February 7, 2010
I’m with Tony Dungy. I just don’t see how the Colts lose this when they haven’t lost a meaningful game all year long. And I’m one of those who doesn’t get the Peyton Manning hatred. I like the guy.
Colts 34, Saints 24.
And now for the food…
POST-GAME UPDATE: Huh. That was surprising.
January 11, 2010
Like many other things, I never got around to commenting on the Iowa Hawkeyes’ win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the Orange Bowl last Tuesday. It certainly deserves comment; it was UI’s biggest bowl victory in fifty years. I didn’t realize we’d had that big of a drought in “major” bowl games, but there we were on the BCS stage, shutting down the supposedly formidable GT triple-option.
I didn’t have any idea what to expect, since Iowa hadn’t faced anything like Tech’s offense. But DC Norm Parker had the defense well coached and ready to go. Shocked me, really, how ready we were for them. It really did cap a season that might have been, as Yahoo Sports’ Matt Hinton wrote last week, Kirk Ferentz’ best coaching job ever. And at #7 in the AP poll, it’s Iowa’s highest season-ending rank under Ferentz. If the ridiculously-early-2010-preseason polls are to be believed, we’ll start out next in the top twelve. CollegeFootballTalk has us at #5. And that would give us a real shot at a national title run, given our number of returning starters and a more favorable schedule.
In the meantime, we can just bask in an 11-win season, and be comforted that, unlike some people, Ferentz seems to know what Tony Dungy said on NBC the other night. It’s a lot harder to coach 25-year-old millionaires than broke 19-year-olds.
October 19, 2009
Uh-oh. Non-Iowans are starting to buy into the Hawkeyes.
I can see why. The Hawkeyes are now 7-0, with impressive road wins at Penn State and Wisconsin. The Buckeyes, who were previously assumed to be very capable of dropping Iowa on November 14, lost their second game of the season. The Hawks are now, in sports cliche-speak, “in control of their own destiny.”
It’s easy to be upset about the first BCS rankings that came out, with Iowa sitting at number six behind a team from the WAC (Boise State) one from the Big East (Cincinatti). You look at those two teams’ schedules and it makes you ill. Who have they beaten? But asStewart Mandell points out for SI.com, Boise State’s weak schedule is going to catch up to them in the computer polls.
And while I have a lot of respect for Pete Carroll, I really, really don’t want to hear him complain about not being ranked higher in the polls. Why is there a “huge discrepancy” between the human and computer polls? Because computers don’t understand USC and the other big programs are supposed to get special treatment. You’ve had every benefit of the doubt for nearly a decade, coach. Don’t drop games to teams you should beat and it won’t be a problem.
***
The Broncos have beaten the Chargers at San Diego. It’s not just that Kyle Orton has 9 TDs to 1 INT, or that Elvis Dumervil already has ten sacks. It’s not just that they’re 6-0 heading into their bye week. Try this on: they’re 2-0 in their division, with both games against the Chiefs, and home games against the Raiders and Chargers remaining. Wow.
The Phillies just came back to shock the Dodgers 5-4, with SS Jimmy Rollins hitting a two-out, two-run double. First guy since Kirk Gibson to bring a team back with a walk-off run when they’re only one out away from losing in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Ryan Howard hit a two-run homer in the first inning to tie a record for consecutive games with an RBI. Who else holds the record? Lou Gehrig. When you start throwing the names Kirk Gibson and Lou Gehrig around, you know you’re doing something right. They’re one win away from a second consecutive World Series. Wow.
October 14, 2009
Malcolm Gladwell’s new article about the NFL and concussions should be interesting. The brain science around concussions has garnered a lot of attention lately. This fall, the NFL Players’ Union formed a committee to address the issue; a week before, the highest-profile college player suffered one. The consequences later in life are serious for those who suffer multiple concussions, and the injury is finally getting recognition as something you don’t mess around with, even if you’re a Tough Guy.
But for me, Gladwell completely undermines all that by using a shock headline and sub head. “Offensive Play,” it reads. “How different are dogfighting and football?”
Um. Really different.
At first, I thought the editors must have come up with it, as happens at Slate and, I’m sure, elsewhere. But Gladwell definitely pushes the comparison, and he does it in a pretty dishonest way.
Vicious hits do not put pro football on par with dogfighting.
On its face, it’s an absurd comparison, and astonishingly insulting to players. The features most closely associated with dogfighting are the cruelty of it, that these are animals in someone’s care, forced into viciousness, nearly always resulting in (at least) one animal’s death. None of these are true of NFL players. NFL players get to decide for themselves whether the reward (over $300K/year minimum starting rookie salary, last I looked) worth the risk (possible life-long physical and/or mental impairments), or not? NFL players are subject to innumerable rules that penalize them for behavior likely to injure another player, sometimes to the point that players, commentators, and fans complain. And despite Carson Palmer’s recent (maybe legit) hand-wringing, NFL players do not die on the clock.
The argument positions NFL players as idiots at best, with no agency (much less agents) of their own. Some might be idiots; but many are millionaires. Malcolm Gladwell may not have been born with the DNA of a potential NFL player, so I’m not sure how he can claim to know how he’d do that cost-benefit analysis if he were twenty years old and was told, “Hey, kid, if you really dedicate yourself to this thing, you could have millions in the bank by the time you’re twenty-five.”
October 10, 2009
Well, I was not expecting that much offense. Michigan was up for this game, and Iowa’s players had better to adjust: at 6-0, we’re a big game on everyone’s schedule. They’re ready for us, whether or not we’re ready for them.
And I’ve got to say, every play where Stanzi drops back is an adventure. Could be a touchdown to a wide-open Tony Moeaki on a brilliant audible, or it could be an interception thrown nowhere near a receiver, returned for a touchdown. Sometimes he’ll throw several pinpoint passes, and you’ll say, “Wow, he seems to have shaken off whatever’s wrong with him.” And then he’ll make some other boneheaded decision.
But we’re halfway through the schedule, and 6-0. Iowa State, Penn State, and Michigan are all in the win column. It isn’t always pretty, but we’re off to the best start since 1985.
UPDATE: Related links… Is this a special season for Iowa? … Tigerhawk catches the Heartland Inn talking some trash … The Register’s Sean Keeler details Iowa’s Jekyll and Hyde antics … On Iowa has postgame vid.
October 10, 2009
Here in my seat at the homecoming game against Michigan. The blackout is looking better than I’ve seen before. I say we win under the lights, 24-13.
September 6, 2009
Writing briefly about the Denver Broncos, Ta-Nehisi Coates wants to know “how they blew it with Jay Cutler.” He links to Peter King, who has this to say:
It was a tale of two teams. Chicago, the team on the rise with the petulant franchise quarterback, Jay Cutler, who forced a trade from the Broncos. Denver, the team on the stumble that let the franchise quarterback go and dealt for Chicago’s retread Kyle Orton. Chicago rising. Denver on the ropes.
On the ropes is too nice. Everything the Broncos have touched in the last five months has turned to crap. Even in the lead-up to this most interesting of practice games there was another slap in McDaniels’ face: Star wide receiver Brandon Marshall had to be suspended for two weeks for insubordination, and there’s no telling if this 6-year-old football player will show up more mature when the suspension ends.
So, all this could turn out to be true. But it’s really separate from the Jay Cutler question. (more…)
May 16, 2009
I didn’t realize this was even in the court system. Ezekiel reacts.
This is not an issue of political correctness, as was the case when people took issue with names like “Braves” or any other team name that alluded to American Indians. The team name is a racial slur. This never should have been an issue for the courts. Someone in the Washington Redskins organization should have at some point should have said– or should now say, “You know what, this isn’t right. It was the team’s tradition, but it’s not the right tradition for the future of the organization.”
I think this is about right. The courts aren’t the appropriate mechanism for getting the Washington ownership to change their name; public pressure is. If they actually want this changed, the Native American plaintiffs will need to find a persuasive argument that makes the word “redskin” feel like a racist slur that the NFL team doesn’t want to be associated with. You know, something a little more like this.
April 2, 2009
Jay Cutler goes to Chicago, a team with no good wide receivers, a rebuilt offensive line, and a local media who won’t protect a whiny quarterback just because he has a huge throwing arm.
Denver gets Kyle Orton, who is reportedly an accurate thrower, and a team leader who has won the respect of his team by playing hurt. And they get two first round pics, and a third.
Is there any doubt who got the better end of this deal?
Here’s what I learned this week:
