Girl of the Week

To start the New Year of 2009 off right, I present to you the Girl of the Week:
Colombian starlet Lisa Daniels.

West Coast, No Coast

I am holding my nose while writing this post. That’s right, I am typing one-handed. I was trying to get my picks in for the NFL games this weekend and started looking at the standings for the west division teams in both conferences.

It is a really good thing that I haven’t eaten yet.

How was I not aware of this? How am I so out of touch with the NFL this year? When did the AFC and NFC West Division teams become so bad? The eight teams that we are talking about are Denver, San Diego, Kansas City, Oakland, Arizona, Seattle, San Francisco, and St. Louis. Oh, you may want to put down any sharp objects for the next few minutes and consider the following…

Of the eight teams in the two divisions, only Arizona and Denver currently have winning records.
Arizona will host a playoff game next weekend, and they have lost 3 of there last 4 games by a combined 130 – 41. I saw the games and the score does not indicate how bad the beatings really were.

Only one team – San Diego – has scored more points this year than their opponents. San Diego is 7 - 8 heading into today’s games.

Denver is the only team of the eight with a winning record against out-of-conference teams.

Of the eight teams, St. Louis, San Francisco and Oakland have already had coaching changes and only San Francisco has made a permanent change.

Holmgren was on a farewell tour already, so we are going to have a coaching change in Seattle.

When all is said and done, we could have as many as six of the teams change coaches this off-season -- only Shanahan and Wisenhunt appear safe.

Either San Diego or Denver will host a playoff game next week.

Not only is it likely to two 11 win teams will be on the road in the first week of the playoffs because of the putrid west coast teams, but it appears that at least one 11 win team is not going to make the playoffs!

I don’t know how I missed this. If not for the NY Jets going 0 – 4 against the NFC West this year, it would be a lot worse. This is awful and I understand why people complain about the division structure being bad for sports and playoff seeding.

I should point out that I am happy with the divisional/conference structure in sports. Win your division and you should get an opportunity to move on. Don’t win your division and I am not sure that you deserve to be considered for a championship run. I have been very consistent about this position in Pro football, college football, and baseball. Wildcard teams are really only there because of television money and I think it devalues sports championships.

Having said that, even I can’t believe how bad the west coast teams are! I know that this stuff is cyclical, but come on…these teams are awful. I will steal from others with this closing but all eight teams should just ride off into the sunset. Since they are on the west coast, that simply means drowning in the Pacific and erasing both divisions.

Why the NFL Rules!

This will be an awful post. Hell, just look at the picture of that water retention poster boy to the left. I have no coherent thought to express, just a few random thoughts on a College Football Bowl season that is both surprisingly exciting and amazingly depressing to this point.

We aren't even half way through the 34 bowl games scheduled for this year and I am already peeved. Oh yeah, 68 of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision's (FBS) 119 schools are playing in bowl games this year and we are only on game 11.

Remarkable.

THIS is the result of a meaningful regular season? Really?

What did BYU fans do for fun while in Las Vegas last week? What idiot thought that was a great idea? I understand that alot of this is due to conference affiliations, but shouldn't someone at the Las Vegas bowl have thought about calling Boise or El Paso and working out a trade?

I am watching the Emerald Bowl right now. Why? How the hell do I know. Not only do I not care about either team, but I am enraged that we won't even know who the better team is at the end of this game. Miami has five suspended players and might as well be playing on California's campus. Why did one of my two current man crushes suspend the players? Who cares. THE GAME DOESN'T MATTER! Miami is going to be a college football powerhouse again very soon, but we will never know based on this game.

By the way, the reason that I love Randy Shannon so much is that 1) the former players love what they are seeing in recruiting and in talent, and that means a lot; and 2) I LOVE his recruiting philosophy...no losers. He only recruits kids that have won a lot at every level. He has 6 freshmen on the roster from the 15-0 National Champion Miami Northwestern team. I am a huge fan!

Notre Dame finally won a bowl game. Yeah. Do you think another team in the country played a more important exhibition than the Irish? How could you tell? Jimmy Claussen was in that game forever. Charlie Weiss looked more scared for his job coaching that game than he has at any other point in his tenure there.

If we just let West Virginia play bowl games, they would be the best team in the country. I don't know what that is about, but if you draw WVU in a bowl, buckle up.

Are you aware that Florida State won 11 consecutive bowl games from 1985 t0 1995. Damn! Oh, and they pounded an overrated Wisconsin team today. You know, college football is so much better when all three Florida teams are relevant.

How important can bowl games really be? This is a serious question. We are lead to believe that the regular season is made more valuable by the current bowl structure and the progression to a championship is that much better. But let me ask this question...how often do you see coaches taking new jobs PRIOR to the bowl game being played? It happens all of the time! This year, Florida and USC have lost coordinators prior to their games. FLORIDA IS IN THE BCS CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! I will never understand this.

So, why did I start this post? Well, because next years BCS standings will be partially driven by what happens in these 34 exhibition games. Remember, the first human polls come out before any team takes the field, and as much as people would have you believe otherwise, the human polls are the basis for the BCS. The computers calculate strength of schedule based on perceived strength of teams...from human polls.

Let's look at a couple of teams from this year's preseason top 25. Georgia was the #1 team in the country based on a bowl win over an over matched Hawaii team and a large number of returning starters. Other overrated teams included Clemson, Auburn and Missouri who all had impressive bowl showings all ended up in the preseason top 12. What can you look forward to next year? Notre Dame as a preseason top 10 team. Save us.

I already flip-flopped on the BCS didn't I? Good. I hate it even more today.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

From the three of us at We Make It Rain, to all of our loyal readers and commenters, we wish you a very Merry Christmas!!! Have a great time doing all of your lovely family things. I will report back later on two specific things about Christmas: 1) presents; and 2) Santa Con, which I just recently discovered.

Girl of the Week

For this lovely Christmas week, I present to you, the equally lovely Brit, Louise Redknapp.

Never Forget Landry (NFL)

As the legacy of Texas Stadium comes to a close this season, let's take a moment to remember one of the Godfathers of the NFL - Tom Landry. Forget Jerry Jones and the makeshift catastrophe they call the Cowboys now, and remember the Man that invented the 4-3 and changed the NFL forever.

He was a couple of plays from having the NFL's most prized item being named after him...

1. Invented the 4-3 with Sam Huff moving back 2-3 yards from center and causing all kinds of blocking problems.

2. This was to counter his peer's design (the original zone blocking running scheme) - the "run to daylight" plan of Vince Lombardi.

3. A couple of Famous Quotes:

"When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn."

"Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.

4. Although I am a Cowboys fan through and through, I hope Jerry Jones has a special seat in hell for his rude dismissal of Landry.

5. 29 years - Head Coach of the Dallas Cowboys: 270 wins - 2 Superbowls.

Quote from another NFL great - Mike Ditka
"He ways always the epitome of Fairness, Honesty, and Integrity"

He also faced a much smaller NLF at the time, but one that featured the greatest coach of all time and the great running back of all time. He did win 2 superbowls in that time.

S0 - Farewell to Texas Stadium and - How 'Bout them Cowboys?!!!

The Next Katie Holmes

Before I start the crux of this post, I want to write first about my morning. I get into the car, start driving for my 45-50 minute commute. I enjoy the silence for a bit, then I decide to turn on the radio. I am not yet advanced enough to have purchased satellite radio. This is for a number of reasons: (1) I don't want to pay for radio; (2) I listen to some specific sports talk shows (both national and local); (3) I am tangential friends with one of the local morning DJs, so I like listening to his show; and (4) I love my CDs (and everything else downloaded to an iPod).

Anyway, this morning, I turn on the radio and it is already pre-set to a station I don't normally listen to, but I must have been listening to last night. I immediately recognize the song, at its beginning, and the lyrics flow:

OPP, how can I explain it
I'll take you frame by frame it
To have y'all jumpin' shall we singin' it.
O is for Other, P is for People scratchin' temple
The last P, well, that's not that simple.

Just a good start to the day. Anyway, I am doing with sharing.

Earlier this week, TMZ had photos of the not-so-heterosexual Rod working out and other things. (Is that more PC that Gay-Rod?). I would provide a link to the pics, except for the fact that I don't go to TMZ.com. (I happened to see the information on With Leather, I believe). Nevertheless, once A-Rod appeared on TMZ, I realized one thing ...

HE IS THE MALE VERSION OF KATIE HOLMES


Think about it. He is incredibly talented at what he does (just so long as it isn't October), yet ends up chasing after someone he idolized for being sexy while growing up (maybe even had her picture on his wall), takes the opportunity to start dating her even though she isn't even close to being a portion of what she used to be, his new significant other practices a widely criticized/humorized sect of a religion, she is bat-shit crazy, and yet, this relationship makes him even more of a celebrity, even to the point where photos of him working out make celebrity websites and mags.

Now granted, Kabbalah and Scientology are completely different animals, but if in the above paragraph you replaced any reference of A-Rod with Katie Holmes and all references to Madonna with Tom Cruise, it is still the same paragraph.

A-Rod, do yourself a favor and heed the warning signs. Look at poor Katie Holmes and don't be doomed to repeat history.

And for those that are going to ask, yes I wrote this simply for the line, "A-Rod is the male version of Katie Holmes", well that and to post the Katie Holmes pictures.