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2015: Winter Classic plot and characters

In 2015 Dear Sports Fan will be previewing the biggest sporting event of the year in each of the 50 states in the United States plus the district of Columbia. Follow along with us on our interactive 2015 map.

Washington D.C. — The Winter Classic

NHL Hockey — January 1, 2015 — Chicago Blackhawks at Washington Capitals, 1 p.m. ET on NBC.

The first thing to know about the National Hockey League’s Winter Classic is that it is aspirational in every aspect. The game is not a classic, it’s simply a regular season NHL game that is played outdoors on New Year’s Day. This tradition began in 2008 with a game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabers in Ralph Wilson Stadium, Buffalo’s NFL arena. An NHL spokesperson would probably argue that the word “classic” refers to the traditional aspect of playing hockey outdoors. I think it’s more about the NHL trying to make this a classic element of New Year’s Day for the sports-aware public. For the most part, I think it’s been a success. I’m looking forward to it! Here’s a few things I know about the plot and characters.

What’s the plot?

The plot of the Winter Classic has very little to do with the teams playing or the possible result of the game. Frankly, no one cares too much about the outcome of a one of 82 regular season games for two teams likely to make the playoffs. What the Winter Classic is about is pageantry and spectacle. I think I’ve watched some part of all seven Winter Classics and they’ve all provided stunning images in different ways. The games in football stadiums are amazing because of how many people decide to spend their New Year’s Day watching hockey in the freezing cold. The capacity of a football stadium is four to five times more than that of a hockey stadium. The football stadium games also feel more outdoors because the rink is placed right in the middle of a big rectangular field with lots of grass on all sides between the rink and the audience. The baseball stadium games have been cool because of their unique shape and history. Games have been played in the two oldest and most famous baseball parks, Wrigley Field in Chicago and Fenway Park in Boston. Both stadiums are so recognizable that they bring their own sense of cool to the games hosted there.

Aside from just putting a game outside, the NHL does other smart things to promote the game. From 2011 to 2013, the NHL arranged a partnership with HBO who filmed a near real-time documentary about the two teams playing in the Winter Classic and aired it weekly leading up to New Year’s Day. This was a great way for fans to learn their favorite teams (or rivals) and a pretty good way to introduce hockey to non-fans as well. HBO decided not to film another series this year and, although Epix took up the mantle, the results have not been as good. The teams always wear special issue throwback jerseys during the game which adds to the novelty, the classic feel (they’re usually homages to a previous era of uniform), and to the visual spectacle (they chose brighter colors).

This year’s game has a distinct (and to my taste, slightly unnecessary and tacky) flavor of Americana. It’s in Washington D.C.’s baseball stadium, where the Washington Nationals play, and not only have the hosts constructed a model of the U.S. Capital Building which the players will enter through, but they’ve also hired Lee Greenwood (much to some fans dismay) to sing his song, “God Bless the USA” between periods. The Winter Classic is a great showcase to market hockey to non-hockey fans but this year’s pseudo-patriotic pitch seems a little pandering to me. Nonetheless, Mike Emerick, who will be commentating this year’s game, is the absolute best in the business and I’m sure he’ll do a great job selling it.

Who are the characters?

Alexander Ovechkin — Known as “The Great Eight”, Alexander Ovechkin is one of the best goalscorers in hockey. When he’s on, his speed and power is only matched by his enthusiasm for playing hockey. Within a sport that values stoicism, Ovechkin shows more passion that most players, even the great ones. It’s hard to imagine a player more suited for responding to the rare thrill of playing outdoors with an explosive, joyous performance than Ovechkin. I expect him to score a couple goals, get penalized for a reckless hit, and be shown on TV, flashing his trademark toothless grin, at least fifty times.

Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane — The Blackhawks have won the Stanley Cup twice in the last five years, and the two players who have meant the most to the team in that time have been Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. They are a great study in contrasts. Toews is a center, Kane is a winger. Toews is Canadian, Kane is American. Toews is a responsible, defensive player, Kane is a free-lancing offensive specialist. Toews is a soft-spoken captain who leads his team by example, Kane is a party-boy extraordinaire who has sported a playoff mullet and been arrested for drunkenly assaulting a cab-driver. Together, this odd couple has made the Blackhawks perennially a championship contender and there’s no sign of them stopping.

Who’s going to win?

Who cares? I mean, I guess I’d go with the Blackhawks if I had to choose, but the bigger question is how well will this game serve the NHL? The Winter Classic is an important marketing vehicle for the league and they cleverly scheduled it before the two big college football playoff games (the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl). The only problem is, there are already reports that the game might be postponed an hour or more because of glare on the ice. If that happens, it will be hard to get the game in before all the general sports fans in the country switch the channel.

2015: Sugar Bowl plot and characters

Louisiana — The Sugar Bowl

College Football — January 1, 2015 — Alabama Crimson Tide vs. Ohio State Buckeyes, 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

The Sugar Bowl is one of three college football bowl games that claims to be the second oldest in the country. It was first played in 1935 and has been played annually in New Orleans or nearby ever since. For its first forty years, it was played at Tulane University’s stadium and was named the Sugar Bowl in honor of Etienne de Bore, the first mayor of New Orleans and a trailblazer in the industrialization of sugar. Since 1975, the game has been played in the New Orleans Superdome, where the New Orleans Saints of the NFL play. This year, the bowl game begins a new chapter in its history when it becomes one of two bowl games to host a semifinal in the first edition of the college football playoffs. The winner of this game will advance to the finals to play the winner of the Rose Bowl for the National Championship. It’s a big game! Let’s dig into its plot and characters.

What’s the plot?

This game doesn’t have the epic good vs. evil implications of the Rose Bowl but it is interesting in its own right. The first place to start is with the conferences. Ohio State is part of the Big Ten and Alabama is a member of the SEC (Southeastern Conference). Both conferences have long and powerful histories but the Big Ten has been seen as waning in power over the past five to ten years while the SEC has waxed to ascendency. If you look at this as simply a high ranked Big Ten school versus a high ranked SEC school, you’d expect the SEC team to win convincingly. As evidence of this bias, all ten Big Ten teams (there are actually 14 Big Ten football teams) that made it to bowl games were underdogs according to Vegas. Of the 12 SEC schools in bowl games, nine were favored to win. So far, the SEC prediction has been mostly true — they are 4-1 — but the Big Ten has been surprisingly successful. They are 2-3 so far. Other than the conference conflict, there’s not much going on from a plot perspective that isn’t character driven. These are two extremely good teams with long histories of winning.

Who are the characters?

The Coaches: Urban Meyer and Nick Saban — The two most compelling, albeit creepy, characters in this game are the two head coaches: Urban Meyer of Ohio State and Nick Saban of Alabama. In many ways, they are mirror images. They’ve both coached at several different colleges before their current one and won National Championhsips — Meyer at Florida and Saban at LSU. They’re both straight-laced and obsessive coaches. A quick Google search pops up articles with headlines like, “Why Alabama’s Nick Saban is Against Texting” and “The Joyless Triumph of Nick Saban” as well as “For Nick Saban and Urban Meyer, no room for satisfaction before college football playoff“. If you ask me, they are prime examples of the type of megalomaniacal, self-aggrandizing, obsessive-compulsive snakes that seem to be attracted to powerful jobs like football coach and President of the United States. Luckily I think we do a better job filtering the worst of them out in politics than in football.

T.J. Yeldon — Yeldon is a running back for the Alabama Crimson Tide and the team’s most dynamic playmaker. In years past, he’d probably be projected as a first round draft pick in this year’s NFL draft, but teams seem to have figured out that because running backs have such short careers and are more interchangeable than other positions in the NFL, it’s not worth drafting them early in the draft. Yeldon will still probably go in the second round. The drama that he brings to this game is in the form of a series of questions: how much, how well, and how will he play? He’s been suffering from an injured ankle and hamstring and the latest news from the Alabama camp is that he will only be used sporadically throughout the game because he’s missed so much practice time. It’s possible that’s true, I’m sure the Alabama staff is thinking about the National Championship game and wanting to protect their best weapon for that game, but it could also be complete bunk — an attempt to deceive Ohio State into not preparing for a full dose of Yeldon.

Cardale Jones — Quarterback is by far the most important single position in football. Great quarterbacks are extremely rare and even functional ones are difficult to find. Teams that lose their starting quarterback to a long term injury very rarely have an acceptable backup who can maintain the level of play at a high enough level for the team to succeed. Teams that lose their first and second string quarterback are almost always dead in the water. We’re seeing that now in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals whose play has declined dramatically as they descended from Carson Palmer to Drew Stanton to Ryan Lindley. Ohio State has been through the exact same series of injuries this year but each time they lose a quarterback, a new one steps in and the team doesn’t miss a beat. Cardale Jones is the third quarterback up for Ohio State and in his first game as a starter, he led the Ohio State team to a 59-0 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship game. Now he’s had a couple weeks to rest, practice, and learn, which is good, but he’s also had a couple weeks to be bombarded by well-intentioned but ultimately questionable adulation and pressure from friends, family, and fans. Jones has an almost stereotypically hard-luck back-story and I certainly hope that he beats the odds to play well in this game.

Who’s going to win?

Alabama is favored by nine points and I’ve got to agree with that assessment. Everything points towards Alabama winning this game. The biggest mystery is whether Cardale Jones collapses in his second start or if he plays well, but even if he plays well, I don’t see it being enough to help Ohio State win.

Sports Forecast for Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

In today’s segment, I covered:

NCAA Football – Ole Miss vs. TCU in the Peach Bowl, 12:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
NCAA Basketball – Butler at Villanova, 12:30 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.
World Junior Hockey Championship – United States at Canada, 4 p.m. ET on NHL Network.
NCAA Football – Mississippi State vs. Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
And more!

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link.

Music by Jesse Fischer.

What happened on Tuesday, December 30, 2014?

The luck of the Irish strikes again: Notre Dame narrowly beat LSU in the Music City Bowl (college football). The score was 31-28 but that doesn’t take into account the few unlikely or controversial things that happened to take points off the board for LSU. Notre Dame blocked a field goal (not lucky but unlikely) and what looked like an LSU touchdown on fourth down with time expiring in the first half was ruled not a touchdown.
Line: The luck of the Irish! Of course, LSU has the “luck of the cajun” so either way we’d be saying someone was lucky.
Double overtime: The college basketball game between Maryland and Michigan State went into double overtime before a winner could be decided. Maryland won 68-66, cementing their place in the top 15 teams in the country. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo was not happy with the way the game was played and officiated and went off in a somewhat good natured way in the post-game press conference.
Line: Double overtime is exciting but in terms of conclusions you can make about the teams, it usually should be considered a tie. They’re both very good.
Nets beat Bulls: The Brooklyn Nets have been a disappointing yet not completely surprising team all year. They’re playing a little better lately and creeping closer to having won half their games. Last night they beat the Bulls impressively, 96-82. Their often injured, usually slightly bumbling center, Brook Lopez, had his best game of the season and scored 29 points!
Line: It’s a good thing the Nets are playing better this year because they basically mortgaged their next five or six years for the last three.

2015: Rose Bowl plot and characters

California — The Rose Bowl

College Football — January 1, 2015 — Oregon Ducks vs. Florida State Seminoles, 5 p.m. ET on ESPN.

The Rose Bowl is a college football game with a long history and an exciting present. It has traditionally been played on New Year’s Day and this year is no different. What is different this year is that it will be one of two games playing the role of semifinal games in the new college football playoff system. The winner of the Rose Bowl will go on to play in a National Championship game later in January. This is the first time in recent history that a team could play more than once during “bowl season” and it’s widely seen as either a great innovation, an obvious solution that college football should have adopted years ago, or just another symptom of college football’s never ending slide into hypocrisy and greed. However you see it in the big picture, in the small picture, it’s a prospectively exciting football game. Let’s talk about the plot and learn the characters.

What’s the plot?

This game is likely to be cast as everything that’s bad about college football vs. everything that’s good. The Florida State Seminoles are playing the role of the bad guys here. Why? Well, let’s see. You start out with a racially questionable nickname (although the relationship with the existing Seminole tribe is one area where the college seems to have excelled) add a quarterback who has been arrested but not indicted on sexual assault charges and whose less serious behavior seems evidently dumb from other incidents (he was arrested for shoplifting crab-legs and suspended for shouting a purportedly amusing, sexually charged vulgar phrase) then mix in an New York Times expose on how the football program has warped the justice system over many years and you’ve got exactly the recipe for a team that most people would be happy rooting against. As a bonus, Florida State has won their last 27 games and last year’s national championship. Everyone likes a winner, just not this one. The Oregon Ducks are not necessarily an ideal candidate to play the good guys, but they will be viewed that way just because they are opposing Florida State. The Ducks came to prominence over the last fifteen years thanks to an extremely close relationship with Nike, whose headquarters are near the school. Before they were a good team, they were just the team that seemed to have an infinite number of infinitely bright uniforms. Then, as they got good, they became known for being coach Chip Kelly’s masterpiece of revolutionary, faced paced football. Even though Kelly has moved on to the NFL, the team’s image remains the same — an exciting offensive team that doesn’t quite have enough power to win the biggest games.

Who are the characters?

Jameis Winston — Winston is the quarterback of the Florida State Seminoles. He is the one who has been arrested for sexual assault. I know people are innocent until proven guilty in this country (although that’s a legal rule, not a blogging rule) but I’m more likely to think O.J. Simpson was truly innocent (he’s covering for his son!) than feel good about rooting for Winston. I think this is a pretty wide-spread belief (not the O.J. part) and that says moderately good things about our country. Winston has also never lost a college football game, and if he wins his last two this season before turning pro, he should probably be considered one of the best five players in college football history. Ouch. Marcus Mariota — As long as Mariota can get through the month without shredding his knees, he will be the first pick of next year’s NFL draft. He’s the prototypical modern quarterback. He’s tall (6’4″), fast (sub 4.5 seconds for the 40 yard dash, which is faster than you can imagine), and a good decision maker. If were were better than terrible at identifying good NFL quarterbacks, Mariota would be a sure thing. He’s also a senior, playing his third year for the Oregon Ducks (he sat out his freshman year.) When he won the Heisman trophy this year, he became the first Hawaiian born player to ever get that honor given to the best college football player each year. Mark Helfrich — Who? Right, that’s the point. Even sports fans don’t know who Mark Helfrich is. He’s the head coach of the Oregon Ducks. Reading this excellent article about him by Michael Weinreb in Grantland makes me feel like maybe the whole good vs. bad plot is actually legitimate. Here’s a few tidbits about Helfrich. He grew up in Oregon and loved the Ducks as a kid, even when they were terrible. He played college quarterback for Southern Oregon and later as a pro in Austria during the NFL’s flirtation with developing a minor league in Europe. Instead of screaming and yelling, like many coaches do during the game, he is “thorough and utterly prepared and calm on the sideline, an intellectual at heart who happens to be a football coach.”

Who’s going to win?

Oregon is actually favored by nine points. I take this to mean two things. First, that Vegas thinks Oregon is a little better than Florida State. And second, that Vegas thinks way more people want to bet on the good guys than the bad guys. I think Oregon will win but I fear Florida State might.

What happened on Monday, December 29, 2014?

Everyone got fired: The day after the last regular season game in the NFL is unofficially known as Black Monday because it’s a day when many teams, whose owners feel they underperformed, fire their coaches and general managers. Yesterday the Chicago Bears and New York Jets fired their coach and GM, the Atlanta Falcons fired their coach, and the San Francisco 49ers and their coach, Jim Harbaugh, “mutually agreed” to part ways.
Line: I flip flop between real sympathy for those fired and indignation that I should feel any sympathy for people making millions of dollars who will easily find other high-paying jobs.
Two duds and a gem: Of the three college football bowl games yesterday, two were lopsided duds: Clemson beat Oklahoma 40-6 in the Russell Athletic Bowl and Arkansas beat Texas 31-7 in the Advocare V100 Texas Bowl. Only the Liberty Bowl between Texas A&M vs. West Virginia was a good game. Texas A&M narrowly edged West Virginia 45-37 thanks to a big day from their freshman quarterback, Kyle Allen. West Virginia almost won despite their quarterback having even less experience. How can you have less experience than a freshman? You could be like Skyler Howard, who (according to ESPN) was “making his second career start in place of Clint Trickett, who announced Friday he was giving up football because of multiple concussions.”
Line: College football shootouts are so much fun to watch but they make me feel a little dirty.
Liverpool crushes Swansea: Liverpool beat Swansea 4-1 yesterday in the only game on the British Premier League schedule. This victory vaults Liverpool up from 10th place, all the way to… 8th place. But really, the victory was actually kind of a big deal. Liverpool was all over Swansea, who had been ranked ahead of them. They even scored one of those fluky goals where an attacker leaped at the goalie as he was kicking the ball up-field and it actually bounced off the attackers back and went right into the goal.
Line: This victory puts Liverpool in striking distance as the first half of the season ends.
Wizards prove themselves: I said yesterday on the daily Dear Sports Fan Sports Forecast that the game between the Wizards and the Rockets was a good chance for the Wizards to prove themselves as a championship caliber basketball team. They did just that by beating the Rockets in a close, one-point game, 104-103. The Wizards fired on cylinders young and old. 21 year-old Bradley Beal led them with 33 points and 37 year-old Paul Pierce did his share with 21.
Line: Looks like the Wizards are for real!

Sports Forecast for Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

In today’s segment, I covered:

NCAA Basketball – Maryland at Michigan State, 5 p.m. ET on ESPN.
NCAA Football – Notre Dame vs. LSU in the Music City Bowl, 3 p.m. ET on ESPN.
NHL Hockey — St. Louis Blues at Nashville Predators, 8 p.m. ET on regional cable.
NBA Basketball – Brooklyn Nets at Chicago Bulls, 8 p.m. ET on regional cable.

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link.

Music by Jesse Fischer.

2015 in the United States of Sports: Interactive

For the last week or two, I’ve been slowly adding features to the 2015 in the United States of Sports feature. First I designed a map and offered a free paper or .pdf copy in exchange for an email subscription. That deal is still going, by the way! Then I added a table showing all 51 (with Washington D.C.) events in a table view in order of date. This is an easier, albeit less beautiful, way of perusing the sporting events. Over my holiday vacation last week, I worked on my newest addition to the map, which I am releasing in this post. It’s an interactive Google map that looks just like the original map, but it’s interactive! Click on each of the states to see its event, date, and sport. As I preview all 51 events over the next year, I will add a link to the post in this interactive map. This interactive map will slowly become your guide to the biggest sporting events in each state during 2015!

Here’s the map:

Just watch out, unlike on the original, I was unable to transplant Alaska and Hawaii into the missing Mexican mainland. They are in their geo-normative positions in the interactive map.

The deal — get a free copy

If you’d like a paper or .pdf copy of the map, please subscribe to our email list and I will mail you one.

More to come

Keep your eyes peeled to this channel — by the end of New Year’s Day, three (three!) states’ biggest sporting event of 2015 will be in the rear-view mirror. I’ll have a preview of the Rose Bowl (California), Sugar Bowl (Louisiana), and Winter Classic (Washington D.C.) written and added to the interactive map by the time the ball drops on New Year’s Eve!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Week 17 NFL One Liners

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by Google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

Week 17

Sunday, December 28, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Buffalo Bills 17, at New England Patriots 9

Winning football games is hard and tiring and bruising. The Patriots had no need to win this game because no combination of results this weekend could have kept them from being the top team in the AFC and guaranteed to host all of the games they play in the playoffs until the Super Bowl.
Line: The Patriots didn’t need it, so they didn’t win it.

Cleveland Browns 10, at Baltimore Ravens 20

The Ravens needed to win this game and have a couple other things happen in the early games to make the playoffs. While they were winning the game, the other couple things happened. They’re in!
Line: The Ravens needed some help to get into the playoffs but what they could control (beating the Browns,) they did control.

Chicago Bears 9, at Minnesota Vikings 13

What a lost season from the Chicago Bears. They were expected to make the playoffs and instead, they only won five games. The Vikings can feel moderately good about themselves. They won seven games this year while mostly playing a rookie quarterback.
Line: There’s be hope today in Minnesota but the same can’t be said for Chicago.

Dallas Cowboys 44, at Washington Redskins 17

The Cowboys wanted to win this game in order to better their playoff seed. Still, you get the feeling that even if they hadn’t wanted to win, they might have won anyway. That’s how deeply depressing this season was for Washington.
Line: Hey, if you’re feeling sad about the end of the NFL regular season, just think — at least it means no more watching the Redskins!

Jacksonville Jaguars 17, at Houston Texans 23

The Texans are this year’s hard-luck team. They’re going to just miss out on the playoffs, but you have to wonder what would have been if they hadn’t been forced to go down to their third quarterback… when their first two weren’t that good to start out with!
Line: I feel bad for the Texans — I wish they could have snuck into the playoffs.

Indianapolis Colts 27, at Tennessee Titans 10

The Colts didn’t really have any reason to win this game, but after losing so badly last week, this must have felt somewhat cathartic. The Titans wanted to lose to try to get the first pick in next year’s draft, but unfortunately for them, Tampa Bay lost also to clinch that first pick for themselves.
Line: Meaningless victory for the Colts.

San Diego Chargers 7, at Kansas City Chiefs 19

By beating the San Diego Chargers, the Kansas City Chiefs knocked them out of the playoffs. Too bad for the Chiefs that the Ravens were simultaneously knocking them out of the playoffs.
Line: Talk about bitter-sweet victories. No one watching this game ended up happy.

New York Jets 37, at Miami Dolphins 24

Playing the day after reports surfaced that Jets head coach Rex Ryan had already cleaned his office out in the expectation of being fired, the Jets finally looked good on offense.
Line: Ha! Maybe Rex Ryan was so busy cleaning out his office that he didn’t have time to ruin the offensive game plan.

New Orleans Saints 23, at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20

The Saints counter-intuitively helped a division rival by beating the Buccaneers today and therefore ensuring that they will pick first in next year’s NFL draft. The draft is no sure thing, but the Buccaneers fans are happier today than the Saints fans.
Line: It’s a hard call — do you try to lose to keep a rival from getting the first pick?

Philadelphia Eagles 34, at New York Giants 26

The season ends for these teams the way it’s been all along. The Eagles are marginally better than the Giants, but neither are good enough to compete with the best in the NFL.
Line: The tri-state area gets shut out from the playoffs.

SUNDAY, December 28, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Carolina Panthers 34, at Atlanta Falcons 3

Well, that wasn’t close. The Panthers beat the Falcons to win the NFC South and clinch a playoff spot. Despite having a losing record, the Panthers look like a dangerous team. They’ve won their last four games and because they are a division winner, they’ll get to host their first playoff game.
Line: Wouldn’t it just be so typical of the NFL if the Panthers made a run in this year’s playoffs?

Oakland Raiders 14, at Denver Broncos 47

The Broncos left nothing up to chance when it came to making sure they got a bye week.
Line: Peyton Manning wanted to rest up. Or maybe just film some more commercials!

Detroit Lions 20, at Green Bay Packers 30

Aaron Rodgers gave the Packers fans a scare when he went down (while throwing a touch down, mind you,) grabbing his calf. He’ll have an extra week to rest and recuperate thanks to this victory over the Lions which clinched a first round bye in the playoffs.
Line: Aaron Rodgers is remarkable.

Arizona Cardinals 17, at San Francisco 49ers 20

The Cardinals are struggling mightily and valiantly to win games with their third quarterback starting. It’s not working.
Line: I know they’ll probably lose, but I can’t help but root for the Cardinals in the playoffs.

St. Louis Rams 6, at Seattle Seahawks 20

The Seahawks clinched the number one seed in their conference, and (like the Patriots in theirs) home field throughout the playoffs.
Line: The poor Rams — so decent and so trapped in a division with way better than decent teams.

SUNDAY, December 21, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Cincinnati Bengals 17, at Pittsburgh Steelers 27

By winning this game, the Steelers won their division and will now host the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the playoffs. By losing, the Bengals need to travel to Indianapolis in the first round. It’s not clear to me that there’s that much of a competitive advantage to hosting Baltimore over traveling to Indianapolis. It’s certainly not worth losing your best offensive player for, which is exactly what happened to both teams. Steelers running back, Le’veon Bell left the game with a knee injury and Bengals wide receiver, A.J. Green, left with a possible concussion.
Line: In this case, I don’t think the playoff seeding was worth the collateral damage.

What happened on Sunday, December 28, 2014?

The last Sunday of the NFL regular season: That’s right, it’s all over but the shouting… and the playoffs. The shouting and the playoffs begin this coming weekend. Until then, the sports world will be buzzing with talk about the NFL season. For all your football talking needs, check out our last 2014 regular season edition of our NFL One Liner recaps.
Gridlock at the top of the Premier League: You could easily be forgiven for thinking that yesterday might have been a dynamic day for the standings in British Soccer’s Premier League. Instead, the first place team (Chelsea) played the fourth place team (Southampton) and… tied. The second place team (Manchester City) could have taken advantage of that by beating up on the second to last place team (Burnley) but they… tied. And the third place team (Manchester United) would have moved up as well if it could have beaten the seventh place team (Tottenham Hotspur) but they… tied. Gah!
Line: Well, they are British soccer teams, maybe they were just being polite to one another?
Time for change in Cleveland?: The Cleveland Cavaliers lost badly (103-80) to the Detroit Pistons in Cleveland yesterday. This is notable because the Pistons are among the worst teams in the NBA and the Cavaliers were supposed to be a super team built around the greatest player in this era of NBA history, LeBron James. The Cavaliers have a fine record (18-12) but I wonder if at some point, the embarrassing performance will lead to their coach getting fired.
Line: It feels like coach David Blatt’s rope gets shorter and shorter with every bad loss.