Monday, November 24, 2014

Personal Blog for Thanksgiving!

I know thanksgiving is in a couple of days and I wanted to personally write a blog to all the people who have been reading my blogs over the last couple years. I have been writing every week since January of 2013 and for those of you who have stayed loyal and, or, are friends of mine just taking a quick gander at what I write on a weekly basis, I just wanted to say thank you because with another year coming to an end here shortly, I just pray for everyone and their families for this upcoming holiday weekend. Please have a safe one.

As to what is to come in the sports landscape, I'm heavily disappointed in the high importance of football games for he NFL this upcoming Thursday. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited, but at the same time I like having some quality time with family that I hadn't seen in a while and with important games this Thursday I just hope that they are all blowouts because honestly, unless you are a complete loner, you'll more than likely have grandma chewing at your ear about the latest fling, or the most recent film she saw and if you decide to ignore her to watch these magnificent matchups on Thursday afternoon, then consider yourself a complete douche bag for ignoring your family.

Now if you can find a way to stay awake after gorging yourself with some amazing feast, you (one) didn't eat enough and (two) will get to watch some awesome football that is bound to be memorable. Hopefully you'll have some really cool family members to watch with, but if not either way, I hope you have a wonderful week reuniting with your family and shopping on those amazing deals that should be starting sometime Tuesday afternoon (especially with how Black Friday has turned into a weekly thing these days).

Have a wonderful thanksgiving!


See you next week!

Monday, November 17, 2014

SEC West: Too Much Love

We have this new thing called the college football playoff and there is a hotly contested debate of how teams should be getting in and for reasons that are all money grubbing and "eye test" reasons that quite frankly just don't make sense in the scheme of what the new playoff system is trying to accomplish.

Why am I saying that the SEC West is getting too much love? I mean think about it. The very first college football playoff ranking on week 10 had 3 SEC West teams in it and two of them were from Mississippi. That's not to rip on Mississippi, but the purpose of the College Football playoff is to have the best 4 teams in college football play each other in the ultimate college football final four predicament. This week, it looks like even though Alabama beat the last undefeated team (Mississippi State) in the SEC West, many will still debate that Mississippi state should stay in the top 4. My question is why, and what is your evidence as to why they should?

Can we be clear about something. The SEC West is not all filled with NFL Players waiting to go pro, they are solid teams that are just as vulnerable each and every week as much as another one loss team in the power conferences in the FBS. This talk of how great the SEC West is shouldn't deter a team in the upcoming weeks of winning a power conference championship such as the PAC 12, BIG 12, and ACC Championship. The Big 10 with the way they have been presenting themselves recently might even have a minor say in the conversation as well. But people still keep getting antsy about a one loss SEC west team, who doesn't win a conference championship, should overtake another conference championship squad and why is that? Plain and simply, History.

Well let me tell you something, history means nothing when it comes to last season outside of FSU winning the National title this past January. The landscape of college football changes every single year and this year is no different. How can we make all these preseason predictions and assume that teams coming out of the SEC West should just duke it out in January for a national title bout when everything will figure itself out anyways? I understand the SEC has owned the bowl landscape of college football the past decade and that they have talent like no other conference. But at the same time, they shouldn't be running train all the way to January with 2 or even 3 teams where you could have other conferences bring in the same type of talent to the new Final Four of college football.

The more people keep buying into this hype of the SEC being the best conference in football, the more and more college football will alienate itself from the diversity and the parity conversation of separate conferences joining forces to make the almighty power conferences conversation begin.

I'm not a dummy, I understand the SEC West is stacked and filled with talent, but we need to calm down and look at the two teams running the BIG 12 right now (Baylor & TCU) the Heisman favorite in the PAC 12 (Marcus Mariota from Oregon), and the undefeated, resilient, defending National Champions in Florida State representing the ACC. I even forgot to mention the outside opportunity for Ohio State to represent the BIG 10, even though I think their chance this year are bleak, they too have an opportunity to open some eyes in the future. So you're telling me that there are 3 SEC teams that are better than these 4-5 teams I just mentioned. I can only think of 1 SEC team that is in the mix for a playoff birth right now, and that team has been Rollin Tide all decade to this point; Alabama.

Calm down about the SEC West talk and how they should just own the college football playoff. They are great, but the media is over hyping everything they are, especially at this point in the season. Let the teams who are fighting for these 4 spots do what's supposed to be done; proving it on the field.

See you next week!

Monday, November 10, 2014

AFC North Greatness

Yes, it is nearing the middle of November and I am writing about the greatness of the AFC North? A division that many would deem puny and unworthy the last couple of seasons, but this is 2014 and clearly a lot changes in a year.

The Baltimore Ravens (as of the end of week 10) are in last place in the AFC North. You are probably reading this in the year 2016 and saying who cares. They are 6-4. Think about that. Every team in the AFC North is at least 2 games above .500 while you have a team in the NFC South at 4-5, New Orleans Saints, who will be hand gifted a postseason birth sometime in the next 7 weeks.

To make things even more insane, along with ensuring an end of the world scenario playing out in front of us, the Cleveland Browns are leading the division and Johnny Football has had nothing to do with it. They are 6-3 and could very well have their first winning season this decade and it would be in the toughest division Race since the 2007 AFC South race.

As much as we could write about this division, I think the hardest thing to bring up is how come one of them won't make the postseason when there will be an NFC South team that will find a way into the Postseason? How about this, just for the 2015 playoffs, we have the last place AFC North team play in place of the winner of the NFC South winner this season, because nobody wants it in that division.

Similar to how the NFC West was won in 2010 when the Seahawks won the division at 7-9, nobody seems to want it in the NFC South as no teams are at .500. How fascinating will this already 2014 NFL Season become if every team in the AFC North finishes with 10+ wins in the AFC North and nobody finishes with 8 wins in the NFC South. The NFL will have some explaining... Not that they already do *cough* Roger Goodell *cough*.

See you next week!

Monday, November 3, 2014

The Brow is Ballin'!

So earlier this weekend I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that I had a minor unibrow forming. I looked at it while simultaneously looking at the stats Anthony Davis had put up the night before, I found myself becoming proud of my lack of up keeping in the brow region of my face. I then recognized that I'm not an NBA superstar in the making, and shaved it off rather quickly before anybody could comment throughout the day.

Superstar in the making? Yeah right, he's one right now. Anthony Davis is a Center for the New Orleans Pelicans and with the way he played this summer, it definitely carried over into this first full week of the season and it's not just bright, it's glaring for attention that is needed throughout the media today.

He is in his early 20's and is already in the elite category when it comes to the legends playing the game right now and he'll be the face of he NBA in a couple of years... Maybe even by the end of this season. This guy is so good that I needed to write about him and give him the props he deserves because I'm picking him to win the MVP in the NBA this season.

Only a week into the season, this guy is playing 40 minutes a game, putting up 29 points a game, grabbing 16 rebounds on average, averaging 6 blocks, and shooting 75% from the free throw line. You talk about a force in the paint we haven't seen since the likes of Shaq, you're looking at the closest thing since. I'm not trying to discount Tim Duncan, or any other good big man in the league right now, but this Anthony Davis guy is only 21 years old and is just getting started.

If this guy can gather the talent around him (which he seems to be doing slowly in New Orleans) and find a way to make more and more appearances in the postseason down the road, the title chances will be there for the taking. He deserves more praise than what the media is throwing his way and, in a sense, you could say he's been Tim Duncan like with how quietly he is putting up his numbers away from the major media market games.

But, don't get it twisted, when this guy is on, he makes the gym absolutely buzz. He's been the biggest force in the NBA in this early 2014-15 season and we got a loooooong way to go.

I'm excited to be writing weekly once again, and be prepared for some major topic blogs coming up weekly on Monday nights from here to come!

See you next week!