Musings on drugs in the NFL, NBC sports, and Luck

It's been a while since I've had the time to sit down and write a new blog post, so now that I'm finally enjoying a bit of a summer vacation I thought I'd address some topics that have either been eating at me for a while, or that have been neglected (at least from what I've seen/heard) by the sports media in general.

Let's start with the latter. Last month I read an article written by Rick Reilly titled NFL Back in Business in which Reilly described a day he spent with longtime NFL agent Peter Schaffer. As is typical with Reilly's work, it was a very well-written and enlightening article to read, but there was one part of the article that stood out to me right away that I'm shocked I have not heard more uproar about.

Here's the quote from the story:

"9:44 a.m. Big crisis

A prominent NFC player is freaking out. The NFL has dropped off a urine-testing kit at his house when he's clearly not -- how shall we say this? -- ready."

Substitue MLB for NFC/NFL and I have no doubt this is a story featured on Sportscenter. The fact that this was a non-story shows how much more NFL players can get away with compared to Athletes from all other sports, especially baseball because

1. NFL is king, and all fans care about is seeing the best product on the field, no matter what it takes to produce the best product on the field.

2. Stats don't hold nearly the significance historically that they do in baseball. And especially now with fantasy football being the million dollar behemoth that it is, if a player is doing something illicitly to help their fantasy stats down the road, then so be it.

Reilly is purposefully ambiguous by not only not reporting who the player is in the article, but also not letting the reader know why the player is freaked out (i.e. recreational drug use or performance enhancing drug use?). I know Reilly had his reasons for being ambiguous, but that doesn't mean he was right to be, and I can only hope for his sake as well as other NFL writers who have no doubt heard of or seen similar stories, that we don't get a resulting *steroids era in football as we have seen in baseball.

NBC Sports announced on August 1 that beginning January 2, 2012 VERSUS will be renamed the NBC Sports Network.

According to NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus, "This is more than just a name change for VERSUS. It’s a complete repositioning of the brand to provide value for marketers, consumers as well as all our affiliates and distributors. We want anyone who comes into contact with any of our assets to immediately connect with the NBC Sports brand promise."

Now, this is just a hunch, but I feel part of the reasoning behind this name change for VERSUS is that NBC is looking to make the NBC Sports Network into a cable television station that can compete with ESPN. And, I wouldn't be surprised if in a year or two (or whenever it has the flexibility to do so) that NBC decides to move "Sunday Night Football" from the broadcast network of NBC to the cable channel NBC Sports Network.

Why do I feel this move seems inevitable? Well, there has to be a reason why the very successful Walt Disney company, which owns ESPN and ABC, decides to air "Monday Night Football" on the cable channel ESPN as opposed to the broadcast network ABC. Even though ABC reaches more homes and thus a conclusion could be drawn that Monday Night Football on ABC would draw a higher rating than on ESPN, the reasoning behind putting MNF on ESPN could be that football fans are going to watch MNF (or SNF) no matter who's televising it, so why not put it on a cable channel that one needs to pay extra for. This type of thinking would seem to make sense for NBC if it makes sense for Disney, plus then the lucrative sunday night time slots could be used on the broadcast network for shows to attract those viewers not interested in football (do those people exist?).

Unfortunately I don't know the specifics of NBC's deal with the NFL to broadcast SNF, but I can't help but think, if ESPN is able to generate good ratings for MNF as well as good ratings for shows on ABC on Monday night, why wouldn't NBC move its most popular sport to a cable channel it's trying to grow, and by doing so try to own Sunday night television the way Disney owns Monday night?

When it comes to how to build a successful NFL team, I'm a proponent, like most people seem to be, of stockpiling a lot of draft picks, and not being afraid to use those picks on linemen. The New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles tend to put on a clinic year-after-year on how to build through the draft, and the strategy has certainly served both franchises well. So, it was nice to finally see the team I root for, the Washington Redskins, implement the same approach at this past April's draft. That being said, 2012 is the one year I would change draft strategies, and be willing to "give up the house" to try and acquire the number one overall pick, because that's how highly I believe in Andrew Luck being an absolute stud in the NFL. It's possible a team may not have to "give up the house" to be in position to draft Luck, if say Luck were to get injured and miss part of the season, or a team actually ends up with the worst record in the 2011 season. But, chances are a price will need to be paid to acquire Luck, and a steep one at that, and in this particular instance, I believe Luck is worth paying for!

Finally, recent events such as the NFL lockout being lifted and the debt ceiling resolution have proved on thing to me; we are a country of procrastinators! I admit, I'm a bit of a procrastinator myself, and it's hard to get things accomplished when you don't have the pressure of a meaningful deadline in front of you. But, it seems procrastination is starting to take over this country, emanating from the lower levels of grade school to the upper reaches of congress. This is a disturbing trend, and unfortunately I only see it getting worse as a younger generation moves into more prominent positions in the work place.

Mediocrity is not always bad

We have arrived at the half-way point in the NFL Season, and with no undefeated teams left, the season has been filled with what many analysts like to call "mediocrity". I agree that the fact that 22 of the league's 32 teams have between 3 and 5 wins, speaks to a great amount of parity within the league, but parity doesn't always equate to mediocrity. I would say the NFL's tightening restrictions on illegal hits speaks volumes about just how big and fast the athletes have gotten, and if athletes have gotten bigger and faster, it's only safe to assume the quality of play has gotten better as a result.

So what, then, to make of the parity in the league thus far if it's not because of mediocre play. Well, for one, I think it makes the league even more entertaining due to the obvious fact that parity allows more fans to believe their team has a shot to win week in and week out. Sure, having a dominant team chasing an undefeated season can be fun, but it can also be boring if there is no other team near the level of that one dominant team. Parity, on the other hand, keeps people guessing, and while that might anger some (ex. ESPN analysts and Gamblers), it is in the best interest of the sport in the long run.

The question remains, though, about what the NFL's parity should be attributed to. I mentioned that players have gotten bigger and faster, but there's also more bigger and faster players than there ever have been before. Also, coaching has gotten better, and as we saw a few years ago when the wildcat was introduced to the NFL, coaches aren't afraid to copy each other if they realize another coach has figured out a formation that works.

While better coaching and better athletes is also the case in baseball and basketball, the NFL has two rules in place to help promote parity, which cannot be said for the NBA or MLB.

1) The NFL has a hard salary cap (or at least did up until this year)

2) NFL team's can place a franchise tag on a player in order to not lose that player in free agency.

Though the NBA also has a hard salary cap, it doesn't have the franchise tag, which could have prevented Lebron James from leaving Cleveland had one been in place.

The NFL has both, and it is for that reason that we see the parity in the league that exists today. The NFL better remember this when it heads into negotiations with the players union this offseason, because in all likelihood the NFL is going to have to cede some power to the players in order for there to be football next season. But, two points the owners should never compromise on are the salary cap and franchise tag, because those two rules equate to parity, and it is parity that has allowed the NFL to easily become the most popular sport in the U.S.

The way the sports world defines a person's character

The Boss

With the recent death of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, much has been written about his personality and accomplishments over the past few days. He has been described as a great owner who cared about winning second only to breathing, ( he once said "winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing") and because he succeeded in winning many times he has been described as a great man.

This perception of Mr. Steinbrenner as a great human being, despite him being suspended from baseball for 2 1/2 years, seems a bit over the top to me. Sure, it's possible he may have been a loving father and husband who gave millions to charities, but that's not why he is being put on a pedestal by those writing about him since his death. The Boss, as he was commonly called, is being written about in such a positive manner because he won championships, seven of them to be exact, and in this country winning is all that matters in the eyes of sports fans. George Steinbrenner had that same mentality, that winning was everything, and while that worked for him professionally, you have to wonder about the character of a man who holds winning above all else except breathing (that includes his family). I'm not saying he was necessarily a bad person (though he obviously had character flaws that lead to his suspension), but I am saying that the sports media needs to look not just at a man's accomplishments in sports, but how he acts and what he values away from the sport before anointing him to such lofty levels.

And how about some praise before a man passes away? I realize we all want to leave people's legacies in the best of lights, but death should not change our view of how we perceive someone. So, if you blasted Steinbrenner before his death, don't change your view of the man now that he's dead.

And now for my comments about Lebron...

Only because everyone is commenting on the subject. From a basketball fan standpoint I couldn't be more excited to see Lebron, D-Wade, and Bosh team up on one team. I think the heat will be fantastic and this is a team that could bring about the same type of excitement to NBA regular season games that MJ's Bulls teams did back in the 90's. As a Wizards fan, I hate Lebron going to the Heat because I now think the southeast division may be the best division in basketball (certainly in the east) for the next few years. I agree with most opinions that Lebron should not have aired his decision to join the Heat in a one-hour special on ESPN, mostly because of the extra pain such a buildup and announcement was sure to cause cavaliers fans. That being said, Dan Gilbert's comments were a bit over the top as Lebron had every right to leave Cleveland, and I believe he did make the best basketball decision for himself (plus who wouldn't want to live in South Beach?). The Heat are now my favorites to win it all next year, but even if they don't you can bet the show will still be worth the price of admission.

2009 - A Year in Sports I'd like to Forget

As years go, 2009 may be one of the worst I can remember in terms of how the teams I root for fared in their respective sports. Maybe I have gotten a little spoiled in recent years with the success of USC Football (7 straight BCS bowl games), USC Basketball (3 straight NCAA tournament appearances), and the Red Sox (World Series champions in '04 and '07), but the beatings my teams took this year were cruel and unusual, and the year I went through is something I wish upon no other sports fan.

USC Football and Basketball

USC Football ended the 2009 season with a record of 9-4, including an emerald bowl victory over Boston College. While the season was disappointing in that USC didn't make it to a BCS bowl game for the first time in 7 years, a 9 win season really isn't all that bad. However, what made this year especially hard to cope with was the way USC lost its 4 games. The Trojans got blown out at home by Stanford and in Eugene against Oregon, as well as loosing close games at Washington and at home against Arizona. The loss at Washington I can live with because it was a game in which no one on the Trojans could hang on to the ball, and like it or not those types of games happen every once in  while. However, against Oregon and Stanford USC had no answer on defense, and when they realized they had no answer defensively everyone on the team just shut it down. Seeing a team completely give up is disheartening to say the least, and it is why this season was so tough on Trojan football fans.

USC Basketball, on the other hand, had most of its turmoil off the court. After winning the Pac-10 tournament title and making the NCAA tourney for the third consecutive year this past spring, all hell broke loose for the Trojans. Taj Gibson, DeMar DeRozan, and Daniel Hacket all decided to leave school early to turn pro, head coach Tim Floyd resigned amid allegations that he gave money to former trojan O.J. Mayo, and as a result the players making up one of the nation's best recruiting classes were released from their commitment to play for the school and fled elsewhere, and returning forward Leonard Washington was ruled academically ineligible to play for the fall 2009 semester. All this being said, things are actually starting to look up for the team as it heads in to the start of Pac-10 play in 2010. USC has started the season with an 8-4 record and is coming off a christmas tournament victory at the Diamond Head classic in Hawaii, so maybe I do have a little reason to believe that the new year may bring success for at least one of the teams I root for.

Nationals and Red Sox

The Nationals misfortune in 2009 was well documented as not only were they the butt of many jokes because of their play on the field, but also because they couldn't seem to get their name spelled correctly on the front of their jersey. There was also the embarrassing off-the-field scandal involving former GM Jim Bowden that eventually cost him his job. However, since Mike Rizzo has taken over as GM the team has started to slowly move in the right direction, signing first overall pick Stephen Strasburg to as $15 million deal and acquiring free-agent all-star pitcher Jason Marquis. Rizzo also raided the front offices of several other teams this off-season in order to have more qualified baseball minds around him, which is why I believe the Nationals, despite their 59-103 record in 2009, are the DC team showing the most promise in 2010 besides the Capitals.

Compared to all the other teams that let me down this year, the Red Sox really don't even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. The only reason I feel the need to bring them up in this post is because the Yankees won the World Series, and having the Yankees win yet another World Series is about as bad as if the Red Sox did finish with an equal record to the Nationals.

Redskins

The team with likely the most disappointing season in 2009 of the teams I root for, at times I actually got physically ill when watching them play this season. Even with the benefit of an easy early-season schedule and the addition of high-priced free agent Albert Haynesworth, the Skins could only manage to win 4 games in 2009 and went 0-6 in the NFC East. As if their record itself isn't bad enough, the Cowboys finally decided to start winning some games in December and have already secured themselves a playoff birth. Indeed times are bleak now if you're a Redskins fan, but there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel with the recent resignation of Vinny Cerrato and the hiring of new GM Bruce Allen. The skins will have a lot of work to do trying to right the ship in 2010, but at least they have a head start with the hiring of a proven football mind in Bruce Allen. That's more than can be said for the next team on this list...

Wizards

While the Redskins may have won the award for the most disappointing of the DC teams in 2009, the Wizards win the award for the team whose future looks the most bleak. After finishing the 08-09 season with a record of 19-63, there was actually a lot of optimism surrounding the team in the summer because Gilbert Arenas was finally healthy again, meaning the big 3 of Arenas, Caron Butler, and  Antawn Jamison would all be on the floor together again for an extended period of time for the first time since 2006. But, as the first 30 games of the 09-10 season has proven, having those three players healthy doesn't necessarily mean the team will start winning again. The Wizards currently sit at 10-20 and are last in the southeast division, 12 games back of Orlando. It appears as though they will eclipse their dismal win total of last season, but need to go 32-20 the rest of the way to have any sort of shot at the playoffs. One could argue that the team just needs more time to adjust to playing in new head coach Flip Saunders' system, but even he admitted that defensively this team can't stop anyone. With the defensively deficient Gilbert Arenas locked up for a lot more money for a lot more years, it seems the Wizards are stuck with the players currently on the court, and it could be a while until the Wizards again reach respectability.

Capitals

Finally I get to the lone bright spot of my sports fan experience in 2009. The Capitals advanced to the 2nd round of the NHL playoffs in the spring, and took Pittsburgh to a game 7 before finally succumbing to the eventual Stanley Cup Champions. Armed with arguably the best player in the NHL and some impressive young netminders, the Caps seem poised to be a force for years to come. But, seeing as their success has come at a time when all the other teams I root for are down in the dumps, I have found myself wondering whether it is better to root for one great team and a lot of sub-par teams or a bunch of mediocre squads. While I'm sure there is not one answer for all sports fans, I have concluded that prolonged greatness is a rarity in sports these days, so when one team you root for has the chance to be great you take that along with the bad. Would I prefer a Redskins Superbowl to a Capitals Stanley Cup? Certainly, but as a sports fan you can't pick and choose, so all you can do is continue to cheer the teams you love and hope that the new year brings new prosperity! 

Mid-Summer nitpicking

As it is the slowest time of the year in sports, with only the MLB, MLS, and WNBA playing regular season games right now, I thought it would be a good time to nitpick about a few things that have bothered me of late. The first topic I want to address is President Barack Obama's ceremonial first pitch at the MLB All-star game in St. Louis last Tuesday, or at least Fox's coverage of the pitch. You see, the problem was that Fox never showed where Obama's pitch went. The station only showed Obama releasing the pitch, but never used the conventional center field camera to show where the pitch ended up. 

Click here for Fox's live coverage of Obama's pitch

While I don't know who is to blame for this gaffe, I have concluded there are two possible reasons why it occurred. Either Fox didn't want to highlight the president's pitch (in case it was a strike) due to the station's conservative bias, or, the more likely reason in my mind, the Obama camp didn't want to show where the pitch ended up in case it wasn't a strike. I believe the Obama camp was being extra cautious after the recent first pitch fiasco for Mark Whalberg before a Red Sox game at Fenway Park last month. Or, the Obama camp didn't want the possibility of the same type of negative press that followed the president's bowling blunder during his campaign last year. As it turns out, the Obama camp had nothing to fear since the president's pitch turned out to be a pretty decent one with a little help from Albert Pujols behind the plate. 

Click here for a highlight to see where Obama's pitch actually went

I do have to commend FOX for the fact that the station doesn't feel the need to add a third broadcaster in the booth for big events. This is one of my pet peeves that most notably ESPN tends to do for all the big events the station broadcasts. I was hopeful that after hearing Tony Kornheiser would not be back in the booth for a third season of Monday Night Football (which I think was a good decision by the network) there might be a shift to a two-man booth consisting of only Mike Tirico and Ron Jaworski. Unfortunately that is not to be, as former Bucs and Raiders coach Jon Gruden has signed on to be the third man in the booth. While I think "chucky" will be great on television as an analyst, I don't think that even his charisma and personality can offset the awkwardness that accompanies a three-man booth.

Finally I want to comment on a trend that has become increasingly apparent in articles written about baseball. I don't pretend to be a grammar expert and I'm sure I make many grammatical mistakes in my writing, but I don't see any reason why writers should choose to use the terms RBIs and HRs as opposed to the simple abbreviations RBI and HR, even when writing about multiple numbers of each category. 

The term RBI stands for both "Run Batted In" and "Runs Batted In" depending on how many runs crossed the plate. Similarly the term HR stands for "Homerun" and "Homeruns", so adding the extra (s) at the end of term HR(s) is really stating that multiple Homeruns(s) were hit, and Homerunss is not a word. The same holds true for Runs Batted In(s) because Ins is not a word (though according to dictionary.com it does stand for Immigration and Naturalization Service). While there are those who could argue that the terms RBI and HR are entities unto themselves and thus can be made plural, I would say to them that the true meaning of the abbreviation needs to be examined before carelessly throwing on an extra "s".

Romo and the challenge of not rooting for the underdog

I never thought I would start my fist blog post talking about the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, but I need to unleash my outrage at the fact that Tiger Woods invited Tony Romo to play with him in the Pro-Am at the AT&T National at Congressional Golf Club in Bethesda, Maryland this week. Bethesda is in the heart of Redskin country, where the fan base does not tolerate Cowboys. While I have always admired Tiger Woods and been a big fan of his, I have lost some respect for him after hearing he is pals with Romo. It's not so much that I mind him befriending the enemy, but to invite him to play at a pro-am in the nation's capital is just unacceptable. Tiger should be reaching out to his fan base in DC, assuming he wants to continue hosting his tournament in the area after 2011. I realize most of Tiger's fans in DC will probably look past this incident as nothing more than a little indiscretion, but I, for one, will be holding this against Tiger for the foreseeable future.

I'm also disappointed at the Skins fans in attendance at the Pro-am at Congressional on Wednesday. According to the DC Sports Bog on Washingtonpost.com (recommended reading for any DC sports fan), there wasn't much heckling of Romo going on. Besides the one guy on the 7th tee who shouted "hit it like it's December", according to Steinberg, no one really got on Romo's case. It appalls me no one had the guts to start up a chant of "Tony Homo", especially after the rendition by comedian Artie Lange on the premier of HBO's Joe Buck Live.

Finally, I want to comment on what I believe is one of the toughest challenges for a sports fan, which is when your team is going up against the underdog. It's in everybody's nature to root for the underachiever, and that's why people who aren't Yankees, Cowboys, and Lakers fans not only dislike those team, but hate them. They hate them because more often than not, it is those teams who ruin the dreams of the underdogs. 

As a Red Sox fan, I have noticed the Sox's recent success has launched the team into that category with the Yankees, Cowboys, and Lakers. This is a little hard for me to handle because the other professional teams I root for (the Redskins, Wizards, Capitals, and Natinals) have only had moderate success at best, and often times take the role of the underdog. As a result, I sometimes start to find myself rooting for teams playing the Red Sox to at least be competitive, and this was never more apparent than in Tuesday's 11-10 loss to the Orioles. 

In this game the Orioles were down 10-1 when a rain delay stopped play in the fifth inning. When the teams came back on the field an hour and a half later, the Orioles slowly started to mount a comeback, and I slowly started rooting for the Orioles to complete their comeback. While in my mind I wanted the Red Sox to hold on and win, my heart wanted to see the unbelievable comeback that doesn't happen all that often. Once the game ended, my mind was unsatisfied and my heart wanted to see more, leaving me as a disgruntled Red Sox fan who was happy he had just witnessed history.