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.

I like….

Bob Knight may have shot a couple more people. I generally think Bob Knight is a complete moron so it’s not all that surprising to hear that a man claimed Knight or his hunting partner shot at him intention after the man yelled at the pair for hunting too close to his house. Knight denies it.

Comcast sent a cease and desist letter to NFL Network for urging customers to switch from the cable service.

Can the Kindle help the newspaper industry?

Warner Brother’s viral marketing for the new Batman flick has kicked into high gear?

The fake Gordon Ramsay blog is hilariously funny.

Top Chef season 1 contestant Dave Martin has opened a new restaurant in New York.

The Colts new $11.4 million scoreboard in Lucas Oil Stadium is amazing.

In case you’d be living in a cave, the major cable companies are currently at odds with the NFL and the Big Ten about how to carry their respective networks in local markets, with consumers stuck in the middle.

Basically what’s happening is that the cable companies want to carry the NFL and Big Ten Networks as part of special sports bundles that their customers would pay more for, reducing viewership and ostensibly add revenues. Well the NFL and the Big Ten want the cable companies to carry the channels as part of basic packages, no different from channels like ESPN, MTV, Comedy Central, etc.

What’s interesting about this whole issue, for me, is that I think both sides of this argument are being equally petulant and silly. The argument the cable networks have pitched is completely without merit. Their claim is that it’s unfair to tack the networks onto basic cable and require customers to pay for channels they don’t want. Well the last time I checked, I’ve never watched HGTV or Discovery Health, Telemundo or any of those channels that broadcast church services but I still pay for those channels and as a consumer, I have an expectation that I’m going to pay for channels that I don’t watch, it’s just a fact of life. Cable isn’t one of those make your own six-packs. You get the whole case or you get nothing at all. The contingent that cable companies are trying not to aggravate are the heady academics (the “.edu guys” as ESPN radio host Colin Cowherd refers to them). The people who think we overemphasize athletics in our society and flat refuse to contribute monetarily in anyway.

Meanwhile, the Big Ten and the NFL refuse to let their networks and their programming (which aside from the actual game broadcasts is pretty useless) exist on fringe pay-for sports bundles. On basic cable, they will get more viewership which will drive up their ad revenues. While I can’t blame them for that, I can blame them for holding games hostage and irritating people who love their product. Doesn’t seem like the best business model to me. When you take something that I could normally watch and enjoy hassle-free and charge me for it, I get pretty grouchy.

The cable companies and the NFL and the Big Ten can play the blame game all day but the reality is that no one comes out of this mess clean.

Peyton Manning really likes throwing to Antonio Cromartie

Only problem with that is Cromartie isn’t really on his team. The ever-mopey MVP threw three, count ‘em, three picks to the second-year corner out of Florida State in Sunday’s loss on the road to the Chargers. I would think after a while you would stop throwing in someone’s direction after they’ve picked you off twice but Peyton was courteous enough to give Cromartie the trifecta on way to throwing six interceptions. I know that it never entered Colts head coach Tony Dungy’s mind to pull the struggling quarterback but he should have. Am I surprised that he didn’t? No. But it would have been Dungy’s chance to show that no matter who you are or how many companies and products you shill for, if you don’t perform, you don’t play. Make this two weeks in a row that Manning and the Colts offense has blown big conference games.

You may want to wait before buying those Saints playoff tickets

The Saints dropped a bad home game yesterday against the formerly win-less Rams after putting together a nice little streak and putting themselves back in playoff contention. Given that the Saints play in what is arguably the weakest division in football, I think , barring any further collapses, they are still going to the playoffs but it’s important to remember that prior to their four-game winning streak, they started the season 0-4. You have to wonder if a loss to a bad team like the Rams will send the formerly terrible Saints into a shame spiral and out of the playoff race. Time will tell. Their schedule the rest of the way is pretty mild and none of the games they still have on tap jump out at you as being potential landmines.

Donovan McNabb may be headed to Minnesota

The latest trade rumor has Donovan McNabb headed to Minnesota after this year to re-unite with former Eagles offensive coordinator Brad Childress. I’ve gotta say this rumor smacks of irony to me. He would be leaving a team with a great running back, a decent offensive line and no receivers to go to a team with a great running back, a decent (if not overpaid) offensive line and no receivers. Are are Troy Williamson and Sidney Rice that much of an upgrade over Kevin Curtis and Reggie Brown? I think that no matter where McNabb goes (unless it’s New England), his best years are behind him.

Ron Zook is the national coach of the year

As it turns out, Gator fans, Ron Zook can actually coach. Forget about Jim Leavitt or Mark Mangino, no one has done a better job this year than Ron Zook. Zook took a team that was 2-10 last year and made them nationally relevant this weekend, knocking off top-ranked Ohio State on the road to get their 8th win of the year. If Zook can continue to pull big time recruits like Arrelious Benn and recruit well in the Chicago area, Illinois could become a real force to be reckoned with.

It’s 1994 all over again in Bloomington

The last time Indiana was bowl eligible it was 1994, they went 6-5 and didn’t get invited to a bowl. Well boys and girls, welcome to 1994. I’ll be rocking my Zubaz pants and my #2 Charlotte Hornets Larry Johnson jersey and listening to Meatloaf and Ace of Base. Indiana, barring a miraculous win at home next week against Purdue, isn’t going to a bowl this year. Saturday just wasn’t a banner day for the Hoosier football team. Not only did they give away a game that would have given them seven wins and a virtual bowl guarantee, they gave Northwestern their sixth win of the season, and Iowa and Michigan State all became bowl eligible as well. I’m going to go sulk and listen to Gin Blossoms.

Sylvester Croom will have a job next year

The Fighting Crooms of Mississippi State have put together a nice little resume this year, on their way to become bowl eligible for the first time since people were spazzing out about Y2K. After upending #22-ranked Alabama this weekend, Croom has seemingly changed the football culture in Starkville. The Bulldogs, who play excellent defense and the worst offense imaginable, have knocked off Auburn, Kentucky and now the Saban-led Crimson Tide and have a chance at seven wins when they play Ole Miss next week in the Egg Bowl. Well done, coach.

It was the Colts’ offense, not their defense, that was the team’s weak point yesterday.

Having lived in Indiana for some length of time, I know that criticizing Peyton Manning is somewhat blasphemous but someone has to. Make no mistake, it was Manning and the Colts offense’s inability to convert points in the red zone in the first quarter of the mega-game against New England that led to their ultimate demise. Word to the wise for future Patriot opponents: If you get within scoring distance three times in the first quarter, put the ball in the end zone.

And then there’s Manning inability to perform under pressure — again. The fumble-turned-interception that put the nail in the Colts’ coffin was evidence of my belief that the eldest Manning quarterback is one of the league’s worst performers under pressure and almost always shrinks when it counts and when the game is on the line. The last quarterback in the world I want to see trotting onto the field with two minutes to go and my team down four is Peyton Manning because in his career, which has been great, he has never delivered in those moments. For the record, you may be wondering who the first quarterback I would want to see in the huddle on that final drive? That would be the quarterback who stood on the opposite sideline Sunday, Tom Brady. Manning has never had a marquee, Elway-Montana or even Brady-like moment that you point to and go, “Wow, that was really clutch.” He’s a fairweather quarterback and simply, a fairweather leader. Remember when Mike Vanderjagt, who is an absolute dope, criticized Manning and Dungy for lacking fire? I didn’t think then and still don’t think that was an invalid criticism, in spite of the ridiculous source of said criticism. Did you see Manning bouncing his helmet-clad skull into those of his lineman yesterday in the huddle? I rest my case.

All of that being said, I will be happy to never heard the phrase “Super Bowl 41 1/2″ uttered again ever and the importance of the outcome of this game is wildly overstated by the media and fans but I think the players and coaches have put the final score in its proper perspective. Tom Brady said the game “didn’t matter,” appropriately noting that it was in January when the winners and losers of a game is of any significant import. If the Colts won the game and got homefield advantage, it wouldn’t exclude them from potentially losing to the Patriots in the playoffs and vice versa for the Pats. It was an entertaining game that showed us, if nothing else, that the Patriots offense is as diverse as advertised and the Colts defense has come an incredibly long way in a year and may, in the future, be one of the league’s best.

The league’s best two running backs are Joseph Addai and Adrian Peterson

And I’m not just basing that on yesterday’s performance, where Adrian Peterson ran for a jaw-dropping 296 yards on his way to slicing, dicing and downright humiliating the Chargers defense, I’m basing that on facts. Peterson is a shoe-in to win Offensive Rookie of the Year and had it not been for Tom Brady’s soon-to-be-record-breaking-season, he would be a realistic candidate for MVP. Never have I seen a player’s college game translate so literally into an NFL career but Peterson is running and playing exactly the way he did at Oklahoma. Of course, Peterson has a penchant for big debuts, if you’ll remember his rookie year at Oklahoma where he was a Heisman finalist. If he can stay healthy, Peterson may be one for the ages.

And then there’s Addai, who is one of the most consistent and steady running backs in the league. I’m not sure there is a player who sees the field better and makes sharper cuts than the second year man out of LSU. He catches balls out of the back field and he’s a threat to break it everytime he gets his hands on the ball. While his greatness may be lost in an offense that includes Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, Marvin Harrison and Dallas Clark, don’t get it twisted, getting Addai 20-30 touches a game is integral to this offense being effective.

Ohio State is really good.. no, seriously…

I’ve been down this road before with Jim Tressel’s Buckeyes and I’m hesitant to believe in this team after last year’s stomping at Florida, a stomping that I boldly predicted in our paper wouldn’t happen. In the words of the epic 80s hair metal band Great White I’m “once bitten, twice shy.” But this team is apparently for real after routing a pretty good Wisconsin team this weekend. I’m not convinced that this effective but underwhelming team has the metal to take it into the Big House and pull out a win against archrival Michigan but they’re really good. Quarterback Todd Boeckman is the second-coming of Craig Krenzel and Brian Robiskie and Brian Hartline are becoming two viable big-time scoring threats and Beanie Wells is one of the most punishing and quick running backs in the country. After seeing them pound Wisconsin in convincing fashion, I think I’m ready to believe.

Oregon is the second best team in America

One of the nation’s three remaining unbeaten teams solidified their place in the National Championship this weekend — for now. After beating USC soundly last weekend, the Ducks got ready and beat a previously unbeaten —and head-scratching fourth-ranked — Arizona State team. Dennis Dixon is the Heisman trophy frontrunner, Jonathan Stewart is one heck of a running back and their defense isn’t too bad either. Sorry LSU but you can’t be ranked higher than an unbeaten team who plays in a conference that is equally as tough as your own. I would love to see an Oregon/Ohio State national championship game. James Laurinaitis, Marcus Freeman and Malcolm Jenkins against Dennis Dixon, Jonathan Stewart and the explosive Oregon offense. That’s a game I would love to watch.

Darren McFadden isn’t out of the Heisman race just yet

Just when pre-season Heisman shoe-in Darren McFadden had become a distant memory, the Razorback junior goes out and rushes for 323 yards. For my money, I still think Knowshon Moreno is the best running back in the SEC but McFadden is almost a lock to be taken in the top 5 in next year’s NFL draft and for good reason — he’s simply filthy.

The Hoosiers are bowl eligibile

Finally. Six wins. It’s tough not to get emotional when I think about my alma mater finally going to a bowl game after all these years but it seems a fitting accomplishment for this team, this year. Make no mistake, this is a tribute to Coach Hep, who lost his battle with brain cancer this summer and made a fanbase and a team of underachievers believe that we could go where we hadn’t gone in more than a decade. While their win Saturday doesn’t guarantee a trip to Tampa or Orlando or San Antonio or Tempe, it gets the Hoosiers one step closer to Hep’s dream of playing 13.

I like….

Coldplay is almost finished with their new album, which unfortunately is promised to be no more than an already-measly 42 minutes in total run time.

Bottom Line fave Anthony Bourdain sits down for a Q&A with Time Magazine.

The grossly overrated D’Angelo Hall isn’t talking to the press for the rest of the year. Who does this guy think he is? I really think that he believes that he is a captivating superstar on par with what Deion Sanders was in the mid-90s. Someone needs to inform him that that isn’t the case. I’m really beginning to wonder what it is about Virginia Tech that it keeps producing this guys with behavior and character issues. D’Angelo Hall, Mike Vick, Marcus Vick, I mean what’s going on with Frank Beamer’s program that the kids who pass through end up being so troubled.

I don’t like….

We Are Scientists drummer Michael Tapper has quit the band. My favorite parts of WAS’ spectacularly average songs have been Tapper’s drum parts and I’m not sure what will keep me listening to this band, given this announcement. Guess we will find out whenever they stop touring England and hit the studio.

The NFL is cutting the time between picks in the first and second rounds of the NFL draft. I love this idea. I am kind of surprised that they are doing this since the draft is such a ratings behemoth and the NFL isn’t one to normally turn down ad revenues by making sanctioned events shorter. The first round of the draft shouldn’t be four hours long as it has been in recent years and I will be interested to see if this change sticks.

ABC is picking up Pushing Daisies for a full season. My hope is that they would pick it up under the condition that they drop the terrible, soul-sucking voiceover that makes me want to kill myself when I watch the show (which I love, by the way) but I’ll take a full season regardless. I am not sure about the long-term future of the show. The premise is limiting and if the show serves two full seasons, I think that’s a great life for it.

Rich Kotite, Ray Rhodes, Todd Pederson, Bobby Hoying, Ricky Watters, Bubby Brister. I’ve been through all of it. But nothing hurts like this does. Nothing hurts worse than being a Phildelphia Eagles fan at this moment in history.
When you have the expectation that your team is bad and won’t perform well week-to-week then it’s something you can live with. I remember telling friends that after Week 1, I always looked ahead to the next season after being rightly trounced by a team far more deserving of the win than my beloved Iggles. And then they got my hopes up and strung me along.

I remember getting misty when Donovan McNabb hoisted the NFC Championship Trophy above his head in 2004 and then watched in disappointment as they floundered their chance to make me and thousands of others of equally suffering Eagles fans happy for a lifetime.

But nothing compares to this.

After riding Jeff Garcia’s back all the way into the playoffs last year, we came into the season thinking that we would be back in the playoffs like it was divine right. We should have known better. Any off-season where your major acquisition is Kevin Curtis, formerly the St. Louis Rams’ third best receiver, you know you’re in trouble.

And then there’s the McNabb saga. Twice, the Eagles have had their season ruined, and nearly ruined last year if not for Jeff Garcia, by McNabb’s inability to stay healthy. I know that some will say that the Eagles have never given him a marquee receiver, save He Who Shall Not Be Named, and I agree with that whole-heartedly except that McNabb won with far less earlier in his career. Lest we forget, Donovan took the Eagles to the NFC Championship with Todd “Crocodile Arms” Pinkston and James Thrash on the outside. McNabb may very well be a victim of his own success but the team’s inability to score this season has to fall on his shoulders.  I have always been a McNabb supporter. I thought it would have been foolish for the Eagles to take Ricky Williams ahead of him in 1999 given that the Eagles had a solid back in Duce Staley. I have rooted for McNabb and wanted him to succeed but I have also understood that he’s a far from perfect quarterback. He displays little to no touch at times, rifling fastballs into the arms of tight ends on 5-yard hook routes, is not a terrifically accurate quarterback and seems to have abandoned his ability to scramble and improvise. As great as it’s been since he took over the starting job from Todd Pederson his rookie year, it may very well be the end of number 5 in Philly.

And then there’s Andy Reid. I am not going to get into the ongoing legal saga that is the lives of his two sons and I’m certainly not going to speculate how much that has or hasn’t affected his ability to coach and lead the Eagles this season. At the end of the day, as much as I love the Eagles, a man’s family is more important than anything. What I have to judge as a fan is the product on the field. For the better part of this century, we haven’t questioned Reid’s decision making as coach and GM because we were winning.  But this is different. With a team that nearly made it to the NFC Championship last season circling the drain, blame has to fall somewhere.

Forget that Sunday, the Eagles’ once-vaunted defense managed to make Brian Griese look like John Elway. The problems with the Birds started on  April 29 at Radio City Music Hall.

This year’s draft, like many others recently, was an unmistakable failure. With so many holes, particularly at receiver and linebacker, the fact that they traded out of the first round (with a team in their own division) to take Kevin Kolb with their first pick of the draft is inexcusable, particularly considering that Kolb was rated by some as the fifth best quarterback in the draft behind Drew Stanton and Trent Edwards, not to mention JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn. At such a critical juncture in team history, to screw up such an important draft pick that spectacularly is a particularly condemning act.

So where do we go from here? It appears that this team needs a facelift and it needs leadership. So who goes? Is it Andy Reid or Donovan McNabb or both? Make no mistake, this could be the most important off-season in franchise history.

In yesterday’s Boston Globe, Matthew Gilbert criticized NBC for trying to overstuff — and ostensibly ruin — the only shows on NBC that are worth watching. Two of said shows are really close to my heart, I speak, of course, of Heroes and my beloved Office.

From  the time it was announced that the first five episodes of the much-anticipated fourth season of The Office would be an hour, as episode to the brisk 22-minute run-time of normal episodes, I felt some trepidation. Trepidation that was confirmed when the premiere of the fourth season dragged on worse than Syriana or every single Peter Jackson movie. Gilbert pleads with NBC in his column not to ruin what was best about The Office.

I wonder if this doesn’t go back to a conversation I was having with a friend of mine about a month ago about what happens when a show makes it. It costs so much money for the networks to develop these shows and so when a show finally hits, the networks (particularly NBC, who has been starved for a hit since Friends went off the air) freak out and over promote the show. It kind of mirrors how I feel about the NFL anymore. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Just because I really like something, like The Office, like Heroes, like the NFL, doesn’t mean that I want to see it every minute of every day.

No more hour-long episodes of The Office. No more bad writing and dead end plot lines on Heroes and please talk about college football on PTI.

Last week was a little harder on my college football average on the year, having gone 48-19 on the week.

Weekly Average: 75%

Season Average: 84.8% 

Meanwhile, “The League” has been far less kind to me. Losses by my beloved Eagles, the slumping Saints and the wildly overrated Bengals got me in Week 2.

Week 2 Average: 62.5%

Season Average: 64.5%