Football Time: NFC Preview

It's that time of year. Football is undeniably the biggest sport in the country. As much as I love baseball, football remains king in the hearts and minds of loyal sports fans in the United States. Every year of my life the summer ends with this unbridled excitement for the upcoming football season. Well, that feeling is starting to build up once again. Therefore, I am going to do an NFL preview over the next few days starting with the NFC East today, AFC East tomorrow and switching between conferences for the next few days. I'm going to go team by team with their power ranking at ESPN and SI. I am by no means an expert and I am going to be wrong about the majority of these teams. But who cares?

NFC EAST: Widely regarded as the best division in the NFL with 4 legitimately quality teams. I also think it is the most overrated division in the NFL. It's always kinda funny how people always consider the NFC East the best division in the NFL but the Giants were awful defensively last year, the Redskins have been a mess for years, the Eagles are switching to a completely untested Quarterback and the Cowboys are perpetually the most overrated team in the NFL, plus they have the worst coach in the league as well.

Washington Redskins, last season: 4-12 (ESPN: 20, SI: 22): The Redskins had a tumultuous season last year with the whole Jim Zorn saga, Jason Campbell's frustrating inconsistencies and the severe lack of rushing depth behind an injured Clinton Portis. Things can only get better for the Skins, and there's a chance that things can get much better. Jason Campbell finally ran out of time in DC. Which is unfortunate for him, he is a solid QB and is settle down that awful QB situation in Oakland. They added Donovan McNabb, which might end up being the most important addition for any team in the league. McNabb is one of the top-10 QBs in the NFL and should make this offense considerably better. As far as the rest of the offense, they get a lot of help with their running back situation with some much needed insurance for the oft-injured/overworked Clinton Portis by adding Larry Johnson and Willie Parker. They now have 3 rushers who have at one point rushed for 1000 yards in a season. Their receiving corps isn't all that impressive. They lost Antwan Randel-El to the Steelers, but they have Santana Moss, who will remind McNabb very much of DeSean Jackson (both had extremely similar numbers last year: Jackson- 62- 1167-9Td Moss- 70- 902- 3). McNabb also has Chris Cooley, who is probably one of the best pass catching TEs around. So, offensively things are looking pretty good for the Redskins. Defensively the Skins are middle of the pack in terms of yds allowed and points allowed. Where they struggled is forcing turnovers in which they finished last in the entire NFL last year with just 17 forced. THe more I think about it, the more I think that the 'Skins could surprise a lot of people. Their schedule outside of the inter-division games against the Giants, Eagles and Cowboys looks pretty easy. Three of the eight road games they play are against Jacksonville, Detroit and St. Louis. And their 3 toughest games outside of the interdivision games against Indy, Minnesota and Green Bay are all at FedEx Field where they always have a considerable home-field advantage.

And after all that positivity, I have yet to mention the biggest and most important addition, Mike Shannahan. Shannahan is my favorite coach ever, other than Don Shula, of course. He is going to add some stability to the Redskins and maybe take some of the control away from their crazy owner Dan Snyder. Mike Shannahan and Donovan McNabb would improve any team out there and that includes the 'Skins. The biggest factor is going to be competing in the NFC East, which they can do.

New York Giants, last season: 8-8 (ESPN: 16, SI: 19): The Giants struggled mightily on defense last year giving up more than 30 points 7 times and losing their last two games of the seasons, with the playoffs on the line, 85-16. They have the most overrated QB in the league in Eli Manning and they don't get nearly enough from their talented stable of running backs. They only had 2 100-yard rushers the entire season. They put way too much faith on the arm of Eli Manning. ALthough, they do have 3 terrific receivers in Hakeem Nicks, Steve Smith, and Mario Manningham which helps Eli, but he throws too much. He has great games against bad teams, which leads to his hefty Passer Rating and passing yardage. This year it doesn't seem like much has changed. They had the 3rd worst points allowed in the NFL and they haven't added too much, other than Keith Bulluck and Antrel Rolle. They will help, but not enough. THe offense if formidable though. If Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw stay healthy, the Giants could have a top-5 offense. In terms of coaching, I think Tom Coughlin is very close to wearing out his welcome. It's a crazy world we live in when a Super Bowl winning coach can be on the hot seat after only 2 seasons, but if the Giants miss the playoffs again, Coughlin might be gone after this season.

Philadelphia Eagles, last season: 11-5 (ESPN: 17, SI: 11): I still like the Eagles quite a bit. Grooming QBs has become quite the art, and I think that the Eagles are going to strike gold with Kevin Kolb. I think that Kevin Kolb will have an Aaron Rodgers/Philip Rivers type impact with the Eagles. In the two games that Kevin Kolb started last year against the Saints and the Cheifs he went 55/85 65% for 718 yards 4TDs and 3 picks. Jeremy Maclin and DeSean Jackson offer fantastic and fast as crap targets on the outside. Lesean McCoy is a talented back, but he might struggle to be the main guy now that Brian Westbrook is gone. It will help Kolb to have the steadying hand of Andy Reid as his coach. The offense should be able to compete against the somewhat bad defenses of the Redskins and Giants. Philly gave up a ton of rushing yards a game but was great against the pass. The defense (just like every other team in the division) will be the key to a playoff season. If they can do better against the run, Kolb and McCoy will offer a new QB/RB that everyone will be familiar with at the end of the season. The schedule is hot and cold. It opens with the Packers but then a winnable sequence with Detroit and Jacksonville on the road then Washington at home. But the finishing stretch is brutal; Dallas and the Giants on the road followed by Minnesota and the Cowboys again at home. They will not go to the playoffs if they go into that stretch with 8 or less wins.

Dallas Cowboys, last season: 11-5 (ESPN: 4 SI: 8): I hate the Cowboys. I would love to not be biased about this, but it will be hard not to. The Cowboys are always the most overrated team. Everyone always talks about how much star-power they have but every year that they actually make it to the playoffs, they get destroyed, or completely crumble. Yes, they wont their first playoff game in 13 years last year. But they were playing at home, against a division opponent that they played the week before. Any time they need to prepare for a good opponent in the playoffs they crumble. The team is filled with prima-donnas, who are talented, but play together like it's an all-star game. Tony Romo is a terrific QB who might be the worst "leader" on the planet. He has no control over his team. Also, Wade Phillips is the worst coach in any sport. He has so much talent at his disposal but he can't do anything with it. It is terrifying to think about how good this team would be if they had Bill Cowher as their head coach.

With all that being said, on paper, this is the best team in the the NFC East by far. They have established players at every position. Great QB, awesome RB trio and a star receiver in Miles Austin. Dez Bryant will have a huge impact on the offense and Patrick Crayton is a #1 receiver on half of the other rosters in the NFL. Felix Jones is a stud, Marion Barber is a stud and Tashard Choice is a stud. The o-line is scary good as well. The defense was one of the best in the league last year. They only allowed 15.6 points per game. Almost 5 points per game better than any other team in the division.

It would be a disaster in Dallas if they were to fall short of the NFC Championship. Maybe they should just do it on purpose so Wade Phillips can get fired.

Look out tomorrow for the preview on the AFC East.

Marlins 5 Braves 4

Let me just say one thing; thank god we get to end that series. I really hated every minute of it. From the comebacks, to the let downs, to Jesse Chavez pitching the 11th inning. Every great team loses a series every once in a while, and losing to a tough division opponent on the road is nothing to be too worried about.

Once again we got terrific starting pitching, and if it wasn't for a shoddy mound, JJ would have probably gone the distance in this game (he threw 32 pitches in the 4th and never went over 18 in any other inning). JJ was magnificent and the bullpen (aside from Jesse Chavez) combined with JJ to only allow one hit and no walks from the 5-10th innings. Great work.

Offense looked good, but of course we couldn't come through with the bases loaded. Three times we had the bases loaded with one out in the game (1st, 7th, and 11th) and all three times we didn't score. No matter how good you are, you are not going to win games when you don't cash in those opportunities.

We should have swept the series, and at the very least taken 2 of 3. But now we head to Washington to face Stephen (Jesus) Strasburg and send Tommy out to beat him again Tuesday night. A three game set in Washington should be just what the doctor ordered

The Advent of the Super Athlete

When I was growing up I wanted nothing more than to be a professional athlete. To tell you the truth, that dream still exists, but now my prospects are a little less hopeful, to say the least. If you ask any guy you know, chances are pretty good that they feel the same way. Everyone that you would ask probably believes that either they were never given the opportunity to truly shine in their sport; or that they weren't playing the right sport. Both are true for my self, if I had made the 12 year-old travel team my career would have really sky-rocketed, and I'm pretty sure my true calling was in either tennis or soccer.

For some of us, those missed opportunities really were unfortunate happenings that stunted the beginning of a fabulous career. But for the rest of us we just never could accept that our uncoordinated, gangly, short, slow, fat, etc.... selves could not become the next Derek Jeter or hell, even the next David Eckstein. But lo and behold our collective laziness, disinterest and poor general health kept us from being superstars, or is it. In order to not blame my lack of ability, I'm going to blame it on the advent of super athletes.

Mel Ott, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle all 500 HR hitters. Baseball players forever etched into the very fabric of America's pastime. All three under 6 feet tall. Three of the most dominant players of their respective generations and all three were no more than 3 inches taller than me. In fact only two of the members of the 500 HR club that finished their careers before I was born (1989) weighed more than 200 pounds (Babe Ruth and Ted Williams). Of all the players that played while I have been alive only two weighed less than 200 pounds, Gary Sheffield and Mike Schmidt. Quite a shift, eh? The reason I am going to focus on baseball is because it is the sport that anyone could most reasonably expect to play in. You don't have to be tall like in basketball. You don't have to be a finely tuned human battering ram like in football. And you don't have to be able to skate on ice as in hockey. Baseball is America's pastime, something everyone played, whether it be t-ball, coach pitch, or high school ball, everyone experienced it in some way or another. But now it is getting to the point where the average sized man (5'9" 168lbs according to http://www.halls.md) cannot expect to be on the same plane as these super athletes that currently populate the MLB. Of course there are exceptions like David Eckstein, Rafael Furcal, most 2nd basemen. But for the most part those players are stuck playing the traditional light hitting positions and usually not playing much longer than 5-8 years.

Basically, what I am getting at is that these super athletes now eat sleep and breathe their sport. Pro sports isn't a part time job like it used to be considered. It's a 24/7 365 job, and it's something that only the best of the best can afford to spend all their time working toward. These kids, who usually start in middle school, are travelling training and playing so much at such a young age that the kids who don't have the means or the raw talent at such an early age are just left in the dust. We all dream of hitting that game winning home run in the ninth, or scoring that game winning touchdown in the super bowl, or even scoring the game winning goal in the Stanley Cup, but the truth of the matter is that unless your parents are ready from the second that you pop out to train you into one of these super athletes, you chances of going pro are slim to none.

Depressing I know. But ask your think about this, these athletes who do nothing but play their sport, lose their passion for the game. To a lot of them, it's not fun anymore, it's a job. And we'll be there on the sidelines when they are complaining about trying, yelling at them, "you have the greatest job in the world, quit bitching!" But the game just completely changes for these guys. In the end, I would never give up how I feel about sports, winning and competition in general to be a professional athlete if it meant I'd lose my passion for the game. Which ever game it may be.

Braves 10 Marlins 5: Raw-Doggin it

Look who comes through again! Raw Dog (Brooks Conrad, a great baseball name in its own right) came to bat with the bases loaded and the game tied in the bottom of the 8th and hit a moon-shot to right field to lead the Braves to a 9-5 lead and an eventual 10-5 victory.

Heyward was a stud again tonight going 3-3 with 2 walks and scoring 2 runs. Heyward is 12-21 (.571) in his last 5 five games and has 2+ hits in all of those, but only 2 XBH. Imagine how scary he will be again once the power comes back. Also, Martin Prado led off the game with yet another homer. His slugging% is almost up over .500 (for comparison, Hanley Ramirez is only sluggin .459) which is out of this world for a 2nd baseball. He's up there in the league lead in doubles and could push for 20 HRs. He's a stud, and only 26.

And one final note: Jesse Chavez got the win, and he deserved it. Never though I'd type that. Although, it's worth mentioning, the last game I remember Jesse pitching well and actually weight in was in that incredible Reds game where Brooks Conrad hit his memorable walk off grandslam. Basically, that tells us; if Jesse Chavez plays well, Brooks Conrad will hit a Grad Slam. I can live with that.

Once again the Braves bounced back from a demoralizing loss with an emphatic victory. Every win for the rest of the season will be huge until we clinch a playoff spot. I still refuse to confidently assume that we will make the playoffs. For some reason it is still very difficult to let go of all the heartbreak over the last 5 seasons.

The Braves are going to try and win the series tomorrow with an early start.

FanGraphs Recap

Marlins 7 Braves 6

This will be short.

It was a fantastic game, up and down the whole time. Even though we are a better team the Marlins are always ready to play. They got a good pitching performance, but it came down to our pitching and we blew it.

To keep it short though, don't worry about Billy Wagner. He'll be okay. This isn't the first time the Braves have suffered two blown saves in succession.

All will hopefully be restored tonight.

First pitch at 7:10 tonight on SportsSouth. Medlen vs. Anibal Sanchez. He always pitches well against the Braves. Lets get after him early and often.

Braves 8 Padres 0

That is the way the best team in the NL should rebound from a pretty disheartening loss.

So many positives to take from this 8-0 win.

1) What can you say about Alex Gonzalez. With all the noise Yunel has been making out in Toronto (.429 avg 2HR and 7 RBI) since the trade, Gonzalez has been equally as impressive with a .370 avg and getting his first two rbi today. Plus he turned a sweet double play with Martin in the 8th. His presence has steadied this Braves squad and has taken away the only distraction we were playing with.

2) Heyward comes through with another two hits and an two rbi. Since his return from the DL J-Hey has hit .357 (10/28) with 2 doubles and 3 rbi. It will only be a matter of time before the HRs start coming. When that happens, we might as well start ordering our playoff tickets now.

3) Then of course, Tim Hudson. It's gotten to a point this season where the majority of Braves fans have probably already forgotten about his surgery last year. He's a stud, no way around it.

4) We saved the bullpen, which will be huge going into this road trip

No real negatives in the game. Mike Dunn struggled to throw strikes, but it was already 8-0 and the big Aussie cleaned up the mess anyway.

Up Next: 3 game weekend set @ the Marlins.

Finish it off with this fantastic little nugget:

Days in first

2006-2009- 41!

2010: 57

Padres 6 Braves 4

Well that was a tough one to swallow.

Tommy struggled again with his location which has led to a lot of balls being hit hard, but he was able to do some damage control in the early innings and get out of early trouble. Once he settled down, the offense exploded for 4 runs and it seemed like a 4-2 lead would be too much for the Pads to overcome.

Alas, the ever reliable Billy Wagner blew the save.

What I take from the loss is that even though it was difficult to put down; you have to lose games like this every once in while. Also we have to keep in mind that the Padres are the best team in the NL.

It's all about series wins, as Bobby would say, and tomorrow afternoon is a business mans special at 1. Let's close out the series and take our good play on the road.

Braves vs Padres tonight

Game just started and I kinda panicked because I was writing the last post.

But lets enjoy this one, stay in 1st place, enjoy Chipper (just struck out as I watched this, thankfully his arm didn't fall off) and McClouth back and hopefully the Hey-Train does something incredible.

Sit back, have a beer, and wish me luck at trivia.

Staying Original

This article by AJC columnist Mark Bradley is a perfect example about why people can get so fed up with sports media, but how there's nothing they can do about it.

Commenter St. Clarkson (2nd comment down in the Bradley article) says "You can tell it’s summer. Even Bradleys column is in reruns." Which asks a very difficult question for people in the sports world. It's really difficult to maintain any sort of originality to keep people interested. People really do enjoy short and sweet articles that quickly get to the point. We live in a world in which we go from headline to headline and leave those without headlines stuck in neutral trying to keep people interested.

This is very much the case in the world of sports media. Sports media is its own animal, something that is quite difficult to wrap your mind around. Most people can take it at face value, but I find it difficult. With the Bradley article in mind, you begin to realize that these guys run out of stories. Just 2 posts ago on Bradley's column he wrote something virtually identical in content (in terms of coping with the braves being in 1st). These two posts will just be a few of the probably 20-30 posts that explore close to the same thing.

I am in no way criticizing Bradley or the system that he works in. Since the access to sports is at a point that is unprecedented at any point in history (my mom who lived in Miami had to wait and call a hotline the next morning just to get the previous nights scores for her beloved Dodgers in LA. Now I can watch the Dodgers play here in Athens). This access leads to the polarizing opinions that sports columnists have to take to keep people interested. You hear these blow-hards on sports talk radio in the morning making people angry with their absurd claims; but the fact of the matter is, what the hell else are they going to do for 4 hours.

This isn't even just in the sports media, it's in all media. In a country where we get 24 hour access to anything and everything; our insatiable appetite for breaking news will never die down.

The media is doing whatever they can do to satisfy this need for news. It seems fair to assume that all we want is balanced coverage that doesn't lean one way or the other, it just gives us the news. But as long as we clamor for constant coverage, media, sports and otherwise, will do anything they can to keep you interested. Hopefully it never gets to ESPN broadcasting an hour long special on the decision of a single free agent.

Why not a new one

Well, as I sit here on Wednesday afternoon, desperately trying to burn the 2 hours and 15 minutes left before Sports Trivia, I have to decided to revive the blog in honor of a departed friend.

Our departed friend was formerly the Macon Telegraph Georgia Beat writer David Hale. He has unfortunately decided to leave our dear bulldog family to go write for his hometown newspaper in Delaware to cover the dreaded Phillies.

If you never read his blog, well, shame on you. It was insightful (as insightful as a sports blog can be) and hilarious (with a hefty dose of LOST references). To re-live some of his blog, or to just get a sampling of what it was about; read his last post at http://ugadogsblog.blogspot.com/

Anyway, restarting the blog is something I've tossed around in the ole noggin for a while and I decided to give it a shot again. So with no further ado, I'm going to begin my incessant ramblings on sports and why they are larger than life.

The most obvious sports news in my life the past few months has been the resurgence of the Braves this season. Also, my disdain for the NBA has only grown with Lebronathon and the Heat becoming America's new favorite team. Related to Lebron is the fact that I have completely disregarded ESPN because of their completely lack of journalistic integrity (see.. "The Decision") And finally, the growing excitement for what promises to be a solid/competitive football season for the Falcons, Dolphins, and UGA.

There will be updates galore (take that with a grain of salt).

Take this as a re-introduction into my attempt at maintaining a blog.

Good Day.