EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
El Hombre was going to send this installment via text message, the same way Mr. Integrity, former Pitt coach Todd Graham, informed his players he was bolting Steel City for the Arizona State job, but with the bowl season upon us, it’s gonna take way more than 160 characters to break down all the action. Graham spent less than a year directing the Panthers, the same amount of time he invested at Rice, where he was two stops before Pittsburgh. One would have to believe he’ll be renting in Tempe. While he’s at it, he should see if he can pick ups some character.
While the Panthers scramble to assemble a representative effort in the prestigious BBVA Compass Bowl in March (okay, Jan. 7), the rest of the post-season opens up Saturday and promises to be the most exciting and dramatic in college football history. That, of course, is a lie. With 35 “classics,” an avalanche of mind-numbing corporate sponsorships and some matchups that were concocted in chambers of commerce, instead of by people with a modicum of football sense, it’s easy to look at the three-plus weeks of action with a jaundiced eye. But embrace the majesty of the Beef ‘O’Brady’s Bowl. Enjoy the thrilling action of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. And try to figure out exactly what the hell the Belk Bowl is.
It all kicks off Saturday, with Temple and Wyoming squaring off in Albuquerque. (What, Roswell was busy?) And it doesn’t conclude until Brent Musburger makes an asinine reference to a sponsor in the BCS National Championship, or as it’s known in Stillwater, OK, Satan’s Playground. It would be great to break down all 35 spectacular contests, but there just aren’t enough superlatives in the world to describe the pageantry and tradition of the GoDaddy.com Bowl or the ramifications of the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. Instead, here’s a look at some of the most compelling storylines of the bowl season – and a pledge to watch at least some of every single one of them.
Replacement Parts: Nothing screams “BUY TICKETS NOW!!” like a matchup between two schools with a combined 12-13 record, a pair of interim coaches and a slow slide to mediocrity over the final weeks of the season. But that’s what the good folks in San Francisco get for sticking a bowl in a baseball stadium and hoping for the best. Illinois and UCLA skulk to the Fight Hunger Bowl New Year’s Eve with eyes squarely on the future, since looking at the past is too depressing. Gone are coaches Ron Zook and Rick Neuheisel, who began the season with high hopes and ended it with the locals chasing them out of town with pitchforks and torches. What better way to close out 2011 than with a bowl game featuring two programs in limbo? How about with residents of the Occupy Calcutta camp showing up at your house to use the bathroom?
Thanks For Nothing: As punishment for missing a chip-shot field goal against Texas Christian, Boise State went from a BCS bowl to the MAACO Bowl in Las Vegas. Instead of cranking up its prolific offense in front of a huge audience, the Broncos get to turn it on for a bunch of folks who got comped by some Glitter Gulch hotel and wonder why the concession stand doesn’t feature a $1.99 all-you-can-eat buffet. After this treatment, is it any wonder Boise State has decided to join the Big East? Of course, given the state of that conference, BSU could find itself playing the Mid-American Conference runner-up in the Caligula Bowl in five years. Blue turf can only take you so far, fellas. After that, you have to face facts: You’re from Idaho, for crying out loud! That doesn’t exactly engender TV network love. So, enjoy Vegas, fellas. Oh, and don’t split a pair of 10s.
Wipeout: The Big Ten will have to go a long way to match last year’s 0-for-5 performance on New Year’s Day that included losses to three SEC schools by a combined score of 138-45. But the potential for danger is there again, as the conference faces another trio of bullies from the south, not to mention a favored team from Conference USA. No wonder the Big Ten Network has so many subscribers. Thanks to commissioner Jim Delany’s ability to win friends and influence people, the Big Ten has a whopping 10 bowl invitations this year, a testament to Delany’s P.R. skill and conference members’ ability to beat up on MAC (10 of ‘em), I-AA (another 10) and Sun Belt (five) teams in the non-league portion of the program. That’s why an Illinois team that lost its last six games gets a bowl invitation, and a Purdue squad that gave up 62 points to Wisconsin and lost to Rice will be playing bowl football. Hats off to Delany. He had just better hope his teams’ heads don’t come off, too.
History Lesson: When the Tournament of Roses wanted to increase attendance back in 1901, it decided to stage a football game between teams from the east and west. Michigan came to Pasadena on New Year’s Day, 1902, and smacked Stanford around so hard, the Palo Alto crowd tapped out after three quarters. (Too bad the undefeated Wolverines didn’t have Hurry Up Yost coaching them when they tanked against Stanford 70 years later.) Since that time, bowl games of every size and level of importance have sprung up across the country with one aim in mind: increase tourism in the cities where the games are staged. That’s it. Period. The goal was never to pick the best teams. It was to pick the schools whose fans would travel in the largest numbers and spend the most money. That’s why BYU is such an unattractive candidate. The LDS crowd finds other church members in the community and stays with them. They don’t eat out. And they sure as heck don’t drink. Junk food and candy sales, however, soar when the Cougs come to town. So, all the fuss over the Sugar Bowl’s choosing Michigan and Virginia Tech over Kansas State and Boise is ridiculous. U-M and VT pledged to buy more tickets and probably promised a better hotel presence, too. That’s how it works, even though the Hokie faithful aren’t exactly, ahem, gobbling up the school’s ducat allotment. Coaches who don’t like it would be well served to camp out in their school presidents’ offices and demand they lobby for a playoff. Otherwise, enjoy the Cotton Bowl.
Best of the Best, Part I: Because enough Harris Poll voters awoke from their mid-afternoon naps and decided Alabama was more worthy of a spot in the “national title” game than Oklahoma State, the Cowboys will square off in the Fiesta Bowl Stanford in the best game of the season. Nobody can say for sure whether the Cowpokes and sugar daddy Boone Pickens would have beaten the Crimson Tide in a head-to-head, but wouldn’t it have been fun to find out in a way other than through an election staged by coaches (huge conflict of interest) and peripheral college football types (dinner at 4 p.m.!) and the cast of The Big Bang Theory. Heisman runner-up Andrew Luck tries to keep up with the OSU offense, which is capable of scoring 50 points in one possession. Enjoy the action and try to avert your eyes from the garish Oklahoma State uniforms.
Best of the Best, Part II: When the New England Patriots entered Super Bowl XLII with an 18-0 record, everyone figured the game would be a coronation. How could the New York Giants possibly hang with the Greatest Offense Ever? The Pats were 12-point favorites and invincible. Oops. The Giants hit Tom Brady like he was a piñata and whipped the Pats, spoiling their undefeated season. Well, it sure looks like Alabama and LSU are the two best teams in the land, but what appears to be true isn’t always right. Wouldn’t it have been nice to see the Tide play Oklahoma State, and LSU face off with Stanford, Oregon or Anybody? Then, we could have the top two teams play. Of course, an eight-team playoff would be better. A 12-teamer would be ideal. We don’t have that, because of greed, corruption, liars and espn. So, we’ll watch what everyone hopes will be a game with more than 15 points scored and try not to excuse bad offense as solely the product of great defense. It’s the national championship! Or at least what passes for it in college sports’ USSR.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: Tebow! Tebow! Tebow! Tebow! El Hombre doesn’t give a rat’s posterior whether Denver comeback specialist Tim Tebow is a future Hall of Famer, a championship passer or even in the league in three seasons. He just enjoys the ride. In the homogenized NFL, it’s great to see someone creating excitement and drama off script. Forget about the future and live in the moment. Of course, remember this come Sunday: Pats 34, Broncs 13…The scoreboard on Chicago Bears WR Sam Hurd, who was arrested Thursday for distributing drugs: 5-10 kilos of yayo, and 1,000 pounds (that’s right, kids, a half-ton) of weed – A WEEK!! Seems he was dishing some off to the rest of the NFL, too, not that you’ll hear espn talk about that. Can’t upset those corporate partners now. Guess that new labor agreement has necessitated Hurd’s finding a second job. Times are tough all over…A 10-year contract for Albert Pujols sounds pretty good for three or four seasons, but the guy turns 32 in January and has seen his batting average drop each of the past four seasons and his homers and RBI fall in the last three. Unless he’s going on the BALCO Bonds plan, don’t expect the Angels to be very happy about shelling out $25 mil when The Machine is 39 and in need of a new engine and a Metamucil drip…Great job by everybody involved in the Cincinnati-Xavier basketball embarrassment. The coaches refused to address the pre-game garbage spewed by the players. The refs couldn’t step up and stop the talking when it started. And the players didn’t know how to behave when tensions flared. Yancy Gates’ six-game suspension is a joke. He should miss 10-15 for throwing multiple punches. And X’s Tu Holloway needs to sit for a while after yapping at opposing coaches. The coaches shouldn’t be making these decisions. The schools’ presidents should have stepped in to rescue their institutions’ reputations.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Even if the Eagles lose their final three games by a combined 120-0, and the fans and media scream for a month straight, Andy Reid isn’t going anywhere. His ties to owner Jeffrey “The Phantom” Lurie and Dynamite Joe Banner are way too tight. Further, the spin has already started. The Eagles went from Super Bowl contenders to “rebuilding.” Next year, however, is a different story. If Reid doesn’t fix his defense – and that means firing Juan Castillo and wide-nine maven Jim Washburn – and teach Michael Vick how to be a real NFL quarterback, instead of a video game hero, he should be sent packing the minute the 2012 season concludes. Frankly, he needs to be gone right now, but that isn’t happening. Trouble is, even if Reid goes, Howie Roseman stays, and given the Birds’ recent drafts, that’s hardly heart-warming. If Lurie and Banner had any football savvy, they would examine successful teams like the Packers, Steelers and Ravens and see the value of an established GM and a coach who works in concert with him, rather than bullying him, as Reid does Roseman. But all of that must wait. Reid is coming back for more, so save your voices. And lower your expectations.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: From the time David Stern took over as NBA commissioner in 1984, he has had a steady hand on the tiller and something of a magic touch. Sure, his arrival coincided with the entrances of Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley over the next couple years, but it was Stern who focused the league’s marketing efforts on the players, rather than the teams. The result has been expansion, revenue growth and strong TV ratings. But Stern is losing it, and the Chris Paul mess proved it. It’s understandable that the “owner” of a team (the league is in control of the New Orleans franchise) should have veto power on trades, but rarely is that say-so played out so publicly, as it was in the case of the Lakers’ and Clippers’ pursuit of the New Orleans guard. The first deal Stern turned down wasn’t great, but it was good enough and involved players who would impact the Hornets, Rockets and Lakers. He then went thumbs down on a trade that would have sent Paul to the Clippers, before acquiescing and allowing the Hornets and L.A. to connect. El Hombre understands the need to preserve the franchise’s value, but Stern’s public hand-wringing gave the impression of someone who couldn’t control the other NBA owners and who seemed unable to conduct business privately. That’s not how a powerful commissioner works. It’s time to begin assembling the succession plan for the top of the NBA food chain.
-EH-
Showing posts with label Tim Tebow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Tebow. Show all posts
Friday, December 16, 2011
Friday, August 20, 2010
The World Wide Joke
EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
If the Minnesota Vikings were to represent their true identity this season, they would change their uniforms. Instead of the iconic (although recently updated – and not for the better) purple-and-gold outfits with the white horns on their helmets, they would wear black suits, white shirts, black ties, black shoes, white socks, black hats and sunglasses.
In other words, they would look just like Joliet Jake Blues. After the time the team has spent begging this summer, such a change makes perfect sense. You remember how Jake handled things in that wet, muddy tunnel when Carrie Fisher’s character turned a submachine gun on him and Elwood, don’t you? It is a spectacular example of groveling.
“Oh, please don’t kill us! Please, please don’t kill us! You know I love you, baby. I wouldn’t leave you. It wasn’t my fault.”
That entreaty doesn’t work, much like Vikings’ coach Brad Childress’ attempt to lure Brett Favre to training camp in July was unsuccessful. Although while Mystery Girl calls Jake a “contemptible pig,” Favre just told Childress to go back to Minnesota and try to win with Sage Rosenfels and Tavaris Jackson. Childress might have wished Favre had shot at him instead.
But the Vikings, like Jake, weren’t done. They launched an even more impassioned grovel, sending Jared Allen, Ryan Longwell and Steve Hutchinson on the company plane (an offensive lineman on a Lear?) to Mississippi for the Big Beg.
“Honest, I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!!”
That one worked – for both Jake and the Vikings. Mystery Girl dropped the gun, and Favre ended his “retirement.” Everybody wins.
Cowboy Quarterback has returned, and that means Minnesota is heading to the Super Bowl, unless of course he makes a crushing error in a big game again. If Favre wants to play, he plays, even if he is a Drama Queen whose incessant made-for-TV waffling is more annoying than Snooki on the beach. (At least he hasn’t been arrested for it.) And if the Vikings are willing to debase themselves by kissing his posterior so blatantly, then they kiss, even though it makes them look desperate.
But there is one principal in this drama that doesn’t deserve a break, and that’s (no surprise) espn. Fresh off its despicable airing of “The Decision,” which cemented once and for all the network’s step away from responsible journalism and into hack show-biz productions, espn went customarily over the top when news “broke” a few weeks ago that Favre was “retiring.” Instead of waiting for full confirmation from the man himself, who would have gladly stepped in front of cameras to weep and talk about how much the game means to him, espn trusted “sources” and went with it as if the story were locked down tight. Rather than showing the necessary cynicism by believing nothing Favre says until it happens – in other words, he’s not retired until he’s 80 – espn went into full-fledged Hall of Fame Mode. For a disgusting day, the network fished the Favre waters until all that remained were the barnacles that clung to other barnacles. Every possible source was called in to glorify Favre. The station’s anchors and reporters did linguistic gymnastics in order to outdo each other about his greatness. Old footage was dusted off. And dusted off again.
Meanwhile, every other real story was given the same attention the WNBA gets (and deserves). It was all Favre, and espn wasn’t going to stop taking chunks out of his carcass until LeBron James spoke again.
There was only one problem: He wasn’t retired.
We learned that earlier this week, after the Three Amigos got done eating at the Hattiesburg Gulp-n-Blow and threatened to use Favre as chum on the lake until he agreed to play again. Instead of showing some restraint, or even apologizing to viewers still shell-shocked from the onslaught in the wake of the QB’s “retirement”, espn went ballistic again. Every expert had a chance to weigh in. Poor Rachel Nichols was dispatched to Minnesota to continue her stalking, er, coverage of Favre. In other words, espn acted like espn.
And that’s the problem here. This is a story, but it’s not the only NFL story out there. And espn’s beating of the Favre horse shows its continued decay. As it becomes more popular and powerful, it becomes less reliable and committed to producing programming with integrity. “The Decision” proved that. The station’s Favre coverage amplified it. Can you imagine what happens Oct. 11, when the Vikings visit the Jets on Monday Night Football, especially if Favre is playing well? espn might well eschew all programming Monday for pre-game coverage. What was once a marvel for sports fans has become a bloated, self-important caricature of its once-lively self. Worse, it has set the new standard for “synergy” and self-promotion that afflicts regional sports networks and other sports web sites.
Favre’s back. espn is, too.
Way back.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: So Brigham Young wants to become the LDS version of Notre Dame, a national football program that travels around the country filling stadiums and raking in the BCS dough, does it? Good luck with that. Not even the Irish do that any more. Life as an independent ain’t easy, especially when you aren’t good. Now that’s something ND knows lately…The rule that torpedoed Dustin Johnson’s PGA Championship hopes is arcane. So is golf. Caveat emptor, Baby, especially when the course’s peculiarities are posted on the inside of the bathroom stall. To all of those crying foul, knock it off. He was warned. He messed up. It’s time for people to applaud responsibility (which Johnson showed in his post-tourney comments) and stop craving special treatment. Why, when El Hombre was a boy...In other golf news, Corey Pavin is trying to decide whether to add Eldrick Woods to the Ryder Cup squad with one of his “captain’s picks.” Rory McElroy sure hopes Woods gets the nod, because he – and apparently every other Eurogolfer – wants to play him. Woods’ sycophants say that’s is exactly what he needs to get going again. Hmmm. If four major tourneys couldn’t get him psyched, why should some trash talk? Face it, the guy’s awful right now…Memo to Tim Tebow: It’s one thing to run over a safety from Kentucky on the goal line and another to ram into a pair of the NFL’s grown men. Learn how to slide, Hoss. Soon.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Last year’s Eagles team finished 11-5 without starting middle linebacker Stewart Bradley, without an NFL-caliber free safety, without a pass rush beyond Trent Cole and with an offensive line that struggled more and more each week. It stands to reason that the return of Bradley, the drafting of backliner Nate Allen, the fortification of the DE spot and the expected good health (eventually) of the line should make the Birds a better team. Add to that the ascension of Kevin Kolb to the starting quarterback spot, and the team should improve even more, since if you listen to most of the people weighing in on the subject around Philadelphia, he’s better than that smiling, inaccurate guy who’s down in D.C. So, let’s not hear any of this talk about “giving the kid a chance to settle in” and how it’s “a rebuilding year.” If Eagles fans want to be true to the identity they have crafted over the past 10 years, it’s Super Bowl victory or bust. If the Eagles have made all of these improvements on defense and upgraded the QB position, the team should be better than 11-5, don’t you think? Oh, and by the way, if the Eagles lose – for whatever reason – Kolb gets just as much of the blame as his predecessor did, even if the defense breaks down, the O-line fails to perform or locusts infest the Linc. No double standards now, folks. If the team doesn’t win the Super Bowl, the season is a failure, and it’s Kolb’s fault.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Roger Clemens probably won’t spend any time in stir, even if he is convicted of lying to Congress during his hilarious testimony several years back. It’s even unlikely he’ll be convicted, despite the Feds’ 90% success rate in cases they bring. He’s going to lawyer up like a crime lord, bob and weave, obfuscate at light speed and do everything he can to discredit his accusers. Eventually, Hall of Fame voters will pass down his sentence, and they will look at the government’s evidence and render their own decision. Clemens can’t rely on “reasonable doubt” with that crew. If voters believe the righthander was indeed using steroids and HGH, he won’t get in. Worse, by behaving arrogantly and defiantly – not to mention stupidly with words like “misremembered” – Clemens may have alienated others who would be prone to give him the benefit of the doubt due to his success before the juice era started. Nope, Clemens is in a tough spot here, and even not guilty verdicts on all counts won’t save him if voters believe testimony they’ll hear from Brian McNamee, Andy Pettitte and others. Clemens chose to fight, rather than admit that he used, and now he’s in the highest-stakes competition of his life. No matter what the legal outcome may be, he’ll probably lose in the one place he tried to win in the first place: Cooperstown.
-EH-
If the Minnesota Vikings were to represent their true identity this season, they would change their uniforms. Instead of the iconic (although recently updated – and not for the better) purple-and-gold outfits with the white horns on their helmets, they would wear black suits, white shirts, black ties, black shoes, white socks, black hats and sunglasses.
In other words, they would look just like Joliet Jake Blues. After the time the team has spent begging this summer, such a change makes perfect sense. You remember how Jake handled things in that wet, muddy tunnel when Carrie Fisher’s character turned a submachine gun on him and Elwood, don’t you? It is a spectacular example of groveling.
“Oh, please don’t kill us! Please, please don’t kill us! You know I love you, baby. I wouldn’t leave you. It wasn’t my fault.”
That entreaty doesn’t work, much like Vikings’ coach Brad Childress’ attempt to lure Brett Favre to training camp in July was unsuccessful. Although while Mystery Girl calls Jake a “contemptible pig,” Favre just told Childress to go back to Minnesota and try to win with Sage Rosenfels and Tavaris Jackson. Childress might have wished Favre had shot at him instead.
But the Vikings, like Jake, weren’t done. They launched an even more impassioned grovel, sending Jared Allen, Ryan Longwell and Steve Hutchinson on the company plane (an offensive lineman on a Lear?) to Mississippi for the Big Beg.
“Honest, I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!!”
That one worked – for both Jake and the Vikings. Mystery Girl dropped the gun, and Favre ended his “retirement.” Everybody wins.
Cowboy Quarterback has returned, and that means Minnesota is heading to the Super Bowl, unless of course he makes a crushing error in a big game again. If Favre wants to play, he plays, even if he is a Drama Queen whose incessant made-for-TV waffling is more annoying than Snooki on the beach. (At least he hasn’t been arrested for it.) And if the Vikings are willing to debase themselves by kissing his posterior so blatantly, then they kiss, even though it makes them look desperate.
But there is one principal in this drama that doesn’t deserve a break, and that’s (no surprise) espn. Fresh off its despicable airing of “The Decision,” which cemented once and for all the network’s step away from responsible journalism and into hack show-biz productions, espn went customarily over the top when news “broke” a few weeks ago that Favre was “retiring.” Instead of waiting for full confirmation from the man himself, who would have gladly stepped in front of cameras to weep and talk about how much the game means to him, espn trusted “sources” and went with it as if the story were locked down tight. Rather than showing the necessary cynicism by believing nothing Favre says until it happens – in other words, he’s not retired until he’s 80 – espn went into full-fledged Hall of Fame Mode. For a disgusting day, the network fished the Favre waters until all that remained were the barnacles that clung to other barnacles. Every possible source was called in to glorify Favre. The station’s anchors and reporters did linguistic gymnastics in order to outdo each other about his greatness. Old footage was dusted off. And dusted off again.
Meanwhile, every other real story was given the same attention the WNBA gets (and deserves). It was all Favre, and espn wasn’t going to stop taking chunks out of his carcass until LeBron James spoke again.
There was only one problem: He wasn’t retired.
We learned that earlier this week, after the Three Amigos got done eating at the Hattiesburg Gulp-n-Blow and threatened to use Favre as chum on the lake until he agreed to play again. Instead of showing some restraint, or even apologizing to viewers still shell-shocked from the onslaught in the wake of the QB’s “retirement”, espn went ballistic again. Every expert had a chance to weigh in. Poor Rachel Nichols was dispatched to Minnesota to continue her stalking, er, coverage of Favre. In other words, espn acted like espn.
And that’s the problem here. This is a story, but it’s not the only NFL story out there. And espn’s beating of the Favre horse shows its continued decay. As it becomes more popular and powerful, it becomes less reliable and committed to producing programming with integrity. “The Decision” proved that. The station’s Favre coverage amplified it. Can you imagine what happens Oct. 11, when the Vikings visit the Jets on Monday Night Football, especially if Favre is playing well? espn might well eschew all programming Monday for pre-game coverage. What was once a marvel for sports fans has become a bloated, self-important caricature of its once-lively self. Worse, it has set the new standard for “synergy” and self-promotion that afflicts regional sports networks and other sports web sites.
Favre’s back. espn is, too.
Way back.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: So Brigham Young wants to become the LDS version of Notre Dame, a national football program that travels around the country filling stadiums and raking in the BCS dough, does it? Good luck with that. Not even the Irish do that any more. Life as an independent ain’t easy, especially when you aren’t good. Now that’s something ND knows lately…The rule that torpedoed Dustin Johnson’s PGA Championship hopes is arcane. So is golf. Caveat emptor, Baby, especially when the course’s peculiarities are posted on the inside of the bathroom stall. To all of those crying foul, knock it off. He was warned. He messed up. It’s time for people to applaud responsibility (which Johnson showed in his post-tourney comments) and stop craving special treatment. Why, when El Hombre was a boy...In other golf news, Corey Pavin is trying to decide whether to add Eldrick Woods to the Ryder Cup squad with one of his “captain’s picks.” Rory McElroy sure hopes Woods gets the nod, because he – and apparently every other Eurogolfer – wants to play him. Woods’ sycophants say that’s is exactly what he needs to get going again. Hmmm. If four major tourneys couldn’t get him psyched, why should some trash talk? Face it, the guy’s awful right now…Memo to Tim Tebow: It’s one thing to run over a safety from Kentucky on the goal line and another to ram into a pair of the NFL’s grown men. Learn how to slide, Hoss. Soon.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Last year’s Eagles team finished 11-5 without starting middle linebacker Stewart Bradley, without an NFL-caliber free safety, without a pass rush beyond Trent Cole and with an offensive line that struggled more and more each week. It stands to reason that the return of Bradley, the drafting of backliner Nate Allen, the fortification of the DE spot and the expected good health (eventually) of the line should make the Birds a better team. Add to that the ascension of Kevin Kolb to the starting quarterback spot, and the team should improve even more, since if you listen to most of the people weighing in on the subject around Philadelphia, he’s better than that smiling, inaccurate guy who’s down in D.C. So, let’s not hear any of this talk about “giving the kid a chance to settle in” and how it’s “a rebuilding year.” If Eagles fans want to be true to the identity they have crafted over the past 10 years, it’s Super Bowl victory or bust. If the Eagles have made all of these improvements on defense and upgraded the QB position, the team should be better than 11-5, don’t you think? Oh, and by the way, if the Eagles lose – for whatever reason – Kolb gets just as much of the blame as his predecessor did, even if the defense breaks down, the O-line fails to perform or locusts infest the Linc. No double standards now, folks. If the team doesn’t win the Super Bowl, the season is a failure, and it’s Kolb’s fault.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Roger Clemens probably won’t spend any time in stir, even if he is convicted of lying to Congress during his hilarious testimony several years back. It’s even unlikely he’ll be convicted, despite the Feds’ 90% success rate in cases they bring. He’s going to lawyer up like a crime lord, bob and weave, obfuscate at light speed and do everything he can to discredit his accusers. Eventually, Hall of Fame voters will pass down his sentence, and they will look at the government’s evidence and render their own decision. Clemens can’t rely on “reasonable doubt” with that crew. If voters believe the righthander was indeed using steroids and HGH, he won’t get in. Worse, by behaving arrogantly and defiantly – not to mention stupidly with words like “misremembered” – Clemens may have alienated others who would be prone to give him the benefit of the doubt due to his success before the juice era started. Nope, Clemens is in a tough spot here, and even not guilty verdicts on all counts won’t save him if voters believe testimony they’ll hear from Brian McNamee, Andy Pettitte and others. Clemens chose to fight, rather than admit that he used, and now he’s in the highest-stakes competition of his life. No matter what the legal outcome may be, he’ll probably lose in the one place he tried to win in the first place: Cooperstown.
-EH-
Friday, March 26, 2010
Eldrick Speaks -- Again (Yawn)
EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
The sporting world is much better informed about all things Eldrick after the two illuminating interviews he granted last Sunday, to ESPN and the Golf Channel. (CBS declined to participate.) Yeah, right.
By speaking with Tom Rinaldi and Kelly Tilghman, two interviewers favored by the Woods camp, the golfer did what he could to control the situation. His people had already chosen the location (Isleworth Golf and Country Club), set a time limit (five minutes for ESPN, six for TGC), mandated that the interrogators stand, face-to-face, with Woods and embargoed the release of the footage until 7:30 p.m., presumably to let Woods finish watching the NC2A tournament. Woods’ people also stipulated that the interviews would take place outside – why is anybody’s guess – but rainy weather made it impossible for that and forced the action onto a veranda.
With all of those conditions satisfied, it was up to Rinaldi and Tilghman to do their jobs. Unfortunately, neither was overly impressive. Rinaldi looked suitably serious and consulted his note cards, but he never pressed Woods on his unwillingness to discuss specific events, such as whether his wife, Elin, had indeed used his head as a substitute for a Nike One Tour golf ball. Tilghman was overly impressed with Woods’ Buddhist bracelet, a symbol of his rededication to his mother’s faith. Remember that we had never heard anything about his devotion to the Fat Man before, except as an explanation for his preternatural skills of concentration on the course.
It would have been a service to all viewers if either interviewer had thought – or been instructed by his/her superiors – to ask about whether Woods has ever used performance-enhancing drugs. While rehabilitating an injury, Woods sought the care of Dr. Anthony Galea, a Tronno-based physician who is in the middle of a maelstrom regarding his prescribing P.E.D.s to big-league ballplayers. Woods could have chosen any doctor in the U.S., because his health insurance is probably pretty darn good. Instead, he went to Canada to seek assistance from a doc who is in big trouble with the Proper Authorities. Hmmmm.
We didn’t hear anything about that, and it leads one to wonder whether the Woods folks forbade such a query or if the people at the two networks weren’t doing their jobs properly. Whatever the case, we learned nothing from the interviews. Woods was smart enough to tell us everything we already knew. He had done some bad things. Really? It was tough to tell his mother. You don’t say! He’s not sure how the fans will treat him. Perhaps, but he can guarantee reverential treatment at Augusta National next month from the stodgy coots who run the Masters and tolerate nothing short of behavior reserved for Easter Vigil Mass when the tournament comes to town. At least that’s how CBS and the sycophantic golf media, many of whom knew about Woods’ behavior but let it ride, behave.
In short, the Woods interviews were nothing short of public relations ploys to end what has become a slowing, quieting news cycle. You can’t fault the networks for jumping at the chance to speak with the golfer, since it afforded them the opportunity to promote the heck out of the event. What we can fault them for is not following up when Woods stonewalled them, for refusing to ask about Galea and for buying the Buddhist stuff without asking why we hadn’t heard so much about this religious devotion before Woods went rogue. Jailhouse conversions are nothing new, but this seems a little too contrived, even for a control freak like Woods.
Put this one in the win column for the Woods camp and get ready for the next round of silliness at Augusta. That begins April 5, when Woods will deign to speak with the mainstream media prior to competing in the Masters. It’s interesting that he chose that Monday, since it’s the beginning of baseball season and the day of the NC2A men’s hoops championship game. Some pundits have wondered whether Woods will overshadow the other sporting events that day. It’s more likely he’s hoping they will overshadow him. Think about it; dozens of journalists, TV types and columnists will be in Indianapolis to shower praise upon this year’s top student-athletes, while others will be scattered across the country in ballparks to figure out which ballplayers used their off-seasons to experiment with HGH. It’s a classic trick for those who don’t want maximum coverage for a news story and the reason why a lot of unpopular proclamations and information are given on Friday afternoon, the better to be ignored over the weekend. Woods couldn’t have done that, since he’ll be trying to make the cut at Augusta on the Friday of that week, so he picked one of the busiest news days of the year to meet the press.
The most important thing for Woods is that he is on his way back to the course, and it’s clear that the people who cover him are reverting to their pre-scandal form by affording him considerable latitude and respect. Before you know it, commentators will be gushing over his game again, and advertisers will be lining up to have him sell their products. The healing is almost completed. Woods’ participation at the Masters will take him closer to the final step in his rehabilitation.
Oprah.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: The college football world was rocked Thursday by the news that the International Bowl was folding after four historic editions. For some reason, the Big Least decided that sending a team to play a MAC school in Tronno wasn’t a good idea. Fret not, America, because a Big Least rep will be part of the new Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium. Talk about an upgrade…Georgia Tech’s Paul Hewitt, a New York native, turned down the St. John’s coaching job, showing just how tough it’s going to be for the Johnnies to get back to prominence. If the locals don’t want the gig, who’s left?...If you’re not loving the NC2A tourney, then you probably root for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to get richer. The upsets may have terrorized your office pools, but it’s been great to see the little guys stick it to the Rejection Committee by winning so many games…Ryan Leaf received 10 years probation in his drug and burglary case after a guilty plea. Hard to believe NFL types had such a hard time choosing between him and Peyton Manning back in the late ‘90s. As career train wrecks go, his has to be in consideration for biggest ever.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? The anti-Donovan crowd seems closer every day to getting its wish: an end to McNabb’s tenure under center in Philadelphia. The best part? They’re delighted Kevin Kolb will be taking over, simply because he’s not Number Five. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of Kolb’s abilities, which frankly few can endorse given his short resume – two starts and a 1-1 record. The Eagles stunk at the end of last year because of a rotten offensive line, a defense that could not pressure the QB and a below-par secondary. McNabb wasn’t exactly channeling Johnny Unitas, but blaming him for everything is at best myopic and at worst an indictment of Philadelphia fans’ vaunted sports knowledge. McNabb will go before the 2010 season, if the price is right, and will definitely be gone before 2011 kicks off. (If it does kick off.) And if you think Kolb or just about any other QB in the league can lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl as they are presently constructed, then be sure to wait up late next Saturday night to get a good look at the Easter Bunny.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: After spending a couple months defending Boniface Meyer’s now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t, now-you-do-again behavior regarding his coaching future at Florida on the basis of his heart problems, it’s time to take off the gloves and expose the man for what he is: a two-bit bully who thinks he can do whatever he wants to whomever he wants. Meyer’s threatening, menacing approach to an Orlando Sentinel reporter who merely quoted a UF player was a disgrace and reminded El Hombre of Johnny Friendly, the waterfront hoodlum who was nothing without his cronies and guns. Meyer actually told the reporter, Jeremy Fowler, that if it had been “his son [he had quoted], [they] would be going at it right now.” All Fowler did was accurately report what Deonte Thompson said about the differences between outgoing Gator QB St. Timothy of Tebow and next year’s presumed starter, John Brantley. Because Thompson was not entirely complimentary of Meyer’s pet, the petty dictator thought Fowler’s printing of the comment would be detrimental to Tebow’s draft prospects. No, Boniface, Tebow’s awful throwing motion and wet-noodle arm strength will take care of that. You need to tell your players to stop disparaging your favorite, rather than excoriating those who quote them. Meyer’s behavior was cowardly and arrogant. He needs to issue a legitimate apology (fat chance) and remember that bullies eventually get their comeuppance, and when it happens, the whole world applauds.
* * *
ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD: The sporting world lost one of its best comrades-in-arms last week when Jeff St. Amour passed away. Jeff was always quick with a smile, a bit of incisive sports commentary and a kind word. All you need to know about him was revealed at the end of his daughter Caitlin’s marvelous and incredibly courageous eulogy Tuesday. She said that she would finish with two of her father’s “rules.” The first was, “Never strike out looking,” and the second was, “Always finish your drink.” That was Jeff. He participated fully in life and never turned down the opportunity to have a good time. Most of all, he was a dedicated family man who loved his wife and children. As we continue on our strange and wonderful journey, we should emulate Jeff and be sure to keep swinging – and smiling.
-EH-
The sporting world is much better informed about all things Eldrick after the two illuminating interviews he granted last Sunday, to ESPN and the Golf Channel. (CBS declined to participate.) Yeah, right.
By speaking with Tom Rinaldi and Kelly Tilghman, two interviewers favored by the Woods camp, the golfer did what he could to control the situation. His people had already chosen the location (Isleworth Golf and Country Club), set a time limit (five minutes for ESPN, six for TGC), mandated that the interrogators stand, face-to-face, with Woods and embargoed the release of the footage until 7:30 p.m., presumably to let Woods finish watching the NC2A tournament. Woods’ people also stipulated that the interviews would take place outside – why is anybody’s guess – but rainy weather made it impossible for that and forced the action onto a veranda.
With all of those conditions satisfied, it was up to Rinaldi and Tilghman to do their jobs. Unfortunately, neither was overly impressive. Rinaldi looked suitably serious and consulted his note cards, but he never pressed Woods on his unwillingness to discuss specific events, such as whether his wife, Elin, had indeed used his head as a substitute for a Nike One Tour golf ball. Tilghman was overly impressed with Woods’ Buddhist bracelet, a symbol of his rededication to his mother’s faith. Remember that we had never heard anything about his devotion to the Fat Man before, except as an explanation for his preternatural skills of concentration on the course.
It would have been a service to all viewers if either interviewer had thought – or been instructed by his/her superiors – to ask about whether Woods has ever used performance-enhancing drugs. While rehabilitating an injury, Woods sought the care of Dr. Anthony Galea, a Tronno-based physician who is in the middle of a maelstrom regarding his prescribing P.E.D.s to big-league ballplayers. Woods could have chosen any doctor in the U.S., because his health insurance is probably pretty darn good. Instead, he went to Canada to seek assistance from a doc who is in big trouble with the Proper Authorities. Hmmmm.
We didn’t hear anything about that, and it leads one to wonder whether the Woods folks forbade such a query or if the people at the two networks weren’t doing their jobs properly. Whatever the case, we learned nothing from the interviews. Woods was smart enough to tell us everything we already knew. He had done some bad things. Really? It was tough to tell his mother. You don’t say! He’s not sure how the fans will treat him. Perhaps, but he can guarantee reverential treatment at Augusta National next month from the stodgy coots who run the Masters and tolerate nothing short of behavior reserved for Easter Vigil Mass when the tournament comes to town. At least that’s how CBS and the sycophantic golf media, many of whom knew about Woods’ behavior but let it ride, behave.
In short, the Woods interviews were nothing short of public relations ploys to end what has become a slowing, quieting news cycle. You can’t fault the networks for jumping at the chance to speak with the golfer, since it afforded them the opportunity to promote the heck out of the event. What we can fault them for is not following up when Woods stonewalled them, for refusing to ask about Galea and for buying the Buddhist stuff without asking why we hadn’t heard so much about this religious devotion before Woods went rogue. Jailhouse conversions are nothing new, but this seems a little too contrived, even for a control freak like Woods.
Put this one in the win column for the Woods camp and get ready for the next round of silliness at Augusta. That begins April 5, when Woods will deign to speak with the mainstream media prior to competing in the Masters. It’s interesting that he chose that Monday, since it’s the beginning of baseball season and the day of the NC2A men’s hoops championship game. Some pundits have wondered whether Woods will overshadow the other sporting events that day. It’s more likely he’s hoping they will overshadow him. Think about it; dozens of journalists, TV types and columnists will be in Indianapolis to shower praise upon this year’s top student-athletes, while others will be scattered across the country in ballparks to figure out which ballplayers used their off-seasons to experiment with HGH. It’s a classic trick for those who don’t want maximum coverage for a news story and the reason why a lot of unpopular proclamations and information are given on Friday afternoon, the better to be ignored over the weekend. Woods couldn’t have done that, since he’ll be trying to make the cut at Augusta on the Friday of that week, so he picked one of the busiest news days of the year to meet the press.
The most important thing for Woods is that he is on his way back to the course, and it’s clear that the people who cover him are reverting to their pre-scandal form by affording him considerable latitude and respect. Before you know it, commentators will be gushing over his game again, and advertisers will be lining up to have him sell their products. The healing is almost completed. Woods’ participation at the Masters will take him closer to the final step in his rehabilitation.
Oprah.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: The college football world was rocked Thursday by the news that the International Bowl was folding after four historic editions. For some reason, the Big Least decided that sending a team to play a MAC school in Tronno wasn’t a good idea. Fret not, America, because a Big Least rep will be part of the new Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium. Talk about an upgrade…Georgia Tech’s Paul Hewitt, a New York native, turned down the St. John’s coaching job, showing just how tough it’s going to be for the Johnnies to get back to prominence. If the locals don’t want the gig, who’s left?...If you’re not loving the NC2A tourney, then you probably root for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to get richer. The upsets may have terrorized your office pools, but it’s been great to see the little guys stick it to the Rejection Committee by winning so many games…Ryan Leaf received 10 years probation in his drug and burglary case after a guilty plea. Hard to believe NFL types had such a hard time choosing between him and Peyton Manning back in the late ‘90s. As career train wrecks go, his has to be in consideration for biggest ever.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? The anti-Donovan crowd seems closer every day to getting its wish: an end to McNabb’s tenure under center in Philadelphia. The best part? They’re delighted Kevin Kolb will be taking over, simply because he’s not Number Five. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of Kolb’s abilities, which frankly few can endorse given his short resume – two starts and a 1-1 record. The Eagles stunk at the end of last year because of a rotten offensive line, a defense that could not pressure the QB and a below-par secondary. McNabb wasn’t exactly channeling Johnny Unitas, but blaming him for everything is at best myopic and at worst an indictment of Philadelphia fans’ vaunted sports knowledge. McNabb will go before the 2010 season, if the price is right, and will definitely be gone before 2011 kicks off. (If it does kick off.) And if you think Kolb or just about any other QB in the league can lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl as they are presently constructed, then be sure to wait up late next Saturday night to get a good look at the Easter Bunny.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: After spending a couple months defending Boniface Meyer’s now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t, now-you-do-again behavior regarding his coaching future at Florida on the basis of his heart problems, it’s time to take off the gloves and expose the man for what he is: a two-bit bully who thinks he can do whatever he wants to whomever he wants. Meyer’s threatening, menacing approach to an Orlando Sentinel reporter who merely quoted a UF player was a disgrace and reminded El Hombre of Johnny Friendly, the waterfront hoodlum who was nothing without his cronies and guns. Meyer actually told the reporter, Jeremy Fowler, that if it had been “his son [he had quoted], [they] would be going at it right now.” All Fowler did was accurately report what Deonte Thompson said about the differences between outgoing Gator QB St. Timothy of Tebow and next year’s presumed starter, John Brantley. Because Thompson was not entirely complimentary of Meyer’s pet, the petty dictator thought Fowler’s printing of the comment would be detrimental to Tebow’s draft prospects. No, Boniface, Tebow’s awful throwing motion and wet-noodle arm strength will take care of that. You need to tell your players to stop disparaging your favorite, rather than excoriating those who quote them. Meyer’s behavior was cowardly and arrogant. He needs to issue a legitimate apology (fat chance) and remember that bullies eventually get their comeuppance, and when it happens, the whole world applauds.
* * *
ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD: The sporting world lost one of its best comrades-in-arms last week when Jeff St. Amour passed away. Jeff was always quick with a smile, a bit of incisive sports commentary and a kind word. All you need to know about him was revealed at the end of his daughter Caitlin’s marvelous and incredibly courageous eulogy Tuesday. She said that she would finish with two of her father’s “rules.” The first was, “Never strike out looking,” and the second was, “Always finish your drink.” That was Jeff. He participated fully in life and never turned down the opportunity to have a good time. Most of all, he was a dedicated family man who loved his wife and children. As we continue on our strange and wonderful journey, we should emulate Jeff and be sure to keep swinging – and smiling.
-EH-
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The Onset of Madness
EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
No matter how poor a job the NC2A’s esteemed Rejection Committee did assembling this year’s bracket, watching the increasing love affair between tournament organizers and big-conference schools will certainly be more entertaining than suffering through the coming three weeks of manufactured drama surrounding Eldrick Woods’ return to golf. Could there be any storm capable of more damage than Woods’ decision to end his sackcloth-and-ashes tour at The Masters, which will be televised by espn and then CBS, the two networks most capable of slathering an event, athlete or coach in enough treacle to clog even the most efficient sewage system?
As sports fans prepare to have their brackets torn apart by underachieving high seeds and dastardly upstarts, espn is auditioning a battalion of string quartets for its melodramatic pre-tourney package, while Jim Nantz is rehearsing scads of catch phrases and hosannas to intone at properly reverential moments. And in Augusta, Gestapo-like security forces are preparing holding cells and sharpening their bayonets in anticipation of pouncing on any spectator brazen enough to regard Woods with anything other than awe and wonder. Forget waterboarding. Anyone caught so much as smirking at Woods will be made to listen to one of Augusta National’s oldest members recount stroke-by-stroke memories of his most recent rounds. Next to that, bamboo shoots under the fingernails is like a dinner date with Amanda Seyfried.
The best way to ward off the intense nausea this period is sure to induce (syrup of ipecac has nothing on this stuff) is to direct your attention at something else. Fortunately for sports fans, there is the NC2A tournament, which for all its faults, remains quite the spectacle, if only because Dookie V isn’t able to broadcast any games. That wonderful circumstance, however, that could well change in the coming dark times. Then again, it might be better if espn gets the broadcast rights to the tourney, because maybe it won’t decide to show 76% of the nation that compelling tilt between Duke and Arkansas-Peanut Butter. (Credit El Nino with that one.) Anyway, with the round of 65 already pared by one – thanks for stopping by, Winthrop – courtesy of the infernal play-in game that robs one school of the true tourney experience (once again, the little guy takes one in the shorts) it’s time to look at the best thing about March, aside from green beer, and make a few declarations.
Justice Deferred: Temple was hosed. The three-time Atlantic 10 champion finished 11-1, captured its conference’s regular-season and tourney titles, finished eighth in the RPI and beat Villanova by 10 points, but it received a five seed and the chance to play strong Ivy winner Cornell, which is better than the 12 seed it received. The Midwest bracket is too strong, especially since Kansas, the number one overall seed, is in it. Sure, the Jayhawks only have to play one of the other big boys (Ohio State and Georgetown) in the bracket, but their presence almost guarantees a tough finale for KU. West Virginia should have been treated more fairly. The Mountaineers didn’t necessarily deserve a number one seed, although WVU finished fourth in the RPI, had the nation’s third-toughest schedule, won the Big East tournament and closed the season on an 8-1 roll. But WVU should have had the softest number two road, against Duke, rather than Kentucky. Just what we need, more bile for Bob Huggins.
Mid-Major Slap-Around: Temple and Cornell weren’t the only mid-majors to get abused. Consider Butler and UTEP. Both could win a couple tourney games, but they are paired against each other, the better to guarantee the elimination of a non-BCS tough guy early on. Same goes for UNLV and Northern Iowa. Old Dominion was 27th in the final RPI, beat Georgetown in D.C. and is seeded 11th. Utah State is a 12, despite a 26-7 record, a win over BYU and a season-ending 17-1 run. Here’s hoping all the little guys win big. Won’t it be interesting to hear the Deflection Committee try to explain that?
Small Names, Big Games: There is a reason teams like Yosemite Sam Houston State and St. Mary’s win their conferences: They have guys who can play. As you peruse the early rounds of the tourney, be sure to check out SHS’s three-point specialist Corey Allmond, who hit 11 triples at Kentucky. Gonzaga fans can’t stand St. Mary’s 6-11 senior Omar Samhan, but his 20.9 ppg and 11.0 rpg have sure endeared him to the Gael faithful. Wofford’s Noah Dahlman (16.8 ppg) is a force along the front line, and Montana’s Anthony Johnson is one of the nation’s most accurate backcourt shooters. Pay attention every time New Mexico State guard Jahmar Young gets the rock, because he may be scoring in a couple seconds, and be alert whenever Utah State forward Tai Wesley is on the court, because few can fill a stat sheet like him.
Soo-Prise! You know there are going to be upsets. It happens all the time. So here are some first-rounders to consider: San Diego State over Tennessee; Georgia Tech over OK State, UTEP over Butler; Murray State over Vandy, Siena over Purdue and Old Dominion over Notre Dame.
Final Fantasy: Indianapolis gets a bunch of chalk: Kansas, Syracuse, Duke and West Virginia.
The Envelope, Please: Kansas isn’t a juggernaut, but it has too much (size, shooting, experience, toughness) for this crop. Bill Self enhances his legend with his second title, beating Duke in the finale, 81-79.
Lucky You: The last couple years have featured some ugliness for El Hombre in the bracket department. But he feels 2010 will be different. (Hah!) Without further ado, here is his entire bracket – from here on known as The Answer Key – broken down according to each round’s winners.
Round One: Kansas, Northern Iowa, Michigan State, Maryland, San Diego State, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Ohio State, Syracuse, Gonzaga, UTEP, Murray State, Xavier, Pittsburgh, Brigham Young, Kansas State, Kentucky, Texas, Temple, Wisconsin, Marquette, New Mexico, Clemson, West Virginia, Duke, Louisville, Texas A&M, Siena, Old Dominion, Baylor, Richmond, Villanova.
Second Round: Kansas, Michigan State, Georgetown, Ohio State, Syracuse, UTEP, Pittsburgh, BYU, Kentucky, Temple, Marquette, West Virginia, Duke, Siena, Baylor, Villanova.
Sweet Sixteen: Kansas, Georgetown, Syracuse, BYU, Kentucky, West Virginia, Duke, Villanova.
Elite Eight: Kansas, Syracuse, West Virginia, Duke.
Final Four: Kansas, Duke.
Championship: Kansas.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: Looks like Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington hopped into the Hot Tub Time Machine and went back to the ‘80s last season. Hey, lots of people in pro sports are smoking pot. And don’t even start on the painkillers and P.E.D.s. But coke? Yo, Ron, you have to update your recreational drug profile…If anybody not named Tim Tebow were tossing wobbly out patterns, throwing while backpedaling or taking nine seconds to release the ball, he would be lucky to get drafted at all. But some NFL team is going to choose him in the first three (two?) rounds and hope that he develops into a legitimate starter. Keep hoping…NBA owners unanimously approved Michael Jordan’s bid to take over the Charlotte Bobcats. Why wouldn’t they? Given Jordan’s track record of picking talent (Kwame Brown, Adam Morrison) and not showing up for work, he’s the perfect adversary…NFL owners are trying to decide whether they want to change the rules of overtime for playoff games. Look out for a compromise solution that includes eight-on-eight football after regulation, and if there is still a tie, a field goal kicking contest involving offensive linemen. Now that sounds like fun.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? After sitting out the big-money part of the NFL’s free agency shuffle, the Eagles have become quite busy in the past week, giving those fans and media analysts who are trying to figure out the team’s QB plans plenty to think about. The most obvious thing about the team’s intentions is that youth remains a priority, so even if Number Five is under center for the 2010 season, he likely won’t be back in ’11. With Seattle’s overspending for Charlie Whitehurst – what a great time to be a Seahawks’ season-ticket holder – the Browns picking up Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace (blechhh!), the Rams looking pretty darn interested in Sam Bradford, the Cardinals’ signing Derek Anderson to join the QB derby with Hot Tub Leinart, and Cowboy Quarterback’s role in the recruitment of LaDainian Tomlinson presaging a return to the Vikings, the market for Birds’ QBs looks smaller and smaller. Maybe the Bills might be interested. The Panthers are a possibility, although they’re on the hook for $13 mil to Delhomme. Jacksonville could be a destination, although David Garrard did throw for nearly 3,600 yards last year. The upshot? Expect Number Five and Kevin Kolb to be in midnight green next season, with Courageous Cat the likeliest QB to be moved.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Now that Eldrick Woods has rejoined golf’s living, it’s important to know that he is all about golf. His people are going to keep spinning his rehab and his remorse, but this is about his ability to play golf, make money and get back into the promotional world that made him so wealthy. The best thing any of us can do is forget about Woods the man, because no amount of Ari Fleisher-generated pap can bring back the carefully-crafted image we were fed for the first part of Woods’ life. From here on out, it’s about golf, and that’s not the worst thing in the world, so long as the coming months and years don’t “heal the wounds” and yield “forgiveness from the American people.” Baloney. Woods is a golfer. That’s all he is and all he should be. The run-up to his Masters appearance shows how strong the cult of personality surrounding him is, but here’s hoping fans wise up and focus only on whether he parred 17 and not on who Woods is. We already know that, and it’s not very pretty.
-EH-
No matter how poor a job the NC2A’s esteemed Rejection Committee did assembling this year’s bracket, watching the increasing love affair between tournament organizers and big-conference schools will certainly be more entertaining than suffering through the coming three weeks of manufactured drama surrounding Eldrick Woods’ return to golf. Could there be any storm capable of more damage than Woods’ decision to end his sackcloth-and-ashes tour at The Masters, which will be televised by espn and then CBS, the two networks most capable of slathering an event, athlete or coach in enough treacle to clog even the most efficient sewage system?
As sports fans prepare to have their brackets torn apart by underachieving high seeds and dastardly upstarts, espn is auditioning a battalion of string quartets for its melodramatic pre-tourney package, while Jim Nantz is rehearsing scads of catch phrases and hosannas to intone at properly reverential moments. And in Augusta, Gestapo-like security forces are preparing holding cells and sharpening their bayonets in anticipation of pouncing on any spectator brazen enough to regard Woods with anything other than awe and wonder. Forget waterboarding. Anyone caught so much as smirking at Woods will be made to listen to one of Augusta National’s oldest members recount stroke-by-stroke memories of his most recent rounds. Next to that, bamboo shoots under the fingernails is like a dinner date with Amanda Seyfried.
The best way to ward off the intense nausea this period is sure to induce (syrup of ipecac has nothing on this stuff) is to direct your attention at something else. Fortunately for sports fans, there is the NC2A tournament, which for all its faults, remains quite the spectacle, if only because Dookie V isn’t able to broadcast any games. That wonderful circumstance, however, that could well change in the coming dark times. Then again, it might be better if espn gets the broadcast rights to the tourney, because maybe it won’t decide to show 76% of the nation that compelling tilt between Duke and Arkansas-Peanut Butter. (Credit El Nino with that one.) Anyway, with the round of 65 already pared by one – thanks for stopping by, Winthrop – courtesy of the infernal play-in game that robs one school of the true tourney experience (once again, the little guy takes one in the shorts) it’s time to look at the best thing about March, aside from green beer, and make a few declarations.
Justice Deferred: Temple was hosed. The three-time Atlantic 10 champion finished 11-1, captured its conference’s regular-season and tourney titles, finished eighth in the RPI and beat Villanova by 10 points, but it received a five seed and the chance to play strong Ivy winner Cornell, which is better than the 12 seed it received. The Midwest bracket is too strong, especially since Kansas, the number one overall seed, is in it. Sure, the Jayhawks only have to play one of the other big boys (Ohio State and Georgetown) in the bracket, but their presence almost guarantees a tough finale for KU. West Virginia should have been treated more fairly. The Mountaineers didn’t necessarily deserve a number one seed, although WVU finished fourth in the RPI, had the nation’s third-toughest schedule, won the Big East tournament and closed the season on an 8-1 roll. But WVU should have had the softest number two road, against Duke, rather than Kentucky. Just what we need, more bile for Bob Huggins.
Mid-Major Slap-Around: Temple and Cornell weren’t the only mid-majors to get abused. Consider Butler and UTEP. Both could win a couple tourney games, but they are paired against each other, the better to guarantee the elimination of a non-BCS tough guy early on. Same goes for UNLV and Northern Iowa. Old Dominion was 27th in the final RPI, beat Georgetown in D.C. and is seeded 11th. Utah State is a 12, despite a 26-7 record, a win over BYU and a season-ending 17-1 run. Here’s hoping all the little guys win big. Won’t it be interesting to hear the Deflection Committee try to explain that?
Small Names, Big Games: There is a reason teams like Yosemite Sam Houston State and St. Mary’s win their conferences: They have guys who can play. As you peruse the early rounds of the tourney, be sure to check out SHS’s three-point specialist Corey Allmond, who hit 11 triples at Kentucky. Gonzaga fans can’t stand St. Mary’s 6-11 senior Omar Samhan, but his 20.9 ppg and 11.0 rpg have sure endeared him to the Gael faithful. Wofford’s Noah Dahlman (16.8 ppg) is a force along the front line, and Montana’s Anthony Johnson is one of the nation’s most accurate backcourt shooters. Pay attention every time New Mexico State guard Jahmar Young gets the rock, because he may be scoring in a couple seconds, and be alert whenever Utah State forward Tai Wesley is on the court, because few can fill a stat sheet like him.
Soo-Prise! You know there are going to be upsets. It happens all the time. So here are some first-rounders to consider: San Diego State over Tennessee; Georgia Tech over OK State, UTEP over Butler; Murray State over Vandy, Siena over Purdue and Old Dominion over Notre Dame.
Final Fantasy: Indianapolis gets a bunch of chalk: Kansas, Syracuse, Duke and West Virginia.
The Envelope, Please: Kansas isn’t a juggernaut, but it has too much (size, shooting, experience, toughness) for this crop. Bill Self enhances his legend with his second title, beating Duke in the finale, 81-79.
Lucky You: The last couple years have featured some ugliness for El Hombre in the bracket department. But he feels 2010 will be different. (Hah!) Without further ado, here is his entire bracket – from here on known as The Answer Key – broken down according to each round’s winners.
Round One: Kansas, Northern Iowa, Michigan State, Maryland, San Diego State, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Ohio State, Syracuse, Gonzaga, UTEP, Murray State, Xavier, Pittsburgh, Brigham Young, Kansas State, Kentucky, Texas, Temple, Wisconsin, Marquette, New Mexico, Clemson, West Virginia, Duke, Louisville, Texas A&M, Siena, Old Dominion, Baylor, Richmond, Villanova.
Second Round: Kansas, Michigan State, Georgetown, Ohio State, Syracuse, UTEP, Pittsburgh, BYU, Kentucky, Temple, Marquette, West Virginia, Duke, Siena, Baylor, Villanova.
Sweet Sixteen: Kansas, Georgetown, Syracuse, BYU, Kentucky, West Virginia, Duke, Villanova.
Elite Eight: Kansas, Syracuse, West Virginia, Duke.
Final Four: Kansas, Duke.
Championship: Kansas.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: Looks like Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington hopped into the Hot Tub Time Machine and went back to the ‘80s last season. Hey, lots of people in pro sports are smoking pot. And don’t even start on the painkillers and P.E.D.s. But coke? Yo, Ron, you have to update your recreational drug profile…If anybody not named Tim Tebow were tossing wobbly out patterns, throwing while backpedaling or taking nine seconds to release the ball, he would be lucky to get drafted at all. But some NFL team is going to choose him in the first three (two?) rounds and hope that he develops into a legitimate starter. Keep hoping…NBA owners unanimously approved Michael Jordan’s bid to take over the Charlotte Bobcats. Why wouldn’t they? Given Jordan’s track record of picking talent (Kwame Brown, Adam Morrison) and not showing up for work, he’s the perfect adversary…NFL owners are trying to decide whether they want to change the rules of overtime for playoff games. Look out for a compromise solution that includes eight-on-eight football after regulation, and if there is still a tie, a field goal kicking contest involving offensive linemen. Now that sounds like fun.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? After sitting out the big-money part of the NFL’s free agency shuffle, the Eagles have become quite busy in the past week, giving those fans and media analysts who are trying to figure out the team’s QB plans plenty to think about. The most obvious thing about the team’s intentions is that youth remains a priority, so even if Number Five is under center for the 2010 season, he likely won’t be back in ’11. With Seattle’s overspending for Charlie Whitehurst – what a great time to be a Seahawks’ season-ticket holder – the Browns picking up Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace (blechhh!), the Rams looking pretty darn interested in Sam Bradford, the Cardinals’ signing Derek Anderson to join the QB derby with Hot Tub Leinart, and Cowboy Quarterback’s role in the recruitment of LaDainian Tomlinson presaging a return to the Vikings, the market for Birds’ QBs looks smaller and smaller. Maybe the Bills might be interested. The Panthers are a possibility, although they’re on the hook for $13 mil to Delhomme. Jacksonville could be a destination, although David Garrard did throw for nearly 3,600 yards last year. The upshot? Expect Number Five and Kevin Kolb to be in midnight green next season, with Courageous Cat the likeliest QB to be moved.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Now that Eldrick Woods has rejoined golf’s living, it’s important to know that he is all about golf. His people are going to keep spinning his rehab and his remorse, but this is about his ability to play golf, make money and get back into the promotional world that made him so wealthy. The best thing any of us can do is forget about Woods the man, because no amount of Ari Fleisher-generated pap can bring back the carefully-crafted image we were fed for the first part of Woods’ life. From here on out, it’s about golf, and that’s not the worst thing in the world, so long as the coming months and years don’t “heal the wounds” and yield “forgiveness from the American people.” Baloney. Woods is a golfer. That’s all he is and all he should be. The run-up to his Masters appearance shows how strong the cult of personality surrounding him is, but here’s hoping fans wise up and focus only on whether he parred 17 and not on who Woods is. We already know that, and it’s not very pretty.
-EH-
Friday, December 11, 2009
The Right Choice
EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
When El Abuelo went to his first and only bullfight, he rooted for the bull, not only because the poor animal was clearly a double-digit underdog, but because it was the right thing to do. The rest of the stadium was pulling for the torero, hoping to see a precise kill. But not El Abuelo. He was impressed by el toro’s power and dignity. And of course, he was disappointed. The bull went down like the victim of a mob hit. It was bloody, ruthless and stunningly final.
It may be hard to believe, given his steel-encased 6-foot, 4-inch, 300-pound frame, but Ndamukong Suh is the bull in the Heisman Trophy race, both metaphorically and in a literal sense. Watching him terrorize those old boys from Texas – not to mention anyone else unlucky enough to have lined up across from him the past two seasons – was like seeing Mark Mangino tear though the Sizzler buffet. Oh, the humanity. In a year when no traditional (read: Offensive) candidate stood out in the Heisman sweepstakes, discerning voters had the opportunity to take a good look at the player who best fit the mandate found on every ballot: “We are truly grateful for your support in selecting the most outstanding college football player in the United States (El Hombre’s italics) for 2009.”
That would be Suh, no question about it. The other finalists had great years, to be sure, but “most outstanding” status belongs to those who truly distinguish themselves as performing well above the usual. That’s the trouble with awards these days. They often go to the person who has the best press agent or the loudest TV foof blithering about his greatness. At this point, we have heard so much about the majesty of Tim Tebow that it’s a wonder he hasn’t been beatified, with only a couple miracles – one of them could be a card trick – standing between him and sainthood. (Word is Sixers GM Billy King prays daily to Tebow to get another job, and should an NBA team hire him, that will definitely qualify as the QB’s first miracle.) What is conveniently omitted from the Tebow mythology is that he hasn’t had a dominant season. His numbers (2,413 yards passing, 18 TDs, five ints., 859 yards rushing, 13 TDs) are impressive but not dominant. Tebow didn’t overwhelm people they way he did in ’07, when he won the Heisman by accounting for a knee-buckling 55 touchdowns (23 rushing, 32 passing). He was great and led the Gators to a perfect regular season, but he wasn’t the most outstanding player out there.
Texas QB McCoy had a fine season, too, throwing for 3,512 yards and 27 TDs. But he threw 12 picks and didn’t show so well against the only two stout defenses he faced. In games versus Oklahoma and Nebraska, McCoy was a pedestrian 41-of-75 (54.7%), for 311 yards, a touchdown and four picks. About the only thing Heisman-like about that combined effort was that it appeared as if McCoy was throwing with a stiff arm.
It’s going to be tough for a lot of voters to eliminate those two from contention, since as quarterbacks, the hold the ball longer than anyone else and are clearly visible for the myopic, who conveniently forget there are 21 other players on the field with the QB. They’re the types who believe multi-tasking is eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
The running back crop is pretty impressive this season. In fact, two of them received my second and third-place votes. But as strong as Toby Gerhart and Mark Ingram were this season, neither was the type of player who made you call friends during games to talk in amazement about this play or that move. Gerhart was the closest to that of any ballcarrier, but it’s possible part of his amazement quotient was due to the fact that finding white tailbacks these days is practically impossible, unless you’re haunting the New England Small College Athletic Conference. EH compadre Raging Bill refers to the Caucasian tailback as the “passenger pigeon,” since that species is long extinct. While Gerhart does have some peers, he is a rarity, though he was practically unstoppable in Stanford’s final four games, when he averaged 185.5 yards/contest and scored 13 touchdowns. Pretty impressive, but let’s not get carried away.
Same goes for Ingram, who finished 12th in the nation in rushing. His 1,542 yards and 15 touchdowns are certainly strong performances, and he did come up big in the SEC title game against Florida, rushing for 113 yards and three scores, but let’s be serious here. We’re looking for the “most outstanding” player, not just someone who plays well. Consider some of the other running backs who have won the Heisman. Barry Sanders rushed for 2,628 yards and 37 touchdowns. (Gulp!) Marcus Allen gained 2,342. Ricky Williams picked up 2,327 and scored 29 times. Mike Rozier had 2,148 yards and 29 scores. Bo Jackson: 1,786 yards and 6.4 yards/attempt. And they all did it in 11 games. Gerhart and Ingram are great college players, but they are not Heisman-worthy.
Suh is. His numbers bear it out, which is extremely rare for a defensive tackle. Most of the time, those guys are anonymous, content to – and praised for – earn their side of beef by commanding double and triple-teams and let someone else earn the glory. They are most often found beneath six hundred pounds or so of offensive linemen while linebackers and strong safeties accumulate the stats. Not Suh. Not only did he lead Nebraska in tackles for the second straight year, a remarkable feat, but he also piled up 23 tackles for loss, 12 sacks, three blocked kicks, 24 QB hurries, 10 batted-down passes and an interception. But the numbers are only part of it. Because of Suh’s dominance, the entire Husker defensive unit thrived. Take fellow D-tackle Jared Crick. He had a huge year, all right, with 15 tackles behind the line and 9.5 sacks, and is plenty talented. But as one coach who watched the Huskers devastate the potent Texas attack said, “Crick’s like the guy who rooms with the good-looking guy and gets a bunch of girls because of the roommate.” That may be a little bit of an overstatement, but without Suh’s attracting so much attention, there’s no way Crick produces what he did. And there’s no way Nebraska comes within a second of the Big 12 title. You want outstanding? You want Suh.
This year, the bull wins.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: El Hombre certainly doesn’t condone any kind of anti-Semitic behavior, like the taunting that took place during the Harvard-Dartmouth squash match last week, but you have to admit that it’s rather amusing that when we discuss bad behavior at big schools, it’s usually surrounding football or basketball. In the Ivies, it’s squash. Somebody needs to teach Biff and Chip some manners…If it’s December, then the Cowboys are choking. That’s a darn shame…The early rollout of the stupid Nike LeBron and Kobe puppet ad campaign is bad news for people who prefer to remain sane. This means seven more months of that nonsense. Make it stop, please!...Is there anything more ridiculous than espn’s touting that its sportscenter broadcasts are coming to us from Los Angeles? Who cares if they’re spewing their nauseating brew of synergized highlights, self-promotion and canned crowd noise from a ger in Ulan Bator, just as long as we find out (eventually) the score of the game? Just another reason the network is about as far away from its groundbreaking roots as Michael Jackson was from his Jackson 5 days.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? The decision to extend Andy Reid’s
contract hasn’t been too well received among Eagles fans, and that’s not hard to believe, given the brainwashing that has been done about how the city of Philadelphia “deserves” a parade (pronounced locally as “prade”) and how a Super Bowl is the only way to measure success. Of course, many of these people think it’s a good idea to replace Donovan McNabb with Kevin Kolb. Yes, Reid is a borderline boob when it comes to clock management. He also has some serious splotches on his resume, like the ’02 NFC title game loss to Tampa Bay, and his decision not to go with the no-huddle attack during the last seven minutes of the Super Bowl loss to New England. But his successes far outweigh those failures. He’s one of only four (four!) coaches ever to win 100 games in a decade with the same team. He has brought the Eagles to the playoffs seven of the 10 seasons he has coached the Eagles and has won a post-season game every year. His teams almost always get better as the season goes on, and he has even improved as a GM, as his recent moves to upgrade the offense have shown. Reid is imperfect, and he clearly doesn’t like the media (so what?), but he has done an admirable job so far. Now, if he doesn’t get over the hump by the time this deal is done, it’s time to move on. But Reid deserved the extension, and those who want to see him go should be very wary of what might come next.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Let’s get something straight: Anybody who thinks Tim Donaghy didn’t try to influence the outcomes of the games he was betting has never gambled on sports. If you had money on a game, and someone said you could send somebody to the bench with foul trouble, you would do it immediately. In fact, if somebody handed you a gun with a single bullet in it and said you could use it at any point in the game, don’t think for a minute you wouldn’t consider kneecapping a player to guarantee a cover. We didn’t believe Pete Rose, and we shouldn’t believe Donaghy. He deserves a chance to rebuild his life, but we don’t have to buy his story. It just doesn’t add up.
* * *
ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD: It is a testament to the corporate world’s “conscience” that sponsors are not jumping off the Tiger Woods train in bunches. Nike, Accenture and the rest of the logos are sticking by their man for one reason: At some point, this will all burn out, and Woods will return to the links to (one would assume) keep dominating the rest of the field. When that happens, and he issues his mandatory public mea culpa – get ready for a ratings bonanza, Oprah – and undergoes some therapy and/or rehab (that Ambien can be pretty addictive), you can bet the sponsors will be happy to have remained with a man who will have become a sympathetic figure. If Woods plays it right, he will be able to able to regain his former prominent perch, provided he can avoid ordering off the menu at Perkins House of Pancakes.
-EH-
When El Abuelo went to his first and only bullfight, he rooted for the bull, not only because the poor animal was clearly a double-digit underdog, but because it was the right thing to do. The rest of the stadium was pulling for the torero, hoping to see a precise kill. But not El Abuelo. He was impressed by el toro’s power and dignity. And of course, he was disappointed. The bull went down like the victim of a mob hit. It was bloody, ruthless and stunningly final.
It may be hard to believe, given his steel-encased 6-foot, 4-inch, 300-pound frame, but Ndamukong Suh is the bull in the Heisman Trophy race, both metaphorically and in a literal sense. Watching him terrorize those old boys from Texas – not to mention anyone else unlucky enough to have lined up across from him the past two seasons – was like seeing Mark Mangino tear though the Sizzler buffet. Oh, the humanity. In a year when no traditional (read: Offensive) candidate stood out in the Heisman sweepstakes, discerning voters had the opportunity to take a good look at the player who best fit the mandate found on every ballot: “We are truly grateful for your support in selecting the most outstanding college football player in the United States (El Hombre’s italics) for 2009.”
That would be Suh, no question about it. The other finalists had great years, to be sure, but “most outstanding” status belongs to those who truly distinguish themselves as performing well above the usual. That’s the trouble with awards these days. They often go to the person who has the best press agent or the loudest TV foof blithering about his greatness. At this point, we have heard so much about the majesty of Tim Tebow that it’s a wonder he hasn’t been beatified, with only a couple miracles – one of them could be a card trick – standing between him and sainthood. (Word is Sixers GM Billy King prays daily to Tebow to get another job, and should an NBA team hire him, that will definitely qualify as the QB’s first miracle.) What is conveniently omitted from the Tebow mythology is that he hasn’t had a dominant season. His numbers (2,413 yards passing, 18 TDs, five ints., 859 yards rushing, 13 TDs) are impressive but not dominant. Tebow didn’t overwhelm people they way he did in ’07, when he won the Heisman by accounting for a knee-buckling 55 touchdowns (23 rushing, 32 passing). He was great and led the Gators to a perfect regular season, but he wasn’t the most outstanding player out there.
Texas QB McCoy had a fine season, too, throwing for 3,512 yards and 27 TDs. But he threw 12 picks and didn’t show so well against the only two stout defenses he faced. In games versus Oklahoma and Nebraska, McCoy was a pedestrian 41-of-75 (54.7%), for 311 yards, a touchdown and four picks. About the only thing Heisman-like about that combined effort was that it appeared as if McCoy was throwing with a stiff arm.
It’s going to be tough for a lot of voters to eliminate those two from contention, since as quarterbacks, the hold the ball longer than anyone else and are clearly visible for the myopic, who conveniently forget there are 21 other players on the field with the QB. They’re the types who believe multi-tasking is eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
The running back crop is pretty impressive this season. In fact, two of them received my second and third-place votes. But as strong as Toby Gerhart and Mark Ingram were this season, neither was the type of player who made you call friends during games to talk in amazement about this play or that move. Gerhart was the closest to that of any ballcarrier, but it’s possible part of his amazement quotient was due to the fact that finding white tailbacks these days is practically impossible, unless you’re haunting the New England Small College Athletic Conference. EH compadre Raging Bill refers to the Caucasian tailback as the “passenger pigeon,” since that species is long extinct. While Gerhart does have some peers, he is a rarity, though he was practically unstoppable in Stanford’s final four games, when he averaged 185.5 yards/contest and scored 13 touchdowns. Pretty impressive, but let’s not get carried away.
Same goes for Ingram, who finished 12th in the nation in rushing. His 1,542 yards and 15 touchdowns are certainly strong performances, and he did come up big in the SEC title game against Florida, rushing for 113 yards and three scores, but let’s be serious here. We’re looking for the “most outstanding” player, not just someone who plays well. Consider some of the other running backs who have won the Heisman. Barry Sanders rushed for 2,628 yards and 37 touchdowns. (Gulp!) Marcus Allen gained 2,342. Ricky Williams picked up 2,327 and scored 29 times. Mike Rozier had 2,148 yards and 29 scores. Bo Jackson: 1,786 yards and 6.4 yards/attempt. And they all did it in 11 games. Gerhart and Ingram are great college players, but they are not Heisman-worthy.
Suh is. His numbers bear it out, which is extremely rare for a defensive tackle. Most of the time, those guys are anonymous, content to – and praised for – earn their side of beef by commanding double and triple-teams and let someone else earn the glory. They are most often found beneath six hundred pounds or so of offensive linemen while linebackers and strong safeties accumulate the stats. Not Suh. Not only did he lead Nebraska in tackles for the second straight year, a remarkable feat, but he also piled up 23 tackles for loss, 12 sacks, three blocked kicks, 24 QB hurries, 10 batted-down passes and an interception. But the numbers are only part of it. Because of Suh’s dominance, the entire Husker defensive unit thrived. Take fellow D-tackle Jared Crick. He had a huge year, all right, with 15 tackles behind the line and 9.5 sacks, and is plenty talented. But as one coach who watched the Huskers devastate the potent Texas attack said, “Crick’s like the guy who rooms with the good-looking guy and gets a bunch of girls because of the roommate.” That may be a little bit of an overstatement, but without Suh’s attracting so much attention, there’s no way Crick produces what he did. And there’s no way Nebraska comes within a second of the Big 12 title. You want outstanding? You want Suh.
This year, the bull wins.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: El Hombre certainly doesn’t condone any kind of anti-Semitic behavior, like the taunting that took place during the Harvard-Dartmouth squash match last week, but you have to admit that it’s rather amusing that when we discuss bad behavior at big schools, it’s usually surrounding football or basketball. In the Ivies, it’s squash. Somebody needs to teach Biff and Chip some manners…If it’s December, then the Cowboys are choking. That’s a darn shame…The early rollout of the stupid Nike LeBron and Kobe puppet ad campaign is bad news for people who prefer to remain sane. This means seven more months of that nonsense. Make it stop, please!...Is there anything more ridiculous than espn’s touting that its sportscenter broadcasts are coming to us from Los Angeles? Who cares if they’re spewing their nauseating brew of synergized highlights, self-promotion and canned crowd noise from a ger in Ulan Bator, just as long as we find out (eventually) the score of the game? Just another reason the network is about as far away from its groundbreaking roots as Michael Jackson was from his Jackson 5 days.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? The decision to extend Andy Reid’s
contract hasn’t been too well received among Eagles fans, and that’s not hard to believe, given the brainwashing that has been done about how the city of Philadelphia “deserves” a parade (pronounced locally as “prade”) and how a Super Bowl is the only way to measure success. Of course, many of these people think it’s a good idea to replace Donovan McNabb with Kevin Kolb. Yes, Reid is a borderline boob when it comes to clock management. He also has some serious splotches on his resume, like the ’02 NFC title game loss to Tampa Bay, and his decision not to go with the no-huddle attack during the last seven minutes of the Super Bowl loss to New England. But his successes far outweigh those failures. He’s one of only four (four!) coaches ever to win 100 games in a decade with the same team. He has brought the Eagles to the playoffs seven of the 10 seasons he has coached the Eagles and has won a post-season game every year. His teams almost always get better as the season goes on, and he has even improved as a GM, as his recent moves to upgrade the offense have shown. Reid is imperfect, and he clearly doesn’t like the media (so what?), but he has done an admirable job so far. Now, if he doesn’t get over the hump by the time this deal is done, it’s time to move on. But Reid deserved the extension, and those who want to see him go should be very wary of what might come next.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Let’s get something straight: Anybody who thinks Tim Donaghy didn’t try to influence the outcomes of the games he was betting has never gambled on sports. If you had money on a game, and someone said you could send somebody to the bench with foul trouble, you would do it immediately. In fact, if somebody handed you a gun with a single bullet in it and said you could use it at any point in the game, don’t think for a minute you wouldn’t consider kneecapping a player to guarantee a cover. We didn’t believe Pete Rose, and we shouldn’t believe Donaghy. He deserves a chance to rebuild his life, but we don’t have to buy his story. It just doesn’t add up.
* * *
ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD: It is a testament to the corporate world’s “conscience” that sponsors are not jumping off the Tiger Woods train in bunches. Nike, Accenture and the rest of the logos are sticking by their man for one reason: At some point, this will all burn out, and Woods will return to the links to (one would assume) keep dominating the rest of the field. When that happens, and he issues his mandatory public mea culpa – get ready for a ratings bonanza, Oprah – and undergoes some therapy and/or rehab (that Ambien can be pretty addictive), you can bet the sponsors will be happy to have remained with a man who will have become a sympathetic figure. If Woods plays it right, he will be able to able to regain his former prominent perch, provided he can avoid ordering off the menu at Perkins House of Pancakes.
-EH-
Friday, October 2, 2009
Stop the Madness
EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
When Edgar Allen Poe wrote the famous short story, “The Imp of the Perverse,” in 1850, there was no football, not even the European version of the animal. The Chinese had been playing a kicking game as early as the second century BC, and there was the Central and South American “Tlatchi” game that was invented hundreds of years before. But, for Poe’s purposes, there was no prolate spheroid, no tailgate parties and not even any old-fashioned European hooliganism.
But Poe might as well have been writing for the modern-day football fan when he described the Imp and its characteristics. For those of you not familiar with the little bastard, understand that it’s the thing inside you that makes you do what you’re not supposed to do. Ever wonder why you’re dying to see just how hot that iron gets? It’s the Imp. When you decide to drive through the giant puddle, even if it means soaking the breaks or bottoming out, blame the Imp. And in those moments of weakness when you actually tune in to a WNBA game, kill the Imp.
The Imp’s role in our football viewing is clearly defined. No matter how wrong we realize it is to see one man being obliterated by another on the field, no matter how much we have heard about the trauma that comes from head-to-hits and no matter how savage the entire process may be, we still love it. God help us, but we love it. The brutality of the game is on display every Sunday in the NFL and on college gridirons, but sometimes it takes big-time, high-profile collisions to make it all resonate a little more.
By now, most of you have seen Taylor Wyndham’s blasting of Tim Tebow last Saturday in Lexington. In fact, you have probably seen it 10 times, thanks to the repeated showings by espn and the magic of YouTube. El Hombre correspondent and fratello-da-un-altro-madre Raging Bill saw it and immediately referenced Chicago linebacker Wilber Marshall’s leveling Joe Ferguson back in ’85, a hit that led former Bears coach Mike Ditka to say, “I thought he killed him.” Wyndham had a clean, high-speed shot on the helpless Tebow, who unlike his “Superman” descriptions, looked quite vulnerable in that moment of isolated violence. He sustained a concussion, remained prone on the field for a long while and vomited while being carted off the field. (No word yet on how Gator fans can buy pieces of the Tebow chum, but you can bet it’s coming.)
Football America, of course, recoiled in horror at the hit. Then, it watched again and again. Turns out the Imp is quite a fan of the game. Florida boosters couldn’t care less about Poe, his theories or much of anything that doesn’t wear orange-and-blue. They want to know whether Tebow will be available next Saturday night in Death Valley against LSU. Despite assurances by UF coach Urban Meyer that Tebow is “terrific,” let’s hope it’s a neurosurgeon (or two) who’s making the ultimate decision on the quarterback’s availability, and not someone charged solely with winning games.
That wish is even more fervent in light of results released Wednesday of a study commissioned by the NFL that looked into the dementia rates of former players, versus those of the general public. The research, which was conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, found that 6.1 percent of 1,063 former NFL players aged 50 and older had received a dementia-related diagnosis. That’s five times higher than the national average of 1.2 percent. Players ages 30 through 49 were given those diagnoses at a rate of 1.9 percent, 19 times the national average.
This is pretty compelling stuff, especially since it was the NFL that ordered the study. In the past, the league has scoffed at results like this, so these numbers, from its own request, have to make an impact. Then again, this is the NFL, which is selling the controlled violence in stadiums every Sunday and through ancillary outlets like its propaganda partners and video product line. Instead of using the study as a clarion call for change, the ostriches in New York jammed their heads deeper into the artificial turf. “There are thousands of retired players who do not have memory problems,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.
Yes, and there are thousands of people in American Samoa who didn’t die in the horrible tsunami earlier this week. Does that mean everything is fine for those who did perish and their families? “Memory disorders affect many people who never played football or other sports,” he said. “We are trying to understand it as it relates to our retired players.” Uh, Greg, this study provides a pretty good understanding: Play professional football, have a significantly larger chance of getting brain damage than the average person. That ought to save the league a little dough. Now, Aiello is merely providing the league take on the situation, so bashing him does no good. Going after the NFL, however, is absolutely necessary. Although last March it instituted a rule protecting “defenseless” receivers against shots to the melon, the league has to go further and ban every hit to the head – and by the head. Players who use their head or deliver blows to the head will be penalized and suspended. To some, that is Draconian. To those like Hall of Fame tight end John Mackey, who fights dementia every day, it would make perfect sense. A culture must be changed here, and there are going to be some unhappy people at first.
The NFL must admit that its players are at risk for brain injury and long-term trouble and change the game so that the dementia diagnoses drop in the future. It’s bad enough many of these guys will need new hips and knees. They make those in titanium these days. But there isn’t an artificial brain out there, so protecting the ones inside players’ heads is vital. The recent study can be tossed on the growing pile of evidence that shows the dangers of playing a game where the collisions get more violent each season. It’s up to the league to lessen the risk, rather than playing to the Imp in all of us.
Even Poe would have to admit that the league can’t keep embracing the damaging violence.
After he got done burying one of his victims.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: The NHL season started last night, and that calls for some fearless predictions: Two franchise folds, one team move and a Stanley Cup Finals with ratings lower than the Greater Greensboro Open. The champ? Spartak…It was a wild week in Majoke League baseball. Twins catcher Joe Mauer was accused of stealing signs. The Cards said Cincinnati pitcher Bronson Arroyo was rubbing pine tar on the ball. And the Nationals were charged with felony identity theft for posing as an MLB ballclub. That was good news for the Orioles, who had been under investigation of the same charge but seem to have dodged an indictment…President Obama has drawn flak for heading to Copenhagen on behalf of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics. His biggest problem isn’t the partisan doggerel, though. Rather, it’s that his Chi-town roots and the city’s reputation for shaky politics can’t be put to good use in the bribing of the IOC committee members charged with making the choice. If this were 10-15 years ago, Chicago would be a shoo-in…Cowboy Quarterback takes on former employer Green Bay Monday night and says he has no revenge notions. It’s hard to believe him, since CQ has given up all dairy products for the week…A new book claims that employees at a cryonics facility in Arizona charged with deep-freezing Ted Williams’ head used crude tools to decapitate the (dead) slugger and even engaged in some batting practice with the body part. Doesn’t look good for Williams’ ability to be on a roster for the start of the 2054 season.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Now that the Phillies have clinched the NL East title, fans can relax a little and dispense with the 1964 redux nightmares. But a good night’s sleep shouldn’t come so easily, since the very real possibility of a 2007 encore still looms. The smoking hot Rockies are 73-40 under Jim Tracy, who took over after a dreadful, 18-28 break from the gate. Barring a weekend collapse, the Phils will likely meet Colorado in the dangerous best-of-five NLDS and would enter with some serious problems. Take starting pitching. To some, it’s a no-brainer to start Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee in the first two games, especially since the Rockies hit just .254 against lefties. But neither hurler has looked all that good of late, and the Phils might be better served going with Joe Blanton and J.A. Happ. Think that will happen? No way. The bullpen continues to be a mess, with J.C. Romero’s arm hurting, Brett Myers not back to full strength and major closer issues remaining. The bats have come alive of late, but the same old problems of getting runners in from third base and manufacturing scores remain. The Phils are experienced and talented, but they are also highly flawed and can hardly give fans peace of mind heading into the post-season.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: When El Hombre read the item about Cleveland Cavaliers’ guard Delonte West’s arrest on gun charges a couple weeks ago, he almost couldn’t contain himself. Talk about some fertile ground. West was stopped on his three-wheel motorcycle in Maryland and was found to have two loaded pistols and a loaded shotgun on his person. And get this: the shotgun was in a guitar case strapped to his back. Great Caesar’s Ghost! This was the mother lode. Fortunately, time provides perspective, and the reality of the situation is that West is a very troubled young man who can find some sanctuary on the basketball court, but for whom everyday life is a staggering challenge. He has battled emotional issues from the time he was a teenager, and this latest episode shows he has plenty of ground still to cover. So, while it’s tempting (really tempting) to take this latest incident and dash, let’s show some compassion and hope West gets it together and moves forward in a stable condition.
-EH-
When Edgar Allen Poe wrote the famous short story, “The Imp of the Perverse,” in 1850, there was no football, not even the European version of the animal. The Chinese had been playing a kicking game as early as the second century BC, and there was the Central and South American “Tlatchi” game that was invented hundreds of years before. But, for Poe’s purposes, there was no prolate spheroid, no tailgate parties and not even any old-fashioned European hooliganism.
But Poe might as well have been writing for the modern-day football fan when he described the Imp and its characteristics. For those of you not familiar with the little bastard, understand that it’s the thing inside you that makes you do what you’re not supposed to do. Ever wonder why you’re dying to see just how hot that iron gets? It’s the Imp. When you decide to drive through the giant puddle, even if it means soaking the breaks or bottoming out, blame the Imp. And in those moments of weakness when you actually tune in to a WNBA game, kill the Imp.
The Imp’s role in our football viewing is clearly defined. No matter how wrong we realize it is to see one man being obliterated by another on the field, no matter how much we have heard about the trauma that comes from head-to-hits and no matter how savage the entire process may be, we still love it. God help us, but we love it. The brutality of the game is on display every Sunday in the NFL and on college gridirons, but sometimes it takes big-time, high-profile collisions to make it all resonate a little more.
By now, most of you have seen Taylor Wyndham’s blasting of Tim Tebow last Saturday in Lexington. In fact, you have probably seen it 10 times, thanks to the repeated showings by espn and the magic of YouTube. El Hombre correspondent and fratello-da-un-altro-madre Raging Bill saw it and immediately referenced Chicago linebacker Wilber Marshall’s leveling Joe Ferguson back in ’85, a hit that led former Bears coach Mike Ditka to say, “I thought he killed him.” Wyndham had a clean, high-speed shot on the helpless Tebow, who unlike his “Superman” descriptions, looked quite vulnerable in that moment of isolated violence. He sustained a concussion, remained prone on the field for a long while and vomited while being carted off the field. (No word yet on how Gator fans can buy pieces of the Tebow chum, but you can bet it’s coming.)
Football America, of course, recoiled in horror at the hit. Then, it watched again and again. Turns out the Imp is quite a fan of the game. Florida boosters couldn’t care less about Poe, his theories or much of anything that doesn’t wear orange-and-blue. They want to know whether Tebow will be available next Saturday night in Death Valley against LSU. Despite assurances by UF coach Urban Meyer that Tebow is “terrific,” let’s hope it’s a neurosurgeon (or two) who’s making the ultimate decision on the quarterback’s availability, and not someone charged solely with winning games.
That wish is even more fervent in light of results released Wednesday of a study commissioned by the NFL that looked into the dementia rates of former players, versus those of the general public. The research, which was conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, found that 6.1 percent of 1,063 former NFL players aged 50 and older had received a dementia-related diagnosis. That’s five times higher than the national average of 1.2 percent. Players ages 30 through 49 were given those diagnoses at a rate of 1.9 percent, 19 times the national average.
This is pretty compelling stuff, especially since it was the NFL that ordered the study. In the past, the league has scoffed at results like this, so these numbers, from its own request, have to make an impact. Then again, this is the NFL, which is selling the controlled violence in stadiums every Sunday and through ancillary outlets like its propaganda partners and video product line. Instead of using the study as a clarion call for change, the ostriches in New York jammed their heads deeper into the artificial turf. “There are thousands of retired players who do not have memory problems,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.
Yes, and there are thousands of people in American Samoa who didn’t die in the horrible tsunami earlier this week. Does that mean everything is fine for those who did perish and their families? “Memory disorders affect many people who never played football or other sports,” he said. “We are trying to understand it as it relates to our retired players.” Uh, Greg, this study provides a pretty good understanding: Play professional football, have a significantly larger chance of getting brain damage than the average person. That ought to save the league a little dough. Now, Aiello is merely providing the league take on the situation, so bashing him does no good. Going after the NFL, however, is absolutely necessary. Although last March it instituted a rule protecting “defenseless” receivers against shots to the melon, the league has to go further and ban every hit to the head – and by the head. Players who use their head or deliver blows to the head will be penalized and suspended. To some, that is Draconian. To those like Hall of Fame tight end John Mackey, who fights dementia every day, it would make perfect sense. A culture must be changed here, and there are going to be some unhappy people at first.
The NFL must admit that its players are at risk for brain injury and long-term trouble and change the game so that the dementia diagnoses drop in the future. It’s bad enough many of these guys will need new hips and knees. They make those in titanium these days. But there isn’t an artificial brain out there, so protecting the ones inside players’ heads is vital. The recent study can be tossed on the growing pile of evidence that shows the dangers of playing a game where the collisions get more violent each season. It’s up to the league to lessen the risk, rather than playing to the Imp in all of us.
Even Poe would have to admit that the league can’t keep embracing the damaging violence.
After he got done burying one of his victims.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: The NHL season started last night, and that calls for some fearless predictions: Two franchise folds, one team move and a Stanley Cup Finals with ratings lower than the Greater Greensboro Open. The champ? Spartak…It was a wild week in Majoke League baseball. Twins catcher Joe Mauer was accused of stealing signs. The Cards said Cincinnati pitcher Bronson Arroyo was rubbing pine tar on the ball. And the Nationals were charged with felony identity theft for posing as an MLB ballclub. That was good news for the Orioles, who had been under investigation of the same charge but seem to have dodged an indictment…President Obama has drawn flak for heading to Copenhagen on behalf of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics. His biggest problem isn’t the partisan doggerel, though. Rather, it’s that his Chi-town roots and the city’s reputation for shaky politics can’t be put to good use in the bribing of the IOC committee members charged with making the choice. If this were 10-15 years ago, Chicago would be a shoo-in…Cowboy Quarterback takes on former employer Green Bay Monday night and says he has no revenge notions. It’s hard to believe him, since CQ has given up all dairy products for the week…A new book claims that employees at a cryonics facility in Arizona charged with deep-freezing Ted Williams’ head used crude tools to decapitate the (dead) slugger and even engaged in some batting practice with the body part. Doesn’t look good for Williams’ ability to be on a roster for the start of the 2054 season.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Now that the Phillies have clinched the NL East title, fans can relax a little and dispense with the 1964 redux nightmares. But a good night’s sleep shouldn’t come so easily, since the very real possibility of a 2007 encore still looms. The smoking hot Rockies are 73-40 under Jim Tracy, who took over after a dreadful, 18-28 break from the gate. Barring a weekend collapse, the Phils will likely meet Colorado in the dangerous best-of-five NLDS and would enter with some serious problems. Take starting pitching. To some, it’s a no-brainer to start Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee in the first two games, especially since the Rockies hit just .254 against lefties. But neither hurler has looked all that good of late, and the Phils might be better served going with Joe Blanton and J.A. Happ. Think that will happen? No way. The bullpen continues to be a mess, with J.C. Romero’s arm hurting, Brett Myers not back to full strength and major closer issues remaining. The bats have come alive of late, but the same old problems of getting runners in from third base and manufacturing scores remain. The Phils are experienced and talented, but they are also highly flawed and can hardly give fans peace of mind heading into the post-season.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: When El Hombre read the item about Cleveland Cavaliers’ guard Delonte West’s arrest on gun charges a couple weeks ago, he almost couldn’t contain himself. Talk about some fertile ground. West was stopped on his three-wheel motorcycle in Maryland and was found to have two loaded pistols and a loaded shotgun on his person. And get this: the shotgun was in a guitar case strapped to his back. Great Caesar’s Ghost! This was the mother lode. Fortunately, time provides perspective, and the reality of the situation is that West is a very troubled young man who can find some sanctuary on the basketball court, but for whom everyday life is a staggering challenge. He has battled emotional issues from the time he was a teenager, and this latest episode shows he has plenty of ground still to cover. So, while it’s tempting (really tempting) to take this latest incident and dash, let’s show some compassion and hope West gets it together and moves forward in a stable condition.
-EH-
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The 2008 Heisman Goes To...
EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
In November 1968, Yale was charging toward its first perfect season in eight years and only second since ’23, when Thomas Albert Dwight (T.A.D.) Jones was telling his young Eli charges “You are now going to play football against Harvard. Never again in your whole life will you do anything so important.”
The Bulldogs understood fully the gravity of their pending season finale with the Johnnies. Triumph, and immortality would be theirs. Senior quarterback Brian Dowling was particularly intent on winning, since he hadn’t suffered a defeat on the gridiron in a game he had finished since 7th grade, an accomplishment that earned him the nickname, “God,” on the Yale campus and a caricature in Doonesbury a few years later.
For three-plus quarters, God and his teammates kept things under control, rolling to a 29-13 lead. College football fans know what happened next. The Crimson launched one of the most amazing comebacks in football history, scoring 16 points in the final 0:29 to “beat” Yale, 29-29. During those last frantic moments, when everything was unraveling for Dowling and the Eli, he stood on the sideline next to coach Carm Cozza and begged to go in on defense. “Being a quarterback, you know what the other passer is trying to do,” Dowling said. Cozza refused, in part because he couldn’t believe the Crimson would complete its comeback and in part because had Harvard succeeded while Dowling was on the field, Cozza would have faced ridicule. “Don’t think it didn’t enter my mind,” Cozza said. “It did.”
After watching Tim Tebow play for Florida this season, it’s hard to imagine he would have behaved any differently than Dowling, had he found himself in a similar situation. While other quarterbacks might have sat on the sideline stewing but relieved that any misfortune about to befall their school was somebody else’s fault, Tebow would have had his helmet on, asking to be put in at linebacker or safety, the better to end the nonsense. The Gator junior isn’t just a quarterback; he’s a football player. And when it came time for El Hombre to cast his 2008 Heisman Trophy ballot – a whopping two days early this year – Tebow was the choice.
There will be a substantial groundswell for each of the other finalists, Oklahoma statistical machine Sam Bradford and Texas all-purpose phenom Colt McCoy. But since the rules of the Heisman direct voters to choose “the most outstanding college football player in the United States for 2008,” and not the player with the gaudiest numbers, the choice is clearly Tebow.
Selecting Tebow has nothing to do with making him the second back-to-back winner in Heisman history. (Archie Griffin – 1975-75 – from the Horrible School was the first.) It’s more about the evidence that while Bradford was amazing and McCoy indispensable, Tebow had a greater impact on his team’s success and also played the game at a higher and more complete level than anyone else. Ask yourself a question; whom would you rather have to start a team, Tebow or anyone else? If you’re being honest, it’s hard to pick against the Gator.
Back in mid-November, El Hombre asked an SEC defensive coordinator whether he felt Tebow was playing better than he did last year, despite a significant drop in statistics. The answer was yes. He was operating Florida’s offense more completely and lifting the Gator attack to a higher level than he had the previous year. Yes, in Percy Harvin and young speedsters Chris Rainey and Jeffrey Demps, he had some more weapons than in ’07, but while Harvin was an all-purpose sensation, and the others had tremendous big-play talent, none would have achieved anywhere near what he did without Tebow’s facility for the UF system. As the year went on, it also became clear that Tebow’s will to win, especially after the upset loss to Mississippi, was a huge factor in the team’s run to an SEC title and a berth in the BCS “national championship game.”
This is not to disparage Bradford or McCoy. All McCoy did was lead his team to an 11-1 record, including a neutral-site triumph over Oklahoma that apparently didn’t matter in the “every week is a playoff” argument favored by BCS chowderheads. He threw for 3,445 yards and 32 touchdowns, completed an obscene 77.6% of his passes and led Texas with 576 yards rushing (4.5 average). Not too shabby. On the Hombre ballot, McCoy checked in at number two, with only Tebow’s ferocious competitiveness separating the pair.
Bradford’s stats are even more jaw-dropping. The OU sophomore threw for 4,464 yards and 48 touchdowns while completing 68.3% of his throws. He led the Sooners to an unprecedented five straight 60-point orgies (and four others that topped 50), a staggering assault on the scoreboard that made some of Barry Switzer’s old Oklahoma wishbone carnivals look like grind-it-out operations. The one check against Bradford in the ultimate ledger is the Sooner ground game, which aided him immensely. Two OU backs, DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown, rushed for at least 1,000 yards, and the pair combined for 34 touchdowns. It makes one wonder whether Bradford would have had the same level of success without such tremendous balance.
As for Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell, who was a victim of “politics,” according to Red Raider coach Mike Leach – yeah, right – consider that a bulk of his prodigious passing total came against overwhelmed opponents (including two I-AA clubs) and in the biggest game in school history, he and his frightened teammates performed with the same valor of the French army in the path of advancing panzer divisions back in ‘40.
So, the choice is Tebow, and not because he’s going to be a great pro or has the biggest numeric resume. It’s because when one looks for the “most outstanding football player” around, it’s best to pick the man who would be willing and able to do things beyond his job description to help his team win. Had Carm Cozza let Dowling loose against Harvard in ’68, he might have quelled the uprising. Forty years later, Tebow has the same talent and drive. That’s certainly worth another trophy.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: The Yankees made quite a splash by promising to pay C.C. Sabathia an average of $23 million for each of the next seven seasons. When will these teams learn that spending that much on starting pitching is a huge risk? First off, Sabathia had to be convinced to play in New York, so a tabloid-induced meltdown is possible. Secondly, the lessons of Kevin Brown, Barry Zito and others are apparently lost on the Yanks. It looks great now, but check back in a couple years…The jurisprudence department has been busy lately, what with Quick Draw Burress and O.J. Simpson’s making headlines. The real sin of O.J.’s pending incarceration is that he will now lose nine years of prime investigating time to look for the real killers…China has admitted that 36 players in its professional basketball league are older than they claimed, a shocking revelation in the wake of the Olympics, when women were spotted breast-feeding some of the Chinese female gymnasts…Creditors have objected to Michael Vick’s bankruptcy statement, citing large, unspecified cash advances – in the millions – over the past couple years and wondering if that dough has been stashed somewhere. From here, it looks completely reasonable. After all, it costs a lot of money to take care of dogs, what with the food, shelter, grooming, electric cattle prods, teeth sharpening…
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Last night’s loss to the Cavaliers once again revealed the Sixers’ inability to play defense and amplified the team’s offensive confusion. But at least the team learned the Andre Iguodala is better suited at small forward than shooting guard. What a revelation! Everybody in the city knew that, except the team’s management, which lavished a fat contract on Iguodala during the off-season, despite having a budding young star – Thaddeus Young – at the position as well. Now that the two guard experiment is over with A.I. Jr., the Sixers are faced with a glut of talent at one spot and inadequate forces at the pivot and the two. They are up against the cap and in danger of losing point man Andre Miller after the season. Oh, and don’t go looking for any passion from the team, because it’s not there. What began as such a promising season for the team is threatening to crash and burn. Plenty of time remains, but things are getting scary.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Researchers continue to zero in on an accurate urine test that will reveal whether athletes used HGH. Talk about a bonanza. Let’s hope the various professional sporting organizations across the world have saved specimens properly, in order to test them down the road, once the scientists perfect the process. The most pressing need for the test is in Majoke League Baseball, where steroid cheats have been outed – sort of – but the HGH users remain at large, with a few exceptions. Since a few years of samples remain, the possibility that plenty more cheaters can be identified is reason for optimism. Give those guys as much money and whatever resources they need, so they can get the job done.
--EH--
In November 1968, Yale was charging toward its first perfect season in eight years and only second since ’23, when Thomas Albert Dwight (T.A.D.) Jones was telling his young Eli charges “You are now going to play football against Harvard. Never again in your whole life will you do anything so important.”
The Bulldogs understood fully the gravity of their pending season finale with the Johnnies. Triumph, and immortality would be theirs. Senior quarterback Brian Dowling was particularly intent on winning, since he hadn’t suffered a defeat on the gridiron in a game he had finished since 7th grade, an accomplishment that earned him the nickname, “God,” on the Yale campus and a caricature in Doonesbury a few years later.
For three-plus quarters, God and his teammates kept things under control, rolling to a 29-13 lead. College football fans know what happened next. The Crimson launched one of the most amazing comebacks in football history, scoring 16 points in the final 0:29 to “beat” Yale, 29-29. During those last frantic moments, when everything was unraveling for Dowling and the Eli, he stood on the sideline next to coach Carm Cozza and begged to go in on defense. “Being a quarterback, you know what the other passer is trying to do,” Dowling said. Cozza refused, in part because he couldn’t believe the Crimson would complete its comeback and in part because had Harvard succeeded while Dowling was on the field, Cozza would have faced ridicule. “Don’t think it didn’t enter my mind,” Cozza said. “It did.”
After watching Tim Tebow play for Florida this season, it’s hard to imagine he would have behaved any differently than Dowling, had he found himself in a similar situation. While other quarterbacks might have sat on the sideline stewing but relieved that any misfortune about to befall their school was somebody else’s fault, Tebow would have had his helmet on, asking to be put in at linebacker or safety, the better to end the nonsense. The Gator junior isn’t just a quarterback; he’s a football player. And when it came time for El Hombre to cast his 2008 Heisman Trophy ballot – a whopping two days early this year – Tebow was the choice.
There will be a substantial groundswell for each of the other finalists, Oklahoma statistical machine Sam Bradford and Texas all-purpose phenom Colt McCoy. But since the rules of the Heisman direct voters to choose “the most outstanding college football player in the United States for 2008,” and not the player with the gaudiest numbers, the choice is clearly Tebow.
Selecting Tebow has nothing to do with making him the second back-to-back winner in Heisman history. (Archie Griffin – 1975-75 – from the Horrible School was the first.) It’s more about the evidence that while Bradford was amazing and McCoy indispensable, Tebow had a greater impact on his team’s success and also played the game at a higher and more complete level than anyone else. Ask yourself a question; whom would you rather have to start a team, Tebow or anyone else? If you’re being honest, it’s hard to pick against the Gator.
Back in mid-November, El Hombre asked an SEC defensive coordinator whether he felt Tebow was playing better than he did last year, despite a significant drop in statistics. The answer was yes. He was operating Florida’s offense more completely and lifting the Gator attack to a higher level than he had the previous year. Yes, in Percy Harvin and young speedsters Chris Rainey and Jeffrey Demps, he had some more weapons than in ’07, but while Harvin was an all-purpose sensation, and the others had tremendous big-play talent, none would have achieved anywhere near what he did without Tebow’s facility for the UF system. As the year went on, it also became clear that Tebow’s will to win, especially after the upset loss to Mississippi, was a huge factor in the team’s run to an SEC title and a berth in the BCS “national championship game.”
This is not to disparage Bradford or McCoy. All McCoy did was lead his team to an 11-1 record, including a neutral-site triumph over Oklahoma that apparently didn’t matter in the “every week is a playoff” argument favored by BCS chowderheads. He threw for 3,445 yards and 32 touchdowns, completed an obscene 77.6% of his passes and led Texas with 576 yards rushing (4.5 average). Not too shabby. On the Hombre ballot, McCoy checked in at number two, with only Tebow’s ferocious competitiveness separating the pair.
Bradford’s stats are even more jaw-dropping. The OU sophomore threw for 4,464 yards and 48 touchdowns while completing 68.3% of his throws. He led the Sooners to an unprecedented five straight 60-point orgies (and four others that topped 50), a staggering assault on the scoreboard that made some of Barry Switzer’s old Oklahoma wishbone carnivals look like grind-it-out operations. The one check against Bradford in the ultimate ledger is the Sooner ground game, which aided him immensely. Two OU backs, DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown, rushed for at least 1,000 yards, and the pair combined for 34 touchdowns. It makes one wonder whether Bradford would have had the same level of success without such tremendous balance.
As for Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell, who was a victim of “politics,” according to Red Raider coach Mike Leach – yeah, right – consider that a bulk of his prodigious passing total came against overwhelmed opponents (including two I-AA clubs) and in the biggest game in school history, he and his frightened teammates performed with the same valor of the French army in the path of advancing panzer divisions back in ‘40.
So, the choice is Tebow, and not because he’s going to be a great pro or has the biggest numeric resume. It’s because when one looks for the “most outstanding football player” around, it’s best to pick the man who would be willing and able to do things beyond his job description to help his team win. Had Carm Cozza let Dowling loose against Harvard in ’68, he might have quelled the uprising. Forty years later, Tebow has the same talent and drive. That’s certainly worth another trophy.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: The Yankees made quite a splash by promising to pay C.C. Sabathia an average of $23 million for each of the next seven seasons. When will these teams learn that spending that much on starting pitching is a huge risk? First off, Sabathia had to be convinced to play in New York, so a tabloid-induced meltdown is possible. Secondly, the lessons of Kevin Brown, Barry Zito and others are apparently lost on the Yanks. It looks great now, but check back in a couple years…The jurisprudence department has been busy lately, what with Quick Draw Burress and O.J. Simpson’s making headlines. The real sin of O.J.’s pending incarceration is that he will now lose nine years of prime investigating time to look for the real killers…China has admitted that 36 players in its professional basketball league are older than they claimed, a shocking revelation in the wake of the Olympics, when women were spotted breast-feeding some of the Chinese female gymnasts…Creditors have objected to Michael Vick’s bankruptcy statement, citing large, unspecified cash advances – in the millions – over the past couple years and wondering if that dough has been stashed somewhere. From here, it looks completely reasonable. After all, it costs a lot of money to take care of dogs, what with the food, shelter, grooming, electric cattle prods, teeth sharpening…
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Last night’s loss to the Cavaliers once again revealed the Sixers’ inability to play defense and amplified the team’s offensive confusion. But at least the team learned the Andre Iguodala is better suited at small forward than shooting guard. What a revelation! Everybody in the city knew that, except the team’s management, which lavished a fat contract on Iguodala during the off-season, despite having a budding young star – Thaddeus Young – at the position as well. Now that the two guard experiment is over with A.I. Jr., the Sixers are faced with a glut of talent at one spot and inadequate forces at the pivot and the two. They are up against the cap and in danger of losing point man Andre Miller after the season. Oh, and don’t go looking for any passion from the team, because it’s not there. What began as such a promising season for the team is threatening to crash and burn. Plenty of time remains, but things are getting scary.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Researchers continue to zero in on an accurate urine test that will reveal whether athletes used HGH. Talk about a bonanza. Let’s hope the various professional sporting organizations across the world have saved specimens properly, in order to test them down the road, once the scientists perfect the process. The most pressing need for the test is in Majoke League Baseball, where steroid cheats have been outed – sort of – but the HGH users remain at large, with a few exceptions. Since a few years of samples remain, the possibility that plenty more cheaters can be identified is reason for optimism. Give those guys as much money and whatever resources they need, so they can get the job done.
--EH--
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