Letters to the Editor
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Dear NFL,
Go perform a physically impossible but often-referenced sexual act on yourself.
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I hope they do
After all it's what people want. Just copywrite everything, slap it on a 64oz beer cup and call it a day. No one cares.
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Greed...
knows no bounds. The good news is that the more they do things like this, the quicker will be their demise and a return to sanity (I can hope anyway).
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Rule, rule-of-thumb, or both?
[ Disclosure: I did my grad work at Duke. ]
Duke was down by 10+ with 15-ish seconds left, and instead of tossing the ball out on the perimeter to wait out the clock, Hansborough decided to try and end the game on a dunk. Henderson was CLEARLY going for a hard foul to stop the dunk at any costs. I agree he should have been tossed.
However, let me also point out that no ref has ever been suspended or penalized for being too harsh on Duke. Over the last two years we've seen three crews of refs either get suspended or reprimanded for making mistakes that favored Duke (FSU and BC last year, Clemson this year). If I were a ref working a Duke game, the thought in the back in my head at all times would be "If it's an iffy situation or I'm not sure what to do, rule in favor of Duke's opponent". Hard foul that draws blood? Toss'em, and suspend him for one game to boot.
I'm not saying there's a conspiracy. I'm simply saying it's human nature at work here. As a ref, given that choice between deciding a 50-50 call (a) in favor of Duke and risking suspension, or (b) in favor of Duke's opponent and weathering the grumbling of Duke fans, which one do /you/ go with?
No one ever got fired for buying IBM, and I doubt anyone will get suspended for being hard on Duke.
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And I liked you King
I really did.
One, Hansbrough's nose is broken, so he'll be sporting a mask for the rest of the season. Good thing those never inhibit anyone's vision. Two, neither K nor Henderson have expressed anything approaching genuine concern or remorse, and K even dumped this in Williams's lap. Three, Henderson recklessly went after Hansbrough to knock the shit out of him and/or the ball. His recklessness seems damning regardless of "intent, either in a general sense or in a basketball sense. I think that Henderson's behavior is comparable to the way in which a reckless driver might not mean to injure anyone but is responsible for doing so nonetheless. I suspect that he didn't mean to break anyone's nose, but I can't imagine that anyone believes that he wasn't trying to hit someone very hard. He didn't pull up, and he did drive through with his elbow into Hansbrough's face with enough force to knock him flat on his back.
In a way, you may be right about the rule: it can complicate an ejection by adding a stiff penalty to it. At the same time, were Henderson not automatically suspended, he would have missed only 14.5 meaningless seconds at the end of a game, pending some action of the conference.
And I think that a stiff penalty (stiffer than one game anyway) is warranted. Unless the league wants players to take matters into their own hands, it has to protect them and satisfy a sense of justice in case's such as these.
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As always
The Onion is on it: Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29130
By the way, my post above should have read: Neither K nor Henderson has expressed any remorse. Of course, correcting myself is probably more dickish than leaving my mistake alone (but not nearly as dickish as Packer).
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NFL is starting it decline
The NFL has long been the league that could do no wrong. MLB is a mess, the NBA is perceived to be a mess. But the NFL has as many issues as both of those leagues"
Steroid scandals? Check.
Multiple arrests? Check.
Silly lawsuits? Check.
Moving games from basic tv to cable, and then to obscure cable? Check.
Circus sideshows (aka TO & co)? Check.
Not long ago it seemed like the NFL could do no wrong. The NFL ran so smoothly that the other leagues seemed like inbred cousins in comparison. Now we know that achieving such smoothness is a tricky thing. A little calibration here or there and the wheels start to come off.
The NFL may have reached is zenith and will now decline, slowly. Americans do love football more than any sport. But the NFL's sudden problems seem to coincide with the departure of Tagliabue. Roger Goodell's tenure has been ineffectual--he tells the Bengals he wants to "help" them avoid being arrested. That was back in September. So far it isn't working.
Sean Merriman was caught using steroids, but know one is bothered by it because he had a monster season even after missing four games....Yet commentators scoff that the reason for his excellent performance was likely the use of performance enhancing drugs.
Monday Night Football is now on ESPN. The NFL is moving more games to its own network. I don't have a problem with that, I don't believe watching football is a basic human right. But I wonder if this is the best business practice in the long run. It works if they can bully cable providers to add the network, but if not, they're playing a dangerous game. By adding Sunday and Thursday and Tuesday games, they risk diluting their own product. Yet the network has some innovative things. I guess time will tell. The only thing the NFL is yet to experience is labor strife.
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My Favorite NCAA Rule
Is happening last week and this week...........The conference automatic NCAA tourney bid is given to whoever happens to be hot over the course of 3 or 4 days at the end of the season, not to the team that came out on top of the long haul regular season schedule.
This is particularly absurd for the conference champs that get the 15 and 16 seeds. Those conferences may actually produce a fairly decent team, at least with an exceptional record and winning mentality, but if they get beat in the conference tourney they are out and that small time conference is represented by one of it's middle of the pack teams. This may be part of the reason 15 and 16 seeds are 4-164 in the dance all time.
Tip---Keep your eye on the Kentucky, Tubby Smith scene the next few months. I'm here watching, and this thing could easily develop into an Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson national story volcano before it's over.