Sunday, April 20, 2008

Quick Hits

Isaiah Thomas fired as coach of Knicks - Surprising at least three members of the Thomas family, and absolutely no one else. Now, if Donnie Walsh really wants to make this perfect, he re-hires Larry Brown, who agrees to work for league minimum (work with me on this, it's a fantasy sequence here) and takes the Knicks to the playoffs.

Philly back in the swing of things - A game against the Mets is decided when the ump misses the call on a tag on Jose Reyes at the plate. A game against the Cavaliers is decided when the refs nail the Sixers with a phantom call with 0.2 seconds left. And the first game of the Flyers-Caps series is decided on a goal that's scored after on the Flyers goes down with a condition best described as "every man reading this just clenched in sympathy". It's good to see the universe is in midseason form.

NFL announces next year's schedule - ESPN tries very hard to convince people that this is important and newsworthy, devoting endless hours of radio time to the implications thereof. Not mentioned is that it is, after all, a schedule. You know, that thing you lose twice during the first two days of the conference and have an Outlook calendar to remind you of? Word is that next year ESPN is going to broadcast two days of the repainting of the NFL league offices, and that Mel Kiper Jr's going to offer up a week's worth of analysis of the color choices.

NFL draft next week - And the buzz is strangely low, compared to the last few years. Either the relentless campaign by various sportswriting types to tear down this year's draft class, or Kiper's Kool-Aid isn't quite working anymore.

Matt Ryan, QB, Boston College - He's a franchise quarterback. He's going to go #3. No, wait, he's going to go #8. No, wait, he might slide. No, the Ravens will trade up to get him. No, wait...look. Ryan's a good quarterback, and as a BC alum, I think it's great that there's finally discussion of a BC player as a draft prospect who isn't a 346-pound pulling guard from Needham, Mass. But he was good, not great, in an emphatically weak ACC last year, he threw clunkers in the Eagles' two biggest games (5 INTs in two losses to inferior squads Florida State and Maryland) and as much as I enjoyed watching the guy in the burgundy and gold, I'm not entirely certain he's going to dominate at the next level. Here's hoping I'm proved wrong.

Royals in First Place! - Look at Brian Bannister and squint real hard and you may see Mark Gubicza. Wait, is that a good thing?

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