In All Seriousness

You may be used to the witty banter produced by this blog. There will be none of that in this post however. Today Sean Taylor succumbed to a gunshot wound suffered during a home invasion. The NFL has lost one of its brightest rising stars, and the NFL’s fans have lost a future superstar that was already amazing to watch. Joe Gibbs, coach of the Washington Redskins, stated it best when he said that Sean Taylor was put on this Earth to play football. That is what he did, and he did it well.

Sean Taylor 1983-2007

I Don’t Give A Don (Shula) About Your Record

Recently Don Shula came out with some words about this years New England Patriots team and the prospect that they may go 16-0, undefeated. The only other team to do this in the history of the NFL was Don Shula’s Miami Dolphins in 1972. Every year the members of the that team are asked what they think of a 6-0 or 7-0 teams prospects. Sometimes it can get a little scary for the men of that ‘72 team. In ‘98 the Broncos went 13-0 before losing as well as the Colts in ‘05. But this Patriots teams may be the greatest of all time. In fact, some have already given them that title, nine games into the season. Who am I to say they’re not? They did in fact win Super Bowl XL.5. The only team to ever do so with only 8 victories beforehand. That’s gotta stand for something.

Back to Shula’s comments however. Don Shula stated that these Patriots, the winners of XL.5, the members of the greatest team of all time, may be tainted. Yes folks, he’s talking about Spygate. I thought we were past it. Belichick was fined, the Patriots were fined, they lost a draft pick, and they were given a 9 game winning streak. Seems like a good deal to me. To borrow a phrase from Ron Popeil, but wait, there’s more! Don Shula claims that if these Patriots, the greatest team to ever take the field, go undefeated, their record should be stained with an asterisk. Yes folks, the dread asterisk. Now I believe the asterisk has no place in sports (a la Barry Bonds).

Quick aside: the paragon of virtue known as Tony Dungy recently compared Bill Belichick to Barry Bonds. I don’t really see the comparison however. One is suspected of cheating the game in order to take one of the greatest records in American sports, the other is known to have cheated the game in order to take one of the greatest records in American sports. I’ve heard some say if they were Bill Belichick they’d be upset about being likened to Barry Bonds, but if I were Bonds, I’d be upset about someone comparing me to Belichick, a known cheater.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming: Now I believe the asterisk has no place in sports. It was used to defame Roger Maris, an all around nice guy who happened to have the best season of his life in 162 games, not 154. It will be used to defame Barry Bonds, a man, who no matter how much some love to say he is a cheater, has never been caught cheating. The Patriots were caught cheating however. They were proven to have done some wrong. And how were they punished? They were given a 9-game winning streak. The NFL quietly swept the scandal under the rug. I commend Don Shula for questioning what happened with this incident. We need answers. It seems like the NFL is controlled by those with vested interest in the matter. Maybe it will take someone who has vested interest in the matter to get some answers.

Josh

Oh Woe Is #2

For the fourth week out of the past five, the #2 ranked team in the AP poll has lost. USC, Cal, South Florida, and BC all gave in to the pressure. This continuation of the topsy turvy college football season (App. St. over Michigan?) leads me to think that maybe all those so called experts aren’t really that. They’re no more experts than my mother and she picks based on which mascot is the cuter, furrier one. Did any of these experts see Stanford beating USC? How about Kansas being 8-0? UConn leading the Big East? Maybe if they’re college basketball experts. Week in, week out we hear the constant debate between this team or that team. “Well team A beat team C and team B beat team D by a smaller margin and team C beat team D so I think team A is better than team B.” Or let me put in better terms for you. UCLA beat Stanford 45-17 and Oregon beat USC 24-17. Stanford beat USC 24-23. Since UCLA’s margin of victory over Stanford was higher than Oregon’s margin of victory over USC, UCLA must be the better team, right? It’s this kind of thinking that leads to a college football season that everyone considers wacky.

The main problem is the current ranking system we have today. I’m not the first person to gripe about it and I sure as hell won’t be the last. First of all we have multiple polling systems. AP, ESPN/USA Today, Harris, BCS. There’s just too damn many to keep track of. The next problem is who’s is more valid? Do the press know more about football than coaches? No. So toss the AP. I’ll take the USA Today coaches poll. Wait. How objective is that poll? Try not at all. Steve Spurrier has voted Duke #25 in the coaches poll ever since he left to coach Florida. In the past 3 seasons they are a combined 2-30. Guess we can toss out the validity of that poll. What about the BCS though? They combine all the polls along with a computer system that is supposed to be unbiased. How about 2004 when there were 4 undefeated teams going in to the final bowl week? How does one decide which 2 undefeated teams get to play against each other for the title? 2 teams are ultimately shafted.

The college football system puts too much emphasis on being perfect and not enough emphasis on getting it right. Because #2 BC lost this weekend they are pretty much out of it national championship wise. One loss means they’re done. Why? Because they play in the ACC. Teams are punished for the conference they play in. I hope that before I die, the NCAA can see past the money and actually crown a true college football champion. Until then I’ll just keep perusing the BS, I mean BCS, standings.

Josh

Is he really worth it?

The Toledo Mud Hens have reportedly thrown their hat into the Alex Rodriguez sweepstakes. That makes 6 viable teams for A-Rod to go to: the Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and the Toledo Mud Hens. As far as I know, the Mud Hens are the only team to actually offer A-Rod a contract so far. The monetary terms have not been disclosed as of yet, but it seems to be an incentive laden contract with A-Rod getting bonuses for hitting 75 home runs next season and leading the Mud Hens to 10 straight International League titles. The Mud Hens are right to offer A-Rod an incentive laden contract. Have you seen his performance lately? Sure the guy had an MVP caliber regular season (.314/54/156) but what about the playoffs when it counted? How did he do then? Try a lackluster .267/1/1. I don’t know about you but if I was performing that poorly I’d opt out of the remainder of my 10-year, $252 million deal too.

In the International League, where the Mud Hens play twenty less games than the New York Yankees do per season, each game means that much more. We all know how well A-Rod hits when the pressure is on (you already forget about that .267/1/1?). I wouldn’t want to pay A-Rod a bunch of guaranteed money only to have him flounder when it matters. The Mud Hens are a championship caliber team, having won the International League in ‘05 and ‘06. The last time a team A-Rod was on won a playoff series was 2004, an eternity in a what have you done for me lately sport.

So as you can see, it might not be in the best interest of the Mud Hens to acquire Rodriguez, especially when they already have the 3B spot filled by International League MVP, Mike Hessman. Why sign a player who most see as MVP but who hasn’t yet won the award for this past season when you already have a player signed, in that position, and who has been awarded the MVP award? If I was in the Mud Hen front office, I’d be re-thinking the offer to A-Rod or hoping that some idiot in another front office offered him a contract with a lot of money up front.

Josh

Super Bowl XLI.5

Patriots vs. Colts. Brady vs. Manning. The rivalry of this generation. We are getting treated to a preview of the Super Bowl, if one of these teams happened to play in the NFC. Unfortunately for us, both of these teams are too good to play in the Not quite Football Conference. Along with this great game comes the hype. I never thought I could see more of Peyton Manning after the love-fest that was Super Bowl XLI, but this week has done it. How many more times do I have to see Peyton running through hallways looking for an open receiver only to have a small child tell him what to do? Peyton’s commercials have left the child stage where they’re cute and can do no wrong and have now entered the young adult stage where they just piss you off. The only way this week could be worse is if Tom Brady began starring in his own set of commercials. Could we see a Trojan advertising campaign in the works?

At least the boys in Bristol are acknowledging the fact that they are over-hyping this game as stated by a certain anchor on a certain nightly sports show. They are currently giving more air-time to a game that won’t be played for another 4 days than to the games being played tonight. In this age of 24/7/365 sports coverage what we end up getting is 24/7/365 of the same info. How about we don’t over-analyze this game? The numbers can only tell you so much. Brady won the first six, Peyton won the next three. Who will win this one? Who knows? That’s why they play the game. I’m all for conjecture. I like debating with my fellow sports fans, especially the other writer here at In The Clutch. But there’s no debating when it comes to Pats/Colts. You stand on one side or the other. There’s no rationalizing it either. You can attempt but when it comes down to it, you either like the Colts because they’re the team that just gets it done week in, week out, or you like the Patriots because they’re just so damn good. How about this? I suggest a moratorium on the discussion of this game in favor of discussion of better games this week, like Atlanta vs. San Fransisco. Now that’s a doozie.

Josh