Things Learned This Weekend

The Knicks looked like Coughlin's Giants, playing to the talents of their opponents.

I'd believe it when I saw it, and I saw - Posada not catching and smiling about it.

Dallas may not have so much faith in Romo.

The Mets believe in handouts.

Classic Clips - Friday Night Fights

I cannot believe I had never seen this clip before. Last night was apparently the 5-year anniversary of what might be the best series of fights in one hockey game in modern NHL history. Senators-Flyers, let's get it on!

Tweet of the Week

The NBA trade deadline sure gets player's families anxious.

NazrMohammed

My son asked the nanny "can we trade nannies too". He said he heard they had good nannies in #OKC lol. Where did we find this kid. #CrazyKid

Favorite Retweet Reply

Lock It Up

My lock of the week is Coyotes over Blue Jackets on Friday. The Coyotes have won eight straight, including one against the league-best Flyers. I've got a good feeling that the 12th best team in the West won't be able to handle them.

Stay away from Knicks vs. Heat on Sunday. There's no way Melo will be fully comfortable on his new team, but that doesn't mean the Knicks won't be better right away. Still, the Heat will have extra motivation to beat New York this time. Excitement for a NY vs. Miami basketball game! Who-da thunk it?

Get in on the action and comment or tweet your Lock of the Week. Add #smackjabber #lockitup in your tweet with your pick/s @quazflawless. The Lock It Up "week" includes games played Wednesday through games played Tuesday night.

Lock It Up 2011 Standings

Lee Feinstein : 5-1
Quaz Flawless : 5-3
ThalerND : 4-1
Bill Beck : 3-2
Pat Downes : 2-3
Dan : 0-1
Matt Summa : 0-2
Ian : 0-2

Ride The Streak - If you win you're first "Lock", gamble and go for more by commenting/tweeting another "Lock" that week, but if any of your "Locks" lose, you get a loss for the week.

Flawless Thoughts

Somewhere between Bieber winning MVP of the Celebrity game and the Kia/Sprite commercial that was the Slam Dunk Contest, there were remnants of what the All Star Weekend used to be - an eye-popping display of talent from the league's best.

Melo to the Knicks is huge. It seems that the Knicks are really back now, and this time there's no Michael Jordan to keep them away from the Finals. That's the excuse I always hear about the Knicks in the 90's - Jordan. But didn't the Knicks lose to the Rockets in the Finals the year Jordan was out? Anyway, there is a new Jordan for the Knicks to try and get past, the King without a crown. Though the Nets didn't get Melo, they did start bringing a real rivalry to the tri-state area, first with the infamous billboard and now meddling in the Knicks' business.

If you were an NFL head coach and had to choose either Randy Moss or T.O., who would it be? T.O. just had a great season (9 TDs and almost 1,000 yards receiving), but he can tear apart a locker room faster than you can say "Jeff Garcia." On the other hand, Randy had a record setting season not too long ago, but needs to be motivated by ... better catering?

Things Learned This Weekend

The phrase "don't call it a comeback" has new meaning with Peter Forsberg coming back after two years away from the NHL and lasting for just two games.

When Prokhorov said the Nets were out of the Melo trade talks what he meant was, the Nets are not out of the Melo trade talks.

Derek Jeter is motivated every year, not just when his team treats him like he's a greedy egomaniac.

You will never again hear "Who's Blake Griffin?" after what he did to that basketball hoop on Saturday night.

Tweet of the Week

Ya gotta hand it to'em. They kept it contained until long after the season was over.

ochocinco Chad Ochocinco

@terrellowens Man its your f_cking fault my QB is retiring, I should whoop your ass cause they're blaming me you f_cking Diva!!!

terrellowens Terrell Owens

@ochocinco I should whoop ur a** 4 asking me 2 come 2 Cincy! Yeh it's my fault tht he's retiring but not if I woulda had 15 TDs instead of 9

ochocinco Chad Ochocinco

@terrellowens F_ck yo touchdowns we went 4-12 and now my QB is leaving and they blaming me,you taking 50% of the blame for this sh_t!!!

terrellowens Terrell Owens

@ochocinco And so much ur "Batman & Robin" idea!!

terrellowens Terrell Owens

@ochocinco Where the hell ws Robin all year?

ochocinco Chad Ochocinco

Cincinnati Bengals rock!!! Anybody that doesn't like us F_ck you and the horse you rode in on!!! Who F_cking Dey!!!

Heresy (Part 3 of 3)

This is the final part of a three-part series from guest contributor Pat Downes on the superiority of college football to pro football. To read the first part, “History,” click here. To read the second part, “Variety,” click here.

Passion

College football is obviously more colorful than pro football. College football has mascots and marching bands. Fight songs and pep rallies. Every team – every single team – has unique traditions surrounding the game that border on the sacred. Dotting the “i” at Ohio State. Yell Leaders at Texas A&M. Hook ’em Horns and the Gator Chomp. Howard’s Rock and the House that Rock Built. Outside of JerryWorld (and I would argue that Dallas’s traditions are mostly contrived), pro football does not have nearly as much color.

But this is mere pageantry. Pageantry is merely one tangible expression of something much deeper – passion. Passion is a feeling. It is the deep, almost familial connection that the fan feels for his or her team. Pro football fans may have passion for their teams, but they don’t – really, they can’t – feel it as deeply as college football fans.

In the first installment of this series, I argued that college football was superior to pro football because of its history. College football’s immense popularity going back for decades and centuries, and the legends and stories that originated throughout those years, form a thread in the narrative of today’s games, which enable us to share an experience with ancestors that we never knew.

In part two, I argued that college football’s variety, which derives in part from the diversity of the institutions playing the game, makes college football superior. College teams are unique, local institutions that communities take pride in. Pro franchises, on the other hand, are like bland, cookie-cutter chain stores.

In a way, passion is a by-product of history and variety. College football fans feel a connection to our team’s legends and heroes from ages past. And we feel connected to our teams as representatives of unique, local institutions, with fundamental missions that are more meaningful than simply winning a division and making a nice run in the playoffs.

Those connections extend beyond the teams’ geographical and alumni bases. Teams like BYU and Notre Dame have religious identities that inspire national followings in certain religious or ethnic communities. Army, Navy and Air Force inspire followings within the military, and among the broad segment of the population that admire the commitment to country made by those teams’ players and their classmates. In some parts of the country without the population base to support a pro franchise (or any other institutions of cultural significance) – for example, Alabama, Nebraska, and recently, Boise, Idaho – college football teams serve as focal points for the development of regional identity, and inspire deeply passionate followings.

In addition to all of this, different schools stand for different things. Some institutions, unfortunately, stand for the uglier side of sports; for cheating and criminality, for corruption and exploitation. On the other hand, teams like Notre Dame and Stanford, at their best, stand for a combination of athletic and academic excellence, and for managing their teams ethically. Other institutions, like many state schools and the teams in the MEAC, pride themselves on providing opportunities for underprivileged students, or students from racial or ethnic communities who did not have such opportunities in years past.

The NFL has none of this. Sure, it has fans. Maybe it even has fans who can be described, in a narrow sense, as passionate. They follow their team religiously. They live and die by the win-loss record. And I say this not to denigrate the depth of their feeling, but, really, what is that NFL passion based on? Maybe – at best – that passion is based on fond memories of a parent who was a fan. But usually it’s based on little more than geography. Very few folks outside of Seattle have any affinity for the Seahawks. Unless your dear, departed father was a Seattle native (or your last name is Hasselbeck), there’s nothing unique about the Seahawks that would attract any sort of following outside of Washington state.

What are the monumental stories and legends of the Seahawks’ history? Who are the mist-shrouded demigods and heroes of Seahawks’ lore? What unique characteristics do the Seahawks have that make them more worthy of your attention than any other franchise? More importantly, what do the Seahawks stand for? It sounds silly to even ask these questions of most pro franchises.

I understand that there are people out there who love the NFL, and never really had any reason to follow college football. If you’re one of these people, that’s ok. It’s not a mark of poor character, or an indication that you’re lacking in any way.

But you are missing something.

Maybe, if you’re lucky, the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations in the NFL will blow up, and you’ll be able to focus your full attention next year on the greatest, purest expression of the world’s best game: college football.

Lock It Up

My lock of the week is Flyers over Rangers in hockey action this Sunday. All of a sudden the Flyers are a dominant team in the NHL, with big stars on every line and a Russian goalie named Sergei Bobrovsky who goes by the nickname Bob and has been solid.

I'd stay away from gambling on the Daytona 500, unless you're going with Earnhardt Jr. There's been chatter of him being allowed to bring a faster car, as a Jr. win would do wonders for NASCAR.

Get in on the action and comment or tweet your Lock of the Week. Add #smackjabber #lockitup in your tweet with your pick/s @quazflawless.

Lock It Up 2011 Standings

Lee Feinstein : 4-1
Quaz Flawless : 4-3
ThalerND : 2-1
Bill Beck : 2-2
Pat Downes : 1-3
Dan : 0-1
Matt Summa : 0-2
Ian : 0-2

Classic Clips - "Go Home!"

Welcome to Classic Clips, 2.0! I'm taking over for Quaz on our weekly look at the most memorable plays in sports history, but the byline isn't the only thing you can expect to change. In addition to the historic highlights we all know and love, I'll be sprinkling in some amazing plays and finishes that you most likely missed when they happened. I also plan to focus on clips that relate to the most active sports each season. Right now, for example, while you may see some NBA, NHL and baseball bits, I'll most likely be force feeding you my favorite February/March sport - college basketball. MLB has October, the NFL has January and college football, for all its faults, captures the imagination throughout the fall and early winter, but nothing, aside from those fanciful first pitches and catches down south, can pull me away from NCAA hoops in February and March.



But enough about me. This is Bracket Buster week, which provides America a unique look at the small and mid-major teams that are poised to end some of the big boys' dreams next month. In honor of the little guy, here is a clip from 2006, in which little known independent Chicago State scores 6 points in the final 4 seconds to upset the mighty Kangaroos of the Horizon League's University of Missouri at Kansas City (which, even on its full ESPN team page goes by just "UMKC"). And on the 'Roos home court no less, a fact made blatantly clear by the reaction of Chicago St.'s No. 14 - check him out from about 0:43 to the 0:54 mark (his contributions here far outweigh his goofy looking, game-tying trey just moments earlier). A clip like this just wouldn't be complete without the most horrendous green unis since the Sonics', circa '83, and a three-chucking, bird-flipping, SmackJabbing cracker named Inabnit. Priceless.

Flawless Thoughts

If there is one day a year to watch auto racing, it has to be this Sunday. Even if NASCAR seems boring, or if the culture is just too.... complicated to wrap your head around, one thing that everyone can agree on is that NASCAR's origins are interesting, and the Daytona 500 is connected to these roots. During Prohibition, rum runners suped-up their cars with faster engines to evade authorities. Eventually these drivers would organize races, which became popular attractions. These outlaws would also participate in races on the sand at Daytona Beach, which are related to the modern Daytona 500. Besides, it's just another chance to go to a party, eat, drink, and be merry.

If the March CBA deadline rolled around and I was a billionaire, I'd attempt to make a deal with the NFLPA and start a new league, with the players being assigned to teams in similar locations, with the same rosters, according to the NFL teams that they had been on. It sounds ridiculous, but it might be the only chance investors interested in a new pro football league have of starting an organization that could be relevant alongside the NFL.

Further distancing itself from the "four majors" in sports, the PGA is fining it's most entertaining player for "spitting." That's right, there's no crying in baseball, no whining in basketball (as of this year), and no spitting in golf. Oh yeah, and no sexting in football.

Things Learned This Weekend

The "Big Three" live in Boston not Miami.

The St. Louis Cardinals aren't as gassed on Pujols as the rest of us.

Utah playing bad in the throwback gear gets Karl Malone pissed.
http://tinyurl.com/47867ae

Lemieux wants to rethink his involvement in hockey over a hockey fight.
http://tinyurl.com/4s474va

Tweet of the Week

ShaunPhillips95

I know Blake G is a beast but we need to get him a new barber his cut is a hot mess.

Favorite Retweet Reply

Heresy (Part 2 of 3)

This the second of a three-part series from guest contributor Pat Downes on the superiority of college football to pro football. To read the first part, “History,” click here.

Variety

If you watched the Super Bowl on Sunday, you should be grateful for the innovators who decided that different teams should wear different color uniforms. Otherwise, even if you were paying attention, it would have been hard to tell the teams apart. On offense, both the Packers and Steelers run a modified West Coast offense. On defense, both run a 3-4.

And it isn't just the Packers and Steelers. As Chris Brown of Smart Football points out, every team in the NFL runs just about the same offense.

Each team bases its offense on the same five running plays, and a horizontal, timing-based passing game. Defensively, about half the teams run a 3-4, and the other half run a more “traditional” 4-3. The trend is clearly in favor of the 3-4, which, in a few years may become as ubiquitous on the defensive side as Bill Walsh’s Stanford/San Francisco offense.

With college football, on the other hand, especially on the offensive side, pleasure is none, if not diversified. On any given Saturday, you can turn on your TV and witness:

*A traditional power running offense, with tight splits on the line, beefy linemen in three-point stances, fullbacks, and multiple tight ends, forcing the ball down the defense’s collective throat (with the occasional vertical, field-stretching play action bomb);

* The aforementioned West Coast (a.k.a. pro-style) offense, with heavy doses of zone blocking, a zone-read running game, and a short, horizontal, exquisitely timed passing game;

* The now passé “run and shoot,” including the “fun 'n' gun” pass-fest that Spurrier ran at Florida;

* Georgia Tech and the service academies employing the all-running-all-the-time triple-option;

* The spread (run-heavy variety), as pioneered by recently departed coaching heavyweights Urban Meyer and Rich Rodriquez, with the quarterback in the shotgun, the linemen split wide, and up on two feet, and various option and West Coast elements thrown in;

* The spread (pass-heavy variety), as engineered by coaches like Mike Leach and his disciples;

* Various adaptations of the spread, including: Nevada’s “pistol” offense, with the quarterback in a “semi” shotgun, and the running back directly behind the quarterback (which improves the rushing opportunities offered by a traditional shotgun and an offset running back); the old single-wing throwback known as the Wildcat (lately adopted by some forward-thinking NFL offensive coordinators); and Oregon’s “blur” offense, which adds a no-huddle, fast-paced, defense-exhausting element to the spread; and, finally,

* Various offenses incorporating elements of two or more of these systems.

College football has long been an incubator for innovation. Some schools lack financial resources. Some have institutional or geographical limitations. Every school has to compete with 119 other Division 1-A programs. As a result, not every team can land the 6’7” 310 -pound offensive linemen with freakish athletic ability, or the skill position players who can run the 40-yard dash in less than 4.5 seconds. If you want to move the ball down the field at these schools, you have to find a way to do it with the players you have. For decades, college coaches have developed the systems described above (and a bunch more besides), to do just that.

In the NFL, on the other hand, there are 32 teams that share television revenue, and thus have roughly equal resources, equal access to a relatively deep talent pool, and a uniform salary cap. Unless your team is ineptly managed (i.e., run by Daniel Snyder or Al Davis), you are going to fill your roster with players at every position who have all, or nearly all, of the attributes that you're looking for. You’re going to find a left tackle with near-ideal height and weight, with long arms, and freakish agility. If you run a 3-4 defense, you’re going to find a 340-pound nose tackle who can consume two blockers. You’re going to find a running back who can pick up the blitz, catch the ball as an outlet receiver, take a handoff, pick the right hole, and hit it hard.

Some players are better than others, sure, but in relative terms, at most positions, there really isn't that much daylight between the best starter in the league, and the worst starter. Every team, more or less, has the tools they need to run the offense they want, and there is no incentive to innovate as there is in college.

In some ways, the NFL is the sporting equivalent of the string of fast food joints off the freeway exit, or the suburban strip mall. It’s the same damn thing all over America. The fan in San Diego is consuming the same product as the fan in Indianapolis and the fan in Atlanta. It’s a high-quality product, to be sure (more Ruth’s Chris than McDonald’s), but there’s no regional differentiation; nothing unique, nothing genuine.

College football is the cultural kin of the mom and pop store that’s been run by the same family for a century. It’s the genuine article, the tangible, non-Disneyfied, remnant of real America. And like the mom and pop stores, we’d be better off as a country if we valued it more.

Stay tuned next week for “Passion,” the third and final installment of “Heresy.”

Classic Clips

Christian Laettner, he's not famous for being a Minnesota TimberWolf! He spent thirteen years in the NBA but there was one college game that would make him a legend. What a play, Hill's pass was like something you'd see Joe Montana do, and the jumper Laettner hit was so unbelievable that it's folklore for all NCAA basketball fans. When I think of March Madness, I think of this play first.

Lock It Up

My lock of the week is the New York Rangers over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday. The Pens have lost Malkin for the year and though they'll still make the playoffs and maybe win a series, they won't get to the Cup without him. The Rangers are having a great season, playing great even with their ugly new jerseys. I know I know, nothing is worse than when the Islanders wore those jerseys with the fisherman logo, but still.

Stay away from Lakers vs Knicks on Friday, should be a good game, but when pressure from questions regarding the Lakers championship abilities meets the nothing to lose attitude of the Knicks there could easily be an upset.

Get in on the action and comment or tweet your Lock of the Week. Add #smackjabber #lockitup in your tweet with your pick/s @quazflawless.

Lock It Up 2011 Standings

Lee Feinstein : 4-1
Quaz Flawless : 3-3
Bill Beck : 2-1
ThalerND : 1-1
Dan : 0-1
Matt Summa : 0-2
Ian : 0-2
Pat Downes : 0-3

Flawless Thoughts

The last NFL game has been played, and there won't be another for at least seven months. That game was a great finale, keeping the streak of exciting Super Bowls running and leaving me satisfied for the long break ahead. The Black Eyed Peas performance was not the only misguided decision to result in disappointment, as a certain amount of seats where deemed unusable only a few hours before the game, and the owners of those tickets relocated to seats outside of the stadium. That's right, imagine that you traveled from say Green Bay, all the way to Texas and your seat was relocated outside of the stadium. Even though these fans were reimbursed, what a buzzkill.

The Yankees offseason has been a little weird, though I guess nothing beats A-Rod's strange roid confession during the 2008/09 offseason. But this year, why would you make a guy who is the face of your franchise, look like some guy who's past his prime that you'll do a favor for? What were they thinking making Jeter look greedy? The Mets offseason though? This one is up there on the list of strange offseasons. Leave it to the Mets owners to be publicly aligned with Bernie Madoff, not as a victim, but as a group that made money!

The Lakers aren't, "good enough to win a championship". That's strange, because they have the third best record in the West and are fifth best in the league and it's only February. Apparently they are now interested in trading Bynum for Melo. That sounds like a big mistake to panic and make a trade like that. Getting rid of the future for a loan like Melo, who would most likely not sign past the remainder of this season with the Lakers. Sounds risky as his style could clash with Kobe, who has been known to not get along with other superstars.

Things Learned This Weekend

Getting rid of Bret Favre was the right move for the Packers.

Christina Aguilera is way better than Janet Jackson at Super Bowl malfunctions.

The minotaur known as Alex Rodriguez requires Cameron Diaz to feed him.

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/09000d5d81e2d9ae/The-stars-come-out-in-Big-D

Cool Spectacle

It sounds like I'm in the minority here, but aside from some audio problems, I thought the halftime show was pretty damn good. Am I the only person in America who thought so?



Apparently they played a game last night, too. Some dumb team from the cheese state won. Blech.

The Best Thing About the Super Bowl

Look, I'm as excited as the next guy about the big game tomorrow. By all accounts, it should be a tight game with the full complement of jaw-dropping plays by some of the NFL's biggest stars.

But the best thing about the Super Bowl ain't the action on the field. So, like the guys says, who do ya like?

The Pack? The over? First personal foul? Number of coach's challenges? Tails on the coin toss?

Look, you don't have to be a degenerate to get a thrill from a friendly Super Bowl wager and you haven't lived until you've had a C-note riding on the length of the Star Spangled Banner. But the hot action at my regular Super Bowl party the last few years has been on the commercials. And this year, you don't have to close your eyes and roll the dice on best animal gag to win a quick buck on an ad like this one from last year.

Many of this year's much-awaited spots have been leaked in advance and the good folks over at Mashable have a nice catalog of what you might expect to see between whistles Sunday night: sneak peak at the Super Bowl XLV commercials.

So good luck tomorrow night, and don't let them say I never gave you a good tip!

Tweet of the Week

Skip Bayless doesn't seem to like many people, but he sure sweats Lil Wayne. Check these three tweets from the Skipper:
---

RealSkipBayless:

Lil Wayne very good today on show. He and I have 1 thing in common: extreme sports passion. I'm in awe of his creative genius, he of 1st&10.

Wayne will soon be back in Bristol to debate me, round 3. Man knows his sports stuff. Deep thinker. Extremely opinionated.

But did tell Wayne he gave the Steelers little extra motivation by going in HARD on 'em in remix lyrics. He said, "Oh, coulda gone harder."
---

I was surprised when Bayless made mention of listening to Wayne's recent song regarding the Super Bowl. There's no way Skip listened to "Green & Yellow" but only puts him down for giving Pitt motivation... unless... maybe they went out for a "drank" first?

To play in the Super Bowl ...

... this Frenchman would give up his cat, his dog, his hamster and his red fish. It's not just American football anymore.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12357414 (see video at link).

Heresy

The following is Part One of a three-part series by guest contributor Pat Downes.

I’m about to make an outrageous claim:

College football is superior to pro football.

I know my timing is a bit odd. I’m blasting this heretical opinion on the eve on pro football’s highest of holy days, seemingly dissing America’s most popular sport as it continues on its relentless ascent to unprecedented levels of popularity.

And I’m making this claim on the heels of a college football season that began with a rash of agent-driven rule-breaking, saw the deaths of players and student managers at Mississippi State and Notre Dame, and ended with the Heisman and national championship trophies being awarded to an essentially professional team financed by a comically corrupt cadre of crackers.

But even now, with the NFL at its zenith, and college football arguably at low ebb, I’m making this claim: college football is superior to pro football.

I’ve got nothing against pro football. I love the game, watch it regularly, and, like all other right-thinking, patriotic Americans, will be rooting heartily against the Packers on Sunday. And I’m not suffering from any delusions about the relative levels of play. The typical NFL athlete – at any position – is a rare physical and mental specimen in peak condition, and every game is an intricately choreographed wonder. College athletes, on the other hand, are teenagers. Athletically, their skills vary, and ideally (outside of the SEC) they’re part-timers. Moreover, some programs have substantial financial resources and an institutional commitment to the game, and some don’t. You’re simply not going to get the consistently refined product at the college level that you get in the NFL. (There’s also an element of corruption in the college game that threatens the whole enterprise – a subject for another day).

But college football has vast reserves of three things that the NFL lacks: history, variety, and passion.

I’ll deal with the first one today, and tackle the other two in separate posts next week and the week after.

History

College teams were selling out the country’s most important stadiums, inspiring Pulitzer-worthy literature and uniting millions of Americans when the professional game consisted of a handful of dubious characters bumbling their way around near-deserted cow pastures. (I exaggerate only a little).

In the first half of the 20th century, there were four American sports that mattered: baseball, horse racing, boxing and college football. Along with baseball, college football was the most popular. Along with baseball (e.g., Jackie Robinson) and boxing (e.g., Joe Louis), college football had the most significant impact on the culture at large.

The first football game ever played was a college game. It was played just a few short years after the Civil War, on College Field, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers beat Princeton, 6-4. The eastern teams, especially the Ivy League, dominated in the early decades. The game moved west as the 19th century progressed and blossomed in popularity.

A squad from the University of Michigan taught the game to a team from a Catholic school in South Bend, Indiana in 1887 and, in short order, the latter team became so powerful, regularly taking on and beating the WASP-dominated teams of the elite eastern schools, that it formed a rallying point for millions of urban ethnic immigrants (and their children) and became a meaningful part of the story of those immigrants’ assimilation into the American culture.

In every part of the country, even in places where the population was relatively sparse, college football programs developed a following beyond their alumni base and formed a focal point for the development of a regional identity. For many people in many parts of the country, for at least a century, college football was the game.

That history matters today because it stays with us. It forms a thread in the narrative of today’s games and connects our experience with our parents’ experience and their parents’ experience. Pro football may, in some ways, connect us with our fathers, but college football connects us with ancestors we never even knew.

When Alabama plays Auburn next year, the game won’t just be about the matchup of two elite modern-day squads, it’ll be about Auburn’s inaugural victory in 1893, and about Alabama coach Doc Pollard infuriating Auburn coach Mike Donahue with his elaborate formations and shifts back in ’06 and ’07. It’ll be about Joe Namath’s furious comeback in ’64. It’ll be about ’71’s titanic battle of undefeated programs, or ’72’s “Punt Bama Punt” classic. Those stories are as much a part of the game as Saban or Fairley or Newton or Chizik.

In the NFL there are a few games like that, but they’re largely of more recent vintage and they’re rarely incorporated into the narrative of this year’s game. The 1958 Championship Game between the Colts and the Giants is one of those games. They called it The Greatest Game Ever Played. Your father may even recall watching it on TV when he was a little boy. But when the Colts play the Giants these days, you probably won’t hear very much about it – the tabloids will be too focused on whether the Manning brothers exchanged text messages that week.

Terence Mann’s soliloquy from Field of Dreams is one of the great passages in film history: “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.” This sentiment applies with nearly equal force to college football. Does it apply to pro football? Eh, maybe... get back to me in a century or so and we’ll see.

Check back in next week for Part Two of Pat's "Heresy" series, "Variety."

Classic Clips

Once upon a time not so long ago, the heavy underdog New York Giants met the undefeated (and unbeatable) New England Patriots in what I shall hereby call the Greatest Super Bowl of All Time. The media figured a Pats win was a foregone conclusion, but what actually happened was, the Patriots got STOMPED! New England led and the Giants had the ball with less than two minutes left in the 4th quarter when something happened that will never be forgotten... something superhuman...

Lock It Up

My lock of the week is Green Bay over Pittsburgh. With the way Aaron Rodgers has been playing, and how focused the Packers seem, and how focused the Steelers seem to be on the penalties for hard hits, I feel like the Pack is a lock.

Stay away from Heat @ Clippers on Sunday because the Clippers only win at home and Blake Griffin will be pumped up for this one and he's a Freak Monster, then again the Heat are so talented.

Get in on the action and comment or tweet your Lock of the Week. Add #smackjabber #lockitup in your tweet with your pick/s @quazflawless.


Lock It Up 2011 Standings

Lee Feinstein : 3-1
Bill Beck : 2-0
Quaz Flawless : 2-3
ThalerND : 1-0
Dan : 0-1
Matt Summa : 0-1
Pat Downes : 0-2
Ian : 0-2

Flawless Thoughts

A few years ago the Cavs and Wizards were up and comers bound for glory, putting on a pair of memorable playoff showdowns. Now they are competing for longest losing streak. It's sad to see the owner of the Cavs so bitter over a game. I've come across people like that and it's a real downer. Lebron ditching for South Beach was just part of the game, but an owner making the kind of statements Dan Gilbert has shouldn't be part of the game. And now he has apparently snubbed Lebron by not including him in the Heat line of Fathead (a company Dan Gilbert owns) wall stickers. Seems to me the Cavs got the curse that Gilbert cast on James and the Heat.

Super Bowl week is here and the big game is about as exciting a matchup as you could ask for - two great teams with superstar QBs and chock full of defensive stars. Perhaps the excitement will be so great that no one will notice the Super Bowl first that's guaranteed to occur - the absence of cheerleaders. In case you hadn't heard, the Steelers and Packers are two of only six NFL franchises that do not employ cheerleaders. Maybe football fans will have had their fill of that kind of entertainment after watching Sunday's LFL Final... that's the Lingerie Football League (thanks to Lee for putting SmackJabber nation on to that glorious phenomenon last October!).

ManRam and Johnny Damon to the Rays. Exciting, I guess, but it can't make up for the Rays' loss of star power still in its prime. These two aging talents may put a few butts in the seats in April, but considering the way Damon plays the field and Manny, well, is Manny (now including injuries and 'roid suspensions), this SmackJabber doesn't see much impact on the 2011 AL East race.

Clay Mathews was Robbed!!!

"Clay Matthews was ROBBED"...

Those words coupled with an explicit or two flooded my Facebook news feed last night.  I got a few tweets and texts messages, pretty much in the same context.  I agree...

Clay Matthews was ROBBED!

... BUT... There is a case to be made for Troy Polamalu being awarded the 2010 Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) Award.

... BUT... Why can't anyone give us a straight answer in just what it takes to win this award or the MVP award for that matter. Why is there no definition to just WHAT these voters who claim to be smarter than you & I in the world of sports? Really though, I think the players association & NFL ownership have agreed more on a yet to be resigned CBA than these writers have... For YEARS!

One school of thought is that the winner of this award goes to the defensive player with the best statistics; the other is that the award goes to the player whose defensive unit is lost without said player.  What we had here was a race between both schools, if you will...


Clay Matthews is a ______.  I bet the majority of sports fans finish that sentence off with the word "BEAST" or "MONSTER"; and they would be absolutely accurate. The guy is a freak of nature and defensively, there is nothing more fun than seeing him fend off 2 offensive linemen, or an offensive lineman and a running back and then laying the smacketh down on a QB. Nothing! Unless he's doing it against your team and then you're pissed for about 5 seconds. They show the replay, and then you applaud him for BEAST of a play and silently wish he was a member of your defensive unit.

I live in Wisconsin, I watched a lot of Packer games and I would give my 1st born for Clay to end up as the Giants Middle linebacker. Fact!

60 Tackles, 13.5 Sacks, 2 Forced Fumbles, 1 INT (which he returned for a TD) for an undersized middle linebacker who didn't even start in his Senior year as a linebacker @ USC. Fact!

Oh! And he was a walk on... Fact!

You've heard the stories. The commentators won't shut up about it during games in which he played and he deserves the accolades. America LOVES an underdog! We want to see him win because it means maybe even your fat ass can put down the donuts, stop partying like a Rockstar and make it in the NFL.

Troy Polamalu is ____________. Has great hair... Just kidding, the completion of that sentence usually ends with "The Heart and Soul of the Pittsburgh defense". It's pretty much what we're all used to hearing. When Polamalu doesn't play, the Pittsburgh defense get downgraded to the likes of the Chargers defense . They go from an A to a C. (If BoB Sanders ever makes it a full season I'm voting for him being DPOY cos the Colts D is Swiss cheese without him.)

It's ridiculous how much of a game changer he is, not saying Clay isn't but I love watching tape of Polamalu because of how fast he can get from Point A to B to C to D and still make a tackle behind the line or make a key pick.

A quick look at his stats: 63 Tackles, 1 Sack, 1 Forced Fumble, 7 INTs (1 returned for a TD). The one forced fumble came in a game late in the season against the Ravens which helped the Steelers clinch the division.

Troy edged Clay out by 2 votes... 2 stinking votes. That's how close this was, despite Troy missing 2 games & Clay missing 1. Look at the stats, for their positions, both players were outstanding.

The voting breakdown were as follows: 17 for Troy, 15 for Matthews, 6 for Julius Peppers 2 for Brian Urlacher and 1 each for Ed Reed and Haloti Ngata.  I won't get into how (while I LOVE me some Ed) Reed & Ngata didn't deserve votes. It's tough to say where those 2 votes could have gone so I'll save you and myself the speculation.

It's hard to beat out "the heart and soul" of anything. Troy is absolutely deserving of the award and has been a class act about it, tweeting that Clay and others deserved the award over him.

...BUT ...

I'm like you...

I love an underdog and I really wanted Clay Matthews to win!