Scooter Blogging: (2) Wednesday Football

Watch.  Glare.  Watch.

My father and two sisters went to Texas for a family event, and (partly to care for Scooter) I decided to stay and house sit. I finished tilling the backyard garden today, and a few more small outdoor tasks remain ahead of the first winter snows. Last week, we were in shirt sleeves, but the cooling has finally begun for good.

As you can see from these pictures taken today, Scooter is just fine.  She's engaged in that favorite afternoon activity, sleeping on her blanket.  Here, little naps alternate with bits of today's South Africa-United States men's soccer match.  The thunderous din of 51,000 vuvuzelas didn't bother her nearly as much as her dad's presence with a camera.

Likewise, Ian Darke's voice on ESPN didn't perturb The Cat of May Colors™.  On the other hand, Darke has annoyed me in the past; but apparently, he's secured the post of voice of the American men's national team on U.S. TV.  He didn't say anything obviously colonialist on today's ESPN broadcast, so I might actually get used to him.

The game itself ended in a 1-0 win for the U.S., but both sides were trying out new players.  It felt less like an international friendly than the second half of an NFL exhibition game.

---

Fantasy update:   Real life, abetted by schedule confusion on my part, hurt my teams this week.  With the family trip coming in two days, I spent a good chunk of last Thursday helping my father get ready.  By the time we were done and I had taken a nap, the Ravens-Falcons game had kicked off.

Oops.  I'd forgotten about that early game.

The Fluttering Horde was to have dropped Atlanta kicker Matt Bryant, as Horde regular Rob Bironas was back from his bye week.  On top of that, with no one to pass to, Peyton Manning was headed to the Horde bench in favor of Bryant's teammate, Matt Ryan.

Meanwhile, no one in the public league cared to trade for Michael Vick, so maybe he'd start for the Middlemen this week.  Why not?  Vick was up against Washington, while Middlemen regular Joe Flacco faced the Falcons.

Neither substitution went through.  Thursday night was too late.

The Horde did just fine.  My permanent receiver corps racked up 60 points, including Mike Thomas's hail-Mary touchdown, and despite missing Ryan's best performance of the year, the Horde defeated the Southside Hitmen, 121-106.  At 6-4 in a two-division league, the Horde is likely headed to the playoffs.

The Middlemen?  Not so much.  Vick was the 'I win' card, breaking fantasy-football records, but he was still on my bench.  In a bizarre match that also saw both sides reduced to eight men, the Middlemen fell 110-100 to the Dallas Drunks.  Their 6-4 record is still good for a playoff spot, but it's the last one.  Aaarrrrrgh.

---

Tuesday Football: Halftime!

Next week, the Packers, Saints, Raiders and Chargers take the week off. When the final gun has sounded next Monday night, every NFL team will have played nine games. In short, the 2010-11 season has reached its halfway mark. As such, it's time to take stock of some things I hold dear about the league.

Bearing up or down?  My beloved Chicago Bears currently stand at 5-3, good for second place in the NFC North and a tie for the last wild-card spot.  All's well, right?  Not so fast.  Their only quality win came against Green Bay at home.  Jay Cutler has actually gotten worse from last season.  He hasn't thrown so many interceptions, but now he just looks lost.  Setting himself as a better man than his linemen hasn't helped.

At the same time, nor has that horrible offensive line, recently dubbed the "Yahtzee Line" by a radio commentator.  The Bears seem to be tossing five big men onto the field every week and hoping for the best.  No offensive coordinator, including legendary Mike Martz, can rescue a situation like that.  The O-line disarray will, in time, doom the Bears, along with the terms of Martz and head coach Lovie Smith.

Left:  Jay Cutler.  Right:  Lovie Smith.

It's the Yahtzee Line that explains why I've never hated Coach Smith as much as my fellow Bears fans.  Back when he reached Super Bowl XL, it was with a strong offensive line and a powerful defense.  Last year, both those units muddled through at about half strength.  This year, the defense is healthy, but the offense remains a mess.  Pretty standard Bears football, if you ask me.  Coach Smith, on balance, is just average.  Barring a deep playoff run (not likely), he's not good enough to stay on in Chicago past this season, but nor are the Bears' problems all his fault.

---

Fantasy update:  This week, it's the Fluttering Horde that's floundering.  I spend all week researching just who can take over for Jacksonville WR Mike Thomas (bye), the Dallas defense (must I explain?) and Carolina RB Johnathan Stewart (fired, 'cause he -- sing it! -- suuuuuuuuucks).  The solutions?  The Patriot defense, Houston WR Jacoby Jones and Arizona RB Laron Stephens-Howling.  Jones and Stephens-Howling worked beautifully, but the Patriots (sing it!) suuuuuuuuucked so hard on defense, they actually cost me a point.  Andre Johnson and Peyton Manning are no help, so the Horde falls, 104-81, to the Purple Dragons.  It's the third loss in a row for the Horde (5-4), which falls to the middle of the table.

Happily, with DeSean Jackson back, the Middlemen (6-3) won their game, defeating the Techno Vikings, 98-84.  The public league has turned into a four-team scramble for the top.  It may be time to trade Michael Vick (whom I don't really need) for more wide-receiver power, now that Miles Austin is fizzling.

---

Late Tuesday Football

No time to get out the weekly post yesterday, as it was Election Day.   My father and I made some pulled pork, which went to a couple of campaign headquarters.   I was happy to have had time to vote.  I'm still trying to collect thoughts over the results and the dismaying reactions today from President Obama and Harry Reid.  For now, suffice it to say that when I voted for Obama two years ago, I was hoping he'd perform more like Tom Landry than Wade Phillips.

---

Last week's quiz answer:  Here are the six big tournaments I mentioned, in the order a game was first played in Texas:

1. March 1971:  NCAA Men's Final Four, Astrodome, Houston
2. 13 January 1974:  Super Bowl VIII, Rice Stadium, Houston
3. 9 May 1981:  Game 3, 1981 NBA Finals, The Summit, Houston
4. 17 June 1994:  FIFA World Cup, Cotton Bowl, Dallas (Spain vs. Korea Rep.)
5. 8 June 1999:  Game 1, 1999 Stanley Cup Final, Reunion Arena, Dallas
6. 25 October 2005:  Game 3, World Series, Minute Maid Park, Houston.

---

Fantasy update:  Another injury-racked week, another pair of poor results, and, surprisingly enough, another split.

The Fluttering Horde had to wait until Monday night just to double its score, and it lost 97-67 to the Smoking Popes.  Vernon Davis went down early, the Dallas defense stunk and the only Popes player not to score was Jamaal Charles and his 240+ total yards.  The Horde falls to 5-3 and fifth place overall.

Meanwhile, the Middlemen lost new acquisition Kenny Britt early, but escaped with an 83-80 win over Mean Machine.  Not pretty, but I do get back to third place at 5-3; and it'll be nice to have DeSean Jackson back.

---

Tuesday Football: The World Series, and a quick Texas sports quiz

The Texas Rangers have finally made it to a MLB World Series, just in time to add to their former owner's misery.  Dallas arbitrageur Tom Hicks lost ownership of both the Rangers and Liverpool FC, the latter just 10 days ago.  Fans in Merseyside and the Metroplex are, I'd imagine, equally happy to be rid of Hicks, who managed to run both clubs aground.

Liverpool FC, now siblings to the Boston Red Sox, will need time to recover from their Hicks-inflicted wounds, but the Rangers open their first Series tomorrow night in San Francisco.  [Go Giants!]  Over the weekend, the series shifts to Arlington, marking only the second time World Series games have been played in Texas.  With that in mind, here's a one-question quiz:

Rank the following major championship events, in order of their first staging at a venue in Texas.  (Hint:  Only some of these required Texas-based teams.)

1. FIFA World Cup
2. World Series (MLB)
3. NCAA Men's Final Four
4. NBA Finals
5. Super Bowl (NFL)
6. Stanley Cup Finals (NHL)

Leave your answer in the comments.  Good luck!

---

Fantasy recap:  The Fluttering Horde had to deal with bye weeks from several key players, so their week was hard enough.  Alas, Jay Cutler's astonishing incompetence for the Bears gave Osogood 32 points' worth of defense.  Ahmad Bradshaw had another solid week, but it wasn't enough to save the Horde from a 116-100 loss.  The Horde (5-2) falls to fourth place overall, and third in its division.  The good news is that The Smoking Popes (1-6) are up next.  With Manning, Johnson and Braylon Edwards all back from their byes, it should be an easy win.

Sadly, the Middlemen (4-3) are in free fall.  Tony Romo's broken collarbone last night effectively takes WR1 Miles Austin out of action, only a week after WR2 DeSean Jackson suffered a concussion.  With no decent receivers left, the Middlemen took a decisive 96-74 thumping from the Warriors, their third loss in four weeks.  Until Jackson and Romo come back, it's hard to see this team contending.

Tuesday Football: This new NFL controversy isn't new

This gridiron weekend would have been horrible enough had its only incident been the errant tackle that left Rutgers University defensive tackle Eric LeGrand paralyzed below the neck on Saturday.  But then came Sunday and the brutal helmet-to-helmet hits taken by DeSean Jackson, Zack Follett, Joshua Cribbs, Mohamed Massaquoi and Todd Heap.  Only Follett avoided a concussion (though New Jersey hospital officials did observe him overnight).  Jackson is essentially out of next week's action; the others may not play, either.  [Best wishes to everyone on this list.]

On Sunday night, NBC commentator Rodney Harrison called for the NFL to start handing suspensions for helmet-to-helmet hits.  Besides being the defender who unsuccessfully marked David Tyree's miraculous catch in Super Bowl XLII*, Harrison (wearing #37 at right) is remembered as one of the dirtiest defenders ever to play the game.  When even he's telling the NFL to suspend rough defenders, maybe the league should listen.  The good news is that the league is prepared to do just that, maybe even before this blog entry posts.

It's hardly the first time the issue of hat-to-hat hits has surfaced.  Since 1998, the league has imposed fines on such hits.  That sort of enforcement works on second- and third-string defenders, but first-stringers earn enough to render it ineffective.  Since 2007, the NFL has advised game officials to eject players in these cases -- but not one offender saw a red card yesterday.  This summer, the league and the NFL Players' Association considered formally outlawing helmet-to-helmet hits on ballcarriers, but didn't follow through.  Now, faced with this disastrous weekend, and surely aided by Harrison's nationally-televised recital of his own case, the NFL will finally follow the Canadian Football League's lead.

Here's what I'm wondering:  Is it just me, or have defenders just gotten meaner? There seems to be at least one concussion suffered every week, just in the NFL.  We're starting to see more players suffering concussions at the college level, too.  [Ryan Mallett, anyone?]  Maybe players and coaches should take another look at how tackles and hits are made these days.

*Picture by Barry Chin, via boston.com

---

Gates trips leaders.  And vice versa:  Of course, not all game-ending injuries come to the head or the spine.  San Diego tight end Antonio Gates, for example, caught two passes for 12 yards before hurting his toe in the Chargers' game at St. Louis.  The Chargers hope he'll be able to go next week against the Patriots, but it doesn't look likely right now.

Gates' foot issue affected both my games.  His injury, combined with a Miles Austin dud at Minnesota, consigned the Middlemen (4-2) to a 101-92 defeat at the hands of the Juken' Jockstraps.  Before suffering his concussion, DeSean Jackson offset an awful performance by the Atlanta defense.  Chris Johnson's touchdown last night came too late, as the Middlemen fell to second place.  With Jackson and (probably) Gates both out, next week promises a stern test for the bench.

On the other hand, the Gates exit suited the Fluttering Horde (5-1) just fine.  It crippled Anything But Last, which also suffered a 6-yard whiff from Giants wideout Hakeem Nicks.  Peyton Manning's 307-yard, two-touchdown performance (bo-ooo-ring!) put the Horde within 0.04 points of the lead going into the Monday-night game, and Titans kicker Rob Bironas kicked in the finish.  The Horde won, 108-88, knocked ABL from the ranks of the undefeated and took the division lead.  Next up: my other twin nephew and Osogood, to whom I traded Wes Welker.   So far, that trade hasn't hurt.

---

Tuesday Football: BCS stadiums, by the numbers

As college-football fandom prepares for the release of the first BCS rankings, I thought I was going to write a big post about the importance of the sport to so many public universities in the U.S.  That would have entailed spending several hundred words to state the obvious:  the BCS is so big, it could've been the sixth monster in Monsters vs. Aliens.

Instead, I'll cite some statistics about college-football stadiums.  A few details about the 61-venue sample:

1. Only stadiums at public universities count.  I'm intentionally excluding several private schools with big football programs, including USC, Stanford, BYU, Miami (Fla.), Notre Dame and Boston College.
2. The sample covers only the six conferences explicitly covered by the BCS scheme, plus the Mountain West.
3. Statistics reflect conference alignments for 2012.  Nebraska counts as a Big Ten team; Boise State, as a Mountain West club; and Colorado and Utah, as Pac-10 sides.

And here are the simple numbers, courtesy of a Wikipedia aggregation.  Wikipedia may not be the greatest source for this kind of stuff, but for this post, the numbers are good enough.

Atlantic Coast Conference: 

• Included colleges: 8
• Average stadium capacity:  64 302
• Largest included stadium:  Memorial Stadium, Clemson (82 300)
• Smallest included stadium:  Byrd Stadium, Maryland (51 500)

Big XII Conference: 

• Included colleges:  9
• Average stadium capacity:  68 031
• Largest included stadium:  Memorial Stadium, Texas (101 119)
  
• Smallest included stadium:  Bill Snyder Family Stadium, Kansas State (50 300)

Big East Conference: 

• Included colleges:  5
• Average stadium capacity:  56 672
• Largest included stadium:  Raymond James Stadium, South Florida (82 300)
  
• Smallest included stadium:  Rentschler Field, Connecticut (40 000)

Big Ten Conference: 

• Included colleges:  11
• Average stadium capacity:  78 220
• Largest included stadium:  Michigan Stadium, Michigan (109 901)
• Smallest indluded stadium:  Memorial Stadium, Indiana (52 180)

Mountain West Conference: 

• Included colleges:  7
• Average stadium capacity:  43 189
• Largest included stadium:  Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego State (70 561)
  
• Smallest included stadium:  War Memorial Stadium, Wyoming (32 580)

Pacific 10 Conference: 

• Included colleges:  10
• Average stadium capacity:  60 177
• Largest included stadium:  Rose Bowl, UCLA (92 542)
  
• Smallest included stadium:  Martin Stadium, Washington State (35 117)

Southeastern Conference: 

• Included colleges:  11
• Average stadium capacity:  82 268
• Largest included stadium:  Neyland Stadium, Tennessee (102 459)
  
• Smallest included stadium:  Davis Wade Stadium, Mississippi State (55 082)

---

Fantasy update:   Another weird week.  One team did nothing but score touchdowns, the other scored exactly one -- and both won their games.

In a spectacular first-place showdown with the Tin Men, both teams posted the week's two highest scores -- but the Middlemen prevailed, 144-123.  Spectacular performances by Matt Forte, Chris Johnson, Miles Austin and the Atlanta defense powered a record-setting day.  Both teams now stand at 4-1, but I hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Meanwhile, the Fluttering Horde struggled, staying in the game only because opponent Crown My Ass left Forte on his bench.  Late in the Eagles-49ers matchup, I was ready to put Vernon Davis on the trading block.  But Davis came up with the Horde's only touchdown, which proved just enough for an 86-81 come-from-behind victory.  Next week, the 4-1 Horde engages in its game of cat-and-also-cat against undefeated Anything But Last, run by my former in-law.

---

Tuesday Football: Oy!

This blog spends two pages complaining about the way the NFL handles overtime, but I shudder to think about the first time that happens in the Super Bowl.  The ensuing chatter will consume North America for a month.

On the other hand, we could have what happened in Australia in the last two weeks. St. Kilda and Collingwood played in the AFL Grand Final two weeks ago.  So far, so good; it was just another championship game. But then St. Kilda rallied late to force a 68-68 tie.   Instead of overtime, the AFL scheduled a replay. More than 100,000 fans went home confused, with a request to come back in a week -- to watch the Saints and Magpies play an extra game.  That's exactly what they did.  Fans of both teams snapped up all the replay tickets, leaving none for the general public.  Their reward?  A 108-52 Collingwood blowout last Saturday afternoon.  Too bad for St. Kilda, who last won the Premiership in 1966.  Since then, their fortunes have tracked those of their NFL namesakes in New Orleans.  It would've been nice to see both set of Saints -- both perennial also-rans -- come away winners in the same year.  Oh, well

If you haven't seen an Australian football game, you've been missing an chaotic, fast-paced, high-scoring and incredibly fun form of the sport.  While you wait for the deejay to bring the tunes, it's a perfect background for Friday-night parties.  The 2011 season begins in March.  Hopefully, someone stateside will give us live games to watch before the next Grand Final.

Lucky weekend:  Over on the fantasy-football side, well, I was lucky this week.  The list of roster disasters was long:

1. Injuries kept Andre Johnson and Steve Breaston from playing for the Fluttering Horde.  I didn't have enough active wide receivers, so I had to waive Breaston for Jacksonville's Mike Taylor.
2. The Middlemen lost Miles Austin to his bye week, then Michael Vick went down with his nasty rib injury.  That effectively removed both Vick and his favorite target, DeSean Jackson, from the Middlemen lineup.  On top of that, the Middlemen dumped a New York Giant defense that ended up sacking the Bears 10 times.
3. The Bears' woes hurt both teams, essentially blanking Greg Olsen for the Horde and Matt Forte and Johnny Knox for the Middlemen.

Given all that, in theory, I should have been lucky to avoid two losses.  In practice, I was unlucky not to win twice.  The Horde's opponent, who will remain unnamed, fielded only five players, so the Horde cruised to a 94-36 win.   The Middlemen lost 82-78 to the previously winless Hurricanes -- but only because New England scored 18 special-teams points and blocked both a punt and a field-goal attempt.  It was like losing with a full house on the river.

The bizarre combination of good luck and bad luck leaves both teams at 3-1.  The Middlemen fall to second in their league, while the Horde stays in third place.  Oy!

---