December 5th update

Tiger Woods Wins… Finally

• Tiger Woods for the first time since 2009 in his last action of 2011. Woods shot two birdies in on the last two holes to beat former Masters Champion Zach Johnson by one stroke. It was Woods’ first win in 749 days.
• This event is one hosted by Woods as a fundraiser for his foundation (Woods donated his winnings - $1.2 million – to his foundation as well). There were only 17 other golfers included in the field.
• Even with the short field this victory is raising hopes amongst golf fans that Woods (still the sport’s premier star) will be on his way back to glory after his extramarital scandal and subsequent swoon. Woods, who had the record for most consecutive weeks ranked #1, had been ranked #52 coming into this tournament. This victory catapults him to a more respectable #21.


Multiple thrillers headline the NFL

• Tim Tebow's Denver Broncos once again won a thrilling last second game, 35-32 over the Minnesota Vikings and this time Tebow actually had a pretty solid passing game. He only completed 10 passes but did so efficiently, as he only threw 15 total passes. He has 202 total yards and 2 long touchdown passes to Demaryius Thomas. The Broncos came back from 2 deficits in the last few minutes and after intercepting Vikings rookie Christian Ponder, made a field goal as time expired.
• Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers continued to win shootouts, this time beating the New York Giants 38-35 after the Giants had tied the game with less than a minute remaining. Rodgers and the Packers are 12-0, haven't lost in more than a calendar year and looks like he may set multiple NFL records. He's been so good that I'm seriously considering changing my car insurance to State Farm and getting my Discount Double Check.
• In other action, rookie quarterback T.J. Yates led the Houston Texans to their 6th straight win as they defeated the Atlanta Falcons 17-10. The Texans have sustained tons of injuries but continue to win. They've already tied their franchise record for wins with 9 (with 4 left to eclipse it) and look like a lock to play in their first playoff game ever. The Texans are currently the only team in America's 4 major sports (MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL) never to have won a playoff game.
• In other games, the Dallas Cowboys lost in OT to the Arizona Cardinals after Dallas's coach called a timeout before his own kicker made a game winning field goal and then watched as he missed the second attempt and the Indianapolis Colts showed signs of life but still lost 31-24 to the New England Patriots and look like they will very possibly go an entire season without winning a single game.


BCS Championship Will Feature SEC Rematch

• As opined on this site last week, this years college football title game will be a rematch of a general stinker from earlier in the year. The #2 Alabama Crimson Tide will this time travel to Louisiana to take on the #1 Louisiana State Tigers. Their November 5th matchup was a quite boring 9-6 victory by the Tigers. This is a highly controversial game because of the fact that Alabama already had a chance against LSU in the previous game while there are some other teams that seemingly have an argument to get their first chance against LSU (who is a unanimous #1).
• The Orange Bowl will feature the Big East Champion West Virginia Mountaineers vs the ACC champion Clemson Tigers. The Sugar Bowl will feature two wildcard teams with the Michigan Wolverines against the Virginia Tech Hokies. This is a bit of a surprise as the Hokies lost to Clemson this weekend in the ACC title game, Virginia Tech’s second loss to the Tigers this season.
• The Fiesta Bowl features presumptive Heisman Trophy winner Andrew Luck and the Stanford Cardinal vs the Oklahoma State Cowboys (the Big 12 Champs). The final Bowl game will feature Pac 12 champions Oregon Ducks against the Big 10 champions Wisconsin Badgers.
• Update from Friday: We reported that if UCLA lost this weekend they would not be bowl eligible. Since then, they appealed this to the NCAA and were awarded bowl eligibility. They will be playing Illinois in the Kraft Fight Hunger bowl on December 31st.

November 25th Update

Brothers John (on the left) and Jim (in the middle) and their father on the field before their Thanksgiving Night match-up

Recap of Thanksgiving day NFL Games

For years the standard crop of NFL games has been an early game with the pathetic Lions followed by a late game with the Cowboys that has generally been exciting but can be hit or miss as well. This year however, there were not only two, but three games with compelling storylines. In order:

• The resurgent Lions played the defending Super Bowl champion Packers in a matchup of teams whose record was a combined 17-3. But despite starting off well, the Lions suffered 3 turnovers and were distracted by the amateurish meltdown and subsequent ejection of their best defender, Ndamukong Suh, losing 27-15 (it was 27-8 until the final 15 seconds) as Aaron Rodgers threw for 2 TD's again as he (incredibly) has every game this season.
• The Cowboys played the Miami Dolphins in a game that looked awful 3 weeks ago when the Cowboys were struggling at 3-4 and the Dolphins were winless. But each had won 3 straight coming into this game and the Cowboys were tied for first in the NFC East. The Cowboys didn't wow anyone over with their style of play but in the end managed to position kicker Dan Bailey for a chip shot FG to win 20-19 in the final seconds
• It's only appropriate that the first ever matchup between brothers as head coaches in the NFL happened on a day when so many family members were also with one another. And just like so many families may face off in some sort of uncomfortable competition, the coaches of the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers did so on TV in front of millions. The Ravens set a franchise record sacking 49ers quarterback Alex Smith 9 times en route to a 16-6 victory.

NBA Players Announce 4-Game Charity Tournament

• NBA Stars, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony announced Wednesday a series of four games starting December 1st in Akron Ohio. The tour, that will end on December 10^th in East Rutherford, NJ will be combined with big charity events prior to each matchup.
• James is from Akron and will act as host for the first game. The second game, on Dec 4^th will be in New Orleans, the NBA home of Chris Paul. The third game will be in Chicago on Dec 7^th, the home town of Chris Paul. The fourth game will be the in East Rutherford, NJ. This suburb of New York is the NBA home of Carmelo Anthony.
• This tour, which will raise a lot of money and awareness for each of the star’s charitable causes, is seen by some of the more skeptical viewers of the NBA as a PR stunt to gain public support for the players in their battle against the NBA in their labor negotiations.

October 17th update

R.I.P Dan Wheldon

• One of the most well liked and well respected drivers in the Indianapolis Car Racing Circuit died on Sunday after a wreck on the 13th lap of the final race of the season. Dan Wheldon won the 2005 and 2011 Indianapolis 500, and had spent most of this season racing in Europe. Ironically, the reason he even won the 2011 Indy 500 was because rookie racer J.R. Hildebrand crashed into the wall on the final lap, even though nobody was around him.
• This was only the 3rd race Wheldon has run this year in the Indy Car Circuit, and he was only in it because of a $5 million prize given as incentive to get big named drivers to drive in this new race. The sponsors of the race did a lot of promoting and were hoping for this to be a big positive event. Instead the race was ended after only 12 laps after the wreck.
• The crash, which involved 15 cars total, started in front of Wheldon, and the video stream of the race actually was coming from Wheldon’s car when the crash began. Here is the video but be warned, it may be a bit disturbing.


Tough day for coaches in NFL's week 6

• The San Francisco 49ers handed the Detroit Lions their first loss of the season in a 25-19 victory. There was some controversy after the game as 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh gave Lions coach Jim Schwarz a bit of an overexuberant back slap and yelled profanities (not directed at Schwarz). The Detroit coach took exception to it and chased Harbaugh down where both teams got into each other's faces. A similar altercation happened after Harbaugh's Stanford team beat highly ranked Southern Cal a few years when Pete Carroll was the coach of USC. Carroll is now the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, a divisional rival of the 49ers.
• The Tampa Bay Bucs recovered from a 45 points drubbing the week before and moved into a tie with the New Orleans Saints atop the NFC South with a 26-20 win, however Saints head coach Sean Payton suffered a torn MCL when one of his own players was tackled into him. Also, Bucs defensive backs coach Jimmy Lake tore his patellar tendon jumping up to celebrate an interception in the second quarter.
• The New England Patriots won the most exciting game of the day, defeating the hard-luck Dallas Cowboys 20-16 on a TD reception by Aaron Hernandez with 22 seconds left. No coaches were harmed in the playing of this game!
• The Green Bay Packers scored 24 points in the first half against the hapless Rams and then took the second half off, as neither team scored after halftime. The first half surge included a 93 yard touchdown pass from Aaron Rogers to Jordy Nelson, career longs for each.

Check in Wednesday for a special spotlight as well as our preview of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers.

October 3rd update

Incredible comebacks top Week 4 of NFL storylines

Generally speaking, if you're down by 20 or more in the NFL in the second half, you're likely to be going home with your tail between your legs. But this season has shown that no lead is safe (and we're not just talking about football) and no game should be phoned in until the clock reads o.oo.
• 2 weeks after the Cowboys lost a game where they had a 14 point lead in the 4th quarter for the first time in team history, they managed to lose to the still undefeated Lions despite the fact that they led 27-3 in the 3rd quarter, assisted by 3 second half interceptions by Tony Romo.
• The Eagles, who many thought would be far and away the best team in the NFC this season, led the 49ers 23-3 but found a way to lose despite a phenomenal game from a banged-up Michael Vick, who snapped at reporters afterwards. The Eagles are now 1-3 while the 49ers are 3-1.
• The Giants trailed the Arizona Cardinals by 10 with less than 4 minutes but took advantage of a controversial call that negated what looked to be an obvious fumble by WR Victor Cruz. On the very next play, Eli Manning threw a TD pass to pass catching machine Hakeem Nicks and the Giants would hold on to win.
• The undefeated Buffalo Bills diverted from their winning strategy of the past 2 weeks, opting not to fall behind by 18+ points and then come back to win as they had in each of those 2 games. Instead, they led the Cincinnati Bengals for most of the game but lost on a late FG 23-20.
• It's only appropriate that the last game to be played this week is Indianapolis at Tampa Bay on Monday Night because the last time these teams played in Tampa (OK, let's see if you've been paying attention to theme of the week so far) the Colts made one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history, scoring 21 points in the final 4 minutes to send the game into overtime where they won, 38-35.
• In non comeback-related news, Aaron Rodgers had a "6-Pack" of TDs (4 throwing and 2 rushing) in an offensive explosion for the defending Super Bowl Champions who destroyed the Broncos and the Ravens forced 4 fumbles from Mark Sanchez and scored 3 defensive Touchdowns (which surprisingly, they've never done before) against an overmatched Jets offense. The 34-17 score looked closer than it was simply because the Jets had 2 return touchdowns of their own, one on a kickoff and one on an interception. It was the first game in NFL history with more than 4 return touchdowns.


Big games don't live up to hype in NCAA

• There were a number of big games in the NCAA in week 5, but many of them were blowouts that left TV audiences disinterested. There were 3 matchups that involved 2 top-13 teams and none of them ended closer than 20 points.
• In those 3 games, the Alabama Crimson Tide destroyed Florida 38-10, Clemson continued their terrific run by beating Virginia Tech 23-3 and establishing themselves as a potential title contender and Wisconsin made Nebraska look like they don't belong in the Big 10 (Or the "Legends and Leaders" as they now want the conference to be called) by demolishing the Cornhuskers 48-17.
• Other Big 12 teams had a rough day as Texas A&M lost another big lead, this time to Arkansas in a 42-38 loss, #15 Baylor lost a late lead, losing a heartbreaker to Kansas State 36-35 and Oklahoma dropped from #2 to #3 in the AP poll despite a 56 point trouncing of Ball State because the voters were more impressed by the opposition that Alabama faced.