Cheaters calling cheaters....Cheaters!!!! (The State of College Football in 2025)

 Sherrone Moore is out. (And in jail)

It's been quite the wild 24 hours in Ann Arbor and the surrounding communities. Former Coach Moore has been fired with cause, and he's been arrested, accused of assault in a case where the details are still, admittedly, somewhat sketchy.

The alleged affair with the staffer seems to be fairly cut and dried and, if you can believe what some in the media are reporting, somewhat known for some time now? It's possible that a lot in the media knew about this, and remained silent. It's not like it doesn't happen in media across the land. To the point now that the media openly admit it. Then use it after the fact to try and gain engagement bait and clicks. Such is the media landscape in which we live.

And then there is the schadenfreude, other schools' fans pointing and laughing, breathless exclamations that "Michigan is the dirtiest program of the last 5 years" (Uh, OK. Only if you ignore several other goings-on at certain schools) and people just having a good old time pretending that their programs are lily white in an age where almost everyone is covered in a deep-dark layer of soot.

LSU is apparently already tampering. With LSU alum Mathieu openly courting Michigan QB Bryce Underwood to come to his alma mater. And I'm sure there are many other schools approaching Michigan players using back-channels and mutual agents etc. College football these days is the Wild West after all. You might not want to look to closely under the hood of the school you root for is what I'm saying.

Lost in all of this, in the fervor to heap scorn on Michigan, is that Moore's wife and 3 children are being ran publicly out into the square to be displayed as trophy victims. It's horrible for the family that this is going on. They didn't do anything wrong.

And yes, the staffer with whom the alleged affair occurred has been outed and is now a meme, although I will admit to feeling a little less sorry for her, having known full well she was with a married man and all.

But the vast majority of the blame, should all of this be proven true, lies on the shoulders of Sherrone Moore full stop. That's not to say there is some ancillary blame to be passed around. Michigan should take a hard look at Athletic Director Warde Manuel for instance, as he made the decision to hire Moore without interviewing other coaches or, apparently, conducting anything that would constitute due diligence. If nothing else that raises questions of negligence to one's job responsibilities.

Then there are the players, who now have to prepare for a bowl game against UT-Austin under now-interim head coach Biff Poggi (who's been the IHC before, when Moore was suspended for two games due to recruiting violations) and are already receiving (probably) dozens of texts and unsolicited offers to leave the Big House and go play elsewhere next season.

At the end of all of this Michigan Football will be OK. Eventually. Yes, they have some rot that they need to cut out from their program and they need to rebuild some integrity and goodwill with the fan base. Don't worry about rebuilding with the rest of the Nation because, eventually, they are going to have their own scandals to deal with and, to be quite frank, they don't care.

All that the rest of the College Football World cares about right now is that it is not their school in the cross-hairs of scandal. So they're going to keep piling on, even after their school gets caught because that is what people do. Michigan could hire Jesus Christ as their next coach and Ohio State would accuse him of using his omnipotence to illegally predict plays. That's how College Football fandom works.

Michigan DOES need to pick the right coach in this hire however, because not doing so will mean another decade in the wilderness and falling further behind a B1G Conference that is starting to gain some serious momentum. Especially the rival, Ohio State.

College Football is broken. The CFP is as close to a sham as you can get, the Bowl System is wheezing along and looking more and more likely to collapse soon, and the powers that be seem to be clueless on how to do anything about it. Everyone is cheating, only the dumb get caught.

And that is where Michigan finds itself today. They are not the "dirtiest" program over the last 5 years, they are the dumbest. Because they keep getting caught where others are better at hiding their transgressions.

But there's not, and there should not be, any coverup of a coach that, again allegedly, cheated on his wife with a staffer and then got arrested on suspicion of assault. That has little to do with the rot of the program and more to do with the personal failing of the man. A man that probably never should have been the Head Coach of one of the prestige programs in College Football.

That his wife and children have to suffer publicly for this is the greatest travesty of them all.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. (SPORTS!!!!)

Now that we have the election nonsense behind us we can return our focus to sports, and sports gambling, which is the focus of this little corner of blogging and what I enjoy writing about the most.  I'm just going to touch on a few things today that have happened while I was out in Las Vegas and relatedly, while I was sick with the travel crud afterwards.

1. The CFP early ranking remain crap. Nothing against them really, but they don't mean shit at this point. The only thing that we really learned from them are two things. First, the CFP committee understands their marketing obligations to the B1G and the SEC. They are in love with brands, not teams. I don't think this will change any in the future. Second, I'm not as upset about Boise State being close to BYU as most people are. While I feel for Indiana, they have it all in front of them. But if Boise State and BYU played on a neutral field I feel the former would be favored.  Who I feel for is Army, who might be the best of the Group of 5 teams but who might not get a chance to show it.  The CFP committee says that they "watch all of the games" but that is certainly not true. Otherwise the rankings would look far different than what they do.

2. The NFL is top-heavy this year. Kansas City, Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo. Those are the 4 teams right now that seem like they are Super Bowl Contenders. Teams that we thought might be good (Houston, San Francisco, Tampa Bay) don't seem to be all that good. There are other teams out there with winning records but they don't seem to really have a shot. The fact is the NFL is not very entertaining this year. Most games are poor, the officiating is borderline awful, and the fact that you only get three games per day without paying for a package that's not available unless you subscribe to a certain service makes Sundays must-miss TV.  And no, NBC, we are not waiting all day for Sunday Night, we're using that time to get ready for work on Monday.

3. College basketball is BACK. There have already been upsets, the return of Calipari and a handful of teams that looked REALLY good so far. This is going to be a REALLY good season, and Big XII Men's Basketball is going to be fire.

4. The NBA is back.  Zzzzzzzzzz.  Call me when the playoffs start.

5. The NHL is starting off hot. Scoring is up, there are some amazing things happening on the ice, there's a new(ish) hockey team in Utah. Oh yeah.

We're currently in the best time of the year, a time where football is on TV 7 nights per week. There's not day without a football game until almost Thanksgiving. Yes, some of it is bad, really bad, but it's a needed reprieve from the noise that surrounds the world right now. And, if you don't like the football games, there's basketball and hockey on if you're looking for something to do.

Since I was in Las Vegas and then down with the travel crud there will be no discussion of sports gaming this week. I honestly have not had the energy or time to re-run my numbers but I'm going to get them updated Sunday morning so I should be ready to go next week.

Good luck this week however you choose to play. 

College Football Week 2 (And a look-ahead to Week 3)

Michigan is in big, big trouble. Texas is most assuredly not. Notre Dame did Notre Dame things, and Georgia still looks like the top team in the Country.

As a matter of fact, ALL of the top teams in the Country owe the Irish one. Already I've heard that Coach Sark and a host of other coaches are holding up the Irish loss, at home, to Northern Illinois, as an example of what could happen to them if they slack off, or take an opponent for granted.

Of the Top 10, the SEC holds six spots, the B1G holds 3 and the ACC holds down one spot. Nothing for the Big XII. 

Given the results of SOME of the inter-conference games, the SEC is probably overrated at this point, but they now have the full power of the ESPN College Football hype-machine behind them so I imagine they stay that way all year long.

I feel some more upset potential this weekend. I like Pitt to pull an upset over West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl, UNLV to take the measure of Kansas. I also like Washington State over Washington, but not enough to pull the ML trigger. I'll take +4.5 and be happy with it.

Arizona State was a -2.5 favorite over Texas State/ I liked that line and took it.  The line has moved to PK and AZ State is -110.  However, you can get them on the ML for better odds than that. I've watched AZ State play in both week 1 & 2. I really like the odds for them so I doubled up.  Last play is Cincinnati at -2.5.  You cannot get that line any longer, it's jumped to -3.5. I do not like the line as it currently stands.

As a quick aside: NFL markets are tough. Last week the both the favorites covering and the O/U came in at 9-7. The NFL is a terribly efficient market and harder than heck to bet into with much of an edge. There's a reason I limit my play to College Football.  Even then it's getting tougher and tougher to find games. Doubly tough when betting into the Top 25.  But there are nuggets to be found. It just takes some deeper diving.

At this point I still think Boise State is the odds-on favorite to finish at the top of the heap for the G5 automatic playoff spot. Yes, UNI has the best win at this point but the Mountain West is a MUCH better conference than the MAC and I still think Boise is the favorite to win that. That said, right now UNI is a deserving top seed.

Week 3 actually promises to be fun. The Apple Cup is being played, as is the Backyard Brawl and the Bayou Bucket. Some fun, regional rivals have fit themselves into the schedule. It's nice to see these schools try and keep the rivalries going. They make College Football better and seem to be the one thing we're in danger of losing with the realignment mess the way it is.

Good luck this week.

Some thoughts after Zero Week and Week One in College Football.

Congratulations y'all.  We made it. College Football is BACK and, despite some old-timers protestations  to the contrary (self-included) it looks like it's all going to be fine.

And, yes, it was hard to find some true gems in what was a weekend full of relative blow-outs, there were some take-aways that I noticed and I'm going to summarize them here:

1. Florida State.

Let's just go ahead and get this one out of the way. There's a lot to unpack with this team. And while most of it centers on the offense, and the poor performances of DJ Uiagalelei, their defense, especially defending the run, is not good. Florida State has holes throughout their roster, most noticeably at QB, where I think we MIGHT just have witnessed the last Collegiate game for DJU, IF this Brock kid is ready that is. My guess would be the Mike Norvell keeps his job even IF the Seminoles continue to flame out.  After all, who could they possibly hire at this point that would be any better?

2. The 12-team playoff

If, by this time, you do not understand how the playoff works then you obviously did not watch College Football at all over the weekend. Seemingly every broadcast (ESPN/FOX/CBS) had an explainer on how a bracket works. It was infuriating, boring and after a while very repetitious. Hopefully that was just a one week thing. 

3. Ranking the Teams.

I'm not a fan of Top 25 rankings this early in the season. In fact, I wish they would just up and do away with them until say, mid-October.  That said, I do think there is some benefit in discussing where teams are in the pecking order, where they could be and possibly putting them in unranked tiers.  Here's my go at it.

Looking Playoff Ready Right Now: Georgia, Alabama, Penn State, Ohio State, Utah, Miami, Texas.

Not looking ready for the playoffs but could get there by the end of the season: Boston College, Michigan, Ole Miss, Oregon, USC, Notre Dame.

Stick a fork in them: Florida State (see above), Texas A&M, West Virginia, LSU, Florida, Clemson

For all of the other teams it's just too early to tell. Certainly there were some good performances but, and especially for the teams above in the "might get there" column many had great performances but it was against inferior competition. Many of those teams did not play their best, but they could improve by the end of the season.

One of those teams, I think, is Michigan.  And yes, I know I'm a fan but I saw enough on defense that I think this team will be OK by the end of the year, once the offense has a chance to gel. Unfortunately, I don't think they're going to be able to fix their issues prior to Texas rolling into the Big House.  As such, I have a large supply of whiskey on-hand for this upcoming Saturday.

4. Betting recap. 

Normally I'm not one to bet the opening weekend. I prefer to see the games, and get some actual, usable data.  I did well fading Colorado, Houston and Florida State. I did not do as well taking some shots at some big underdogs. All in all the opening weekend was a push. I've already loaded up my plays for this upcoming weekend which I'll share later, probably on Friday morning if all goes to plan.

As always, if you DO choose to place wagers on the game do so responsibly. Don't hire a tout service and bet within your means. If it's not fun, stop. If you find yourself chasing losses, stop. Betting is entertainment, treat it as such.  Also please remember that sports betting is illegal in many jurisdictions still. Know your local laws and know your outs for placing legal bets during the season. In many cases that might involve driving across State lines.

5. Final Thoughts.

After Week One it's easy to get irrational. "UNLV to the Playoffs" is one I've seen.  While UNLV looked REALLY good against what many thought would be an improved UH team, I still believe that NEXT year is the one to watch for the Cougars. Willie Fritz seems to have a knack for turning it around then, not in year one.  But UNLV's performance does show that the Odom miracle in the desert is probably more than a one-year fluke flash in the plan. This is a talented team with some depth across the roster. I still think Boise State is the team to beat in the Mountain West, but UNLV is #2 with a bullet.

As for the rest?

Again, Top 25 lists are worthless this time of year. There's a LOT of football still to be played in front of us. Top teams will play top teams and it will all work itself out in the end.  Enjoy the ride.

The Olympics we don't want to see.

Last night, after I finally got home from work after being stuck for an hour behind a wreck on 290 (thanks Houston drivers) I was watching the Olympics when diving came on.

Full disclosure: I'm not much of a fan of diving. It's a judged athletic competition that makes no sense to me how they score it, and it's pretty much a snooze-fest unless a dive goes horribly wrong.  And even then I'm not happy because I don't want to see any athlete hurt.

But I was struck by something one of the announcers said during the lead-up to a dive by eventual gold medalist Quan Hongchan  If you've never seen Quan dive, she is amazing. She's only 17 (she's been competing at the top level since age 13) and she rarely misses. As a matter of fact, the Chinese are so good at diving their only true competition any more are themselves.

But, this comment, by former American Diver Laura Wilkinson I believe (and if I'm wrong I'm sorry, I tuned in with the event already in progress) got me to thinking. Here's what she said:

"Quan was drafted into the Chinese diving academy at a young age. One of the benefits of that is that the State agreed to provide her mother, who was very ill, medical care for life"

The two announcers then went on to gush about how great that was, how nice it must be for her. In fact, her Wikipedia page, clearly written by the Chinese government by the way, talks about how much she "loves diving".

Uh-huh.

Read into this and it becomes a little bit clearer why China is so far ahead of everyone else in diving. 

They're conducting military-style drafts of athletes in certain events and training them up, for life, to do one thing. I'm guessing, at a very young age, means that they are "drafting" these kids into the academies at somewhere between 4-6 years old?

One imagines that life in the academy means LIFE in the academy. You don't see your family, you live on the compound and you train and train and train.  Remember in the Acolyte (Disney's recently released, and fairly awful, Star Wars series) where the Jedi were slammed as monsters for doing that to younglings?

But we glorify it during the Olympics. The Chinese government basically forced a child to dedicate her entire early life to a sport, or face the prospect of her very ill Mom not receiving the medical care that she needs.

In many pools in America, kids under the age of 12 aren't even allowed on the 10m platform for safety concerns. How many young Chinese kids are getting injured (or worse) by being forced up onto those platforms at an early age?  Sadly, we won't know this because China would never let that information out.

Look, it could be none. The Chinese diving academy could be the safest environment possible. I'm not suggesting that it's not. What I am suggesting is that we don't know. Nor do we know much about the Chinese Olympic sports program at all.

We know the Chinese swimmers dope and we know that they are also very good at Table Tennis and Badminton. They seem to be pretty good at shooting BB guns. (what else would you call air pistol and air rifle?) Outside of that however we know very little about how they prep and train their athletes.

I know what you're going to say here. "Those who live in glass houses should not cast stones" and you are right. America has not been a shining example of sport in the past. We have our horrific ladies gymnastics scandal, several Track & Field athletes who have doped, and athletes who have copped, usually after the Olympics, to horrific tales of physical and mental abuse.

The difference is none of this was State sponsored. And in almost every case the bad actors have been caught, and either shamed, stripped of medals or (in some cases) criminally prosecuted. Also, we learned lessons. In ladies gymnastics we certainly learned that importing coaches using training techniques and methods that originated behind the Iron Curtain is not the way to go.

Look, the Chinese government and people seem to be OK with this system. As Americans we probably need to deal with this and let them run their own shop. That doesn't mean that we should not condemn the doping, and it's very fair to ask questions when any Chinese athlete does something that seems too good to be true at this point, but we cannot lecture them on how they run their shop.

What we can do is to ensure that we don't try to run our shop that way, even if it means that in sports such as diving we're just always going to be a few steps behind. The Chinese divers are amazing. And, by all accounts, China is breaking no rules in making them that way. But America needs to look at what we know is happening to make them that way, and decide whether or not we want to play that game.

My thought is a hard no.

Not a Sport

Well, it's time for the Olympics or, as they like to be called, the Games of the Modern Olympiad (or some fluffed up BS) which means it's time to see medals awarded for Basketball, Rugby, Swimming, Track & Field and a host of other, actual, sports.

It also means that diving, gymnastics and other non-sports get lumped into this mess and get medals.

Wait, what????

But OF COURSE gymnastics is a sport you say.

"No, it's most certainly not." is my reply.

While the athleticism and sheer incredible that we see on TV each night during the diving, gymnastics and other judged events is impressive. (I could not walk down a balance beam without wobbling much less do what those ladies do, and if I tried to perform a vault I would turn my spine to sawdust) that doesn't mean that we're talking about "sports" here.

The fact is, if your primary form of scoring is subjective judging, and not an objective target (a basket, a run, a touchdown, a try, etc.) then you're not a sport. I'm sorry, but it's true. Judged-scoring events are not true sport, because there is no objective form of winning. 

All that being said, we HAVE to call them something right?  With that in mind here is my humble suggestion for categorizing these events in order to lead to a more peaceful, perfect sports universe.

Sport (n). An athletic contest whose primary form of points scoring is an objective target. Examples: American Football, Football, Basketball, Archery, Table Tennis, Badminton, golf, track & field, swimming. etc.

Athletic Competition (n) An athletic contest whose primary form of points scoring is subjective. Examples: Gymnastics, Diving, Ice Skating, Figure Skating, Competitive Dancing. etc.

Competition (n) A non-athletic contest whose primary form of scoring is objective. Examples: Poker, Chess, etc.

Pageant (n) A non-athletic contest whose primary form of scoring is subjective. Examples: Miss America, Dog Shows, etc.

I had to include dog shows and Miss America style pageants because I have actually heard their announcers say "in our sport" without a hint of irony.  There is no "sport" of beauty pageants. I'm sorry folks, there is just not.

All of the above said, I do realize that these categories are imperfect and likely to cause some debate. Look at tennis this morning. Certainly a sport, but it is still judged. And quite often, as was the case with Coco Gauff, those judges frequently get it wrong. Whether out of bias or incompetence or just simple human error, they can eff it up with the best of us. However, their input is usually not enough to turn the tide. The goal in Tennis is to make more shots and win more points, sets etc. than your opponent. if you do this, you win.  Period, end of story. Even in football there is the occasional bad call, and while instant replay has gone a long way to fixing this issue, it's still not perfect.  But in any sport you need rules, and those rules have to be officiated.

In all the main difference between "Sport" and "Athletic Competition" is how points are awarded. Objective is sport, subjective is not.

Last night I was watching the Olympics and I heard in both gymnastics and diving "well, the general public is not going to understand how these scores were awarded". I'm sorry, if you have to say that you're not a sport. EVERYONE knows when a basket is made, when a home run is hit, or when a touchdown, try etc. is scored.

It's no wonder then that subjective judging is among the worst judging in the world. If no one knows how it's calculated, then how can you argue if the judges are right or wrong? In objective sports you pretty much can know what the rules are that the officials are judging on. That's why bad NFL/College football calls are so glaring, it's why people think Gauff got the shaft today. In subjective judging, there's really no way to tell. Much of the judging is based on reputation, what the judges think the athletes can do, not what they actually accomplish.

So, for our sports sanity we need to break these things down into categories. Otherwise we're living in the sports equivalent of anarchy, and no-one, except for the Chinese athletes, wants that.

Red Rover Red Rover.....

 Let Schlossnagle come over.....

Revisiting the Houston Political Dictionary:

Asphalt. (n): Rectum trouble to an Aggie.

So, 24 hours after having the bats go relatively dead and losing the Men's College World Series to the Tennessee Volunteers......Aggie loses their head coach to. *checks notes*

Oh my goodness the UT-Austin Longhorns.

Just proving that, when it comes to coaching hopes and dreams, nothing beats the dream of having a Brinks truck drive up into your yard and drop a bunch of money.

The isn't the first time coaches have said one thing publicly while negotiating privately behind the scenes. Remember Art Briles' famous "Today I'm happy to be a Cougar" before jetting off to develop a toxic culture at Baylor?

The Cougars have had their share of coaches leave the fan base angry.  Briles, Sumlin, Herman.  All of those coaches improved the Cougar program but, ultimately, left for perceived greener pastures, where all of them fell in spectacular fashion. Hiring a Houston head coach was a trendy thing for Texas major universities for a minute.  Now, not so much.

But coaches leaving has always been the way of the world in College Sports. It's what they do. Especially from the smaller schools. The problem, in the past, was that the players the coaches recruited were stuck, abandoned by those who recruited them and possibly playing in a new system that didn't fit. Now, that's not the case.

In today's college landscape players are free agents. If they don't like their situation, they can bolt. If they think they're not being used correctly, they can bolt. If a school offers them a 7-figure NIL package....they can bolt. If the coach who recruited them leaves......well.

This has made coaches leaving schools an even bigger deal than it used to be. Because now, Aggie baseball is probably going to have to rebuild a program that was on the cusp of a National Championship from scratch.  Surely a lot of plyers who were recruited by Schlossnagle and staff are going to look for other opportunities. The core of this Aggie team is no longer guaranteed to remain intact. This makes hiring a new coach even more difficult as they're going to have to start basically from scratch.

But the news isn't great for Schlossnagle either. I'm sure some of the current Longhorn players are going to look at this news and decide that playing somewhere else is the best idea for them, and Schlossnagle is surely going to want to recruit "his type of player" right?

On that news I would not be so quick to anoint the Longhorns the best team in the SEC just yet. I think the man is a good baseball coach, and I think he might just be able to build a winning team in Austin, but he might also find out that the culture at UT-Austin is much, much different than the culture in College Station.

For one thing, in Austin asphalt is something to be protested, based on the shitty condition of their roads.

2021 Major League Baseball: Boo Hoo

 Last night, fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers had a mad, and then they had a sad.

Yup, the Astros won 3-0 over the "lily pure" Dodgers (the 'pure' Dodgers who have three players on their team that played for the Boston Red Sox when they were also caught stealing signs) and the fans were angry.

They threw things on the field, they used gay slurs, they used profanity. They pretty much went full Mexico soccer fan and idiots like Bob Nightengale and the rest of the MLB National media think this is just fine.

They think it's fine because the Baseball Writers Association truly believes that they are the gatekeepers of "true baseball". They believe that is is through their word processors, and only their word processors, that the ghosts of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth view the game from whatever plane of existence they find themselves these days.

But, guess what?

The Astros think it's fine as well. They laugh at these stooges with their overpriced beers Hoovering hot dogs as fast as they can screaming with their mouth's full in bitter anger. Letting a group of people who have zero impact on their regular lives control their emotions to such an extent.

Then, they just go out and win, so far, this year.  Win to the point that they have the best record in the American League. Infuriating those who think they are "pure" ('pure' to the point that their staff ERA has risen since the dirty ball issue) go apoplectic with rage.

In a way, this is sports. "Fan" is short for "Fanatic" after all.  And to be a "fan" one must necessarily be blind to the faults of their team and cast blame everywhere else but internally for why they lose. For the fan, their HAS to be a bogeyman or the entire myth falls apart. Professional sports, specifically, rely on this.

When you think about it there is little reason for you to root for a team in the city you live. At heart, they are a private enterprise who just happens to call your chosen, or birth, city home. But sports franchises have done something brilliant, they have convinced communities that they are somehow part of a City's fabric like no other company is. They have convinced people that the team's success and failures are also their successes and failures, that who you are is wrapped up in how your team does.

When you look at it, it's all bollocks.  In Houston, the Astros, Rockets and Texans are no more representative of the community than are many of the large Oil and Gas companies that headquarter there, and the teams employ way less citizens, they contribute less to the local economy, and their vaunted charitable contributions are way less, although way more publicized. If the oil and gas industry crumbles then Houston as a city follows shortly behind. If the Texans, or Rockets or Astros crumble....few outside of those who work in the stadiums will be all that affected.

I'm sorry, this is just truth.

So, scream away Dodgers fans, vent thy spleens. At the end of the day you're probably doing the Astros more good than harm. You forget that these are, for the most part, wealthy players that could honestly give two shits about your beer-bellied bellowing.

You're an amusement, a source of income. Lose them or hate them you pay to see them.

And that's the bottom line.

Vegas Golden Knights: "What in the World is Going on Out Here?????"

First, the Golden Knights traded away Marc Andre Fleury and the fans went bonkers.

I was, admittedly, bummed about this but was willing to give the Golden Knights brain-trust the benefit of the doubt and wait and see what they were able to accomplish with this new found cap space. OK, I said to myself, loving Fleury is rough, but I agree that having the Cap space to re-sign Alex Martinez and signing a quality center will make them a better team going forward.

This, is not what happened.

Yes, the Golden Knights re-signed Martinez, which is good, but then they traded for Evginii Dadonov, a declining winger from Ottawa, giving up promising defenseman Nick Holden and a 3rd round draft pick. My guess is with Dadonov that they hope his decline in Ottawa was more to to Ottawa than Dadonov, but they still haven't solved their most glaring problem.

After Dadonov, they announced the signing of a new backup goalie, Laurent Broissoi formerly of Winnipeg, whos was a fine backup for them but who is nowhere close to the quality of Fleury.

All of that cap space is now gone. I saw on Twitter where they have about $186K remaining, but they still have to sign the RFA Patrick to the qualified offer that they made to him.

So, let's recap. They've traded away the face of the franchise and the most beloved, and the best, player during the entire life of the team (Not to mention the locker room leader, community giant, etc.) for a sack of beans and have used that salary cap room to make the team markedly worse.

The thing people keep pointing to is the mythical Eichel trade, which will probably involve moving either (or more likely both) Pacioretty and Tuch.

Think the fans are going to be happy with that one?

And I haven't even gone into the mess of how GM Kelly McKrimmon treats players, and what might, or might not have happened with communication with Fleury regarding the trade.

This is an easy team to root for on the ice, but a helluva difficult franchise to pull for off it.

Right now the BEST CASE scenario for Knight's fans is that Davadov was bad because of Ottawa, that Lehner has a career year and Boissoi can provide enough quality minutes to spell Panda and keep him from being exhausted come playoff time. They also have to hope that their current crop of centers finally produce during playoff time, and that the Power Play miraculously gets fixed, and they they don't go into a scoring funk AGAIN when the post season rolls around.

Also in the equation, would be that Eichel is healthy and Davadov and he could increase goal production from Patches and Tuch.

These are big asks, and if any of them go South it could be that Vegas misses the playoffs for the first time in their history, or flames out in an early round.

Should the latter two scenarios happen then I think a house cleaning will be needed, both on the ice, on the bench and in the front office.

Very important season ahead for everyone methinks.

2021 Olympics: Your "Not A Sport" reply is old, tired and (in most cases) inaccurate.

It never fails.

ESPN, or some other media outlet, will post a Tweet with the results of some Olympic event, and two or three people, in a moment of what they believe to be wit, will respond with "Not a sport" and wait for the entire world to laugh and like their tweet.

I've seen the reply to Judo, Taekwando, Gymnastics, Volleyball and Softball.

Never mind that, in all of those cases, the characterization is 100% wrong, it's also lazy, insipid, and sad that the responders one brain wave of the day is limited to trying to garner a reaction from a sport's fans.

Much of it is unserious trolling, but there is something concrete that we can take from this. Namely that we've so watered down the definition of "sport" that even contests like beauty pageants and dog shows are throwing it out without a trace of irony in an attempt to legitimize what it is they do.

Of course, no amount of definition (or logic) will ever truly stop Internet trolling and the answer is never to censor such nonsense, but there still does need to be some fixed set of criteria for what is a "sport" and what is not. To facilitate this discussion I propose the following categories for your amusement.

Sport: "An athletic endeavor contested between two or more individuals/teams with the goal of completing assigned tasks within the field of play which is won by either completing the task the quickest or scoring the most amount of points in a set time."

Examples: American Football, European Football, Basketball, Baseball, Track & Field, Swimming, Softball, Volleyball, Tennis etc.

Judged Sport: "An athletic endeavor contested between two or more individuals/teams with the goal of completing assigned tasks within the field of play whose results are judged by an outside panel, who then assign points based on a set of criteria to determine a winner."

Examples: Gymnastics, Skateboarding, Ice Skating, Diving, etc.

Competition: "An event, usually judged, that contains no athletic effort but is competitive in nature."

Examples: Dog shows, beauty pageants, bodybuilding, Poker, etc.

You may not agree with all of the examples that I provided, and the lists above are by no means exhaustive, and there could need to be some debate around certain events (shooting is one that comes to mind) but I think these three categories could serve as a good starting point for the discussion of what is sport and what is, in fact, just a competition. If you would like, another category "athletic competition" could be included for a competition such as bodybuilding which DOES take some athletic activity in order to compete and win but which is, in fact, still just a beauty pageant with steroids.

What say you?

One thought on the Texans mess.

For a long time now I've used the hashtag #Bad[Insert thing here] as a general comment on all things that are stupid, silly or just plain awful.  A lot of my Twitter tagging of #BadSports content has been in relation to the Texans.

But I haven't used that in response to the trades that went down over the weekend because it just seems so obvious that we're dealing with a #BadSports situation here.

Two trades, both unbalanced in the favor of the other team. You got too little back for Clowney and gave up too much for Tunsil and Stills.  What is the potential of TWO first round draft picks?

How about JJ Watt and DeAndre Hopkins?

OK, that's an extreme example but still, if there's one thing the Texans have done a pretty good job of as a franchise it's hitting on first round picks.  It's the rest of the rounds in the draft where they've struggled, which is why their roster is a wreck outside of a few key stars.

Still, getting Tunsil on-board does, finally, provide Watson with some protection, but there are four other positions on that offensive line and it's not very clear that any of the people manning them is going to be all that great.  Tunsil will help, and it's much needed help, but he really only makes the offense marginally better while on defense you've gotten significantly worse. 

Remember the vaunted pass-rush that was supposed to help a woeful secondary?  Yeah, that narrative pretty much got blown out of the water.  JJ Watt is great, but no man is an island and he needs help, especially when you consider that now all of the double teams that Clowney absorbed are going to be redistributed to #99.

Who else on this defense is worthy of a double-team?

The line from the team is that they're worried about this year and that they'll worry about the dearth of draft picks after the season, a line that's been parroted by aging, increasingly less insightful, Houston Chronicle columnist John McClain.

You might really be worried about it when you're trying to find a new GM, who looks at your upcoming draft equity and says "Thanks, but no thanks"

Still, and this is the truth, if the Texans win this season, and make a decent run in the playoffs, all will probably be forgiven. One thing this does ensure is that Texans fans, who seem content on supporting one of the worst franchises in football, will be there in droves for the home opener, hearts full of love and minds full of optimism for the boys in deep steel blue (or whatever the heck they call their colors).

If they lose however, all bets are off.

College Football: The CFP Continues to Drive Nails into the College Football Coffin.

Not like this College Football, Not. Like. This.

The minute the SEC Championship game between Alabama and Georgia was over both CBS and SEC Network partner ESPN started ramping up the "Georgia" is one of the 'FOUR BSECT TEAMS" in the country nonsense.  Of course, believing this required two things:  1. Ignoring that they just LOST the game that finished less than five minutes prior and 2. Ignoring that they lost to 3-loss LSU by 20 earlier in the year.

If you want to ignore the actual games, be my guest. At that point let's just call the College Football Playoff what it is and always has been: An invitational that considers potential TV revenue and the sticker on the helmet more than the actual record.  Then we can treat it like a clown-show and go back to enjoying college football the old way.

But, the College Football Playoff Committee, in a rare moment of something close to sanity, chose 1-loss OU for their coveted #4 spot. That's better than Georgia of course, OU only lost previously to Texas, a loss that they avenged on Saturday while Ohio State worked hard to beat Northwestern, and then started relying on a win against Penn State as their closing argument.

Of course, all of this ignored the elephant in the room:  UCF.

Which, ironically, is what the CFP is designed to do, ignore outright the Group of 5 schools.  In any other sport there being 4 undefeated teams remaining at the end o the regular season would lead to said four teams being natural fits in the 4-team playoff.  Not in college football however. In college football we have Strength of Schedule, we have the vaunted "eye-test" and we have Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN and CBS running around telling everyone that UCF just "doesn't match up" with the big boys in college football. It's a broken system that's thrusting sticks into the spokes of the greatest sport on Earth and it's starting to have an effect.

The negative effect is most visible in the vaunted "New Year's Six" bowl games.  Let's take a quick look:

Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl: Florida (9-3) vs. Michigan (10-2)
Playstation Fiesta Bowl: LSU (9-3) vs. UCF (13-0)
Rose Bowl:  Washington (10-3) vs. Ohio State (12-1)
Allstate Sugar Bowl: Texas (9-4) vs. Georgia (11-2)
Goodyear Cotton Bowl: Notre Dame (12-0) vs. Clemson (13-0)
Capital One Orange Bowl: Oklahoma (12-1) vs. Alabama (13-0)

I'm not going to go through these games individually here, but I am going to mention that three SEC teams were given nods into the games, this despite in many cases, going no better than 6-3 against quality Power 5 competition.  Meanwhile Washington State gets left out, despite going 7-2 against the same. 

"The SEC is just playing the game better than anyone else" supporters will say, and  they're correct on that.  By only playing eight conference games and allowing schools to play multiple cupcakes in their non-conference the SEC both pads their records, and receive some gaudy scores to sway the uninitiated to their superiority.  They're also smart enough to care about the meaningless bowls, and rarely don't show up. This doesn't stop their supporters from claiming they didn't care when they LOSE (As did Auburn to UCF last year) but it provides them a baked-in argument when they eke out a win against a middling team from another conference.

The Pac-12, B1G and ACC all have legitimate gripes against the current system however, as the SEC gets at least two nods (Florida and LSU) that they should not have.

Now, granted, the ACC went and shot themselves in the foot this year, with both Syracuse AND NC State blowing late games they should have won, but the PAC-12 had Washington State sitting out there with a 10-2 record looking all the world like a playoff team.

The Texas inclusion (9-4) is strange as well. Given that they were beaten by West Virginia, Oklahoma State and Maryland prior to losing to OU in the championship game.  THIS is a NY6 bowl team?

So, the system is broken, the games are a mess and we're not getting close to seeing the matchups that we want to see. The Group of 5 teams are left on an island no matter what they do, and a single conference is getting a much larger than it's proportionate share of the big-money games despite not having the quality wins to show for it.

In addition, gone are the traditions of the traditional bowl tie-ins (save for the Rose Bowl thank goodness, which still matches up the B1G and PAC-12 Champions) and gone is much of the history, pageantry and tradition from the game.

In it's place we get a smarmy Kirk Herbstreit lecturing us on the "BSECT Four Teams" while suggesting that the results don't matter and CBS prostrating themselves in front of the SEC praying silently that they don't look elsewhere for their broadcast rights. We've turned College Football into a season of  "Who's Line is it Anyway?" without Drew Carey. In his place we've put Kirby Horcutt and a bunch of prune-juice slurping ADs who are really just doing what their SIDs tell them to do.  We're not allowed to see, hear or read about the discussions but we're promised that they are intelligent, deep and thoughtful.

I've seven seen SEC(!) partisans suggest that these are "10 of the best minds in college football"

Seriously? THIS Group?

In fact, the ONLY thing this group is successful at is allowing some low-functioning idiots to write some words and allow excluded fan-bases to be aggrieved.

And we think the solution to this is to allow MORE of it?  Eight teams instead of four?  It was four instead of two that was supposed to fix things. It's made it worse.

At this point the entire mess can only be saved by scrapping it and returning to the old bowl/poll system.  If we're going to have to live through the insufferableness of sports media today, at least let's do it where several teams get to make their case.

Hell, we could have argued all year whether Alabama or UCF deserved the title, IF 'Bama wasn't granted false legitimacy in a rigged system last year that is.


Blow. It. Up.  It's really the only way.

All sports: The weekly grab-bag.

So much going on in the world of sports, and sports betting, right now that I don't have time to fully dive into all of it.  So here's a mish-mash of stuff that's caught my eye. (Some will have news links, some won't)


A. There are no good college football teams out there today except for Alabama. Every team is capable of losing week-in and week out.  For those who say "Alabama hasn't played anyone yet" that's bull.  Texas A&M is a good team, Alabama made them look bad. When Bama plays good competition they're so far above them that they make them look poor.  I'm not suggesting that we gift wrap the CFP to Alabama, but right now they're clearly that much better than everyone else.

B. There's something ironic about Boston fans and media getting fired up over someone recording their team.  Nevermind that, according to the letter of the law, the Astros did nothing wrong. It's enough for Boston that someone else might have been caught doing something that might, possibly be sort-of, wrong.  They are the worst fan base in North America and it's not close.

C. The NBA is back. Adjust your television watching accordingly. (And your betting)

D. William Hill is lobbying for the power to not have their mistakes count against them.  The worst sports book operator in Las Vegas is now trying to take their fan-unfriendly policies that they enjoy in Europe and move them over to the US.  The field is already tilted in their favor, now they want to not have to pay any penalty for their own incompetence. You should never lay action with William Hill. Ever.

E. UNLV Football is struggling, again. Yes, there have been injuries, but every team has those. The fact is the team has not progressed much since Sanchez took over. As hard as it would be for the program it's time for a change at the top.

F. The Fraud Trial in College Basketball is a sham. It will lead to no meaningful change, and will possibly result in the NCAA further restricting athlete's ability to do well. If anything it's allowing the NCAA to profit more from the athlete's than they already are.

G. The UFC is a dysfunctional mess right now. No longer a draw for their actual fights, they're having to rely on WWE style theatrics to juice numbers.  Their days as a major player are closer to being finished than they are starting.

H. HUGE WEEK for Michigan. Beat Sparty.

I. The Raiders last years in Oakland could be BRUTAL Especially if rumors Gruden is going to blow the team up are true.

J. The Las Vegas Golden Knights won last night 4-1 at the Fortress. The team finally looked something like the fast skating, goal-scoring machine we saw last year.  If you're a Knights fan (and as you know this blog is) then this was a welcome sight.  Up next: A win streak?  Let's hope.



the FIVE coming tomorrow.....

An Open Letter to the NFL. Let's end this Monday Night Double-Header Monstrosity

Dear (The) Shield,

Congratulations on what was a fun opening Sunday. I realize that you're not used to hearing that from me, in fact, I'm probably one of the most critical writers when it comes to your product, but you knocked it out of the park on Sunday.

Granted, there are still some things you need to work on, roughing the passer and too many field goals among them, but for the most part the games were fun, the pace was excellent and a general good time was had by all. (Except Bills fans, who might not have a good time for the rest of the year)

Now we roll into Monday and many of us face a problem.  To whit, we're going to have to miss a significant portion of at least one of the games.  The reason for this is simple: You continue to allow ESPN to try and shoe-horn two games into a one-game window, a practice that needs to come to an end.

If you live on the West Coast the reality is that the game is going to kick-off for you at 4:10 PM, a time that most productive people are at work.  If you live on the East Coast the reality is that the second game is not going to finish until after Midnight, possibly WELL after Midnight, an untenable situation if you're a productive person and have a job to get to the next day.  This scheduling is unworkable for a vast majority of the American public, you know, those people who watch your games and buy products from the advertisers that you rely on?

I understand that ESPN is paying you a lot of money to allow them to take two games away from the fans and put it on their airwaves at odd times. I realize that, under Commissioner Roger Goodell's watch team profitability is soaring. I get that, I really do. Right now the money is coming in so fast Jerry Jones barely has time to count it before running out of the stadium to avoid the press.

Everyone is happy under the Shield, rich and getting richer. The dip that you have in television viewership is because of cord-cutting and NOT because your product on the field has been bad. Understood.

But the start/finish times for Monday Night Football during Week 1 is a travesty that must be addressed.

Thursday games are bad enough.  You wouldn't have thought about this had the colleges not started making a ton of cash on Thursday nights and you just had to get your piece. Forget about player safety and all of those things you claim in public, there are TV dollars to be made.

But what you've been doing, and continue to do, by moving the focus away from Sunday is diluting your product, and your brand.  Thursday night games are horrid spectacles of tired, often injured players, going through the motions and ratings have borne this out. Even though you know you should, you can't be seen as retreating from Thursdays, from admitting that they should be for the college game.

But Monday's are a different story. Monday Night Football USED to be must-see TV. You diluted that with the Sunday night game but it doesn't have to be.  You can have your cake and eat it to by giving up on Thursday, returning Monday to some primacy and helping us out by scheduling ONE game that we all want to watch.

Two games on Monday is one too many. It doesn't fit. It's like a fast-food burger in a Gordon Ramsey restaurant, it's a turd on a plate. It's trying to fit a five-course-dinner into an hour, and people are increasingly leaving the dish half-eaten.

Even living in the Central time-zone, as I do, this schedule is problematic.  In many ways we get the worst of both worlds. For one, most of us won't be home from work at 5:10PM when the game kicks off and we'll have to go to bed before the 2nd game ends (probably after Midnight even here) usually at halftime.  Now, I realize that you don't put much stock into the viewing habits of flyover country. Hell, if you could get away with it you wouldn't even come here. But Jerry Jones is loud, brash and tends to make a mess of things so you come to Dallas occasionally, you just never leave the security of the luxury box, the chauffeured SUV or your private jet when doing so.

As fans we understand that you don't want to interact with us but at least give us the courtesy of acknowledging our fandom. Give us the basic decency of putting games on TV at times we can watch. Among the exorbitant ticket prices, $15 beers, $10 hot dogs and $350 "authentic" jerseys at least give us the option to watch the games without having to call in sick to work the next day.

You get this for the Super Bowl, I'm curious why you don't get it in the first week of the season?

Do the right thing NFL, go to ESPN and renegotiate this mess. Make the fans happy for a change.


Sincerely,

All of us.

Sports Betting: Shut up Chuck.

Since the SCOTUS struck down PASPA people have been waiting for the Federal Government to weigh in on sports betting.  If recent comments by New York Senator Chuck Schumer are any indication, we'd be better off if they'd just stay out of it.

Chuck Schumer Suggest Federal Framework for Sports Betting. Darren Rovell, ESPN

Schumer's suggestions include the idea that all sports books only use official league data to determine outcomes and that the leagues themselves should be involved in determining what bets would be accepted.

No and no.

First off, giving the leagues a monopoly on data is a sure-fire way to further enrich owners (read: Schumer's campaign donors) but does little to assist the bettor in almost any situation. It creates a monopoly on data and shoves out independent operators who are, in some cases, providing better statistical data than the leagues themselves.

Second, giving the leagues control over what bets are accepted is just wrong. Sports betting is a marketplace, let the market decide what the action is.

If this is what we are to expect from Federal legislation regarding sports betting then we're better off taking a pass and letting the States decide.

It is perhaps no coincidence that most of the major league offices reside in New York, so Sen. Schumer is beholden to their interests.  After all, they have his ear and their relatively large pocketbooks have his undivided attention obviously.

Go away Chuck, let the adults in the room work things out.

Suffering: The Definition of Sports Insanity.

As a sports fan, endless suffering is often viewed as some weird rite of passage that all most go through prior to experiencing any joy.

"Abandon hope, all who enter here"

But, does it have to be this way?  Is it necessary to have your heart ripped out and shown to you on several occasions before your team finally climbs the mountain to a championship? Does there NEED to be so much pain and sorrow to make a win enjoyable?

The Vegas Golden Knights would say no.  And so would I.

Don't get me wrong.  Suffering can make for some great stories.  The Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs, the cities of Cleveland and Buffalo.  After long periods of drought making it to the championship oasis can seem like the commutation of sports death. There's a certain catharsis that comes from being in the doldrums and then finding your way out of the desert of loss.

But, in many ways, continuing to spend money in support of shoddy franchises is more of a cop-out than it is a virtue. You support your teams despite the fact that they give you no reason to do so. That they have a stingy ownership group, or incompetent leadership. You support these teams because (the worst of all reasons) they're "from where you're from".

Don't mistake this, I'm not suggesting hopping around from team to team looking for a winner every year. Bandwagoning in other words.  The New England Patriots have a lock on those fans. People in cities such as Houston proudly sporting Patriots jerseys with "Brady" on the back not knowing who in the world Steve Grogan even is, or that he played for the team.

In Houston we have three top-league sports franchises, the Astros, the Rockets and the Texans.

The Astros are defending World Series Champions and have started off the current season pretty well. The Rockets are in the Western Conference Finals in the NBA (although it does appear that they won't be able to beat the Golden State Warriors).  The Texans are coming off a 4-12 season, have never made it past the 2nd round of the playoffs and are, by all accounts, the worst-ran franchise in the city.  Guess which team has the biggest fan support?

This for a team that's played 16 seasons and only had a winning record in six of them. A team that has an owner with no apparent desire to win, who is content consistently selling out NRG Stadium, pocketing his money and saying the occasional stupid thing.  A team that gives fans no compelling reason to root for them outside of "Well, they're the local team".

Or consider the Cleveland Browns. A revived franchise for 19 seasons now who only have two winning seasons during that time, a woeful ownership group, horrible front office and absolutely no reason to make you believe that they're going to turn it around Draft Day style.

Then you have the Vegas Golden Knights. An expansion team that was brilliantly put together by a smart GM hired by an owner who let him select the right coach, and put the right players around him. All they've done is reach the Stanley Cup Final in their first year.

Which of these three teams then is 'worthy' of support?  I would argue it's the team that's doing whatever it can to win, not the teams that are happy being moribund with strong fan support.

The fact is continuing to financially support a bad team expecting differing results is the very definition of sports insanity.  Suggesting that suffering is a prerequisite to winning is just a salve to your supporting a sub-par team.

Yes, you should remain a fan.

No, you should not reward them with your money.

No, you should not try and belittle the fans of the teams that are doing well.

At it's heart this anger toward Vegas and their fans is really just guilt reflected outward. You KNOW in your heart of hearts that the current path your team is on is crap but you won't accept it. It's much easier to point the finger at teams that are doing well and moan about "preferential treatment" or "rigged draft rules" ignoring the fact that many teams did stupid things to allow the Golden Knights to build the team they have (Hi Florida!).

So no. You don't have to suffer to enjoy a win. The fact that we've been conditioned to believe that we do is the lifeblood of bad franchises across the country. Bad owners rely on fans being blindly loyal, to not questioning, to having a local media who are going to do their level best to carry the water for failure.  If you question this the response is "well you just don't know".

Yes, you do know. The results are right in front of you. Records don't lie.

I'm not suggesting that all of you run out and support the Golden Knights or jump on board the Patriots train. You should continue to root for your team, through thick and thin. But that doesn't mean that you have to continue to blindly throw money at them either. Or spend much of a sports day watching them get drilled again by some wide margin, or buying into the excuses for failure.

It also doesn't mean that you should punish the fans of a team who gets it right.

That's just not a good look y'all.  Stop it.

Demand more from your teams before you support them with you time and money.  Absent a promotion/relegation system it's the only thing that will grab the attention of owners.

Don't Blame Golden State (or Kevin Durant) for The Warriors being unbeatable.

Blame the rest of the NBA.

Last night Houston Rockets fans (self included) received a tough, bitter dose of reality.


They're nowhere near as good as the Golden State Warriors.


Neither is anyone else in the NBA.  The easy road is to lay the blame on Superstar, and all-around bad guy, Kevin Durant but that's not really fair.  Durant did what any player should do, go to the team that was offering him a crap-ton of money where he had the best chance to win a title.  Golden State did what any team should do, build a roster that gives them the best chance to win.

The fault for Golden State's dominance lies with the rest of the NBA, who haven't been able to negotiate the maze of the salary cap nearly as well.

Yes, outside of Stephan Curry the Warriors are an utterly unlikable collection of players (unless you're a Golden State fan).  Draymond Green is a jerk, Kevin Durant is utterly unlikable, but every team in the NBA has players like that.  Hell, every team in professional sports has players who are the same.

As a 49ers fan I lived through the Terrell Owens days. Yes he was a prick but he was OUR prick. It's the same for Golden State fans. The rest of the NBA fans might not like their players, but it doesn't really matter because the home fans do and they're winning.

James Harden is a flopper, but he's HOUSTON's flopper.

Russell Westbrook is a Prima Donna, but he's OKLAHOMA CITY's Prima Donna.

And so on and so on.

(Of note: This doesn't mean that these players are necessarily bad PEOPLE, I'm referring to their image ON THE COURT. I don't know them in person and neither do you, they might be kind, caring sweethearts of human beings for all we know)

The biggest problem that the NBA has right now is that they are extremely top heavy.  There is a ton of individual talent but few real TEAMS, let alone teams that can compete with the best of the bunch, the Golden State Warriors.

This was on display last night as Golden State moved the ball around with quick passing, excellent ball movement and, when need be, a great individual performance by Durant. Compare that with Houston's isolation dribble, dribble drive or shoot offense based primarily around Harden and the issue becomes very clear.

And it's not Golden State's fault.  Just like it wasn't UConn's fault they dominated women's basketball, or UCLA's fault back during the Wooden era.

In the words of the great Ric Flair: "To be the man, you gotta beat the man."

Increasingly it feels that no one in the NBA is going to be able to do that.


Bring on the off-season. (It's more fun anyway)

Open Letters: Dear NFL, It's not me, it's you.

Hello "The Shield."

Rough game last night.

In fact, Rough few years.

For all of the sturm und drang surrounding Colin Kaepernick, President Trump, your multi-Million dollar contract with the Military that's forcing all of this on us, my real problem with you of late is that your on-field product is increasingly unwatchable.

And violent.

By now, with all of the information that we have at our disposal surrounding concussions and CTE there's no reason that the 'kill shot' tackle is still a part of the game. There's no reason you haven't taken college football's admittedly flawed targeting rule and implemented it in a better way to clean up the game and prevent shit-shows like we saw last night from appearing on our TV.

I don't tune in to watch people get hurt, although I understand that's an unfortunate part of any sport, nor do I like listening to your paid analysts and team employees telling me, "It's just part of the game" or that it's "AFC North Football".

No, it's not.

Cheap shots and projectile "tackling" with the head down isn't a part of any football, nor should it be.

Now, granted, I give you that us, as fans, shoulder some of the blame. For a few years there we cheered mightily (and some still do) at "big hits" and ESPN ran "Jacked up" with players getting eight bells knocked out of them and we cheered. I think that all stopped though with the Junior Seau tragedy and it certainly has no place in the modern game.

The problem is that the "Modern NFL" game isn't all that good. You give us a slew of bad teams in prime time games in a league where maybe only a third of the teams put forward a really good product. You can't even fill a playoff bracket with 12 teams that deserve to be there.

Beyond the hits, the quality of play is atrocious. The coaching is overly conservative (Another field goal?) the offenses are stale and the defenses, when they're not busy knocking their opponents out, are about as sophisticated as the Wing-T offense of old.

There's little drama, an even smaller chance of upsets (have you seen how the favorites are doing in Vegas lately?) and no compelling reason to tune in.  In fact, there are more reasons to not watch your product than there are to spend most of my Sunday watching sub-par, poorly officiated, socially inept football players competing in a game that's feeling more like a grind than entertainment.

Everything you do is manufactured. You can't even get touchdown celebrations right. No one knows what a catch is or isn't any longer to the point that so-called "rules experts" for the networks are incorrect over half the time regarding the results of instant replay.

You've done a great job of creating an arbitrary rules framework for a game built on the precise. The result of this is an unwatchable product that drones on, 4 yard play after 4 yard play with the "wildcat" still being considered edgy. You're a copycat league, trailing behind college football innovation by around 5 years.

All of this and we haven't even mentioned Roger Gooddell yet.  Your commissioner seems to view the rules and norms of punishment and investigatory best practices to be annoyances to his wish to pursue and punish at his whim. But he's very good at negotiation apparently, which is why your labor contract is head and shoulder's more owner friendly than any other sport.

You think this is a good thing but the result is that there's a level of distrust between the players and the league that permeates every thing you do, every decision you make and taints every so-called "player friendly" action you take.

That you're mostly a bunch of unlikable sots only adds to the dysfunction. Every community outreach, charitable event that you hold feels forced, like you're only catering to the fans suddenly because you feel the need to after years of ignoring them.

The problem, NFL, is that many of us have decided that it's past time for us to start ignoring you.

I, for one, am finding better things to do on my Sundays, and I'm noticing that my life is no less fulfilled without you in it than it was when I was watching.

That should worry you, but I know it won't as long as the money is coming in and the taxpayers are still willing to be fleeced for Multi-Billion dollar shrines to your glory.

By the time you do worry it will probably be too late.  It might already be. (for you)

Houston Texans: Welcome to the disaster.

The Houston Texans are talking Kaepernick which tells you just far off the rails this team has gone.

As an admitted fan of the 49ers I've always been sympathetic to Collin. He got caught up in a dysfunctional team environment and then cast aside by a 2nd generation head coach who didn't want to deal with the drama.

Yes, he's a polarizing figure, much of that he brings onto himself in tandem with his activist girlfriend.  And yes, there are big (huge) questions regarding whether or not he can actually still play to the level he did during the Super Bowl run. But the issues with Kaepernick's protests are overblown and have become politicized to the point that the original intent has been washed away in a wave of psuedo-patriotism.

Ignoring all of that, were I the Texans I would give him a tryout.

'I'll boycott!!' you say?  I would argue that most of the fans who would abandon the team over that have left already and that's a small sub-set of fans anyway.

MOST fans just want their team to win. To feel like they're a part of something that's successful on Sundays.  And that's what fandom is really all about. Winning makes people feel good. They like it. Losing makes them feel like, well.....losers.

It's ridiculous and silly and it's all about being a fan.

For 49ers, and Texans, fans of late that's been a real hard thing.

At least the 49ers seem to have a plan for turning it around.  For the Houston Texans things have never seemed more dire.  You have an owner who isn't serious about winning, might possibly be slightly addled and is known more for his poor word choice than anything else. You have a general manager who might be the sucker at any table he sits down at, and a head coach who is irascible, foul mouthed and seemingly not very good at coaching the game of tackle football unless a gift from the God's is playing at QB.

But even WITH Watson the Texans record was 3 & 4 1/2. With three of those losses squarely falling on the shoulders of the Chin.  Whether as a result of bad game-planning or overly conservative play-calling it's apparent that BoB is in well over his head, and the team is destined to be 9-7, 8-8 or (more likely) worse with him in charge.

Here's the problem.  From top to bottom this is not a franchise that is built to win. It starts at the top, incompetent management who can evaluate talent in the first round, but which is splotchy in its track record in the subsequent rounds. The result of this is a roster with more holes than Mayor Turner's tax increase defense and no plan to address it.  Do YOU have any faith the Texans brain trust can draft its way out of this mess?

There are stars on the Texans, and a bunch of guys. The problem is most of the 'guys' are just that. Not players, not performers, but guys, roster spot fillers who would be camp bodies for good NFL teams, but who start for the Texans.  I'm not going to call anyone out, you (and they) know who they are.

After losing Sunday to the hapless Colts, one struggles to find a future game on the roster where the Texans could reasonably be favorites.

Well, except for my 49ers of course.  But 4-12 is now more of a possibility than is 9-7 and don't even think about 10-6. Such a thing for O'Brien is unpossible.

Maybe he can tell us again about his AFC Championships. THAT should do it.

Houston Astros: So much for fate.

It seemed the stars were perfectly aligned. Then the game happened. A game that was as much of a wet fart for Astros fans as the city itself. 

Were you caught in rush hour traffic?  It took me 2 1/2 hours to get home, on a drive that typically takes 45 minutes to an hour. Then the rains came, we found a roof leak, and the Astros lost.  As far as bad birthdays go this one ranks right up there with the time only one kid showed up to my bowling party on Halloween day. (In retrospect, not the best day to hold a birthday party)

Days like this are why I no longer celebrate my birthday.  Fate is bunk.

And the Astros are in deep trouble.

It's not that they can't win the game tonight, but that I'm afraid they won't.  Because Yu Darvish is taking the mound against them, a very good pitcher that had a very bad game a few nights ago, but who will have the entire Nation behind him because he was the epitome of class after the Yuli Gurriel situation. (On a related note: Rich Hill is a sanctimonious prick)

But to cast this story as "the good guy Dodgers versus the bad guy Astros" is way, way to simplistic.  Don't forget that that walking piece of human garbage Chase Utley is on the Dodgers roster as is Yasiel Puig, who can have fun, but is also a brooding, glowering sore loser when things don't go his way.  And the Astros have Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa, two of the legitimately good guys in baseball.

It's never about "good versus evil" despite what fans will tell you, and despite the fact that I make jokes about it on various occasions.  It's about pitching versus hitting and I'm still worried that the Dodgers have more good of the former.

And that's a problem.

Because again the Astros bats went cold when they needed it most. They couldn't plate a single run with men on 2nd and 3rd with no outs, they went into a funk after that for four innings, in the 8th and 9th they went meekly, on around 20 pitches.

You never felt comfortable at 1-0 because you knew that Verlander is human.  A great pitcher no doubt, but human, and the Dodgers have a powerful lineup as well.  Taylor, Seager, Turner, Bellinger, Puig, Pederson is just as good as Springer, Bregman, Altuve, Correa, Gurriel, McCann, possibly better.

But here's the rub.  Morrow, Maeda and Jansen are much, much better than Morton, Gregerson and Giles.  Much, much, much better.

In game 7 the Dodgers give the ball to Darvish while the Astros place their hopes on Lance McCullers.  Unless the latter can miraculously do something that Verlander could not (Pitch 9 scoreless in a World Series elimination game) I'm afraid that the stage is going to prove to be too big, too soon for these baby Astros.

I hope I'm wrong.

Go Astros.