naiwf

Would it kill 'Dancing' Joseph Addai to not take 5 lateral steps before running full speed ahead? Gumbel just got abused on that flea flicker. LOL.

The Colts are dead in the water if they don't at least try to open up the passing game.

What a terrible decision by McNair.

The start of this game is kind of similar to Giants/Eagles. When you have early chances to bury the home team you need to do it.

Who's calling these 3rd down plays? Terrible.

3 down, 28 to go. The Colts got tight sphincters inside the 5. A quick out to Wayne or the TE would have been money on 3rd and goal. If the Colts get the ball there as they should and score a TD this one is over.

So are you assuming Baltimore scores 4 TDs on defense/special teams and McNair and the offense account for the 2 FGs?

Elton Brand is a career 20 & 10 guy and Grant Hill was awesome before injuries ruined his career, but the rest of the Dukies haven't done much at the pro level besides disappoint.

Yeah, something like that could never ever happen, especially the year after a # 6 seed won the Super Bowl by beating the # 1, 2 and 3 teams in its own conference on the road and the # 1 seed in the other conference in the SB.

Arguing that they're better than the # 1 team in the two main statistical categories is kind of silly though no matter how you slice it. No one should pick Phoenix' defense over Houston's just like no one should pick Houston's offence over Phoenix'. I could see saying that Dallas or San Antonio's defense is equal to if not better than Houston's, but there's no basis in fact that Phoenix plays better defense than any of the other teams listed. Where do the Texas Triangle teams rank on that list? I'm assuming that they're the top 3 in the West.

Bill Walton - "I'll take Phoenix' defense over Houston's". Keep in mind that this was after Jon Barry calmly explained that Houston is # 1 in the league in PPG allowed and FG % defense. Both Barry and Tirico scoffed at the notion that Phoenix is a top 3 in the NBA defensive club. Walton's logic is that Houston slows it down, and because they don't score much on offense they're not as good on defense as Phoenix who plays an uptempo game. Never mind that Phoenix gives up the 5th highest PPG in the league, a full THIRTEEN+ points more than Houston. Put down the joints Bill.

I don't hate the Bears, I just don't like Grossman (or anyone else who played at Florida under Spurrier). Since MJ retired and the Knicks became a laughingstock there's no reason to hate the Bulls. As for the Cubs how can anyone hate such a lovable group of losers? The league can't have someone as bad as Grossman follow Big Ben into SB history on the backs of a great defense. At least with Dilfer there was never any pretense that he had anything to do with the ultimate success of his team. Just look at how the anointed Big Ben was ripped for not producing the same results in Pittsburgh even though he ended up playing about as well as he did last year. I can't take the Rex Grossman "fall from grace" angle if the Bears win this year and he still sucks next year.

I can't wait for Sexy Rexy to flush the Bears' season right down the toilet.

It's official, you guys are just owned by the Nets.

"It was a moral victory". Even in Little League there are no moral victories.

"No loss hurts anymore than any other." Umm, yeah that loss in the preseason and one in the championship game/series are pretty much equal. "Big time players make big plays in big games." Firstly it's just redundant, but more importantly a lot of those games are won by a kicker, pinch hitter who isn't good enough to be an everyday starter or some bench guy who hits a 3 and no one sees those types as big time players. "This is the NBA, everybody makes a run." The runs usually happen because the team that was up 20 pulled their starters, and their scrubs couldn't hold a lead. You usually don't see big deficits made up against the starters of the team up by a huge amount.

Basically no one wants to give him the axe since Wellington passed on and Coughlin was "his guy". Giants fans definitely don't like it, I'm pretty sure Giants management doesn't like it either but that's the rationale. Having said that, 5-11 or 6-10 looks very likely next year with Tiki saving network news, Eli regressing to a JV level QB and everyone else on offense getting a year older and more pissed off at Tommy Boy, Inaccurate Eli and the shitty playcalling.

So Coughlin gets an extension. Fucking great. I knew it was coming and yet it still disgusts me.

What is impressive however is that Ripken is the all time leader for home runs, extra base hits, and total bases by a shortstop. He was also an above-average defensive shortstop. The comment about having ONLY four 100 RBI seasons is comical, given that only five shortstops have had more such seasons, and the three eligible are in the Hall. How many shortstops have more than two 200 hit seasons? Five again. (Oddly, only Johnny Pesky is retired). 30 home runs? Again, only five shortstops have done that more than once. Two are retired, one is in. If you're going to use power numbers against a shortstop, you need to have some kind of a notion regarding context. As for Gwynn, Nap Lajoie had a .380 OBP along with his .338 batting average. Criticizing Gwynn for only finishing 84th in runs scored is nit-picking. Have you seen some of those Padre teams he played on? The unanimous selection is not some kind of gold star that even the greatest stars couldn't attain. It's the result of voting problems in the Hall's early days, and it is being propped up beyond its worth. There is no valid reason to find either Cal Ripken or Tony Gwynn undeserving of the Hall of Fame. I wasn't saying that Ripken and/or Gwynn weren't worthy candidates. Someone asked for a reason why those guys might not have appeared on someone's ballot, and I listed them. Had a guy like Ripken retired at 35 instead of 40 he'd look a lot less impressive and some voters would rather see a dominant shorter (10-15 yr) career than a very good longer (16-20 yr) one. Gwynn was a great contact hitter with no pop and very little speed at the midpoint to tail end of his career. Gwynn scored under 1400 runs after getting on base almost 4000 times (39th in times on base and 84th in runs scored is a pretty big gap). That's pretty damned low, and by far the least number of runs of anyone with as many hits as he has. Would I have voted for both guys? Yes. Is it sacreligious that some guys didn't? No.

Ripken was a compiler known more for "The Streak" than his onfield prowess most of the time. He only had 2 200 hit seasons, 1 30 HR season, 3 100 run seasons and 4 100 RBI seasons, and for a guy known as a power hitting SS his .276/.340/.447 line isn't all that impressive. Gwynn had no power, a fairly low OBP for a career .339 hitter and scored a surprisingly low run total given the amount of times he got on. Is that good enough? Neither guy deserved to be the first unanimous HOFer in MLB history. McGwire just plain didn't deserve to get in, juiced up or not.

Please stop calling Tony Gwynn Gwen. Seaver has the record at 98.83%, Ryan is second at 98.79% and Ripken is now # 3 at 98.53%

Webber to NY sounds about right since Isiah hasn't done anything overly retarded this year. . . yet.

I'm all for Couture coming back and Sylvia KTFOing him with a wild right. If he couldn't stand up to Chuck's power, how is he going to absorb blows from a guy 50+ pounds heavier?

On that note, how come no one has been voted into the HOF unanimously? I believe Tom Seaver has the highest percentage, receiving 98.8% of the votes. I mean, there's a laundry list of guys who should've got 100% of the votes(Ruth, DiMaggio, Mays, Aaron, Williams, Walter Johnson etc...) Joe D didn't even get INTO the Hall on his first 2 tries.

Nadal apparently hurt his groin, but expects to play by Monday (riiiiiight). I think he decided to just take the rest of the week off and not risk another loss to a subpar opponent further damaging his shrinking confidence heading into the tourney. Petrova and Kuznetsova also pulled out of their matches today, again proving that people shouldn't bother entering these warmups in early January. JHH being out pretty much killed my interest in the women's half of things simply because Mauresmo won't repeat, Clijsters won't fight for her 2nd Slam, Serena's loss in the 1st week can only bring me so much joy and Sharapova skating to another Slam will just piss me off. The only thing that may be interesting is seeing which woman will sneak into that 4th SF spot since it's almost a lock Amelie, Kim and Maria will make it there barring injury. As for the men I'm hoping the Fedbot takes #10 with or without a match against Nadal, who has already built in an excuse for an early departure. Man am I growing to hate that little cheater.