Troy Aikman Vs. Skip Bayless …

I do not know how many of you are aware of the guttural dislike that exists between Troy Aikman and Skip Bayless. If you are in your 30s, you might wonder why either of these folks would even know one another let alone care enough about one another to dislike the other. Well, there is a history … and today both of these folks are now in the employ of FOX Sports.

The fact that both of these gentleman cash significant weekly checks from the same mega-bank account does not make them brothers in arms. Troy Aikman – quite simply – has no time for Skip Bayless. Here is what NBC Sports’ profootballtalk.com quoted Aikman as saying:

“To say I’m disappointed in the hiring of Skip Bayless would be an enormous understatement. Clearly, Jamie Horowitz [President of FOX Sports] and I have a difference of opinion when it comes to building a successful organization. I believe success is achieved by acquiring and developing talented, respected and credible individuals, none of which applies to Skip Bayless.”

[Emphasis added]

Let’s rewind the tape – – so to speak. Back in the early 1990s – before Skip Bayless was the patron saint of the “Hot Take” – he was a columnist for the Dallas Morning News and Troy Aikman was the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Sometime in that period of history, Skip Bayless wrote a book about the Cowboys and the inner sanctum of the team which implied VERY directly that Troy Aikman was gay. Even if one subscribes to the current narrative that such a sexual orientation does not matter a whit, it surely did in the early/mid-1990s. Troy Aikman did not appreciate those allegations then and he has not forgotten them in the intervening years.

Skip Bayless was hired away from ESPN by FOX Sports recently with the idea that Bayless would bring his Hot Takes to FOX Sports in a way that duplicated/mimicked/outshone the “debate-style formatting at ESPN that has been successful during the weekday daytime hours. Reports say that Bayless got multi-millions to make that jump; I have no way to know if those reports are true, but I am sure that Skip Bayless did not take a new job that payed him minimum wage.

Troy Aikman has been the lead analyst for FOX in their coverage of the NFL. He and Joe Buck are FOX’s answer to Jim Nantz/Phil Simms (CBS) and to Al Michaels/Cris Colinsworth (NBC). Troy Aikman’s words above demonstrate to me that the fact that he and Skip Bayless both draw VERY comfortable salaries’ from the same source does not mean that the hatchet is buried. In fact, what those words say to me is that the execs at FOX Sports need to assure that any time Skip Bayless and Troy Aikman are in the same room, there are no hatchets within reach of anyone.

I enjoy Troy Aikman’s work as a color analyst on NFL games. Most importantly, I do not give a fig if the analysis he provides comes from the mouth of a gay person, a straight person, a bisexual person or an asexual person. I find his commentary interesting and insightful. When I am watching an NFL game, that is the highest priority for me – – assuming that the words are not coming from someone whose credibility with regard to NFL football is questionable such as PeeWee Herman.

For the record, I find Skip Bayless tiresome. I did not like his ESPN show with Stephen A. Smith (First Take) and I really do not like his new program on FOX Sports with Shannon Sharpe (Whatever It Is Called). The only advice I might give to the mavens at FOX Sports is pretty basic:

    If you keep these two folks separate from one another, you can probably continue to make inroads into the existing ESPN audience. Mazel Tov with that…

    HOW-EVAH (channeling Bayless’ former co-host, Stephan A. Smith, here) if you ever have to choose between the two because having both of them in the same company is about to resemble the 21st Century version of the Gunfight At The OK Corral, keep Aikman and jettison Bayless. In my opinion, it is not even a close decision…

It is really good to have readers for these rants who can provide commentary here that is substantive and well beyond the level of the “Hot Take”. Here is a communique that I received yesterday from a reader here in the DC area regarding the NFL Mythical Picks from earlier this week:

“When was the last time that the teams who played in the Super Bowl opened the next season playing each other?

“It was 1970 – the first year of the full AFL-NFL merger, when the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 27-10.”

I am surprised that it took the NFL this long to provide such a match-up to start the new season. I realize that the NFL schedule is formulaic and that it is not always possible to have the Super Bowl teams play one another in the subsequent year. Nonetheless, I would have thought it would have happened at least once in the past 46 years…

I want to point you to a column written by Brad Rock in the Deseret News this week. The rivalry between BYU and Utah is an intense one; it may not be at the same level as Army/Navy – – but it is close. This column relates how such a rivalry can exist without the need to trash the opposing school’s coach or kidnapping the opposing school’s mascot.

    The rivalry is there.
    The intensity is there.
    AND the maturity is there too.

Sports are a part of life; sports do not equate to life nor do they have such meaning that they define life. Sports are important enough to me that I have been writing about them on the Internet 5-days a week for more than 15 years now. Nonetheless, sports are entertainment; they are not the core essence of my life and they ought not to be the core life of anyone else. This column is worth reading in its entirety…

Finally, consider this comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald regarding Usain Bolt’s performance in the Rio Olympics:

“Usain Bolt won his third straight Olympic gold medal in the 100 meters. My favorite point was at the 70-meter mark when he passed Secretariat.”

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

Mythical Picks – NFL – Weekend Of 9/11/16

Last week, new readers got their introduction – indoctrination? – into the NCAA version of Mythical Picks. Similarly, for the rest of the football season, there will be a separate but equal presentation focused on NFL games. The format will be a bit simpler. Ultimately, the purpose will be for me to make a selection against the spread – or on the Total Line – for each of the 256 NFL regular season games. Let me make something very clear from the outset:

    I am highly unlikely to be able to make picks for every game because:

      1. There will be weeks where I cannot get to writing these things until Friday and there will have been a game on that Thursday night.

      2. Travel events and/or family events may preclude putting these pieces out for a given week.

    I will do the best that I can…

Each week will begin with a summary of how the picks did the week before along with a running total for the entire season. As I did with the NCAA version of Mythical Picks, let me emphasize a few important points:

    These are Mythical Picks. I am not going to make a wager on every NFL game and under no circumstances would I suggest that anyone else do anything like that.

    If you do bet on sporting events, money management is as important as making selections because there is no way that you are only going to make winning selections. Even the phony shills on the radio and TV who shriek in order to get you to buy their “service” do not claim 100% accuracy.

      [Aside: Be wary of people who claim a “documented 75% record” against the spread. There are handicapping contests in Las Vegas every year and the prize money is very significant; those contests are usually won by someone who hits a little under 60% of the picks made. If these radio/TV jokers could REALLY do 75%, they would have won the handicapping contests every year for the last decade. And none of them have or they would surely tell you that they did …]

After the review of the prior week, I will make some General Comments about the NFL about last week’s games and/or and the upcoming games and then I will get right down to the selections for the week. For the record, last year the Mythical Picks record was 134-121-5 which was ever so slightly profitable against the vig. I have been doing Mythical Picks against the spread for every game for 15 years now; this is only the second time I have had a “profitable” season.

Before I get to the General Comments, I do want to be sure that everyone understands that no one should use any information here as the basis for making a real wager on a real NFL game involving real money this week or any other week. Here is how dumb you would have to be to do such a thing:

    You think barium is that they do to chemists when they die.

General Comments:

There will be a few “new things” regarding the NFL this year. Some of them will be steps forward; others will be a “lateral arabesque” – – better known as The Great Leap Sideways. First of all, there will be more international games this year. There will be three “London Games” this year and in Week 11 there will be a game in Mexico City. Those games will be positive events for the NFL because they will represent high revenue events. I am not so sure that these games will be positive events for the fans of the teams involved or for the players. Clearly, fans and players are secondary matters here; this is all about the pursuit of revenue streams.

For 2016, there is a rule change that – theoretically – should lead to more players being ejected from games. Here is the new rule:

    A player who is penalized twice in one game for certain types of unsportsmanlike conduct fouls will be disqualified. The types of fouls are:

      Throwing a punch or forearm, or kicking at an opponent, even if no contact is made

      Using abusive, threatening or insulting language or gestures toward opponents, teammates, officials or league representatives

      Using baiting or taunting acts or words that engender ill will between teams.

Note, the player would have to be penalized twice for such conduct to be ejected. So punching, kicking and taunting will result in penalties for the first infraction and penalties plus ejection for the second. Seems like a pretty wishy-washy rule to me.

There is a point of emphasis for the officials this season which means that the rule has not been altered but the Competition Committee wants the officials to enforce the existing rule a bit more strenuously than they did last year. [Aside: When I officiated basketball, I often thought that “Points of Emphasis” had a flavor of “shifting the blame to the officials” when the Rules Mavens chose not to change the wording of their sacred rules. But, clearly, I was biased in that viewpoint…]

    Game officials will monitor and strictly enforce the rules pertaining to illegal acts committed by the defensive team while trying to block field-goal and extra-point attempts during the 2016 season, including:

      Making forcible contact below the waist of offensive blockers.

      Grabbing an offensive blocker and pulling him to the side or toward the ground to create space or a gap for a teammate to rush through.

      Using the hands or other parts of the body to push off an offensive blocker to gain leverage in an effort to block the kick.

I am not sure what the defenders for PAT tries or field goals are now allowed to do. They cannot make contact below the waist; they cannot use any part of their body to push off a blocker as they try to block the kick. Other than spouting wings and flying over the offensive blockers, I am not sure what else they might do – legally – to block a kick.

There is another point of emphasis that will likely be ignored by all parties concerned. Basically, coaches are not allowed to leave the bench area except for very proscribed circumstances.

    Despite being a point of emphasis in previous seasons, the issue of coaches leaving the bench area to gain the attention of the game officials or entering the field of play for other reasons continues to be a widespread problem. [Aside: This means that a “Point of Emphasis” in the past did not work but they are going to try to make it another Point of Emphasis again rather than change the rule.] The Committee sees no other recourse than to direct game officials to penalize coaches who do not comply with the rule.

    A head coach can leave the bench area to get the attention of a game official when the snap takes place at a yard line not within the bench area and the coach is trying to call a team timeout or challenge an on-field ruling, and during an injury timeout to check the welfare of an injured player.

    A coach cannot leave the bench area to question a game official, and at no time is a coach allowed onto the field of play. At no time can an assistant coach leave the bench area, even during breaks after scoring plays. These rules remain in effect during any timeout. Only incoming substitutes, team attendants or trainers seeing to the welfare of a player may enter the field. Violations will result in a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and the coach and/or the club may face additional discipline.

Please read that third paragraph above about who can and cannot leave the bench area. My guess is that just looking on TV you will see a half dozen violations of that rule and that point of emphasis in every half of every game this season.

Which head coach will be the one to get the first 15-yard penalty of the year for being improperly on the field?

    Rex Ryan?
    Bruce Arians?
    I think my money would be on Mike Tomlin…

The NFL also changed the rule on touchbacks on kickoffs. Now the ball will come out to the 25-yardline instead of the 20. The thinking here is that the extra 5 yards for “taking a knee” would result in fewer returns and therefore fewer injuries. We shall see…

If I were a special teams coach, I would look to have my kicker learn the kickoff version of a “pooch punt” which would go high in the air and come down around the opponent’s 10-yardline. Given enough hang time, that could create fair-catches for kickoffs or it could get the return guy creamed by kick cover guys. That might be the result of the Law of Unintended Consequences…

The Tampa Bay Bucs defied – – drumroll please – – conventional wisdom back in May when they used a pick in the 2nd round of the Draft to take – – gasp – – a kicker. Roberto Aguayo never missed a PAT in 3 years at Florida State and his field goal accuracy was 88.5%. Yes, I know that colleges kick the PAT from the 10 yardline and the NFL kicks the PAT from the 22 yardline. Nonetheless, Aguayo’s numbers are attractive; people just did not think a kicker should go in the 2nd round of the Draft. Then Aguayo struggled in training camp and in exhibition games. If Aguayo were to miss an extra point or a chip shot field goal that costs the Bucs a game this year, you can be sure that he will take his place in the Pantheon of Bad People.

The Games:

Note that the lines for the games on Sunday/Monday could change a lot from the ones cited here. These lines are current as of mid-morning on Wednesday.

(Thurs Nite) Carolina – 3 at Denver (42): Holy Super Bowl rematch, Batman … The spread opened as a “pick ‘em” game and has stretched out to this number. Perhaps oddsmakers thought Mark Sanchez would be the QB for Denver and bettors piled on Carolina when they learned that the starting QB for the Broncos would be a guy who has never thrown a pass in a real NFL game. Whatever, that is the situation at hand… If you would like to see some conflicting trends, consider these:

    Panthers are 7-1 against the spread in their last 8 games on grass.
    Broncos are 7-1 against the spread in their last 8 Thursday games.
    This is a Thursday game on a grass field…

I agree with the oddsmakers that this will be a low-scoring affair and in most cases, I prefer to take points in low scoring games. However, this time I think the Panthers are more than a field goal better than the Broncos. I’ll take the Panthers to win and cover on the road in the NFL season opener.

Cincy – 2.5 at Jets (41.5): This should also be a defense dominated game and this time I do like the underdog – especially at home. Please note that the game will be played on 9/11 in NYC and the home team is the Jets. If I were prone to make picks for oddball reasons, I would be taking the Jets here. Combining my slight preference for the Jets with this karmic coincidence means I will indeed take the Jets plus the points.

Cleveland at Philly – 4 (41.5): I think line movements here reflect the trade of Sam Bradford to the Vikes and the idea that the Eagles will start Carson Wentz “if he is healthy”. The line opened at Philly – 7 and the Total Line opened at 45. That is a lot of movement for NFL lines. Here you have two teams coming off bad enough seasons in 2015 that they fired their coaches. Hue Jackson takes over in Cleveland and tries to return RG3 to some semblance of his form as a rookie. Doug Pederson takes over in Philly as an offshoot of the Andy Reid coaching tree and hopes to last as long in Philly as Reid did (14 years). I think both teams will finish at the bottom their divisions but I do think the Eagles are the better overall squad. I’ll take the Eagles at home to win and cover.

Oakland at New Orleans – 1.5 (51): I know that the State of Louisiana suffered a ton of flood damage just a couple of weeks ago and that the Saints rallied that part of the world in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when it went on a run and won the Super Bowl a few years back. But I think the Raiders are the better team here and I think the Raiders are primed for a playoff berth. There are conflicting trends for this game too:

    Raiders are 6-2 against the spread in their last 8 games on field turf.
    Saints are 6-2 against the spread in their last 8 games in September.
    This game is on field turf in September.

I’ll take the Raiders plus the points.

Minnesota – 2 at Tennessee (41): Shaun Hill or Sam Bradford as the Vikings QB here? I’m not sure it makes much of a difference because I think the Vikings defense can dominate the game and Adrian Peterson can run the football. I like the Vikings to win and cover even on the road.

Tampa at Atlanta – 3 (47.5): Both teams represent mediocrity here. I am not thrilled by the prospect of taking the Falcons and laying points here; nor am I enthralled by the prospect of taking the Bucs on the road. And so I shall introduce the concept of the Curmudgeon Central Coin Flip Game. When I do not like any of the choices for a game – but I need to make a pick – I have a coin flip protocol that goes like this:

    Coin Flip #1:

      Heads means play the spread
      Tails means play the Total Line

    Coin Flip #2

      Heads means take the favorite (spread) or the OVER (Total Line)
      Tails means take the underdog (spread) or the UNDER (Total Line)

This is the first Curmudgeon Central Coin Flip Game of the season and the coin says to take the Bucs plus the points. Why not?

Buffalo at Baltimore – 3 (44.5): Until and unless the injury bug visits the Ravens again this year, their defense will be improved over last year’s unit. The injury bug has already hit the Bills – particularly on the defensive side of the ball. I like the Ravens to win and cover at home.

Chicago at Houston – 6 (44): Will JJ Watt play? If so, is he really ready to play – not having played or practiced since last January? I know Brock Osweiler is going to make a ton of money this year but is he anywhere near worth it? We will not know the answers to those questions for a while but we do know this:

    The Bears are only mediocre at best.

I like this game to stay UNDER.

San Diego at KC – 7 (44.5): The Chiefs are the better team and the Chiefs are at home. But that line looks as fat as Andy Reid himself. I’ll take the Chargers plus the points.

Green Bay – 5.5 at Jax (48): This game will not get the same level of hype as some other matchups this weekend, but this could be a very good game. Might this game be the opportunity for the Jags to make a statement that they are going to be a factor in 2016? I think that is sufficiently possible that I will take the Jags at home plus the points.

Miami at Seattle – 11 (44): I hate double-digit spreads on NFL games. I cannot see the Dolphins winning this game but that line is awfully fat. I’ll take the Dolphins on the road plus the points. Notwithstanding that selection, there is a disturbing trend at work here:

    The Dolphins are 5-21 against the spread in their last 26 games.

Detroit at Indy – 4 (50.5): The return of Andrew Luck makes the Colts’ offense a lot better than it was last year. The Lions’ defense is nothing to write home about. Indeed, the Lions’ offense will miss Calvin Johnson but if there is a silver lining here it is that the Lions get to open against a defense that was not very good last year and seemingly made no major improvements. I like this game to go OVER.

Giants at Dallas “pick ’em” (46): Early in the week, these lines were all over the place. At one point on Monday evening, you could find the Cowboys as a 1-point underdog and just about every spread along the way to the Cowboys being a 3.5-point favorite. The Total Line was just as mysterious. It ranged from 45.5 to 49.5. What I have used here is where the majority of lines reside at the moment. Dak Prescott looked like a world-beater in the exhibition games – – but those were exhibition games. The real question here is this:

    Can the Giants stop/slow down the Cowboys run game?

I do not think they can do it sufficiently to keep the scoring down and so I will take the game to go OVER.

(Sun Nite) New England at Arizona – 6 (47): The Total Line opened at 51 but it has been at this level since Monday evening. I do not think that the Pats can overcome the insertion of Jimmy Garropolo for Tom Brady on the road against a team that I think will win 11 games this year. That is not a knock on the Pats or their coaching staff or Garropolo; I think the Cards are too good a team for the Pats to beat with those disadvantages in the first game out of the gate. I like the Cards at home to win and cover here.

(Early Mon Nite) Pittsburgh – 3 at Washington (50): An interesting thing to watch here will be Josh Norman in the defensive secondary for the Skins. Norman got a ton of money to sign here in the off-season and he was REALLY good last year. Some have said that he is not nearly as good as he looked last year because he played behind a fearsome front seven who gave opposing QBs little time to be comfortable in the pass game. Well, Norman is now behind a front seven that is not nearly as fearsome as the Panthers’ unit was last year. Oh, and the Steelers will bring Antonio Brown to the game … Speaking of defenses that will need to step up, the Steelers defense looks to be vulnerable again this year. I like the Skins plus the points at home and I like the game to go OVER.

(Late Mon Nite) LA – 2.5 at SF (44): The Niners’ offense is a “work in progress” to be polite and the Rams’ defense is very good. The Niners’ defense is not nearly as good but playing against Case Keenum as the opposing QB might make the Niners’ defense look better than it really is. I like this game to stay UNDER.

Finally, here is a comment from Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel. It has to do with the perversity of fantasy football:

“My first thought when Vikings QB Teddy Bridgewater blew out his knee and was lost for the season earlier this week wasn’t sympathy for Bridgewater but concern about how it would affect Adrian Peterson’s production on my fantasy team. And this is why fantasy football makes you a sad, pathetic person.”

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

Predicting The 2016 NFL Season

The calendar has turned the page 12 times since last I set out to embarrass myself in public. Once again, it is time for me to do a team-by-team prediction for the NFL season that will start later this week. The outcome here will be my sense of the final record for all 32 teams come January 2017. This is not something that will mysteriously disappear from the website; I know from history – and just plain common sense – that there are going to be huge errors in these predictions. I will make then nonetheless; I will leave them here so people can mock me later on and I will even do a post-mortem sometime in January of February of next year and grade myself on what follows here.

Sometime during the season – or at the end – someone will stumble across these predictions and latch on to one of my glaring errors wherein I thought a team would go 4-12 and they actually went 10-6. Often, the fanboy who discovers such an error will accuse me of being a hater and will demand an apology from me on behalf of the team and all of its fans. I will not issue such an apology and one is not merited because:

    I do not “hate” – nor do I “love” – any NFL team. These predictions – call them guesses if that makes you feel better – come from a look at the team schedules and rosters and not much more than that. I do not engage in wishful thinking about any team in either a positive or negative sense.

    Apologies are associated with acts that are malicious in their intent or in their execution. There is no malice contained here and certainly no damage will be done to any team or fan by any prediction I make. Ergo, an apology would be irrelevant and out-of-place.

    What I do owe anyone and everyone who reads this stuff is an admission at the end of the season that some – many – of these predictions were downright wrong and that I was a dunderhead to have thought what I did before the season began. Read the post-mortem in early 2017; you will plenty of such admission(s).

Before I get to the teams and their projected records, let me identify 8 coaches who I believe are on a hot seat for the 2016 season. I am not hoping that these coaches get fired; I just think their employment situations are less stable than their peers. I will list them alphabetically lest someone think I have some preferential order in mind here:

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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…

    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.

    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.

    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.

I should point out that last year I listed 7 coaches who I thought were on a hot seat – whether or not I agreed that they should be there. At the end of the 2015 season 5 of those 7 coaches were out of work; 2 of the 5 did not make it to the end of the season with their teams. So there…

Now that the appetizer course has been consumed and the dishes cleared, it is time to get down to business. I shall begin in the AFC…

AFC East: I predict a total of 31 wins for the 4 teams in this division. That makes the AFC East the 5th strongest division in terms of total wins. Here is the breakdown:

    Patriots: I think they will win 11 games and win the division for the 8th consecutive season and do so comfortably. The schedule maker was not overly kind to the Pats; they open the season on the road in Arizona with Jimmy Garropolo at QB. The next 3 games are not nearly as fearsome since all of them are at home in Foxboro. I suspect Tom Brady will return to a team in Week 5 that is sitting on a 2-2 record. If – I said IF – the Pats are 4-0 at the end of 4 games, be prepared for Bill Belichick to extort an unusual price from some QB-hungry GM in the off-season. Here is an example of what I mean:

      When the Pats sent Chandler Jones to the Cards last offseason – see below – they got an offensive guard named Jonathon Cooper almost as a sweetener in the deal. Cooper was once a high first-round pick and as of this morning he is listed first on the depth chart for the Pats at right guard.

    Jets: I think they will win 8 games and that they will – once again – win those games thanks to their defense. If Ryan Fitzpatrick improves markedly over his performance last year, he will be the ultimate “late bloomer”. If he regresses to the mean, the Jets will finish 8-8. If last year was a fluke in the positive direction and the football gods decide to give him a fluke in the negative direction, the Jets are in real trouble. The schedule for the Jets from Week 1 through Week 7 is hardly a pushover:

      Vs Bengals
      At Bills
      At Chiefs
      Vs Seahawks
      At Steelers
      At Cardinals
      Vs Ravens

    Dolphins: I think they will win 6 games this year. Last year was supposed to be the year that Ryan Tannehill “took a big step forward” as a QB. That did not happen; the coach got fired and the team brought in a new regime where the head coach – Adam Gase – is a “Certified Quarterback Whisperer”. I think the past is prologue; Tannehill will continue to be mediocre; the Dolphins’ OL will do him no favors. The schedule in September is also daunting:

      At Seahawks
      At Patriots
      Vs Browns
      At Bengals

    In the off-season, it appears to me that the Dolphins let young free agents walk and then they signed older free agents. Usually teams that do that have the idea that this is the season to make a push for a deep playoff run. I just do not see that happening in Miami. For example, the Dolphins traded to acquire Byron Maxwell from the Eagles in the off-season. Maxwell played really well for the Seahawks two years ago; last year he stunk it out with the Eagles. The Dolphins inherited an expensive contract in this exchange (6 years and $63M in total) and they really need Maxwell to be the player he was in Seattle and not the player he was in Philly.

    Bills: I think they will win 6 games this year and that Rex Ryan will be collecting the rest of his contract money without having to freeze his butt off on the sidelines in Buffalo next December. There are myriad injuries on the defensive side of the ball – and Marcel Dareus will serve a suspension for missing a drug test. Rex’ brother, Rob, is the defensive coordinator this year; and to be polite, Rob’s defenses have not been good at all for the last several seasons. The Bills have a tough patch in the middle of their schedule. Between 2 October and 20 November, the Bills play seven games (and have their Bye Week); five of those seven games are on the road and three of those road opponents are the Pats, Seahawks and Bengals. Ouch…

AFC North: I predict a total of 32 wins for the 4 teams in this division. That makes the AFC North tied for 3rd as the strongest division in terms of total wins. Here is the breakdown:

    Steelers: I think they will win 11 games and win the division on the strength of their offense. Normally, one thinks of the Steelers as a defensive squad; not last year and not this year either. Look for Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Bryant and LeVeon Bell – when he gets back from suspension – to light up the scoreboard. If their defense is as porous as I suspect it will be, there may be plenty of chances to “Bet the OVER” in Steelers’ games this year.

    Bengals: I think they will 10 games this year and will be one of the two AFC Wild Card teams. If they do win 10 games, that will be the fifth year in a row that the Bengals have collected double-digit wins. As mentioned above, the Bengals may then need to win their first-round playoff game for Marvin Lewis to keep his job. The Bengals open the season with 4 of their first 6 games on the road. Adding a veteran like Karlos Dansby who is still productive to their defense may be what that defense needs in terms of “maintaining its composure”.

    Ravens: I think they will win 8 games and miss the playoffs again. Last year was an anomaly; the Ravens looked more like a M*A*S*H unit than an NFL team by the end of the season. Joe Flacco – even when he was completely healthy – had a horrible season last year; he is a better QB than he showed then. The Ravens are starting to show some age. Steve Smith Sr. is back; so is Terrell Suggs; both are still fine players and both of them are long-in-the-tooth.

    Browns: I think they will win 3 games but they will not have the overall #1 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. RG3 will show marked improvement playing for an offensive minded coach who has not yet made up his mind that Griffin simply cannot be an NFL QB. That was his status in Washington. There just is not sufficient talent on the squad for the team to resemble – even faintly – a .500 team in the NFL. Circle 16 October on your calendar.

      On that day, the Browns will travel about 500 miles to the southwest to play the Tennessee Titans in Nashville.

      That appears now to be the “Dog-Breath Game of the Year” on the 2016 NFL schedule.

AFC South: I predict a total of 29 wins for the 4 teams in this division. That makes the AFC South the 7th strongest division in terms of total wins. Or you could call it the 2nd weakest division if you prefer… Here is the breakdown:

    Jaguars: I think they will win 10 games and win the division. If they do that, you can surely take Gus Bradley off the coaching hot seat I described above and if they do that it will be the first winning season in Jax since 2007. The division title could well come down to the final game on New Year’s Day between the Jags and the Colts in Indy. Blake Bortles improved a lot last year; he needs to continue on that performance arc; a healthy Julius Thomas at TE and a returning Allen Robinson at WR will help him achieve that goal. TJ Yeldon was a good RB last year and this year he will get a breather now and then with Chris Ivory on the roster. The Jags’ defense is the question mark …

    Colts: I think they will 9 games and not make the playoffs. I understand that Andrew Luck is back and healthy and I know for sure that Andrew Luck is a really good QB. My issue with the Colts is that two of their weaknesses (mediocre OL and sub-standard defense) were on display all of last year and neither of them seems to be in a significantly different place this year.

    Texans: I think they will win 8 games this year. The Texans signed Brock Osweiler away from the Broncos in the off season and set up this circumstance:

      Brock Osweiler will take home $21M this year and that is more than Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Cam Newton will make. Seriously …

    The Texans have a top-shelf WR in DeAndre Hopkins; that will help Osweiler to show as a good – and hopefully for the Texans’ fans ‘better than average” – QB this season. Actually, the bigger question mark for the Texans involves JJ Watt who is the best defensive lineman in the game right now. He missed all of the exhibition games and was just cleared medically for practice. The team says he will play in Game 1; his performance level under those circumstances has to be in question. The Texans need him to be himself when he does play if they are going to get significant business done on defense.

    Titans: I think they will win 2 games this year and be on the clock with the #1 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft as of 2 January 2017. By the way, winning only 2 games is not something that ought to stun the fanbase in Tennessee; this team has only won 5 games in the last two seasons combined. Marcus Mariotta showed promise as a developing QB talent last year; the team has DeMarco Murray and high draft pick Derrick Henry to run the football. The problem is that they have Manny, Moe and Jack to play WR. They signed Andre Johnson in the off-season; Johnson has been a really good WR in the past but he is running on fumes in terms of career and productivity in 2016.

AFC West: I predict a total of 36 wins for the 4 teams in this division. That makes the AFC West the strongest division in terms of total wins. Here is the breakdown:

    Raiders: I think they will win 11 games this year and win the division. If they do that it will be their first winning season since the team went 11-5 in 2002; that team went to the Super Bowl. The schedule sets up the Raiders for a fast start. Between September 11 and October 30, the Raiders play 8 games but only 1 of those opponents made the playoffs last year. Immediately after that opening half of the season, the Raiders have 4 consecutive home games on the schedule plus a Bye Week thrown in. That gets them all the way to the first week of December! Over the past several years, a serious shortcoming for the Raiders has been their OL. That unit showed improvement last year and if that continues, this team will be a tough out for anyone. Derek Carr, Latavius Murray, Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree are for real…

    Chiefs: I think they will win 10 games this year and make the playoffs as one of the AFC Wild Card teams. Last year, the Chiefs lost Jamaal Charles to injury and never missed a beat; in fact, they won 11 straight games after he went down. Make no mistake, if Charles is back at 90% of what he was prior to that injury, he will be a big plus to the Chiefs offensive flexibility. LB, Justin Houston, is on the PUP List meaning he cannot play for at least the first 6 games – and he may be out for the year. That will not help the Chiefs defense at all; Houston is a player. Two road games – at Pittsburgh and at Carolina – will be challenging for the Chiefs.

    Broncos: I think they will win 8 games this year and miss the playoffs. I understand that they won the Super Bowl on the strength of their defense last year and not because their offense was any good. However, that offense now lacks the cerebral/leadership aspects that the aging Peyton Manning brought to the huddle and that defense is missing a couple of good players (Malik Jackson and Danny Trevathan) who decided to go elsewhere and “get paid”. The Broncos are not going to crater and join the Browns and Titans at the bottom rungs of the AFC, but they are not a playoff team in 2016.

    Chargers: I think they will win 7 games this year and miss the playoffs and that they will be in the market for a new coach in January 2017. [Aside: For the record, I do not think the team will win the referendum in November to get the needed public funding for their new stadium in San Diego either.] The team will not be as bad as they were last year but the porous OL and the lack of a sound running game does not auger well in this very tough division. Of course, last year’s first-round pick, RB Melvyn Gordon, might help out that anemic running game if he shows the form he did in college. Gordon’s rookie year was a borderline disaster; he carried the ball 185 times for a little less than 650 yards and zero TDS. To make that worse, he coughed the ball up 6 times…

So, let me summarize the AFC here. Their playoff bracket will be:

    #1 Seed: Steelers via tiebreakers
    #2 Seed: Pats via tiebreakers
    #3 Seed: Raiders via tiebreakers
    #4 Seed: Jags as “the other” division winner
    #5 Seed: Bengals via tiebreakers
    #6 Seed: Chiefs via tiebreakers

I have to admit that I took a short break here and indulged in an adult beverage in order to get set to move to the second half of this magnum opus. I shall now move on to the NFC…

NFC East: I predict a total of 28 wins for the 4 teams in this division. That makes the NFC East the weakest division in terms of total wins. Here is the breakdown:

    Skins: I think they will win 9 games this year and that will be sufficient to win this sorry-assed division. People say that Kirk Cousins needs to show that he can improve from last season. Excuse me; but he set a franchise record for passing yards last year and the franchise has been around since 1932. Kirk Cousins is playing for a long-term contract and it means a lot to him. He is playing under the “franchise tag” this year taking down a cool $19.2M. If he has another year similar to last year, his agent will use that number as the basis for opening the negotiations. It will not be a huge surprise if Cousins has some great stats because the Skins’ running game may not be nearly as good as it has been in recent years. The team let Alfred Morris walk; Matt Jones is a talented runner but he was hurt last year and got hurt again in the exhibition season. On defense, the question mark(s) are at safety where there are some good tacklers on the roster but none of them are “cover guys”.

    Cowboys: I think they will win 7 games this year. Before Tony Romo got hurt such that he will miss at least half of the season, I thought that the Cowboys had put together a balanced offense that would score enough points to overcome the porous Cowboys’ defense. Look, Dak Prescott may be this year’s version of Ben Roethlisberger as a rookie; it could happen. However, if he is something significantly below that, the Cowboys may be reduced to running an offense akin to the wishbone with Ezekiel Elliot and Alfred Morris carrying the ball because behind Prescott sits Mark Sanchez. Recognize that the Broncos cut Sanchez last week and handed the QB job to a guy who has never thrown a pass in a real NFL game. Oh, and as I mentioned, the Cowboys’ defense is not all that good…

    Giants: I think they will win 7 games this year. The reason the Giants faded last year – and cost Tom Coughlin his job – was that the defense just plain stunk. The team went out and spent money on defenders; but when I look at what they got, I just shrug my shoulders. Damon Harrison and Olivier Vernon are nice players but that’s all they are. The return of a healthy Victor Cruz would be a nice addition for Eli Manning; Cruz has not been healthy enough to see the field since the early part of the 2014 season. Is he ready yet?

    Eagles: I think they will win 5 games this year as they start to clean out the mess that the Chip Kelly regime left behind. I do not know what caused Kelly to jettison the talented players that he did nor do I know why he acquired some of the marginal players that he did. What that roster needed – and still needs to some extent – is a thorough housecleaning. Trading Sam Bradford makes sense in the long term and I think it demonstrates that no one in the Eagles’ braintrust thinks this team is going anywhere this year. Fans will clamor to see Carson Wentz on the field; if the adults in charge of the team can put in some earplugs and not listen to the fans, Wentz will spend the year learning his craft on the sidelines and in the classroom and Chase Daniel will be the starting QB.

NFC North: I predict a total of 32 wins for the 4 teams in this division. That makes the NFC North tied for 3rd place as the strongest division in terms of total wins. Here is the breakdown:

    Packers: I think they will win 12 games this year and win their division handily. The return of Jordy Nelson from the DL and the presence of an Eddie Lacy who is no longer trying to emulate the body type of William “The Refrigerator” Perry assures that the Packers will have the dominant offense in the division. The defense played well last year and there is no reason to suspect that they will forget how to play this year. The Packers open with two games on the road and then 4 consecutive games at home in Lambeau Field. Strange scheduling …

    Vikings: I think they will win 10 games this year and will be an NFC Wild Card team. I had them winning 11 games before Teddy Bridgewater’s non-contact injury last week. With Shaun King – or eventually the recently acquired Sam Bradford – at QB, the presence of Adrian Peterson becomes even more important than normal. The problem for the Vikes’ offense is pretty simple; they have to have someone – anyone – at QB who can make the passing game into something more than a desperation move when they face 3rd and 13. Unless they do that, Peterson will look at 8-man fronts on 75% of the snaps. And remember, Peterson is 31 years old and has run the ball in the NFL 2,381 times in real games. He is an amazing physical specimen, but that sort of work history has to mean there is wear and tear on those tires… Mike Zimmer got the coaching job in Minnesota because of his defensive prowess. He will need that unit to play well for the team to contend this year.

    Lions: I think they will win 5 games this year and I think they will be shopping for a new coach come January. The departure of Calvin Johnson is hugely significant for a team that does not run the ball very well at all. Golden Tate has been a good #2 receiver for his career; now we shall see how he fares when “the guy on the other side of the field” does not draw most of the attention on 90% of the plays.

    Bears: I think they will win 5 games this year. I know that, historically, John Fox’s teams improve significantly in the second year of his tenure. I just do not think he has the roster to make that happen. Jay Cutler played with lots less drama than usual last year; can he continue to do that with a team that has a truly mediocre OL in front of him and a dearth of running backs behind him? I like John Fox as a coach; I think this rebuilding process in Chicago is going to take him a bit longer than previous ones took.

NFC South: I predict a total of 34 wins for the 4 teams in this division. That makes the NFC South tied for 2nd place as the strongest division in terms of total wins. Here is the breakdown:

    Panthers: I think they will win 13 games this year and win their division by a mile. That assessment takes into account the “hangover” that most teams that lose the Super Bowl face in the following season. The Panthers won 15 games last year without Kelvin Benjamin who is a really good WR and who is back this year. Back in 2014 before his injury, Benjamin caught 79 passes for 1005 yards. The schedule sets up nicely for the Panthers given that they should dominate their division opponents in those divisional games. For the final quarter of the season this is the lineup:

      Vs Chargers
      At Skins
      Vs Falcons
      At Bucs

    Bucs: I think they will win 7 games this year. Jameis Winston played very well last year and seemingly set aside any serious concerns people may have had about his maturity and his dedication to his craft. The Bucs lost 4 in a row at the end of last year and that is probably why there is a new coaching regime in Tampa. Lovie Smith was a “defense guy”; Dirk Koetter is an “offense guy”. Hey, it’s a change; sometimes change is good and necessary; sometimes change is merely … change.

    Falcons: I think they will win 7 games this. I like their signing of Mohamed Sanu to play WR on the side away from Julio Jones. Teams were totally focused on Jones on every play last year; he is a great receiver, but he needs a little breathing room. A healthy and productive Devonta Freeman at RB helps with that too. What the Falcons really need is some improvement on the defensive side of the ball. Head coach Dan Quinn is a “defense guy”; he and his staff need to make that happen…

    Saints: I think they will win 7 games this year. I know that Drew Brees is still there and that he and Sean Payton have a Vulcan mind-meld when it comes to offensive football. He is coming to the end of his career and I will not be surprised to see him put out a great statistical season. The problem here is the same as it has been in New Orleans for the past several years; the defense just plain stinks.

NFC West: I predict a total of 34 wins for the 4 teams in this division. That makes the NFC West tied for 2nd strongest division in terms of total wins. Here is the breakdown:

    Seahawks: I think they will win 11 games this year and will win the division in a tiebreaker with the Cardinals. The Seahawks have ridden their defense to 4 straight playoff appearances and it would surely seem as if they can do that one more time this year. Last year, the team had to deal with the “distractions” provided by Kam Chancellor and Marshawn Lynch. Chancellor is not holding out this year and Lynch is in retirement. I really enjoy watching Russell Wilson play QB. There are some real issues with the team:

      Russell Okung was their best OL – despite a history of injuries that made him miss games. He is now gone and playing for the Broncos.

      Jimmy Graham suffered a torn patella tendon last season. His return to the field is still up in the air as is his ability to recover his previous form once he is there. A torn patella tendon has basically shelved Victor Cruz for almost 2 years; some people never come back from that surgery.

    Cardinals: I think they will also win 11 games this year and they will be the first NFC Wild Card team in the playoffs. The Cards will score points this year; they may be the 2016 version of “The Greatest Show on Turf” – – so long as Carson Palmer stays healthy. [Aside: Also so long as Palmer forgets his last “real” NFL game where he threw 4 INTs and lost 2 fumbles in the playoffs against the Panthers last year.] Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd and John Brown at WR present formidable challenges to any defense in the league. Jermaine Gresham is not exactly chopped liver as a TE. Can the Cards’ defense hold up its end of the bargain? The acquisition of Chandler Jones from the Pats is supposed to make that happen. One other question about the Cards has no simple answer:

      Is the door closing on this team for a major run in the playoffs/Super Bowl? Carson Palmer is 37 years old; if some intern in the Front Office there is drafting a 5-year plan for the team, he would be wise not to include Carson Palmer in there as the starting QB for all of the 2020 season. The window is not shut – – but it is not opening any wider either.

    Palmer is not a one-man team by any stretch of the imagination. However, recognize that the QBs behind him on the Cards’ depth chart as of this morning are Drew Stanton and Matt Barkley. If you were an opposing defensive coordinator, would either of those guys keep you awake at night to the same extent as Carson Palmer?

    Rams: I think they will 6 games this year, miss the playoffs and start hunting for a new coach in January 2017. This is a tough division to play in with a rookie QB – even a rookie taken with the overall #1 pick. When the Rams do win, it will usually be because their excellent defensive unit controlled the game.

    Niners: I think they will win 6 games this year, miss the playoffs and continue to have turmoil among the coaching staff, the GM and the owners’ suite. Look, I think Chip Kelly is a smart guy whose offensive system can work in the NFL. I also think he is stubborn to a fault. Meanwhile, the decision making tandem of Jed York and Trent Baalke has not shown itself to be anything more than marginally competent ever since they got into an ego-based showdown with Jim Harbaugh two years ago. The problem with the Niners is a talent deficiency and that will show itself more than a few times in the upcoming season.

So, let me summarize the NFC here. Their playoff bracket will be:

    #1 Seed: Panthers – in a walk
    #2 Seed: Packers – in a walk
    #3 Seed: Seahawks – via tiebreaker with Cards
    #4 Seed: Skins – the “other” division winner
    #5 Seed: Cards – via tiebreaker with the Seahawks
    #6 Seed: Vikings

Please note that my projected first round NFC Playoff pairings give us a rematch between the Vikings and the Seahawks from last year. You will recall that the Vikings lost that game when a chip shot field goal sailed about a mile to the left of the goal posts. That game was in Minnesota; this year’s game would be in Seattle. It might be interesting…

So let it be written; so let it be done.

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

The Vikings/Eagles Trade …

Happy Labor Day everyone. Since I do not consider writing these rants as “labor”, I do not feel that it would be proper for me to take the day off. And so, I press on…

Over the weekend, the Vikings and the Eagles consummated a trade involving a starting QB. Such deals – when they happen – usually happen in the off-season. In rare circumstances – one of which I will mention later – they happen in mid-season. I cannot recall a trade like this happening in the time between the final exhibition game and the first game of the season.

The Vikings acquired Sam Bradford clearly motivated to do so by the non-contact injury suffered by their starting QB, Terry Bridgewater in a recent practice session. The Eagles received the Vikings’ 2017 first-round draft pick plus a conditional 4th round pick in 2018. [Aside: I believe the “conditions” here are that if the Vikes make it to the NFC Conference Championship Game the pick becomes a third-round pick and if the Vikes make it to the Super Bowl, the pick becomes a second-round pick.]

In a way, this trade makes sense for both teams. The Vikings made the playoffs last year and were eliminated when they missed a chip shot (27-yard) field goal in the final seconds of their game with the Seahawks. They aspired to big things this year and then they lost their starting QB to a freak injury. Shaun Hill was the next man up on their depth chart with Taylor Heinicke behind Hill. In case Taylor Heinicke is not a name that comes immediately to mind, here is a short bio:

    Played QB for Old Dominion University; signed as an undrafted free agent with the Vikings after the 2015 Draft; no game experience; starting the 2016 season on the injured list due to a bizarre injury to his foot back in July.

The bottom line is that the Vikings needed to add a QB – or two – to play ahead of or behind Shaun Hill.

Meanwhile the Eagles’ braintrust clearly recognized that the team was not going anywhere in 2016. They had given up a lot to trade up to select Carson Wentz in the 2016 Draft and Sam Bradford at QB was a “holding action” at best. Hence the swap…

Usually, it takes a while for a QB to fit into an offense; that is the reason that teams have training camps and Organized Team Activities and the like. Bradford will have until Sunday – a total of 8 days – to blend into the Vikings system. I can only recall one situation where a team tried to make something like this happen and the results were not pretty.

About 5 years ago, the Oakland Raiders were playing well in the early part of the season when their starting QB, Jason Campbell, suffered a season-ending injury. Meanwhile, Carson Palmer and the Bengals were in a spitting contest; Palmer threatened to retire and would not play for or with the Bengals. The Raiders opted to trade for Palmer rather than go forward with Kyle Boller for the rest of the year. They game the Bengals a first-round pick and a second-round pick for Palmer.

Let me just say that the trade was a disaster for the Raiders. Palmer did not take hold of the system there and the draft picks lost hurt the team down the road. Clearly it was not all Palmer’s fault; after he found his way to the Arizona Cardinals, he has had plenty of success there. However, the Raiders missed the playoffs – and missed having a winning season – after the trade and then the Raiders tanked in the next year. This is the cautionary note for the Vikings…

Meanwhile, the Eagles now say they want to play Carson Wentz at QB right out of the gate. To that I say:

    What’s the hurry?

The predicate for all of this appears several paragraphs above. The Eagles are going nowhere in 2016 even if the ghost of John Unitas returns to Earth and leads the squad. The start of the NFL season is always a fun time; obviously, this year will be no exception in Minnesota and in Philly…

Oh, one more thing about the trade… The Eagles’ QB depth chart as of this morning has Carson Wentz and Chase Daniel as #1 and #2 in whichever order pleases you. They do not have a 3rd QB on the roster.

Since I mentioned the Vikings above, they will open this season in their new playpen – US Bank Stadium. The team has sold out the stadium for the year and it has sold out all of its suites and club level seats. In addition, they sold 50,000 PSLs ranging in price from $500 to $10K adding another $125M to the revenue stream. Fear not for the financial state of the NFL, the Minnesota Vikings or Zygi Wilf…

Noting that the real NFL season has yet to begin, consider that there is joy among the networks that have television rights to NFL games. Before the season begins, the networks have reportedly sold a little more than $2.5B in advertising slots for the upcoming games. Each network with this sort of inventory to sell reports that sales are up compared to last year at this time AND that commercial slots are selling at higher prices than they did last year.

Last year, you must recall that Draft Kings and FanDuel saturated football telecasts with the three or four ads that they produced. According to reports, those two companies spent a combined $150M on ads last year. This year, those two companies will supposedly only do a few “spot ads”. That means two things to me:

    1. We can give thanks to the football gods that we will be spared those stupid repetitive ads this year.

    2. There are plenty of potential sponsors out there who are willing – even anxious – to get their message out during NFL telecasts.

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times that brings together the world of politics and the world of sports:

“Comedian Argus Hamilton, looking forward to another NFL season: ‘Football is for people who can’t stand politics but still enjoy watching millionaires destroy each other.’”

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

Starting Out On The Right Foot …

Since I am confident this will not continue into the future, let me begin today by patting myself on the back. In my NCAA Mythical Picks earlier this week, I made 4 selections for Thursday night games and hit all 4 of them. For this brief and shining moment, I am – mythically of course – way ahead of the game. Now that I have “strutted my stuff” so to speak, let me use this as a teaching moment.

After those 4 picks in Thursday games, I can look at the Friday schedule and see that there are 2 games where I made picks. If I were to fall victim to the gambling fallacy of “being on a hot streak”, I would bet the mortgage money on those 2 selections for tonight. Let me be clear:

    I will not do that.

    “Hot streaks” always end – and if you fall for the gambling fallacy of “pressing bets while on a hot streak”, they will end badly.

But I can still feel good about myself for now…

Tim Tebow has an offer to play pro baseball. The Aguilas del Zulia – the Eagles of Zulia – in the Venezuelan League have offered him a chance to play winter baseball there. Zulia is a state in Venezuela in the far northwest of the country on the border with Colombia; the largest city in Zulia is Maracaibo – the heart of the oil industry in the country with a population a bit over 1 million. Luis Aparacio came from Zulia and the stadium where Aguilas del Zulia play their games is named for Aparacio.

This is a classic good news/bad news situation:

    Good News: This is professional baseball; it is certainly not MLB but if Tim Tebow seriously wants to get to that level one of these days, he needs as much time on the field to develop his skills as he can get. As of this morning, it is the only offer on his plate. And, by the way, lots of players who made it to MLB have spent time in the Venezuelan Winter League in the past.

    Bad News: Venezuela is a country that is plummeting downward such that it may sink below “Third World Status” into “Iron Age Status”. Some minor league players here in the US are suing teams claiming they are not making minimum wage; I suspect that those players are still living in better conditions than prevail in many parts of Zulia.

According to an AP report earlier this week, the IOC has stripped 4 more athletes of medal they won in the Olympic Games due to detection of PEDs. That sounded like a simple and straightforward report; I did not think there would be much of anything therein worthy of comment. I was wrong. These 4 athletes won their medals in Beijing; those Games happened in 2008.

    Question for the IOC and for the Drug Testing Mavens:

      It took 8 years for these test results to come to everyone’s attention. So, is the testing lab is on one of the moons of Saturn?

According to a report in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Coca Cola is now going to sponsor the Saudi Arabian Football Federation providing support for the Saudi National Team and three major soccer tournaments in Saudi Arabia each year put on by the Football Federation. In the big picture of “world soccer”, this is not such a big deal. I mention it here because every time this sort of thing goes down, you get to read a statement by parties to the agreement that take “soaring rhetoric” and leave it in the dust. Consider these words from a representative of the Saudi Federation:

“Today we witness an important partnership with Coca-Cola, one of the leading global brands renowned for their history in supporting sports, as an official sponsor of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation. This new partnership reflects the importance and the stature of our federation, teams and the competitions we organize.”

For the last decade or so, Coca Cola Zero has been the “Official Fan Refreshment” of the NCAA. Is this what the guy meant by “renowned … history in supporting sports”?

Naturally, someone from Coca Cola took the opportunity to say a few words. In this case it was Middle East Region Marketing Director for Coca Cola and here is what Coke hopes to do:

    Coca Cola will use various platforms and channels to tell the “…real human stories of Saudi’s pride and passion for the sport”. He went on to say, “We are certain the Saudi National Team will inspire fans of all ages, including the generation who will represent the country at the 2018 World Cup qualifications.”

Let me add just a bit of perspective here. I believe there are 165 countries that FIFA recognizes as having a National Team. In the latest rankings I can find, Saudi Arabia ranks 101st. Moving on …

Finally, since I mentioned the IOC and the Beijing Games above, I think it appropriate to close the week with two comments about the Rio Olympics from sportswriters that I read regularly:

“Ryan Lochte is reportedly set to join the cast of ‘Dancing with the Stars.’

“Sources say he chose the show over an offer to debut a Brazilian series called ‘Leaving the Scene.’” [Brad Rock, Deseret News]

And …

“According to Brazilian media, 20-year-old Ingrid Oliveira and 17-year-old Giovanna Pedroso have ended their Olympic diving partnership after Oliveira kicked the teen from the room they shared at the Olympic Village in Rio so she could enjoy a night of sex with Brazilian canoeist Pedro Gonçalves. Um, is that a canoe, or are you just happy to see me?” [Greg Cote, Miami Herald]

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

The Big 12 Expansion

The Big 12 Conference is looking to expand. Actually, the Big 12 Conference is trying to live up to its name because at the moment the Big 12 Conference consists of only 10 teams. If they add two more, they will hit some sort of magical threshold set by the overseers of collegiate athletics and will be allowed to stage a Big 12 Conference Championship Football Game. Strip away every other motivation you may hear or read; that is the basis for this endeavor at its foundation.

Reportedly, the search began with 20 possible schools that might be invited to join and there is a perspective that needs to be placed on that original list of 20 schools. The Big 12 Conference is the scion of the Big 8 Conference which was spawned by the old Southwest Conference. The Southwest Conference was at one time a big deal; Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Arkansas and sometimes TCU were prominently displayed in the “Top Ten” in the country. I do not want to portray today’s Big 12 as something akin to the Sun Belt Conference or Conference-USA, but today’s Big 12 has lost a lot of the luster that was associated with its previous incarnations. So, when I saw the “original list” of 20 possible invitees, I wondered if any of the “conference historians” had chimed in.

Yesterday, reports began to emerge that the list had been cut from 20 to 13. Here are the 7 schools that supposedly will not be invited to the Big 12 party:

    Arkansas State
    Boise State
    East Carolina
    New Mexico
    Northern Illinois
    San Diego State
    UNLV

Meaning not a shred of disrespect to any of those schools or any folks associated with any of those schools, there is no “football royalty” in any of those bloodlines. If indeed the Big 12 Search Committee – or whatever it may call itself – spent more than an hour-and-a-half considering that entire list of 7 schools, then it has far too much time on its hands.

The 13 schools that remain on the list are:

    Air Force
    BYU
    Cincinnati
    Colorado State
    Houston
    Memphis
    Rice
    South Florida
    SMU
    Temple
    Tulane
    UCF
    UConn

To me, the choice is pretty simple if that is the list. I would add BYU and Houston for these reasons:

    BYU has a consistently good football program that will add to the conference strength of schedule for the teams there. Moreover, it is geographically close to other Big 12 schools and it is not a school where scandals and probations from the NCAA abound.

    Houston is right in the heart of “Big 12 Country” and the school happens to be in a city of more than 2 million people – that is a big market for the conference to tap into.

Please notice that Temple and UConn are still on the list. I suspect – but do not know for sure – that they are there for the same reason that the Big 10 Conference added Maryland and Rutgers a couple of years ago. The thinking is that having “representation” there will make Big 12 football more interesting in the heavily populated Northeast market. I think that is searching for Fool’s Gold.

I have lived all of my life in the Northeast Megalopolis. One of the things that is clear to me as a denizen is that college football is just not that big a deal with the vast majority of the sports fans here. Picture the “football map” of 30 years ago where the Big 10 never got east of Ohio State/Michigan/Michigan State and the ACC never got north of Maryland. Think about those northeastern states of New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and all of New England. Ask yourself now:

    Where are the “big time football schools” where the teams are consistently good and the crowds are big and rabid?

Well, here is the list:

    Penn State

If you want to embellish a bit:

    Boston College fields good teams most of the time but never fields a great team. Let me just say that tickets for BC football are not “hot commodities” in the Boston area where tickets to the Red Sox and/or the Patriots set the standard for “hot commodities”.

    Syracuse used to be consistently good and has drawn some good crowds in the past but today Syracuse is far more of a basketball school than a football school and it has been that way for about 20 years.

Different parts of the country embrace different sports to a different degree. It is just the way things are. In the northeast, people care about baseball far more than do people in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. There is no value judgment in that statement; it is just a fact. If the Big 12 seeks to market its product in the northeast, it is going to be met with a lot of yawning and passive resistance; people there would not even care enough about it to engage in active resistance.

The Big 12 is in the business of marketing college football. They really need to do a market analysis not of their product – which of course they will see as pure and wonderful and virtually irresistible – but of their target audience. Let me give an example here:

    The American Vegan Society will put on a Gala Dinner with dancing and entertainment in Vineland, NJ later this month.

    It would make no sense at all for the National Pork Board to hand out coupons for ham steaks and other promotional materials at this event.

I am not saying that the Big 12 is considering something as abjectly stupid as my example here but it is close.

Finally, let me close with a comment about college football from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald. It relates to a part of the country where college football is indeed a really big deal:

“A four-star recruit announced his commitment to Florida State by pulling up in a Lamborghini adorned with Seminoles logos. Here’s the scary thing: What are the five-star recruits driving?”

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 9/3/16

Welcome back to the world of Mythical Picks. For the benefit of new readers that have come on board since last Fall, let me tell you what these weekly features will be about. They are formulaic to a large extent. My intention is to write a “weekly thing” that is focused on college football – and on the wagering aspects related to college football. [Aside: I cannot promise that I will not miss a week for the season; I will try not to but sometimes life intervenes …] And that point makes me offer the following declarations:

    I make “Picks” in these rants. They are called “Mythical Picks” because I do NOT and would NOT wager real money on all of the “Picks” that I offer here.

    I am completely in favor of legalized wagering on sporting events like college football. Having said that, I do NOT advocate illegal gambling in any form.

    Even in the situation where one would have access to totally legal gambling on college football games – e.g. you live within walking distance of The Strip in Las Vegas – you should not wager on tens or dozens of games per week. Money management is as important an aspect of gambling as is “picking”.

    Here is my rule of thumb for making a real wager on a college – or professional – football game. I am not saying this is the only rule to follow nor am I saying it is the best rule to follow. It is the one that I follow:

      I bet on games where I think the line is off by at least 3 points in one direction – and preferably by 4 points.

I will make a lot of Mythical Picks on various games every week and I will begin each week with a summary of how I did on the previous week. Last season, I made Mythical Picks for 212 college football games; the final record for the season was 106-101-5. Here is what that means:

    I was right more times than I was wrong.

    Had I made the same wager on all 212 games, I would have been a loser given the vig that I would have to have laid to make the wagers.

    The lesson from that is that one should only make real wagers on fewer games than you think you have a minor opinion about.

Now, before we go further into the process here, let me be sure that everyone understands what is to follow. No one with an IQ equal to or greater than his/her shoe size would even consider using any information here as the basis for making a real wager on a real college football game this week where said wager involves real money. Anyone dumb enough to do that would fall into this category:

    You are dumb enough to believe that a microscope is one-millionth of a bottle of mouthwash.

General Comments:

In this section of these rants, I will typically do two things:

    1. I will track the progress of the Division III Linfield College football team through the season. The reason for this is that the last time Linfield had a losing record in football was in 1956. It is the longest streak of winning seasons for any team in any major sport in North America. I did not attend Linfield; no one in my family attended Linfield; I visited the campus once just to see their stadium and take some pictures. I track this because I want Linfield to continue their “streak”.

    2. I also make “General Comments” about college football here.

Linfield college does not play this weekend; they begin their schedule on September 10; therefore, my comments regarding their progress toward a winning season this week are finished right now.

So, now let me make a few comments regarding the state of college football as most fans know the sport. I think that the College Football Playoff system has had a most positive influence on the sport for one very simple reason:

    The Selection Committee who determine which 4 teams ultimately get to compete for the College Football Championship at the end of the year have made it clear – and have backed up their words with actions – that “strength of schedule” matters.

    Hallelujah and thanks be to The Selection Committee for this.

That action by The Selection Committee has prodded some of the “big-time” schools in many of the “power conferences” to look at their scheduling prior to conference play and to upgrade it just a bit. The opening week card this year is straight-up evidence to support that assertion and every college football fan should stand and toast The Selection Committee with a “Hear! Hear!” sometime this weekend.

In previous years, there might have been two – or at most three – out-of-conference games on the card where the two teams involved might be of similar quality. Opening weekend often gave the college football fan an overdose of:

    Geno’s Barber College at Enormous State University – 45 (52)

Some folks may think games like that represent “betting opportunities” and maybe they actually do. However, for fans who are not going to bet on such a game, the contest itself is uninteresting at best. Even if you are a passionate alum of Enormous State, can you really be excited about the second half of the game if the score is 38-0 at halftime?

As you will see later in this piece, the opening week schedule for the 2016 season is very different. There are plenty of real games involving real teams playing each other. Thank you to The Selection Committee…

There is one game in particular this weekend I want to talk about here. On 3 September (that would be Saturday this week) Oklahoma travels to Houston to play the Cougars. That game can put multiple ripples into the pond of college football. Consider:

    1. The Big 12 is looking to expand. The city of Houston is an attractive place for the Big 12 to be simply because of the population of Houston (estimated at 2.2 million by the US Census Bureau). Oklahoma is one of the “big dogs” in the current incarnation of the Big 12.

    2. Last year, Houston finished the year with a 13-1 record; and in their bowl game, they beat Florida State handily by 2 touchdowns. The only loss came on the road at UConn. Houston did not play the most difficult schedule in the country by any means last year simply because they were in the American Athletic Conference which is hardly over-burdened with top-shelf football teams. Nonetheless, they were 13-1 and they beat Florida State handily and no one thinks Florida State is the equivalent of the Florida Asthmatics Institute.

    3. Look at the schedule for Houston this year. IF – and it is a big IF – they find a way to beat Oklahoma this week, it is POSSIBLE that they will finish the season undefeated at 13-0 and if that happens, what might The Selection Committee do with them when it comes to naming the four teams that play for the College Football Championship?

    4. This is an early-season game between one team with a 70-year pedigree in college football against an upstart team. But it is a game that you should not ignore if you think there is a chance that an “upstart team” might someday make it into the Gang of Four competing for the College Football Championship. Larry Culpepper would likely approve…

The sidebar to a win by Houston here has to do with its potential invitation to join the Big 12. Will Oklahoma be willing to admit a team to the league that just beat it? Do they have enough influence among the other schools essentially to “blackball” Houston if they feel vindictive about such a potential loss? That game has meaning on various levels – and it is not even the best game of the weekend by a longshot.

I did a small measure of research about the upgrading of out-of-conference schedules by some of the big-time schools in the power conferences. The results were mixed – but trending is what I perceive to be a positive direction:

    Kudos to:

      Wisconsin and LSU – they are playing each other
      Ohio State and Oklahoma – they are playing each other
      Michigan State and Notre Dame – they are playing each other
      Michigan State (again) and BYU – they are playing each other
      Alabama and USC – they are playing each other
      Ole Miss and Florida State – they are playing each other
      Auburn and Clemson – they are playing each other
      Texas A&M and UCLA – they are playing each other
      K-State and Stanford – they are playing each other
      Texas and Notre Dame (again) – they are playing each other
      TCU and Arkansas – they are playing each other
      Arizona and BYU (again) – they are playing each other

    Disrespect to:

      Michigan will play Hawaii, UCF and Colorado out-of-conference and all at home no less.

      Maryland will play Howard, Fla Atlantic and UCF out-of-conference

      Kentucky will play So Miss, New Mexico St. Austin Peay and Louisville out-of-conference.

      You get the idea here – there are loads of schools that have not yet gotten the memo that upgrading the out-of-conference schedule is trending.

There has already been one college football game; the NCAA seems to be copying the NFL’s move to take their game to other countries. Cal opened the season playing Hawaii – – in Australia. Cal won the game 51-31 and a couple of the stats from the game are sort of interesting:

    Cal lost Jared Goff at QB for this season since Goff was the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft. Not to worry, Goff’s replacement – Davis Webb – threw for 441 yards in his first game under center. Do you get the idea that Cal has a potent offensive system?

    In that same game, Hawaii ran up a total offense of 482 yards. Do you get the idea that Cal did not do much recruiting for defensive players?

The Ponderosa Games:

About 25 years ago, I started to track games that had big spreads to see if favorites could still cover large numbers at a reasonable rate. What I learned was that in most seasons, the guys who set the lines are very good at coming close to the outcomes. In most seasons, the favorites cover just about half the time and the dogs cover about half the time. I track this because I find it interesting; it is not a “betting system”.

Last year was an unusual year for Ponderosa Games. The favorites covered at an inordinately low rate. The final tally was 38-49-1 for favorites covering.

I call them Ponderosa Games because The Ponderosa was the large ranch owned by the Cartwrights on the old TV western, Bonanza. The Ponderosa was a “big spread”; these games have “big spreads”; get it?

Since this is my creation, I get to make the rules. My definition of a Ponderosa Game is very simple:

    The spread has to be 24 points or more.

So, this week we have 9 Ponderosa Games. Please note that the huge favorite is at home in every case; one of the sad features of college football is that when big schools schedule patsies, they do so in a way that makes the patsy do the traveling.

Charlotte at Louisville – 40 (59.5): This line has been relatively stable all week.

Hawaii at Michigan – 40 (54.5): I wonder if Hawaii flew directly from Australia to Michigan for this game or if they stopped off in Hawaii so the players might – you know – go to a class or two.

Miami (Oh) at Iowa – 30 (52): This spread opened at 30 and has been dropping.

Bowling Green at Ohio St – 28 (64): The Total Line opened at 56 and has shot up by 8 points. Bettors must think Urban Meyer is going to run it up this week. He wouldn’t do that, would he?

S. Alabama at Mississippi St – 28 (54): This spread opened at 33.5; it is down 5.5 points. The Total Line opened at 58.5; it is down 4.5 points.

La Tech at Arkansas – 26 (52): This spread opened at 20.5; it is up 5.5 points. The Total Line opened at 56.5; it is down 4.5 points.

UMass at Florida – 36.5 (50): I could understand UMass scheduling a game in Gainesville in late November just to get out of the cold weather. But why they are in Gainesville for a football game that looks to be an organized ass-kicking in August is beyond me.

Rutgers at Washington – 26.5 (54.5): Lots of air miles to play a football game that does not look like it will be interesting after about the first 20 minutes…

Fresno St at Nebraska – 28 (62): Only about half the air miles compared to the game above to play a game that looks like it will not be interesting after about the first 20 minutes.

The SHOE Tournament:

This section will demonstrate the difference between most sports commentators and the commentary you get coming out of Curmudgeon Central. Everyone loves to argue about who is “really” the best team in the country; I enjoy that sort of debate too. However, I also would love to know who is the worst team in the country. And, I came up with a way to do that without any polls; I would love to determine the worst team in the country on the field.

My idea is The SHOE Tournament. At the end of the season a Selection Committee – I would be happy to do this by myself if no one else is interested – will pick a field of 8 bad football teams and seed them from #1 (the perceived worst team) through #8. Then the teams play 4 games according to the seedings and – here is the twist – the winner gets to go home and the loser has to continue to play. Finally, we would have the loser of the final game and we would have the worst team of the year.

Why do I call it the SHOE Tournament? Because the team that “loses out” and is the worst team of the year is dubbed:

    The Steaming Heap Of Excrement – The SHOE Team.

There is one caveat here. I think that early season polls for football – and basketball – teams are beyond meaningless. Therefore, in order to be something short of hypocritical here, I will not even begin ranking teams that are in consideration for the SHOE tournament until at least mid-October when the candidate teams will have shown their ineptitude on the field and not merely on paper.

Games of Interest:

Games of interest might be ones that have interesting wagering angles or they might be ones involving two really good teams – or two really bad ones. Or, a game might just be interesting to me for some inexplicable and irrelevant reason. If anyone is looking for some sort of pattern to these games of interest, I suggest that you will find a yeti before you find a pattern here.

By the way, times mentioned here are EDT…

(Thurs Nite) Tulane at Wake Forest – 17 (43.5): Wake Forest was hardly a juggernaut last year but they do return plenty of starting players. Have they improved or have they merely gotten a year older? Tulane was a bad team last year and they have a new head coach who arrived there via Georgia Southern. Purely a hunch; I’ll take Tulane plus the points here because this looks to be a low scoring game and that is a fat line.

(Thurs Nite) South Carolina at Vandy – 4.5 (42.5): The total line opened at 46.5 and has fallen steadily to this level. S. Carolina had a good defense last year and should hold Vandy in check. S. Carolina had a mediocre offense last year and they have a new coach and a new system this year. I like this game to stay UNDER.

(Thurs Nite) Oregon St. at Minnesota – 13 (55.5): Neither team is an “aerial threat” unless one of them recruited a complete unknown to play QB and secretly signed Usain Bolt to play WR. I see this as a grind-it-out game between two middle-of-the-pack (at best) teams in their respective conferences. I like Oregon state plus the points here and I like the game to stay UNDER.

(Fri Nite) Army at Temple – 16 (46.5): Temple won 10 games and went to a bowl game last year. Army was a bad team. I think this year will be much the same for both schools. I like Temple to win and cover here.

(Fri Nite) Kansas St at Stanford – 15.5 (48.5): I think both teams will put good offenses on the field this year so I think that Total Line is awfully low. I like this game to go OVER.

(Sat Morning) Georgia Tech – 3 vs Boston College (44) Game is in Dublin, Ireland: Both coaches love to run the football and sometimes Georgia Tech gets its running game into a rhythm and rolls over the opponent. BC will play tough defense so that steamrollering is not likely to happen. BC will also likely play one of the most tepid offenses in college football this year. Just for giggles, I’ll take this game to stay UNDER.

(Sat Afternoon) Missouri at W. Virginia – 10 (50): Mizzou had a bad year last year and changed the coaching staff. That does not auger well for this year. West Virginia is a good offensive team. I like West Virginia to win and cover here.

(Sat Nite) New Mexico St at UTEP – 9.5 (60): These are two bad teams playing each other. Unless you are an alum of one of these schools or have a blood relative playing on one of the teams, do not waste your time watching this. Moreover, if you even think of placing a wager on this game, get yourself to a 12-Step Program immediately.

(Sat Nite) SMU – 9.5 at North Texas (68.5): Ditto the comments directly above…

(Sat Nite) Clemson – 7 at Auburn (62.5): Clemson lost a bunch of players from their defense to the early rounds of the NFL Draft in April. One question for the Tigers is whether they can replace that many very good defenders in short order. Clemson did not lose Deshaun Watson at QB, however, and that means their offense will be high-powered. Auburn had a down year last season finishing the regular season at 6-6 with two of the wins coming at the expense of Jacksonville State (Division 1-AA) and Idaho (a really bad team). I think they are over-matched here even at home. I like Clemson to win and cover.

(Sat Afternoon) UCLA at Texas A&M – 3 (53.5): Last year, the Aggies morphed from a let-it-fly offensive team in the Johnny Football years to a solid defensive team that did not make the offense feel the pressure to score a TD on every possession. I suspect that will continue to be the case in College Station this year. If I am correct, that should keep this game as a low scoring one so I’ll take the game to stay UNDER.

(Sat Afternoon) LSU – 10 vs Wisconsin (44.5) Game is in Lambeau Field in Green Bay: Both teams here live by running the football; both defenses will need to be ready to stop power running from beginning to end. I love LSU running back, Leonard Fournette and I give the edge to LSU even this far from home against a good team. But that line looks awfully fat. I’ll take Wisconsin plus the points.

(Sat Afternoon) UNC vs Georgia – 2.5 (56) Game is at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta: Georgia has Nick Chubb back at RB after surgery and rehab on a bad knee injury from early last year. Georgia also has a new coaching staff. I think UNC will be a good team this year but I like Georgia even more. For no particular reason, I’ll take Georgia and lay the points.

(Sat Afternoon) Oklahoma – 12 at Houston (68): See comments above about why this is an interesting game and a potentially important game. I think this game will light up the scoreboard; I doubt either defense will put the clamps on the opposing offense. I like the game to go OVER. Now I would really like to see Houston win the game outright to stir things up for the rest of the season with regard to rankings and things like that. However, let this be a lesson; you do not wager with your emotions. I can find Houston on the money line at +395 – – but I am not going to make that pick.

(Sat Nite) USC vs Alabama – 11.5 (53.5) Game is in Arlington Texas at the “Jerry Dome”: Alabama lost defensive stars to the NFL Draft in April as they do every season. And if this year is like any other year since Nick Saban took over there, they will have defenders who will be coveted by NFL teams come next April. USC has good athletes on its side of the ball to be sure – – but I do not see USC scoring a whole lot here. I like this game to stay UNDER.

(Sat Nite) BYU at Arizona – 1 (60.5): This game should be in the middle of the 2nd quarter when the USC/Alabama game ends. Consider it the cherry on top of your ice cream sundae for dessert. Purely a hunch, I’ll take BYU plus the point here.

(Sun Nite) Notre Dame – 3.5 at Texas (60): These teams played last year in South Bend and Texas got their lunches handed to them; I suspect that the coaches may have mentioned that a time or two during the pre-season preparation for this game. This game will be closer than last year but I still like Notre Dame to win and cover.

(Mon Nite) Ole Miss vs Florida State – 4 (57) Game is in Orlando, FL: The game will take place in Camping World Stadium which only sounds as if it should be located in the middle of Disney World. Actually, football fans know this venue better as The Citrus Bowl except that it has been massively renovated. I like Florida State this year; I’ll take them here to win and cover.

For new readers, this is an example of what you can expect most every week during the college football season. [Aside: By the way there will be an NFL flavor of Mythical Picks too once the Exhibition Season is over.] I hope you come along for the ride.

Finally, here is a comment from former Purdue head coach, Alex Agase, about why he did not spend a lot of time recruiting in California:

“Any kid who would leave that wonderful weather to come here is too dumb to play for us.”

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

The Hope Solo Suspension

Julie Foudy played in 4 Women’s World Cup Tournaments – winning two of them – with the US Women’s National Team. She is in the National Soccer Hall of Fame and she has been a reporter/commentator with ESPN for about 10 years now. When it comes to soccer – and particularly women’s soccer – she is very much like the old E.F. Hutton commercials. You remember them:

    In a noisy restaurant setting two people are sitting at the table and one is telling the other about some stock tip he just got. Then the other person says, “Well, my broker is E.F. Hutton and E.F. Hutton says …”

    At that point, the entire restaurant is silent and all the other diners are leaning toward the E. F. Hutton client to hear what comes next.

    The slogan was:

    “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.”

So, when I heard Julie Foudy say that the US Women’s National Team will likely move on without Hope Solo even after her 6-month suspension is over, I had to take note of that and wonder if this would be one of the rare situations in sport where talent is set aside because of some personal/character/controversial incident. Hope Solo is 35 years old; I believe that the next Women’s World Cup will be held in the summer of 2019 when Solo will be 38 years old.
There is no denying that at age 35, she is still a top-shelf talent as a goalkeeper and I have no basis for projecting what her capacity in that job might be three years hence. However, if Julie Foudy’s declaration is on target, then the folks who run the US Women’s National Team need to start to find Solo’s replacement very quickly.

The US Women’s National Team is a dominant presence in the world of women’s soccer and the position of goalkeeper is hugely important to the success of any soccer team. Hope Solo has been with the Women’s National Team since 2000; she holds the US record for the most shutouts by a goalkeeper; at one point she was the goalkeeper for a string of 55 games where the team went undefeated. Replacing the talent will be difficult; the soccer mavens ought to start now. Are there any standout women’s goalkeepers playing collegiate soccer these days? I surely do not have an answer to that but I sure hope the soccer mavens do…

Here is Bob Molinaro’s position on the Hope Solo situation and suspension from his column in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Life sentence: Though no fan of Hope Solo, I don’t think U.S. Soccer should have suspended her for six months – a period of time, incidentally, when the U.S. plays no significant games – after she called the Swedish soccer players “cowards.” It’s not a free speech issue with me. I just think that it’s punishment enough for the boorish goalkeeper that she has to go through life as Hope Solo.”

Here is another item from Bob Molinaro’s column last week:

“In passing: The Washington Nationals have a pitching prospect on the Hagerstown Suns by the name of Joan Baez.”

Since the Nats are in the National League, that would mean that Joan Baez would have to hit for himself should he make it to the majors. And that would mean that he would need “walk-up music”. So, what might his namesake – the musician – provide as possible choices:

    Diamonds and Rust – – after all he is a pitcher not a position player

    No Expectations – – after all he is a pitcher and not a position player

    Oh, Happy Day – – for his first plate appearance in MLB

    East Virginia – – after all, that is where Washington DC is

The Hagerstown Suns are in the South Atlantic League which is A level minor league baseball. Baez is only 21 years old; and so far this year, he has an ERA of 4.08 in 114.2 innings pitched. That may not look overly impressive but he does have 115 strikeouts with only 57 walks. That says to me that he is still worth the coaching effort that a pitching coach has to do to develop a young arm.

I have commented on the need for MLB to find ways to increase the pace of play and have offered suggestions to accomplish some of that in the past. Not nearly as frequently have I mentioned the most annoying pace of play by some of the PGA Tour golfers. I think I might be able to build an entire Lego city in the time it takes some of them to line up a chip shot that will land on the green. It is maddening.

I ran across a report recently about how one amateur golfer came to address the slow pace of play of others on the course with him. Lee Johnson and his wife caught up to the foursome ahead of them and asked to play through. The foursome said no. So what did Johnson do?

According to the police in Payson, UT, a fight broke out between Johnson and someone – some ones – in the foursome and officials from the club house had to come out and break up the fight and restore order. What the club house officials did not do, however, was to convince the foursome to let Johnson and his wife play through.

Later in the round, Johnson and his wife again caught up to part of the foursome ahead and obviously they were still playing slower than Johnson thought they should. Once again, Johnson asked to play through; once again, the request was denied. This time, Johnson took out a pocket knife and stabbed one of the slow players in the group ahead of him. Johnson was “wrestled to the ground” by the other golfer in the foursome present at the time.

The injury from the knife was not life threatening; he was taken to a local hospital and the injury was described as “a small cut”. Johnson was arrested; his wife was not arrested since she was not part of the attack.

    [Aside: That left the foursome one short and it left Mrs. Johnson playing alone. I wonder if she just joined the foursome to help alleviate the course blockage that must have occurred as the police were called to the scene. No report on that…]

I do not want to advocate golfer-on-golfer violence, but perhaps the PGA Tour officials might find a way to use this event as a way to speed thing sup a bit?

Finally, since I have quoted Bob Molinaro twice above, let me go for the trifecta here with one more of his observations:

“Time zone issues: If you think NBC’s tape-delayed coverage from Brazil was annoying, remember that the next three Olympics are in Korea, Japan and China.”

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

A Tempest In A Spittoon

With the college football season set to begin later this week, I had intended on using today to make some general comments about the upcoming season. Then, two things happened in the NFL that made me change my mind – so college football needs to go on the bottom shelf for the moment.

The first thing that happened was that Colin Kaepernick sat down during the playing of the national anthem prior to an exhibition game. He is a backup QB and this was an exhibition game so that act was not exactly something of a magnitude that we might equate to events such as:

    The Battle of Hastings in 1066
    The Spanish Inquisition in 1480
    The Declaration of Independence in 1776
    VE Day in World War II in 1945.

Nonetheless, there has arisen a furor over that event that is totally out of proportion to the event itself. This is even louder than the recent “affront” that Gabby Douglass paid to the national anthem when she “failed to put her hand on her heart” during its playing in honor of her achievements in the Olympics. She did nothing wrong and Colin Kaepernick did nothing wrong. The reason that some super-patriots are so offended today is based in the document they purport to know and love so much – – The Constitution of the United States.

People like to point to the 10 amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights as the foundation and the codification of what US society is. Usually, they are right to do so – until they fail to see that their outrage and scorn at a behavior such as Colin Kaepernick’s is a logical consequence of the Bill of Rights.

    The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech (expression) particularly when that speech (expression) focuses on political matters.

    Here is something else the First Amendment guarantees:

      Every single American with an IQ larger than his/her belt size will someday hear, see or read something they find offensive. Some other person is going to express an opinion that is fundamentally contrary to someone else’s opinion; it has to happen; it is NOT a reason for vitriol.

I do not agree with Colin Kaepernick on this inconsequential matter. When I am at a game and they play the national anthem, I stand; I remove my hat, I look at the flag during the rendition. I do not sing the song or hum along; I just look at the flag. That is what I do; that does not mean that is what you have to do.

This is a tempest in a spittoon. All of the actors in this drama to include Colin Kaepernick, other NFL players, reporters who keep this “story” alive and folks on social media who have little of substance to add to this subject need to take a deep breath and put this matter into perspective with other US and world problems.

To give you an idea of the import I put on all of this, let me pose a question:

    Which is the greater affront to the US and/or its national anthem:

      A. Colin Kaepernick sitting quietly on a bench during its playing – or –

      B. The abject mutilation of the score of the song by those who sing it with their own “artistic flair”?

    My answer is “B” – and it is not even close…

The other NFL event of the weekend was the injury to Tony Romo in a meaningless exhibition game. He will be unable to play for about 6 – 10 weeks according to doctors due to a fractured vertebra. Last year, the Cowboys were 1-11 in games that Romo could not start; his return to action was assumed to be a fact by the Cowboys who did not sign a backup QB after Kellen Moore went down with a leg injury in a previous meaningless exhibition game. For the moment, that leaves the Cowboys in the hands of Dak Prescott – a rookie who has looked like a Hall of Fame player so far in the meaningless exhibition games he has appeared in. I never profess to have mind-reading skills and even if I did, I doubt that I would try to read Jerry Jones’ mind. However, it does seem to me that GM Jerry Jones has to be looking around to see how to make some chicken salad out of this chicken s __ t.

Here is a possible suggestion:

    Put Tony Romo in the injured reserve list as a player who can return to action once he heals. I believe each team is allowed one such designation. A player on that list cannot practice for a minimum of 6 weeks and cannot play in a real game for a minimum of 8 weeks after being put on that list. The Cowboys should wait until the day before the regular season starts to make that designation so that Romo’s return to action would be 8 full weeks into the season and there would be no temptation to “rush him back to the field.”

    Simultaneously, the Cowboys need to get another QB – if for no other reason than Dak Prescott might also get hurt. With Romo and Kellen Moore “on the shelf”, the backup to Prescott is Jamiell Showers who was with the Cowboys for the 2015 season but never saw the field on game day.

    Trading for a QB might be expensive for the Cowboys since other teams ought to recognize that the cowboys are in a pickle here. So, are there any free agents out there who might help out? Off the top of my head, here are some of the possibilities – and none are particularly appealing.

      Jimmy Claussen: Teams keep giving him workouts.
      Matt Flynn: Hey, he is vertical and taking nourishment.
      Tim Tebow: Hey, he has won a playoff game as an NFL QB.
      Charlie Whitehurst: A classic caretaker backup QB.
      Michael Vick: Hey, he started 3 games last year and went 2-1.

    One other route to obtaining another QB for the roster is to wait and see who gets cut by other teams as they get down to a 53-man roster. If you believe the rumors, here are some possibilities:

      Mark Sanchez may be a “cap casualty” in Denver.

      Brandon Weeden is “on the bubble” in Houston; might the Cowboys and Weeden enact a reunion in Dallas this year?

      The Jets have 4 QBs on the roster and one almost surely has to go. My guess is that it will be either Bryce Petty or Geno Smith.

Lots of folks have thought that the Cowboys would be a contender in the NFC East this year. If Tony Romo cannot play for the first 8-10 weeks of the season, Dallas’ fortunes will rest with a rookie QB and/or one of the retreads listed above. The Cowboys are now officially the most mysterious team in the NFL for 2016.

Finally, here is a comment from Brad Rock in the Deseret News from a couple of months ago:

“BYU had a great day, last Saturday and an awful one at the same time.
Three teams (men’s volleyball, men’s and women’s rugby) played for national championships.

“All three lost.

“After which Susan Lucci was overheard saying, ‘It can get worse.’”

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

Can’t Tell The Players Without A Scorecard …

When I was in college in Philly back in the 60s, my best friend/classmate’s father had access to “passes” to the Phillies’ games. All we had to do was to show the pass and pay the “tax” which was 25-cents and we got good seats at the games. We saw a LOT of baseball games in the summers back then.

There was one vendor by the gate we had to enter that was selling copies of the Philadelphia Daily News. That tabloid paper would print a scorecard on the back page for the “Stadium Edition” so you could buy the paper AND keep score. This vendor would always intone in a very loud voice:

“You can’t tell the players without this scorecard…”

That is the feeling I have when I look at what ESPN has done with the cast of its NFL pregame shows – on Sundays, Sunday nights and for Monday Night Football. While the other networks are more or less stability mode, ESPN is behaving like Hercules when given the task of cleaning the Augean stables. All Hercules had to do was to clean out – in one day no less – the stables that housed thousands of cattle, goats and sheep. He did this by diverting the flow of a couple of rivers right through the stable area. The reason he got it done in a day was that he did not have to file an Environmental Impact Statement with regard to all the people who lived by the rivers downstream from the stables. Ah … progress.

ESPN has undertaken a similar level of “housecleaning” with regard to its pre-game and post-game NFL shows. And like that vendor outside Connie Mack Stadium in the 1960s, I am afraid you cannot tell the players without a scorecard. Therefore, let me go through who is gone; who is staying and who is a new addition to ESPN coverage here:

    GONE:

      Cris Carter: I cannot say that I am going to miss him all that much.

      Mike Ditka: I am ambivalent about this change; over the past couple of seasons he had been OK but not great.

      Tom Jackson: He retired after 29 years with ESPN in this role; he was not fired. I will miss him a lot; I think he provided good insight for the programs. Moreover, he and Chris Berman clearly “played well together” and it showed through on the broadcasts.

      Ray Lewis: I will not miss him even a little bit. His “analyses” tended to involve a lot more heat than light.

      Keyshawn Johnson: I have to say that I liked him a whole lot more than I liked either Cris Carter or Ray Lewis.

    STAYING:

      Chris Berman: Many people do not like him and have tired of his shtick. I like Chris Berman; he is intelligent and insightful. Reports say this will be his last year with ESPN in this NFL capacity. Frankly, I hope those reports are incorrect.

      Trent Dilfer: He is getting better. A couple of years ago, I would have advocated stuffing a softball in his mouth; now, he is more than acceptable. It is good to have him back.

      Suzy Kolber: She began this part of her ESPN career as a stand-in for Stuart Scott; frankly, I think she is an upgrade in that position. Her studio work related to the NFL has been very good.

      Chris Mortenson: If he can come back from Stage IV throat cancer, he will be a welcomed back persona.

      Adam Schefter: His voice can be annoying, but he does provide good, timely and accurate “inside info”.

      Steve Young: Glad to see him back; it is good to have more than one person in the coverage team with an IQ north of 140.

    NEW ADDITIONS:

      Randy Moss: I did not see a lot of him on FS1, but lots of folks think he will be very good in this position. I hope they are correct.

      Wendi Nix: I find here studio work related to the NFL to be OK and not much more. I shall reserve judgement here.

      Charles Woodson: I have really high hopes for this guy…

The NFL will have new rules regarding injury reporting this year. There will be no players listed as “Probable” anymore; the reason is that more than 95% of those players actually played on the weekend after they were so listed. So “Probable” came to mean “Virtually Certain”. Players this year will be listed as:

    “Questionable” (meaning it is a 50/50 shot that they will play)
    “Doubtful” (meaning a 25% chance they will be able to play)
    “Out” (meaning the player will not play)

According to reports, the league will “scrutinize” any players who do not show up on any of these lists who do not actually play on a given weekend. Moreover, the players listed as “Out” will not be released until Fridays instead of on Wednesdays as has been the rule in the past.

Finally, here is a comment from Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel with regard to the Rio Olympics:

“What will be more polluted at the Olympics, the water in Brazil or the blood of the Russian athletes?”

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