Downside Up on the Gridiron

For years, parity was the universal beacon of hope in the NFL. Teams could swing from a 5-11 season to the playoffs in a twelve month span. Any Super Bowl participant could routinely find itself in a midseason tailspin a few weeks after raising a banner to the rafters. Chaos reigned week-to-week, as doormats frequently beat heavily favored foes.

Meanwhile, college football was the domain of powerhouses. One or two big-time programs (often involving the letters U, S, and C) would earn a lofty preseason ranking and remain entrenched atop the polls. Each week, a new foe would fail miserably to end their perfect records and at the end of the season, one unbeaten champion remained.

So isn't it interesting that this fall, college and pro football decided to trade places?

The NFL now features the defending champion Colts and the seemingly invincible Patriots both unbeaten through Week 7. The prevailing story around the league is their Nov. 4 matchup and whether the winner (which most presume will be New England) can go 19-0. The entire focus of this NFL season is now on two teams that are head-and-shoulders above the rest. Those other 30 squads? We'll let Mel Kiper Jr. worry about them next April.

As for college football, parity has been one stunner after another this year, with top 5 teams dropping like flies. No powerhouse is safe and only a fool would make any presumptions about who will win the national championship at this point. The new mantra is "Any Given Saturday."

As unusual as this season has been for both college and pro football, I think both sports are better for it. With so many bad quarterbacks, disappointing running backs (Lord help you if you drafted Shaun Alexander in fantasy) and mediocre coaching this year, the NFL could use a few bright spots. The Pats/Colts rivalry features two recent champions with Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks and star power all around. This match-up is clearly the NFL's best foot and it's more than happy to put it forward.

As for college football, it's about time the traditional powers got knocked off their pedestals. Depth and competitive balance will increase the popularity and quality of play in college football, just as it did in the NFL for so many years. The sport will only grow with surprise upstarts like South Florida, Appalachian St. and (ahem) Stanford getting their moment in the spotlight. Let's face it-- the nation could only take so much of that damn USC fight song.

 
You Heard It Here First

Hmm, maybe this blog has more influence than I thought. Because clearly Troy Glaus is an avid reader and he took the advice that I gave him back in 2003. Today, SI.com reports that Glaus did indeed buy (and presumably use) steriods. Way ride on my coattails, Sports Illustrated.

 
The Summer Box Office Derby: The Verdict

Back in late April I posted my predictions for the summer's top ten box office totals. Now that it's Labor Day, it's time to look back on how I did:












As you can see, I nailed the top seven films, and nine out of the top ten (having overestimated Ocean's Thirteen while underestimating Live Free or Die Hard). I'm particularly proud of the fact that I got the ninth place finish of Knocked Up (somewhat of a sleeper heading into the summer) right on the nose. The problem was that I was way off in predicting the order of finish. Clearly, the Spider-Man franchise was not "on the wane" as I stated last April (at least financially, if not creatively). And I didn't have any idea that Transformers would be as popular as it was. My final takeaway from this is that I need to adjust for 2007 inflation. Overall, my box office totals were well below the actuals. For example, I thought the fifth place film would rake in $180 million; it turns out that the fifth place finisher took home $287 million, a whopping $102 million more than I thought. The lesson: never underestimate the buying power of the huddled masses.

 
A Movie Career Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Today's release of the widely unanticipated Rush Hour 3 serves as yet another reminder of how talent can go to waste. Here's a comprehensive list of all of Chris Tucker's films in the past ten years:

Rush Hour
Rush Hour 2
Rush Hour 3

That's it. That's the list. This is the most underreported movie mystery of our time: Why would a comedian as talented and magnetic as Tucker be exclusively devoted to a single, lukewarm trilogy? Usually when an actor lays low it's an established star who takes a few years off to raise the kids (think Demi Moore). But Tucker went in to the Rush Hour franchise with very little under his belt and has no personal life to speak of. Typically, when a young actor hits it big with a $150 million grosser, he leverages that payday to, you know, take other offers. Did he sign the most binding contract of all time? Has his agent been in a coma for the past decade? Or is Chris Tucker hiding deeper, personal troubles that are squandering a talent that could have made him the biggest black comedian since Eddie Murphy?

 
Draft Night Rehash

The greatest offseason event in all of sports just took place, so here are my thoughts on the happenings of NBA Draft Night:

* Like most Warrior fans, I was hit with a jolt of sadness when I heard about Jason Richardson being traded. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how dispensable Richardson was, given the Warriors current roster. Richardson was mainly good for two things: hitting threes and making athletic plays. But Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, Al Harrington and newcomer Marco Bellinelli can do all of those things too. Between those four guys, it will be fairly easy to replace Richardson's 18 points per game, and Monta Ellis is ready to take on most of his minutes at shooting guard.

Then you also have to factor in the bounty we're receiving in return: $10M in trade bait and Brandan Wright. Let's not forget that 5 weeks ago, most mock drafts had Wright as the draft's third best prospect and that he's the one big man (excluding Kevin Durant) who is athletic enough to fit Nellie's system. After realizing all of this and reading Tim Kawakami's blog post this morning, I've successfully convinced myself that J-Rich is a poor man's Bimbo Coles and the Warriors are guaranteed to win 60 games without him.

* By acquiring eight new players in a five hour span, I think we can safely say that the Blazers are in rebuilding mode. Kevin Pritchard knows he's not playing in a fantasy league, right?

* That Seattle-Boston deal seems to be that rare trade that ends up hurting both teams. If you're Boston, why sacrifice a high pick on a solid, yet fading 31 year-old who does the same things as Paul Pierce? If you're Seattle, why trade away a model citizen who would have been an excellent mentor for Kevin Durant? Ray Allen would have shouldered the scoring and leadership responsibility for the Sonics, serving as the David Robinson to Durant's Tim Duncan.

* Isn't it funny how the two biggest names to be traded (Jason Richardson and Ray Allen) were completely left out of the trade hype headlines this week? Meanwhile, Garnett and Kobe stay right where they are. Nice job, NBA reporters. People always forget that trades are extremely difficult to pull off, and the ones that do actually happen are the ones that aren't dished about for days on end. Yet year after year after year, everyone gets seduced by NBA trade rumors.

* Who knew Greg Oden was such a comedian? That hand sanitizer ad-lib in his post-draft interview was positively Shaq-like.

* I hate how teams, writers and analysts always assume that the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. Several times this week I've heard some variation of "You know, the Grizzlies can now combine Mike Conley, Pau Gasol, Rudy Gay and Mike Miller-- that's a pretty good young roster!" or "Horford+Childress+Smith+Johnson+Williams=An Atlanta Resurgence!" There was a reason those teams were bad enough to earn top-5 picks: talented pieces does not a winning team make.

* I love the additions of Durant and Jeff Green, but let's not hand the Sonics a playoff berth quite yet. Why hasn't anyone made more of the fact that Seattle does not currently have a coach? Isn't that pretty crucial to the development of two supposed superstars? With training camp only three months away, it's not like there are a ton of great coaching candidates available-- I'd be very worried if I were a Sonics fan.

* So it turns out that marrying a Swedish beauty queen does NOT in fact, guarantee that you'll have good-looking children.

 
The End is Nigh

It's a few hours before The Sopranos' series finale and my head is bursting at the seams. I think it will be a solid episode tonight but I just know that on Monday morning I'll be slightly dissatisfied because there's no way that David Chase will tie up all the loose ends that have been nagging me, namely:

* Carmela's suspicions about Adriana. Will Carm finally find out what really happened to her and flip out?

* A.J's descent into violent despair. He's been a weak successor to his father for seven seasons. Is tonight the night that A.J. grows up and lashes out?

* Whither Tony's alter-ego, Kevin Finnerty? Will it turn out that for all this time, Tony Soprano has just been a figment of Kevin's imagination?

* Meadow dating Patsy's son. Will this lead to Meadow becoming an easy target for Phil Leotardo's henchmen? Or does it signal a future of organized crime for Meadow Soprano?

* Dr. Melfi's sudden dumping of Tony. The series began with Tony waiting in Melfi's doctor's office-- surely Melfi has to return in some capacity in this final episode, right?

* Silvio's near-death. They could have easily have had Sil die in that car shootout, so there must be some reason for him to remain alive in the hospital for this final episode.

As for my previous post, I'm still predicting that Tony dies tonight. The producers won't want to keep him alive because they'll want to squash any chance of an awful Sopranos "reunion" show or movie years down the line. I don't think my bold prediction of Furio's return will pan out (although I did have some hope of it when Tony ordered some hitman help from Italy last week). I also think the Feds might be the ones pulling the trigger, and I completely left them out of my previous list of candidates. But here's what I now think will happen: The Feds recover Silvio's incriminating papers that were left in the backseat of the car after the shootout in the Bada Bing parking lot. Using that evidence, the Feds approach Carmela to try to turn her against her husband. She reluctantly agrees, but Tony finds out and confronts Carm one-on-one. This leads to a violent fight, Carmela ends up stabbing Tony to death, The End. Cue up a Rolling Stones song, fade to black.

 
Tony Soprano's Death Derby

I write this four hours before tonight's episode of The Sopranos. There are only five shows left in the series and let's just say that there are more than a few loose ends to tie up. Will Tony's sudden, severe gambling problem lead to rash decisions? Will Bobby Bacala's sloppy whack job in the premiere come back to bite him? Has Christopher permanently gotten on Tony's bad side? What will come of Carmela's suspicions about Adriana's death? But the most pressing question of all is: who will kill Tony Soprano? In my opinion, t's a foregone conclusion that Tony will meet his demise at the end of the series. He's lived a life of violence and it makes sense that violence will cause his own undoing. The only question is who pulls the trigger. Here are my odds:

Dr. Melfi: 500/1

This one has a chance simply because nobody would see it coming. She's the one character who's been a constant presence of the series, has a close relationship with Tony (and thus, knows him well enough to develop a hate for him) and has no blood on her hands. Having Melfi as the murderer, (perhaps in self-defense after an emotionally-ravaged Tony attacks her during a session) would be a fitting end for a series that began with Tony seeking her counsel.


Bobby Bacala: 200/1

There must be lingering tension after their Monopoly fight in the premiere, as no man could forget witnessing their wife being insulted like that. But does the normally meek Bobby have the guts to whack his boss?





A.J.: 100/1

Mob stories are often about the transition of power from one generation to the next. Now, A.J. has never seemed like a willing or competent heir to the Soprano family throne. But we've seen flashes of aggression (his attempt on Uncle Junior's life last season) and maturity (his marriage proposal last episode), so there's always a chance that in the next five episodes he'll rise up and take on The Man. Being a jilted lover, he'll have some bottled rage that he can summon some time in the next five episodes.


Janice: 50/1

There has always been a chaotic, nasty quality to the relationship of the two siblings and it could easily bubble over during one of their frequent arguments. Adding fuel to the fire, Janice has always felt that Tony has slighted her husband.




Christopher: 20/1

Tony has never been a fan of Christopher's Hollywood aspirations and the tension between the two has never been higher. It's probably more likely that Tony kills Christopher than vice versa, but a fight between the two could lead to Tony's demise.



Phil Leotardo: 10/1

This is the most conspicuous choice, as the rivalry between the New York and New Jersey families has been building steadily for the past four seasons. But there are three reasons not to pick Phil as the eventual killer: A) he's a boss, and bosses rarely get their hands dirty, B) he seems to have mellowed out after his heart-attack and C) it would just be too obvious.


Carmela: 5/1

Carmela's candidacy is gaining steam, as last week's fight with Tony providing some unexpected fireworks. The spec house ordeal, the aforementioned suspicions about Adriana and Tony's past infidelity could all serve as motives for murder. Having Carmela as the killer would be poetic, with the violent, misogynistic mob boss being taken down by his loving, loyal wife. In fact, I'm convinced that Tony's strained relationship with his wife will be his undoing. But I have a feeling that it won't be Carmela pulling the trigger-- it will be her lover. Yes folks, I'm talking about...


Furio: 3/1

That's right, the one character who's been completely off the radar yet lurking beneath the surface. Furio was a central character up until season 4, when he suddenly moved to Italy to avoid a potentially fatal affair with his beloved Carmela. Furio is the one Sopranos character who's no longer on the show but is still alive. I'm guessing creator David Chase will try to pull the rug from under the audience, with Furio dramatically returning to New Jersey claim Carmela from her oppressor husband. The End.

 
The Summer Box Office Derby

As summer movie season begins next week, it's worth commenting on the fact that this is the most blockbuster-heavy slate in memory. With Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3 and Harry Potter 5, you have four films that will easily combine for a billion dollars in domestic box office. The interesting question is, how will they all rank when it's all said and done?

The key with summer box office is that kids are the driving force. The more a movie appeals to grade schoolers (who make their parents drag them to repeated viewings) and high schoolers (who have nothing better to do than to go to the cinemas 3 nights per week), the more inflated the box office totals. This favors Shrek and Harry Potter, as well as Ratatouille, the rat-themed Pixar movie. I predict that the mystifying obsession with Pirates of the Carribean will continue, the Ocean's franchise will have a slight rebound from the disappointing sequel and people again love the Bourne franchise. Finally, I think the Spiderman franchise is on the wane, and that goes double for the Die Hard franchise, as I don't think anyone's excited about seeing Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard.

Here's my guess at how the top ten summer movies will stand at Labor Day:

1. Shrek the Third- $350 million
2. Pirates of the Carribean 3- $325 million
3. Harry Potter 5- $275 million
4. Spiderman 3- $200 million
5. The Bourne Ultimatum- $180 million
6. Ratatouille- $175 million
7. Transformers- $150 million
8. Ocean's Thirteen- $140 million
9. Knocked Up- $120 million
10. The Simpsons Movie- $110 million

 
Best Week Ever? Not Exactly

About a week ago, several journalists and talking heads made the annual argument that this is the best week of the sports year. The theory goes that the combination of the Final Four, Opening Day and The Masters is a perfect storm of three sports in springtime bliss. But as we've seen again this year, the week actually more about pageantry than quality sports. The Final Four is usually the worst of the three NCAA tournament weekends, and the final is usually sloppy and one-sided. Opening Day is a symbolic commencement for hardcore baseball fans, but for most of us, it's just a reminder that we have 161 games to go before the playoffs, the only compelling part of the tedious season. And the Masters? Sure it's great when Tiger or Phil is in the hunt on Sunday, but who wants to sit through the first three days of a golf tournament?

The "best sports week of the year" should feature compelling competition that lives up to the hype. Here are three weeks of the sports calendar better than the one ending today:

1. The second week of October
There's no denying that football is king of the sports world. This week offers it up in spades, with the NFL season coming to form after four weeks, and college football beginning its conference season with tilts like Texas-Oklahoma and Florida-LSU. On top of that, the baseball playoffs get under way, with the week culminating in eight Division Series games packed into one weekend.

2. The third week of March
This week is the true apex for college basketball fans. Selection Sunday is now a national holiday, with everyone with an even rudimentary understanding of basketball becoming an expert bracketologist for the three days following. Then, the tournament itself begins, with 48 games in four days-- nuff said.

3. The first week of January
This is a truly underrated week-- everyone is so focused on bashing the BCS that people forget that the games produced are usually pretty good (Vince Young. Boise State. Notre Dame chokejobs. Need I say more?). Once college football is over, we have NFL Wild Card weekend and the start of conference games in college hoops. Not a bad start to the year.

 
The Best Film Oscar race?

With the Academy Awards ceremony two days away, it's time to offer my picks. But before I get to that, I wanted to address the curious Best Picture horserace. At this point the three biggest contenders for the night's top prize are Babel, The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine. This is one of the most wide open races of the past decade, but the downside is that this seems to be a race to find which movie is the least of three evils. All three films have both ardent supporters and vocal detractors. Having seen all three (as well as The Queen and Letters from Iwo Jima) I can recognize that they're all great but flawed. Many are turned off by Babel's preachiness and overly ambitious multi-layered storyline. The same critics who blasted Crash last year now find Babel equally polarizing. The Departed has the dynamite pedigree and wonderful story, but many voters will be turned off by the fact that it's a remake and the near-comical amount of violence at the climax of the film. Then we have Little Miss Sunshine, which was my favorite. While the film is generally beloved, in recent weeks we've heard a sentiment that the film is too light and just isn't "Oscar-worthy." This leads to the larger question of how the academy should vote on the Best Picture prize.

There seems to be a magic benchmark of what makes a picture worthy of winning Oscar's top prize: Best Picture nominees are compared to past Best Picture winners, not the other four nominees. Voters demand a Best Picture that is deep, epic, dramatic, and most of all, serious. In short, films win best picture, not movies. The problem with this logic is that the academy often ends up overthinking the vote, as was the case with Return of the King beating Mystic River and The English Patient beating Fargo. The academy members should simply ask themselves the following: "What's the best movie I saw from last year?" and call it a day.

But since it seems that the academy is collectively hellbent on picking the film that looks the most prestigious, maybe they should look to the sports world for a pointer. In sports, athletes can only be voted to the Hall of Fame five years after the player retires. The reason is that the five year period gives voters a chance to put the candidate's career in context and eliminates much of the emotion and momentum that would undoubtedly be present if the vote took place at the time of retirement. If the academy were to wait five years (or at least one) then you'd avoid the influence of studio campaigns, and there'd certainly be less embarrassment over awards like Roberto Begnini in 1998. Best Actor, really?

MR. PREDICTO

Best Picture: The Departed
Director: Martin Scorsese
Actor: Forrest Whitaker
Actress: Helen Mirren
Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin (upset alert!)
Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson
Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine
Adapted Screenplay: The Departed

 
The Playoff of Postseasons

While watching Florida's thrashing of Ohio State in the national title game, I'm reminded of the endless criticism of the BCS system. The consensus is that college football's system for determining its champion is flawed because it unfairly excludes all but two teams from the possibility of a title. But missing from this debate is the larger question: what's the best way for any given sport to determine it's champion? There are three approaches you can take on this:

A) The system should be designed to give as many participants as possible a shot at the title.
B) The system should be designed to ensure that the current best team has the best chance of winning the title.
C) The system should be designed to ensure that the best regular-season team has the best chance of winning the title.

If you look at the current sporting landscape, most sports employ A, which is the "open" format. In pro tennis and most college sports including, most famously, college basketball, the champs are determined in a large single-elimination tournament with dozens of participants. The pluses are that there is the large possibility of an upset and that few fans and players feel excluded.

The most prominent example of option B is baseball. Typically, the World Series is won by the team that's hottest at the end of the season. You see an entire pitching staff catch fire while the opposing team watches their bats go dead despite having won 100 games during the season. You also see this phenomenon in hockey, where an 8-seed can ride a hot goalie all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals.

As for option C, the prime example from pro sports is the NBA. With its best-of-seven series, the pretenders fall by the wayside. The cream of the regular season easily rises to the top against the .500 teams who earned 7 and 8 seeds. The NBA playoffs are dreadfully long and offer few upsets, but at least the best team always wins the title. But the most extreme example of C is the English Premier League- there is no playoff and premiership title goes to the team with the most regular season points.

It's clear that college football has long embraced option C. It's fairly simple-- if you win all of your regular season games, all you need is a one-game playoff to win yourself a title. In fact, before the BCS was in place, the #1 team in the regular season didn't even need to prove itself against the #2 team (think BYU beating 6-5 Michigan to win the '84 title).

The groundswell of anti-BCS sentiment seems to want to move college football from option C to option A, given all the clamoring for an eight-team playoff. Such a system might reward a team like USC, which may be the best team in the country right now. But just because the Trojans are hot now, does that mean that they're more deserving of a title than a team like Ohio State, which accomplished more during the regular season? It really is a philosophical debate.

What college football needs is to look to it's big brother, the NFL. Pro football is the only playoff system that smartly takes from all three models. It's a single elimination tournament, it rewards regular season success (first-round byes and homefield advantage) and yet the hottest team can win the title (since you can win a Super Bowl with just three postseason games).

So taking what we've learned, we can set up college football's playoffs with three rounds, giving the top 2 seeds first-round byes. Then play the first two rounds with home-field advantage and a national title on a rotating neutral site. The best team would win the title, the fans would have an inclusive, exciting tournament and the regular season retains its importance. There, everybody happy now?