NFL End of First Quarter, College Football Cream Of Class. We are already a quarter of the way through the NFL season. If you can Loose no more than two games in each quarter you can put yourself in position to make the playoffs. Of course that means in at least one quarter you probably can only lose one game. It is difficult to make the playoffs in the NFL. College Football had an interesting week. There were some close calls but over all things pretty much went as expected. NHL Preseason is almost done already. The NBA is getting into training camp mode. Does that mean the interesting part of their year is over already? LOL I guess just ask Mike Greenberg he will let yo know. I wonder if he wishes he had not left Mike and Mike. NASCAR is in the first elimination part of their playoffs. I still have no idea what is going on with that.
NFL Shows again that no one knows from week to week
Another week of crazy finishes in the NFL. There were games that were much closer than people thought they would. There were also some wins that people did not expect. There were not many people that were picking the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to beat the L.A. Rams. The Bills gave the Patriots all they could handle and the Lions came close to beating the Chiefs. The bigger thing here for the Lions is that they held the unstoppable Patrick Mahomes to no touchdown passes. The NFL Network pregame shows are not talking about if Mahomes would toss a touchdown pass. They were talking about how many he would throw since this was going to be his first start in a dome. I guess the reasoning was that somehow the playing inside of Ford Field was going to give him a special advantage and spot him 3 touchdown passes or something crazy. Guess they were wrong on that one.
It is difficult to predict what is going to happen in each game in pro sports. The NFL it is is especially difficult. Even a bad team has really good players and if things go their way the will win from time to time. That is why it is very difficult to go 16 – 0 and just as difficult to go 0 – 16.
Replay is just getting Annoying
NFL rules are getting just crazy. The replay is out of control. I don’t understand why you can review pass interference now but you can’t review a false start, This one is especially confusing since in many cases pass interference can be a judgement call. A false start in most cases is not. Either you started before the ball was snapped or you did not. Seems to fit exactly what replay should be for. But then again what do we as fans know. At some point this will turn into a huge problem. I am not sure the NFL sees it that way. When replay was first going to happen. I was all for it and thought that it would help the game. Now that we have had replay and expanded it. i am not for it anymore. Most of the time it seems that they get it wrong or do not change a call that seems clearly to be wrong. Either they need to limit how long a play can be reviewed or just get rid of it all together. I know they say there is supposed to be a limit on it now but it really seems like they do not stick to it. Getting rid of replay would just put us back to a point where human error happens. It is and will continue to be a part of the game. I say lets just go back to it.
Five Things in the NFL
- The NFL needs to crack down more on malicious hits. This weekend Vontaze Burfict had a late hit on a defenseless player. If you have not seen the hit yet you can see it here. He lays out Indianapolis Colts tight end Jack Doyle. The hit was helmet to helmet with no regard for the player at all. After Burfict is ejected from the game he runs off laughing like he just pulled on over on everyone. The NFL suspended him for the rest of the season. He has show though his career that he is not going to be a dirty player. The NFL should suspend him for ever. He should be done playing NFL Football for ever.
- At the Quarter point of the Season Injuries are huge. Seems like more than usual but it probably is not. It is the high name recognition players that have been taken out. Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, now Bradly Chubb for the Broncos. Those are three big time players that are out for the season. I know this happens every year just seem like more to me this year. Interestingly this has not seemed to affect ratings at all. The NFL ratings are still climbing.
- Three Weeks in and there are only three teams left undefeated. The Patriots, the Chiefs and the 49ers. The first two are no surprise. The 49ers. Who knew. It was probably good for them that they had an early bye this year or they might not be on this list either. There are Four teams with zero wins.
- Four Weeks in and the AFC North and the AFC South do not have a team with a winning record. Those are the only division in that position at this point. We could be headed to one of those years where an 8-8 team makes the playoffs. Of course all the talking heads will explode at the same time. OMG the world of sports is doing to end because an 8-8 team made the playoffs. What ever. Get over it. No it is not fair. Life is not fair. The NFL will survive.
- Penalties are way up. I get that a flag could be thrown on every play. Stop flagging things that do not affect the play – unless of course it is something that could injure someone. The flags got a little better this week but really it is just getting annoying. The players need to be better but the refs can also tell them. Hey if you do that again I’m going to have to throw a flag.
College Football Shake Up
College Football had a shake up in the polls even though no one at the top lost. Alabama jumped Clemson and Ohio State Jumped LSU in both polls. In the coached poll for some reason Oklahoma is ahead of both Ohio State and LSU. Not sure why but that is the way it shakes out. Actually I am not sure why we even have a coaches poll. Lets face it being a college football coach does not give you much down time to watch games of teams you will not be playing. We all know that a lot of the times the Coaches are not the ones sending in their picks. It is delegated to someone lower in the staff. That is find but it also means sometimes you will get some strange results. It is still in the first half of the season so the polls really do not mean that much. I would be for bringing back the computer polls they were always pretty interesting.
Five things in College Football
- The Big Ten has a really good team and a really good middle. The bottom feeders really need to do some work. Ohio State is turning out to be really good. The question here. Is Ryan Day that good of a coach or did Urban Meyer leave him with a huge amount of talent. It is possible it is both things. This year will not really be a good test. Ryan day could just be making the most of the great talent he has been given and is just in the right spot at the right time. i am really starting to feel that he just might be really good at the coaching and the recruiting thing. It is entirely possible that Ohio State is going to be the next Clemson.
- The PAC 12 is a mess. Who really knows what is going on there. It is looking like the PAC 12 will be left out of the playoff again. There is no stand out team in the PAC 12. They have a bunch of middle of the road to good teams but no great teams. This is not something that will grab the attention of the Playoff Committee. This all points to the PAC 12 being out of the mix.
- California for the Win. The California Governor Gavin Newsom signs into law the bill allowing players to make money from their likeness. Yes all the NCAA powers that be are claiming this will ruin college sports. They can yell as loud as they want. They are wrong. This is a win for the athletes this is a win for the fans and this is a win for college sports in general. To all those yelling I don’t see you talking about how sponsorship’s are ruining the game when you took the shoe companies. This will not take money out of your pocket. You do not have to hand anything out. It just gives players a way to make some extra money. No they are not going to throw games. It is possible this actually works in your favor and keeps some borderline pro players in college for another year. A player that is thinking about leaving but is not sure where in the draft they might go could stay if they know they are going to make a little playing one more year of college. I do not see any losers in this and the rest of the states will have to follow. If they don’t then when this takes affect the California schools will all be favored to win.
- The Transfer portal is really working well. Three of the top five quarterbacks would not be playing right now if it were not for the portal. Jalen Hurts, Oklahoma Joe Burrow, LSU and Justin Fields, Ohio State all would be backups at this point if not for the portal. The Portal has given them a chance to better their situation and get into the right program for them. Sometimes you do not know till after the fact that the program you originally chose is not the correct one for you. Yes there has been some not so great out of the transfer portal but over all it has been a good thing. The traditionalist are yelling this just brings free agency to college sports. Yes you are correct. It does. There is nothing wrong with that. Coaches can do it and now players are getting that ability as well. More power to them.
- It is time for Notre Dame and all the independents to join a conference. Really you are not bigger than the sport and it just creates a mess for everyone. I’m not talking about the Pretend ACC thing that Notre Dame has. They need to be all in or all out. By all out I mean if they are not in a conference then they should be eliminated from the post season. Is that just me or do you think so as well?
NASCAR Roval Road Racing on and Oval
I went to the NASCAR site to see what I have been missing out on. It turns out I have really been out of the loop. The race at Charlotte Motor Speedway is going to be set in a road race configuration. This is not something new for an oval to have a road course. It is new that the Monster Energy series is going to be racing on a track in this configuration. At least that shows that NASCAR is trying to do something to get some more interest. They need to do a lot to compete with football at this point in their season. While I think that this is an intresting twist. I mostly forgot about it and only check on the standings on the NASCAR web site and did not take the effort to find the race. I was busy switching between NFL games and keeping up the the scores. This race marked cutting down to 12 drivers. Luckily for NASCAR Chase Elliott won the race. NASCAR needs the young drivers to win and they need the fresh ideas. It is time to try and save your sport.
MLB into the Playoffs
The Baseball post season is finally here. The only team that is out that I thought would get in is the Cleveland Indians. Not that I thought they could win. I just though that they would make it into the post season. I still see this being The Yankees against he Astros in the American League and the Dodgers vs no one that will beat them in the National League. The playoffs start this week on October first with the wild card game in the NL. Personally I love the one game playoff for the wild card. I really don’t get the hate people have for it. I have heard the argument that you play this long season and then it comes down to one game. If you don’t want to be in the one game playoff then win more games and win your division. Of course you could be on the outside looking in. That makes the one game playoff look much more attractive.
I am looking for people that are interested in writing posts on biglakesports.net If you are interested you can send me an email at jbigalke at biglakespots.net and we can go over what I am looking for and see if you are a fit. There would be no pay at this time but you would be able to put your writing out there and could post it on other sites if you wanted to.
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