My Sports Recap and Thoughts from the "D" and Beyond....

My weekly review post of Sports and My Thoughts as they pertain to the "D" and Beyond for the week ending Friday  11.11.16 .  This was a week filled with all sorts of drama and ups and downs. In the "D":   HAPPY VETERANS DAY and thank you to all the Veterans for their service and sacrifices for Our Freedoms   
Lions:  Detroit Lions are on their bye week and stand 5-4 and just a game out of first place. The Lions who have won 4 of their last 5 games after starting the season 1-3 will play their next 2 games at home. Detroit who surprised the Vikings in Minnesota last Sunday have a chance to make the playoffs by winning their next 3 games before a very tough stretch of games to end the season.  QB Matthew Stafford is having an MVP season and has led comeback after comeback this season under the offense of OC Jim Bob "Gun Slingin" Cooter.  The Lions are quietly becoming a force in the NFC.
Red Wings:  The Red Wings are 15 games into the season and are currently tied for 3rd in the NHL Eastern Conference . The season has already seen up and downs with a 5 game winning streak and 6 game losing streak. Scoring is and will be an issue all season long but the surprise right now has been the goal tending of Howard and Mrazek, especially Howard early on as the Goalies have won a few games the team should of lost. Detroit is looking to once again make the playoffs for a 26th straight year, the longest in all sports. 
Pistons:   The Pistons are currently in 6th place in the NBA Eastern Conference with a 4-5 record. Detroit on a trip out West has lost 3 in a row on this road trip. The team is still trying to get used to each other and hopefully will put it all together quickly and start winning on a regular basis. The Detroit Pistons announced they will move back to the City of Detroit next year and play in the new Little Caesars Arena with the Detroit Red Wings starting next season.
Tigers:  The Tigers who finished the 2016 season one game out of the Wild Card spot has announced it will be trimming payroll this upcoming season and is looking to finally retool going forward. GM Avila announced the team in looking to move anyone and everyone in hopes of lowering their payroll and getting cheaper players and prospects. The Tigers for 6 years had a chance to make the World Series but fell short and now will ask fans to watch mediocre baseball as the team trades away it marquee players all the while raising prices for tickets, merchandise, concessions each year as the team stuff their pockets at the expense of its fans. This is a huge gamble for the Tigers going into the 2017 baseball season.
Spartans:  The Spartans play Rutgers on Saturday.  Michigan State is coming off their 7th straight loss of the season. This team which is short on talent this season has also had very questionable play calling on both sides of the ball and if the Spartans look to rebound next season and remain an Elite team, they need to put a top OC and DC in place.  I admire HC Mark Dantonio's loyalty, but it has come with a high price that has cost the team at least 2 games this season. Players love playing for him so He needs to do the right thing and bring in top Coaches to round out his Coaching staff.  The football team will not make a bowl game this season so make the changes needed to ensure a Bowl game every year going forward.  The Spartan basketball team opens it season tonight in the Veterans Day classic out in Hawaii against the Arizona Wildcats. Their is plenty of excitement as HC Tom Izzo has a team filled with the 3rd best recruiting class and even though the players are young, MSU has challenged them to perform with the hardest non conference schedule in the Country.  Izzo will have to work hard to mold this team into a team ready for March Madness but as always I am sure they will be ready and He will make sure they will not go out in the 1st round as they did last 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. 
Wolverines:  The Wolverines are now ranked either #2 or #3 in the Polls and are 9-0 going into Iowa Saturday night.  Michigan has been a dynamic football team this season both on offense and defense but outside of a game with Wisconsin they haven't played anyone of real substance. A real good chance they will end up having to play Wisconsin again in the B1G Championship game. The Wolverines still have to win a couple of big games to show their lofty rankings this year. The Wolverines basketball team opens their season tonight against an FCS team the Howard Bisons at home.  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 in week 10.  The NFL is in disarray again, between the botched stance on Domestic Violence, to the continued mistakes by the Officials, to the low ratings, to the Players not trusting the NFL or Commissioner Roger Goodell, to so on and so on and so on, you get the idea!!!!                         The Patriots and Cowboys are the 2 best teams in the NFL right now as Dallas is led by 2 rookies in Prescott and Elliott and the Patriots with Brady and many other veterans.  Biggest disappointments so far are the Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals and the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Severe injuries, especially concussions are rampant nowadays as almost all the replays show that either a players head is being driven into the turf and also so many head to head deliberate hits as well as hitting defenseless players in the head. And it seems the NFL with all their new Concussion Protocol Procedures, they still cannot get it right in regards to protecting a Player safely.
          Entitlement is the new word for both the Owners and the Players nowadays and that leaves the fans to pay the price for this so called "Entitlement.  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:  MLB is now in the off season and players are already starting to move from time to time during Free Agency.   The Fall Team Meetings just ended in Arizona and many teams have announced they are looking to trim payroll and move aging veterans with huge contracts.  It will be interesting to see who the sellers and buyers will be and which teams are looking to next season as their year to make a run at the World Series and which teams are looking to shed payroll and retool for 3 or 4 years from now.        
NCAA:  CFB Football is in week 11.  The CFB Playoff format has Alabama, Clemson, Michigan and Washington as the Top 4 right now in the playoff format.  Alabama looks totally unbeatable and Michigan is back as one of the top teams in the Nation.  There are only a handful of unbeaten teams now and they are; Alabama, Michigan, Clemson, Washington, and Western Michigan. We are now in the final month of the season which has just flown by for me and the Top 10 will change allot in the next 4 weeks.
NBA and NHL: 
     NBA season in underway and it seems like it will be an entertaining season as most predict a rematch of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors.  A few teams have jumped out early playing good basketball, they are; Clippers, Thunder, Raptors, Hawks and Hornets. I want to see as the season progresses how the Warriors will interact as their is only one basketball to go around to all the players used to shooting 20 plus times a night.                
     In the NHL, the season is now about a month old and the Montreal Canadians are the best team in the NHL so far with a 12-1 record.  The Blackhawks, Rangers and Oilers all lead their respective Divisions as well and it looks like their will be a few Canadian teams in the playoffs this season.   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. 
Miscellaneous;  The biggest surprise so far this year didn't happening in the Sporting World but it did happen in the 2016 Presidential Election where the underdog beat the heavily favorite Candidate to become the next President.  Presidential Elect Donald Trump upset Hillary Clinton to become the 45th President of the United States.  The Nation and the World now are on pins and needles and no one knows what or how the next POTUS will act in the White House. There are protests all over the Nation with chants of Trump is not our President but in reality He is and those who are protesting, need to look at each other and ask which of you did vote, for only 47% of eligible voters, voted in this election and once again Polls leading up to the Election were terribly wrong.  Now is the time for all Americans to put away their differences and come together as one and show the World why we are the greatest Nation but it starts at the top with the POTUS all the way down to You and Me.  Do the Democrats regret rigging the DNC nomination for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders? And how do the Republicans feel now that Trump has proved them all wrong especially those who went against him?   And oh yeah Christmas is only 43 days away.
Nascar: Carl Edwards wins at Texas Speedway   

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