A busy and fun weekend around our house.
Saturday C and I headed out at 7:00 am for her first preseason volleyball tournament. At that point in the day we had about 2” of snow. The roads were not great, but not terrible either. It helped that no one was out on them, other than parents going to volleyball tournaments. We were at one of two volleyball facilities that back up to each other. There was a long line of cars to pull into each, more traffic than I saw on the 30 minute drive there.
C’s team did ok. They won three of four sets in the pool play part of the day. Then they lost their first playoff match before winning the second in dramatic fashion. They were down 13–9 in the third set, against a bunch of fifth graders, before they came back to win 16–14. Six hours in a cold gym on hard, metal seats wiped me out. C was tired, too. When we left all the cars were covered in another 3+ inches of snow. The roads were, again, not great but still usable. We made it home without incident.
We ended up getting about seven inches of snow at our house, which I believe was the biggest snowstorm in Indy in nearly five years. We were overdue. We were pleased at how well our new snowblower worked. We replaced our 12-year-old blower in the fall. I had my eye on some higher end models but S insisted I stick with a more budget-friendly pick. Our choice runs at least twice as fast as our old one, and is lighter to boot. S ran it once Saturday while I was out, and I did a second run Sunday morning. I cleared our whole driveway in less than three songs on the old American Top 40 I was listening to!11
I was very thankful that the KU-Baylor game matched up with the first half of the Colts-Chiefs game. That way I missed the Colts laying a big, fat turd and was able to move on to other things when the KU game ended.
A disappointing end to a surprising and successful season for the Colts. They enter the off season with a young, talented team, more cap space than any team in the NFL, and a general manager who absolutely cleaned up in last year’s draft. There’s every reason to believe even being half as successful in this year’s draft and free agency will make the Colts the AFC South favorites next year, and right up with the Chiefs and Patriots as best teams in the conference. Of course, football always surprises, so whether the results match those expectations is another story.
For the Chiefs, although I watched very little of the game, I thought of one very promising comparison. The 2006 Colts were absolutely terrible on defense late in the year. In December it looked like it was going to be another waste of an epic season by Peyton Manning and the offense. They the defense flipped a switch when the playoffs started and were amazing. In fact, other than in the second half of the AFC title game, the offense was pretty mediocre through the entire playoffs and it was the defense that got the Colts their only Super Bowl title since coming to Indy.
I’m not sure whether the Chiefs can sustain what they did defensively on Saturday. But if they can? Look out. You only need a halfway decent defense with that offense.
My other predictions were so-so. I thought the Cowboys-Rams game would be closer that most folks expected. I went to bed before it ended, but it wasn’t the complete domination that some predicted.
I whiffed on the Chargers. My bad. And apparently Tom Brady reads this blog, as his comments after the game about all the people who thought they sucked and couldn’t win a game were clearly aimed at my comments about the Pats on Friday.
That Philly-New Orleans game was really solid. I feel for Alshon Jeffrey. That guy has made so many big catches over the years and whiffs on a fairly easy one that cost the Eagles a chance to pull the upset. Sports are brutal sometimes. I’m sure Philly fans will handle his mistake gracefully. Some people believe every championship team needs a gut-check game along the way to wake them up. Perhaps yesterday was the Saints’ gut-check game.
Sunday we had all the two-year-old nephews over to play in the snow. We only spent about 20 minutes outside because the winds were beginning to pick up, but we drug them around on sleds, made snow angels, and L and C made a snowman. It was pretty funny watching the little guys play. They’re beginning to separate a bit more in both abilities and personalities. Throw in none of them being at the developmental stage where they can co-play or begin to understand sharing and it can be a volatile mix at times. But for the most part they are very entertaining. We’re watching one of them next weekend, so this was good prep.