on-the-field talents.

Orlando Pace: He was the best left tackle in the league for about a 5 or 6 years.

Please note that I would not be offended by any of those 15 candidates making it into the Hall of Fame. They all bring legitimate credentials to the party.

When the Niners hired Chip Kelly, the reports said that Kelly’s contract was for 4 years and $24M; I assume those reports are accurate and for the moment, I will consider that he will make $6M in each year of that contract. The Niners will also be paying Jim Tomsula not to coach the Niners for a while; if reports are correct, the Niners owe Tomsula $10.2M over the next 3 years. That means the Niners are going to spend $28.2M on “head coaches” between now and the end of 2018. That is a whole lot of money to spend on “coaching” and a skeptic might say:

Kelly comes in with big question marks given the ill-will he and more than a few of the Eagles’ present and former players have for one another.

Let me be clear; I am not a “Chip Kelly hater.” His offensive system worked at Oregon and it seemed to work in the first two years in Philly with QBs that were not “ideal” for his system. His skills as a GM/personnel maven and his interpersonal skills may be called into question, but the idea that he might now have Colin Kaepernick available and healthy to run his offense has to be allowed to play out. Kaepernick brings exactly the opposite set of skills to the table as did Nick Foles, Mark Sanchez and Sam Bradford.

Neither Foles, Sanchez nor Bradford fit that description well.

On the other hand, Foles, Sanchez and Bradford have a degree of “pocket presence” and the ability to make multiple reads quickly. Those two things are important in Kelly’s combination-route passing game.

Kaepernick has yet to demonstrate that he is better than average at “reading defenses”.

The Kelly/Kaepernick experiment will be interesting to observe – assuming that is that Kelly has not already decided and agreed with the Niners’ front office “braintrust” to ditch Kaepernick and draft a QB – like Paxton Lynch in the first round of this year’s draft…

The Niners’ success under Kelly is going to require an upgrade to more than just the offense. Kelly’s system when it is working at high efficiency still requires the defensive unit to be on the field for more than half the game. The Niners defense ranked 29th in the NFL last year in yards per game and 27th in the NFL in yards allowed per play by the opponent. If that defense is going to have to be on the field for lots of time every game, that defense needs an upgrade in talent and in depth.

Yesterday, I talked about Jerry Jones and his fascination with Johnny Manziel as a possible backup QB for the Cowboys. The Cowboys had another “problem” in 2015 that led to a 4-12 record. Dez Bryant sat out all of the team’s off-season workouts and OTAs while in contract negotiations; then he broke his foot in Game 1; he came back in time for a “playoff push” indicating that Jerry Jones was living in a fantasy world in November 2015. The problem was that Bryant was terrible. Yes, I agree; he had sub-standard QBs throwing him the ball. That does not negate the fact that he only caught 31 passes for the year.

I mention that because after the regular season was over, Bryant and the Cowboys announced that he would undergo another surgery on his foot and ankle; the consequence of that surgery is that he will not be able to do any “football stuff” until about the time training camp starts in July. That means a second consecutive year without time and effort to work with Tony Romo/Johnny Manziel/whomever the backup QB will be and – most likely – a gradual inclusion of Bryant into the passing game during the exhibition season.

Finally, some words of wisdom from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“Former NFL running back John Riggins is out with his own line of beer, called the 4th & 1 Pilsner.

“Now comes the hard part: getting Sandra Day O’Connor to give it her two thumbs up.”

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

Johnny “Football” And RG3…

According to a report on CBSSports.com this morning, Hue Jackson – the new coach of the Browns – says that the team needs a QB and will consider drafting the right one if he is available. Since the Browns draft at #2 this year, the odds are that a QB will be available to them in the draft so the question is whether or not they think he is “the right one”. Also, that report says that Jackson took the job in Cleveland with the understanding that he would make the decision as to whether or not Johnny Manziel remains on the Browns’ roster. And with that as preamble, let me opine here on the possible futures of two QBs who are likely to be free agents very soon. I speak of Johnny Manziel and Robert Griffin III.

There has been plenty of speculation that Cowboys’ owner and GM and master-of-all-things-Cowboys, Jerry Jones, would bring Manziel to Dallas to be Tony Romo’s understudy. Recall that there were myriad stories about how Jones wanted to draft Manziel a couple of years ago but was talked out of that in order to take offensive guard, Zack Martin.

Jones also told NJ.com in an interview that he feels as if he is lying on his back and looking up and all he sees is ass. He wants to change his viewscape; he wants a completely new look in all his interactions with everyone associated with the team. He said that the Cowboys got “less than they paid for” in 2015 and it cannot be a surprise that he would prefer that not happen again in 2016. Here is a link…

I am going to do a bit of mind-reading here even though I know that is impossible. I suspect that Hue Jackson knows more than a bit about dysfunctionality when it comes to NFL teams. He was the coach of the Raiders in 2011 – the year that Al Davis died. For all the great things Davis did over the course of his career, his final years were enveloped in reclusion, confusion and delusion. Jackson happened to be at the center of that maelstrom.

Then he hooked on with the Bengals as the offensive coordinator and the cost of a “lack of discipline” has to be fresh in his mind after the great “Vontaze Burfict/Adam Jones Fiasco” about 10 days ago. Since I assume that Hue Jackson is smarter than a day-old donut, I think he will try to build a team that shows discipline as one of its characteristics. And that brings us to Johnny Manziel who may or may not have slipped off to Las Vegas to carouse when he was supposed to stay in Cleveland to be part of the NFL’s concussion protocol. That is only the latest alleged incident that might lead some to think that Manziel is not the most trustworthy person on the planet.

If the Browns were to release Manziel tomorrow – they should not! – my guess is that Jerry Jones would have Manziel in for an interview posthaste and assuming that Manziel Is smart enough to show up on time, here is what I think will transpire:

Since that is precisely what Jones wants to hear – because it will allow him to sign Manziel and then crow that he got both the guy he originally wanted PLUS Zack Martin who has already been to a Pro Bowl in his first two years -, the Cowboys will sign Manziel. Jones will say that the team will provide him with ”support” and that all the young QB needs to do now is to work to learn the Cowboys’ offense.

Everyone will leave the press conference with huge smiles and optimism will rain from the skies. I would set the OVER/UNDER on how long it takes for Manziel to be in the headlines again for something other than an on-field football happening at June 1st.

Because Jerry Jones will jump at a chance to sign Manziel, that is exactly why the Browns should not release him until Jones is at the point where he needs to address the backup QB situation in Dallas. Last year should have taught him that backup QB is an important position if you harbor playoff thoughts. When it comes time for Jones to make whatever move(s) he thinks make sense, that is when the Browns can dangle Manziel and at least get a conditional 5th or 6th round pick for him. That may not sound like much, but:

It is a good return for a player who seems to be more dedicated to the proposition that “it’s five o’clock somewhere” than he is to playbook study.

And that brings me to RG3 who appears to be in a similar situation in Washington. Owner, Danny Boy Snyder apparently loved him some RG3 to the point where their bromance created some locker-room tension. As the 2015 season ended, it had to be clear to anyone who paid any attention at all that Coach Jay Gruden wants no part of RG3 next year. When the Skins picked up the option on Griffin’s contract, it guaranteed his salary at something north of $16M for next year if either of these conditions obtained:

RG3 ended the 2015 season with an injury.

To avoid that second possibility, Griffin only dressed for 1 game this year and he never came close to seeing the field in that one. The reason he was dressed that week was that the team did not have enough players designated as “healthy” to put in a uniform to stand on the sideline during the game. Essentially, RG3’s final game as an “active player” in Washington was in the role of an “animated suit dummy” – the description I often used to describe the late Dr. Myles Brand.

RG3 and Johnny “Football” have a lot in common. Both were high school football stars in Texas; both were Heisman Trophy winners playing for colleges in Texas; both play a style of game that is “unconventional” and therefore “exciting” in terms of NFL quarterbacking. So, why should Jerry Jones focus only on Johnny “Football” as he searches for a splashy signing as his backup QB? Frankly, I do not think he will and in the case of RG3 he will not need to be part of a negotiation over a conditional draft pick because the Skins are going to release Griffin for sure. [Aside: If I understand the current CBA correctly, the Cowboys would owe Griffin the $16M guaranteed salary for 2016 if they were to trade for him. Under that circumstance, Jerry Jones would have to be dumber than a dugong even to discuss such a transaction.]

However, hidden in the weeds here is another potential actor. The Houston Texans need to upgrade themselves at the QB position. They have a very good defense but they got inconsistent play at QB for all of 2015; they won the AFC South but the Colts will get Andrew Luck back in good health for 2016; the Texans really need to do something and they do not draft until #22 in this year’s draft – hardly a position where one thinks a franchise QB will fall in one’s lap. The Texans may also be intrigued by the Texas roots and Texas notoriety of either of these QBs. I doubt there will be a bidding war for either one, but there might be a race to see which team gets to interview either player as soon as he is a free agent.

I think both RG3 and Johnny Manziel will get another opportunity in the NFL. Both will have to show a fast learning curve to their new teams/coaches because both suffer from a similar “problem”. Both of them arrived in the NFL succeeding at QB because they were significantly more athletic than just about every opponent they faced in high school and in college. Without putting a pejorative label on it, that superiority did not instill in either one a dedication to learning the subtleties of playing the QB position. In the NFL, they learned that they were not athletically superior to every opponent every time they stepped onto the field. Oops… Now that lack of study/attention/dedication made them susceptible to big mistakes and to frustration on the part of their coaches. [Aside: To be sure, Manziel’s off-field escapades provide his case with an entirely different dimension as compared to Griffin.]

Talent wins out in the NFL and both of these young QBs have raw talent. There will be coaches who are certain that they are uniquely capable of harnessing that talent and developing it to the point where it is manifest in all of its glory for all to see. Who knows? Maybe those future coaches are actually right…

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times that seems appropriate in light of what is above:

“At SportsPickle.com: ‘Johnny Manziel facing questions about his judgment after being spotted in Cleveland.’ ”

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

Finally, The NFL Is Back In LA…

The NFL owners have approved moving the Rams back to LA; they have given the Chargers the first option to join the Rams in a joint stadium situation akin to the Giants/Jets; they have left the Raiders in Oakland seemingly “twisting slowly in the wind”. [H/T to John Erlichman.] There are probably a dozen vantage points from which to view the decision(s) here leading to multiple dozens of interpretations and conclusions. My view is simple; my info sources are Forbes and Business Insider:

Stan Kroenke

Forbes

$7.5B

Dean Spanos owns the Chargers. Forbes says his net worth is $1.1B as of 2015. The league did not approve the plan he put forth but gave him the first option to join Stan Kroenke if the two of them can strike a deal.

Mark Davis is the chief owner of the Raiders. Business Insider says net worth is $500M as of 2015. He was the tag-along partner with Spanos in the Spanos’ plan and now he is the owner most on the outside looking in.

The NFL owners are not – as a group – wonderful and philanthropic people. I seriously believe that they live by a statement made famous in the Abscam scandal about 35 years ago:

“Money talks and bullsh*t walks.”

If I am even close to correct, Mark Davis and Dean Spanos never really stood a chance of coming out on top here. The NFL’s “LA Relocation Committee” reportedly voted 5-1 to recommend the Spanos/Davis Carson CA “solution” to the owners en banc. But as soon as the owners met in plenary session, the magnitude of the potential returns to the league as a whole became the central issue and when that happened, the Kroenke Plan won in a walk. Dean Spanos has a year to decide if he and his Chargers will sign on with Kroenke and his Rams as tenants in the new playpen. If he does not act by then, Davis and the Raiders can opt in.

The “Kroenke Stadium” will be finished in 2019. Until then the Rams – and any other NFL team that signs on as a tenant in “Kroenke Stadium” – will play in the LA Coliseum. From my perspective, the folks in San Diego have one more short window of opportunity to decide if they want to spend a ton of taxpayer money to build the stadium that the Chargers want in the place that the Chargers want. If not, my guess is that the Chargers will be moving north.

What happens to the Raiders? Well, assuming that Dean Spanos does not let his first option to move to LA expire, I think the Raiders are up for bids. Look, the O.Co Coliseum is more than an anachronism; it is an embarrassment; the sewage lines back up periodically into team dressing areas; there is a baseball diamond in the middle of the field for the first half of the season. Oakland does not have a billion dollars lying around to build a new stadium and probably would be hard-pressed to borrow that kind of money at reasonable interest rates even if they thought that was a good idea. So, what does Mark Davis do now?

He can wait it out to see if the Chargers do something stupid and let their option lapse. That is called kicking the can down the road.

He can make nice with the folks in St. Louis who came up with a plan to do a new stadium there – even though it will be “junior varsity” as compared to “Kroenke Stadium” in LA. However, there will be no baseball diamond on the field and presumably, the toilet facilities will not back up into the locker rooms.

He can warm up talks with San Antonio where he and the mayor had some “friendly chats” over the past year or so.

Or … Mark Davis can be the owner who moves his team to London. The rub there is that the fee for moving a team is $550M. If Davis does not get the other owners to allow him to prorate those payments over a pretty long period of time, he cannot afford the payment to his fellow owners let alone any other expenses.

Lest you think my idea that the Raiders might wind up in London is far-fetched, consider that the NFL already has three “stadium deals” going on in the UK. The league started out with 1 game a year over there and it got traction; then it expanded to 2 games per year and will go further than that in the near future. Yes, that is different from having one team there permanently – and indeed there are scheduling hurdles to overcome – but there seems to be a clear audience/fanbase for NFL football in London. Next year, the NFL hopes to play games in London on 3 consecutive weekends with one of the teams involved staying there and playing two games on two consecutive weekends. And remember, greater London has a population of 8.6 million souls at last count

I said there were “three stadium deals” ongoing in London right now. Let me review the bidding here:

check here

Last year, the NFL signed a 10-year deal to play a game in the new stadium under construction for Tottenham Hotspur. That stadium will have a retractable roof and a retractable grass field (used for EPL games) with an artificial turf under that for NFL games. That sounds like a serious venue. For details, check here.

Last year, the NFL signed an agreement with the Rugby Football Union to play 3 games (1 per year) at Twickenham Stadium in London. This venue seats 82,000 folks; it already exists; teams can play there tomorrow – if there were games tomorrow. For details, check here.

I do not know when this is going to happen, but the National Football League is going to become the International Football League one of these days. It seems to me that Mark Davis is in a position to be a pioneer here – if such pioneering tickles the pecuniary fancies of his fellow owners.

Finally, Dean Spanos and the Chargers have been doing the “New Stadium Boogie” with the San Diego pols for at least a decade now. Spanos has said that he and the team have done everything they could do to get a new stadium built there. I am certain that he and the team have worked hard on this but I take exception to his assertion that he did everything he could because:

He never offered to build a stadium there on his own nickel.

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

Alabama/Clemson – A Great Championship Game

If you did not like the Alabama/Clemson game on Monday night for the College Football Championship, you must not like college football. The game featured two excellent teams; the teams played hard on every play; the game was close from start to finish and the outcome was still in doubt in the final minute of the game; there were excellent showings by excellent players on both teams. I can understand your not liking the outcome of the game if:

You are a student at or an alum of Clemson University.

You are a student at or an alum of Auburn University.

You think Nick Saban and/or Lane Kiffin are the Devil’s spawn.

However, I do not see how you can like college football and not have enjoyed watching that game.

Congratulations to both teams and to both coaching staffs. And congratulations to the folks who set up the College Football Playoff and set things up such that these two teams could be in a position to play one another for the championship. The current playoff system may not be perfect, but it is much better than the BCS which preceded it and a light-year better than the bowl games followed by polling which preceded the BCS.

In another aspect of college football, the Austin Business Journal reports that the University of Texas nearly doubled its concessions revenue at football games this year because for the first time they sold beer in the stadium. Fans bought beer to the tune of $1.8M for the six games played at Darrel Royal-Texas Memorial stadium this year. That is a lot of suds considering that a significant fraction of the fans in attendance are not – you know – legally allowed to purchase, possess or consume beer.

That same report said that Texas took down a profit of $812,798 from the $1.8M in sales. Here is the upshot as I see it:

Other universities will be introducing this new convenience to their fans in the not-so-distant future.

Switching gears and sports, there are reports that the Brooklyn Nets are trolling John Calipari to come to Brooklyn to be the Head Coach and Grand Vizier of All Things Basketball for the franchise. Only a couple of months ago, there were similar reports saying that the Sacramento Kings were similarly fishing for Calipari. For all I know, those reports may have been planted by Calipari’s agent to see what sort of “action” it might stir up. Or, all of this might be nonsense…

In any event, the current reports regarding the Nets say that Calipari might think about making a switch if the Nets started their offer at 10 years and $120M. If other reporting is correct, this would be about a 50% raise from what his total package is worth at Kentucky. The thinking that is attributed to the owners who want to lure Calipari away from Kentucky is that he coached a lot of really good young NBA players at Kentucky and therefore he might have an inside track to get them to sign with Coach Cal’s team once they hit free agency. Who knows? That may actually be what the owners are thinking…

In addition to my faulty mind-reading skills, I am loath to try to figure out what sort of basketball-related reasoning might be percolating in the minds of either Kings’ owner, Vivek Ranadivé, or Nets’ owner, Mikhail Prokhorov. Without going through a list of questionable basketball decisions/pronouncements from either owner, let me just say that I might not be alone in questioning their “basketball acumen”.

What could get interesting here is if Calipari and his agent somehow get these two owners to start bidding against one another to get “Coach Cal”. Phil Jackson reportedly gets $12M per year from the Knicks in a 5-year deal; Jackson’s credentials include enough championship rings to require a wheelbarrow to haul them around; if those two uber-rich owners get into a bidding war for Calipari and that bidding war turns into an ego-battle, I wonder how far beyond $12-million a year they might be willing to go…

In any event, Bob Molinaro had this comment in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot recently regarding another time in John Calipari’s career:

“Questionable: From the What Are People Thinking Dept. comes news that UMass threw a two-day celebration this week for John Calipari, the rule breaker who took the school to the 1996 Final Four, only to have the team’s place vacated by the NCAA. The school is hanging a banner for Calipari in the gym rafters, a gesture normal people are not expected to understand.”

In one other NBA note, I think that the combination of the “Kobe Bryant Farewell Tour Across America” coupled with the obviously bad season Kobe is having in his final go-round is covering up something else. Flying under the radar so to speak is how bad some of the other Lakers’ players are playing. The team is obviously a mess; this morning, their record is 8-31 and they are a measly 28.5 games out of first place in the Pacific Division. Not all of that is Kobe Bryant’s fault. Consider:

Roy Hibbert

Julius Randle has started about half of the games. He is shooting 40% from the field. To his credit, he gets 11.5 rebounds per game but he turns the ball over about twice per game.

DeAngelo Russell has started about half of the games. He too is shooting 40% from the field; he turns the ball over a bit more than twice per game; he does lead the team in assists with 3.2 assists per game. [The fact that 3.2 assists per game leads the team speaks volumes with regard to the style of play out there in LA.]

Finally, since I mentioned beer sales above, here is an item from Dwight Perry’s column, Sideline Chatter, in the Seattle Times:

“A 19-year-old named Bud Weisser was arrested for trespassing at the Budweiser brewery in St. Louis.

“Coincidence? Every Jack Daniels in town is suddenly under police surveillance in Lynchburg, Tenn.”

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

Concussion – The Movie…

The movie, Concussion, starring Will Smith is out. I am not a movie fan by anyone’s definition; I will surely not go to a movie theater to see this one. The film seems to have caused more of a stir prior to its release than it has since it has been “out there”. I do not have any intention of discussing the merits of the movie itself or the folks who made the movie but I do want to make a few general comments on the central topic of the movie and about documentaries in general.

This move would be “course material” for a medical school without the dramatic addendum that the NFL purportedly tried to silence and/or intimidate the doctor. That takes the subject matter out of the realm of bland “textbook-material” and puts it squarely in the domain of attractive “screenplay-material”.

I find it inconceivable that the NFL, anyone who played football in the NFL or any fan of the NFL did not realize prior to this doctor’s discovery that the banging of heads in NFL games would be detrimental to the condition of the brains contained within those banged heads. CTE was known before the time when the doctor who is the subject of Concussion tied CTE to playing football particularly at the NFL level. In the past, people did not know this by its scientific name, but the results of CTE were rather commonly known. Boxers were known to be ‘punch-drunk”; this was a phrase in common usage back when I was a kid. This is not something new or recently discovered.

I am not shocked by any assertion that – or any evidence to show that – the NFL did not receive the news of this doctor’s research well since it led to a demonstration that CTE was prevalent among retired NFL players. Large organizations – private sector or public sector ones – react to threatening news in a predictable way; they go into survival mode. Said survival mode usually takes the form of:

I do not need to go to the movies to have that sort of behavior “revealed to me” as if I ought to be surprised by its existence…

I have a particular skepticism about movies that are dramatizations of real events or ones that purport to be documentaries. “Real events” put truthfully onto film – or into a digital format these days – would be really low-grade entertainment. I always wonder how much “reality” got lost in the “spicing up” of those real events. Even worse to me are the movies that claim to be documentaries. The dictionary says that a documentary movie provides a factual record or report. My limited experience with such movies is that they are far more likely to be advocacy pieces than the presentation of all the facts. If a particular one is an advocacy piece disguised as a documentary, I can probably learn as much by reading a few public statements by the maker of the “documentary” as I will learn by paying $12.50 and sitting in a theater with a bunch of people I do not care to be with and watching the movie. Let me give you a real example and a “made-up example”:

The Real One:

An Inconvenient Truth

A “Made-Up” One: If a movie hit the theaters next week billed as a documentary exposé of the evils and abuses of the “abortion industry” and Planned Parenthood in specific, I would be monumentally uninterested in seeing it. That monumental lack of interest would be magnified even more if I were to learn that it was produced and directed by Jerry Falwell. [Yes; I know that Rev. Falwell is dead. I specifically picked him for this fictional example to avoid anyone thinking that all of this is aimed at criticizing some living individual. Just follow me a little further here, please.] I do not need to go to a movie theater to find out how Rev. Falwell feels about abortion or what he thinks might be a proper role for Planned Parenthood in US society. If he were the producer/director, I think I know the bottom line(s) before I pay my $12.50 and belly-up to the popcorn stand.

Concussion may be entertaining for some folks; it is absolutely not my genre of choice. What I hope is that not too many folks leave the theater after watching it with the thought that many if any of the revelations in the story should be unexpected. I also hope that only the dimmest of bulbs exiting the theater were shocked to learn that playing professional football, concussions, and brain damage go hand-in-hand.

I mention this today because of a report this morning in the Washington Post saying that the doctor in question here – a man born in Nigeria – now thinks that racism may have been part of the reason that his findings were ignored and challenged. I do not know that to be the case; it would not shock me to learn that this assertion is correct; it would also not shock me to learn that this assertion is overblown. Here is something I can say with certainty:

Not a single syllable of any word above has even a smidgen of racial overtone to it.

Switching gears, there were reports yesterday that the Buffalo Bills’ Head Coach, Rex Ryan, hired his twin brother, Rob Ryan, to be one of the defensive coaches for the Bills. Some people chose to become indignant about this hiring and called it nepotism. These folks might well be surprised to learn that Paris is in France if they think nepotism is rare in the NFL.

News Flash:

Frankly, I think there is a much more important aspect to this hiring that the suits at NFL Headquarters need to focus on:

Hard Knocks

Finally, here is Greg Cote’s reaction in the Miami Herald to the Dolphins’ hiring of Adam Gaze as their new Head Coach:

“Adam Gase, suddenly league’s youngest head coach at 37, makes it five Dolphins hires in a row (eight including interims) who have never before been an NFL head coach. Miami’s head-coach job posting: ‘EXPERIENCE ~~REQUIRED~~ ~~PREFERRED~~ TOTALLY UNNECESSARY.’ “

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

Baseball Hall Of Fame Inductees For 2016

The Baseball Hall of Fame will welcome two new members next summer. Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza were both well above the 75% threshold in terms of votes received to merit their induction. Griffey was an absolute no-brainer; the voting is done by the members of the BBWAA – the Baseball Writers’ Association of America – meaning that everyone who has a vote is someone who is involved in covering and following baseball over a period of time. It is inconceivable that anyone who follows/followed baseball as the means to make his/her living could have seen Griffey play and not recognize that he was one of the all-time greats. About the only thing he never did was to come out before the game with the grounds’ crew and help them lay down the chalk for the foul lines.

Mike Piazza was another story. He has been eligible for 4 years and there had been a “PED cloud” over him. However, that cloud was as much innuendo/rumor/whispers as it was “evidence”. If you saw Piazza’s numbers standing alone, you would have to say he was Hall of Fame worthy but the BBWAA voters had issues with him. Perhaps it was exactly those “issues” that pressed forward changes in the BBWAA itself. Last year, a little more than 100 Hall of Fame voters lost their voting franchise because they had not covered baseball for the last 10 years.

Some folks have suggested that it was this “purging” of “old-timers” whose views on PED usage were ossified at best that propelled Piazza into the Hall of Fame. In prior years, there were almost 600 ballots distributed; this year, there were only 450. I do not read minds, so I will not try to tell you how or why folks voted the way they did. However, there is some math to suggest some validity here.

Barry Bonds

Roger Clemens similarly “benefited” from the “purge” in the same sense that Bonds did. Like Bonds, Clemens seems to have a constant base of support for his candidacy. In his 3 years of eligibility, he has gotten 214, 202 and 206 votes; this year he got 199. Once again, his percentage is up because he got about the same number of votes while the total number of votes declined, but he too is still south of 50% of the vote.

I think the “PED cloud” will not dissipate until the BBWAA members have a chance to vote on the poster-child for PEDs – Alex Rodriguez. Like Griffey, Bonds and Clemens, no one could look at A-Rod’s numbers without a name attached to them and conclude that the player who achieved those numbers is unworthy of the Hall of Fame. Moreover, after A-Rod sat out an entire year on suspension for repeated PED use, he came back and played (purportedly) clean at age 40 and had a commendable season. The writers will have to decide when A-Rod is on the ballot what their collective stance will be for PED users because there is no question that he used them during his career. With both Bonds and Clemens, there is still that lingering argument that neither ever failed a drug test. [Aside: It must be pointed out here that Lance Armstrong never failed a drug test either and we know how that all turned out…]

I think that Mike Piazza indeed benefited from the “BBWAA purge” but I am not outraged by that in any way simply because whatever “evidence” there was that he was a “PED-cheat” seems far more flimsy to me than is the “evidence” in the Bonds or Clemens situations.

In any event, Piazza’s induction is a “rags-to-riches story” that might inspire a biopic somewhere down the line. He was hardly a “5-Star recruit” or a “top prospect” in his youth. In fact, in the 1988 MLB draft, Mike Piazza was selected by the LA Dodgers in the 62nd round; he was the 1390th overall pick that year; every team passed over him again and again and again… The lore is that the only reason the Dodgers “wasted” a pick on him is that Tommy LaSorda and Mike Piazza’s father were close friends. If that was the “only reason” then LaSorda and the Dodgers got awfully lucky; if there was a scout who put Piazza on the Dodgers’ draft board notwithstanding the LaSorda/Piazza Sr. friendship, that scout surely deserved a nice bonus.

One other note from the Hall of Fame balloting this year is that this was the last year of eligibility for Alan Trammel and Mark McGwire. Neither made it into the Hall. Now, they will fall under the scrutiny of the Veterans’ Committee and that body has been most stingy with its admissions to the Hall of Fame over the past several years.

Changing topics – and sports – Bob Molinaro had this comment in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Picked-up piece: With its victory over Michigan State in the CFP semis, Alabama won more games at Jones’ AT&T Stadium this season (2) than the Cowboys (1).”

I include that here because I know that one long-term reader of these rants is rabidly anti-Cowboys; and although he realizes that Jerry Jones is not the anti-Christ, he is certain that Jones and the anti-Christ are best buddies. If he had not already put those pieces together, I know he will read those words and give them a fist-pump. It is just another of the services I provide…

Finally, here is one more observation from Bob Molinaro.

“Another lifeline: After he was almost inexplicably retained as Colts coach, Chuck Pagano said, ‘This is absolutely the best day of my life.’ If he says so. But what about the time doctors told him that his cancer was in remission? Presumably that wasn’t such a bad day, either.”

Seriously now, better than the day you got married? Better than the days on which your kids were born? Better than the day you heard the word “remission”? Sigh… Coachspeak run amok.

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