Welcome Football Fans

Posted on December 22, 2011 by

Hello Savvy Football Fans,

First, please click on the heading to remove the blue color. 
 

Our blogs are largely on NCAA Football and matters directly or indirectly related to it.  Because college football is so closely inter-connected with pro football, occasionally we will blog about happenings in the NFL.  We will  analyze the world of American-style football.  Rather than report on the particulars of various games, unless those particulars reveal something of keen interest to football enthusiasts,  we will focus on matters that appeal to a broad general audience. 

We will look at the economics and politics of the game and the commercial agenda of the controlled media.  We will examine these matters as part and parcel of national politics; or, in other words, as a microcosm of the larger national (and international) political stage.  We will look at the effects thereof on us fans, who for the most part enjoy the game as much as ever but have virtually no say in how it might be modified to make it fair to fans, players in particular, and taxpayers in general.

To make our blog site responsive to your wants, we urge you to comment in the box below each article and to rate it by clicking on one or more stars.  If you have any friends or acquaintances who you think might enjoy a particular blog, please inform them.  If you should want to tell the general public about a certain article, click the button with “+1” and also the “like” button.  If you enjoy our blogs and would like to be notified of each new post, please click on the “Follow” button at the very bottom of the page.  Thank you!

With heart ‘n’ mind entwined,

TD McGann

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NCAA Hypocrisy, Part I

Posted on March 17, 2012 by

Mark Emmert, pres of NCAA

If the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s actions produced a salutary effect, so-called student-athletes would excel academically, in all the arts and sciences, and overall they would be financially far better off than they are today.

So as not to get the wrong idea and think this article is unduly critical, readers should be mindful that the NCAA’s chief raison d’être should be but is not ─ viz., to help athletes excel in academics.  Anything short of this measure makes a mockery out of the NCAA’s avowed concern for the well-being of college athletes.  Most certainly, its chief raison d’être should not be to amass great wealth for itself, universities, coaching staffs, sporting apparel and broadcasting companies, while profiting on poor players remain dirt poor.  

Contrary to what the NCAA would like the public to think, these athletes are not little children, still too young to manage an allowance.  They are young men and women old enough to marry, sign a contract, cast a vote, and fight in wars.  Some freshmen athletes are already mature enough to play professionally but are prevented from doing so because the NCAA wants to “protect” them as long as possible.  If they had their druthers, they would mother every player worth his salt until thirty-five or forty years of age.

The failings of the NCAA should not be considered as simple oversights: the association has had over a century to get a clear, well-focused look at the chronic carking issues that have always beset college athletes ─ namely, getting poor grades and having no money except a paltry sum to subsist on.  

The proof is in the pudding: were the NCAA truly concerned about their dear college athletes, it would not be forever engaged in litigation with them. 

In this first part, we will review the claptrap on the NCAA’s website.  In Part II, we will look at the little that the NCAA’s has been doing to help athletes become better students ─ virtually nothing ─ and what it could be doing to make profound difference.  In Part III, we will look at the NCAA’s financial books ─ to the degree that they are open to the public ─ and at their other streams of income which are fairly well concealed from public view.  In Part IV, we will survey the history of the NCAA’s litigation with schools and players, and learn why there is a burgeoning number of bowls yet no playoffs.  In Part V, the final part, we will look specifically at the NCAA’s callous indifference to football players’ overall well-being and at its lack of leadership to reduce the intolerable high incidence of debilitating football injuries. Continue reading →

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Prospective Rule Changes for Football Student-Athletes

Posted on February 20, 2012 by

Let’s acknowledge that the NCAA’s first and foremost concern is for the well-being of student-athletes . . . ostensibly!  Similar to the hollow concern of the Department of Education for “the children,” the NCAA has a nurturing nature towards student-athletes.  Indeed this is a bit odd, being that student-athletes are a bit too old to be treated as children.  Nearly all of the players are adults between 18 and twenty-two years of age.  Nevertheless, the NCAA watches over them as a mother hen her brood, especially when it comes to financial matters.

The NCAA would like to have us believe that it does not care a bit about self aggrandizement; that it is not concerned with growing in size or influence; that it is not concerned with making money for the participating schools, the coaches, or people who work within its governing body; that it is not concerned about increasing control over sports; and that it reluctantly assumes a policing role solely for the benefit of helpless student-athletes.

The NCAA vigilantly makes the distinction between student-athletes and professionals.  The NCAA wishes to keep the public and, most certainly, the players forever mindful this.  If this distinction were not made repeatedly, before long athletes would start acting like professionals.  Heavens forbid!  Just imagine the correlative problems!  The NCAA realizes that student-athletes have the rest of their lives to worry about money and does everything within its power to keep the dear boys and girls financially worry free.  This certainly seems to be the NCAA’s major concern and that everything else pales by comparison.  Indeed, the NCAA is on the ball ─ the love of money is said to be the root of all evil.  Certainly, nobody in the NCAA would dare gainsay this maxim of life!

Ever since the public has become aware of the high incidence of injuries in football ─ especially brain and spinal injuries ─ the NCAA has been acting even more maternal-like making football safer for student-athletes.  Their concern, however, seems to be a tad disingenuous.  Hopeful, this is not true.  Nevertheless, on this ever so important matter they act more as cold-hearted surrogates than loving natural mothers.  Strangely, the NCAA, which knows so very much on how to protect student-athletes against financial predation, knows so very little on how to protect them against physical abuse.

Although nary a fan likes to see players maimed, crippled, or disabled for life, fans do like to see hard hitting ─ hard hitting as distinct from cheap, malicious, wicked, or wanton hitting.  The NCAA does not seem fully aware of this.  Apparently, they think the public can never quench its thirst for blood and gore.  Apparently, they think fans are more like beasts of the jungle rather than compassionate human beings greatly concerned for the well-being of players ─ both theirs and their opponents’. 

Whether it’s empathy or discretion that the NCAA lacks, they most certainly act as though football will always render considerable collateral damage, and that all they can do about it is change the rules of engagement . . . slightly, that is.  This they have done.  The changes that they have proposed are woefully ineffectual.  Fatalities and debilitating injuries will persist ─ without any doubt whatsoever.

It seems, at least to this writer, that the NCAA’s principal concern regarding injuries is not so much in preventing them as it is in not offending those thoughtless rabid fans, accustomed to bread and circuses, who would take offense even over the slightest perceptible change in play.   Continue reading →

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Part III: If Gisele could have Played and Belichick would have Coached

Posted on February 13, 2012 by

By now, Gisele, you should have cooled off some.  By now you should have studied the films of the game.  Thus, you should have come to realize that Wes Welker, Aaron Hernandez, and Deion Branch are all and all arguably pretty good receivers.  Perhaps, you still feel that they should have caught every pass near them.  No argument!  The truth, however, is that nary a receiver in the NFL is quite so good.  So rather than summarily cut them in the off-season, let’s first examine why they fell considerably short of your high standards.

Let’s look at Gronk Gronkowski.  He’s great!  As you know, Gronk didn’t drop a single pass in the game.  Why is this?  The odds were in his favor, Tom threw only three passes his way.  Why wasn’t he thrown to more often?  The reason, as you know, he was playing hurt.

Gisele, why did Gronk play at all?  Why did he play one single play?  Had he been tackled again like he was tackled once before – in the Ravens game when his fibula nearly snapped in two – perhaps he would not walk again without a limp, let alone play football again.  (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-6z3TG0RFo) Continue reading →

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Part II: If Gisele could have Played and Belichick would have Coached

Posted on February 12, 2012 by

In a pre-game interview Eli said that the key to winning the Super Bowl is scoring more points and controlling the ball.  

Gisele, do you suppose that the Patriots heard these words and sniggered?  Eli was just joking about the “scoring more points.”  Everyone knows you can’t win without having more points – it’s a tautology!  Also, everyone should know that if team A dominates the ball, Team B will be at a disadvantage and likely lose the game.  There is no confusing Team A with Team B in Super Bowl  LXVI.  Agreed?

Gisele, do you suppose that your Tom and his teammates were ignorant of this most basic precept?  Well, they most certainly played as though they did!  They played as though it were an altogether new concept!  They played as though they failed to hear the first part of Eli’s sage comment.  In other words, they played as though “scoring more points” was the extent of their game plan.  Right?  Isn’t that tantamount to having no plan . . . no plan at all?

Funny thing, Gisele, at first blush it appears that neither your Tom nor coach Belichick is blamable. Tom was not charged with devising a winning game plan and Belichick relegated himself to more or less the team’s personnel director and inspirational leader.  

When, if ever, is the quarterback’s opinion not to be considered?  Never!  Hence, shouldn’t Tom have asserted his opinions more forcefully?  In fairness to him, perhaps he opined his opinions very forcefully but they were largely dismissed. Nevertheless, can you imagine great quarterbacks of a different stripe acquiescing to a doomed strategy? Continue reading →

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Part I: If Gisele could have Played and Belichick would have Coached

Posted on February 11, 2012 by

If Tom Brady could have been a receiver, as well as quarterback, and caught all those many “dropped passes” he threw himself, as his wife Gisele laments is impossible with the rules being such as they are; or if Gisele were a man having skill equal to what it takes to walk back and forth on a projected elevated aisle as a super model, New England would have won hands down!  No bout a doubt it!

If Gisele were not a super sycophantic fan (of her husband), she would not have made her  “f****ing” tirade.  Had she not been a Gisele-come-lately to the game, she would have understood that dropped passes happen, happen now and then – they are part of the game, like interceptions and safeties. 

Besides, there weren’t all that many “dropped passes.”  The one to Wes Welker, if caught would have been a spectacular catch -  albeit it would have likely clinched the game.  On the following play, two defenders had blanketed Deion Branch and there was no way he could have caught that pass.

On the first play of the final drive, Branch did not drop Brady’s pass.  In fact it was almost picked off by Kenny Phillips who had both his hands on it for a split second, but it was too hot to handle.  On the next play the normally sure-handed Aaron Hernandez did drop the pass.  That was his one and only dropped pass.  It was the Patriots’ one and only “dropped pass” too.  At any rate, it stopped the clock and gave her would-be hero another opportunity to move the ball 80 yards in about 45 seconds with just one timeout left.  

Sorry, Gisele, the clock beat Tom! Continue reading →

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No Surprise: Giants 37–20 over Packers

Posted on January 16, 2012 by

Coach Joe Philbin

The win was not a surprise for more than one reason.

‘T was dé·jà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra might say had he been following the Packers recently.

Just four weeks ago, the lowly Kansas City Chiefs beat the Green Bay Packers 19-14.  The Chiefs had been up 19-7 with 2:04 left in the game when the Packers scored a face-saving TD.  On the final series of plays, the Chiefs marched down the field with ease within easy field goal range when the clock ran out. Continue reading →

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The Truth Hurts: Why LSU Lost to Alabama

Posted on January 11, 2012 by

The reason ─ Les Miles was under the delusion his team was superior to Alabama’s.  To clarify, LSU didn’t just lose, they got whipped.  There ain’t no And’s, If’s, or But’s about it ─ not in anyone’s mind, not anywhere including Baton Rouge.

This is not quite true, Les may be thinking, “If we had done this, or if we had done that, we just might have won.”  If in fact he thinks this way, he is the one exception!  Not really.  An anonymous Associated Press sportswriter cast his vote for LSU to sit atop Alabama on the AP Top 25 chart! 

If LSU had done this or if LSU had done that, by kickoff time it was two months too late to do anything except pray.  And in a way their prayers were answered ─ the score should have been 50-0 to reflect the true measure of defeat. Continue reading →

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Penn State Football: Why, Why, Oh Why Bill O’Brien?

Posted on January 9, 2012 by

Coach Bill O'Brien

The little that is known about him has not endeared anyone to him – not players (both current and former), not the alumni, and not the fans.  Some of the former stars, such as former linebacker LaVar Arrington, are livid, vowing to disassociate themselves with the university.  The rancor, supposedly, is that O’Brien is not “family.”  True, he has no ties whatsoever to the university.  Possibly, he may never have stepped on Pennsylvania soil before last month when he was interviewed by David Joyner, the university’s acting athletic director.

 Actually, O’Brien being an outsider is not necessarily bad. The new coach should be as disassociated from the pedophilia scandal as possible.     

That O’Brien is not family is not the real reason Penn State football followers are so upset. Just imagine how happy they would be if, perchance, Tim Teebow had been interviewed for the job, accepted, and resigned as QB of the Broncos.  Just imagine how much more pleased they would be if he accepted with the proviso that Tom Bradley would be Joyner’s replacement.  In effect, Teebow and Bradley would be working in tandem to gild Penn State’s tarnished image.  Imagine the effect on the players, imagine the effect on the fans, imagine the effect on recruits!

Not to digress too far, Teebow was likely not even considered, ‘though, if he had been, do you think he would shun an opportunity to do so much good, good for the university, good for the game, good for goodness sake?  A better choice than Teebow could not be found on planet earth.

 In any regard, Is O’Brien the next best choice?  What do football fans at large know about him?  We know only that he has quite a temper, which was revealed to the world in his violent altercation with Patriots QB Tom Brady.  O’Brien, the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, had to be physically restrained from attacking the multi-million dollar quarterback on the sidelines during a recent game.

 To beard a lion, so to speak, without trepidation says an awful lot about his certainty in his football savvy.  It says nothing, however, about his ability to manage a team.  In fact, his spurt of anger does not redound to his honor.  In the view of fans, players, and, most significantly, recruits, his intemperate behavior does not augur well. Continue reading →

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NCAA Football: Ten Wishes That Must Be Realized

Posted on January 1, 2012 by

A New Era with a New Standard Is Necessary!

Of course, these wishes are not shared by all football fans, just by those enlightened ones, whose numbers are woefully low at the moment.  This broad-minded group of ununified individuals must coalesce and grow.  It  must do so to gain a voice that is heard despite the roar of the unaware, apolitical masses.  Else wise, the following enumerated wishes will be just that, mere wishes ─ idle wishes never realized, whilst college football, the game and its standard, being part and parcel of our overall societal mores, whirls downward at ever accelerating speed.

Rather than looking at football as mere entertainment, we had better realize it is much more than a game.  It reflects our values, both noble and otherwise.  It is a veritable microcosm of the national stage, ipso facto, the overall world stage. 

We had better be mindful of this bromide, that history repeats itself; better yet, be cognizant of why it repeats itself.  Excepting advances in science and technology, how does modern-day America differ from ancient Rome, if at all?  How do we contemporary Americans differ from ancient Romans, if at all? 

The truthful answers to both questions is “Not at all.”  To make for a better world,  if only in small part, We Football Fans had better soon take measures to check ourselves. 

The ancient bread and circuses played in coliseums throughout the Roman empire were quite effective in controlling their populace. Our modern-day football played in stadiums across our land is no less effective in controlling us avid fans. 

“We think, therefore we are!” is a corollary to the maxim attributed to 17th century French philosopher René Descartes’, viz. “I think, therefore I am.”  However, if we fail to think with our heart and mind engaged, we are thinking wrong!  

Now let’s look at Ten Wishes, which, if realized, would make both fans and players proud and thrilled, and in effect, would leave a sanguine legacy to future generations. Continue reading →

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