The Sports Curmudgeon

Earlier this week, there were reports that middleweight boxer, Canelo Alvarez, had a tainted sample regarding a “banned substance” – clenbuterol.  I have no desire to get all pharmacological here, but clenbuterol is a bronchodilator often used by asthmatics as a treatment; it is also used by body builders as part of their “cutting cycle” wherein they seek to lose weight but not muscle mass.  There is evidently insufficient clinical evidence to say that it is an important part of such weight loss regimens, but the IOC – and more specifically – the sport of boxing has put it on the “banned substance list”.  So, you would expect that Canelo Álvarez would be facing some sort of disciplinary action…

His explanation is that he ate “tainted meat” and that was the causative agent that put whatever it was in his bloodstream that caused the failure of the test.  [Aside:  It is too easy to make a comment here using the name of any of a half-dozen fast food pushers and the phrase “tainted meat”, so I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.]  In fact, it appears as if the boxing mavens have accepted this explanation and have moved on.  Oh, there is one other factor that might have some bearing on the matter:

• Canelo Álvarez is schedule to fight Gennady Golovkin in Las Vegas on 5 May.  Their first fight was huge; this fight is likely to be the biggest boxing event of 2018 – unless Floyd Mayweather decides to challenge the winner of that fight for a payday sometime in December.

So, let me recap all of this.  Clenbuterol is a “banned substance” but its “banishment” is not nearly as ironclad as it might be were it discovered in the bloodstream of a ham-and-egger who is fighting in a 6-round undercard match.  The fight is big money and big money trumps any sort of drugging/doping test anomaly that might occur in the lead up to the big money fight.

Here is the bottom line:

• Boxing just threw in the towel – so to speak – on PED usage and PED testing in the sport.

As you may recall, back when it was first revealed that the FBI had been investigating college basketball coaches and shoe companies for paying high school prospects under the table to attend certain schools, I wondered what Federal Law had been broken and even if sent to some part of the US Code I wondered if such crimes warranted years of time and effort by the FBI.  I will not rehash here why I do not think that paying these kids or their families to influence their decision is an egregious form of bribery or fraud but clearly the FBI and the US Attorneys do.  While I was gone, news broke that the FBI had used wiretaps to garner information about players and payoffs and schools and the people involved in these activities.  That information means that the FBI had to go before a judge to get warrants to install those wiretaps and collect whatever information they collected.

Presumably, in their representation before whichever Federal Judge(s) who authorized the warrants, the FBI spelled out which laws they believed were being broken – other than the obvious tax evasion laws by the payment recipients who did not declare it as income.  I guess it is too idealistic for me to wonder why one of those judges did not ask – merely for clarification sake – why the FBI was expending this level of effort and resources on a “crime” that really only affects college basketball teams.  I continue to think that in the Pantheon of Federal Crimes, whatever anyone did here is akin to jaywalking in the world of people who are not hardened criminals.

An ancillary part of the story from about a week ago was the Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller was one of the people whose phone calls were recorded and that he discussed a “bribe”/payment of $100K to guarantee that prized recruit Deandre Ayton did indeed sign on with Arizona.  The school suspended Miller for a game and proceeded to do its own investigation; Miller – of course – proclaimed his innocence; after a one-game absence, Miller returned to the bench to coach the team and the school said that it awaits further movement in the criminal investigation.

There appears to be credible evidence that over the past 2 seasons, there could be improprieties regarding top recruits and “financial emoluments” at schools to include:

• Duke
• Kentucky
• Michigan St.
• NC State
• UNC
• USC

I think the important thing to recognize here is that if all of this FBI generated evidence shows that all these schools were doing “bad things” for all these years, it happened completely outside the scope of NCAA scrutiny.  The organization that has devoted itself to maintaining the ideal of amateurism and fair play and the “student-athlete” did not have any inkling that any of this stuff was going on until the FBI clued them in.  There are two possible reasons for that blindness:

1. The NCAA enforcers/investigators are feckless incompetents.
2. The NCAA mavens were too busy counting the hundreds of millions of dollars that the men’s basketball tournament generated every year, and which funded their cushy lifestyle.

Those two choices boil down to incompetence or corruption – but you are free to pick Door Number Three which is “BOTH INCOMPETENT AND CORRUPT”.  It would certainly not bother me one little bit to see those sorts of labels hung publicly and boldly on the NCAA and the fat-cats who live off of it.  But at the same time, when all of this is put into the past tense once and for all, I have to wonder why the FBI spend years and manpower on this instead of investigating things like:

• Drug dealers/syndicates
• Doctors who over-prescribe and fraudulently prescribe opioids for Medicare/Medicaid patients
• Human traffickers
• Hate groups
• Cyber criminals.

I guess it is pretty clear why no one would ever think of considering me to be the Attorney General…

Finally, in light of these FBI revelations, I think it is fitting that I close today with a statement made by a man who made his living skirting NCAA regulations with impunity.  The late Jerry Tarkanian was the head coach at UNLV in the Rebels’ heyday and he spent most of his time there in the crosshairs of the NCAA gumshoes.  Here is Tark’s observation about the NCAA rules and how they are honored by schools:

“Nine out of ten schools are cheating.  The other is in last place.”

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

 

 

Ever since I got home, it seems as if three hours cannot pass between new “reports” on where Kirk Cousins will play football next year and how much he will be paid to do so.  There are no quotes attributed to Cousins or his agent or any NFL GM, but this seems to be the “story du jour” for about every sports media outlet this week.

Surprisingly, Kirk Cousins is not even the best QB about to become a free agent in the middle of next week.  The best QB on the market will be Drew Brees – unless he and the Saints reach a deal in the next several days.  The simple fact is this:

• Drew Brees will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame when eligible.
• Kirk Cousins might get to that level one of these days but is not nearly there at present.

The reason Drew Brees is “not interesting” as a storyline is that everyone expects that he and the Saints will reach an accommodation and he will finish his career in New Orleans.  That removes the “speculation factor” and makes story writing a lot less interesting.  I have no idea where Kirk Cousins will play next year except to say it will not be in Washington.  However, there are other players at other positions who will hit free agency next week besides Kirk Cousins and just for the sake of completeness, let me list two players at each position who ought to attract some attention from teams in the NFL.

Two running backs who will be free agents are Deion Lewis and Carlos Hyde.  I prefer Lewis slightly here but both of them can play.

Two tight ends who will be free agents are Jimmy Graham and Tyler Eifert.   Both of these guys have had injury problems in the past; Eifert has only been in 10 games in the past 2 seasons.  However, when healthy, both of them are very good.

Two wide receivers who will be free agents are Sammy Watkins and Allen Robinson.  Watkins is a deep threat averaging about 16 yards per catch over his career; Robinson is coming off ACL surgery but was very productive before the injury with Blake Bortles throwing to him.  In 2015, he led the NFL in TD receptions!

Two offensive linemen who will be free agents are Nate Solder and Josh Sitton.  Solder will be 30 years old next year and has been with the Pats for 7 seasons; Sitton will be 32 next year and 2018 will be his 11^th season in the NFL.  Both of these guys can play.

            Two defensive linemen who will be free agents are Muhammad Wilkerson and Sheldon Richardson.  Ironically, both started their NFL careers with the Jets and both got crosswise with the team.  Both are still in their 20s and both are plenty talented on the field.

Two linebackers who will be free agents are Nigel Bradham and Zach Brown.  Both of these guys should be in demand around the league; I would give preference to Bradham because he is much better in pass coverage than Brown.

Two safeties who will be free agents are Morgan Burnett and Eric Reid.  Reid can play but some of his actions with regard to protests and social issues may make him a bit “scratchy” with some teams.  Burnett is serviceable but not spectacular.  This is not a good year to go searching for safeties on the free agent list.

Two cornerbacks who will be free agents are Malcom Butler and Kyle Fuller.  I have no idea what Butler did to get on Bill Belichick’s s[p]it list for the Super Bowl game but any GM looking to sign Butler will want to know what all that was about.  I also have no idea why the Bears let Kyle Fuller hit the free agent list; Fuller can play.

So, as you read the next tranche of speculation about Kirk Cousins and his new contract wherever, keep in mind that there are other competent free agents out there who are likely drawing significant attention from coaches and GMs…

The Seattle Seahawks traded Michael Bennett to the Philly Eagles yesterday for the equivalent of a ham sandwich.  Bennett is 32 years old and has been known as much for his off-field comments/actions as for his on-field performance over the past year or so.  Having said that, Bennett can still rush the passer, so it is a bit strange to see that all the Seahawks could get in return for him was an unproven WR and an exchange of low-round draft picks.  Reports say that the Seahawks are also going to trade Richard Sherman sometime soon.  Given that he ruptured his Achilles tendon around Thanksgiving of last season, the odds are that the Seahawks will only get a marginal return for him too.

If indeed Sherman leave Seattle during this offseason, that should mark an official end to the Legion of Boom Defense.  Cliff Averill and Kam Chancellor suffered neck injuries last year that might render them medically uncleared to play.  If those two guys plus Bennett and Sherman are gone, the Legion of Boom is likely to morph into the Legion of Bust.

In addition to these player personnel changes for the Seahawks, recall that the team also parted company with its offensive coordinator, its defensive coordinator and 5 other assistant coaches from last season.  But the turmoil in the Great Northwest is not limited to Seattle.  Out on the Palouse in Pullman, Mike Leach is the overseer of the Washington State Cougars football operation.  Since the end of last season, Washington State has lost its defensive coordinator and four other position coaches to other jobs at other NCAA schools.  In addition, the strength coach left the Cougars to take a similar job with the Chicago Bears.  Nevertheless, like Pete Carroll in Seattle, Mike Leach hangs in there as the head guy in Pullman, WA.   Is there something in the water in that part of the world…?

Finally, here is a comment from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot that sheds light on the costs of hosting the Olympics:

“What more do you need to know about the profligate spending required of an Olympic host nation than that the cost of building the Pyeongchang sliding center – home to luge, skeleton and bobsled – was $110 million.”

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

 

 

In the process of doing my “catching-up reading”, I ran across a report in the NY Post saying that Keith Olbermann would be substituting for Michael Wilbon on PTI for two shows at the beginning of march.  Sadly, I did not get to see those episodes; if anyone here did see them, I would be interested to know how they went.

Olbermann and Kornheiser are two broadcasters that I like a lot; they are both intelligent, opinionated, sarcastic and candid.  Because they are so similar, I wonder if they could “co-exist” on a program together.

Keith Olbermann’s political commentaries are extraordinarily polarizing – in large part because he is intelligent, opinionated, sarcastic and candid – and there is no denying that when Olbermann departs for a job he does more than burn bridges behind him.  Nevertheless, I think he is an extraordinary talent and sports TV networks like ESPN or FS1 are better off when he is on the air as opposed to when he is off the air.  I hope that his brief stint on PTI went well enough that it represents a first step on a journey that has him returning to ESPN somehow and in some capacity.

It seems as if NBA Commish, Adam Silver, is thinking about getting rid of the rule that requires a player to be 19 years old and/or 1 year removed from his high school graduation in order to be an NBA player.  If that is the case, that would go a long way toward ending the “one-and-done” players in college basketball.  While John Calipari and Mike Krzyzewski might have to alter their recruiting focus a bit, lessening the “one-and-done” population in college basketball is a step in the right direction.  Let me be candid here:

• There are too many “student-athletes” in college today who are doing a bad job even at pretending to be “students”.
• They are uninterested at best – and completely unprepared at worst – to derive even marginal benefit from a college level course in anything.
• They have come to believe – rightly or wrongly – that they are going to make pro basketball their career/life’s work and “the system” forces them to spend a year after high school treading water until their glorious entrance into the NBA.
• There is little or no hand-holding or ego-massaging in the NBA for young players who are not actually ready to play there.  The NBA is a meritocracy; if the player has over-estimated his skills, the league will be sure that he knows that he is incapable of doing this as his life’s work for more than a brief time.

All the other major sports have paths to professionalism that are better than the one the NBA uses.  Personally, I like the MLB system the best:

• A player can be drafted straight out of high school and if he wants to sign with the team that drafted him that is hunky-dory.  He forfeits his college eligibility by doing that, but he is on his way to his career goal(s).
• That same player can choose not to sign with the team that drafted him and choose instead to go to college and play baseball there to hone his skills – – and possibly derive some benefits from collegiate level education.  The reason he may derive educational benefits is that this option will require him to stay in college for 3 years before he can be drafted again.
• This system works.  Moreover, the MLB system is a quick introduction for the prospect to one of the important life lessons that most high school students never face.  Once a person turns 18, he is legally an adult; adult life involves making lots of choices and choices involve consequences.  This MLB draft system presents the 18-year old prospect with a choice to make with clear and obvious consequences.  It is a good life lesson.

Juxtaposed with the news that Adam Silver might be seeking ways to minimize the “one-and-done” situation in college basketball, we have this commentary by Memphis head coach, Tubby Smith:

“I’ve been in this business a long time, never seen anything like it. We had over 800 Division I players transfer last year. We’re teaching them how to quit. That’s what we’re doing. Things not going well, let’s quit.”

Tubby Smith has a point here; he is much closer to being right than his is to being wrong.  Nonetheless, college coaches are precisely not the people to make that point.  Here are two obvious reasons why they are not the right messengers:

1. There is an obvious self-interest here on the part of a coach who has recruited a player and then a year later has to go and recruit the player’s replacement because the player is transferring to Whatsamatta U.
2. College coaches – particularly in football and basketball – do the equivalent of transferring when they leave a job at Disco Tech in order to take a more lucrative/prestigious job at Fugue State.  In fact, Tubby Smith himself did just that leaving Texas Tech to take his current job at Memphis in 2016.

Finally, consider this comment from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“The Cavaliers suspended guard J.R. Smith for one game because he reportedly threw a bowl of soup at assistant coach Damon Jones.

“Guess you could say he made himself bowl-ineligible.”

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

 

 

Spring Training is rolling; opening day is only about 3 weeks away.  Looking back at coverage of the early parts of Spring Training I noticed that the formulaic stories made their brief appearances.  For example:

• Joe Flabeetz showed up in camp this year with an additional 15 pounds.  He pushed extra hard in his workouts over the winter because he felt that he had tired himself out by the time September arrived and the added weight/strength will obviate that problem in 2018.  Meanwhile …
• Sam Glotz reported to Spring Training looking lean and mean.  He hired a nutritionist over the winter who put him on a probiotic-paleo diet that added lean muscle but took off 15 pounds of useless fat.  Glotz said that he had felt burdened down with that extra weight last year, but he was raring to go in 2018.
• Hi-ho…

I ran across an article that talked about non-roster invitees to Spring Training. These players are not on the team’s 40-man roster, but they are participating in the major league camp.  Some teams invite their top minor league prospects to participate with the “big guys”; some teams offer those invitations to veteran players who hope to impress the coaches sufficiently to get themselves put on the 40-man roster.  Most of these players will not be involved in Opening Day games but some could get a shot with the big club later in the year.  As I scanned a list of non-roster invitees for various clubs, 5 names jumped out at me:

1. Taylor Clarke (Arizona):  This name means something to me because he was a pitcher for a traveling youth baseball team here in Northern Virginia and the coach/manager of that team was a former colleague of mine.
2. Nick Gordon (Minnesota):  I checked to make sure; yes, he is the younger brother of Dee Gordon.  So, if you believe in genetics…
3. Shohei Ohtani (LA Angels):  Of course, he is the most interesting name on the entire list for obvious reasons.
4. Fernando Tatis, Jr. (San Diego):  His father is the only player in MLB history to hit two grand slam home runs in the same inning.  OK, son; top that…
5. Tim Tebow (Mets):  If the Mets’ season goes in the toilet (distinctly possible), I hope they call Tebow up to the majors just to put a punctuation mark on that whole experiment.

Back in the middle of the NFL season, Jerry Jones just about lost his s[p]it when the NFL handed down a 6-game suspension to Ezekiel Elliott and Jones hired a lawyer threatening to sue the other owners who were negotiating a new contract with Roger Goodell.  That showdown never happened but the league and the owners on the Compensation Committee incurred legal costs.  Now Goodell is reportedly going to fine Jones and make him pay those other owners for their legal costs.  It seems to me that this kerfuffle has an obvious end-point.  Various courts have ruled that the Commissioner’s authorities with regard to meting out disciplinary events is wider than a mile.  [/Henry Mancini].  Here is what I would like to see come out of all this:

• Both Jones and Goodell come out of the whole process looking like spoiled-brat rich kids and that they are forced to go to their rooms without supper until they can make-nice with each other and keep their big yaps SHUT.
• Not gonna happen…

I know that the answer to this next question is “Money!”, but I will ask it anyway:

• Why is the Big 10 men’s basketball tournament going to take place in Madison Square Garden?

This still makes no sense.  The closest schools to NYC would be Rutgers and Penn State; neither school is a basketball blue-blood and neither team has a rabid following in NYC.  The Big 10 is a conference that has been around for almost 125 years and it has always had its center of gravity in the mid-west.  For most of those 125 years, Michigan and Michigan State were the easternmost teams in the conference and the drive from NYC to Ann Arbor is more than 600 miles.  If you stop and think about which teams in the Big 10 might put on a great show in the NCAA tournament, you would probably come up with:

• Michigan State
• Michigan (maybe)
• Ohio State
• Purdue

In prior times, the honor of Big 10 basketball has been represented by:

• Indiana
• Wisconsin

So, I ask again, why take the teams to NYC for the conference tournament?  As one option, consider that the Pacers’ home court is Bankers’ Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.  It is in the heart of the Big 10 geography and it seats about 18,000 folks for basketball games.

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

“Former Anchorage Daily News desker Roy Neese, via Facebook, after the U.S. topped Canada to reach the gold-medal match in men’s curling: ‘That’s like the U.S. beating Italy in pasta-making’.”

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

 

 

Two years after retreating from the Philippines in WW II, General Douglas MacArthur returned.  Two weeks ago, I left this space setting out for a trip to Chile; and today, I have likewise returned.  General MacArthur had a much more difficult time of it having to drive back the land and sea forces of the Empire of Japan to return to the Philippines; all I had to do was to endure a 9-hour overnight flight from Santiago to Atlanta and then a 5-hour layover in Atlanta before connecting to get home.  Nonetheless, like general MacArthur, I can proclaim that:

• “I have returned.”

When I left, the sports menu seemed to be dominated by pretty meager stuff.  The NBA All-Star Game was about to happen, and the Winter Olympic Games were still ongoing.  I care not at all about either of those events; so, it did not pain me to take off for a part of the world where I would be totally out of touch with the sports world for most of a couple of weeks.  I have not bothered to check, but I assume that the NBA All-Star Game weekend went off with no hitches to the game itself – probably about 300 – 320 points total in the game – and that the slam-dunk contest continued its decline in interest.  Ho-hum …

Just quickly scanning some NBA scores since the teams returned to real games as opposed to All-Star nonsense, I recall the NBA cognoscenti assuring everyone that the trades made by the Cavaliers at the trade deadline had totally overhauled the team and that the new young athletic teammates surrounding LeBron James would be able to play much better defense than the older/smaller guys the team traded away.  I did not see any NBA action in Chile; I am not sure that anyone there cares about the NBA at all.  However, looking at the game results only, it sure seems to me as if the Cavaliers continue to give up 110 points or more in lots of their games.  Even in the NBA, that is not sterling defensive play…

Speaking of the Cavaliers’ trades at the deadline, Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot had this to say just before I left:

“NBA media birddog Chris Broussard reports that Thomas ‘felt like LeBron talked down to him when he was there.’ Thomas is 5-feet-9; LeBron 6-feet-8. How could James help himself?”

Good question …

We are about 10 days away from the time when NBA games start to become meaningful.  The idea is for teams to make the playoffs – if they have not already committed themselves to tanking a season or two to rebuild their roster(s).  So, for the last month or so of the regular season, teams will be expending max effort in just about every game; no one can look at a typical NBA game in December and think that is the case.

NBA games to this point in the season are more like concerts than athletic events.  There is a light show and lots of noise; there are distractions to keep the audience occupied during time-outs and half-times.  Go and Google the phrase “red panda basketball halftime” and check out any of the several YouTube links you find there.  When you figure out what that has to do with basketball, let me know.

This is the time of year on the sports calendar when the NCAA earns its keep.  I believe that the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is the single best sporting event of the year; staging that event is the only thing that the NCAA does that is laudable; once the tournament gets going, I will have to forego any criticism or mocker of the NCAA until it is over – – unless of course they outdo themselves with outrageousness.  However, in the past couple of weeks, the NCAA demonstrated its fecklessness.  It stripped Louisville of its 2013 National Championship and ordered it to “vacate” 123 wins over several seasons.

In case you have forgotten, Louisville beat Michigan in the final game in that tournament.  So, with Louisville’s title vacated one of two situations obtains:

1. The losing team – Michigan – is declared the National Champion.  That is the sort of thing that only seems logical in professional ‘rassling…
2. There was no National Champion that year – meaning that the 67 games played in the tournament that year all meant nothing.

The foundation of the NCAA action here was the sex scandal surrounding players and recruits when an assistant coach was accused of hiring strippers and prostitutes to “entertain” the players and potential recruits.  While that is sleazy enough to get you to think that the folks at Louisville deserve a public spanking, please consider this for a moment:

• North Carolina kept players eligible for NCAA events by having them take sham courses to keep their grades up.  North Carolina was not punished for that because the school allowed anyone on campus to take the same courses – meaning that the “student-athletes” were not receiving any benefit not available to the student body at large.

So, here is the question for the NCAA:

• If that assistant coach had “opened up” these strip sessions and these prostitute visits to other members of the Louisville student body, would that have made all of this just a “local anomaly” that the school can deal with in whatever way it sees fit?

Finally, since I cited something from Bob Molinaro above, let me close with another of his observations;

“Some fear that the sexual harassment suit brought against Shaun White will ‘tarnish the legacy’ of the American gold-medal winner in the halfpipe. Really? People actually worry about the legacy of a snowboard jockey? Who knew?”

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

 

 

There are “holidays”; and then, there are “HOLIDAYS”.  Yesterday was the day after Valentine’s Day and other than a small area of a store where chocolates were on sale for 40% off, it was almost as if Valentine’s Day was six months ago.  It is a “holiday”.

Christmas, however, is a “HOLIDAY”.  Christmas was 53 days ago and within a three-mile radius of our house, there are about two dozen homes that still have their Christmas lights up and turned on every night.  Moreover, there are two homes that still have Christmas trees up and decorated and lit at night such that they can be seen from the road.  In my Pollyanna moments, I like to think that those are live trees that are going to find a nice home in the back yard of those houses come Springtime.

Compounding the “holiday”/”HOLIDAY” issue is an online ad I saw yesterday for Cadbury Cream Easter Eggs.  Easter is still more than 6 weeks hence; by the time it arrives there may be a tsunami of jelly beans.  Oh well, I guess I can take solace in the fact that the online ad was not for a Black Friday Doorbuster Sale.

The key question for me is this:

• Will those Christmas house decorations still be up and lit every night at Easter?

There was a report yesterday on CBSSports.com that may have slipped by you.  It involves the Pittsburgh Steelers and their “bumblebee” throwback jerseys.  Evidently, someone in the management structure of the team has come to the realization that those things are butt-ugly, and the Steelers will no longer wear them once a year.  In times of minor travail, my grandfather used to say:

“Thank God for small favors.”

In this case, I guess I need to give thanks that someone in authority in the Steelers’ organization decided not to assault the eyeballs of fans and casual viewers on an annual basis any more.

In Cincy, AJ McCarron won a grievance against the Bengals making him an unrestricted free agent this year.  The situation is confusing to me, but it seems that the Bengals put him on the “wrong list” back in his rookie season and putting him on that “wrong list” affected the date of his free agency.  In any event, he becomes another available QB for teams to consider in this offseason.

Recall that McCarron was supposedly dealt to the Browns at the trade deadline last season, but the deal never closed because the Browns failed to send the notification of the trade to the league HQS in time.  Given that set of circumstances,

• Will McCarron be eager to talk to the Browns about a deal since they wanted him there last season?  Or …
• Will McCarron be very leery of talking to the Browns about a deal since the organization could not handle the task of sending a fax/email on time?

The Seattle Seahawks appear to be going through the organizational equivalent of a juice cleanse.  Pete Carroll remains as the head coach, but eight of the assistant coaches are gone.  By my count:

1. Michael Barrow – Linebackers coach – gone
2. Darrell Bevell – Offensive coordinator – gone
3. Dwaine Board – Assistant defensive line coach – gone
4. Tom Cable – Offensive line coach – gone
5. Heath Farwell – Assistant special teams coach – gone
6. Travis Jones – Senior defensive assistant coach – gone
7. Ricky Manning Jr. – defensive backs coach – gone
8. Kris Richard – Defensive coordinator – gone

And that is just the coaching side of things…  Russell Wilson is still the QB, but consider the circumstances surrounding these five important players on the Seahawks’ roster:

1. Cliff Averil – suffered a neck injury that might be career ending
2. Michael Bennett – told a Tacoma paper in January that he does not expect to be back because he sees the Seahawks going with younger players.
3. Kam Chancellor – suffered a neck injury that might be career ending (although Chancellor does say he is going to play next season)
4. Richard Sherman – suffered an Achilles tendon injury last year and was supposedly on the trading block before the injury.
5. Earl Thomas – openly announced that he would want to play for the Cowboys

Switching sports, do you remember when Pitt was a college basketball force majeure?  From about 2000 until 2014 under coaches Ben Holland and Jamie Dixon, the Panthers were always involved in post-season play.  That changed last year when Pitt had a sub-.500 record for the season and went 4-14 in ACC games – and that may not have been an aberration.  This year, Pitt is 8-19 overall but they are 0-14 in ACC games as of this morning.  What has happened there?

Finally, Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle reported this tidbit recently:

“Charles Barkley was once asked to name his favorite white wine. He said, ‘Danny Ainge’.”

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

 

 

In sports, they say that winning cures everything.  We have some evidence to support that assertion from Jacksonville.  For years, the Jags could not sell out the stadium and it was “not a good look” on TV to have the team playing in front of vast swaths of empty seats.  So, the team put tarps over about 10,000 of the seats to give the impression that the Jags were playing in front of a crowd that came closer to filling the stadium.

In the 2017 season, the Jags were much better than they had been for a decade.  The Jags won 10 games; the last time they reached double-digits in wins was 2007.  Their record won them a division title and that got them a home playoff game.  The team pulled off the tarps for that game and sold a surprising number of tix for the game given the lukewarm attendance figures from the last 10 years.  And now the Jags have announced that they will keep the tarps off for the 2018 season.  Moreover, the Jags also announced that ticket prices will go up by 10% for 2018.

The Jags remain committed to playing one of their home games in London and in 2018, they will play the Eagles there in Wembley Stadium.  That is a scheduling glitch for the Jags.  The Eagles would probably have filled EverBank Field in Jax as the reigning Super Bowl Champions.  Two other opponents scheduled to visit Jax next year are the Jets and the Skins.  Those two teams will probably not draw full houses – but they very well could in London.

Winning cures everything – – except a scheduling glitch by the NFL schedule makers…

Sonny Dykes is the head coach at SMU taking over for Chad Morris who resigned the position.  Sonny Dykes had been the head coach at Cal and La Tech prior to this job; he is considered a “passing offense guru”.  The thing that I like about Sonny Dykes is that he is the son of Spike Dykes who was the head coach at Texas Tech for almost 15 years.  Spike Dykes was one of the more colorful head coaches that I can recall.  Nowadays, when a team loses a game, the head coach will go the lectern and say that he is proud of the way his team competed and how they showed resilience in the face of adversity.  Everyone will go back to work tomorrow and “get better”.  That was not Spike Dykes; when his Texas Tech team laid an egg, here are some of the things that he said about the team and the game:

“We played like three tons of buzzard puke out there today.”

And …

“They whipped us like a tied-up goat.”

And …

“We just weren’t productive; that’s because when you have five turnovers, miss two field goals and get another one blocked; my gosh, that’s enough to choke a mule.”

And …

“They say you lose 10 percent of your fan base every year. And I’ve been here 11 years, so you do the math.”

I can only hope that Sonny Dykes takes up his father’s mantle as a colorful football coach.  There are more than enough coaches who speak only in platitudes.

Yesterday, I watched two soccer games on FOX Sports Networks; this was the first phase of the elimination round in UAEFA Champions League.  One of the things that the commentators mentioned several times was that the World Cup Tournament in Russia was set to begin in 4 months.  The US will not be part of that Tournament having missed out on qualifying when it lost to Trinidad and Tobago last Fall.  Many commentators have said that this will be a setback for “growing soccer” in the US and they are probably right.  However, other commentators have pointed out that the failure of the US to qualify is also a blow to the Russian economy.  Here’s why:

• The Russian government is spending about $12B to stage the World Cup.  That is a pittance when compared to the more than $50B it spent to stage the Winter Olympics at Sochi in 2014, but $12B is not a trivial expenditure.
• In recent World Cup Tournaments, Americans were well represented in the cadre of new tourists coming to see the games.  With the US out of the tournament, it is likely that the American “representation” will be much smaller.  The estimate for the number of Americans who went to Brazil for the World Cup in 2014 is 100,000.
• Americans are also spenders as tourists.  When the US team was eliminated from qualifying, that slot went to Panama.  It is highly unlikely that Panamanians will travel to Russia in numbers equivalent to US tourists or that Panamanians will spend the same amount of money once they are in Russia.

Another country that did not qualify for this year’s World Cup is The Netherlands.  That is a bit surprising because The Netherlands finished 3^rd in the World Cup in 2014 and finished 2^nd in the World Cup in 2010.

Finally, since I was talking about soccer, let me close with this comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo may leave Real Madrid after being accused of tax evasion by Spanish authorities. Surprised Real Madrid fans haven’t started a GoFundMe to pay what he owes.”

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

 

 

For the simple reason that I do not know much of anything about the Winter Olympic events nor anything deeper than the names of a few of the US athletes in the games, I will not be providing you with any commentary or analysis on the games.  Simply for the purpose of keeping you somewhat up to date about these events, let me provide you with a few comments by Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald:

“The biathlon event involves shooting a gun. Just so there’s no misunderstanding, can we move that as far away from the North Korean border as possible?”

And …

“To cover figure skating we assigned our skating expert: an employee who once slipped on the ice in front of the building.  You think that’s bad, The World-Herald luge expert is a guy who got a sled from Santa when he was 9.”

And …

“The easiest job in the world is figure skating analyst. You can just make it up and no one will know. ‘He completed a quadruple Huckleberry followed by a Reverse Rodman!’”

And …

“The four-man bobsled features people holding on for dear life as they plunge down an icy track. Or, as we call that in Omaha during winter , ‘carpool’.”

Now that you are up to speed – so to speak – on the events in PeyongChang, let me turn to a much more serious topic.  Reuben Foster is a very talented young linebacker for the Niners; let me just say that he has not been a “model citizen” for all his adult life.

• Two years ago, Foster was present – but not involved – in an incident involving firearms that left three people dead.
• At the NFL Combine last year it was announced that he had “failed a drug test” and he was sent home.  Later it came out that Foster submitted a diluted urine sample to the testers at the Combine.
• About a month ago, he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana.  Since the diluted urine sample counts as a “failed test” in the NFL taxonomy, this could mean even stricter monitoring of Foster in the league’s substance abuse protocol.
• Over the weekend, Foster was arrested again in an incident that involved domestic violence and an assault rifle.

Please note; those last two events are arrests; there has been no legal disposition of those matters.  Notwithstanding Foster’s presumed innocence, he faces liability in the court of public opinion where there is no such thing as “due process” and “innocent until proven guilty”.  Possession of marijuana has faded in significance in the court of public opinion in recent time; however, “domestic violence” and “assault rifles” are hot button issues and the emotions they arouse in the general public in February 2018 are not remotely positive.

Reuben Foster’s career may be on a knife edge here.  The NFL is likely to be handing him suspension time with reinstatement contingent on completing some therapy.  The Niners may be in a very delicate situation here.  Not long ago, they had to deal with Aldon Smith and his issues with DUI arrests, assault weapon charges and a hit-and-run incident.  Not too many years ago, the Niners also had to deal with Ray McDonald and his issues with alleged sexual assault, domestic violence and child endangerment.  The Niners are in a precarious place regarding the way they deal with Reuben Foster.

My guess is that if Foster is not convicted of some heinous action, he will be back in the NFL because he is – as I said above – a very talented young linebacker.  I recognize that he is an adult and is fully within his rights to live his life the way he wants to live it; but if the Niners want to keep him in their family for a long career, I suggest that John Lynch go and read Homer’s Odyssey.  There is a character there named Mentor; he is charged by Odysseus to be the teacher and guardian of Telemachus – Odysseus’ young son.  Mentor’s job was to teach Telemachus how to be a leader and how to be a king.  Reuben Foster needs a mentor (small “m”) who takes on a task similar to the one that Mentor (capital “M”) took on.  I don’t think this is going to be easy…

As NFL free agency approaches, one of the staples for football writers has been to opine about how the half-dozen or so teams that desperately need a QB are going to resolve that issue.  The pundits round up the usual suspects for these articles such as:

• Bills
• Broncos
• Browns
• Cards
• Jets
• Vikes

I read something over the weekend at spotrac.com that makes me think there is another team that might have a QB quandary on its hands.  Consider the Baltimore Ravens…

• Joe Flacco is signed through 2021 but there is a buyout provision that might kick in at the close of the 2019 season.
• In the next two years (2018 and 2019) Flacco will consume $51.25M in cap room.
• In 2017, Flacco threw for 18 TDs and threw 13 INTs.  His yards per attempt was only 5.7 yards and his total yardage was only 3141.

I think that John Harbaugh and the Ravens’ FO have some serious thinking to do.

Finally, since I started today with some observations by Brad Dickson in the Omaha-World-Herald, let me close with one more:

“Police in Sunrise, Florida, caught Jets receiver Robby Anderson going 105 mph in a 45 zone. He stuck out because the average resident of Sunrise drives 6 mph in a 45 zone.”

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