sfaJack

Anyone still think Cal/Michigan would have been a better game? This is the best Rose Bowl I've ever watched. Wow.

What case do they have now though? Cal sure proved they deserved this game. Keith Jackson barely acknowledges that there is college football east of the Rocky Mountains anymore, so I'll be shocked if he gives Texas credit for anything they do well today. Michigan will only get praised because 1) they're a Big 11 team in the Rose Bowl and 2) they aren't Texas.

I'm putting the over/under at 1:22 into the broadcast before Keith Jackson and Dan Fouts start whining about how Cal should have been in the game instead of Texas.

I'll be trying to stave off some sort of respiratory infection that has left me unable to breathe easily and hacking up some lovely phlegm for the past two days so I have you all beat. It's just as well, as it'd be pretty hard to top last year's celebration.

I wanna hear Aaron Rodgers run his mouth now.

Tice is easily the lowest paid coach in the league at a "puny" $1 mil per year. I believe there are 17 coordinators that make more than him. Keeping a low-paid coach is an easy choice for McCombs, especially if he's still looking to sell the team.

Woodson was a great player, but I don't think he will make the Hall. Nor should he. Currently, there is only one Cowboys' safety that deserves to go, and that's Cliff Harris. To me, Woodson is comparable to Steve Atwater, and I don't exactly see a big push to get him in. Great career for Woody...but no Hall. I know we missed him terribly this season as Tony Dixon sucks ass.

What's been said on the radio here today in regards to Beltran: - Drayton McLane wants the Beltran situation resolved, in regards to the Astros, by the end of this week. Astros have reportedly upped their offer to a guaranteed 5 years/$75 mil. McLane is concerned because "Moises Alou is gone. Steve Finley is gone. We've got to have some options if we don't have Carlos." - Omar Minaya has stated signing Beltran is his top priority now, and will meet with him tomorrow. - Cubs are out of it until they find a taker for Sosa, which seems unlikely at this point. - The Tigers are supposed to be in the bidding as well, but who's taking that seriously?

My school was a "dry campus," which meant no alcohol on the grounds anywhere. Period. Across the street, however? Drink away.

We actually got snow here in Houston yesterday. First time in 15 years, and the first recorded white Christmas in Houston history. While it's gone from the ground and most cars this morning, it's still stuck to roofs which is surprising to me.

You mean how he "won" the game against Carolina last weekend? More like atone for his mistakes. It was his almost totally his fault they were behind at that point in the game anyway, but nobody talks about that. They only acknowledge the Superman TD dive which, while amazing, shouldn't have even been needed.

Astros had to non-tender Miller. They couldn't risk having to pay him $4mil+ guaranteed via arbitration when they don't know if he's going to be able to pitch or not. It's just too much money to risk. Now if you want to call them stupid for not locking him into an incentive-laden deal with a low guarantee like the Red Sox wisely did, fine, they probably deserve it. You shouldn't worry too much, though. They still have Tim Redding. And if that offer to Beltran is real, I'll say that that will be enough and he'll be back in Houston next year.

Miller said yesterday that 10 teams have contacted him, including the Brewers. I think I'd be very wary of him, as he hasn't had surgery to fix the fray in his rotator cuff. His injury risk is pretty big. As an aside, does anyone know why the Astros offered Tim Redding a contract? When are they just going to give up on that piece of crap?

Yankees had another face-to-face meeting with Boras today, actually. I think Beltran's going to end up back with the Astros.

What a nice sentiment. Yet you were opposed to the mother protecting her 14-year-old daughter in the other thread...

It's not just this year. I'm talking about overall. Maybe this year was an aberration, I'm not sure, but I'm more inclined to believe Slayer's figure than yours. What was your source of information? I'm positive I'm not the only person who feels the current sudden-death FG system is shit. And we wouldn't be complaining without any valid grounds, so this isn't some sort of whacked-out, radical idea. Nobody ever said it was a whacked-out, radical idea. And no, you're not the only one to feel this way about the issue. I just don't see it as a huge problem, is all. Why fix something that isn't particularly broken? And, for the record, my source of info was cnnsi.com (would've used ESPN, but it was loading incredibly slow for some reason). I scanned their scoreboards for each week of the NFL, spotted all the OT games, and then checked the play-by-play recap to see who had possession(s) in OT. I might've missed a couple of games in my haste, and I didn't have time to check other years as I was at work, but the article pinjockey linked to really sounds about right to me. Until proven otherwise, I'm going with that.

Doesn't Banky's having as many PF as Flik prove that Banky is the victim of some tough luck? Or is it that Flik is the beneficiary of some good luck?

Because the Yankees can't get EVERYONE. Reds sign Kent Mercker. Cubs let a useful hand get away, thin-skinned as he may be.

Doing a very quick rundown of this year's OT games, I see that there have been only 10 OT games thus far. In exactly 3 of them, the team that got the ball first won the game without the other getting the ball. Now, this was a very, very quick check I did and could be incomplete data, but that's 30% of the time that one team never got the ball. It also is for this year only, but I think I'm fairly safe in saying that you won't see too much of a variance from that 30% figure. Where is the crisis again? Just for reference, the 10 games OT games I see this year are: NO/StL in week 3 Hou/Min in week 5 SF/Ariz in week 5 Sea/StL in week 5 Phi/Cle in week 7 Chi/Ten in week 10 Bal/NYJ in week 10 Det/Jax in week 10 SF/Ariz in week 14 Atl/Car in week 15 If I've missed any (which is pretty likely), feel free to correct me.

How many OT games are actually decided with only one team having the ball in OT? I'd be willing to bet that it's no higher than 1 out of 3, which, to me, is not a cause for alarm. In most cases, both teams get a shot, so what's the problem? And in regards to the pace of the game: I could make an argument that the ridiculous number of timeouts, penalties, replays, and other play stoppages make football a brutal game to watch at times (especially for a live crowd at the stadium), but it's tough to do so because peoples' tastes vary as to what is and what is not a properly paced game. All I know is, and since I don't have numbers in front of me at the moment I can't say with 100% certainty, that the average time for a baseball game is just under three hours. How often do you see an NFL game completed in that time? You want to drag it out even more?

Besides that, you had 60 minutes to win the game already. Tough shit if don't get the ball in OT. NFL games are long enough as it is. We do NOT need a system that could drag them out even longer. And if you want to talk about unfair things in the NFL, how about the bullshit that division winners automatically get at least one home playoff game? Why should the wild card team be punished if they have a better record than a division winner? That, to me, is ridiculous.

If I'm reading this correctly, I have won this week and can clinch the division with a win next week. Totally amazing, considering my PF total is second or third WORST in the whole league.

I never said the Patriots weren't great. In fact, I should correct myself and give them their due for one of the best runs ever in the league because it has been great. They are immediately disqualified from being greater than the Cowboys however, because: 1. They haven't won 3 Super Bowls yet. 2. The year they didn't win, they missed the playoffs completely whereas the Cowboys lost in the conference title game. The Cowboys also won a Super Bowl with Barry freaking Switzer as the coach, which only further demonstrates how great that group of players was. No disrespect at all to the Patriots...but they just aren't as good.

Neither this year's Patriots' team nor either of their two title teams would beat the Cowboys or Niners of the early 90's. Those will probably be the last two truly great teams of the NFL, with the possible exception of Denver's two champions.

Hollandsworth is the only one of those players worth keeping, assuming he's healthy. As mentioned earlier (I think), he and Dubois could make a nice platoon in left. Hawkins is their best option at closer, by far, I think. I have doubts about Dempster in that role but we'll see. Looking at the list of available free agents, the names Chad Fox and Steve Kline jump out at me immediately, as does the possibility of bringing Kent Mercker back. And I cross my fingers that this is the year the Farns puts it together...