My weekly review post of Sports and My Thoughts as they pertain to the "D" and Beyond for the week ending Wednesday 01.13.16 . This was a week filled with all sorts of drama and ups and downs. In the "D":
Lions: The Lions finally got it right after all these years in hiring an outside proven NFL man to become their GM. Bob Quinn who at 39 is young per the standards set in the NFL but He has a proven track record developing and signing talent in his 16 years with the NE Patriots. GM Quinn now has a very tough decision in will He retain Jim Caldwell as Head Coach or will He bring in someone else and also who on the staff will stay and who will go elsewhere?
Red Wings:
The Red Wings have been playing
real good as of late and are currently in second place behind the
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. On their current road trip they are 4-1 with one game remaining on the trip.
Pistons:
The Pistons are off to a 21-17 start and should have a few more wins if
not for 3 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 was one of the 4 playoff teams vying for the CFB National Championship. They played Alabama in the semi-finals and were beaten soundly 38-0. The play calling on both sides of the ball was poor to say the least and the team wasn't totally prepared for the lime light and didn't play their best. On a bright note, the Spartan football team had 11 wins in 5 of the last 6 seasons and no other B1G team has ever accomplished this. The team had a real good season especially with all the injuries they had. In the East side of the B1G, MSU and OSU and Michigan will be fighting each other every year for the top spot while on the West side, the competition isn't as fierce and the B1G needs to address this and soon! The
Basketball team is currently 16-1 and ranked #4 in the country. Denzel Valentine who missed 5 games with a knee injury came back in the last game against PSU, a game in which the Spartans blew out the Nittany Lions. The Spartans are seriously contenders for the National Championship in April.
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 a huge game at home last night as they beat #3 Maryland in a game that offers fans a glimpse of a possible NCAA berth this March.
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. On Tuesday, the NFL announced that they will relocate the St. Louis Rams and the San Diego Chargers to LA with the Rams starting play in LA in this upcoming 2016 Football Season. They say LA can support 2 Pro teams in football but time will tell for LA couldn't support the Raiders or the Rams last time they both played in LA. In one of the Wildcard games over the weekend, the game between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati started off chippy and continued throughout the game. In a hard hitting game emotions spilled over and in the end the Bengals were out of control and it cost them the game. Bengals LB Vontaze Burfict who already had issues this season, had a hard hit on Steelers QB Big Ben that caused Big Ben to miss most of the 4th quarter. Burfict also took a deliberate cheap shot on Steelers WR Antonio Brown in the last minute of the game that caused Brown to have a concussion and lie on the ground for almost 10 minutes. Meanwhile Burfict was given a 15 yard penalty for hitting a defenseless player. While Brown was still on the ground, Bengals CB Jones, got into it with an assistant coach from Pittsburgh and was assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty which gave the Steelers a total of 30 yards on this play and put the Steelers in FG range in which they kicked the winning FG to beat the Bengals. Burfict who is a repeat offender of such cheap shots was only given a 3 game suspension by the NFL. Once again, the NFL and Goodell refused to do the right thing and Burfict should of been suspended at least 5 or 6 games for this repeat issue. The NFL continues to be a joke to everyone except the Owners who continue to make huge amounts of money while the integrity of the game is called into question over and over.
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 Final
CFBTop25 and upcoming CBBTop 25 at www.cupofjoeinthed.blogspot.com .
@cupofjoeinthed
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