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March 31, 2015

Breaking Down the Best QBs By Decade

Who is the best quarterback? It's a classic sports question, and it's fun to think about. You can do detailed analysis, or you can argue with your friends over fries and a beer.

After a few beers (and plenty of fries), maybe you agree to disagree on Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers, and you remember guys like Joe Montana, who might have been better than any of them. And your buddy brings up Randall Cunningham; man, no one was more fun to watch than Cunningham. You never saw Johnny Unitas, but your grandfather swears he was the best ever. Or maybe he says Unitas was the best, but no one threw the deep ball like Joe Namath. Hey, we can talk about quarterbacks all night.

I have studied NFL history throughout my adult life, and I've talked football with so many people I've lost count. Below is the condensed version of what I'd say from that first plate of fries until last call. We'll go by decade, beginning in the 1950s, which is roughly when the quarterback position became what it is today. And for each decade, we'll name the best downfield passer. This is not only who threw the best deep ball, but who really used it as a weapon. Who made you worry about the deep pass?

We'll also cover the most accurate passer. There's no one statistic that captures this. Accurate passers have high completion percentage, but they also have low interception rates, and they hit receivers in stride, facilitating yards after the catch and high average per attempt. Accuracy doesn't show up in one category, it shows up in every category.

Perhaps no QB is more exciting than the one who can attack you with his legs as well as his arm. For each decade, we'll name not only the best running QB, but also the greatest dual-threat, the player who could beat you through the air and on the ground.

Few things are more frustrating to fans than watching their quarterback get sacked because he holds onto the ball too long. Whether he has a slow release, trouble reading coverages and making decisions, or just poor movement in the pocket, some quarterbacks kill their teams' field position taking coverage sacks. On the other side of the spectrum are the players who never seem to take unnecessary sacks: quick release, evading pressure, whatever it takes. For each decade, we'll name the QB best at avoiding sacks.

Maybe the most intense question in any QB debate is who you'd want at the end of a close game. With your timeouts gone and the clock running out, who's going to drive you into scoring position? From the '50s to the present, we'll look at the best two-minute drill of each generation.

And of course, we won't skip the obvious: every decade's best overall QB. At the end of each section, I'll add a few notes, including close calls and explanations.

1950s

Best Downfield Passer: Otto Graham or Norm Van Brocklin

Most Accurate Passer: Otto Graham

Best Runner: Tobin Rote

Best Run/Pass Dual-Threat: Bobby Layne

Best Avoiding Sacks: Norm Van Brocklin

Best Two-Minute Drill: Johnny Unitas

Best Overall QB: see below

It's hard to identify the greatest quarterbacks of the 1950s, because of a quirk in timing. Otto Graham retired in 1955, and John Unitas debuted in 1956. Graham and Unitas were the two best QBs of the decade, but only playing about five years each. Van Brocklin was probably the greatest QB who played throughout the decade.

One name that doesn't show up here is Y.A. Tittle. He was a highly accurate passer, but not on the same level as Graham and Van Brocklin. Tittle also had three of his best seasons in the early '60s. The best QB of this era not in the Hall of Fame is the Giants' Charlie Conerly, followed by Rote. Van Brocklin and Rote are the only quarterbacks to win a major league championship with two different teams: Van Brocklin with the Rams (1951) and Eagles (1960), Rote with the Lions (1957) and Chargers (1963).

I'm not doing half-decades here, but the best quarterback from 1955-64 was certainly John Unitas.

1960s

Best Downfield Passer: Joe Namath

Most Accurate Passer: Bart Starr

Best Runner: Fran Tarkenton

Best Run/Pass Dual-Threat: Fran Tarkenton

Best Avoiding Sacks: Joe Namath

Best Two-Minute Drill: Johnny Unitas

Best Overall QB: Johnny Unitas or Sonny Jurgensen

Some of the names here are obvious: Namath, Starr, Tarkenton, and Unitas are still famous fifty years later. Sonny Jurgensen is not.

Most passing yards, 1960-69:

1. John Unitas, 26,548
2. Sonny Jurgensen, 26,222
3. Fran Tarkenton, 23,140

Most passing TDs:

1. Sonny Jurgensen, 207
2. Fran Tarkenton, 186
3. Len Dawson, 183

Best passer rating:

1. Bart Starr, 87.7
2. Len Dawson, 87.2
3. Sonny Jurgensen, 82.4

Sonny did everything well. He threw for yardage and touchdowns, kept his INT rate low, and was universally hailed as the best pure passer of his generation. Unitas had a greater career, but some of his best seasons were in the '50s. For the 1960s, you wouldn't go wrong with either one.

I listed Joe Namath as the finest downfield thrower of the decade, and he probably was. But if you wanted to argue for Raiders QB Daryle Lamonica, the Mad Bomber, I couldn't mount a compelling argument to the contrary. They were both phenomenal big-play QBs, maybe the two most exciting passers in the high-octane AFL.

In between decades, Fran Tarkenton was the best quarterback from 1965-74.

1970s

Best Downfield Passer: Terry Bradshaw

Most Accurate Passer: Ken Stabler or Roger Staubach

Best Runner: Bobby Douglass

Best Run/Pass Dual-Threat: Roger Staubach

Best Avoiding Sacks: Jim Hart

Best Two-Minute Drill: Roger Staubach

Best Overall QB: Roger Staubach

This was a great decade for mobile quarterbacks. Bobby Douglass wasn't an NFL-level passer, but Staubach, Bradshaw, Fran Tarkenton, Ken Anderson, Archie Manning, Greg Landry, and Steve Grogan all rank among the great dual-threat QBs. Every one of those seven ranks among the top 20 rushing QBs in NFL history. All rushed for over 2,000 yards in their careers and averaged over five yards per attempt, all except Manning rushed for at least 20 TDs, and all except Landry passed for over 20,000 yards and 100 touchdowns.

Perhaps the most underrated, and unjustly forgotten, QB of this era was Jim Hart. Today, Air Coryell means Dan Fouts and the San Diego Chargers. But in the mid-70s, Don Coryell coached the Cardinals, featuring Hart, Mel Gray, and Terry Metcalf. It was the most exciting offense outside of Oakland, and Hart was the on-field general. Only Tarkenton passed for more yards in the '70s, and Hart took 700 fewer sack yards than Tarkenton. Hart sometimes threw interceptions because he got rid of the ball when pressure closed in, but he also saved his team a lot of yardage.

Sticking with the Coryell theme, Dan Fouts was the best QB from 1975-84.

1980s

Best Downfield Passer: Dan Fouts or Dan Marino

Most Accurate Passer: Joe Montana

Best Runner: Randall Cunningham

Best Run/Pass Dual-Threat: Joe Montana or John Elway

Best Avoiding Sacks: Dan Marino

Best Two-Minute Drill: Joe Montana

Best Overall QB: Joe Montana

I may be wrong about the best downfield passer. Certainly, conventional wisdom says Fouts or Marino, and that's probably right. But in the late '80s, no one did it quite like Boomer Esiason. The nickname had nothing to do with his passing style — he was called Boomer before he was born, because he kicked so much during his mother's pregnancy — but it would have fit. In the '80s, Esiason averaged the second-most yards per completion (to Jay Schroeder) and second-highest TD% (to Marino).

People forget that Joe Montana could run. He didn't run as often as Elway or as dynamically as Randall Cunningham, but for the total package, he was it. The 49ers were going to win Super Bowl XIX anyway, but Montana's running in that game befuddled and demoralized the Dolphins' defense. Montana's two-minute drill in Super Bowl XXIII is among the most famous in history, and his game-winning TD pass to John Taylor remains the latest lead change in Super Bowl history, just :34 remaining. John Elway and Dan Marino ran great two-minute drills, as well.

The best non-HOF QB of this era was Ken Anderson in the early '80s, Cunningham or Esiason in the late '80s. From 1985-94, you've got half a dozen Hall of Famers in or near their primes, but the very best in those years was Dan Marino. He threw 260 TD passes in that 10-year span. Esiason ranks second, with 204.

1990s

Best Downfield Passer: see below

Most Accurate Passer: Steve Young

Best Runner: Randall Cunningham

Best Run/Pass Dual-Threat: Steve Young

Best Avoiding Sacks: Dan Marino

Best Two-Minute Drill: Dan Marino

Best Overall QB: Steve Young

Naming the best downfield passer of the 1990s was the hardest choice in this whole project. I considered a dozen different players, narrowed it down to John Elway, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, and Steve Young, and gave up. Gun to my head, I might take Young, even though we remember him more for his short-passing efficiency.

In the '90s, Steve Young was the best at everything. While true, this is a little boring. Let's find the second-bests. For downfield passer, Jim Kelly's short throws to Andre Reed and Thurman Thomas were balanced by deep bombs to James Lofton and Don Beebe. Most accurate might be Troy Aikman, and the best dual threat would revert to Cunningham. As best overall QB, there's a case to be made for Aikman or Elway or Marino, but I'll go with three-time MVP Brett Favre. He's also the top quarterback from 1995-2004.

Cunningham and Marino are the first QBs listed at the same position (Best Runner and Best Avoiding Sacks, respectively) in two decades. Cunningham was the greatest running quarterback before Michael Vick, and he was a better passer than Vick. Marino's sack rates, relative to league average, are the best in recorded history. Famously slow, he sensed pressure well and had the quickest release of his generation. I know some fans still think sacks are all about the offensive line. It's not that the line doesn't matter — of course it does — but Marino was the best at avoiding sacks in 1983, and he was the best in 1999. Those teams had completely different offensive lines. If you really believe the Dolphins had the best line in the NFL for 17 years in a row, and it suddenly collapsed when Marino retired, maybe you're not thinking this through.

2000s

Best Downfield Passer: Peyton Manning

Most Accurate Passer: Peyton Manning

Best Runner: Michael Vick

Best Run/Pass Dual-Threat: Donovan McNabb

Best Avoiding Sacks: Peyton Manning

Best Two-Minute Drill: Peyton Manning

Best Overall QB: Peyton Manning

Most of these are obvious. The one I suspect people might dispute is best two-minute drill. People regard Tom Brady as a better clutch player because of his results in the playoffs, but at the end of games, no one equaled Manning. He is the greatest comeback QB of all time. Peyton has the most game-winning drives of any QB in history, but it's not just the sheer numbers, it's the magnitude of the comebacks. Just between 2000-09, Manning led:

* One of the two 17-point comebacks in the last 5:00 of a game
* And the other one
* The biggest comeback in Conference Championship Game history (18 points)
* Five straight wins after trailing in the fourth quarter
* A 15-point second-half comeback
* A 17-point fourth quarter to come back from 10 down
* The game when Bill Belichick was so scared of Manning that he went for it on 4th-and-2 from his own 28-yard line

There are dozens more. A few of these are legendary: 21 points in 3 minutes MNF against the Bucs in '03, the AFC Championship against the Patriots, the biggest comeback in MNF history (2012) ... There are two distinct clutch situations: [1] big games, and [2] the late moments of close games. You might prefer Brady in the playoffs, but for a two-minute drill, you definitely want Peyton Manning.

I recently named my 2005-14 NFL All-Decade Team, with Manning edging Tom Brady and Drew Brees. It's the closest call in any of the half-decades.

2010s

Best Downfield Passer: Aaron Rodgers

Most Accurate Passer: Drew Brees or Peyton Manning

Best Runner: Cam Newton

Best Run/Pass Dual-Threat: Aaron Rodgers

Best Avoiding Sacks: Peyton Manning

Best Two-Minute Drill: Peyton Manning

Best Overall QB: Aaron Rodgers

Obviously, this decade is only half-over. With a few more years experience, Russell Wilson will probably become the finest dual-threat, and possibly surpass Newton as a runner. It's hard to see Andrew Luck or Wilson threatening Rodgers and Manning in the other categories, but it's not out of the question.

The closest call right now is most accurate passer. Brees and Manning are terrifically accurate, but so are Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. You could pick any of them and it would be reasonable. We'll probably have a clear answer by 2020.

Some of you, if you're interested in the history of the game, may wish to follow the chronology of the categories we've been tracking. Below are the same lists, by category rather than decade. I added two bonus categories, strongest arm and best pure passer.

Best Downfield Passer

1950s: Otto Graham or Norm Van Brocklin
1960s: Joe Namath or Daryle Lamonica
1970s: Terry Bradshaw
1980s: Dan Fouts, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason
1990s: Steve Young
2000s: Peyton Manning
2010s: Aaron Rodgers

Best downfield passer of all time: Terry Bradshaw

Most Accurate Passer

1950s: Otto Graham
1960s: Bart Starr
1970s: Roger Staubach or Ken Stabler
1980s: Joe Montana
1990s: Steve Young
2000s: Peyton Manning
2010s: Peyton Manning or Drew Brees

Most accurate passer of all time: Steve Young

Strongest Arm

1950s: Bobby Layne
1960s: Roman Gabriel
1970s: Terry Bradshaw
1980s: John Elway
1990s: Brett Favre or Jeff George
2000s: Michael Vick
2010s: Aaron Rodgers

Best arm in history: John Elway

Best Pure Passer

1950s: Norm Van Brocklin
1960s: Sonny Jurgensen
1970s: Kenny Anderson
1980s: Dan Marino
1990s: Dan Marino
2000s: Peyton Manning
2010s: Aaron Rodgers

Greatest pure passer: Sonny Jurgensen or Dan Marino

Best Pure Runner

1950s: Tobin Rote
1960s: Fran Tarkenton
1970s: Bobby Douglass
1980s: Randall Cunningham
1990s: Randall Cunningham
2000s: Michael Vick
2010s: Cam Newton

Greatest pure running quarterback: Michael Vick

Best Run/Pass Dual-Threat

1950s: Bobby Layne
1960s: Fran Tarkenton
1970s: Roger Staubach
1980s: Joe Montana or John Elway
1990s: Steve Young
2000s: Donovan McNabb
2010s: Aaron Rodgers

Most dangerous dual threat: Steve Young

Best Avoiding Sacks

1950s: Norm Van Brocklin
1960s: Joe Namath
1970s: Jim Hart
1980s: Dan Marino
1990s: Dan Marino
2000s: Peyton Manning
2010s: Peyton Manning

Best avoiding sacks: Dan Marino

Best Two-Minute Drill

1950s: Johnny Unitas
1960s: Johnny Unitas
1970s: Roger Staubach
1980s: Joe Montana
1990s: Dan Marino
2000s: Peyton Manning
2010s: Peyton Manning

Best two-minute drill of all time: Peyton Manning

Best Overall QB

1945-54: Otto Graham
1950-59: Norm Van Brocklin
1955-64: Johnny Unitas
1960-69: Johnny Unitas or Sonny Jurgensen
1965-74: Fran Tarkenton
1970-79: Roger Staubach
1975-84: Dan Fouts
1980-89: Joe Montana
1985-94: Dan Marino
1990-99: Steve Young
1995-04: Brett Favre
2000-09: Peyton Manning
2005-14: Peyton Manning
2010-14: Aaron Rodgers

Best quarterback of all time is a pretty big topic. Let's save that for the next time we go out for beer and fries.

Posted by Brad Oremland at 3:10 PM | Comments (11)

March 30, 2015

Final Four: The Finality of Incentive

After four-plus months of buckets, boards, blocks, and blown whistles, we've reduced the field of championship contenders to four. The goal for each is obviously the same ... be the ones holding up the trophy next Monday night. As far as favorites, Kentucky is above the rest of the field. But all of the participants will have their own reasons for completing the journey to a title. We'll hear about all of them before Saturday's action, from each side, from every angle. So, in my opinion, what motivation is driving each squad? Let's review (and preview) their roads in chronological order.

Wisconsin Badgers

This has been a tournament filled with reunions. Bo Ryan's team got reacquainted with Oregon in the Round of 32 ... exactly where they saw the Ducks one year ago. Bucky found themselves standing toe-to-toe with Arizona in the West Region Final ... exactly where (including the same metropolitan area) they same the Wildcats one year ago. Now, the Mad-town hoopsters will face Kentucky in the national semifinals ... exactly where they saw these Wildcats one year ago. So far, Groundhog Bracket has been good to the Badgers. Can they turn the fortunes and get out from under Big Blue Shadow this time?

What's at stake — Validation. For the last decade and a-half, this program has been more associated with slow, plodding play than national championship contention. A return to the national semis is eroding that myth. This squad can score (72.8 ppg) along with their propensity to defend (57.8 papg). Yes, their numbers aren't as convincing as Kentucky's, but they are in the ballpark. While many have been extolling the prolific offense of Notre Dame, Wisconsin's is actually better ... number one in the country, to be precise (1.20 pts per possession). The Irish were tied for second in that category (with Duke and Gonzaga at 1.18 pts per possession).

A championship would also validate two other entities. The first is Frank Kaminsky's decision to return to college. Along with the overwhelming opinion that his NBA draft stock has improved, Kaminsky could provide himself with the ultimate dream scenario of walking off the stage with trophy in hand. The second entity to benefit ... the Big Ten/Fourteen/looks like a 16. It has been 15 years since a member of the conference won a national title (no, I'm not lumping Maryland's '02 trophy into the mix). Since Michigan State championship in 2000, 10 teams for the league have advance to the national semis, with five ending up as the national runner-up. Meanwhile the Big East, ACC, and SEC have gobbled up most of the team accolades, leaving many to wonder if the Snow Belt can get a foothold in today's era of hoops. A Badger Banner may start to turn that perception.

Kentucky Wildcats

It was a fairly routine run through the tournament until Saturday's Regional Final. The young ‘Cats had more than a sweat against Notre Dame. Another clutch run in the waning minutes (they hit their final nine shots) kept them undefeated and on track for the title that has seemingly been in their hands since the opening tip against Grand Canyon University.

What's at stake — History ... from first jump to final whistle. Unless you've been on the International Space Station for the last few months, you've heard that this champion would be the first unbeaten one since the 1975-1976 Indiana Hoosiers. With history, prestige would follow right behind. An unblemished record would undoubtedly place them on the list of the greatest teams in the history of the sport (and many would put them well ahead of any other entrant).

But there's also expectation. The more victories this team notched, the more that the expectations have grown. Having a loss on the record may have dropped them on the "all-time great" list. Now, though, with the end of the road so close, a loss would certainly throw this squad near the top of the "best to have never won" list. Yes, their season would still be a great one. However, there will be so much expectation in Indianapolis that one in the "L" column would provide the ultimate anti-climactic ending. For my money, I don't think the pressure will get to them. I think John Calipari is playing with house money now that he's got his title. And to accomplish something today's coaching greats haven't ... that's just a bolder line on his resume.

Michigan State Spartans

The Spartans became the first (and only) top seed to make it through to Indianapolis. The start to their season, a 9-4 non-conference record that included a home loss to Texas Southern, wasn't horrible. However, compared to Michigan State standards, it was an underachievement. The team finished 12-6 during conference play, but a couple more home losses (to Illinois and Minnesota) still kept folks off balance. Once March and the Big Ten Tournament came along, Sparty hit a switch. They finally beat Maryland. They had a late lead against Wisconsin in the tourney final. Now, the run has continued into the NCAAs, including a run through some the of best of the ACC (Virginia and Louisville).

What's at stake — Revitalization. You can't mention the month of March without bringing up Tom Izzo. This is his 20th year at the helm in East Lansing, and he will now coach in his 7th national semifinal. Until last year, he had an astounding record where every four-year player in his program made at least one national semi. The string was broken in 2014, when the Spartans lost their Regional Final to (7th-seeded) Connecticut. This year's squad was still talented, but the graduations of Adreian Payne and Keith Appling were supposed set the team back a step.

But that hasn't phased the program. Travis Trice grew into his new role as the starting point guard. Denzel Valentine has stepped up his production through the campaign. And Brendan Dawson is fully healthy for this postseason run. These three are the core players that have led the revitalization of this season from the 9-5 start (after losing in the Big Ten opener). They have been key in the revitalization of MSU's tournament success (if you call a couple of misses a drop-off). And, like Wisconsin, this may be the group that revitalizes the ultimate source of pride across the Big Ten landscape. If you don't believe me, where do you think the conference stands after Ohio State's football championship?

Duke Blue Devils

After a few years away, Mike Krzyzewski has returned to his program to the status of Regional Champions. And, wouldn't you know it, the last time that happened, his team boarded a plane to Indianapolis. Since the championship run of 2010, the Blue Devils had alternated getting bounced in the second weekend with dropping out in first-game stunners. But after surviving a South Region that basically held to form, Duke will have to take on a "grit and grime" squad with a defensive mindset and a tournament-tested coach leading the way. Either way you slice it, the young nucleus of this team will see if their growing pains have paid off.

What's at stake — Legacy. The only thing I have on Kryzyewski is that I'm older than his tenure at Duke ... but not by that much. Over the last 30-plus years, no coach has been as consistently dominant as him. This tournament marks his 31st appearance while leading the Durham-based program. His 86 tourney wins are 21 clear of the duo holding down "second-winningest" status (I know, I know, different age with more games to play). And if Okafor, Winslow, Cook, Jones, and company can get their hands on the title, it'll mark the fifth for Coach. That may only be halfway to John Wooden's total of 10, but, in this era, that may be an even bigger accomplishment.

And there could be a side effect for Coach K's legacy. His first three title teams came along well before the "one and done" rule was implemented. The latest champion (2009-2010) primarily consisted of upperclassmen. Should this group finish the deed, it would be his first to feature at least one prominent "one and done" player (Jahlil Okafor). It would show that Krzyzewski, while not completely immersed, can adapt to the current culture of the game. When you look back on the history of any sport, that's the trait most legendary leaders have at their disposal.

So, the players are in place and the stage is set. Which motive will rule the weekend? Sit back, relax, and enjoy as the drama unfolds.

Posted by Jonathan Lowe at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2015

Outgrowing the Glass Slipper

The Sweet 16 is set and for the most part, it's not loaded with Cinderellas (unless you count 11-time national champion UCLA).

Nope, there are no real Cinderellas this year. Twenty years ago, Gonzaga and Wichita State would require glass slippers. Media would surround their campuses before this weekend as if Norman Dale and the Hickory Huskers showed up in Spokane or Wichita.

The sheer thought of putting a glass slipper on Mark Few's bunch is laughable now. It's getting that way very, very quickly for Gregg Marshall's Shockers, as well.

The fact that their arrival in the Sweet 16 created few ripples means simply, as programs, they've arrived. Sure, Butler had two amazing runs to the NCAA title game. Those runs put Butler in the Big East, which basketball-wise no longer makes the Bulldogs a mid-major program. VCU and George Mason had real Cinderella runs, but Gonazga has had real lasting power and Wichita State doesn't appear to be slacking off anytime soon.

Gonzaga has been the gold standard of mid-major power for the last two decades. Ever since Dan Monson's 1998 squad danced their way into the Elite Eight, Gonzaga has been a solid, relevant program; a major in a mid-major's resume. West Coast Conference? No biggie. UNLV won big in the old Big West. When you're good; you're good. No question about it.

And that's the miracle of Gonzaga. It hasn't mattered that their arena seats just 6,000, their conference isn't a power league or they've played fewer and fewer ranked teams each year. The Bulldogs justly earned a two seed and came out swinging from the gate, having little trouble dispatching of North Dakota State and simply punishing Iowa to reach the second weekend. They could go much, much further though. For one, Kevin Pangos is one of the best guards in America and is lethal from behind the arc. Second, Gonzaga is one of the few teams that can match Kentucky's interior size, with 6-10 Domantas Sabonas, 7-1 Polish giant Przemek Karnowski and (ironically) 6-10 Kentucky transfer and leading scorer Kyle Wiltjer. Teams will have to shoot extremely well from the perimeter and force Gonzaga's front-court into foul trouble to take down the Bulldogs.

As for Wichita State, taking down Kansas was obviously some pretty sweet icing to cap off the first weekend of March Madness. It's nothing new, though, for the Shockers to take the court and perform high on the brightest stage. The past two seasons for Wichita State include a trip to the Final Four and a 35-1 season; an eyelash away from taking down the eventual national runner-up. Now, here's Wichita in the Sweet 16 again, proving that they're not a flash in the pan, as pundits remarked this was a down year for the Shockers (as if it's easy to go up from 35-1).

Similar to Gonzaga, the Shockers do it with guard play. Fred VanVleet has had a remarkable career in a Shocker uniform, and he's still a junior. VanVleet and senior guards Ron Baker and Tekele Cotton are the nucleus of this squad. They play angry. They have tremendous heart. And, amazingly, given all of their success, they have chips on their shoulders. To put it simply, the Shockers have stayed relevant simply because the team believes that in the eyes of so many, they still aren't.

Wichita doesn't blow people away statistically. They are small in size and could have a lot of trouble with Kentucky's interior presence, should they manage to get by ACC tournament champion Notre Dame. Let's face it, anyone that can take down Duke and North Carolina in back-to-back nights isn't going to be a pushover. But Wichita could do it; simply because no team resembles the attitude of their coach as much as the Shockers do. Gregg Marshall didn't come from an extensive coaching tree; he had to scrap, claw and fight his way up to being a head coach and then, after consistently winning at Winthrop, found his home in Wichita. His team resembles him; a group of scrappy kids who were passed over by the power conference schools, only to fight their way into the national spotlight and prove their worth time and time again. Baker dreamed of playing for Kansas. Last Sunday, he proved he was as good, if not better, than the guards wearing the jersey he once coveted.

Twenty years ago, Gonzaga had won exactly two conference championships. Wichita State hadn't been in the NCAA tournament for seven straight years. Neither school was anything but a struggling mid-major program. Though Gonzaga's earned it for years now, while Wichita made their emphatic statement last Sunday, they both share the same title as we head into the regional semifinals.

Majors.

Posted by Jean Neuberger at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2015

NASCAR Top 10 Power Rankings: Week 5

Note: the quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Kevin Harvick — Harvick finished second in the Auto Club 00, extending his amazing streak with his eighth consecutive top-two finish. He continues to lead the Sprint Cup points standings, and holds a 28-point cushion over Joey Logano.

"Who's going to stop me in my quest to defend my Cup championship?" Harvick said. "It appears no one is willing to step up. In the last eight races, I've won four times and finished second four times. I win and I place; is anyone else going to 'show?'"

2. Joey Logano — Logano finished seventh at California as Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski took the win.

"Brad stole that win from Kurt Busch," Logano said. "Luckily for Brad, Kyle Larson's bumper flew off, bringing out the caution that Brad needed. A bumper is real debris, debris you can actually see. Can something invisible, like a stiff wind, necessitate a yellow flag? NASCAR would likely say 'Yes.' I guess that would be called a 'da breeze" caution."

3. Jimmie Johnson — Johnson finished ninth at Fontana, posting his third top-10 of the year. He is fourth in the points standings, 66 out of first.

"It was a solid day for Hendrick Motorsports," Johnson said, "but the return of Kurt Busch has made Stewart-Haas Racing a real powerhouse. Busch has really been on fire since his reinstatement. It appears the line between being outlawed and being the 'Outlaw' is a significant one. But is Busch really a threat to win the Sprint Cup championship. Until he's holding the Cup, I'm not convinced. So he's innocent until proven guilty."

4. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. — Earnhardt posted his fourth top-10 finish of the year with a sixth at Fontana, rebounding strongly from his last-place result in Phoenix.

"I lost a lot of track position," Earnhardt said, "when I got stuck behind Greg Biffle on a late restart. There's nothing worse that getting stuck behind a slow car on a restart, except for getting stuck behind the wheel of a Roush Fenway Racing car."

5. Martin Truex, Jr. — Truex's hot start to the season continued with an eighth in the Auto Club 500. He has five consecutive top 10's and is fifth in the points standings, 33 out of first.

"Kurt Busch won the pole for Sunday's race, Truex said. "I asked Kurt's ex-girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll, about the race, and, not surprisingly, she said, 'He started it.'

"It was a wild finish at Fontana. And to capitalize on that result, Furniture Row is offering their own 'wild finish,' a tiger-striped design on a coffee table."

6. Brad Keselowski — Keselowski passed Kurt Busch on the final lap to seize the win in a dramatic Auto Club 500. Keselowski took our tires during the final caution, giving him the necessary advantage on the Fontana track's abrasive surface.

"I apologize if I made Kurt hit the wall," Keselowski said. "He should consider himself lucky, that it's only one wall and not four that he's dealing with."

7. Ryan Newman — Newman finished fifth in the Auto Club 400, posting his third consecutive top-five result. He is seventh in the Sprint Cup points standings, 63 behind Kevin Harvick.

"There were a lot of mysterious cautions thrown on Sunday in California," Newman said. "That surely didn't make Kurt Busch happy. Kurt may complain about 'yellow flags being raised,' as opposed to his girlfriends, who are concerned about all the red flags raised."

8. Kurt Busch — Busch started on the pole at California and hand a win in hand until a late caution presented Brad Keselowski the opportunity to take four tires. Keselowski passed Busch on the final green-white-checkered finish while Busch brushed the wall trying to regain position.

"You may say I hit the wall," Busch said, "but I deny it.

"As conspiracy theories go, my favorite is the one that says NASCAR threw the cautions to prevent me from winning. Sure, they granted me a waiver for the Chase, but all those yellows served as 'wavers' to keep me out of the Chase."

9. Jeff Gordon — Gordon finished tenth at California as Hendrick Motorsports placed three cars in the top 10.

"I counted at least three 'phantom' cautions in Sunday's race," Gordon said. "And you know that means: if there are 'phantoms,' then there are 'ghosts.' And that's bad news for NASCAR, because this sport just got even whiter."

10. Paul Menard — Menard recorded his best finish of the year with a fourth in the Auto Club 400. He is ninth in the points standings, 73 out of first.

"Richard Childress could be kicking himself for letting Kevin Harvick leave after the 2013 season," Menard said. "But at some point, even if something or someone has been getting under your skin, you just have to 'let it go.' I think Richard exemplifies that very well."

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2015

Chris Borland and the Future of Head Injuries

I suppose I'm late to this story. It was big last week, and now we've moved on. When Chris Borland retired from the NFL after a successful rookie season, I didn't have to write about it, because everyone was talking about it already, and what I believed, many people were already saying. Why speak when you've got nothing to add to the conversation?

But now, Borland is drifting toward the back page, or perhaps off the page entirely. And I'd like us to keep considering this uncomfortable topic a while longer.

Chris Borland was born in late 1990, the day after Christmas. He grew up in Ohio, a multi-sport athlete, then attended the University of Wisconsin, where he played football and track and field. As a football player, he was Big Ten Rookie of the Year in 2009 and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in 2013. The San Francisco 49ers selected him in the third round of the 2014 NFL Draft.

Borland began the year as a reserve, backing up all-pro linebackers NaVorro Bowman and Patrick Willis. After both starters got injured, Borland entered the starting lineup beginning in Week 7. He played brilliantly. Borland led the 49ers in tackles, intercepted two passes, and sacked Peyton Manning. In Week 15, Borland suffered a season-ending ankle injury.

So Borland had excellent statistics ... even though he only played half the season. Literally, he started eight games out of 16. Every week, we saw a rising star. In his first start, Borland led the team in tackles and sacked Manning. The next game, he made 15 solo tackles. Fifteen! Then 11. The next game "only" 9 tackles, but with 2 INTs, including the game-clinching interception. On it went ... he had two more games with double-digit solo tackles, and in only half a season's work, he ranked 12th in the NFL in tackles and finished fourth in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting.

When Willis retired after the season, Borland was poised to take his place in the starting lineup. Except that a week later, Borland himself hung up the cleats, citing concerns about the long-term effects of football injuries.

There are a number of long-term medical conditions associated with football. Joint and back problems can limit players' mobility. Chronic pain puts some at risk of drug addiction. But the most worrisome, and one not properly understood for years, is head injury. Dementia pugilistica was first identified nearly a century ago. "Punch-drunk" was the term. An ex-boxer having trouble might be referred to as "punchy." Today, we call it Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE. Parkinson's disease is a separate disorder, also associated with blows to the head. There is not yet a consensus on whether ALS — sometimes called Lou Gehrig's Disease — is brought on by head trauma. CTE is associated with memory loss, depression, difficulty concentrating, and more.

I'm a fan of mixed martial arts. And the contrast between MMA's approach to head injuries, and football's approach, is staggering. A guy gets knocked out in a fight, and the athletic commission puts him on a 45-day (or longer) no-contact list. A football player gets knocked out, and he's usually playing seven days later, sometimes even returning to the same game.

This isn't some bleeding-heart issue, and it's not a new concern. In his 1996 book All Madden, Hall of Fame coach and broadcaster John Madden expressed grave concern about head injuries:

"Just a little concussion, some teams like to say. But there's no such thing as a little concussion ... If a guy hurts his knee or his shoulder, nobody laughs about it. But a guy with a concussion, ho ho, he's just had his bell rung. He doesn't even know where he is. He doesn't even know what day it is. When the team doctor holds up two fingers in front of the guy's face, he's saying, "How many fingers do you see?" Some people think that's funny. But if you're the guy trying to focus on those two fingers, it's not funny.

"In boxing ... athletic commissions have a rule that if a boxer is knocked out ... he's automatically suspended from fighting there for thirty days, sometimes sixty days. In football, if a guy is knocked out in the first half, you sometimes hear his team talking about maybe he'll be back for the second half."

Madden goes on to discuss specific cases like Troy Aikman (who has a frightening story told in the Fainaru brothers book and PBS documentary League of Denial) and Merril Hoge, who temporarily stopped breathing after one of his concussions. Madden's book came out almost 20 years ago, and he's hardly a soft touch. If John Madden is worried about player health, everyone should be worried.

Chris Borland was worried. I don't blame him. I'm disappointed he won't play any more, because he was a great talent. But I hope his retirement raises awareness inside and outside the league about the long-term risks of playing in the NFL.

* * *

Football is my favorite sport. It has always been my favorite sport, and it will probably always be my favorite sport. I grew up with football, I played football in college, I became a sportswriter because I loved football. Even in the offseason, most of my articles are about the NFL.

I don't want people to stop playing football. I don't want them to stop tackling, or blocking, or diving for that last yard. I just want to enjoy the game with a clean conscience. I believe — and maybe I'm wrong — but I believe that tackle football can be played reasonably safely with regard to life-altering injuries.

The NFL, over the past few years, has introduced a number of new policies to control the problem of head injuries and CTE. Unfortunately, the league's efforts to this point seem motivated by politics and public relations more than genuine concern for player safety. Some of the new measures are cosmetic, some are poorly considered, some are simply insufficient, and none of them are evenly enforced.

I believe there are simple solutions that would dramatically reduce the problem of head injuries, and it's merely a matter of putting those policies into practice. In theory, the NFL has a concussion-monitoring program, to prevent players who suffer head trauma from returning to the game before they are cleared by a neurologist. This system hasn't been working. Players routinely return to the field, after suffering concussions so obvious I can diagnose them from my couch. That has to stop. It is outrageous that the league can't get this right. More than that, it is unethical and sickening. If the league's existing concussion policy were simply enforced, I'd feel a lot better about the direction this thing was going.

In a sad way, I actually am pleased that more players are retiring early in response to head trauma. Borland's retirement was preemptive rather than reactionary, but even that underscores the benefits of player education. Give the players and their families information, to help them make better decisions. If some of these guys had retired after the second concussion, maybe their lives would have unfolded differently.

What I'd like to see in the immediate future is:

1. Qualified, independent doctors on hand to diagnose and respond to head injuries. I don't want the team physician deciding whether players are okay, and I don't want players talking their way back onto the field after a head injury. We saw progress in 2014, but not nearly enough. We should be able to get this right, every time.

2. Better understanding and enforcement of existing statutes. There are good rules on the books, that could help control the problems of CTE. They aren't being enforced consistently.

3. Better protective gear, especially helmets and mouth-guards. I'd also like to see stricter policy on players actually using the mouth-guards.

4. Rule tweaks to better facilitate player safety. I don't believe radical changes to the premise of tackle football are necessary, but there are steps we can take to make the game safer. I also believe, and I've expressed this many times, that the league needs to do a better job of protecting clean play. When the line blurs, and players start getting in trouble for clean hits, it's hard for players and coaches to know what to do, and it reduces the disincentives against dangerous plays. Make the rules clear and enforce them consistently.

4b. Better officials. Referees have a tremendously difficult job, and for the most part they do it well. But if the NFL believes head injuries are a serious problem, it needs to train referees to better understand legal and illegal hits. Officials who fail to properly understand and enforce the protocols must be replaced.

5. Much better player education, at all levels, of the risks associated with head trauma. Information is the most vital piece of this: players and their families, and everyone who's in a position to help them make decisions about the future, need to understand the long-term health risks associated with head trauma.

None of those measures would dramatically alter the game of football, and none of them would be a major expense for a league as successful as the NFL. I'm not a doctor or a scientist, so perhaps I'm misunderstanding the issues. But I've gone out of my way to learn about these issues, and I've written about them many times. I believe the NFL can do better, and I believe the league needs to do better. But most of all, I believe we need to keep talking about this. Chris Borland did something unusual, and I don't want it to be a one-week story. This matters a great deal.

Posted by Brad Oremland at 3:04 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2015

When the Good Are Bad and Ugly

If you watched even a few minutes of the NCAA tournament this past weekend, you saw plenty of messages hammering home how the organization wants you to view its product. This vision includes student athletes getting up before their general population peers, staying late after practice, and most definitely not receiving extra benefits.

And while I'm sure plenty of that does go on, there is a more honest narrative to be told about the NCAA. In reality, college sports are a business, one that uses this milk-and-cookies ideal to sell entertainment.

So given that, should we really be surprised that Syracuse and Jim Boeheim are as rotten and rancid as any other coach and program?

Boeheim's Syracuse has long been a darling of the national media and college sports purists. As an engaging and willing interview who happened to coach the prestige program at a journalism-centric school, Boeheim was able to let the media craft his image as one of the "good ones." Many talking heads used Boeheim's program as their hero while excoriating Jerry Tarkanian and John Calipari's underhanded empires.

After reading the report, the distinction is all but erased.

Among other typical violations, Syracuse is reported to have had tutors essentially pose as students by logging into their email accounts, corresponding with professors, and attaching coursework. This was not former Utah coach Rick Majerus infamously buying a burger for one of his players who just lost a parent. Boeheim's program is reported to have shown knowing and willful disregard of the rules.

Now to be fair, these are hardly felonies in the big picture, but the NCAA and its protectors have handcuffed themselves by treating them as such when less favored programs and coaches have been caught. Harsh punishments and chastisements accompanied by spoken and unspoken "be more like Jim" messages lose all credibility when Jim is bending and breaking the same rules.

So while the circumstances are far different, it is hard not to see a parallel between Boeheim's ongoing fall from his perch in an idyllic upstate college town to the similar fall that happened with Joe Paterno.

Like Boeheim, Paterno and his program had taken on mythical status from breathless and trite media drumbeats. Their existences were held up as evidence that the amateur collegiate model not only could work, but could thrive under the right men of virtue.

But just like the accounts of Boeheim and Paterno, this depiction is a myth. Let's all agree on something right here, right now: There are no "good ones," at least not all of the time.

College sports are bloated, largely by the revenue generated by the tournament going on now. And why shouldn't they be? Clearly the market values the product, and the schools should be able to profit from that.

Furthermore, Kentucky has mastered the modern rules and runs a graduate-level AAU team fronting as a college basketball program. Calipari says his primary goal is to get kids to the NBA, and why shouldn't it be? It's a worthwhile goal, using the archaic collegiate system to funnel typically low-income teenagers into annual pay grades few could dream of.

At this point, almost everybody gets it. College sports are still a blast, and everyone involved gets something out of the arrangement (yes, I hear you, players could get more).

So can we please give up the charade of moral superiority?

The NCAA has long penalized teams for breaking its rules to reinforce the supposed wholesomeness of its product. But it is clear that the only way to survive at the top of its sports is to push, if not sledgehammer, the rules.

Strip a team of victories earned by ineligible players? They likely would have lose some of those games anyway without them.

Give a team a postseason ban? They would have accepted a de facto one by playing strictly by the rules.

The college sports story needs a rewrite. Because while fans enjoy the Cinderellas this month, the clock has clearly struck midnight on the collegiate amateurism fairy tale.

Posted by Corrie Trouw at 3:42 PM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2015

On Rose's Applying For Reinstatement

As of March 16, 2015 the question of whether Pete Rose should or will be reinstated to organized baseball became an official issue one more time. That was the date commissioner Rob Manfred announced he received a formal request for reinstatement from Rose himself. And Manfred was clear enough that nobody — Rose's sympathizers and opponents included — should read anything deeper into that request or his receipt of it. Yet.

"I see it as simply he's made a request," Manfred said on that date, while visiting the Dodgers during a round of spring training camp visits. "Part of my obligation under the major league constitution is to deal with those requests. I don't have any predisposition." If that's true, the Cincinnati Enquirer‘s C. Trent Rosecrans wrote the following day, Manfred would probably stand as a party of one.

"Rose is baseball's third rail," Rosecrans wrote. "A topic so toxic nobody wants to take it on, lest they offend the wrong people." Well, with Rose's formal petition for reinstatement it's a topic that's going to be taken on yet again. And for such a toxic topic there seems to be no shortage of people on either side of the issue who are willing to take it on and damn the consequences, and upon just about any excuse.

Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman went two ways, for example. One moment, he said Manfred's willingness to hear Rose out "is sensational. Rob Manfred has been more open about this than [predecessor] Bud Selig ever was. It seemed like every time this thing came up Bud bent over backwards to avoid discussing it." The next, Brennaman said his number one concern in the matter "is that Pete keep his mouth shut and let this whole process play out. He can't say something that's going to hurt him, which he's done in the past."

In one sense, this might have been inevitable, both with Manfred's ascension to the commissioner's office and with this year's All-Star Game due to be played in Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark. Even before Manfred took office formally in January, there had been whispers enough, once it became evident that this time Selig meant it about retiring, that the Rose case was or would likely become the proverbial elephant in Manfred's room.

Tony Clark, former major league first baseman now the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, says he wants to see Rose reinstated. He has no power to make it happen, but he believes Rose has paid in full for his sins. "He made a decision. He made a decision that was not the right decision. He made a decision that he has paid a price for. Yes. I would love for there to be a consideration made, on behalf of the commissioner's office, that would take that into account, in reinstating him."

Which portion of Rule 26(d) — a rule Clark saw every day of his major league life in every major league clubhouse wherein he was employed — did Clark not understand?

(d) BETTING ON BALL GAMES. Any player, umpire, or club official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform shall be declared ineligible for one year.

Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible. (Emphases added.)

"Permanently" means that Rose hasn't paid the price in full, that he hasn't "served his time." "Lifetime banishment," which is "permanently" phrased more colloquially, means the same thing. It is absolutely fatuous to proclaim Rose has "served his time" so long as he's still alive and still considered permanently ineligible.

"I'm prepared to deal with [Rose's request for reinstatement] on the merits," Manfred said. "I want to make sure I understand all of the details of the Dowd report and [then-commissioner A. Bartlett] Giamatti's decision and the agreement that was ultimately reached. I want to hear what Pete has to say and I'll make a decision once I've done that."

The details include a few that blow away completely one particularly continuous element in the argument either way, that Rose's baseball betting occurred strictly as a manager. The Dowd Report mentions 1985, 1986, and 1987 specifically. In 1985 and 1986, Rose was the Reds' player-manager. Technically, he was still a player when he did some of his bettings. But there's also a school of thought tied to the "betting the Reds to win" argument. School's out, as Sports Illustrated‘s Jay Jaffe makes plain enough:

[A] manager who only bets on some of his team's games may manipulate his player usage in connection with his betting, using his best relievers in those games but resting them — and/or perhaps key regulars — in ones where he's abstained. By doing so, he would be tacitly signaling that he's making less of an effort to win those games and encouraging gamblers to bet against his team. In 2002, Dowd noted that Rose did not bet on the Reds whenever Mario Soto — a three-time all-star who by '86 and '87 had declined to replacement level — started games, which "sent a message through the gambling community that the Reds can't win" on those days. In '07, Rose told ESPN Radio that he bet on the Reds every night: "I love my team, I believe in my team ... I did everything in my power every night to win that game." Dowd countered by saying that in '87, Rose did not bet on games pitched by Soto or Bill Gullickson, whose up-and-down career included a 4.85 ERA with the Reds that year.

Other than making Rose eligible to stand for election to the Hall of Fame — the Hall itself ruled in 1991 that players on the permanently ineligible list can't be named on any Hall of Fame ballots — what would reinstating Rose accomplish? Allowing Manfred to establish an early reputation for compassion, whether or not it appears misplaced? (Of course.) Allowing Rose to hold a formal organized baseball job at all? (From possibly to probably, never mind that Rose is now 73.) Allowing him to hold a job in which he could have an impact on a game's outcome? (Yes, never mind the wisdom of doing so, but Rose himself has said the only such job he'd accept would be as a manager — because base, bullpen, and bench coaches don't make about half the money a manager might make.)

Be wary. Be very wary, as former commissioner Fay Vincent — Giamatti's deputy during the Rose investigation and resolution — wrote at the beginning of this month, in a letter he allowed New York Times baseball writer-turned-independent Murray Chass to publish on the latter's blog, a letter in which he also raised a specter devoutly to be avoided:

"Manfred cannot put Rose in the HOF and if he acts to reinstate Rose he is admitting he would be willing to have Rose on the field again. I have too much faith in Manfred to believe he wants to endorse Rose as a person who warrants being active again within baseball. He will not want Rose back in the game.

"Finally, the Rose case presents the complex question of baseball and so-called Performance Enhancing Drugs. And any move by Manfred will bring the attention of Congress to question why Baseball is acting to weaken the deterrent to gambling. Congress will ask whether this Rose move means the users of [so-called] PEDs are also to be treated to lesser sanctions. If baseball says we no longer feel betting should keep Rose out, how can Congress not worry the users of [so-called] PEDs are next to have their sanctions reduced. Not much in baseball stands apart from other important concerns.

"Our new commissioner should choose his fights carefully. He does not need to do anything about Rose. He should stand firmly against gambling in baseball and behind the effective deterrent. Not much in our world can stand the test of time as well as has the ancient wisdom of Rule 21. Bet on our game and you are gone. What can be clearer?"

Vincent thinks showing Rose mercy isn't a good reason to reinstate him. "Justice works," the former commissioner wrote, "and mercy is often misunderstood." At least as often as is misunderstood the truth behind Rose's years of denials and, then, after coming clean for profit, his years since of insisting he bet on his Reds "only to win."

Some arguing the paid-the-price-and-did-the-time factor make it sound as though Rose has been "too long" blocked from the game he professes to love. It's been 26 years since Giamatti banished him. Swede Risberg, shortstop for the Black Sox, served 55 years when he died in 1975. Baseball went 44 years between its first gambling scandal* and the Black Sox scandal; it went 70 years between the 1919 World Series and Pete Rose's banishment. Paying the price and doing the time seems to mean different things to different people.

* * *

*The Black Sox were banished the same year George Bechtel died. A pitcher/outfielder for the short lived Louisville Grays in the 19th century National League, Bechtel was banished 34 years before the Black Sox were.

Bechtel committed three suspect errors in an 1876 game. A few days later, he sent teammate Jim Devlin a telegram saying they could make $500 if they lost a June 1876 game. The National League banned Bechtel, and his ban stood to the day he died despite a few attempts at reinstatement.

A year later, Devlin and two other Grays, left fielder George Hall and utility player Al Nichols, were banned for taking money to throw games; a fourth Gray, shortstop/team captain Bill Craver, was banned for refusing to cooperate with a league investigation into the Grays. The Grays folded after only two seasons. It was major league baseball's first major gambling scandal.

You can read the full story in William A. Cook's The Louisville Grays Scandal of 1877: The Taint of Gambling at the Dawn of the National League.

Posted by Jeff Kallman at 4:09 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2015

March Madness: "Big Blue" Balls

Can anyone stop Kentucky from completing an undefeated season with the national championship?

Kentucky is clearly superior by far, and that's got the rest of the NCAA field waving a white flag, and that surely makes Adolf Rupp happy.

Nothing seems to phase the Wildcats, and that's a reflection of their head coach, John Calipari, who's not even the least bit intimidated, not even when a fellow coach threatens to murder him.

The Wildcats are a virtual lock to reach the Final Four. From there, anything could happen, like a poor shooting night, an opponent on fire from the three-point arc, or some interesting discoveries down the road from a team of NCAA investigators. Nobody, and I mean nobody, vacates Final Fours like Calipari.

What's the spread in Kentucky's first round game against Hampton?

Kentucky (minus evisceration)

Did Indiana deserve to be included in the tournament field?

No. But head coach Tom Crean campaigned tirelessly and shamelessly for his team. In addition, former IU head coach Bobby Knight threatened that if the Hoosiers didn't make the field, he would toss a "committee chair" across the room.

Which five-seed or higher has the best chance to reach the Final Four?

Kentucky's presence in the Midwest Region precludes picking a team from that region, but if pressed, I'd go with Wichita State, the No. 7 seed. The Shockers have the coolest nickname in college basketball, and want nothing more than another shot at Kentucky, who knocked them out of last year's tournament.

In the East, another No. 7 seed, Michigan State, seems ready to make another strong tournament run. The Spartans have two things going for them: 1)head coach Tom Izzo, who loves tourney time, and 2) they are not in Kentucky's region.

Does Duke have the maturity to win it all?

The Blue Devils start three freshmen, and the rigors of a tough schedule has prepared them for battle. And any team coached by Mike Krzyzewski is a threat to win it all. But this Duke team lacks the one thing that has defined great Duke teams of the past: a player everyone hates. There is no Christian Laettner; there is no Steve Wojciechowski or Chris Collins, or any other Duke guard relegated to a lifetime duty as an assistant coach at Duke.

What the 2014-2015 Blue Devils do have is a collection of adorable players with cute mini-afros, and even Coach K would tell you that these guys are quite huggable.

The Devils will make the Elite 8, but will tumble to No. 2 seed Gonzaga in the regional final.

Can North Carolina make a deep run in honor of the late Dean Smith, who passed away on February 7?

The Tar Heels are a No. 4 seed, also known to the great Dean as "that team we would play in the third round as we would be a No. 1 seed."

Alas, the Heels are not a No. 1 seed, and a date with No. 13 Harvard awaiting on Thursday. As with UNC basketball (and UNC athletics in general), it's all about who shows up. If this game were played in an African-American Studies classroom on the Carolina campus, Harvard would win by forfeit, because no UNC student-athletes would be in attendance.

UNC will reach the Sweet 16, but will fall to No. 1 seed Wisconsin, as the Heels struggle with the Badgers' size, as well as a horribly officiated game, because, let's face it, Carolina's luck with "whistleblowers" hasn't been too good lately.

How in the name of John Wooden did UCLA make the field?

Selection Committee chairman Scott Barnes mentioned some b.s. about the Bruins "gaining steam" and passing the "eye test." That's committee-speak for "we'd like to set up an intriguing first-round matchup with a team coached by Larry Brown, who formerly coached UCLA."

That being said, the Bruins will prove that the Selection Committee, even with severely flawed logic and stupid reasoning, was right, and UCLA will knock off SMU in the first round.

Round of 64: The Upsets

Midwest Region: No. 12 Buffalo over No. 5 West Virginia. Buffalo over West Virginia, you say? "Hurley" you can't be serious? Oh, I'm serious, and stop calling me "Hurley." Former Duke legend Bobby Hurley coaches the Bulls. "Surely" that counts for something.

South Region: No. 12 Stephen F. Austin over No. 5 Utah. Two things about SFA: their nickname is the "Stone Colds" and the university has a Six Million Dollar endowment. One thing: neither of those two is true. But this is: the Lumberjacks won as a 12 seed in last year's tournament and are looking for more in 2015.

No. 13 Eastern Washington over No. 4 Georgetown: What did the Georgetown bus driver say after Friday's game? "Let's go, Hoyas."

Final Four

Kentucky, Arizona, Gonzaga, Villanova

Championship

Kentucky over Villanova

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 7:58 PM | Comments (1)

Notes From Indian Wells and the Pro Tour

As the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells approaches its final weekend, the first quarter of the 2015 tennis season is coming to its conclusion. Here are some emerging stories and noteworthy anecdotes from this week.

Let's start with two coaches who get little or no attention in the media, although their players have shown incredible improvement as of late. First one is Timea Bacsinszky's coach, Dimitri Zavialoff, who coached for a long time Stanislas Wawrinka during the Swiss' younger years on the tour. Zavialoff has quietly pulled Bacsinszky back into tennis from a career outside of the sport less than two years ago, and guided her into being the hottest player on the WTA Tour in 2015. Bacsinzky's form has skyrocketed in 2015, winning the Monterrey and Acapulco tournaments, and reaching the final in Shenzen. She ended 2014 ranked 48, and is currently ranked 26. There is little doubt that she will be a frequent name in the top 20 this year. Bacsinszky frequently praises Zavialoff for the role that he played in her comeback as a tennis player and as an individual.

Second one is Eric Prodon, the Frenchman Adrian Mannarino's coach. Prodon was a fellow player on the tour for many years (highest ranking: 83) before he began helping his friend Mannarino last summer in Roland Garros. Since then, Mannarino has enjoyed unprecedented success, entering top 40 for the first time in his career. In Indian Wells, he just defeated Fabio Fognini and Ernests Gulbis before losing to Andy Murray in the fourth round. Look for Mannarino to get inside the top 30 in the upcoming weeks. Based on their pupils' results in this young 2015 tennis season, Zavialoff and Prodon would be my choices for coaches of the first quarter of the year.

The American player Wayne Odesnik got caught a second time for doping and was subsequently given a ban of 15 years from the tour. Odesnik immediately announced his retirement from the tour. But what was more impressive is how the rest of the tennis world rejected him. The current world No. 4 Andy Murray and the now-retired 2003 U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick immediately called Odesnik's ban and retirement "good riddance" via their Twitter accounts. Most media members strongly criticized Odesnik's actions, and tennis fans did not hold back any words to show their discontent. It was refreshing to see how defensive tennis community became about their sport, especially when one of their own was the offender.

The match between Serena Williams and Bacsinszky in quarterfinals of the Indian Wells tournament featured two of the hottest players on the Tour. Serena Williams came into the match undefeated in 2015 at 11-0, and Bacsinszky carried on the court a 21-2 record (including her two FedCup wins) with her own fifteen-match winning streak.

During the third-round match between Thanasi Kokkinakis and Juan Monaco, the former had a match point at 5-4 in the third. Both the line judge and the chair umpire failed to call Monaco's ball out when it sailed a bit wide (Hawk-Eye showed it landing outside to the viewers). The problem was that Kokkinakis had already used his three-challenges-per-set allowance and could not ask for a Hawk-Eye review. As a consequence, Monaco got the point, and Kokkinakis had to wait until the tiebreaker to earn of the toughest victories of his young career.

The incident brought the Hawk-Eye challenge rules under scrutiny. Some felt that the number of challenges should not be limited to three per set. Others believed that challenges should be automatically allowed on set and match points. Few suggested that the referee should be able to use his or her own discretion to view the Hawk-Eye in case of an important point even if the players were out of challenges.

Personally, I like the challenge system just the way it has existed since it began. Rules should not be changed simply because there has been one incident where the referees failed to make the right call. The player should bear some responsibility and use wisely his or her three challenges. What happened in the Kokkinakis vs. Monaco match is very unlikely to happen again and does not call for complicated solutions involving unlimited challenges where players can easily abuse the system, or some type of modification allowing for more challenges and slowing down the game.

Indian Wells has not been kind to the seeded players on the women's side. By the quarterfinals, only two top-10 seeds remained: Serena Williams and Simona Halep. On the men's side, the victims were couple of the so-called the future stars of the Tour. Grigor Dimitrov fell to the hard-working veteran Tommy Robredo, and Kei Nishikori got stunned by another over-30 player Feliciano Lopez who is quietly having the best period of his career.

Last note is about the Indian Wells tournament site. It has more stadium courts than any other tournament and the second biggest tennis-only stadium in the world. The modern state of the facilities is something to behold and the organization is top notch. All match courts are equipped with Hawk-Eye, giving the players the ability to challenge starting with the first match in the qualifying draw. Practice schedules are posted on the modern scoreboard of each court, including the outside ones, with the pictures and flags of the players on display during their practice. The facilities are ready for the event well before the players arrive to the site. The usual drilling and mounting sounds of machinery that you hear during the qualifying draw of many tournaments do not exist in Indian Wells once the first players (and by that, I mean players arriving to play qualifying) begin to set foot on the site the days leading up to the qualifying matches.

Posted by Mert Ertunga at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2015

NASCAR Top 10 Power Rankings: Week 4

Note: the quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Kevin Harvick — Harvick started on the pole at Phoenix and won as expected, rolling to his fourth consecutive win at Phoenix International Raceway. He sits high atop the Sprint Cup points standings, 22 ahead of Joey Logano.

"You can call me 'Happy,'" Harvick said, "but you might as well call me 'Tarp,' because I had the field covered.

"I've got four top-two finishes to start the season. No one has done that since Richard Petty in 1974. And speaking of 'Kings,' I rule."

2. Joey Logano — Logano finished eighth at Phoenix after starting second on the grid and leading 35 laps. He is second in the points standings, 22 behind Kevin Harvick.

"No one can catch Harvick," Logano said. "As such, it looks like the Chase has started early this year.

"I won the Xfinity Series race on Saturday. That race was called the 'Xalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200.' It wasn't much of a race, but it did have something that no other race in NASCAR history had, and that's punctuation."

3. Jimmie Johnson — Johnson finished 11th at Phoenix as Kevin Harvick dominated, leading 224 of 312 laps. Johnson is seventh in the points standings, 58 behind Harvick.

"Harvick has been on a tear," Johnson said. "They say this level of dominance hasn't been seen since Richard Petty in 1974. I say it goes back further than that, to a time in racing when dirt tracks were the norm, because everyone is eating dust."

4. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. — Earnhardt blew a right rear tire on lap 180 at Phoenix and slammed the wall, ending his day with a last place finish.

"The No. 88 Hendrick Chevrolet was fast," Earnhardt said, "but the surface at Phoenix is really tough on rubber. So, there's a fine line separating 'Hell on Wheels' from 'Hell on Tires.'"

5. Martin Truex, Jr. — Truex continued his solid start to the season with a seventh at Phoenix, giving him four top-10s in four races this year. He is fourth in the points standings, 27 behind Kevin Harvick.

"We've been consistent," Truex said, "but we won't be satisfied until we win. Some say that we can't. On that note, Furniture Row offers upholstery in several patterns, but none in 'checkers.'"

6. Kasey Kahne — Kahne took fourth in the Campingworld.Com 500 on Sunday, posting his first top-five result of the year. He sits fourth in the points standings, 50 behind Kevin Harvick.

"I finished just ahead of Kurt Busch," Kahne said. "Kurt was all over me, and, depending on who you ask, there may have been contact.

"Is it right that no domestic abuse charges were filed against Kurt? Who am I to say? I can say this: I don't mind racing against the 'Outlaw,' but I surely wouldn't want him as an inlaw."

7. A.J. Allmendinger — Allmendinger placed 17th at Phoenix and is now sixth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 55 out of first.

"We didn't get the finish we wanted," Allmendinger said, "but I still had a great time. Grammy-nominated band Tonic played a pre-race concert, and boy, did that really get my blood pumping. Talk about a 'band stimulant.'"

8. Jeff Gordon — Gordon finished ninth at Phoenix as Hendrick Motorsports cars took three of the top 11 spots.

"I'm on a quest for my fifth championship," Gordon said. "Kevin Harvick appears well on his way to his second. Just a few words of advice for Kevin: before you can be 'three-time' or 'four-time,' you have to be 'two-timed.' And I have, on and off the track."

9. Ryan Newman — Newman finished third in the Campingworld.Com 500, recording his second straight third-place finish.

"Kevin Harvick was unstoppable," Newnam said. "There was a time in my career when I wished I could be just like Harvick and join Richard Childress Racing. Now, I want to be even more like Harvick and leave RCR, because that's when the wins and championships happen."

10. Brad Keselowski — Keselowski finished sixth in the Campingworld.Com 500 in Phoenix, joining Penske Racing teammate Joey Logano, who finished eighth, in the top 10.

"After a slow start to the season," Keselowski said, "we're back on track. I've got three top-10 finishes in a row after finishing 41st at Daytona. But to keep up with Kevin Harvick, we're really gonna have to 'push.'

"My crew chief Paul Wolfe was placed on probation for an entire season. NASCAR should try putting the whole sport on probation, just to make sure it's being 'watched.'"

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2015

Chip Kelly's March Madness

Chip Kelly is not afraid. He came to the NFL with a vision, and he's putting his philosophy into practice.

That's hard to do. The NFL is a terribly risk-averse league, where anything different is frightening. That's why so few head coaches are innovative or daring: do something unusual, and if it fails even once, you'll be blamed forever. Only coaches with an established record of success — like Bill Belichick — can really take chances.

Chip Kelly is taking chances. Free agency is only a week old, but the Eagles have created more headlines than anyone else in the league. Most notably, the Eagles:

* Traded Nick Foles and two draft picks to the Rams, for Sam Bradford.

* Traded LeSean McCoy to the Bills for linebacker Kiko Alonso.

* Replaced McCoy with free agent RBs DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews.

There have been a few other moves, most notably parting way with veteran pass rusher Trent Cole, but those are the headline-makers, and there are some doozies in there.

In 2013, LeSean McCoy led the NFL in rushing yards (1,607) and yards from scrimmage (2,146), with an exceptional rushing average (5.12), double-digit TDs, and only one fumble. His 2014 was comparatively disappointing, but McCoy still ranked third in rushing (1,319), with a good average (4.23). He's only 26, he's always played well when healthy, and he's rushed for nearly 3,000 yards the last two years.

It takes some serious cojones to part with a player like that. Kiko Alonso played for Kelly at Oregon. He had a great rookie season in 2013, but missed all of last year with an injury. We'll return to this trade and examine its merits, but to me, it's by far the most interesting move the Eagles have made this offseason.

Sam Bradford was the top pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, ahead of Ndamukong Suh. In five NFL seasons, he has played 49 games — about 10 per year. In only two of those five seasons has Bradford played more than 10 games. On the field, he has been okay. His interception rate is very low (2.2%), but his average yardage is terrible (6.3 gross, 5.4 net) and his 79.3 passer rating is poor. He's not a runner, so no help there.

Even if you think Nick Foles is worthless (which he's not), Philadelphia gave the Rams two draft picks — a fourth-rounder and a 2016 second-rounder — to acquire Bradford. That's a huge price to pay for a guy who was good in college six years ago. Some observers speculated that Bradford was trade bait, in Kelly's quest to draft Marcus Mariota, but that speculation largely disintegrated when the Eagles acquired Murray.

Bradford and Murray were teammates at Oklahoma. Acquiring Bradford now looks to have had two purposes. One was to attract Murray, the NFL's leading rusher in 2014. The other is to operate Kelly's fast-paced offense with players who flourished in that system in college. The Sooners didn't run Kelly's offense, exactly, but Bradford and Murray are comfortable working uptempo.

Murray was a big-name free agent, and it appears he was Kelly's primary target all along. McCoy was shipped out to clear a space for Murray. Bradford was brought in to work with his old friend. Mathews was signed to provide insurance for Murray's injury history and workload.

I expressed concern last year about Murray's league-leading 392 rush attempts. No player in the last 25 years has carried so often without falling apart the next year. Mathews is worrisome, too. If you type his name into a search engine, you'll get suggestions like "Ryan Mathews injury" and "Ryan Mathews injury update". Dude gets hurt a lot. But signing both Murray and Mathews gives the Eagles some cover. If Murray gets hurt, Mathews is the best backup RB in the league. If they both get injured, Darren Sproles and Chris Polk are still on the roster. I think Murray is going to break down some time soon, but his signing is less worrisome in combination with the team's other moves.

Sam Bradford has failed, so far, at the NFL level. His play has been mediocre, and he can't stay healthy. But it seems Kelly believes that Bradford is the right fit for his offense. Mark Sanchez is still around to fill in when Bradford gets injured, and trading for Bradford may have eased the signing of Murray. Bradford's addition sends a clear message that the Eagles do not view Matt Barkley as their QB of the future.

The other piece is Kiko Alonso. He has the potential to be a dominant linebacker, and as long as he's healed up, the kid has his whole career in front of him. He's proven he can play in the NFL, so the main "if" is his health.

The Eagles started with Foles, McCoy, Cole, and a couple of draft picks. Now they have Bradford, Murray, Mathews, and Alonso. There's a little more to it than that, because of salary issues, but that's the nuts and bolts of the thing.

In a vacuum, I hate the Bradford deal (gave up too much) and the RB signings (can't stay healthy). I'm neutral on the McCoy-Alonso trade, with a wait-and-see approach, but I lean towards thinking it's a savvy move. But it's all part of Kelly's vision. I think the Eagles will be fine at RB, one way or another. I'm curious to see whether Bradford stays healthy, and if he does, I'm fascinated to learn whether he's such a perfect fit for Kelly's scheme. Cole is a 10-year vet who's been slowing down, and Alonso is a 24-year-old with potential, and connections to Kelly.

At the end of the day, I don't know if the Eagles have gotten better, or worse, or just different. But it's a fascinating experiment. Kelly's unique attitude toward shaping a team could pan out like Josh McDaniels in Denver and Steve Spurrier in Washington, or he could be a poor man's Bill Belichick. But the Eagles are built to win now, and I think they're early favorites in the NFC East. Philly was unlucky with injuries in 2014, while the Cowboys were mostly fortunate. DeMarco Murray has switched sides, and some of the Cowboys' key players — like Tony Romo and Jason Witten — are nearing the age when you expect their play to decline. Regardless, the Eagles have begun the offseason with a serious bang, and it's been quite a show already.

Posted by Brad Oremland at 2:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2015

Who Can Take Down Kentucky?

It's now official.

After going through a regular season and conference tournament 34-0, and in dominant fashion with only a few close calls, the Kentucky Wildcats will attempt to become the first 40-0 team in the history of college basketball over the next three weeks during the NCAA tournament.

I'm not sure I can ever remember a more prohibitive favorite for the national title.

In 1991, before undefeated UNLV lost in the Final Four to Duke, I was only 3-years-old.

In 1996, Rick Pitino, Antoine Walker and Tony Delk's Kentucky had a formidable adversary in John Calipari's UMass, who had already beaten Kentucky at the beginning of that season. Michigan State and UConn were always going to be tough for Duke in the top-heavy 1999 season. 2007 Florida had five losses, and 2009 North Carolina had four.

Perhaps the best parallel for 2015 Kentucky is 1992 Duke, who, like the Wildcats, went wire-to-wire atop the polls from November to Selection Sunday. But even the Blue Devils that year lost to unranked, NCAA tournament 9 seed Wake Forest.

We're looking at the greatest pre-tournament juggernaut since that 1991 Runnin' Rebels team in this year's Wildcats. They're likely going to win the title. However, there are a couple teams that legitimately can give them a run for their money, and possibly pull off the unthinkable.

But first, let's look at some teams that have been talked about as contenders for the title that won't beat Kentucky.

Virginia will not beat Kentucky. At first glance, it would seem that the Cavaliers could stifle Kentucky's offense, pack the defense in, and dare Kentucky to beat them from outside.

But Virginia's frontline won't be able to compete with the combination of size and athleticism for a full 40 minutes, or score enough points to beat the Wildcats. With UVA's Justin Anderson at full strength, it could have been a longer discussion, but he's clearly not back to himself after missing time with a broken finger and appendectomy.

Duke will not beat Kentucky. All season, national media has presented the case that the Blue Devils are the pre-eminent challenger to the Wildcats' undefeated season. After all, they have the most skilled offensive big man in college basketball in a generation in Jahlil Okafor, and a scary starting backcourt of Tyus Jones and Quinn Cook.

Kentucky's depth would absolutely wear Duke, they of only eight scholarship players, out. Notre Dame showed on Friday that a solid strategy against the Blue Devils is to guard Okafor one-on-one and make sure the perimeter players don't drill threes all night.

With Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Dakari Johnson and Trey Lyles all more than capable interior defenders on big men, even the "let Okafor get his" assumption is hardly a given. There's also the issue of Duke's iffy-at-times defense.

Villanova? Not enough size or rebounding besides Daniel Ochefu, and they're probably too reliant on three-pointers. Gonzaga, as usual, should be doubted due to their recent tournament history and in-conference competition. The 'Zags also played one game against elite competition this season (at Arizona), and it happened to be one of their worst offensive outputs of the year.

Kansas is too inconsistent, and Iowa State and Notre Dame still don't play defense or rebound well enough to win a title, despite what people might want you to believe after Championship Week. Other teams I haven't mentioned at or below the No. 3 seed line frankly don't have the horses to compete with Kentucky.

Wisconsin, with basically the same team back that should have beaten Kentucky in last year's Final Four, has a chance to redeem itself this year.

If this edition of Bo Ryan's Badgers has seemed like his very best offensive team yet, that's because it has been. But it's still the same philosophy for Wisconsin: Crisp half-court offense without turnovers, and strong defense without fouling or gambling for steals or blocks. But this year, the offensive genius and versatility of Frank Kaminsky gives Wisconsin a trump card over anything Kentucky can offer on its offensive end.

There just aren't a lot of vulnerabilities you can exploit in Kentucky's game. But to have a chance, you need to limit them to one shot on offense, take your opportunities on offense when presented with them, and force them into long twos/three-pointers, if possible.

Even then, the Wildcats still might win. But we know that Wisconsin is great on the defensive glass, and won't rush with the ball. And if Traevon Jackson returns for the Badgers, as expected, that gives Wisconsin much-needed backcourt depth.

However, the team with the best chance to beat Kentucky is Arizona. Tucson's Wildcats are nearly Kentucky's equal in athleticism, and we're just about the best at everything you could ask for in the Pac-12. Their defense hasn't had a game allowing over a point per possession in nearly six weeks, a mind-boggling statistic, even in this defense-first era of college basketball.

You want a team that will keep Kentucky off the offensive glass? No one in the country cleans the defensive boards like Arizona. Freshman Stanley Johnson has looked more and more comfortable offensively as the season has gone on, and point guard T.J. McConnell has the perfect temperament and leadership skills to face Kentucky.

Brandon Ashley, Kaleb "Zeus" Tarczewski and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, while not as big and strong as Kentucky's frontcourt (who is?), are all efficient on offense, and can all hold their own on defense. While Arizona's style is about the antithesis of a “live by the three” philosophy, Gabe York knocks down nearly 40 percent of his long-range shots to keep defenses honest.

Of course, Kentucky can't play both teams, as Arizona and Wisconsin look to meet in a West Regional final, as they did in 2014. This helps Kentucky out just a little bit more, as if they needed it.

It's been a pretty lackluster season for college basketball thus far. But with Kentucky's quest at 40-0 in the balance, and every team trying to shock the world by beating the Wildcats, the NCAA tournament will be nothing if not compelling. The drama will further ratchet up if Kentucky matches up with Wisconsin or Arizona in the Final Four.

Posted by Ross Lancaster at 7:50 PM | Comments (1)

Alex Johnson, RIP: The Fires Within

When Whitey Herzog wrote his memoir You're Missin' a Great Game, he included remarks about Alex Johnson that must have dropped every jaw in southern California who remembered Johnson's tempestuous tenure (to put it politely) in an Angel uniform. To hear the White Rat say it, Johnson — who died February 28 at 72, after a battle with cancer — was anything but a handful, once you played things straight with him.

"[M]ost of the 'problem guys,' I've found, ain't a thing in the world but decent people nobody's bothered to figure out yet ... But as terrible as his reputation was ... I had no trouble with Alex Johnson. He's a good person, a religious guy; his wife was a very nice woman. The main thing you had to know about him was, when he put the uniform on, he hated umpires. Loathed the sight of 'em. He thought every umpire's job was to take the bread right out of his mouth. He believed that; that's how fanatical a hitter he was. But like I told him, if he ran the ball out for me, I didn't give a damn about it, and once I leveled with him, he always did what I asked. I really liked Alex Johnson. Still do."

If only it had been quite so simple as a decent man nobody'd bothered to figure out yet. (Johnson was the Ranger's first-ever full-time DH when Herzog managed the team.) Nothing was really simple with Johnson otherwise. And that may have been the core of the problem. Johnson came to professional baseball in love with the game and left it believing there was no such thing as a game. What happened in between?

Major league baseball players who bristle under the internal lash of furies difficult to explain, more difficult to comprehend, capable of blowing up a clubhouse in faster than a flash, have always been in and out of the game. Often they suffer quietly, other times they explode fatefully and loudly. Baseball hasn't always come to terms with the prospect of mental illness. Perhaps as it has done with racism, drugs, other maladies, baseball is coming to terms with mental illness the hard way, sometimes kicking and screaming in the bargain.

It hasn't really known how to deal with it from just about the moment late 19th century Boston Beaneaters infielder Marty Bergen graduated from over-stressed, anxious, and combustible, to flat-out crackup after the death of his young son. Not even when Bergen finally snapped to the point of killing his wife and remaining children before killing himself in 1900. Johnson never got anywhere near Bergen's kind of explosion, but the 1970-71 Angels clubhouse, not exactly a model of stability, became a war zone while he was there.

A product of the early-to-mid 1960s Phillies organization, which wasn't exactly the most enlightened about dealing with racial issues as it was, Johnson would say later that such issues helped embitter him away from the game he'd loved. Described almost universally as one of the most delightful of men away from the ballpark, and with a jaw-dropping ability to hit at will at the plate inside it, Johnson a time bomb at the park, by the time became an Angel, even as he spent 1970 winning the American League batting championship in a squeaker against Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.

"Johnson at times in 1970 had angered his manager and his teammates with an inexplicable lack of hustle, and had strained nerves with his taunting of teammates and writers," wrote Ross Newhan in The Anaheim Angels: A Complete History in 2000. "In other words, displaying again the temperament that had made him a liability in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Philadelphia.

"Alex Johnson had it all — strength, speed, instincts — but it was impossible to quell the fires that raged within him," continued Newhan, the Frick Award-winning Los Angeles Times writer. "A Prince Charming away from the park, his behavior when he put on the uniform once prompted his wife to apologize to the wives of other Angel players."

Ironically, this muscular, darkly handsome man, accused so often of non hustle, accused the 1970-71 Angels of "indifference on the whole team working together. I felt the game of baseball wasn't being played properly–so my taste wasn't there." Yet Johnson so often frustrated manager Lefty Phillips by 1971 that Phillips would bench him frequently enough, often vowing Johnson would "never again" play for the Angels, vows general manager Dick Walsh would break by reinstating the troubled outfielder.

Jim Fregosi, the longtime Angels shortstop and eventual pennant-winning manager with the Phillies, would say those were the days Phillips lost the team: "Lefty gained one player and lost the other 24." Maybe the only Angel who saw Johnson as a man in dire need of professional help was Tony Conigliaro, the ill-fated former Red Sox trying to continue a comeback with the Angels until eye issues and nagging injuries prompted his first and eventual permanent retirement.

"He's got a problem deep inside him that he won't talk about," Conigliaro told Sports Illustrated's Ron Fimrite for a cover story called "The Fallen Angel." "He's so hurt inside it's terrifying. He's a great guy off the field. On the field, there's something eating away at him."

Johnson also had an unlikely ally in New York Daily News writer Dick Young. In a column remarkable for its empathy, Young described Johnson as "the most jovial, pleasant man you would care to meet" one day, before erupting into "plain nastiness. These are not moods, not in the accepted sense of normality. He is two people."

That was after Johnson was finally suspended after a clubhouse incident that still lingers in Angel lore. The trigger was veteran utility infielder Chico Ruiz, who'd come to the Angels from the Reds with Johnson in a trade, and who was once so close to Johnson the latter named him godfather to his daughter. As an Angel, Ruiz was a too-frequent target of Johnson's verbal abuse, it was said, though Johnson — who'd won the National League's Comeback Player of the Year Award with the Reds in 1968 — would remember others turning Ruiz against him, and the infielder finally wielded a gun toward him.

The Angels suspended Johnson for lack of hustle and "improper mental attitude" in 1971. Johnson filed a grievance through players' union chief Marvin Miller, at which hearing it came forth that Walsh had lied when first denying Ruiz or any Angel had a gun in the clubhouse. (Newhan would remember "guns" in the clubhouse, plural; Johnson said he'd tipped a stadium security guard to Ruiz's gun.) It also came forth that Walsh called Johnson's wife after the Ruiz incident to tell her her husband was delusional.

(Bitter postscripts: 1) When Ruiz was killed in a boating accident in 1972, a month after becoming an American citizen, Johnson attended his funeral. 2) Walsh and Phillips would both be fired after the 1971 season, and after Johnson was moved along to the Indians in a trade. Phillips would take a scouting job with the Angels but die in 1972 as well, thanks to an attack of the asthma that plagued him most of his life. Walsh never held a job in baseball again, becoming executive director of the Los Angeles Convention Center and eventually doing a similar job in Hawaii, Alaska, and Ontario, California, before his death in 2011.)

Johnson won a landmark ruling. Arbitrator Lewis Gill held that Johnson should have been put on the disabled list, not suspended, on the grounds that "emotional issues" (mental illness?) should be treated as other injuries. Miller himself spoke to Johnson long and firm preparing for the hearing; in his memoir, Miller would remember Johnson as clearly emotionally disabled as well as unable to deal with racism effectively.

"I'm only a layman in psychiatric terms, but it didn't require a genius to see Alex was a disturbed person. He didn't stop talking for hours and he had these notes on him, all kinds of pieces of paper — airline folders, scraps of paper. And these were all scribblings that he had put down on the trip to New York so that he wouldn't forget them. Well, he didn't need those notes because he just talked without even referring to them. He was firmly convinced that no matter what he said, it would sound like an alibi, that nobody was sympathetic enough to examine it. I'm sure that racism was a good part of this. What working class black in Detroit would not have carried this burden? But I think more specifically his baseball experiences were like that. He wasn't dealing with great liberal thinkers out there with the California Angels."

The Johnson case probably did as much as anything else to show non-white players baseball could handle their issues the way it would white players' issues. By that time, though, Johnson was almost a lost baseball cause. He'd have a few more seasons with periodic effectiveness, with a few more clubs, but by the time he landed with his hometown Tigers he was just about through. He retired after playing a year in the Mexican League, to work in and eventually take over his father's trucking rental business in his hometown Detroit.

Ross Newhan has since come to admit the southern California sporting press was anything but enlightened on the thought of genuine emotional issues involving such players. "I don't recall the group that covered the Angels in those years, including myself, trying to delve into what made Alex the way he was, and that was probably a mistake on our part," he has said. "I don't think it was reflective of journalism, necessarily. I just think we were so fed up with Alex, the way he treated us, that who cared? I think if some of that same stuff went on today it would be dealt with quite differently."

Several clubs tried with now-retired Milton Bradley, maybe the closest Johnson has had to a contemporary incarnation. Likewise black, talented, and deeply troubled, Bradley also blew up a clubhouse or two, often at points where it seemed he'd put his own harness around his furies, and even admitted to vulnerabilities often enough. (Once, famously, he told Rangers teammates, "I love you guys. I'm strong, but I'm not that strong.")

Johnson's marriage ended in divorce following his baseball career. So did Bradley's. Except that Bradley eventually found himself going to the can for three years over abuse issues involving his former wife — who died two months after he was first sentenced. The very few press accounts of Johnson after he left baseball described a man at peace with himself and his world at last.

"Do I enjoy my life?" he told Sports Illustrated in 1998. "I enjoy not being on an airplane. I enjoy not having to face everything I did. I just want to help people with their vehicles. It's a nice normal life–the thing I've always wanted."

In time he would become a friendly presence at autograph shows, the essence of grandfatherly accommodation (he'd become a grandfather himself by then), lamenting only that he hadn't given more to remember when fans thanked him for the memories.

Which suited his former Angel teammate, pitcher Clyde Wright, just fine, when Rob Goldman caught up with him for Once They Were Angels. Once fed up and threatened enough by Johnson that he wielded a wooden stool against the tormented outfielder, Wright shared a memory of Johnson no one else seemed to have. "The one big thing that stands out in my mind about Alex Johnson — and nobody ever put this in the paper — is that he never left a stadium without signing every piece of paper put before him," Wright said. "And to me that shows you something right there."

* * *

My personal favorite story about Alex Johnson:

When he was down to the wire with Carl Yastrzemski for the 1970 AL batting championship, Johnson and Lefty Phillips were inundated somewhat with telephone calls — from people in Boston, writers and otherwise, demanding to know whether Phillips would pull Johnson from the Angels' season-ending game if Johnson got the hit he needed to edge Yastrzemski for the title. The Red Sox's season had ended the day before the Angels', and Johnson entered the final game needing two hits to take the title.

Johnson grounded out his first time up but singled his second time up. Then, in his third at-bat, he beat out a high chopper to third for a base hit his second time up. Sure enough, Phillips sent utility outfielder Jay Johnstone out to lift Johnson from the game. Johnson was puzzled until he saw the Anaheim Stadium scoreboard congratulating him about the batting championship. Johnson finished at .3289 to Yastremski's .3286.

Back in the dugout, Phillips greeted his champ. "[He] came over to congratulate me," Johnson would remember in 1990, "after I came out of the game. I said, 'The people in Boston are going to be mad at both of us.' He started laughing."

Johnson also finished 1970 with 202 hits, an Angels record that stood until Darin Erstad smashed it with 240 hits in 2000.

Posted by Jeff Kallman at 4:33 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2015

The Frights of Spring

Spring training didn't exactly come in quietly, and it certainly isn't continuing quietly, either. Especially around the camps of the Phillies, the Rangers, and the Blue Jays, and from the mouth of a Panda...

* THE SINKING OF THE CLIFTON P. LEE? — The Phillies are in bad enough shape this season — nobody pretends any longer that they're not rebuilding, even if many (mostly inside the club's administration) still pretend they didn't need to start rebuilding, oh, two years ago. Now they could be without Cliff Lee this season ... and Lee could be looking at the end of his career, period.

Lee went down after the end of last July with a strain in the flexor pronator of his left elbow. He felt "discomfort" the day after pitching two innings in his first spring start. "Mild inflammation" was the original line, but it turns out an MRI showed a tear in the flexor.

"Basically, if I have the surgery, this season will be done, possibly my career, I guess. I don't know. We'll have to see."

That's another kick in the head for the Phillies, who thought a healthy Lee could be a valuable trade chip for badly-needed prospects as soon as the end of spring training, according to several reports. If Lee goes down for the count, the Phillies' lone remaining trade value asset would be fellow pitcher Cole Hamels.

And considering what passes for the front office brain trust in Philadelphia these days, who's to say they won't pull Hamels back off the block if they lose Lee, considering how little attraction remains of the sputtering club as it is now? Assorted published reports have the Phillies saying it isn't the kind of tear that requires Tommy John surgery, but a lot of the front office's actions the past few years prompt a response of "what do they know?"

* ONE RANGER DOWN, ONE SEASON LOST? — The Rangers had enough trouble surviving 2014 after key injuries took them down before the season really got underway in the first place. Now they stand to lose Yu Darvish, their best pitcher and one of the game's best, for the season — one strain in the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow and prospective Tommy John surgery can do that.

Like Lee, Darvish at this writing was seeking a second opinion. Some speculation has it that he might try merely rehabbing the elbow first, as Yankee pitcher Masahiro Tanaka did before spring training, but Darvish could also risk losing this season and most of 2016 as a result. On top of losing Jurickson Profar for the season thanks to shoulder surgery, this is just what the Rangers don't need this time around.

* THERE WENT ONE BLUE JAYS HOPE — Lots of people figured Marcus Stroman was heading for a breakout 2015 considering how sharp he looked as a rookie last season. They're going to have to wait for 2016 for any breakout. Stroman's out for the season after tearing his anterior collateral ligament during fielding drills. Which leaves the Blue Jays to ponder two options: move prospect Aaron Sanchez to the rotation and hope he looks as good as he looked in his own rookie premiere last year, or hit the trade market for a veteran starter.

* PANDA TO GIANTS: KUNG PHOOEY! — Pablo Sandoval probably had a little more fun with the annual weight jokes when he reported to the Red Sox in his customary fashion—namely, looking like Kung Fu Poundcake, to quote one of the gags. The Red Sox even had some mad fun with it. But Sandoval had anything but fun talking about why he decided to leave the Giants no matter how much money they might throw at him this past offseason.

Stated simply, the Panda wasn't thrilled with what he thought was the Giants' administration dissing him and his agents a year ago when talk of a contract extension remained on the table—enough so that he turned down more money in favour of signing with the Red Sox. "I knew early in spring training last year I was going to leave," he said to Bleacher Report. "They didn't respect my agent–contract talks, everything, the way [Giants general manager] Brian Sabean talked to my agent."

"If you want me around, you make the effort to push and get me back. The Giants made a good offer, but I didn't want to take it. I got five years from Boston. I left money on the table in San Francisco. It is not about money. It is about how you treat the player."

It now becomes more clear what Michael Sandoval, the third baseman's brother and co-agent, meant when he said Kung Fu Panda wanted "respect." Maybe, as some have opined, it was one thing for the Giants to take issue with Sandoval's well-known weight issues, but that that was just the point: the issue-taking became too public, too often, for Sandoval's taste. And, it often did make the Giants seem like carping nannies.

Even sadder: Asked whom among the Giants he would miss, Sandoval gave it straight: "Only Bochy," meaning manager Bruce Bochy. "I love Boch. He's like my dad. He's the only guy that I miss. And Hunter Pence. Just those guys."

* THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE METS — Matt Harvey looked so good in his first spring start—especially hitting near 100 mph on the radar gun—that the talk around the Mets became whether and how the Mets might slap a rein on their eager horse. Both Harvey and GM Sandy Alderson have said neither he nor they would push him too hard.

Unfortunately, it was bad enough that observers saw manager Terry Collins on this spring's hot seat without owner Fred Wilpon fueling it after the Marlins strafed the Mets 13-2 in a spring game. Collins did his best to insist there was no friction, Wilpon did his best to insist it wasn't untoward for him to take more direct interest in the team.

But the mixed message seemed clear enough: Collins — who's managed to navigate four seasons with less than stellar personnel (especially out of his bullpens) — isn't just on the hot seat, he might be an early firing squad candidate if the Mets don't look sharp in April.

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UPDATE---Yu Darvish will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the entire 2015 season. This after Darvish got his second opinion, from Mets medical director Dr. David Altchek, earlier this week. Darvish will undergo the surgery with Dr. James Andrews 18 March. All this after Darvish was shut down last August following elbow inflammation.

Posted by Jeff Kallman at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)

March 11, 2015

NASCAR Top 10 Power Rankings: Week 3

Note: the quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Kevin Harvick — Harvick led 142 of 267 laps in a dominating win at Las Vegas. He now leads the Sprint Cup points standings by 11 over Joey Logano.

"That's my first win ever at Las Vegas," Harvick said. "That's another check mark off my bucket list. Also on my bucket list: having a sponsor that actually sells buckets. Jimmy John's does, so scratch that one off, too.

"The No. 4 Chevy had a vibration late in the race. It had me a little worried, until I realized it was just my wife Delana's incessant tweeting."

2. Joey Logano — Logano finished tenth in the Kobalt Tools 400, posting his third top 10 of the year. He is second in the points standings, 11 behind Kevin Harvick.

"The No. 22 Pennzoil Platinum Fusion was crazy loose all afternoon," Logano said. "I was fighting the steering wheel all day. My father said he hasn't seen anything driven that hard since me."

3. Jimmie Johnson — Johnson finished 41st at Las Vegas, his day derailed by several tire issues, including a flat tire that sent him into the wall.

"I wrote a country song about those pesky tires," Johnson said. "It's called 'Rascal Flats.'

"Tires issues seem to be the No. 1 downfall of this team. And that's left us deflated. When our tires are working properly, we're unbeatable. Proper inflation gives us an 'air' of superiority."

4. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. — Earnhardt came home fourth in the Kobalt Tools 400, recording his third straight top-five finish to start the season.

"I used my adjustable track bar quite a bit on Sunday," Earnhardt said. "I think that's called 'giving myself a wedgie.'

"As you know, most track bar adjustments are made by turning a wedge in the rear of the car. That soon may be a thing of the past. But never fear, as long as there are Earnhardt fans, there will always be 'junk in the trunk.'"

5. Kasey Kahne — Kahne survived a tangle with Carl Edwards to post a 17th at Las Vegas. Edwards sent Kahne into the wall as the two were racing side-by-side after a restart. Later, Kahne got revenge by clipping Edwards, sending the No. 19 sliding down the track and into the wall.

"Carl kindly offered an apology after the race," Kahne said. "I said, 'It's about Time…Warner Cable. And then I gave him 'Farmer's Assurance' that I accepted. Of my retaliation, he said, 'That was a Great Clip.' Boom! Sponsor obligations fulfilled."

6. Matt Kenseth — Kenseth finished ninth at Las Vegas, scoring his second top-10 result of the year.

"I hear Eldora Speedway's web site was hacked and a message from ISIS was posted," Kenseth said. "It seems 'Death to America' has been replaced with 'Boogity, boogity, boogity!' Turns out it was a false call anyway. Apparently, a Stewart rival called him a 'holy terror.'

"But Tony's on top of things. He's demanded his internet security team find the weakness in the web site and fix it, or else! In other words, Tony said to them, 'You're IT!"

7. Martin Truex, Jr. — Truex remained hot in 2015, finishing second at Las Vegas for his third consecutive top-10 of the season.

"This Furniture Row squad is a team to be reckoned with," Truex said. "Of course, we're a one-car team in a sport dominated by multi-car teams. Look at Hendrick Motorsports, for example. They have four cars, all capable of winning the championship. In Las Vegas, they call Rick Hendrick the "Four Car Stud."

8. AJ Allmendinger — Allmendinger posted a sixth in the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas. He is fifth in the points standings, 34 behind Kevin Harvick.

"Some say a JTG Daugherty Racing car looks out of place amongst all the high-dollar, multi-car teams," Allmendinger said. "That is so not the case, and team co-owner Brad Daugherty knows 'out of place.' He's a corn-fed hillbilly in Las Vegas. That's out of place."

9. Denny Hamlin — Hamlin finished fifth at Las Vegas, luckily avoiding major damage when he was caught up in the Kasey Kahne/Carl Edwards skirmish on lap 195. Hamlin is eighth in the points standings, 47 out of first.

"It's always fun racing in Vegas," Hamlin said. "I put money on myself to win the race, just so I could say 'may the bettor man win.'"

10. Jeff Gordon — Gordon won the pole, but was caught up in Danica Patrick's spin in Saturday practice. Forced into a backup car, Gordon delivered a respectable 18th in Sunday's Kobalt Tools 400.

"This evokes painful memories for me," Gordon said. "For the second time in my life, I fell victim to 'collection' by an overrated brunette."

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2015

Trading Brandon Marshall

I never saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But if forgetting Sarah Marshall was anything like as easy as moving on from Brandon Marshall, it must have been a pretty short movie.

Brandon Marshall is one of the most talented receivers I've ever seen. He consistently outmaneuvers defenders, has great hands, breaks tackles, and blocks well. He has, not to put too fine a point on it, a Hall of Fame skill-set. And yet, no one wants him. Marshall showed great promise in limited playing time as a rookie with the Broncos in 2006. The next two years, he had back-to-back 100-catch seasons, tying Larry Fitzgerald and Reggie Wayne for the most first down receptions (135) in the NFL. Following a third straight 100-catch, 1,000-yard receiving season, which included a career-high 10 TDs, head coach Josh McDaniels traded Marshall to the Miami Dolphins for a pair of second-round draft picks.

The first pick was used to acquire Tim Tebow, while the second produced starting guard Orlando Franklin. Tebow is out of the NFL and Franklin is a reliable starter, but Marshall made three of the next four Pro Bowls, and he was first-team All-Pro in 2012, rated as the best wide receiver other than Calvin Johnson.

After two productive seasons in Miami, Marshall was traded again. The Bears acquired him in exchange for a pair of third-round draft picks. Marshall responded with perhaps the two best seasons of his career, the all-pro season in 2012 and a brilliant 2013 in which he caught 100 passes (for the fifth time), led the league in receiving first downs (70), and set a career-high for TD receptions (12). Marshall battled through injury in 2014 to make some amazing plays, including a critical first down catch in traffic, which led to a season-ending injury. During his time in Chicago, Marshall also created running lanes for Matt Forte and mentored Alshon Jeffery.

Now Chicago has shipped him off even more cheaply than the Broncos and Dolphins did. On Friday, the Jets acquired Marshall, and the Bears acquired a fifth-round draft pick. Seriously, a fifth-round pick? Those guys don't make the team out of training camp half the time.

I get it, kind of. Marshall is outspoken and a bit of a live wire. He's an emotional player who gets upset when the team isn't doing well. The Bears are coming off two disappointing seasons, and they're trying to start over, with a new coaching staff and a fresh start in the locker room. The team needed to drop salary. There wasn't have a lot of leverage in trade negotiations. But this trade was a rip-off. Shipping him out for a fifth-rounder indicates that the Bears just wanted to get rid of Marshall. This wasn't about acquiring value, it was about dropping someone the team didn't want, and doing it in a way that wouldn't totally outrage the fan base.

But Bears fans should be outraged. Marshall has helped every team he's played on, and 31 (his birthday is later this month) is not old for a receiver. At some point, you look at an immensely talented player, who's been traded three times in the last five years, and conclude that he is a serious problem off the field. But the record doesn't really support that idea. Marshall isn't Terrell Owens. He's seldom in the news for reasons other than his play, he doesn't publicly antagonize teammates, and he doesn't flip out twice a season because something made him frustrated.

Chicago made a mistake last year by giving Jay Cutler a rich extension. Now, the team has compounded that mistake by giving away a valuable asset for next to nothing.

There's a lot of other news in the player movement department, and I won't try to hit everything, but we'll address a few highlights:

* Chip Kelly's plan in Philadelphia reminds me of Josh McDaniels as coach of the Broncos. Aggressive, unexpected moves are fine as long as you're winning, but doing anything different is not tolerated in the NFL unless accompanied by grand success. Kiko Alonso had a good rookie season in Buffalo, and running backs don't age well. In that respect, I think Kelly and the Eagles were probably smart to trade LeSean McCoy while he still has value. But if McCoy has three more good years, or Alonso never recovers the form he showed in 2013, Kelly is in for some serious backlash.

* The Patriots let Darrelle Revis hit free agency. It's not a huge surprise. Revis is an incredibly gifted cornerback, and he was a key player in New England's Super Bowl run last season. But he's going to command a huge salary in 2015, and apart from Tom Brady, the Pats have always been pretty strict about not putting themselves in salary cap trouble. They'd rather have a bunch of good players than a stars-and-scrubs roster, with minimum-salary schmoes filling in the gaps alongside a few highly-priced stars. That strategy works in fantasy football, but it doesn't seem nearly as effective in real life. New England will miss Revis, but the team will find something productive to do with those salary cap dollars.

* Ndamukong Suh is headed to Miami. Suh is a monster, but there's something bugging me ... Suh is a better player than Albert Haynesworth, and he seems to have a passion for football that wasn't obvious in Haynesworth. But the last big contract handed out to a star defensive tackle that stomps on dudes — that didn't work out so well. If I were a Dolphins fan, this signing would make me excited, and nervous.

* Monday was a rough one for the San Francisco 49ers. Pro Bowl guard Mike Iupati announced his intention to sign with a division rival, the Arizona Cardinals. Fullback Bruce Miller was arrested on domestic assault charges. And two key defensive players announced that they would retire. Justin Smith isn't a huge surprise; although he's still a valuable player, he's been in the league a long time and his body has surely taken a beating. The shock is Patrick Willis, who missed most of the season with an injury, but who is only 30. Willis was a good player, but probably not so good that he's likely to make the Hall of Fame after such a short career.

* Last year, Chase Stuart declared Aaron Donald the NFL Combine MVP, and Donald went on to win Defensive Rookie of the Year honors. Out of respect for that track record, Kentucky linebacker Bud Dupree aced Stuart's combine analysis this year, with the best weight-adjusted 40-yard dash (4.56), vertical jump (42"), and broad jump (138") at this year's combine. There's some concern about his football skill, but certainly the guy is an athlete, and the potential is there for him to become a really big star.

Posted by Brad Oremland at 3:19 PM | Comments (0)

March 9, 2015

Capitals Primed to Be NHL's Redemption Tale

If you're looking for a feel-good story as we hit the NHL's stretch run, look no further than the Washington Capitals.

You remember the Caps, right? Just a few years ago, they were the darlings of the NHL. A young team with a rock star attitude and a spotlight-grabbing leader, the Caps represented the best of the post-2004 lockout NHL.

Except for one thing: they couldn't get it done in the playoffs.

Say what you will about the San Jose Sharks over the past decade or so, but that team has at least pushed into the NHL's final four a number of times. The Caps? Despite having loads of talent, getting out of the first round has been a challenge.

Having lost their identity in recent seasons, there was plenty of uncertainty when former Nashville bench boss Barry Trotz took over. But while most people think of Trotz as a defensive grinding coach — the kind of play that Dale Hunter brought to the team in a truncated season — they forget that the Predators saw some time as an uptempo team when they had the personnel for it (Paul Kariya, Peter Forsberg, etc.). Trotz's most notable trait, in fact, was not defense but hard work.

And that's the biggest difference in this Caps team — they're hard to play against. Not in a mind-numbing low-scoring way that they displayed under Dale Hunter, but in a way that is built to win playoff games. Finally, Washington is a hard team to play against.

Upfront, though, some things remain. Alex Ovechkin is still a prime candidate for the Rocket Richard trophy, though he's finally added some hustle to his game. Nicklas Backstrom is still one of the top assist players in the league. But while Ovechkin will never be mistaken for a Selke candidate, he’s added some dimension to his game while continuing his lethal offensive play. More importantly, Ovechkin is on the same page as Trotz, which can take them both a long way.

Previous Caps teams had questionable goaltending, and while Braden Holtby has been with the Capitals on two previous playoff years, this is the first year Holtby has looked like a true No. 1. It helps that the Caps added to their blueline with Matt Niskanen and Brooks Orpik. While neither may be worth their actual payday, they addressed a constant deficiency in their overall team defense, and the result is one of the league’s best goals-against averages.

The longtime arguments about the Caps — that Ovechkin is soft, that Trotz can’t win in the playoffs, that the team isn’t built for playoff hockey — are all primed to be myth-busted. However, redemption can only come in the form of playoff wins, so regardless of how well all of this seems to be coming together, none of it matters if Washington loses in the first round again. The difference, though, is that for the first time in years, whoever draws Washington as an opponent knows that they’re getting a tough team to play against.

Posted by Mike Chen at 7:18 PM | Comments (0)

March 6, 2015

NBA Week in Review

* The King's Castle is Made of Bricks — LeBron James missed two free throws with the Cavaliers down by 1 in overtime in Cleveland's 105-103 loss on Sunday. James was 3-for-11 from the line in the game. James found a positive in the free throws — 3-of-11 can loosely be considered a "triple-double."

* Crotch Rocket, or This Rocket Bypassed Uranus and Went Straight to Hispenis, or James on James' Crime — James Harden was suspended for one game for kicking LeBron James in the groin in Sunday's Houston win. Harden didn't appeal the decision, citing lacks of balls.

* Mile "Bye" City, or Brian's (Swan) Song — The Denver Nuggets fired head coach Brian Shaw on Tuesday and named assistant coach Melvin Hunt interim head coach. The Nuggets were 20-39 under Shaw this season and had lost six in a row. The Nuggets plan is to begin the head coach search at season's end. God's plan is to let DeMarcus Cousins handle the search.

* "B" Like Mike, or 'Aire Jordan — Michael Jordan was on Forbes' 29th Annual World Billionaires List, with a net worth of $1 billion. To put that amount of money in perspective, Jordan is one missed putt on the golf course from losing it all.

* Face Guard — Russell Westbrook, wearing a protective mask due to a facial fracture, scored 49 points, grabbed 16 rebounds, and dished 10 assists in the Thunders 123-118 win over the 76ers on Wednesday. On a related hidden-identity note, the Thunder are still "masquerading" as NBA Finals contenders.

* Long Range Planning, or Unusually, He's Not Anxious to Pull the Trigger — Ray Allen said he will sit out the current season and plans to reassess his plans for the 2015-16 season. In reverence to his longtime boss, LeBron James, Allen will call his choice "A Decision."

* He's "Posterized" So Many, It's Only Fair That He Gets "Statutized," or For the First Time, Dominique is Stuck to the Floor — The Atlanta Hawks unveiled a 13½ foot statue of franchise legend Dominique Wilkins at Phillips Arena. Not a single person objected to honoring Wilkins with a bust, so it was a "slam dunk."

* This Week's NBA Finals Prediction — This is based on Jeffrey Boswell's NBA's "S.W.I.S.H." rankings (Statistical Weighted Index Summation Hierarchy), which takes into account biorhythms and statistical astrology to predict the Finals (based on data year-to-date and predicted future performance).

Golden State over Atlanta in 5.

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)

March 5, 2015

NASCAR Top 10 Power Rankings: Week 2

Note: the quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Joey Logano — Logano won the pole at Atlanta and led 84 laps on his way to a fourth-place finish in the Folds of Honor 500. He is first in the Sprint Cup points standings, one ahead of Jimmie Johnson.

"I'm finally realizing my potential," Logano said. "I believe I can win the Sprint Cup championship. I haven't been this fast since my departure from Joe Gibbs Racing. I really have to thank Roger Penske for hiring me. Roger's like a father to me, because he buys me cars and gives me no option but to go fast."

2. Kevin Harvick — Harvick started from the rear at Atlanta after an engine change and was strong throughout the day. Unable to chase down Jimmie Johnson, Harvick finished second, his second runner-up finish of the season.

"It appears that Jimmie Johnson delivers as well," Harvick said.

"My No. 4 Jimmy Johns Chevy was great, but we had nothing for the No. 48 car. The No. 4 was 'freaky fast'; any car supervised by Chad Knaus is 'sneaky' fast. Any car driven by a member of the Mayfield clan is 'tweaky' fast. Obviously, that wouldn't be for delivery; it would be for pickup."

3. Jimmie Johnson — Johnson took the lead on lap 305 at Atlanta and pulled away on a restart with 13 laps to go to win the Folds Of Honor 500.

Jimmie Johnson: Johnson took the lead on lap 305 at Atlanta and pulled away on a restart with 13 laps to go to win the Folds of Honor 500.

"My car was super-fast," Johnson said. "Somebody call the police, because there's 42 other drivers who will testify that the No. 48 'went missing' in Georgia.

"I had to start in the back because I never made it to qualifying because of inspection issues. I've had a number of rivals in my storied career, but 'inspection' has certainly been the toughest, because it's always been hardest to pass."

4. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. — Earnhardt finished third in the Folds of Honor 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, as Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson took the win.

"It was a cold day of racing," Earnhardt said. "Hey, I'm all for a 'cold one,' and so are the fans of Junior Nation. On that note, it was an historic day for my fans — it's the first time they've ever called a cooler 'useless.'

"I've got to hand it to my crew chief Greg Ives for some great calls. Some people thought pairing up with a rookie Cup crew chief would be a bad idea early in the season, and they warned me about the 'Ives of March.'"

5. Kasey Kahne — Kahne started 10th and finished 14th at Atlanta. He is seventh in the points standings, 23 out of first.

"The temperature was 43 degrees when the green flag dropped," Kahne said. "NASCAR historians noted that it was the first time 'Mercury' has made an impact in the sport in a long time. Jeff Gordon said he hadn't felt such a chill in the air since his first marriage."

6. Matt Kenseth — Kenseth finished fifth at Atlanta, leading the charge for Joe Gibbs Racing.

"It's good to hear that Kurt Busch has agreed to NASCAR's terms for reinstatement," Kenseth said. "Now, I'm not sure Kurt will have his job back at Stewart Hass Racing upon completion, but I don't think he'll have any trouble finding work, especially as a 'hired gun.'"

7. Martin Truex, Jr. — Truex followed his eighth-place finish sixth at Daytona with a sixth at Atlanta. He is fifth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 13 behind Joey Logano.

"Furniture Row Racing is making a name for itself," Truex said, "as is Denver Mattress. What do you call it when a mattress company pays you to advertise on your car? 'Lying down on the job.'"

8. Casey Mears — After a sixth at Daytona, Mears posted a solid 15th at Atlanta and is now sixth in the Sprint Cup points standings, 20 points out of first.

"I think it's too early for me to start thinking 'championship,'" Mears said. "I don't want to get 'too far ahead of myself.' Evryone knows I can't hold a lead, even over myself."

9. A.J. Allmendinger — Allmendinger finished seventh at Atlanta, driving the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet in the top 10.

"My major sponsor is Clorox, the No. 1 cleaning product in the world," Allmendinger said. "Thusly, my diehard fans are known as the 'Bleacher Bums.' They're a little hard to recognize amongst the rest of NASCAR's fans, because just like everyone else, the Bums are all white.

"Did you hear? May 9th's Sprint Cup race in Kansas will be called the 'SpongeBob SquarePants 400.' Kevin Harvick and the voice of FOX's NASCAR coverage are doubly ecstatic. They're saying 'Happy Happy! Joy Joy!'"

10. Carl Edwards — Edwards posted a solid 12th in the Folds of Honor 500, joining Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth, who finished fifth, in the top 12.

"I've got a new team," Edwards said, "and new teammates. I'm the new guy, so I have a lot of questions for my new teammates, and they've all been great. Matt Kenseth said I don't even have to raise my hand when I have a question."

Posted by Jeffrey Boswell at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)

March 4, 2015

76ers: Paralysis By Analysis

We're still a month and a half out from the end of the NBA's regular season. But, despite all the minutes left to tick off of scoreboard clocks, there's one thing I'm sure I'll know by the beginning of the playoffs. When I step back and look over the landscape of the Association, I can't help but have a feeling of "flabbergast" for the franchise known as the Philadelphia 76ers.

The historic organization appears to want to become the new poster boy for success using advanced analytics. In the meantime, they have no issue playing poorly enough to lose 78% of their games. It's not just that they're bad (the Knicks and Lakers are really bad teams). It's not just that they're young (the Timberwolves have had an extremely young core through most of the season). It's that their the basic brand of bad that seems to want to get historically worse.

This is nothing new for the organization which started out as the Syracuse Nationals. Even with an honor role that includes Dolph Schayes, Earl Lloyd (RIP, sir), Hal Greer, Wilt Chamberlain, Billy Cunningham, Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, and Allen Iverson, this athletic venture has seen its share of valleys. After making every postseason from 1950 to 1971, the franchise missed the Playoffs four straight campaigns. That stretch included the worst team in league history (the infamous '72-'73 edition). In the 1990s, Philly wouldn't find the postseason for seven consecutive years (1992 to 1998). However, I couldn't tell you if during those particular stints, the front office tried to re-establish a winning atmosphere quite the same way Sam Hinkie is trying to do it today.

Since the Sixers' current GM took over in May of 2013, there have been four big acquisition "action" dates (in my opinion, that means either the trade deadline or the Draft). During the 2013 draft, Hinkie used his three available picks to take Michael Carter-Williams, Glen Rice (traded on draft night), and Pierre Jackson. Jackson didn't have a chance to make the squad out of Training Camp due to the fact that he was the other piece in the Jrue Holiday (going)/Nerlens Noel (incoming) trade just two weeks later.

At last season's trade deadline, the organization shed more youth from the previous regime. They shipped off Spencer Hawes for a package including Earl Clark (waived the next day). In a separate deal, the team lost Lavoy Allen and Evan Turner for a future pick and Danny Granger (waived less than a week later). And this only helped to set the stage for quite the future haul…potentially.

This past June, the Sixers used their full allotment of seven selections during the sixty-slot Draft (yep, they held about 12% of the event in their hands). Two of the choices (Elfrid Payton and Nemanja Dangubic) were traded on Draft night. One (Vasilije Micic) is a European project playing on the other side of the Atlantic. Another (Russ Smith) signed with New Orleans just a couple of weeks after getting drafted. And the prized pick (No. 3 overall Joel Embiid) is basically taking a redshirt this season.

As the offseason continued, Hinkie stayed busy. He offered Thaddeus Young to Minnesota, receiving a 2015 1st-round pick, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, and Alexey Shved (traded just before Christmas) in return. Then, things got real interesting.

It has been a couple of weeks since this season's trade deadline, a day which the Sixers were, once again, very active. After the latest round of analytical numbers were crunched, the results that were regurgitated meant the end of some young eras in the team's rebuilding process. Carter-Williams made enough progress during his first pro season to be named Rookie of the Year. But it wasn't enough to justify a full second stanza. He was sent to Milwaukee as part of a three-team deal that brought a protected 1st-round pick back to the Sixers. But Philly wasn't done. K.J. McDaniels, a 2nd-round pick from this past Draft, was ushered off to Houston for Isaiah Canaan and (you know it) an upcoming 2nd-round pick in June.

After all of that rigmarole, the organization's only healthy, game-playing body from the ten picks over the last two drafts is Jerami Grant. Yes, the team has Nerlens Noel. Yes, the franchise could have two picks in the lottery positions of the next "potential party." And they could have as many as eight (yes, eight) picks overall. But I don't know what that means.

With a top-five slot fairly certain, there's the likelihood that talent will surely fall to them, whether it's Jahlil Okafor, Karl-Anthony Towns, D'Angelo Russell, Emmanuel Mudiay, or someone else. But will one of those anticipatory stars be the piece that turns the fortunes of this franchise? Will they have the rest of the young core around to grow together? Will they stay long enough to grow with the young core?

These are the questions the fans of advanced analytics hope get resolved with a positive outcome. The approach has worked for teams like the San Antonio Spurs, NHL's Chicago Blackhawks, and MLB's Boston Red Sox. But when you have veteran leadership (from players like Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and David Ortiz) in the mix, the pure numbers game can be rolled in much easier. Whomever the Sixers bring in, they'll be very, very young and, in some cases, very, very raw.

Who knows? I could be sitting here in three years' time, finishing my plate of crow as Philadelphia advances in the Playoffs. But until then, I'll keep wondering when this franchise will turn the flurry of statistics into numbers that will put some actual brotherly love back into the Wells Fargo Center.

Posted by Jonathan Lowe at 2:45 PM | Comments (0)

March 3, 2015

Ranking NFL QBs in the Postseason

I've been thinking a lot about quarterbacks recently. And not just to lament that people forget Sonny Jurgensen, or to argue about why Otto Graham was better than Norm Van Brocklin.

A couple years ago, I examined postseason won-loss records for active NFL quarterbacks. I'm updating that now, because (1) young players like Russell Wilson and Andrew Luck are on the list now, (2) Tom Brady and the Patriots won another Super Bowl, and (3) I've got a new method to try out.

Evaluating NFL players by team success is unfair and doesn't make sense, but it's something fans and media do. What you'll find below are quantitative methods of measuring QB postseason success. There are three different models, so you can decide which most closely matches your own perceptions. I looked only at active QBs, so you won't find Hall of Famers like Terry Bradshaw or Joe Montana on these lists.

The first method is the same one I used in my previous column, the one designed to most closely reflect popular opinion. This list doesn't tell you anything new; it's just a way of quantifying what most fans already feel. It awards one point for a playoff win, three points for a Super Bowl win, and minus one for a playoff or Super Bowl loss. Only active QBs with at least three playoff games are listed.

1. Tom Brady, +20
t2. Eli Manning, +9
t2. Ben Roethlisberger, +9
4. Joe Flacco, +7
5. Russell Wilson, +6
t6. Drew Brees, +3
t6. Aaron Rodgers, +3
t8. Colin Kaepernick, +2
t8. Mark Sanchez, +2
10. Peyton Manning, 0
t11. Matt Hasselbeck, -1
t11. Andrew Luck, -1
t11. Philip Rivers, -1
t11. Alex Smith, -1
t11. Michael Vick, -1
16. Tony Romo, -2
17. Matt Ryan, -3
18. Andy Dalton, -4

I think most fans would find that list roughly mirrors their perceptions of how these players have performed in the postseason. Brady is by far the best, and the next six are all Super Bowl winners. Peyton Manning, whom a lot of fans still perceive as a choker or playoff underachiever, is the only Super Bowl winner without a positive score, and the much-maligned Andy Dalton comes in last.

I believe that ranking does what it's designed to do: reflect conventional wisdom. But there's a lot missing from that calculation (and not just the other players and coaches). Losing a playoff home game — when you're probably the better team and you get homefield advantage — could be seen as a choke job, where losing on the road probably should not. Another issue is that you face higher-quality opponents late in the playoffs, and a first-round bye deprives good teams of the opportunity for an easy +1 win in the wild card round.

Thus, the formula for the next list is a little more complicated. A first-round bye is +1 (QB must have thrown at least 2/3 of his team's passes during the regular season), so we're not punishing QBs who missed the opportunity for an easy win in the wild-card round. Postseason home wins are +1, and home losses are -2. Postseason road wins — including the Super Bowl — are +2, while road losses and Super Bowl losses are -1. The list doesn't change a lot, but it seems more fair to me:

1. Tom Brady, +24
2. Joe Flacco, +14
3. Eli Manning, +11
4. Ben Roethlisberger, +10
t5. Mark Sanchez, +6
t5. Russell Wilson, +6
7. Aaron Rodgers, +5
t8. Drew Brees, +4
t8. Colin Kaepernick, +4
10. Peyton Manning, +2
11. Philip Rivers, +1
12. Michael Vick, 0
t13. Matt Hasselbeck, -1
t13. Andrew Luck, -1
t13. Alex Smith, -1
16. Tony Romo, -2
17. Matt Ryan, -3
18. Andy Dalton, -5

Here, players like Flacco and Sanchez, whose teams went a combined 11-7 on the road (2-0 at home), rise up the list. I believe Peyton Manning is the greatest quarterback to ever play, but his teams have as many home losses in the postseason (6) as the next two players on the list combined (Brady and Roethlisberger, 3 each). He retains 10th place by virtue of seven first-round byes. I think everyone agrees that Manning would have several more playoff wins if the Broncos had wild card games the last three years, and the Colts a few more wild cards in the mid-'00s.

The problem with all these lists — apart from the fundamental inanity of rating individual players by the results of their whole teams — is the quick-rise, slow-fall nature of the rankings. For instance, Eli Manning has two terrific postseasons, both featuring three wins followed by a Super Bowl victory. That's +15 on this list, just for two seasons. You'll note, too, that Eli is -4 in his other seasons. The Giants lost their first playoff game in 2005, 2006, and 2008, two of them at home. Eli has lost his first playoff game more frequently than he has won it, but he's effectively immune to a negative rating just from a pair of hot streaks.

I also believe it's crazy to lower a player's reputation because his team lost in the playoffs, while someone who missed the playoffs entirely gets a free pass. Judging a quarterback largely (or even exclusively) by his team's postseason results is a relatively new phenomenon, and I'm not convinced we're handling it the right way. The third list is going to look a lot different, though I think it's actually the most fair, because it assigns value to reaching the postseason.

In this final list, which is more about being part of a winning team, we award +1 to any QB who threw at least 2/3 of the regular-season passes for a playoff team and -1 to any QB who threw at least 2/3 of the regular-season passes for a team that missed the playoffs. Then we add +1 for first-round byes and home playoff wins, +2 for road playoff wins (including the Super Bowl), with a -1 penalty for playoff road losses and Super Bowl losses, and -2 for home losses.

This system measures players against expectations. A quarterback whose team misses the postseason scores -1. A QB whose team makes the playoffs but loses on the road scores 0. A playoff appearance (+1), with a road win (+2) followed by a road loss (-1), scores +2. I've broadened the list to include a few players with limited postseason experience, but big names in this era.

1. Tom Brady, +35
2. Joe Flacco, +19
3. Peyton Manning, +14
4. Ben Roethlisberger, +13
5. Eli Manning, +11
t6. Aaron Rodgers, +9
t6. Russell Wilson, +9
8. Mark Sanchez, +6
9. Colin Kaepernick, +4
10. Drew Brees, +3
t11. Andrew Luck, +2
t11. Philip Rivers, +2
13. Matt Hasselbeck, 0
t14. Andy Dalton, -1
t14. Michael Vick, -1
t16. Matt Ryan, -2
t16. Matt Schaub, -2
t16. Matthew Stafford, -2
t19. Cam Newton, -3
t19. Tony Romo, -3
t19. Alex Smith, -3
t22. Jay Cutler, -4
t22. Ryan Fitzpatrick, -4
t22. Kyle Orton, -4
25. Carson Palmer, -5

Obviously, this is a much different list. Peyton Manning, whose teams haven't missed the playoffs since the 2001 season, rates very well on this list. Peyton's had as many first-round byes (7) as Roethlisberger has playoff appearances. Manning has the most postseason losses of any active QB, but he also more wins than anyone but Brady.

The other big riser here is Andy Dalton, whose teams have made the playoffs four times in four years. They've lost their first game each time, but three of those were on the road, with the Bengals underdogs. Dalton only has one game that could really be described as a choke job. Andrew Luck, who has never missed the playoffs, gets a similar rise, from -1 to +2.

The surprise for me is Carson Palmer at the bottom. For the seven years in which Palmer has thrown at least 2/3 of his team's passes, his team has reached the postseason only twice. I didn't count the 2005-06 loss on Palmer's record, since he only played the first series, but in his only other playoff game, Palmer was terrible, and the Bengals lost at home to Mark Sanchez and the Jets. I don't consider Palmer a choker, or a guy who doesn't win, but his teams don't have a very good record.

These rankings need about a hundred different disclaimers, and they're just a messing-around exercise for those of us who already miss football. Which of the three lists you prefer depends upon how you think about these issues. As I noted two years ago, the most interesting list is probably the first one, at the top. I think it's the least fair to the players, but most closely reflects the way they're perceived, effectively quantifying popular opinion. If ESPN made a list of the best playoff QBs, it would probably look a lot like that list. It makes for a handy reference, if nothing else.

Posted by Brad Oremland at 12:41 PM | Comments (1)

March 2, 2015

The Storms of February

February brought us two types of court storms.

The first was a destructive force that is making an impressive statement towards a run at history. The second was a storm that was not impressive whatsoever.

The first, Kentucky, is now 29-0 and is only getting stronger. It seems as though when the spotlight is bigger, the Wildcats relish it that much more and become that much better. The length, the shooting touch of the Harrison twins, the defensive grit of Willie Cauley-Stein and the physical prowess of Karl-Anthony Towns and Trey Lyles simply have been too much for other teams and even the computers are recognizing it. Arkansas, which had no chance all game against Kentucky, lost by 17 and went up a spot in the newest RPI rankings. UK will be, deservedly, one of the biggest March Madness favorites in history.

Kentucky isn't weathering the storm. They are simply a bigger one.

As for the usual "one and done" complaints and that Kentucky and John Calipari are ruining college basketball, they fall short this year. The reason Kentucky is as great as they are is because Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress, and the Harrisons came back. While the Cats play four freshman who would start for pretty much every team in the country, it's their upperclassmen that helped turn a good team into a very dangerous one.

The second storm happened in Manhattan, Kansas last Monday. Kansas State, 4-49 against rival Kansas in their last 53 games, stunned the Jayhawks, 70-63, and pandemonium ensued.

The Wildcat players deserved the celebration; however, Kansas players being taunted, hip-checked and having punches thrown at them ruined what should've been a special scene at the Octagon of Doom. Also, there were way too many profane chants. I know rivalry games bring out the best in profanity but there are limits ... K-State's fans went a little too far.

Kansas State is better than that and last night, following a last second upset of Iowa State, they showed it by not causing an ugly scene. However, the court storm against Kansas does bring up the notion that such events need to be prohibited in future seasons.

That last statement was honestly pretty tough to type. During my college years, I stormed a basketball court and a football field. Both were big victories and were awesome memories that I carry with me still today. I love those moments. However, the problem is that it becomes more dangerous with each time. The lines get pushed that much more and eventually, scenes like Monday in Manhattan happen.

I really don't want to see court storming end. I do, though, want drastic security measures taken to protect the opposing team. It can't be a spur of the moment plan. There has to be something set in place to protect players and coaches. Otherwise, celebrations will have to be tampered and that's nearly not as much fun for everyone.

The month of February was defined by two storms: One seems unstoppable until April. One must be contained through the madness of March.

Posted by Jean Neuberger at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)