Tag: Indianapolis Colts (Page 9 of 12)

Bits And Pieces

October 9, 2013 / DB

It’s been a busy and frustrating couple of weeks. And some of it is beginning to catch up with us.

The last two Sundays we’ve had torrential rains, which have wiped out soccer games each week. L. had her first make-up game last night (She scored two early goals, then none after that.) and M. has one tonight. Plus regular practices on top of that has us rushing around even more than normal. Throw in a Daisy Scout meeting, my two shifts at the school library, and this week has absolutely flown by.

I had another quality football game last Friday. I watched FHS win their fifth game of the year, getting an impressive road win over a team they had only beaten three times over the previous 19 years. I had the odd experience of hearing the coach say variations on his post-game comments four times. I caught part of his speech to his team, then listened in as he did a radio interview. I grabbed him next for a few questions for my story. Then, as I was driving home, he called into the state-wide scores and interview show where I heard him talk once more.

The coach is very young and in his first year at FHS. He has them playing good football and is full of enthusiasm. I have a feeling if he can get them winning consistently, he won’t be there very long. It’s kind of cool to get to see him in the early days of what could be a long and very successful career.

Other weekend football:
KU.
Ugh. Remember when I threw out the possibility that the Jayhawks could be 4-0 coming into last week’s Texas Tech game with a huge chance to make a statement? So much for that. The offensive line is so bad that it’s really hard to know if the team is better than last year or not. Jake Heaps rarely has time to throw, and when he does his receivers either can’t get open or can’t catch the ball. So I have no idea if he’s good or not.
The weak o-line has rendered KU’s terrific set of running backs nearly useless. And Charlie Weis can’t help himself not to make 3-4 wacky calls a game, always at the worst possible moment. All that keeps putting a defense that has improved on the spot to bail them out. You have to be able to score in the Big 12, no matter how good your defense is. It feels like the defense will make plays in the first half and then get rolled over in the second half for the next two months. But I guess two wins is a doubling of last year’s total, so that’s progress. Right?

All that has made the hype for Wiggins and his pals even more deafening, something I didn’t think was possible.

Colts-Seahawks.
Man, what a game! I was literally shaking for nearly an hour after the game ended from all the adrenaline pumping through me.¹ The Colts just keep making plays, on both sides of the ball, when the result is in question. I’m still not convinced it’s the right thing to go to this balanced offense but I’m being swayed in that direction as it seems to be working. Now, if they can just get Trent Richardson running better. He almost looks too big to me, as if he’s bulked up to survive the NFL and that’s taken half-a-step from him. That trade will be discussed for years, but with Ahmad Bradshaw going out for the season, it makes even more sense.

Finally, I broke my losing streak and won my first fantasy game of the year last week! And I had to make a deal with the devil, picking up Phillip Rivers, to do it. But I won’t go 0-13 and I’m still in the running for the last-place money. Win-win.

There have been some great games in the MLB playoffs. Between all the other things going on, I wasn’t able to watch the quadruple header days in full. ² But still, the Detroit-Oakland series has been incredible. Game three of the Boston-Tampa game was a classic. I hope the LCSes are as much fun as some of these games have been.

Finally, I sent a message to my local Cardinals fan friend just before St. Louis closed out Pittsburgh last night asking if his boys were allowed to stay up and watch. A few minutes later I got a response: a video of his seven-year-old in his baseball pants, a Cards hat, and no shirt, sitting at their keyboard, playing a perfect version of “Charge” on their keyboard. Duh-duh-duh-DUT Dah-dah. Charge! It looked like they were having a good time.

Maybe someday I’ll keep the girls up to watch the Royals close out a playoff series. Then again, since I dropped a big, fat F-bomb in front of them and their Cardinals buddies when Peyton threw his pick six in the Super Bowl three years ago, maybe it would be best to treat a Royals playoff game like an important KU game in March/April: the girls go to one part of the house with S. and I get the basement to myself.

Of course, that could have just been the extra caffeine I poured into myself to fight a nasty migraine. ↩
And we don’t have the MLB Network, although I could have streamed those games. ↩

Ups And Downs

September 30, 2013 / DB

Obligatory weekend notes.

I was finally back on the road for high school football Friday night. The game itself aside, it was kind of a mess. Thanks to a big construction project on the highways here in Indy, a drive that normally takes an hour, or just over, on a Friday night took 95 minutes. I rolled into the stadium with 7:00 left before kickoff. Fortunately, this school saves a seat for us so I had a spot in the press box. After the game, which the home team won handily, I spoke to their new coach, who is a great guy. When I got to my car and pushed play on my recorder,¹ 3:30 or so of the roughly four minutes we talked was complete silence. And since I asked the questions I thought were most important for my story up front, the quotes I planned on building my story around were gone. So what should have been a good story about a nice win ended up being kind of shitty. Not the funnest of nights.

S. was on-call this weekend, meaning she rounded on kids in the mornings. I got to sleep in just a little both days and by the time I was up, the girls were already up and playing. They’re in that collective phase now where they can go long stretches where they play great together, then go through a period where every 30 seconds someone is complaining, whining, or arguing about something another sister is doing. Both mornings we had more of the latter than the former. I have a hard time starting my days that way. It tends to make me short-tempered for the rest of the day. So a lot of Saturday and Sunday involved me angrily asking the girls questions like “How many times do I have to ask you not to do something before you listen to me?”

I’ve found the best way for me to deal with these mood swings is to avoid the girls, which makes me feel guilty about ignoring them. I’m reading a philosophy-type book now and just happened to come across a chapter last night about various styles of parenting. I realized that no matter what you do as a parent, you’re going to second-guess yourself and worry that something you did when you were angry, tired, distracted, or just not as attentive as your kids wanted you to be in that moment will somehow scar them for life.

I keep reminding myself that we, mostly, have the big things right. We’re around our kids, directing them towards positive activities, keeping them clothed and fed and clean, and making sure they take advantage of their educational opportunities. On the days when parenting is a chore, I think it’s useful to give myself these reminders. No one can be perfect. Just make sure that you’re doing enough positive to balance the weaker moments.

Colts win easily, which was good. You can’t take too much out of a game against Jacksonville, who are truly awful. But that is a team that beat the Colts in Indy a year ago, and for some reason has always given them fits, whether the Jaguars were good or bad. Large game this week against Seattle. I think that will be a bigger test of where the Colts are at than the San Francisco game.

I just checked Stubhub and the most expensive tickets for the Colts-Broncos game on Oct. 20 are sitting at just under $13,000. And those aren’t even great seats. I imagine that price is going to keep going up as long as the Broncos keep making a mockery of the game.

That game is going to be massive. Don’t think there’s not going to be some serious angst here in Indy in the week leading up to it. Hell, in a ten-minute trip to the grocery store last night, I already heard several angsty calls on a local post-game show. It’s not that people here are second guessing the decision to jettison Peyton. While there are some die hards doing just that, most people here are smart enough to understand just because he’s doing this in Denver does not mean he would be doing the same thing here, with a younger team and a less-stout offensive line. No, where the angst will come from is “Can we want the Colts to win and still cheer for Peyton?” Sports force us into us-or-them boxes, and I think people here are having a really hard time seeing Peyton as the bad guy, even if only for one night.

Baseball playoff predictions to come tomorrow, after tonight’s play-in game. I think we should call this a Super Wild Card game. Then, if Cleveland had lost yesterday, turning it into a three-way-tie for the final spot, we could call the double play in games Super Duper Wild Cards!

I had a nice digital recorder that I think got messed with over the summer and thus did not work when I tried to test it before the season began. So I’ve been using my old micro-cassette recorder. Apparently it’s time to spring for a new digital recorder. ↩

Walking Off The Weekend

September 23, 2013 / DB

Your weekly weekend wrap-up, featuring a two-hour stretch from Sunday that was as good as any sports moment this year.

This was no ordinary weekend. No, we had visitors! The Nesbitts traveled from Kansas City (with the Belfords also traveling here, but staying with the Heberts) for the Missouri-Indiana football game Saturday. There were plans to attend the local high school football game Friday, but rain ruled that out. ¹

Saturday we cruised down to Bloomington for several hours of excellent tailgating and then the big SEC – Big 10 matchup. ² Fortunately for those of us who weren’t terribly interested in the outcome, IU made it a game for a little while, and then MU pulled away at the end of the third quarter so that we could leave a bit early. These 8:00 kickoffs are rough for old folks with sitters watching the kids 90 minutes away.

It was great to have good friends visit and to enjoy absolutely perfect weather for football on Saturday.

Sunday was a soccer day for us, and we got the ideal schedule, at least from the parents’ perspective. Three games, all at the same time. S. had to do some shuffling around to catch glimpses of each girl, but I was tethered to L.’s field as a coach. She scored two goals, and seemed a bit down on herself for just scoring that many times. Never mind most of the kids in the game didn’t come close to scoring and the competition was a little better than last week.

I was able to swivel my head and see C.’s field, but missed her scoring her first goal of the year. By the time we got to M.’s field, after the two younger sisters had slapped hands with their opponents and gathered their post-game snacks, we got to see the last 4-5 minutes of the U-10 team’s game. And they were clearly either up big or down big because M. was playing forward. Turns out her team won easily and she was happy, so it was a solid day all around.

Race home in time for the Colts game. As I’m watching their bruising first touchdown drive, I’m following the Royals game on my phone. When Eric Hosmer doubled to lead off the tenth, I turned the TV down and toggled the audio on MLB. Bases loaded, no outs, became bases loaded two outs. The Royals seemed to be Royaling the chance to win away.

3-2, two outs, and, well, many of you know what happened next.

Justin Maxwell ends the home season with a swing that will never be forgotten, no matter what happens over the final week of the season. It’s a shame the Royals aren’t just a game back and Cleveland was playing someone difficult this week. Because Maxwell’s home run could be like one of George Brett’s three home runs against California in that epic September 1985 series, when the Royals won three-of-four and leapfrogged into first place on their way to the World Series title. But, even if it’s not perfect, that was a pretty amazing way to end the final home game of the year, clinch a winning season, and send a capacity crowd home happy.

By the time I listened to all the post-game stuff on the radio, got the kids inside, and began getting dinner ready, the Colts were up 10-7 at halftime. Surely the 49ers would make adjustments at the half and take control of the game in the third quarter. But the Colts’ defense kept containing them and forcing them to punt while the offense missed a couple chances to increase the margin.

A missed Colts field goal seemed to set the Niners up to take the lead early in the fourth quarter, but the defense held once again and the offense put together another long drive, with Andrew Luck running the bootleg to put the Colts up 17-7. A Colin Kaepernick fumble followed by Ahmad Bradshaw’s second touchdown gave the Colts two scores in 72 seconds, and a huge road win.

As I wrote last week, I thought the trade for Trent Richardson was a great move for the Colts. I was a little surprised that so much of the national reaction was mixed. When I read Bill Simmons’ reaction Sunday morning, I started to get worried. This line was especially sobering.

After the Colts lose in San Francisco this Sunday, they’ll be 1-2 with a home-and-home against Houston, home games against Seattle and Denver, and road games at San Diego, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Arizona and Kansas City remaining. They won’t be favored in any of those nine games. It’s true.

I mean, wow. I hadn’t thought of that at all. And, as Simmons wrote, if Luck gets injured this year the season is completely shot and they traded away a top quarter of the draft pick for a running back with serious questions.

Turns out the Colts didn’t lose Sunday, though, and who knows if San Diego, Tennessee, Arizona, and the Chiefs will be as dangerous when the Colts play them as they are now.

I still don’t buy all those questions about Richardson. We’ll have to wait and see how he fits in in Indy. And who’s to say that if the Colts do suck this year and they would be in position to draft in the top five next April, the guy they picked then would be any better than Richardson? I still say it’s a perfectly reasonable risk to take given the rest of the roster.

And, more importantly, I’m hoping this new level of toughness the defense showed on Sunday is a regular thing going forward and not a one-week fluke after last week’s loss. They shut down a very dangerous offense, on the road. Keep that effort up and life should become much easier for Luck, Bradshaw, Wayne, and Richardson not needing 30+ points to win. Now, if they can just find a way to protect Luck better. He can only take that beating for so long.

Between the walk-off grand slam and the Colts terrific performance in San Francisco, Sunday afternoon was a great capper to a fantastic weekend.

I can sit in some rain to watch some football. We weren’t so sure the kids would hold up as well, though. ↩
Or B1G as the Big 10 now refers to itself, even in graphics on the Big 10, errr, B1G network. ↩

The Colts Big Move

September 19, 2013 / DB

I wasn’t sold on every move he made in the off-season, but yesterday Colts General Manager Ryan Grigson showed why he’s one of the best in the business. He absolutely stole Trent Richardson from Cleveland. Sure, he gave up a first round draft pick next year for Richardson, but the Colts will not be drafting in the top ten next year. ¹ That’s a hell of a move for a team that was relying on Ahmad Bradshaw to carry the load by himself after the loss of last season’s running back revelation, Vick Ballard, to an injury.

The trade is not without risk. There are questions about whether Richardson will be a star in the NFL. The thing with him joining the Colts is he doesn’t have to be the star. The offense will be built around Andrew Luck as long as he is healthy. Richardson just has to take the ball 15-20 times a game, eat up some yards, and force defenses to stay home rather than go after Luck with abandon on every down. If he does turn into a premier back, giving Luck his own Marshall Faulk or Edgerrin James, that will be a huge bonus. But it’s not necessary.

The Colts were unbelievably lucky last year in going 11-5. That luck was bound to disappear, and so far, that would appear to be the case. They’ve had a couple huge injuries early. The breaks they got a year ago were nowhere to be found in Sunday’s loss to Miami. I stand by my preseason prediction that they take a step back this year, maybe only winning 7-8 games, before they begin an extended run of excellence next year.

But getting Richardson yesterday could be a sign that fortune is still smiling on the Colts. The results may not come this year, but with a franchise quarterback and potential franchise running back added to the offense in 17 months, the team is suddenly in excellent shape for the near-future.

Reviewing how Richardson’s brief career has gone got me thinking about busts. People are awfully quick to label both football and basketball players who were stars in college but don’t tear up the NFL and NBA quickly busts. ²

The undercurrent of the articles about yesterday’s trade was that Richardson may not be as good people had thought before the Browns drafted him. That may well be true, but isn’t it a little early to definitively say that he’s a bust? He played most of his rookie year injured, on a shitty team, and still gained nearly 1000 yards. The Colts’ o-line isn’t a top-tier one, but with Luck, Reggie Wayne, and T.Y. Hilton demanding attention, he should get a little more room to run.

Richardson may end up sucking. He may be one of those backs who just can’t stay healthy, and shows flashes of brilliance but can never play more than 10 games a season. Or he, like so many great college backs before him, may just not be good enough to be an elite pro back but still manage to run for 800-900 yards a year and a dozen or so touchdowns. He may never be the superstar Cleveland needed him to be, but being serviceable is enough in Indy.

Finally, poor Cleveland. Or rather poor Cleveland fans. Sure, the Indians will likely make the playoffs, but no one seems to care, as they bring in about 10,000 fans a night. They lost the original Browns. Michael Jordan killed them in the late 80s/early 90s. They lost LeBron. And the team the city wants to succeed the most, the Browns, has generally been awful since the 1960s. The franchise seems intent on scrapping their current rebuilding project, which is only a year old, and starting from scratch again. You’d think the city could catch a break from the Sports Gods at some point.

Jinx! ↩
See also my boy Thomas Robinson. ↩

Los Deportes

January 8, 2013 / DB

Lots of sports over the past few days. Some assorted thoughts.

The NFL playoffs were almost universally awful. Let’s hope the Divisional round is better.¹ In Baltimore the Colts went down by a score that made sense, 24-9, but in a manner that did not. I hadn’t seen the Ravens play in over a month, so I still thought their defense was shitty. They’re not quite back to 2000 levels, but they’ve certainly improved, and were the difference in the game.

The Colts, arguably, moved the ball better than the Ravens. Until they got to the Baltimore 30, that is. Then they bogged down and had to settle for field goals. You just can not win a road playoff game when all you do is kick field goals.² The Colts looked young. They made a few key errors, notably some dropped balls or slightly off passes late in the game. The Ravens defense found their mojo and put unrelenting pressure on Andrew Luck.

And, but, still, there the Colts were, down eight, driving as time got more and more precious in the fourth quarter. The Ravens held, Adam Vinatieri pushed a makable field goal, and the game was over.

It was a frustrating loss not because it ended the season, but because the Ravens were there for the taking. They turned the ball over. They couldn’t do much on offense other than just chuck the ball up and either hope Anquan Boldin grabbed it³ or they got a pass interference call. For as well as the defense played, the Colts were still getting scoring chances.

Next year, if the Colts return to the playoffs and win a game, the highlight film will no doubt start where the 2012 season ended: with the loss in Baltimore. This feels like a classic moment of growth for a team that is on the rise again.

I loved the Twitter snark about Ray Lewis during the game. If you missed it, there were plenty of barbs about how Lewis is beloved by the football media, by fans in Baltimore, and really by many football fans across the country despite his involvement in two murders 13 years ago. If all you went by was the sports media, you would think Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Michael Vick, and Lance Armstrong were much, much worse people than Lewis is. I’ve never forgotten Lewis’ involvement in those murders, but I’ll admit I had lost the details of how much he was involved and allowed his play and personality to determine my opinion of him. It’s a weird world we live in.

We had a social engagement after the Colts game, so I didn’t get to watch the KU-Temple game live. I did follow the game on my phone though, especially when I looked down and saw a 12-point lead had turned into a five-point deficit midway through the second half. I went back and watched the last five minutes when I got home. That was a great way to finish off a very tough opponent. For all the talk of that being like a tournament game, it’s important to remember that the crowd, which sounded phenomenal, won’t be there during a March game in Indianapolis, LA, or Atlanta.⁴ But more about KU in a day or two.

On to the BCS Title game.

Gee, thanks, Notre Dame, for making it interesting. I had no rooting interest at all, never having liked either team. But when Alabama went up 21-0, I began pulling hard for them. I wanted an historic beat-down, something like 66-0, one of those Nebraska-KU scores from the early 80s. When they bogged down in the second quarter I lost interest and headed to bed at halftime.

Before and during the game I thought a lot about Nick Saban. He’s worked his way into the conversation as best college coach ever, and will probably not get serious consideration only because of his age (he’s not going to coach for another 20 years) and how much he’s moved around. Had he stayed and done this at Michigan State or LSU, or gotten to Alabama earlier in his career, and put together a long, 20-25 year stretch, I think he would retire as the best ever. The dude is a witch. He does things no one else can do, between getting the best players every winter and then getting them to play better than anyone else each fall. That’s harder to do than it sounds.

But what I thought about most is how it seems like he can never be happy. He’s job-hopped his entire career, most infamously jumping from a great LSU team to the Miami Dolphins then quickly fleeing back to the college game. There are always going to be rumors about him going back to the NFL because of his past, but as strong as the whispers are this year I think that means he’s at least put feelers out to NFL teams that he would listen to offers. Which I just don’t get.

Why would you leave the best job in college, in the heart of recruiting country, where you’re on national TV every week, and will always be in the hunt for a national championship, for a shitty NFL job? For a bigger challenge? Because you think you’re not a real coach until you’ve succeeded in the pros? Because the college game is boring? I suppose there are reasons, but going to a bottom-tier NFL team doesn’t seem like the way to do it. Now if a job with a good or up-and-coming NFL team came open, say the Colts or Packers or 49ers or some other team where you had a QB and a decent roster, then it would make more sense.

It’s one thing to be driven, to demand perfection and excellence, and to always be intense. Coach K is the most obvious college coach to compare Saban to. But I think Coach K at least takes a minute to enjoy life when his teams win. He’s flirted with the NBA a few times, but I feel like he’s always been comfortable with who he is and what he’s accomplished. I get the feeling that Saban is the exact opposite. He won’t enjoy a minute of this. He’s already thinking about finishing up recruiting, spring practice, and the first team on next fall’s schedule. He’s wondering if maybe he should talk to Cleveland or Philadelphia, if perhaps those jobs might be better tests for his skills. All that is what makes him great, but it also makes him weird and a little sad.

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I missed all of the Seattle-Washington game but it doesn’t sound like it was much better than the other three. ↩
The obvious exception being the Colts’ 15-6 win over the Ravens seven years ago when Adam Vinatieri kicked five field goals. ↩
Which he did a lot, and brilliantly, in the second half. ↩
There’s a lot of basketball to be played, but I’m already dreading a KU-IU regional final in Indy. Or worse, KU coasts through the Big 12, IU gets beaten up in the Big 10, and they play in the Sweet 16 rather than Elite 8, with KU as the higher seed and IU as the local “underdog.” I think I’ll be very glad we’re already scheduled to be out-of-town that week should it come to pass. ↩

The Turnaround

January 3, 2013 / DB

I was a doubter, a hater, a shaker of the head. When Peter King and a few other NFL analysts said the Colts had a reasonable shot at the playoffs last August, I wondered what they had ingested that had so altered their judgement. This was a team that won 2 games last year! How in the hell did people think they would win 9-10 games and have a shot at the post-season?

We were all wrong, it turned out. The Colts won 11 games. They clinched a playoff spot with one week to play, then knocked Houston out of the #1 seed in the AFC in week 17.

I’m not sure I get it.

I do not consider myself a true stathead in baseball, but I do appreciate the arguments of the stathead community when measuring the performances of players and teams. With that in mind, I look at this year’s Colts team and think a lot of their success in unsustainable. In baseball terms, this year the Colts have had a great BABIP¹, something that often doesn’t carry over from year-to-year. In other words, they’ve been lucky.

That said, it’s still be a remarkable year for the team. Andrew Luck was everything he was supposed to be, leading the team to seven fourth-quarter comebacks for wins, tying the single-season record. He was steady, smart, never panicked in the big moments, and filled a highlight reel with big plays. The best part is he can still get a lot better. Aside from the fourth quarter, his stats were pretty mediocre.

Some of his struggles were because of an awful offensive line. He spent much of the season scrambling around, avoiding pressure and trying to keep from getting drilled. Many of his interceptions were the result of throwing under extreme pressure.

Two things from that. A) Peyton Manning would not have survived a season behind that offensive line, making it even smarter that the Colts let him go rather than brought him back for one last shot at a Super Bowl. B), the team should absolutely follow the blueprint for the early Manning years and focus on improving the offense first. They need to shore up that line to keep Luck healthy and give him a chance to sit in the pocket. They need to supplement the receivers and backs he already has. There is a nice core in place, but the weapon needs weapons to maximize his abilities.

It’s difficult to draw too many conclusions from a single year, but I think GM Ryan Grigson is the right guy to continue to built the team. Almost every personnel decision he’s made has been perfect. Drafting Luck was a no-brainer. But he added Vick Ballard, T.Y. Hilton, Coby Fleener, Dwayne Allen, and LaVon Brazil in the draft. He picked up Darius Butler and Cassius Vaughn off the scrap heap. He found Deji Karim parking cars in Oklahoma. He traded for Vontae Davis. There’s no way he’s going to have that many transactions turn into major contributors each year, but Grigson clearly has an eye for talent and an understanding of how that talent will fit into the team.

But that’s next season. This Sunday the Colts have a chance to win a playoff game, something I didn’t expect to be possible until at least year two of the Luck era. It won’t be easy, but if they had to go on the road in round one, Baltimore is the team you would want to play. That doesn’t mean the Ravens won’t get their act together and slap the Colts around, especially with it potentially being the final game of Ray Lewis’ career. But it’s preferable to playing Houston for the third time in four weeks or going to New England or Denver.

It’s been a unexpected, remarkable season for the Colts. They may not be as good as their record shows.² There’s every chance next year will be a step-back season where the breaks don’t go their way and they miss the playoffs before they begin a true run of excellence. But there’s no reason to apologize for their success this year, or think that they should just be happy to have a chance to play on Sunday. They’ve been surprising people all season. Why stop now?

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Batting Average on Balls In Play. ↩
Perhaps they also weren’t as bad last year as their 2-14 record. ↩

Weekend Chaos

November 19, 2012 / DB

An oddly busy Monday, with a couple appointments in the morning and the need to squeeze some leaf collection activities in before St. P’s lets out for the day. So I’ll try to crank out some notes here.

A mixed bag of football action for me over the weekend. The two teams I care about, the Jayhawks and the Colts, got thrashed. But the games I didn’t have a vested interest in, particularly the K-State-Baylor and Stanford-Oregon games, were terrific to watch.

KU’s loss was frustrating after a month of them playing better and twice coming close to beating ranked teams. Fortunately it was over early enough that I was able to concentrate on the more interesting games elsewhere.

That Stanford-Oregon game was tremendous. All of a sudden the wide-open Pac-12 turned into the rough-and-tumble SEC. I have a hard time liking Oregon for a variety of reason, mostly because Chip Kelly seems like a real dick. I should like them, with their crazy offensive attack and pure speed DNA. But he kind of ruins them for me. So I enjoyed Stanford shutting them down an sneaking out with the win.

I always root for chaos in college football, so between Stanford winning and K-State going down¹ in Waco, it was an awfully fun night. Shame that it’s letting Notre Dame and an SEC team to be named later take the two front seats for the BCS title game.

My other thought for a football post last weekend was a cautionary note to all those who were penciling the Colts into the playoffs. It seemed awfully early, especially for a team that lost two more defensive starters a week ago, to assume they would make it, especially with a game at New England and two with Houston left.

I should have gone ahead with it, as the Patriots made that seem painfully obvious yesterday. I don’t think the loss is that big of a deal. The Colts ran into an excellent offensive team, had a few breaks that went again them, and it snowballed into a rout. It happens. We’ll see if/how they shake it off going into next weekend. They’ve already overachieved this year, and GM Ryan Grigson seems to know what he’s doing in acquiring talent through the draft.

Yesterday’s American Top 40 was from 1984, and Tina Turner’s “Better Be Good To Me” was in the top 10. I had never made the connection before, but as Sunday Night Football began last night, I wondered how old Faith Hill was. As though she was reading my mind, my wife said, during Hill’s SNF intro, “Huh, she’s 45.” I laughed, as I was about to look it up, too.

I quickly looked up Tina Turner. In 1984 she was 45. Hmmm. Remember what a big deal it was that Tina looked how she looked in 1984? As if she should be sitting at home in pantsuits like a grandma. Faith Hill looks fantastic, too. I commented to my wife isn’t it interesting that while we acknowledge that she’s got it going on, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal that a 45-year-old woman can pull off tiny skirts on national TV these days. There are dozens of women like that in the entertainment industry, and if you go to your local gym, you’re sure to find plenty of “middle aged” women who can show a lot of skin.

Sure, some of it is thanks to the wonders of plastic surgery and injections that hide the aging process. But a lot of it is that an entire generation of women has been working out for decades. It shows. And it’s a good thing. And Tina deserves a lot of credit for being one of the first women to tell the aging process to piss off.

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Sorry for the jinx Friday, K-Staters. I wish I had that kind of power. If I really did, I’d spendd more time in Vegas. ↩

Weekend Round Up

October 29, 2012 / DB

Taking a few minutes off from tracking Sandy to catch up on the weekend.

With a deep sigh after a couple very busy weeks, things can start getting back to normal around here.

Last week was parent-teacher conferences/Fall Break at St. P’s. S. attended the sessions with M.’s and C.’s teachers and learned both are doing very well and are delights to have in class but tend to talk too much and not listen when they are instructed to rein in the verbal offerings. As I’m sure you will understand, if you’ve been reading this blog for very long, we were shocked to hear that criticism of our daughters. Talk too much? Really? I’m sure the staff at St. P’s will be thrilled to learn sister #3 may be the biggest talker of them all.

We decided to share our Fall Break with some friends who have boys the same ages as M. and C. and were also on their Fall Break. We spent some time at some sites that are more fun in summer, but still were a nice get-away from home. The kids played and had a great time. We took them to an orchard that had fun fall activities like a petting zoo, pony rides, a mini-corn maze, and a train ride through the grounds. The moms drank some wine and margaritas. The dads put away a lot of beer and watched some football. Short of going to a warm, tropical beach somewhere, it was about as fine a way to spend a Fall Break as I can imagine.

And not to complain about the weather, given what is happening on the East Coast right now, but Mother Nature sure didn’t give us any help over the weekend. Friday we were stuck inside because of chilly rain. We ventured outside long enough to get a small fire going and make s’mores. Saturday it was sunny and dry, but still felt more like mid-November than late October. We took a walk on a beach Sunday morning and braved wind chills below 40. The kids were distracted by finding dead fish, which for some reason was a huge thrill. We could have used the near-80 degree temps we had last Wednesday and Thursday.

We were so busy early Saturday afternoon, and were often out of AT&T tower range, that I put no mental energy into remembering to check on the KU score. Thanks to a text from my brother-in-law, I managed to get connected just in time to follow the repeat of the 2006 last second comeback by Texas. Only without Vince Young and a rather friendly flag this time. I don’t think Texas is all that great, despite all their future NFL players. But KU is definitely playing better than they were two months ago, and are much better than a year ago. There just happen to be nine pretty good teams in the Big 12 right now and that improvement isn’t likely to generate many W’s until the talent gets better and deeper. They’re not good, but they’re not hopeless either.

My weekend buddy is an Indiana born-and-raised Catholic. Although he is an IU alum, he has some love for Notre Dame. He was pretty excited as we watched the Irish knock off Oklahoma Saturday night. There’s still plenty of football to be played, so who knows whether they’ll be able to snag a BCS title spot. But I kept thinking ahead not to the next month, but to next fall. The Notre Dame hype is going to be deafening for the 2013 season. So not only might Notre Dame be back, but so will hating Notre Dame.

Nice win for the Colts Sunday. The first road win for Andrew Luck, a big division road win, and a terrific finish after a pretty ho-hum first three-and-three-quarters quarters. Or however long it was. I’ve tried to watch this season with an eye towards where the talent upgrades need to come over the next couple years. They need to rebuild the defense. They need someone to come in and learn from Reggie Wayne before he is done. But they’ve got to get that offensive line fixed pronto. You can’t build around a franchise quarterback if he’s getting battered the way Luck gets hit. The Tennessee defense is not good, and Luck was still running for his life all day.

So I guess we have to admit Peyton is for real, don’t we?

Speaking of Peyton, do you think he gets upset every time he sees a commercial that has either Drew Brees or Aaron Rogers in it? I wonder if he is especially annoyed by the Brees ones, thinking, “If I wouldn’t have thrown that pick six in the Super Bowl, all those commercials are mine!”

A bit of a Ho-Hum World Series. Pablo Sandoval going Reggie in game one was pretty cool. And the other three games were tense pitchers battles. But sweeps are never all that entertaining for the casual fan with little to no rooting interest.

Commercials I will not miss once the baseball playoffs are over: pretty much none of them. Between the 8 million Samsung commercials each night and the cesspool of political ads, I’m ready to quit watching live TV for awhile. The Direct TV ad with the couple in the bathroom is pretty good, though.

Time to go batten down the hatches before our 50 MPH gusts hit later today. It’s been an early fall in terms of leaves falling. But I’m pretty sure the few leaves we have left will be gone this time Wednesday.

Starting Over

October 9, 2012 / DB

Some game at Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday. First there was the result, a fantastic Colts comeback – they trailed 21-3 at halftime and looked awful in the first half – that ended on a missed Green Bay field goal that secured the 30-27 win. There was Reggie Wayne’s epic performance, catching every ball that was anywhere near him. There was Andrew Luck engineering a fantastic drive for the winning touchdown. There was the Colts defense, who righted the ship and made some big plays in the fourth quarter.¹

Two bigger things were going on, too.

There was the emotional baggage that came when coach Chuck Pagano announced earlier in the week that he was undergoing cancer treatment and would probably not coach again this year. Despite his brief time in Indy, it’s clear he and the players have a strong connection. It’s a bit corny to say it, but there’s little doubt the Colts were playing a little harder Sunday for their coach. I loved it when defensive tackle Ricardo Mathews, following a Dwight Freeney sack in the fourth quarter, jumped up-and-down like a little kid who could not believe what was under the Christmas tree. There are many emotions in football, but there was a rawness to what the Colts were demonstrating Sunday that was fantastic to see. Well, unless you’re a Packers fan I suppose.

There was a third level, too, that I don’t think is getting much attention. Forgive me for using this term, but Sunday was a perfect storm of emotions that went beyond just beating a Super Bowl contender or playing for an ailing coach. It felt like a massive catharsis for the organization and its fans who have had a rough 18 months or so.

From the moment Mike Caldwell called his inexplicable timeout in the waning seconds of the AFC Wild Card game against the Jets two seasons ago, not much has gone right for the Colts. Sure, they got the number one pick and landed Andrew Luck. But a lot of pain went into getting that pick.

As easy as the end of the Peyton Manning era was outwardly, it was in reality much more difficult. Even fans who had come to terms with the change still had sore feelings about the loss of the city’s sports icon. Even those who believed taking Luck and building for the future was the smart move couldn’t help but wonder how the team would be playing with a healthy-ish Peyton under center.

Sunday that all got taken care of. The comeback, winning for Chuck, Reggie proving he still has it and Andrew showing he indeed has it. That all got mixed together, and in the release at the end of the game, grabbed all the angst from the last 18 months and blasted it away.

That may sound silly to some of you who didn’t see the game, or don’t live in Indy. But believe me, it feels much like it did after Joseph Addai rumbled into the end zone in the 2007 AFC title game and put the Colts in the Super Bowl. There’s a feeling of joyful relief around the city. It is obviously very different, as the Colts are a long way from even thinking about the Super Bowl. But something changed Sunday, when the final seconds ticked off the clock. The new era has officially begun and everyone is onboard and looking forward to the future.

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They also looked awful on a couple drives in the fourth quarter, and were lucky a) the offense bailed them out and b) Green Bay ran out of time. ↩

Football Notes

September 19, 2012 / DB

After two weeks, I’ll follow the lead of pretty much every other football commentator and make broad assertions based on limited data. Therefore, 2012 will be the Wacky Year. One week teams and players will look great, the next totally lost. See the Cowboys, who went from Super Bowl favorites to Same Old Cowboys in 10 days’ time. And Peyton Manning who went from, Back to Normal to ‘Weak Arm, Bad Decisions, Was It A Mistake To Come Back?’

I understand how, with a million and one outlets fighting for an audience, commentators are pushed to be aggressive with their opinions. It’s the best way to separate from the; unless everyone else is doing the same. It’s one thing to be Stephen A. Smith. It’s another to do that act when ESPN, NFL Network, NBC Sports Network, Fox, CBS, NBC, and every talk radio network’s personalities are screaming, too.

There’s a reason Peter King is considered the best in the business. He points out the wild swings without believing in them until the data is too large to ignore.

With that said, though, I’m about a week away from adjusting my weekly picks to be exactly the opposite of the previous week’s results. I’m already in 31st place, out of 43 entries, in my pool, so it’s not like I can hurt myself doing that.

Speaking of, I’m really glad I switched my pick from Atlanta to Denver at the last minute Monday. I can’t even follow my own advice and tune out all the Peyton worship.

No complaints about the beginning of the Luck Era in Indy. A few moments of brilliance and a lot of rookie mistakes against the tough Bears’ D in week one. Some more growing pains last Sunday against the Vikings, but more big plays and his first game-winning drive. The first two weeks have confirmed two things for Colts fans: Luck is the real deal and the defense is atrocious. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better, unless they somehow get two picks in every round of next April’s drafts, select only defensive players, and every one of those picks turns into a solid contributor. But that’s how the Manning Era started, too.

I kind of love the replacement refs. No league manages its image more than the NFL, between mandating the exact length of socks to how often each brand of shoe can be represented on the field. It’s kind of fun to see games become a joke because of Roger Goodell and the owners’ arrogance. I’ll keep saying that until someone gets hurt.

Onto college. A week after an awful loss to Rice, KU came out and hung with TCU for most of the game. For the second-straight week, Charlie Weis decided to let Dayne Crist throw the ball on every down instead of keeping the running game going. It certainly cost KU the game against Rice. I don’t know if it affected the outcome last week, but it needs to change. Tony Pierson is a weapon that KU hasn’t had in a long time. With James Sims coming back this week, there are all kinds of options in the backfield. Use them.

My theory is Charlie is deeply indebted to Crist for following him to KU and helping bring in some of the other big name transfers. He’s going to showcase him as much as possible to help him get drafted, knowing this was a team that had a four-win ceiling at absolute best.

The important thing, though, is that he team is already light years beyond where it was in the Turner Gill era. Those two teams didn’t seem to have a clue, nor did the coaching staff. This year’s edition isn’t quite to the Mangino Era level of playing hard and smart on every down, but they are certainly improved. I don’t know how much credit Weis and Company get for that. Simply having a new coach in place was the most important step. But the rhetoric from the coaching staff is 180 degrees from where it was the last two years. They may not get the program turned around and winning again, but at least I have faith that there’s a chance of it happening with them running things.

High school: I had a 33-5 loss last Friday. And it was a damn quick game, so for the first time this season, I had time to do post-game interviews. It’s always fun to talk to a coach after his team turned the ball over four times, gave up three touchdowns of over 40 yards, and failed to score three times they were inside the opponent’s 20. I kept it brief.

This week I have a dandy: our best class 4A team, ranked #7 in the state and undefeated, against a 2A Catholic school that had beaten them the last two years. It’s one of those fun match ups where a lower class private school is every bit as talented as the bigger, public school. As an added bonus, it’s right down the road from our house, so instead of leaving at 5 and getting home around 11:30, I’ll have a ten minute drive to the stadium and back afterwards.

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