2012 NFL Season – Division Round

Last Week: 2-2 (.500)  Playoffs: 2-2 (.500)

You win some, you lose some.  The ones I lost (Minnesota and Baltimore) came close to covering the point spread.  But close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and with impatient people who just want to go home.  Once again I will give insight into the games.  Please don’t laugh.

1/12 4:30 ET Baltimore (+9.5) at Denver
Thirty years ago, John Elway had an opportunity to play for Baltimore (Colts). He demanded to be traded and was traded to the Denver Broncos. There was what seemed to be an annual tradition of the Broncos playing the Browns for the AFC Championship. The Broncos won all those games and the-then Browns soon after moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens. None of this has anything to do with Saturday’s game, except that John Elway is now the Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the Broncos and Art Modell (former owner of the Browns/Ravens) recently passed away and the current Ravens have a “Art” patch on their uniforms in his honor.  The Broncos will continue to be a pain to Art Modell post-mortem.  Take the Broncos and give the points.

1/12 8:00 ET Green Bay (+3) at San Francisco

This would have been the rematch of last year’s NFC Championship game, except that the Packers somehow lost to the eventual Super Bowl Champion New York Giants.  While the stats would suggest to take the 49ers and give the points, I have a feeling that Aaron Rodgers and the Packers find a way to win this one.  Or maybe not.  Take the 49ers and give the points.

1/13 1:00 ET Seattle (+2.5) at Atlanta

I’ll keep my logic simple.  This will be a hard fought defensive battle.  In battles like these, the team with the better running game usually wins.  Few things are harder than tackling Marshawn Lynch.  Here is a video of him in the 2010 Wild Card game against the New Orleans Saints:

Take the Seahawks and the points.

1/13 4:30 ET Houston (+9.5) at New England 

Once upon a time, this game would have been a close game and it would have been in Houston because they had the best record in the NFL for most of the season.  But football is a 16-game season and the Texans fell apart after their twelfth game.  The Patriots have been on a roll aside from a hiccup against the 49ers a few weeks ago.  Take the Patriots and give the points.

 

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Nevada Shenanigans and Super Bowl Ads

This is two entries posted in one great entry!

Saturday:  (Nevada Shenanigans) – Like many Americans, I was glued to my computer and my television as the results were coming in following the Nevada Caucuses.  There were some odd occurrences with the reporting of the results.  The ones I noticed were in Washoe County.  There were other oddities in Clark County (Las Vegas) that had to do with vote totals as well as locking voters from allowing to caucus.  Below is what I posted on Facebook Saturday night:

Weird stuff happening with the Nevada caucuses and it all evolves around the Newtered One. Washoe County went from 41-20% Romney over Gingrich to 39-21 Gingrich over Romney. The AP was resulting that Gingrich was leading Paul in total votes 1900-1800. A few minutes later, it was 2200-1200.

I didn’t get too much information as it was happening with Clark County because I had gone to bed before it was reported.  Here is a link to a video of what is believed to be Clark County officials counting votes.

Sunday: (Super Bowl Ads) – The New York Giants might have won the Super Bowl and they might have beaten the New England Patriots twice, but I can take comfort that they lost to the Washington Redskins TWICE!  The thing I found disturbing was all of the commercials for movies that will not be released until sometime between March and Memorial Day.  Some of the movies had yet to be rated by the Cinemafia Motion Picture Association of America.  All of those movie ads at $3.5 million per ad adds up to what promises to be increased prices in movie tickets and concessions.

My Week in Review (Thus Far)

Like everything else in life, a presidential campaign has its ups and downs.  When it’s up, you want to stay up, and when it’s down, you want to get up and stay up.  When one is down, one can either wait for a break or create an opportunity.  I have chosen the latter and will explain why I am currently in Massachusetts despite not planning on being here later in this entry.

Sunday – Ames Iowa:  I was looking for a place to talk a little bit about politics while watching football.  I was a bit scared at first about the bar near my hotel.  I wanted to root for the Broncos, but the bar was decked out in black-and-gold and had a lot of football stuff.  I thought at first it was a Steelers’ bar until  I saw a bartender wearing a Tim Tebow jersey.  I saw a few patrons walk in wearing black and gold shirts, but they had “IOWA” on the chest with a hawkeye underneath.  It turns out that the University of Iowa’s football team and the Pittsburgh Steelers have the same colors and that Iowa adopted the Steelers’ colors in the 1970s to look more llike a championship.

Monday – I was in an antique store in Iowa City when a young woman came up to me asking for my autograph.  I happily obliged.  She looked disappointed.  I asked her what was wrong.  She said she thought I was running for President.  I told her I was running for President and gave her my web address.  She then said she thought I was Vermin Supreme.

Tuesday – I went to cemeteries, morgues, and libraries through Des Moines campaigning to the deceased.  I didn’t hear any objections from the cemeteries or libraries, but the morgue said I was getting in the way of autopsies.

Wednesday – Flew from Des Moines to Manchester, New Hampshire (via Chicago, Boston, and St.Louis).  Too tired to do anything by the time I got to Manchester at 11:30PM

Thursday – rented a car and drove to Dixville Notch.  I normally like it when I leave an impression on people and they remember me the next time I see them.  Most of the people didn’t remember me from my visit in 2010, but unfortunately, a few did.  Another person thought I was Vermin Supreme and wanted a pony.

It occurred to me that the South Carolina primary is next Saturday and not this Saturday.  I have also learned that they don’t allow write-in candidates in primaries.  And Manchester is not too far from Boston (or specifically, Foxboro).  I drove to Foxboro this morning looking for people who have tickets to tomorrow’s game between the Patriots and the Broncos.  I couldn’t find anybody with tickets.  (I don’t want tickets, I just wanted people to hold signs that can be shown on TV.)  I’m now at Logan Airport awaiting for my flight home.

Sports Programming Retards

Before you say anything, I am going to tell you how I define “retard” so my e-mail isn’t filled with hate mail.  I do not mean people who are mentally challenged.  They should not be made fun of.  I mean people who can think, but opt not to.  Those people should be made fun of, insulted, whatever it takes to get them to THINK!

The object of promoting sports is to promote the sport.  It sounds simple, but it goes over so many heads in the sports programming world.  This means putting the best games on TV and scheduling sports doubleheaders so that the second game can be seen in its entirely after the first game.

Saturday:  SNY (Sportsnet New York) had a college basketball doubleheader on their network.  The first game was Northern Colorado at Marquette at 4:00PM.  The second game was South Carolina State at Pittsburgh.  These are hardly marquee games (games this time of year are usually top-tier teams playing against weaker teams to fatten the win-loss records of the stronger team.  This is a time honored tradition.

At 6:00, Marquette was leading Northern Colorado 80-60 with five minutes remaining.  (Marquette would win 93-52.)  Instead of relieving viewers of five minutes of bad basketball, they should have switched to the South Carolina State-Pittsburgh game.  SNY ended up showing Northern Colorado fouling Marquette players so they could limit them to two point plays and try to overcome a 20-point deficit by shooting a bunch of three-point baskets.  Fouls stop the clock.  I could rant at Northern Colorado for thinking they could come back, but when one plays a game, one is never supposed to give up.)

By the time the Northern Colorado-Marquette game ended, the South Carolina State-Pittsburgh game was already halfway through the first half in a tight (at the time) game.  Pittsburgh ended up winning by a sizable margin, but they didn’t get it going until the second half.

My beef on Sunday was with CBS.  The last seven games of the season are subject to having one of the Sunday afternoon games switched to Sunday evening before a national audience on NBC.  The game NBC ended up showing last night was Baltimore at San Diego.  Rumor had it that NBC and the NFL wanted to show the New England at Denver game in that slot, but CBS and Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft nixed the deal.  I don’t know why Kraft was against it, but CBS was against it because it would have been the highest rated game with the most viewers.  The only problem is that the Patriots-Broncos game was not shown in New York City (CBS’s largest local market.)  People in New York were subject to watching the Jets get slaughtered by the Eagles.

Here is how to promote sports:

College basketball – Have a doubleheader, but schedule the games 2 1/2 hours apart.  The time between games can have a studio team who can split the time between games dissecting the previous game and previewing the upcoming game.

NFL Football – Change the late afternoon games to 4:30PM Eastern.  If there is a marquee game and a local game scheduled at the same time, sell the broadcasting rights of the local game to a television station in the local area.  There will still be a market for NFL Sunday ticket for Washington Redskins fans like me who don’t live in the market and know the Redskins aren’t going to be the marquee game very often, but still want to watch their game.

Schedule better, don’t be afraid to break away from a bad game to show another game in its entirety, and show viewers that you really want viewers.  This is my advice for the sports programming retards.