Just a few thoughts while I have them on a Monday night....
Regarding the World Series, I know it's hard to count out the Royals, but I think the Giants are in good shape. Before we go anywhere else with this, let's be real: Bumgarner is absolutely nasty. Kershaw may have been baseball's version of Sandy Koufax during the regular season, but Bumgarner takes it to another level in the playoffs. The Royals had no chance last night.
As far as the last two games, as I said, the Giants are in good shape. However, I think the Giants best chance would be in game 6. If you go to game 7, there may be too much karma at the K for the Giants to handle. Keep in mind also that there have been nine teams to go home down 3-2 in World Series since 85...seven have won the title. And no team has won a seventh game of a World Series on the road since 1979.
Texans game thought: Zach Mettenberger learned a valuable lesson. When you're making your first career start, against the most fearsome defensive player of our time, you don't show off your selfie habit. That's just fuel for JJ Watt's fire. JJ Watt made that quite clear when he clowned Mett during that game. I think Mett has talent, but he learned a very valuable lesson.
As bad as those games in New York and Pittsburgh were, the Texans are in decent shape at 4-4, still with a playoff spot within reach especially since they play Jacksonville twice and Tennessee once, and that Baltimore and Cincinnati still come to Houston. 9-7 at least is a very good possibility. I don't trust Fitz and that is well known but he's got a good team around him. Should never have lost in Pittsburgh though.
Arizona is for real...might be the best team in the NFC. Like I've said all year, that is a physical, nasty, vicious football team. And the once interception-happy Carson Palmer is making plays and not throwing picks...eight TDs and one INT for the season. The only bad thing about the Cards is that ESPN is going to tell us for months on end that no team has hosted a Super Bowl in their home stadium...this year, Arizona has it. Yes, we know.
Oh the Dallas Cowboys...America's biggest sports soap opera takes another turn. Romo gets dinged and they lose to Washington in OT. Cowboys are pretty funny. Every time I think they've turned a corner (Seattle win), then they go lose a game like that to a third string QB. I get that it's the NFL, but that's so very Cowboys. I was reminded of that tonight. Now they get Arizona coming in...very possibly a second loss in a row. Then again, Jerry had eyeballs on his team tonight, so I guess he wins again, right?
Big win for the Saints Sunday night. Take a look at their upcoming schedule...at Carolina Thursday then three straight Dome games where they just refuse to lose. A win in Carolina might put them at 7-4 after the next four games. This isn't as good a Saints team as they've had, but they're still in the mix.
Don't look now, but Tom Brady is probably the best quarterback in the league right now and Gronk is healthy. Chicago can certainly attest to that. And what do you know, it's just in time for another Manning/Brady showdown on Sunday afternoon in New England.
I get that the focus in Kansas City for right is that the Royals are two games from a potential World Championship and rightly so, but Andy Reid is very quietly doing a good job at Arrowhead this year. Derrick Johnson, out for the year. Jamaal Charles...been hurt. Alex Smith, dinged up the last game but will probably go Sunday, not to mention all the other injuries they've had and yet they are still 4-3 and have beaten some of the best in the league.
Hell, if you really think about it, they're the team that won the game against the Pats on Monday night that started Kansas City's giant killer run (and since that point, the Royals and Chiefs have slain Moneyball, the team with the most wins in MLB, a powerful Orioles team, an explosive San Diego Charger team, and are two wins away from denying San Fran a third World Title in five years). They not only beat the Pats in that game, they embarrassed them.
The Raiders might be the second team to go 0-16 for a single season, the first being the 2008 Detroit Lions. Seriously, I see one game on the rest of their slate that they might win...at St. Louis. The rest, chalk em up as losses. I'm no Raider fan, but we've already seen 0-16 before. I've seen that movie once in 2008 and I don't want to see it again. I hope they can find at least enough courage and effort to grab one win.
Last thing, since a lot of my Nebraska peeps are spouting stuff about the SEC these days, I want to comment on this. For my readers that don't necessarily follow Nebraska, Husker coach Bo Pelini was asked in his press conference last Monday about ESPN and its relationship with the SEC. For those who may not be aware, The Four Letter and their Disney cohorts recently unveiled a new network devoted to not just SEC Football, but SEC Athletics in general. Considering what a lot of college football fans outside the southeast think of that conference, you can imagine the feathers that were ruffled when that happened.
Anyways, Pelini was asked about ESPN's relationship with the SEC and he said, and I quote, "I don't think that kind of relationship is good for college football, but that's just my opinion."
But, oh, did that set off a firestorm between Big 10 fans and SEC fans, and even between the Four Letter and Pelini. Chris Fowler, whose work I greatly respect, came out on Twitter and said that nothing would be better for ESPN than Big 10 success. He even got a little defensive on College GameDay when talking about the alleged bias ESPN has towards the SEC.
Keep in mind, you're reading the blog of a guy that wanted Bo Pelini gone after the Iowa/Nebraska game in 2013 and I stand by how I felt at the time, but that's besides the point. If ESPN isn't biased towards the SEC then why does Chris Fowler feel the need to get into this? Why does he feel the need to be so chippy if the Big 10 is such an irrelevant conference and Nebraska lacks relevance themselves (and for the record I think we have a good team this year). If it was nothing, then he would have said nothing or disagreed with Pelini's opinion and kept moving. He should be better than that.
Instead, he and the rest of the folks at the Four Letter like Paul Finebaum have to rip into Pelini themselves during their shows. My message to the folks at the SEC Network, Fowler, Finebaum and the rest of SEC fans who may stumble across this: Mind your own damn business and we'll mind ours. Pelini was just responding to a question, no need to be so defensive about it. Oh and one other thing: Nebraska won the last time they played an SEC team, not even a calendar year ago. We'll see what happens if Nebraska meets an SEC team this January.
Until next time....
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