Reverse Hibernation

When it comes to the blog, I guess I’ve reached sort of a crossroads. After being MIA for the entire summer, I have about three options at this point.

1. Can the thing – Ain’t gonna happen.

2. Reinvent It – Well that was the purpose of the blog in the first place, to provide a different perspective than whats on the mainstream

3. Act like it never happened – Well, maybe I’m going to do a three with a little bit of two. I’m not going to reinvent the blog, but I’m going to try to provide more depth. We’ll see what happens.

NBA

Missing the summer was kind of like a reverse hibernation. I was fired up about the Olympics and was one of 30 people who watched the gold medal game live, but most of my thoughts about the team and that game have faded away.

I will say that the Collangelo formula worked, at least somewhat. However, the biggest difference in this team and the one’s that lost were the fact that for the most part, these were the best players in the league.

In ’92, we sent a team full of legends. In ’96, we sent the guys that weren’t quite good enough for the ’92 team, and guys who were young then but now coming into their own. In 2000, a new trend started. A lot of the better guys didn’t want to go.

That team was still good, but as the foreign teams got better, we started sending worse guys. This helped our team lose the world championships in ’02 and ’06, along with the Olympics in ’04.

I think that if you send a team with Kobe, LeBron, D. Wade, ‘Melo, Chris Bosh, CP3, Deron Williams and D. Ho cold turkey, they still win.

I hope that when London comes around, we don’t revert back into our losing ways with guys like ‘Bron-Bron opting not to go.

MLB

For most of the summer, I didn’t have a clue about what was going on. Being without TV and Internet, it was hard to keep up with the NL East, AL and NL Central, the NL West and all the award races.

For a while it seems like I would come into work one week with the Phillies on top of the NL East, only to find them 3 games back of the Mets the next week.

I’m now starting to get back into the season, which has been a great one. Too bad it seems like the Red Sox are going to make the postseason. A playoffs without the Sox and Yanks would be awesome for baseball fans who are tired of their rivalry overshadowing the rest of the league

College Football

I’m glad I didn’t do a preview this year, I probably would’ve been way off. Right now, it looks as if USC is a lock to play in the title game. The second best team is probably either Oklahoma or Florida, but Florida is more likely to lose a game than the Sooners. Missouri and Georgia would be the second tier of contenders, and everyone else is just playing for a 10-2 season.

I’d love to see the Pac-10 and SEC finally square off for the chip, but that probably won’t happen.

NFL

I’ll talk about this sometime this week, I want to really gather my thoughts and put together something good.

Rushed and Sloppy NFL Season Preview

Sorry guys, I'm still without home internet until next week. Please excuse the records, they probably don't make sense. Just take away the idea of who I think will be great, who'll be average and who's gonna suck ....

AFC East
Patriots - 14-2
Bills – 8-8
NY Jets – 8-8
Miami – 4-12

AFC North
Cleveland – 11-5
Pittsburgh – 10-6
Cincinnati – 6-10
Baltimore – 6-10

AFC South
Indy – 10-6
Houston – 9-7
Jacksonville – 8-8
Tennessee – 7-9

AFC West
San Diego – 12-4
Oakland – 9-7
Denver – 8-8
Kansas City – 3-13


NFC East
Philly – 12-4
Dallas – 11-5
NY Giants – 10-6
Washington – 5-11

NFC North
Minnesota – 9-7
Green Bay – 8-8
Chicago – 6-10
Detroit – 5-11

NFC South
New Orleans – 11-5
Carolina – 8-8
Tampa Bay – 7-9
Atlanta – 1-15

NFC West
Arizona – 9-7
Seattle – 9-7
St. Louis – 5-11
San Francisco – 5-11

AFC
Patriots - 14-2
San Diego – 12-4
Cleveland – 11-5
Indy – 10-6
Pittsburgh – 10-6
Oakland – 9-7

Wild Card

Cleveland def Oakland
Pittsburgh def Indy

Divisional

New England def Cleveland
Pittsburgh def San Diego

AFC Championship

New England def Pittsburgh

NFC
Philly – 12-4
New Orleans – 11-5
Dallas – 11-5
NY Giants – 10-6
Minnesota – 9-7
Arizona – 9-7


Wild Card
Dallas def Arizona
Minnesota def NY Giants

Divisional

Philly def Minnesota
Dallas def New Orleans

NFC Championship

Philly def Dallas

Super Bowl

New England def Philly

Update

Its been a long time, I shouldn't have left you ...

Well I'm not back yet. I'm still in the DMV working, and I still don't have a place. However, hope is on the horizon!

I move into my new apt on September 6th and should be back in action around that time. Hopefully I'll have sometime to submit my thoughts between now and then.

NFL Hypocracy

Don't have much time to talk, just wanted to bring this to you guys attention.

Check out the NFL's alcohol policy, when it comes to someone besides them profiting on booze ...

Quick Hits 7/9

Well folks, its going to be hard for me to post on a regular basis in the coming weeks. I just started my job on Monday, working in the D.C. area. However, I don't even have a place down here yet, so I'm kinda bouncing around between family and friends.

Meanwhile, I have stuff at my mom's apartment in Portsmouth, VA, but most of my stuff is still in Philly. Fortunately, my lease up there isn't up until August 23, so I have some time to find a place in the DMV.

However, I'm going to be bouncing around between DC during the week and Philly or VA on a lot of these weekends. I can't blog at my job, at least not yet, so its going to be tough to keep up.

I will, however, do my best to get a College Football preview, a Fantasy Football Preview, and an NFL preview in time for whoever reads this thing to have a good idea what to expect, or what not to expect seeing how I picked the Giants to go 5-11 last year.

NBA

Some interesting things going on in the NBA. Following the Baron Davis signing with the Clippers, Elton Brand bolted town for Philly. If they can ink Andre Iguodala, they will be a very dangerous team next year.

However, what if Iguodala leaves? And what about the Clippers? Do they throw a lot of money at the other AI or Josh Smith?

On the flip side, the Bucks are rumored to be offering Andrew Bogut $72 mil over 5 years. Talk about a head scratcher. Dude didn't even average a double-double last year.

What is wrong with these NBA GM's? When will they learn that its not important to have a center in this generation's NBA. There's only like 4 or 5 decent post players in the league now over 6'10. There's no need to throw a lot of cash at the Boguts, Dalemberts and Dampiers of the world.

MLB

The NL Central is getting very interesting. The Brewers picked up C.C. Sabathia, who will probably sign elsewhere in the off season along with Ben Sheets. This reminds me of when the Astros picked up Randy Johnson a few years ago, or when they picked up Carlos Beltran a few years ago. Sabathia and Sheets give them the best 1-2 punch in the game.

The Cubs countered that by picking up Rich Harden, who is talented but injury prone. If healthy, he will be the #1 starter they didn't have. If hurt, they aren't losing much besides prospects that may or may not pan out. I like it.

Lurking behind them are the Cardinals. Say what you want about Tony LaRussa, but he has this team fully of mostly no-name players and castoffs in contention. They could potentially spoil either one of those team's stretch runs, especially the Brewers, who haven't exactly been world beater's this year.

Now that I'm paying attention, I'm really excited about this year's baseball season. Too bad it had to compete with the NCAA and NBA for the first few months of the year.

Quick Hits 7/5

Tennis

Wimbledon fans, like Jay-Z, will be treated to some great tennis this weekend.

Earlier this morning, Venus and Serena squared off for the Women's championship, after spending two weeks dominated everyone else in the field. When they want to, they can be some of the most dominant athletes in any sport. For Venus, this was her 7th Grand Slam championship, one less than little sis.

On the men's side, the greatest rivalry in sports will return. Federer and Nadal have won 15 of the last 18 Grand Slam titles. Nadal, of course, has his four straight French Open titles and seems poised to take a grass court slam this year. Federer has 12 titles, 2 behind Pete Sampras' record. I look forward to watching it tomorrow.

As I wrote, this is one of the most underrated rivalries in sports. I think we're really missing out in this in America.

NBA

I just wanted to take this time to rip David Stern and the NBA for what they did to the fans of Seattle. They ripped a franchise that had been in Seattle for 41 years and won a championship to move it to ... Oklahoma City??? Lets see how good this looks in 10 years when their new publicly financed arena is suddenly outdated and ownership gets disinterested, like what happened in Seattle.

In sports, and really the rest of the world, the corporate welfare has to stop. The working class shouldn't be building stadiums for billionaires, just to turn around and spend millions of dollars to go there and watch games.

Quick Hits on the 4th

I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T do you know what that means?

Sorry to reference one of the worst songs in history, but I just wanted to say Happy Independence Day!

Olympics

Kudos to LaShawn Merritt for knocking off Jeremy Wariner in the Olympic trials in the 400m.

Its good to see someone from my hometown of Portsmouth, VA doing something with himself. A lot of athletes from the 757 have seem to gone by the wayside lately, while Shawn is a rising star. I look forward to him bringing the gold back to Portsmouth this summer.

NBA

I like the Baron Davis signing with the Clippers. However, it seems like no other major free agents will be changing addresses this year. That said, Baron and Elton Brand should be a one of the top combo's in the West, as long as they have the right supporting cast. It was a risk for LA, considering Baron's age and back/knee, but as they say 'scared money don't make money.'

MLB

The Rays are forreal. The more I watch them, the more I believe they are going to take the AL East.