Nerds on Sports

Happy New Year, NerdsOnSports readers.

Now comes word that the Ravens have indeed fired Billick, making him the honorary first coach to get canned after the 2007 season. Considering Billick’s earlier comments that his job was safe, the move came as a surprise, but it probably shouldn’t have, considering the team’s lackluster performance in the second half of this season. Billick had been with the team for eight seasons. He was 80-64 in the regular season, 5-3 in four postseason trips and led the team to a win in Super Bowl 35.

While Billick was known as an offensive whiz before taking the job as the Ravens’ second-ever coach (he replaced Ted Marchibroda), his defenses were usually the better units. Under Billick, Baltimore never had a high-level wide receiver or quarterback — Trent Dilfer game-managed the team to the Super Bowl win. The team instead thrived on the power-running game of Jamal Lewis and ferocious defense, led by linebacker Ray Lewis.

After the team finished a surprising 13-3 last season and won the AFC North, little went right this season. Though the club nearly beat the now 16-0 Patriots, it was humiliated in a loss to the then 0-13 Dolphins.

(source)

Let’s take a moment to remember this maverick genius in his best form:

Who do you think should replace Brian Billick?

Edit: See also: bootbootbootbootbootbootbootbootbootbootboot.com.

Suite 1604A
Radisson Fayetteville
Fayetteville, AR
December 31, 2007

Dear all,
Merry Christmas! I’m crimson with shame that I haven’t gotten the holiday letter out sooner. The packing and unpacking has taken quite the toll on me and the rest of the family. (As we speak, Robert, silly goose, is scrawling spread formations on the suite walls!) Kelsey and Nick finished their exams in Georgia with solid Bs, and we’re still speaking with the principal and the fire department about Katie’s spring reinstatement. Bobby Jr.’s lessons are going swimmingly; his stuttering is r-r-really disappearing! I caught his neighborhood friends lifting him by the shorts. It must be a going away ceremony. Read more »

It’s a quiet evening around the Nerds on Sports offices. Most of us have gone home for the holiday season. The Dolphins’ climb out of the winless basement goes unheralded. SportsCenter plays to an empty break room. Even Tom Gorzelanny can pass through the halls unmocked.

In lieu of original content, I link you to two interesting sports-related posts I read from sources I don’t expect sports from.

First, re: the Patriots’ streak, here’s Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings:

Idiot sports radio personalities - and I apologize for the redundancy - constantly ring variations on The Patriots realize that the real prize isn’t going undefeated, it’s winning the Super Bowl. Nonsense. Somebody wins the Super Bowl every year. The NFL has had 41 of the things and they don’t look like they’re going to stop staging them any time soon. There are plenty of Super Bowl champions. There’s only one post-merger, undefeated champion. Why pass up a chance to make history?

What I suspect and hope is that the Patriot organization thinks the same way. The core members - Kraft; Belichick; Brady; Vrabel et al - have already won a bunch of Super Bowls. They haven’t matched the most annoying achievement in modern NFL history. (In fact, by going 19-0 they’d exceed it.) Don Shula ran his mouth worse than Steeler safety Anthony Smith - you have to figure a vindictive bastard like Belichick will want to rub his nose in it.

An interesting thought. Which would you like more - a fourth Super Bowl ring or to have your name mentioned every time someone brings up the word “undefeated season”?

I think winning the Super Bowl says more about a team’s ability to perform - as it’s the best of the AFC against the best of the NFC - but going 16-0 says more about your endurance. Sure, you can’t win the Super Bowl by beating the Jets twice, Buffalo twice and (going out on a limb here) Miami twice, but sixteen games should be a sufficient sample size for any statistician.
Read more »

Football is so worried about who killed some dogs and who videotaped who, but the real crime here is that someone slept around went cougar hunting. And this was no ordinary cougar; this was a fat and ugly cougar — Lisa Lampanelli. Are you disgusted now? Please take a moment to get a drink to wash that little bit of throw up in your mouth out. This post isn’t going anywhere while you do that (actually, like all my posts, it’s not going anywhere, ever).

Now that you’ve freshened up, I hope you’re with me that this player needs to be punished/fined/penalized for giving the business/beaten severely. The problem here is that Lisa didn’t name any names, she only gave clues. So basically we have to play a game of Guess Who with the members of the Chicago Bears using the clues Lisa gives. Those clues are:

• He is in his 20’s
• He is black (or “mocha latte”)
• He has tattoos
• He is southern
• He is not a starter
• He had an injured ankle this season
• He has a curved penis Read more »

So Michael Vick will be spending twenty-three months in jail for promoting and funding a dogfighting ring. Let’s get right to it: will he ever play the game of professional football again?

While he played, Vick had profound athletic talent, making him one of the most agile and aggressive quarterbacks in recent years (if not the most accurate). He could have easily made his bones as a running back or a tight end. If he keeps up his conditioning while, erm, in prison, there’s no reason he couldn’t start again.

But two years out of the game is a long time. It’s one of the longest sentences handed out to a football player anyone’s cared about in recent history. Will the NFL forgive, or has the door slammed on Vick’s career?

Let’s take a look at some other convicts whom the NFL has embraced again:

Tank Johnson: Suspended eight games for misdemeanor firearms possession, Tank has since found a new home with the Dallas Cowboys. He put up three solo tackles and one sack against the Giants and has failed to make headlines since.

Chris Henry: The Bengals didn’t share the Bears’ issues with keeping their prodigal son in the fold - Henry suited up the first game he was free and caught for 99 yards against the Ravens. Not bad for providing minors with alcohol, eh?
Read more »

On November 25, the Patriots met the Eagles for what was, at the time, the largest point spread in professional football in a game that didn’t involve an expansion team. With McNabb out, the bookies laid 23.5 points on the game, expecting another blowout. An onslaught of blitzes and three competitive quarters later, Brady looked rattled. The Patriots, taking grief for running up the score in the 4th in all other games, had to scramble to pull out a win.

All right. So the Pats had been shown to be vulnerable. But Belichick was a smart man; he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Especially not against Baltimore.

Read more »

Serpico introduced a point that I’d like to elaborate on: the difference between college football and NFL overtime.

The rules for NFL overtime are simple: the ref holds another coin toss for possession. Fifteen minutes of “sudden death” football are played; the first team to score wins. If no one scores after fifteen minutes, it ends in a genuine tie.

The rules for NCAA football overtime are not as simple, but they’re not complex. One team starts with the ball on the 25-yard line. If they can score on their possession, without giving up on downs or turning the ball over, then the opposing team gets a chance to do the same. If the opposing team scores as well, then they advance to another overtime period. However, if one team scores and the other doesn’t - or doesn’t score as much - that’s it; game over.

We saw an NFL OT game this weekend: Bears over Broncos. Chicago won the coin toss and then went on to sink a long bomb to Desmond Clark and get in field goal range. This shouldn’t surprise the Nerds in the audience: the team that wins the toss wins the OT period, and thus the game, fifty-two percent of the time.

However, we saw two NCAA OT games this weekend, and they were nailbiters both: Arkansas upsetting #1 LSU in triple overtime and Tennessee upsetting Oregon Kentucky in quadruple overtime. The diehard fans that stuck around to watch them to the end - and could you call yourself a serious fan and leave early? - saw some thrilling athletics, let me tell you.

Many pundits insist the NFL’s OT system is “broken.” There have been a number of suggested fixes - some outlandish and exciting (auction off the “kickoff” line on which the OT starts), some relatively straightforward (just adopt the college rules). Here at Nerds on Sports, though, we’re interested in the more fundamental questions.

For instance: why does the NFL have the OT system it does?
Read more »

I was five years old in January, 1991. The Bills and the Giants were about to play in a huge, all New York Super Bowl. From Levy and Parcells to OJ Anderson and Thurman Thomas to even Bruce Smith and Lawrence Taylor, the game was loaded with stars of that decade and turned out to be maybe the greatest of the 41 to date. More importantly, I remember the game meant nothing to me, as my team was the New England Patriots and they lost 17 out a possible 16 games that season.

I mention this because on Sunday the seven and oh Indianapolis Colts host the eight and whoa Patriots in the latest battle of the unbeatens in NFL history. It looks to be a spectacular matchup. However, I did some digging, and after about eleven hours of research found out there are thirteen other pro football games this weekend! Wow! So let’s take a look at these strange and wonderful bonus games, or as I call them, “bonus games.” Read more »