Best of luck to all those Packers fans out there

You’re going to be hostage to the whims of Brett Favre all summer.

Tiger done for season

It looks like Tiger Woods’ US Open victory was a bit more heroic than it seemed.

He’s having season-ending surgery for a torn ligament and stress fractures in his left leg.

From the link:

Tiger Woods walked tenderly out of Torrey Pines with a U.S. Open trophy he was destined to win on a left leg worse than anyone imagined. A group of children called out to him and Woods looked over and waved.

It turned out to be a most symbolic gesture.

So long, Tiger.

See you next year.

Woods revealed Wednesday he has been playing for at least 10 months with a torn ligament in his left knee, and that he suffered a double stress fracture in his left leg two weeks before the U.S. Open. He said he will have season-ending surgery, knocking him out of the final two majors and the Ryder Cup.

 

It’s the end of an era

Deadspin editor Will Leitch is quitting to join the staff of New York Magazine. I don’t read Deadspin as often as I once did (I even own a “You’re with me leather” t-shirt), but read through today and found Will’s announcement from a couple of days ago.

Will’s almost three years atop the site he founded was a good ride. Who can forget Carl Monday or Dee Mirich. Or the Bill Simmons comment page take-down on ESPN the very first day of comments. Simmons’ Page Two work still doesn’t allow comments because of that Deadspin reader fueled rampage.

Will says he’ll still post at Deadspin after starting his contributing editor position. It just won’t be the same.

From the first link:

We started this site on September 8, 2005, with a simple headline: “Welcome to Deadspin. We Come With a Pure Heart and Mirthful Disposition.” We think that’s still pretty much true; we try to keep our disposition mirthful at all times. But sometimes that’s more difficult to do than others; this is one of those times.

It is with heavy heart — yet mirthful disposition! — that we announce that our time as Deadspin editor is about to draw to a close. After almost three years of plugging away around here, we are leaving as editor of Deadspin on Friday, June 27. We have accepted a job as a contributing editor for New York magazine. We’re excited about it, but, obviously, this has been our baby and our life every day for three years — which is about four decades in blog time — and we’re too emotional about the whole thing to get into much more detail about how we feel about the whole matter.

We’ll still be writing for the site, even after we’re not the editor anymore, so you’re not gonna get rid of us that easily. (We kind of love it here; we have nothing but manhugs and fistpoundsfor the Gawker crew, and vice versa.) We’ll go into the details more over the next few weeks, but we’ll just leave you today with a simple quote of “It’s probably time,” and then try not to dribble tears on our keyboard.

Once again, no Triple Crown

Big Brown gets pulled up and Da’ Tara, 38-1 longshot Da’ Tara, wins the 140th Belmont.

Saturday video fun — the Celtics’ Gino

For the NBA finals, here’s the scoreboard favorite from Boston — “Gino” from a 1977 American Bandstand episode dancing to “Shake your Booty” by KC and the Sunshine Band. His moniker comes from the overly tight Gino Vannelli concert shirt he’s sporting.

Sadly for Boston fans, and maybe something of an omen for the series with the Lakers, the Wall Street Journal tracked down “Gino” (probably subscriber only link) and found out his name is Joe Massoni. Sadly Joe died at 34 in 1990 from pneumonia. As it turns out the shirt was so tight because he borrowed it from the tiny chick to his right in this video according to the WSJ story.

But in better days, he was a disco king on Bandstand:

Poblano unmasked

The FiveThirtyEight blogger who’s applied a successful statistics-based approach to predicting the races so far has revealed himself to be an actual statistician — for Baseball Prospectus. Poblano=Nate Silver.

I’ll have to say I enjoy football stats, and the guys over at Football Outsiders who do the Football Prospectus, more than baseball stats, but I’m not surprised at all a baseball statistician can take the enormous amount of polling data out there and make more (and more correct) sense out of it all than the pollsters themselves and certainly more sense than math and stats challenged journalists and pundits.

30 second ad in 2009 Super Bowl?

Starting price a mere $3 million.

From the WSJ link:

The Super Bowl has always been a tough ticket, but now NBC is telling advertisers it will cost them $3 million just to get into the game — for 30 seconds.

NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., plans to announce next week that $3 million will be the entry price for a commercial at the 2009 Super Bowl. While individual slots have sold at that level before, it’s never been the starting point for negotiations for the dozens of 30-second ads sold for the game. It represents a price increase of more than 10%, roughly double the usual annual rise.

The Stars at night …

… are big and bright, and in the Western Conference finals!

Ducks

Sharks

and now the Red Wings.

Brett Favre retires

After 17 seasons the Packers’ Brett Favre calls it a career. Early in his playing days I wasn’t a huge Favre fan, but as time moved on I really began enjoying watching him clearly enjoy playing football. Congrats on a good, long run Brett.

I did find one rumor that Favre quit after Moss chose to return to New England rather than sign a free agency deal with the Pack.

More roundup from the AOL.com Fanhouse blogs: Green Bay playoff hopes get longer, agent says he wants to play another year, ESPN to become the all-Favre, all the time network.

Two great ESPN stories

Here’s links to two great ESPN stories.

This is a bit about Bill Simmons’ experience in the Big Easy (New Orleans for those who don’t know that term) covering the NBA’s All-Star celebration. I love ‘nawlins and Simmons did a great job of re-selling the city as a tourist attraction.

This story might even be better. This is an article outlining Michael Jordan’s advice to the NBA. This bit might as well be a blueprint on how to walk the earth as a citizen to be admired. Not for anything special, but how to just be yourself.

Sound, sane words from MJ. Ought to be required reading for every high school senior in the US. Hell, translate it and make it a must-read worldwide for all ages.

It looks like Kidd to Dallas …

… is still on. I’m not really sure why the Mavs are pursuing this trade so hard. I’m equally ambivalent on how I feel about the trade. Seems like the Mavs are giving up an awful lot for a short-term fix.

Update 2/19/08: It’s done.

Belicheat — Spygate, pt. 2

Bill Belicheck offered the most lawyered-up explanation of taping, or not, the 2002 Super Bowl Rams’ pre-game walk-through.

This is from the AP piece published at ESPN.com, and linked above:

BOSTON — Patriots Coach Bill Belichick has denied suggestions by a former employee that his club taped St. Louis’s walk-through before the 2002 Super Bowl.

Belichick told The Boston Globe that in his entire coaching career, he has never seen recordings of another team’s practice before playing that team.

Man. He’s never seen recordings of a practice before playing a team. Did any of his coaches see these tapes? He certainly didn’t say the tapes don’t exist, or that the Patriots didn’t use them in some fashion. And isn’t recording other team’s practices verboten regardless when those recordings are utilized?

If these allegations are true, Belicheck ought to be banned from the NFL for life.

This pussy-foot denial makes me tend to believe Belicheat’s doing a total CYA and deserves everything Goodell hands out. If Goodell has the cojones for it. My respect for the NFL’s front office has fallen by bounds and leaps this season.

(Find part one here.)

The latest in football tech is the nadir of on field fashion

A new anti-concussion football helmet? Don’t see this decidedly uncool model making it in the NFL.

Link goes to Paul Lukas’ Uni Watch column at ESPN. Check out his blog here.

Clemen’s lawyer gets slapped …

… by Congress. Roger Clemen’s lead lawyer, threatened an IRS Special Agent and witness in the BALCO trial who is scheduled to appear before Congress. Henry Waxman, head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, took offense at Hardin’s statement.

From the ESPN article:

Rusty Hardin, Clemens’ lead lawyer, told The New York Times on Saturday that it would be “brazen” and “unbelievable” if IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, a key prosecutor in the BALCO drug cases, attends the hearing.

“If he ever messes with Roger, Roger will eat his lunch,” Hardin was quoted as saying.

Waxman, the committee chairman, wrote a letter to Hardin on Sunday saying that some comments by Hardin and McNamee’s lawyers were “inadvisable.”

“I do not know your intent in making this statement, but under one interpretation it can be seen an attempt to intimidate a federal law enforcement official in the performance of his official duties,” Waxman wrote. “It is not your client’s prerogative to dictate who attends or does not attend the hearing. … I trust you did not intend your comments to be a signal that there could be adverse repercussions to a federal law enforcement official for attending the hearing or taking other official actions.”

Hardin wrote to Waxman late Sunday, saying his comments were “inelegant” and “I regret it.” Hardin said he meant that if Novitzky pursued legal action against Clemens he would lose, and the remarks were “not meant as a threat of personal action against agent Novitzky.”

I can say with certainty if a lawyer I’ve retained ever got on the wrong side of Congress, that attorney would no longer represent my interests. Effective immediately.

NFL Pro Bowl

Is anyone else excited about the Pro Bowl?

Didn’t think so …

HBO dumps Inside the NFL

Maybe that title should read, “HBO stupidly dumps Inside the NFL.” 

I didn’t get around to watching HBO’s season ending “Inside the NFL” until tonight. The show has been around for 31 years and has always been a must-see during the season. Interesting, and fun, insight from the various hosts over the years.

In the season finale first aired Wednesday it was announced HBO is not renewing the show for next year. Unbelievable.

Inside the NFL — gone, but not forgotten.

HBO, bonehead move. Hey NFL Network, this is your big opportunity to add a true establishment to the roster.

Roger Clemens exposed?

Is future MLB Hall of Famer (well, maybe depending how all this goes) Roger Clemens about to be exposed as a user of steroids and other substances? He’s already been deposed for an upcoming grilling in Washington and he’s said he never used substances now banned by professional baseball.

The pitcher is scheduled to testify before Congress next week. If his ex-trainer has the goods on him with this evidence that testimony should become a lot more interesting.

Is Spygate now Spyscam?

Gregg Easterbrook drops the mask, so to speak. He writes the Tuesday Morning Quarterback column at ESPN.com (and previously at ESPN.com and NFL.com before again returning to the mouse) and it’s part funny, part satire, part pompously under-informed, part just a cool bit of sports opinion. I enjoy TMQ, warts and all.

Easterbrook is also a respected journalist and think tanker. The article linked above is Easterbrook writing as a journalist, and opening the notebook up a bit more than most journalists would reveal. Over this entire season he ragged the Patriots, and head coach Bill Bilichick, for the Spygate business. He also went after the league, his onetime employer.

This story covers the process of how and why Spygate became a story again right before New England tried to win another Super Bowl. The gist is the NFL, by choice, didn’t face any scrutiny before it had no choice at pre-game press conferences. The other point is evidence gathered by investigative reporting made it obvious there was more to the story of New England’s cheating.

At this point Congress is in the picture and things will not get any easier for a Patriot team that just lost a heartbreaker of a Super Bowl.

Super Bowl XLII

New York 17, New England 14

Wow, what a game overall and what a finish. Plaxico Buress even slipped an F-bomb into his post game interview. Two early, and two late scores pretty much sum the contest up. This game is all about the New York Giants, but you can’t shake the sense the Patriots are done.

The Pats failed in their quest for a perfect season, and now Spygate is growing and looming. My guess is there’s far too much smoke right now for there not to be a fire somewhere. If there is a fire the Patriots as currently constructed are toast. Bill “Bilicheat” will face far heavier sanctions than he’s seen so far. If everything broiling turns to a boil I wouldn’t be shocked if he ends up banned from coaching in the NFL.

Back to the game — you couldn’t ask for more from either team. The Giants imposed their will with the opening drive, consuming practically nine minutes and Eli throwing more than one huge third and long pass. The drive ended in a field goal, but it set a tone for the game.

The Pats responded with a TD, and after a crazy end to the half led with the score New England seven, New York three.

The Giants’ defense was huge throughout the third quarter keeping the game in check. With less than three minutes in the game Randy Moss grabs a touchdown pass setting up what looked like a prototypical Tom Brady led fourth quarter victory. “Bad” Eli, as he’s been dubbed and I’ve been guilty of looking for, may be gone forever. Manning drove the Giants to take the lead with 35 seconds left in the game.

Brady couldn’t preserve the Pats bid for a perfect season. The latest Lombardi trophy isn’t gong to start tarnishing. The Pats “dynasty” is more than tarnished. It’s mottled, and maybe even rusting. I don’t think the team gained any significant advantage with the cheating, and probably other teams are doing the same. In the end it doesn’t matter in the harsh lighting of the court of public opinion. They cheated, and may have been doing so before this run of excellence began.

On a media note, did anyone else notice the lack of commercials during on-field timeouts in the fourth quarter? Obviously advertising America bought into the idea the Pats would be ahead in a blowout by that time and didn’t buy the super priced Super Bowl ad in the fourth.

One more reason to not pay attention to the line.

Super Bowl XLII preview

Here we are a bit more than twenty four hours before kickoff and all is excitement and questions.

Will the game be another thriller like these teams came up with in the last game of the season? Will the Giants, and Eli, be overawed at the sheer spectacle? Is the current line of New England by 12 points to high? Too low? And about the Patriots, is Tom Brady’s ankle ready to handle full speed contact?

Here’s some of the facts. The line opened at the Pats by 13 1/2 and has only drifted down to the Pats by 12. The over/under is 54. When the ball is finally kicked off sometime after 6 pm EST tomorrow there’s a decent chance of rain, and the temperature should start in the high-50s and drop a bit from there as the game goes on.

I’ve actually managed to avoid a lot of overwrought hype these last couple of weeks, but a few things made it through the stranglehold this political cycle has on my imagination.

Pats and Giants head to the Super Bowl

New England 21, San Diego 12

The Patriots cracked but didn’t crumble. The high-powered offensive passing attack disappeared, but was replaced by a grinding running game featuring two, and three, tight end sets.

A huge part of New England avoiding an upset, and overcoming offensive mistakes (like Brady’s uncharacteristic interceptions), was the defense. Holding San Diego to three field goals in three first half trips to the red zone proved the difference in this game.

Trading field goals for touchdowns is a winning formula.

Any pressure New England felt as an undefeated team is now almost completely blown out the window. The Super Bowl is its own animal all together, and the entire Pats organization understands that unique pressure.

New York 23, Green Bay 20

An amazing game. Early on Joe Buck kept reminding the viewer this was the third coldest game in NFL history and later noted it was only the second overtime game in NFC playoff history.

I was amazed at the short sleeves on both sides and dismayed by another playoff game full of bad calls. Maybe it’s a function of better taped coverage available to the TV viewer, but just wow, calls have been so bad for so many games this postseason.

In the end the Giants continue. As is seems right now sacrificial lambs to the Patriots. We will see two weeks from now in Arizona.

NFL conference championships — the NFC

New York Giants at Green Bay Packers 

Let’s start with, right now (3:32 pm Sat. CST) it’s -1.4 Fahrenheit in Green Bay. Negative one point four. Tomorrow’s predicted high is zero to around five above. The high might — might —  get above zero. Eli Manning, by his own admission, isn’t a fan of playing in cold weather.

That is probably all I need to write about this contest. Of course they’ll play the game and some other people are involved than Eli.

Those other people probably won’t matter. Everything in this game points to a Green Bay win, and I may be going out on limb since I made the same (then incorrect) prediction last week, but “bad” Eli is overdue for an appearance.

I’m just not sure you can make a real good/bad judgement on anyone having to deal with the conditions in Green Bay tomorrow. This game should be fun to watch. Too bad the snow forecast is holding out until Monday.

NFL conference championships — the AFC

San Diego Chargers at New England Patriots 

In the early game tomorrow San Diego travels to Foxborough to face the undefeated Patriots. The weather looks to be 30ish and possibly fairly windy. Even though the Pats are double-digit favorites in this game, the conditions would normally help the Chargers.

Strong San Diego pass rush and running game, New England’s offensive reliance on a passing attack — but a few things come into play. The Patriots are playing great and not showing any cracks under undeniable (whatever else they may say publicly) pressure to get this far and fail to win the Super Bowl.

Maybe more importantly, the Chargers are really banged up. Does anyone really expect to see a 100% LaDainian Tomlinson tomorrow? And would anyone trust Phil Rivers or Billy Volek to take over the game? Tough questions both for San Diego.

The wild card here is Randy Moss’ off field trouble this week. Might be nothing, but who knows and things like this can be deadly to a playoff football team.

Football Outsiders dot com

Yeah I’m still sick about the Cowboys losing yesterday, but it’s always fun to read Football Outsiders’ Audibles at the line column.

If you’re a fan of pro football and haven’t heard of Football Outsiders go and check it out. It’s a great source of insight and information.

NFL — the Chargers and Giants advance

San Diego 28, Indianapolis 24

The Chargers take the Colts twice this season — at home in the regular season and on the road in the playoffs. This time ending Indy’s chance for a repeat as NFL champs.

A back and forth game that saw both San Diego’s starting quarterback Philip Rivers and starting running back LaDainian Tomlinson leave with injury came down to inspired play on both sides of the ball by the Chargers.

First a touchdown drive after River’s injury to take the lead and second a tough fourth down stand near the goal line to keep the Colts out of the end zone. The AFC road to the Super Bowl now goes through Foxborough.

New York 21, Dallas 17

Sadly the Cowboys lose this game. I didn’t like the officiating either way for three quarters, but the Giants earned the win.

NFL — the Pack and Pats advance

Green Bay 42, Seattle 20

You couldn’t ask for more. A super fun snowy Lambeau Field, Favre doing his Favre things and a goat turned hero.

Well a Packers loss might be better from my perspective as a Dallas fan since I think the Seahawks would be a weaker conference championship game opponent if the Cowboys win tomorrow, but what a job by Green Bay.

Ryan Grant fumbles twice in the first handful of minutes. These miscues lead to a 14-0 Seahawk lead. The other three and a half quarters he does nothing more than chalk up 201 yards on the ground and three touchdowns.

New England 31, Jacksonville 20

In a hard fought game, the Pats were ruthlessly efficient. Both teams looked good. New England looked better. And the faked RB direct snap was a thing a beauty. The call was great, the execution was great and Tom Brady couldn’t have done a better job selling the play. 

I still think the Pats are playing pretty jacked up (read: multiple personal fouls), but it is the playoffs so now’s the time to do it.

NFL round 2

First, a congrats to LSU for its second BCS title. I’d prefer some sort of playoff system, but hey it is what it is and the Louisiana Tigers won the big game.

On to the real games. I enjoy the NFL more than any other sport and even helped develop and served as editor for the NFL Core section of the defunct BootlegSports.

The NFC features Seattle in Green Bay and the NY Giants making a second trip to Dallas to try and erase being swept by the Cowboys in the regular season. Conventional wisdom holds it’s difficult for one pro football team to win three games against the same opponent in one season.

As a Cowboy fan I expect CW to go down in flames when “bad” Eli makes the trip to Texas Stadium. After two pretty solid games he’s due for a crash.

I also think Mike Holmgren won’t enjoy his trip back to Lambeau.

Over at the AFC, the Colts should easily handle San Diego at home. The defending champs are just too solid this year.

The Jacksonville/New England matchup is interesting. I’ve believed all year the Patriots were playing too jacked up throughout the regular season in response to Spygate. Their production trailed off toward the end of the season, and I think it could be attributed to mentally and physically wearing down after going full-bore to crush each opponent, no matter how weak. Plus the game-planning has not been well suited for inclement weather.

This weekend could be the test that busts up the unblemished record. I don’t think the Jaguars are the better team, but they have a dangerous air. If the weather is bad the Jags might even have a slight edge. Something to ponder for Pats fans out there.