Tag Archives: Super Bowl

Sports news

Coach Carroll stands tall

The 49th Super Bowl played Sunday night no doubt will go down in the books as arguably the most memorable ever.

Great game. Two great teams. Great finish.

And it ended in controversy. Not because of a blown official’s call. It ended because one of the teams, the Seattle Seahawks, tried to execute a play that many football brainiacs have questioned. Some have called it the “worst play call in the history of the National Football League.”

The Seahawks lost 28-24 to the New England Patriots after Patriots’ defensive back Malcolm Butler intercepted a pass at the goal line with less than 30 seconds to play. The Seahawks had three chances to score a go-ahead touchdown from the 1-yard line; sitting in their backfield was a running back nicknamed “Beast Mode,” Marshawn Lynch, who earned that descriptive nickname for the obvious reason. Seattle went for the pass. It failed.

What happened after the game is worth noting.

Head coach Pete Carroll manned up. He took full responsibility. It was his call all the way. He said he is responsible for making the call that, as it turned out, cost the Seahawks the chance to repeat as NFL champs.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/seattle-coach-pete-carroll-stands-by-decision-to-pass/ar-AA8UkPK

You have got to admire the coach for that. He could have passed the buck. He could have put the monkey on the back of his offensive coordinator. He could have said the players talked him into making the call. He could have said he was distracted by all the crowd noise. For crying out loud, Carroll could have said he was suffering from a splitting headache and wasn’t thinking clearly.

Carroll said none of that. Instead, he said: “We easily could have gone otherwise, but when they sent their goal-line guys in, I know that we have the advantage on the matchups in the passing game so let’s throw it. It’s OK. One of those downs we were likely to throw the ball — maybe two of those downs we would have thrown the ball depending on how we had to save the clock. We had to get all of our plays.”

There you have it.

A man taking the sting of defeat like, well, a man.

Well done, coach.

 

Sports news

It all came down to one great football game

The hype didn’t matter. The controversy was reduced to a bit player. The TV commercials were amusing, more or less.

What actually mattered to real football fans Sunday night was that two very good professional teams played their guts out and produced a game worthy of the name — Super Bowl.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/new-england-patriots-at-seattle-seahawks/game-center/sp-id-10401000001421883

The New England Patriots emerged victorious over the defending National Football League champion Seattle Seahawks. The game’s outstanding player, Patriot quarterback Tom Brady, simply cemented his place — as if it needed cementing — in pro football’s Hall of Fame, whenever he becomes eligible.

The so-called “Deflate-gate” kerfuffle that erupted after the Patriots won the AFC championship still hangs out there, somewhere. The NFL is going to investigate it. Perhaps the league will determine who took the air out of those footballs to make them more catchable for Brady’s receivers and running backs. It didn’t matter for this game. The principal Patriots — starting with head coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady — say they didn’t tamper with the footballs. They’ve said so categorically and unequivocally. End of story? Not quite.

The better team on Sunday won the Big Game.

It’s a good thing it wasn’t a blowout, or that it ended with a questionable officiating call on the field. A blowout would have reduced the TV announcers to blathering on and about the deflated football matter. A questionable call would have detracted from the game being played.

Instead, we got a great football game to end a wild and topsy-turvy season.

That’s how it’s supposed to go.

medical news, Sports news

Brain injuries deserve attention, too

It’s fascinating to me to watch the media get all exercised and worked up over deflated footballs and whether one of the Super Bowl teams cheated its way into the big game.

Meantime, another actual crisis is festering and no one talks publicly about with the same fervor we’ve heard in recent days about “Deflate-gate.”

I’m talking about traumatic brain injuries. Concussions. Football-induced dementia.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/league-of-denial/?elq=2d2f5832acd34b95926649e0515f918c&elqCampaignId=1137

I want to mention it because Frontline, the acclaimed PBS documentary series, recently rebroadcast its special on this matter. It has gotten next to zero attention, as sports media — and even mainstream news talk shows — have fixated on whether the New England Patriots purposely deflated footballs in their AFC championship rout over the Indianapolis Colts.

“League of Denial” chronicles what some have said has been the National Football League’s complicity in some of the brain injuries players have suffered. Indeed, some current and former NFL stars — former quarterback Brett Favre comes to mind — have declared they won’t let their sons play football for as long as they can control their sons’ activities. Why? The sport is too dangerous, they say.

The Frontline special can be watched online. It’s worth seeing over and over.

Perhaps it will awaken us to a real scandal about the health and welfare of professional athletes who take a beating that no human body can withstand.

Deflated footballs? I couldn’t possibly care less.

 

Sports news

Let's change the subject; enough 'Deflate-gate'

Will someone out there please put a cork on this football inflating matter?

Please, pretty please?

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick held a press conference today. A young friend of mine here in Amarillo — a dedicated Pats fan — said he thinks the coach “put an end to it today” with his presser.

Man, I hope so.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/bill-belichick-is-angry-he-spent-a-week-studying-balls/ar-AA8xVva

Belichick says the Patriots followed “every rule” with regard to the footballs, which have become the subject of ongoing controversy and commentary — yes, including here. Someone ratted out the Patriots after they smashed the Indy Colts in the AFC championship game, saying the balls were under-inflated, which reportedly made them easier to catch in the cold, rainy weather in Foxboro, Mass.

Whatever.

The story is growing more legs than a centipede. I’m waiting now for the conspiracy theories to start hatching. Bet on it, once they do and they start getting lives of their own, this story will never die. Ever.

My solution is a simple one. The National Football League should take responsibility for inflating the balls. Inflate them identically. Pay no attention whatever the quarterback wants. Tell each QB, “Here’s the ball, buster. Take it or leave it.” Give each team their allotment of footballs as they are taking the field for their pre-game drills. And do not let anyone other than the players — and officials, of course — touch ’em before, during or after the game.

Now, let’s get ready to play the Super Bowl.

 

Sports news

Media love "Deflate-gate"

Howard Kurtz, savvy media critique that he is, has posited the theory that the media are hyping up the “scandal” involving deflated footballs and whether the New England Patriots cheated their way into the Super Bowl because, well, it’s good for ratings.

Writing on FoxNews.com, Kurtz wonders precisely why the media have become fixated with this story. The Patriots, after all, clobbered the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game this past weekend. The notion that they purposely deflated footballs to make them more catchable had zero bearing on the outcome of the game, according to Kurtz.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/23/deflate-gate-why-media-are-overinflating-football-flap/?cmpid=cmty_twitter_fn

The media might start concocting conspiracy theories any moment now and might start ascribing all kinds of evil intent on the Patriots.

Kurtz has one idea on what might be driving this media interest. He writes: “Much of the sports media can’t stand Bill Belichick, the Patriots coach. He openly treats reporters with disdain. He’s become a symbol, fairly or unfairly, of sports arrogance and immorality.”

What’s more, as Kurtz says: “At his presser yesterday, Belichick looked nervous, defensive, ticked off to be there, as if he were undergoing a root canal. When he got done with a halting monologue denying any knowledge of ball tampering, he gave one-sentence answers to a few questions and cut it off.

“Every good scandal story needs a villain, and Belichick is it — especially because he was fined $500,000 in the 2007 Spygate incident, where the Pats secretly videotaped the Jets’ defensive coaches’ signals.”

In the grand scheme of serious public policy issues, this one ranks — oh, I don’t know — perhaps nowhere.

But it does involve entertainment celebrities, aka known as highly compensated professional football players.

It’s all too bad. My fear now is that with the Super Bowl now barely more than a week away and with all the pregame hyped planned prior to the game, the media are going to overlook what could be an exciting sporting event between two talented football teams.

Instead, they’ll seek to solve the mystery of, “Who in the hell deflated those footballs?”

 

Sports news

'Deflate-gate' turns into media monster

How is it that some stories that seem relatively inconsequential at the beginning turn into major headline events and the top subject of every cable news-talk show in America?

Welcome to the era of “Deflate-gate.” Good bleeping grief!

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/12212777/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-says-alter-footballs

New England Patriots head football coach Bill Belichik has issued a oh-so-precise denial of any wrongdoing. He says he did not know of the dozen footballs assigned for his team’s use being tampered with, or know who might have deflated the balls to make them more catchable.

OK. What about the quarterback, Tom Brady? What did he know and when did he know it? Brady says he knows nothing about any funny business prior to — or during — the Patriots’ 45-7 rout of the Indianapolis Colts to win the AFC championship and a trip to the Super Bowl to play the NFC champion Seattle Seahawks. It’s been kind of fun listening to the sports talking heads come up with different analogies to describe how badly the Patriots beat the Colts. “They could have beaten them throwing … ” oh, beach balls, water balloons, Frisbees, whatever.

All these denials, buck-passing and admissions of ignorance are simply fueling speculation that someone — the coach, the QB, the equipment manager, the center, the officiating crew — knows something that they aren’t revealing.

Brady said something Thursday about how much air pressure he prefers to have in the football he throws. No word, yet, about the PSI preferences of Russell Wilson, the Seattle quarterback.

Here’ a thought. Why not simply require the National Football League to inflate every football to precisely the same air pressure, give each team their allotted number of game balls — just before they take the field for their pre-game drills — and tell the players, “All right fellas, here are the balls. Go out there, play your guts out and may be the better team win”?

Do not leave this matter in the hands of the principals who will play the game.

I’m beginning to sense a conspiracy theory in the making, one that will become a monster that will never die. Not ever.

Sports news

Let's call it 'Deflate-gate'

 

You’ve heard it said that “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

The New England Patriots won the American Football Conference championship in a rout over the Indianapolis Colts. Now it turns out they might have, um, cheated just a bit.

How? It’s those footballs they used. Eleven of the 12 balls the Patriots used were deflated by 2 pounds of pressure, making the balls a little easier to catch in the rainy and cold weather conditions that plagued the game in Foxboro, Mass.

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4776756/patriots-should-be-held-accountable

This isn’t the first time the Pats have been caught and/or accused of cheating. Remember “Spy-gate,” when the Patriots reportedly spied on the New York Jets’ practice sessions prior to a game?

What should the NFL do?

Well, you can’t replay the game.

But the team ought to pay a price monetarily. Fine the coach, or whoever was responsible for the deflating the balls. Perhaps you can force the Patriots to surrender a significant portion of their earnings from the sale of “AFC Champs” gear or the proceeds from whatever they earn if they win the Super Bowl.

***

This all kind of reminds me of the controversy that ensued after Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in October 1974 to regain the heavyweight boxing championship. The “rope-a-dope” tactic, in which Ali leaned against the ropes and allowed Foreman to wail away while Ali covered up, worked to perfection partly — it was alleged — because someone loosened the ropes, forcing Big George to lunge a little farther to throw his haymakers. The late Angelo Dundee, Ali’s trainer, denied messing with the ropes.

I mentioned that to my wife this morning. Her answer? “George is a big, tough guy. He should have just stepped in a little closer to throw his punches.” Holy crap! I never thought of that. Good call, honey.

***

AFC loyalist that I am, I plan to root for the Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. However, you won’t hear me hoot and holler if they win. It’s hard to cheer out loud for cheaters.

 

Sports news

What to call college football's big game?

I might be breaking some new ground here, but a thought occurs to me regarding the Big Game set for Monday night to determine the best college football team in the country.

The game doesn’t have a catchy name. You know, like the Super Bowl?

My Oregon Ducks are going to play the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first-ever college football playoff championship game. It needs something catchy.

Let’s flash back for a moment to the first Super Bowl, played in 1967. It wasn’t even called the Super Bowl. It carried the clunky name of “AFL-NFL Championship Game.” The American Football League champs that year were the Kansas City Chiefs; representing the National Football League were the Green Bay Packers.

The Pack won 35-10 at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, which was about two-thirds full for the biggest game in pro football history.

The AFL and the NFL played three more interleague championship games before the leagues merged in 1970. But someone came up with the name “Super Bowl” in time for the 1968 game between the Packers and the Oakland Raiders.

I’m open for suggestions on what to call the college football equivalent of the Super Bowl.

Heck, college basketball has its March Madness and its Final Four; Major League Baseball has its World Series; college baseball has its College World Series; hockey fans know the title series of their sport simply as the Stanley Cup.

The NCAA has come up with a marketing winner with this college football playoff. It figures to smash TV-viewing records Monday night.

So … let’s give college football’s big game a name to make it — and us — all proud.

Oh, before I forget: Go Ducks!

 

political news, State news

Jobs vs. 'Oops' for ex-Gov. Perry

The task awaiting former Texas Gov. Rick Perry — gosh, it feels nice to write “former” in front of his name — will be to erase a singular moment from his first run for president.

He thinks “jobs” will replace “oops” in voters’ memory if and when he declares his intention to run for president in 2016.

(OK, he’s not yet a “former” governor, but the moment is close enough that I’ll take the liberty of using it here.)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/12/31/perry_hopes_texas_jobs_record_can_trump_oops_from_2012_125105.html

He’ll have to sell the Texas jobs record to voters looking for an economic medicine man among the Republicans who’ll be seeking to replace Barack Obama in the White House.

But that one moment still stands out as the definition of Perry’s first run for president. As Real Clear Politics reported: “It all boils down to the moment when Perry, in the midst of a 2011 presidential debate, was unable to recall the third of three federal agencies he’d promised to shutter, finally muttering ‘oops.’ Asked about it in a recent interview with The Associated Press, Perry said, ‘That’s like going back and asking a football player who dropped a pass to win the Super Bowl: ‘Did that bother you?’ ”

His campaign staff and close friends said the governor didn’t prepare sufficiently for the 2012 nomination campaign. He had a sore back and was medicated heavily to relieve the pain, they say. There was little staff preparation and development, they contend.

It all added up to a political disaster in the making.

It arrived on that debate stage in late 2011.

Can the governor take the credit for all those Texas jobs? Should he take credit? Well, they occurred on his watch.

But by the same token, millions of jobs were added nationally to company payrolls during the Obama administration. Does the president deserve credit for those numbers as well? My trick knee tells me that ex-Gov. Perry won’t give the president a nickel’s worth of credit for what happened nationally, but he’ll scarf up all the credit he can find for the Texas job growth.

It should produce an interesting tale that Rick Perry will be more than glad to spin in his favor.

First, he’ll have to purge our memory of the “oops” moment.

 

Uncategorized

Brazilians show class in defeat

Just when I thought the world had spun off its axis and that a great Latin American country had suffered from collective apoplexy over the defeat of its national soccer team, I came across this story on CNN.com.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/09/opinion/bass-brazil-germany-rout/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

It turns out the Brazilian soccer fans — stunned beyond their ability to comprehend — cheered the German team that beat their beloved men in the World Cup semifinal match.

The Germans won that game 7-1 in what’s being described as the most astonishing performance in the World Cup … ever! That they beat the host team in that fashion gives extra punch to the Germans now as they get ready to play the winner of The Netherlands-Argentina match for the World Cup championship.

I’ve also been wondering about this passionate love of the sport that seems to transcend anything with which I’m familiar in the U.S. of A. When the Denver Broncos lost the Super Bowl this year to the Seattle Seahawks, did the Mile High City’s fans go into the kind of collective funk that has fallen over Brazil. What happened in Miami when the Heat got blown out by the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA finals? I think folks in South Florida went about their business.

Granted, the U.S. doesn’t have a national soccer team that’s able to compete — at least not yet — on a consistent level with Brazil or Germany.

But the craziness is beyond anything I can quite grasp.

Still, I was heartened to know that despite their grief, the Brazilians had it within them to pay proper tribute to the young men who gave their guys a good, old-fashioned whuppin’.

And yes, the sun rose this morning over Brazil.