Category: Following Sports

Week 12 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 12

Sunday, November 23, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Cleveland Browns 26, at Atlanta Falcons 24

The Browns keep Cleveland’s magical sports year going with a victory. Sure, it was a two point victory on a last second field goal over a 4-7 team, but still.
Line: The Browns continue to look good but they still seem like they play the worst teams every week.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 13, at Chicago Bears 21

All of Chicago must have been mournfully eating deep-dish pizza at halftime with their Bears down 10-0. Luckily for them, the Bears offense woke up in the second half and rattled off 21 straight points.
Line: Up and down, down and down, down and up, that’s the Chicago Bears this year.

Cincinnati Bengals 21, at Houston Texans 13

People in the NFL media talk about “coaching trees” and judge coaches, in part by their ability to foster assistants who later become successful head coaches. The Tom Brady “quarterback tree”, which numbers at least two current quarterbacks, including Texans Ryan Mallett, is not a healthy one. Mallett struggled in second start and the Texans could not overcome his play.
Line: Ryan Mallett played like a new starter on Sunday.

Detroit Lions 9, at New England Patriots 34

Meanwhile, the real Tom Brady continues to stand up. Last week the Patriots won by running the ball through the center of the defense. This week, the Patriots took a look at their opponent, saw that their run defense was very good, and decided to throw the ball a lot. Brady completed 38 of 53 (that’s a lot) pass attempts and led the team to victory.
Line: The Patriots vary their game plan more from week to week than any other team.

Green Bay Packers 24, at Minnesota Vikings 21

This was a close game but as an observer, you probably felt that the Packers were never seriously at risk for losing it. You would have been right.
Line: This game was not as close as the score makes it seem.

Jacksonville Jaguars 3, at Indianapolis Colts 23

Oh boy. After seeming marginally competent for a few weeks, the Jaguars are back to their old tricks.
Line: This game was exactly as close as the score makes it seem.

Tennesse Titans 24, at Philadelphia Eagles 43

It’s an interesting truth about the NFL that the measure of a good team is more that they beat bad teams by a lot than that they win close games against good teams. The Eagles did their best to prove that they were good by beating up on the not-so-good Titans.
Line: The Eagles outclassed the Titans.

SUNDAY, November 23, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

St. Louis Rams 24, at San Diego Chargers 27

The Rams continue to prove to everyone that they can play with the best teams in the league. What differentiates them is their inability to consistently beat the bad teams (like the Eagles did the Titans.)
Line: If the Rams could play as well against the bad teams as they do against the good ones, losing a game like this wouldn’t hurt so badly.

Arizona Cardinals 3, at Seattle Seahawks 19

The Seahawks pretty much knew that they had to win this game to have a shot at winning their division. The Cardinals didn’t know anything that drastic, so it’s no surprise the game turned out this way.

Miami Dolphins 36, at Denver Broncos 39

The Dolphins continue to develop into one of the best teams in the NFL. Peyton Manning continues to cement his legacy as one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history.
Line: Hey, I’d like to see this game again, please. Please?

Washington Redskins 13, at San Francisco 49ers 17

The 49ers have now won their last three games and six of their last eight without inspiring virtually any confidence in their worth as a team. The Redskins have inspired thousands of statements about their worth as a team over that time but none that are safe for publication on this website.
Line: Another week, another uninspiring 49ers win.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Dallas Cowboys 31, at New York Giants 28

Just this:

Nothing else that happened is worth talking about more than that.
Line: HOLY SHIT, DID YOU SEE THAT CATCH???

NFL Week 12 Good Cop, Bad Cop Precaps

The NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps.

Week 12

Sunday, November 23, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Cleveland Browns at Atlanta Falcons

Good cop: The Browns are only one half game out of first place in their division and the Falcons are tied for first place in theirs! As we get closer to the end of the season, the margin for error gets smaller and smaller!

Bad cop: All that is true but what you’re glossing over is that the 6-4 Browns are tied for last place in their division while the 4-6 Falcons are tied for first in theirs. Divisions are stupid.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Chicago Bears

Good cop: These teams both had big wins last week to keep their seasons alive!

Bad cop: Alive but in a persistent vegetative state.

Cincinnati Bengals at Houston Texans

Good cop: These teams have shown themselves to be adaptable survivors this year! The Texans are on their second quarterback of the year and may be missing their best running back too! The Bengals were without their best offensive player for more than a month! These teams show how football is a true team game!

Bad cop: It’s a team game but that doesn’t mean you can win the Super Bowl without stars. These teams don’t have stars.

Detroit Lions at New England Patriots

Good cop: I can’t wait to see this game! The Lions have a top three defense this year but no one is smarter at figuring out how to attack defenses than Patriots coach Bill Bellichick and quarterback Tom Brady!

Bad cop: I got nothing.

Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings

Good cop: The Vikings are building a new stadium, so this year they are playing outdoors on the University of Minnesota’s field! That means these two NFC North division rivals will get to play a cold-weather home game in Minnesota! Old-school!

Bad cop: If the Vikings defense manages to even dirty Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ jersey a little bit, I’ll be surprised.

Jacksonville Jaguars at Indianapolis Colts

Good cop: Young quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Blake Bortles might be rivals for the next decade or more!

Bad cop: True. And maybe one day it will be a good rivalry, but for now I’m guessing we’ll see another game like the one between them earlier in the year when the Colts beat the Jaguars 44 to 17.

Tennesse Titans at Philadelphia Eagles

Good cop: The Eagles try to get back on track after their blow-out loss to the Packers last weekend!

Bad cop: And if they can’t beat the Titans, watch out for the Philly fans to pelt the field with boos, bottles, and batteries. That’s how bad the Titans are. That’s how they do in Philly.

SUNDAY, November 23, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

St. Louis Rams at San Diego Chargers

Good cop: The Rams are giant killers! They specialize in bringing strong teams to their knees! Their last three wins have been against the excellent Broncos, 49ers, and Seahawks! Let’s see if they can keep it going against the Chargers! 

Bad cop: I’m not sure that I’d label the Chargers as an excellent team. In fact, I’m sure I wouldn’t. The Chargers’ last four games have been a close win over the Raiders, close losses to the Chiefs and Broncos, and a terrible loss to the Dolphins. The Chargers are just bad enough to easily beat the Rams.

Arizona Cardinals at Seattle Seahawks

Good cop: If the Seahawks lose this game, they’re morally eliminated (as opposed to mathematically) from catching the Cardinals for the division title! They’re gonna play hard!

Bad cop: Of course they will. Professional football players are paid to play hard. That said, you’re right, I think this will be a good game too. Which, means it will probably be terrible. Might as well just skip it.

Miami Dolphins at Denver Broncos

Good cop: The Dolphins are one of the hottest teams in the league over the last two months! Their only two losses in that time were three or four point losses to quality teams! Meanwhile, the Broncos just lost a stunner to the Rams! I think the Dolphins have a shot here!

Bad cop: Facing a pissed off Peyton Manning at home in Denver? I don’t think so.

Washington Redskins at San Francisco 49ers

Good cop: The two biggest soap-operas of the 2014 season face each other in a football game! How could you miss this?!

Bad cop: Daytime television at its worst.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants

Good cop: The Giants are the most dangerous kind of rival — the rival with nothing to play for except your demise! Watch out Cowboys!

Bad cop: The Cowboys are the most dangerous kind of rival — the rival that’s better than you. Watch something else.

MONDAY, November 24, AT 7:00 and 8:30 P.M. ET

New York Jets vs. Buffalo Bills in Detroit

Good cop: Fresh off their good deeds, the Buffalo Bills travel to Detroit to cheer up their fans with a victory!

Bad cop: I have to say, after 9+ feet of snow in a week, I do hope the people of Buffalo get their power back in time to see their team beat the Jets.

Baltimore Ravens at New Orleans Saints

Good cop: Despite their up and down seasons, these two teams are still in the drivers seat to make the playoffs… if they can win this game!

Bad cop: I like the driving metaphor. The Ravens are stuck in a traffic jam in the AFC North division. The Saints are close to the head of the pack in the tricycle race that is the NFC South.

Sports Forecast for Friday, November 21, 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:

  • NHL Hockey – New York Islanders at Pittsburgh Penguins, 7 p.m. ET on regional cable.
  • NBA Basketball – Cleveland Cavaliers at Washington Wizards, 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
  • NCAA Basketball – Texas vs. California at Madison Square Garden, 7 p.m. ET on ESPN 2.
  • NCAA Football – Air Force at San Diego State, 9:30 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.
  • 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 Thursday, November 20, 2014?

  1. On any given Thursday: Well, it happened again. The most seemingly lopsided game of the week, the game I featured on my Do Not Watch This Game column because it was going to be so unfortunately one sided, turned out to be a close, exciting game where the underdog won. I gotta stop writing that column or at least I need to base it on something other than my prediction of which game is most predictable. The until last night winless Oakland Raiders beat the Kansas City Chiefs 24-20 on a rainy night in Oakland.
    Line: Bad though they may be, the Raiders are professionals and their pride shone through last night.
  2. Better in Toronto: Crisis averted in Toronto, where two straight horrible losses for the city’s hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, may have created a true city crisis. Instead, they’re celebrating a 5-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. And just like that, they’re fine. Their record is ten wins, eight losses, and two overtime losses. That’s fine, everybody chill out!
    Line: Hey, the Maple Leafs are fine. Everything is fine in Toronto. Really. 
  3. A new day in California Basketball: Everything is topsy-turvy in the NBA in California this year. The Clippers are way better than the Lakers, as they showed last night by beating the Miami Heat comfortably 110-93, and the Sacramento Kings are consistently good. The Kings beat the visiting Chicago Bulls 103 to 88 last night.
    Line: Up is down, down is up, and the Kings and Clippers are good!?
  4. Another early season upset in college basketball: The Syracuse Orange dropped their first game of the year 73-59 against the California Golden Bears. This game was part of an early season tournament called the 2K classic being played at Madison Square Garden. Cal now moves on to the finals to play Texas.
    Line: We’re used to seeing Syracuse play heroically in the Garden but I guess things have changed.
    What’s Next: California plays Texas tonight in the finals of the 2k classic, at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

Do Not Watch This Game 11.22.14 Weekend Edition

For sports fans, the weekend is a cornucopia of wonderful games to watch. This is particularly true in the fall with its traditional pattern of College Football on Saturday and NFL Football on Sunday and Monday. As the parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend of a sports fan, this can be a challenge. It must be true that some games are more important to watch than others but it’s hard to know which is which. As a sports fan, the power of habit and hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars get in the way of remembering to take a break from sports and do something with your parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend. To aid all of us in this, and just because it’s fun, I’m going to write a weekly post highlighting a single game that is ideal for skipping. Use this to help tell yourself or someone else: “Do not watch this game!”

Thursday, 8:25 p.m. ET, NFL Football, Kansas City Chiefs at Oakland Raiders. It’s on the NFL Network, but do not watch this game!

Some weeks, it’s difficult to write this post. After all, I am a big sports fan. I play fantasy football. I often say that I’m happy watching any kind of sporting event at all, and it’s true. I’ve got a long record of stopping on the sidewalk in New York to watch kids play basketball or handball. One of the elements of a trip in Europe I took last year which I loved was watching all the weird sports they televise out there in hotel rooms. Plus, I’m an optimistic guy — I always think the underdog has a chance to win. So, it’s sometimes tricky for me to pick a game to suggest skipping. The way I usually write the post is this. I head over to 506 Sports NFL maps to see which games are being televised when and to who. There’s no point in recommending that you skip one a game that only a small portion of the country could see anyway. For that reason, I look at the nationally televised NFL games first — Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights, and then if all of them are too good to miss, I look on Sunday afternoon to see if there is a relatively big game that’s worth looking twice at. I look at point spreads to find games that are unlikely to be close and read other people’s previews of the NFL to hear what they think of the weekend’s slate of games.

I didn’t have to do any of that this week. This week, the answer is so clear, it basically leaps up out of my laptop screen and slaps me in the face as if I’m in Monty Python and it’s a fish. The Thursday Night football game this week is absolutely not worth watching! I’m not even going to provide an alternative this week. If you’re a Raiders fan, then… I’m sorry but save yourself the heartache and do something else. If you’re a Chiefs fan, have some mercy. You don’t need to see your team blow the poor Raiders out of the water.

The Raiders are winless so far this season and they look suspiciously like they might end the year that way too. It’s not all bad for them, they’ve been starting a rookie quarterback, Derek Carr, who looks like he might be quite good at some point. After all, even great quarterbacks like Peyton Manning (who went 3-13 his rookie year) need some time to mature. The Raiders have also managed to keep a bunch of their games relatively close. They came within a touchdown of beating the Chargers last week. They stuck nicely with the Seahawks a few weeks ago as well as the Patriots in Week 3. The problem is, the Chiefs are not to be trifled with right now. After starting the season slowly, they’ve won five games in a row and seven of the last eight. They’re fourth in the league at running the ball, averaging over 140 yards per game at an average of almost five yards per rush. The Raiders are the sixth worst in the league at rush defense. Not a combination that’s going to make for a good game.

Look, I can’t lie to you. There’s a part of me that does want to watch this game. There’s a 99% chance that it’s going to be horribly lopsided, which means there’s a 1% chance that it’s going to be hysterical and exciting to watch the Raiders win. In some ways, that’s more fun than a game that’s 50/50. Still, if you want to skip a night of sports, this is a good one to skip. We’re about to enter a period of eight days with an extra full day of football (three games on Thanksgiving) so it’s probably a good idea to store up some non-football watching goodwill.

Sports Forecast for Thursday, November 20, 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:

  • NHL Hockey – St. Louis Blues at Montreal Canadiens, 7:30 p.m. ET on regional cable.
  • NHL Hockey – Tampa Bay Lightening at Toronto Maple Leafs, 7:30 p.m. ET on regional cable.
  • NBA Basketball – Los Angeles Clippers at Miami Heat, 8 p.m. ET on TNT.
  • NBA Basketball – Chicago Bulls at Sacramento Kings, 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT.
  • NCAA Basketball – Syracuse at California, 9 p.m. ET on ESPN 2.
  • NCAA Football – Kansas State at West Virginia, 7 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.
  • NFL Football – Kansas City Chiefs at Oakland Raiders, 8:25 p.m. ET on NFL Network.
  • 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 Wednesday, November 19, 2014?

  1. LeBron loses the ball and the game: The Cleveland Cavaliers had the ball, two points down, with six seconds remaining in their game against the San Antonio Spurs. Most of the time, that’s more than enough time for LeBron James to run down the court and get a good shot off. Last night, however, he stumbled a little while navigating around a couple Spurs defenders, and lost control of the ball. Game over, Spurs win — a familiar feeling for LeBron, who lost last year’s finals to the Spurs as a member of the Heat.
    Line: LeBron just lost the ball. Seems like that wouldn’t of happened the last few years in Miami.
  2. Howard doesn’t play, Lakers win: The other nationally televised NBA basketball game last night was the Los Angeles Lakers at the Houston Rockets. The most compelling thing about the game was the potential of continued animosity between Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard. Howard missed the game with a knee injury, so that storyline withered. The Lakers beat the short-handed Rockets. This is their second win in a row after losing nine of their first ten games.
    Line: The Lakers are on a roll! [said with a certain amount of irony because even two wins in a row only means they’ve won 1/4 of their games.]
  3. Creighton upsets Oklahoma: One of the fun things about writing about sports is making LOTS of predictions about games. Because of a natural human tendency to ignore uninteresting things and remember interesting ones, this means that when I get something right, it’s more memorable than nine other times I get something wrong. I got this one right yesterday when I said to watch out for a Creighton upset. Indeed, they came from 18 points down to beat Oklahoma 65-63.
    Line: I told you so!
  4. Running rules the day in college football: One of the fun things about college football is that because the level of general athleticism is just slightly lower than in the NFL, a wider range of strategies are viable. Take the game last night between Bowling Green and Toledo. Toledo won 27-20 while running for 325 yards and passing for only 63. That type of play distribution, slanted so heavily towards running, is unheard of in the NFL, mostly because it simply wouldn’t work.
    Line: 325 yards of rushing to 63 yards passing? And they won? Gotta love college football!

How does NBA TV fan night work?

While I was recording yesterday’s sports forecast podcast (say that ten times fast) I remarked that, opposed to the NHL’s national television schedulers, who chose a bummer of a game between the San Jose Sharks and the Buffalo Sabres, the NBA schedulers had gotten it exactly right by choosing the game between the Sacramento Kings and New Orleans Pelicans. What a difference, I though, that the NBA somehow managed to figure out before the season that this would be a close game between two exciting young teams. And between two teams without much pedigree also. Man, those NBA schedulers are smart. I watched about ten minutes of the game last night and while I enjoyed the action, something was nagging me, tugging at the back of my mind. What was this addition to the NBA TV scoreboard graphic at the bottom of the screen? Why did it say “Fan Night” in big, bold letters? What about this made it more of a night for fans than any other night on NBA TV. So, I looked it up.

NBA TV Fan Night works like this. Each week, fans can vote on which game they want to see next week. The NBA provides three choices and the one that gets the most votes by Saturday of the previous week, is shown nationally on NBA TV that Tuesday. Yesterday’s game between the Pelicans and Kings beat out two other games: the New York Knicks at the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers at the Atlanta Hawks. This week, the race is between these three games: the Atlanta Hawks at Washington Wizards, the Golden State Warriors at the Miami Heat, and the Detroit Pistons at the Milwaukee Bucks. Right now the voting stands at 84% for the game between the Warriors and Heat, 10% for the Hawks and the Wizards, and only 6% for the Bucks and the Knicks.

This, for a few reasons, is pretty cool. First of all, I love the idea of allowing fans to control which games get nationally televised. After all, why shouldn’t the fans have a say? For big-time national television channels like ESPN, TNT, Fox, CBS, NBC, CBS, etc. they are always showing games televised with their own team of announcers, camera people, and producers. For them, it makes sense that you’d need to plan ahead for logistical reasons. But NBA TV, like similar networks for other leagues, often simply carries regional televised games on a national platform. It’s awesome that the NBA decided to let fans choose which games to see, at least one night a week. It’s also smart — the alternative is that more people will cut the cable cord and go full-time to watching games on the internet through services like NBA League Pass, NHL Game Center, etc. The leagues benefit from these sales but television is still far more lucrative. NBA TV Fan Night is also really great for two non-commercial reasons. One, I love seeing how the voting is going for next week. What a fun little game-without-the-game! Fans of the Hawks, Wizards, Bucks, and Kings should feel a little depressed that so few unaffiliated fans want to see their games. It’s kind of a diss, isn’t it? And fans of the Pelicans, Kings, Warriors, and Heat should feel great that people are catching on to how much fun their teams are to watch. I also particularly find it interesting, at least for these two weeks, how closely my instincts about what games would be interested are shared by the majority. What does that mean? Are we all a product of the sports-media hive mind? Or do we just know good basketball?

I’m going to keep my eye on this for the next few weeks and see if there are any close races or interesting conclusions to be drawn.

Sports Forecast for Wednesday, November 19, 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:

  • NHL Hockey – Philadelphia Flyers at New York Rangers, 8 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network.
  • NBA Basketball – San Antonio Spurs at Cleveland Cavaliers, 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
  • NBA Basketball – Los Angeles Lakers at Houston Rockets, 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
  • NCAA Basketball – Oklahoma at Creighton, 8 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.
  • NCAA Football – Bowling Green at Toledo, 9 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, November 18?

  1. Sloppy end for the U.S. in Dublin: The United States Men’s National Soccer team played its last game of the season yesterday vs. Ireland in Dublin. It did not go well. The team looked sloppy and disorganized and lost 4-1 to an Ireland team that wasn’t even playing its best players. In the American team’s defense, not only were we missing a bunch of our best players but even among the 23 players we had, we decided to not play four or five of the best because they have Major League Soccer playoff games this weekend. Still, losing to Colombia and then Ireland is not a happy way of ending a good year for U.S. Soccer.
    Line: U.S. soccer still has a long way to go.
  2. Uh… Crisis time in Toronto: The story of the night in the National Hockey League was the 9-2 loss of the Toronto Maple Leafs at the hands and skates and sticks of the Nashville Predators. Toronto is perhaps the hockey craziest city in the world and they do not react well to embarrassing defeats from their hockey team, especially not to teams like Nashville, which, while good, does not exalt have a long hockey history like Toronto does.
    Line: [If you live in Toronto] The sky is falling!! [If you live basically anywhere else] Did you see Toronto last night… oh boy, someone’s gonna get fired. [evil chuckle]
  3. The new rich in the National Basketball Association: The classically great franchises of the NBA are almost all having down years. The Celtics and Lakers are a combined 5-14 (five wins, fourteen losses) and that’s not a surprise. The Knicks are 3-9 themselves and only newsworthy because some crazy person lost his job and is following them around. The flip side of this is that there are some really exciting new teams rising to the top of the league. Two of those played last night: the New Orleans Pelicans and Sacramento Kings. The Pelicans beat the Kings 106-100.
    Line: Whoever thought we’d be excited about  the Pelicans and the Kings? But we are! 
  4. Well that was easy: The two big match-ups in college basketball last night both turned out to be easier for the higher ranked team than expected. The Duke Blue Devils coasted past the Michigan State Spartans 81 – 71 and the Kentucky Wildcats routed the Kansas Jayhawks 72 to 40. It’s a long season, so things could easily turn around, but for now it looks like Duke and Kentucky are head and shoulders above almost everyone else.
    Line: Tons of exciting games in college basketball yesterday, just not the biggest ones.