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.

Interesting Football Tidbits

If the NFL playoffs go with the chalk the rest of the way, we will have the New England Cheatriots facing off against the Green Bay Packers in Superbowl XLVI in Indianapolis on February 5. And that will be the first time in NFL history that the two statistically worst defenses in the NFL will match up in the Superbowl. Those two teams each gave up over 411 yards of total offense per game through the 2011 regular season, and while the rush defenses on both teams are more middle-of-the-pack, the Cheats and the Packers are also the two worst teams against the pass in the entire league -- a good 20% worse than even the next-worst pass defending team -- which should be interesting because the passing game is far and away the strength of the other team. If the chalk takes it the rest of the way, we'll be looking at the #2 and #3 offense and the #2 and #2 passing offense, playing against the #31 and #32 teams both in total defense and in passing defense. That game could be just crazy.

Speaking of the playoffs, all the buzz in New York City this week is word that a bunch of Jets teammates have anonymously ripped Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez in the press this week, saying among other things that he has no legitimate fear of being replaced by head coach Rex Ryan, and several players questioning his work ethic. Of course, if you watched "Hard Knocks" this preseason, you already saw shades of that lack of work ethic, and the beginnings of a potential attitude problem, as I think it would be hard for mostly anyone to have been exactly "impressed" with Sanchez's personality if you sat through all the episodes of that series earlier in 2011. In this case, you've got the usual complement of talking heads, former players especially, who are ripshit about this move, questioning any player who would dare take such shots anonymously instead of just coming out and assigning a name to the comment. Because, the thinking goes, the next time Sanchez walks into that locker room, he's going to be wondering "Was it you who said that bad stuff about me?", "Was it you?", "Or you?". But that doesn't really seem to be the case here, does it? In this case, I count at least four different players specifically cited in that story -- at least some of whom are apparently leaders on the team in one capacity or another, so not insignificant players like the story from the third-string quarterback that broke last week. The bottom line for Sanchez is, it's not just one player here or one player there. It's most of his entire team who think these things about him. So focusing on who said it and how we find out who said what is, in my view, completely missing the point in this case. Mark Sanchez's team has a problem with his lack of preparation, his poor work ethic and his entitled attitude, and of course with the results that has led to for the entire team now here, three years in to the Sanchez / Rex Ryan experiment. At this point, the Jets can either waste time chasing down who said what and why they said it, or they can start moving on by beginning to work on fixing those problems. And nothing short of that is going to get the Jets team with this nucleus of players back where they want to be.

And before I go, did anyone else out there see this story? That Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow is Americans' favorite active athlete today? Seems crazy, doesn't it? But "Tebow was recognized by 3 percent of Americans surveyed as their favorite active pro athlete, placing him above Kobe Bryant (2 percent), Aaron Rodgers (1.9 percent), Peyton Manning (1.8 percent) and Tom Brady (1.5 percent) in the Top 5." Above Tom Brady, above Aaron Rodgers, above Peyton Manning? I mean, Tebow is more beloved by sports fans in this country than those three titans who happen to play in the exact same sport, and the exact same position as him, already? That just seems crazy. As does the fact that Tebow takes this top spot much faster than any other athlete since the inception of the poll in 1994, attaining the vote before the end of his second season as a pro. It took LeBron James eight years to reach this status, and Kobe Bryant 11 years before he became America's favorite active pro athlete. I'm not sure I would describe Tim Tebow as my "favorite" pro athlete just now, but I don't have any problem admitting that I would like to watch Tebow play this weekend more than I want to watch any other single athlete in professional sports in the world today. So maybe there's really something to this after all.

NFL Thoughts -- Past the 3/4 Point

Well as another NFL regular season winds down to a close, we're beginning to be pretty sure about most of the postseason teams for 2011, as well as the biggest stories of the year. As usual, the NFL has delivered with yet another stellar season, despite the attempts of the referees and commissioner Roger Gooddell to infuriate everybody by their silly-ly arbitrary and often unfair and deliberate application (or non-application) of the rules. Pass interference and late hits on the quarterback in particular have become the bane of every NFL fan's existence, as the league's referees have wielded their ability to call these infractions or to overlook them to have a major influence on a great many games this year. But despite all of that, as I mentioned it's been another fabulous year overall for the best sport in America today. Remember when you were a kid and you used to sit around waiting for the next Michael Jordan game on NBC, and how you made your appointments around the NBA schedule? Well, today that sport is the NFL, while the NBA has been relegated to a shell of its former self under the "leadership" of David Stern, and this season will only serve to increase the mystique and the popularity of the best sport on the planet today. Today I will give some random thoughts I have assembled over the past several weeks of NFL play.

For starters, Tim Tebow has quickly become the story of the 2011 NFL regular season. Bar none. Leave it to Tebow to be the only thing that could possibly outweigh the drama of the Green Bay Packers going undefeated this year, but it's happened. Did you even know the Packers are currently sitting at 13-0? Probably, but nobody really cares, and the biggest reason why is that Tim Tebow is now 7-1 as a starter for the Denver Broncos. The guy cannot throw the ball -- once again, Timmy T. has all of three completions heading into the final minutes of their game against the quickly-fading Chicago Bears this past Sunday -- but he came through when it counted late in the 4th quarter and in overtime, and thanks to yet another stunning collapse by an opponent and a couple of unbelievably boneheaded plays and a crucial late-game turnover, Tebow had another chance to lead his team to victory. And lead his team to victory he did. A 59-yard field goal as time expired and another 51-yarder in overtime from awesome Denver kicker Matt Prater didn't hurt either, as Tebow nabbed his 7th win in 8 starts as the Broncos' quarterback. As I said, with his Broncos now alone in first place in the AFC West following a 1-4 start before Tebow took over the helm at qb, Tim Tebow has already solidifed himself as the one mega story from the 2011 NFL regular season, and there's virtually nothing that could happen in these last few weeks that could change that at this point. Including the Packers finishing the season 16-0. That still sounds completely amazing to me, but it's also completely true.

While on the topic of Tim Tebow and the Broncos, what is going on with Broncos management between head coach John Fox and Executive VP of Football Operations John Elway deserves its own paragraph here if not its own post -- and maybe its own blog entirely. Basically, by the Broncos' offense focusing on the running game like no other team in NFL history and generally taking the ball out of Tebow's hands when it comes to throwing -- combined with Tebow's very noticeable lack of throwing accuracy when he is forced to put it in the air -- Elway and Fox continue to waver on whether or not Tebow is their quarterback of the future, even here after a 7-1 record as a starter and running the team from alone in last place to alone in first place over the span of less than two months. Said Elway on his weekly radio spot on KDSP-FM in Denver on Monday, when asked if he has ever seen a player like Tim Tebow:

"No, not to this point," Elway said. "If you look at where we've been just this season and look at the impact that he has had this season, not only athletically with him running around and throwing the football, but I think that his presence has been just huge and his confidence and his competitiveness that he has, especially if you look about when we’re coming off 4-12 last year."

And the above quote misses the most poignant part of what Elway actually said on the radio. You can listen to Elway's entire spot right here, which I encourage so you can hear Elway's own thoughts for yourself. Elway didn't actually say "not only athletically" -- on the air he actually said "not so much athletically", and then quickly corrected himself to say "not only athletically". Very telling of Elways' true thoughts me thinks.

What's more, when asked about Tebow's incredible ability to lead the Broncos to victory in the middle of the above-linked audio clip, Elway responded:

"I think when you look at it I guess I just believe everyone believes that something good is going to happen. Tim’s been the guy that has led that thinking and he’s just such a strong believer. He’s got everyone else believing that if you stay strong, stay positive, that something good is going to happen. It’s the power of the mind and the power of positive thinking. I think when those guys are thinking that way and it’s been led by Timmy with that positive attitude that all boats have been rising with that." (emphasis mine)

To me this is all just a bunch of backhanded compliments of Tebow, and more of the same as we've heard out of John Elway basically ever since this incredible 7-1 run with Tebow began. No, it's not the power of great quarterbacking, no it's not the power of great skill. It's the power of the mind and of positive thinking. It's almost like Elway is saying it's all smoke and mirrors with Tebow this year.

And when Broncos head coach John Fox was asked after the game on Sunday if Tim Tebow will be his quarterback next season, he similarly deflected the questions just as Elway has all season long, saying that he prefers not to think ahead and rather just to enjoy the present, the now.

Can anyone ever remember another situation where a guy came in at quarterback for a horrible, last-place team, won 7 out of 8 games and ran them into first place, clearly putting the team on his back and leading them all along the way, and did not have the support of his head coach or the team's management leader regarding the following season? I sure can't.

Oh, and by the way, John Fox inched ever closer to Coach of the Year honors this weekend, when Jim Harbaugh's 49ers posted an embarrassing loss to the Arizona Cardinals, and the Bungles' Marvin Lewis saw his team lose on a last-second touchdown to the NFC South champion Houston Texans, while Tim Tebow led another improbable, incredible comeback over the formerly playoff-bound Bears. What Fox has done to his team -- to the entire NFL, really -- is absolutely off the hook, and in my view at this point far trumps even Harbaugh's incredible season in San Francisco. Even with the 49ers allowing a league-low 182 points over 13 games so far this year, for John Fox to come in and after quickly ascertaining his new quarterback's strengths and weaknesses, to completely transform his team's offense into something that simply isn't supposed to work in today's NFL, it is legendary as far as I'm concerned. Through Tebow's eight starts as the Broncos' quarterback this year, the team has now thrown for a total of 947 yards (118 passing yards per game, the lowest in more than a decade for any NFL team), while running for 1557. No team in NFL history has ever rushed for over 50% more yards than they have passed for over a season, and even though Fox's team won't work their way into the recordbooks since this particular streak did not start until five games into the season, it is worth more than a little mention how amazing and truly revolutionary what Fox has done with his team this year, to play to his team's strengths and weaknesses, even when it flies squarely in the face of everything we all thought we knew about today's NFL. John Fox is still probably not quite the frontrunner for coach of the year, but if his Broncos can find a way to pick off the Cheatriots this weekend, I would guess that Fox will be right up there at the top of the list and that the award might be his to lose. Yes the 49ers have two fewer losses so far than the Broncos this season, but with Tim Tebow, Fox's team has two fewer losses than the 49ers, and he's doing it with -- amazingly -- even lesser personnel, and doing it in a way that is completely unheard-of and would have been entirely unimaginable by anybody involved in the league even more than a quarter of the way through this NFL season.

Switching gears a little bit from the only truly incredible story of the 2011 NFL season in Tim Tebow, I mentioned up there that the Cardinals somehow beat the 49ers this past weekend. This, after starting Arizona qb Kevin Kolb -- picked up in a hig-profile trade from the Eagles this past offseason -- left the game early in the first quarter with a head injury, to be replaced by 2nd year Fordam graduate John Skelton. Skelton has now started or played most the game in five games for the Cardinals this season, and the team has gone 4-1 in those games, while Kolb's record as the Cards' starting quarterback this year is an ugly 2-5. Even though Skelton's numbers in those five games don't look so great on paper (78 for 145 for a 53.8% completion percentage, 1032 yards, 7 tds, 9 INTs and a 66.8 rating), we've already seen a la Tim Tebow above that statistics on a paper can only tell so much of the story. In the eight games started by Kolb this season, his numbers aren't all that much better anyways (146 for 253 for a 57.7% completion percentage, 1955 yards, 9 tds and 8 INTs for an 81.1 QB rating), especially considering how many more snaps Kolb has gotten with the starters basically all season long, and in the end what matters more than wins and losses. Under Kevin Kolb, the Cardinals are a laughingstock at 2-5. Under Skelton, they're a playoff team at 4-1, including a win over the playoff-bound 49ers this weekend when Skelton posted a 106.5 QB rating, and a victory over the then-playoff-hopeful Eagles in Week 10 in which Skelton posted a respectable 82.8 QB rating as well. Face it guys -- John Skelton is probably a better NFL quarterback than Kevin Kolb. You heard it here first.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention what spineless, pussified weasels the ownership in both Kansas City and Miami are. With both teams playing much better after rough starts this year -- and with the Chiefs in particular beset by key injuries all through the early part of the season -- both teams fired their head coaches after losses this past Sunday. After starting 0-7, Tony Sparano's Dolphins were 4-1 in their last five games before losing at home to the highly talented Eagles 26-10 this past weekend. After trying to fire Sparano at the end of last season but then opting not to, and then after not firing him at 0-7 this year, the team was obviously pissed off to see him winning as much as he was in the second of the year this year, and had clearly resolved to dump him as soon as the team lost another game. What a bunch of pussies. Ask anyone in the league or anybody who watches all the football games every weekend -- this Dolphins squad had been playing every single game of the past several as if it was their last, their superbowl, and they had been getting results. With virtually no talent on either side of the ball to work with. And what does Tony Sparano get for taking this bunch of no-name, no-talent losers and going 4-1 with them after turning his 0-7 start around, one of the hardest things to do in sports? He gets fired after one bad loss to the Eagles, everybody's pick for the superbowl coming in to this season.

And it's a similar but not quite as bad of a story for the Chiefs and head coach Todd Haley, who was also unceremoniously fired on Monday after his team lost 37-10 on the road to the playoff-bound Jets on Sunday afternoon. Yes, Haley's team was 5-8 this season, but ask anybody who knows the league and they'll tell you that Haley was doing a pretty good job this year, after bursting out of nowhere and outright winning the AFC West last season. And both years, like Sparano who I mentioned above in Miami, doing it with almost no real talent whatsoever to speak of. The team gives this guy a no-name backup quarterback in Matt Cassell, who himself has missed about half the season now with injury, and a never-ending string of no-name runningbacks, and Haley has found a way to build a rushing powerhouse over the past couple of seasons. Todd Haley did a pretty decent job in Kansas City, and if that franchise believes that they could or somehow should (or will) do better next year with this same personnel, then they are kidding themselves and are in for a very rude awakening in 2012.

Oh, and watch out: if Todd Haley (5-8 with zero talent and a gillion injuries) and Tony Sparano (4-9 after an 0-7 start, and also absolutely zero talent) are getting fired, then you can basically write off Steve Spagnuolo, who as head coach of the Rams after last night's loss is now 10-35 in three seasons with the Rams. How does that guy keep his job, with unquestionably more talent brought in on offense than either the Dolphins or the Chiefs, and unquestionably worse results over now nearly three full seasons? Or what about Mike Shanahan in Washington, he of the 14-31 record over the past three seasons, while his owner spends money like it's going out of style? How does that guy keep his job this year? There are going to be a whole lot of NFL head coaches on the chopping block this offseason, if the criteria applied to Haley and Sparano this weekend are to be equally applied across the league, including a whole bunch of guys with a little bit less time served at their current teams, but every bit as bad of results.

Before I go, just a quick look at my preseason playoff predictions and how those are panning out so far. In the NFC, back on September 13 I picked the Eagles, Packers, Saints and Cardinals as the division winners, and the Cowboys and Bears as the wildcards. Those predictions, in a word, suck shizznit. The Bears were in the midst of making me look smart until Jay Cutler went down, and I can't kill myself for the Eagles pick as everybody in the universe went with them heading into this year, and seeing the laughable Giants and Cowboys battle it out for divisional supremacy at 7-6 right now only seems to strengthen that argument, but I completely messed up the NFC East and I like everyone else also did not at all foresee the incredible success of the 49ers out west. I am faring much better with my AFC predictions, which included the Cheatriots, Steelers, Texans and Chargers as the division winners, and the Jets and Ravens as the wildcards, picks that were almost exactly spot-on. Again, show me the person who predicted the Denver Broncos to take the AFC West, and I'll show you someone who not only should be committed but probably already is. And although a lot can chance in the last few weeks of the season, as of right now my pick of Packers over the Cheatriots in the 2011 superbowl is still looking very much alive.

2011 NFL Post-Season Predictions

Finally this past weekend I had time to put the finishing touches on this post, which for the record was written over the couple of weeks leading up to the start of the 2011 NFL regular season. And what a wild Week 1 it was, which will quickly become apparent when you see some of my picks for the postseason this year in the NFL.

NFC East: Eagles
NFC North: Packers
NFC South: Saints
NFC West: Cardinals

NFC Wildcard: Cowboys, Bears

NFC Almost's: Falcons, Lions, Rams

AFC East: Cheatriots
AFC North: Steelers
AFC South: Texans
AFC West: Chargers

AFC Wildcard: Jets, Ravens

AFC Almost's: Chiefs

So, that is a total of four new playoff teams I am predicting in 2011, two in the NFC (Cardinals and Cowboys, replacing the Seahawks and the Falcons), and two in the AFC (Texans and Chargers, replacing the Colts and the Chiefs). Four out of twelve ain't bad, but over the recent past that's still not as much annual turnover as the NFL has seen in its slate of post-season participants, so there are likely some more surprises to come this year. I just think the Seahawks have fallen behind both the Rams and the Cardinals given the moves of this past offseason, and for some reason I decided to hitch my prediction this offseason to Tony Romo, the greatest step-down-in-the-clutch artist in the NFL today, over Matty "Ice" Ryan. Pure. Genius. And in the AFC, I am expecting the Chiefs to impress again this year but they are going to have trouble winning their division again due to a much harder schedule and not being overlooked by their opponents this year, while the Colts are in my mind finished without Peyton Manning at the helm.

I'm not typically one for making detailed post-season predictions for later rounds here without even knowing who is playing who, who is injured, etc. But I will say that I think the Cheatriots look once again to be the class of the AFC if they stay healthy and are likely to show up in the superbowl again this year, while the picture in the NFC is a bit murkier, between the Eagles and the Packers. I'll take the Packers over the Cheatriots in the superbowl in a repeat for Green Bay. Since, just like the Red Sox over the Dirty Decade in Boston, the Cheatriots have never won a damn thing since they haven't been allowed to cheat.

NFL -- Superbowl Predictions

With the Superbowl just two days away, I thought I would weigh in here with my prediction for the game as well as any other thoughts I have. In general, I think there is a decent chance we are looking at the best team in the NFC in the Packers -- who have played a lot better in the postseason than they did during the regular season -- against probably the next best team other than the Patriots in the AFC in the Pittsburgh Steelers. And we are also probably looking at the best quarterback in the NFC in Aaron Rodgers -- potentially second only to Philly's Mike Vick -- against the most clutch guy you're going to find in today's NFL in Big Ben Roethlisberger, who already has two superbowl victories in two appearances in just the last five seasons. This one has all the makings of a great game, with two excellent, well deserving teams bringing big stars to the contest looking to step up in big spots.

In Pittsburgh's favor, you've got the defense. The Packers have had a lot of success running the ball so far in the 2010-2011 post-season, featuring rookie James Starks out of nowhere to help balance what was otherwise a very pass-centered offensive attack in winning their three NFC playoff games. That flat-out will not happen in Dallas on Sunday. The Steelers' run defense is the best in the game today, and nobody but nobody runs the ball on them, least of all some rookie flash in the pan. So the run game will be totally out, which will help the Steelers to focus more squarely on Aaron Rodgers at qb. Although Rodgers has been good at evading the blitz with his feet and then making a play on the run with a very strong arm, the Steelers will likely throw some more unique blitz packages at Rodgers, designed to force him to throw the ball quickly rather than scramble around and make a play. How well Rodgers handles the Steelers' pressure is probably directly related to the Packers' chances of winning the game.

Also in the Steelers' favor is experience. The head coach has been here before, already the youngest Superbowl-winning head coach in NFL history. Many of the star players (James Harrison, Troy Polamalu) have been here and performed big recently. The quarterback has been to the Superbowl already twice before, winning both times on his way to a 10-2 post-season record at this point still young in his football career. As I mentioned, Big Ben is the most clutch of the clutch players in the NFL today, the ultimate guy you want to have the ball in the hands of when you need someone to make a play. He may not necessarily have the strongest arm, and his ball may not be the tightest spiral, but Ben Roth is a guy who avoids the rush as well as any qb in the sport, who escapes the pressure and then can throw on the run in a huge spot as well as anybody. The Packers, meanwhile, have just two defensive players with previous superbowl experience, and their head coach has a reputation for stepping down solidly in big games.

Oh, and any discussion of the Steelers' advantages in a big football game cannot forget perhaps the most influential thing they have in their corner -- the refs.

The argument for Green Bay is a little simpler, and it goes like this. This is probably the most potent passing offense in the NFL this year, and although the Steelers' strength against the run is not debatable, Pittsburgh's secondary has shown itself repeatedly this year to be beatable early and often, much unlike the Steeler teams of the recent past. In a nutshell, the Packers' greatest strength as a team (its passing game) clearly plays right into the Steelers' greatest weakness as a team (its pass defense). In conjunction with this seeming mismatch of Aaron Rodgers vs. the Steeler secondary, the Packers have a solid defense which should perform well against Rashard Mendenhall and the Steelers' pounding run attack. Sure, Big Ben is going to make some big plays, but the Packers should be able to move the ball well through the air on offense, and should be able to hinder to some extent Pittsburgh's preferred mode of offense, the rushing game. Overall, it's a good matchup for the Packers as far as potential Superbowl opponents go, and Aaron Rodgers has got to be hungrier than Big Ben, with Ben already having two trophies on his mantle from the past few years.

In all, the line on the game is Green Bay -2.5. I understand why the Pack is favored given the way they have played this post-season and the way that NFL fans seems to have glommed on to this team almost from the preseason back in the summer of 2010, but just with increasing fervor over the last four or five weeks of the season. But I just can't get over the fact that this line is a little bit over-adjusted for these factors. The overall feeling I am left with is that the "true" line on this game would be more like a pick'em, but that the powers that be in Vegas know they need to take a few points away from the Packers here or else 90% of the action will come down on Green Bay's side. But this line not moving conclusively from the 2.5 it opened at up to even 3 points after two weeks in play tells me pretty much all I need to know here -- the big-time bettors who know their stuff think this line is too much in favor of Green Bay already. You've got the more experienced team, the Superbowl-winning head coach, the best clutch guy in the game, Troy Polamalu and James Harrison on defense, and the refs who repeatedly dictate that you never, ever, ever bet against the Pittsburgh Steelers (see, scarring it into the underside of my right arm is already working out for me!), and you're getting nearly a field goal to boot. The value here is clearly on Pittsburgh +2.5, and that's my pick for the game.

For shizz and giggles, the over/under on this game is 45 points in Las Vegas. Let's take the under, but just by a hair. I'm thinking more like a 21-19 game than a 26-24 game for this Superbowl.

In terms of some of the more interesting prop bets I see available on Bodog.com for this year's Superbowl:

1. How Many Times will FOX mention "Brett Favre" on TV during the Game?
Over 2.5: -160
Under 2.5: -120

This is an easy Over to me. I'm sure they won't go nuts talking about Favre all the time, but how does Favre not get mentioned three times in a Superbowl game with the Green Bay Packers in it, in the same year he just "retired"? Especially if the Packers are winning near the end, I figure Favre is good for at least one mention early and one during the game at some point for sure. Anything at the end should be gravy on this bet.

2. How many times will FOX mention "lockout" on TV during the Game? Over 1.5 (-110), Under 1.5 (-120)

This has to be an Under here I think. FOX might refer to the potential for a work stoppage, but the odds of them using the word "lockout" more than once? I would say very low, most likely in accordance with specific written instructions from the NFL to that effect.

3. What side of the ball will the players that perform the Gatorade shower be from?? Offense (+150) Defense (-200)

I'm seeing this game ending with Big Ben kneeling down a couple of times to secure a close victory. And if not that, then I see it ending with Aaron Rodgers doing the exact same thing. And that means that, with the offense on the field, the defense will be the ones to do the dousing. Go with Defense, even for the 1:2 odds.

4. Packers QB Aaron Rodgers (Over 22½ completions)

Take the over, take the over! The Pack will not be able to run the ball much, and there is not even much illusion here that they might be able to. Rodgers isn't going to get to 30 completions, but 23 seems like a realistically likely outcome here.

5. Total rushing yards for Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall (Over 74½)

Take the over, take the over! Just like I expect Aaron Rodgers to throw the ball all day long, I expect the Steelers to keep trying to pound it with the run. Mendenhall is the kind of back who can get a lot of carries and keep running strong, and he put up 27 rushes for 121 yards against the Jets last week. I don't expect Rashard to equal that figure this week against the Packers, but 75 yards on the ground should happen for Pittsburgh's featured back in this game.

6. LeBron James 1st Half Points vs. LA Clippers: -115
Green Bay Packers 1st Half Points: -115

Here I like LeBron. James has been on fire lately, and I would be surprised if the Packers score 14 points in the first half on Sunday.

For those of you whose teams are still in it, or if you're taking a big position on any the game, best of luck!

Quick Hits

OK so Superbowl XLIV is over, and the New Orleans Saints nabbed their first ever league crown, removing another team from the list of franchises that have still never won the trophy, making more room for my Eagles on that ignominious roster of historical ineptitude. For most guys -- including me -- the superbowl is always bittersweet, because while it is a great, exciting game in most cases, once it is over, well, there's a void.

A serious void. If for some reason you still play fantasy football, and especially if you obsess over it like I once did back when it was cool, then that void is even larger. Sometimes it can seem unthinkable that you won't be watching any more football on tv until late in the summer. That's six looooooong months of no football, and the prospect can be a bit daunting to be sure.

So for those of you, I will start with some parting thoughts today as Superbowl XLV has officially come and gone. With a day or two to think things over and let things crystallize in my mind, it is clear to me now that both head coaches really puckered up like they were drinking pure lemon juice in the first half of that superbowl. I already mentioned how unforgivably hideous Sean Payton's play-calling was on 3rd and 4th and goal from the 1-yard line late in the first half. To call two straight running plays just off tackle there with all the offensive weapons on that team is simply unthinkable, and Payton showed that he was not ready for prime time at that point in the game, a mistake which he soon corrected with the onsides kick to start the second half of the big game. But Colts head coach Peyton Manning Jim Caldwell also made a very similar error just after that huge goal-line stop by his Colts, opting to run three consecutive running plays after a quick first down, basically right up the middle, none of which worked even remotely well. To not attempt to mount a real drive there at a point when all the momentum was going the Colts' way, was just inexcusable, and as is often the case, this mistake really hurt the Colts as it led to the Saints getting the field goal right back that they gave up by opting to go for it and then running a horrible play on 4th and goal from the 1, and it completely switched the momentum that to that point was all weighing in favor of the Saints.

In the second half, as I mentioned Sean Payton really deserves a lot of credit for the ballsy onsides kick call, which obviously would make him the goat of the superbowl if the Saints don't pull that play off. But it was a brilliant play and one which was executed flawlessly by the Saints, and I give Payton a lot of credit for deciding during halftime to stop being a pussy and start trying to find a way to go and win the game. As I mentioned previously I think the kind of reckless playcalling that Payton exhibited a few times yesterday is probably above the level I would think of as optimum risk-taking -- I mean think about it. Honestly, do you think Bill Parcells would have opened the 2nd half in that spot with an onsides kick? Bill Bellichik, yes, sure he would have. But he's never won shit when he hasn't been proven cheating on every single play. Andy Reid would have done the onsides kick there too. But, well, he's Andy Reid and his record in big games is beyond laughable. But would Parcells? Bill Cowher? No, I don't think they would have, not in that particular spot. Because if you miss this roughly 50% chance of getting the ball back, your team is more or less finished in the superbowl given the way things were going. I'm not so sure I want my coach deciding with 30 minutes of football left in the biggest game in franchise history that he's going to willingly take a 50-50 gamble that will result in surely losing the game if he's wrong, and may or may not lead to victory if he is right and his play works. But I do give Payton credit for coming out and trying to grab the win instead of waiting around, and especially for his team obviously being more than ready to run that play to perfection.

I also give Sean Payton a lot of credit for what the Saints did defensively to confuse Peyton Manning. Now sure, nobody actually ever confuses Peyton -- you can just watch him at the line for a few plays to see that he always knows what's going down better than anyone else on the field for the most part -- but the Saints did as good a job as anybody in holding Manning and the Colts to just 17 total points on offense. They moved the ball well and outgained the Saints by around a hundred yards in the game, but despite that, Peyton never really seemed to get into that rhythm where he is a few steps ahead of the defense and can basically isolate the coverage mismatches and throw quick-strike bombs to penetrate the weaknesses. The Saints deserve a lot of credit for the way that they kept changing up their defenses, encouraging the Colts to run the ball early in the game and then taking away the run in the second half once the Saints got ahead on the scoreboard. The Saints not only changed their looks but they actively rotated different defensive packagesm, alternating between a 3-4, a 4-3, the nickel and various other formations which clearly helped to keep Peyton Manning off of his best game. The Saints rarely showed their full blitz package prior to Manning hiking the ball, and the result again was that Peyton was never really able to get on a roll and just pick apart the defense like he usually has been so adept at doing. Kudos to the Saints on defense, and to Drew Brees on offense, in what was truly an amazing run. Like I said yesterday, it's very rare that we get a true #1 vs #2 matchup, in football or in any sport really for that matter, and this one did not disappoint.

Also interesting this year in the NFL is that the NFC has finally caught up and seemingly passed their AFC counterparts after several years of AFC superiority. This year the Colts were awesome, but the Saints were better start to finish. And I think most people would agree after the playoffs that the Vikings were the next best team in the NFL as well. The Chargers looked good, the Jets had their moments, but the bottom line is that the best teams in football no longer reside in the AFC. If recent history is any guide, this could be the start of a long period of NFC success, as the conferences have tended to run in cycles of 10-15 years in duration with one conference having the clear advantage over the other.

It's also worth mentioning that, at least in my view, the superbowl loss has real significance in the career of Peyton Manning. I myself proclaimed that with the win in this year's superbowl, Peyton would already be well on his way to being the greatest quarterback who ever lived. Well, Peyton didn't win on Sunday, and I am revoking my statement as a result. The bottom line is, Peyton's number are sickeningly great, and his performance on the field is even so much greater than just what his number show, but in the end -- for quarterbacks more than almost anyone else in sports -- champions equate with all-time greatness. You simply need to have multiple superbowl titles to be considered one of the all-time greats in my book. It doesn't mean you have to win four or five superbowls -- too much of that is tied up in what specific team you happen to be drafted for and at what specific time -- but one is not enough to be grouped alongside the Montanas, the Elways, the Aikmans et al. By losing on Sunday, Peyton still has work to do all over again in order to ascend to "elite of the elite" status in the eyes of most knowledgeable football fans. Peyton's numbers by the time he is done with this league are going to speak for themselves as to how great he really is, and his one superbowl is enough to cement him a top-10 spot already for sure. But he can call all the plays at the line of scrimmage all he wants -- there are still other quarterbacks out there who did less playcalling and audibling at the line, but who had more overall success than Peyton in playing the position the way they know best. So Peyton's still going to have to win a second title to get the historical credit we all know he deserves in the eyes of many a football fan after losing his bid for a second superbowl title in Miami this past weekend.

Before closing the book on the 2009-2010 NFL season and commencing the huge wait until next season ramps up, I figured it's never too early to start thinking about next year already in the sports books. Courtesy of our personal information-disclosing friends at Bodog, I present to you, in alphabetical order, the hot-off-the-presses futures odds to win the 2011 championship in Superbowl XLV:

Arizona Cardinals - 35/1
Atlanta Falcons - 30/1
Baltimore Ravens - 20/1
Buffalo Bills - 100/1
Carolina Panthers - 40/1
Chicago Bears - 35/1
Cincinnati Bengals - 30/1
Cleveland Browns - 100/1
Dallas Cowboys - 12/1
Denver Broncos - 50/1
Detroit Lions - 100/1
Green Bay Packers - 12/1
Houston Texans - 35/1
Indianapolis Colts - 13/2
Jacksonville Jaguars - 50/1
Kansas City Chiefs - 100/1
Miami Dolphins - 45/1
Minnesota Vikings - 12/1
New England Patriots - 10/1
New Orleans Saints - 10/1
New York Giants - 20/1
New York Jets - 25/1
Oakland Raiders - 100/1
Philadelphia Eagles - 16/1
Pittsburgh Steelers - 11/1
San Diego Chargers - 8/1
San Francisco 49ers - 45/1
Seattle Seahawks - 45/1
St.Louis Rams - 100/1
Tampa Bay Buccaneers - 100/1
Tennessee Titans - 25/1
Washington Redskins - 50/1

Looking at the above list, a couple of names jump out at me as potentially representing some decent value. The Steelers are 11-1, and we all know that they have the personnel on both offense and defense to get back to the big game. I don't think the Eagles have the personnel to make it there, but the Jets at 25-1 are also worth a look given that we know they will have the defense again, and they managed to make their way to the conference finals this season already. The Minnesota Favres are at 12-1 right now, placing them in a three-way tie for sixth-highest on the board, but I imagine that as soon as Brett Favre makes official his obvious desire to return next season, that number probably climbs up to 10-1 or 19-2, so there may be an opportunity to get in early on that one before Favre makes his decision official. The Denver Broncos at 50-1 are also intriguing, only because the team was 6-0 and looking unstoppable a few months ago, and those are some long odds that could really pay off a small fortune if you have a hundy to drop on a few teams in advance of the 2010 NFL season commencing late this coming summer.

Now, enough about football, bring on the pause and some time to focus on March Madness as we roll into the home stretch in conference play in the NCAAs. And, of course, some time to focus on Lost! I watched last week's episode again on Monday evening, and I have to say without reservations that that was one cool episode. They've given us some solid more information that we never had before, introduced us to a new group of characters at a final station on the island heretofore never seen, and they've given some solid clues as to what makes certain people on the island immortal. As someone who was generally underwhelemed by the silly over-complexity of Season 5, the first episode of Season 6 seemed like it harkened back to the old days of this show, which is a welcome change to me to say the least. I realized yesterday while at the gym that I am genuinely looking forward to Lost tonight -- have been for several days, really -- for the first time in almost two years. I mean, I really can't go even 15 minutes without thinking about Jacob, the Japanese guy, and what's going to happen next. With just one episode this year, Lost has already grabbed me totally back in, which is a very good sign I think heading into the series conclusion just 15 episodes from now. Some people have heard tonight's episode is going to be crazy, and some have heard the really crazy one is next week's, but suffice it to say that Lost is really back with a vengeance, and is captivating its viewers like it hasn't for many of us in a long, long time. And nobody is happier about that fact than me.

Superbowl Redux and NFL Recap (Costanza FTW Again!)

Yep, George Costanza did it for me again. I thought the Colts would win. I thought it was pretty obvious in fact that Peyton Manning was going to lead his team to victory and cement his legacy as perhaps the single greatest all-around quarterback in NFL history. Even at 5 points I thought there was room in that line for the greatness of Peyton to win and cover. By halftime, according to Tony Dungy, who apparently is no better a picker of NFL games than he is a head coach.

Anyways, I was so sure the Colts would win and cover the 5 point spread, that I went ahead and picked the Saints using the Costanza opposite method that lifted me to 2-0 last week after a dismal 6-23 stretch prior to recognizing the strengths of the Costanza system. And look what happened. 3-0 to end the season, which I guess makes the rest of my NFL pick performance during 2009-2010 a tiny bit better. In the end I had a great first three-quarters of the season, followed by as bad of a final quarter as is humanly possible. Recognizing that I could do nothing but pick losers, I made the switch to Costanza for the conference championships and then the Superbowl, and I won 'em all. I had a fun time picking the games on the blog this year and will plan to do it again next year, but next time I resolve to rely less on what the "experts" like Tony Dungy say and more on what I myself believe will happen.

Moving on to the game itself, it was a pretty good superbowl that was competitive until late in the 4th quarter. My first thought it basically that the best team won. In fact, this was the first time in a long time that we have had pretty much the undisputed two best teams in the NFL meeting up to crown the season's champion. It was the Saints, the clear winners from the NFC after they bested the Minnesota Favres in both the regular season and in the postseason, against the Colts, clearly the only great team in the AFC this year. This was the matchup that had been fixing to go off all year, pitting the 13-0 Saints before their late-season slide against the 14-0 Colts before they pulled their starters and lost a couple of games. In fact, the Colts not only had the best quarterback in the league but they did not lose a single game all season long in which they actually played their starters enough to be really trying to win. I don't remember that ever happening before since the undefeated Dolphins team in 1972, excluding of course teams that were later found to be cheating on every single goddam play during the season in question. So this was the great matchup to decide who would be the champion from among the clear best team in each conference during this season.

And like I said, the best team won. Peyton Manning and the Colts looked good on offense. Peyton threw for well over 300 yards and they ran for just a hair under a buck on the ground as well. The Colts moved the ball enough to win the game. They just did not capitalize well enough when they needed to. The Saints did a great job of taking away the big-play, quick-strike capability that we saw Manning and the Colts unleash several times on national tv this season, and the result was that the Colts just couldn't get it into the end zone enough times to win.

And I'll tell you something else about this superbowl -- not only did the best team win, but the best quarterback won on Sunday as well. Manning's body of work is obviously head and shoulders above Drew Brees right now -- nobody sane would argue that -- but on Sunday it was clear that MVP Drew Brees was the better player. Peyton finished the day 31 of 45 for 333 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 costly interception at the end of the game (final qb rating of 88.8). Drew Brees, on the other hand, was simply amazing, throwing for a hyper-efficient 32 of 39 for 288 yards, two touchdowns, and most importantly zero picks on the day. Brees' final qb rating in his first superbowl? 114.5. Absolutely stellar.

In fact, the numbers indicate that Drew Brees flat outperformed Peyton Manning not just on Sunday, but in the entire post-season. In fact in fact, the numbers indicate that Drew Brees was -- for the second straight year, to be honest -- the best quarterback in the NFL all season long in 2009-2010. Just look at this. In the 2009-2010 post-season, each of the Colts and the Saints played three games. Over those three games, Peyton Manning went 2-1, throwing 87 for 128 passes for a 68% completion rate. In the three playoff games, Peyton had 6 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, including the late pick to Tracy Porter in Superbowl XLIV. His average qb rating over the three playoff games this year was a lofty 100. Impressive numbers by any measure.

But now take a look at Drew Brees's postseason. Brees finished the playoffs 3-0, a game better than Manning, on 72-102 passing for a completion percentage of 70.5%, also higher than Manning's already impressive 67% clip. And in the Saints' three post-season games -- all wins for his team, again -- Brees threw 8 touchdowns (two more than Manning), and zero picks. Yep, that's right, 8 touchdowns and no picks in the three biggest games of Drew Brees' career and life, all in succession. Even Brees's average quarterback rating over the three wins bests Peyton Manning's triple-digit score, coming in at an incredible 115.5 over the post-season on his way to his city's first-ever Superbowl and his own personal Superbowl MVP honors.

As I mentioned, even over the entire regular season this year, Brees's performance compares very favorably with Manning's. Peyton finished with 4500 yards, 33 touchdowns and 16 picks in 2009, for a qb rating of 99.9, while Brees finished the year with 4388 yards, 34 touchdowns, 11 picks and a qb rating of 109.6. Both sets of numbers are really, really strong, but in direct comparison between the two, it's not close. And nor are the 2010 playoff numbers.

Oh, and while I'm at it, let's just look reallllly quick at the 2008-2009 regular season numbers as well. Peyton Manning: 4002 yards, 27 touchdowns, 12 picks, qb rating of 95.0. Drew Brees in 2008: 5069 yards (!!), 34 touchdowns, 17 picks, qb rating of 96.2.

Drew Brees is the best quarterback in the NFL today. Hands down, after Sunday night.

I also wanted to mention the performance of the biggest Payton in the superbowl this year, Sean Payton. His handling of the 4th down play late in the second quarter wasn't just bad. It was legendary. I mean, Andy Reid musta had pangs of jealousy watching Payton pucker his anus up just like big Andy would have in that big a game. I was already writing the post here in my head about how Sean Payton stepped down in a huge spot and basically pulled an Andy Reid on the country. Going for it on 4th down in that spot was probably the wrong decision -- the game was so close at the time, the 3 points instead of 0 could have made a big difference with the way the game was going -- but I wouldn't kill the guy for deciding to go for it there given the percentages and where they were on the field even if they missed. But running it up the middle just off the right tackle on 3rd and then again on 4th down? With Drew Brees, the undisputed best quarterback in the NFL two years running now? With Meachem, and Shockey, and Thomas, and Reggie Bush, etc etc etc? And the best you can do is go for it instead of taking the guaranteed 3 points in a close game against a very powerful foe who already has the lead on you, and then run it up the middle again and again and get stopped every time. That is just pathetic.

One of the things that helps me to be successful long-term at poker is that I don't get caught up in results-oriented thinking. Ever. In this case, the Saints missed the first down and failed to score at all in a spot where it is obvious to me that they really needed to get something out of their drive. Those that point out that the Saints ended up getting a field goal before half anyways miss the point of course, since again it's not so much the decision to go for it -- probably the wrong one as I discussed above, but not clearly wrong -- but that decision combined with the play that was chosen that make it such a horrible, horrible move by Payton. His ass tightened up in a tough spot and he made a horrendous, hideous call, and I don't care how the play ended up. It was a brashly wrong decision at a key time for his team, and he let them down badly.

And then somehow, Sean Payton goes into the locker room, knowing in his heart of hearts that he had just made a horrendous coaching blunder that was going to be talked about for weeks on the airwaves, on ESPN, at water coolers, etc., and this guy somehow has the testicular fortitude to come out to open the second half and risk giving the potent Colts offense a short field by attempting on onsides kick to open the half. And I'll be damned if it didn't work. The Colts weren't even thinking of considering such a move, they were taken completely by surprise, the Saints executed it perfectly, and they got the ball back. This clearly swung all the momentum in the game in the opposite direction towards the Saints, and by the time they punched it in a few plays later the entire game had taken on a different feel, one I am sure the players on both teams were well aware of. This onsides kick decision was another dubious one by Payton, as if it does not work, Payton has just compounded his national embarrassment from the first half with a mega blunder that gives Peyton Manning only half the field or less to get back into the end zone and make it a two-touchdown game. You won't hear hardly anyone say this today, again because so many people in the world of poker and in the world at large are results-oriented, but Payton has got to have some massive brass gondalas to make that kind of a dubious call in that spot. He clearly put his team at risk of falling far behind an offensive powerhouse due to his own stupidity, but in this case you have to give him and his team credit for pulling that play off, I'm sure practicing it hard all week long, and getting it done there. But Payton, who coached a very good game otherwise, definitely has me wondering after those two big calls that were each highly dubious ones in their own right, and even worse when combined together over just three or four minutes of game time in the biggest game of the year and the biggest game his team's franchise had ever played in.

I mean, can you imagine what people would be saying about Sean Payton today if that onsides kick didn't work?

Big, huge, brass balls I tells ya.

It's also pretty amazing isn't it that the same guy who intercepted Brett Favre to end the last-minute threat against the Favres last week is also the one who intercepted Peyton Manning in the superbowl with under four minutes to go in a 7-point game? That kind of karma is hard to come by around these parts. Truly amazing, I seriously hope Tracy Porter got one hell of a hummer from somebody last night.

But more than anything else, what I really, really hope is that all these clowns can find a way through the current labor issues that are leading all parties to claim now that a lockout by the owners before the start of the 2011 NFL season is all but a certainty. Letting things get off-track with the NFL at the heights at which it is currently perched would be a massive donkoff by the league's owners and players that would make Sean Payton's playcalling in the second quarter on 4th and 1 look like the second coming of Vince Lombardi.

Superbowl

So here it is: the moment of truth.

Do I go with who I feel pretty confident is going to win the big game on Sunday? The team that seemed destined to win it all right from the getgo this season? The team that has won every single game all year long, regular season and postseason, when they actually attempted to win the game?

Or do I go with the opposite?

You may recall, after a dismal end of the regular season and early playoffs in picking these games, for the conference championship round I decided to do something drastic, opting to go Costanza on your asses by taking the opposite of what my gut was telling me for each game. So, since it was clear to me that the Colts were favored by too much against the Jets, I picked the Colts. And won. And it was equally clear to me that the Saints were going to cover the 3.5 point spread at home against the Minnesota Favres who had fallen dramatically at the end of the season. So there I went with the Vikes. And won.

2-0 after weeks and weeks of 2-3 and 1-4 performances?

I just don't see how I can forsake it now.

So with that, I present to you the hammerplayer pick for Superbowl 44:

New Orleans Saints +5 vs. the Indianapolis Colts. I don't know how else to pick it. My gut tells me that the Colts are the better team here. They played better in the regular season. They played better in the playoffs. After a slow start the Colts handily beat their conference championship opponents in the Jets, while the Saints got outgained badly and had to rely on 6 turnovers from the Favres including a final-seconds interception from near field goal range just to snatch a 3-point victory from Minnesota. Drew Brees is good, but Peyton Manning is better. And the Colts have experience on their side as well, with much of this team having been in the superbowl a few years ago as well. It all points towards the Colts, and the 5-point line is I think very beatable by this high-scoring Colts offense, especially considering how porous the Saints defense looked last week against a less potent offense than the Colts' this weekend.

So go with the Saints, and take the points. 2-0 going the Costanza, as compared to 6-23 in my final six weeks picking games the real way. I'll stick with the opposite. Go Saints!

What a Superbowl

Wow. What a superbowl that was, huh? It's very fitting to me to end the 2008-2009 NFL season with such a kickass awesome game, because frankly I thought this was one of the most fun seasons in recent memory as far as the NFL goes. In the end, the team that I believed was the best team in the NFL since the moment Plax Burress's illegal handgun went off while still in his pants pocket and emptied its bullet deep into Plax's thigh managed to pull it out, but not after making it look really bleak with just a few minutes left.

A few general Superbowl observations:

1. Larry Fitzgerald. Wow. What can you say. People can say whatever they want, but until this postseason, Fitz was probably considered the second best receiver on his own team. Now all of a sudden everyone acts like they've been saying he's the best in the game for the past few seasons. But what a postseason this guy had, utterly shattering the record for receiving yards in a postseason -- previously held by Jerry Rice -- even before the Superbowl began, and Fitz came to play in this game as well. His touchdown run right up the middle of the field late in the 4th quarter was pretty effing awesome. It will be interesting to see starting next year if Fitz is really able to take on the "lead" wide receiver role with Anquan Boldin on the opposite side all the time. I am truly bummed to see Fitz have to lose this game after making that awesome touchdown catch and run with so little time left in the biggest game of his career.

2. Kurt Warner. Talk about truly bummed to see him lose. I'd like to see somebody try to find another example of a quarterback having a day like Warner did in the Superbowl and still somehow not win. 31-43, 377 yards, 3 touchdowns and no interception, and he doesn't win? Warner must still have woken up this morning wondering "what the hell?" I'm gonna say it right here for the record -- anyone who doesn't think Kurt Warner is NFL Hall of Fame material is simply not paying attention. Did you see the stat last night that Warner now holds all three of the top statistical performances in Superbowl history? That right there is sick. Combine with the fact that he led this franchise to its first Superbowl and came this close to winning it, doing everything he possibly could to make it happen, after the year he had here, plus all the stats he ran up and incredible teams he led back in the days of the Greatest Show on Turf, and in my book Warner is an absolute, raging lock to make the HOF. And despite the silly religious stuff with thanking Jesus after he wins games and stuff, Warner is truly a good and likable guy, someone I find it easy to rally around. Oh and btw, as Goat pointed out to me in the girly during the game, Kurt Warner really does look younger than he has in years. Botox anyone?

3. The Cardinals. What a friggin bummer. The NFL's career whipping boys were sooo close to taking this thing down, I'm sure they're still trying to figure out how they gave up that game-ending touchdown drive so quickly, and how the eff Santonio Holmes managed to get both toes down on his game-winning catch. I've talked to a lot of people about this, and it's hard to find almost anyone who wasn't rooting for the Cardinals to pull this one out. It sucks either team has to lose after a game like Sunday night's, but this one especially rots given how hapless the Cardinals franchise has been over the years, how incredibly close they came, and again given what truly decent guys Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald seem to be. Remember, this week saw Fitz publicly offer to restructure his own contract if it would give the Cardinals more money to pay to keep fellow wideout Anquan Boldin in town. That's not something you see every day in the NFL, that's for sure.

4. Ben Roethlisberger. Ben Roethlisberger is pretty much The Man when it comes right down to it. Big Ben now has two Superbowl wins in what, five seasons? I know in the first one he did not play particularly well at all, but even in that one a few years ago, his main wide receiver won the MVP and a Superbowl win is a Superbowl win, right? And he played awesome on Sunday night in leading his team to victory, as he did all through this season really, including putting the team on his back through that incredible last-minute scoring drive that saw the team march about 80 yards in just about two minutes of game time. Just looking at the throw to Holmes that resulted in the game-winning touchdown catch, if you see the replay you can see that Big Ben literally put that ball where only his receiver (or no one) could catch it, just over the outstretched hands of the jumping Arizona corner, and just barely close enough to his man that Holmes could catch the ball and still remain in-bounds. As usual, Roethlisberger had a ton of big plays in the clutch on Sunday, and he has really cemented himself as the best young quarterback in this league as far as I'm concerned. Move over, Tom Brady, there's a new young qb stud in town and his name is Big Ben.

5. Santonio Holmes. Four catches on that final drive, and 9 catches overall in the game for over 130 yards. And what a fucking catch. 'Nuff said.

6. The Steelers. It is so rare these days to see a team that you feel is winning the championship the right way, but I just really get that feeling about the Steelers. Sure, I would have loved to have seen Arizona erase its demons and nab their first Superbowl championship, but personally I find it very difficult not to like this Steelers team. From the ownership all the way down to the players, these are a stand-up bunch of guys, and I am glad it's them who is the first franchise to six victories, as opposed to the 49ers who apparently cheated the salary cap all the way through their 80s and 90s victories, or the revolting Cowboys with their parade of "big money" asshat players and nimrod coaches. The Rooney family which owns the team has been the big proponent of insisting on interviewing minority candidates for head coaching vacancies in the league, and they put their money where their mouth is a few years ago in hiring 32-year-old Mike Tomlin to lead the team after Bill Cowher's departure left the team looking for just its third head coach in forty years. Now Tomlin becomes the youngest head coach to ever win a Superobowl, surpassing the record recently set by former Eagles' O-coordinator Jon Gruden, and the Rooneys, Tomlin, Roethlisberger and that vaunted Steelers defense are all sitting pretty today after capturing the team's sixth Superbowl championship in just 43 years of the leagues being merged in the NFL. Six wins in 43 seasons in a league that is now up to what, 30 teams? Sickness.

NFL Conference Championships Recap

Yet another fabulous weekend of playoff football for the men chasing the pigskin ball all around the field in helmets and pads.

The first game was my Eagles playing at the Cardinals in the battle of seemingly cursed franchises. The Eagles were making their 5th appearance in the NFC Championship game in the past 8 years, while the Cardinals were playing in their franchise's first-ever conference championship behind the capable arm of Kurt Warner. Despite the Eagles' significant edge in experience, the Cardinals did not surprise me in the least by showing up to play some ball. Before the Eagles could really even blink, the Cards' Larry Fitzgerald had scored three touchdowns en route to an 18-point halftime lead for the Cardinals who absolutely destroyed the Eagles in the first half on both sides of the ball. Fitz is awesome of course, but the real blow of the half was a 70-something-yard touchdown catch by Fitz where Kurt Warner just lofted a ball up well short of the receiver, and Fitz readjusted a la Randy Moss while the Eagles' defender slipped and fell flat on his ass. Otherwise, the Eagles couldn't do shit in the first 30 minutes of play, while Warner moved the ball at will as the Eagles' overmatched defense finally came back down to earth against the best passing offense in the NFL this year.

The second half was a different story as the Eagles finally started getting to Warner with the blitz, after a first half that saw Warner completely crush the Eagles every time they ran extra players at him on the line. After 17 straight points shocked the world by giving the Eagles a one-point lead with just under 10 minutes to play in the game, that seemed to jolt the Cardinals back to reality as Warner promptly led his team down the field for the crucial go-ahead touchdown drive and the Eagles were once again unable to stop the Cardinals' offensive machine. With three minutes to drive for the game-tying touchdown, the refs declined to call the worst pass interference call in the history of the game as the Cardinals' defender held Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson before, during and after Donovan McNabb's 4th-and-10 throw, and the game was over with the Cardinals advancing 32-25.

In all, it was a good game thanks to a strong second-half comeback, but Eagles fans will recognize this as a continuation of the Donovan McNabb - Andy Reid regime that has seen this time perform well enough to make some big games but then consistently get utterly outcoached and outplayed in nearly every big game in the two men's careers. It is unfortunate for Eagles fans that this surprising late-season run will likely keep the quarterback and the head coach around for yet another year of winning nothing, but such is the way things go with the fickle fans and owernship in Philadelphia. Most interesting to me about this game was the way that the public allowed themselves to be so readily fooled by the Eagles. This was a mediocre team all throughout the regular season, a team that couldn't beat the shitkicking Bengals in a game that at the time was considered a crucial game for Philly's playoff chances, and one that also failed to score even a touchdown against the Redskins in a must-win Week 16 loss to a team that most believed had thrown in the towel for the year. This was a team that literally needed the Bucaneers to somehow lose at home to the Raiders in Week 17 and the Bears to lose at the Texans, and to beat the Cowboys on Sunday night just to back into the playoffs as it was. The Eagles went on a roll for all of three games starting with that Cowboys win on the last night of the season, and the public jumped on the bandwagon as if the Eagles' performance over these three games was how they would play against every team the rest of the way through the season. I wrote about this last week in advance of this game already -- the Cardinals were the better team all through the regular season this year, they won their division, they have a proven winner at quarterback, and they were at home against the Eagles. And they were getting 4.5 points. Easy money, and gg to the Eagles. Decent season for my boys in green, but in the end as I mentioned it's kind of a downer for the real Philly fans because the few true lovers of the team out there have known for certain for a few years now how the tandem of McNabb and Reid are the ultimate step-down guys in the big games, and now we'll surely be stuck with these two losers for yet another year of guaranteed mediocrity.

In the other game, the Ravens traveled to the Steelers in a battle between the two best defenses in the NFL in 2008. This one was all set to be a serious defensive battle, and it definitely delivered on those expectations. In the end this game too went pretty much according to plan, as the Steelers' #1 defense, led by best player on the field Troy Polamalu, outplayed their #2 defense counterparts on the Ravens, including a huge pick-6 interception by Polamalu late in the game to seal the deal for the Steelers. And as I discussed last week, the Steelers' offense far outpaced Joe Flacco and the Ravens' offense, helping the Steelers to a 23-14 victory and their second superbowl appearance in the past few years. Ben Roethlisberger did what he does best, leading his team on several scoring drives with his excellent ability to throw on the run and to improvise along with all of the best quarterbacks in the game today. The Ravens' rookie quarterback simply could not keep up against an even better defense for the Steelers, ending eventually in the interception by Polamalu that sealed the deal and ended the Ravens' season.

Despite my team losing in the conference championships for the fourth time in five tries this decade, on the good side I am winning a ton of money on the NFL playoffs this year. I am now 8 for 10 against the spread in the playoffs, and for the first time in many years, I have bet on every single game along the way and it's actually paid off. I have basically tripled my roll on Bodog without even having to load up that so-called poker client onto my pc, and for whatever reason I have just been really tuned in to the teams in the playoffs this year, moreso than in past years. I've been betting around $75 a game, and the only two double-bets I made in this entire run were (1) the Panthers to beat the Cardinals a week ago by more than 10 points, which crashed and burned, and (2) the Cardinals +4 over the Eagles this past weekend, where I won back the double-bet I lost on the Cardinals last week. This all has helped to offset what has been a poor beginning to 2009 on the mtt front, where I have suffered every kind of suckout imaginable on all poker sites, from the standard dominating loss on the river to the more exotic losing in the final 70 or so players in a big-field mtt allin preflop with my AKs to their AKo.

Looking forward to the superbowl, I will take some time to ponder the right spread on the game, although I note that it has opened at 6.5 or 7 points in favor of the Steelers. As wrong as Vegas was about the Cardinals-Eagles game from the moment the spread was initially set at Eagles by 4, this time I think they've done a very good job at least of picking the winner who I feel strongly will be the Steelers by the time the smoke has cleared. I will check out all the superbowl prop bets that are available over the next couple of weeks and will post everything I end up betting on as I try to close out a very successful NFL playoffs season with a big bang.

Superbowl Surprise, Online Overlays and Drunk Suckouts

WOW. A lot to get to today. But first things first...



The Hoy is back in its regularly-scheduled time slot and place tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt. Mondays at the Hoy is the name, 6-max no-limit holdem is the game. $26 buyin, same as always. The crowds have been well into the 30s for the past few weeks, and people seem to be digging the faster pace (and shorter overall tournament length) of 6-max, so come on out and see what everyone is having so much fun with as we start the week in blogger tournaments off right.

And congratulations to KOD not only for final tabling that donkeyfest known as the 28k again last week, but then for chopping the pokerstars 25k over the weekend for a little over $5100 cash money. Chad is the undisputed king of navigating the big donkey fields. I will never understand now he does it.

Now on to the real story of the day....the Superbowl.

Ever since we were children, most of us were raised with this one basic precept regarding those who don't follow the rules: Cheaters never win, and winners never cheat. Well, the New England Cheatriots have proven that old saying wrong time and again over the past several years, winning three superbowls and getting their names into the record books for a number of reasons this year in recording the first ever 16-0 season in the NFL on their march to yesterday's superbowl matchup with the hated New York Giants. It turns out that the Cheatriots have spent the better part of the past five or six seasons (at least) cheating in a way that is obviously very significant to the outcome of their games, and they've been steamrolling the entire NFL the whole time while they've been doing it. Not only were the Cheatriots busted for videotaping the New York Jets' defensive signal-calling during a game early in this, their record-setting, undefeated season, but it even came out this very past week that Coach Bill Belicheat has been taking advantage of illegal videotaping of opposing teams for many years, even in the biggest of games, including the superbowl against the St. Louis Rams five years ago. So here you've got a guy who has been cheating very deliberately, and in clear violation -- flauntingly, in many cases, after receiving repeated warnings -- and has done nothing but win win win as a result.

Well, this weekend, finally, mercifully, came Vindication. And don't go dismissing my ranting today as that of a crazed Giants fan just because I live in New York. I'm not just not a fan of the Giants -- I hate the Giants. I abhor them. With a serious passion. As you know if you've read here for some time, I am from Philadelphia and I have grown up with a deep-seated hatred for every single New York team, the Giants in particular as they have always played in the Eagles' division and have now won not one, not two but three superbowls while the Eagles still have yet to win one. So I hate this year's superbowl champions more than probably any single person I know. But, just like my Phillies's incredible comeback to knock the New York Mets out of the playoffs in 2007, the Giants' last-minute victory over the New England Cheatriots will always be remembered by me, as will the team that went 18-0 and then couldn't win the big game. It ruins the Cheatiot's entire "perfect" 2007-2008 season, in a way that I could never have dreamed of. Now, they are nothing. Nothing!! You can go undefeated all you want -- now all the Cheatriots are are the only team in the history of the NFL to go 18-1 and not win the superbowl. And even though it's the lowly, despicable, New York Giants who beat them, I can only keep thinking one thing about it all.

Fuck 'em.

Cheaters never win, and winners never cheat. Fuck you, New England. Fuck you straight to hell, you despicable lowlife asshole losers. And when I say losers, I mean L-O-S-E-R-S.

Now go buy some nice t-shirts here that I bet will be getting a ton of good business today from like-minded fans such as myself.

With the superbowl on tv and with most of the northeastern U.S. preoccupied with it at least, I noticed two main effects in the world of online poker. First, there were more and bigger overlays in the major guaranteed tournaments than I have ever seen before, and this was something I tried to take advantage of as best as I could as I have done in the past on days like this. The 50-50 at 9:30pm ET, which needs basically 1000 runners to make the 50k guarantee, had something like 760 people playing. That is by far the biggest overlay I've ever seen in this thing. By far. Even the pokerstars equivalent of the 50-50 had to rely on some last-minute late-registration stragglers to surpass its own guarantee by a couple hundred dollars, something which to my knowledge has never happened even one time before. At 10:30pm ET on full tilt there was a mega-satellite into the $322 buyin FTOPS #9 nlh tournament, a $50 buyin sat with 10 seats guaranteed. In the end there were I think 52 runners or something like that -- at least four of us bloggers -- which again represented a nice overlay that made me want to play it even more than I otherwise already always try to play these multi-seat megasatellite tournaments, even though I have already qualified for FTOPS #9 as it is so I was really just playiing for cash in the end.

Unfortunately, along with those huge overlays all over the major online poker sites due to the superbowl in the U.S., there were also I am sure tons of drunks and idiots on their computers playing this game with cards, button-mashing at its finest no doubt, the result of which was more suckouts and horrible poker plays even than usual, even for a Sunday online. So it was a mixed bag overall, which of course for me led to even more than my usual 6 or 7 suckout-eliminations a night in the online poker world. If you clowns took as many bad beats as I do on a regular basis, there wouldn't be a poker blogger community because none of you would play poker anymore. If it's not a suckout then it's a setup, but it's all the same stuff in the end -- 90% of my eliminations from poker tournaments are plays I would make again and again and again and most often situations where by all rights I should have survived to see another hand and play another orbit at least. This past Sunday was without a doubt the worst button mashing I have ever seen across the board in the world of online poker, and I'm sure the superbowl going on had a lot to do with that.

Let me give you just one example from the 50-50, which I think was my favorite hand of the entire night that I saw, and is one that actually did not end in a suckout for me. This was probably about 90 minutes in to the 5050, with the blinds at 80-160 I think. Check this out and I defy you to tell me my opponent was sober here:

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hoyazo [As Ks]
BIMMERGAL808 has 15 seconds left to act
BIMMERGAL808 raises to 480
Dixit folds
highplaya folds
tokenjay has 15 seconds left to act
tokenjay folds
mellowyellow74 folds
hoyazo has 15 seconds left to act
hoyazo raises to 1,380 Although I like to change things up just enough to keep my opponent honest, I will usually raise or reraise one raiser preflop with most AK hands in big spots in tournaments.
jimmyvjackson folds
honkytonk99 folds
Poker_Cuervo folds
BIMMERGAL808 has 15 seconds left to act
BIMMERGAL808 calls 900
*** FLOP *** [5d 5c 2c]
BIMMERGAL808 checks
hoyazo has 15 seconds left to act
hoyazo bets 1,600 Standard c-bet. If I get reraised here, I know I am beat although at that point I probably have to call anyways with just 420 chips left.
BIMMERGAL808 has 15 seconds left to act
BIMMERGAL808 has requested TIME
BIMMERGAL808 calls 1,600
*** TURN *** [5d 5c 2c] [9c]
BIMMERGAL808 checks
hoyazo bets 420, and is all in No reason not to put in the rest at this point, even though I must be beat, right? Right?
BIMMERGAL808 calls 420
hoyazo shows [As Ks]
BIMMERGAL808 shows [Jh Kc] Muhahahahahahahahahaha!

Go ahead, explain that one to me please. Calls the preflop reraise with KJo? Then calls my c-bet on a raggy flop with just the KJo unimproved? What, he put me on QJo I guess? Somebody please try to tell me that guy was sober. Bullshit. I say he was probably some anussy Boston fan who had already drunk himself into oblivion as the superbowl had probably just ended, and just wanted to tilt off the rest of his chips so he could drown himself in his bottle of Sam Adams Winter Lager. But these guys making plays just like this were simply all over the place on full tilt and pokerstars last night. Normally for most people that would be a good thing of course, but when you are a raging suckout magnet such as myself, it's all bad.

In the end, I got sucked out recockulously from the 5050 by a guy who called my pot-sized bet on the flop with just an pocket underpair of 9s, and then of course managed to suck out his set on the river. In fact as I mentioned I think I got sucked out on maybe 11 or 12 times in just 5 or 6 hours of poker on the day, including a little bit of cash, several sngs and a few satellites and other multi-table tournaments on the night. I did record a small cash in a pokerstars O8 tournament, and I ended up winning the $322 cash prize in the FTOPS #9 megasatellite after sitting around on a short stack for a long while before finally winning a big hand with pocket Kings after 90 minutes of no cards to speak of. And, I ran pretty deep in the stars version of the 50-50 as well, which is actually a $55 buyin event that usually has a few hundred more players than the full tilt equivalent. I wanted to profile the hand I busted out on before I sign off today, and find out from you guys what, if anything, you think I did wrong here. I think there are several places where I might have made a suboptimal decision, but to be honest I'm really not so sure about that and I would love your thoughts.

So we are down to around 90 players left in the stars 50-50, we are well into the money already which began I think at 153 players remaining. I have a nice stack, just a little above average but good for around 30th place out of 90 players remaining, I'm in the big blind with 97s. Early middle position raises the 1600-chip big blind up 2.5x to 4000, and then the button calls the 4000 raise as well. So it's 2400 chips to me to go to see a 3-way flop with the 97s on a nice healthy stack:



Do you guys play this here? Obviously, I did play it, and I think in large part because I have confidence in my postflop play that I won't lose a lot with this hand if I don't connect solidly, either with a huge made hand or a huge draw. But what do you guys think of this call? It is 2400 chips into an 11,750-chip pot, giving me basically 4-to-1 odds, and in the end I just decided, especially given my healthy stack, I had to call here. I've got two nice-sized stacks in the hand with me, so I know that if I hit this flop hard I can really get into prime position. I certainly don't feel bad about having called here at all, and I know it wasn't a huge mistake either way, but I would be very interested in hearing others' thoughts on this question.

So here was the flop:



Obviously this is a large flop for me. I flopped a flush draw, an inside straight draw and even the inside straight flush draw. I have to figure I have at least 12 outs, and that's assuming that my 9s and 7s are not themselves outs against another high-card hand, which could bring my hand to a total of 18 outs, assuming I'm not already ahead of whatever these guys have with my 9-high. Does anyone like to bet out here?

I opted not to, for a couple of reasons. First, I feel like I have a huge draw, but obviously no made hand, and these guys both have big enough stacks to cripple me if I make this pot needlessly big without applying the ultimate pressure in the hand. And secondly, with my huge draw and on a flop that is unlikely to have hit either the preflop smallish raiser's hand or the smooth caller on my right, I saw this as an awesome check-raise allin opportunity. So I checked it, and the original preflop raiser bet out, somewhat smallish at a little under 2/3 the size of the pot:



The preflop smooth caller on my right folded, leaving me heads-up against this player whose every action so far in the hand seemed consistent with just a two-high-card hand, maybe a small pocket pair or some kind of Ace-rag. He raised smallish preflop, and bet smallish on the flop as well. And most importantly, with the huge draw I had flopped, this guy's 9000 chip bet on the flop still left him with 26k in chips behind, giving him ample ability to fold anything but a real strong hand to my allin checkraise. All the factors were present for my checkraise, and I had flopped a large draw that was close to a favorite if not the favorite against most hands I would expect him to have in this spot, so I decided to go for it, fully expecting him to lay it down:



Again, I would love to hear your thoughts on this play. It is aggressive for sure, there's no doubt about that, but even as I look it over here after my elimination I still can't help but feel I would play the same hand this exact same way again. But what do you guys think? Sure anyone can say just lay it down, but I am curious in particular to hear from some of the guys (and gals) with some actual poker tournament success here as to what you think of this aggressive move by me in this particular spot.

So the guy called off his entire stack with just A3 here, but unfortunately for me, it was an A3 also soooted in diamonds like my 97s was:



Thus, 9 of my outs disappeared in a flash, leaving me with just 3 of the 4 Eights to make a non-flush straight, the 8 of diamonds to make a straight flush, and 3 Sevens and 3 Nines to make a pair. So I still had ten outs left even against his nut flush draw, but that was some bad luck there to run into the nut flush draw like that given the way this hand had played out. I still think he lays down to my allin checkraise there a good 80% of the time or so given his preflop hand range, but not in this case. I'm also trying to figure if even this was really a good call by him, even holding the nut flush. I'm too lazy to do the math, but I suppose if he wants to count the three other Aces as outs for him -- a very questionable move given my allin checkraise on the flop -- then with 12 outs there was surely more than enough dead money in the pot already to make the call a +EV one. But more reasonably, if he thinks he has just the 9 flush outs, I wonder if it is still the right call to make here. Probably, in a close decision. But I like to think I would've laid his hand down in this spot, with the 26k in chips, still plenty of ammo to get right back into this tournament, given the pair on the board, and with just the 35% chance of hitting by the river. I don't know. Again to me it all feels like I played this hand the way I wanted too -- admittedly quite aggressively -- and I just lucked out, which I probably should have known given all the miserable troubles I have had in my poker career in being up against higher flushes with lower flushes, or full houses with nut flushes, etc.

Anyways, two bricks later, none of my 10 outs comes through and IGH in I think 90th or 89th place for a small cash of a little over a hundred bucks for my efforts. It was a good time and one of several nice runs in well-structured tournaments for me over the weekend, but as is often the case, I am left wondering even the next morning still, did I play this hand right? What do you think was the optimal way to play in this spot?

See you guys tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!