Tag Archives: 2010

What We Learned From the Seahawks 58-0 Win Besides the Fact that Arizona is Pitiful

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It just kept going and going and going and going…the score traveling north for the Seattle Seahawks when they used the Arizona Cardinals as a doormat in route to a 58-0 win on Sunday. This comes as perfect timing for Seattle as it gives them the ultimate confidence booster (cliché, but true) going into their last “road” game of the season as well as their final three games overall, which will be split between Buffalo (in Toronto) and the Clink (the 49ers and Rams come to town) respectively.

But, this is what we learned from the game-

  • Russell Wilson deserves due consideration for Rookie of the Year. Yes, Andrew Luck is great and RGIII lights up teams with his arm and legs, but that was expected out of the top two picks in the NFL Draft. I don’t think anyone outside of the Puget Sound expected this out of a quarterback who didn’t even have his name in the starting quarterback battle “hat,” if you will. (Remember Matt Flynn and Tavaris Jackson? Flynn got his first snaps of the year in mop-up duty and Jackson is in Buffalo.)
  • More Wilson praise.  According to Pro Football Reference, Wilson has the same number of touchdown passes as Dan Marino had in his first full season. That number would be 20. That’s also more than Troy Aikman, Joe Montana, John Elway, Steve Young and Joe Namath had in their respective first full seasons.
  • The team is finally legitimate. The Seahawks were the laughing stock of the league when they qualified for the playoffs with a losing record at 7-9. But we took it to the league and the Saints in the wild-card round by stunning the defending Super Bowl champs at home. Nonetheless, the “laughing stock” talk is nonexistent as Seattle sits at 8-5 and will likely make the playoffs as either a wild-card team or as a division winner.
  • Quality Wins. Back in 2010, during the 7-9 season, Seattle beat one singular playoff team in the regular season, the Chicago Bears. Their only other out of conference win was against the pre-Cam Newton era Panthers. This season is loads different. The team walloped contenders such as the Cowboys, Jets and Vikings as well as securing close wins over Super Bowl hopefuls Green Bay, New England and Chicago.
  • Home Field Advantage. Seattle is really good at home. 6-0 in fact. Part of that has to do with Russell Wilson being phenomenal at home. He’s only thrown one interception there all season (Eli Manning had two picks at home last week alone.) And the other part has to do with the team being so good and the crowd being so loud. The Seahawks beat Green Bay, New England, Arizona, Dallas, New York and Vikings at home. I’d be cautious if I were an opposing team thinking they could come in to the Clink and get a win, especially in the playoffs.

So what do you think? Are the Seahawks Super Bowl worthy?

(Hint: I think they are.)

The Best in World of Sports: An Atlas of Atlases

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In Greek mythology there is a Titan named Atlas who held up the world, or held up the sky so that it didn’t crash down on the Earth.

In the world of sports, each team has its own “Atlas” who keeps the team from falling flat.

Some of the best “Atlases” in recent sports memory:

  1. LeBron James- Cleveland Cavaliers. During LeBron’s tenure the Cavaliers were essentially James and a never-ending roll call of role players. Shaquille O’Neal and Ben Wallace were the only really good players who James played with in Cleveland. And at that point both were in the respective twilights of their careers, and Wallace wasn’t scoring much (as per usual). Cleveland was so bad without “King James” that they set an NBA record for the longest losing streak: 26 games after he made the decision to go to South Beach.
  2. Derrick Rose- Chicago Bulls. A small sample size, but while Rose dominated Game One of the first round of the playoffs versus Philly, he tore his ACL towards the end of the game. After holding on for the win in that game the Bulls went on to lose the series 4-2 to the eight-seeded 76ers. As a follow up, this year with Rose out for an extended amount of time, most pundits and talking heads have Chicago in the 6-8 seed range in the playoffs. Quite a drop-off for the team who had the best record in the East last season.
  3. Luis Suarez- Liverpool. If you take away Suarez’s fantastic production, the Reds would likely be in the relegation zone if not in last.
  4. Dwight Howard- Orlando Magic. Orlando is so bad without Howard it compelled me to write an entire piece on it, you can see that here. Orlando is going nowhere fast.
  5. Steve Nash- Phoenix Suns. Obviously earlier on in Nash’s career he had Amare Stoudamire and friends, so the team wouldn’t be that bad off without him. However, the Suns of the past couple years have needed Nash to help them stay out of the cellar. With him they were camped on the stairs going to the cellar; now they’re the cellar’s likely tenants.
  6. Mike Trout- Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Trout supporters love overusing the stat about the visible improvement of the Angels’ record with him, as opposed to their record without him. Take away Trout and a lineup that includes Albert Pujols, Kendrys Morales, Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells goes nowhere offensively. Continue reading →

The Madden Curse

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With the exceptions of the “FIFA” franchise as well as the “Mario Brothers” Empire, “Madden” may be the most popular video game in the world. Hence, it would be an honor to be on the cover of it. And while it’s nice to be on the cover, there is a certain “curse” per say which follows it.

Which is why Lions fans are probably fretting over the season Calvin Johnson is going to have, or the fact that he’s probably being taken way too late in fantasy football drafts around the country.

And rightfully so, people have a right to be hesitant.

Dating back to 2001, when a single athlete graces the cover, it tends to impact their performance the next season. A lot of those declines are due to injury, however not all of them are. Continue reading →

Trade Reaction: Tigers Acquire Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante for Jacob Turner and Prospects

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I was surprised that this happened. Not necessarily in a good way.

It was noted, the Tigers’ production at second base has been horrendous this season. Throw all the ugly numbers out there that you want. They have been bad.

A possible starting pitcher was another need seeing as, again throw all your numbers out there, the Tigers’ back end starters, namely the fifth spot, have been inconsistent. Continue reading →

1992 VS 2012: Which Olympic Team Wins?

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Yes. If you haven’t figured it out, I was born in 1996. But even though that was four years before I was born this is a topical post that’s interesting to me so, moving on…

Who would win if the 1992 Dream Team squared off with the current chapter of the Men’s Olympic Basketball team?

We’ll never know of course. If we did know, then time machines would work and the magic of Back to the Future would be lost on us.

The one glaring difference between the teams is their respective post presences, or lack thereof. The Dream Team was stocked with Hall-of-Fame-worthy big men who dominated the paint: Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson led that elite group. While this year’s contingent is stocked with… Tyson Chandler. Similar, I know.

(The Secret Word is… Sarcasm)

While ’92 was more well rounded, with dominance at every position, the current team is more wing oriented and athletic. LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, James Harden and Andre Iguodala form a daunting group of wing players. They are fast, and athletic, they’ll run up the score and force turnovers on you at will. Plus, most of them are in their prime, or some stage of it. LeBron is probably at his best, if not nearing his best play. Kobe is coming off one of his better seasons. While Durant is just entering his prime years, and Harden and Iguodala are fresh off respective breakout years. Carmelo Anthony is pretty good too.

But can this team beat the Dream Team? One of the best, if not the best, team in sports history?

The wings would definitely cause the ’92 team a problem or two. Guys like Magic and Bird were at the tail end of their careers and might have issues guarding some of these guys. But the flipside to that is that Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were in their prime. Two of the best defenders ever, I would certainly take them defensively over most, if not all, of the current guys.

So would the 2012 version of the Olympic Men’s National Basketball Team beat the 1992 version? No, they wouldn’t. I’m not even sure if 2012 could beat the 2008 version.

Why it Makes Sense For Steve Nash to Leave Phoenix

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I’m not saying that Steve Nash isn’t going to be in a Suns uniform next year. I’m just saying that it makes sense for him to leave, because he probably wants that thing that a lot of guys have: a ring.

Here’s the first and rather glaring reason: contenders have needs at the point. Chicago has apparently expressed interest in him and another former Sun great, Jason Kidd. New York would make some sense not only because of Nash’s familiarity with Amar’e Stoudemire, but also because of the seriousness of injuries to Baron Davis and Iman Shumpert.  Nash could also find homes in places like Portland, Toronto, Dallas and to frankly any team who doesn’t get Deron Williams

But here is the interesting thing, if you leave Phoenix you tend to at least make the playoffs. Let me explain. If you look at every major contributor or role player on the Suns since the 2007-2008 season who are still in the league, you’ll see an interesting trend. Almost all of them made the playoffs this year.

You don’t believe me? Check it out-

Leandro Barbosa got in with the Pacers; ditto Louis Amundson; Raja Bell got knocked out in the first round with the Jazz; Boris Diaw is still alive with the Spurs. Be warned, there’s more. Amar’e is playing for the Knicks, so he got in. Matt Barnes made it to the Western Conference Semifinals with the Lakers. Vince Carter got ousted as a member of the Mavericks and finally Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu made the “tournament” on the Orlando Magic’s payroll. Heck, even Shaq made the playoffs as an analyst with TNT.

So, blippy and bullet-pointy as it was, it makes sense for Steve Nash to leave Phoenix.

If You Trade Kevin Youkilis: A Look at It From the Red Sox Point of View

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If you trade Kevin Youkilis it might come back and bite you.

If you trade Kevin Youkilis you open yourself up to a lot of criticism.

Let me rephrase that, it will come back to bite you (looking at you, Red Sox brass). Will Middlebrooks has been everything the Red Sox wanted and more and all that sappy bahooey, but Middlebrooks is a rookie. Most rookies hit a wall. And, just a hypothetical thought here, what if that wall comes blaring into view at say the beginning of September? And so potential savior goes to potential goat in a matter of months. (That sounded better in my head, but we’ll go with it.) I’m not saying that the whole season falls on Middlebrooks, but if you look at that lineup, they need the offensive firepower. Adrian Gonzalez, Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz are great. But look at the rest of that lineup sans Middlebrooks and the previous three: Daniel Nava, Ryan Sweeney, Mike Aviles, Jared Saltalamacchia and the now-injured Cody Ross. Not exactly death row there. This has 2010 Detroit Tigers written all over it. The big bat(s) protection gets hurt- Detroit: Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen. Boston: Carl Crawford, Jacoby Ellsbury, Youkilis- and as a result the big bat(s) intentional walk numbers swell, and they get pitched around to a point where it isn’t even funny. The moral of the story with the Tigers is that they never recovered and finished at .500.

The flipside is that if Middlebrooks hits a wall sooner, or doesn’t hit a wall at all (sorry, the rhyme was accidental) the offense is still lacking. And it’s not as if the pitching is the team’s calling card. Felix Doubront has been nice, but Daniel Bard really should be back in the bullpen, and Clay Buchholz has been horrendous. So if Youkilis is dealt, for say pitching, then you’ve got a potentially mondo-sized hole at third. If you’re following along at home you aren’t mistaken. The next third baseman in line, should Middlebrooks struggle and Youkilis be dealt, is Mike Avilies who is starting at shortstop. Either way you slice it, Nick Punto gets into the lineup regularly and that probably helps opposing managers gain sleep rather then lose it. (No offense to Punto, great defender, but not so great with the lumber.) To give you an idea, Punto hit one more homerun than I did for the champs last year. Which, after you count all the 500 foot bombs I hit, leaves Punto with one.

Ross’s injury makes it even more apparent. Don’t deal Youkilis. You (the Red Sox) need the offense. Not to mention the fact that he’s a proven commodity.

 

The Good Old What If Game: Felix Hernandez’s Lack of Run Support

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Felix Hernandez might be the best pitcher in baseball not to win an MVP and Cy Young in the same season.

For a prime example of his skill look at the 2010 season when he won only 13 games to 12 losses and still won the Cy. But to be fair, Hernandez not only led the league in ERA, but also pitched the most innings, faced the most batters and had the fewest hits per 9 innings pitched of any pitcher in the league.

It should be noted that the Mariners offense was a complete juggernaut, ranked at an un-godly 28th in the league.

(Sarcasm, sarcasm and sarcasm)

But to be honest, ranking 28th is probably juggernaut-like for the Mariners, who have ranked last in the league in offense the past two seasons.

During those seasons, Hernandez won the aforementioned Cy Young and then followed it up with a 14-14 year in which he had an almost identical campaign to the Cy Year, but allowed 19 more runs in one less start.

I was talking with a friend about why Justin Verlander was the best in baseball from a pitching standpoint. I started with his 24 wins mainly because that’s what you see on the stat line. I got a response somewhere along the lines of “that’s talking like a kindergartener.”

That is how far the concept of wins has fallen. And to a degree I agree that winning games isn’t everything, but winning 24 is completely ridiculous. We haven’t seen a ton of twenty winners in the past couple years, and the one that we have seen have been along the lines of 20 or 21. Barely scratching the surface, barely getting across the line.

Wins are on the way out in baseball people’s eyes

But here’s my take on it, if you have 13-17 wins like Felix Hernandez, and then do so much more statistically that it blows people away, then the win total certainly doesn’t bear as much weight.

On the other hand, if you have do have the number of wins like a Verlander, and do everything else, then it’s no contest.

Back to King Felix, let’s not forget that in the past three years, he has not only pitched on a horrendous team (’09 is an outlier), but has received historically, maybe the worst run support ever.

Even in the Mariners best season of those three years (’09), the teeth of their lineup included Russell Branyan (another use of the word “outlier” as Branyan had his best years in Seattle and hasn’t been the same sense – who knew Safeco could do that to a hitter?), Jose Lopez, a struggling Adrian Beltre and a declining Ken Griffey Jr.

Their certainly were other attempts to get the King run support, Milton Bradley was one, Jack Cust another. But the future does look a bit brighter in the Emerald City with youngsters Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak and Jesus Montero ready to hit their primes in Mariners uniforms.

The point here is that Felix Hernandez was spectacular, even winning a Cy Young without a steady supply of run support. He has established himself as a top-3 pitcher in the entire-freaking-league without it.

Now what if he gets run support?