The usual Monday thoughts on the week that was (or what I think happened, reality is kind of unreal at the moment)
NFL
Initially I thought I must have been going crazy because my tv said Cleveland Browns had knocked off the New England Patriots. However upon closer inspection the score was right, the Browns had crushed the Patriots (like Joe Thomas crushed his offensive coordinator) . How did this happen? Partly the answer lies in this year's hyper-parity and non-dominating teams. The Patriots are (still) soft against the run and their receiving corp frankly sucks. You could see Tom Brady pulling out his long locks numerous times over dropped passes and terrible route running. However the answer also lies in an improved Browns team. They are 7-5 in their last 12 and GM Tom Heckert has tangibly upgraded the teams talent. Peyton Hillis is a beast of a running back and Rob Ryan has the players to run his crazy Ryan defense (well some players). Not to say the Browns are a playoff team but they certainly aren't crappy anymore.
As Jerry Jones begins his campaign to reign unleash biblical plagues on Wade Phillips it's incumbent upon on MMBSD to say I told you so. For all the hype and hoopla over Dallas' supposed superior talent...the group has failed to get over the hump time and time again. Poor line play is the main culprit (well and crappy coaches). Nonetheless in the land of Cowboy hating...I'm a happy man.
College Football
Possibly the most significant story of the College Football was Alabama losing. Yes Les Miles had his crazy gambling type calls that somehow paid off but Alabama's secondary was victimized by a previously anemic offense. Alabama's loss of 8 starters from their championship team has proven to be too much - even for Nick Saban. Bama still has an outside shot at a BCS Bowl but its SEC and BCS Championship hopes are dead.
The race for the on-deck team to replace Auburn or Oregon should either lose seems to be down to .....TCU and Boise. TCU took a huge step above Boise when it absolutely annihilated Utah in Utah. Yes Baylor and Oregon State lost but TCU's domination of the previously highly ranked Utes seems to have won a number of supporters (both human and computer). Boise still has fringe #25 Nevada and TCU has dog doo left (San Diego State and the Blind Kids College of Northern Montana) but it seems like TCU is headed for the Rose Bowl or the Mythical Championship.
Offense - I just want to flag a point Stewart Mandel raises which is the evolution of football to video game football. Video game football is crazy offensive outputs. Michigan beating Illinois 67-65 honestly barely stood out on a day where Nevada racked up 876 yards on Idaho , Ok State 55 points on Baylor, Hell even DUKE put up 55 (that's the football team). It's simply a different game these days with the spread-option.
8 comments:
NFL: The Bears, Bucs, and Colts have identical 5-3 records. If you think those teams are equivalent, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. THAT is emblematic of why hyper-parity stinks.
CFB:
1. Very hard to envision any team leapfrogging both TCU and BSU if either Auburn or Oregon falter. TCU definitely seems to have the inside track at this point.
2. It's entirely possible that the scores of the Michigan-Illinois basketball games in 2011 are lower than this past weekend's football game. Ridiculous. And what's even dumber is that because of the greed-driven state of college football, this very flawed Michigan team is bowl-eligible because it now has six wins. So your 2010 Braniff Airlines Toilet Bowl, live from Bismarck, ND, could feature Michigan vs. Blind Kids College of Northern Montana. Yuck.
Not only is possible but it was in fact that the basketball scores for Michigan v. Illinois were lower than the football score for Michigan v. Illinois. In fact the last 3 basketball games of Michigan v. Illinois produced lower scores. That's just ridiculous...
I have to say it was somewhat entertaining to watch the game, but also extremely frustrating. Why is the defensive coordinator even on the field. They should just have one of the cheerleaders calling the defensive plays and that would have done the trick. In my own twisted mind, I was kinda hoping they would lose because that would mean the end of Rich Rod. Now we have to endure another couple of years.
NFL: I agree with the Hitman in general but don't agree with his example in particular. The Bucs are better than the Colts in 2010, even if we can't wrap our minds around that just because Peyton Manning is better than any 10 players on the Bucs combined. The Colts D is horrific and the Colts O is just too banged up at this point to be considered reliable.
CFB: I don't understand why secondary bowls are emblematic of greed. If "Braniff Airlines" wants to spend a portion of its advertising budget on a bowl game and thinks that this is the best way to reach their target audience, I don't see where the problem is. No one's trying to sell these secondary bowl games as anything more than what they are.
Should college programs decline invitations to these bowl games? On what basis?
Since when do we celebrate mediocrity in athletics? That's what these crap bowls are - celebrations of mediocrity.
No 6-6 team should be bowl-eligible. Period.
@Hitman: How are they celebrations or rewards? A company is using their advertising money to sponsor a football game and they invite two teams to play in it. Period. End of story. There are no national championship implications here. No Top-25 implications. No post-game champagne toasts. No on-campus victory parades.
I don't see how this is a big deal. If you think Michigan stinks and shouldn't be invited to a bowl game, take it up with their Athletic Department. But if a team wants to advertise their brand by trying to speak directly to the residents and fans of Ann Arbor, MI, I hardly see how this is a calamity.
Correction: The third sentence of that last paragraph should read:
"But if a corporation wants to advertise their brand by trying to speak directly to the residents and fans of Ann Arbor, MI, I hardly see how this is a calamity."
Targeted marketing is acceptable in all other walks of life but we can't do it in college football because it might be misconstrued as celebratory?
1) I like parity in the NFL. It makes for entertaining TV because none of us have any idea what's going to happen!
2) I think if Nebraska wins out they may be the only team that could possibly leapfrog TCU and Boise... and even then I'm not sure.
3) I tend to agree more with MJ on bowl games... while it is weird that all it takes is 6-6 to get to a bowl game, these games exist to provide a small amount of money to espn2 and to the schools themselves. No one is saying the schools are championship-worthy.
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