My weekly review post of Sports and My Thoughts as they pertain to the "D" and Beyond for the week ending Sunday 07.09.16 . This was a week filled with all sorts of drama and ups and downs. In the "D":
Lions: ex Lions WR, Calvin Johnson who is normally well reserved and quiet, exploded in an interview saying it would of been a tougher decision had the Lions been a Playoff Team and also about how he can't walk in the morning was always banged up and had numerous concussions. He also went on to say how easy it is to get pain killers in the NFL to help mask injuries and concussions. Why he choose to come out and say what he did now is a big question to Myself and many others. The Lions are less than a month away from opening training camp. Lots of questions surround the Lions this year including, OL, DL, RB, WR, LB, CB's, etc... Lions QB Matthew Stafford came out recently and said the Lions would be fine without retired future HOF WR Calvin Johnson. If the last 6 games last season under new OC Jim Bob Gun Slingin' Cooter are any indication of what is to come this season, the Lions should be in the Top 5 of all offenses this season. The Defense will be a huge question mark, especially trying to stop the run and coverage with the secondary. Taylor Decker the Lions 1st round draft pick seems to have locked up LT already during Mini Camp. The Lions have a tough schedule this season opening with 3 of their first 4 games on the road. The Lions also made headlines this off season when they announced they would finally have real cheerleaders at their games. I see the Lions winning 9 possibly 10 games this season.
Red Wings: The Detroit Red Wings and GM Ken Holland were busy in Free Agency but lost out on the top free agents. The Red Wings also didn't land a much needed defense men or two and as of right now haven't done much to bolster their team roster. Right now they are no better than a number 6 seed in the NHL East. GM Holland will have to make a blockbuster trade to get the help he needs as well as finding a way to trade G Jimmy Howard and get a bit more cap relief. GM Ken Holland has promised to retool and overhaul the team during this off season but his resigning of aging veteran Drew Miller has many questioning his motives and getting fresh blood and attitudes in a very stagnant Locker room. Saddled with big contracts to underachieving aging players could cause salary cap issues once again.. The new name of the Red Wings arena which is scheduled
to open for the 2017/2018 season is The Little Caesar's Arena, maybe they will rename the new arena in his name?
Pistons: The Detroit Pistons were also busy in the NBA Free Agency landing another point guard and a Forward to help their defense. The Pistons also resigned C Andre Drummond to a 5 yr $130M deal. The Pistons took Henry Ellenson with their 1st pick in this years NBA Draft as they try to get faster meaner bigger at the same time. Detroit needs to add another big man as well as a good mid range shooter who can play defense. Bad defense, poor Free Throw shooting, and trying to win games by taking way too many 3 pointers are huge areas the Pistons need to address this off season. Detroit made the playoffs for the first time since 2009 were swept in the 1st round.
Tigers:
The Tigers are currently in 2nd place in the AL Central with a 45-42 record. Detroit has lost theuir last 2 games to the BlueJays as once again lack of timely hitting but even more so the pitching staff has imploded. If it isnt the starting pitching getting rocked, it is the bullpen giving up late runs again! Detroit was coming off it first win of the season over the Indians after losing 11 in a row to the Tribe. Detroit who will only have one player in the ASG, Miguel Cabrera and the fans have no one to blame but themselves for the lack of voting caused 2B Ian Kinsler a chance to play in this game and also Tigers rookie pitcher Fullmer who is 10-1 was bypassed for the game. The Tigers who win 3 or 4 games and then turn around and lose 4 or 5 games in a row currently are no better then a .500 team with the 3rd highest payroll in all of baseball. .Ex GM Dave Dumbrowski who was fired mid way thru last season saddled the Tigers with massive contracts to numerous aging underachieving overpaid veterans both hitters and pitchers. It seems the Tigers will have to rely on hitting to win games as the pitching and defense have been suspect at best and the continued base running blunders are becoming more glaring as the season goes on. The Tigers have been shutout 7 times this season already, are a feast or famine offense which can score allot of runs but also loses a lot of games when they only score 1 or 2 runs a game. Mental mistakes, base running blunders and sometimes looking very lackadaisical and playing uninspired at times has this team looking to win maybe 80 games this season. The AL Central which many thought would be the toughest Division is all of baseball is now seen as whichever Team wins 88-90 games will win the division.The Tigers are an aging team that need to unload some veterans by the trade deadline and get younger for the years to come. Having the 3rd highest payroll in baseball with 7 of the top 75 highest paid players on their team, one would think the Tigers would be 10 games or more above .500 instead of struggling to stay at .500 this season.
Spartans: The MSU Spartan football team coming off another great season and now an elite College team year in and year out will be looking for answers as it replaces many top players who graduated this year but none more important then who will be the starting QB for the 2016 season. Most publications have this as a down year for the Spartans and have them winning only 9 games. I think with a little luck and a great defense 10 or 11 wins is possible and another Top 10 ranking for the Spartans. The
Spartan basketball team which lost out on the Josh Jackson sweepstakes
still had a Top 5 recruiting year and will look to be another March
Madness favorite next season. Congrats to Coach Tom
Izzo for being inducted into the
Naismith
Hall of Fame for College Basketball. The Spartans will be a work in progress this upcoming season but Tom Izzo knows what it takes to win and I see them winning 22-25 games and another invitation to March Madness. A side note, MSU lost one of the greatest College Hockey Coaches of all time in Ron Mason who passed away at the age of 76.
Wolverines: Michigan head football coach Jim Harbaugh has been making plenty of headlines since he came to Michigan 15 months ago,. He has recruited strongly and has started a new trend of being part of Satellite Football Camps all over the World. With a budget in the Top 3 of all Colleges, it seems He has an open checkbook to do as He pleases. There is no doubt that He has restored the football program to one of National prominence once again but at what expense? The Wolverines are a preseason favorite to win the B1G and also ranked in the Top 5 heading into the season.but it seems at times that Harbaughs ego gets the best of him and it is His ego that is put before the University of Michigan and its football program. No doubt social media plays a very important role in our lives nowadays but it seems that Coach Harbaugh uses social media for the wrong reasons allot of the time. Hopefully He will concentrate on his job of coaching and winning games at Michigan. Good luck to the Wolverine football team this year and I see them winning 10 games in 2016. The Wolverine basketball team is retooling and hoping for another NCAA run
next season. Coach Beilein has done a good job at Michigan and I see another 18-20 win season and a possible March Madness berth for the Wolverines this up coming season.
Sports beyond the "D":
NFL:
The NFL Season is less than 70 days away and teams are conducting their Mini Camps. Andrew Luck QB for the Indianapolis Colts became the highest paid player in NFL History today with a 5 year deal for over $25M a year. The NFL lost one of the greatest defensive minds of all time when Buddy Ryan passed away after a battle with cancer at the age of 85. Ryan was a defensive genius who engineered the great Bears defense of 1985 when they won the Super Bowl, He also went on to be an NFL Head Coach as well. He has 2 sons currently as Coaches in the NFL. The Draft is over and all NFL teams are looking to see if they got better than last year and how they were progress before the 2016 season. Many players thru free agency are now playing for other teams and excitement in all 32 NFL Cities is loud and growing as the season grows nearer. No
one knows for sure how many of the draftees will preform in the NFL The
off season has been filled with numerous Black Eyes for the NFL from
Player misconduct to the admittance by a senior NFL official that there
is evidence of a link between CTE and the NFL Players. The bigger issue
is the ploy of the NFL to not use the top researcher from Boston to
engage the current study but they tried to discredit him using a
marketing game that blew up in their face. In front of a Congressional
meeting, Congress has demanded answers from the NFL as to why they did
what they did. Even crazier is some Owners have come out and said they
do not believe there is any evidence to support this. For the NFL and
the Owners it is all about the $$$$$ and the Owners are all greedy and
do not want to part with their money. As if the Owners and the NFL do
not have enough money, the NFL is now going to play games in China as
well as the UK and Mexico. The NFL should concentrate on making the game
better and dealing with its current issues instead of trying to dilute
the game and water it down with thoughts of global expansion on the
horizon just to make more money
MLB Baseball: Its
been an interesting start to the 2016 Baseball season. The Cubs have the best
record in all of baseball. Baseball continues to see ugliness in brawls and some players seem to think they have the right to crowd the plate and that the pitcher doesn't have the right to throw inside anymore. Baseball sure has changed for in the old days if the batter crowded the plate the pitcher was going to throw inside every pitch. Nowadays punishment is more for the pitcher and not the batter and MLB has become too soft in handing out its suspensions and discipline. Excitement
is in the air,
but the MLB has
some tough decisions to make. MLB wants to expand again to possible
cities like Vancouver and Montreal but yet cant even fill stadiums for
Opening Day in places like Miami and TB and attendance is bad in a few
other cities as well. The
Players Association in All major sports seems to think that if the
Player is no longer prosecuted or if the charges are dropped then their
should be no punishment or discipline for the Athlete. The Players
Association doesn't care about the victims at all, they only care about
the player and their monies. They are to Blame almost as much as the
Player themselves and this is just so sad in today's society! 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!! Barry Bonds is getting support from some ex
players saying He should be in the HOF, but I think there are still many
questions about his alleged steroid use that will need to be answered
before he can even be considered for the HOF. Based on voting the past 4
years for the HOF those voters seem to be thinking as I am, and it
reflects in his still not getting in at this time.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.
NCAA: The NCAA and Women's Basketball and the Sports World lost an icon and legend yesterday when ex Tennessee Volunteer Women's Basketball Coach Pat Summitt died at the age of 64. She is the winningest coach in women's basketball history, has numerous titles and other awards as well. In other news, the
NCAA continues to be its own worst enemy in allowing schools who have
broken NCAA laws to continue on while investigations take longer than
they should and the back door dealing when the schools are caught for
reduce discipline continues on. Baylor which is a private school badly mishandled their own investigation into assaults by its football players against female students. They fired their Head Coach Art Briles but how does the AD and the University President still keep their jobs? An Stanford University student athlete allegedly rapes a student and yet the judge gives him only a 6 month sentence? Not only is that a travesty but where is the NCAA to expel this student as well as Stanford refusing to do the right thing as well. Colleges protects their athletes above all else for winning and making money is now the norm at the major schools anymore!! A recent college athlete while on stage
at the NFL draft, tells a reporter that he received money to play at Ole
Miss. I am sure the NCAA is looking into this alleged allegation as I
write this but time will tell if they do anything or not. Two other
schools, North Carolina and
Syracuse are questionable as to should they even be allowed to be in the
Tournament at all. Both schools have had serious violations from the
NCAA and many, such as Myself think it is a disgrace that the NCAA
allowed them to even be playing in the NCAA Tournament at all! The
NCAA which over the past few years has become powerless against the
bigger schools when it comes to levying sanctions and penalties for
violations seems to have their hands full right now. The Bigger Schools
and Conferences are the ones who tell the NCAA what if anything will be
done for Schools who have violated rules of the NCAA. It is now a joke!!
Southern Miss and
Ole Miss were hit with numerous serious violations by the NCAA and as
all Colleges do, they deny any wrong doing even though they know they
have committed violations. The University of Tennessee was the latest to
be charged but besides serious alleged violations within their
football program they were also charged with and also sued for a Hostile
Sexual Environment and Sexual harassment. Again, they have denied any
wrongdoing but as it was with the University of Oregon, we are seeing a
pattern of Colleges brushing these incidents and violations and sexual
harassment under the rug and also going after the victims and not those
who were responsible in the first place!
NBA and NHL:
The NBA Free Agency was nothing short of the NBA Owners once again throwing around crazy foolish stupid money on players who are average to a bit above average at best. But the biggest surprise was OKC PF Kevin Durant deciding to screw over the OKC team and its fans and bolt to the Golden State Warriors. In the end it will be the fans who will absorb the foolishness of the Owners in higher ticket prices and concession prices as well. The NBA crowned this years champions, the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday after they came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the GS Warriors in Game 7. LeBron James led the Cavs and won the NBA Finals MVP. It was a bitter sweet loss for the Warriors who won more games in the regular season than any other team in NBA history and they were looking to repeat as NBA Champs for the 2nd year in a row. Teams nowadays have no loyalty to their players as evidenced by the Thunder shopping around their player(s) while the playoffs were going on as well as the Cavaliers doing the same. A couple of Coaches were let go in a league
that firing and hiring coaches is the norm. I wonder why the GM's who
hire these coaches aren't let go as quick as the Coaches they let go?
In the
NHL, Free Agency also tool place and just as it was in the NBA, Owners threw around lots of money and lengthy contracts to average or above average players in which most were either aging or older veterans. The NHL also announced expansion into Las Vegas in a few years and Seattle is the next potential city to host an expansion team. I cannot understand the rationale of expansion when their are quite a few team struggling financially right now in the NHL. the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup beating the San Jose Sharks in 6 games. Sydney Crosby won the MVP of the playoffs but many including myself wonder how much influence the Canadian media had in this decision. Clearly Kessel should of been the MVP of the playoffs.
Miscellaneous; The Olympics are less than a month away yet allot of turmoil around Rio and the City not ready for the Olympic venue as well as the huge controversy surrounding the Zika virus. Also huge issues with drug doping with the Russia Olympic team.
Nascar: Brad Keslowski wins at Daytona . PGA: Dustin Johnson wins at Firestone Memorial ..
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