Luck no Gamble at #1

Late March is a tough time for football talking heads; the Super Bowl has long since stopped garnering as much airtime as the ads that debuted during it, college football programs are just starting to hold Spring Practices, and Mel Kiper Jr. has only recently awoken from his annual hibernation. Unsurprisingly, then, this is the time of year when football news stories are often made, not born.

Cue the sports-media hailstorm over the rise in stock of Robert Griffin III, the longtime consensus #2 previously-consensus Messiah Andrew Luck as we approach the April 26 NFL Draft. Through all the pro days and try outs, RGIII is – wait for it – right behind Luck on the big board! Similarly, the number 2 is directly located behind 1. But no such logic could quell rumors that the Colts might do better to draft Griffin instead of Luck, bolstered by the Redskins’ bold trade to acquire the second pick in the draft. ESPN analyst Merril Hoge recently made his case for drafting Griffin first, managing to only mention the fact that he’s watched footage of the two quarterbacks back-to-back six or seven time in the span of two minutes.

Don’t get me wrong: RGIII is a very good quarterback who will likely have a long and fruitful career. But Andrew Luck has been talked about not as the best prospect to enter the draft this year, but as the best prospect in the history of the NFL. Sure, he stayed at Stanford a year after a Junior campaign that would have left no doubt as to who was going first; NFL scouts who were interviewed about his decision to stay on as a senior looked like they were in mourning. But a so-so year at Stanford (which, keep in mind, lost head-coach Jim Harbaugh and remained Stanford, perhaps the most academically rigorous college football team to contend for a title,) and an incredible year from Griffin at Baylor have Luck being second-guessed by some.

But setting last-minute intrigue and Donovan McNabb offering up perhaps the saddest sports-commentary display of the year aside, let’s just set the record straight:

The Indianapolis Colts would be stark raving lunatics to not take Andrew Luck with the first pick of the draft. Andrew Luck is the no-doubt, sure-thing wunderkind who spent his college career playing in a pro-style offense and making the Stanford Cardinal a BCS contender. While RGIII certainly put up a better statistical display last season than anyone on the board, his Baylor offense were men playing with boys for the bulk of Baylor’s 2011 campaign. Griffin’s passes, no matter how many of them ended up going for six, make Luck’s look like actual bullets; Griffin demonstrated an incredible aptitude for throwing lofting passes that landed right in the hands of his receivers, whose superior speed had put them yards ahead of opposing defensive backs, but NFL defensive backs aren’t going to be so easily cowed. RGIII’s a great athlete, but he’s no Michael Vick. Hoge himself concedes that Griffin and Luck are equals on the ground. The team that passes on Andrew Luck when given the chance is a team that will live to regret it for a long time.

Washington’s trading for the second pick had Griffin in mind. Maybe coach Mike Shanahan is hoping that Griffin is the quarterback he somehow thought McNabb was going to be, or maybe he just knows serious pro-level talent when he sees it. After all, ESPN gave Griffin a blistering rating of 97 in their draft rankings. But they gave Luck a 99. Indianapolis didn’t give first-ballot hall of famer Peyton Manning the ax to settle for second best, and it’s a little silly to keep pretending otherwise.

Dodgers Swap McCourt for Magic, Abject Despair for Tentative Hope

It truly is the end of an era in Chavez Ravine. Barring a lack of approval by Major League Baseball, Magic Johnson and his fellows with the Guggenheim Baseball Partners stand poised to pay 2.15 billion dollars (that’s billion, with a “b”,) to become the proud owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Dodgers fans, and really any baseball fan with a sense of history, have been treated to a solid three years of horror at the hands of Frank and Jamie McCourt, and that appears to have come to a dramatic end, courtesy of a Los Angeles legend. Needless to say, Dodgers fans are enthralled.

It is a testament to how truly horrendous the last few years have been that Dodgers fans seem contented to let Frank McCourt get rich for masterfully failing as an owner. But that’s a trade everyone I’ve talked to seems willing to make in order to never hear the words “postnuptial agreement” and “baseball team” in the same sentence ever again. Words cannot adequately describe how much of an atrocity the McCourt saga was. The very fact that one of the proudest franchises in sports has been reduced to a sideshow act is stunning. McCourt effectively made himself a billionaire by doing his job as badly as humanly possible, (one wonders if the man simply caught a showing of “The Producers” and decided to buy a baseball team,) but that’s water under the bridge already. The Dodgers are back in business.

And there’s reason to be excited; what Magic Johnson lacks in experience he makes up for with winning tradition; even if Magic doesn’t know Bill James from James Brown, it’s hard to imagine Johnson, a five-time NBA champion, three-time league and finals MVP and Olympic gold-medalist, settling for a mediocre ball club. On top of that, it’s reasonable to hope that a group willing and able to drop a cool $2 billion just to get in the door has the funds to maintain an organization.

But there’s room to be concerned, too; I don’t know a ton about the world of billion dollar business deals, but I know a little bit about eBay, and that’s enough to tell me that the Guggenheim gang may be good at making money, but they aren’t all that impressive at winning auctions. There were supposed to be three groups bidding on the Dodgers, but Magic & Co. started the bidding, before the auction, with $2.15 billion, a sum large enough to make the whole “auction” thing irrelevant. That may be a way to ensure you get what you want, but it’s not smart spending. You want to be the last bidder, guys, not the first one.

Still, for Dodgers fans, now is clearly not the time to fret over money worries. The boys in blue are set to open a regular season full of promise, Clayton Kershaw looks poised to drop even more jaws than he did last season, and Dodger Stadium gets to show off that lovely new-owner smell. In a delightfully fitting turn of events, McCourt will live on in Dodger memory not as an owner of the team, but rather as an owner of the Dodger Stadium parking lots; the most laborious, wallet-gouging aspect of seeing the Dodgers play now has an all-too familiar face.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t scrimp on security this time, for his sake.

NHL Playoff Restructure: A Modest Proposal

I love the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I would sell most of my internal organs (and all of those not essential to my long-term welfare) in exchange for prime seats for the Cup final. But as the playoff race in the Eastern and Western conferences  shows, the way the playoffs are currently seeded needs fixing. And I have a very modest proposal.

The NHL has recently mulled realignment, and with good reason; the league has added a lot of new blood in recent years, and having teams in the Eastern time zone play in the Western Conference, as do the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings, is a good reason to consider realigning (not to mention the patent absurdity of having Dallas play in the Pacific Division.)

For now, however, realignment is on hold. That’s probably not a bad thing; the model approved by the Board of Governors left a lot to desire, and a change that drastic should have some serious time and thought put into it. With that said, the playoff picture in both conferences right now is just goofy. With the current set up, the six division champions are assured the three top seeds in their respective conferences. This is, of course, problematic, as some divisions are much, much stronger than others.

For example, as of today, the San Jose Sharks are atop the Pacific Division with 88 points. That same 88 points would put the Sharks in fifth place in the Central Division. Similarly, because the Florida Panthers are leading the Southeast Division, they hold the third seed in the Eastern Conference, despite not holding a candle to the record of the currently fourth-seeded Pittsburgh Penguins.

Here’s my proposal: rather than radicially change the way the playoffs work, why not just add a Wild Card position to the top four seeds in each Conference, allowing an exceptional team that ends the season in second place within their division to be seeded ahead of an underperforming division champion.

For example, here is how the Playoff picture currently looks in the East:

1- New York Rangers – 103 Points

2- Boston Bruins – 93 Points

3- Florida Panthers – 89 Points

4- Pittsburgh Penguins – 100 Points

5- Philadelphia Flyers – 96 Points

6- New Jersey Devils – 92 Points

7- Ottawa Senators – 88 Points

8- Buffalo Sabres – 86 Points

And in the West:

1- St. Louis Blues – 105 Points

2- Vancouver Canucks – 101 Points

3- San Jose Sharks – 88 Points

4- Detroit Red Wings – 97 Points

5- Nashville Predators – 96 Points

6- Chicago Blackhawks – 93 Points

7- Dallas Stars – 87 Points

8- Phoenix Coyotes – 87 Points

As is readily apparent, quite a few of the teams with the best records are not being helped much by the Divisional approach to seeding. But without any realignment or major divisional shakedown, here’s what the top four seeds in the East would look like if you added a Wild Card:

1- New York Rangers – 103 Points

2- Pittsburgh Penguins – 100 Points

3- Boston Bruins – 93 Points

4- Florida Panthers – 89 Points

And in the West:

1- St. Louis Blues – 105 Points

2- Vancouver Canucks – 101 Points

3- Detroit Red Wings – 97 Points

4- San Jose Sharks – 88 Points

Doesn’t that just look better? How the numbers actually descend with the seeding? While still preserving the tradition of giving Division champs home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs, adding a Wild Card lets playoff seeding reflect regular season performance in a much more balanced manner.

The NBA has already implemented this seeding  method. This NHL playoff race shows that it’s high time the NHL followed suit. Since the NHL allows a whopping 16 teams into the playoffs, adding a Wild Card would fix seeding without changing which teams actually make the playoffs. That sounds like a win-win to me.

Sigh of the Tiger

It finally happened. Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer of all time, the most singularly dominant athlete of an era and the face of his sport, won his first PGA tournament in the 30 months since his dramatic fall from grace. This past Sunday was a fan’s paradise, with March Madness in full swing and both the NHL playoff race and MLB’s Spring Training reaching their respective home stretches, but there was one story from this weekend that stood out above all the rest (yes, even above New York’s newest backup quarterback): Tiger is back.

And make no mistake: this is Tiger as we knew him, an athlete defined not by his ability to eke out victory consistently, but rather by his ability to shift into a gear simply not available to any of his competitors. Tiger’s performance at Bay Hill was that of a premier golfer, but it was when the going got tough that Woods stepped his game up, a feat he has had difficulty accomplishing since his last tour victory in 2009. And so, despite caddy controversy and revelations from swing-guru Hank Haney’s new book, Tiger Woods can breathe a sigh of relief, because for the first time in 30 months, Woods is making headlines because of the only thing he ever should have made headlines for: his inestimable talent on the golf course.

The fundamental error people make in assessing the years since Tiger first became tabloid-bait is that Woods’s detractors, the people whose interest and ire made Tiger’s infidelity and marital trouble a source of international amusement and speculation in the first place, generally have not watched a round of golf in their life. If Sunday marks the return of the “old” Tiger Woods, the book on the “new” Tiger Woods was written by gawkers, hacks and opportunists, clutching desperately to a scandal surrounding a man, and indeed, a family, made famous not for their stability and moral fiber, but for one man’s talent on the golf course.

“But surely,” his detractors say, “a man idolized by so many, a man whose face adorns everything from video games to car commercials, should be held responsible by the public for his every action.” These people, no matter how good their intentions are, have the intellectual capacity of a crescent wrench. Tiger Woods never told you he was a good husband. Hell, Tiger Woods never told you he was a good human being. Tiger Woods simply played golf with such intensity and genius that everyone and their nephew wanted a piece of him. It is not the responsibility of the athlete to be the model of virtue and responsible behavior; it is the job of the athlete to perform athletically. It is the job of the parent, as well as the job of the sentient adult, to make sure that the figures being actively deified are incapable of ever making a misstep, or else to understand the gross error inherent to creating gods of mortals and saints of perfectly unabashed sinners.

I think comedian Norm MacDonald put it best:

“He’s a public figure, and that’s not how he presented himself in public; he presented himself in public as a golfer!”

Yes, America, as shocking as it may seem, athletes, movie stars and musicians continue living after the end of their time on camera. Here’s the part that always perplexed me: if any of Tiger’s detractors had ever actually seen him play golf, they would not have been the slightest bit surprised that Tiger was capable of offending; I basically learned how to swear by reading the man’s lips during major tournaments. Tiger was always there, on live TV, cussing up a storm, shouting at women who screamed during his back-swing, and generally demonstrating that he was, if nothing else, a fiery personality. And yet, simply because he was caught misbehaving off camera, Tiger became public enemy number one.

I remember one tabloid I saw in the check out line at a grocery store, showing a picture of Tiger weeping below the headline “TIGER IN DISGRACE.” The picture they used? Of Tiger crying? That was from when he won the 2006 British Open just months after the death of his father, mentor, and best friend, Earl Woods. Tiger’s story was scandalous enough to satiate the hounds who make their living by exploiting the suffering of public figures, and the sports community got to witness for the first time the cost of the gross commodification of news media: we lost years of watching the greatest golfer to ever pick up a set of clubs because we got in his head. Tiger was invincible on the golf course and impenetrable to his competition, but the combined forces of everything that is worst about American culture got to him. And we fans paid every bit as dearly as he did.

Yet I remember something that I was led to believe by the collective disgust over Tiger’s indiscretions had been largely forgotten, but am relieved to see, following Tiger’s Sunday victory, is still on the minds of many: Tiger always bounces back. This win was inevitable; it was only a matter of time.

Tiger is back, and the world of sports is a much better place because of that.

6 Bracket Fouls That Should be Punishable by Death

Every March, I participate in a perfectly legal, not at all sketchy NCAA Tournament “newsletter.” This newsletter used to be a blank 64 team bracket, which I would return to sender several panic-sweat-soaked hours later. Since March Madness officially started ruling the internet a couple years ago, however, this newsletter has taken the form of ESPN.com. This saves a lot of paper and valuable time, but also, for the first time, allows me to see the inner machinations of my neighbors and co-workers. And in more cases than I’d like to admit, for one month a year, this makes me hate them. With a fiery, sulfurous passion. Prepare yourself, then, for a small sampling of the Bracket Fouls I sincerely believe should be punishable, if not by death, then by permanent revoking of March Madness privileges.

1) Picking Only Favorites- This is a controversial point of view, but obviously the right one. Sure, the 2008 tournament saw all four top seeded teams advance to the Final Four, so if you think this is the year history will repeat itself in that regard, by all means go ahead. But know this: the easiest, most incredibly douchetacular way to put yourself in contention to win your tourney pool every year is to take absolutely no chances. It’s people like this, who either know nothing about college basketball or know a good deal but have no concept of what March Madness is all about (see related post,) who make picking brackets mind numbingly dull. And no one likes losing to the dull guy. Have a little fun; somebody crazy makes a run every year, and if you picked VCU for your Final Four last year, you know that satisfaction like that can outweigh a solid decade of winning your office pool.

2) Endless Disclaimers- Filling out and sharing a bracket is like playing a game of Texas Hold’em in which none of the players have seen any of the cards. The chances of you looking like a fool for at least one of your picks is all but guaranteed. So why not show a little confidence? It’s not like anyone participating has the slightest idea what they’re doing anyway. I see a ton of brackets every year with name’s like “I have no idea what basketball is!” or “Underdog Hail Mary Bracket”. Show some spine. If you happen to be that one person a year who somehow nails it despite the odds, would you rather your shocked and defeated buddies look up to the top of the leaderboard and find “Mount Bracketlympus,” or “Davey’s Hopefully Okay Guess Bracket”? That’s what I thought.

3) The Painful Alma Mater Bracket- I am all for people who’ve got a horse in the tournament picking them to win it against all odds. Your beloved team makes the tournament, and you’d rather show your loyalty than have much of a chance in any competitive pool. I can respect that. What gets old is that Norfolk State alum in your league with the wit and subtlety to throw their “GONNA NORFOLK YOU IN THE FACE” bracket into the ring. The sheer quantity of Shocker jokes that take over brackets every time Wichita State punches their ticket to the dance is enough to actually make me resent underdogs. We get it, you went to college, unlike the kids playing on most of the top seeds, who are taking eight credits and majoring in Sports Management. But unless your team has both a mind-bogglingly awesome pun and a deep tourney run in them, consider keeping some of your enthusiasm to yourself.

4) Multiple Entries in the Same Pool- This should almost go without saying. March Madness pools are about seeing who put together the best bracket this year, not who can afford to pay the $10 cover the most times. Yeah, if it’s allowed in your pool and you know what you’re doing it’s probably a smart business practice, but like with #1, you’re making the decision to pad your chances of winning some dough at the cost of losing any fan cred you might have had prior to the tourney. People who’re guilty of this one make fans who only fill out a single bracket, like most people who haven’t sold their soul, put a little asterisk next to your picks; because in a tournament full of good, clean college athletics, you’re juicing worse than Canseco.

5) People Who ‘Pick’ the Upsets, Just not on Their Bracket- This happens in my pool every year. Fifteenth seed Lehigh knocks off  second-seeded Duke in the first round of the tournament, and at least one resident basketball savant feels compelled to let anyone who’ll listen know that he called the upset, but didn’t want to include it on his bracket. Well guess what, Mr. Naismith: if it’s not on your bracket, it’s not your pick. Period. That’s how picking teams works. If you think you smell an upset, show some nerve and own it. If you’re wrong, you, like everyone from Bobby Knight to supercomputers, have a couple blemishes on your bracket. If you’re right, then you get to taunt the cowards who chose the obvious favorite instead of the plucky kids from Nowhere Tech. But nobody likes a Monday Morning Dick Vitale.

6) The Nonsense Bracket- You don’t know or care about college basketball. I get it. What I don’t get it why you’re even participating in the whole bracket filling phenomenon if you aren’t going to take it remotely seriously. I guess the folks who pick three 16 seeds and the funniest mascot into their final four are really just sweetening the pot for everybody else, but I like some enthusiasm in my competition, not mindless chaos. If you pick your brackets by team shoe color or by petitioning your dog for advice, more power to you, but know that you’re not a part of March Madness in the way you think you are. You’re the morbidly obese, middle aged mom at the Twilight premiere; this isn’t your show.

That’s my list, but I’d be willing to bet my bracket (which, admittedly, isn’t saying much at this point,) that I’m not the only one with an ax to grind every March. What would be on your list?

HBO, NBC Prove Covering Hockey Pays Dividends

HBO and NBC were nominated for a combined 10 Sports Emmies this week for their coverage of the National Hockey League. Any sports fan who watched either network’s NHL programming, especially HBO’s 24/7 series, would not be surprised by this. 24/7 is a riveting look at the daily lives of premiere athletes that gets better with every iteration; Puck Daddy put together a list of things to love about the 2011 Penguins/Capitals edition, and this past season’s coverage of the Flyers/Rangers Winter Classic could produce an equally wonderful, idiosyncratic compendium. It’s a beautiful thing, and every hockey fan worth his or her mustard would, and generally has, loved every minute of it.

Which is why it boggles the mind that ESPN still turns a blind eye to hockey at every turn. Aside from the occasional Top 10 Plays nod, ESPN wants nothing to do with hockey. I’ve seen the “Worldwide Leader in Sports ” give more extensive coverage to college volleyball than the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which boasted some of its highest ratings in decades last year. NBC, the artist formerly known as VS. and HBO all cashed in on the devotion and, let’s face it, obsession of hockey fans the world over. ESPN was giving so little of a damn that they failed to include a single hockey death in their Year in Review. For the record, that’s ignoring not only the plane crash that killed 36 members of a Russian hockey team, several of whom had lengthy NHL careers, but also the deaths of Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien, and Wade Belak, all of whom were either currently members of NHL teams or recently retired. Oh, and they didn’t mention Sidney Crosby, possibly the greatest player ever to lace up skates, sitting out for the season with concussion symptoms.

I list these atrocities not because I’m sour grapes (which I obviously am,) but as a confused consumer. Because I, and a lot of other people like me, eat, sleep and breathe hockey, when given the chance to. For money, even. And HBO and NBC have proven time and time again that hockey can and does make compelling, interesting programming. It’s time for ESPN to realize that covering NHL games will net them one of sports’ most powerfully devoted and loyal demographics: the rabid hockey fan. Obviously Bristol can’t snake NHL games yet, as they missed the boat this time around, but if HBO and NBC’s accolades for taking hockey seriously are evidence of anything, it’s that ESPN would do well to give hockey a closer look next time it gets its chance.

I don’t recall anyone ever losing money overestimating the insanity of hockey fans.

Who Dat So Serious?

The bounty scandal that you kinda had to think was going to come back to bite the New Orleans Saints finally did today, as Roger Goodell dropped the hammer on Saints head coach Sean Payton. I say hammer; it was more like a guillotine. If that sounds a bit extreme on my part, it’s because Goodell put me in the mood for gross overreaction. There is no precedent for suspending a head coach for an entire season like this. Payton is stunned. Drew Brees tweeted that he is “speechless.” And, smelling controversy, the Asterisk Brigade is now out in full force, wondering if the Saints victory in Super Bowl XLIV should be considered tainted.

And yet, I seem to remember the freshly minted Super Bowl champion New York football Giants making headlines earlier this year for intentionally targeting the heads of concussion victims. If Goodell wants to come down hard on players intentionally injuring other players, he would do well to acknowledge that Sean Payton far from invented the practice.

What the Saints did is deplorable. People should be punished. The system should be reevaluated. But suspending Payton for an entire year? If Goodell thinks punishing the few for the collective sins of the many is going to do anything to change the culture of disrespect currently rocking the NFL, he’s got another thing coming. By enforcing a suspension this severe and unexpected, Goodell runs the risk of having the controversy kicked up outweigh the meaning of his actions. The discussion I hear going on right now has much less to do with what the Saints did wrong and much more to do with whether or not Payton deserves his suspension. That can’t be the dialogue Goodell was hoping for.

Football is an inherently violent game; that much can’t be debated. But whether or not football players deserve to be targeted for injury and run the risk of paying for the threat they pose to other teams with their physical and mental well-being should probably get some discussion. The league has come under a lot of fire for failing to help its veterans after they retire, but the real long term damage gets inflicted on the field, and it’s about time the NFL starts cracking down. But also time other leagues take the NHL’s example and realize that culture problems can’t be solved with a single, big ticket suspension.

Brendan Shanahan and the rest of the NHL brass have been dealing with their concussion issue by citing individual players for individual instances, making it clear that hits with the intent to cause harm won’t be tolerated without making anyone a martyr for the cause. The NFL’s problem is much bigger than Sean Payton, or any individual coach or player for that matter, and unless Giants players were just kidding when they said they were trying to hit concussion-magnet Kyle Williams in the head, the NFL has a long way to go if it wants to rid the league of dirty hits.

Also, if you think this scandal in any way tarnishes what the Saints did in that Super Bowl win, you were clearly just watching for the commercials.