In the week that was the sports landscape is a changing. It appears that the NFL has set its self up for a huge fail. The days of them doing what ever they want and it not affecting them is over. The MLB hit a home run (see what I did there) with their playoffs this year. It looks as if the Big 10 will get left out of the College Football Playoff. It could set up for some strange numbers and a lot of whining and confusion. And it probably will. That is not a bad thing. That is what will bring about change. NASCAR is still rolling along. Kind of.
Huge mess in the NFL
The NFL has set itself up for some strange things. The games have become that back ground to everything else that is going on. Kind of strange how they have managed to do that. I think that they have no further to look than at good ole Roger Goodell. He is ruling the game with an iron fist. This has nothing to do with the great Marvel Comic Book.
It has to do with he gets to make the final decisions. Most of the high profile decisions that he has made have back fired on him. With deflate gate he was able to take one of the most popular and best player out of the game for a few weeks. For deflating footballs…. Really wow lets fight for that one tooth and nail.
The Anthem protest could have been solved by Roger Goodell being much more decisive. While I support any citizens right to protest I am not sure they picked the best way to protest. We have talked about this before and the message is lost and the push back has been severe. Now you have PaPa Johns saying that this protest is the cause of their profit going down. This was at best a very strange claim to make.
More likely they were put up to it because of Jerry Jones spat with the NFL over what is happening with his star running back Ezekiel Elliott . There is no doubt that he is a great player. He does how ever tend to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and surround himself with some questionable people. At this point it no longer matters if he did what he is accused of.
Goodell will fight
Roger is going to fight till he is able to suspend him just to try and send a message. Jerry is going to pout and fight back the only way he knows how to. None of this will end well. Roger will get his way in the end. Elliott will get suspended. Probably at a more important point than he would have if he had taken the suspension at the beginning of the year. PaPa Johns will go out of business because they made the mistake of getting involved in a private spat.
MLB for the win
Major League Baseball has set itself up to take over where the NFL is failing. They are putting out an amazing and exciting product. They are appealing to a mass audience. There are complaints from the traditionalists that the “Live” ball changes the game. They are correct. It changes it for the better. There is something to be said for a pitching duel but an exciting 9 – 8 game will keep the mass audience. People like to see home runs and runs in general.
With Houston winning the world series they were able to create a feel good story that people could identify with. Houston by acquiring Justin Verlander also brought in another fan base in Detroit to follow the games and root for their guy. Baseball has avoided making any political statements and made it an enjoyable and entertaining event. This past week was a huge win for baseball. We will see if they can keep it going next season.
Chaos in NCAA Football
The Big 10 created an exciting race for who is going to win the Big 10 East. With Michigan State taking out Penn State in a game that lasted 7 hours. There was a more than three hour delay for weather but that actually built the excitement even more. Ohio State on the other hand. Crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. Iowa took it too Ohio State and destroyed their season. Well at least their dreams of making the playoff. Ohio State can still win the Big 10 but even if they do there is no chance that they will be in the playoff.
The only way I see the Big 10 being able to get a team in is if Wisconsin impressively runs the table. Including winning convincingly in the Big 10 Championship game. From that point of view it really does not matter who they play just that they handle the team with relative ease. They will also need one or more of the teams ahead of them to lose. It could happen but hard to tell who it would be. Things are shaping up to leave out at least 2 of the Power 5 conferences. We talked about this last week. The scenario that we put out there is actually happening.
It will be interesting to see what the Playoff Committee does tonight.
NASCAR needs some big changes
Are you still a NASCAR fan? If so are you watching as many races as you used to? I have been a huge fan of NASCAR for as long as I can remember. Over the last few years the number of races I have watched has significantly gone down. I always passively watched the fall races. As football was getting into full swing the races became secondary. Now not only are the secondary but most of the time I do not even check the race till after it is done.
The numbers show that I am not the only one that is doing this. The sponsorship dollars are going down and teams are starting to cut back. The huge pay days that the drivers were getting are going to be a thing of the past. This could still be salvageable. But it will take some significant changes and there will be a huge growing curve. I am not sure that NASCAR has the ability to make those changes. They have tried a bit with the playoff that has been going on for a few years. But people do not understand it and NASCAR has done a horrible job of explaining it. It is too complex and no one really is that interested in the current plan. I don’t have a fix for this but I am sure that there is a solution out there.
This next week will be very interesting in college football. The NFL races are really coming together. NHL and NBA are still so early in the season that we can not draw any conclusions yet.
If you have not voted yet go vote in the poll about what should be done with the college football playoff.
Loading ...
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Recent Comments