Category: Daily Rants

The 2016/2017 NFL coaching merry-go-round is now in gear and in motion.  Jeff Fisher became the first coaching casualty of the season opening the first slot for aspiring coaches or folks hoping for another bite of the apple.  The Rams’ special teams coordinator, John Fassel, will be the interim coach for the final 3 games of the 2016 season.  If by some predestined forces the Rams were to win all 3 of those games, it will not be due to some nascent genius in the drawing up of “x’s and o’s”; it will be coincidental.

I am rarely in favor of firing coaches in mid-season.  Normally, what it shows is not much more than the frustration of the “higher-ups” with the results on the field combined in equal measure with their impotence in effecting change that manifests itself in different results on the field.  I do not expect the LA Rams to become world-beaters in the final weeks of December – but in this particular case, I do understand why Stan Kroenke thought he had to do something drastic.

The Rams have just returned home after a couple of decades of dalliance in St. Louis.  There is something you need to understand bout the sports market in LA; it is potentially very large but the fanbase is fickle and shallow.  Los Angeles is not a great sports town; Los Angeles is a great town for winning franchises.  Had the Chicago Cubs franchise been the LA Cubs, they would never have survived 108 years of losing; the Cubs would have been either outta town or outta business.

Stan Kroenke is building a new stadium complex and he is going to want to sell PSLs and season tix in a couple of years.  Look at the product on the field now and ask if this resembles in any way what a front-running fanbase demands:

• Overall record is 4-9
• Lowest scoring team in the NFL – even below the Browns
• Lost the last 3 games by a combined score of 117-45

I did not see the Falcons/Rams game last Sunday; that was not the game in the late afternoon slot in the DC area and I have not had a chance to look for a replay on NFL Network.  However, there have been multiple reports that the crowd at the game was “disappointing”.  Evidently, there were plenty of empty seats at the kickoff (one report characterized the stadium as “half-empty” at the start); with the score 21-0 at halftime, reports say that some people did not come back for the second half kickoff; by the end of the 3^rd quarter, the score was 42-0 and reports say that the stadium “emptied out”.  Forget the embarrassment factor and the competitive factor; the important thing here is the economic factor.  All of those folks who chose to do something else last Sunday instead of attending the Falcons/Rams game and/or who abandoned the stadium in mid-game are less motivated now to buy those PSLs and or season tix down the road.

Something had to be done and there are no realistic “player options” with regard to wholesale and splashy changes to be made.  The NFL waiver wire and unsigned free agent list in December is not fertile ground.  So, Stan Kroenke did just about the only thing he could do in this situation; it was really the only playable card in his hand.

Now comes the real challenge…  The next coach has to rebuild the program.  The defense has players; the offense has exactly 1 proven top-shelf NFL player (Todd Gurley).  There is another dimension to the challenge in LA.  The fickle/shallow fanbase would really prefer to have a recognizable coach – a “celebrity coach” if you will.  After all, the beautiful people deserve that – – right?

Immediately, rumors have surfaced with regard to Jim Harbaugh and Nick Saban from the college ranks.  Toss in names like Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, Sean Payton and the ghost of Vince Lombardi to create sweet smelling stew simmering on the stove.  According to Forbes, Stan Kroenke has a net worth of $7.5B.  That means he can make a financial offer to any of the folks named above – including the ghost of Vince Lombardi – that would assure their agent would “take the call”.  I have no idea if any of them would be the “right call” from a football perspective but any/all of them would appeal to the need for a “recognizable coach” for the Rams.

Obviously, I have a preference for the new Rams’ coach.  If I could make it so, Jon Gruden would be their new coach not because of anything he might do positively or negatively for the franchise.  My preference here is that when he becomes the coach of an NFL team – any NFL team – he ceases to be on MNF.  To my mind, that would be a great leap forward…

The Washington Post had a story recently that makes you stop and wonder about the thought processes of some of our elected officials.  Evidently, several legislators in the State of Washington think that it should be legal for licensed gun owners to be able to bring their weapons with them into stadiums where baseball and football games are played – – such as Safeco Field and Century Link Field in Seattle.  I know; you think I am making this up; well here is the link to show you that I am not.

The NFL and MLB do not allow firearms in the stadiums; when they do the bag searches and the metal detector screenings, one of the things they want to keep out of the stadium is your random loaded gun. I feel confident that both organizations would oppose this sort of legislation.

There are sufficient incidents of fights and violence at sporting events – baseball and football games – that sometimes result in serious injuries and even death.  Wouldn’t it be great if the combatants were armed so that they might have the opportunity to injure some innocent bystanders in addition to the immediate objects of their dissatisfaction?  The “tailgating culture” particularly at football games is such that half of the people who enter the stadium for the opening kickoff would probably fail a breathalyzer test if they were driving a motor vehicle.  Clearly, this is the demographic that you want to be “packing” …

On the other hand, many fans have been very upset and very critical of bad officiating at NFL events for the past several years.  If the crowd included folks who were armed, you might see the quality of officiating improve.  Hey, I am trying to find any little nugget here that might make this idea something better than the dumbest thing I have heard so far this year.

Finally, since I mentioned – tangentially – the Chicago Cubs above, here is an item from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald about the Cubbies:

“The Chicago Cubs will pay $388,000 to repair damage to a park during their World Series victory celebration. No big deal. They’ve been saving up for 108 years.”

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

 

 

Last week, there were two things side-by-side at the top of the Sports Section of the Washington Post.  The first was a report by Rick Maese and Matt Bonesteel regarding the findings in a new report on the Russian doping conspiracy.  You can find that report here; I commend it to your reading.

The report summarizes the findings of a Canadian lawyer, Richard McLaren, after an investigation done at the behest of WADA – the World Anti-Doping Agency.  This statement from Mr. McLaren will give you an idea of the tone and the conclusions drawn in the report.

“It is impossible to know how deep and how far back the conspiracy goes.  For years, international sports competition has been unknowingly hijacked by the Russians. Coaches and athletes have been playing on an uneven field. Sports fans and spectators have been deceived. It’s time that this stops.”

I have not taken the time to find and read the original report but I am willing to believe that McLaren – on behalf of WADA – has developed evidence to support the conclusion that this whole thing was an institutional matter directed by someone or someones far beyond the level of an individual athlete or a team trainer.  It appears that urine samples were “swapped out” and the “testing establishment” was duped.  It should be no surprise that there are calls to ban the Russians from the Olympic Games in Korea in 2018 and for other severe sanctions.

Right next to this reporting on McLaren’s findings and report was a column by Sally Jenkins that took a different tack on this matter.  She points out that the report is “more embarrassing for WADA than for Vladimir Putin’s empire.”  You can find her column here; I commend it to your reading.

Sally Jenkins calls for the dismantling of WADA and replacing it with something that is independent of the IOC.  [Aside:  Indeed, it is difficult to put blind faith in any person or entity attached to the IOC.]

I do not know if WADA needs to be dismantled and replaced; I do know that they have been “less than fully successful” in catching athletes who may have “cheated” in various athletic competitions.  In this case, the doping practices go back at least as far as 2011 and they continued to obtain through – at least – the Winter Games in 2014.  McLaren’s findings here in late 2016 does not inspire great confidence in anything WADA has said or done in the last 5 years – at least – when it comes to “providing a level playing field for international athletes” …

While at least tangentially on the subject of the Olympics, I want to be sure that you know about two new sports that have been granted “provisional recognition” by the IOC.  These sports will be in this provisional status for 3 years and then can apply for inclusion in the Olympic Games.  These two sports are:

1. Muay Thai – – and – –
2. Cheerleading

Muay Thai is a martial art which – not surprisingly – originated in Thailand.  Cheerleading is team gymnastics set to music.  Muay Thai maintains the original Olympic focus on events that were related to war and combat.  Cheerleading is not a sport.

In addition to sports that seek IOC “blessing” as something that may become Olympic events, each host city is permitted to include sports in their games that in a one-off status.  The 2020 Games are scheduled in Tokyo and here are five of the one-off sports that will be included in those Games:

1. Baseball/softball
2. Karate
3. Skateboarding
4. Sport climbing
5. Surfing

A while back, I commented on a win by the LA Rams where the team had not scored a TD in that win.  What made that unusual in today’s NFL is that it was the second win for the Rams this season where the Rams did not score a TD.  I said that I could not recall that sort of thing happening recently although it was probably prevalent in the NFL in the 30s and 40s. You should not be surprised to learn that I received an e-mail from the sports stats maven in Houston on the subject.  Let me share his information with you.

“In the 1920’s, there were 77 games in which a team won without scoring a TD. There were also a load of 0-0 and 3-3 ties and some 6-6 games that no TD was scored during that period. Please note that in the 20s, the average number of games per year was less than 80.

“In the 1930’s, there were 37 such games won without scoring a TD and there were still ties, but not as many as the previous decade. Please note that in the 30s, the average number of games per year was less than 55.

“In the 1940’s, there were only 4 such games and that includes both the NFL and the four years of the AAFC.

“More recently, there were no NFL games from 2013 to 2015 in which the winning team scored fewer than 10 points, but there have been two this season [the two games won by the Rams].  LA is the first team since the 1997 Bills to win two games in one season in which it scored fewer than 10 points. Buffalo did that in Marv Levy’s final season as its head coach, with victories against Indy and Miami, each by a 9-6 score on all field goals.”

Finally, here is some potential good news – at least it is for me – from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Lifting weights can lead to better brain function, according to a study at the University of Sydney.

“So maybe getting called a dumbbell isn’t such a bad thing after all.”

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

 

 

 

You want to know why some people just cannot stop themselves from beating a dead horse?  Because it is so easy…  Indulge me for a moment today; I am going to flog a dead carcass that is tainting the sporting landscape.  Naturally, I speak of the over-abundance of college football bowl games.  These meaningless events serve only 2 purposes and neither is noble:

1. They provide ESPN and other sports networks with programming which provides a revenue stream to schools/conferences.
2. They provide a “tourism attraction” to host cities thereby bringing revenue from outside that city to that city.

That’s it; that’s the list.

Once we recognize that 40 college bowl games are nothing more than a bald-faced money-grab, we can point out what it is and try to ignore the games that mean nothing.  Believe me; that is what I try to do – until hypocrisy gets heaped on top of the money-grab and then I am drawn back to the thinking about the whole mess.  If I allege that there is hypocrisy associated with the college bowl games, it should not take a Stephen Hawking-level intellect to figure out from where said hypocrisy might emanate.  Indeed, you are correct; it comes from the NCAA.

We have had to tolerate the NCAA’s unfounded assertion that college athletes are amateurs; they are student-athletes.  Moreover, to protect college athletes from corrupting influences, the NCAA writes and enforces a ton of rules; one of the foundation pieces of that entire rule book is this principle:

• Student-athletes should not have any access to any privilege or any stature or any element of college life that is not also available to the student body at large.

Forget about the obvious violations of that principle like athletic dorms and the like.  The topic here is how does this apply to bowl games?  Here is a link to a table published at sportsbusinessdaily.com.  Let me quote the heading for the table:

“Welcome to SportsBusiness Journal’s 11th annual rundown of the gift packages provided by college football’s bowl game organizing committees. Click here to read more about the stories behind some of the gifts and gift suites — private shopping events for game participants — and here to learn how much money in gifts the CFP champion could take home.”

These “gift packages” are approved and sanctioned by the NCAA as the overseeing body for college athletics.  Please note that these “gift packages” are not available to the student bodies at the participating schools.  But these “tokens of appreciation” from the organizers of the bowl games – that generate revenue streams – are perfectly all right because the NCAA says so.

I do not mean to imply in any way that the players should not receive their “gift packages”.  I hope they all enjoy whatever they get from the organizing committees.  And along with that wish, I hope that at least someone who writes or enforces the NCAA rules develops a case of agita bad enough that he/she cannot sleep for a week.

Moving on …  Yesterday (December 8^th), there was an article at CBSsports.com with this headline:

Top 10 NCAA Tournament Résumés

The picture associated with this article made it clear that the “NCAA Tournament” involved here was the men’s basketball tournament in March.  This is “bracketology” under a different name and changing the name does not make it smell any less fetid.  At this point in the college basketball season, a large fraction of the 350-or-so Division 1 basketball schools have yet to play a meaningful game let alone an important one.

Fifty years ago, The Byrds sang:

“To everything – Turn! Turn! Turn

There is a season – Turn! Turn! Turn! …”

Let me take a deep breath and say this slowly and calmly:

• Early December is not the “season” to be examining college basketball résumés.  There are not enough useful entries there yet.

Examining a basketball résumé about now is sort of like reading a memoir written by a teenager.  My guess is that if you were given such an oeuvre, you would not pay a whole lot of attention to it for very long.  There is a simple reason for that; it is highly unlikely that a typical teenager’s memoir would contain anything worth serious consideration.  That is the state of affairs for college basketball teams as of this morning…

A couple of weeks ago, Bob Molinaro had this item in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot.  It happens to speak to women’s college basketball but it also is relevant to the current “state of play” in the men’s game in early December:

“Coachspeak: What would you call a women’s exhibition basketball game between highly ranked Maryland and Division II Bluefield State College which ended 146-17 after Maryland outscored their victims 72-0 in the second half? Maryland coach Brenda Frese called it a “good tune-up.” Not the first words that leap to my mind.”

Finally, here is a comment from Brad Rock of the Deseret News earlier this week:

“Big Mac creator Jim Delligatti died at 98, last week.

“Here’s to the man who provided countless lunches to countless teams on countless bus trips.

“He deserves a break today.”

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

 

 

It should be no secret around these parts that I do not like the excessive number of college football bowl games.  I really like college football but more is not better in this circumstance.  Good college football involves rivalry games and/or games that have meaning with regard to conference standings or poll placement and/or an intersectional game with two good teams.  Note the emphasis on the word “good” in that last sentence.

This year, there will be 40 bowl games; 80 teams – from a field of 128 Division 1-A teams – will play in bowl games.  Five out of every eight college teams will be in a bowl game.  Those numbers do not add up to “interesting” or “important” or “attractive”.  Most of the games are meaningless wastes of time and energy.  Their role in the grand scheme of things is that they will contribute ever so minutely to the entropy death of the universe.

I have surveyed the field of 40 bowl games.  There are about a half-dozen that meet my criterion of “intersectional game with two good teams” and those games may attract my attention even though they really do not mean a blessed thing.  Penn State versus USC in the Rose Bowl is an example of such a game.  However, there are a bunch of bowl games that just make me shake my head in disbelief such as:

 

Heart of Dallas Bowl:  Army versus North Texas.  OK, it is good to see Army in a bowl game again; it has been a while since that happened.  However, this game is a repeat; these teams already played once in October.  No one – and I mean NO ONE – was clamoring to see an encore when the final whistle blew.  Nonetheless …

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl:  Idaho versus Colorado State.  Here is the only interesting fact related to this game.  Idaho is going to a bowl game for the third time in school history – – and all three of those bowl games have been played in Boise.  Lots of teams get invitations to bowl games that are far from campus in places where the weather is balmy in December.  Idaho gets invited to take a bus ride about 200 miles north to play in Idaho in the winter…

New Mexico Bowl:  New Mexico versus Texas-San Antonio.  New Mexico is playing a home game; the bowl game is played on their home field.  These guys don’t even get to take a 200-mile bus ride to go to this “special event” …  [For the record, this is the third time New Mexico has played a “home game” in the New Mexico Bowl which only came into existence in 2006.]

Quick Lane Bowl:  Maryland versus BC.  [Aside: I dare you to name the venue for this game without peeking.]  Both teams are 6-6; neither team is even marginally interesting to watch.  The organizers of this game could not have a full stadium if they gave out free tickets along with a voucher that the fan could turn in for a $100 bill at stadium concession stands after the final whistle…

St. Petersburg Bowl:  Miami (OH) versus Mississippi St.  Miami is 6-6 and Mississippi St. is 5-7; they needed more teams to fill bowl slots than there were teams with 6 wins this year.  The upshot of this is to root for Mississippi St. in this game so that after this bowl game, both teams will end the season with losing records.  Such fun …

 

There are 3 games that might be interesting enough to go and check out the scores and stats because of the teams involved but I doubt that I will watch more than a couple of minutes of any of them:

 

Military Bowl:  Temple versus Wake Forest.  Wake Forest does not score a lot; their 6-6 record was built on giving up only about 20 points per game.  Temple’s defense has allowed a total of 33 points in its last 5 games and two of those games were shutouts (against UConn and Tulane).  Lots of punting here…

Outback Bowl:  Florida versus Iowa.  If you do not like defense, do not watch this game or pay any attention to it at all.  It would not be a shock to see the final score be 10-9 with the TD coming on a fumble recovery in the end zone…

Holiday Bowl:  Minnesota versus Washington St.  The interest here comes from the diametrically opposite ways these teams approach offensive football.  Minnesota throws the ball only under duress; they have only recorded 8 TD passes in the entire season.  Washington St. on the other hand threw the ball more than 50 times per game on average this year.  It is the “air force” versus the “infantry” here…

 

I will try to watch the Cotton Bowl to see W. Michigan play Wisconsin.  It will be interesting to see how a 13-0 MAC Champion who beat two Big 10 teams this year fares against one of the top teams in the Big 10.  I will watch the Orange Bowl to see Michigan and Florida State slug it out with one another; and as I said above, I will watch Penn St. and USC in the Rose Bowl.

Obviously, I look forward to the two CFP semi-final games on Dec 31.  However, one or both may need to be seen after-the-fact depending on social arrangements made by my long-suffering wife for New Year’s Eve.  That is one of the main reasons that I gave thanks about 2 weeks ago, for the invention of the DVR.

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

 

 

Over the weekend, Tiger Woods played in the Hero World Challenge golf tournament in the Bahamas.  There was plenty of good news that came from that tournament and because much of it involved Tiger Woods, the media were all over it.  Let me highlight some of the many pieces of good news:

1. Tiger Woods finished all four rounds of the tournament without having to withdraw and without limping from hole to hole.  He has not done that for a while now; his physical condition seems much improved.
2. If you are a TV exec and your network carries golf, you have to be thrilled at what happened last weekend and by Woods’ statement that he plans to play again next year.
3. If you are a PGA Tour exec, you have to be thrilled because your TV revenues are tied to ratings and TV ratings for golf have plummeted since Tiger Woods has been on the shelf.
4. If you are a golf writer or broadcaster, you have a meal ticket again – someone who can assure that there is never a “slow news day” on your beat.

With all that good news and a sense of euphoria, one wonders why anyone has to take it over the top.  Kyle Porter writes about golf on CBSSports.com; naturally, what he was writing about over the weekend and into Monday all centered around Tiger Woods.  Let me be clear; I do not know Kyle Porter from Cole Porter from Cole Hamels from Dorothy Hamill from Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  I have no reason to like or dislike him or his work.  So why did he have to lead one of his reports with this:

“Tiger Woods’ first tournament back at the Hero World Challenge was a raving success by any feasible metric. Woods led the field in birdies, looked genuinely interested in the event and did not grimace after hitting a single shot.”

Let me address the phrase “…a raving success by any feasible metric.”  I will start by saying “Bulls*it!”  Now let me provide a couple of “feasible metrics”:

1. There were 17 golfers in the tournament field.  Tiger Woods finished 15^th.
2. In addition to leading the field in birdies, he led the field in double bogeys too.
3. Woods’ 76 on the final round was the worst round shot by anyone in the field.
4. The two guys Tiger Woods beat out were Russell Knox and Emiliano Grillo.  I am not sure that even the PGA Tour Commish could pick those two guys out of a lineup with the Smurfs.

There was plenty of good news from the Hero World Challenge.  However, this sort of phony praise and looking at the world through rose colored glasses does not add to the good news; what it does is to diminish it.  Moreover, it diminishes any sense one might have regarding the objectivity of the journalism that under-girds the reporting.

Moving on …  The 2018 Winter Olympics will take place in PyeongChang, South Korea; and as is customary with the way NBC televises Olympic competitions here in the US, there will be saturation.  I do not just mean there will be saturation in the winter of 2018; the saturation starts now.

Last month, NBC began televising some of the test-events leading up to the games on various outlets under the NBC umbrella.  In case you did not know, they have already covered the “big air event” associated with the FIS Snowboard World Cup.  I used quotation marks there because I am not a snowboarding aficionado and could not tell you what the rules are regarding the “big air event”.  To be candid, the phrase “big air event” conjures up in my mind the aftermath of a chow-down at Taco Bell…

But do not worry if you missed the first telecast of these events.  There are eleven more to follow between now and March 2017.  As a public service, let me alert you to the ways you might avail yourselves of this coverage:

“NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app – NBC Sports Group’s live streaming product for desktops, mobile devices, tablets, and connected TVs – will stream coverage. The NBC Sports app will stream coverage via ‘TV Everywhere,’ giving consumers additional value to their subscription service, and making high-quality content available to MVPD customers both in and out of the home and on multiple platforms.”

Consider yourselves alerted and forewarned; I seriously doubt that I will have much more to say about any of the dozen or so events that will air here – – unless of course a serious confrontation between competing teams involving live ammunition comes to a head in the IBU Biathlon World Cup…

Finally, I began today with commentary on the Hero World Challenge golf tournament so let me close with an item from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald about another non-major golf tournament:

“There is a golf tournament in northern Oregon exclusively for marijuana smokers and growers. It’s the second athletic competition of its type. The other, of course, is called the NBA season.”

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

 

 

Late last week – at about the eleventh hour – MLB and the MLBPA reached an agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).  There were only about 24 hours left on the old agreement when the bargaining concluded and now it needs to be ratified by the owners and by the players as a whole.  The term of the new CBA would be 5 years which would mean that there would be no threats or danger of strikes, work stoppages, lockouts and the like through 2021.  The last time there was a work stoppage in baseball was in 1995 so when this agreement is ratified, there will be a 26-year period of “labor peace”.

In 2016, the estimated revenue for all of MLB was $9B.  An off-handed interpretation of the new agreement would be that the folks representing the billionaire owners and the folks representing the millionaire players found a way to continue to bathe in the flow of $9B annually.  I am sure there was more to it than that; but when I read about the things that baseball writers and commentators consider noteworthy in the new agreement, I am not so sure that the off-handed interpretation is so wrong.  Let me dispense with a couple of terms in the new CBA that seem self-evident to me:

 

1. The use of chewing tobacco and other forms of smokeless tobacco is banned in MLB.  Current players who use these products are grandfathered but new players will not be users.  I hope it did not take long for both sides to agree that this was a good idea.
2. The All-Star Game will no longer determine the home-field advantage for the World Series.  The fact that it ever did was abjectly stupid from the moment it was first uttered aloud.  Home field advantage will now go to the team with the better regular season record which is as it should have been for about a century now.  This issue does not put or take a single penny in or out of either side’s pockets; I hope it did not take long for both sides to reach agreement here.  In algebra class in high school, we all learned that removing a negative number is a positive; therefore, I choose to call this CBA provision the World Series Algebraic Clause.

Missing from the new CBA is a provision to put a pitch clock in MLB games.  Too bad…  They use a pitch clock in minor league games and it seems to work just fine.

There are changes in the rules governing Qualifying Offers for potential free agents.  Briefly, under the old CBA, if a player turned down a Qualifying Offer and then signed with another team as a free agent, the signing team lost a draft pick and the money associated with that pick in the signing bonus pool and took a reduction in the amount it could spend on intentional players.  Now, the “costs” associated with signing such a free agent are scaled.  Teams who are over the luxury tax threshold will lose a second round and a fifth-round draft pick – plus associated money in signing pools – while teams under the luxury tax limit will only lose a third-round pick.  That is the abbreviated version of the changes; if you are interested in the “wherefores” and the “moreovers”, Google is your friend…

Since I mentioned the luxury tax threshold above, that number is going up over the 5 years of this agreement.  In 2016, it was $189M in total payroll per club.  Here is how it changes in the new agreement:

•             2017: $195M
•             2018: $197M
•             2019: $206M
•             2020: $209M
•             2021: $210M

Penalties for teams that exceed these new thresholds increase too.  First time “offenders will pay a 20% luxury tax; second time “offenders will pay a 30% tax and third time offenders will pay a 50% tax.  Moreover, there is a new “luxury surtax” for teams that are way over the threshold.

•             Over by $20M to 40M = 12% surtax
•             Over by $40M the first time = 40% surtax
•             Over by $40M the second time = 42.5% surtax.

Th last thing in the new CBA that I find interesting is that “Moneyball” is about to undergo a significant change.  The Oakland A’s have been recipients of the MLB version of revenue sharing based on their low attendance and revenue status.  That is going to change; the A’s are in a large metropolitan area and should not be considered a “small-market team” like Milwaukee or Tampa.  Some reports said that there are owners in MLB who do not think that the A’s have taken the revenue sharing money and plowed it back into “team improvement initiatives” and that those voices prevailed on the MLB side of the bargaining table.  Obviously, I do not know if that is the case or how all of this came about in the new CBA.  However, if those reports are correct, the Oakland A’s are a troubled franchise.

The A’s are clearly the “junior partner” in the Bay Area market.  The Giants drew 3.37M fans in 2016; the A’s drew 1.52M fans in 2016 – second lowest in MLB.  The A’s play in a stadium that would be paid a compliment if one were to call it an upholstered toilet.  They are going to be phased out of the revenue sharing money meaning they will likely be fielding teams for the foreseeable future comprised of young players who are auditioning to go to other teams.

Finally, I used to watch Sesame Street with my kids when they were of an appropriate age for that program.  Every day, the program would be “brought to you” by a letter of the alphabet – and a number – and they would feature words that began with that letter.  Well if you are a Sesame Street alum and an NFL fan, you might conclude that the 2016 season is not being brought to you by the letter “C”.  Four teams in the league are from cities that begin with “C” and here are their records:

•                         Carolina: 4-8-0
•                         Chicago: 3-9-0
•                         Cincy: 4-7-1
•                         Cleveland: 0-12-0
•                         TOTAL:  11-36-1

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

 

 

 

The US Men’s National soccer team (USMNT) has had two bad losses in international qualifying play in the past several weeks.  Naturally, the response to those losses (to Mexico and then to Costa Rica) was to fire the coach, Jurgen Klinsmann.  The soccer-adorers in the US would have their emotions somewhere between orgasmic and rapturous in the event that the US were to win something big like the World Cup or the Olympic Gold Medal in soccer.  Precisely because they can imagine such euphoria, they simultaneously imagine that such achievements are not just possible but are likely if only they could get the right guy to “coach ‘em up” properly.

The soccer-adorers are living in a delusional state; but when one is in such a state, reality and fantasy blur at the edges.  Moreover, they so fondly want the fantasy state to become the reality state that their mood is improved when the coach gets fired and a new victim/coach is put in charge.  Hope springs eternal … and all that stuff.

The new coach will be Bruce Arena.  He had the job once before and not surprisingly, he did not take the USMNT to the sorts of heights that the soccer-adorers envision for their national team heroes.  There was a time when the soccer-adorers were only happy to see Bruce Arena replaced at the helm for not getting the job done; today he is the maven that will kick down the barricades keeping the USMNT from its glory.

Let me be clear; I am not someone who roots against the USMNT.  I also admit that there are tons of people out there who recognize the subtleties of play in soccer games that totally escape my notice.  Having said all of that, here is something that is very clear to me when I watch international soccer games:

• There is an obvious difference in the way the players on other teams play the game of soccer as compared to the way the players on the USMNT play the game of soccer.  The difference is qualitative and not quantitative; nonetheless, it is real and it is not hard to see – – unless one prefers not to see it from the get-go.

That qualitative difference is why the USMNT is on a different plane of existence in the world of international soccer from the plane occupied by teams from Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and the rest of the usual suspects when it comes to top international competition.  I have a hypothesis – it is not even sufficiently established to call it a theory – as to why this is the case.

The US has 320 million residents; that is a large pool of potential soccer players from which to distill 20 or 25 guys who will represent the country in international competition.  By comparison, here are the rough populations of some countries that are far more accomplished in international soccer than the US:

1. Argentina has a population of about 42 million
2. Brazil has a population of about 200 million
3. England has a population of about 53 million
4. Germany has a population of about 60 million
5. Italy has a population of about 60 million

Costa Rica – the team that just beat the USMNT by a score of 4-0 – has a population of less than 5 million people.  So why would it appear that the US is mining such “low-grade ore” when it comes to finding about 25 guys to play consistently at the top levels of international competition?  I reject the argument that there are not enough natural athletes in the population here in the US or that all the really good athletes go into baseball or football or basketball because that is where the money is.  There are plenty of minor sports where American athletes consistently competitive and soccer is on a higher potential income level than many of those other minor sports.  [Aside:  As soon as I write this, I am certain that someone will form a National Luge League and start offering six figure contracts to lugers everywhere…]

My hypothesis is that the youth sports culture in the US is the problem.  I have read in several places that “Soccer Academies” are commonplace in much of the rest of the world.  These “Soccer Academies” take children – some as young as 6 years old – and begin to give them the skills necessary to be a top-shelf player.  The key word in that last sentence is “skills”.  These academies stress fundamentals and techniques and learning the game through drills and repetition and practice.  Here in the US, we take kids and have them practice and then put them into “game situations”.  If the “most promising” players here were taught skills more than given the opportunity to play games and spend hours en route to games for travel teams, I think the USMNT would be in a better place 10 years down the road.

One of those “qualitative differences” that I see when watching the USMNT play against an English or Spanish team is this:

• The foreign players seem to know what they are going to do with the ball as it is approaching them while the US players seem to be trying to control the ball first and then figure out what their next move shall be.

I think that particular “qualitative difference” can be explained by the constant repetition of skills exercises that foreign players undergo in their development; they do not need to do things sequentially and in finite quanta of play; they seem to know what to do – and how they are going to do it  – before they are in a position to do it.  Moreover, their teammates appear to be able to see what is happening and to recognize what the player about to receive the ball is going to do next even before he is in possession of the ball.

If I am even close to correct, the thing that is keeping the US from the pinnacle of international soccer competition is not the coach and it is not really the players themselves.  I think a large part of the “problem” is that we develop our young players in a less effective manner than the rest of the world does.  Players who grew up developing skills and anticipation will distill down to a better national team than players who grew up playing games whenever possible and letting the outcome of those games depend on superior natural athleticism.  In the US, our youth player system favors the offspring of young affluent parents; there are loads of kids who could not possibly afford to be part of a “travel team” and in the US, if you are not on that track, you are not likely to be recognized as a “high potential player” on school teams.  We have limited our pool of talent and we do not teach skills the way they do internationally.

Jurgen Klinsmann lost games because – and this is only a bit of an exaggeration – he took a knife to a gun fight.  That happened to Bruce Arena in the past prior to his firing as the coach of the USMNT and it is going to happen to him again sometime in the next 3-5 years.  Unless of course, Bruce Arena finds a lamp on a beach somewhere and rubs it and a genie appears and …

Finally, there was an “incident” involving a player on the South African National Soccer Team that drew commentary from two sportswriters:

“A player was kicked off South Africa’s national soccer team for passing gas in the direction of the coach.  You can’t help but feel the team chemistry may be slightly off.”  [Brad Dickson, Omaha World-Herald]

And …

“SowetanLive.co.za reported that striker Tokelo Rantie got booted from South Africa’s national soccer team for passing gas in the direction of manager Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba.

“Somewhere, the late Margaret Mitchell is smiling.”  [Dwight Perry, Seattle Times]

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

 

 

Back before the NFL season began, I did my annual exercise in embarrassing myself by predicting every team’s record for the 2016 season before the kickoff for the first game.  Part of that exposition is always my list of “Coaches on the Hot Seat” and with the NFL season now 75% finished, I thought I would go back to see at how those predictions look.  I had 8 coaches on the hot seat and here is what I said then and what I think now.

In early September, this is what I said:

“Gus Bradley (Jags): I had him on this list last year but the Jags showed definite improvement in 2015. I think that the Jags are a team on the rise and that Bradley will in fact be back next year. However, if I am dead wrong on that and the Jags regress to something like a 3-13 record, he will be toast. So, I put him on the list for the sake of completeness.”

Today, I say the Jags have regressed significantly and Bradley is going to be toast in early January 2017.

In early September, this is what I said:

“Jim Caldwell (Lions): Last year, the team rallied to win 6 games in the second half of the season to finish 7-9. If you do the math there, that means the Lions were 1-7 in the first half of the season. Presumably, the Front Office saw the second half surge as a harbinger of good things for 2016. If that is the case and if the Lions do not build on that surge, I suspect that Jim Caldwell will be moving on at the end of the 2016 season.”

Today, I say that the Lions look as if they will make the playoffs and Jim Caldwell will not be moving on.

In early September, this is what I said:

“Jeff Fisher (Rams): The Rams underachieved last year and I thought that the Rams had not been “playoff relevant” for a while now, so I went and looked up Fisher’s record there. It is not pretty:

• He has been with the Rams for 4 seasons. The combined record is 27-36-1 and there have been no playoff appearances for the Rams.
• Moreover, his last winning season (with the Titans) was all the way back in 2008.

Fisher signed a 5-year contract in 2012; this is his “contract year”. The Rams now play in LA where teams that contend for titles draw plenty of attention and adulation and where bad/mediocre teams fade into obscurity very quickly. Fisher and the Rams had better win this year.”

Today, I say that despite rumors of a 3-year extension of Fisher’s contract about 2 months ago, the Rams have been disappointing at best this year and a good way to take the LA fans’ minds off that disappointment would be to hire a new coach.  I think he will be fired after the Rams finish out of the playoffs.

In early September, this is what I said:

“Jason Garrett (Cowboys): In no way, would he be responsible for a bad year by the Cowboys. In fact, you might argue that he enters the season in the situation where he has brought a knife to a gunfight. But expectations were really high for the Cowboys this year; Jerry Jones has been hyping the 2016 season ever since the 2015 season ended. So, if the Cowboys really tank this year, Jerry Jones may need to do something symbolic to show his fanbase that he is doing more about “winning” than talking about “winning”. So, put Garrett on a hot seat even if he does not deserve to be there.”

Today, I say that the Cowboys have certainly not tanked and Garrett is not on anything resembling a hot seat now.

In early September, this is what I said:

“Marvin Lewis (Bengals): I believe that Lewis is the coach – not named Belichick – with the longest tenure with his team in all of the NFL. Granted, he took over a dysfunctional team in a dysfunctional franchise and got everything headed in a positive direction. The Bengals owe him a lot for that.

• Some perspective here. Lewis has had the Bengals in the playoffs 7 times in 13 seasons. Prior to his arrival in Cincy, the Bengals had been in the playoffs a total of 7 times in 37 seasons.
• Before Lewis arrived, the team was not-so-affectionately known as “The Bungles” and they earned every morsel of that moniker.

Here is the problem; the Bengals have not won a playoff game in the 13 years that Marvin Lewis has been the coach there. The team is 0-7 in playoff games and have lost in the opening round in each of the last 5 seasons. Last year’s loss was due to a total loss of focus/control/discipline on the part of two defensive players. That sort of “loss” falls under the heading of “coaching”. I think Marvin Lewis needs a playoff win this year…”

Today, I say that the Bengals are not going to win a playoff game because they are not going to come close to making the playoffs.

In early September, this is what I said:

“Mike McCoy (Chargers): This is his 4th season in San Diego. In his first year, the team went 9-7 and made the playoffs (and won a playoff game too). In his second year, the team went 9-7 again but missed out on the playoffs. Last year – under a blizzard of injuries – the Chargers were 4-12. McCoy is on a hot seat if the team goes 4-12 again. He does not have to win his division – I do not think the Chargers can do that – but they have to be better than getting the overall #3 pick in the draft once again.”

Today, I say that the Chargers have indeed done better than last year but it looks as if the Chargers will be no better than 8-8 this year.  McCoy’s seat is hot but ownership in San Diego has to deal with bigger questions right now than coaching changes – – such as where might the Chargers call home in the future.

In early September, I this is what I said:

“Mike Mularkey (Titans): He took over in mid-season last year and went 2-7 in his 9 games then. Management gave him a shot to move things forward this year but his coaching record is not one that inspires a lot of confidence. He has been a head coach for 3.5 seasons. Back in 2004 (with the Bills) he had a 9-7 record. Since then, his cumulative record is 9-32. Add to that negativity the fact that the Titans’ roster is “talent-challenged”. I think this hot seat will be ”Habanero Hot” come January 2017.”

Today, I say that the Titans are challenging for first place in the AFC South and could well finish the season at 8-8.  That is not a great record but it is a huge step forward for a franchise that has exactly one winning season since 2009.  Mike Mularkey is sitting pretty about now…

In early September, this is what I said:

“Rex Ryan (Bills): Like Jason Garrett above, he may be looking at a season where a sterling record is highly improbable. Nonetheless, given the braggadocio and the setting of ultra-high expectations that is the hallmark of any Rex Ryan press conference, he might be out of a job come January if the team falls below .500. For the record, Ryan has an overall losing record as a head coach (54-58-0) and his last winning season was back in 2010.”

Today, I say that the Bills are still alive in the wild-card race in the AFC but they are indeed longshots there.  Looking at the schedule, finishing the season at 9-7 is an optimistic outlook from here to the end of the season.  I think Ryan’s seat is hot – but not en feugo – and that most of the heat comes from his continuing projection of his team as the best in the league, which they are not.

Teams doing badly this year who may have put their coaches in jeopardy include:

 

NY Jets:  Todd Bowles is not the reason the team is 3-8 but the fact is that the team is 3-8 and in NYC that is about as much fun as a splinter under your thumbnail.

Cleveland Browns:  Yes, they are 0-12 but with that roster, they would have needed incredible luck just to be 2-10.  In addition, owner Jimmy Haslem has hired and fired so many coaches and GMs in the past few years that he might not be able to get any top-shelf candidates even to take his phone calls come January.  Hue Jackson’s job is – and ought to be – safe.

Indy Colts:  Yes, Chuck Pagano got a contract extension last year.  However, someone should be responsible for that roster and the year-after-year demonstration of the same roster flaws.  Maybe he stays and the GM goes?  Maybe not…

Green Bay Packers:  If the Packers finish 6-10 …

Chicago Bears:  John Fox has shown that he can coach in the NFL but trying to win games with Matt Barkley at QB goes beyond the realm of “coaching  ‘em up”.   Probably, the best the team can achieve this year is 5-11 – and more likely 3-13 – so a coaching change in Chicago is certainly not out of the question.

Arizona Cardinals:  The Cards are 4-6-1 as of this morning and many folks thought they could be Super Bowl participants in February 2017.  If they finish 6-9-1, will the owners see this as a coaching failure or will they recognize that the team needs a roster overhaul – including an upgrade at QB?  Remember, the Bidwell’s own the Cardinals…

 

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times regarding coaching in another sport in another country:

“Former Czech Republic hockey coach Vladimir Ruzicka, accused of taking $20,750 from a player’s father who said he paid to let his son play, has been convicted of fraud.

“In other words, this Czech didn’t clear.”

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

 

 

A few days ago, I noted that the LA Rams had won two games this year without scoring a TD in either game.  I suggested that this sort of thing may have happened for frequently “in the 30s and 40s” but that I could not recall it happening recently.  Even though I should have, I did not expect an e-mail response from the reader in Houston who is the repository for sports history and stats.  Here is what he provided;

“In the 1920’s, there were 77 games in which a team won without scoring a TD. There were also a load of 0-0 and 3-3 ties and some 6-6 games that no TD was scored during that period. Please note that in the 20s, the average number of games per year was less than 80.

“In the 1930’s, there were 37 such games won without scoring a TD and there were still ties, but not as many as the previous decades. Please note that in the 30s, the average number of games per year was less than 55.

“In the 1940’s, there were only 4 such games and that includes both the NFL and the four years of the AAFC.

“More recently, there were no NFL games from 2013 to 2015 in which the winning team scored fewer than 10 points, but there have been two this season: the two mentioned above. LA is the first team since the 1997 Bills to win two games in one season in which it scored fewer than 10 points. Buffalo did that in Marv Levy’s final season as its head coach, with victories against Indy and Miami, each by a 9-6 score on all field goals.”

A tip of the hat in the compass direction aimed at Houston, TX for that information…

There was a minor tempest in a teacup a few weeks ago when Dallas Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban, pulled the press credentials from two ESPN reporters because ESPN made a decision he did not like.  Evidently, ESPN decided that one of the two reporters would not cover the Mavs exclusively this year but would also cover the NBA “in general”.  Cuban took exception and refused to give the reporters press credentials which kept them away from the team and the locker rooms.

Since Cuban owns the team, he has every right to hand out press credentials however he sees fit.  Some people immediately screamed that this was a “First Amendment issue” which it most certainly is not.  Later as it became advantageous for both Cuban and ESPN to modify their positions without appearing to give in to the other side, the basis for Cuban’s actions somehow became associated with “robot reporting” of sports stories as a new trend in that field.  Both sides here could agree that “robo-reporting” was “bad”; ESPN could wave the banner of “quality in journalism” while Cuban could stake out a position as a “defender of jobs for journalists”.  In any event, everyone kissed and made up…

However, when I look at the NBA standings this morning, I note that the Dallas Mavericks’ record is 3-13 and that record is the worst in the NBA at the moment.  Indeed, the Mavs are trailing both the Sixers and the Nets in the standings – albeit not by much – as of this morning.  Perhaps, the Mavericks would be treated more kindly by a “robo-reporter” than a “quality journalist” given the product on the floor.  Just a thought…

Last week, the NCAA announced that Notre Dame would have to vacate its football victories from 2012 and 2013 because a student-trainer did academic work for some of the players on those teams which is a violation of NCAA rules and thereby made those players ineligible.  Ergo …

That sounds pretty cut and dried but when you look just a bit closer, you begin to see frayed edges on the fabric of this decision.  Consider:

1. Notre Dame discovered this on its own and suspended multiple players for academic violations on its own. The NCAA super-sleuths and the NCAA Committee on Infractions had no idea this was going on until Notre Dame informed them of the problem.
2. The “punishment” is feckless to the Nth degree. In 2012, Notre Dame played Alabama in the BCS Championship Game.  Vacating all the wins prior to that game does not take them out of that game and put a different team in there to play Alabama.  Is anyone to believe that the 12 teams that lost to Notre Dame prior to the BCS Championship game actually won those games?
3. More on the feckless punishment … From this point forward, Notre Dame will suffer exactly nothing for something that the Committee on Infractions thought was sufficiently heinous that it had to issue a punishment 4 years after the fact.  There is no loss of scholarships – nor should there be; there is no ban from post-season play – nor should there be.  The football program will proceed apace from here on save for the silliness of “vacated wins” in the past.
4. Hold on, here comes “the hammer” from the NCAA mavens … In addition to vacating those wins, Notre Dame must pay a fine of $5K and the school had to take the public reprimand from the NCAA.  To which I say:

Whoop-di-damned-doo!!

Finally, in the aftermath of Thanksgiving week, here is a comment from Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald regarding something we may not have realized we should be thankful for:

“Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks that none of the three NFL games featured the Cleveland Browns.”

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

 

For about the last 6 or 8 weeks, one of the “go-to topics” for sports radio and/or studio analyst discussion on TV was this:

• Should Dak Prescott keep the Cowboys’ QB job once Tony Romo is healthy?

The two sides of that “debate” never really varied from some tried and true lines of “reasoning”:

1. A player should not lose his job due to an injury.
2. A winner on the field should stay on the field – the Tom Brady/Drew Bledsoe outcome.

All that was at least marginally interesting for the first half-dozen times I had to listen to it but it did start to wear thin quickly and then it became rather annoying for the next 500 times I heard it.  Now that the “fundamental question” has been resolved by the Cowboys, I believe there is a very real “existential” question that should be considered – and was not considered in any of the “debates” I heard previously:

• Given that the Cowboys will owe Tony Romo $14M as a base salary in 2017 and that his salary cap hit will be approximately $24-25M, can the Cowboys afford to pay that kind of money for a backup QB?

At first blush, the answer seems obvious; how can any team spend about 15% of its salary cap money on a backup player at any position?  Well, the Cowboys have enough young players that they were able to fit everyone in under this year’s cap with Tony Romo sucking down a similar percentage and what he has given the team so far is exactly what a backup QB would be expected to give to the team.  Rather than speculating on whether or how the capologists in Dallas will juggle the numbers, I prefer to ask a different question because it deals with football and not with bookkeeping:

 

If – I said IF – the Cowboys were to decide to release Tony Romo and suffer the consequences of the “dead money” that his release would engender, whither Tony Romo?

 

Obviously, he could choose to retire from the NFL.  I am not authoritative when it comes to unraveling the intricacies of NFL contracts and bonuses and cap hits and the like but my calculations say that Tony Romo will have earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $115M over the course of his career with the Cowboys at the end of the 2016 season.  Absent a terminal case of financial blockheadedness, that ought to mean that Tony Romo and his family should be financially secure for life; he should not be worrying a lot about how much his Social Security check will be about 30 years hence.

But suppose he wants to continue to play QB in the NFL and he is a free agent who can go wherever he wants.  I am now going to engage in mind-reading and as I have certified many times in the past, I have exactly no skills in that area.  In actuality, this is nothing more than a pro football version of omphaloskepsis.  I would not imagine that Tony Romo at age 36 would be interested in going to a team on the skids right now to be part of a 5-year program to rebuild a franchise.  Translation:  I do not see him in a Cleveland Browns’ uniform or a SF Niners’ uniform.  I also think you can strike a line through any team that has either a Pro Bowl QB as a starter now or a team that has committed to a young QB already.  Translation: I do not see him in a Detroit Lions’ uniform or an Atlanta Falcons’ uniform AND I do not see him in a Philadelphia Eagles’ uniform or an Oakland Raiders’ uniform.

I can imagine him playing for a team where as a starter he might represent an upgrade at QB for a team that has lots of strengths in areas of the game.  Who might those teams be?

 

Arizona Cardinals – I think Carson Palmer is going downhill rapidly.

Denver Broncos – Siemian is not the long-term answer.  Paxton Lynch is a question mark.

Houston Texans – might they have a giant case of buyer’s remorse already?

KC Chiefs – the longest shot of the teams on the board here

LA Rams – good defense, good running back, mediocre quarterbacks on the roster.

Minnesota Vikings – Bradford is signed only thru 2017

NY Jets – do not think I need explain any further here.

 

My point here is that if the Cowboys and Tony Romo decide to “go in different directions” come next Spring and if the Cowboys wish Tony Romo the “best of luck in his future endeavors”, there is about 20% of the NFL out there where he might fit in as a starting QB who could have a significantly positive impact on team fortunes.

Tony Romo lost his starting job in Dallas.  What might be next if he loses his clipboard holding job in Dallas?

Finally, here is a word from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:

“English golfer Ian Poulter, in fit of pique, took a club and whacked his bag a few times — shattering not only his cellphone, but his caddie’s, too.

“That was certainly uncalled for.”

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