The NFL Playoffs are back and it is bitter sweet. Football has a month before hibernation, but the best football games are all before us. The Texans and the Bills are starting it off. The worst game of the weekend, puts them on first and whets our appetite. The Texans are favored by -2.5 and the Bills are trying to end their drought of a post season win since 1995.
I am taking the Texans. I trust Deshaun Watson over Josh Allen. JJ Watt has made it back from “season-ending surgery”, which I respect. Pretty incredible that he is suiting up and hope that he has a great game. Also, I think the Texans have a better chance of beating the Ravens for next week. I am not super confident though, because the Texans are notorious for their wildcard exits.
The Dodgers were leading 4-0 and looked to be back in the series, until the Red Sox finally got their bats going and stormed back for a 9-6 win.
The Red Sox are good. Their ability to score with two outs is amazing. They are resilient and never out of a game. They continue their dominance and are coasting their way to their 4th championship this century. Which is incredible. Boston is title town. Between the Red Sox and the Patriots it is disgusting how many rings they have.
Texas is not all the way back
Texas lost last night to the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Their return to dominance is looking more like a 3-5 year project, instead of an immediate turn around. Coach Herman has improved the program, but they need to figure out how to be more consistent. They shouldn’t have lost to either Maryland nor Oklahoma St. But, so goes college football. Everyone, besides Alabama, seems to lose to someone unexpected.
BYU should get comfortable with mediocrity
I’m not sure what the problem of BYU is, but they are becoming more and more irrelevant every year. The recruiting challenge of finding someone willing to adhere to the BYU standard pits them at a disadvantage. Utah being in the Pac 12 also hurts them. The fact that they don’t receive as much money for their football program is also hurting them. Also, that they are so limited in their coaching hires because of their religious requirements. It will be hard.
The World Series game last night was fun. All of it. As neither a Red Sox fan nor a Dodgers fan the outcome wouldn’t determine by enjoyment of the game. The game didn’t have a ton of offense… I mean each team averaged basically 1 run every nine innings. Which makes me think of a larger point. Is baseball too long? Do they need to shorten the game by speeding up gameplay? Putting timers on pitchers?
When you have 162 regular season games and you’re in the middle of July, and the game is 3 hours long, I can understand it. Analytics are having pitchers come in to pitch to one batter and using more pitchers every game it has increased the length of the game. I don’t enjoy all of those interruptions. I would prefer if they wouldn’t allow in inning pitchers to warm up on the mound. Send them in and make them pitch immediately. But, in post-season baseball? I am ok with all of it. When the result of the game has major impact on the baseball season I will enjoy all 440 minutes of it.
So the main point is, games aren’t either too long or too short, but what they are is entertaining or boring. Regular season games can be boring at times, but when the individual game has impactful meaning on the season, it is just more entertainment. Which is why I think that baseball should be lengthening their post season and minimizing their regular season. Because when a game matters, I don’t mind going to bed at 1:30 am, even though I have to wake up at 5am the next day for work. What an exciting game and hopefully after last night it leads to an exciting rest of the series.
“Football Outsider predicts Raiders have worse record in 2017” “Six ways the Raiders’ offseason could go off the rails in 2017” “Six reasons why Raiders might not meet high expectations” “Raiders hope grand expectations for season don’t instead deliver heartache”
Talking heads and columnists from coast to coast have been talking about the fact that last year 7 close games went in the Raiders favor and Lady Luck is now on vacation. The Raiders were not as good as advertised last year how they could have easily been 10-6 or 9-7. Well, those calling for the Raiders demise are going to be found wanting.
The columnists predictions act as if they are revealing that Bruce Willis’s character is actually dead in the Sixth Sense. The research that shows us that teams with a bunch of close wins the year before sees a correction the following year have been well talked about. We are aware this happens. We don’t need you telling us to expect an 8-8 season and to temper our expectations. After a playoff drought over a decade we aren’t tempering anything besides are cutlasses.
Secondly, we don’t expect to have 7 close games this year. Our offense has been upgraded and we will be lethal, not to mention that last year we learned how to win close games. This year we will learn how to keep games from being close. Carr, Cooper, and Crabtree have more time with each other, which breeds chemistry. The addition of Marshawn Lynch will help balance their offense and help convert short 3rd down and goal line plays. This will help us put away games that were too close for comfort last year. Besides, Whether the Raiders win more games or not than last year isn’t the important thing. Whether they are better than last year is important and I predict improvement. So the rest of analysts and columnists save us from your Raider’s demise takes and let us enjoy the Raider’s revival.
Saturday night was an exciting night. The matchup that America demanded was finally delivered. Despite what some may tell you, that fight delivered what the majority of people rooted for. A chance to see two professionals from different sport worlds collide in an entertaining fashion. No surprise the boxer won the boxing match. It was an enjoyable fight. I went in on it with some family and enjoyed seeing two entertainers entertain. After I have thought about it for a while I have come away with a couple of things.
McGregor had no shot
McGregor won 3 rounds, but Glass Joe could have won those 3 rounds. Mayweather hardly threw any punches and did two things. He was studying McGregor and secondly he was letting McGregor tire out. Which is surprising to me because McGregor fell for it. McGregor tired wasting big punches on Mayweather’s gloves. He did connect enough to entertain, but they clearly didn’t affect Mayweather. I don’t understand how McGregor’s team hadn’t prepared him for this. We have all seen Rocky III when Clubber Lang wastes his energy hitting Rocky’s gloves, until he is too tired and Rocky finishes him the next round. This is more or less what Mayweather did and it worked great. Of course, it was only a matter of time until a Rocky reference came up. You can’t avoid it.
McGregor never won another round after those first 3 and Mayweather worked him over pretty good the rest of the fight. From that point on it was the fight most expected. A professional beating on an amateur with a lot of heart. McGregor had a little bit of momentum into the 8th round in the beginning, but beside that, when Mayweather decided to box it was over.
Referee stepping in
At the point the referee stopped the fight, the fight was over. Mayweather was connecting on haymaker after haymaker and McGregor was stumbling like a 9 month old. The disappointing thing, was he was never knocked down, which I would have liked to see. The other part is the referee called the match after Mayweather barely grazed him instead of after a meaty fist sandwich. Had he stopped the fight 10 seconds early it would have felt right, but the end felt anticlimactic.
I will note, that if hits to the face are as damaging as the science experts like to make it sound, the ref probably did save McGregor damage. He was certainly going to take more and more of a beating.
Take Aways
It was fun and I think I could watch boxing with some regularity if they didn’t make it so difficult to watch. The fighters would make less, but they really do need a commissioner of boxing, like Dana White for MMA. It would do wonders for the sport.
I wish I would have emptied my 401K for this fight and made a quick 20%. Everyone was right, there was no way McGregor was going to win this fight. Also, getting “lucky” and knocking Mayweather out is much harder said then done. Clearly, no one in the previous 49 fights were able to, not sure why so many thought McGregor would be able to.
It was fun and worth the $25 that I spent on the fight. It was a good time and a perfect warm up to the College Football season this weekend.
