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Clippers Get Trashed!

Hayward's hair is explained.
The Utah Jazz just sent the Clippers home in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.  How?  The Clippers on paper seem to have a big three:  Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and Deandre Jordan.  Each are arguably one of the best 3 guys at their position in the whole league.  How they managed to lose in the first round to Gordon Hayward and an aging Joe Johnson still baffles me.  They should be competing for titles, but instead they are dumpster diving, yet again.

So should the Clippers break their nucleus and start over?  The truth is the Clippers don’t have an option.  Both Chris Paul and Blake Griffin  have player options and can return if they want to.  The Clippers themselves may not have a choice.  But aside from that, I think they should keep their core together and at least be good.

I understand that everyone wants to think they are striving to put together a championship team, but only one team wins.  Being a Jazz fan, they never won a championship, but 18 years of being really good was still a ton of fun.  Blowing up the Clippers and starting over sounds good, but in reality they will be mediocre bottom feeders.  The Clippers are putting together fifty win seasons and because of injuries haven’t had that many great chances.  The choice between winning 50+ games with an outside shot of making the Western Conference Finals, sounds a lot better, than 5-6 years of trying to rebuild and sign a Chris Paul and Blake Griffin type player.  Also, don’t forget one big fact:

The Clippers are the Clippers

If you think you are going to rebuild this team into a winning team think again.  This is by far and away the most success they have ever had and I doubt they get back to this level anytime soon.  You have the Donald Sterling curse, karma, plus your owner is a bafoon who couldn’t even realize the iPhone was going to be a success.  Stick it out and until you only win 40 games a year, enjoy them as long as you can.

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Justice League


Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Flash, Aquaman
The Justice League Trailer hit the internet and expectations for DC’s new blockbuster were set. It’s a great trailer and I am all in on seeing this movie. I am married with four kids, so I only see about 4-5 movies a year: my birthday, Valentines, anniversary, and 1 or 2 movies with the kids. So, the fact that this movie is in the top 5 movies this year says something. Maybe not too much, because, without a trailer I was going to go to this movie either way.  I am all in on Batman, whether, it is the Gold Standard (Dark Knight Series) or even the bad ones (Clooney, and Kilmer).  The trailer introduced the characters, showed you some action, made you laugh, and we didn’t have to see Superman.

My first takeaway, they nailed Aquaman. I am not familiar with Aquaman, besides snippets of the Justice League cartoon my son watches. He is like Thor in the Avengers, not afraid of a good fight, light hearted, and likes to drink.  Previously, Aquaman had never appealed to me.  After this trailer, you might as well sign me up to purchase his standalone movie as well.

Batman takes center stage as the architect of the Justice League.  His toys are incredible and his Batmobile wrecks havoc.  There is a scene where he is fighting an alien robot and he takes him out by grapple hooking into the robot pummeling it. This reminds me of his move in the video game Injustice, which is a nice easter egg.  The fighting seems a lit bit more superheroish, than the Dark Knight movies, that were more realistic.  Bruce Wayne himself actually answers the questions of whether or not he is a superhero, which is my favorite line in the trailer.  

There is no Superman to be seen.  I didn’t realize this until after the trailer was over.  They do show a picture of Lois Lane, but other than that nothing about Superman. Surprisingly, Doomsday killed him for longer than a couple of days, but I know it won’t be forever.  I am sure though, that he wouldn’t have died, but Batman had thrown him around and beat him like the lesser overhyped meathead that he is before his sacrificial death.

The villain?  I have no idea.   The truth of the matter is that I am not familiar with any Justice League villains, besides Lex Luthor and The Joker.  Who is a big enough force to need the entire Justice League?  Stereotypically, it will be an alien race with some all-powerful creature.  This will be good enough, as long as there are plenty of henchmen for them to tear through, and an actual Villain with form.  If we get another cosmic force like in the Green Lantern, I wil boycott DC movies.  Loki, was a great villain in the Avenger’s movie, I hope DC delivers.  A good movie can go to great with a good character villain.

Lastly, it seems that this movie is breaking away from the darker themes.  This seems much more like a Marvel movie.  They have injected humor into the diaglogue, which seemed more absent from the previous movies.  The overall themes may be darker, but it seems to be a replica of the Avenger movie.  Which is fantastic, because I love the Avenger’s movies.  I Can’t wait for this movie, besides when Superman will surely show up in the end and like a Captain Planet episode save the day.  

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How Belichick will attack Atlanta in Super Bowl 51

Belichick on Mike Lombardi

Mike Lombardi for the Ringer:

“Belichick’s first quarter will be all about building a lead and learning Atlanta’s plan. Taking away Julio Jones, eliminating the big play, setting the edge, creating the lead early, stopping the run — those are not independent thoughts. Belichick ties them together and makes them work together. If football were as simple as “taking away what the opponent does best,” then we wouldn’t be constantly bemoaning the lack of quality NFL coaching. Bill Belichick has lasted this long because he knows football is more complicated than that.”

I love listening to Mike Lombardi and reading him.  He spent  time working with Bill Belichick in Cleveland with the Browns and in New England with the Patriots.  He seems to be very knowledgeable and Belichick himself said that Lombardi is one of the smartest football guys.  I’ll be looking for this gameplan on Sunday to see if he was right, and to see if the Patriots will be able to execute the gameplan.

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Ranking Patriots Super Bowl Teams


Charles Curtis for USA Today:

7.  2003 (against Carolina Panthers)
“they just barely eked out a Super Bowl win over Jake Delhomme (he had a pretty great game, to be fair) and the Carolina Panthers.”

6.  2001 (against St. Louis)
“The first team of the dynasty obviously sits toward the bottom because Brady was a rookie pushed into action when Drew Bledsoe went down.

5.  2011 (Giants)
“Another team that caught fire at the end of the season, only to run into the New York Giantsfor a second time in the Super Bowl. But the defense was just average, finishing 15th in points allowed that year.”

4.  2016 (Falcons)
“Are they really that good or is the competition weak? That explains why they’re smack dab in the middle of this list.”

3.  2014 (Seahawks)
“…Yes, they were one play away from losing the Super Bowl. But it’s hard to argue with a defense that could do it all”

2.  2004 (Eagles)
“When I think of the Patriots dynasty, this is the team I’ll think of.”

1.  2007 (Giants)
“If the 16-0 Pats hadn’t run into the Giants’ pass rush and the Helmet Catch, this squad would be in the conversation for greatest team in NFL history.”

Going back over these Super Bowls you realize that the Patriots have never won an “easy” Super Bowl.  All of these Super Bowls were games late into the 4th quarter, being decided by 4 points or less.  The endings of the last 3 Super Bowls were some of the best Super Bowl finishes, in terms of excitement.  All three had unbelievable catches in do or die situations against the Patriots.  Luckily for the Patriots, Pete Carroll refused to use Marshawn Lynch and Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson.  This has been an amazing run for Belichick and Brady and they have given us great games, lets hope that Sunday is no different.

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Carolina Panthers: Where it went wrong

Projections

After posting a 15-1 win season in 2015, the Carolina Panthers were predicted to go 13-3 or 12-4 in preseason predictions.  They didn’t.  They fell short of preseason predictions and was analysts biggest miss. Where did it all go wrong?

David Newton for ESPN wrote:

The foundation that helped Carolina to an NFL-best 17-2 record (including playoffs) and a trip to the Super Bowl in 2015 for the most part remains intact. Blame an inexperienced secondary with three new starters, catastrophic injuries on the offensive line and inconsistent play by reigning NFL MVP Cam Newton for the huge step backward this past season. Middle linebacker Luke Kuechly’s absence in the final six games after suffering a concussion didn’t help either.

Offense

Their offense was all over the place.  One week they scored 46 points then the next week they scored 10.  They scored 25 points or more 7x and 16 points or fewer 6x’s.  Last year those numbers were completely different.  They scored 25 points or more 13x’s and under 16 points only once, which was the Super Bowl.  Without drastic changes to personnel, I would still say their transformation was more substantial than Bruce to Caitlyn Jenner’s.  Cam Newton, the offensive line, and losing Greg Norman headlined their decline.

Cam Newton

If Cam Newton was Superman last year, then consider him Robin’s sidekick after this year, his stats were pedestrian and his inconsistency showed up in the win column.

He had career lows in completion %, average yards per completion, QBR, and rating. He ranked last in the league in completion %, below Brock Osweiler and Fitzpatrick.  His touchdowns dropped from 35 to 19, and he threw more interceptions than any other year since his rookie season.  Besides a poor offensive line, what’s the problem?

Personally, I think what happened to Newton this year is the same thing that happened to Rocky III.  Rocky was pounded by Clubber Lang because he lost his eye of the tiger.  Cam was too well fed and lost his hunger.  He spent more time complaining about refs not calling hits on him and less time preparing and focusing on how to make plays.

Cam also complained that football wasn’t fun anymore.  Football isn’t fun?  That to me, explains his mental makeup.  He loves game day and being a superstar.  When the going gets tough Cam complains.  He needs to learn to enjoy the grind and be consistent.  Which is sad because has the Lebron James body of the NFL and this year he played like Dellavedova.

Offensive Line

Michael Oher, the only offensive lineman your wife might know, Ryan Kalil and Gino Gradkowski all were injured in the year.  These losses were too much and they weren’t able to protect Cam which helped result in Cam’s poor year.

Defensive Backs

David Newton for ESPN wrote:

2016 grade: D-plus. I debated going with a C-minus here because rookie corners James Bradberry and Daryl Worley showed marked improvement in the second half of the season. But it’s hard to ignore that starter Bene’ Benwikere was released after a Week 4 loss to Atlanta in which Julio Jones had 300 yards receiving. It’s hard to ignore that the corners played a major role in a 1-5 start from which the Panthers never fully recovered. It’s also hard to ignore the Panthers still ranked 28th in pass defense a year after ranking 11th in 2015 with Norman.

This says it all.

The Panthers were unable to build upon the success of 2015.  If Cam can humble himself, get back to work, and revive his career like the Italian Stallion, they can return to prominence.  Cam has all the tools, lets just see if he has the discipline.