Football, Basketball, Hockey and Baseball Oh My!

Football, Basketball, Hockey and Baseball Oh My! Yes indeed this week has had a bit of everything.  Many people think that this month is the best sports month of the year.   It is difficult to argue other wise.   The NFL is in the meat of their season now.  College Football is getting to crazy time when ranked teams start to drop like flies.   NBA basketball is getting going.  College basketball is about to get started.  Lets dive into the Week that Was for the third week of October 2018.

NFL – Every week is an Unknown

This does seem to be true.  This year one thing that we do know is that it seems that there will be at least one over time game each week.  So far the Cleveland Browns have bee in involved in four of them.  The most overtime games that an NFL team has played in one season is 5.   The Browns are one game away from that with more than half the season to go.    Maybe Budweiser will give away free beer in Cleveland again if they get the tie record.  The funny thing is that by playing all of these over time games it actually means that the Browns have made a huge step forward.   I really think that this will be Hue Jackson’s last season in Cleveland.    Hue is a great guy and the players like him.  You just don’t get the feeling that he can lead a team to the ultimate goal.

Whats Wrong with the Patriots?  Nothing

For all the people that were asking what is wrong with the Patriots.  Nothing, Nothing is wrong with them.   We told you a few weeks ago that there was nothing wrong.  Look at them now.  After beating the Bears last weekend they are now 5-2.  Leading the AFC East once again and tied with the Chargers for second best record in the AFC.  Only behind the Chiefs.  The Chiefs who have a pattern of crashing and burning in the second half of the season.   I am not sure that is going to happen to them this year.  It look like with Mahomes they have found that quarterback that will not let them crash and burn.

NFC the Rams for the Taking

In the NFC it still looks like the conference is the Rams for the taking.  They went to 7 – 0 after toying with the 49ers and there is no reason to believe that they won’t be 8 – 0 after playing the Packers next week.  The week after that will probably be their biggest test when they have to go to the Saints.   The Saints are on quite a streak as well.  This could be a preview of the NFC championship game.

 

College Football – The Four Seasons

It was not as crazy a Saturday in college football as last week.    There was one really big upset and a few other crazy things that happened though.  In the B1G the weather was like every season in the space of a few hours.  Crazy weather happens everywhere.  Except maybe in San Diego.  In Michigan the UM at MSU game was delayed for over an hour due to a thunder storm.  It is October.  Think about that.  Late October.  Usually this is something that is more likely to happen in the beginning of the season not half way thought it.  At the same time in Madison at the Illinois at Wisconsin game it was snowing.  Not just flurries but an out right snow squall.  The snow was sticking and it was like it was a late season game.  It was very exciting to see a game like tha tin October.

In the B1G upset department was un ranked Purdue beating up on Ohio State.   I am not sure how Purdue manages to do it but they always give Ohio state a difficult time and in the last 8 games in West Lafayette each team has won 4 times.     Most if not all of those times the Boilermakers were not ranked.   Next week will be the first week of the ranking for the Playoff selection committee.   It will be interesting to see how things go on that one.  What would be really great is if another few teams that are undefeated lose next week to make the decisions for the committee even more difficult.

NBA – The year of LeBron…  Probably Not

The Lakers have not had a great start to the season.  I am sure that it will get better.  What this shows is that even with the best player in the world you need at least some roll players.  With out them.  You have a losing team with the best player in the world.  The Lakers games have been pretty close.  Only a few games into the season they will probably get better.   It is going to be a long season for LaBron and the Lakers.

Another team that is going to be in for a long season is LaBrons former team the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Their streak of eight straight trips to the finals is over.  More than likely their play off streak is over.    It is entirely possible that that the Cavaliers will be in the running for the first over all pick in the draft next year.

On the plus side.  There are still five teams that have not lost yet.  The Bucks, Raptors, Pistons, Nuggets and Pelicans.   This will probably not last much longer for these teams.  I do think that the Bucks and Raptors will have great seasons and make some waves in the playoffs.

MLB – East Vs. West For the ratings win

For the first time in over 100 years the Red Sox will play the Dodgers in the World Series.  Baseball got what it wanted.   Two large market teams on the coasts.   Will this be the ratings boom that they seem to think it is going to be?   Difficult to tell.  Over all attendance was down this year.  Down a little over 4 percent.  For the first time since 2012 the total attendance of Major League Baseball did not reach 70 million.

MLB Blames Cold April for Decline

MLB is blaming most of the decrease on the month of April.   They may not be wrong.  It was unseasonably cold this past April and baseball had to either play in the very cold weather or cancel/postpone some of the games.   Over 20 games were either cancelled or postponed.    It has always confused me why baseball insists on scheduling game in April in cold weather cities that do not have a dome.   If you have the Astros Playing the Tigers in April in Detroit.  Chances are high that it will be cold out.  Houston is warm in April.  Why not play the April games in Houston and the June games they will play in Detroit?   Just putting it out there.

Need a great World Series

Since baseball was so openly pushing for large market teams to make it to the World Series.  They now need this to be a spectacular series.   They need it to be like the 2016 series when the Cubs beat the Indians in 7 games. Not only did that series go 7 games but game 7 went to extra innings.    It also had the lure of the Cubs who had gone over 100 years since winning a World Series.   There will not be able to be that type of excitement since the Dodgers and Red Sox have both won the series much more recently.  The Red Sox in 2013 and the Dodgers in 1988.   They lost the Series to the Astros last year.

It should be a good World Series both teams seem to be pretty evenly matched.  For baseballs sake they really need it to not be a sweep either way.

NHL – The Long road to spring begins

The NHL is already in the seasonal rut it has every year.  I enjoy hockey and my team has been extremely successful in my life time.  Having moved out of their market into a different teams.  I do not get to watch my team as much as I used to.   I used to be able to get a lot of the games on ESPN.  While I complain about ESPN a lot one thing that they did very well when they did it was Hockey.    Ever since NBC won the NHL contract it has been extremely difficult to find and watch the games.   It makes you wonder why NBC paid what they did to get the NHL and why they wanted it.

In the mean time i will keep up on the games but checking scores and watching highlights.   It is about all I can do at this point.  Short of buying a subscription to watch the games.   I love my sports but refuse to buy a subscription to any of the sports.   Will not for Hockey.  Will not for Football.

NASCAR – May have finally found their new star

With the end of the NASCAR season finally in sight.   It looks like Chase Elliott has finally hit his stride.    He got his first three wins of his career this season.  Elliott is in position to win the championship.    With Dale Jr. no longer racing.  Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon both retired.  NASCAR has been looking for some one young to take the lead.  Elliott had teh potential and now it looks like he is going to take it.  If he can pull this off it would be a true changing of the guard in NASCAR.  If it does happen it could not happen at a more perfect time.  With four races to go Chase Elliott really could pull this off.  He would take over the roll of most popular driver.  Something that went from his dad Bill Elliot to Dale Jr.  and could come full circle back to Chase Elliott.

Television on a roll

We talked last week about how exciting the fall schedule is with all the shows starting back up and new show releases.   The Walking Dead has had two of its best episodes in years.  Unfortunately for the Walking Dead it is leading up to the thing that will probably kill the show.  Already the numbers are down by 50 percent.  In a few weeks when they kill of Rick they will probably drop by another 50 percent.   If this is the first time you are seeing this it is not a spoiler.  They have already announced that they are killing off Rick.  That was a mistake to announce ahead of time that Rick was going to die.  I have friends that have planned for when he dies that is when the Walking Dead dies for them as well.   We stick with a show when we start watching so we will watch till the end.

There are a few new shows that we are watching this fall.  Two of them that we really like are New Amsterdam and the Rookie.  They are both well written and have actors that we really like in them.  Seems like a lot of the shows we like don’t make it.  Hopefully we made some good choices this year.   Next week I will make a list of the shows that we watch.

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