Daily Rants | The Sports Curmudgeon

NFL Preseason Predictions – The Post Mortem

Back on September 8, 2015, I crawled out on a limb and predicted the outcome of the NFL regular season. After previous attempts to do just that, you would have thought that I had learned my lesson. Obviously, I had not. Everything seemed so clear back then. But now, as is the tradition here when I do not have a computer crash and a website hacking to destroy the previous record, I present the post mortem on those predictions.

Here is a link to the original predictions in case you want to verify my comments here:

I will go along division-by-division and assign myself a grade for each one. At the end, I will calculate my “Grade Point Average” and hope that it is good enough to figuratively keep me eligible if I were an NCAA “student-athlete”.

I should also mention here that unlike a lot of millennials who do not recognize the possibility that one might get a grade below an “A-minus” for anything, I went to school at a time where grades of “A” through “F” were in play and were used accordingly. Just a foreshadowing here, there will be a “full spectrum” of grades included here.

At the outset of my predictions, I mentioned 5 coaches that I thought were on a hot-seat prior to the kickoff in the first game. With regard to that prognostication:

One of the five was fired in January. (Lovie Smith)

Two of the five are still in their positions. (Gus Bradley and Jay Gruden)

I also said that there were 2 coaches who would feel plenty of fan pressure and/or media pressure should their teams under-perform regarding expectations. With regard to that prognostication:

Both teams under-performed and both coaches were fired. (Tom Coughlin and Chip Kelly).

With regard to the identification of coaches who might be looking forward to “job insecurity”, I noted 7 coaches. Of the seven, five were fired and one (Jay Gruden) surely will continue on as the Skins’ coach since the Skins are the reigning NFC East champions. I will call the Coaching Hot Seat Grade a “B-plus”.

In the AFC East, I had the Patriots winning the division (not exactly a bold pick). However, in addition, I predicted the Pats would have a 12-4 record which is exactly how they ended the season. After that, my crystal ball needed a bit of Windex to provide clearer vision.

I had the Bills in 3rd place at 9-7; they finished in 3rd place at 8-8. Not bad…

I had the Jets last with a 4-12 record; they finished 2nd at 10-6. Not so good.

Overall, the AFC East Grade is a “C”.

In the AFC North, two teams finished exactly where I predicted they would. If that sounds like a weak endorsement, it is. Here are how the predictions turned out:

I picked the Steelers to finish second in the division with a record of 8-8; the Steelers did finish second with a record of 10-6. I did say that the Steelers would need to win with offense this year (they did) and that the presence of Antonio Brown would be a major factor in their success (he most definitely was).

I picked the Bengals to finish third in the division with a record of 8-8; the Bengals won the division with a record of 12-4. Ooops… I thought the Bengals’ defense would not be up to the task of getting the team into the playoffs. Mea culpa…

I picked the Browns to finish last in the division with a record of 5-11 (another bold prediction on my part); the Browns did finish last with a sorry-assed 3-13 record. I did point out that in 2014 the Browns’ weakness was their run defense; it was the worst in the NFL. Well, in 2015, the improvement was only minimal; the Browns run defense was ranked 30th in the NFL.

Overall the AFC North Grade is a “C-minus”.

In the AFC South, I predicted the final record for 3 of the 4 teams exactly.

I picked the Texans to finish second with a 9-7 record; the Texans finished at 9-7 but that was good enough to win the division.

I picked the Jags to finish third in the division with a 5-11 record; indeed, the Jags finished third with a 5-11 record.

I picked the Titans to finish last in the division with a 3-13 record; indeed, the Titans finished last with a 3-13 record.

Overall the AFC South Grade is an “A“.

In the AFC West, I only missed badly on one team and came within one game of the actual records on the other three. Here are how the predictions turned out:

I picked the Chiefs to finish second in the division with a 10-6 record; the Chiefs finished second with an 11-5 record.

I picked the Chargers to finish third in the division with an 8-8 record; the Chargers folded like a cheap lawn chair, finished last with a 4-12 record.

I picked the Raiders to finish last in the division with a 6-10 record; the Raiders finished third with a 7-9 record.

Overall, The AFC West Grade is a “B-plus”.

I must say that as I begin to look at the NFC predictions, I have a sense that my overall “Grade Point Average” this year might grant me symbolic NCAA eligibility. However, one should never assume that past performance is any indicator of future performance…

In the NFC West, there must have been a lot of static on my “Psychic Hotline” back in September 2015. If I were to be very generous here, I would say that not many of my predictions were spot-on; if I were to be more critical, I would say that all of these predictions were pretty bad.

I picked the Rams to finish second in the division with a 10-6 record; the Rams finished third with a 7-9 record.

I picked the Niners to finish third in the division with a 7-9 record; the Niners finished last with a 5-11 record.

I picked the Cardinals to finish last in the division with a 7-9 record; the Cards won the division with a 13-3 record. Here is what I said about this prediction at the time:

“The Cards won 11 games last year but only outscored opponents by 11 points. That is called getting a whole lot of lucky bounces of the ball – and footballs are of a shape where the results of bounces can be very random.

“So, I have to decide if the Cards are going to win 13 games this year because they have their #1 QB back and that will lead to more points and more wins – OR – will the Cards regress to the mean in terms of having the ball bounce their way.

“I choose the latter outcome here.”

Oh well…

Overall the NFC West Grade is an “F”.

In the NFC South, disaster struck my predictions once again. Let me urge you to hold your nose as you read through the predictions:

I picked the Panthers to finish second in the division with the same 9-7 record; the Panthers won the division handily with a 15-1 record. ‘Nuff said…

I picked the Falcons to finish third in the division with a 7-9 record; the Falcons finished second with an 8-8 record.

I picked the Bucs to finish last in the division with a 4-12 record; the Bucs finished last with a 6-10 record.

Overall the NFC South Grade is an “F”.

In the NFC North, the predictions were a lot better than they were in the last two divisions. I recognize that I did not set the bar very high here; in fact, an amoeba might have difficulty doing the limbo beneath that bar. Here are how the predictions turned out:

I picked the Vikings to finish second in the division with a 10-6 record; the Vikes finished first with an 11-5 record. I attributed the improvement in the Vikings to improved play from Teddy Bridgewater and the return of Adrian Peterson. That kinda/sorta happened too…

I picked the Lions to finish third in the division with a 6-10 record; the Lions finished third with a 7-9 record. I predicted a calamitous drop for the Lions from 11-5 in 2014 based on star defensive players going elsewhere. The drop happened and the Lions’ defense was not nearly as good in 2015…

I picked the Bears to finish last in the division with a 4-12 record; the Bears finished last with a 6-10 record. I just thought the Bears were going to be worse than they were last year…

Overall the NFC North Grade is a “B-plus”.

In the NFC East my predictions came directly from Bizarro World where everything is backwards including the name of the planet, Htrae. Earlier, I suggested you hold your nose while reading the predictions; here I would urge you to stifle your giggle response:

Hah!

I picked the Eagles to finish second in the division with a 10-6 record; the Eagles finished second but with a 7-9 record. In my defense, I did say that what the Eagles needed to do was to improve on defense; they did not; the Eagles ranked 30th in the NFL in yards allowed and 28th in the NFL in passing yards allowed. Bleah!

I picked the Giants to finish third in the division with a 6-10 record; the Giants finished third with a 6-10 record. Here was my “bottom line” for the Giants in 2015:

“Last year their defense was horrible – which is pretty much what their defense was two years ago.

“If it doesn’t get a LOT better this year, the Giants will be mired in this level of mediocrity.”

Well, the Giants’ defense in 2015 was the worst in the NFL giving up 420.3 yards per game. Yuck!

I picked the Skins to finish last in the division with a 3-12 record; the Skins won the division with a 9-7 record. Yowza!

Overall, the NFC East Grade is an “F”.

Summing up the individual grades, we have:

0 grade points.

1.6 grade points

2.0 grade points

10.2 grade points

4.0 grade points

That result is 17.8 grade points in 9 “courses” for a season GPA of 1.98. Looks like I will need a summer course or two to raise my average to eligibility standards. I know; I can take that physics course where the emphasis is on gravity. What I do is sit in a chair and prevent the chair from soaring up to the ceiling. If I am successful in that endeavor, I get an “A” as someone who has mastered gravity. Where do I sign up…?

Finally, let me put all this “Grade Point Averaging” into context with a comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald:

“A World-Herald fan poll gave the Husker football recruiting class a grade of “B.” C’mon, these people are not professional analysts. They lack the training to rank recruits, which consists of … well, it includes … OK, the fans have spoken.”

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

Surprises In The English Premier League

The English Premier League has reached the two-thirds mark in its 2016/16 season and there are definite surprises in the Table (the “standings” for us Americans) so late in the season. Consider:

Chelsea

Watford is one of the new teams in the Premier League this year having been promoted from the British Football Championship last year. Watford is not at the bottom of the table struggling to stay in the Premier League; Watford sits in a comfortable 9th place in the Table – 3 places above Chelsea.

In first place, sits Leicester City. Last year, the team finished 14th in the Premier League and threatened no one. To date, Leicester City has played 26 EPL games and has won 15, tied 8 and lost only 3 times. The top 4 teams in the EPL play in the European Champions League nest year; as of this morning, Leicester City has a 16-point lead over the fifth place team in the Table – Manchester United. It would take a monumental collapse for Leicester City to miss out on that opportunity.

The main threat to Leicester City at the moment is Totenham sitting in second place just 2 points off the lead. Totenham has scored 47 goals this year in 26 games; only 2 teams in the EPL have scored 48. But that is not the only reason why Totenham is where it is; in those same 26 games, Totenham has only allowed 20 goals. The next best defense against scoring belongs to Arsenal who has allowed 23 goals. Interestingly, if you look at the current Las Vegas odds to win the EPL, Arsenal is the co-favorite with Leicester City at 2/1 with Totenham at 9/2. It should be an interesting race from here on out…

As the NBA gets back to real basketball after the travesty of its All-Star Game (Final score 196 – 173), a bunch of teams will “make their run” with new or relatively new coaches. Let me summarize:

The Nets

The Suns fired Jeff Hornacek and hired Earl Watson. The Suns are as miserable as the Nets and will not threaten anyone no matter who the coach is.

The Cavs fired David Blatt and hired Tyron Lue. The Cavs’ fate rests with LeBron James on the court and not with anyone on the bench.

The Knicks fired Derek Fisher and put assistant coach Kurt Rambis in charge of the team. The Knicks sit 5 games below the cut-line for the playoffs in the NBA East and would have to climb over 4 teams to make the playoffs. That is not an impossible task but …

Derek Fisher led the Knicks to 23 wins this year; the team won only 17 games all of last year. That means Fisher’s total record with the Knicks was 40-96 which is hardly laudatory but it is not all that surprising either.

The Knicks’ problem was not on the bench; the Knicks’ problem is the roster. Kristaps Porzingas has been a hugely positive addition to the team and looks to be a future star in the NBA; Carmelo Anthony is still a good offensive player; from what I have seen, Langston Galloway can be a solid player if not a star; and Robin Lopez has his moments on defense. But that is about it… As has been a problem for the Knicks over the past several years, they cannot or will not play defense consistently. Neither Derrick Williams nor Jose Calderon could stop Betty White from driving the lane; Porzingas is learning about help-defense but is not a stopper and that leaves Lopez alone to cover any and every opponent who might go to the basket in such a situation. Good luck to Kurt Rambis in curing that malady…

There have been persistent rumors – and denials of said rumors – that the Sacramento Kings will fire George Karl. As of this morning, the Kings’ record is 22-31 and they sit 4.5 games behind eighth-place Utah for the final NBA West playoff spot. The Kings have one bona-fide star talent on the squad, DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins. They have a couple of solid players in Rajon Rondo and Rudy Gay but that is about it. Like the Knicks, the problem with the Kings is that they cannot or will not play defense and when that happens, even a coach like Red Auerbach is not going to win a lot of games.

To give you an idea of what I mean by “not playing defense”, the Kings played the Nets on Friday 5 Feb and then played the Celtics on Sunday 7 Feb. These games began a 4-game road trip that led to the All-Star break. The Kings gave up 128 points in each of those games losing both games by the identical score of 128-119. The Kings scored 119 points twice and lost both games. Earlier in the season the Kings have scored 117 points and lost, 116 points and lost; 113 points and lost; and 110 points and lost. Oh, by the way, I have not counted overtime games where the Kings scored huge numbers of points and lost; all of the examples I cited above are normal 48-minute games.

The problem(s) in Sacramento are on the court and probably in the owner’s suite too. Vivek Ranadive bought the Kings in May 2013 – about 34 months ago. Here is the Kings’ coaching situation in recent times:

In fact, since Rick Adelman was replaced as coach of the Kings in 2007, the team has had 8 head coaches and the longest tenured one of the lot was Paul Westphal who lasted for 171 games – a tad over 2 years.

Finally, here is an NBA-related comment from Brad Dickson of the Omaha-World-Herald:

“Andre Drummond set a record for missed free throws in an NBA game — 23 — breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s record. ‘How was my night? Oh, I just broke one of Wilt Chamberlain’s records, that’s all.’ ”

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

The Pro Bowl In Australia?

With the Super Bowl in the rear view mirror and the NFL Draft far off in the distant future, the only thing to talk about related to the NFL is a strange idea that had been floated with regard to the Pro Bowl. In the aftermath of the Pro Bowl, Roger Goodell – getting something right for a change – decried the level of play in that game. Good for the Commish; it seemed as if he might finally have found a way to be in tune with the opinions of “the common fan” here. That appearance was short-lived…

Shortly on the heels of saying that the play in the Pro Bowl was not something of NFL caliber, Roger Goodell suggested that a possible change in the Pro Bowl might be to play the game in Australia. Let me be clear; playing the game in Hawaii is no better nor any worse than playing the game in Australia, Austria, Andalusia, Arabia or Antarctica. The venue has nothing at all to do with the sort of effort that will evidence itself on the field of play. If the idea is to “grow the game globally”, then playing a game in Australia makes some sense. However, if “growing the game globally” is the idea, then playing a meaningless game in which the players hug each other instead of hitting each other is a horrible idea.

One of the way that anyone outside the PR Department of the NFL can tell that player do not give a rat’s ass about the Pro Bowl is to check the stats. Half of the players invited to participate in this year’s game found a reason not to show up. Understand what they turned down:

Oh, and the players on the losing team would cash a $30K check while the players on the winning team would cash a $60K check.

Given that data – and similar date from years past – would someone ask the Commish to address in something other than platitudes the following:

If a trip to Hawaii is insufficient as a lure to get the players you invited to the game to show up for the game, what makes you think that more of them will travel to Australia to participate in the same meaningless charade?

In other “International News”, the NFL will schedule the Raiders and the Texans to play a regular season game in Mexico City next year. The NFL has done this before. In the early “aughts” the Cardinals and the Niners played a “real game” in Mexico City and the game drew more than 100,000 fans. The choice for the teams in this game are sufficiently interesting that I suspect it was not a random selection:

The Raiders are de facto homeless. They now have a one-year lease to continue playing in Oakland in the same decrepit stadium that has been the dregs of NFL home venues for whenever it was that the Jets stopped playing in Shea Stadium. The NFL needs for the Raiders to find a home; if they can find one that preserves Mark Davis’ ability to continue to o0wn the majority share of the Raiders, so be it. If not, then sayonara to Mark Davis. This game might be an “audition” for Mexico City to become the home to the “now-Oakland” Raiders.

The NFL’s international expansion focus would seem to have been London and Europe for the past decade or so. Last year there were 3 games in London; next year there will be 3 more and the Jaguars seem to be the de facto team at the front of the line to capture London fans’ hearts and minds. [Aside: Beware London fans: The team stinks and no one in Jax gives a damn if they play some or all of their “home games” in Jax or in any other city on the planet. Just saying…] Now, the NFL might be signaling that a team moving to Mexico City and continuing to play in the Western Division of either conference might be a much less complex logistical challenge for the league.

Oh, and before we swallow the Texans’ claim to Mexican fandom due to their proximity to Mexico, please consider the following:

Glendale, AZ is about 100 miles from the Mexican/American Port of Entry at Lukeville. AZ. If proximity is the issue, how come the Cardinals have never considered a name change to the Arizona Jumping Beans?

I have suggested on more than one occasion that National Signing Day – when high school football players announce where they will go to play college football – is a horrible concoction based on a football culture in America. Allow me to offer a datum to support that assertion here. Last week, CBSSports.com reported that:

“Marvin Terry, a three-star linebacker out of Dallas, Texas, was the first player to commit to Missouri once Barry Odom took over as its coach. When National Signing Day came and went on Wednesday, however, the Tigers never received Terry’s National Letter of Intent. But he had a good excuse … well, maybe not so good …

“He was in jail.”

Terry was arrested on 3 counts of “suspicion of assault” where the counts included bodily injury/family violence, family violence for impeding breathing or circulation and “continuous family violence assault within 12 months. There are economic reasons for the alleged victims here to refuse to pursue criminal charges here; there are also good reasons for the University of Missouri – or any other football program that pretends to hold up the “student-athlete” as the iconography of its program – to tell this kid to get his act together for 3 or 4 years before reapplying for admission.

That is not going to happen. And because that is not going to happen, let this be a point where the NCAA and the member institutions are on notice. If you admit this kid because he is a top-shelf athlete and do not provide him with sufficient one-on-one counseling/mentoring, then the NCAA and the school are indeed culpable if he continues down the path he has allegedly chosen to tread.

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times relative to another demonstration of anti-social behavior:

“A tomato thrower at a Donald Trump rally in Iowa City, Iowa, has been charged with disorderly conduct.

“He faces a possible few days in jail and a Yankees spring-training invite.”

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

The Denver Broncos Are Super Bowl Champions

The Super Bowl game demonstrated once again that really good defense is the way to slow down a really good offense. The fact of the game was that the Denver DL dominated the Carolina OL on about 75% of the snaps. That same DL harassed Tom Brady two weeks ago in the AFC Championship Game and some folks chalked that up to the “patchwork nature” of the Pats’ OL. Well, last night’s performance was not against a bruised and tattered OL; the Denver defenders were too fast and too relentless to allow the Panthers to develop any kind of a running game and they made Cam Newton look human for the entire game.

Let me be clear; the Panthers’ defense played extremely well too; the Panthers were done in by two turnovers that produced two TDs for the Broncos. Those two TDs were the margin of victory. Here are a couple of stats that will tell you how dominant the defenses were in the game:

Cam Newton sacked 7 times for 68 yards
Peyton Manning sacked 5 times for 37 yards

Panthers held the Broncos to 197 yards total offense for the game.
Broncos defense took the ball away 4 times in the game.

Congratulations to the Denver Broncos…

I do not want to do much about the Super Bowl ads this year other than to say that I was underwhelmed by most of them.

Why spend something near $5M to run an ad telling me how much water it takes if I leave the faucet on when I brush my teeth?

PayPal seems to have missed a very important point. They did an ad leading to the punch line that “PayPal is the new money.” Really? Try to set up a PayPal account without any of the “old money” being involved and see how well the “new money works…

The multiple spots from the NFL touting the proposition that “Football is Family” brought to mind this observation from Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot last week:

“Hidden truths: The NFL’s ‘Football is Family’ campaign really does have a ring of authenticity to it – as long as you understand that on some level, most families are dysfunctional.”

In the world of college basketball, Louisville has declared that it will ban itself from all post-season tournament competition this year. That means it will not be in the ACC tournament, the NCAA tournament or any of the minor post-season college tournaments that do not amount to a smidgen of squirrel snot. This voluntary action seems to point clearly in the direction that someone somewhere has come across some very damaging information in the course of investigating the allegations that some recruits to the basketball program at Louisville were provided with strippers and/or prostitutes. It is just not reasonable to conclude that if the investigation to date had shown absolutely nothing of even minor concern with regard to said matter that the school would make this decision on its own.

It is perfectly all right for you to view this announcement with a bit of cynicism; the odds are good that some of the higher-ups at Louisville now know that the bright light of the investigation is going to reveal some things that the NCAA rules mavens are not going to like even a little bit. The school’s idea here is to try to get ahead of the game here and punish itself in the hopes that this seeming act of contrition and this seeming self-flagellation will ameliorate whatever penalties the NCAA is going to hand over. It would not surprise me in the least to learn that precise train of logic has already been under discussion along Mahogany Row at the University of Louisville. Here is the problem:

Rarely, if ever, does a school’s self-administered sanctions/punishments satisfy the NCAA folks on high in Indianapolis who see themselves as the only true guardians of the purity of intercollegiate athletics.

Obviously, none of this is going to shower Rick Pitino in glory. Nevertheless, it is important to keep two things in mind here:

2. Since the announcement of the voluntary post-season ban came from the Athletic Director and the University President, that would seem to indicate that whatever “bad news” they have learned is not a smoking gun incontrovertibly placed in the hands of Coach Pitino. Were that the case, I would have expected that the university would also have put him on “administrative leave” until the investigation was completed.

Finally, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald took a more synoptic view of this whole scandalous mess with this comment:

“Coach Rick Pitino claims no knowledge, but a woman wrote a book claiming she and her two daughters were paid to have sex with Louisville basketball players and recruits. Guessing she’s ruined her shot at that Mother of the Year award.”

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

At The Intersection Of Sports And Politics…

I want to start today with something that happened at a Donald Trump rally in Iowa about a week ago. Fear not; this is not going to be a political rant regarding any candidate or party. This will actually circle back to sports pretty quickly.

In the audience at the rally were some members of the Iowa football team; and according to reports, Trump called them up to the stage to be with him. The players gave him an Iowa team jersey with the name “Trump” on the back. Now there are reports that the Iowa football program might – let me emphasize MIGHT – be in trouble with the NCAA because there is an NCAA rule that prohibits student-athletes from endorsing political candidates.

I am not surprised that such a rule exists; after all, if the NCAA has to have a rule book that is 500 pages long, they have to come up with lots of arcane things to regulate. [Hmmm… I wonder if there is a set of rules in there somewhere that defines exactly what the team proctologist may and may not do with his/her spare time?] I may not be surprised that there is such a rule but I surely do not understand why the NCAA mavens thought it was important to write it in the first place.

I continue to believe that the NCAA rules on eligibility and proper recruiting practices and allowable benefits for athletes are there for this purpose only:

on-field advantage

The NCAA – given the fact of its existence – has to care about intercollegiate athletic contests and if they care about them in such a way that the NCAA can make money for itself and for its member schools and conferences, then they have a vested and legitimate interest in creating and enforcing rules that seek competitive balance. What that has to do with which political candidate some or all of the players on a particular team might support/endorse in any election is not so clear to me.

As a former US Government employee, I am very familiar with the idea that I could not endorse any political candidate or party. The Hatch Act restricts Federal employees from such activities and it is a condition of continued employment that Federal employees comply with the provisions of the Hatch Act – and all other Federal laws as well. Some folks argue that the Hatch Act restricts the freedom of expression of Federal employees and I am sure that sort of thing makes for spirited debates in law school classes. Nonetheless, that restriction – if it really exists – is in force.

Now, I would surely hope that the NCAA would not try to justify its prohibition on endorsing a candidate on any basis that resembles the justification for the Hatch Act. Here is the bugaboo in that argument:

The NCAA vehemently denies that student-athletes are employees. [Aside: That is one point where I agree completely with the NCAA.]

I hope that someone in the NCAA Enforcement Mechanism – whatever it is called – steps back and recognizes that the Iowa football team gained no on-field advantage from the actions of some team members standing on a stage with Donald Trump at a political rally – unless of course someone can show that the players were paid to make that appearance. So far, I have seen no reporting that makes even a passing mention of such a thing. However, for completeness, I would agree that the players and possibly the entire program might need a sanction if indeed there were shadow payments involved in that event. Absent evidence of that nature, those players were part of a fundamental American process; if they participated because that is what they believe, that is something that relates closely to the educational goals that the NCAA continues to champion for its student-athletes.

Let us hope that sanity prevails here…

A rather standard sports bar argument challenges participants to name a sports record that is “unbreakable”. The fundamental problem with the approach to such arguments is that a human being set the current record that one asserts to be “unbreakable” which denies the possibility that another human being may come along at some time and do just that. Here are some standard examples of nominally unbreakable records:

Hitting in 56 consecutive games.

Being the winning pitcher in 511 games. Considering that modern pitchers who win 300 games are ushered into the Hall of Fame as soon as possible, it will likely be a long time before that record is approached; but impossible…? [By the way, Cy Young also pitched 749 complete games.]

Scoring 100 points in an NBA game.

Pitching 7 no-hit games. The pitcher who ranks second in no-hit games had 4 in his career; he was a pretty good pitcher named Sandy Koufax…

Receiving 688 intentional walks. Barry Bonds did that; second on the list is Albert Pujols who has collected 296 and Henry Aaron is third on the list at 293.

Winning 122 consecutive races over a 10-year span in track and field. Edwin Moses did that in the 400-meter hurdles.

Those and tons of other are amazing records but someday, each might be broken. However, there is one record I can think of that cannot be broken;

Not only was that the smallest margin of victory in Super Bowl history, it is the smallest POSSIBLE margin of victory in a Super Bowl game. That record may be tied in some future game but it will not – because it cannot – be broken.

If you find yourself in such an argument at a sports bar, try to get some folks to put up a few dollars on the proposition that you can give them a sports record that cannot be broken. Ask the bartender to hold the stakes and be the judge…

Finally, since I started today with something at the intersection of sports and politics, let me close with a comment from Brad Rock in the Deseret News regarding another event at that intersection:

“Near the start of his speech at [University of] Nebraska-Omaha, President Obama called out, ‘Go Mavericks!’

“Which is the political equivalent of a rock star opening a concert by shouting, ‘We love you, Akron!’ ”

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

National Signing Day…

Today is “National Signing Day”; this is the day when high school football players let the world know where they will go to college to continue playing football. This is a concocted “holiday”; it is a paragon of excess. ESPN has been covering/hyping the bejeepers out of this for the last month or so and it will be a relief to see it in the past. Fans of various college teams lend incredible weight to the decisions of these various high school players somehow having convinced themselves that this young man is going to be a great college football player based on the fact that he was a great high school football player. The logic there has its strengths and its weaknesses.

Nonetheless, many outstanding high school players do not become anything more than very ordinary college level players. That fact is demonstrated every three or four years when one looks back at the “career arcs” of loads of 4-Star/Blue Chip/Stone Cold Studs who signed on prior to their freshman year.

In essence, the tension and excitement generated by National Signing Day this year is the triumph of hope over experience.

Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald had these two comments recently about the furor surrounding National Signing Day:

“National signing day is Wednesday. Groundhog Day is Tuesday. A study would reveal that Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions are 10 times more accurate than those of people who rate teenagers two to five stars.”

And …

“Signing day is when middle-aged college football fans warmly embrace the 18-year-olds they’ll be angrily tweeting at following losses in 2018.”

I am certainly not a psychologist but I wonder if the following hypothesis has ever been tested. These players who will be on national TV to reveal their signing decisions for college are players who have excelled at football for all of their lives and with that excellence came status and stature at school and in their community. Everyone recalls the BMOC at his/her high school. Now, some of these new signees will go to college and will not excel; in fact, some of them will fail; they will only make the team in order for the team to have enough bodies to provide practice regimens for the starters on the college squad.

I wonder if the social “demotion” from BMOC-status to Scrub-status hinders in any way the ability of the player to perform in other dimensions of the collegiate experience. If someone could show that to be the case, then those folks who raise up these prospects higher and higher on national pedestals might be considered to be folks who are setting up some of them for a pretty hard fall down the line. Just saying…

Thursday Night Football in the NFL is not something that the players like and for the last couple of years it has not been anything close to “must-see TV”. Particularly late in the season, many of the players’ bodies are not sufficiently recovered from last Sunday’s poundings to perform at top-shelf levels. So, what might you expect the NFL to do about that?

Right! They are going to expand the coverage of Thursday Night Football.

Next year, there will be more games on broadcast TV for everyone to see. In 2015, CBS carried the first 8 Thursday Night Football games; those 8 were simulcast on NFL Network; then NFL Network telecast the final 8 Thursday Night games. However, the contract for the TV rights to Thursday Night Football expired at the end of the 2015 season and here is what is going to happen in 2016 and 2017:

NBC will televise 5 Thursday Night Football Games starting the Thursday before Thanksgiving and carrying through until just before Christmas.

NFL Network will simulcast those 10 games from the 2 networks.

NFL Network will also televise a package of 8 games consisting of other Thursday Night games plus “late-season games on Saturday and additional games to be determined.”

If you want to read a lot of management-speak and bloviating related to the announcement of these TV packages, here is a link that will provide the opportunity.

Other reports say that CBS and NBC paid a total of $450M for their 2-year TV rights in this deal. That is an increase for the NFL because CBS had paid only $350M for the 2-year deal that just expired. Why are the networks willing to pony up an additional $100M for Thursday Night games that have not been nail-biters in recent times? The answer is simple; despite the marginal quality of many of the games, people watch. And because people watch, the networks are able to sell ad time at premium rates. As Deep Throat advised Woodward and Bernstein, “Follow the money.”

Finally, last week’s Pro Bowl drew a TV rating of 5.0. That was the highest rated televised sporting event last weekend and that is good news for the NFL. At the same time, that is the lowest rating for the Pro Bowl in years; this year’s rating is categorized as a “massive drop” since it was down a little over 25% from last year’s 6.7 rating and that is potentially good news for football fans who would love to see the game just dry up and blow away.

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

Jeff Hornacek Gets The Axe

The NBA’s Phoenix Suns fired coach Jeff Hornacek this week. The Suns have not come close to meeting expectations for this year and that is the justification for the firing. However, perhaps those expectations may have been just a tad unrealistic.

Last year, the Suns were not expected to be a playoff team; as I recall, the expected win total for the Suns in the 2014/15 was in the low-to-mid 30s; the team was coming off a 39-win season and had not made any significant upgrades. What happened in 2014/15 was that the Suns won 48 games and Jeff Hornacek finished second in the balloting for NBA Coach of the Year. Then, over the summer, the team signed Tyson Chandler from the Dallas Mavericks and – despite the presence of really good teams atop the Western Conference, the folks in charge of the Suns began to think of the team as – hat tip to Marlon Brando here – “uh contenda”.

To say that has not worked out is to say that the Hindenburg had a minor problem with docking. Chandler is playing only 23.5 minutes per game; his field goal percentage looks good at 49.5% but that is the lowest his shooting percentage has been since his rookie season in 2001/02; he is only getting 8.4 rebounds per game which is significantly below his 11.5 average in 2013/14. The rest of the team has not played all that well either and as of this morning the Suns’ record stands at 14-35; they have the same record as the Timberwolves and have only 5 more wins than the Lakers.

The team should not be this “bad”; the team also should not be aiming 55 wins and a possible #3 seed in the Western Conference Playoffs either. Jeff Hornacek happened to be in the wrong beach chair when this tsunami of losing washed ashore. Isn’t amazing how the guy who was nominally the second best coach in the NBA as of May 2015 became expendable in January 2016…?

Over the weekend, I saw on ESPN – I think – some highlights of a Suns/Knicks game. Basketball highlights tend to be repetitious; lots of dunks or long three-point shots and not much else. However, there was something strange in the highlights here; the Suns were wearing black uniforms. No, it is not strange for NBA teams to wear black; lots of teams use them as “alternate uniforms” creating different lines of merchandise to sell. Nonetheless, this is what went through my head and was jotted down on my notepad by the TV set:

When the Suns wear black uniforms, shouldn’t the TV graphics refer to them as the Eclipses?

Recent reports seem to confirm prior stories that Calvin Johnson will retire from the NFL; the latest story is that he told Lions’ coaches last year that he intended to do so. When the earlier reports surfaced, I wrote that Lions’ fans must be having flashbacks to Barry Sanders and the flashbacks cannot be “happy times”. Sanders was clearly the best running back in Lions’ history and he retired abruptly at age 31; Johnson is clearly the best WR in Lions’ history and he is retiring at age 30.

The Detroit Lions franchise is hardly a model organization in terms of positive results. In fact, it may be – over the long haul – the bottom rung of the NFL ladder. Consider:

Since 1957, the Lions have participated in a total of 12 playoff games; they lost 11 of them.

Since the NFL went to a 16-game season in 1978, the Lions have had winning records 10 times.

Since the NFL realigned in 2002 to create the NFC North, the Lions cumulative record is 76-148. That is a winning percentage of .339.

To be sure, there are some other NFL franchises that you can hang a “sad-sack tag” onto.

Since 1999 – the year the Cleveland Browns were reincarnated into the NFL – they have been awful. They did make one playoff appearance in 2002; other than that… Like the Raiders, they have had 9 head coaches over the span in question. They have had 2 winning seasons but the overall record since 1999 is 87-185. That is a winning percentage of .320.

The Bills have not been to the playoffs in 16 years.

The Dolphins have been in one playoff game in 14 years.

The Rams have not had a winning season in the last 12 seasons.

The NFL system is skewed to assist teams that do poorly with the idea of creating “parity” throughout the league. Poor teams get the top draft picks in every round of the draft; the salary cap prevents good teams from generating huge disparities in revenues and then spend their way into contender status – as a few teams did in the early days of NFL free agency. The salary cap also allows so-called “small market teams” such as Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, New Orleans and Indy to compete toe-to-toe with the “big market teams” in places like NY, Chicago, Houston, Philly and – once again – Los Angeles.

The Lions have defied all of the “advantages” that present themselves to losing teams for just about all of the last 58 years. Maybe that is part of the reason behind the decision of their best RB ever to call it quits earlier in his career than one might have expected and part of the reason Calvin Johnson is thinking along a similar track.

Finally, I mentioned above that Jeff Hornacek finished second in the voting for NBA Coach of the Year last year. He lost that vote to Greg Popovich of the Spurs. Here is an item from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times regarding “Pop”:

“There’s a move afoot in San Antonio to name a high school there in honor of Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.

“Students attending there, it goes without saying, will be strongly urged to pass.”

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

The Irrelevance Of The Pro Bowl

I am certainly not alone in my disdain for the Pro Bowl. Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald made this comment last week:

“There is a new European-made movie that shows paint drying. Good, now I have something to do during Sunday’s Pro Bowl.”

Some data would suggest that the players do not really care about the game either. Each Pro Bowl squad has 44 players meaning the game sends out 88 initial “invitations”. Obviously, some of the players on that “invite list” will be playing in the Super Bowl this week, so their absence is understandable. What is a tad unusual, is that so many other players decline the honor of participating in this game. It took 133 invitations to come up with 88 players willing to take an expense-paid trip to Hawaii and a minimum $30K check for participation. (The winning team got close to $60K.) It is as if one entire squad refused to show up and they had to go and get the next level participants.

Just look at some of the QBs on the teams. Teddy Bridgewater? Derek Carr? Jameis Winston? Tyrod Taylor? None of those even resemble “stiffs”, but are they elite QBs? Maybe next year…

One more observation from Brad Dickson on the Pro Bowl:

“I wouldn’t say people don’t take the Pro Bowl seriously, but a new rule this year allows players to text in the huddle.”

Last week, Michael Sam declared that he was going to give it one more try to make an NFL squad next season. I have two thoughts on that pronouncement:

2. If he is unsuccessful in this attempt to make an NFL team, then I profoundly hope that the part of his statement that refers to “one more try” is completely accurate.

If you have some spare cash lying around in your checking account, you can participate in an auction to buy a football thrown by John Unitas and caught by Raymond Berry for a touchdown in the first half of the 1958 NFL title game. That is the game that went into overtime and was called “The Greatest Game Ever Played”. The auction begins today and runs through 11 February; bidding starts at $10K. Here is a link to the report of the auction. Here is a link to the website of the auctioneer showing the status of this particular item. When I posted this rant, there had not been any bids on the item yet.

Last week, a reader, rugger9, posed a question in the comment section on one of the rants. He looked ahead to the weekend game between the Golden State Warriors and the Philly 76ers and wondered if the spread for that game might be the biggest spread ever. I do not keep track of such things but I know someone who does and who reads these rants at least once in a while. So, I posed the question to him for a query of his records. Here are the salient points in his response:

“My manual gambling records (pre-computer) show Phoenix’ closing line at home -24 over Dallas on 3/12/1993 and winning, 116-98. Dallas was 11-71 that year and Phoenix won over 60 and led NBA at 113 ppg that season.

“Prior to 1977, I don’t have any gambling records, but going back to 1973, the lousy Philly team was getting a bundle of points on the road vs. the Celtics, Bucks, and Lakers, but I don’t think they would have hit the 20’s, and if they ever did, there’s no way it was as high as the 24 quoted above. Philly though they were lousy did average 104 ppg that season and there was no 3-pointer then.”

That message came to me about 12 hours before any spread went up on the boards I follow for the Warriors/Sixers game. Here is another note from that message with regard to what he thought the spread was going to be:

“Using my power ratings, I would expect GS on the road to be in the -17 to -19 area. At home, they would be in the -21- to -23 area.”

The game opened at Golden State -18; it moved to 18.5 briefly and then settled in at 17.5 points. I checked it about 3 or 4 times on Saturday to see if I ever saw it outside the predicted “17-to-19 range”. I never did.

Oh by the way, the Warriors won the game by 3 points and it took a 3-point shot in the final seconds to provide the margin of victory…

Finally, I cannot resist one more snarky observation by Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald regarding the Pro Bowl game yesterday:

“Pro Bowl Sunday is to Super Bowl Sunday what National Pancake Day is to Christmas.”

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

Wagering On This Year’s Super Bowl Game

Since Friday September 4,2015 – ignoring those Fridays when I was traveling – it has been the order of the day to write some form of Mythical Picks. Not today. This is the weekend of the Pro Bowl and I would just as soon wager on turtle racing as compared to the Pro Bowl. I will not watch the game for any longer than the time it might take to go grazing through the channels while it is on. Moreover, I seriously think that anyone who bets on the outcome of the Pro Bowl is someone who needs to find treatment for a gambling addiction.

There will be Mythical Picks next Friday before the Super Bowl game and there will be wagers galore made on that game all over the country and the world. In fact, there is an estimate out there from the AGA that the total amount of money that will be bet in the US alone on the Super Bowl this year will be $4.2B. The American Gaming Association (AGA) is a trade association to promote gaming and to lobby for legislation and regulations that favor gaming. I say that to acknowledge that the AGA could have a motive behind any of its pronouncements.

Nonetheless, their $4.2B estimate of the wagering on Super Bowl 50 comes with some other numbers.

The amount of money that will be wagered “extra-legally” will be about $4.1B.

More than 95% of the money estimated to be “on the line” for this year’s Super Bowl will be done illegally.

Here is a statement from the CEO of the AGA:

“Just like football, sports betting has never been more popular than it is today. The casino gaming industry is leading the conversation around a new approach to sports betting that enhances consumer protections, strengthens the integrity of games and recognizes fans’ desire for greater engagement with sports.”

That is the politically correct way of saying that the AGA would love to have Federal legislation that would make more of that “illegal action” come their way in a Federally sanctioned way. I am a consistent proponent of legalizing and regulating sports betting; I do not try to hide that. I think the AGA has two significant points here that they will probably not make because it would be politically incorrect to do so.

The law enforcers are not competent enough to enforce those laws.

I suspect most folks would choose the first of these alternatives over the second.

Second, if $4.1B is on the line, there is a lot of potentially taxable revenue involved there which is slipping through the taxable income filters in times when most government entities could use some extra revenues.

For more information about how the AGA came up with these estimates, here is a link.

Whenever legalized sports betting comes up, the people who put on the games raise the bugaboo of game-fixing and point-shaving. They never seem to address the possibility that those things are ongoing under their noses currently in the absence of legalized sports betting. I do not want to get too deep into epistemology here but when they climb onto their high horses this is what I wish someone would press them on:

When they hem and haw about that and try to tell you that the integrity of the game is beyond reproach, then ask them how they know that to be the case?

Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald had this comment relative to recent suggestions and investigations of match-fixing in the world of tennis:

“There are allegations of match-fixing in professional tennis. The new Wimbledon executive director, Vince McMahon, vehemently denied the charges.”

I cite that observation here for two reasons. First I think it is very clever. Second, “vehement denials” with regard to the existence of match-fixing/point-shaving are not evidence that it is not ongoing.

Finally, let me close here with one more observation from Brad Dickson:

“Fifteen-year-old Romanian basketball sensation Robert Bobroczky stands 7-foot-6 and weighs 184 pounds. He was unable to turn pro after he blew away the night before the draft.”

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

Money … Money … Money …

Everything associated with the Super Bowl comes with a huge price tag – or a huge revenue stream depending on whether you are the buyer or the seller in the transaction. Folks who wish to place an advertisement on the Super Bowl game itself will pay an average of $4.8M for a 30-second spot during the action this year. It was not always exactly that way; here is a summary of how the costs associated with Super Bowl advertising have grown:

$40K

$4.8M

1973: First year average cost for 30 seconds reached $100K
1985: First year average cost for 30 seconds reached $500K
1995: First year average cost for 30 seconds reached $1M
2000: First year average cost for 30 seconds reached $2M
2009: First year average cost for 30 seconds reached $3M
2013: First year average cost for 30 seconds reached $4M

[Note: In 2015 – just 2 years since the cost climbed past $4M per 30 seconds – the average cost is poised to rise to more than $5M very soon.]

Those numbers and trends should lead you to conclude that the total revenues taken in by the networks who televise the Super Bowl games has been a significant amount of money; and you would be right is drawing that conclusion. Ad Age estimates that the total amount of money spent by advertisers on Super Bowl game ads since the start is in the range of $4.8B. This year’s revenue alone is estimated at $377M and if that is the income from the game it would be more advertising revenue than the Super Bowl games generated in all of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s combined.

As you watch the ads a week and a half from now, realize that each advertiser is spending – on average – $3.02 to get their message across to every viewer. I will be attending a Super Bowl watching event with a relatively standard roster of attendance; there will likely be 16 of us watching – or pretending to watch – the game. That means that every time an advertisement comes on, the sponsor is spending almost $50 to pitch us in that one room with regard to the virtues of his/her product. I do not know about the environment where you watch the Super Bowl, but I really think that is $50 flushed down an advertising commode…

If you want even more data on Super Bowl advertising and the history of same, here is a link.

All of us who watch the game on TV are going to pay for all that advertising in the form of prices for whatever products we buy that may have been sponsors for a portion of the game. There are immutable laws of physics; there is also an immutable law of marketing:

The consumer pays all of the costs of getting the product to the marketplace plus a percentage of that cost that will serve as “profit” for the producer.

Greg Cote had this comment in the Miami Herald recently that seems appropriate at this point because it has to do with the number of potential viewers of the Super Bowl game on TV:

“WQAM-560 may go after and pay big for Dolphins radio rights, unaware that most folks nowadays own televisions.”

However, the viewers are not the only folks who will wind up paying a price for goods/services associated with the Super Bowl. Think about the fans who just have to find a way to go to the game and see it for themselves. In terms of a drain on their total assets, they would almost certainly be better off being robbed at gunpoint for everything they have in their pockets. Consider some of this information:

98% higher than normal

Yes, other cities have experienced hotel room rate increases for Super Bowl weekend but nothing near these levels:

Now, if you think that the increases in hotel room rates are outrageous, consider the package deals offered to fans in Carolina and/or Denver who just have to go and personally see their heroes play in this game:

$6175 per person from Charlotte ($5855 per person from Denver): This gets you to the team tailgate party above plus a ticket to the game plus round trip airfare (coach) from wherever you happen to live.

$5800 – 6100 per person: Three- night package (land only, you provide the airfare or other transit costs to and from SF) including three nights at a hotel, the tailgate party and a ticket to the game.

If you live in Denver and want the three-night package plus airfare to and from the game add $900.

All of the “tickets to the game” cited above are basically “nosebleed seats”; these are the cheap seats for the game. If you want to upgrade your tickets to the game, here are the add-on costs per person:

As noted above, I will be joining friends for a traditional game-watching experience. How about you?

Finally, here is an item from Brad Rock’s column, Rock On, in the Deseret News:

“Conan O’Brien on a report claiming New Jersey Governor Chris Christie spent over $82,000 on food at NFL games: ‘Hey, both of those games went into overtime.’ ”

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