MLB Playoffs in Full Swing Football still for the Win.  The MLB playoffs have served up some interesting games.  With the elimination of the Dodgers the ratings will suffer.  Upsets are always interesting.  The way the Dodgers went out was a surprise to almost everyone.  The problem here is that on of the largest audiences will be lost.  It was a very interesting weekend overall.  For College Football.  The NFL and for Baseball.  NASCAR got in on the excitement just a day late due to rain.  The Pope blessed the Saints and it seems to have worked.  Even though it was an accident.  Weather is finally moving on from the super hot into some fall football weather.

College Football Movement At the top

Georgia showed that rankings are just that for now.  They don’t really mean a whole lot.   I was going to pick South Carolina as my upset pick of the week but then switched to Iowa to win over Penn State.  They always say you should go with your first instincts.  I went against that and it burned me.  That is alright since it did turn into a great college football weekend.  Now that we are just past the halfway point the games get more difficult.  A loss now is pretty much an elimination from the college football playoff.

Five Things in College Football

1. Georgia just seemed like they were looking to get upset.  South Carolina was happy to take that challenge.  It appeared that they were going to give it away though.  Every time that Georgia said they did not want to win it seemed like South Carolina would answer back.  We don’t want to either.  Finally in the second OT.  South Carolina got the lead and Georgia said finally you can have it and missed what would have been the field goal to send it to a third OT.  What this does is eliminate Georgia from going to the playoff.  They could get it but it would take some crazy stuff happening.  It did not help them that Florida lost to LSU.  There are no teams now in the SEC East that are undefeated.
2. B1G looks like Ohio State Wisconsin – The East looks like it is Ohio States to win and the West looks like it is Wisconsin’s.  Ohio State and Wisconsin play in two weeks.  This will more than likely be the first of two match ups between those two schools. If they split those games and they are really close games.  it is possible that the B1G could be setting up for two teams in the playoff.  Probably not but it looks like they will not be left out of the playoff this year.
3. The ACC other than Clemson is Hot Garbage – The ACC is laying a huge stink bomb on the field this year.  Clemson has a little bit of a hang over from last year.  So far is has not cost them.  With how bad the rest of the conference is.  They will more than likely get away with it.  Their biggest test will be November 16th against Wake Forest.  They look like the second best team in the ACC.  They lost a crazy shoot out to Louisville last week.  The score 62 -59 looked more like a basketball score then a football score.  They should be able to win their next three games and then meet Clemson with an 8 – 1 record.  Then we will find out how good either one of these teams really is.
4. Half Way through the Season the PAC-12 has no chance to be in the playoff – this is a huge problem.  Oregon is an alright team.   So is Utah and Arizona State.  The problem is that none of those teams has a wow factor.  The committee still pretends that a wow factor does not matter.  They are human.  We know it does.  This just another thing that points to the Playoff needs to be expanded and conference champions need to get it.  Just can’t leave out a large chunk of the  country.  This has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with building an audience.  Quit being stupid and just do it.
5. My Top four at this point.  1 LSU 2 Ohio State 3 Oklahoma 4 Alabama  This would leave Clemson out at this point.  I think that any of these four teams have looked better than Clemson and the way they are playing and Clemson is playing they would all be able to beat them.  Trevor Lawrence is not playing the way he did last year.  Pretty sure this is just part of the hang over from the year they had last year.  Will have to see how things go for the second half of the season.  At this point they would be out.

NFL Sunday all day long

We have talked before how much we love Sunday morning games.  With the first early London game this year we got the NFL all day long.  Shooting from one game to the next.  What a nice way to spend a Sunday.

Five Things in the NFL

1. The London game with the Panthers against the Buccaneers.  This game was more fun to watch because it was on in the morning.  I think that it showed that the end is near for Jameis Winston.  The first play of the game Winston threw an interception.  All interceptions are bad.  Well most of them are.  This one actually looked like he was confused which team he was supposed to throw the ball to.  That was the first of the five interceptions he threw in London.  The rest of the team did not look any better.  Other than Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.  It might be time for the Bucs to think about trading them and seeing what they can get.  It is pretty clear that they are going to need to go after a quarterback in the draft.
2.  This is not the Cowboys team you were looking for.  After what looked like a fantastic start.  The Cowboys have crashed back to Earth.  Crashed back hard like the satellite that crashed back to Earth in the Walking Dead.  With the way the Cowboys started the season people were penciling them in for the Super Bowl and talking about how great Kellen Moore is as the Cowboys Offensive Coordinator.  It does not look that way now.  The Cowboys have now lost three games in a row.  Starting out with three less than stellar teams really helped.  The Cowboys did what they had to to beat the Giants, Redskins and Dolphins.  Teams that are now a combined 3 – 14.  So good they won the games they were supposed to.  They have now lost to the Saints, Packers and Jets.  The first two are understandable.  The Packers and Saints are leading their divisions.  The Jets had not won a game till they played the Cowboys.  The Cowboys were not as good as their start they are probably not as bad as they played against the Jets.  On the bright side they are tied for the lead in the NFC East.
3. 49ers got the Bosa pick right.  With the way that training camp started for Nick Bosa.  There was a concern that he would be injury prone.  That still could happen.   His games the last two weeks have shown that he can play.  Against the Rams he did not put up great numbers.  Sometimes it is not the numbers you put up but the attention you get that allows others to make plays.  With the dominant performance against the Steelers the Rams had to pay extra attention to him.  With the 49ers start it will be interesting to see where this goes.
4. Cleveland is a horrible mess.  The Brown are in some kind of Twilight Zone.  It really looks like Freddie Kitchens was not the correct candidate to be the Browns head coach.  The Browns has the Seahawks right where they wanted them.  Then it all fell apart for the Browns.  This type of melt down usually seems to be a coaching issue.   Yes the players are ultimately at fault but the coaches are the ones that put them in the correct situation to perform.  Kitchens made some very questionable decisions especially with the use of challenges that cost him the opportunity to challenge a call later in the game that would have helped the Browns more.   I am not saying it is time for the Browns to throw in the towel.  It is probably time to give on on their hope of making the playoffs this year.  The Ravens have a two game lead and there will only one team making the playoffs from the AFC North this year.
5. The Officiating is absolutely horrendous.  I can say that with no worry of getting fined.  I don’t work for the NFL…  LOL if they offered me a job I would take it though.  I am not sure what people thought was going to happen when they decided you would be able to challenge pass interference calls.   I am pretty sure it is not what is happening how.  The calls seem random and they are almost all getting upheld when challenged.  From my point of view it is just time to get rid of challenges completely.  It has not increased the number of correct calls.  If anything it has made it worse.  The other problem is the number of holding calls.  The amount being called in just crazy.  Yes we know that holding happens on every play.  There is no way to stop this.  Calling as many as the refs are calling just makes the game a mess.  Penalties are way up.  Bad calls are way up.  It is really time to make a change.  Tom Brady needs to send out a tweet about it again.  It might help.

MLB Playoffs – Curve Ball

I don’t think that anyone saw the Dodgers losing to the Nationals.  The Nationals and their fans may have had that thought in their minds but pretty sure they are still thinking the Dodgers were going to win.  Last week we said that the NLCS would be the Dodgers and what ever team won between the Cardinals and the Braves.  Then it would be the Dodgers in the World Series against who ever won between the Yankees and the Astros.  At first I thought that this was going to be a huge ratings problem for baseball.  After thinking about it for a bit.  I think that this could actually turn into a huge win.  Especially if the Nationals make it to the World Series.  What a story to lose your best and most popular player and then the following year you make the world series.  Not only that but you are responsible for knocking your former players team out of the playoffs.  This is the kind of stuff that writers come up with for the movies.  The Nationals against  the Yankees or the Astros would make a very interesting World Series.

NASCAR Rain Delay

In a race that is always exciting at Talladega we had to wait an extra day from some crashes flips and and an exciting finish.  Ryan Blaney won the race in what they are calling the 6th closest finish in Talladega history.  For what ever that means.  That stat always makes me laugh a bit.  Blaney will now take a spot in the next round of the playoffs when they drop down to eight drivers.   This is all very interesting and fine.  The problem here is that almost no one knew it was even going on.  NASCAR can’t account for rain.  That is out of their control.  They can change around the schedule to not be competing at this time of the year.   It really does not matter how exciting the race is if no one is watching it.

You can find last weeks post here