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Archive for November, 2010

This year’s Heisman race is wide open, though there is one front runner on everyone’s board. We will attempt to make a clearer picture of the Heisman race.

Cam Newton (Auburn): The Heisman front runner leads an overachieving Auburn Tigers to a possible shot at a National Championship game. Without Newton the chances that Auburn would even qualify for a bowl game would be slim & none. The fact that the team didn’t get destroyed by Alabama this week is because Newton has put the team on his back & carried them to multiple victories.

Blaine Gabbert (Missouri): Like Newton Gabbert has single handedly brought his team to a better record then any “experts” would have predicted them to get. He hasn’t been as flashy as some of the other quarterbacks but he has been just as effecient.

Justin Blackmon (Oklahoma St): By far the best receiver in college football this season. He has dominated games like Michael Crabtree did during Texas Tech’s big season three years ago. Blackmon has Oklahoma St in the driver’s seat in the Big Twelve conference.

Jordan Todman (Connecticut): The best running back in college football isn’t even known by most people who will be voting for the Heisman, largely because he plays in the worst conference in college football, the Big East. Nonetheless Todman has ran through, around & past every defense that’s attempted to slow him down.

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Kellen Moore (Boise St): He will lose votes simply due to the fact that he plays inferior opponents but his accuracy & efficiency should garner some votes from those who know.

Andy Dalton (TCU): At the beginning of the season as dominant as the TCU defense was no one would’ve considered giving Dalton any consideration. The San Diego St game may stick in people’s minds, as the defense was abysmal & Dalton had to win it to keep the team undefeated. Dalton will more than likely lose votes to Blackmon though.

Ryan Mallett (Arkansas): Arkansas played six top ranked teams this year & beat four of them, mainly behind the arm of Mallett. He is by far the best quarterback in college football, better than Newton. The team is average running the ball & average on defense, resulting in the team relying heavily on his arm & he doesn’t disappoint.

LaMichael James (Oregon): To put things into perspective his worst performance was 91 rushing yards against California. That was his worst game this season. The most telling stat is he ran for 496 yards & 6 touchdowns against Stanford & USC, deemed to be the biggest competition they have in the conference. Did we mention he still has an Oregon St defense to run through?

I expect the Heisman voters to give Newton the nod, with James & Blackmon falling behind him.

At the beginning of the season many pundits assumed Ohio St would go undefeated in the Big Ten without issue. It was only a matter of whether or not Wisconsin or Iowa would come second in the conference. Unfortunately Iowa slipped up against inferior opponents leaving the door open for others in the conference.

Earlier today the Wisconsin Badgers, Ohio St Buckeyes & Michigan St Spartans all entered play 10-1 overall & 6-1 in the Big Ten. Wisconsin played a Northwestern team with backups at nearly every position due to injuries, Ohio St played an inferior Michigan team that hasn’t had a good win all year & Michigan St went to State College, Pennsylvania (a place they hadn’t won at since 1965) to play Penn St.

As a result of Wisconsin repeatedly running up the score against any team they could they sat as the front runners in the conference. Due to incompetence the highest ranked team in the conference will play in the Rose Bowl & only two teams from a conference can play in BCS bowl games.

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The day played out as expected with Wisconsin & Ohio St crushing their inferior opponents & Michigan St holding on despite being outplayed in the 4th quarter. Due to the incompetence of the BCS, even though all three teams finish as Big Ten champions one team will be left out. It more than likely will end up being Michigan St. Even though Michigan St beat Wisconsin handily, Wisconsin has crushed nearly every other opponent they’ve played which is all the BCS cares about. Michigan St should be ranked ahead of them for beating them, but BCS likes the “style points” which is essentially how badly did you beat down your opponents when the games were well in hand.

Luckily inferior teams like Boise St & LSU will now fall out of the top ten which could result in mass chaos. All three teams were already in the top ten, they could theoretically all end up in the top seven when the final BCS standings are released. Nevertheless one will be left to compete in a bowl they shouldn’t have issue winning. The BCS continues to get it wrong & they refuse to make things right.

Josh McDaniels has apparently learned quite a bit while under Bill Belichek, including being a cheater. News has broken that the Broncos illegally had one of their employees tape a 49ers practice prior to their game on Halloween in London, England. The NFL fined McDaniels & the team, which caused the team to fire the employee who recorded the practice.

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Obviously, as McDaniels claims, no one on the coaching staff watched the practice video – since the team was thoroughly outplayed by the 49ers in London that day. Egregiously McDaniels knew about this for a month & never reported it to the NFL. As a result the fines were rather hefty. The individual should’ve been fired after this happened & the Broncos might’ve been fined less.

Instead because McDaniels learned cheating was okay under his mentor he declined to report the cheatings & hoped he didn’t get caught, knowing if he wasn’t caught the NFL wouldn’t do anything about it. Instead someone blew the whistle, probably within the organization, which resulted in the story being broken & the Broncos having more reason to trade away their good players for nothing to save money.

In order to keep pace with the San Francisco Giants dominate starting rotation the rest of the west is starting to do what they can to keep up. Throughout the season the Arizona Diamondbacks silently acquired young good pitchers & have continued to do so in the offseason by trading for Zach Duke.

The Padres will continue to reload with young pitchers from their farm system, in an attempt to both keep up with the other teams, but not spend anything as well. Now the Dodgers have decided to take note. Despite supposedly not having money due to the messy divorce of the owners the Dodgers overpaid to re-sign Hiroki Kuroda & Ted Lilly, then paid to pull Jon Garland from the Padres rotation.

The problem is the Dodgers are acquiring individuals who will simply pitch a lot of innings. There is no guarantee Lilly, Kuroda or Garland will win more than ten games next season. The Diamondsbacks have good starters now, but do not have guys like the Giants who can be dominant on any given day.

Amazingly the Colorado Rockies are lost in the shuffle. They have Ubaldo Jimenez & a bunch of other guys. It may force them to re-sign Jorge De La Rosa, who is amazingly the second best free agent pitcher available, showing the lack of depth in this year’s free agent pitching class.

Next year, whichever team can hit the good pitching the best will have the best shot at winning the division, it will be a division that may be the closest in baseball next year.

The Pittsburgh Pirates once again show why they are the laughing stock of Major League Baseball. The team had two players any one has any interest in: Andrew McCutchen & Zach Duke. The Pirates decided that was one too many & sent Duke packing to join the Diamondbacks.

Apparently it was common knowledge that Zach Duke would be awarded six million dollars in arbitration this off season. In spite of the fact that the Pirates pocket millions of dollars from revenue sharing they weren’t willing to spend the money on someone they should.

Duke now has the opportunity to actually succeed, since he has joined a team that is interested in winning. The Diamondbacks have slowly acquired great young arms over the past year. They now have a rotation of Joe Saunders, Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson & Zach Duke. Four individuals who could easily combine for sixty wins next season. If the Dbacks decide to re-sign Brandon Webb at a discount he could be the best fifth starter in baseball, assuming he is healthy.

The Diamondbacks have noticed the rest of the division is focusing on having dominant pitchers to get ahead of the other teams. Now only the Rockies have less than three good arms, which they can rectify by re-signing Jorge De La Rosa. But he may receive a huge contract from an incompetent team like the Mets, who always overpay for good players.

The Grizzly Bear & I would like to wish everyone of our readers a happy & safe Turkey day. May you enjoy lots of tasty food & thrilling football. But now that the pleasantries are handled lets get to the picks.

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As is becoming the new Turkey day tradition there will be three games held. First, on CBS New England heads to Detroit @ 12:30. Then, on FOX New Orleans heads to Dallas @ 4:15. To cap off the day, on NFL Network Cincinnati heads to NJ to play the NY Jets.

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Grizzly Bear’s Picks:

Grizzly Bear’s Analysis:

New England @ Detroit: Detroit is a lackluster team. New England is the favorite and very much should be. I don’t see how Detroit can pull off an upset although it would be nice for Jets fans. New England 35 Detroit 12

New Orleans @ Dallas: Dallas has awaken thanks to Garrett. New Orelans dominated Seattle but, Seattle isn’t that good. It’s a home game for Dallas but, Brees is a Helluva lot better than Kitna. A nice close game. New Orleans 20 Dallas 17 in OT

Cincy @ NYJ: Cincy sucks but, Jets always make things interesting. Expect another close one despite a mismatch on paper. Cincy 17 Jets 23

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Fred Mrmins’ Picks:

Fred Mrmins’ Analysis:

New England @ Detroit: I expect a close game in this one. The Lions have enough firepower to hang with the Patriots. The Lions also play better at home. Patriots 24 Lions 21

New Orleans @ Dallas: I expect this game to be a shootout. The Cowboys all of a sudden have efforts under their new coach & the trend will continue. The Saints played terribly through the first few weeks of the season but are now finally back to being the Saints. Saints will pull out a tight one in the end. Saints 42 Cowboys 38

Cincy @ NYJ: Grizzly Bear is an avid Jets fan & based on what he’s seen so far this season he assumes the Jets will let the Bengals stick around for a while, then pull one out late. I couldn’t disagree more. The only team the Jets have handled this year is the Buffalo Bills & last week the Bills put 49 points up on the Bengals. While I don’t expect the Jets to put up 49, if they try they will beat the Bengals worse than they did the Bills. Cincy 13 Jets 38

In the spirit of Thanksgiving Grizzly Bear states And for all you boys and girls who want to understand the true meaning of being close on Thanksgiving with friends. Watch this:

Thanksgiving Fun

This weekend there are many tossups in the Big Ten conference, with a lot at stake in many of the matchups. With five games on tap, four are a tossup – including one being played in Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs).

Grizzly Bear & I have decided to once again show off our selection skills by picking all 5 games, as well as the showdown in Yankees Stadium between Notre Dame & Army.

Grizzly Bear’s Picks:

Fred Mrmins’ Picks:

I look for Michigan St to beat Purdue by at least three touchdowns, while Grizzly Bear is picking the upset.

The Michigan Wolverines give up way too many points not to assume Wisconsin will roll through them with ease.

Indiana is non competitive at this point, so Penn St should win.

If you asked me to pick the game at Wrigley Field between Northwestern & Illinois last Friday I would’ve picked Northwestern, but with Persa injured for Northwestern I don’t feel confident they can win, it should be a close one though.

I like Iowa to win on a late field goal. The only time they’ve played well for four quarters in a single game this season was against a highly ranked Michigan St team, they will be looking to do the same to Ohio St.

I like Army in the Yankees Stadium matchup. Notre Dame has managed to play worse under Brian Kelly then they did under Charlie Weis.

Anyone who pays attention to the NBA is well aware the Toronto Raptors are now a laughing stock in the league, the way the Clippers have been for decades. The Raptors are currently 2-9 & might win 15 games this season. The team has a bunch of young players & unsuccessful veterans thrown about.

The team now pays Leandro Barbosa seven million dollars a year. He was an okay backup in Phoenix, but playing with superstars like Steve Nash obviously made him look much better than he is. The Raptors also pay nine million dollars to overrated Jose Calderon & eight million dollars to mediocre Andrea Bargnani. Not only do they overpay players, but the individuals who should be starting are sitting on the bench half of the game.

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The Raptors are doing exactly what the Vancouver Grizzlies did, drafting poorly, letting go of any good player in the hopes David Stern will move the team elsewhere. In spite of all the craziness a real player is starting to emerge in Toronto in Sonny Weems. Despite playing ten minutes less than the Raptors leading scorer he is only a few points off the pace & chances are he will lead the Raptors in scoring by season’s end.

Unfortunately the only publicity Sonny Weems has been getting of late is a few seconds on ESPN’s SportsCenter when he does a circus jam. It reminded a lot of people of Vince Carter when he was younger & played for the Raptors. Weems reminds me more of a Damon Stoudamire, who will be a serviceable player, but he will need a superstar to make him look like a superstar. If only he was actually played last year when Chris Bosh was in town.

The last time the New York Jets outplayed an opponent was on October 3rd when they soundly beat an inferior Buffalo Bills team. Yet the New York Jets have only lost one game in the time since. They’ve played five games, as well as, having their bye week since October 3rd.

On October 11th the Jets were outplayed by the Minnesota Vikings (even after the Vikings took the first half of that game off) but won due to Brett Favre being Brett Favre. On October 17th the Jets were beaten by the Broncos, until a phantom pass interference gave them the opportunity to steal the game. Then the Jets rested for a week before facing the Packers on Halloween. The Packers destroyed the Jets in every form or fashion.

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On November 7th the Detroit Lions even managed to outplay the Jets. Matthew Stafford’s incompetence gave the Jets the victory. Stafford’s inability to land after a hit properly forced the Lions to go to 3rd stringer Drew Stanton. The Lions still would’ve won that game if they ran the ball on 3rd down, rather than passing. The Jets got the ball back & scored without much effort, largely due to Julian Peterson’s moronic hit. Then on November 14th the Cleveland Browns outplayed the Jets for 73 minutes, then they decided they were going to be happy with a tie, which ultimately resulted in the Jets “pulling one out of the fire.”

The sign of a good team is finding ways to win when you were thoroughly outplayed. In their last five games the Jets were outplayed by their opponents & they managed to go 4-1 in those games. If the Jets keep up this pace, where their D game is good enough to beat opponents they will be a tough out in the playoffs.

This time two years ago Roy Halladay wondered if he’d even be a big winner. Halladay was consistently the best pitcher in the American League but played on one of the worst teams in baseball. Halladay could easily win twenty games on an average team but often was stuck with fifteen or sixteen victories due to the Toronto Blue Jays being an abysmal team.

So when the Philadelphia Phillies made the trade for Roy Halladay before the 2010 season started I proclaimed that “Doc” would win thirty games this season. While he only won twenty-one games he still won the NL Cy Young award for being the best pitcher in the NL this season.

After his perfect game on May 29th Halladay was hit & miss in his starts. He had numerous stretches where he wasn’t very sharp, yet he still managed to win twenty-one games. Think about that, he was average from June till the end of the season, yet still managed to win twenty-one games.

Amazingly Halladay was the third best pitcher on his team in September because Cole Hamels & Roy Oswalt were that dominate in September. Nevertheless Halladay pitched a no hitter in his first ever playoff start against the dynamic Cincinnati Reds hitters.

After Ubaldo Jimenez started off like gangbusters he did next to nothing after the All Star game which may have resulted in Halladay being given the award. The only other pitcher who could’ve been considered dominant throughout the year was Tim Lincecum who struggled for three months of the season & yet won a World Series.