THE SPORTS BOTTOM - December 17, 2010
Hello. I’m still here. Sorry for the long delay between postings. I’d say I’ve been busy but I haven’t really been. Lazy, mostly. Though I did begin volunteering at Under One Roof in the Castro here in San Francisco.
Under One Roof is a non-profit store where 100% of the profits go to local Aids Service Organizations here in the Bay Area. It’s a wonderful store during the holiday season. Seriously, if you can’t “get into” the Christmas spirit when you walk into the shop, then you’re probably not ever going to be a Christmas person. Can’t wait to see the store after January. Supposedly one Christmas display stays up year ‘round. Come by and see us for you last minute gift needs!
OK, so much has happened in the sports world that this will probably, well, who am I trying to kid. This posting will be a list! A list I tell you! Where to start? One thing “stuck in my crawl” for over a week, and that thing is Brett Favre. Look, I get that his streak of 297 consecutive starts was very impressive. Monumental, really. But when the sports media is discussing the streak and whether Favre would play or not, rather than concentrating on the team and what the Vikings needed to be doing to improve for next season, well, it kind of made me sick.
Brett Favre is not more important than the team. He’s not! Or at least he shouldn’t be. There really is no “i” in team. Heck, even my gay softball team knows that. And then the Metrodome roof collapses due to the snow/wind. Wow, how freakin’ awesome was the video of inside the dome during the collapse? Amazing. And a fitting end to Favre’s career, so say the football gods and goddesses.
Cam Newton from Auburn won the Heisman Trophy. (Kevin, yeah, Warm Beagle is playing for the title a year after the Tide won it. Two words, Sweetie: QUACK ATTACK!!) So apparently his father pimped out his football services to the highest bidder. If so, then naturally Auburn would outbid Mississippi State for a prized football recruit. They’re higher up in the pecking order.
And the NCAA decided that yes, Newton’s father did pimp his son. But his son didn’t know about it, so therefore he should not be punished. Which means kicked off the football team and not be eligible to play at all anymore. Really? Ignorance then IS a defense to break the law according to the NCAA. Interesting.
Mizzou is playing Iowa in the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Arizona. Hmmm, at least it should be warm. It will make it a bit more tolerable to sit on the bleacher seats at Sun Devil Stadium. At least it used to be all bleachers. We’ll see.
I also found it very interesting that, though Missouri and Iowa are border states, the two schools haven’t met on the football field since 1910. Interesting. Apparently they met quite often until 1910, when according to Iowa, Missouri wouldn’t allow one Hawkeye player to play because he was black, and after the narrow Tiger victory, the Iowa coach swore never to play Mizzou again. And they haven’t. I love history.
Quite the NFL season going on. We’re in week 14 and things are pretty tight. Of course the f*ck*ng Patriots are kicking major arse again. And the Steelers, even with Big Ben out for six games, are cruising along. Atlanta and New Orleans are battling in the NFC South, and it looks like we’re learning that maybe Randy Moss really is that much of a cancer on a team’s roster.
But the one thing that really bothers me is how the NFC West, and more importantly the West’s automatic playoff berth, are being ridiculed and laughed at. Look, I have no problem seeding all playoff teams with 1-8 being the best records in the conference. The division championship would still guarantee you a playoff game, but you wouldn’t be guaranteed a home playoff game.
That way an 8-8 division winner (say, St. Louie Rams!!) would qualify for the playoffs but a wild card team with an 11-5 record (say, Chicago Bears) would get the home game rather than the Rams due to the better won-loss record. I’m OK with that.
Another problem that I have is that folks are saying that the West champion shouldn’t get into the playoffs at all. Say the Rams win the division. It will take 8, if not 9, wins to capture the division crown. The Rams won one game last year. ONE GAME!
That means the team (bless you Sam Bradford!) will have improved over last season by a minimum of 7 games, maybe even 8 or 9. That’s a HUGE improvement, something that shouldn’t be overlooked simply because the rest of the division is weak. If the Rams can pull out the division crown and host a playoff game, well, I think the Rams and the good folks in St. Louis (that’s you, Mom!) deserve it after enduring all of the hellish football of the last three, four seasons.
