Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Pro Bowl Stupid

- Credit Colts President Bill Polian not only for having his team get to its second Super Bowl in 4 years, but in pointing out how totally brain damaged this whole Pro Bowl setup is this year. As you probably know, the Pro Bowl is usually played the week after the Super Bowl, in Hawaii. This year, it's being played the week before the Super Bowl, in Miami. This creates an obvious issue for the players who not only are playing in the Pro Bowl, but are playing in the Super Bowl. Actually, they aren't playing in the Pro Bowl, but they do have to travel down to be in Miami for the game to do, in Polian's words "God knows what". The Pro Bowl needs to be put out of its misery. Nobody tries in it and I don't even know why they play it.

I have a better idea. Instead of playing the stupid Pro Bowl the weekend before the game and making a big deal out of it, put the Senior Bowl up on that pedestal. Give it the publicity and the media coverage, and then have the Seniors entering the draft playing their asses off to impress their future employers. Then have a nice ceremony at halftime to honor those voted as "Pro Bowlers". Give them the opportunity to work with and coach the players playing in the Senior Bowl during the week. It would be a great chance for these players to mentor young players. Integrate the Pro Bowl and the Senior Bowl in this way, and I think you'd have something really cool instead of the ridiculous charade you have now.

- Week 1 of the Brett Favre Retirement Watch begins. Brad Childress says...he won't give Favre a deadline to make up his mind!!! ZZZZZZzzzz.

- While I'm on a role with revolutionary ideas, let me tell you the best way to solve games that are tied at the end of regulation. There has been much hand wringing over the Saints advancing to the Super Bowl in large part because they won a coin flip. Surely there must be a better way? But how. Well, first of all, rule out what they do in college, college overtime is completely stupid. First of all it's not really football, it's a red zone drill. Secondly, the NFL lives to serve gamblers and fantasy players, if you get games that go into 6 overtimes, that royally screws up over/under bets and fantasy scores.

I have a better idea, and it's very simple. When the clock reads 0:00 in the 4th quarter, just keep playing. Turn the game clock off and whoever scores first wins. If the Saints have the ball on the one yard line and its 4th and goal, that's where overtime starts. Just think of it like extra time in soccer. It's fair in the sense that it's completely random and dependent on the flow of the game, and you'd still be playing real football, and there'd be no coin flips.

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- A bad day for Liverpool yesterday. They entered the day just 1 point out of the 4th spot in the EPL, and ended it 3 points out. They could manage only a scoreless draw at Wolverhampton, who is fighiting to avoid relegation. Meanwhile, the team they are chasing, Tottenham, got a 2-0 win at home against Fulham with goals from Peter Crouch, and David Bentley. Bentley, ironically enough, wants the Spurs to set him free so he can get more playing time.

- More midweek action in England today. Man U and Man City play the second leg of their Carling Cup semifinal. City leads 2-1 but faces a tougher task as they play at Old Trafford today. The winner will face Aston Villa in the finals.

Villa has a league match today, they host one of the teams fighting for the league lead, Arsenal. Villa's banged up and has gone 3 Premier League matches without a win. Arsenal won easily when these teams faced off a month ago, blasting Villa 3-0.

Chelsea is tied with Arsenal for second place, two points back of first place Man U. They will try to keep pace when they face a very much in form Birmingham City team at Stamford Bridge today. Birmingham hasn't lost a match in any competition since Oct. 17. The newly promoted club is in 8th place in the EPL. The two teams muddled to a 0-0 draw on Boxing Day in their last meeting.

1 comment:

Patrick N said...

Damn both your ideas are freakin awesome. The NFL one isn't even hard to coordinate or implement.