Tim Tebow won the Heisman
Shouldn’t have come to a surprise as anyone. Ever since Dennis Dixon went down against Arizona towards the end of the season (torpedoing the Ducks’ season, his Heisman chances and the Oregon offense), Tebow was my pick to win the award. I agree with ESPN’s Ed Cunningham that this is an award that should be voted on after the bowl season but no one, up until this point, has had been as consistently great as Tebow has. Period. Say what you want about the Gators’ three losses (which this season didn’t put a BCS bowl that far out of reach), Tebow was the reason that team won nine games this season. I thought Darren McFadden was completely undeserving of the award given his mid-season slump and then spectacular last two games. More deserving of a chance to New York than McFadden and Mizzou QB Chase Daniel was Central Florida’s Kevin Smith who, after the Knights Liberty Bowl game against Mississippi State, could put together the greatest season by any college running back ever. Despite his 2,400 yards, Smith was never mentioned in connection with the Heisman, which I think is criminal. But congrats to Tebow who becomes the third Gator to win the Heisman and the first since Destin’s Danny Wuerffel took home the prize in 1996.
The Patriots won’t lose this year
The first half of yesterday’s Steelers/Patriots game was an entertained as I’ve been watching the NFL since.. well, since the Patriots/Colts or the Patriots/Ravens last Monday night. Make no mistake, this team is beatable but none of the teams they play for the rest of the year have the means to exploit their weaknesses. The Steelers, Ravens and Colts have all found ways to take the Pats to the wire but the team always finds a way to create one or two turnovers and win late. Yesterday’s game was no exception. Struggling to stop the Steelers offense (whose strategy was conservative to say the least), the Patriots pulled out the throwback pass and broke the Steelers back. The team never recovered from that touchdown in the third quarter and the league’s only unbeaten team cruised to an easy victory. There are a couple areas of concern if you’re a Patriot fan. One is dropped passes. What I’ve seen when watching the Patriots the last two weeks is tight end Benjamin Watson, the wildly, grossly overrated Wes Welker and Randy Moss all routinely drop catchable balls, particularly in the red zone. Against a better team, that could be an issue. Two, the Patriots defense is especially weak at the corners. The linebacking corps of the Patriots is pretty good in coverage and isn’t giving up a lot underneath but Ellis Hobbs and James Sanders are hardly players without exploitable weaknesses. If yesterday’s game proved nothing it’s that you can’t be afraid to take shots downfield against this Patriot defense and the Steelers were. The last game of the season, one that many of us will never seen because it’s on NFL Network, could be a good one. The Giants have a great pass rush with Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora coming off the edge but they are weak at corner and even weaker at safety and not giving Tom Brady time to sit in the pocket and throw has been huge for success against this Patriot offense. The Giants have big play wide receivers with Plaxico Burress but I wonder about Eli Manning’s ability to hold up under pressure and the mental toughness of the Giants as a whole.
Larry Bird and Jamaal Tinsley should both be on the next flight out of Indianapolis
For those of you who haven’t heard, Pacers point guard Jamaal Tinsley has been involved in yet another off-the-court incident involving a late night, a nightclub and guns. This time, it appears that the Pacers point guard had his Rolls Royce sprayed with assault rifle fire after an argument at an Indianapolis nightclub at three in the morning. Tinsley was not hurt but the Pacers equipment manager was shot in both elbows. Again, the Pacers are reprimanding Tinsley for being out so late and using bad judgment and putting himself in harm’s way but how many times will the team stand behind this knucklehead while he continue to embarrass himself, his team, his league and the community? It’s time to cut him loose. Now onto Larry Legend. When will he and team president Donnie Walsh be held accountable for what this team has become? Upon Bird’s arrival he has made questionable, borderline awful personnel moves and took a perennial playoff team, brought in guys with questionable character and turned it into the 2007 version of the Portland Jailblazers. In a city that has a team like the Indianapolis Colts, the community will not continue to support a team that conducts themselves as poorly off and on the court as this one does and it’s time that Larry be shown the door for bringing in, and standing behind, guys like Marquis Daniels, Stephen Jackson and Jamaal Tinsley.
