The Channel 4 News League Is Starting Up Again

Yup, I’m running a fantasy football league again in Yahoo — and I’m looking for a couple other bloggers to fill it out. So far, our fellow contestants include:

• The Starter Wife of Black and Gold Tchotchkes
• Extra P. from Storming the Floor and Bus Leagues Baseball
• Marco of Storming the Floor
• Brian from One More Dying Quail and Bus Leagues Baseball
• Run Up The Score, both of his own site and Black Shoe Diaries
• The News Team’s fearless leader, BP from Awful Announcing

No outright contest from last year, I’m just looking for 1-3 sports bloggers who’d like to sign up (going for an 8-10 team league). I’ll go through and select my favorites. Hit me up at s2nblog@gmail.com if you’d like to play, and you’ve got until Friday night at midnight Pacific.

Why Someone Ought To Outbid NBC For The Olympics

I have griped about the Peacock’s amazingly stupid mentality towards tape delaying events during the Beijing Olympics, and this is above and beyond the usual tape-delay frustrations because NBC is not alerting the telecasts in any way to make it clear to viewers West of the Mississippi that none of the content is live. In the wake of Usain Bolt’s record-breaking 200-meter win that none of us will see on television until later tonight (both Awful Announcing and With Leather are hosting video until the copyright police go after it), I am absolutely excited at the thought of ESPN formally bidding with the IOC for the rights, starting with the 2016 Winter Olympics.

In a sports and media world driven by the Internet and up to the minute results, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to have so few of the events by live in one half of the country and not live everywhere else — and, as NBC Universal is wont to do, get bent out of shape when the video leaks.

This leaves affiliate sports directors in the quandary of not publicizing the results of matches due to be aired on their stations AFTER local news goes off the air for the night — for example, if you are covering Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers in men’s volleyball because they happen to be from your market, and you know they’ve advanced to the gold medal match, but the match has not aired — you have no highlights and are even conflicted about reporting whether they’ve won in order not to spoil it for viewers who might be sticking around at 1 A.M.

The problem is that ESPN shouldn’t have a lock on all the important sporting events, but considering that they would actually rotate their cable networks’ schedule to do a lot more live coverage of events across the U.S., the trade-off is worth considering.  It goes without saying that ESPN would produce certain stuff that ABC could air live and probably delay to the Mountain and Pacific time zones, but so much more of the content would be live on the other channels.

Then again, also in NBC’s favor is that their presentation for sporting events (graphics, etc.) is just head and shoulders above other networks. ESPN’s work for ABC always seems kind of cut rate compared to how CBS handles college football and basketball and NBC handles football and the Olympics, and I keep thinking that the Four-Letter would underwhelm in this department.

Would you trade a near-monopoly on live sports to be able to see some actual Olympic content live?

Photo: Reuteurs/Kai Pfaffenbach

Ill-Advised NFL Previews: AFC West

1) San Diego Chargers - Much like the Seahawks in the NFC West, the Bolts are head and shoulders above the rest of the division on both sides of the ball. I don’t need to go over who’s on this team in terms of the big stars; but let’s say it will be interesting to see what a full season with both Chris Chambers and Vincent Jackson at the wideout positions in order to pump up Philip Rivers’ stats.  The stiff defense remains pretty much the same, and since Norv Turner got a team to the AFC championship game, I’m not sure I can mock him on that front any more, particularly when there was a good chance of him beating the Pats using a gimpy Rivers along with a combo of Michael Turner and Darren Sproles in the backfield. Obvious division winner.

2) Denver Broncos - I’m not even sure they should go this high. Pre-season games are known to lie and without Brandon Marshall for two or three games due to suspension, the receiving corps is particularly thin. Still waiting for the existence of a regular pass rush to emerge during the season, although it would be nice if the D-line makes it through the season unhurt. O-line is in a rebuilding year. I’ll believe Mike Shanahan’s promise that this team will make the playoffs when they actually do make the playoffs.

3) Oakland Raiders - This team may have too many running backs to go around, and they’re producing in pre-season, but you never know how that translates. If their offensive line keeps blocking, they’ll steal games and play spoiler for several teams, although I don’t believe any team paying Javon Walker that much money to be a #1 receiver will be landing a Wild Card.  Honestly, depending on the first couple of games, they could be a good candidate to finish second if JaMarcus Russell is anything resembling efficient, because Justin Fargas and Darren McFadden should be good enough to get some yardage.

4) Kansas City Chiefrs - Trade away your best pass rusher, get an injury-prone defensive stud in the draft, and still stuck with Brodie Croyle as your quarterback. It’s hard for me to hate the Chiefs like I should as a good Broncos fan, because their fans are stuck with Carl Petersen and Herm Edwards still running the show badly.

Ill-Advised NFL Previews: NFC West

This is my choice for “Worst Division in Football” for 2008. You can argue that the NFL Worst is trying to repeat, but they had stiff competition from the NFC South last year.

1) Seattle Seahawks - Because two of the other three teams suck balls and I’m not gonna get suckered into jumping on the “Arizona’s gonna be good this year” bandwagon again.  Maurice Morris is a glorified change-of-pace back thrust into a starring role because Shaun Alexander caught a mental disease that caused numerous bouts of self-tackleization.  Julius Jones spent the last couple years of his time in Dallas listening to fans scream for Marion Barber. T.J. Duckett is, well, T.J. Duckett. This means Seattle will be no different than last year, and they may be worse, because Bobby Engram is hurt and out a couple months, which makes them thinner at WR. Esssentially, the Seahawks will win the division thanks to Matt Hasselbeck throwing in the range of 35-40 times a game and because the rest of their division stinks.  Always bet against this team if they have to travel further east than St. Louis for a game (the sole exception would be when they go to Miami). This team is no better than 10-6 and winning the division at .500 is a possibility.

2) Arizona Cardinals - Mediocre as opposed to hopelessly bad.  Barring injury or a surprise case of the clap, Matt Leinart will be starting under center, and if he can’t at least sweep the Rams and the 49ers with Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald as starting wideouts (we’d mention Edgerrin James, but are still waiting for him to show up in AZ), then he truly deserves to have Kurt Warner steal his snaps.  8-8 is an “at best” for this team.

3) San Francisco 49ers - When J.T. O’Sullivan has the inside track to be your starting QB, you’ve got problems. Mike Nolan should be fired after the season is done, when Mike Martz has burned through O’Sullivan, Alex Smith, and Shaun Hill in futile attempts to run his high-octane offense with old wide receivers and forgetting that Frank Gore exists (not that it would help with the Niners’ O-line.)  This is the team that threw $80 million + at Nate Clements yet the secondary is still a problem.

4) St. Louis Rams - This position is predicated upon the likely scenario that Steven Jackson will not be showing up for the regular season in an understandable holdout (RBs need to get paid before their coaches run them down into retirement), thus, defenses will be able to peg the team by double-covering Torry Holt the entire game and daring Marc Bulger to throw it to someone else. I have $50 sitting on a bet that Scott Linehan will be fired during the season. The defense will be better with Chris Long learning and Adam Carriker developing, but there won’t be enough points to be competitive.

Ill-Advised NFL Previews: AFC East

1) New England Patriots - Basically an automatic winner of the division until proven otherwise, or Tom Brady is catastrophically injured in such a manner that he has to miss regular season games. I don’t remember them making a significant signing (John Lynch doesn’t count) in the off-season outside of re-signing Randy Moss, and that may be enough to keep the equilibrium going. I would safely bet against another perfect REGULAR season, but they could totally sweep their in-division matches again.

2) Buffalo Bills - Generally, my guess is a team that finished second and did okay while trying to find itself in the middle of a QB switch can get better, and if head coach Dick Jauron isn’t asking Trent Edwards to do too much, they can and should be able to ride Marshawn Lynch to a second-place division finish. They’re trying to get better on defense, but it’s not like anyone in this division plays lockdown on that end, anyway (the Pats bent but did not break, let’s put it that way.)

3) New York Jets - Yup, raining on the Favre parade. Sorry. Signing Alan Faneca to beef up the O-line is a good idea and might also reap benefits for tailback Thomas Jones, but I’m not sure how much the Gunslinger’s propensity to improve will help this team be too much better than what they were last year. I’m not seeing a whole lot of a chance to be better than 8-8. I want to say they’ll be better than the Bills, but I just can’t do it.

4) Miami Dolphins - At least they won’t finish 1-15 this year, I think. Do not confuse this squad with a .500 team, but they won’t be as horrid as last year (how could they, anyway, unless they went 16-0?)  We don’t mean to slag on Chad Pennington too hard, but when your likely starter has a wet noodle for an arm in a pass-happy division, it doesn’t look good.

Why Aren’t You Pricks More Grateful?

Hey, Peter King, lighten up. It’s a fucking pre-season game, dude: From this week’s MMQB:

4. I think I don’t want to hear what great fans the Jets have. Not for a long time. That crowd Saturday night was a disgrace. At least half the stadium was empty for Favre’s debut in a Jets’ uniform. I expressed my amazement to a few fellow scribes Saturday night — emphasizing that N.Y. traded for an all-time-great quarterback, not a broken-down one — and they gave varying reasons for the poor turnout. Like it’s the middle of vacation month for New Yorkers, and it’s a preseason game. Horsefeathers. If you really love your team, and you have season tickets, you should have been at that game unless you were in Tibet. Ridiculous.

So let me get this straight: if you are a Jets season ticket holder, you should have dropped what you were doing, braved the god-awful traffic or trains in the Tri-State area just to get there in time to see Brett Favre play two series — not a full quarter, just TWO SERIES — because you’re not really serious fans otherwise?

Considering the Jets are going the Personal Seat Licenses route for its new shared stadium with the Giants (and it’s still in Jersey), plus the fact that there[’s no guarantee a 39-year old quarterback (despite being a living legend) will get them to the playoffs (I don’t have ‘em winning a Wild Card, do you?), I’d say a half full stadium for an ultimately meaningless game is what most NFL teams should be content with until the season kicks off.

King’s just surprised that the ticket-buying public isn’t going to go down on Favre as vigorously as he does in print just because he got traded to their team.

Photo: AP/Bill Kostroun

Ill-Advised NFL Previews: NFC East

Hey, folks. I’m back. Didja miss me? Oh, right. Well, with both professional and college football starting in a matter of weeks, it’s tossed-off preview time. Planning at least one division a day and sometimes two for NFL, a college football Top 10 and more format to come. Teams with an asterisk by their names are my guesses as to who will be Wild Cards this year.

1. Dallas Cowboys — On paper, I have no reason to believe this team won’t win a hyper-competitive division yet again. There’s too much offensive and defensive power to not do well between Tony Romo, Terrell Owens, Marion Barber, and Adam Jones. The Cowboys do need Terence Newman to get healthy and stay that way — although Jones will take the punt returning problems away — and Patrick Crayton needs to be a solid #2 wideout this year. I don’t they go 13-3 again — their division is too tough, and don’t ask me to predict playoff wins for Dallas.

2.  New York Giants* - I feel bad about putting a Super Bowl champion this low on the pole, but there’s a lot of if-come-when surrounding the Giants, and it’s rather predicated upon how much of Eli Manning’s breakout during the playoffs last year is really permanent and whether the pass rush that won them the Super Bowl will be the same without Michael Strahan leading it. It’s not that I question Justin Tuck’s ability, but that’s a large gap (*rimshot*) to fill. Probably a good, safe Wild Card bet, though, so I’ll say they still make the playoffs.

3.  Washington Redskins - There are always adjustment periods that come with a new coach and yet another new offense, and I hope the lag time isn’t that long for Jason Campbell. He’s a solid QB who deserves better than the floundering he’s had to go through, and looks like he might get it with Jim Zorn’s West Coast system. Picking up Jason Taylor was a smart trade for a veteran from the front office, which has not had a lot of those over the years. I just don’t think they can leap over the Giants and Cowboys for a playoff spot, and there will be an NFC team outside the East that’s good enough for a Wild Card.

4.  Philadelphia Eagles - I hate doing this to Donovan McNabb again, but Eagles management hasn’t done shite to help him on the receivers end in a division loaded with offensive talent.  It doesn’t help matters that all the NFC East teams could finish .500 or above again. McNabb doesn’t deserve to go out like this — but these are the things that make a fan base impatient and a front office do dumb things, especially when you can start the office pool on when Donny Mac will be hurt and miss time these days.

Tossed-Off Olympic Impressions

To be perfectly honest, the achievements of Michael Phelps are pretty much the only things I’ve watched of NBC’s Olympic coverage with any sort of actual attention — it’s very difficult to be emotionally invested in an Olympic outcome when NBC will only go so far as to have events broadcast live only for Eastern and Central viewers, even with USA, CNBC, and MSNBC at their disposal.  It has been impossible to avoid the spoiler effect online or on TV, as announcers of pre-season football games have gone out of their way to note Phelps and ESPN (rightfully, since it’s news) hasn’t hesitated either.

This isn’t going to change as long as NBC has the rights to broadcast the Olympics in this country.  The problem is that the powerful affiliate stations West of the Mississippi, particularly the NBC owned-and-operated ones, loathe shifting their 5 and 6 newscasts for sports, because it costs them prime time ratings, and the Olympics are the rare sporting event that draws the non-hardcore fan demographic.   It’s almost enough to make someone hope ABC/ESPN could win the next IOC contract in the hope of seeing some live events. ALMOST.

As for Phelps himself — yes, it’s safe to say the world is in awe of the eight gold medals and the breaking of Mark Spitz’s record for golds in a single Olympics, and it’s been scintillating television. I’m not interested in pissing on the parade, but considering the scrutiny track and cycling have received about doping, how many questions get asked about those in the pool? Usain Bolt has already earned an SI writer’s posturing despite him taking ungodly large strides because he is 6′5″.

Drugs and PEDs may be a real side effect of why baseball isn’t going to be in the Olympics in four years — in the sense that they may be the unspoken stumbling block between the IOC and MLB, which will not halt its season NHL-style to allow major leaguers to participate.  The IOC, acting holier-than-thou when it comes to doping but with its hand on the till in everything else seedy, would certainly want its own people (mostly WADA) handling the testing of MLB stars — and wouldn’t that be a kick.  Caught in the crossfire is softball, which also has the problem of being utterly dominated by a U.S. squad.

Still fully behind the NBA ballers wearing the Stars and Stripes this year, because there is one noticeable difference between this team and the one that won bronze in Athens: they are playing some spectacular defense, and that is creating the fast break points.  Spain was supposed to be a bit of a challenge and it looked like anything but down the line yesterday.  Better shooting has helped, although Michael Redd, the shooting specialist, is not on the floor a ton. It comes from guys like Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, and the rest of that squad getting open looks thanks to the defensive pressure — and the breakaways that LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are getting don’t hurt either. (Who wouldn’t want to be Pat Riley this upcoming NBA season? Wade looks healthy, add him with Shawn Marion and Michael Beasley and that’s a combination that makes me think Riley will be kicking Erik Spoelstra off the bench come January.)

I will not watch a soccer match aired on an NBC network again because they have no concept on how to handle commercials. They cut to break at the most awkward of times, and the only reason we don’t miss goals is because damn near the majority of the Olympic footy matches are tape delayed altogether, even on the East Coast. (I’m thrilled that the Premier League season has started again, it’s been much better viewing.)

Yup, those Chinese female gymnasts had some members under 16. I think it’s funny that such a fuss is being made when the sport in general tends to value the pixie-like, some whom may even take drugs to hold back the onsets of puberty.  Essentially, Bela Karolyi got all pissed off on NBC because his wife Martha couldn’t get away with doing what the Chinese did with the U.S. team.  It’s why most of the major blogs went ga-ga over Alicia Sacramone even after her falls on the beam and during the floor routine essentially cost the U.S. the gold.  It helped that there was a YouTube video of her at Brown punching out a drunken frat boy, and it’s also about the hottie-ogling factor, but — shock — she looks semi-normal and not underfed. (Sympathy also came in when Andrea Joyce laid waste to her in the post-competition interview.)

Let’s just get this over with, NBC, so the rest of us can get back to both types of football and pennant races in baseball.

My Prayers Were Answered

More often than not, my mental response to Bill Plaschke’s L.A. Times columns is something along the lines of, “God, this guy can go eat a dick as far as I’m concerned.”

Well, he and a Chicago Trib reporter actually did — in the name of Sino-American relations while covering the Olympics.

If you make it all the way through the video, I salute you.

I So Want A Hit Off The Cross Joint

Yep, I saw Pineapple Express at an 11 AM show today, and it was a damn nice bit of fun — if I hadn’t been the one driving to and from the theater, I’d probably have been a bit more stoned for it, which would have only enhanced it. However, before I get to this, a short note about the hiatus: I have one more week on the graveyard and then it’s back to working the swing shift — which means this place will get back to semi-normal.

Now, the obvious SPOILER ALERT, so if you’d like to avoid it, don’t click the jump — as I chronicle the viewing experience.