I understand that it’s the Super Bowl and all that, but I don’t know why NFL game day needs to be all damned day. There’s a finite amount of ways you can talk about two football teams, after that ex-players, ex-coaches and ex-journalists begin to talk about what they know by looking into Tom Brady’s eyes, or watching Eli Manning’s walk into the stadium.
sports
Sports
On Tebow, Cam and fallacy fueled by the media
StandardMy issue with Tebow is with the extremes in coverage of him. The fawning coverage of him is ridiculous. It was like the fawning coverage of Tony Romo when then Cowboys coach Bill Parcells warned the press and public not to pull out the annointing oils. It’s like the short lived turn around in opinion regarding journeyman Rex Grossman.
The Tebow mania does not upset me because of Tebow’s religion. I would bet almost Every Heismann winner thanks god “first and foremost”. There are prayer circles after every game involving both teams. QBs from Kurt Warner to Aaron Rodgers are actually, like Tebow, really religious christians. It’s definitely not important that Tebow has two good parents:
Tebow is the first super-athletic quarterback we’ve seen who also has the discipline to prepare as if he’s Peyton Manning.
[…]You can’t build a revolutionary offense around a quarterback who lacks the discipline or maturity to prepare.
[…]As it relates to Tebow’s on-field performance, we should quit focusing on his “Tebowing” and spend more time celebrating his two-parent upbringing. Bob and Pam Tebow are far more responsible for Denver’s winning streak than any higher power.
After reading Whitlock’s paean to two family homes as the NFL difference maker that should be exalted, let’s slap down some ridiculous claims:
1. I’ve never seen Tebow prepare. I don’t know if Whitlock has either. I just know what is said. Maybe Whitlock has inside sources, but saying he prepares like Peyton Manning when he is a sub-par passer (by any measure) is just ridiculous. In addition, what pundits say about QB habits can change from week to week. Take for instance Rex Grossman talk earlier after week one or two of this season. he was supposedly “Resurrected” and vindicated. Rex Grossman who has a long track record of having bright spots while being below average overall.
2. What revolution? Spread offense concepts have been integrated in the NFL widely prior to this season. Most notably the Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers have integrated these concepts with success into their offenses. If you want to see a spread option properly employed, look to Carolina’s Rookie QB Cam Newton.Vince Verhei at Football Outsiders runs the math on Newton’s season so far: In short, it’s fair to say that Cam Newton has played like a young Peyton Manning and a rookie Herschel Walker all rolled into one. Any questions about who the rookie of the year should be?
3. What about some other athletic QBs? Randall Cunningham and Donovan McNabb were “super-athletic quarterbacks” and did pretty damn well in the NFL. Cam Newton, the quarterback who broke Peyton Manning’s rookie passing record is also a “Super Athletic” quaterback. Rookie Anthony Dalton, could be considered pretty damn athletic as well. He ran a spread option sets at TCU. Dalton’s Bengals have 9 wins and 6 losses this season to the Denver Broncos 8-7. he has adapted to the pro game much better than 2nd year player Tebow as well. Why? He, like Newton, is a better passer than Tebow.
All of Whitlock’s points foolishly diminish the defense and kicking game of the Broncos which were solid during the Tebow win streak and focus on factors that may loosely correlate to Tebow’s success, but can’t be proven to be causal.
A few Sunday evenings ago, I watched Trent Dilfer and Tom Jackson say that they can’t explain what Tebow is doing. Dilfer is lying to himself. He did what Tebow did as good as anyone has. What do you get when you mix a cagey defense led by a future Hall of Famers Ray Lewis and Rod Woodson, a great rookie running back in Jamal Lewis, a HOF tight end Shannon Sharpe and a hell of kicker in Matt Stover and presto! You have the 2000 Baltimore Ravens who erased the hell of the Irsay’s moving the Colts to Indianapolis in the middle of the night by stomping the lights out of the New York Giants. It was a pious christian QB named Trent Dilfer that “led” that team to a Super Bowl victory while in this mindstate:
In an industry in which the very air one breathes is laden with self-importance, the 6’4″, 229-pound quarterback makes genuine humility one of his top spiritual quests.
“Thank you, God, that you are using football as the means to break me so that I may know you better,” Dilfer wrote in his prayer journal on September 29.
The 28-year-old native of Santa Cruz, California, with the close-cropped beard does not expect faith to necessarily produce success on the football field. “I tend to differ from some athletes in the NFL who have been very outspoken in their faith,” Dilfer says. “I don’t think that our success level dictates the amount we can glorify God.”
Dilfer is usually an excellent football and quarterback analyst but his greatest utility in the pantheon of Ravens history and marketing was that he could be used as the “i’m going to Disney Land” spokesperson rather than Ray Lewis who had been convicted of some obstruction charges related to an attempted murder.
The San Francisco 49ers are doing it right now with a guy no one has faith in: the oft maligned Alex Smith. Alex Smith is still generally reviled by his fan base for not being Aaron Rodgers. Smith gets to hand off to Frank Gore and rely on his defense which has only allowed a rushing TD this season. Alex Smith is not credited with the comeback wins (like the win against my Philadelphia Eagles). Nor should he be solely blamed for their 3 losses. The 49ers are 9-3 currently and have clinched the NFC west. Tim Tebow shouldn’t be credited with Ws either. Tebow time is a misnomer. Denver RB Willis Macgahee, the Denver Defense (the firm of Bailey, Miller, Dumervil and Dawkins), and kicker Matt Prater help drive that team to wins. And they were never infallible. In the middle of all these comeback wins was a beat down at the hands of the Detriot Lions.
Close games mean the last plays of the game are more exciting. They don’t mean that a QB contributed more to a teams chances to win than all the rest of teammates combined. (Yes, a QB can have a good game for a team that loses).
In the end, Tebow makes the most sense talking about “Tebow Time“:
“I don’t think it’s Tebow Time,” he said Sunday of the late game comebacks Denver keeps rattling off. “I think it’s the Broncos Time.”
The rest of the team has played good to exceptional football. This hysteria hopefully all ended this past weekend. Tebow was beaten by a sub par Patriots Defense two weekends ago and threw 4 INTs vs. a very mediocre Bills defense. Those two losses have the Broncos in a tie with the oft penalized Oakland Raiders. The Broncos can win the division, but as the trends are now they will have to do it in spite of Tebow’s performances, not because of it.
Just Sayin’: Bad Sports Analysis
StandardWatching Cowboys at Buccaneers NFL game, at half time Deion Sanders insisted that he knows when a team quits and the Buccaneers had quit on themselves according to some Diagnostic Process. In the third quarter Tampa Bay defense and offense scored a touchdown, an extra point and two point conversion to the Cowboys’ field goal.
Tampa Bay may still lose, but they hadn’t quit. Even though Deion insisted he knew they had. 4th quarter has started.
Just sayin: making sh*t up about what you know people feel is lazy and effortless analysis. Maybe Deion quit on his broadcast team. But I don’t know that so I won’t insist that’s what happened.
NCAA to investigate PSU for “Lack of institutional control” in the wake of damning Grand Jury Report
StandardInstitutional Control is a punishable offense in the NCAA. Basically it’s when the people in charge of an athletic program and their bosses don’t follow the administrative and ethical standards that the member institutions, conferences, associations and jurisdictions have in place to govern college athletics.
The University of Miami, which many derisively refer to as “Thug U”, was under threat of a program killing slate of sanctions better known as the “death penalty” due to players being consistently available to corrupt boosters as related to the NCAA by Ponzi scheme crook Nevin Shapiro. The last time the “death penalty” it was against SMU in the 1980’s due to years of boosters lavishing players with money and gifts for top performances and agreeing to attend SMU.
Some say that the NCAA shouldn’t punish the kids that play at PSU now due to actions of coaches and administrators in the past. That’s probably not an option if violations are found. That’s exactly what the NCAA does. Sanctions against Pete Carroll and Reggie Bush affect USC football today. Sanctions against Jim Tressel affect Ohio State today. Sanctions from booster actions during Randy Shannon’s and Larry Coker’s tenures affect the University of Miami program today. Emmert’s deadline is hard and fast as PSU’s response to the NCAA is due on December 16th.
Funeral of Boxing Great “Smoking” Joe Frazier held today
A boxing icon. Here is a peek at the upcoming documentary on Frazier “When the Smoke Clears”.
Joe Frazier: When the Smoke Clears from Riverhorse
I think what a lot of folks don’t realize is that Philadelphia was about as big in the boxing world as Vegas is now. Ali trained in South Jersey, right across the bridge and Frazier, initially sponsored by the Cloverlay Group in Philadelphia. Ali will attend the funeral.
I always had a problem with the idolization of Rocky over the commemoration of Frazier. Apparently, a Frazier statue may be in the works. Hopefully, if not by the pro sports complex, it’s near a boxing gym in the North Philly area where his gym (now a furniture store) was for years.
Spanier, Paterno Fired.
StandardGood.
One would hope impromptu Paterno pep-rallies lead trustees to his dismissal being sooner than later
You would hope that the older you get, the better you understand was important in life. Besides teaching principles, facts and axioms one of the most important jobs of an educator is to help their students learn a system of ethics. I can’t look at this video and see a guy enjoying people cheering his name and think he is capable of teaching his students ethics.
After it has basically been confirmed that he covered up the rapes of at least nine boys at the hands of his longtime defensive coordinator and football benefactor as coordinator emeritus, to be out here happy and smiling…we’ve been had.
Not a good team
StandardThe 2011 Philadelphia Eagles are a very talented, not good team. That is all.
High school’s response to Sandusky’s sexual abuse further exposes failings of Spanier, Curly, Schultz and Paterno at PSU
StandardThe response of Central Mountain High School officials to former PSU football coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse charges has really exposed Spanier, Curly, Schultz and Paterno as being woefully morally and professionally negligent in protecting pre-teen and teen boys brought to PSU through Sandusky’s Second Mile youth charity:
The attorney general says the quick action taken by officials at Central Mountain High School is in marked contrast to the action of those at Penn State 7 years earlier.
[…]The attorney general says Central Mountain officials called police and barred Sandusky from the campus when that parent came forward.
The reports from here helped launch the attorney general’s investigation.
“The local people at least cared enough to say something and take care of it but he got away with it for a long time,” said Penny Williams of Mill Hall
It needs to be said that Sandusky was a crafty predator. He was using his cache as a former PSU coach and his Second Mile charity (founded in 1977) to reach prospective victims Sandusky wasn’t exposed at either place for years. There’s no Chris Hansen running around catching predators. It takes a courageous victim and family to confront this horror and seek justice in these cases and even then, those in authority often do not protect the victims and prosecute perpetrators to the fullest extent. It seems the difference is that Central Mountain’s officials protected their students to protect their institution, Penn State protected their knowledge of Sandusky’s transgressions to protect their institution.
The more that comes out about this situation, the worse it looks for everyone at Penn State.
The last 8 hours of NFL football have been great.
StandardAfter a lackluster slate of early games, 8 hours set the tone for the third month of the season.
Broncos over Raiders with both teams being led by two QBs trying to prove they belong. (Any confidence in Palmer should be tempered by the fact that QB Andy Dalton has led his former team to the top of AFC north during the 1st half of his rookie year). In the end this week’s redemption was Broncos running back Willis Mcgahee’s.
Bengals over Titans: Andy Dalton has a beast of a day while leading keeping the Bengals in the drivers seat.
Cards over Rams to OT with Larry Fitzgerald getting his 1st TD of the season from his QB of choice’s backup and Peterson’s game winning kick return
Giants over Pats with (Eli) Manning killing the Pats late.
Packers over Chargers in a spread busting game exposing both defenses as pretenders and both offenses as contenders and Phil Rivers as a QB who could be on the cusp of becoming a great or a goat while playing the greatest QB this year Aaron Rodgers.
Ravens at Steelers. Bad blood. Great game. clutch drive by Big Ben to put Steelers into the lead made irrelevant by clutch 92 yard game winning drive by Joe Flacco.
Fantastic.
State Employee Spanier should be fired over former Asst. Coach Sandusky’s sexual assault crimes
Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky sits in a car as he leaves the office of Center County Magisterial District Judge Leslie A. Dutchcot, Nov. 5, 2011, in State College, Pa. (Andy Colwell/The Patriot-News/AP)
The picture above is from the PennState.Scout.com’s now scrubbed 2007 article on former Penn State Def. Coordinator Jerry Sandusky’s charity Second Mile. The scrubbing is notable because PennState.Scout.com, a property of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Interactive Company, purports to be an independent source of news about Penn State athletics in it’s masthead:
PennState.Scout.com header
If allegations are true, Pennsylvania State University President Graham Spanier knew about Jerry Sandusky’s use of Pennsylvania State University Athletic Department facilities to sexually assault boys since 2002 and the Athletic director knew of Sandusky’s crimes since 1998.
And in 2002, Kelly said, a graduate assistant saw Sandusky sexually assault a naked boy, estimated to be about 10 years old, in a team locker room shower. The grad student and his father reported what he saw to Paterno, who immediately told Curley, prosecutors said.
Curley and Schultz met with the graduate assistant about a week and a half later, Kelly said.
“Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child, this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law,” Kelly said.
There’s no indication that anyone at school attempted to find the boy or follow up with the witness, she said.
Curley denied that the assistant had reported anything of a sexual nature, calling it “merely ‘horsing around,'” the 23-page grand jury report said. But he also testified that he barred Sandusky from bringing children onto campus and that he advised Penn State President Graham Spanier of the matter.
The grand jury said Curley was lying, Kelly said, adding that it also deemed portions of Schultz’s testimony not to be credible.
Schultz told the jurors he also knew of a 1998 investigation involving sexually inappropriate behavior by Sandusky with a boy in the showers the football team used.
But despite his job overseeing campus police, he never reported the 2002 allegations to any authorities, “never sought or received a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002,” the jurors wrote. “No one from the university did so.”via Accusations of child sex, cover-up rock Penn St – Times Union
Sandusky was barred from bringing children on to the campus, and yet he could continue to use Campus facilities for his charity golf tournament in 2007. The report notes that long time head coach Joe Paterno immediately reported the incident to his boss, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley. University President Spanier knew of these allegations while Curley sat on the allegations. Oddly enough Curley was charged with violating state law by failing to report the incidents to authorities but Spanier wasn’t. Spanier then released the following tone deaf statement:
The university president, Graham B. Spanier, who the grand jury said had been made aware of the 2002 incident, said in a statement that he stood behind the two officials.
“I have known and worked daily with Tim and Gary for more than 16 years,” Mr. Spanier said. “I have complete confidence in how they have handled the allegations about a former university employee.”
…
A graduate assistant for the team told the grand jury he alerted Mr. Paterno in 2002 that he had seen Mr. Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in the shower at the Lasch Football Building on the Penn State campus. The graduate student told the grand jury he went to Mr. Paterno’s home the next day and described what he had seen. Mr. Paterno, in turn, told Mr. Curley.
In 2002, Penn State officials were alerted they had a pedophile using their facilities and football program to lure and molest children and then leveraged this access to the football program to bribe the children into silence. It’s 2011 now and Sandusky is just now being charged. It’s unacceptable that Spanier didn’t demand action from his subordinates and it’s equally shameful that Paterno would simply comply with minimum reporting policy and not demand Sandusky turn himself before Paterno, Curley or Spanier did.
#Tebowing
StandardIn the aftermath of the Denver Broncos comeback vs the 0-6 Miami Dolphins out of the always over the top unwarranted pro Tebow-mania comes a great meme: Tebowing.com.
RIP Al Davis
Too many roles over too many decades to describe Oakland Raiders owner and Hall of Famer Al Davis any other way than to say Davis was “a pure football man.”
The Phall
StandardFall 2011 is becoming an awful one for Philly sports fans. The 2011 Phillies, the best Phillies regular season ever were beaten by a St. Louis Cardinals team that is looking stronger by the day.
The Philadelphia Eagles, 6-1 to win the Super Bowl in Vegas during pre-season (wasn’t just Vince Young that dubbed them the dream team) is now 1-4 after 4 straight losses despite leading every game save 1 heading into the fourth quarter.
The NBA season is being cancelled bit by bit due to the owners locking out the players and everyone’s favorite players are playing in charity games and looking to play for leagues around the world. The sticking point? Commish David Stern wants the players to go from 57% of the revenue to 50% of the revenue (after one of the most entertaining regular season in years). The players demand a minimum of 53%.
The Flyers, have started the season well, but NHL ends in the spring. No telling what the black and orange will be in Spring 2012. But it’s no comfort for the Philly sports fan.
Time to pick up some new hobbies.
Can’t take em with you: 102 Wins = 0 Wins
StandardBack to zero. That’s what happens after the Philadelphia Phillies beat up on the hapless Atlanta Braves to get the best reg. win/loss record in franchise history. They finished with the best record in MLB and their 5th NL East penant. Charlie Manuel won his 646 game as Phillies Manager. All that is old news now. It’s the playoffs.
Everyone left is back to 0. Phillies start Saturday at CBP 5:07 PM.
Phillies’ star Shane Victorino and wife donated 1m to renovate Boys & Girls Club
StandardNot too much blogging lately
StandardBeen slacking lately for a few reasons:
1. Work has been busy but challenging in a good way
2. NFL is back which means Fantasy Football is back
3. As I have said before, August seems to be the month that Democrats check out and Republicans crank up so there isn’t much to say except, let’s see what happens.
4. Not watching the speech tonight due to the stupid scheduling. I would like to, but in a sports bar waiting for friends and a political speech is not being put on before the season opener. (Chief Of Staff Daley needs to get his sh*t together).
Basketball Coaching Legend Pat Summitt diagnosed with early onset dementia
Awful news for basketball and Women’s sports fans:
After months of what she described as “erratic behavior” she went to the Mayo Clinic in May and has since received the diagnosis. She plans on coaching until she no longer can.
“I feel better just knowing what I’m dealing with,” she told the News-Sentinel. “And as far as I’m concerned it’s not going to keep me from living my life, not going to keep me from coaching.”
via Dementia diagnosis won’t stop Pat Summitt – College Women’s Basketball – Rivals.com.
Pat Summit: “So many kids just don’t have the courage to just say ‘I’m gonna go for this’ that fear of failure just steps right in front of ’em[sic] and I think I can teach young women that there are no barriers. Whatever you want, you go for it. ”
ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating seeks to improve stats at a glance
StandardBringing better statistical analysis to football is great. Let’s face it, these numbers won’t change anything….everyone will still argue about who was the best…overrated and underrated. This will just add to the fire
As we neared the end of the development of QBR, we talked to Ron Jaworski and Greg Cosell at NFL Films about its evolution. Cosell said at one point, “Football is not complex, but it is very detailed.” I realized then that QBR is like that. It is very detailed, accounting for a lot of different situations, but it is not particularly complex. It really does try to see the game the way we have gotten used to seeing it in its elegant simplicity. We hope you, the fan, appreciate it, as well.via Explaining the statistics behind the Total Quarterback Rating – ESPN.
NFL Lockout Extra: Seahawks RB Justin Forsett’s R&B Vid for his wife
StandardThis video reminds me of fun middle school talent shows in a good way.
I wonder if anyone else made music videos during the lockout. (h/t Yahoo! Sports)
NFL Defensive End, Super Bowl Champion & Runner Up Bubba Smith dead at 66 (Update)
The integrity in standard led Smtih not to ever wear his Super Bowl V Championship Ring as it was named the Blunder Bowl. Of course, I was too young to watch him play football live. I remember him best from the gag comedy Police Academy Movies that were must see during my childhood.
Smith talks about the NFL negotiations in February of 2011