NFL power poll
We're right at the halfway point. Week 8 is in the books. Man, this football stuff flies by, you know?
So where are we in the Power Poll? Roughly in a very similar place. So we thought it would be interesting to go back and look at the polls from after week 1. Deal? Deal.
The top five after week 1 was New England (OK), Minnesota (OK, injuries to the defense have hurt the Purple), Los Angeles Rams (Yes, we were on board early), Baltimore (Ravens are top 10 so we're OK with that) and. the New York Jets. Ouch-standing there at the end.
As for the bottom five after week 1, Tennessee, Dallas, Oakland, Arizona and Buffalo, and the bottom three are certainly among the worst in the league.
So there's that.
Carolina Panthers' Cam Newton (1) runs as Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Gerald McCoy (93) defends during the first half of an NFL football game in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Dec. 24, 2017. (AP Photo/Mike McCarn)Powerful
Los Angeles (8-0). How good are these Rams? Simply overwhelming, considering that they are +109 in scoring margin, which is more than 20 points better than the next highest number. That said, who would not want a rematch from Sunday between the Rams and the Packers in the second round of the NFC playoffs? Well, other than Ty Montgomery, that is.
New England (6-2). The Patriots are done stories have officially been put up with the "Back to School" decorations and the Labor Day picnic gear. This is when you know you are an absolute machine in sports: When you bring your C-to-C-minus game and you still walk out with a 19-point win - like the Patriots did on the road Monday at Buffalo - you know you have a legit collection of dudes.
Kansas City (7-1). Yes, Patrick Mahomes is the NFL MVP through the first half of season with his 26 TDs and 6 picks. (And as we discussed on monday's Press Row, those picks are a small price to pay for a quarterback who exercises his right arm and takes chances vertically like Mahomes does. Yes please.) This offense is hard to handle, but if the Chiefs have January aspirations, they better keep that one-game edge over the Pats. No matter how good Mahomes and Andy Reid are clicking right now, there's no way we're backing that pair over the Brady-Belichick tandem if they are in Foxboro come late January.
New Orleans (6-1). Interesting storyline to watch over the back half of the season: Mahomes is the MVP pick right now, but if the Saints keep rolling how much traction and momentum will Drew Brees get for a chance at his first career MVP? We think there could be quite the groundswell. We are going to look back at the end of the year and say, "Hey how did the Bucs beat these Saints?" And the answer of course is, "Football, man. Football."
Carolina (5-2). No offense to Washington, which is 5-2, or any of the three-headed monster own the AFC North of Pittsburgh, Cincy and Baltimore, but these Panthers are playing at a high level on each side of the ball. Does anyone else wonder how good Cam newton could be if he had even a decent receiving corps? Seriously, his best wide out for the majority of his career has been Devin Bleepin' Funchess. Yes, tight end Greg Olsen and scatback Christian McCaffrey are aces, but on there's not much on the Carolina perimeter.
Powerless
New York Giants (1-7). At some point don't you have to start clearing the QB bench to see who behind the ghost of Eli Manning may even have a shot at doing this correctly? The Giants have the worst record in the league, but man, they have some serious dudes in OBJ and Saquon.
Oakland (1-6). The Raiders should bench everyone. Your town is trying to sue the franchise to make them stay. Give them a bagel-and-9 down the stretch and have empty seats everywhere. (A good defense for moving the franchise would be plenty of empty sections come Sundays.) Plus, with the stacked picks, if the Raiders can tank effectively and they fall into the top 3, the pick they acquired from Dallas could be top 10, and the pick from the Bears could be top 15. That makes a rebuild much quicker and quite exciting.
Buffalo (2-6). Did anyone else feel bad for the Bills fans on Monday night? Seriously, that is a loyal bunch that has been forced to watch Tom Brady and the Patriots dump on them for years. And what was the last great Bills moment? The Frank Reich comeback, maybe? Stay strong Buffalo. You deserve better.
Arizona (2-6). Larry Fitzgerald scored a TD on Sunday and spiked the football. for a lot of the over-celebrators in the league, that would seem humdrum. But the future Hall of Famer has always scored and thrown the ball right to the referee. He spiked it because his son decided he wanted to go do something else rather than watch the Cardinals play. Fitzgerald said afterward his feelings were a little hurt and he spiked the ball out of emotion. He then apologized for a bad example. God Bless Larry Fitzgerald. (And shame on your Larry Jr.)
San Francisco (1-7). Hey, at least it's a short drive to see the Warriors play. Egad the Warriors are rolling.
Alabama sophomore receiver Jerry Jeudy leads the Crimson Tide entering Saturday's game at LSU with 31 catches for 777 yards and 10 touchdowns.College football statements
Remember this is the part of the Tuesday show in which we make a college football declaration and try to determine whether that is a statement, an overstatement or an understatement.
Alabama is 8-0 because they haven't played anybody yet. Overstatement, but as drastic as you may think. C'mon gang. Alabama is great. Really great. Like all-time discussion great, especially on offense. But the best defense Alabama has faced in terms of yards per play allowed is Missouri, which is 90th nationally in that category, and five are ranked 101st or worst in that stat. So yes, LSU will be a much stiffer test Saturday, but Alabama is 8-0 because Alabama is stinking great man. As Smokey laments in "Friday" - which is exceedingly underrated "And you know this... man."
Georgia is a 12-point favorite of UK. At UK. That's crazy right? Overstatement. Georgia has another gear that the Wildcats simply do not possess. That's not a shot at the overachieving Cats and their steely-willed defense or their purposeful and powerful running game. Heck, we'd vote Mark Stoops SEC coach of the year - face it, Saban deserves it every year just like LeBron deserves NBA MVP every year, but Stoops is your clear favorite - and we can make an argument that Benny Snell is the most valuable player in the league. But UK has built this core for three and four years for a chance at a special run. Georgia picks and plugs and replaces with five-star talent that simply has a higher ceiling. Again, no offense to anyone supporting the Commonwealth or any coach want to babble about 5-stars not meaning anything and experience and effort and yada-yada-yada. Yes, Kirby was rolling on about that this week, and it makes sense in the talking points when your team faces a spirited opponent of experienced overachievers. But if Kirby really believed that, I wonder what his answer would be if he could trade rosters with Stoops, would he? Here's betting Kirby and every other coach this side of Ray Charles - you know if Ray Charles coached a team - would rather have the boys in silver britches rather than overachievers in blue and white.
Mike Leach has made himself some money this year. Understatement. Huge. (Cue Julia Roberts - did you know she and I went to the same high school in Smyrna True - in Pretty Woman with the "Big mistake. Big. Huge. I have to go shopping now.") Leach's team is in the top 10 in the country, would be unbeaten if not for a questionable call and a blocked field-goal attempt against USC, and where they are ranked in tonight's debut of the college football playoff committee's view is one of the most interesting subplots of tonight.
Speaking of that LSU will be in the top four tonight. Statement. For the record, we think the college football playoff committee will rank the teams of interest as follows: 1) Alabama; 2) Clemson; 3) Notre Dame; 4) LSU; 5) Michigan; 6) Georgia. Now we think LSU is a little overinflated (Auburn and Miami are not what we thought they were when LSU beat them), but taking advantage of Georgia being flat in Death Valley will be viewed as a monster win, and rightly so. It may even push them over Notre Dame for the 3 spot but it certainly is enough to make them the top-ranked one-loss team in the country. Now where the other unbeaten - Washington State and UCF - will also be of great interest tonight.
Scare tactics
Halloween was a big deal at my house growing up.
My mother was like that about almost everything with a 'day' attached to it. She had "Birthday Weeks" and the Month of Christmas. If she could have figured out a way to make Labor Day every Monday in September, well, she would have. Heck, we're pretty sure we once had a party for National Potato Week, but then again, who can keep up.
Halloween, though, seems different now. And it's a difference that grows beyond the the divide of kid and kidder or child or child caretaker.
This is way beyond those terrible plastic customer that were either a foot too short or 10 inches too tight in the middle. For those of us who grew up being called by our first name in the McDonald's drive-thru - we were the 8-year-old version of Norm from "Cheers" at the local Mickey D's - let's just say that we were not the target demographic for those plastic suits.
Don't even get me started on those plastic masks with the one elastic band as wide as a spaghetti noodle. There's no way those masks made it through the night and more times than not, by house five, it was mask in one hand, pillow case in the other. Yes kids. Pillow cases. Forget these day-glow pumpkins and the rest of the handled candy collectors of today. It was pillow cases and plastic wear.
This does not even take into account the old wives' tale that one time in the neighborhood behind the nursery - or where've it may have been in your town - there was a family who put razor blades in apples. Heck, we can remember the local hospital saying they would X-Ray the candy for kids if needed. (Here's betting BlueCross BlueShield kiboshed that out-of-pocket expense really quickly.)
That did always allow us the extra out of just not eating the fruit, because if you are handing out fruit for Halloween, well, you need to see a doctor and have that stick removed from your tuckus.
Not all changes are measured in smiles and nostalgia. Some are measured in puzzled expressions after inexplicable decisions.
Are we really this dumb to think that dressing a 5-year-old up as Hitler for Halloween is a good idea and a nod to history?
Are we really this short of ideas that Shaun White, the former Olympic gold medalist known as the Flying Tomato, needs to go as the mentally disabled character from "Tropic Thunder" and no one raises a hand to say, "Uh, hey Tomato (or Toe-MAH-toe), let's go a different direction."
Yes, we are overly too PC. But we also are under compassionate. The blurred lines of the PC battlegrounds are made worse by these truly insensitive decisions.
And to be fair, we did not see anything wrong with the movie "Tropic Thunder." Did it teeter in the gray areas of appropriate and offensive? At times, sure, but great art and creativity and humor and discussions often come from the ideas hatched in those gray areas.
But this - nor was the simply awful Hitler idea we discussed Monday - are not in the margins. They are clearly out of bounds.
And to be fair, White issued a heartfelt apology through social media, paying direct homage to the Special Olympics, which called him out for his costume.
Someone asked me about if their daughter dressed as Doc McStuffin last week when I wrote the Megyn Kelly column.
And maybe there is room to talk about dressing up as celebrities or TV and movie characters. But there also is the realization that little kids are going to feel like Doc McStuffin with a doctor's robe and the stethoscope and all the bells and whistles without putting blackface on, don't you think? Are we that into realism in our customers or are we wanting to press the envelope of offensiveness in the name of free speech?
Debatable. What's not, though, is dressing like the biggest mass murderer in the 20th Century or mocking the mentally handicapped.
Halloween is not this hard, folks.
This and that
- One of the best things about college basketball getting ready to start is Mark Wiedmer writing about college basketball getting ready to start. Here's today's installment from hoops guru Weeds on whether a potential great season could distract us from the all the off-the-court problems.
- Hue Jackson is out in Cleveland. Hard to defend a guy who is 3-36-1 in his time on the job, but the truth is he's been way better this year than in previous seasons. Also of note, this came after some awkward exchanges on "Hard Knocks." Wonder if that will hurt the folks at the excellent HBO series getting teams to participate in the future.
- Also in Cleveland - tough day to be working the desk at the Plain Dealer - the Cavs ran Tyronn Lue on Sunday and then Monday night, Larry Drew denied he was taking the interim job. Buckets, maybe they could have a giveaway and let a fan coach them. Yes, the Cavs are in a spot so bad that the dreadful movie "Eddie" with Whoopi Goldberg is a real possibility for their future. Oh my.
Today's questions
Let's roll some True or False, shall we.
True or false, George Strait is the best country music has ever seen.
True or false, there ought to be a constitutional amendment that the Rams, Packers, Patriots, Chiefs or Saints are in the NBC Sunday night game for the rest of the season.
True of false, you are dressing up for Halloween. (If so share your plans if you'd like.)
As for today, the eve of All Hallow's Eve, let's explore.
The Rumble in the Jungle was today in 1974.
Columbus was born on this day in 1451. John Adams was born today in 1735.
The broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" caused a panic on this day 80 years ago.
On this day in 1945, Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to be a Montreal Royal.
OK, on this day in 1974, Nolan Ryan topped 100 mph for the fastest pitch on record. On this day in 1919, league presidents outlawed the spitball.
Rushmore of most famous pitches.