Super Bowl XLVI revealed!

The Patriots and the Giants. Things just work out sometimes.

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Two new teams, the England Patriots and the York Giants, will play for the NFL title in Super Bowl Forty-Six in two weeks. I can't wait.

The matchup comes too late, and after too imperfect of a season, to make up for the wounds inflicted by the Giants in early 2008. The Patriots' undefeated season, a 16-0 masterpiece in which they set the league's single-season scoring record, broke at the hands of the upstart Giants in that year's Super Bowl.

The way the Giants won made their win feel especially flukish...Eli Manning, known more for his entitled attitude than his athleticism (the only player to which his moves have ever been compared favorably is his brother Peyton), somehow scrambled free of a Patriot pass rush in the closing minutes, and lofted a pass down the middle of the field to David Tyree, who caught the key throw against the top of his helmet. Then a touchdown pass to Plexiglass provided the winning points.

New England's Tom Brady, quarterback of the team since taking over in 2001, is the best football player of this millenium, and it isn't particularly close. His accuracy is unparalleled, but he's best known for relentlessly spectacular play in the clutch. But in 42, the Patriots couldn't move the ball and finished with only 14 points. It's disrespectful to suggest the Giants didn't have a lot to do with that. But honestly, I'm still not sure how much the Giants had to do with that. The Patriots came into that game uncharacterstically arrogant, surprising for a team that, if not humble, was always hungry and well-prepared.

The real loss that game wasn't that the Patriots didn't win (still hard to find too much sympathy for them) or even that long-suffering San Diego fans had to watch Eli hoist the Lombardi Trophy. No, it was that the 1972 Dolphins got to stay in the record books as the only perfect regular and postseason team. Asterisk asterisk asterisk, they only played 14 games in the season back then, and those Dolphins had one of the easiest schedules of all time, particularly for a Super Bowl team, etc.; still it would have warmed the soul to see those champagne-swilling jerks finally fade off into their long-overdue sunset. You know why Joe Montana is so cool? Because he wasn't pumping his fist all over the news that night when the Giants kept Brady from matching him with a fourth Super Bowl ring. (Neither pumped Terry Bradshaw but he kind of takes the cool out of the argument, kind of like how rooting for John Elway keeps me from calling Eli spoiled as often as I'd like to.)

Anyway, the Giants ruined the party for everyone. Bunch of jerks. Here's hoping it won't happen again. As a big Brady fan I've wanted to see him play in one more Super Bowl for years. I would've loved to see the 49ers or, of course, Tim Tebow's Denver Broncos make it, though the Niners would've made rooting interests a little tougher. As someone who was disappointed to a surprising degree when the Broncos lost last week, I found it hard to pay too much attention today. I'm relieved to get a game with such a clear hero and villain (Josh McDaniels aside). So while it's not the Super Bowl I deserve, it just might be the one I need right now.

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The Super Bowl 'twixt these aforementioned teams will be played Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 4:25 p.m. Mountain time in Indianapolis. The game will be broadcast on NBC and, pleasingly, on NBC.com.

Davies out; Cougars next?

As you’ve probably heard by now, the BYU men’s basketball team has suspended its leading rebounder, Brandon Davies, for the rest of the season for an honor code violation.

The move comes as somewhat of a surprise in college basketball circles, as the Cougars are ranked No. 3 in both polls, and No. 1 in RPI. This is the best BYU team in years, and one that can hardly afford to lose such a key performer. Before tonight’s loss to New Mexico, the Cougars were regarded as a likely No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which starts in two weeks.

After watching Saturday’s win over San Diego State, I’ve taken the Cougars seriously as contenders for the national championship. Jimmer’s great, and they play with a poise rare amongst Cougar teams I’ve followed.

However, the reactions of BYU fans are puzzling to me. I’ve seen more than one student there say how proud they are of the school. When said students aren’t basketball fans (and they haven’t been, so far), such expressions of pride underwhelm me. If you have no interest in BYU basketball, then of course you’re okay with the program getting its legs cut out from under it. It takes no courage to support the sacrifice of something you don’t care about, so why thump your chest on Facebook?

I do like the BYU basketball team, certainly more than I like the Honor Code Office, and I’ve gone back and forth today on this. The timing is just awful. But while I’m not surprised by the school’s decision, I’m not especially buoyed by it. BYU did exactly what you’d expect it to if you paid any attention to the school. Being a BYU fan and finding satisfaction in the school not putting winning first would be like a USC fan expressing shock that his football team did put winning first. It’s just what they do.

That’s not to say other schools’ values are just as valid as BYU’s. I’d rather have the integrity the Cougars showed than the anything-goes philosophy of many other athletic departments. But anyone could value other things above winning, and then not win.

The fact is, the Cougars are playing a different game from everyone else. It really wouldn’t make sense for a state university to set the same standards of personal conduct that a university owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would. It’s fair for BYU students to be proud of BYU for being BYU, but as a sports fan that doesn’t do much for me.

Of course, if the Cougars do win it all, or even make the Final Four, that would be truly impressive, and it would make sense to hold up the school as a model for all athletic departments. It’s just hard to see that happening after an 18-point loss.

My only other thought is how bad I feel for everyone involved in the team. Tough draw for the coach. Downer for Jimmer Fredette, a truly great collegiate star whose athletic peak might be this season. I hate to think this will cost him his moment of glory in the NCAA Tournament. And I feel sad for Davies, who may well have cost his teammates the high point of their basketball careers, but who is already paying dearly in public humiliation for his private failings. At any other school, his only job would be to beat his opponents; but at BYU, playing well and living right are both just part of the game.

The day the music died

Seven years, seven months…actually, almost eight months, if you’re keeping track. That feels right, but also way too short.

I started following the NBA around the 1996-97 season. I jumped on the Bulls bandwagon and will never regret it, but my favorite team was my hometown one, the Denver Nuggets. They went 21-61. The next year they were 11-71. I learned early on how few players actually made it big, even the most hyped. Antonio McDyess was one of the two real talents we had in those lean years, but his temperament and durability made him a disappointment. Still, I loved those teams: inside enforcers like Tommy Hammonds and Danny Fortson, the promising Bobby Jackson, the high-flying Darvin Ham, and even Nick Van Exel.

The other talent was a young point guard named Chauncey Billups who I once saw, in person, hit a three from about halfway between the three-point line and halfcourt to beat the shot clock. Like it was nothing. I remembered pulling for us to get him in the draft, but when he was on the team I didn’t recognize how good he could become, which probably made it easier to handle when we shipped him to the Magic.

Being a Nuggets fan, the draft was always the highlight of my year…until it happened. In 1998 I hoped against hope that the team would see the potential in Vince Carter, but we picked up the equally athletic Raef LaFrentz instead. I never thought I’d get over Carter, who I followed intensely in Toronto and whose dunks in the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest I can still recall, but five years later I would. Missing Carter gave us a shot at someone much better. (Besides, we should’ve taken Pierce or Nowitzki anyway.)

From there it was guys like James Posey, Nobody Blocks Your Shot Like Your Mamadou, and the immortal Tskitishvili. We were clearly destined to be terrible forever, though I was never quite comfortable admitting it.

Then came the one bright hope of awful NBA teams everywhere: LeBron James. I think he first popped up on my radar as a sophomore in high school, and it was a long wait for him to enter the draft, but he finally would in 2003.

I was so excited for the draft, I started reading up months before, particularly the prospect profiles on nbadraft.net, where I learned about Syracuse’s Carmelo Anthony, who really wasn’t that far behind LeBron as a prospect. So all we needed was a top two pick, especially after Carmelo lead his team to the national championship and won the Most Outstanding Player trophy in the NCAA tournament.

On draft lottery night, of course, the Nuggets ended up with the third pick of the draft.

But almost immediately—I could be wrong, but I think it was the same night—I saw Joe Dumars, personnel man of the contending Detroit Pistons, who’d ended up with that second pick, on TV talking up Darko Milicic. Darko is exactly the kind of guy the Nuggets would have picked high in the draft: tall, with tantalizing potential, capable of scoring multiple times per game against 45-year-old Yugoslavian chain-smokers in Europe. Clearly, he was just one low-post move away from the All-Star Game.

It was pretty set going into draft night that Melo was ours, and I think it was on draft night that I saw Carmelo in a national ad campaign, I think with Kirk Hinrich and Chris Bosh for the new version of NBA Live. I couldn’t believe it—a Nugget was a star all across the country.

That first year might have been the most exciting NBA season of my lifetime. Everyone remember LeBron’s Nike ad, portraying his first game, where he froze up under the pressure, then exploded for an off-camera basket and flashed a smile? Yeah, he was ready, but I remember Carmelo having a fantastic season as well, and I remember the night of their first head-to-head meeting. Nuggets-Cavs games would be showpieces for years, I just knew it. Then the Nuggets made the playoffs, which they hadn’t done, ever, since I’d been interested. Carmelo had a rough game or two, and I remember one of my friends saying he choked, which struck me as just stupid. At that point, at his age, to do what he did? He’d accomplished more than even MJ had at that age, if you ask me.

You know how the rest of the story goes. For years, the Nuggets were exciting, and could compete with anyone, but they struggled to get out of the first round. (Didn’t keep us from some memorable moments, like when I went to Kobe’s first game back in Colorado after some legal trouble, when Carmelo scored a bunch and we blew the Lakers out.) Then, in late 2008, we got Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson, a move I didn’t appreciate at the time, mostly because I still though of A.I. as the 2001 Answer, but which was a brilliant move. Billups had proven himself as a clutch performer on the title-winning team in Detroit, which upset the Lakers in 2004 despite Darko.

The next spring was beautiful, the most exciting basketball run I’ve ever followed, when the Nuggets decimated the New Orleans Hornets, beat the Dallas Mavericks (thanks in part to Carmelo’s winning three in Game Three), then hung with the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals for a few games before L.A. closed it out. Nuggets fans debated who was more critical to the team’s success, Carmelo or Chauncey, and while I differed from most (Melo was finally coming around and deserved credit), it was so exciting just to discuss it. Plus there was the Birdman, J.R. Smith playing lights-out in the first two rounds, and the atmosphere at the Pepsi Center. It was incredible.

Yes, we lost to the Jazz last year, and with an aging Billups our window was tiny…but still. What a team! And somehow we got Ty Lawson, too, who could, just maybe, learn enough from the master that we wouldn’t miss him too much.

Well, tonight that all ended, as Carmelo and Chauncey were sent off to the New York Knicks. As a Tar Heels fan, hurray, we got Raymond Felton…but some guys should never leave their teams, and Chauncey defines that category. A star player in Denver, the best baller in CU history, and an NBA star who just wanted to finish his playing days here. (One of my friends thought he heard of the possibility of a buyout that would bring him back here…I hope that’s true.)

Regardless of that, this is my worst day as an NBA fan, and I’m not sure I will ever follow the league the same way again. Or at all. Don’t delude yourself into thinking we got fair value in return. We didn’t, the Knicks owned us, and it’s going to be a long road back. The Nuggets may even remain in contention to make the playoffs the next few years, but if you think we’re the threat we once were, you’ve lost your mind.

(Postscript: I always thought Carmelo's playoff struggles were overblown, as he had so many game-winning shots in the regular season and played fine in '09 when he had a team around him. Thankfully I went to a Bulls game at the Pepsi Center over Thanksgiving and saw Carmelo hit a buzzer-beater in person for the first time. He's legit.)

The NFL hates you.

It's no joke. It seems like the more devoted of a fan you are, the less the league cares about your continued patronage.

The best example is the league's blackout policy, a wonderful gift from the league to its teams granting them added market pressure to charge whatever ridiculous amount they want for tickets. If a game doesn't sell out, the home market doesn't get to watch it on TV. (Basically, a 75-mile radius around the stadium doesn't get to see the game on TV if all the tickets aren’t bought first.)

The NFL, like a needy girlfriend, says, "Hey, fans, you like us? Prove it." Then the league asks us to prove it again and again, week after week, year after year.

I live within 75 miles of what should be John Elway Stadium, but Broncos fans are pretty much shielded from this stuff, right?

Not all of them. One of my friends is as supportive a fan as the NFL can have: he's a Broncos season ticket holder and an NFL Sunday Ticket subscriber. That means he can watch every game every week. Or, I should say, almost every game. When the Broncos travelled to Oakland this year, the Raiders (who destroyed us at Mile High) couldn't sell out the game, so despite a) holding season tickets to the road team and b) paying for the largest amount of football broadcasts available for sale, he couldn't watch the game. I mean, this guy loves the league, just hands them money all the time, and they still snatched away a little chunk of the season to spite his neighbors.

If the NFL can hate that guy, trust me. They hate you.

Further, don't expect the next NFL season to start on time. If they cared about maintaining the relationship they'd built with you over the years, I'd feel differently, but the owners haven't exactly struck me as eager to rush to the bargaining table. And why should they be? The TV deals are going to pay them, games or no games. Their only motivation to return is money; surely they'll make more this year if there's no lockout, right? But I doubt they'll pass on the opportunity to crush the players union.

And let there be no mistake: the owners are the villains in this. First, a lockout (which is what it seems we're headed for) is the opposite of a strike: it's when factory owners lock out the workers to keep them from working. I point this out because when baseball was headed for a labor stoppage in 2002, or when the NHL had its lockout, everyone blamed the greedy players, because the average person is an idiot.

Second, football players already have a pretty horrible deal compared to other sports, what with the non-guaranteed contracts, short careers, and terrifying medical futures. And yet, the other leagues are all still minting cash, so it’s not like the NFL teams need to make conditions any more favorable to themselves. Football players know the deal going in, perhaps, but that hardly makes owners' grab for additional profits any more just or palatable.

Yet we still hear horrific ideas like an 18-game season tossed around.

Two things I would love to see: a) the owners bear the brunt of the blame for any games that are missed. Even if I didn't think they deserved it, the publically-recognized athletes always get an undeserved share of the criticism. And b) some city that financed an NFL stadium go after the team for economic damages when the team starts skipping home games. The welfare for the wealthy that is publically-financed stadiums is at least mildly unconscionable, but if the citizens are going to take all the risk of building sports fortresses because of the (perhaps overblown) promise of economic growth in their city, well, they should get something back if the owner decides to just stop holding games. And if we can't get money from the teams somehow, find a way to put a targeted tax on whatever it is football team owners buy. Hmmm, perhaps on football teams themselves. Of course, the current Congress will probably just shut down the government again until the billionaires are taken care of, but that's the risk you run. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that Super Bowl, because I think it's going to be the last NFL game you're going to see for a while.

Screw Carmelo

If Carmelo Anthony wants out so badly, let’s make him stay.

I used to think the Nuggets should keep Carmelo for the whole year since having Carmelo gives us our best shot at a championship for the foreseeable future. (Not that it’s an especially good shot.) But now? Let’s just keep him out of pure vengeance.

Recent rumors suggested Carmelo would only sign his extension with the Nuggets if they trade him to New York. Here’s how it works: in the NBA, a player’s current team can offer a guy more money than any other team. This is intended to give teams a fighting chance in free agency to hold on to their best players. But if Carmelo wants out of Denver so badly, let him go! I can’t see a single reason for the Nuggets to give him the max deal if he’s not going to play here.

Well, there is one reason, and that’s if we can trade Carmelo for something truly worthwhile. That’s unlikely. We could probably get some projects, or maybe one good player and some stiffs, for Carmelo, which isn’t close to fair. Neither trade possibility is inherently more favorable than just getting the salary cap space, and neither gives the team the sweet satisfaction of watching the door smack Anthony on his way out.

Some would say the team is better off without Carmelo anyway, as we haven’t won anything with him (mostly true) and he’ll never win a championship anyway (unknowable). I agree that Anthony is unlikely to be the cornerstone of a dynasty, but could he win a ring? You bet. History has many examples of swingman scorers who led a team to a title: Rick Barry, Dwyane Wade, and Paul Pierce come to mind. He’d probably need a higher caliber of teammate than, say, a young Shaq required to bring home a ring, but he could do it.

Anthony’s denied the report that he would accept a trade only to New York (though I still think he ends up with the Knicks), but the principle stands. He’s not a free agent, so he doesn’t get to pick his team, and that’s that.

Unless the Nuggets are truly blown away by a trade offer, I say let him walk. Let him play in New York for less money. It won’t crush the franchise the way the Mutombo departure did. Simply put, there’s no way the team’s braintrust is as dumb as it was in the mid-90s. Mutombo was just one in an epic list of mistakes back then. If Carmelo leaves, we’ll survive, and he’ll just have to film more ads to make ends meet.

Hey, I’ll miss the guy. But if he doesn’t want to play for the Nuggets any longer, let’s not do him any favors.

It's been a long time, been a long time, been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time

Today the Denver Broncos fired Josh McDaniels as their head coach. The team (and, by extension, the league) feels worth following once again.

McDaniels got his first shot at a pro head coaching job in Denver at the age of 15. He was, it turned out, the Brian Griese of coaches. Like Griese, he followed an absolute legend, one of the best ever in the game, in Denver, where expectations run a mile higher than they should. Griese had a weak arm at a position that almost demands a strong one; McDaniels came to town without the instant respectability a tenured NFL coach carries. Both were young, promising, and disappointing. And, as with Griese’s 2000 Pro Bowl season, McDaniels showed one flash of brilliance that gave him just a little too much leash.

His 6-0 start last season was the stuff of legend, a brilliant-if-misleading spark that gave him just enough job security to make it until today. (I say misleading because three of the wins came in one-score games, and the record since suggests winning those games was as much of a result of luck as it was clutch execution.) It became clear down the stretch last season that McDaniels lacked the chops to right a sinking ship.

When the team lost some of its best guys on both sides of the ball (Brandon Marshall and Elvis Dumervil), 2010 quickly became a lost cause. It’s bad, but I stopped caring almost as soon as I started. I moved a church meeting off of Sundays so I could watch the games, but I missed most of them anyway. Life’s too short to pour your heart into a team that impresses neither in execution nor in heart.

See, if McDaniels had coached a young-but-talented team that always played with pride, that might have been acceptable. If injuries had derailed the season but gave some unknowns a chance to get experience, that might have made it worthwhile, too. But besides quarterback Kyle Orton’s statistics (and he’s cooling off), there are hardly any bright spots at all. Plus, you know. 59-14.

And perhaps McDaniels’ lot wasn’t that thankless. He inherited a Pro Bowl quarterback in Jay Cutler and one of the league’s rising stars in Marshall, both of whom he chased out of town after each showed a healthy amount of immaturity. (At the times they left, I would have kept both, though Cutler’s truly obnoxious and impossible to root for.) He got a shot to coach one of the finest organizations in the NFL, too.

Perhaps he’ll be a good head coach someday. Regardless of the future, firing him right now was the right call. McDaniels didn’t get it done or even get it underway, and I’m glad Broncos owner Pat Bowlen had the presence of mind to recognize that.

So. Who’s got next?

If our contract with Mike Shanahan doesn't allow us to order him back to the Denver sideline, I'd be happy with former Broncos assistants Gary Kubiak, Bobby Turner, or Joe Collier. But I'm looking forward to hearing who the candidates are. Any preferences? And isn't it time we start Tebow?

Elway turns 50!

Today is John Elway’s 50th birthday. (Thanks to Adam Schefter and my friend David for pointing this out.) In his honor, let’s look back on some of his greatest moments.

Elway capped his career with a second straight Super Bowl win and an MVP performance over the Atlanta Falcons.

Here’s a cool list of moments in video form. I love watching Elway immediately give T.D. props for Super Bowl XXXII.

We can’t discuss Elway without The Drive. (And Pat Bowlen was so much cooler in his fur coat days.)

I posted it a couple years ago, but Rick Reilly once did an exceptional profile on Elway that’s worth a read today.

Dexter Manley read this play like a book:

What the heck, another one from that Super Bowl loss:

How about when Elway started turning it around in his last AFC Championship Game, flipping the routes in a crazy wind?

Elway was and always will be my favorite athlete in any sport. The two Super Bowl wins that capped his career are the coolest sports story of my lifetime. The XXXII highlights still give me chills.

I would kill to watch that game again. Seriously, NFL, I got at least $100 with your name on it if you’ll put it on a DVD.

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On a side note, given that I don’t watch sports anymore, I don’t plan to post anything on this blog for at least a month. Maybe more. We’ll see how excited I am when the NFL rolls around. I’ll still be on HPE occasionally, so just drop these blogs in Google Reader or something and don’t bother checking here. Thanks for reading!