SportsGirl

There has been a wealth of discussion on whether the Pats are the best team in football or if that designation belongs to the Colts. Enough discussion that it caused Steve Young to practically melt down on Sports Center after the game last night. His point? Why discuss what the impending match up between the two teams will mean when we all know they’ll likely meet again in the AFC title game. All due respect to Steve, as I understand where he’s coming from, but I don’t agree. Emmitt Smith made a great point during what became almost a heated exchange between Stu Scott and Young that the match up in November does mean something because it gives the winning team an edge, especially in the mental game. If you’ve beaten them in the regular season, you have that slight swagger when/if you meet again in the post-season. When you have two teams that are playing at this level, even a minor mental edge can make a huge difference.

So, it will come as no surprise to any of my readers that I think the Patriots have the superior team this season. If you compare the two on both sides of the ball you might think it’s a draw. They both have prolific quarterbacks who are amazingly accurate, with a full compliment of receivers to spread the ball to. They both have defenses with play-makers, though I think New England gets the edge there because they have a number of key guys that make plays (i.e. Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrable, etc) whereas I think Indy’s main man on D is Bob Sanders. Don’t get me wrong, Bob Sanders is a guy to build an entire D around, but he’s probably the biggest play-maker on the team and the others are simply good.

Then it comes to coaching. Both teams are well-coached but I think NE will have a huge advantage in this department this season. Bill Belichick has something to prove. Bill Simmons of ESPN.com fame has written a great articleabout exactly how Belichick will prove his greatness this season. Because Belichick is a student of the game, of the game’s history and wants to be a part of the game’s legacy. His talent has been questioned so this season will be a 16-week response letter to all the critics. “Dear critics, I’m awesome and belong in the discussion of the best coaches ever. Don’t ever question me again. Sincerely, Bill Belichick” Or something like that…

So all eyes are on the match up in a few weeks, provided neither team succumbs to the trap of losing a gimme game in the meantime. And my money is on the Pats (of course). Because I can’t listen to Colts fans bragging if the Colts win. Too much to handle!

Since last night’s meeting between the Falcons and Giants was somewhat of a bust in terms of viewing pleasure, I wanted to comment on the broadcast team that ESPN selected for this season. You know Mike Tirico has got to be thinking “As hard as it is to admit, Joe Theismann was not the problem last year, Kornheiser was! Who knew?!” Because Mike Tirico is a consummate professional in my opinion. He is a great play-by-play guy who can deftly move from the play on the field, to mixing it up with the color guys, then back to the play on the field. Ron Jaworski makes a good color guy, and really is able to bring his knowledge from his playing days in without sounding like a stereotypical meathead former jock. But then you throw Tony Kornheiser in the mix and the formula develops a bad taste.

I understand that above anything else, Monday Night Football is a broadcast program competing against the likes of the Bachelor and The Big Bang Theory, which is one of the main reasons it was pulled from ABC’s line up and moved to ESPN, where you get more slack for lower ratings. Because of the pressure to keep a large market share, so as to continue to merit the high dollars that advertisers pay, ESPN wants to find lightening in a bottle in the broadcast booth. But I think they’re trying too hard.

Everyone said at the beginning of last season that Tony Kornheiser would be the “Howard Cosell” of the team. He would bring a unique, not always sports-themed, perspective that would liven up the perceived monotony of simple play-by-play and color exchanges. But they’re trying to force a dynamic that isn’t working. And to be fair, they also did this when the telecast was still on network television by thinking that Dennis Miller could be that “catalyst” for thought-provoking discussions. And that might be accurate, except when I’m watching football, I don’t want to listen to a thought-provoking discussion about anything other than whether or not someone was smart for drafting Adrian Peterson in the first round of their fantasy football league. I don’t want to hear someone slam President Bush. I don’t care about some obscure movie reference that they find particularly appropriate for that moment of the game. I want to hear about football. I think the Al Michael’s/John Madden tandem works well in this respect. They’re lively together and I think Michael’s is the best in the business. They play off of each other’s moods well and they keep it interesting. They also keep the discussion centered on football and pretty much nothing else, save for the few promos they have to kick out during the broadcast. Imagine if you threw Jon Stewart into the booth with them. I like Jon Stewart, but how is he relevant to football?

Last night, as with all broadcasts, the MNF crew brought a guest into the booth to provide more unnecessary commentary on all things non-football related. Their guest was Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel is great on his talk show. Absolutely horrible in the booth. The guys were stepping all over each other vying for air time and meanwhile Tirico was desperately trying to recount what was going on down on the field. Not that there was much, the game was fairly difficult to watch. Sloppy performances on defense and offence from the Dirty Birds and the G-Men weren’t much better. It’s pretty sad when Joey Harrington throws fewer picks than Little Manning and yet Little Manning’s team still wins. But still, I didn’t want to listen to Kimmel detail his flight patterns as he juggles two gigs this week,  hosting both Regis and Kelly and his own show. If I’m watching the game, I want to know things like when Amani Toomer becomes the all-time leading receiver for the Giants. Give me insight on that. Talk about how you think Tiki Barber will react to being replaced. (On that subject, check out this articlefrom Gregg Easterbrook on the subject of records being broken)

So, my advice to the producers and the suits at ESPN? Kick Kornheiser off the broadcast and leave it to Jaws and Tirico. Seriously, test this out. Next week just tell the audience that Kornheiser got sick shortly after taping PTI that day and let’s see the reaction to the broadcast that night. Since something like that might take a week to get spread by word-of-mouth, repeat the experiment the following week and see what it does for ratings. Or float the story the night before that he’ll be out of the booth. Guaranty it will increase viewership, even for a crappy game. Just don’t make me listen to another season of “insight” from Big Tony that just fails to pique my interest.

I have been out of town on business and have not been near a computer to blog about the ‘Boys, baseball, or anything else sports-related. My fault! Look for more posts this weekend. The game Sunday between Dallas and New England will be awesome. I will plan my day around that event. And there will be discussion on this blog so just hang tight.

Now that the Yankees are out of it, my full support is behind the Indians to win the World Series. Though the Rockies certainly are making a case for their belonging! But when my primary team is knocked out, my loyalty defaults to anything that’s close to my native Michigan. So come on Tribe!

It has not been a good weekend. The mere fact that this was a four-day weekend means by virtue it should be great. And add to that the fact that college football kicked off this weekend, you’d think I’d be the happiest person on the planet. Which I was, for all of 2 hours on Saturday. And then it started to crumble…

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge University of Michigan fan. It’s the one team that I’ve rooted for for over 20 years. My dad had a deal for all of us kids that when we turned 8 he’d take us to our first U of M football game. The game we went to was against the Miami Hurricanes. I still remember the final score–Michigan 30, Miami 31–and I remember walking off the field next to Miami players, glowering updwards at the men who had caused my Wolverines to lose. So needless to say I’ve always been passionate about this school. And for the last few years, we’ve sort of struggled to remind the college football general public that we are an elite team. I haven’t liked our quarterback since Tom Brady left and it seems like we’ve had the pieces in place a few times in a row but we can never quite make it come together. This was never more evident than last season. For those who don’t follow the Wolverines, we were having an undefeated season coming into the game with Ohio State, the arch rival. There was lots of discussion in the sports world about who should be ranked #1, OSU or U of M. Of course we know which way my vote swung. OSU was #1 because they had entered the season that way and hadn’t lost. And that gets into my feelings on pre-season rankings which we’ll cover at a later date. Anyways, Michigan lost, which is bad enough to lose again to Ohio State. But to top it off, that pretty much killed our chances of playing for the National Championship, even though I maintain that we should have had another shot, but that too is another topic for another day. We lost our bowl game and pretty much lost the right to be in the discussion for next year’s “who’s the best” discussion.

Fast forward to this weekend, and my hopes are high. We came into the season ranked 5th, which honestly felt a little too high. We’re opening our schedule with a game against Appalachian State, a name you probably don’t think about too often. At least until now that is. Michigan got to participate in a bit of history, except we were on the WRONG END! We lost, 32-34, to Appalachian State, the first time in history that an AP-ranked Div. 1-A team lost to a Div. 2-A team (which technically A State is in a sub-category of  Div. 1-A but whatever). First time ever. Lovely. And to make matters worse, this “David over Goliath” win was re-played and re-hashed on every network (including the NFL Network) all day long.

Now, that would be bad enough to pretty much ruin the whole season for me. And the season just began! But it just so happens that my alma mater UNT Mean Green played the Oklahoma Sooners this weekend. And got stomped. I had a glimmer of hope for UNT because they managed to land Todd Dodge, one of the winningest Texas high school football coaches ever. I knew we wouldn’t win against the Sooners, but I didn’t think it would be a massacre the way it ended.

So that was my weekend. Add to it that the Patriots placed Richard Seymour on the physically unable to play list and the league suspended Rodney Harrison for violating the banned substance policy and we’ve got what looks to be a depressing season already. Can we rewind please? At least let me prepare for my impending misery. What’s next? Bill Belichek has a heart attack on the sideline? I mean, come on! Let’s just pray that this was the only full-moon weekend of the football season and that maybe my teams can scrape together some modicum of dignity as the season progresses.

Well, it’s been a day since Michael Vick formally entered his guilty plea to the federal dog fighting charges he was facing. He then issued a statement to the press and to his fans expressing his regret at his actions and vowing to change his ways. Yesterday, I nearly wrote about my reaction to this statement but like the rest of the circumstances surrounding the Michael Vick circus, I needed a day to gain more perspective at my own feelings.

Initially, I was ready to rip Vick for the apology. It started with his repeated use of the word “immature”. Vick, let’s get one thing straight; what you did was not immature. Immature is when you show up at your buddy’s house asking to crash there because you got evicted from your third apartment in a month for failing to pay your rent. Immature is having a belching contest with your friends in your local bar… when you’re 35 years old. Immature is not bankrolling an operation whose sole purpose is to breed vicious dogs that are programmed to kill one another. Immature is not when you participate in the execution of said dogs when they don’t perform to your liking. Those actions fall under the category of reprehensible, almost inhuman actions. Sorry, but you should have picked a different word.

And then, to make matters worse, he had to drop the J-word: Jesus. He’s found Jesus through this whole ordeal. Now, if that’s true, then that’s great. If you’ve found something that you can turn to if you ever find yourself slipping back to your old behavior, I’m all for it. But I cannot stand when someone drops the religion card as if by confessing that you once were lost but now are found, the public will instantly forgive you. “Oh, I get it now. See before, when he was breeding those dogs to fight, he didn’t have Jesus in his life. Now, 10 days later, he’s found Jesus. I guess what he did wasn’t so bad after all.” Not exactly a conversation I’d be having.

Ok, that was my initial reaction. Having thought about it for a day, I realize that he should get some amount of credit for not reading a prepared statement off a piece of paper that someone else wrote for him. I have to admit he did at least look sincere. The cynic in me says he’s only sincerely regretful that he was caught. But, you know, sometimes the optimist in me crushes those cynical tendencies so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Also, he’s right when he says that this might be a teaching example for the youth of today that you always have the opportunity to make good choices in your life, even if it’s later rather than sooner. I genuinely hope that Vick will start some type of foundation or program to teach children how to make the right choices and how to stay on a path that will lead somewhere positive.

So, Vick, yet again you manage to make me second guess how I feel about this whole fiasco. The one thing I do feel strongly about is that I do not believe he should be banned for life from the NFL. That’s not to say that I think he should have his spot on the Falcons waiting for him when he’s out of prison. Quite the contrary. I hope that Joey Harrington develops into a good enough quarterback that the Falcons find more consistent success without Vick than they had with him. But when Vick is eventually released from prison, I don’t see why he should be denied the ability to try out again for the NFL. I’ve heard it said on a myriad of talk shows that playing in the NFL is a privilege not a right and that you have to prove yourself to be worthy of a roster spot. And I agree…you have to prove yourself on the field and show that you can be an elite caliber of athlete before you’re awarded a locker. But I don’t believe that your off-the-field activities should preclude you from being given the opportunity to try out for a spot on the team. Having said that, let me also state that I would support any owner who felt like adding Vick to his team would represent too great a risk. Those are the breaks, right?

I maintain that the only thing we can do now is to see how long he’s sentenced for and to see exactly how contrite he is when he serves that sentence. He’s got a long road ahead of him and will have lots of time to ponder just how he wants to make his comeback.

Well, folks, the moment I have waited for is finally here. Cowboys training camp is in full swing and I couldn’t be happier! Now, as I’ve stated before, I follow the Cowboys because I live in Dallas, but (not so) secretly, I’m hoping that Matt Schaub is getting comfortable in the Texans offense and that Gary Kubiak is finding a way to have a .500 season!

But since I’m here in Dallas, let’s talk about them Cowboys! I have to say, I’m just not quite sold on Wade Phillips. I was holding out hope that Lovie Smith would not be able to negotiate a new contract in Chicago and would want to come home to Texas. I know, I know, pipe dream. I just can’t seem to put all my faith in Wade, with his shaggy gray hair and the perma-lost look on his face. Listening to his press conferences doesn’t make me feel any better. I don’t like that he really seems to be a “players” coach. I don’t like that he’s allowing T.O. to take time off. Call me crazy, but isn’t your time off in football called the off season? How is it that after 4 days of training camp, T.O. already needs a break? Any why, Wade, would you lie to us about Terry Glenn’s condition? Just say he needs his knee scoped. I know Big Bill wasn’t perfect, but at least I always felt like he was in control of the situation with the Boys. I don’t care that he didn’t let his assitant coaches talk to the media. Frankly, why do we want to hear from them? I trust that the head coach can accurately report how Tony Romo looked taking snaps behind center, and what routes he had T.O. running. (On a side note, not sure I like how Wade Phillips seems to be taking shots at Bill Parcels and how he used T.O. in the offense last year. Not all that classy) I just want to know that the head coach is going to be tough when he needs to be tough. I like my coaches to be cranky when they win and downright pissed when they lose!

So, as of now, I’m not buying what they’re selling over there in San Antonio. Do I think the defense will be better? It ought to be! We’ve drafted enough young talent and we now have the Phillips 3-4 scheme in place so yes, I think we’ll be better on defense. And I am a Romo fan–I’ve been wanting him to play for 2 years now! So I’m truly hoping that he’s as successful as last year would lead us to believe he can be. But for all those people that are ready to buy their tickets to the NFC title game, I’d say you might want to hold off writing that check.

Well, after years of wanting to, I’m finally starting my blog on sports. I could type some line about how this will be sports info from a woman’s perspective, but that would sort of run counter to the whole point of doing this. True, not too many women (especially in Dallas, TX) enjoy sports to the level I do. But I can’t stand the whole segregation of woman’s and men’s perspectives on any issue, especially sports. So this is just my way of recording my thoughts on the day’s happenings in the world of sports.

First, a confession. Though I live in Dallas, I favor the sports teams of Houston, TX. I grew up there and still feel an allegiance to their teams. Now, living in Dallas, I will root, root, root for my home team unless they’re playing a select group of other teams. I was born and raised in Michigan so there’s a group of teams that have a prominant player who graduated from U of M that I feel the need to root for. But typically I will root for Dallas to be a good sport.

Having said that, I’m really looking forward to the start of Cowboys training camp! Finally some football to watch! And finally we’ll start to see some proof of whether or not Bill Parcels was really holding the team back the way so many of the players seem to indicate he was. Personally, I think the people trying to pin their lack of success last year on Parcels need to take a long look in the mirror. I realize professional sports are different from the job I go to day in and day out, but so many people tell you to remember that sports are just a business. Well, most businesses I know of do not tolerate their employees blaming their lack of production on their boss. Take the heat and just resolve yourself to doing better this season. End of story! But with the start of the season, we’ll also get a better feel for whether or not Wade Phillips was the right choice for head coach. Personally, I’m still wishing that Lovie Smith would have come available. But I’m willing to give Coach Phillips the benefit of the doubt for now.

So, what can you expect to see in the future from this blog, if you happen to be visiting? Lots of talk about football, my true passion. But talk about sports in general and really just my thoughts on all the happenings. Hope you’re able to take away some insight from these thoughts. I’ve got a lot to say!