College football 4
We have been listing our four on Wednesdays for the last handful of weeks. Good times.
Side note: The actual polls that actually reflect the views of the people who actually count – the college football playoff committee – will start being released on Halloween, ironically enough.
After last week, when four teams – Clemson, Washington, Washington State and Auburn – with complete control of their destiny surrendered that control, it made us wonder about which teams truly have control of their destinies, meaning that if they win out, they know with all certainty they are in the field of four. (Yes, Auburn had one loss, but if before crapping the bed against LSU, if AU had won out it would have meant an SEC title and wins over Georgia and Alabama, and that would have easily been enough.)
So in terms of control – winning out and punching one of four tickets – there still are roughly a dozen or so teams that have to believe they control their destinies.
Here are the four that stand firmly in front of the rest:
1. Alabama. Still flexing muscle and proving the nation’s narrative that the SEC is down every week. Hey, we can lament all we want but it’s pretty easy for the pundits around the country to say the SEC is much weaker with the way Alabama and Georgia are crushing everyone else in the league.
2. Georgia. The Notre Dame win gets better by the week. (And in truth, for Notre Dame, a one-point loss to Georgia gets better by the week.) In fact, if Notre Dame wins out and Georgia wins out, then we believe that a) Notre Dame will be in the playoff, and b) that if UGA lost a close one to Alabama in the SEC title game, that would be the best chance for the SEC to get both the Bulldogs and the Tide in the four.
3. Penn State. The Lions will get their chance to prove whether they are for real or not, starting this weekend at Michigan. Yes, Michigan has been scattered-brained on offense, but remember that’s a team that crushed Florida in the opener. Again, the SEC weakness after the top two is exploitable.
4. TCU. A sneaky strong resume for the Frogs that includes a road win over Arkansas (another bad SEC team), a road win at Oklahoma State, which was ranked No. 6 at the time, and over ranked West Virginia.
If last week was the elimination game for Auburn – stupid Auburn – this week in a lot of ways is a monster test for USC and Notre Dame. And know this: If Georgia/Alabama fans are trying to envision ways in which the SEC title game loser gets into the four, too, then Notre Dame winning this one is crucial.
Yes, it continues to add value to the Notre Dame win, but it also would mean that USC could be a two-loss Pac-12 champ and that would make it pretty easy to dismiss them.
The double-edged sword of trying to figure of the SEC could get two while needing Notre Dame to win is the realization that I’m not sure the committee would be overly receptive to taking two SEC teams, Notre Dame and then one conference champ from the other four Power Five leagues. That leaves a lot of folks out of the money.
Now multiple losses for those conference champs certainly could change things, but you get the idea.
NFL meeting with no meat
OK, a group of NFL owners, NFL players – current and former – and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell got together to discuss the clear and present danger to the business model of the league.
Numbers are down.
And by a wide margin.
And we can all point to the loss of superstar names. We can point to bad quarterback play on a growing number of teams. We can point to the frustration and fear of serious injury dwindling numbers among the youth of America. We can point to a watered-down product that features far too many 3-yard passes and 2-yard runs as coaches and quarterbacks do everything in their power to not turn the ball over and win games 14-12.
But it’s impossible to ignore the timing of the sagging TV numbers – starting with the 2016 season in which Colin Kaepernick started kneeling during the national anthem. Take Monday Night Football as the latest example.
Yes, the sports ratings news is seldom good these days, but this one is kind of eye-popping. According to Sports Media Watch, the Monday Night Football broadcast of Colts-Titans had a 5.2 rating and 8.38 million viewers.
It was down a small fraction from last year’s Jets-Cardinals game (5.2, 8.4 million) in week 6 but down 40 percent from the 2015 week 6 MNF game of Giants-Eagles (8.7, 13.9 million).
And it gets worse. Tennessee’s win was the third-smallest Monday Night Football audience ever, ahead of two games last year: Falcons-Saints, which aired opposite a Trump-Clinton debate got 8 million viewers and Colts-Jets in week 13 last year had 8.1 million watching.
There are a lot of factors that play into the declining number of viewers, but anyone downplaying the backlash to the protests during the anthem would have a hard time explaining the timing. The three lowers MNF audiences ever are since Kaepernick bent the knee, and the MNF comparison game from before protests happened had 40 percent more viewers. The only MNF game to have a rating that low before the protests came in 2007 when the Broncos and Chargers drew a 5.1 share. They played that game on Monday, Dec. 24 – aka Christmas Eve.
So, the owners – who have bounced between Jerry Jones’ ultimatum last week that his players will stand to those supporting the players’ right to kneel during the anthem – met with the players.
And the only hard and fast outcome of Tuesday’s meeting was Goodell and Seattle wide out Doug Baldwin co-signed a letter to Congress to show the league’s universal support of the 2017 Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2017. The bill, if passed, is designed to reduce minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
And good for them. But the elephant room was never discussed. As for the league and owners looking to get the players to stand for the anthem, well, apparently that did not come up. Which is kind of amazing.
“We did not ask for it,” Goodell told reporters when asked if any requests were made to the players about anthem etiquette and requirements. “We spent today talking about the issues players are trying to bring attention to. Issues in our communities, to make our communities better.”
In truth, this sounds like a meeting that should happen frequently. It also redirects Kaepernick’s original narrative and his attempts to bring attention to equal treatment for blacks by law enforcement.
That seems like a cause that no one is against. Who is not for equal treatment for everyone from our governmental-run agencies.
Now you can debate whether that’s as big an issue as it’s made to be in today’s social media storms.
You can also debate whether Keapernick’s decision to make that protest during a moment when we honor our country and those who have fought to defend it. (And we have heard from a large number of veterans during these debates, and most of them say they fought and sacrificed so Kaepernick and peaceful protestors have the right to do whatever they choose during the anthem.)
You can also debate whether President Trump should be spending his time with bigger issues. He took to Twitter again Wednesday morning with this: “The NFL has decided that it will not force players to stand for the playing of our National Anthem. Total disrespect for our great country!”
So did anything get decided? That’s hard to know, because several players said the best they could hope for was the league to give them a reason NOT to kneel. Was this move and meeting enough for that? Who knows?
The commissioner and the owners will meet again today, and you would have to think this would come up because whether they want to believe it or not, it’s hurting the business of the NFL. Because that business cashes big checks because of TV money generated TV viewership.
NBA opening night
Wow, was that fun. And horrifying.
We’ll start with the major storyline that made everyone watching Cavs-Celtics live flinch and turn away.
Boston big fish free agent signing Gordon Hayward landed awkwardly and the result was a Krumrie-, Theismann- Kevin Ware at Louisville-type of leg scene in which Hayward’s body was facing one direction and his foot was at a 90-degree angle in another.
It was gruesome and head-turning.
It also points in a bigger way to the old adage of the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
Boston was built to contend now. They parted ways with a major chip – Brooklyn’s unprotected No. 1 pick next summer which could be No. 1 overall – to get Kyrie Irving to put him next to Hayward. It would be as good a 1-2 as anyone has this side of Golden State.
If you want to quibble , OK maybe OKC’s 1-2 of Russell and PG13 are better. but it’s closer than most anyone knows.
And Boston was way deeper and balanced than any of the other 1-2 teams. (Golden State is different since they have the best 1-4 combination.)
Now, less than 12 minutes into the 3,936 minutes of the regular season, the Celtics are dealt a monstrous gut punch. One that likely will cost Hayward his season and the Celtics any chance at knocking the Cavs off their top spot in the East. (Side note: In the game, there were two strong LeBron-related takeaways. First, dude was ready to play and motivated. He played 41 minutes, made 12 of his 19 shots – he was 11-of-14 or 78.6 percent inside the arcs – and finished with 29 points, 16 rebounds and nine assists. Secondly, whether it was because of the reality of Hayward’s injury or not, James and Irving shared a nice moment after the Cavs’ hard-fought 102-99 win.)
The other national game was also intriguing as Golden State hosted Houston, which has been built to try to out Warriors the Warriors.
After getting its championship rings, Golden State lost 122-121 to Houston when Kevin Durant’s game-winning shot was reviewed and rightly decided that he did not release it before the buzzer. (Side note: Visor tip to Downtown Patrick Brown, a good dude and renowned Warriors hater, for rightly noting after the decision that the Warriors are in fact on pace to go 0-82.)
But that was not the most surprising number form that surprising outcome.
According to ESPN Stats and Info, here are the streaks that were snapped when Houston came back to topple the defending champs:
Golden State had won 28 straight games that they had a 15-point-or-bigger lead;
Golden State had won 28 straight games when scoring more than 25 fast-break points;
Golden State had won 42 straight games hem scoring 100 or more points in the first three quarters;
Golden State had won 37 straight games when handing out 30 or more assists.
All of those ended Tuesday.
In the end, the Warriors will be there. We all know that. And in the end, a large part of it will be how much they are pushed because they will get everyone’s best shot.
Well, everyone’s but Boston’s, because their best shot last less than 12 minutes.
This and that
– Just saw this, according to ESPN, the viewership numbers across the entire NFL are down 7.5 percent from 2016. And compared through the first six weeks of the 2015 season NFL ratings are off a staggering 2015 percent.
– Also of note in the above article, is this real kick to the shins for the NFL’s TV partners. From the article by Darren Rovel: In the past week, Credit Suisse lowered its price targets on both Fox and CBS stock, citing NFL ratings declines. “If ratings don’t improve materially, we see a potential headwind to domestic advertising revenues,” the investment bank’s analyst Omar Sheikh wrote of Fox on Thursday. On Monday, Sheikh estimated third-quarter revenue for CBS would be off 3 percent, versus the previously projected 1 percent, due to “soft ratings for both the summer [programming] and for the start of the NFL season.”
– That was some fun playoff baseball last night. The Yankees rallied to even the ALCS at 2 with a 6-4 win over Houston last night in which Aaron Judge and the middle of the New York lineup got the job done. The Dodgers eased by the Cubs to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the NLCS.
– We got a fun Twitter picture from regular reader/listener Chris Abbott of the a big “Fire Butch Jones” banner at the Nashville Predators game earlier this week.
-ESPN is partnering in a new late-night venture with Bar Stool Sports, and this is understandably a pretty large issue for Sam Ponder, who was unfairly blitzed and insulted by Bar Stool Sports president Dave Portnoy three years ago. Ah, the company picnic should be fun.
Today’s question
Will start here: Should NFL owners make players stand for the national anthem? Plain and simple.
As for today in history, Jean-Claude Van Damme is 57 today.
Brittney Griner and Bristol Palin are both 27.
Joni Cunningham would have been 57 today. MaryAnne from Gilligan’s Island is 79 today. Mike Ditka is 78. Martina Navratilova is 61.
It also is Chuck Berry’s birthday.
Rushmore of Chuck. Go.