Tag: NFL

[Business Day One] Midweek and Exhausted

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It took an exhausting long weekend in Las Vegas and a lot of fun time play Vietbet after going through Vietbet Sportsbook review to prevent me from writing on Monday, and for that I apologize. I could’ve theoretically gotten my column together on Tuesday, but I was so jetlagged that I slept until 2 in the afternoon and didn’t know my name when I woke up. I’ll try to make the wait worth it, America.

Here are the thoughts I cobbled together during the past week and a half.

# As I mentioned last Monday, I’m at a point where I no longer believe that any off-season move, no matter how impressive on paper, could help the Yankees. A Mecha-Ty Cobb could be constructed and signed to a ten year, fifteen cent contract and I’d be certain that no good would come of it. I call it The Pavano Mindset. Anyway, CC Sabathia is about to sign on the dotted line and I couldn’t be more terrified for him. He’s going to show up to training camp 200 pounds overweight, or he’ll suddenly decide to play in Japan this year, or he’ll be crushed by falling space debris. I just know it, and I’m sorry in advance for the Sabathia family. This is my life as a Yankees fan.

# Watching sports in Las Vegas is odd. I watched Boston College get pasted by Virginia Tech at the Caesar’s Palace Sports Book. People who had no affiliation with either school were cheering wildly in one direction or the other. It was unsettling in a way and cheapened the experience. I watch my sports at my house (where I cheer loudly), at friendly sports bars (where a hundred people cheer loudly), or at the stadium (where 50,000 people cheer loudly). And most of those people are hooting and hollering because they love one school or hate the other. Not so in Vegas. People are cheering for their money. They might as well be cheering for Australian rules football or curling. It’s all the same to them, I think. Online sportsbooks such as https://sportbetting.ph allow fans from the Philippines to bet on the favorite sports, including college football.

# Three teams at 8-5 in the AFC East is an interesting proposition. I don’t believe the Jets are going to make it into the playoffs. I really don’t. Just a gut instinct.

# Speaking of playoffs, I’m 10-4 and a #2 seed in my fantasy football playoffs. This is Year 4 in my league, and I’ve finished in second, first and third in my first 3 years. Here’s hoping for continued success.

# I wish John Daly would stop playing golf and get himself some help.

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[Business Day One] The Last Cassel

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Matt Cassel won’t be a Patriot next season. I just had to come right out and say it before the season grew any nearer to completion and the question would come up. Matt Cassel will be franchised, then traded for draft picks that will help New England in the years to come. As such, let me just say now that we should thank Cassel for the work he has done to salvage the season, and the work he will do in the future to strengthen the team in other positions of need like linebacker and defensive tackle.

This situation, which will unfold before the 2009 draft, is a testament to how good Tom Brady is. Cassel, who has been improving week over week, is now playing with the poise and confidence of a true team leader. And next year, he’s going to be compensated like one and will be a starter. It just won’t be in Foxboro. So enjoy him while you can, America, because next year he’ll be in Detroit or Tampa. I shall henceforth call the 2008 Patriots Season the Last Cassel.

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[Business Day One] Where, Oh Where, Michael Vick

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My girlfriend is a Patriots fan, but her knowledge of the NFL in general isn’t terribly thorough (and by that, I mean that she knows who Peyton Manning is and that’s pretty much it). So when she struck up conversation on Michael Vick and whether or not he’d come back into the league, I was just a touch surprised. It goes to show you the kind of notoriety you can get from being a monster. Anyway, she wanted my opinion on what Vick’s options were once his 23 month prison sentence was over (which will be in the summer of 2009). ???? ???? ??? ???? Her father, a fairly knowledgeable NFL fan, went as far as to say that almost every team in the league would have interest. While I wouldn’t go that far, I can think of four that would likely make a couple of phone calls.

So let’s go through them, in order of least to most likely:

Number 4: The Cincinnati Bengals Read More

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[Business Day One] The Rough Stuff

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Only one good thing happened in my sports life this weekend – The Giants beat the Cowboys. Eli looked sharp and didn’t do anything silly, and the defensive line put pressure on to force interceptions. Beautiful win by one of the two best teams in football – reminded me of my youth in Jersey during the Phil Simms era.

Unfortunately for me, Boston College lost, the Patriots lost and my fantasy football team is about to lose it’s third straight. It was enough to drive me to yoga. I needed to center myself and control my delirious rage, and it was a lot of downward dogs and shavasanas. By the way, “shavasana” means corpse pose. I found it appropriate after I started feeling like BC’s season is dead.

The good is never worth the bad as a sports fan. Losses hurt more than wins sooth. Yet we always come back. Even those that say “to heck with it, I’m done with sports” are back at the beginning of the next season. All the moaning in Chicago this offseason is worth nothing, since the crowds will return to Wrigley as they always do. My deep lamentations over my beloved BC Eagles will wash away in time. That’s just how it is. No matter how rough the rough stuff is, we march through it in the hopes that it’ll end.

This is what I need to remind myself, and this is what you all need to remind yourself of. If you’re not ready for the brutality of investing yourself in something that you know will hurt you, you’re not ready to be a sports fan.

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How Did I Not Know?

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Will Carson Palmer hurt, Bengals Nation has been getting a heaping helping of Harvard alum Ryan Fitzpatrick. If he doesn’t work out (apparently, they didn’t teach him how to throw at Harvard), then Cincy can start a different Palmer.

That’s right, the Bengals have Carson Palmer’s younger brother Jordan on roster. And I didn’t know. And here I thought I was a sports fan. Check it out. We’ve got the older brother. And the younger brother. They even look alike! How can you not love this team?

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[Business Day One] Lost Seasons And House Money

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I said Matt Cassel would be “fine” this season, and so far, he’s been just that. Not great. Not awful. Just fine. His stats so far support the assertion that’s he’s a perfectly average backup quarterback. Three touchdowns to four interceptions and a rating around 80. He’s playing exactly like a guy told specifically not to screw anything up. The trick is that each mounting loss will upset the merciless Boston sports media more and more, despite Cassel playing within his particular gameplan. ?????? ??? ???? Despite the fact that this loss could be hung on the cornerbacks as much as the quarterback, many fans (and the sports reporters that pander to them) don’t care so much about Deltha O’Neil and Ellis Hobbs as they do about the guy that replaced Tom Brady.

But I don’t think townsfolk with pitchforks are showing up at Gillette any time soon. ???? ????? ????? Boston fans are an impatient bunch sometimes, but they’re not stupid. No one will demand Cassel be shackled and kept on the sidelines, since anyone who knows anything about Patriots football knows that no one else on roster can throw the ball. Backups-to-the-backup Matt Gutierrez and Kevin O’Connell aren’t the answer this season, and the drop-off from Brady to Cassel or anyone else will not be narrowed by any means. The fans know this, the media accepts this (though I’m sure they’ll write stories to the contrary when the Bills open up a three game lead in the division), and so this season has essentially become a “we’ll take anything” kind of season.

The Patriots are playing with house money now. With Brady down, everyone I know that owns a jersey with his name on it threw up their hands and lamented the soon-to-be 6-10 season. Anything above that is a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I see a town of rah-rahs if 9-7 and a wild card berth becomes the reality in a few months. ???? ??????? ????????? Thankfully for everyone, the Sox are still alive in the playoffs. That’ll make any grim twists of fate go down a bit easier.

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[Business Day One] On The Firing Of Coaches

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Let me just cut to the meat of it today. When a team’s ownership fires a head coach, particularly midseason, the ownership does not expect the firing to suddenly make the team better. A firing is meant to do a lot of things, but improve play on the field is not one of them. A firing, like, say, Scott Linehan’s, will have the following effects:
1) It shows the fanbase that the ownership is “serious” about getting the best possible product on the field (despite the fact that the coach wasn’t the one failing to stop opposing defensive ends from murdering the quarterback).
2) It shows the media that the ownership recognizes the team is underachieving and is, in some way, responding to the criticism.
3) It reminds people that the ownership can not fire itself for the poor operational decisions it has made over the years.

Remember when Willie Randolph got the axe in June? Did that improve the team? If so, why will they be spending the playoffs the same way I am (as a spectator)? Does Wretched Living Skeleton Al Davis think letting Lane Kiffen go will suddenly cause all of Oakland’s problems to go away? Not at all.

I cannot make this clear enough. Coaches aren’t fired to make a team better. That’s not how it works. Anything owners say about “new directions” or “opposing viewpoints” is garbage. Know that they’re lying to you and know also that if your team gets its head cut off halfway through the season, the problems that caused it aren’t any closer to being solved.

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[Business Day One] Week 2 Thoughts (From The “No, You’re Not Crazy” File)

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No, you’re not crazy. Don’t worry. You’re not the only one thinking what you’re thinking. I, John Serpico, Sports Blogger, am thinking the same thing:

-Aaron Rodgers is a good NFL quarterback. He can throw, run and throw on the run. As such, these first two weeks were not a fluke. In fact, two straight weeks of great-if-not-excellent quarterback play has done for him more than Mike McCarthy’s impressive offensive scheme did; they made believers out of the Lambeau Fans. There’s now slack on the leash, and the boo birds and doubters aren’t going to start haunting the hallowed field. Rodgers throwing three impressive touchdowns looked even better when compared to the 1TD/1cINT(costly interception) put up by Brett Favre in a home loss against the Patriots. Congratulation, Aaron Rodgers, you have arrived.

-It’s a little early to say that any win could save a season, but the Colts’ last second heroics against the Vikings averted disaster. And not disaster in a “oh my goodness, they’re doomed” kind of way. But in a “now the media will be asking what’s wrong with the Colts for a month” kind of way. The Colts are fine. All of these woes are tied to the absence of center Jeff Saturday. ???? ????? ??????? Once he’s back, they’ll be fine again. Seriously, he’s that important. I’d be saying this even if they were 0-2.

-When you’re trying to decide between Tyler Thigpen and a rapidly aging Damon Huard, you should just trade away the team for draft picks. Seriously, the Chiefs are that bad. They were outcoached by a guy who might lose his job soon (Lane Kiffen), Darren McFadden ran everywhere, and Larry Johnson ran nowhere. This is ugly. This is the kind of ugly that we saw from Miami last year. Despite JaMarcus Russell only completing 6 of 17, the Raiders still did whatever they wanted against the Chiefs defense. When you mix terrible undermanned D with terrible undermanned O, you’re going to lose at least a dozen. Maybe fourteen. Heck, maybe sixteen.

-The Giants are executing in all aspects of the game. I will never be entirely sold on Eli Manning as a quarterback, but the man hoisted a Lombardi Trophy above his head last year, so I should probably just be quiet. Considering how soft the rest of the NFC is, the Giants will probably pick up 10 victories without difficulty. ???? ??????? An A- defense, a C+ quarterback and some B+ skill position guys will do that in the lesser conference.

-The Rams play the Arizona Cardinals in Week 9 and Week 14. I have a feeling that the Cards will hang about 75 points on them over those two weeks, despite playing an old man at quarterback and an old man at running back.

-Matt Cassel will be a fine leader for the rest of the season. ???? ???? ?????? His stats week over week will look similar to how they’ve looked for the past two weeks. However, the New England media will perpetuate the myth that he is somehow getting worse. I know this.

So no, you’re not crazy.

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