tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-345963802024-03-14T10:08:30.881-04:00SportsthodoxyI don't like Springsteen enough to be a real sportswriterAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.comBlogger1357125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-51927791825385602502019-02-28T23:28:00.000-05:002019-02-28T23:28:14.084-05:00Phillies Finally Sign Harper and Surprise, It Makes Sense.So the Phillies finally got their man, wrapping up generational talent Bryce Harper for 13 years and $330M. It's the biggest contract ever (though not the highest AAV), and this is causing some otherwise sensible people to lose their minds.<br />
Before we get into the crazy, let's make one thing clear. The Phillies can afford this. They can afford this and the Andrew McCutcheon deal and the David Robertson deal and the Aaron Nola extension. If they had decided to go that way, they could have afforded Manny Machado's deal on top of it, and probably whatever Dallas Kuechel gets, too. They are a lone team in one of the biggest markets in the country, with a sweet cable deal that's a license to print money. They can afford to spend money to put better players on the field. (Which, history has shown time and again, leads to more butts in seats, more shirseys sold, and more $10 beers getting guzzled at the ballpark, i.e. more profit.)<br />
The main objection to the Phillies - freely and of their own accord - paying Harper this money is that it's a lot of money. To which I say yes, yes it is and it's doing what a baseball team's money is supposed to be doing - paying players, who happen to be the product. (We'll leave the real estate conglomerate that is the Atlanta Braves alone for the moment.) What else exactly should a team be doing with its money? Hoarding it for a rainy day? Trust me, they're not going to turn it into cheaper seats and beers. Keeping it in the owner's hands so they can buy a Dan Snyder-style mega yacht? Surely that can't be what people are actually rooting for.<br />
No, the Phillies did what they were supposed to - they took their revenues and plowed them back into the product, with an eye towards competitiveness and the profitability that comes with it. By shrieking about the size of the contract, all the various voices are doing is demonstrating a lack of understanding of basic economics.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-68455553148480645082019-02-24T19:24:00.000-05:002019-02-24T19:24:04.898-05:00On Failed OffseasonsWe are caught between two polar opposites, both of them frustrating, when it comes to the offseason of professional sports. Consider on one hand the NBA, where there is nothing but off-season - there's more buzz now about the impending destinations of Anthony Davis and Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and Kawhi Leonard and God knows who else that nobody appears to be paying any actual attention to the games being played here and now.<br />
On the other hand, we have MLB, where 30 identical front offices filled with identical Ivy League grad analytics wonks have all independently decided they don't need to do anything in the offseason to stoke fan excitement. The end result there has been a winter of discontent even as franchise-changing superstars hung out their shingles.<br />
Only the NFL gets it right, and that's largely due to commissioner Roger Goodell's uncanny ability to flub the smallest of controversies so that they blow up and have us talking about the NFL. Not in a positive way, mind you, but there's no such thing as bad publicity.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-80692288708166579222019-02-18T14:22:00.001-05:002019-02-18T14:22:50.454-05:00Please God Let Them Be A Bunch of JerksHockey Night in Canada Muppet and all-around-old-man-yelling-at-clouds has made it official: By doing their "storm surge" celebrations on home ice after victories, the Carolina Hurricanes are hereby proclaimed to be a bunch of jerks. Let's unpack that one, shall we?<br />
One, sick burn there, Don. Going to call them hooligans or rapscallions next?<br />
Two, no grown man who dresses to go out in public like Don Cherry does gets to comment on anyone's attempts to express their individuality. When Cherry gives up the jackets that look like mid-90s screen saver patterns, then maybe we can talk.<br />
Three, thank God the Hurricanes are doing this, precisely because it demonstrates a little bit of personality. If you look back at the past ten years of Canes hockey, it is notable for a lack of success, a lack of quality goaltending, and a lack of personality. Not only was the team always bad, but it was bad and boring, with as much personality as a stoned marmot. They were agonizing to watch, and a large part of it was that the team had no identity, win or (mostly) lose. Now, however, they've got something. Maybe it's immature. Maybe it's premature - after all, the Canes are still on the outside of the playoff bubble looking in, despite their scorching hot streak since New Year's. And maybe it's a sign that the Hurricanes are indeed a bunch of jerks who like showing up their opponents (but only on home ice after a victory), but I'll take it. Give me a bunch of jerks who actually play like they care about the result and show it, and you've got my interest. Combine that with a few actual wins, and you've got my attention.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-7967504162674405342019-02-13T22:04:00.000-05:002019-02-13T22:04:25.021-05:00Flacco? Again?The Denver Broncos have traded for Joe Flacco and I am forced to ask the question "Who the hell cares?" Flacco has been mediocre and largely disinterested for the past several seasons, and Lamar Jackson had clearly surpassed him on the Ravens' depth chart this year. The "IS JOE FLACCO ELITE?" conversations had long since turned to punchlines. Statistically, he was almost identical to Case Keenum, the guy he's being brought in to replace. The best the Ravens could get for him was reportedly a 4th round pick, which is quite the haul when you consider Flacco's age, results, and ginormous contract.<br />
And yet the hot takes flowed on what this meant because it is NFL quarterback news and nothing is more important in sports than NFL quarterback news. Even if that quarterback is terrible or worse, mediocre, as long as there is some name recognition there we must discuss it, because of course we must.<br />
Fine then. Here's my hot take. Denver's offensive line is terrible and Flacco's salary is going to make it hard for them to do anything about it. Ergo, Flacco won't do any better than Keenum did, and considering where he is on the career curve, may well do worse.<br />
The only real point of interest here is the question of how many QB blunders will John Elway be allowed to make and still keep his job as GM? Keenum joins a long line of discarded Abs who couldn't get it done, though he's more expensive than most. Sooner or later, that's going to come home to roost, and Elway's going to have to answer for it.<br />
Unless, of course, Joe Flacco really is elite. But I wouldn't bet on it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-40394823710292423972019-02-04T12:18:00.001-05:002019-02-04T12:18:50.705-05:00Super Bowl LIII Post-MortemHere's what happened in the Super Bowl. The Rams' offense is predicated on play action. Take away the running game and you take away the will-he-won't-he threat of play action. With the Rams' running game essentially stuffed all game, play action wasn't really available to them and when it comes to straight drop-backs, Jared Goff simply is not that good.<br />
The Patriots didn't do a great job either, with Tom Brady missing check downs all night, but he didn't need to do much. This was not so much a game of dominating defenses as it was one of floundering offenses - Brady had a weak game and no, it wasn't because Aaron Donald was in his face all game. And Goff was just bad, throwing wounded ducks all night and making decisions a second slow even when he had time, which was often.<br />
In short, it was a terrible game, and everyone outside of the Patriots' bandwagon will cheerfully admit it. To think we were this close to Chiefs-Saints.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-55350442471829017272019-02-03T13:38:00.002-05:002019-02-03T13:38:21.404-05:00On the Super BowlThe official position of this blog on Super Bowl LIII is that we have no rooting interest. On the one hand, rooting for the Patriots and their ludicrous pretensions of being the underdog is like rooting for a billionaire who is shocked, shocked that some people think they should pay more taxes. On the other hand, St. Louis is owned by miserable human being Silent Stan Kroenke, who, while not an out and out crook like the Browns' Jimmy Haslam or the Vikings' Ziggy Wilf, is going to have to produce some serious acrobatics with a camel and the eye of a needle in the afterlife.<br />
Even the halftime act isn't worth rooting for. Maroon 5? Seriously?<br />
As such, we are officially left rooting for...what? Good commercials? Decent hors oeuvres?<br />
Until this year, at least, I had the pleasure of watching the Super Bowl every year with my father. But he passed away in December. So the mere fact of watching the game is bittersweet. Having two teams in the game whom rooting for seems like an exercise in self-violence just makes it worse.<br />
So never mind me. I'll be over here in the corner, waiting for pitchers and catchers to report. And making hors oeuvres.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-17031728854280390892019-01-28T21:06:00.001-05:002019-01-28T21:06:31.144-05:00On Anthony Davis' Inevitable Path to LACutting to the chase, it is clear that Anthony Davis wants to play for the Lakers, his agent Rich Paul wants him to play for the Lakers, franchise <i>eminence grise</i> LeBron James wants him to play for the Lakers and Lakers President Magic Johnson wants him to play for the Lakers. Which is fine, except that Davis currently plays for the Pelicans and would have to be traded to the Lakers in order to suit up for them. Various trade offers have already been bruited about, with names like Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma, Josh Hart, Brandon Ingram, and the expiring contract named Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.<br />
There's just one problem with a haul like that. As has been amply demonstrated in LeBron James' injury-induced absence, those guys aren't any good at winning basketball games. If the Pelicans are going to ship out their generational talent and restock, they simply have to get more back than the guys who couldn't get it done without LeBron.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-88045406825868897782017-03-23T22:40:00.002-04:002017-03-23T22:40:54.992-04:00Thoughts On Spring Training, Part II<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teams and their spring training stadiums tend to match personalities. George M. Steinbrenner Field, the home of the Yankees, rises majestically from a sea of greenery even though it's in the heart of Tampa. The Blue Jays' stadium is across the street from a community center. Detroit's Joker Marchant Stadium, one of the old warhorses of the Grapefruit League, is nestled into a quiet community. There's a church across the street that has game day parking. And the Phillies' stadium is basically in the parking lot of a mall.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Make no mistake, it's a great stadium and a wonderful place to see a ballgame. But as we pulled into the lot, the cop directing traffic had one bit of advice for us: "You're gonna exit through the Buffalo Wild Wings".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joker Marchant was full of old men from places like Wayne. They all seemed to know each other and they had a rip-roaring good time, even as the Yankees no-hit the Tigers. For the life of me, I could barely see anyone younger than me in our section. There had been swarms of kids playing in the park out past the left field wall before the game, but damned if I could see any of them once first pitch happened. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joker Marchant is a fine old stadium. It's been refurbished but the steel bones of the original construction are still evident. There's no permanent concession stuff in the upper level, none of that tomfoolery. You're there to watch a ballgame and by God, a ballgame you will watch. The sightlines are magnificent. A ballgame you will watch indeed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The crowd at the Phillies game surprised me. It was younger, with a fair number of kids, and a double bucket of nostalgia. The jerseys that fans were wearing covered the gamut - a ton of Chase Utleys, sure, but there were multiple Greg Luzinskis, and a Bob Boone, and so on and so forth. There was even one kid in what appeared to be a Juan Eichelberger jersey, which was odd, because Juan Eichelberger to my knowledge never played for the Phils. And the crowd was loose and into it, in part because the Phillies put a 9-0 thumping on a bunch of guys in Atlanta uniforms, and in part because, well, that was just the crowd. A cold wind blew throughout the game, so if you weren't in the sun, you were shivering, and so there was a constant stream of people leaving their seats in the shade, heading over to a patch of sun, warming up and heading back, possibly having acquired a cheesesteak along the way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me, I bought my dad a windbreaker. </span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-64554072290334131622017-03-19T23:39:00.000-04:002017-03-19T23:39:02.536-04:00Thoughts On Spring Training, Part I<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I took my father to Florida for a week to experience the wonders of spring training. What we were hoping for, I'm not exactly sure; we'd been talking about the trip for a while, since well before my mother passed away, and it was always going to be some time in the future when things were better, whatever that meant. This year, it meant doing it now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't think either of us were looking for some sort of mystical Field of Dreams experience where suddenly our father-son bond started glowing or some such. Nor were we checking off items on a bucket list. Rather, it was a thing we both thought we'd enjoy, and that we'd enjoy doing it together. That's all. No magic. Just basic enjoyment. There's something to be said for that, though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We saw four games at four different stadiums. The Blue Jays play across the street from a community center. The Phillies play in the parking lot of a mall, and to get out after the game, you need to exit via the Buffalo Wild Wings lot. The Yankees' stadium, named for the late George M. Steinbrenner, sits majestically in the middle of greenery, as if to say "practice your genuflection here". And the Tigers, well, Joker Marchant Stadium, a renovated warhorse of a ballpark, sits out in Lakeland, in a neighborhood but not quite of it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Spring training is big business. The first game we attended, Red Sox at Blue Jays, was sold out online. "No problem," I thought. "Someone will be selling tickets at the game."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someone was, for $100 a pop. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's special spring training programs, designed to let you know who the guy wearing number 89 and playing shortstop for your team after the fourth inning is. The Phillies and Tigers wanted $4 for theirs. The Blue Jays, $5. The Yankees? $10, though it was better bound and twice the size of the others. Because, well, Yankees. (Still doesn't explain why they were getting more for lemonade than anyone else. Except, well, Yankees.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of the programs ran through everyone who might possibly be appearing in a spring training game. Everyone but the Yankees did so in numeric order, the better to answer the question of "Who the heck is #78 and what's he doing at first base?" (Answer: Brock Stassi and he's filling in for Tommy Joseph, who took one off the hand and got pulled from the game.) The Yankees, on the other hand, believe in the dignity of Being A Yankee. Their program lists players alphabetically, as if to suggest these are Yankees, you should know who they are already.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, even the guy wearing #89.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-47366637988612033232017-01-22T19:30:00.002-05:002017-01-22T19:30:24.845-05:00On Tim Raines and Jeff Bagwell Making It To the Hall of Fame<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The blog's official position:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About damn time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bagwell had been kept out of the Hall by innuendo and hearsay. Raines, by the inability of many of the voters to comprehend just how good he was at the things that actually win ballgames. The addition of Bud Selig to the Hall is probably what cleared the way for Bagwell's induction; shunning the man for rumors of steroids suddenly seemed much less tenable a strategy when the man who oversaw it all was headed for Cooperstown. It's a shame it took this long, but results, as they say, are what matter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As for Raines, that story's been told too many times. I'm just glad it finally got a happy ending.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-25399738296247062412017-01-07T17:30:00.002-05:002017-01-07T17:30:38.484-05:00Ten Things I Think About Grayson Allen<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In no particular order:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My one interaction-at-a-remove with Grayson Allen was off the court. He was incredibly friendly and generous to my twelve year old Duke fan of a nephew, and spent a good chunk of time talking to him. <a name='more'></a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fact that he was nice and generous and pleasant off the court has nothing to do with what he has done repeatedly on the court.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The tripping is bad. The complete and utter meltdown on the bench after the incident in the Elon game was worse. It's unkind to have that moment broadcast nationally, and it's troubling to see.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Suspending him indefinitely was the right move. The pattern of behavior was such that it had become a regular thing, and it had become the dominant narrative around both Allen and his team this year. That needed to change.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stripping Allen of his captaincy was also a good idea. What he demonstrated was the precise opposite of leadership.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neither you nor I have any idea what the actual reasoning was behind the decision to end Allen's suspension at one game. Maybe he'd undergone intensive therapy and had a come-to-Jesus moment. Maybe there was some kind of breakthrough. Who knows? Not me or thee, because while I may live in Durham, I have no access to the inner workings of the Duke program.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That being said, the optics of ending Allen's suspension after one game - a bad loss - are terrible.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You would think Duke would know better than to make a move like this, especially when the game he was activated for was an eminently winnable one against Georgia Tech. The easy, obvious storyline is that Duke lost to VT, they panicked, they ended Allen's "indefinite" suspension which was really no suspension at all, and they care more about winning than they do about principle.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, Coach K having back surgery is a complicating factor. No, it doesn't make the optics look any better on this.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For Allen's sake as well as their own, Duke should have made the suspension at least two games, probably three. This would have headed off the obvious, cheap takes and demonstrated more of a commitment to getting Allen's head straight before he ends up tripping someone into a torn ACL. </span></li>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-44022675557318386532016-12-30T00:33:00.002-05:002016-12-30T00:33:43.508-05:00On Tomlin-Bradshaw<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are few things dumber in sports right now than the Terry Bradshaw-Mike Tomlin "feud". If you've been living under a rock, or simply paying more attention to your relatives than to sports fluff, it's very simple. Bradshaw opened his yap and declared that he didn't think Tomlin was a good coach. Tomlin, whose record is something like 100-67, fired some shade back. And everyone went a-flutter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it's just plain stupid. By any measure, Tomlin's an excellent coach. You want to talk wins? He's got them. You want to talk winning with his own players? He's done that. You want to talk surviving injuries? He's done that. You want to talk excellence so consistent it's boring? He's got that. If it weren't for Mr. Snowmeiser in Foxboro, we'd be looking at Tomlin as maybe the premier coach of this era.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The flip side of the coin is Bradshaw, who, at this point, says whatever he feels like because he's goddamn Terry Bradshaw. I mean, good for him, but he got hit so hard and so often that you can hold him up to your ear and hear Troy Aikman. His hot takes are, to put it gently, lukewarm. He's built a broadcasting career out of aw-shucks folksiness, not actual analysis, and at this point if he said the sky was blue I'd ask for a second opinion. And the only reason anyone cares what he thinks about the current Steelers coach is that he is a bona-fide Steelers Legend(TM) and thus, based on stuff he did 40 years ago, he is expected to be sage and all-knowing today. Which ain't happening. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, on one hand, facts. On the other, blithering guy. In this, at least, let's go with facts and move on.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-10595376861366186572016-12-19T22:53:00.000-05:002016-12-21T22:10:24.090-05:00Your Semi-Regular Reminders<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Things sports fans need to be reminded of...</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dallas was never going to bench Dak Prescott for Tony Romo. Ever. The whole flap was deliberately cooked up to keep the Cowboys in the news and keep Romo's trade value up.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bowl season record doesn't mean diddly. Teams go into bowls often playing without their best players (See: McCaffery, Christian). Successful mid-majors often go into bowls without their coach - I'm pretty sure more than half of the AAC teams going bowling this year lost their coaches after the regular season - because he's been picked up by a Power 5 school. Low-achieving Power 5 schools are often without their coaches because they've been fired. Some teams are demotivated by the bowl game they ended up in. Some teams are hyper-motivated because of same. All it boils down to is this - bowl season has only a faint resemblance to the regular season, and any attempt to read the tea leaves of bowl season performance is futile.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's hard not to sympathize with Nerlens Noel. Two years ago, he was the only Sixers who looked like he had an actual pulse. Then the Sixers started activating the rest of their center horde and Noel got hurt and other stuff happened, and now Noel's got a rep as a malcontent and he's out of the rotation, whatever that means on a team that moves its best player to his second best position to get Jah Okafor on the court. That being said, if Noel does want out - and all signs point to OH GOD YES GET ME OUT OF HERE - he'd be doing himself a favor by clamming up, playing well in the minutes he gets, and elevating his trade value so someone makes an offer the Sixers - who have handled this with the grace of a miniatures painter wearing Hulk Hands - feel they can accept. Right now, everyone loses.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Any analysis I've seen over whether Michigan State is in trouble tournament-wise leaves out one key fact - they're Michigan State and of course they'll get the benefit of the doubt over a mid-major or even an off-brand high major. That is how these things have always worked. It is how they will always work. And come March, MSU will be in the tournament again.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It really doesn't matter if the NFL is specifically letting Cam Newton get clobbered or if it's letting every QB get clobbered. The end result is the same - Newton, one of the game's transcendent talents and personalities, is getting his bell rung like he's scenery in the Hunchback of Notre Dame. A few more games with helmet-to-helmet hits like the one he took tonight and he's going to be so concussed he thinks he's late-career Troy Aikman. And that would be a shame for anyone who likes watching him play, which should mean pretty much everyone.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Colorado Rockies have confused everyone by signing SS/OF Ian Desmond to a huge contract...to play first base, which he doesn't necessarily have the stick for and has never played. Then they went out and signed an average, aging reliever to a three year deal. A lot of people are saying they don't have a plan. This is not correct. They do have a plan. It's just not a good one.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hockey shoot-outs are still stupid. Any rules change where you say "let's make this game that is not soccer more like soccer" is a bad idea. Also, deciding your games on a mechanic that is not your core gameplay mechanic is bad design, and would get you mocked at GDC. </span></li>
</ol>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-20396873020130869712016-12-15T00:12:00.003-05:002016-12-15T00:12:55.105-05:00How To Beat Wake Forest<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wake Forest has taken the unusual step of <a href="http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000755781/article/wake-forest-fires-radio-announcer-for-alleged-gameplan-leaks">firing a radio announcer </a>for leaking game plans to opponents. The perfidy came to light when a member of the Wake Forest staff found a copy of their game plan in the bowels of Louisville's stadium, a day before the Deacons got dismantled by 30+ points, and now, finally, the school feels it can act.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is, needless to say, an unusual situation. Leaving aside any jokes about how if you need Wake Forest's gameplay to beat them, you're already in trouble, it's a weird, curious situation. The guy who was fired, Tommy Elrod, was a Wake Forest alum who played at the school and who'd served on the coaching staff of former coach Jim Grobe. A less likely candidate for this sort of sedition is hard to imagine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Plus, it's just a plain stupid move. If Elrod wanted to get back into coaching, well, that door's going to be slammed shut now. Snitches may or may not get stitches, but they sure as hell don't get job offers. No team's going to hire him, not and risk its gameplay winding up in the hands of Louisville. The same goes for any future announcing jobs. He can't possibly be good enough to justify the risk of your team getting sold out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which leaves the question, then, of why do it. I can think of two possible answers. One, something happened - what, I can't imagine - to make him hate Wake Forest that much. Maybe he was resentful over not getting picked up by the current coaching staff. Maybe he had a bad lunch in Winston-Salem. God knows. But it would have to be Superman-blowing-Lex-Luthor's-hair-off levels of hate-inducing to allow for this kind of behavior. Two, he was getting paid gobs of cash. Louisville hasn't exactly been a model of propriety - consider the Rick Pitino <a href="http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/news/story?id=4392828">sex-on-top-of-restaurant-tables</a> story, the whole long list of Bobby "Easy Rider" Petrino's <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/1/9/5288648/bobby-petrino-louisville-scandal-timeline">misdeeds</a>, and that whole "<a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/10/univ-of-louisville-coach-rick-pitino-charged-in-prostitution-scandal/">prostitution scandal"</a> thing. With that in mind, it wouldn't necessarily be the biggest surprise in the world to hear that someone at Papa John's Stadium ponied up for a Wake Forest playbook with a side of garlic bread. Then again, one would hope that wasn't the case; the fact that the second school dinged for this was Army, where another of Elrod's former compatriots on Grobe's staff is coaching, tends to support the "crazed loner out for revenge" scenario.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But even if there was a payoff, odds are the only person who's going to get punished is Elrod. Right now Louisville is denying everything; no other schools have been named, but in the allegations against Elrod the implications are clear. There will be denial, and there will be obfuscation, and the whole thing will probably get swept under the rug as quickly as possible by John Swofford. Because it's only Wake Forest, and that's how we do things around here.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-5011102399813309742016-12-10T20:48:00.000-05:002016-12-10T20:48:05.642-05:00On Not Doing Anything<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's natural to want your team to make a move.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moves are exciting. Moves are fun. Moves give you something to dream on, especially in the offseason. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even better is the lead-in to a move, where the rumors are swirling and there's energy around your team and that whole will-they-won't-they pull the trigger thing is crackling in the air. The endless arguments over who might get included in a deal, what would constitute getting ripped off, what would constitute getting a steal. (Note: vis-a-vis the Adam Eaton deal - the Nationals got ripped off). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But sometimes no move is the best move. Sometimes bringing in a stopgap solution that's marginally better than what you've got but blocks someone who might be much better down the road, isn't such a good thing. Sometimes dealing your best player just because you're not going to contend and everyone hopped up on too many bad fantasy baseball leagues says you have to dump if you're doing to make a run at the pennant, isn't as smart as hanging onto that guy because he's good and he's someone you can build around. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes the smart thing is the dull thing, and that makes for a disappointing hot stove season. Yeah, the Phillies could have probably snagged J.D. Martinez, but does that block top prospects Nick Williams and Jorge Alfaro? What's the ultimate benefit? The answer's not well defined enough to demand a move.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, there's a world of difference between winning the offseason and winning on the field. Sometimes a little less excitement now means a lot more excitement later.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And there's always spring training to dream on.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-45165673094475028802016-12-07T22:49:00.007-05:002016-12-07T22:49:59.935-05:00Winter Meetings<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some day I'll go to the winter meetings.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not to look for a job - I have no interest in working in baseball. Working in video games has made me acutely aware of the difference between people's perception of what is supposedly your magical elfilicious dream job and the labor-intensive reality; I'm happy to stay on one end of that particular dynamic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nor do I want to go and blog and try to "scoop" something. For one thing, I'd probably get it wrong. For another, that's other folks' livelihood. Why would I want to step on that just so I could play Intrepid Boy Reporter for a couple of hours? No, it wouldn't be that at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, what I really want is just to go and to soak in it for a couple of days. To see it happening around me, and finally put a real face on all those hot stove updates and rumor reports and breathless trade announcements. To maybe watch two guys walk through the lobby and realize belatedly who they are, and have the fun of speculating what trade they might be discussing (even though they're probably just discussing where to get dinner). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ultimately, it would just be so that I could say to myself that I'd been there. And that would be enough.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-37116738610626217872016-12-05T00:30:00.000-05:002016-12-05T00:30:09.479-05:00Understanding the College Football Playoff Selection Process<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This just in:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The key to getting picked for the college football playoff is to win all your games. Unless you're from Michigan but aren't Michigan.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Failing that, the key is to win your conference. Unless your conference doesn't have a championship game, or there's a team in your conference that people like better.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, don't lose to Pittsburgh. Unless you're Clemson, in which case it's fine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, strength of non-conference schedule absolutely matters, unless it doesn't and you've got Rutgers as your biggest out of conference test.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, if you do lose a game, who you lose to matters. For example, Ohio State lost to Big Ten champion and #5 team in the country Penn State. Ohio State is in the playoff. Penn State is not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, make sure your wins are impressive, which means you've got great talent. Unless your wins are squeakers, which means you know how to win under tough circumstances. Then again, your close wins could mean you can't put teams away and your blowouts could mean you've never faced adversity. It really depends who you are.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There. I hope that's cleared things up for you.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-75304736667771326142016-12-02T00:33:00.000-05:002016-12-02T00:33:37.560-05:00Things We Know About ACC Football, 2016 Edition<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ACC is, despite some overheated statements made when it looked like Louisville was A Thing, not the best football conference in the country. It's not even second. It was fun to dream for a while, but, no. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">North Carolina is the new Clemson. Every time they snuck up to the edge of the national stage, they promptly horked up a hairball. (Yes, I compared losing to Duke and NC State to a wad of stinky nastiness from the nameless abyssal depths of your cat's digestive tract. Deal with it.) If this keeps up, we'll have to stop calling it Clemsoning and start calling it Tarheeling. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Boston College is bowl eligible. Just going to let that sit there for a minute.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By and large, nobody in this conference can string together three decent defensive performances in a row. See also: Pitt 76, Syracuse 61.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking of Syracuse, they're actually showing signs of life, as Virginia Tech found out. If Cuse and BC get their act even partially together, life suddenly gets a lot harder for all the middle-tier teams in the conference who were counting on those two gimme wins to pad their way to 8-4 every year. Kudos to Dino Babers for making Syracuse sneak up on being relevant again.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking of Virginia Tech, it appears that an offense has been sighted on campus. It is frightened and skittish and prone to freeze when startled in hopes of avoiding predators, but it's there. Combine that with the standard tenacious Hokie D, and things might get very interesting. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Miami is as Mark Richt a team as ever Richted a Mark. They will beat almost everyone they're supposed to, lose to everyone they're supposed to, win somewhere between 8 and 10 games, and go to a good, not great bowl with talent that should have landed them someplace much better than the Popeyes Bahama Bowl or whatever.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Funny how no one in ACC country tried to claim Notre Dame as a virtual conference member this year, isn't it.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was fun while it lasted, Louisville, especially when you put the beatdown on Florida State. But rivalry game or no rivalry game, you don't lose to Kentucky at football and expect people to take you seriously. You're talking about a program whose highlights are Tim Couch and Jared Lorenzen. You're not even allowed to think about the playoff for another two years now.</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-41175293103784952682016-11-24T13:16:00.002-05:002016-11-24T13:16:21.151-05:00On College Sports Polls<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time sitting in traffic, listening to local sports talk radio types A)rage against the artificial discussion points that are college football polls B)rage that the ACC didn't have enough representation in those polls, and C)arguing that the B1G N Where N Does Not Equal Ten got too much representation because the playoff committee wanted to rig things in favor of Ohio State.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you detected some cognitive dissonance there, you're not alone. So it's time for some handy-dandy reminders about college sports and polls:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They exist to stir up controversy and get you arguing. If you're arguing over whether Wisconsin should be ranked #7 or #9 - both completely unimportant numbers, as anything greater than 4 is out of the playoffs and anything ten or less is playing in New Year's Day bowl regardless - then you're talking about college football. Which is what they want.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asking for consistent behavior from the selection committee is like asking for consideration from a cat. It is never, ever, ever going to happen, so stop beating yourself and everyone else up over it and accept that on any given year, the committee is going to do whatever the hell it wants to do because, well, who exactly is going to stop them</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As noted previously, by and large the polls do not matter at all. You're either at the top or you're unimportant. The one possible exception is college basketball, where a reluctant ranking can be used to make a case for giving a mid-major an at-large tournament slot instead of reflexively giving it to whatever team Herb Sendek happens to be coaching at the moment.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is no right answer. You can argue about Penn State's strength of schedule all you want but that's not going to affect things one bit. The sooner you make peace with this, the happier you're going to be.</span></li>
</ol>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-58139638616343355122016-11-19T17:29:00.001-05:002016-11-20T00:02:21.770-05:00A Theory of Why the ACC Keeps Tripping Over Itself<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A theory:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Back in the day, Big East football could always be counted on for one thing: tripping all over themselves whenever the spotlight got turned on them. Pitt was generally the worst offender, but there certainly was enough blame to spread around - West Virginia pulled it off, and Virginia Tech, and even UConn when it accidentally wandered onto the big stage.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Big East, of course, got itself eaten, largely by the ACC. Which makes me wonder.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you look at the ACC now, you are for all intents and purposes looking at the Big East. You're looking at BC, Pitt, Syracuse, Miami, Virginia Tech, Louisville - almost half the league, and that doesn't count whatever weird booty call thing the Big East had going on with Notre Dame that the ACC's inherited.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And if you look at the ACC's record this season, you start to wonder - maybe the teams aren't all the ACC swallowed. Maybe they got the Big East's inability to perform on the big stage, too. Ask Louisville, who face-planted in prime time against Houston of the oft-disdained AAC. Ask Clemson, who Clemsoned all over themselves against Pitt. Ask Virginia Tech, which responded to talk of a Blacksburg renaissance by stumbling against Syracuse. Ask NC State, who came off a loss to Louisville with a chance to salvage their season against a BC team that hadn't won a league game since the Cubs had a losing record. Ask, well, you get the idea.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sure, it seemed like a good idea for the ACC to expand, or else risk being swallowed up themselves. Sure, the schools they brought in have made significant contributions. But sometimes, when you get greedy, you get a little more than you bargained for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-12680293650140449892016-11-03T01:05:00.000-04:002016-11-03T01:05:06.111-04:00Cubs Win! Cubs Win!<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px;"><i>Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again." </i>- Red Smith</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chicago and Cleveland just murdered fiction all over again. A magnificent end to a magnificent series. Nobody "choked". Nobody blew it. This was two teams going at it for all they were worth, with two managers trying every trick in the book (some more successful than others - what the hell was that bunt, Joe?) to squeeze the absolute utmost out of their teams. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks, guys, for letting us squeeze just a little bit more out of the season.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And please, Cubs fans - take a good look at Red Sox Nation. Don't be that. Just...don't.</span><br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-22765245369751627332016-11-02T02:16:00.003-04:002016-11-02T02:17:21.936-04:00Weekly ACC Roundup: Week 8 - Don't Let the Doeren Hit You On The Way Out<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Dave Doreen era came to an end last Saturday at NC State.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Maybe he's not gone now, but to paraphrase Bogie, they will fire him soon and for the rest of his life. Because his team lost to a legendarily bad Boston College Squad, and then in the post-game he threw them under the bus with a display of passive-aggressive coach speak for the ages. Losing to a bad team is one thing; blaming the kids while loudly proclaiming you're not blaming the kids is another, far worse one. If he hadn't lost the locker room before - and all signs suggested he had - this will surely push things past the breaking point. I don't think anything will happen until after the season, because NC State likes to toss around nickels like manhole covers, but a change is going to come.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Elsewhere. it was largely a week of reversion to the mean. Virginia Tech demonstrated that it's the top of the second tier of ACC teams to Pitt, a team with annual delusions of same. Dan Marino isn't walking through that door, and even if he were, the guy is 56 years old.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Elsewhere, Clemson allowed Louisville to dream, just for a moment, before slamming the door shut on A)Florida State and B) anyone else's hopes of winning the ACC. Then again, the Tigers have come awfully close to Clemsoning away multiple games this season. One suspects that Alabama, Texas A&M, Michigan and Washington are not quaking in their boots at the possibility of a playoff game against a squad that should have lost to - wait for it - NCSU.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Louisville woke up long enough to check the score on the Clemson game, beat Virginia on a 4th quarter drive, and give reporters desperate for some kind of Heisman horse race a little fodder. Next up, they'll be claiming Lamar Jackson had a private server talking to a Russian bank.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The road to a bowl is looking awful tough for Duke after they lost a squeaker to Georgia Tech. Every year, people say that this is the year that Paul Johnson's offense breaks down, and every year the Wreck wins 8 games. The loss makes the idea of Duke reaching a bowl game pretty far-fetched, considering their upcoming schedule. Ah well, sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Wake Forest's early season success is looking more and more like a function of ruthless scheduling, as they dropped the lone nonconference call on the slate, this one to Army. And Miami's season is teetering on the brink of pure Richt-ness after an embarrassing last minute loss to Notre Dame. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So to sum up, it's all over but the shouting, as the focus on the conference partially shifts from the playoff to "what bowls can we get to take a bunch of 6-6 teams with losing conference records. Why yes, New Mexico sounds lovely. And so does Shreveport.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-562076053006790142016-10-30T00:03:00.000-04:002016-10-30T00:03:07.696-04:00Roger Goodell Is a Small, Awful Man<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It has been a year of small men in big roles working from skyscrapers in New York.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In politics, we've got Donald Trump, a tantrum-throwing bully whose immediate response to the slightest perceived insult is a blustering threat matched with a schoolyard insult. And in sports, we've got helmet-haired vacuity Roger Goodell, the gloriously compensated commissioner of the NFL and king of self-sabotaging, awful inconsistency. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Josh Brown affair has demonstrated several things: how feeble the NFL's commitment to working on issues of abuse is, how even the most "respectable" of franchises will put its morals in a blind trust if they think it will get them a better shot at splitting the season series with Dallas, and how Goodell fundamentally misunderstands and has no respect for the issue of domestic abuse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Really, the Brown situation should have been cut and dried. Allegations of abuse, he's gone six games. Poof. That's the league policy. It's cut and dried, it's all the cover they needed, and it would have gone miles towards demonstrating a post-Ray Rice shift in attitude towards something a little more responsible. Following their own rules was literally the easiest thing Goodell and the NFL could have done. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Instead, we got a tango about investigations and uncooperative witnesses and all sorts of other nonsense, and they bent the rules so Brown missed one (1) game. Less than Ray Rice, less than the benchmark incident that got the league savaged for its feeble response. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Which got Goodell justifiable scorn. And then, when more details came out - as anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have known they would have - the story flared up and Goodell looked like an insensitive, awful lummox once again. There is shooting yourself in the foot, and there is shoving your boot into the main gun of a Russian T-72 and daring someone to pull the trigger. The league, which apparently was concerned enough about Brown's behavior to get his wife a separate room during the Pro Bowl, looks even more asinine and awful for hiding behind the "We didn't know how bad it was" defense. They knew, and they took concrete steps to mitigate it. And then they washed their hands when it came to possibly affecting real games. It's a given that Brown should be gone for the full six games, if not more. It's a given that the NFL needs to stop getting cute with this horrible behavior, and to live up to its own rules and supposed standards. All the breast cancer pink socks in the world mean precisely jack shit if you're turning a blind eye to domestic abuse in the interest of three extra yards on kickoffs and a 5% uptick in field goal percentage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And Goodell? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once again, he just looked small. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-73090385265221684182016-10-29T00:12:00.000-04:002016-10-29T00:12:06.780-04:00Why NFL Ratings Are Down<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've got the secret. Are you ready for it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's not weird start times of games from London. It's not Colin Kaepernick, no matter what your cranky uncle might say. It's not any of the million and one convoluted reasons people are coming up with to avoid the simple truth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And the simple truth is, thus far, the games have stunk. The marquee franchises have, by and large, been either awful (Carolina) or boring (Denver). Star power is down, with Peyton Manning gone, Tom Brady MIA for four games, JJ Watt going out for the year, Cam Newton getting the full Aikman treatment, and Aaron Rogers suddenly slinging the ball like Fred Rogers. Games that in the preseason looked like compelling matchups - Giants-Packers, please! - stand revealed as slugfests between mediocrities. No one has enough depth, salary cap issues force massive roster turnover, leading to the rostering of unprepared and inadequate cheap talent in order to scape together a few more bucks under the cap. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The inestimable Mike Tanier goes into more depth on this <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2670541-why-is-there-a-nfl-ratings-crisis-look-no-further-than-london-thursday-games#">here</a>, but the basic takeaway is simple: Worse football means people turning off sooner. People turning off sooner means fewer people watching at any given moment. Fewer people watching means lower ratings. QED. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And if you don't think this has something to do with the league's attempt to grab every last possible dollar, squeeze into every possible programming niche and grab every moment of the spotlight possible, the talent and the on-field product be damned, then you haven't been paying attention. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34596380.post-53725060042659283452016-10-27T20:10:00.000-04:002016-10-27T20:10:11.326-04:00Your Weekly ACC Football Roundup: Week 8 (Is More Than Enough)<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Short schedule in the conference for week 8 means a short writeup.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't look now, but the 'Cuse is 2 wins away from being bowl eligible. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Playing BC, whose last win the ACC apparently came with Tom Coughlin as coach, helps with that, but even so, it's a lot closer than a lot of people thought they might get. Now, pulling two wins out of a final stretch with Clemson, NCSU, Florida State and Pitt is probably not going to happen, but what the hell. They've already shocked the world once. As for BC, what happened to the BC I knew? The one that could recruit massive offensive linemen, classic pocket passers and freak linebackers on seek-and-destroy missions? It wasn't that long ago that they could at least move the pile a few yards in the right direction. Nowadays, not so much. Coach Steve Addazio's going to be back next year even if his boss might not be, but I read that less as a vote of confidence than as the shrugged shoulders of a school that's really not in position to pay two football coaches simultaneously.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In other news, Louisville woke up long enough to put an end to all the talk about how NCSU was finally turning the corner. This, like the Hurricanes almost making the playoffs, is an annual occurrence in Raleigh, and it always ends the same way: at a minor bowl named after some sort of automotive parts distributor or chain restaurant that no one's ever heard of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Miami's brief flash of relevance has been firmly stomped on by Virginia Tech. You can lump them in with Pitt and NCSU as the almost men of the ACC, the football equivalent of late-period Kansas touring state fairs. And in the least surprising result of the day, UNC beat Virginia. There's nothing worth saying about that. You knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. Everyone knew it was coming. And now it's happened, and we can feel is a sort of guilty relief that it's finally over and different, better games are coming.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822250073253508995noreply@blogger.com0