The NFL Story Week # 7

THE NFL STORY: WEEK # 7

So it was a good thing that Obamacare passed. I checked, and it
covers concussions. So, the half of the NFL currently on the injured
list is covered.

THE SCORE:
PITTSBURGH (5-1) 23
Miami (3-3) 22
THE STATS: Pittsburgh defense: gives up 22 points, most all season.
THE STORY: The "other team" in Miami not generating quite as much excitement.


THE SCORE:
Cincinnati (2-4) 32
ATLANTA (5-2) 39
THE STATS: Atlanta WR Roddy White 11-201-2 TD.
THE STORY: Cincinnati last year: Division winner. Cincinnati this
year: high draft pick.


THE SCORE:
Jacksonville (3-4) 20
KANSAS CITY (4-2) 42
THE STATS: Kansas City QB Matt Cassell 144.0 passer rating on just
13-18-193-0-2 TDs.
THE STORY: After David Garrad's concussion, Jacksonville handed the
QB duties to journeyman Todd Bouman (18-34-222-2-2 TD), who last
played in the NFL in 2005. That's 5 years ago. I don't know if
that's some kind of record, but it must be close.


THE SCORE:
Philadelphia (4-3) 19
TENNESSEE (5-2) 37
THE STATS: Tennessee WR Kenny Britt 7-225-3 TDs.
THE STORY: Tennessee outscores Philadelphia 27-3 in 4th
quarter. Actually, it took Tennessee only 13:26 to score 27
points. At that rate, they would score 121 points over a full
game. Even Nebraska doesn't score that much.


THE SCORE:
WASHINGTON (4-3) 17
Chicago (4-3) 14
THE STATS: Chicago 6 turnovers.
THE STORY: Incredibly, Chicago turned the ball over 6 of the 7 times
they had the ball in the 2nd half. The other time was a punt.


THE SCORE:
CLEVELAND (2-5) 30
New Orleans (4-3) 17
THE STATS: Cleveland QB Colt McCoy 9-16-74-0-0, 68.2 rating in first NFL win.
THE STORY: New Orleans had more first downs (25 to 12), more yards
gained (394 to 210), far more TOP (35:34 to 24:26), but lost due to
more turnovers (4 to 0).


THE SCORE:
Buffalo (0-6) 34
BALTIMORE (5-2) 37
THE STATS: Buffalo loses in spite of 506 yards offense, to 364 for Baltimore.
THE STORY: Buffalo fumbled the ball. In overtime. On their own 41
yard line. And committed a 16 yard penalty after the recovery. 5
plays later, Baltimore kicked the game winning field goal. You can't
make up stuff like this about Buffalo.


THE SCORE:
San Francisco(1-6) 20
CAROLINA (1-5) 23
THE STATS: Carolina 10 points in final 2 minutes.
THE STORY: Things I never knew: That the performance of the area's
football team (49ers) is inversely proportional to the success of the
baseball team (Giants). See also: Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers.


THE SCORE:
St. Louis (3-4) 17
TAMPA BAY (4-2) 18
THE STATS: Tampa Bay kicker Connor Barth 4-4 FG (24,39,53,38).
THE STORY: Tampa Bay already surpasses last year's win total of 3.


THE SCORE:
Arizona (3-3) 10
SEATTLE (4-2) 22
THE STATS: Arizona only 2-13 on 3rd and 4th down conversions.
THE STORY: Seattle's opponents only 15-26 (.366) on the season, but
last two weeks Seahawks defeated the then-division leader (Chicago, Arizona).


THE SCORE:
NEW ENGLAND (5-1) 23
San Diego (2-5) 20
THE STATS: New England just 179 yards in offense to 363.
THE STORY: AFC West currently a complete inverse of last year's
division finish (San Diego, Denver, Oakland, Kansas City).


THE SCORE:
OAKLAND (3-4) 59
Denver (2-5) 14
THE STATS: Oakland RB Darren McFadden 16-165-3 TD, 2-31-1 TD receiving.
THE STORY: Oakland scares me. No, not because they scored 59
points, but because they are owned by Al Davis.


THE SCORE:
Minnesota (2-4) 24
GREEN BAY (4-3) 28
THE STATS: Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers 21-34-295-2-2TD, 84.8 rating.
THE STORY: Minnesota QB Brett Favre 16-29-212-3-1 TD, 50.4 rating in
his last game at Lambeau Field. Or at least, we hope it is.


THE SCORE:
NY GIANTS (5-2) 41
Dallas (1-5) 35
THE STATS: New York offense: 200 yards rushing (5.4 avg) to Dallas'
41 yards (3.2 avg).
THE STORY: Mr. Jones will see you now about that job opening, Mr. Cowher.

AND NOW, HERE IS THE HOST AND STAR OF OUR SHOW: LeBron James

So LeBron James gets his own one hour show on ESPN, called The Decision. He won't be taking on sports challenges from other athletes. He won't be dancing for a disco ball. And he won't be trying to prove that he is smarter than a 5th grader.

No, LeBron gets a full hour, just to say the name of an NBA basketball team.

That's right, we need a full hour, of prime time sports programming, just to hear LeBron James tell us for which team he will be playing in the middle years of his NBA career. This is valuable air time, usually reserved for such important events as the NFL Draft, the All-Star selection show, and The ESPYs.

And the ESPY for most Overhyped Free Agency goes to....

Now, let's be fair. A free agent of the caliber of King James is a pretty big deal. If he'd been traded to another team, the event would be on par with Wayne Gretzky going to the Los Angeles Kings, or Alex Rodriguez from Seattle to the Texas Rangers. Or the Yankees. You just don't see the game's best player, future Hall of Famer, and top 10, 25, or 50 players, moving very often.

The James free agency has been called The Biggest Free Agent. Ever. What has not been explained, is the criteria for the Biggest Free Agent. Ever. If you are judging this on being a future hall of famer, then fine. But it has happened before. Should the standard be a multiple MVPs? Maybe if you're the game's best player at that time, the you get to be the Biggest Free Agent. Ever. Or, should the Big Man On Free Agent Campus be measured by the number of league titles he owns? By that standard, the LeBron stakes are no big deal.

But we are told LeBron's free agency is a big deal. By ESPN, and by golly, we have to believe it. Because if ESPN says it is true, then it must be true. And if it is not true, then it SHOULD be true. Because ESPN says so.

ESPN has been great at hyping the entire LeBron affair. It seems that most of their programming, from SportsCenter to the Sports Reporters, has been taken over by LeBron speculation. There is now a larger cottage industry of LeBron speculation than Obama birthers.

And that whole Obama thing is the Biggest Birth Certificate Controversy. Ever.

Even the ESPN scroll has been taken over by LeBron, with constant updates on.... well, on nothing, really. The scrolls may tell us to which teams he has been talking to, but recently, all we have been reading on the bottom of the SportsCenter screen is how LeBron would be announcing his decision this coming week.

The entire affair is vaguely reminiscent of the John McCain announcement for vice president during the Republican National Convention. That was when one cable news station actually ran a scroll under a "Breaking News" banner, that said that McCain was not going to announce his choice for veep until later. That's right, the "Breaking News" was that THERE WAS NO NEWS.

So LeBron James will have his prime time special on ESPN, announce where he is going to play, and then we can get on with ignoring the NBA again.


POST GAME ANALYSIS:

ESPN's production for their main man, LeBron James, was interesting. I found it particularly amusing near the start of the show, when ESPN host Stuart Scott asked his roundtable panel just where they thought LeBron James was going to take his services.

Panelists Jon Barry, Michael Wilbon, and Chris Broussard stepped over each other to say that "their sources" told each of them that James was going to Miami.

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WHEN SPORTS IS LIKE POLITICS: Reform is as reform does.

It was interesting to see the political process play out over the past year, especially in the past few weeks, as so-called "Health Care Reform" became a bigger political football than anything in a football game.

I don't really know, and I doubt anyone else knows, exactly what "Health Care Reform" is, and although I am still in the middle of reading H.R. 4872 right now, I am sure of this: It is not what Teddy Roosevelt first proposed about 100 years ago. Nor is it what Franklin Roosevelt wanted some 70 years ago. It sure isn't what Hillary Clinton (the first lady, not the Secretary of State nor the presidential candidate) tried to push through more than 16 years ago. Heck, the Health Care bill that was wrangled through the House recently wasn't even the bill that the House wanted. It wasn't what Barack Obama wanted when he ran for the office he now holds. But in the world of politics and semantics, all you have to do is repeat the lie long enough, and if the media picks up on it, then it will have legs. So "Health Care Reform" it is, complete with the lack of care
for millions of Americans, lack of universal coverage, failure to include all of the costs that will ultimately have to be paid for, but including funding for abortion, all of the back-room deals, the arm-twisting, the useless Executive Orders, broken promises to televise proceedings on CSPAN, the higher taxes, the more types of taxes, the forcing of people to purchase a product they may, or may not, want to buy, the inevitable huge deficits, and general lack of decorum by everyone who had an opinion on the bill, Mr. Olbermann.

So where is the sport in all of this? If you watched what I did over the past week on CSPAN, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, you will know that there was more strategy than an NFL game, more defense than a college basketball tournament, more slugging it out than an entire NHL hockey season, and more lack of ethical conduct than every Major League Baseball player who has juiced.

I will let you know when I finish reading the Health Care Reform Bill. Or whatever it really is.



WHEN SPORTS IS LIKE POLITICS: Reform

I am not certain if this article written by Matt Hinton on Yahoo's Rivals.com sports forum was meant to be poignant, timely, or just plain sarcastic, but there was the headline in an article which tried to make sense of the new NFL playoffs overtime rule, the rule where a team which kicks a field goal in overtime will have to give the other team a chance with the ball. The headline read:

NFL owners pass overtime reform. Should the NCAA be next?

I don't know how intentional was that headline, but I am certain that it would have been written differently just 2 or 3 weeks ago.

The adoption of the word "reform" in a far more reaching context reminds me of how another word morphed from politics into sports and mainstream use.

It was back when Bill Clinton had a tawdry, adulterous, extra-marital affair of adultery that was adulterous in nature.

But not to worry, those words I just wrote never, ever, appeared anywhere in print when describing the adulterous affair engaged in by Bill Clinton.

Instead, Clinton's handlers managed to get the media to buy into his only having a "inappropriate relationship."

Ah, "inappropriate". The meaningless word that can be made to lesson a more serious offense, or make a lesser offense more sinister (think about it; Human Resources staff are great at making it a crime to do perfectly legal things, like discuss your pay with other employees. Such minor actions are called "inappropriate".)

Much like the "inappropriate" reference had crept into our vernacular, we now have this word "reform" morphing to the sports world.


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You Will Survive

Last week, I told you about the upcoming breast cancer fund raising event that was going to surrounded the Penn State women's basketball game last Sunday, a game won by Penn State over Illinois, by a score of 70-66.

I had a chance to attend this game, and it was a privilege to do so. The crowd was decidedly younger women, with many high school girls teams apparently in attendance. There were free pink water bottles, free pink pom poms, a silent auction of sports items (I picked up a nifty collection of Penn State football booster buttons), and lots of pink t-shirts. A portion of each ticket was donated to breast cancer causes.

The highlight of the day had to be the halftime program, where women, wearing pink "Survivor" t-shirts, were invited to walk out onto the court. Hundreds of them streamed out from all corners of the arena, until the court was ringed with women who had beaten cancer.

The school then played Gloria Gaynor's disco classic, "I will Survive".

It was difficult not to shed a tear at this event. Seeing all these women, including a family friend, walk onto that court, made you realize that all that money is doing good work. Whether you give through Susan G. Komen, or The Three Day Walk, or Penn State's Pink Zone, the results were right in front of you. Those women are alive because of their own courage, as well as the who people cared enough to give time and money to help them survive.

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I HAD A DREAM... and it was to host The Tonight Show

The mess with NBC has turned into a real loser for the network, viewers, affiliates, but most of all, Conan O'Brien, who did the least to hurt himself, but is the one being hurt the most -- with apologies to all of his staffers who followed him to California, and may now be out of a job.

Then again, maybe it is Conan who is hurting Conan.

With all of the finger pointing going on -- in case you haven't noticed -- the one bit of blame that has not been placed is Conan's decision to abandon the Tonight Show.

Abandon? That's not too strong of a word, isn't it?

It is O'Brien's choice to leave the show that he took over 7 months ago. Conan and his writers and drummer and quirky trombone player could all just keep on doing exactly the same thing they have been doing, and doing it at the same time every night. The only difference would be the time that the show is aired to the nation, a whopping 30 minutes after the current time.

But this argument ignores the fact of what the Tonight Show really is, and we think we need a sports analogy to make sense of it.

Football fans might remember that once upon a time, there was an NFL game that was played and broadcast on Sunday nights, and one on Monday nights. That's right. This, in contrast to the more recent events which have the NFL playing and broadcasting a game on Sunday nights, and one on Monday nights.

So what's the difference?

If you are very old, say, 12 years older or more, you probably can remember when ABC's Monday Night Football (using capital letters, mind you) was THE game of the week. It got the best time slot, it got network broadcasting, it got the choice of the best games, it got the most hype, it got it's own pre-game show (oft times on ESPN), and it got the best announcers.

It was a brand.

It was an event.

It was the game on which all players wanted to appear, and all young sports announcers wanted to announce.

It was basically The Tonight Show of football.

Suddenly, though, this all changed 4 seasons ago. The Game of The Week was now that Sunday Night Game. Starting in 2006, the Sunday night game was on network television (moved to NBC from ESPN). The Sunday night game had the flex scheduling for the best matchups. The Sunday night game got the dedicated pre-game show, got the most
eyeballs, and oh yeah, it got...

....the best announcers.

First, it was John Madden who jumped ship, agreeing to move from the ABC Monday night broadcast, as it was preparing to move from ABC network to ESPN on cable, to the new NBC-aired Sunday night game, just as the Sunday game was being shifted from ESPN cable to NBC network.

Madden was the latter-day Conan, moving from a spot on the secondary game (ESPN's Monday Night Football) to the top game of the week (NBC's Sunday Night Football). This may contrast O'Brien's earlier move, which was from the minor league "Late Night" show to the top billing at the 11:35pm slot. Madden wanted to stay with the
signature football game of the week, and that game was now broadcast somewhere else.

Al Michaels, apparently feeling left behind to do his games on (yuck!) cable, managed to get out of his contract with ABC/ESPN. Michaels underscored Madden's decision by getting traded to NBC in exchange for a cartoon character, just so he could be on the flagship NFL broadcast.

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SIDEBAR: The deal for Al Michaels included NBC granting ABC/Disney the rights to some Ryder Cup broadcasts, additional Olympic footage for ESPN, and the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character created by Walt Disney, the rights to which were owned by NBC's parent company.
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And then there is Conan, who probably has not gotten the blame he deserved for not agreeing to just keep doing The Tonight Show, whether it was broadcast at 11:35pm or 12:05am, or 4:00am in the morning.

But Conan seems to be looking past the words on the banner at the top of the show. Yes, "The Tonight Show" would still exist in name, much like Monday Night Football still exists on many televisions (except those that can't get cable, which is much of the point here).

Conan seems to recognize that a television talk/entertainment show which follows another talk/entertainment program is not THE TONIGHT SHOW, but rather, a talk/entertainment show which airs after the most important late night time slot. Think about the place held by the Late Night show, which has been hosted by Dave Letterman, O'Brien, and Jimmy Fallon. No matter how good a show this was (and Conan's version was clearly better than Jay's Tonight Show for much of their comparable run), the Late Night program simply would never, could never, be the flagship program that was represented by the 11:35pm time slot. Late Night was minor league; The Tonight Show was the majors.

Let's extend the football analogy a little further. Imagine 5 years ago, if the ABC Monday Night Football game were moved to 12:05am to follow another football game on ABC or another network, at 9:00pm. The 9:00pm game would be called "The Early Evening Football Game." The Early Game got the best matchups and the most viewers. That would leave Monday Night Football as a game, but not THE game. Wouldn't the announcers want to leave MNF to move to The Early Game?

It isn't the name Monday Night Football that has the glitter, but rather, the time slot and the other elements that make it the game of the week.

As for Conan, it is a little hard to grasp what is going on, and what he is thinking, without using the football analogy. Conan has said that moving The Tonight Show to a later time (which we interpret as meaning "after another show has already preceded us") would destroy the franchise, and he did not want to be a part of that. Using our football example, we would have to ask, is Monday Night Football really Monday Night Football anymore? After all, there was a Sunday night game before the 2006 switch to NBC. There was a Monday Night game before the Monday night switch to ESPN. And there is still a Sunday and Monday night game.

So with Sunday and Monday games still on the television, is the really a difference between the broadcasts? Well, according to pretty much everyone that counts, and by that, we mean the NFL, the answer is yes. The NFL managed to completely change the minds of everyone who doesn't count, and by that, we mean the fans. They changed our minds that Football Night In America was now on Sundays.

The shame in all of this is that NBC made a mistake, Leno failed, but Conan is the one getting screwed. In a way, Leno is being rewarded for failing. He gets to go back to the game of the week. And this after probably doing part of the damage to Conan. I can't help but think that part of the reason The Tonight Show's ratings are down since O'Brien took over is because Leno could not deliver the audience to carry over to the late local news, and thus failed to carry the residual audience to 11:35pm.

There is no sports analogy for that.

Then again, may Leno knew what he was doing. Maybe he tanked his 10:00pm show, knowing he would get to slide back into 11:35pm. Maybe Leno's lawyers already had a deal in place to move Jay back to 11:35pm if his show bombed.

Whatever happened, Conan fell on the sword, so The Tonight Show could be saved as the historic franchise that it is. I'm not certain many sports broadcasters would do the same.


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Penn State Women's Basketball Fighting Cancer

Penn State women's basketball is making a full-court effort to raise funds and awareness through The Pink Zone, Penn State's program for fighting breast cancer.

Pink Zone activities include fundraising, an online auction, and The Pink Zone game at Penn State on Sunday, January 24th at 1:00pm. That's when the Penn State Lady Lions host Illinois in a Big Ten matchup at the Bryce Jordan Center on Penn State's campus.

The first 200 fans attending the game will receive a pink Lady Lion water bottle, a silent auction will be held for Penn State and professional sports memorabilia, and the Lady Lions pink uniforms will be auctioned off after the game. $2.00 from each ticket sold will be donated to the fundraising program.

I can't think of another school that uses pink in their school colors, which makes the uniforms unique. Go here for a look at one from last year's Pink Zone game:

http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/011910aab.html

If you want to see these uniforms in action, visit http://www.bigtennetwork.com/ to see the game broadcast online on Sunday, or the re-airing on The Big Ten Network on Monday, January 25th at 9:00am.

Ticket can be ordered through the Penn State ticket office at 814-865-5555. Penn State students can receive a buy-one, get-one ticket with ID.

For more information, and to find out how you can donate: http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/pink-zone.html

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So NOW is the time

Sportsbusiness.com thought it would be instructive to analyze Mark McGwire's
coming-of-age statement that said, to the shock of a nation, he in
fact used steroids throughout significant parts of his baseball
career. Let's look at portions of the statement McGwire released on
January 11th, which can be found at:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=ApgdzfwgubUXtvCGSqhH74I5nYcB?slug=ys-mcgwirestatement011110&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Here is the first gem from Big Mac:

>>>> Now that I have become the hitting coach for the St. Louis
Cardinals, I have the chance to do something that I wish I was able
to do five years ago.

Yeah, this sure isn't something you could have done in front of
Congress in 2005. Or when responding to Jose Canseco's book. Or any
of the other 1,761 days since your congressional testimony where you
didn't want to talk about the past.

That is how McGwire began his statement. I'm not kidding. As if
January 11th, 2009, was finally the day -- the only day -- that
McGwire could manage to summon the truth.


>>> I wish I had never touched steroids

Funny thing, but so do we.


>>> Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.

Interesting. I always thought that McGwire had MADE IT the steroid
era. We should probably stop reading McGwire's statement now,
because it can't get any more ludicrous. McGwire actually wants us
to believe that he was somehow a VICTIM of an "era," rather than
being responsible for it.

He was the one who made it the steroid era. But why take blame, when
you can sound like the victim? Kind of like Jay Leno.


>>> During the mid-'90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed
228 games over five years.

Wake me when he gets to the part that has to do with cheating the fans.


>>> I had good years when I took steroids and I had bad years
when I took steroids

Hold on while I stop laughing.

Okay. I'm done. What McGwire is saying is that he
probably did not benefit
from the steroids. Which just further shows that McGwire doesn't get
it. He's kind of like the card counter who says "Sometimes I lost
money counting cards, sometimes I won," as if he never really gained
an advantage by cheating.


>>> The commissioner and the players' association implemented
testing and they cracked down

Yeah, and they would have done so years earlier, if you'd owned up to
what you had done.


>>> After all this time, I want to come clean. I was not in a
position to do that five years ago in my congressional testimony,

Yes? And....? Please, go on. There is something missing from this
little gem which your lawyers laid out for you. Like finding out
just WHY you couldn't do this 5 years ago. Oh, right, right,
right... you told Bob Costas that your lawyers made you do it. That
your lawyers convinced you not to talk about the past. That your
lawyers were the meanies that dragged this out for 5 years. That
your lawyers kept you from being straight with everyone. So you must
have really been hurting all these years, just wanting to bust out
with the truth, but all the time, held back by those draconian old lawyers.

Again, McGwire refuses to take responsibility. But he probably did
not write any of this statement, so he can blame the lawyers for that, too.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has just one, and only one, option
now. He should suspend McGwire right now, ban him from baseball
indefinitely, and try to figure out what to do later. No other
punishment can possibly be warranted. To not suspend him would be to
condone the use of steroids, but worse, condone his failure to tell
the truth to congress, the game of baseball, its players, his
manager, and oh yeah, the Commissioner.

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