NFL Power Poll
The TV numbers over the Thanksgiving weekend were back to the expected 'Cha-CHING' neighborhood with which the NFL is more accustomed.
That does not nor should it affect the NFL's decision to review the Thursday night set-up. More times than not, Thursday night football is bad. Really bad.
We've see a variety of bad games with lopsided scores and the fundamental belief - even beyond the alleged drop off in play across the league - is the short week is to blame.
That makes perfect sense. Sports teams in general and football teams and coaches in particular are creates of habit. Nevermind the recoil and recovery the body needs to get ready to have 30-plus car wrecks each week in an NFL game. Game-planning and preparation on each side becomes quite challenging, and ill-prepared NFL teams can give off the look of really sloppy NFL action.
We're for keeping the Thursday night game with the following changes:
* The teams playing on Thursday should be coming off a bye the previous Sunday. This seems too simple and direct for it not already to be in place. It also allows the bodies of the players an extra reprieve.
*When possible, make these division games. They do that rather frequently now, but making it almost mandatory - the only time it is not a division game is to make sure the teams are coming off bye weeks - should be part of the process. This is more about familiarity of the opponents than competitive balance since division foes play twice and more aware of each other.
* If you are going to give the networks a Thursday night portal, you have to make the games a little more higher profile. The Dallas Cowboys have been in four of the five most-watched; that's not an accident, especially when they are good. The other advantage of putting an emphasis of the Cowboys, Steelers, Packers and Patriots on Thursday night is that it makes certain those national fan bases get to see their teams. The NFL local coverage plan - when folks in Chattanooga get a Falcons-Saints game on Fox, a Titans-Jags game on CBS and one other national game - is understandable, but it does not cater to the fans of those showtime programs.
Power Poll
1. New England (9-2). How many other teams would be 9-2 with its franchise quarterback having missed four games, its franchise's best overall player for almost half the season and after trading its best pass-rusher before the season and its second-best linebacker during the season because they were not focused enough? The answer is only this one.
2. Dallas (10-1). The Cowboys are about to enter the go-zone of NFL cap nirvana. They have the strongest offensive line in the league and the key members of that group are signed long-term. Dak Prescott and Zeke Elliott are signed four at least the next three years to very team-friendly numbers. So, as promising as the 10-game winning streak is right now, the Cowboyw will get to be shoppers moving forward too. A mini-dynasty is not out of the question.
3. Oakland (9-2). The most fun team to watch in the league. David Carr is a gunslinger. Amari Cooper is effortless and amazing. (Side note: When an NFL receiver is always as open as Cooper is, well, that's simply amazing.) Is the Oakland defense ready to contend for the Super Bowl? Hard to know, but we'll certainly be watching.
4. Kansas City (8-3). Is Alex Smith the moist underrated quarterback in today's NFL? Smith is in his 11th year in the league, and he will forever be tagged as the quarterback the 49ers took No. 1 overall when some dude named Aaron Rodgers was in the green room. OK, Rodgers is a former NFL MVP and will be in the Hall someday. But Smith's tag as a game-manager at best seems unfair. Smith is 75-55-1 as a starter, has completed more than 61 percent of his throws and has 152 career TDs to just 87 picks. Better than Rodgers? Nope. But better than you expected, right?
5. Seattle (7-3-1). That's the puzzling thing about the NFL right? A week after generating the "Seahawks are back" storyline, Seattle scores 5 points last week at Tampa Bay. This defense is still among the best and most physical in the league, but the injury roulette at running back is starting to take a toll.
Powerless
28. Cincinnati (3-7-1). The Bengals' window of winning appears to be shutting. Remember friends, the best value in the NFL is finding a rookie QB you think can win, and trying to win in that five-year window of cap flexibility. The Bengals have squandered that with Andy Dalton, who now has a nine-figure contract, and got exactly zero playoff wins with arguably one of the best rosters in the NFL over the last half decade.
29. Jacksonville (2-9). There needs to be a 30-for-30 on what ever incriminating evidence head coach Gus Bradley has on Jacksonville management. Bradley is 14-45 as his fourth season with the Jags winds down. For historical perspective, Bradley's .237 winning percentage is the worst in the Super Bowl era of all coaches who have more than three seasons in the league. The only coach with an all-time percentage worse than Bradley's is of course, the infamous Bert Bell who went 10-46 with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from 1936-41.
30. Chicago (2-9). Man, the Bears can't win when the other team tries to gift wrap one. The Bears dropped two potential game-winning TD passes Sunday. How bad was the coverage? Well, the Titans won the game and still cut starting corner Perrish Cox on Monday.
31. San Francisco (1-10). Colin Kaepernick had a monster game Sunday - throwing for 296 yards and three scores and running for 113 more on 10 carries - and if the 49ers' 10-game losing streak is not bad enough, there's a couple of painful questions looming. Do you keep Chip Kelly and build forward? If the answer is yes, then do you look to resign Kaepernick, who despite all the protests and consternation about his idiocy, has played better than most people realize and has the perfect skill set for Kelly's offense. Kaepernick's numbers - he has thrown for more than 1,400 yards with 10 TDs and only three picks and run for 373 yards (more than eight per carry) - in six starts are better than you may know.
32. Cleveland (0-12). The consistency atop and on the bottom of the league are comforting, right?
Alabama sophomore tailback Damien Harris, shown on a touchdown reception during Saturday's 30-12 win against Auburn, insisted the Crimson Tide will remain highly motivated for this week's SEC title game.College football playoff rankings
The penultimate college football playoff rankings will be released tonight.
Alabama will be 1. And the divide between the Tide and everyone else is growing by the week.
To that end, Dan Dierdorf, the Michigan play-by-play guy, joined Mike & Mike this morning. Debating the pros and cons of all the other teams wanting to get into the top four, Dierdorf ended the interview with this nugget of wisdom: "Yeah, we're all fighting to get in line to get the crap kicked out of us by Bama."
Period. End of discussion.
The pieces and formalities tonight are relatively meaningless heading into the final release on Sunday. Here are a couple of items of interest to watch for tonight:
We can all pretty much agree that the order likely will go Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and Washington.
Then we expect the two teams in the Big Ten championship game - Wisconsin and Penn State - to be next to be followed by the Big 12 leaders from Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and then Colorado, which will play Washington this week in the Pac-12 title game.
It will be interesting to see where Michigan falls in that mix after losing at Ohio State in double overtime. Also of note to be where are the next few SEC teams ranked, considering Florida at 8-3, Auburn at 8-4 and LSU at 7-4, could be in line for a Sugar Bowl invite.
The biggest issue of the final playoff ticket won't be known until Sunday, meaning the tough choices will be made after the weekend of conference championships. In truth, there is a potential nightmare for the committee, considering the scenario that would have an 11-1 Ohio State in the mix and potentially leave out the team that won Ohio State's conference.
This is a bigger problem than most may realize.
We have forever said any college football postseason plan that takes away from the college football regular season is flawed. And that is happening as we speak.
Conference championships - there likely could be two power five champs left out if Ohio State is in the mix - are being minimized and marginalized.
And in that scenario, you really have to start questioning the very definition of this even being a playoff as much as it being an invitational.
By what criteria should Ohio State be ahead of Penn State, if the Lions win the title? Or Wisconsin for that matter? Heck, why can't Michigan, which beat both the Big Ten championship game teams in the regular season including a 49-10 win over Penn State, start trotting out that they lost two games on the road by all of four points and both coming after Michigan's starting quarterback was injured. (Yes, Wilton Speight came back for Ohio State.)
All of this spins and each side - Ohio State, Michigan and the Big Ten champ - has an argument you can at least listen to.
The biggest fly in the ointment of course will be Ohio State. Hey, the Buckeyes are very good and talented, but if the Buckeyes get to dance without winning its division, never mind its conference, then the term playoff - meaning winning and advance - doesn't really apply. The college football invitational may be a better name if we are going to use terms like eye test and game control. This then becomes a beauty contest, and if that is the case, who is playing better than USC right now?
Granted the sliding scale of conference title is certainly a quagmire of a qualification, considering what would happen if Florida pulls off the monster upset and beats Alabama? Granted the Tide has earned way more street cred than anyone else, but this really points us toward the eight-team playoff with five conference champions and three at-large invites.
And amazingly, for the first time ever considering the devaluation of conference championships this year, you could make an argument that expanding the field to eight would restore at least some value to regular season and the conference title games.
Maybe this is a one-time outlier, but the committee has some serious decisions to make, and here's betting it would not hurt the committee's feelings to have Washington or Clemson lose in their title games.
(Of course, what if both lose and there are three Big Ten teams standing there wanting into the college football postseason invitational.
Triple Doubles
OK, we have spilled a ton ink already, so we're going to move quickly here.
Tip of the visor to Russell Westbrook, who recorded his third consecutive triple double and his eighth of the season.
To be clear, Russ-diculous is now averaging a triple double on the season.
Speaking of the triple double, Kentucky's De'Aaron Fox had 14 points, 11 boards and 10 assists in the Wildcats' 115-69 spanking of Arizona State on Monday.
First, Kentucky had 33 assists on 44 field goals. That's a number you normally see on the next level and screams to a team willing to share and with enough talent to maximize that giving attitude.
Second, Fox became only the second UK player in the program's rich history to record a triple double.
Yes, we thought that was a misprint too. And almost just as surprisingly, considering the number of unbelievable talents UK has had through the years, the only other triple double in program history came from Chris Mills in December 1988.
Nuts right?
This and that
- Tragic news that a plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team crashed. There were 76 killed.
- Here are the smart kid rankings of the 5-7 teams who could be in line for bowl spots. There are 80 bowl spots and there will for sure be at least two openings for the 5-7 crew, and according to this, those spots look to be going to North Texas and Mississippi State.
- Congrats to Marion County's Alex Kirkendoll for winning Class 2A Mr. Football lineman of the year.
- Interesting column here from TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer. Where Lane Kiffin calls home next year will be very interesting to follow.
- Interesting take here from Jason Kidd, coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, who says his 7-footer and emerging star Giannis Antetokounmpos is not getting the fame he deserves because his name is so hard to pronounce. If you are wondering that last name is ah-deh-toh-KOON-boh, which begs the question why have the m or the p there if we're not going to pronounce them? Maybe he should play for the Colonels?
Today's questions
It's a true of false Tuesday, so let's get to it.
True or false, Andy Dalton is the most overrated quarterback in the NFL.
True or false, Ohio State deserves to be in the playoff over the Big Ten champ.
True or false, Lane Kiffin will be coaching at Alabama next year.
Happy 89th birthday Vin Scully. You are the best. With that, we'll offer a Rushmore of sports announcers in movies. Yes, Bob Uecker in Major League is the gold standard, but remember that Scully was aces as himself in For Love of the Game.
Go, and enjoy the day.