An October Glance at the NFL

   The National Football League has taken over my Sundays, and I don't mind a bit. As the season approaches the midway point, the games become more and more intense. The level of competition throughout the league become greater it seems as most teams still believe they can make a run at the playoffs. Of course that is not really the case. In the next couple of weeks teams will either remain in contention, or slowly fall back. The Minnesota Vikings may be a team that falls back. The Vikings were 5-2 going into this weeks Thursday Night matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but they came out flat and got  handled at home 36-17. The Vikings got off to a fast start, however, it would not surprise me at all if they drop their next 5 games, which include two games with the division rival, and now 6-1, Chicago Bears. So, while some teams may begin to fade, others should get on a roll.

The team that seems most prime to get on that roll, is the New England Patriots. After traveling to London to take down the St. Louis Rams 45-7, the Patriots sit at 5-3, and atop the AFC East. Besides back to back prime time games against the Houston Texans, and San Francisco 49ers at home, the rest of the schedule looks promising. Don't be surprised if the Patriots end the season with the second best record in the AFC, or even home field advantage throughout the playoffs. 

   Whatever happens, it's sure to be another exciting finish to the regular season, and we all know come January how much more the games intensify. So if there is one thing I'm trying to say here, it's that there will be teams that have promising starts, who end up one of the worst teams in the league. Likewise there are also teams that come out of the gates slow, and take time to get going. However, once they do get going they are very hard to stop, as we saw last year. All you have to do is get in, and then ride that momentum to the Super Bowl. 

   I would also like to take this time to announce that next I will be making my predictions for the upcoming NBA season, which will include my NBA champion. So check in soon to see who I think will be making it to the NBA Finals, and yes that James Harden trade does affect my decision.

Football and Baseball Make This Time of Year Truly Special

The leaves are falling, and baseball and football fill the air. Sports are all around us right now during this autumn of 2012, and I'm trying to take it all in. It is truly amazing what is going on in the world of sports right now in baseball and football, at both the collegiate and professional levels. 

In baseball the playoffs are underway, and the new wild card system worked out just the way Bud Selig wanted it. All four division series went the distance of five games, with multiple games ending in dramatic fashion. The Tigers went up 2-0 in its series against the Athletics before losing the next two on the road setting up a game 5 with Justin Verlander on the mound. Verlander delivered with a complete game four hit shutout of Oakland, and sent the Tigers to the ALCS for the second year in a row. In the other American League series the Yankees and Orioles went back and forth, much like the two sides did down the stretch of the regular season, with neither side giving an edge. The heroics of Raul Ibanez may have saved the Yankees, as he both tied and won game 3 with home runs. The Yankees took game 5 of the series at home with a complete game effort by their ace C.C. Sabathia. In the national league the series are equally exciting.

The Washington Nationals were in the playoffs for the first time in...a really long time. They took on the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals, who found away to get into the playoffs as a wild card. The series went back and forth much like the Yankees-Orioles series, and with similar dramatics. In game 4 Jayson Werth hit a walk-off home run to send the series to a deciding game 5 in Washington. Game 5 did not disappoint. The Nationals quickly jumped ahead 6-0 with the help of the long ball. However, by the time the game got around to the bottom of the 8th inning, the Cardinals had crept back to close the gap to 6-5. The Nationals got an insurance run in the 8th inning, and had the Cardinals down to their last strike with Carlos Beltran on third base. The Nationals closer, Drew Storen, proceeded to walk the next two batters, Yadier Molina and 2011 playoff hero David Freese. This set up little known second baseman Descalso to deliver a game-tying two-run single, which was followed by another two-run single from shortstop Cozma. The Cardinals advance to face the San Francisco Giants who came back from an 0-2 deficit, to win three straight games on the road, and move on the NLCS. 

While all of this baseball has been going on I have also been able to enjoy watching, the always exciting, college football. Now as a college football fan I do not really have a favorite team. I kind of have my favorites from each major conference, and root for those schools, while also enjoying other ranked matchups throughout Saturday. This college football season, like every other, has been filled with upsets of top-ranked teams. Most recently the number 3 school, South Carolina, fell to the LSU Tigers (my favorite from the SEC) in Death Valley. Also the number 5 team in the nation, the West Virginia Mountaineers, got destroyed on the road at Texas Tech. This now has left us with a top five of very familiar teams. At number five are the Notre Dame Fighting Irish who have not been this relevant for years. At number 4 there is Kansas St. which has quietly gone undefeated thus far. Numbers 1-3 are used to being at the top, Florida, Oregon (my favorite team from the Pac-12), and defending National Champion Alabama. Its all setting up for another fantastic college football season, and surely there are more upsets to come in the second half of the season.

Professional football has been confusing to say the least, some teams have done what we thought they would, and others have been questionable at times. Most expected the Texans and Falcons to be very good this year, but I don't know i they thought they would be this good. Both are undefeated, with the Falcons sitting at 6-0, and the Texans at 5-0, with a Sunday night football matchup with the Green Bay Packers just about to begin. The Packers were a squad many expected to have another strong season, despite losing early in the playoffs last year. This was still a team that went 15-1 in the regular season, and, headlined by a missed call at Seattle, have fallen to 2-3 and are in need of a victory tonight. Another team many expected to replicated the success of last year, the New England Patriots. The Patriots finished the regular season 13-3 last year, and made it all the way to the Super Bowl, before losing to the New York Giants. This year, However, they have struggled to stay consistent. The offense has looked unstoppable at times, and the defense arguably better than last year. But, the Patriots are now 3-3 after losing to the Seahawks in Seattle this afternoon, and questions will be swirling in New England all week long. 

I am now going to leave so that I can watch both game one of the NLCS between the Cardinals and the Giants, and Sunday Night Football between the Packers and the Texans. This time of year may be the best for a sports fan. Heck, I even got to watch the Knicks play the Celtics last night in an exhibition game. Theres nothing like sitting on the couch and watching sports for hours...and then remembering you have homework due the next morning. It's going to be a long night.

The Red Sox Struggles

In all of my short years of watching baseball, never has my team shown such little chance of making the playoffs. I know I must sound a bit ridiculous seeing how the first year I started watching the Boston Red Sox was the year they broke the 86 year old curse of the bambino. Many Red Sox fans had to deal with the heartbreak that was caused by the team losing multiple chances to win a World Series. Whether it was game 6 of the 1986 World Series, when the ball famously went through Bill Buckner's legs, or the more recent events of the 2003 ALCS. A series that came down to a game 7 in Yankee stadium with a tremendous pitching matchup of the former Red Sox great Roger Clemens, and Pedro Martinez. The sox led five to two in the 8th inning, but could not hold on, as fan favorite Tim Wakefield gave up a walk-off home run to little known Aaron Boone. Most fans had to deal with all of that, while I walked right into the glory days for the sox. 

Despite knowing how lucky I am to have witnessed two World Series wins, and multiple playoff runs, I am still going to complain. 

This team has been struggling mainly, because of their lack of consistent starting pitching. The two leaders of the staff, Jon Lester and Josh Beckett, have been terrible really, and despite a recent okay outing from Jon Lester, the two seem to be getting worse. Now the rest of the starters have not been great either, but their not supposed to be, in fact any strong starts from Aaron Cook or Feliz Doubront are just bonuses if you ask me. The offense has been great for the most part. It has been right up there at the top of the American League in most offensive categories. Despite that there still seems to be something wrong in the lineup. Maybe it was the lack of speed most of the season with both Ellsbury and Crawford missing the first half of the season with injuries. Or maybe its the catching situation. Jarod Saltalamacchia has shown great power in his bat, but the backup Kelly Shoppach has had a better overall record when catching for the Sox. 

There is also the fact that both Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia have not been hitting at their all-star standards to this point in the season. Gonzalez has raised his average in the last month, but has yet to show the power that is needed in the middle of the lineup. Perhaps the struggles have to do with management.

Now don't get me wrong I put the blame on the players first, but it is not wrong to explore the problems in team management. Of course new Manager Bobby Valetine has his fair share of critics as far as his managing goes, but that should not even be a part of the conversation, because if you ask me the biggest mistake of all was not re-signing Terry Francona last summer before the infamous September collapse. Communication has been a huge problem for this years Red Sox, and Francona always seemed to be able to communicate well.

Communication might have to be made soon as to which direction the Red Sox are going. Are they going to give up on this season and start looking forward to rebuild, or will they stick with this group and attempt to make a run at one of the two wild card spots. That question may be answered soon enough, as the Sox finish up a four game series with the Twins today. The Twins have the second worst record in the American League, and if the Sox lose today they will have been swept in a four game series at home, and will have really put a dent in their playoff chances.

But as I said at the beginning I really should not be complaining, because even if the Red Sox do not make the playoffs for the third straight year, I still have those two World Series victories to fall back on. That's two more than many past Red Sox fans ever had.

Summer On Smash: Free Agency in The NBA

NBA free agency has always been an eventful time for NBA basketball fans. It occurs soon after the end of the NBA finals, as well as the draft. This summer has been no different, in fact even more exciting than in past years. In the summer of 2007 the Boston Celtics big three was formed, when the Celtics acquired Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, but those were both via trade. In the summer of 2010, LeBron James made his "decision" to travel down to the warm beaches of Miami Florida, and side with fellow All-Stars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. This summer, however, has seen more big names being moved than any other year, whether through free agency or trade.

A 6-time NBA All-Star, Joe Johnson, was one of many star players to relocate this month. Johnson was traded to the Brooklyn Nets for multiple role players and draft picks. The move sparked maybe the biggest free agent of them all, Deron Williams, to re-sign with the Nets, and give Brooklyn arguably the best backcourt tandem in the NBA. One team who would argue that statement is the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers added a huge piece to its squad, one that it thinks has been missing for a while, an All-Star point guard. Well, not only did they get an All-Star, but also a two-time MVP winner in former Suns guard Steve Nash. The sign and trade deal almost came out of nowhere, as the Lakers had been Nash's biggest rival for years, while playing with the Suns. Nevertheless Nash ok'd the deal, not only because of the Lakers' potential, but also because he would be closer to his family in Phoenix. Another shocking move was made by a veteran All-Star guard, this time it was Ray Allen. Ray Allen had spent the past 5 seasons with the Boston Celtics, and helped them win a title in 2008, but after losing to Miami in the Eastern Conference Finals this past season, Allen decided to sign with the defending champion Heat. The move shocked most Celtics fans (including myself), but it was not the end of the world for Celtics fans, because they added a veteran shooting guard of their own. Longtime Dallas Maverick Jason Terry agreed to sign the Celtics just days before Allen decided to leave. Some think that the two are connected, but it has been denied by Allen. Terry was not the only Maverick that left the team, the point guard who led them to a championship just a year ago, Jason Kidd, left Dallas for New York. Kidd signed with the Knicks with the intention of mentoring the young breakout point guard, Jeremy Lin. It sounded like a great plan until Lin signed an offer sheet with the Houston Rockets. One that the Knicks intended to match until Houston changed the third year of the contract to $15 Million. Instead the Knicks decided to just trade for a former Knick point guard, Raymond Felton.

Despite all of these blockbuster moves none were the story of the summer in the NBA. The biggest story remains where is Magic center Dwight Howard going? Howard has expressed on many occasions that he is not interested in playing for the Magic next season, but no deal has been made yet, and the two sides do not seem to be able to figure anything out. All the blame is to go on Howard, however, as he made it clear that he would stay if the coach and general manager left. Well, at the end of the season Van Gundy and Otis Smith were fired, and Howard proceeded to simply change his mind. Howard is single handedly ruining the Orlando Magic's organization. After getting a brand new arena, and hosting the All-Star Game this past year, the Magic are now most certainly headed backwards.

Despite the problems in Orlando, the rest of the NBA is looking great. The league continues to get more and more exciting as more players change locations. Fresh rookies are preparing to make an impact on the league, and the 2012-2013 NBA Regular Season Schedule was just recently released. On October 30th the season begins in Miami, where the Heat will begin their defense of the NBA title against their rival of recent, the Boston Celtics. Can't wait? Me neither.

Snow Day

It's a snow day so I am relaxing at home and staying warm. What I want to write about today is the Super Bowl on Sunday. But I cannot ignore the fact that the Celtics have the best record in the eastern conference, and just beat the defending champs on Sunday. To me the Celtics proved on Sunday that they are arguably the best team in the NBA, but also that the Lakers have some work to do. There had been some concern with Los Angeles earlier in the season but everyone still thought that they would step up in the big games. But the thing is that they have lost to the Heat, Spurs, Mavericks, Celtics, meaning they have lost all of the big games against playoff teams this year, and have lost a bunch of games at home. Anyway Boston looks good heading into the second half of the season and hopefully they will secure home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
So back to the NFL and the biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl. The Green Bay Packers are back in the Super Bowl for the first time since 1998 with Brett Favre, and they are taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers who will look fore their third super bowl in six years. The key for me will be the pressure that both teams bring on defense. Both teams have mobile quarterbacks, so when they bring pressure on the blitz they better make sure they tackle Rodgers or Rothlisberger. But I think both teams will score a fair amount because of the ability of both quarterbacks to make something out of nothing. In the end though I think the Packers will pull this one out because their corners and safetys are better than the Steeler's with the exception of the defensive player of the year Troy Polomalo. I'll take the Pack in this one 27-21.

Max

Friday Night

No I am not going out and partying on a friday night, instead I am a 15 year old boy so I'm watching the Celtics and the Bulls. I love the Celtics and I can honestly say that they have the best defense in the league as a starting five. Rondo, Allen, Pierce, Garnett, and O'Neal (maybe Perkins when he comes back) play the best half-court defense and can absolutely shut down teams. The bench however seems to keep up the offense sometimes but fails to do the same on defense. The bench's bigs are good defenders but not great. Anyway I think the Celtics are the easy pick to come out of the east right now. Even though they have the same record as the Magic, they seem to be more consistent. The Celtics never lose by more than 5 or so, where as the Magic seem to lay eggs some games and the next game completely turn it around and look like the best team in the NBA. The co-best team in the NBA with the Celtics are the Lakers. I know the Lakers have lost 4 straight games for the first time since April of 2007, I don't think there is any doubt in anyones mind that the Lakers are still the favorite out west.
Since I know this is what everyone is thinking about I will talk about LeBron. Yes, I watched the game last night. I thought going in that the Cavs would have a chance to win because of the whole situation, and what would be a playoff atmosphere. Instead the Cavs got destroyed and LeBron had his best scoring game of the season, but there was still a playoff atmosphere. But I got to talk about the beginning, I am not lying when I say that those were the loudest boos I have ever heard. I mean as soon as he stepped on the court that crowd was prepared to boo. You got to see that for Cleavland they had been preparing for this since July when LeBron had "The Decision", so they had all sorts of creative cheers, shirts, poster, etc. My favorite cheer was "your Wade's Pippen!", and my favorite t-shirt was "the lyin king" with a picture of James with a lion's mane. He should have handled the whole summer situation a lot better, but now that it's over that is not what bothers me. What bothers me is that he still won't apologize. Even when he got the opportunity when Craig Sager asked him straight up if he wanted to apologize, but he didn't. I'm not sure if he doesn't think he did anything wrong, or he doesn't want to say that he was wrong. Either way he makes things that shouldn't be complicated, complicated.
I am also so excited for the Patriots Jets game on Monday Night Football. It doesn't get any better than arguably the two best teams in the NFL on Monday night. The big thing I think will be the Patriots defense against the Jets much more multi-dimensional offense this year. I still don't think the Pats defense is that good even though they have some very good players on d. That's why I think it will be extremely important for the offense of the Patriots to keep the ball and therefore limit New York's possession of the football. The NFL media still can't seem to buy the Falcons though. I don't know what else they have to do. They have the best record in the NFC, they have beaten the Packers, Ravens, and Saints who are all considered Super Bowl contenders, and they have not lost at home, and over the last three years seem to have the biggest home field advantage in the NFL.
Short note about college football is that it now looks like we are definitely headed towards a Oregon Auburn BCS National Championship game in Glendale, Arizona. While Boise State thought that they might have a chance this year they ended any argument with there overtime loss last week in Nevada. I'm excited to hear that TCU will be joining the Big East which is great. Mainly because UConn might make a BCS bowl game and they are 8-3, while other teams like LSU with only two losses, most likely will not make a BCS bowl game. Anyway I might be just saying random stuff now so I'm done for now.

-Max

Sunday

It's Sunday, which means I'm sitting at home watching football and eating as much as possible. I'm watching the Falcons Packers game right now and I am very impressed with the Falcons defense. Sure they caught a break with Rodgers fumbling in the endzone, but they have actually looked very good. For me I looked at this game as two teams who have great offenses, and one team that has a great defense, that team is the Green Bay Packers. But today it has been the Falcons who are showing up on defense, and leading right now 10-3 in the third quarter. It might be because of their great home-field advantage. The Falcons with Matt Ryan as their starting quarterback for the last three years are 18-1 at home. Which to me is amazing seeing how Ryan was a rookie in '08, and the Falcons struggled to an 8-8 record in '09. I'm also watching the Giants Jaguars game, the Jaguars are leading 17-9, and yet I still see the Giants as a team that could win the Superbowl which angers me. Even though the Giants have lost the last two weeks to the Cowboys and the Eagles, and are getting run over by the Jags, something about that team scares me. The Giants started 1-2 and everyone thought they were terrible. Then they turned it around to a 6-2 record and they looked like the best team in not only the NFC but the NFL. The offense can look unstoppable at times with both the power run game, and the explosive pass game. But then the Giants lay an egg and look like a confused team. But just the fact that they can look so good a times scares me. Because I think everyone remembers when the Giants hit their stride during the playoffs a couple of years ago and upset the favored and undefeated Patriots. So even if the Giants lose today and you hear all over ESPN that they are a terrible team don't listen, because they just might squeeze into the playoffs and beat your favorite team (if you have not noticed I'm a Pats fan). By the way the score of the Packers Falcons game is now tied at 10. Right after I tell you how great and surprising the Falcons d is Green Bay marches down the field and scores. Later tonight the Bears play the Eagles and the Chargers play the Colts, two great games. The Bears will look to slow down Michael Vick and the Eagles offense, and I hope they do because Vick is on my opponents fantasy team. The Sunday Night game is going to be great, Philip Rivers is having a great season and is really helping my fantasy team. Vincent Jackson will also be returning tonight after being suspended during the beginning of the season both by the NFL and the San Diego Chargers, I also just picked him up on my fantasy team, but enough about me. Alright that was just a quick update on the NFl today. Quick note the Heat lost to a good team last night yet again and continue to talk about this "process" which I guess means they have some sort of evil master plan to take over the NBA. Well I think they have already succeeded seeing how they are the only thing that anyone talks about while the Celtics, Lakers, Spurs, and Magic quietly just keep on winning. Have a good week.

-Max