The great American implosion

Well OK. They were supposed to announce this year's winner of the Heisman Trophy at 8:00 PM, But we knew that was a lie. A show which should have lasted no more than 5 minutes is dragged out to an hour.

All they had to do was say, "Here are your three finalists. Bryce Love, a running back from Stanford, Lemar Jackson, a quarterback from Louisville, and Baker Mayfield, another quarterback from Oklahoma".

"And the winner is, envelope please..." -- whichever. Make that two minutes. Who wants to slog through almost an hour of talking heads spouting their usual nonsense about stats and supposedly greatest this or that, with a ridiculous amount of commercials mixed in along the way, when what has long since been decided was available for announcement when the show first started?

Thing is, the Heisman is awarded to the best AMERICAN college football player every year.

So why is it brought to us by ----

Nissan? A Japanese auto company?

NASCAR stands for NATIONAL Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing -- not INTERNATIONAL.

So why have Toyota cars and motors been allowed to infest it?

Same with Indy racing and Honda trying to run Chevy out of business. Why do they put up with this obvious anti-American onslaught?

Here's a good one. While catching a brief glimpse of the annual Army/Navy football bore-a-thon, a stat popped up that the Navy quarterback had only thrown two passes ALL YEAR.

So what, pray tell, is the point of their wide receivers even bothering to split out and take their positions? They're never going to touch the ball anyway. That would be a little bit like making future Navy ensigns participate in ten mile runs -- only to assign them to confined quarters on submarine duty. Hello?

Go back to auto racing. Roger Penske, forever a Chevy man, recently bailed to Ford in his NASCAR entries. What's up with that?

Joe Gibbs, a deeply religious man, red,white, and blue American through and through, long ago sold out and became a Toyota guy. Almost a century ago, the phrase "say it ain't so, Joe" came to light. That had to do with Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Blacksox scandal. (He was later totally exonerated, but nobody wants to remember that part). Gibbs should hang his head in shame. Say it ain't so Joe indeed.

American sports fans need only pay attention to what companies are sponsoring so many of their events and even TV shows.

Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, and their ilk are seemingly everywhere. Very few sightings of Chevy, Ford, Pontiac, Chrysler or Dodge. Oldsmobile went out of business long ago and the Buick Open golf tournament vanished into the ether as well. True, at last look, Cadillac was still a proud sponsor of the Masters at Augusta National. Could it be that even those stodgy old curmudgeons might some day sell out to Asian influence? Hey, it was a men's club since its inception way back in the pre-WWII days. But they caved to the incessant nagging of the fairer sex a couple decades ago, and admitted a few.

Same with the Citadel, another name for a fortress. Their walls have been breached like those of the Alamo way back in 1836. Everybody wants to "remember the Alamo", but nobody wants to talk about the Citadel getting p-whipped. At least Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and Will Travis went down fighting.

All the while, lady reporters have been given access to men's locker rooms, but not vice-versa. Little girls have even infiltrated the Boy Scouts, amazing, but also not vice-versa. Fraternities are under siege to admit female members, but sororities face no such pressure from their male counterparts.

How is it that the NAACP can stand for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, when the public at large has long been chastised that "colored" is a word they aren't supposed to say anymore? How does that work?

Finally, how is it that the United States, the only country to ever detonate nuclear weapons on civilian populations -- twice -- now has the audacity to declare others a "threat" if they were ever to obtain the same technology?

When one looks at the bigger picture over the years, they are left to wonder -- what, pray tell, other than massive hypocrisy and selling out to the highest bidder (patriotism be damned), has been going on here?

Roger Goodell's victory lap

So after all the wrangling, the NFL Commish got re-upped for another five years. Is anybody really surprised? Even the amount, reportedly $200 million -- roughly 40 mil a year -- isn't totally out of line.

I mean c'mon. If he's going to be the head honcho of the league, shouldn't he at least be paid more than any low-life player?

Want to gripe about something? Try Matthew Stafford, of the perennially, and still sorry Detroit Lions being the highest paid player in the entire league. It's outrageous and, only in Detroit could they find a way to foist that off on their long suffering paying fans. To boot, Tom Brady of the Patriots, arguably the best QB of all time, with a hand full of Super Bowl rings and MVPs, makes SEVEN MILLION dollars LESS a year than Stafford -- who is yet to win a single playoff game and has a career losing record? How the hell is that even possible?

While it is true that Goodell and his minions have likely botched a few things over the years, particularly their waffling and flip-flopping on disciplinary issues, there is no denying the league has prospered under his leadership. A decade ago, when he first became top dog, the NFL was roughly a $4 billion dollar a year industry. Now it's up somewhere around $16 billion. Show me a financial adviser that can quadruple your investments over ten years, and I'll show you a guy/gal that will be in high demand.

Any talk of the NFL recently"slumping", due to whatever reasons, is purely hogwash. Boycotts? Get outta here. The stadiums are still packed, even for the sad-sack teams. TV ad rates have never been higher, with companies climbing all over themselves trying to get air time, price be damned.

Not long ago, one Jerry Jones, owner, president, general manager, and head bottle washer of the Dallas Cowboys, was dissatisfied with Roger Goodell. This likely had something to do with the Commish bouncing Jones's star running back Ezekiel Elliott for six games. Something about "conduct unbecoming" and "detrimental" to the league. Though EE was never even charged with a crime, much less convicted, he and his union lawyers finally gave up the court battle and swallowed their medicine, deserved or not. JJ said shortly thereafter that he would be coming for Roger with "everything he had".

Evidently, Jones didn't have much, let alone sway with the other billionaire owners. The rest of them voting to keep Goodell on for another five years pretty much says it all.

So if I'm Roger Goodell, I think about a Trump tweet or text moment, specifically aimed at Jones down in Big D. To wit ---

Still loving these Manhattan penthouse offices you will help pay for over the next five years. Sorry, LOL, to hear your Boys aren't doing so well during the current campaign. But hey, you've still got that giant video screen/scoreboard over the field in your palace -- right? It's something, even if your team isn't this year. But that's just kind of the way it goes sometimes, ya know? Ya win some, ya lose some. Know what the really bad news is? I'm much younger than you are and get to hold the hammer over your shyster head the next time you or one of your boys crosses a line I don't approve of. I will do my darndest to be fair and equitable in such matters, but you really should consider toning down your uppity language regarding me. I'm the boss -- not you. The others owners said so. Other than that, y'all have a nice day and this is nuttin' more then a liddle bidnuh to be taken care of. Surely you understand that.

And if not, in the immortal words of Rhett Butler, frankly, dear JJ, I don't give a damn.

The absurdity of the Ball family

Once upon a time a man named LaVar Ball was a jock. Pretty good, as the averages go, making it to college and getting a (short) look by the pros. Nah, not good enough. And he sired three sons along the way.

Recently, dear LaVar has said his sons, ahem, potential, was worth -- wait for it -- a BILLION dollars. Of course, nobody, especially the movers and shakers in athletics took him seriously. Far from it. Even the major shoe and apparel companies weren't willing to enlist his boys as clients and give them freebies, let alone mega-bucks.

LaVar was unhappy, so he founded his own company. The Big Baller brand. You have to give the man credit for having large cajones indeed by daring to introduce such a laughable concept. Pity he seems to remain woefully short in the firing cranial neurons department.

True, like the late Mohammed Ali, such black and racially slanted bluster will always get its followers. Keep talking smack, no matter how ridiculous, and the fools will look up to you as some sort of hero. Some still even maintain Ali was the "greatest" of all time. That is utterly absurd. He was defeated by Joe Frazier, beaten up by Ken Norton, who was robbed of an obvious win in their rematch, and even lost to Leon Spinks. LEON SPINKS!! In his later years, Ali was absolutely destroyed by Larry Holmes, before he finally whimpered out with a loss to Trevor Berbick. Six defeats, many of them convincingly so, is hardly the stuff of "greatest".

But back to the Ball family.

Daddy's oldest son Lonzo was predictably taken high in the draft by the LA Lakers. Sure, he's still a rookie, but so far he has some rather impressive stats as well. As in the worst shooting percentage in the entire league. Ditto for free throws. His foul shot attempts more closely resemble that of klutzes like Shaq, Wilt, or the Detroit Pistons' Andre Drummond than that of your usual run up and down the court guard. Is dear Lonzo a bust yet? Maybe not, but he certainly appears headed in that direction.

And now dad has pulled his second son, one LiAngelo, out of UCLA, a premier basketball program, before he's even played an official game for them. Remember, dear LiAngelo got busted in China for being a common thief. Dad thinks the prudent thing to do is take LiAngelo out of any chance at a higher education, so he can train for his "future" NBA career.

That would seem to beg a question. What team in their right mind would draft this kid if he got bounced out of college before ever playing a game, and with the circus daddy would surely bring to town if an NBA team took a chance of him? Good luck with that.

There appears to be one more Ball child still in the high school pipeline. What's his name again? LiAbility? LaCivious? LeThug waiting to happen? Beats me.

But if he came from the same daddy and even remotely wants to follow in his diddy-bopping, trash-talking footsteps as to the litany of the absurd and vastly self-overrated, then his chances of success in a sane world probably aren't very good either.

Here's an idea. Keep him out of China, or any other foreign country. Couldn't hurt.

Final Four football predictions

#1 Clemson vs #4 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

While the Tide back-doored their way into the playoffs, and their aura of greatness persists, real or imagined, they ain't what they used to be. Indeed, Auburn showed them to be vulnerable and a few of their games against less than quality competition were much closer than they should have been.

True, Bama is loaded with bigger, stronger, faster five star recruits from top to bottom, but what they don't have is brains.

Nick the -ick (fill in your own blank) Sabin gets to face off with his nemesis Dabo from Clemson once again. We know how the championship game turned out last year.

On the other hand, though it was a head scratcher, Clemson's earlier loss to a not-so-good Syracuse team was probably the best thing that could have happened to them. It woke them up and got them refocused. Since then, the Tigers have looked, well, formidable. Leshaun who? He's gone and Clemson is everybody bit as good as they were last year.

Prediction.

Though it's hard fought for three quarters or so, the defending national champs pull away towards the end of the game and slay the muscular, if dim-witted beast from Tuscaloosa once again and move on.

#2 Oklahoma vs #3 Georgia in the Rose Bowl.

Who would have ever imagined two teams like the Sooners and Bulldogs would wind up in Pasadena? Definitely a first.

Both appear to be on a roll, hence making it into the Final Four to begin with.

The Okies are Big 12 champs and the Dawgs kings of the SEC.

OU had an impressive win earlier in the year, waltzing into Ohio State and putting a thumping on the Buckeyes. But they were equally perplexing when an unranked Iowa State team came-a-calling in Norman and put a beat down on them. They feature quarterback Baker Mayfield, a front runner for the Heisman this year. When they're on their game, they're really good. But will they be on their game against....

Georgia. The Dawgs were rolling right along, even #1 in the country at one point. But like Alabama (also #1 at the time), they got kicked to the curb by that pesky Auburn. Thing is, Georgia came roaring back to avenge that loss in the SEC championship game, trashing the "other" Tigers. Tit for tat indeed, but when it mattered most, they were up to the task.

Prediction. The high-speed finesse of Oklahoma butting heads with the brute force of Georgia.

I think the Sooners eventually wilt under what the Dawgs will bring all game long. Like the Clemson scenario mentioned above, Georgia getting beat earlier by Auburn made them tougher and better in the long run.

And that would mean it will be Clemson and Georgia facing off for all the proverbial marbles.

Of course, like Sports Illustrated and my late father, yours truly seems to have this uncanny knack of always getting his predictions wrong.

But it should be a couple of pretty good games to watch nevertheless.

Hey, what better way to sober up, at least temporarily, than kick back and watch four really good teams slug it out on New Year's Day?

The play that wasn't called

Well, OK, it was ONLY the, as usual, terrible Cleveland Browns. They have long been the NFL's version of Murphy's Law. Between botched draft choices, a woefully incompetent front office hiring pitiful coaches, and even the play on the field -- if something can go wrong -- it WILL go wrong with the Browns.

But they got jobbed in the game earlier today against the Los Angeles Chargers. Here was the scenario....

With about a minute left to play in the game, the Chargers were ahead 19-10. It seemed like a lock -- a two score difference.

To nobody's great surprise, the Cleveland quarterback made yet another Murphy decision and threw a pass directly into the hands of a Charger defensive back for an easy interception. Game over, right?

Not so fast. It shouldn't have been.

Upon further review, the Charger defensive back indeed went to the ground -- but he was never touched by an opponent. In college ball, going down is the end of a play. Not so in pro ball. The play remains "live" until the ball carrier is touched.

See the intercepting defensive back, in celebration mode, get up and run all the way back into his own end zone, surrounded by teammates whooping it up. And THERE he took a knee.

Translation? If the refs had followed the rules, that constituted a safety. Two points for Cleveland.

The score would then have been 19-12, and the Chargers would have had to kick it back to the Browns for one more shot.

And though it seems unlikely -- it's the Browns, remember? -- they still would have theoretically had the chance to quickly march down the field to score a touchdown. An extra point would have tied it and sent the game into overtime. A successful two-point conversion would have -- OMG -- even conceivably given them their first victory of the season.

But nobody noticed, or cared, because it's Cleveland. If their coaching staff on the sidelines had the semblance of even a vague clue, they would have thrown the red flag and demanded a review of the play. But because they remain clueless, they didn't.

In the whole scheme of things, does it really matter much?

Probably not.

But dammit, the rules are the rules.

The least the on-field officials, and those mysterious "guys in the booth" can do is follow them correctly.

Three locks and a maybe

After quite the day of exciting college football action, the Final Four has been set in stone. Well, at least three of them.

As noted in my previous post a mere couple hours ago, Oklahoma is a lock as Big 12 champs, finishing up on a high note by demolishing TCU.

One loss Georgia avenged that very setback to Auburn earlier by pummeling the Tigers in the SEC championship game. Count the Dawgs in.

Already #1, Clemson absolutely pounded Miami for the ACC crown. That means U, U, yes U, can slink back to South Beach, South Park, Little Havana, or whatever it is you call home with your heads hung in shame. U just got punked. So yes, Clemson has most definitely punched their ticket.

Three in and one to yet be decided. And that's where things get interesting.

Ohio State barely -- BARELY -- hung on to down previously undefeated Wisconsin in the Big 10 -- actually 14, go figure -- conference championship game. That means the Badgers are out. Many have been looking for a reason to deny them a shot all year and now they have one.

So who will be the fourth and final team invited to the big dance?

Remember, Alabama was sitting at #5 going into today's action, and they were idle.

Auburn, which handily defeated the Tide just a week ago, went down in flames to Georgia, as mentioned above.

The "committee" is faced with the tough call of deciding whether to put two SEC teams into the Final Four (Bama and Georgia), which would mean the Big 10 gets shut out entirely, or elevating Ohio State back into the picture.

Let's not forget that OSU was thoroughly beaten in their own house early in the season by the very same Oklahoma. No shame there. But later getting woodshedded by an unranked Iowa team to the tune of over four touchdowns worth is a glaring flaw on their record.

So, therefore, ergo, and thus, yours truly suspects it will boil down to what I've predicted all along.

Yep, that pesky Nick Saban and his Tide are going to get another shot. Even though they couldn't even qualify for their own conference championship game, and sat back twiddling their thumbs while the other big boys were killing each other on Saturday.

Maybe they deserve it. Maybe not. And the Big Ten folks and fans will scream "NO FAIR" at being left out.

But somehow it just doesn't feel or smell right.

That's not even to mention Central Florida, which went undefeated all year, but was never even in the conversation for a title shot. A lesser conference, you say? Maybe so, but how do we know the Knights couldn't compete, and possibly defeat some of those same Final Four "big boys" on the national stage if they're denied the chance to do so?

That doesn't feel right either.

Want a reason to expand the national playoff to at least eight teams?

I give you Central Florida as Exhibit A.

Working on the Final Four

Despite their mysterious loss at home to Iowa State a while back, Oklahoma has just punched their ticket into college football's Final Four. As Big 12 champs, culminating with a resounding defeat of TCU -- they're in. Lock city.

That's one.

Auburn, formerly #2 in the country after dispatching that pesky Bama, is decidedly out. This what happens when Georgia, whom the Tigers smacked down earlier in the season, avenges itself with a woodshed whupping over the same Auburn team in the SEC championship game.

Count the Dawgs in.

That's two.

With #5 Alabama sitting at home twiddling their thumbs, the rest gets pretty interesting.

If Wisconsin defeats Ohio State, game currently underway, there will be no holding them out of the Final Four, despite how so many over the season keep looking for a reason to do so. Big Ten champs with an undefeated record? They'd be a lock as well.

But -- if the Buckeyes prevail, do they get elevated into the Final Four, even as a two-loss team? In effect leap-frogging Alabama which only had one? Hmmm.

Go back to Georgia. Before the game against Auburn, the Dawgs were ranked #6. They're the SEC champs and Bama didn't even make it to the conference championship game. Is it indeed a lock that a #6 jumps over an idle #5? Hmmm again.

In the ACC conference championship game, also currently underway, #1 Clemson is tangling with the Miami Hurricanes. If the Tigers win, they're a no-brainer to head back to attempt to defend their national title. (Despite their equally head scratching loss at lowly Syracuse a couple months back.)

But what if they lose? Chances are they'd drop out.

One way or the other, by hook or by crook, yours truly suspects that pesky Nick Sabin and his crew are going to back door their way into the Final Four again, even though other teams are slugging it out while they do nothing.

We shall see.

Stay tuned for an update later.....