March 7th Update

Saints leaders take blame for scandal

• New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton and general manager Mickey Loomis apologized and took the blame for violations that happened under their watch, referring to Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams' "bounty" system that rewarded players for knocking opposing competitors out of games.
  
• LB Jonathan Vilma even claimed that he had offered $10,000 out of his own pocket to have Brett Favre knocked out of the 2009 NFC Championship game. This ended up happening (pictured) as the Saints were able to force Favre to the sidelines part of the way through their game after a painful looking hit. Other players, like the Chiefs' Eric Berry, have wondered if other teams had bounties on them.
  
• While there is no precedent for what kind of penalties will be enacted, one can only imagine that the NFL's hard line stance on player safety in recent seasons will only make them want to make an example out of the Saints in this situation.

Peyton Manning to be released by Colts

• The Indianapolis Colts are set to part ways with one of the best players in their history, according to ESPN’s Chris Mortensen. Quarterback Peyton Manning, who has been on the team since 1998, was set to make a $28 million bonus if he was on the roster on Thursday at 4PM. The Colts decided to release Manning instead of paying him this massive bonus
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• Manning, who missed this last season due to a neck injury, had played every other game since he was the number one pick in the 1998 NFL Draft. After 2 neck surgeries in the last off-season, Manning was unable to play this past year. However, in the past few days a very grainy picture has "leaked" of Manning working out and looking pretty good.
  
• With Manning out, the Colts stumbled to a 2-14 record which gets them the #1 overall Draft pick in this year’s NFL Draft. They are widely expected to select Stanford QB Andrew Luck, who many have called the best college quarterback prospect since Manning. Luck is expected to be ready to play for the Colts on Day 1, so the need to keep Manning on the roster is non-existent.

December 23rd update

"Unlucky" win for Colts?

• For most of the season, it has been assumed that the Indianapolis Colts would finish with the worst record in the NFL and gain the top pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, which would almost be certainly used on star QB Andrew Luck of Stanford either as trade bait or as a replacement for Peyton Manning. As the Colts were losing games left and right, the prevailing thought is that they would be fortunate just to win a game much less win enough to put that #1 pick in jeopardy. But after Thursday night's win over the fading Houston Texans (who are 0-10 all-time in Indy now) the Colts have as many wins as the St. Louis Rams and Minnesota Vikings and the question is obvious: "What is the tiebreaker?"
• The answer will be a relief to Colts fans as it will be very hard for the Colts not to gain the first pick as long as they don't win their final game in Jacksonville. The first tiebreaker involves strength of schedule, so if team x plays 16 games and each opponent won 12 games, their tiebreaker figure would be .75.
• If the Colts had lost to the Texans, the best their strength of schedule could be at the end of the season would have been .5469 and if the Vikings lose their final two games, the worst their strength of schedule could be also is .5469. However since the Texans now have one less win (and it's calculated twice since Indy played Houston twice) the Vikings have an outside chance of sneaking by on the tiebreaker. Basically the Vikings need the teams they've played this year to lose a lot. The Rams' strength of schedule could be at worst .5586, so they cannot land the No. 1 pick if the Colts lose a 14th game because Indy's best strength of schedule would be lower than the worst possible for St. Louis.
• In addition to Luck still likely going to Indy, other teams in need of a QB dealt with the bad news of seeing Matt Barkley of USC announce that he will return to USC for his senior season (who says kids these days don't value education?!?). Barkley was the next best QB in the draft and would probably be the #1 pick any other year (possibly the reason he decided to wait until 2013 to enter the NFL draft).

NBA Preview: Western Conference

• Now that we've covered the barrage of Big 3's in the East, it's time to move over to the Western Conference, which undoubtedly houses a more competitive group of teams from top to bottom. It all starts with the defending champion Dallas Mavericks and all-around superstar Dirk Nowitzki who will look to hold off a bevy of contenders including two teams from L.A.
  
• The Lakers are actually looking pretty weak and here at Sportico we would highly discourage any big bets being made on Kobe Bryant and the Lake Show capturing their 4th Western conference championship in 5 years. Let's count the reasons:
  

1. Kobe Bryant is already injured, plus he's dealing with emotional baggage as his wife just filed for divorce.
2. Lamar Odom, a highly productive and underrated player was given away to the Mavs after the botched Chris Paul deal hurt his feelings (for lack of a better phrase).
3. Phil Jackson will be watching from home or a mud hut in Argentina or wherever he decides to go in his retirement as opposed to the Lakers bench.
4. There are just too many good teams in the West.

• The Clippers have made the biggest strides this offseason, adding Chris Paul, Caron Butler and Chauncey Billups to their core group of players led by Blake Griffin and while they may not be ready to win titles just yet, they should be a fixture in the playoffs for years to come. Another young team a year or two ahead of the Clippers pace is the Oklahoma City Thunder, led by one of the games best players (Kevin Durant), one of the game's best young coaches (Scotty Brooks) and not to be discounted, the best classic rock entry song in the NBA by far.
• The Memphis Grizzlies, San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns look to make some noise as well but time will only tell which team can put itself in a position to make a run to the NBA Finals this year in a shorter, but condensed 66 game season.
  

December 19th update

Packers fall, Colts finally win

• If someone had told you Sunday morning that the vaunted 13-0 Green Bay Packers would lose while the listless 0-13 Indianapolis Colts, playing without franchise QB Peyton Manning would win, most people would think you were either crazy or joking, but you would have been right.
• The Packers and Aaron Rodgers were harrassed by a fearsome Kansas City Chiefs pass rush led by Tamba Hali and his 3 sacks (which leaves him 1 behind the AFC leader). The Packers never looked comfortable due to a great strategy by interim coach Romeo Crennel (he's taking over for Todd Haley who was fired this week) who had the Chiefs play 5+ speedy defensive backs to guard the Packers wide receivers on nearly every play. The Chiefs have lost most of their best players to injury this season but the one constant has been Hali who has certainly earned the 5 year, $60 million deal he signed this offseason.
• On the other side of the NFL landscape, the Indianapolis Colts were so bad that fans are ignoring the season and just wondering whether the team will keep Peyton Manning next year, trade him and start presumptive #1 pick Andrew Luck or keep both and have Manning mentor Luck. But despite playing a pretty good Tennessee Titans team, the Colts dominated in every aspect and won easily. Dan Orlovsky, the Colts QB in this game, won for the first time as a NFL starter and the Colts won for the first time with a QB other than Peyton Manning since this game (notice the date). The QB in that game was Jim Harbaugh, now the coach of the San Francisco 49ers, who play the Pittsburgh Steelers tonight in a matchup of 10-3 teams.
It was only the third time in NFL history that a team that was 10-0 or better lost and a team that was 0-10 or worse won on the same day.
• In other news, The Tebow train came to a screeching halt against the New England Patriots, the Baltimore Ravens (the first place team in the AFC) got crushed by the San Diego Chargers, and the Detroit Lions took a big step towards making the playoffs with another late comeback, this time beating the Oakland Raiders after being behind by 13 points with 5 minutes left.


Making it look Breesy

• The New Orleans Saints continue to win... again and Quarterback Drew Brees is currently on pace for a season never seen before in the NFL. While his Green Bay Packers counterpart Aaron Rodgers is getting a lot more publicity and more attention from car insurance agents, Brees is on the brink of breaking two of the most sacred quarterbacking records.
• From 1956-1960 Johnny Unitas had a streak of 47 consecutive games with a touchdown pass. Besides Brees the closest anybody has come to that streak in the last 50 years was Brett Favre’s streak of 36 straight games. Coming into this weekend, Brees’ streak stood at 40 straight games. Just to make sure there was no doubt about 41, Brees threw for 5 touchdowns on Sunday. Tom Brady also has a streak of note, with a TD in 29 straight games, the 5th longest in history.
• In 1984 Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins threw for 5,084 yards setting a single-season record that still stands today. In 2008 Brees came tantalizingly close to eclipsing that record but fell just short, throwing for 5,069 yards. This season Brees has thrown for 4,780 yards, and has two games left to get the additional 305 yards he needs to break the record. The craziest part of this is that Brees could very easily set a record that has stood for more than 25 years with a game to spare!


Note - Keep looking this week as we will have a preview of the major bowl games and a preview of the NBA season for your enjoyment.