My weekly review post of Sports and My Thoughts as they pertain to the "D" and Beyond for the week ending Monday 01.04.16 . This was a week filled with all sorts of drama and ups and downs. In the "D":
Lions: Sunday the Lions ended their season with a win over the Bears in Chicago. They went 6-2 over their final 8 games to finish the season at 7-9. It was a disappointing season coming off an 11-5 record and a trip to the playoffs just a year ago. Speculation surrounds the team as to whether HC Jim Caldwell with be back or not and if Calvin Johnson has played his last game as a Lion or will they restructure his contract? The Lions hiring of Bob Quinn as the new GM was a first class move and much needed, it will be very interesting to see just how much control He has within the lions organization with the Ford's as Owners. Look for changes throughout the organization and Coaching staff.
Red Wings: The Red Wings have been playing
real good as of late and are currently in third place behind the
Canadiens and Panthers in the NHL Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. The one major
flaw so far early in this season is the Red Wings failure to close out
games and lose leads in the 3rd period which has come back to haunt them
on at least 12 occasions so far. Also, they Red Wings are having a hard time scoring goals and won't win many 2-1 0r 1-0 games as the season progresses. The Red Wings should be around 100
points this year and make their record 25th consecutive playoff.
Pistons:
The Pistons are off to a 18-16 start and should have a few more wins if
not for 2 games that they were beat at the buzzer. They are playing
with allot of energy and determination but still need to look for a pure
shooter to knock down big shots when needed. The defense comes and goes and they still live and die by the 3 ball. There is a chance they
could sneak into the Playoffs this year as an 7th or 8th seed in the
weak NBC Eastern Conference.
Tigers: The Tigers have
had a very busy off season and made some surprising moves in filling
some glaring weaknesses mainly on the pitching staff both starting
pitchers as well as in the bullpen. The Tigers have signed closer
Francisco Rodriguez, reliever Mark Lowe, starting pitchers Zimmerman and
Pelfrey, and outfielder Maybin to strengthen the team. The team may go
after another big name outfielder but time will tell. These moves will
put the Tigers back into mix for playoff contention next year as long as
Cabrera and Martinez can come back healthy and remain healthy for a
whole season.
Spartans:The Spartan football team ranked #3 in the CFB lost to Alabama in the Semifinals for the National Championship. It was a disappointing finish to a great season in which the Spartans held Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry in check but Alabama QB Couch had a great game and lit up the Spartan secondary all game long. The play calling on both sides of the ball was bad at best and the Spartans should be able to take away allot of good and bad from this game and season as they now look towards next season. The Basketball team which started off 13-0 and ranked #1 in the country lost their first game of the year to Iowa this past week. The Spartans played with leading scorer Denzel Valentine, struggled in their loss but rebounded nicely to beat Minnesota. Valentine should be back by the weekend.
Wolverines: The
Wolverines beat the Gators in the Citrus Bowl convincingly. Florida which has had no offesne for much of the season continued its down slide at the end of the season and right into the Bowl game. Michigan ended its first season under Coach Jim Harbaugh with 10 wins and the future seems to be bright going into the 2016 season. Hopefully Harbaugh will stay at Michigan for a few years before bolting back to the NFL. The Wolverine basketball team won its league opener and seems to be on track to win 16 to 18 games this year.
Sports beyond the "D":
NFL: The NFL continues to have a Black Cloud over it, between all the blown
calls by their officials during games, the continued disagreements with
the NFLPA and the debacle brewing over which 2 teams will be in LA in 2
years. Back Monday has arrived a the day after the season has ended for all but 12 playoff teams and we will see many coaches getting the ax. Nowadays NFL Owners and their egos want immediate results and Head Coaches are getting a year or 2 to turn around often bad very bad teams in a short amount of time. The NFL in this off season needs to finally figure out what constitutes a catch and stick with it. They also need to have its refs enforce the rule of a pick play. On almost every pass play in the NFL their is a pick play yet only a few are called. With all the calls on the defenses for pass interference and illegal hands and holding, the refs need to call more of the pick plays that happen and also the push offs the receivers do on most plays as well. I know fans love to see high scoring games but the NFL has to enforce their own rules more fairly.
MLB Baseball: MLB
decided to uphold the lifetime ban of the greatest hitter of all time,
Pete Rose in a decision that is both idiotic and dumbfounding to Me. No
one questions what He did but the lifetime ban is just wrong in so many
ways. He has been punished long enough and it is an abuse of power by
the MLB Commish to take this stance. I know many of you will disagree
with Me on this, but I do not care if you do or not. I feel very
strongly on this issue!! The off season started off with a bang as the
biggest contracts ever in free agency being given out. The Owners seem
to think they are playing with Monopoly money in signing these free
agents but once again it will be the fans who will pay the price for
this outlandish and foolish spending in increased ticket prices, parking
prices, concession and team apparel. When will it ever stop?Also teams seem to only care about what a player can do on the field to help them win and not what kind of person the player is off the field. Example; the Yankees trading for Chapman from the Reds even after knowing about his off field incident but not caring at all.
NCAA: OSU continues to show the entire world that sports and winning is more important than its integrity or the integrity of its student athletes. After the issues with JT Barrett and Adolphus Washington, the Buckeyes once again turned a blind eye to a football player who was pulled over and ticketed for a suspended license and causing an accident. The University doesn't care about anything else except winning and has shown this over and over with how it treats athletes who get into trouble. I think this showed potential recruits and
their parents just what OSU is all about and sends the wrong message
that do wrong and if your an athlete once again to will get special
treatment! The
NCAA seems to becoming more and more than nothing but the oversight of
college athletics that just collects money. The NCAA investigates
allegations and violations and hands down punishments and disciplines
which most of the time are against athletes for a team violation or
potential violation for taking money or making money and the NCAA
suspends the athlete at its will which is wrong. There needs to be a
defined detailed process for these issue.On the other hand, TCU suspends their star QB for violating curfew and allegedly hitting a police officer and Clemson suspends 3 players for violating team rules. There were 41 Bowl games this year in CFB with 3 teams that had 5-7 records going to bowl games. This has gotten totally out of control and the bowl games watered down where as they do not mean much anymore at all like they once did. It is all about teams getting to a bowl game to get a part of the guaranteed purse that their Colleges want so badly. All about money not a reward for its student athletes.
NBA and NHL:
The NBA has had a great start with the defending Champions, the Golden
State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers have the best records in the NBA right now. And Kobe Bryant announces his retirement at the
end of this Season. In the NHL, the Washington Capitals and the Dallas
Stars are the 2 best teams so far, each leading their Conferences in
points.
See
my weekly NFL Power Rankings and weekly NFL Picks and My Final
CFBTop25 and CFB Bowl picks at www.cupofjoeinthed.blogspot.com .
@cupofjoeinthed
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