Frisky 4 picks
Well, six weeks. Six records of 3-1 against the number.
That’s consistent. And entertaining. But now we are backed into a corner knowing there is a good news and a bad.
The good is that even if we go bagel-and-4 these next two weeks, we’d still be 18-14 against the number on our NFL picks. But we refuse to have that type of negativity. Pessimistic views have no place around here, unless we are talking about Auburn’s offense, Jomo is talking about the SEC or June Griffin is talking about the paper in general.
As for the bad news, well, we have been trying to wrap our brain around these conference championship games and, after 72-plus hours of analysis, we’re stumped. These four teams are a combined 29-1 since Week 12 of the regular season. These four quarterbacks are pretty much the four best in the NFL right now.
Look at the individual strengths of each:
The Steelers Brown, Bell and Big Ben is the best trio of skill players since Dallas’ heyday with Aikman, Emmitt and Irvin.
The Patriots have the best coach of his generation and an all-time quarterback chasing a) history, b) a fifth Super Bowl, and c) the chance to stand side-by-side with Roger Goodell in front of a 120 million viewers.
The Falcons have a quarterback who likely will be named the league MVP and quite possibly the defensive player of the year.
And the Packers, well, the Packers have the best quarterback I’ve ever seen.
Yep, that’s it. And to this point, that’s been more than enough. Yes, there are guys with more yards. Yes there are guys with more rings. And Rodgers may never catch the all-time record holders in those categories, but here’s the baseline: Go back to the high point of any of the great quarterbacks ever. Pick one, your favorite or the dude you think is the top dog, and we believe that the GM of that franchise would trade that player’s apex for Rodgers at his.
Yes, the numbers can’t be ignored – both the career stats of a Manning or the rings of Brady or Montana – but simple, old-school playground football, if every player ever is available at the best of his career, we’d take Rodgers first and feel good about our chances. So, as they said in Bull Durham, we’re dealing with a lot of stuff here. Let’s review some of our gambling beliefs.
1) Start with the quarterback.
2) Do you trust the head coach?
3) Check the weather.
4) Identify each team’s strongest point and each team’s weakest point. (If those meet in a playoff matchup, well, there you go.)
5) If a line looks to good to be true, it almost always is.
6) Vegas is Vegas for a reason (so when in doubt, go against the public).
So if we review those, man the excellence of the quarterbacks make the divide very minuscule.
The NFC coaches are not completely trust-worthy for myriad of reasons; the AFC coaches are extremely trust-worthy.
One game is in a dome; the other is in Foxboro – high of 43 predicted for Sunday, low of 33, with a 20 percent chance of rain – but it features the two best bad weather teams in football. Strengths (other than QBs): Pittsburgh’s offensive duality; New England’s ability to make opposing teams one-dimensional. Green Bay’s offense; Atlanta’s offense. Weaknesses: Not many, but if there are noticeable ones, well, Atlanta is not great at stopping the run, but Green Bay has a fullback and a slot receiver in the backfield with Rodgers.
As for the lines, none of the numbers can be described as ‘too good to be true’ and the public money right now is on the Packers and the Patriots. So there’s that. See what we mean? Well, we got to get to it and you guys have to get back to work, so let’s do this:
Green Bay plus-4.5 over Atlanta and over the 61. If there is one number that jumps off the page for this weekend’s matchups it’s the total in the NFC game. It’s the highest in NFL playoff history and it feels like Vegas is begging you to take the under. When Vegas begs, we try to make sure we go the other direction, and in truth, both of these teams want this game to be played in the 30s, so even Auburn math tells us that clears 61. As for the game, well, we think the Falcons have been great all year, and expect them to be great Sunday. But will great be enough to topple Aaron Rodgers and 4.5 points? (Remember rule 1.)
New England minus-6 over Pittsburgh and under the 51. Night game in Foxboro. Edge Patriots. Tom Brady behind center. Edge Patriots. Ben Roethlisberger’s looseness with the football. Edge Patriots. Yes, LeVeon Bell scares the pants off this pick because dude is a different beast. But, if there’s any coach we want calculating a way to stop Pittsburgh’s Big Three, it’s Bill Belichick.
So there you go, and yes, if that plays out, we believe it would be the best Super Bowl matchup of quarterbacks ever. (And to add to the confusion, we likely will be rooting for the teams on the other side of our picks. Crazy, indeed.)
Last week: 3-1 against the spread (75 percent)
This year on NFL picks: 18-6 against the spread (75 percent)
Golden State Warriors’ Kevin Durant (35) drives for a dunk attempt past Oklahoma City Thunder’s Andre Roberson, center left, during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Efficient Warriors impress
Wow. We talked about this earlier this week, but we feel the need to restate some stats and views on where the Golden State Warriors are right now in the NBA realm.
Not unlike the place Alabama assumed in the regular season of the college football year, there’s Golden State, then there’s a sizable gap, and then there is everyone else. And as Golden State starts to mesh, that divide appears to be – like Leon in the Airplane movies – growing larger.
Monday, the Warriors humiliated the Cavs with a defensive efficiency that caused the Cleveland trio of Love, James and Irving to go 13-for-43 from the floor. (Pssttt, that’s not good.)
Wednesday, the Warriors handled the most dynamic and influential player in the league by harassing Russell Westbrook all night. The Warriors beat OKC 121-100, in large part by making another Westbrook triple-double – his 21st of the season – less than pretty and actually a quadruple-double considering he had 10 turnovers, too.
Westbrook finished 8-of-23 from the field – he had 27 points, 15 boards and 13 assists – and was pretty distracted by the hard foul ZaZa Pachulia late in the first half. While the Warriors’ defense deserves a lot of credit, their offensive efficiency is what really should scare the rest of the league.
Consider this: Kevin Durant scored 40 points on 16 shots. That is crazy. In fact, it’s record-setting, according to Elias Sports, who claim he is the first player to score 40 points on 16 shots or less. He was 13-of-16 from the field and 10-of-10 from the line – his three misses were an off-balance dunk attempt, a leaning 3 as the shot clock was winding down and a buzzer-beater try from beyond half-court.
Yes, he has been obscenely motivated against his former OKC mates – he has scored 79 points on 28-of-40 shooting in two Warriors wins – but this is crazy.
“My teammates are doing a good job of freeing me up,” a noticeably subdued Durant said postgame. “I put the work in and prepared myself for every game, I just happened to knock them down.”
Yes, that’s a guy downplaying his excellence. But his point about the Warriors moving the basketball is undeniable. And down-right staggering.
Consider this, part II: The Warriors had 35 assists Wednesday night. They have had 35 or more assists in a game 11 times this season, and that’s more times than the rest of the league combined.
How much better are the Warriors at sharing the ball than the rest of the league? Golden State averages 31.6 assists per game to lead the league by a lot. That is 5.8 better than second-place Houston. That 5.8 divide between first and second is the same gap between Houston and all the way down to No. 28 Utah (19.4).
FILE – In this July 25, 2008, file photo, San Diego Padres closer Trevor Hoffman throws in the ninth inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates in a baseball game at Pittsburgh. Tim Raines and Jeff Bagwell are likely to be voted into baseball’s Hall of Fame on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017, when Trevor Hoffman and Ivan Rodriguez also could gain the honor. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File) Baseball’s next class
We learned Wednesday evening that Ivan Rodriguez, Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines were voted into the baseball Hall of Fame.
They will be inducted later this summer, along with John Schuerholz and Bud Selig, who were voted in back in December by whatever the Veterans Committee is now called. (Side question: If we were going to have a Rushmore of baseball GMs, Schuerholz has to be there considering what he assembled in Atlanta and the Braves’ history before he arrived. Yes, wunderkind Theo Epstein gets a spot, too. Thoughts?)
We agree that Pudge should be a first-ballot guy. We don’t think Bagwell should be there. (Dude made all of four all-star teams in a 15-year career, all four of them in a six-year stretch from 1994 to 1999. His MVP came in the striek-shortened season of ’94. And who’s to say in that generation that Bagwell was clean? Dude had Earl Campbell legs for Pete’s sake. The thing is no one knows, and we believe you have to view most everyone in that generation through the same tainted lense.)
We’re OK with Raines, and we discussed that some yesterday. But the numbers before us today show us a couple of things:
First, Trevor Hoffman and Vlad Guerrero will make it next year. Hoffman received 327 votes, five short of the needed 75 percent. Guerrero got 71.7 percent of the vote.
Next, Edgar Martinez continues to climb in the eyes of the voters. After getting just 27 percent in his first year on the ballot two years ago, he got 58.6 percent. (Yes, if Edgar Martinez makes it, well, then we have officially turned Cooperstown in the Hall of Really, Really Good players.)
Finally, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens climbed above 50 percent for the first time. Clemens got one more vote than Bonds (239-238) and who ever voted for Clemens but did not vote for Bonds needs their ballot taken away. The only reason you could not vote either of those guys combined for seven Cy Youngs and eight MVPs for Pete’s sake is the PED angle. So if someone voted for Clemens but not Bonds, that person has some ‘splainin’ to do.
For those on this year’s ballot hoping to have a better chance with three guys voted in, well, there are going to be some guys added to the ballot who likely will move to the front of the line. New additions to next year’s ballot, according to ESPN, will be Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Scott Rolen, Andruw Jones, Omar Vizquel, Johan Santana, Johnny Damon and 269-game winner Jamie Moyer.
This and that
– Ellen DeGeneres won three People’s Choice Awards last night. Here’s a list of the winners. Somehow the 5-at-10 was overlooked in every single category. Oh the humanity.
– The Collegiate StarLeague is adding Madden NFL 17 to its Challenger Events, which is a major e-Sports League college event. League play begins Feb. 11 and the Challenger Events is scheduled for April 8. (Giggle all you want, but other than the NFL, eSports is the fastest growing competitive thing around. Madden is the first console game to be included to the traditional war and role-playing themed games.)
– Wow, has Novak Djokovic hit the wall? We’ll ask Press Row cohost David Paschall this later today on ESPN 105.1 the Zone. He knows more about tennis than we do. That said, it’s the Djoker’s worst loss since 2008.
– Mel Kiper released his first mock draft Thursday. Yes, we are stoked. We love the draft; you know this. Some highlights: Myles Garrett is listed at No. 1; He has the Titans taking Mike Williams, the Clemson receiver, at No. 5 (something we have been saying for a while) and he has UNC quarterback Mitch Trubisky going No. 2 overall to San Fran and Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson going 10 to Buffalo.
Today’s question
Gang, great week.
We have a little space in the mailbag if you got something you want to ask. Speaking of baseball Hall of Fame voting, well, know this: the voters have been cracked since the beginning of time. The first class was enshrined in 1936. Somehow, though, Cy Young had to wait a year and was elected in 1937. Yes, that Cy Young.
Also of note, on this day four years ago, Lance Armstrong admitted to doping in all his Tour de France wins.
Lots to comment on above, but if you need a Rushmore, let’s go here: Shawn Wayans was born on this day in 1971. Yes, he’s likely the least talented of the Wayans brothers, and that’s saying something. Rushmore of Hollywood brothers?
Whatcha got?