Happenings in the three major sports this weekend: Game One of The 2005 WhoCares.Com Bowl, also known as the World Series, is tomorrow. (Seriously, it's time for baseball to swipe that BCS from college football. Yes, it's backwards, but a) it guarantees a recognizable matchup and b) so is baseball.)
The Sports Illustrated NBA season preview hits mailboxes and newsstands. The issue is notable only for its props to the Earl of Boykins, whose team it predicts to finish No. 2 (!) in the West.
And finally, a full slate of NFL games, which brings us to Broncos-Giants.
Now's a good time to point out that I missed something kind of big in the AFC West forecast earlier this week; namely, the Broncos' winning streak is even less impressive than my man Marvelous made it out to be. Why? Because in the last five weeks, the Broncos have already played half of their home games. That's right, four of the five wins came at Mile High II, meaning only four home dates the rest of the season.
Even worse, though our road schedule isn't quite brutal, it is loaded with quality teams-the Cowboys, Chargers and Bills joining Sunday's Giants. I know, that looks odd, but the Cowboys and Bills lead or are tied for the lead in their divisions.
But Sunday's game will tell us a lot more about the Broncos.
Anyway, the matchups:
Broncos Offense vs. Giants Defense: This should be a high-scoring game. The Broncos have been fantastic running the ball and only okay passing it this year, but the Giants' D is 31st in the league. Unless Jake Plummer pulls a Brett Favre and starts giving the Giants sacks on purpose-and you never know with that guy-the Broncos have a great chance to build on last week's breakout passing performance.
And the way the Broncos backfield has been performing, expect them to pile up big gains on the ground as well.
Edge: Broncos
Giants Offense vs. Broncos Defense: The Giants' 29.8 points per game leads the whole league right now, proving that the ability to produce gee-whiz regular season offensive statistics is passed on genetically. In all seriousness, neither the Giants' running or passing game has been spectacular enough on its own to really merit that kind of scoring, but a good return game has been helpful (and we're getting to that).
The Broncos' defense, despite it's also-low ranking, gives up eighty fewer yards per game than New York's, but is weak against the pass, New York's strong suit. If the Broncos can make the Giants one-dimensional-and that's sort of been Denver's M.O. all year-they might be able to slow New York. But playing on the road, that's a lot to ask.
Edge: Giants
Special Teams: Both teams have pretty solid kicking games. Denver has an edge on everyone in punting, though New York isn't far behind. New York's kicker, Jay Feely, has not missed a field goal or PAT this year. Jason Elam has five misses already but can still be dangerous in crunch time.
But the Giants' return game vastly outranks Denver's, with a kick and a punt returned for touchdowns already this season. The Broncos, of course, have none, though they can break that streak if they can remember to only keep eleven players on the field at a time.
Edge: Giants
Outlook: The Broncos fly in to New York on a five-game winning streak, but are looking at their toughest test so far (Miami notwithstanding). While I of course don't believe in Eli Manning, the Broncos will need a big game from Plummer to negate the likely home-field and field-position advantages. And he hasn't carried the team on his shoulders in a while.
It hurts to guess, but: Giants 27, Broncos 24.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
The Division
Sweet! The power just went out and I lost the start to this beautiful post, so here we go again on our tour of the AFC West.
Here's the short of it: Denver and San Diego will compete for the division title. Kansas City is in second but still has the same old defense, and Oakland still has the same old one-dimensional offense.
As for the long version, well...
Denver (5-1): The Broncos wisely heeded the advice of what is surely Coach Shanahan's favorite website and focused on their multifaceted rushing attack to return to prominence.
Led by the power of Mike Anderson and the elusive speed of Tatum Bell, the Broncos have propelled their way up the league rushing charts, currently standing in third place with 153 yards per game.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to a five-game winning streak (ignore that I wrote that column when the Broncs were already one game into the streak). Who is the man now?
The Broncos have played better than recent final scores would indicate, jumping out to big leads and then letting teams get back into the game. Hopefully that's an indication of the teams we've played (when Tom Brady makes things interesting, it doesn't necessarily mean everyone can) more than a season-long trend.
However, the defense remains a cause for minor concern. While the effort against the run has been steadfast (fifth in the league), the typically porous aerial defense is still Denver's Achilles heel. But you'd expect Denver to give up a lot of passing yards-no team has had more passes attempted against them.
Kansas City (3-2): The record looks pleasant enough, but Kansas City is even less dangerous than their reputation. The Chiefs have long been known for their explosive offense and Wal-Mart-quality defense.
Not so this season. Kansas City's offense ranks fifteenth in the league, the lowest in the AFC West. However, the gap between them and San Diego, the division's top offense, is less than ten yards a game, and Kansas City scores more per game than Denver and Oakland. The point being that while K.C.'s offense is solid, it's also not good enough to separate them from the pack...yet.
However, in a storyline familiar to the team's fans, the Chiefs' more pressing need is a defense-they're 30th overall in the league and giving up 278 yards per contest through the air.
As if they needed it, the Chiefs' schedule is about to get a little tougher, too. Don't expect Kansas City to remain in contention for much longer.
San Diego (3-3): San Diego has just a .500 record, but has played better than that typically indicates. The Chargers hammered the defending champion La-li-lu-le-lo and nearly beat Pittsburgh a week ago.
Statistically, the Chargers and Broncos are almost eerily similar. The Broncos and Chargers are right next to each other in the rankings for rushing offense (Denver 3rd and S.D. 4th), total defense (22nd and 21st), and pass defense (26th and 27th), and very close in almost every other offensive and defensive yardage total.
Also like the Broncos, the Chargers began the season not giving their rushing offense (led by the league's best back, LaDainian Tomlinson), the attention it deserved-but they've recovered and are now scoring more than 29 points per game.
The Chargers have been the division's most consistent squad, with a four-point loss to Dallas in the first week their worst defeat.
The Broncos' main edge in this race is their two-game lead in the division. But if the Chargers can keep up their heads up despite close losses (and sneak a win or two out against their toughest opponents), they'll gain enough ground to make this very interesting.
Oakland (1-4): Ah, the Raiders. They haven't been this fun to watch since that Super Bowl against Tampa Bay.
For once, an Oakland Raiders offseason pickup has paid off. Randy Moss has been straight cash, averaging 24.5 yards per catch. He's on pace for almost fifteen hundred receiving yards this year despite missing most of the end of last week's loss to the Chargers.
In addition, Kerry Collins has cut down on the mistakes. No, seriously, he has-with just one pick so far, Collins is on pace for well over four thousand yards passing.
So what's the problem?
Oakland's priorities this off-season were to shore up the defense and get some semblance of a run game. How'd that turn out? Well, Oakland's 28th overall in defense and LaMont Jordan has picked up only 3.6 yards per carry.
Typical Raiders. Just remember: November 13th in Oakland, Christmas Eve at Mile High.
Here's the short of it: Denver and San Diego will compete for the division title. Kansas City is in second but still has the same old defense, and Oakland still has the same old one-dimensional offense.
As for the long version, well...
Denver (5-1): The Broncos wisely heeded the advice of what is surely Coach Shanahan's favorite website and focused on their multifaceted rushing attack to return to prominence.
Led by the power of Mike Anderson and the elusive speed of Tatum Bell, the Broncos have propelled their way up the league rushing charts, currently standing in third place with 153 yards per game.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to a five-game winning streak (ignore that I wrote that column when the Broncs were already one game into the streak). Who is the man now?
The Broncos have played better than recent final scores would indicate, jumping out to big leads and then letting teams get back into the game. Hopefully that's an indication of the teams we've played (when Tom Brady makes things interesting, it doesn't necessarily mean everyone can) more than a season-long trend.
However, the defense remains a cause for minor concern. While the effort against the run has been steadfast (fifth in the league), the typically porous aerial defense is still Denver's Achilles heel. But you'd expect Denver to give up a lot of passing yards-no team has had more passes attempted against them.
Kansas City (3-2): The record looks pleasant enough, but Kansas City is even less dangerous than their reputation. The Chiefs have long been known for their explosive offense and Wal-Mart-quality defense.
Not so this season. Kansas City's offense ranks fifteenth in the league, the lowest in the AFC West. However, the gap between them and San Diego, the division's top offense, is less than ten yards a game, and Kansas City scores more per game than Denver and Oakland. The point being that while K.C.'s offense is solid, it's also not good enough to separate them from the pack...yet.
However, in a storyline familiar to the team's fans, the Chiefs' more pressing need is a defense-they're 30th overall in the league and giving up 278 yards per contest through the air.
As if they needed it, the Chiefs' schedule is about to get a little tougher, too. Don't expect Kansas City to remain in contention for much longer.
San Diego (3-3): San Diego has just a .500 record, but has played better than that typically indicates. The Chargers hammered the defending champion La-li-lu-le-lo and nearly beat Pittsburgh a week ago.
Statistically, the Chargers and Broncos are almost eerily similar. The Broncos and Chargers are right next to each other in the rankings for rushing offense (Denver 3rd and S.D. 4th), total defense (22nd and 21st), and pass defense (26th and 27th), and very close in almost every other offensive and defensive yardage total.
Also like the Broncos, the Chargers began the season not giving their rushing offense (led by the league's best back, LaDainian Tomlinson), the attention it deserved-but they've recovered and are now scoring more than 29 points per game.
The Chargers have been the division's most consistent squad, with a four-point loss to Dallas in the first week their worst defeat.
The Broncos' main edge in this race is their two-game lead in the division. But if the Chargers can keep up their heads up despite close losses (and sneak a win or two out against their toughest opponents), they'll gain enough ground to make this very interesting.
Oakland (1-4): Ah, the Raiders. They haven't been this fun to watch since that Super Bowl against Tampa Bay.
For once, an Oakland Raiders offseason pickup has paid off. Randy Moss has been straight cash, averaging 24.5 yards per catch. He's on pace for almost fifteen hundred receiving yards this year despite missing most of the end of last week's loss to the Chargers.
In addition, Kerry Collins has cut down on the mistakes. No, seriously, he has-with just one pick so far, Collins is on pace for well over four thousand yards passing.
So what's the problem?
Oakland's priorities this off-season were to shore up the defense and get some semblance of a run game. How'd that turn out? Well, Oakland's 28th overall in defense and LaMont Jordan has picked up only 3.6 yards per carry.
Typical Raiders. Just remember: November 13th in Oakland, Christmas Eve at Mile High.
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Sorry We're Late...
It's awfully cheap to pick a World Series winner after the games have started, I know.
Thing is, I've been too lazy to update this recently, so you'll just have to trust that I picked my team before the postseason started.
But I don't really care if you believe me, because I don't expect to be right. First, I didn't follow baseball much at all this year, and second, baseball's playoffs are so unpredictable, I'd be lucky to be right even if I did.
Having said all that, I think the Saint Louis Cardinals will be your 2005 World Series Champions!
But I could be happy with a few teams winning, and a lot less happy with others. So instead of making wildly incorrect predictions, here's my picks in order of who I want to win (not who I think will) from most-wanted to least:
1. St. Louis: Because I just picked them and I enjoy being right. (Not to get all cocky here, but Hole Punch Sports has never predicted a champion incorrectly. I have to say that now because it can't last.) Also, the Cardinals have my all-time favorite player in Larry Walker, a rare baseball star who, in his prime, was actually fun to watch. In Colorado, he was a ferocious hitter, Coors Field notwithstanding, but my favorite Walker memories will always be of him gunning down baserunners at third from all the way in the cheap seats.
2. Boston: I've always liked Boston, though I never felt right calling myself a Red Sox fan simply because I never bought in to the whole woe-is-we syndrome. I just liked Nomar and Pedro Martinez. In fact, my favorite time watching the Red Sox was not the World Series, but rather Pedro shrugging off injury and pitching six innings of no-hit relief in the last game of the 1999 ALDS. Easily the most clutch baseball performance I've ever seen.
Man, I'm getting all misty-eyed about the past here. I guess that's how you can tell it's a baseball column.
3. Atlanta: I've got no particular love for the Braves, but my best friend is a Braves fan, so there you go. It is nice to see Andruw Jones, with whom I kind of share a name, hitting up to his ridiculous potential.
Since it was sort of a topic recently with the NCAA thing, I have to say I'm not offended by the name "Braves"-of course, why would I be?-but even this cracker thinks it's insane/hilarious-if-you-get-what-I-mean that in 2005 there's a football team called the "Redskins".
4. Padres: I would be rooting for the Padres like a madman if they had finished the season under .500. There's nothing like a statistical abberation to upset old-school baseball fans, and I would have loved to see that. More to the point, what angle do sportswriters take after a team that barely wins half its games takes the title? You can't write those old-school, heart-of-a-champion stories about a squad that barely qualified for the playoffs, can you? Especially in a sport where the regular season basically used to be the playoffs. That would have been fun.
5. Chicago (AL): Obviously it's not the Cubs in the playoffs, but whatever. I pretty much have no opinion here, but if the city of Chicago never wins another championship, they still got to watch Michael Jordan, so I'll never feel bad for them. (Through the magic of television I, too, watched Michael Jordan, but there's something about having it be your hometown team.)
6. Houston: I don't care much here, either, but Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite really annoy me. Especially Clemens-I get it, he works hard; he's probably the only athlete that does that. I'm sure natural talent has nothing to do with it. (Obviously, he's maximized his talent and that's respectable-but he's not the only pitcher with an exercise routine.)
Pettite I shouldn't mind as much. I hate the Yankees like every decent person, but every playoffs you could count on him to start a key game, then give up eight runs in three-and-two-thirds. So in a way, he was kind of my favorite Yankee.
7. The Los Angeles-Sacramento-San Jose Angels of the Greater Anaheim and San Diego Water Conservation District: The only team in major sports history to win a championship by openly admitting they couldn't compete. Barry Bonds was blasting every pitch in sight in the 2003 playoffs and finally shedding his undeserved reputation as a choke artist. The Angels saw this, took a step back and said, you know what, we can't stop this guy, and, with pitchers acting like pioneer children, walked and walked and walked aaaaaaaaaand walked him.
Yes, it's in the rules, and it obviously helped them win, but let's be practical. When the rule that allowed walks was instituted whenever it was in the 1800s, I'm sure it wasn't to slow down good hitters, but to move the game along and make pitchers throw strikes. I'd rather lose like a man than win by avoiding competition through an outdated loophole.
(And I'm not going to buy the "Who cares, Bonds was cheating" unless you can prove to me that none of the Angels used steroids.)
8. New York (AL): As much as I hate them, at least we can rest assured that having the biggest payroll won't, once again, buy a title. How do I know this? Because I have a friend who's a Yankees fan, and he insists that Shawn Chacon is going to be unstoppable after a solid half of a regular season. Well, I'm from Colorado, chump, and while I certainly wanted and maybe even expected Chacon to turn out, you've got to be kidding me.
See you guys next year!
Thing is, I've been too lazy to update this recently, so you'll just have to trust that I picked my team before the postseason started.
But I don't really care if you believe me, because I don't expect to be right. First, I didn't follow baseball much at all this year, and second, baseball's playoffs are so unpredictable, I'd be lucky to be right even if I did.
Having said all that, I think the Saint Louis Cardinals will be your 2005 World Series Champions!
But I could be happy with a few teams winning, and a lot less happy with others. So instead of making wildly incorrect predictions, here's my picks in order of who I want to win (not who I think will) from most-wanted to least:
1. St. Louis: Because I just picked them and I enjoy being right. (Not to get all cocky here, but Hole Punch Sports has never predicted a champion incorrectly. I have to say that now because it can't last.) Also, the Cardinals have my all-time favorite player in Larry Walker, a rare baseball star who, in his prime, was actually fun to watch. In Colorado, he was a ferocious hitter, Coors Field notwithstanding, but my favorite Walker memories will always be of him gunning down baserunners at third from all the way in the cheap seats.
2. Boston: I've always liked Boston, though I never felt right calling myself a Red Sox fan simply because I never bought in to the whole woe-is-we syndrome. I just liked Nomar and Pedro Martinez. In fact, my favorite time watching the Red Sox was not the World Series, but rather Pedro shrugging off injury and pitching six innings of no-hit relief in the last game of the 1999 ALDS. Easily the most clutch baseball performance I've ever seen.
Man, I'm getting all misty-eyed about the past here. I guess that's how you can tell it's a baseball column.
3. Atlanta: I've got no particular love for the Braves, but my best friend is a Braves fan, so there you go. It is nice to see Andruw Jones, with whom I kind of share a name, hitting up to his ridiculous potential.
Since it was sort of a topic recently with the NCAA thing, I have to say I'm not offended by the name "Braves"-of course, why would I be?-but even this cracker thinks it's insane/hilarious-if-you-get-what-I-mean that in 2005 there's a football team called the "Redskins".
4. Padres: I would be rooting for the Padres like a madman if they had finished the season under .500. There's nothing like a statistical abberation to upset old-school baseball fans, and I would have loved to see that. More to the point, what angle do sportswriters take after a team that barely wins half its games takes the title? You can't write those old-school, heart-of-a-champion stories about a squad that barely qualified for the playoffs, can you? Especially in a sport where the regular season basically used to be the playoffs. That would have been fun.
5. Chicago (AL): Obviously it's not the Cubs in the playoffs, but whatever. I pretty much have no opinion here, but if the city of Chicago never wins another championship, they still got to watch Michael Jordan, so I'll never feel bad for them. (Through the magic of television I, too, watched Michael Jordan, but there's something about having it be your hometown team.)
6. Houston: I don't care much here, either, but Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite really annoy me. Especially Clemens-I get it, he works hard; he's probably the only athlete that does that. I'm sure natural talent has nothing to do with it. (Obviously, he's maximized his talent and that's respectable-but he's not the only pitcher with an exercise routine.)
Pettite I shouldn't mind as much. I hate the Yankees like every decent person, but every playoffs you could count on him to start a key game, then give up eight runs in three-and-two-thirds. So in a way, he was kind of my favorite Yankee.
7. The Los Angeles-Sacramento-San Jose Angels of the Greater Anaheim and San Diego Water Conservation District: The only team in major sports history to win a championship by openly admitting they couldn't compete. Barry Bonds was blasting every pitch in sight in the 2003 playoffs and finally shedding his undeserved reputation as a choke artist. The Angels saw this, took a step back and said, you know what, we can't stop this guy, and, with pitchers acting like pioneer children, walked and walked and walked aaaaaaaaaand walked him.
Yes, it's in the rules, and it obviously helped them win, but let's be practical. When the rule that allowed walks was instituted whenever it was in the 1800s, I'm sure it wasn't to slow down good hitters, but to move the game along and make pitchers throw strikes. I'd rather lose like a man than win by avoiding competition through an outdated loophole.
(And I'm not going to buy the "Who cares, Bonds was cheating" unless you can prove to me that none of the Angels used steroids.)
8. New York (AL): As much as I hate them, at least we can rest assured that having the biggest payroll won't, once again, buy a title. How do I know this? Because I have a friend who's a Yankees fan, and he insists that Shawn Chacon is going to be unstoppable after a solid half of a regular season. Well, I'm from Colorado, chump, and while I certainly wanted and maybe even expected Chacon to turn out, you've got to be kidding me.
See you guys next year!
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