NFL Week 6 In Review

Thoughts from a thoroughly depressing Week 6.

Wrapping Up Week 4 In the NFL

After a couple weeks off, the weekly review is back. Let's get to it.

Dear NFL: Enough Is Enough

 Two refs standing directly over the play, one signaling Touchback, one signaling Touchdown. What. The. Fuck.

(Before anything else i want to link to THIS Charles P. Pierce article at Grantland.com about the Ravens-Patriots Sunday night game and the replacement refs. Great read.)

I actually had a completely different NFL article about 40% done, but its gone now. Deleted, scrapped, never to see the light of day. There is no way I can analyze, and by extension acknowledge any type of legitimacy for the NFL after the officiating travesties that occurred this past weekend, culminating with the clusterfuck in Seattle. 

Wrapping up Week 1 in the NFL

The way this is going to work (for now, I reserve the right to change the format if it turns out this blows): Instead of recapping each game, I’m just going to spotlight one player from each game, for good or bad, whose performance interested me in some way.

New York Jets 48, Buffalo 28

CJ Spiller, RB, Buffalo: Well, can’t say I saw this one coming. I was anti-spiller from the second he was drafted. I thought he was too small, too fragile and wholly undeserving of a high 1^st round pick.  And for most of his first 2 years, I thought I was being proven right, especially since if a RB is going to be good he’s usually pretty good right away. Well, apparently I missed the last 3 games of 2011 where he accrued 405 total yards, 4 touchdowns, and averaged 6.39 yards per carry. Then he goes off for 169 yards on Sunday on only 14 carries, while incumbent starter Fred Jackson is out at least 3 weeks. This wouldn’t be my first time eating crow, but it would definitely be one of my least expected meals.

Hail to the Villain: Reggie Miller, Hall of Famer

 

I want you to look at the picture at the top of this post.  Don’t focus on the guy taking the shot. Focus on the fans in the background. Look at their faces. The ball is still in the shooters hands, and everyone in the crowd is horrified. Some are even pre-emptively pulling their hair out.  They have no idea whether the shot will be made or not, yet they clearly do. They’ve seen this movie before and it does not contain a happy ending for the home-team. This one player has tortured this fan base for so long that the mere sight of him with the ball in his hands is enough to reduce grown men to a group of terrified children. The game is not over, yet they know they’ve already lost.

And you’re going to try and tell me that Reggie Miller isn’t a Hall of Famer?

9.6.12 Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow:

Opening Credits: Jay-Z ft. Memphis Bleek - Hand it Down (Intro) 

(Music starts at 1:16)

Dallas, Indiana, & San Antonio: Putting the Team Back in Super-Team

 

These are the guys currently beating up on Lebron James and Blake Griffin. Seriously.

It was supposed to be a foregone conclusion. When Lebron James took his talents to south beach in July of 2010, it was supposed to usher in the era of the super team. According to the script, James teaming up with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami was supposed to start an arms race among a handful of NBA teams to put together the best 3-man team possible.  The Knicks were frantically doing whatever they could to bring in Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul to team up with Amare Stoudemire.  The Lakers were trying to see if they could upgrade Kobe Bryant’s sidekicks from Pau Gasol & Andrew Bynum to Dwight Howard & Chris Paul. The Bulls were rumored to be after every star player known to man to pair with Derek Rose.  The New Jersey Nets were furiously trying to come as close to a big 3 as they could for their move to Brooklyn.  The big market teams were supposed to get richer and the rest of the league was supposed to serve as a sort of minor league, developing the next generation of stars for the big markets to pluck in free agency or when the player inevitably demanded a trade to a “contender”.  “Competitive Balance” was to be thrown out the window.

Now, ask fans of these super teams how things are working out for them?

Junior Seau and the Head Trauma Tipping Point

On April 19 of this year, former Atlanta Falcons safety Ray Easterling committed suicide by gunshot. Easterling had suffered from dementia for years and had a host of physical problems. He was vocal about the danger of concussions and was one of the main plaintiff’s of one of the many current lawsuits pending against the NFL for covering up knowledge of the potential damage of repeated head trauma.  Easterling was 62 years old.

*****

There had been no details released except for the bare, tragic, minimum:

Former San Diego Charger’s Linebacker Junior Seau had committed suicide.

Matt Cain And The Beauty Of The Home Grown Star

When I heard Matt Cain signed a 6-year extension worth $112.5 million a few weeks ago, I didn’t blink. The total could have been $212.5 million and I wouldn’t have been perfectly happy with it. Cain might not be worth $112.5 million at the end of his deal when you look at the pure numbers.  That’s a Verlander/Halladay level contract, and by every statistical measure, Cain isn’t on that level. But to me personally, Cain was going to be worth whatever it took to keep him in San Francisco.

He’s worth it to me, because every cent I’ve spent on the Giants since 2005 can be traced back to watching him as a rookie and thinking “This guy is going to be something special”

***

I grew up raised as a Giants & A’s fan in equal parts, my father a die-hard A’s fan born and raised in Alameda, and my mother a Giants fan through-and-through growing up in San Francisco. Throughout my adolescent years I owned exactly two baseball jerseys: a Miguel Tejada A’s Jersey and a Jason Schmidt Giants jersey. I was crushed when the god-forsaken rally monkey defeated the Giants in 2002, and was similarly exasperated with the close-but-no-cigar finishes of the Moneyball A’s. There was never any favoritism toward one side or the other growing up.  Wins and losses by each team affected me equally.

2005 was a fairly grizzly year in my baseball fandom. The A’s were still competitive, but finished a distant 2^nd in their division and 7 games out of the playoffs. Add to the fact that 2 of my favorite players from the moneyball A’s, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder, had been jettisoned the previous offseason and I wasn’t terribly excited about Athletics baseball. Meanwhile, across the bay, the house of cards built around Barry Bonds and his magical flaxseed oil completely collapsed in 2005.  Bonds only played 14 games in 2005 because of various injuries, and the team predictably flailed for the entirety of the season, finishing 75-87, 16 games worse than the year before. My interest in baseball that summer was waning.

Then, at some point early in that summer, I started hearing about a young pitcher for the Giants that was making noise in the minors. They said he was a big strong kid with an upper 90’s fastball, and he was only 20 years old. He was being hailed as a future star, and I was intrigued. He then came up in August that year and looked like he would hold up his end of the bargain, pitching like a stud in 7 starts. Fans really started to get their hopes up that he might be legit. I was one of them.

***

 

2006 didn’t start off well for the prodigal son.  He started off 1-5 through 7 seven starts with an ERA north of 7, and was sent to the bullpen to get his mind cleared. From May 10-20^th he didn’t make a single start and only one bullpen appearance in between. Then on May 21^st, he was inserted back into the starting rotation for a game against the Oakland Athletics.  I just so happened to be attending that game with my father for his birthday.  Cain’s first pitch of the game registered 97 on the radar gun, and prompted my dad to ask in a slightly bewildered tone “Holy crap, who the hell is this guy?”  As the game went on, my father and everyone else in attendance got a healthy introduction to Matt Cain, the pitching phenom, as he hurled a complete game one-hitter.

From that point on, I was absolutely hooked.  Cain immediately became one of my favorite big leaguers, and by proxy the Giants fortunes started to take on greater importance to me.  I wanted the team do well, but mostly because I wanted Cain to do well. To this day I still root for the A’s to do well and get frustrated by their troubles and enjoy when they win, but those results didn’t just affect me the same way the Giants’ did.

***

As the years have passed since Cain’s ascension to the top of the Giants pitching staff, defending him to the masses has been a favorite pastime of Giants fans, myself included.  It seemed that despite his durability and consistency and elite ERA and WHIP, many people not well versed in Giants baseball wanted to discredit his achievements. Many old-school baseball writers looked at his unimpressive Won-Loss record and deduced that Cain wasn’t a “winner” therefore his stats were meaningless, not realizing that the Giants offense was particularly brutal in his starts for many years, eventually giving berth to the saying “getting Cained” whenever a Giants pitcher had a superb outing but was not rewarded with any offensive support whatsoever.

Conversely, the advanced stat geeks wouldn’t accept Cain’s work either. While they agree that W-L is a horrible way to judge a pitcher, sabermetricians looked at Cain’s numbers and saw a flyball pitcher who surprisingly gives up very few homeruns and thought he was just supremely lucky.  What they didn’t realize was Cain’s biggest weapon is his fastball command, and the entire Giants staff specializes in never giving into hitters and forcing them to hit their pitch, no matter the count.  That’s why the whole giants staff walks a few more batters than the league average, but also generates much weaker contact on the whole. By rarely giving batters easy pitches, even in hitters counts, Cain’s reduced his homerun total while remaining a fly ball pitcher.  It wasn’t luck, it was skill.  People just needed to see it in action instead of just looking at the numbers.

***

Cain’s complete game one-hitter yesterday was, for all intents and purposes, the best start of his career. He was dominant from the get go, with 11K’s and no walks, the only hit an opposite field slap-single by the pitcher Jason McDonald.  Cain was special yesterday, and there is no way anyone could’ve seen the game or the boxscore and think anything else, and because its Cain it means even more.

Cain has a special place in every Giant’s fan heart at this point. Sure, the giants are now flush with homegrown talent all over the place, but Cain was the first of this group.  Before Cain, it had been years since the Giants developed a true star, so every fan’s hopes were riding on him to be the one that turned things around from the dark days of the late-bonds/post-bonds era.  We saw the 20 year-old rookie who wasn’t old enough to drink a celebratory beer after his first career win. We saw the maturing Ace who was learning to make his prodigious gifts work together and reach his full potential.  We saw the silent assassin who refused to lose in the 2010 postseason, not allowing a single earned run the entire playoffs on his way to a World Series ring.  We saw the country kid from Germantown, Tennessee sign the richest contract ever given to a right-handed pitcher, and not have a single giants fan say one bad thing about the deal.

And yesterday we saw Cain, the longest tenured Giant, have the best start of his career, on the home opener, in front of 43,000+ fans who were ready to donate him organs if need be. And we were able to smile comfortably, knowing that Cain is guaranteed to be in a Giants uniform for the next 6 years.  We got to see the young guy grow up, and now we get to see him grow old, all in the same orange and black. That’s worth any price tag.

The Talkin' Reckless 2012 MLB Season Preview Part Two: NL West

To celebrate the start of the baseball season, I'm rolling out a massive, multi-part preview that will contain so many predictions and proclamations I will either be hailed as a genius or a moron by the end of the season (the smart money is on moron). How many parts, i don't quite know yet, but I will cover every division in the league and predict all of the major awards. You can read Part 1 here. Enjoy!

Since 2006, the NL West has probably been the most competitive, balanced division in all of baseball. In the past 6 seasons, 4 of the 5 NL West teams have won at least one division crown, and the only team that hasn’t, the Colorado Rockies, have won the Wild Card twice in the same span. Two teams have played in the World Series, and 4 of the 5 teams (Col, SF, ARI, LAD) have played in the NLCS.  The San Francisco Giants went from 4^th in 2008 to 1^st in 2010. Arizona went from last in 2010, to Division champ in 2011.  Over the last 6 seasons, Colorado, San Francisco, Arizona, and San Diego have each averaged between 79 & 81 wins a year. Four teams separated by an average of 2 games a season. Year in and year out, the NL West gives MLB surprising storylines and compelling pennant races.  It also makes a fool out of anyone trying to predict exactly what is going to happen in this upside down division.  Lucky for you, the potential to look stupid has never stopped me before, so here’s how 2012 will shake out in the NL West:

The Talkin’ Reckless 2012 MLB Season Preview Part One: AL West

To celebrate the start of the baseball season, I'm rolling out a massive, multi-part preview that will contain so many predictions and proclamations I will either be hailed as a genius or a moron by the end of the season (the smart money is on moron). How many parts, i don't quite know yet, but I will cover every division in the league and predict all of the major awards. Enjoy!

Growing up I very much enjoyed Baseball, but it was a clear 3^rd on my sports priority list behind Basketball and Football.  The non-stop action of basketball and pure violence of football held a greater connection in my ADD-addled mind. As I’ve gotten older and (hopefully) less of a space case, my love for baseball has grown every year.  I’ve learned to appreciate the smaller, more detail oriented parts of the game, like a well executed hit-and-run, or beautifully turned double-play.  It’s gotten to the point that no regular season sporting event in any sport will hold my attention better than a good old-fashioned pitcher’s duel.  Against all odds, MLB’s opening day has become one of my favorite days on the sports calendar, besting both the NFL’s and NBA’s opening days.  And with opening day coming up on April 5^th, I figured now was the time to take a stab at predicting just how this season will shake out, from the standings to the awards to who is eventually going to win the whole thing.  The boys of summer are finally back.

Peyton Manning, Alex Smith, and the Suddenly Intriguing 49ers QB Situation

 

Earlier this morning, it was reported by Chris Mortensen of ESPN that Peyton Manning has chosen to sign with the Denver Broncos, finally bringing a conclusion to his seemingly never ending “The Bachelor” style competition to find out which team will have the honor of paying him $18 million a year, or $1.125 million per game. That opening sentence smacks of bitterness because, well, I am a bit bitter. 

The Madness Is Here!!!!

The best day of the year is finally upon us, as the First Round of the NCAA Tournament gets underway.  I’ve already written my ode to March Madness, so this post will be my predictions for todays slate of games.  Just for fun, I’ve included what my wagers would be if I wasn’t staring up longingly at the poverty line.  I will post my complete bracket at the end so my success or failure (almost certainly failure) will be officially documented.  To the picks! (Teams seed will precede the team name)

Looking At The Bigger Picture: Why trading Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut was the Right Move

I was going to get into my NCAA Tournament predictions, but I guess i'll get to those later since I might as well address the monster trade made yesterday.  From what I’ve seen online, whether you think this was a good or bad move mainly comes down on what you think of Monta Ellis.  I’ve addressed my thoughts on Monta Ellis here before, and the cliff notes version reads like this: I’m not a fan. 

A Moment in Time: Why The NCAA Tournament Rises Above All Else

 If you know what "Valpo" is short for, you know what this photo is.

The beauty of the NCAA tournament is that finding out who will win the National Championship is not the reason anybody watches it.  It’s bigger than simply crowning a champion. Every other postseason system captivates the public’s attention through the focus of “Who will be the next champion?”  Every Bowl Championship Series (BCS) controversy is about who will play in the college football championship game, with any issues involving the other bowls becoming inconsequential to the general public.  Every professional sport has its focus on their respective championships, as it should be since they are professionals. That mindset reflects everyday adult life, where everything is about results, first and foremost, and everything else a distant second.

Building for the Future: Klay Thompson & Ekpe Udoh

 

After getting smacked at home by the Memphis Grizzlies onWednesday, the Warriors record has fallen to 15-21 on the season. They are currently 13^th in the Western Conference out of 15 teams.  They have the 10^th worst record in the NBA right now, so they probably will be just good enough to lose their 1^st round draft pick in this summer’s draft.  I predicted something along these lines when the lockout ended, and then dwelled on it again and again in the interim.  Trust me when I say that while I absolutely love being right, this is one of the rare exceptions where I would be more than happy to be dead wrong.

However, in the interest of trying to put myself in a better place mentally, I’m going to focus on the two positives that have come out of this season that should help the Warriors a bit in the future: Klay Thompson and Ekpe Udoh.