Why the Cheatriots Couldn't Win

Here are some great stats I saw about this past weekend's superbowl, many of which are in this article about the effect of luck on the game, and which I really think highlight well my lasting impressions of this game, these teams, and the 2011-2012 NFL season.

For starters, some stats to give an idea of just how amazing the Giants' feat this year is. For example, did you know that Eli Manning and the Giants finished 3-0 on the road in this postseason, while all other teams in the NFL finished 0-9 on the road? So in a year where nobody seemed to be able to rise up and win a game against a better team in the playoffs, the Giants stepped up and beat the Falcons at home, followed by the 15-1 Packers at Lambeau, and then the 13-3 49ers in San Fran, and then they followed it up by winning the Superbowl in Indianapolis against the 13-3 Cheatriots.

Moving to their performance in the Superbowl itself, in their Super Bowl 42 meeting, the Giants held New England to 14 points, which was 23 fewer points than its regular-season average in that season of incredible offensive outbursts for the Cheats. In their second Super Bowl meeting this past Sunday night, the Giants held New England to 17 points, again 15 fewer points than its regular-season average. The Giants defense simply stepped up big time against the Cheatriots, both times they have met in recent memory in the superbowl. At more than two touchdowns below the Cheatriots' season averages, it is really worth mentioning.

And regarding Eli Manning, I did not realize this but Eli Manning is now 7-0 as a starter on the road in the playoffs, with 12 touchdown passes versus two interceptions. That right there might be one of the sickest stats you will ever see about the NFL postseason. Forget Mark Sanchez and his four road playoff wins, Eli Manning at 7-0 on the road in the playoffs, with 12 tds and just 2 picks? Mark Sanchez doesn't even dream of being that good in the clutch. What a stud Eli turned himself into this year. Much as I hate to admit it.

Some interesting stats comparing this year's Giants run to that of last year's Green Bay Packers, and the general mediocrity of the teams in this year's championship, during the regular season:

The Packers and Giants, the last two Super Bowl champions, were a combined 19-13 during the regular season followed by a combined 8-0 in the postseason over the past two years. If you recall, the Packers were all but done after an embarrassing loss at home to the Lions in Week 14 back in 2011, and then they backed into the playoffs anyways and the rest was history. And this season, the Giants' Week 15 debacle loss at home to the hapless Redskins in a game that wasn't even as close as the 23-10 score would indicate seemed to all but ensure that they would miss the playoffs as well, but then wins at the Jets and against the Cowgirls in the last two weeks of the season catapulted them in anyways, and once again, the rest has since become the stuff of NFL legend.

Also, the Giants and Cheatriots finished the 2011-2012 season with a combined record of just 6-6 against teams that had winning seasons, and that includes all the playoff games. The Giants beat only New England this year during the regular season among its 9 wins, 8 of which were against teams who ended the year 8-8 or worse. Meanwhile, the Cheats did not win a single game against an over-.500 regular season team despite winning 13 games overall this year. Think about that -- the Cheatriots played only two games against winning teams in 2011 -- the Steelers and the Giants in Weeks 8 and 9 this year -- and they lost them both, by an average of 6 points. Neither of these teams faced particularly strong schedules this year, nor did either team perform particularly well against the few good teams they did face, but just like last year's Packers, they got hot at the right time and rode their big players to victory.

There are also some good stats that I think give some solid insight into how the Cheatriots managed to lose this game:

Tom Brady completed 25 of his first 31 pass attempts in Superbowl XLVI, but then ended the game completing only 2 of his final 10 attempts as he desperately tried to lead his team on a late-game comeback. Eli Manning, however, completed 25 of his first 34 pass attempts much like Tom Brady did, but then he finished the game completing five of his final six attempts, including the amazing pass to Mario Manningham (see below) that will go down as the biggest and most amazing play of this year's superbowl.

Which really illustrates the larger point here, to those of you who are big football fans and have watched a lot of these big games over the past decade or so: Tom Brady is simply not as good as he used to be. This should not surprise anyone, as he is now in his 12th year playing in a league where the vast majority of players don't ever survive half that long. By NFL standards, Brady is getting up there in age, and the simple fact is that, when his team was recording signs and stealing plays and winning superbowls back in the early 2000s, Tom Brady was at the time one of the absolutely most accurate, best decision-making quarterbacks in the league. Nowadays, Brady's accuracy is just not up there with the Rodgers's and the Brees's, and it really showed in this year's superbowl.

For starters, let's take a look at the play everyone (including Brady's wife) is talking about, Wes Welker's huge drop late in the 4th quarter which would have sustained a key Cheatriots drive and gone a long way towards ensuring a New England victory in the superbowl:



If you take a look at the play above and you're capable of some objectivity that so many people lack when it comes to their favorite sports team, this really isn't about Welker missing the catch, even a little bit. It's a bad throw. Period. Not only is this ball about four feet straight over Welker's head, when it had no need to be given that Welker is completely wide, wide open, but it'a also at his back shoulder, making this a very,very difficult catch. Now, don't get me wrong -- Wes Welker is the most productive receiver in the NFL for the past several years, and he does quite often find a way to make this catch. And I can certainly feel for Tom Brady when I see his top receiver get both hands on a thrown ball in a situation where he was not otherwise touched by any defenders. But at the end of the day, the inescapable conclusion from watching this play is that Tom Brady made a bad throw. The precision accuracy that used to be such a hallmark of Brady's success back in the early days of his Cheatriots career, is now gone, at least in any consistent aspect. In this case, Brady had his #1 target wide open on an absolutely crucial, nearly superbowl-winning play, but Brady's throw ended up in an extremely difficult spot to catch it, even for Wes Welker. Gisele, Tom and anyone else can say what they want, but this one is probably 85% on Brady, and 15% on Welker in my view.

Similarly, let's look at the next biggest play in the game, from the Cheatriots' perspective -- the Chase Blackburn interception:



Once again, here is Tom Brady given all the time in the world behind the line, but when none of his wideouts are open, Brady opts to go with his ever-trusty tight end Rob Gronkowski and heaves one up there, at a time when Gronk had clearly beaten his defender and was a good five yards open downfield and counting. Unfortunately, just look at that pass. Brady throws it a little off his back foot, a little tentatively, and the result is just what one might expect -- this ball is at least ten feet short. And really, it's even shorter than that, because Gronk had his guy beat when the ball left Brady's hands, so Brady should have led Gronk even deeper with his throw, but this toss ends up about 10 feet short of where Gronk was when Brady threw the ball. There's just not even close to enough juice on this throw, and this is the one and only reason why Chase Blackburn was able to make what was admittedly a nice catch on his part. But if this ball is thrown well, there's no chance for Blackburn to even make a play, and given Gronkowski's performance this year, it seems a pretty safe bet he takes this one into the end zone for a huge score that almost certainly changes the outcome of this game. Instead, however, Brady launches a duck well short of its intended target, and this gives Blackburn -- who was already behind the play right from when Brady threw the ball -- the opportunity to be in better position that Gronkowski to make the huge interception and take away one of the Cheatriots' last good opportunities to score in this game. The simple fact is, Tom Brady did not used to miss this badly on his longballs in superbowls past, but now his accuracy is just not what it used to be, and it shows in his results.

Before anyone says I'm just nitpicking here, let's take a look at the Giants' biggest play of the superbowl, which was this amazing catch by Mario Manningham down the left sideline late in the 4th quarter with his team needing a score in the final minutes to take the lead from the Cheatriots:



I mean, just look at that play. Where Tom Brady stepped down in his team's biggest throws of the day, making questionable decisions and missing his spots as detailed above, Eli Manning shows us what Brady used to do in the superbowl back in the day -- he absolutely nails it. Nails it! As amazing of a job catching that ball as Manningham did -- hauling it in, feet both in bounds, retaining possession while being hit and tackled out of bounds -- I just can't get away from the fact that Eli Manning's throw is even better. Play that vid over again and just look at where that ball landed. And this was with Eli also off his back foot and under pressure to boot, but just look at what Eli did there. He lofted this one and landed it in a spot where absolutely, unequivocally, the only player who could make any play on the ball whatsoever is his guy. Those defenders -- though Manningham seemed like he was draped with coverage when this play happened in real time -- but those defenders literally had no shot to even touch this ball. Manning put this throw perfectly where only Manningham could make a play, and yet just close enough to him to enable him to actually be able to make that play.

This is what winning superbowl quarterbacks do, and this is exactly what Tom Brady used to do back in the day when his Cheatriots were winning superbowls themselves. But not anymore. Now, impeccable, almost impossibly perfect throws like this are what Eli Manning does to Tom Brady's team. While Brady, on the other hand, basically, well, Brady's himself. You thought Tebowing was big, but Bradying might be I think the Next Big Thing.

I'll leave this post with a couple of final thoughts about the superbowl, and the Cheatriots's cheating past.

Before Spygate, Bill Belicheat's Cheatriots were 12-2 overall in the playoffs, and 3-0 in superbowls. But since the team was caught cheating in the middle of the 2007 NFL season, the Cheatriots are now 4-4 overall in the postseason, and 0-2 in the superbowl. If you choose not to see a connection there, then that's your prerogative. But then it's my prerogative to laugh at you, which I will most definitely do.

Also, I saw pointed out in that article interestingly that the Giants are 4-0 in the superbowl when Bill Belicheat is on the sidelines. That of course is 2-0 with Bellicheat as an assistant under Bill Parcells, and now 2-0 against Bellicheat's Cheatriots team. Maybe they can hire him as a strategic consultant or something if they ever make it back to the big game again, since it seems unlikely to this writer that the Cheatiots will make a return trip to the superbowl anytime soon.

Superbowl

Lest anyone have any doubts or be at all unclear about exactly what the problem is in Philadelphia with Eagles coach Andy Reid, one has only to look at this past weekend's superbowl to have it all clearly laid out. Unlike Giants' coach Tom Coughlin -- make that two-time Superbowl winning Giants' coach Tom Coughlin -- Andy Reid could never be a part of what the Giants just did, not only once, but twice within the span of five years. Andy Reid sleeps well at night knowing that he has won what, five NFC Easts in 12 years as Eagles head man, but he is simply unable to lead his team on a post-season run like we have been treated to watching Tom Coughlin do twice in very recent memory. And I dare say that Reid has had more talent come through the halls of the Linc over the past half a decade than Coughlin has had in New Jerseyork.

You want to know what we Philadelphians want, if "all" of Andy Reid's success here in Philly just isn't enough? I wish I had Tom Coughlin as my coach. Period. Sure, we would have to deal with the late-season collapses, and the disciplinary issues, and the too-tough mentality, etc. But Andy Reid gets all the complaints anyways, thanks to his consistently embarrassing defense, his highly questionable assistant coaching decisions, his ineptitude on game-day and countless other very noticeable weaknesses, all of which seem to be magnified with the bigger the game is, again the total opposite of Tom Coughlin and the Giants.

But enough about the Eagles. Let's talk about them Cheatriots. Another good showing, huh? It really is amazing how mediocre this team looks in big games when they don't know every single play the opposition is going to run, one after the next after the next. It really is amazing. And despite what many New Englanders out there will be screaming from the rooftops all this week ever since about 10pm local time on Sunday night, make no mistake about it: the Cheatriots needed this win. They needed it. They still need it. This team absolutely, positively needs to win another superbowl, to show the world that they actually have it in them to win one when they play by the rules. Right now, the legacy of the Cheatriots is more than merely questionable. That legacy is in downright mutiny right now. These guys won three superbowls in four years, each one by merely a field goal, and it turns out after the fact that they knew every single play their opponents were running all game long. And they were only winning by field goals? Now, since getting caught cheating and being forced to play by the same rules as everyone else does in their big games, the Cheatriots have found their way to two more superbowls -- both of which they were favored in, as they were playing each year a Giants squad that had had by all rights not nearly as good of a regular season as the Cheatriots had. For crying out loud, this year's Giants team became the first team in NFL history to win a superbowl after going just 9-7 in the regular season. Said another way, this Giants squad was the worst team ever to win a superbowl in the NFL. And what did the Cheatriots do against them when it all mattered most, after Gisele had sent her email and gotten everyone close to her to pray for her man to win his fourth championship?

Absolutely nothing. Yes, Tom Brady led his Cheatriots on an awesome, long drive to end the first half with a touchdown, and another similar drive to start the second half with another score and build his team an 8-point lead early in the third quarter. But take those just two drives away, and the vaunted Cheatiots offense didn't do shiat in this game. I mean, look at the facts -- the Cheats scored just 17 points total in the entire game, after scoring just 20 points when the two teams matched up earlier this season in Week 9 (and only 14 points in the 2007-2008 superbowl). The Cheats just did not click well on offense in the Superbowl, and in general they simply cannot do and have not done much in general against the Giants, one of the few good teams the Cheatriots played all this year.

Unlike the Eli Manning of old, Eli stepped up big time in this superbowl as he looked every bit the part of grizzled, consistent veteran. If you watched the game then you know that Eli didn't get rattled once, not even a little bit, and it was in fact Tom Brady and not Eli who threw the one dumb, off-balance, back-foot pass of the night, leading to an interception on a crucial drive where the Cheats needed to score to get the game back in control. But make no mistake about it -- and I don't care about dropped passes, liberal intentional grounding calls, as none of that changes this conclusion -- but Eli Manning outplayed Tom Brady in this superbowl, plain and simple. In fact, he did so twice this year. And if you watch this game, then you know that the game simply wasn't nearly as close as the score would indicate. The Giants utterly dominated in the first half, somehow going into the locker room with a 1-point deficit despite having held the ball nearly twice as long as the Cheatriots did during the first half of play. And then in the second half, Brady started off with that beautiful long scoring drive to put his team up 17-9 in the game, but after that point, Brady didn't have one highlight in the rest of the game, and the New England defense simply could not stop Eli Manning and the Giants backs and receivers from more or less moving up and down the field at will.

So there it is in a nutshell. The Cheatriots cheated for years and even then were only barely able to squeak out wins in their biggest games some years ago. Nowadays with their ability to steal their opponents' every play taken away from them, the Cheats are still obviously a good team, full of players with much talent on the offense. But the loss of guys like Teddy Bruschi, Willie McGinest, Mike Vrabel, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison, Asante Samuel, Richard Seymour and others have left this team with what can barely even be called a defense, and while knowing every play ahead of time might have been enough to make them look passable on Sunday, having to face every play without foreknowledge showed the Cheatriots for what they really are:

A second-rate team, in a second-rate conference, with a hideous excuse for a defense, and an offense with a number of strong pieces but one that simply did not -- and does not any longer -- get it done in the biggest of spots. It's pretty obvious at this point that the teams the Cheatriots beat in the superbowl in the early 2000s deserve restitution. February 3, 2002: New England 20, St. Louis 17. That Rams team was obviously far better than the Cheatriots, when you consider that the Cheats were observed filming the Rams' signs during the pregame walkthrough, tapes which NFL Commissioner Roger Gooddell immediately destroyed rather than admit specifically what the Cheatriots had stolen from the Rams. As far as I'm concerned, that 3-point win for the Cheats is more like a two-touchdown loss to a clearly better team, and the Rams should be recognized as having won two superbowls in three years with The Greatest Show on Turf. February 1, 2004 New England 32, Carolina 29. Here is another 3-point victory against a team with a superior defense and a thought-to-be inferior offense, but who surely would beaten the Cheatriots in a fair fight. And then of course there was February 6, 2005 New England 24, Philadelphia 21. Still another mere field goal margin of victory against a team that was obviously better than them, with the Cheats once again using foreknowledge of every single play run to build up a lead that the Eagles just ran out of time trying to come back from. Take the cheating out of that game, and one can only assume that the superior Eagles squad from that year would have overcome their coach's inability to prepare for game day to put in a double-digit victory and Philadelphia's only superbowl.

At 59 years old, Bill Belicheat still has the opportunity to coach a great many more years, even going to another team or starting over with a whole new nucleus of players, if he sees fit. But I got news for you, Cheatriots fans -- the window on the career of Tom Brady is almost all the way shut after this past weekend's debacle. Although the AFC is as weak as it's been in years, and there may not be any team in the Cheats' conference that is as good as the Packers, the Saints or the Giants over the next several years, the odds of this Cheatriots squad finding their way back to the superbowl are seeming slim to none in my eyes. And, like mostly everyone else out there living west of Route 91 in Connecticut, the thought of that good riddance of unscrupulous, conniving cheaters from the upper ranks of the NFL is enough to make almost all of us smile.

I'll always hate the Giants with nearly every fiber of my being, but it is clear as day that the right team won on Sunday. Congratulations to the 2011-2012 New York Giants, the only true champions to play in the superbowl this year.

Goodbye, Andy Reid

Goodbye, Andy Reid.

It's been a good run. A great run, in fact, in a lot of ways. Except the ones that *really* matter. But it really has been a fun 11 years here in Philly, especially compared to some of the schmike we had as head coaches during the 80s and 90s. And I truly have little doubt that at your next team (my money is on San Diego at the moment), you will have loads more regular season success.

I want to be clear about one thing as you leave this team following the unmitigated disaster that is the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles regular season. Obviously, a lot of the blame for this putrid year falls on the front office’s shoulders, for bringing in guys like Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Nnamdi Asomugha, neither one of which, it is now clear, can cover their way out of a paper bag. And for not paying speedy wideout DeSean Jackson what he deserved coming into this season, and bringing in a guy like Asomugha at 25 times DeSean’s salary instead. How the front office could have expected DeSean to react, other than exactly the way he has, under those circumstances, is patently ludicrous. Those were hideous moves, obvious wrong moves and I don’t see how people can much blame you, Andy, for that stuff.

But that said, everything else wrong with this team in 2011 pretty much falls squarely on your shoulders. Lets put aside for a minute the fact that you have never won the big game in your life, despite being the #1 seed in the NFC three times in your 11-year tenure, and despite losing the NFC Championship twice at home to inferior teams. On a week in, week out basis, your clock management is laughably bad, and always has been. The use of time outs on this team under your tenure has been enough to make anyone physically ill, and clearly, you have been the major contributor to that. The 2011 season has, sadly, been no exception to this rule.

Similarly, the way you manage unhappy players should be the stuff of legends by now. DeSean was 100% right to be pissed off coming into this season, and after not getting a deal as the season wore on while guys like Chris Johnson did finally get their money and get pizznaid. But come on, Andy, with the benching and the sitting DeSean out for drives, entire halves of games, etc. Andy, you are just too much of a hardass to be able to deal effectively with today’s modern day NFL player, especially the prima donnas that populate the wide receiver position in today's game. We’ve lost parts of like four separate seasons now during your 11-year regime as head coach because of disgruntled wideouts whom you simply have no clue how to handle, while most other coaches in the NFL seem to have figured out how to coexist so much better than you have. Why is it Philadelphia that always seems to have these huge throwdowns between you and the wide receivers, while almost nowhere else do things ever seem to spiral this badly out of control, and result in multi-game benchings, kickings off of the team entirely, etc.?

DeSean will probably still make his money when he signs with the Giants in a few months, albeit probably a little less than what he should have been paid this year by the Eagles after what has been a pretty well disastrous 2011 for him as well as for this team. The Eagles did DeSean wrong, over and over and over again this year. Including you, Coach Reid, not insisting that offensive coordinator Marty Mohrenweig integrate DeSean better into the offense this year. Over the past couple of seasons, DeSean was *constantly* being targeted downfield, at the beginning of games and all the way through to the end, and that strategy undeniably worked very well for the Eagles. This season, however, right from the getgo, all of sudden DeSean just hasn’t been targeted downfield even close to as much, and our offense has suffered greatly as a result. Who (other than the Denver Broncos, obviously) has a good offense in today's NFL without any real downfield threat in this league? It’s an absolute joke, and you, Andy Reid, are about 80% at fault for that. DeSean has literally been targeted around 33% as much as he was last season, all while the team's offense has downright sputtered in many of its games despite being the top 1 or 2 most prolific offense in the league in 2010. How you, as the head coach of this team, could just stand by while this has occurred week after week after week this year is beyond me, and beyond any of us.

And lets don’t even expound on what has happened to the team's defense under your watch, especially here in 2011. Promoting this idiot Luis Castillo -- our former offensive line coach -- to Defensive Coordinator this past offseason has got to be the single stupidest decision made in the NFL by any team or any head coach in at least a year, maybe as much as a decade. I mean, who ever promotes an o-line coach to be a defensive coordinator on a team that struggled mightily on defense in the past season, and then on top of that who also added a number of big-name personnel through free agent signings and trades in the offseason to boot? Who does that? Who else ever thinks that could work in this league? Completely foreseeably, Castillo has been an abject failure, a complete and total bomb, as D-Coordinator, and that one falls 100% on you as the head coach of this team. Not 66%, not 80%, but 100% squarely on you and you alone. And to compound things, you have just stood by and let Castillo suck it up worse and worse and worse all season long, doing nothing to change things up and nothing to get more involved in calling the plays on defense. And my god, could our corners other than Asante Samuel be any worse? Possibly??? Rodgers-Cromartie and Asomugha have been the single worst cornerback tandem in as long as I can remember in the NFL, just two totally worthless players who cannot cover anybody, ever. Asomugha himself has probably been among the bottom two or three starting players in the NFL this season, either getting beat, or committing a blatant hold or pass interference because hes about to give up a touchdown what, 10 different times this year? And yet you do nothing. And this isn't even mentioning the tackling in general on this team, which has been atrocious ever since the very first play from scrimmage against the Eagles this season, when the Rams' Steven Jackson ran for a 54-yard score from behind midfield. Who knew what a harbinger of things to come that one play would be for the 2011 Eagles defense? Well, Andy, your hand-picked guy has led the way with this defense, starting with a couple of the team's biggest offseason pickups, and it has just gone from unthinkable to hideous to putrid as the season has worn on. Last Thursday's 31 points given up to the laughable Seahawks with my dead grandma at quarterback was just the latest in a season full of embarrassments on the defensive side of the ball, and all the while, you have done nothing, nothing at all, to improve things or shake things up. You have simply stood by and fiddled while the Eagles' season burned to ashes.

And lastly, while we're on the topic of Week 13's Seahawks loss, the way this Eagles team has just given up here these past couple of weeks, it is just inexcusable and, once again, absolutely, positively all on your shoulders as the head coach. There is just nobody else to blame for the complete and total lack of heart on this team, none. As far as im concerned, we could take Mike Vick, LeSean Mccoy, Brent Celek and Alex Cooper on offense, and Trent Cole and Jason Babin along with Asante Samuel on defense, and throw every single other player on the team out and start over. At first it was just DeSean Jackson throwing in the towel on the season out of frustration and anger, but now, in a very similar story during your 11 years leading the team in Philadelphia, it has infected the whole team just like it did with TO –- the Eagles are all now a bunch of non-caring losers on this team, plain and simple.

In summary, I blame you as our head coach about 75% overall for the problems of this year’s Philadelphia Eagles. Which, after 11 years of consistently blowing clock management in-game and of rock-solid consistency in stepping down in the big spots, it is clearly time for you to move on. We need to bring in someone new to head this team in 2012, someone with a fresh face for these players, and for these fans who so clearly deserve better. Someone who will not get embarrassed in almost every game by letting the clock run out before we can kick field goals, someone whose players are not so ill-prepared that they are constantly wasting much-needed timeouts before the time when we actually need them. Someone who, while being a disciplinarian, understands far better than you do how to coexist with the ridiculous personas and out-of-control mindsets that, like it or not, now populate all professional sports in this country, with football being absolutely no exception whatsoever.

I want to say again that I truly am thankful for what has been a solid 11 year run in Philadelphia. Believe me when I say, I honestly do not expect to bring in another head coach who will find a way to win five NFC Easts in 11 years. That's never happened before here, and it probably never will again. But like mostly all other Philadelphia Eagles fans at this point in time, I am way beyond the point where I would trade five division titles in 11 years, all for just one Superbowl victory. In a split second. And although I have little doubt that you will take the Chargers, who have long suffered under the hand of the legal idiot known as Norv Turner in San Diego, or some other similar team, and in just a season or two turn them into an 10-6, 11-5 or better type of team. When it comes to regular seasons, you have proven yourself to me beyond a doubt, and I don't doubt that you will have many successes in the regular season to come, nor that you will walk right back into a head coaching job should you so desire within weeks of your firing by the Eagles after this disastrous regular season comes to a close. But the fans of Philadelphia, which despite the recent success of the Phillies, has always been a football town first and foremost, deserve better than you. We deserve better than to go into every season just waiting for the implosion between you and our star player, and always knowing that no matter how good we perform in the regular season, the playoffs are always looming right around the corner, where we know going in we are going to come up just short, and get out-coached when it counts the most.

Give me Bill Cowher. Give me Jeff Fisher. For Christ's sake, go and find a way to bring Jon Gruden back here where he was the O-Coordinator many years ago and got his start before finding his way to the Monday Night Football booth. But most of all, just give me some hope. At this point, now that this disastrous regular season is more than 3/4 gone, Eagles fans just want hope for a championship more than anything else, and you, Andy Reid, are simply not the guy who can bring us back that hope.

Happy Trails, Andy. I will always think fondly of your 11 years here. And when we do finally host that parade down Broad Street with the Superbowl trophy floating by with our name on it, I will think back to the moment of your firing, with a smile.

Nice Try

Big Papi. Dustin Pedroia. Terry Francona. Theo Epstein. And now John Lester. The list just goes on and on of current and former Red Sox players and management being publicly quoted in the press as complaining that nobody mentioned the unbelievable stories of the team's players getting drunk and mentally and physically out of shape, back a couple of months ago when the team "had the best record in baseball."

Nice try.

The Phillies had the best record in baseball for just about the entire baseball season this year. The Phillies were MLB's first team to 30 wins, the first to 40 wins, to 50 wins, and then again to 70 wins, 80 wins, 90 wins, and the only team to win 100 games in the 2011 regular season.

Now don't get me wrong, none of this means diock anymore with the Cardinals set to represent the NL in the World Series once again. But I just can't sit quietly by while people associated with the Red Sox claim that their team was better than it was earlier in the season, in an unbelievably pathetic attempt to somehow claim that there is no story behind the total breakdown in control over the team that undoubtedly led directly to its downfall at the end of the season this year.

Phillies = best team in baseball, almost all season, including at this very moment.
Cardinals = NL pennant winner, without a doubt the franchise that historically makes the most out of its opportunities in the postseason, this year among the best examples of all.
Rangers = best team in the AL this year.
Red Sox = best record in baseball 20 games in to the season, and best record in the AL until around 120 games. Second best record in the AL through Game 161. Third best record in the AL come season's end. Ugh.

Despair -- Part I

OK. After a few days of serious inner mourning, I think I am ready to go public.

As a Philadelphia sports fan right now, I am in a deep despair.

And I know I'm not even close to alone in this feeling. Like most of Philadelphia's sports fans, I am still kind of in shock about the Phillies embarrassing elimination at the hands of an inferior St. Louis Cardinals team. And with the way it all happened, in a lot of ways there's not much to say, really. I mean, we lost a Game 5 at home by the score of 1-0, so that's just not the kind of game that someone who understands the game can really attack all that much, at least not from most perspectives. But then, if you take a little bit of a step back, the Phils signed Roy Halladay a couple of years ago and paid him roughly 20 million dollars a year, and then this past season they signed Cliff Lee and paid him another 20 mil a year or so, and the whole idea was supposed to be that the team was building more or less the greatest short-series baseball team that ever lived. I mean, who is going to beat Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Oswalt in a 7-game series, especially when Philly has home-field advantage throughout the entire post-season, right?

Answer: The Cardinals. The Phillies lost 2 out of 3 games at home in the NLDS, and in those two losses the Phillies' starters were Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. It's that simple, really. The Phillies lost 2 out of 3 games at home with their two near-unhittable aces on the mound. Now, for what it's worth, I think it's hard to say much about Roy Halladay overall in this series, who gave up just four earned runs over two full starts and looked pretty well dominating other than a couple of shaky first innings. But Cliff Lee had one of his bad outings in Game 2, giving up 5 earned in only about half a game, and the Phils couldn't muster enough runs to come back from that early deficit in eventually losing the game 5-3. And in a short series, those two losses were too much to be outweighed even by Phillies' #3 pitcher Cole Hamels' gutsy six inning shutout performance in what seemed at the time like a huge victory in Game 3 in St. Louis.

And let's not just focus on the pitching, as it was really more the Phillies' offense that completely weighted the team down and out of the playoffs for the second straight season. After an 11-run outburst in Game 1, Phillies fans were shocked and frustrated beyond belief in watching the team score just 10 runs in the final four games of the series. And putting even this great pitching staff in the position of having to give up two runs or fewer per game over four of the five games in the series, simply did not work. That strategy does not work in professional baseball ever, period. Carlos Ruiz and Placido Polanco, great contributors during the regular season and/or past post-season runs, couldn't touch the ball throughout this series. Ryan Howard, despite winning Game 1 single-handedly with his bat, totally disappeared in the rest of the series, culminating in Game 3 when Tony LaRussa actually pitched around someone to put him on base and face Ryan Howard -- the league's greatest RBI man over the past five seasons -- with another runner on base. Howard promptly struck out in one of the many horrible-looking at-bats he had in the series, but the fact that an opposing manager would ever even consider walking someone on purpose to pitch to Howard speaks volumes about how far Howard has fallen in the esteem of some opposing coaches (although it should be mentioned that LaRussa made an unbelievable ass out of himself in that same game by intentionally walking Carlos Ruiz and then promptly giving up a 3-run home run to a pinch hitting Ben Francisco to take the loss). But the guy sure had Ryan Howard's number after the first game, there's no debating that point. Some of the other Phillies hitters had decent series at the plate, but nobody was really able to step up and come up with that one huge hit the team desperately needed to stay alive in this series. And when you combine the team scoring 2.5 runs per game through most of the series, with Roy Halladay giving up 3 runs in the first inning of Game 1, Cliff Lee ceding five earned runs in five innings in Game 2, and Roy Oswalt allowing five more runs in 5 innings in Game 4, that is simply not a winning combination, no matter how much better on paper one team is than another.

I think a lot of the reason for the despair right now, at least with me if not anyone else, is that there is just this sinking feeling about the nucleus of this team being past its prime, that there just may not be other chances as good as this season again. I mean, look at this objectively. The Phillies won the World Series in 2008, on a team on which Cole Hamels was the only great pitcher and which saw him win the MVP of every series as he utterly dominated all comers on the way to the franchise's second world championship in 50,000 years of existence. And although mostly everyone fought me on it at the time when I declared this the day after that historical championship victory in 2008, it seems painfully obvious to everyone now I am sure that the 2008 Phillies were, in fact, the best team in the major leagues that year, hands down. So the Phillies won the World Series as the best baseball team in the world in 2008, and then in 2009 they made it back to the Series but lost this time to the Yankees. Then in 2010 with the best record in baseball for the first time in 35 years, the Phillies lost in the NLCS to the San Francisco Giants who also completely shut down the Phillies' lineup, and now in 2011 -- again with far and away this time the league's best record -- the team has lost in the NLDS to a totally run-of-the-mill below average playoff team in the Cardinals. So it's been four straight years of WS - WS loss - NLCS loss - NLDS loss for the Phillies. Anybody else seeing a trend here? And even more disurbing is that the payroll has climbed every year since 2008, and the team has signed major free agents in each of those years as the "star power" on the team has skyrocketed. To think that that 2008 team outperformed this 2011 Phillies squad is mind-boggingling if you just look at the rosters, and especially at the starting rotations. I mean, it's just not close.

But you know what has changed on this team since 2008? The hunger. I wrote about this three years ago, not even knowing until last year's Giants series and now especially this year's with the Cardinals just how right I was, but this team lost the eye of the tiger. That win in 2008 was just so amazing, so special, and so cathartic for those players, the manager, the fans and the entire city of Philadelphia, the team just let up a little. There's just no doubting this fact anymore. They've lost that hunger, that insistence that they win. Whereas in 2008 it was Cole Hamels on the mound instead of Roy Halladay in a big spot like this Game 5, he could have pitched the identical great game that Halladay did the other day, but that scrappy never-lose 2008 team would have found a way to score a couple of runs late in the game and to move on to the pennant. If you knew that 2008 Phillies team like I did, then you know what I am saying is right. Back then, this city, and that Phillies squad, were desperate for a win, they would have done anything for a win, and they did repeatedly, using late-game heroics throughout each series to nab wins from the jaws of defeat and never disappointing the fans at home in the playoffs. Over the past two seasons, however, far superior Phillies teams in terms of raw talent -- I mean, squads that aren't even close if you look at the numbers on paper -- went and lost each of the past two seasons in a one-run elimination game at home in which they never even really put up a significant threat to score and come back to make a game out of it. It's hard to believe, really, but the Philadelphia Phillies won their world title in 2008, and since then they just haven't been trying nearly hard enough, haven't been wanting it nearly bad enough. And they're all guilty of it -- everyone except Hamels anyways, who has been more or less fucking awesome every time he's gone out there in the postseason since and including 2008 -- but everyone else is to blame for this. Rollins, who is a shell of the player he was in 2008. Utley, same thing. Howard, same thing. Ruiz, same. Victorino didn't do much in this series either. Guys like Halladay, Lee and Oswalt, who weren't even on that team in 2008 and never really lived through the lean century the Phillies have just recently emerged from. The list just goes on and on. Like Sylvester Stallone at the beginning of Rocky III, the Phillies have just lost the eye of the tiger, and unless they find some way to get it back under country bumpkin Charlie Manuel, there won't be any more baseball titles in this town anytime soon. And, I should mention, this is why I celebrated that 2008 championship so fucking hard when it happened. Because as a lifelong sports fan, I know how hard it is, how rare it is, for a team to be able to duplicate success like the Phillies had in 2008. Especially in Philadelphia, I don't think that town has ever been ready to deal with having a dynasty yet, which is exactly what the Phillies would have officially become if they had won it all this year. I mean, WS - losing WS - losing NLCS - WS reads a heck of a lot better than WS - losing WS - losing NLCS - losing NLDS, don't it? But thanks to a lack of true desire, effort, and desperation to win, the fans of Philadelphia won't have to worry about this again anytime soon.

And the fans are also depressed here because, after posting the best record in baseball in 2010 with 97 wins, the team shut down on offense and lost in 6 games to the Giants in the NLCS last year. And now this year they posted the best record in the National League in years with 102 wins, head and shoulders above the rest of the league for pretty much the final 80% of the regular season this year, and now the Phils didn't even make it past one round against a team that had all but given up at Citi Field just a month ago. All of this leaves us Phillies fans with this feeling that the regular season just doesn't mean anything anymore. Best team in baseball two years running, and we've haven't even sniffed the World Series? Huh? If you think anyone in Philadelphia is looking forward to next season right now, you don't have a clue how those people feel. Right now, the feeling about the 2012 baseball season in Philadelphia is somewhere between dread and apathy. Many people will just dread being let down like this again next year, and those who don't dread it like myself are certainly at least sharing my feeling that who gives a fuck what the Phils do during the regular season next year. It means nothing. We can't beat worse teams in critical games at home with our ace on the mound anymore when it counts, so why get excited, right? That's how it feels to me anyways, and I'm sure about ten million of my closest friends in and around the Philadelphia area these days.

You ever hear that adage that great pitching always beats great hitting in the playoffs?

Not always.

--Part II of "The Despair" is coming later this week. You can guess what other Philadelphia sports team that has to do with.

This is Just Precious

And the Curse of the Bambino lives on alive and well....

Incredible End to the MLB Season

Has this ever happened before?

With only Game 162 of the scheduled regular season remaining in Major League Baseball, we're sitting here with not one, not two, not three but four different teams, all of whom straight-up control their own destiny as far as nabbing the final two post-season spots, one in each league. I certainly cannot recall such an exciting finish to a baseball regular season in my recent memory, and while I know we've had some close calls before and certainly we've had several examples of one-game playoffs to determine who rolls on to the post-season and who heads home for the winter, I'm not sure it's ever happened quite like this. The fact that we're ending so excitingly in both the AL and the NL stands in stark contrast to what most of September shaped up to be in MLB -- the most boring September in years. With all six division races nicely tied up within just a week or two into the month, and with near double-digit leads for both the Braves in the NL and the Red Sox in the AL for their respective wildcard spots heading into the month, it seemed as though there would be little of interest to keep baseball fans glued to their tvs until the playoffs came around.

But then cue not just one but two concurrent historic collapses.

First, the Braves. Entering this month, the Braves were 80-55, well behind the Phillies in the division but way out in front in National League wildcard race, leading the Cardinals by 8.5 games in that category. But in September, the Braves' offense has all but disappeared, averaging just a hair over 3 runs per game in losing 17 out of 26 games, while the Cardinals have turned it on, winning 17 out of 25. Superstar Albert Pujols has put the Cardinals on his back this month, hitting .366 with 20 RBIs in 25 games, and star pitchers Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia have recovered to go a combined 7-0 with an ERA in the 2.4's over the past four weeks. Meanwhile, the Braves' perfect foil has been pitcher Derek Lowe, who went 5-0 with a 1.17 ERA in September of 2010, joining Tom Seaver in 1969 and Randy Johnson in 2002 as the only National League pitchers to pitch in at least five September games and win them all with an ERA that low, but who now in September 2011 has gone 0-5 with an ERA of 8.75, making him the first National League pitcher ever to pitch in at least five September games and lose them all with an ERA that high. And the Braves' slump has come over 26 games in September, 18 of which were against the non-playoff-bound Nationals, Marlins and Mets, so it's not like the schedule has been particularly cruel to Atlanta.

Meanwhile, the story in Boston is pretty much even worse. On September 3, the Red Sox were sitting at 84-54, a couple of games behind the Yankees in the AL East but holding an even more comfortable 9-game lead even later in the season than the Braves. Since then, the team has stunk out loud, going 7-19 overall in the month of September, while the Rays have simultaneously gone on a tear, rolling off a 16-10 record and giving up four or fewer runs in 8 of their last 12 games. The Red Sox's 19 losses in September (and counting) are the most by the team in this month in 59 years, since the Sox went 7-20 in 1952, a mark they could tie with a loss tonight to end the regularly scheduled regular season in Baltimore. And, like the Braves in the NL, the Red Sox do not have the schedule to blame, as September has seen them face off for six contest with out-of-it Toronto, and a total of seven games against the hopelessly horrible Orioles, in which so far the Sox have gone 4-8, with one final game against the O's tonight at Camden Yards for all the marbles.

With both leagues' wildcard races now tied with just one game remaining, the very real possibility exists of two one-game tiebreaker games on Thursday, which again I doubt has ever actually happened before. As far as those tiebreaker games go, MLB has announced this week that any one-game playoffs would be played on Thursday. First pitch for the American League tiebreaker between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla., is scheduled for 4:07 p.m. ET, if needed. The St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves would start at 8:07 p.m. CT on Thursday night in St. Louis.

With both underdog teams having won the season series with their opponents, each of the Sox and the Braves have their work cut out for them tonight, which will be I think for both teams their last best chance to salvage a post-season run out of the 2011 regular season campaigns before having to go on the road to win a one-game playoff against a much hotter team rich in the belief that destiny is on their side. And the odds seem stacked in favor of us having a second team to the 1964 Cardinals as the only team ever to have overcome a deficit of at least 8.5 games in in September to reach the postseason in Major League Baseball.

Giant Excuses

#1 is the best obv.

A Tale of Two Bozos

It's always great when your team manages to pull out one of those games where it just seems like neither team's coach wants to win. Such was the case with the crucial Eagles-Giants game this past Sunday afternoon in New York Jersey, with both coaches just making ridiculous gaffe after ridiculous gaffe, each embarrassing themselves unforgettably in front of their fans over and over again until, finally, one guy effed up the worst of all and directly cost his team the loss and significantly hurt his team's playoff positioning, if not playoff chances at all.

It all started in the first quarter of the game at the new Meadowlands early on Sunday afternoon, when on a key 3rd-and-12 for the Giants early in the game, Eli Manning made one of his 50 billion 3rd down conversions in the first half, this one a 15-yard or so "completion" to a diving Hakeem Nicks for yet another first down and putting his team into field goal range in addition to extending the drive to what would eventually turn into the Giants' second of many touchdowns on the day. Sure, Nicks made an athletic play to even make this look like a catch, but just like the game a couple of weeks back where the Buccaneers were raped of the ball when the Falcons' cornerback clearly rolled on top of the ball in what was even ruled a catch after the slow-motion replay clearly showed it could not possibly have been a completion on replay, in this case there was basically that exact same camera angle that showed clear as a bell that this was not a catch. Now I know this was the first quarter and all, but the game was already 7-3 at this point, and when the replay shows it this obviously not to be a catch, it is inconceivable that Eagles coach Andy Reid could just sit there and not even finger the red "replay" flag in his pocket, but rather sit idly by while the Giants hustled to the line to quickly hike the next play to erase any possibility of a replay. Because they were all too aware how crucial taking a commanding 14-3 lead early in this game would be, and they all saw the same replay. It wasn't close to a catch, and I'm all for saving your replay flags for the most opportune times in these games, but it's a shame we have such a poor game-day coach as Andy Reid to not realize just how much this was a crucial spot. I would never advocate him taking a real chance at wasting one of his two replay requests where he might lose a timeout and not even get the call overturned -- and don't get me wrong, this is the NFL so the odds were probably only 50-50 at best that the call would have been overturned and ruled incomplete, since it was so painfully obvious that the ball sat on the ground while Nicks rolled over on top of it -- but when it is that obvious that the call was wrong, and your team is about to go down 14-3 as a result of your sitting on your fat ass and doing anything instead of throwing that red flag, you're gonna read about it here over your Monday morning coffee cuz I'm not letting you off the hook for that.

The idiocy was only made worse by Andy Reid in the fourth quarter, though, when, with still both of those challenge requests sitting in Andy Reid's pocket and with his team still down 24-10 but driving into Giants territory to possibly come within one score of their hated division rivals with another touchdown, Eagles quick-footed wideout DeSean Jackson caught a ball on a slant route and then promptly fumbled the ball as he was tackled from behind, a fumble which the Giants scooped up and which a few seconds later turned into yet another touchdown and a seemingly insurmountable 31-10 deficit. Only, on the replay, once again, DeSean Jackson was clearly down by contact long before the ball came loose, and once again Andy Reid just stood there on the sidelines and never made the refs replay the play. Where you might have been able to buy him not throwing that flag on the first play in the first quarter -- if you don't really understand how football works -- there's nobody in America who could argue that allowing his team to drop back down 21 points with about 10 minutes left in the game and thwarting the beginnings of a second-half comeback in far and away the most critical game of the regular season for the Eagles, was not significant enough to throw the flag. And again, this one was obvious on the replay, so again you figure it's maybe as much as a 50% chance that the refs would overturn it -- far be it from any NFL referee to actually have made the correct call in the first place when it went against a New York team of course, that's just blasphemy -- but again, Andy Reid this time at least stroked the red flag in his pocket on the sidelines, but never pulled it out let alone tossed it onto the field. Once again, Eli Manning had his troops no-huddle and rush up to line up -- making it even more obvious that this was a blown call to everybody in the entire stadium -- but somehow Andy Reid never got the message, and he failed to throw that flag and allowed his team to drop down 31-10 with 10 minutes to go, instead of what probably should have been 17-10 if he had just thrown those two flags in situations where it literally could not have been more clear on the replay that his team was having the game unfairly ripped right out of their hands (literally and figuratively).

Thankfully, Andy Reid's hideous gameday coaching was outdone on the day by Giants' head coach Tom Coughlin, who made not one, not two but three horrible errors on the day, two of them worse than simply being too fat and lazy to throw the replay flag in a key spot where his team had clearly been wronged, and all of Coughlin's gaffes occurred in the second half where the consequences of his effups were magnified several times over. For starters, for Coughlin's team to be so totally and unbelievably unprepared for an onsides kicks after the Eagles scored their touchdown to bring the score to 31-17 with 7 1/2 minutes to go in the game, is just mind-boggling. Those players up front defending the kick were not just moving backwards as the kickoff was made by David Akers, but they had turned their backs to the play for the most part. I mean, how often do you see an onsides kick work where there isn't a player from the other team within 10 yards of the kicking team's guy who catches the onsides kick? It never happens, and there's a good reason for that. When you're down 14 points in a key game with barely enough time for 1 drive left for each team, you have to be ready at least for the possibility of an onsides kick. Coughlin's team was just woefully ill-prepared in that spot, and like I said what ensued was the easiest, most simple onsides kick recovery in the history of the sport. Ball goes ten yards, no Giants are even in the camera shot, and the Eagles catch the ball and drop to the ground. Tom Coughlin has to take the blame for this, and he looked as befuddled as anyone on the sidelines right after it happened. Getting out-maneuvered like that by a guy like Andy Reid on game day speaks volumes about Coughlin and his level of preparedness as well for his team in a huge spot.

The second thing Coughlin effed up badly in the fourth quarter is not something you'll hear talked about much with all of his other screwups in this game, but just before the 2-minute warning as the Eagles were driving for the score that would eventually tie the game at 31, Mike Vick ran for a key first down and more, picking up around 20 yards before Vick slid headfirst to avoid another hard hit, he fumbled the ball. Now, unlike the other plays I mentioned above that were totally obvious on the replay, this one would have been close, but the fact remains that there is no way Tom Coughlin can possibly justify missing his chance to throw his own red flag -- of which he still had two remaining as well, plus there were just 5 seconds left until the 2-minute warning at which point his replay flags were worth precisely squat anyways -- in an absolutely crucial play where Vick, it seems to me, was not touched prior to hitting the ground and losing control of the ball, which was quickly picked up by a Giants player before the refs whistled the play dead and Vick down by contact. He throws that flag, especially being that his is the New York team, there was probably an 80% chance of the call being overturned and ruled a fumble, and his Giants don't go on to one of the most ignominious losses in NFL history, but instead they win the game, win the NFC East and who knows how far they ride that in the playoffs this season. Not painfully obvious like the two plays Andy Reid blew as I discussed above, but probably an 80% chance of the crooked refs combined with what I myself think was very close to being a fumble fair and square to a simple grasp in his pocket and toss of the arm towards the field, from completely avoiding what was otherwise a total debacle for his franchise and for the city of New York on the sports field on Sunday.

And then of course, was the final play of the day, where the Giants' punter inconceivably kicked the ball right into the hands of DeSean Jackson, easily the scariest guy on the field for either team, with 14 seconds remaining after the Eagles had just scored three touchdowns in the final seven minutes to tie this game up. How that ball is not kicked out of bounds is simply beyond me, and the fact of the matter is that a mistake like that falls squarely on the head coach, whether he likes it or not. And Coughlin said as much in his postgame press conference, taking full responsibility for the play, but then throwing his young punter under the bus in the process by claiming to have instructed him clearly just to kick the ball out of bounds. And yet, as Coughlin sat there screaming at the punter right after the play happened, you could see him mouth the words "there is no fucking way you punt that ball in bounds". But what he never said was "I just told you" or "Your instructions were" or something similar to indicate that they had truly drummed it into this guy's head not to let the Eagles return that kick. Now, it's such an obvious situation that I can only assume Coughlin or at least someone on his staff had said as much to the kicker before he let it rip there for the last play of regulation -- I mean, did anyone out there not think this punt would sail right out of bounds? -- but it is just inexcusable beyond all words that such a horrible decision could be made in a spot that obviously completely changed the outcome of the game, and of the division, and ultimately of the Giants' season as a whole. And as I said, ultimately that falls squarely on the head coach, who simply did not have his team prepared for the decisions they needed to make on the spur of the moment all through the second half of this game. Somehow, Andy Reid managed to find a guy who he could completely out-maneuver and flatout out-coach in the second half of the game, something which Philly fans the world around are still trying to wrap our arms around here on Monday morning even, and out-coach he did. Sure, Reid tried hard to lose the game, even there in the fourth quarter by straight-up allowing his team to drop down 31-10 in the 4th instead of 24-17, but Tom Coughlin's lack of preparation of his team, and straight-up lack of clear instruction and guidance, while one of the great comebacks in recent memory was happening to them, leaves this NFL fan absolutely speechless.

In a battle on Sunday between two bozos who couldn't coach their way out of a paper bag on game day, Andy Reid was an embarrassment, but Tom Coughlin took the word "travesty" to a whole new level. I'm not sure how those players can even look him in the eye anymore -- and I'm not sure they will. If Bill Cowher ends up coaching big blue come the 2011 NFL regular season, the moment that kick left the punter's foot will be the moment that decision was effectively made.

More on Tiger, and Another Poll

Interestingly, a little over half of those who voted in the poll earlier this week indicated that they still believe that Tiger Woods will end his career with the all-time lead in major championships won, meaning that he would have to win at least five more majors in his still-young career.

While that number may sound high to many of you out there, to me it illustrates the the stark change in the public's perception of Tiger's golf abilities after the past couple of months. Obviously, if you had asked this question in a poll sometime in the summer of 2009, before Tiger's Thanksgiving night crash into a fire hydrant and all the shitstorm that ensued, the results would probably have come in around 95% of respondents believing Tiger would break all the time record for major championships in professional golf. That surprises no one. But what is a little surprising is that if you had asked this poll question just a few months back, after Tiger had been busted with all the cheating and the disgustery, after his scripted press conference just preceding his return to the game, and after he had announced that he would be coming back before the 2010 Masters, I still think you would have had probably 85-90% of voters who believed that Tiger's game would not be affected, or at least not be affected much, or not for very long.

What we've gotten instead, however, is a truncated season full of almost's and not-quites from Tiger Woods this year, with a few horrifying performances thrown in for good measure. After last weekend's debacle, the only question left for this season it seems is:

How will Tiger Woods fare at the PGA Championship this weekend?
Let's see how smart my reading audience is:

NFL Winners and Losers -- Week 14

My winter of discontent continued with my NFL picks in Week 14, as I followed up Week 13's season-worst 1-4 record with a 2-3 performance as I opted for the wrong underdogs in three of the five games I had going on. The Broncos basically hung with the Colts as I suspected, but their defense was a little bit soft and as a result they lost by 12 instead of the 7 that Indy was laying. Bruce Gradkowski messed up first one knee and then the other and was soon replaced by the dreaded JaMarcus Russell in Oakland, dooming my chances on picking them as a home dog to a bad team. And I was totally wrong about the Bengals, who got thumped in Minnesota as the Vikes got back on track while the Bengals fell to 9-4 with a very half-hearted effort on both sides of the ball. After going an abysmal 3-7 over the past two weeks, the overall season record now sinks to 38-27 over 13 weeks of picking five NFL games a week against the spread. And I am left looking for answers as I felt very confident in mostly all of my picks for the second straight week, and normally in the past I've been comically bad at picking NFL games early in the season but generally very strong at the end.

OK enough whining from me. On to this week's Winners and Losers report, on a weekend with a lot of fun stories both on the individual and team level.

Winners:

1. Brandon Marshall. Not sure how I can't start with this guy, who posted an incredible 21 catches for 200 yards and 2 touchdowns, breaking TO's NFL record of 20 receptions in a single game. Amazingly, you'll never believe whose name is at #3 on that all-time list of most catches in a single game. Brandon Marshall! Yep, B-Marsh now holds the #1 and #3 spots all-time with 21 and 18 catches in NFL games over the past two seasons. Unfortunately his efforts came in a 28-16 loss to the undefeated Colts on Sunday, but anything that unseeds TO from the record books is ok with me.

2. DeSean Jackson. After his 72-yard punt return for a touchdown in the 2nd quarter and a 60-yard touchdown reception in the third against the Giants on Sunday night, Eagles' second-year playmaking wideout DeSean Jackson now has an NFL record 8 touchdowns of 50+ yards this season. In the Giants game on Sunday, Jackson absolutely tore up the opposition, ending with 6 catches for 178 yards on the day, plus the punt return to power the Eagles to their 45-38 victory. DJ has not-so-quietly established himself as the premiere deep threat in the NFL today. Can you imagine this guy with Peyton Manning throwing to him and all day to wait DJ's routes out? Scary.

3. Wes Welker. After torching the Panthers' defense for 10 catches and 105 yards in the Cheatriots' key win on Sunday, Cheats' wide receiver Wes Welker reached 100 receptions on the season for the third straight year. Only Marvin Harrison, Jerry Rice, and the less famous but still potent Herman Moore have accomplished this feat before Welker, moving himself into some serious company in terms of all-time NFL wideout consideration, made even more impressive by the fact that Welker missed Weeks 2 and 3 to injury in compiling those 100 receptions so far here in 2009. In Sunday's win against Carolina, Welker accounted for well more than half of Tom Brady's 192 total passing yards, and he goes into Week 15 as the player with the most receptions (105) through 11 games in a season in NFL history.

4. Peyton Manning and Drew Brees and the March to 16-0. As both the Saints and the Colts moved to 13-0 this weekend, I figure it is time to start showing a little love to these guys among the other weekly Winners. I mean, we probably should have foreseen this early in the 2009 season when it became obvious very quickly that a good quarter of the total teams in the NFL this year are absolute horseshit. Other than the Titans, that hasn't really improved throughout the season so far, and one of the unexpected but directly related results is we are looking at a very real possibility of not just one but two undefeated teams over the regular season. And this time, teams that don't even cheat! Both the Saints and Colts are led of course by their awesome quarterbacks -- Drew Brees and his 3832 yards, 32 touchdowns and 10 interceptions for a qb rating of 112.3 and perhaps the single worst hair in the history of sports, and of course Peyton with his 3905 yards, 29 tds, 14 picks and 98.9 qb rating (and perfectly normal hair, although kind of a funny accent now that I think about it), and each one is looking good to captain his respective team to football immortality, joining the 1972 Dolphins as the only teams to go undefeated for an entire NFL regular season without brazenly cheating every other team in the league. The Colts' final three games on their march to 16-0 are at Jacksonville this Thursday night, then the Jets at home and finally at Buffalo to end the season, certainly all winnable games and ones in which the Colts are sure to be solid favorites. Meanwhile, the Saints have a similarly mediocre schedule the rest of the way out, with games at home against Dallas and Tampa Bay before ending up in Week 17 at Carolina, also all surely winnable games for the class of the NFC. The likelihood in my view that we have at least one undefeated team in the NFL this season has risen to around 75%, with the possibility of both teams going the whole regular season without losing also inching upwards into the more-likely-than-not camp with every passing Sunday.

5. The Miami Dolphins, the New York Jets, and the Philadelphia Eagles. These three teams were each effectively one game out in their respective divisional races in the AFC East and the NFC East, and each found a way to win a crucial matchup here in Week 14 to require the team ahead of them in the division to stay on track and keep winning in order to remain out in front. If you don't put the pressure on the teams close ahead of you -- see the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos this weekend -- then obviously you've got no chance of passing them, and with just four games left in the NFL's 2009 regular season before this past weekend's games, trading losses is not a viable strategy either if you're one game out. The Dolphins came up with a big win -- one of the underdogs next on my list for this past weekend who I opted to avoid -- at 7-5 Jacksonville to remain alive in the AFC race, and the Jets' defense beat the crap out of an inexperienced Tampa Bay offense to also claw their way back to 7-6 and again just one game behind the Cheatriots who have yet to win a true road game this season. And the Eagles meanwhile came out on fire, scoring almost immediately on their first drive of the game, running back a fumble, running back a punt, scoring on a 60-yard bomb to DeSean Jackson, and even getting Mike Vick another touchdown run in a play well designed for him to roll out and take it in to the corner himself from deep inside the red zone in their super-entertaining 45-38 victory to sweep the Giants and take their fifth straight game from the G-Men, the third straight in New Jerseyork.

Losers:

1. The Pittsburgh Steelers. Wow. I mean, wow. Talk about a team that just shut it off in a hurry. Five weeks ago the defending superbowl champion Steelers were sitting at 6-2, with the best defensive player in the game and one of the best quarterbacks in the league as well, and looking like a solid bet to make a run at defending last year's title. But what's happened since then in the Steel City is enough to make even Mike Rowe yak in the bushes. In their last five games, the Steelers are 0-5, and have found a way to lose to the Raiders, and Chiefs and now the Browns within that 5-game span, an unthinkable trio of suckitude that certainly no other team in the NFL can claim this season. On Thursday, the Steelers could not get into the end zone against the Browns as Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger picked up his first loss in 12 games against the Browns, and the Browns' defense repeatedly threw Ben Roth to the carpet in what was a pretty thorough beating at the line by the fired-up Browns on the day. At 6-7, the Steelers are effectively eliminated from playoff consideration in the AFC absent a modern day miracle.

2. The Dallas Cowboys and head coach Wade Phillips. Wade Phillips inched ever closer to his own firing this weekend as his Cowboys lost another crucial game in December, this one at home, as his team fought back to tie the game in the fourth quarter before allowing the Chargers to march up and down the field for two fourth-quarter scoring drives before another meaningless trash time touchdown for Dallas qb Tony Romo made the score look a lot closer than it really was. The Cowboys, who are quickly becoming the story of the NFL here in December, lost their second straight game to also drop out of first place in the NFC East for the first time in over a month, slipping to 0-2 in December yet again this year while their opponent the Chargers improved to 16-0 in the final month of the year since Phillip Rivers became the team's starting quarterback. With their final three games now at the Saints, at the Redskins and finishing at home against the Eagles, the Cowboys' flagging playoff hopes are in doubt since they need to finish a full game ahead of the Giants due to having already been swept by the Giants this season.

3. The New York Giants. Talk about stepping down in a big way in a huge spot. Here the Giants are fighting for their literal playoff lives, finding themselves in a situation where a win at home against bitter rival Philadelphia in Week 14 would almost assure the Giants of first place in the NFC East due to their favorable tiebreaker positioning. Win one game on Sunday night against the Eagles at home, and they basically win the NFC East. And how do the Giants react to the enormity of this game for their entire season? They let the Eagles storm down the field unchecked for a quick score, and then immediately fumble on a rushing play and give up a defensive touchdown, going down 14-0 within the first 6 minutes of game time. Later in the first half they again allowed the Eagles to march down the field before an uncalled blatant pass interference in the end zone caused Philly to have to settle for a field goal, they gave up a punt return touchdown to Eagles' spark plug DeSean Jackson, and then they allowed the Eagles to march down the field in the final 1:23 of the first half for yet another touchdown. Thanks to a missed extra point, the Eagles tallied 30 points by halftime in New York on their way to a 45-38 rout which seriously hurts the Giants' playoff hopes in 2009. As I've been saying here for weeks, that Giants' defense is an abomination, giving up 40+ points on Sunday night for the third time this season, twice to the rival Eagles, and they have now allowed at least 21 points in eight straight games once they got through the pancake part of their regular season schedule after the Raiders in Week 5. The Giants can still make the playoffs, though, if they can pick up just one game on the Cowboys over the teams' final three games, since the Giants own that tiebreaker thanks to sweeping the Cowboys in the regular season this year.

4. Randy Moss. With just one catch for 16 yards on Sunday afternoon against the Carolina Panthers, this is now Moss's second game this season with fewer than two receptions. What's more, there was at least one occasion on Sunday where Moss clearly short-armed an open slant pass in the red zone with the game with Carolina still in doubt, and it stuck out enough that Brady was over on the sidelines clearly trying to talk Moss into getting his head back in the game just a few minutes afterward. People will be talking about him starting this week, just like the Panthers' backs were after the game, with multiple named Panthers explaining their strategy of hitting Moss hard early and then watching him stop trying, stop running routes when he was not in a given play, etc. With the Pats still not having won a true road game this season (their only win away from home came in England), they're clearly going to need Randy Moss at 100% if they expect to go to any of the AFC heavies' stadiums and win a key playoff game in January.

TO Watch: TO had just two catches for 15 yards in a 16-10 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday afternoon, but one of them did go for a touchdown, TO's fourth receiving td of the season to go along with his one rushing score as well. Still, TO's lack of real involvement with the team's passing offense persists despite a two-week push where he looked to be possibly breaking out, and TO's stats for the season so far through 13 games sit at a mediocre 45 catches, 704 yards and four touchdowns.

JaMarcus Russell award: Week 14 had by far more worthy competitors vying for the award going to the worst, least efficient, overall loseriest quarterback in the league for that week, as even the Namesake of the award came in due to injury and put forth a valiant effort. Some guy named Keith Null started for the Rams in place of the injured Kyle Boller and the injured Marc Bulger, going 27 for 43 for 157 yards, 1 touchdown and 5 INTs, for a final quarterback rating on the day of 37.8. In a bit of a blast from the past, Duante Culpepper took the snaps for the Lions and completed under 50% of his passes in finishing 16 of 34 for 135 yards, 0 tds and 2 INTs, for an even lower qb rating of 33.3. Chief's quarterback Matt Cassell continued with his disappointing season in Sunday's loss to the Bills, putting up numbers of 26 of 43 for 224 yards, 0 tds, and 4 INTs, for a similar 35.4 rating. Brady Quinn of the Cleveland Browns even found himself back on this list after two straight quality starts, going 6 of 19 for just 90 yards against the Steelers, but the lack of touchdowns was at least complemented by a lack on interceptions which combined for a less disgusting 48.1 qb rating. As I mentioned, Raiders qb Bruce Gradkowski got injured in the second quarter and JaMarcus Russell himself made an appearance in relief, going a shockingly efficient 10 of 16 (!!) although for just 74total yards, 0 tds and one interception, giving Russell a (for him) lofty 47.8 rating. But despite all of those very honorable mentions for the the Week 14 NFL JMA award, I think the winner has got to be Tampa Bay's rookie qb Josh Freeman, who faced the tough Jets defense and finished the day 14 of 33 for just 93 yards, meaning that Freeman completed a very inefficient 42% of his attempts, for an equally inefficient 6.6 yards per completion , 0 tds, and three interceptions. All of the above combined for Freeman to post a final qb rating for Sunday's game of 12.1, and basically anytime you can keep that rating below 20 for an entire game, even JaMarcus Russell thinks you deserve his award that week.

NFL's Best Team: Take your pick, Saints or Colts. Both are 13-0, the Vikings are still a step behind in my view despite a nice bounceback against the Bengals this weekend, and the Bengals too are still behind after letting Minnesota walk all over them in Week 14. If I had to guess, I am going to go with past history and my own observations of the teams and still lean slightly towards the Saints here, based on the Colts' recent history of losing to lower seeded teams and underdogs in the playoffs who play a hard-nosed, ball-possession type of game. This Saints squad continues to impress, and they still seem to be the best combination of a stellar passing game, a solid running game, and a very impressive team defense that makes them very hard to pick against when facing any other team in the NFL this season.

NFL's Worst Team: With the Browns' big step-up in Week 14 against the superbowl champs in the freezing cold, this leaves the Rams standing alone once again at the bottom of the pack. That 47-7 shelling by the formerly shitpiling Tennessee Titans on Sunday afternoon doesn't exactly help the Rams' case either.

2009 Major League Baseball Postseason Preview

What a frigging game on Tuesday night in the Twin Cities! And what a win for the Minnesota twins, one year and one week to the day after falling short 1-0 in a 163rd game play-in to the Chicago White Sox at the end of the 2008 regular season.

If you're a baseball fan but you did not watch the Twins' 6-5 victory in the bottom of the 12th inning against the Detroit Tigers, then you reallllly missed out, and unfortunately watching it now even on DVR will never be the same since you already know how the game ended. What made this game so special is how competitive the two teams were with each other right from the getgo and all the way through 12 hard-fought innings. Here's the way I see it: for a game to truly be considered one of the all-time great baseball games, it pretty much needs to be a walk-off situation, extra innings or something that involves sudden death. There's just been too many amazing games over the vast history of this great sport that have already met that criteria, so you really need to have a bottom of the 9th or extra innings situation in order to really be considered one of the all-time great games. What Tuesday's night play-in game had on top of just 12 innings of seriously non-stop adrenaline-pumping, edge-of-your-seat baseball, was it even featured one of those extremely rare situations where the visiting team scored a run in the top of the 10th inning to take a 5-4 lead, only to see the Twins come back in their last chance in the bottom of the tenth with a leadoff triple on a misplay in left field and ended up scoring exactly one run to re-tie the game and send it into the 11th and beyond. Anytime you see an extra inning tie broken and then extended into further innings, especially one in this kind of a do-or-die playoff situation, you know you're talking history.

This game really had it all, including the team that I have no discomfort saying deserved it more actually emerging victorious in the end. When we look back on the Detroit Tigers' 2009 baseball season, we're going to have a whole lot of questions centered around how all-time great manager Jim Leyland could manage his team into completely Metsing under the weight of leading their division almost wire to wire on the season. After taking over first place in the AL Central on May 10 this spring, the Tigers proceeded to hold on to that lead, unchallenged and untied, right up until the end of the last week of the regular season, where the Tigers faced one more game at home in their series with the second-place Twins, followed by the mathematically and emotionally out-of-it Chicago White Sox at home for three games to end the season, and with four games remaining the Tigers held a 3-game lead. They lost the final game to the Twins to make their lead two games with three to play, and then gave it away and had to settle for a tie with two more losses to Chicago over the weekend in Detroit. In the end, the Tigers went 3-6 in their final 9 games, and 1-4 in their final 5 games, to allow the surging Twins room to wiggle back into the playoff picture, and in my view somebody should have to answer for any kind of a total and complete Metsing like what Leyland presided over this year in Detroit. But so we roll on, with the Twins arriving in New York after 3am Wednesday morning and scheduled to play Game 1 of the ALDS Wednesday in the Bronx.

Which brings me to my predictions for the four playoff series starting this week in baseball. I already pretty much gave my thoughts on the Phillies - Rockies, which begins Wednesday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, which is to say that, while obviously the Rockies have the talent to beat the Phils, I don't see how any self-respecting baseball fan can really argue that the Rockies are the better team or that they somehow should win this series. They shouldn't. As I mentioned yesterday, despite the Rockies having some solid talent at starting pitching, including baseball's winningest pitcher since the All-Star Break in Jorge De La Rosa who has gone an amazing 16-3 since June, I simply can't accept any argument that the Rockies' rotation holds a candle to the Phillies' rotation of some combination Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, J. Happ, P-Mart and Joe Blanton. It doesn't. And while the Rockies scored more runs on offense than all but one other team in the National League with what is clearly an imposing lineup, that one team that exceed the Rockies' run production on the year was -- you guessed it -- the Phillies, whose lineup again is that much better than the Rockies' with the likes of former league MVP Jimmy Rollins, former league MVP and huge slugger Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Raul Ibanez, Jayson Werth, and the list just goes on and on. The Phillies also led the majors in fielding percentage and fewest errors, making them the best defensive team around as well. And, although the Rockies have some experience, having gone to the World Series before losing in the end after their incredible surge late in 2006, the Phillies have now won three straight divisional titles, and are coming off steamrolling everyone in their path in becoming Your 2008 World Champions of Baseball. So in experience, in pitching, in offense and in defense, the Rockies are clearly a very talented team, but the Phillies exceed them in each of those major categories. And the Phillies have home field advantage to boot. Sure, the Rockies have the talent to win this series. But they shouldn't, and I can't understand how I could pick an upset in this spot. Phillies, 3-1.

For my money it is the other National League series that is the most compelling first-round matchup of this year's playoffs. The NL-best Dodgers have home field advantage and will take on the NL Central winning St. Louis Cardinals in what many consider to be a clash of two fairly evenly-matched teams. I know the Dodgers led the NL in wins with 95 on the season, and that included the team missing out on the services of Mr. Clutch Manny Ramirez for almost half the season as it is. But, if there's one thing I have learned about the baseball playoffs over the past several years of paying attention, it is that, in a short series, dominating starting pitching in two or three key starters can be a real bear for an opposing team to overcome. And in this case, that applies well to the Cardinals, who will pitch NL Cy Young candidate Chris Carpenter (17-4, 2.24 ERA, 1.01 WHIP) in Game 1, fellow Cy Young candidate Adam Wainwright (19-8, 2.63 ERA, 1.21 WHIP) in Game 2, and then follow that up in St. Louis with Game 3 starter Joel Pineiro (15-12, 3.49 ERA, 1.14 WHIP). As much respect as I have for Joe Torre -- and I definitely have quite a bit -- as well as for Manny's past post-season prowess and for the Dodgers' win total in general this year, I just don't see the Dodgers' trio of Randy Wolf (11-7, 3.23 ERA, 1.10 WHIP), Clayton Kershaw (8-8, 2.79 ERA, 1.23 WHIP) and Vicente Padilla (12-6, 4.46 ERA, 1.43 WHIP) being able to keep up against Matt Holliday, Albert Pujols and the rest of the Cardinals' scary lineup. Here I have to go with the 3 seed to best the 1 seed in the NL because the pitching in a short series is I think just a bit too much in the Cardinals' favor. St. Louis in 5.

In the American League, the one compelling matchup is the Anaheim Angels as the 2 seed against the third-seeded Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox have absolutely owned the Angels over the past several seasons as these two teams will be meeting for the fourth time in the past six years in the post-season. But something tells me that this team is going to be different. I give the nod in coaching to the Angels' Mike Scoscia, easily one of the best if not most under-appreciated managers in all of baseball, they have the home field advantage as well, and they also produce runs with small-ball style base stealing and moving runners better than probably any team in the American League. The Red Sox might get a slight nod in the starting rotation, but Lester and Beckett have both looked a bit tired late in the season this year and in recent years, and John Lackey, Jered Weaver and Rays castoff Scott Khazmir are a very solid three-man rotation for any team to overcome in a five-game series. I'm expecting a close and hard-fought series with lots of good games from this ALDS matchup, but with Game 5 scheduled for California I have to give the nod to the Angels this time around. Angels in 5.

And then there is the Yankees-Twins. And this one isn't even worth spending time writing much about. The Yankees lineup is like an all-star team, and the pitching easily outclasses anything the Twins have to put up in their defense. Everything about this classic Yankees team is better than the Twins, and to boot Minnesota had to play and then travel very late into the night / early morning the day before this series begins on Wednesday night in New York, depleting their bullpen and tiring everybody out as it is in outlasting divisional rivals the Tigers in 12 long innings on Tuesday evening. I'm gonna just go out on a limb and pick the Yankees in a sweep in this one. Yankees in 3.

I haven't actually looked into the various betting options available for these games, but it's something I might do over the next few hours. Best of luck to anyone betting these games or for anybody whose team is still alive in the hunt to snatch the trophy away from the reigning champions of the world, the Philadelphia Phillies.

My Secret Obsession

I think I am obsessed with the New York Mets.

I'm serious. I just can't help it. It's like the proverbial car wreck when you drive past it on the highway -- I just can't help but pay attention to the biggest bunch of bums I've seen in New York sports in some time. And the Knicks play in this city, so you know I am really saying something there.

For those who didn't see the action this weekend, the Mets really came up strong to try to outdo their losing 2 of 3 to the Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies last week, which included the Phils smacking four home runs in the deep confines of Citi field off of Mets ace Johan Santana in a one-run loss in game 1, the Phils' first win of the series where Carlos Beltran lost it for the Mets when he dropped an easily-catchable fly ball near the center field wall that was basically right inside his glove, and then another loss in the rubber match when Phillies' free-agent signing Raul Ibanez slugged a 3-run blast in the top of the 10th to take that one down in extras. Well, the next team in the path of the Mets was the Yankees, as Subway Series 2009 began with three games in the new Yankee Stadium.

And that's when this happened:



I mean, what do you say at this point with this effing team? It's not like it hasn't been highly obvious that the team is poorly coached, makes no effort and is just generally an embarrassment to the sport in almost every facet of the game. The Mets have lost what, four or five different games this year just on errors in the field? And another three on baserunning mistakes? They've lost a game recently after missing third base in the top half of extra innings and then making two errors in the bottom half of that inning. They've lost a game this year when Carlos Beltran wouldn't slide into home plate and got called out trying to score what would have been the go-ahead run as a result. And now that beautiful play above, to which the Mets responded by crushing Andy Pettitte and the Yankees in game 2 of the subway series, only to return on Sunday for the rubber game and getting smushed 15-0 as their ace Santana once again took a beating, recording the worst outing of his career as the Yankees smacked 8 runs and 9 hits off Santana in just three innings of work.

Well, this weekend was it. I am officially starting the Jerry Manuel watch here. After what went down this weekend, I just don't see how Omar Minaya continues to retain any relevance at all if he does not dump the Mets coach on his scrawny, unintelligible ass. I heard on sports radio this morning that, even after Castillo's embarrassing drop on the pop-up from A-Rod to lose the game on Friday, all the Mets were out in the field on Saturday, all still catching flies with one hand. Good coaching, Manuel. You are an absolute dog.

This was a large weekend in sports in general, come to think of it. The Penguins won their first Stanley Cup since the Mario Lemieux years in 1992, beating the Red Wings on the road in a Game 7 of the Finals. And the Lake-show completed their run to and through the NBA Finals as well over the weekend, dispatching the Orlando Magic in five games as Kobe Bryant finally earned his place among the elite NBA players of all time in winning his fourth NBA title, and more importantly, his first as the leader of the team after his first three championships all as Shaquille O'Neal's sidekick. Kobe now with four titles, that really puts him up there indisputably in my view, dickhead though he may be. Just like Phil Jackson, who won his all-time record tenth NBA championship with the Lakers' victory on Sunday. Ten NBA titles. It's one thing when Red Auerbach won nine titles with the Celtics a couple of generations ago. But it's an entirely other thing to have done that totally within the time of free agency, when keeping teams and star players together -- and happy -- for more than one or two good years has become an immense challenge in and of itself. Red did his thing with Bill Russell there the entire time, either as a player or a player-coach near the end there. Now Phil has done it with Michael Jordan, with Shaq, and now in 2009 with Kobe.

And for those of you who discount with the Zen Master has done on the basis that he always had star players on his team, I ask you two questions: First, what NBA championship team did not have at least one star player on it over the past 25 years or so? Name one. The most recent Detroit Pistons championship teams is as close as you're gonna get, and even that team had the player formerly known as Ben Wallace, to go along with Chauncy Billups in the backcourt. So these winning teams always have talent, that's not debatable. And my second question to those Phil Jackson haters is what do you say about this year's team? This is, in my view, far and away the worst team of all of Phil's title-winners. It basically comes down to Kobe, and who else? Pau Gasol? Lamar Odom? Shawn Bynum? Let's face it -- this team was Kobe's and Kobe's alone, and the way I see it, this is probably Phil Jackson's greatest individual season accomplishment, maybe behind the 72-10 season in Chicago, but maybe not. I'm still trying to figure out how this particular Lakers team was able to get past the Dallases, the San Antones, the Nuggets, the Blazers, the Rockets and all the other teams like Utah, Phoenix, etc. that have normally been hanging around lately at the end of the playoffs on the Western side of the bracket. To Kobe and to Phil, this one is huge in my view, and frankly I would be very surprised to see Phil Jackson spend any more of his years coaching in the NBA. I could be wrong about that, but personally I believe the whole recent comeback to the Lakers for Phil was all about one thing: getting his tenth championship, and getting his name alone in the recordbooks for all time with ten titles won. More than Auerbach's nine, more than Scotty Bowman's nine in the NHL, and far more championships than anyone else has ever coached in baseball or football. I think Phil has accomplished what he set out to do -- probably much sooner than he expected, looking at his roster at the beginning of the season this year -- and I don't expect to see him sweating it out one the sidelines and screaming at millionaires for much longer.

Just a week and a half until I roll into Vegas with my peeps and a walletful of cash, destined for the donation pile in World Series of Poker Event #51 on June 27. Who else is gonna be man enough to plunk down for that?

Time to Cash Out

I know I mentioned recently here that I was just finishing up Moneyball, Michael Lewis's best seller about how the Oakland A's changed the way that teams were built to win in Major League Baseball, and that before that, I had read Tom Verducci and Joe Torre's The Yankee Years. Well, the funny thing about my reading those two books just recently is that now, unlike what I used to think about the guy before this year, I can't stop thinking on an almost daily basis how Yankees GM Brian "Cash" Cashman really needs to be fired. I mean, like so many on the Yankee championship teams during Joe Torre's tenure, Cashman deserves some of the credit for bringing in guys like Clemens, David Wells and a few others who were able to contribute so well to the team's amazing run from 1996-2000. But since 2000, the bottom line that has been made clear to me for the first time by reading these two books -- and enforced almost every single day these days out on the field it seems -- that Cashman has been consistently and clearly out-GM'd by the guys out there choosing players simply using better, more refined and more useful criteria than what Cashman has obviously been doing over the past decade from his office at Yankee Stadium.

Take the pitching situation, for example. While teams like the Red Sox went out and nabbed Curt Schilling to provide some veteran leadership from the mound, and young Josh Beckett from the firesaleing Marlins, Dice-K Matsusaka from Japan and many others, just look at the roll of embarrassing pitchers that have been paraded into the Bronx during Cashman's tenure. Roger Clemens for his second return to New York, now the subject of major steroids speculation, and someone who simply could not be relied upon during most of his last two seasons with the Yanks, including some less than good playoff appearances in his final starts in the city. Carl Pavano, who was paid over $40 million by the Yankees to make a grand total of I think 9 starts in New York. Javier Vazquez, who was brought in from the struggling Expos but who could never seem to make it work in the Big Apple and was gone after one disastrous season at Yankee Stadium. Estaban Loiza. Jose Contreras. Randy Johnson. The list just goes on and on and on of the pitchers who Cashman has paid huge, huge money to bring in here, and yet who could not hack it in New York.

So the Red Sox go to Arizona and get Schilling, who ends up dominating for them and contributing greatly to that franchise's first two world titles in almost 90 years, while the Yankees chose Schilling's teammate Randy Johnson, who failed miserably in three seasons with the Bombers and never returned to his prior unhittable form as he was clearly just not comfortable in New York. The Sox turn to former Marlins upstart Josh Beckett, with tremendous success over several years now in both the regular and post-season, while the Yankees go to his former teammate in Florida, AJ Burnett who has so far pitched to just so-so results when the Yankees really needed him. The Sox bid outrageous money to wrestle Dice-K away from the Yankees, who has ended up being another solid contributor, while the Yankees spend their huge money on a foreigner to bring in Contreras, who was also gone in under two years to the White Sox after it was determined that he just cannot pitch well in New York. All those other pitchers I mentioned above, all paraded in here one after the other, and all unable to achieve their previous success once putting on the pinstripes, while the Red Sox and other teams have found a way to bring guys in who can make immediate, substantive contributions to their teams.

And this trend has continued right on in to 2009, as Cashman hit the free agent markets in a big way last offseason, nabbing prized free agent CC Sabathia from the Brewers along with former Marlin AJ Burnett to solidify the Yanks' troubling rotation, and just look at the results so far as we head into the end of the first month of the baseball season: After Monday night's loss to the Tigers, Sabathia, sporting a $15.7 million price tag this year, will end April with a 1-2 record in five starts, including 15 walks in 32 innings pitched and a 4.73 ERA. Burnett, who is making $16.5 million in 2009, has just two wins in his first four starts, posting an even loftier 5.47 ERA and, most importantly, coming up real small against the Red Sox this past weekend as the Yankees were swept by their arch enemies in the teams' first of many meetings during the 2009 regular season.

On offense, it is really more of the same as far as Cashman's performance over the past several years. While the Red Sox went out and acquired players like Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz, Bill Mueller and Manny Ramirez in winning two world titles in the past five seasons, who are the big free agent signings on offense for the Yankees since the 2000 season? Jason Giambi -- a $20 million a year steroids user, oft-injured and old, a shell of his former self almost the entirety of his time as a Yankee. Alex Rodriguez -- another known steroid user, making a whopping $33 million+ this season who also recorded his best three-year stretch as a pro prior to joining the team in the Bronx, and who has been a consummate loser since signing on with the team after the union killed a deal that would have altered the course of baseball history by sending A-Roid to the Red Sox. Aaron Boone, yet another steroid head who had one huge home run but otherwise dragged this team down every step of the way during his two-year stretch in the infield with the team. Johnny Damon came on during the 2005-2006 offseason, after he too had experienced his best years as a major leaguer in Kansas City and Boston. And the latest addition to this long line of losers at the plate -- Mark Texiera , who comes to the Yankees making $20.6 million this year and yet who so far is hitting a whopping .220 through 16 games of the 2009 season.

Face it, it is time for Brian Cashman to go. Although the team obviously was doing something right in the mid 90s as it built the greatest baseball dynasty in at least 20 years, the days of John Wetteland, Paul O'Neil, Scott Brosius, Bernie Williams and Tino Martinez are all over with. After that down-home and largely homegrown core of players slowly departed the Bronx as the last millennium drew to a close, the guys Cash has brought in to replace and replenish both the lineup and the starting rotation in New York have performed woefully poorly. And this during a time when other teams in the league, even in the Yanks' own division, were picking up the Schillings, Becketts and Dice-Ks, and their cross-town rivals the Mets nabbed Johann Santana (probably the best pitcher in baseball at the moment). Whatever the reason, the movement based on sabremetrics that has been so successful for teams like the Red Sox, the As and the Blue Jays over the past ten years has more or less completely passed Brian Cashman by. After defending the guy in my head for several years, I just can't escape the conclusion anymore than Cash has ultimately failed, being primarily responsible for the roughly $2 billion spent on this team over the past nine seasons, with absolutely zippo to show for it in terms of the only thing that matters to Yankees fans here and around the country -- World Series championships.

Oh, and the Hornets lost in the playoffs 121-63 to the Nuggets last night. At home! 121-63!! I mean, what do you even say? What's next? Waffles winning an entire month of the BBT? Give me a break!