Honestly, that was an absolutely soul-crushing loss last Sunday. Sure it didn’t matter because they already had screwed themselves out of a playoff spot, but still. I’m sick and tired of watching this team piss away leads purely because they can. Last year they could only play in the fourth quarter, and now they can’t play in the fourth quarter at all. They’ve blown three straight fourth quarter leads in three straight home games; disgusting.
Embarrassing.
Let me preface this by saying that this has nothing to do with wanting Charles Woodson to stay as the only primarily defensive player to ever win the Heisman. I thought that Ndamukong Suh deserved the Heisman when he was up for it in 2009, and it is only a matter of time until a defensive player wins it. However, it does have everything to do with the Notre Dame bias in the media.
I don’t doubt that Manti is a great guy and that he is a leader on and off-the-field. I know he has had a troubling year, and I wouldn’t wish what happened to him on anyone. But you have to ask yourself, if Manti played on a team that wasn’t undefeated, and it wasn’t Notre Dame, would he even be in the discussion for it? Absolutely not. His statistics aren’t anything special, except for the 7 interceptions that he has had. Think of this, if Texas A&M was undefeated and Manziel’s stats were the same, he would have been the only person invited to the ceremony in New York.
Ed Reed’s comments this past weekend after the Baltimore Ravens loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers brought to light a pretty interesting idea, the NFL cares more about offensive players than defensive players.
Through no fault of their own, defensive players jobs are getting tougher and tougher. More penalties are being called on them, and more of them are being fined for illegal plays. Rules are being shifted to protect offensive players, while cut blocking is still allowed. It was in fact a cut block that knocked out Houston Texans starting linebacker Brian Cushing early in the year. This is a block where the offensive line can go right for the knees of defensive players as long as they aren’t engaged with another defender. Literally, it is in the rules to allow offensive players the opportunity to blow out defensive players knees.
Hey guys, remember when the Lions went into overtime against the Texans when they were winning 31-24? Yeah, me too.
The second that Jim Schwartz threw that challenge flag I knew the game was over. Teams never come back from this type of stuff. It almost always backfires on them, or causes the team to get frustrated and they come apart at the seams.
Well, last week sucked. Notre Dame is #1, Michigan lost to Ohio State, Lions blew two games, still no hockey…just awful.
Bronze Medal: Jon Wilner, San Jose Mercury News
After a long absence, Jon makes his way back onto the podium with this absurd ballot. Oregon at #2 ahead of Alabama and Georgia doesn’t make sense. South Carolina and LSU ahead of Georgia doesn’t make any sense either; along with Texas A&M being ranked #11. His ballot has an absolutely horrific order for the Top 11. The middle part of his poll is decent, but Utah State, Northern Illinois, San Jose State are all overrated, easily. And as much as I want to keep defending USC you can’t have them ranked after that loss to Notre Dame. That game was a massive coaching brain fart, and just all around terrible.
I had this realization during Monday Night Football, and it is so obvious I don’t know why it hasn’t been discussed more in depth before.
I honestly don’t see Chip Kelly leaving Oregon, at least not yet, since he still hasn’t won a National Championship. But, if he were to leave, the Philadelphia Eagles would be the perfect fit for him and his offense. They have a wealth of playmakers on that offense just waiting to be unleashed. His backfield would be loaded with Michael Vick, Nick Foles, LeSean McCoy, Bryce Brown and Dion Lewis. And then he has a good core of receivers with DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, Riley Cooper, Jason Avant and Damaris Johnson. Then you add Celek at tight end and you have a lot of speed on the squad that would be able to give teams absolute nightmares.
This is obviously late, but with my cousin in town and other festivities going on, it was a bit difficult to find time to write this post. Rutgers and Maryland; definitely not 1st round draft picks, not even 2nd rounders. Maryland at least has a decent basketball team, and Rutgers was the first football team ever, but otherwise there is literally nothing impressive about these additions. There is nothing that gets you excited about this. To be honest, I just hate conference expansion. The people in charge are just telling you that money is more important than anything else, and I value tradition.
To state the obvious, this was strictly to increase revenue and to negotiate a bigger television contract with ESPN. A quick money grab that will ruin conference integrity. This is how this is going to be viewed by every single person that sees this and I don’t blame them. I’m not sure how else you could possibly view an action like this in any other way; I certainly will refuse to look at it in any other light. Here’s an interesting fact from SI.com: “While getting all 15 million homes is unlikely, this could potentially be a $100 million annual television windfall for the Big Ten. (That figure doesn’t include the additional money that will come from the added markets and games when the Big Ten negotiates its next television contract in 2017.) It’s estimated that the Big Ten’s annual payout could increase to between $30-35 million per year, nearly double the ACC’s $17 million payout.” 15 Million additional homes paying for Big Ten Network would be massive, but I think it is a huge overestimation.
Shout out to Kansas State and Oregon for creating my nightmare scenario, with a little side help from UCLA. I mean honestly, what were the odds that #1 and #2 would lose and the only team left that could beat Notre Dame has their quarterback injured in the last five minutes of their game? Just terrible. It would appear that the luck of the Irish is on overdrive right now. They’ve gotten huge breaks all year, and they just keep coming. I hate that Notre Dame is ranked #1, I personally have them #2, and you can bet that they will thrash USC and their young QB all day today and go to the National Championship game.
First off, thank you to all of the Seniors for the last 4-5 years. They went through a lot and these guys deserve a lot of credit for bringing this program back. Also, in case you missed it, here is the 60 minutes special.
It was glorious to be able to see Denard Robinson play one last game in the Big House. I was concerned that I would never get to watch him play in person again, and he has easily become one of my favorite Michigan football players of all-time. He is arguably the most electric player that has suited up for Michigan since Steve Breaston, if not longer than that.
The Detroit Lions are now all but officially eliminated from the playoffs. They play in the toughest division in the NFL and there is no end in sight to their struggles at this point. They choked this past Sunday. They had a lead and they just let the Packers go up and down the field no problem. Then when they had to make plays, they didn’t even get close to completing them. And now Titus Young has been suspended for behavior issues.
I personally thought that the Lions would be past this. They have been showing maturity for most of this year, but apparently Young isn’t ready to grow up. Young was in trouble this week for putting his own personal desires and goals ahead of the team. This type of selfishness will not be tolerated in the pros, and I’m glad they’re benching him. Quite honestly I’ve had enough of Titus. I wasn’t a fan when they drafted him out of Boise State, and he’s done nothing but act like a punk since he got here. He’s had one really good game in the last two years, and that gives you no reason to be cocky. He’s shown flashes of talent, but he spends most of his time taking plays off. They said that he wants to be “the man” in Detroit, but perhaps he should wake the hell up and realize that Calvin Johnson is the man. Titus Young will not be the one getting the majority of the targets and him whining about it is an utter joke. His behavior was so disgraceful that the wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson freaked out and yelled at offensive coordinator Scott Linehan.
The Daily Traub 