Other Blogs I read

I thought I would take today's entry and talk about some of the blogs or forums that I like to read/watch. Now a lot of them are Wisconsin-centric, but if your from Wisconsin they should be.

• Rattler Radio (http://rattlerradio.mlblogs.com). This blog is one of my personal favorites to read. This blog is maintained by Chris Mehring who is a great radio announcer for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (Class A of the Milwaukee Brewers). This blog is just not about a current promotion of the team or a recent event. This blog is everything about the Timber Rattlers past, present and future. Chris provides good commentary about the team each day during the season including spring training and in the off season providing a look back from the previous years in baseball in Appleton. I hope to be writing some posts about Chris and the Timber Rattlers next season

• BrewerFan.net (http://forum.brewerfan.net/). This blog provides a great place to find out all Brewer information from the Brewers and the minor league teams. This forum does not "doll" up the information. Some of the information on the rest of the site can be outdated, but the forum is kept pretty much up to date and is a good read.

• Ben's Biz Blog (http://bensbiz.mlblogs.com). In this blog, this guy goes traveling around to other minor league stadiums. I like this blog since this person not only writes about his experiences at the game, but the journey to get to the game. The places he stopped at while traveling, sites he saw, the places he ate along with the operations of the minor league club. This blog is the complete minor league journey in one spot.

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/brewers.html, http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/packers.html, http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/badgers.html). This is your typical hometown blogs you would expect from any major city. They provide good coverage of the local teams along with real time blogging for the Badgers and Packers. For breaking news for the Brewers, Badgers and Packers, this is my place to go.

• NFC North Blog (http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth). If you are working for ESPN, you should be good, but that is not the point with this blog. Kevin Seifert does a good job covering all that is the NFC North. He provides good content about the games going on Sunday along with reporting during the week.

• Close Call Sports (Formally Umpire Ejection League, http://www.closecallsports.com/). I started following this site when they use to only cover MLB umpire ejections, but has expanded to other sports including technical fouls in the NBA. They provide a good in site for each MLB ejection and takes a closer look in season at the MLB rules.

Some NBA players need a reality check

Another set of Christmas games done for another years but not without players complaining that they should not have to play so they can spend time with their families. Now I'm not against people being with the ones they love for the holiday's but I'm getting tired of NBA players wanting their cake and eating it too.

Ron Artest (Metta World Peace) decides to let everybody know his discontent for playing on Christmas as many other players have said in the past. The thing NBA players forget is playing on Christmas is where the money is for the TV networks, teams, players and sponsors. Without that money, they can not get paid as much as they want to get paid.

TV networks are able to put their premier games on Christmas with the maximum audience which generates the most sponsorship money, teams can fill their seating on this day and sell their merchandise, players get maximum exposure to sponsors or possible sponsorship opportunity. Sometimes based on your profession, you need to suck it up and do things that your not quite fond of or want to do. My father always had to work during the Forth of July for while the machines were shut down. That meant that we never got to go to any fireworks shows, but that was the fact I had to accept growing up.

It is time for the NBA players to stop acting like they have no common sense do what they do best, play basketball. I know today this is a shorter post, but the items in life that should be common sense should not take many words to state.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all and all a good night.

December 21

Today is the "supposed" end the world according to the Myan's, but yet I'm still here. Oh darn, I guess I need to go to work.

Snow

Snow, Snow and more snow today

Up and Coming Brewers Minor Leaguers

In this post I would like to highlight a few minor league players in the Brewers system I will be watching for the upcoming 2013 minor league season. This is just my opinion and is not based on any other thing than my thoughts:

1. Hiram Burgos: This guy has rapidly progressed through the Brewers farm system to the point, with a good season in AAA, could be pitching with the big club. The key with Hiram will be consistency. Can he string together a series of starts that prove he is ready for the Major Leagues?
2. Hunter Morris: When the Brewers drafted Morris, they sent him directly to the Timber Rattlers. I'm honored to have see him play in person and knew that they had somebody special. The only concern at the time was Prince Fielder was playing first base, but guess what no Prince. It will be interesting how he plays this year and if he gets a shot at the major leagues.
3. Drew Gagnon: This pitcher seems to be the player that nobody is talking about, or I'm just not looking in the right places. I have also seen this guy pitch in person and I was impressed. He has a low 90's fastball with a good breaking slider. Success in Low A Appleton did translate to High A Brevard County. Where he ends up this year is all up to him.
4. Scooter Gennett: When first looking at this guy, I thought he was small, but fast for a second baseman, but this guy has progress well.
5. Jason Rogers: This guy has great power, good doubles power. The only issue I see with Rogers is his tendency to swing wildly.
6. Johnny Hellweg: A pickup in the Greinke deal, this guy needs to be able to put together consistent starts to move up the Brewers system. A good Arizona Fall League season for Hellweg has put him on the right track.
7. Khris Davis: I saw him play a couple of years ago in Appleton and he had good power. Since then, he has developed nicely playing in AAA at the end of the season.
8. Taylor Jungmann: This pitcher started out on fire last year, but cooled off as the season progressed. To progress, Jungmann needs to show more consistency as he gave up more than 1 hit per inning pitched.
9. Josh Prince: This is the wild card in the bunch I'm watching. This guy had a good AFL season, but with an up and down batting average, 2013 should show if Josh is the real deal.
10. Lance Roenicke: This guy started in Helena and got off to a red hot start. Then he was transferred to Appleton and also got off to a good start before cooling off at the end to a near frost. 2013 for Roenicke will show if he has the ability to bounce back and progressive up the farm sys

I have extremely grateful for the MILB.TV to be able to watch the majority of these players. It is well worth the price.

More Conference Realignment, has everybody gone crazy?

I just recently posted about conference realignment here, but it appears that we are not done yet. Now the Non-FBS football school of the Big East have a problem with the current alignment of the teams in the conference, so what do you do? Start a new conference. A new conference with new teams and knowing with how things are going, the seven breakaway teams will probably accept inventions to other conferences and additional teams will need to be found for the breakaway seven.

Has everybody gone crazy? Yes. Is there a way to end the craziness? Yes. Do I think that anybody will do anything about conference realignment? No. It's time to do something about all this conference realignment, the straw that broke the camels back for me was when TCU left the Big East conference before even leaving the conference they were in currently.

There is so much moving so fast, people are going to lose focus and just give up watching. NASCAR went through a similar kind of issue back in the early 2000's and still occurs today. Up and through the early 2000's, drivers and teams were easily identifiable year after year. You knew that Rusty Wallace always drove the #2 Miller Genuine Draft//Miller Lite car, Terry Labonte drove the #5 Kellogg's car, Ricky Rudd drove the #10 Tide car. I could go on forever, but the point is, that drivers, teams and sponsors were changing even if the car was successful. This made NASCAR confusing, at least for me, to follow since there was little to no consistency. This is one of many reasons that I barley watch NASCAR now.

The college conferences are going the route of NASCAR, people can not identify with their conference, the teams have no chance to build up rivalry, when conference games are played, they are just another game. The conference names do not even identify with the teams that are in them, Boise State will play in the Big East?

My solution, a sort of draft like thing needs to occur. Just have a draft of all the Division 1 teams and agree not to move for five years. Then, set a ceiling on the number teams in a conference so that the Big 10 does not turn back into the Big 14 as it will now. Another idea would be to break all the Division 1 schools into regions, then you will not have Boise State playing East coast teams in conference.

Whatever the solution is, someone needs to stabilize the ship in conference realignment before the fans start tuning out.

Finley, Shut Up!

It is said "Least said soonest mended". Apparently that phase lost on Packers Tight End Jermichael Finley when he stated that the Bears were better off without "Slow Urlacher". This statement continue a long list of statements that make you want to clamp Finley's mouth shut. When he keeps his mouth shut or is injured, the Packers are successful, when he is yapping, the Packers seem to struggle amidst the additional attention he draw. On top of that, it seems that he has trouble grasping the concept of catching the ball after he has opened his mouth.

The sad thing is, this guy has the talent, but he tries to run before he can walk. He has a Sterling Sharpe complex, he wants the ball, he wants the attention, but he can not deliver the consistence performance required out of a superstar. To matters worse, he rips or comments on everybody from his own teammates to players on other teams. In the NFL today, teams are usually already all fired up, Finley just likes giving them additional motivation.

Finley does not get it, follow the flow and everybody wins. When Finley was injured a couple of years ago and was out for the rest of the season, what happened.... We won the Super Bowl. When the grand champion of getting attention, Sterling Sharpe got injured in Week 17 in 1994 what happened.... We won the Super Bowl two years later. Keeping the distractions down along with getting on a hot streak near the end of the season generally leads to success in the NFL playoffs.

If Finley wants to help the team he needs to catch the ball and keep the big ole yapper shut!

Today is 12-12-12

Happy Aaron Rodgers day everybody!

Amazing Race: Did Josh and Brent deserve to win?

I'm going to deviate from my usual posting that deal with sports related thoughts and talk about the Amazing Race finally that occur Sunday. Josh/Brent, Goat Farmers from New York won the million dollar prize for finishing first ahead of the Chippendale's and Trey/Lexi.

Many people are already asking if they deserved to win since they had not won any legs prior to the final and spent most of the race in the back of the pack. My answer is yes, they are deserving winners.... They came in first in the final leg, that makes them deserving winners. It does not matter how you get there as long as you play by the rules.

This is no different than in NASCAR when a driver wins on the final lap without leading any other laps? Do you hear the announcer say "He really did not win since he only led the last lap. In football, if the other team scores with no time left and that was the only time they led, do they not deserve to win? It does not matter how you got there, just that you got there. Josh and Brent did what they needed to do to win the race and that is all.

Someone said once "When you see a bear, you do not need to the be the fastest person, you just need to outrun the slowest person". Josh and Brent employed this motto on the race, a technique that rarely works. I said rarely works, not never works. They were able to come in second to last six times (if I did my math correct) in the race.

If the Chippendale's or Trey/Lexi would have won, people would have said they wanted someone other than Mactor's (Model-Actors) winning the race. Two normal people won the race and people are all up in arms, I get the feeling that people want nobody to the win the race, that way there are no complains.

I have watched all 21 seasons of the Amazing Race and I think what separates the teams that win the race now verses the teams that won in the early seasons where the number of countries visited, number of days spent in one country, number of tasks and the number of miles traveled. Teams in the early seasons had to do more to win and I think people can not get over the fact that teams do less to win the top prize. People also got a warped sense of what real teams were when more stars were added to the show starting with Rob and Amber in Season 7. Prior to that season, all the teams were normal people like Josh and Brent, back then people did not complain a peep.

The glory days have pasted for the Amazing Race, the reality show era in prime time television is just about over. Television stations are not doling out as  much to reality shows as when the Amazing Race first started, but the Amazing Race has survived in the Sunday night slot. We now spend more days in large countries to account for that, but the Amazing Race has some years left and I look forward to watching them all. This show needs more Josh/Brent type of players, the normal common person, that is how the show got started and that is who they should rely on for the future seasons.

Josh/Brent.... Deserving winners?  In my mind.... YES! They came in first, they deserved the million.

Packers Running Game

Was it me or did the Packers running game actually look competent in the second half against the Detroit Lions?

New kickoff rules and the insane

The other day the media was reporting on some of new proposals to make the NFL safer for the players in the game. The only thought that ran through my head was if there was gas leak in the NFL office's.

The two ideas being talked about are eliminating kickoff or the wild 4th and 15 idea. I have similar opinions on the two options that were proposed.... They both suck.

These ideas are not about the so called "player safety" , but more about Roger Goodell trying to prevent another uprising in 30 years when former NFL players playing today would Sue since they can not remember why they are standing the bathroom. Players then and players then should have known inherently that bashing into each other has its side effects. Injuries are a part of the game and especially in light of the recent head injury developments, there should be no ignorance by players that what they do now will affect them later in life.

I also believe that Goodell is thinking long term when making these tougher "player safety" rules. If he can reduce the number of head injuries, then reduces the healthcare costs for NFL players after they have retired, therefore helping the NFL's bottom line in the long term future. I have no proof of this, but the whole basis of the recent legal action is about head injuries.

Another angle I have thought about was that few to no star players ever play on special teams, especially on kickoffs, that eliminating kickoff also allows the elimination of players that generally only played special teams. This could reduce the additional costs that come with players that only play about 5 to 6 times a game. This increasing the revenue of each team is something I'm sure the NFL owners would not mind.

The game has become too technical, too many rules, to much for officials to process. The spirit of the game is lost, and if any of these new proposals go through in their current form or in a similar form, the game could decline, the excitement could diminish, fans might turn something else that peaks their interest and the NFL could lose the popularity they work so hard to achieve.    

Conference Realignment: Make it Stop!!!

Any year and another swath of colleges changing conferences which causes other teams to move to fill the vacated teams. Rutgers and Maryland to the Big Ten. Louisville to the ACC, Syracuse to the ACC and...... it goes on and on forever with the list of schools changing conferences more than stock prices.

At what point will this end? Maybe never. At this point I see this occurring years after year until someone steps in and suspends all changes for a set amount of time. When? Maybe when we have the PAC-24 (PAC-12 today), Big 32 (Big 10 today), Big Coast East of the Mississippi (A combination of the Big East and ACC today), MCC: Mid Country Conference (MAC today) someone will step in and stop all changes.

Personally, I'm not surprised that Conference leaders have not tried to bring in schools from FCS(Division 1-AA) for Football up to the conferences that are short handed, plus attempt to bring schools from Division 2 to fill the void. If that were to occur, then Division 3 school would have to fill the void of Division 2 schools and Division 3 would cease to exist. With this logic, in about 75 years the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point(Currently a Division 3 school) would be playing USC in Football since all colleges would all be Division 1 schools.

It is time for someone to stand up and stay "No More!" to all these changes and allow the dust to settle and the games be played.

Parra Finally Gone

On Friday, the Brewers decided not to tender an offer for pitcher Manny Parra. With that, that should end the career with the team he showed so much promise. He threw a perfect game while in Nashville back in 2007, but that appears to have been the beginning of the end of this left handed pitchers time in Milwaukee.

Parra never had "The Pitch" needed to get out of situations which resulted in walk after walk, hit after hit, home run after home run. Melvin likes to fall in love with certain players, thinking that with additional time he will be vindicated, but it seems like that rarely works.

I'm glad that we got rid of Parra, he was not going to get any better with the Brewers and was just going to be a target for the fans taunts and boo's.

I hope Melvin goes out and fines a quality left handed pitcher and not another teams leftovers that could not cut the mustard.

Goodbye Bret: Prepare to struggle

Tuesday it was announced that Wisconsin head football coach and all around target for criticism, Bret Bielema was leaving for Arkansas. Nobody was happier to hear about this news was myself who has been writing about removing Bielema here, here, here, and here plus I have been complaining about Bielema long before starting this blog. His winning was built on easy non-conference schedules, Indiana, a downturn in the Minnesota program and some poor decisions by other teams. Finally we rid ourselves of the coach that was driving the program into the ground and we can move on with new improved ideas. Plus anybody we hire should be able to make a decision in a close game closer than Bielema did

With Bielema there were too many close games or games that were closer than they should have been. Too many blown opportunities to keep, too many close losses to have faith in the Wisconsin football program. With Ohio State coming off their probation and Penn State in four years, there was little to no chance for success since the road to Indy would go through both of these school. Both programs are rejuvenated and winning, a combination that does not prove well for Bielema.

For as inept as I have said Bret is, him moving to another school was probably one of the smarter ideas he thought of in some time. Bielema saw the writing on the wall, he knew that dark days were ahead for the Wisconsin football program. Bad recruiting was catching up to him and games in which we would be battling Indiana at the bottom were in the near future. The biggest signal of issues to come was no established Quarterback for next season since his "free agent" pickup did not pan out. Another area of concern, that I have talked about before, was at Wide Reviver. After Jared Abbrederis, there is nobody that can fill the role of wide receiver, nobody. Other positions lacking due to Bielema horrible recruiting were:

• Tight End - We have no true tight end's. We have converted Fullbacks to Tight Ends
• Fullback - We have converted Linebackers for Fullbacks
• Linebacker
• Cornerback
• Safety
• Kicker
• Punter

With all these area deficit in top talent, it was time to move on to another school before his winning reputation, built with his cupcake schedules, is tarnished and any chance of a big payday was gone. His last decisions at Wisconsin was his best decision... leave

Bielema was come into the Arkansas program with so much hype and so much talk. When hired at Wisconsin, he took over a top notch program, at Arkansas he takes over a 4-8 program. Bielema flourished on the easy opponents, at Arkansas, he will be the easy opponent. Arkansas will be what Wisconsin was going towards, just accelerated by 5 years, near the bottom of the SEC. In Wisconsin, college football comes third behind the Packers and Brewers. In Arkansas, college football is first, second, third and fourth. There is nothing to deflect the attention of people in the Razorback state, no other professional sports for people to change the channel too. All eyes will be on Bielema and if you do not win, you pay the price.

Teams like Alabama and LSU have just marked their calendar with a "W". They do not fall into all the big talk that comes with Bret, they know how to recruit and how to win the close games. Bret had trouble with Michigan State, he is going to have real trouble with Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M and all the other big names of the SEC. The issues will be amplified and Bret will have no way out.

With this move this is a chance for the Wisconsin program to move on and correct the issues that have plagued the program for the last seven years. It will be interesting to see how each program comes out in the end, but I'm glad the Bielema era is over!

Big Fine for Spurs; What a Joke

Friday, the master and commander of the NBA David Stern has decided if you don't play the lineup he wants when she says so, you pay the consequences. A $250,000 fine for not playing the right players in a game the Spurs almost won against the Heat.

In general, I have agreed with the way Stern has run the NBA making it one of the largest commercialized sports leagues. I have agreed with how he has expanded the number of teams, cleaning up the image with the Dress Code and the policies in cleaning up flopping. The fine set by Mr. Stern sets a different tone for the league, sit the wrong player the wrong night and pay the price.

His logic is it was not in the best interest of the league, the people paid to see the top players and this was the only time the Spurs were visiting Miami. It makes you wonder what will be next for fines? Don't play Lebron or Kobe at least 40 minutes and get fined? Don't play Kobe at the Shooting Guard but at Power Forward and incur another fine since the people were paying to see him play Shooting Guard?

Additional reasoning for fining the Spurs, whether Stern wants to say it or not, was due to the game being on "National Television". In today's televise everything climate in sports today, there is no such thing as National Television. People now only follow their local team because they can with most to all games on some local TV station. Going back 30 to 40 years ago, in order to get your fix of basketball, you had to rely on the National TV game, but those rules do not apply today. While I don't have numbers to back this up, I bet the only people that were watching that game were mostly fans of the Spurs or Heat.

Teams in other sports sit players all the time without the fear of their commissioner. Bud Selig should be fining the heck out of MLB teams when they traditionally play their backup players on Sunday day game or do not call on a bench player/bullpen pitcher on any given night. Same concept, would not the fan have purchased the tickets with the understanding that their favorite player(s) might not be playing that day. In the NFL, teams that have cinched playoff positions have rested players in front of the playoff with no penalty.

I'm sure on the tickets the Heat fans brought it did not say "Tim Duncan vs. LeBron James", it stated "San Antonio Spurs vs, Miami Heat". When you purchase a ticket to any sport you are purchasing to see a sporting contest, not a player. If you want to ensure you see a player in person you buy a ticket to any personal appearance he might make in public outside the sporting world. Because you are purchasing a ticket to the appearance with the understanding he will be there.

I have traditionally agreed with the choices Stern has made, but this one leaves me a little shaky on the NBA and what the future holds. Lets hope this is only a blip on the radar and not a trend to a possible downfall in NBA.

Chelsea got what they deserved

While I like to watch soccer, I generally do not blog about soccer, but this Chelsea disaster is something to talk about.

The previous three managers for Chelsea F.C. have won the Premier League or the Champions League or international competition but yet have fired them all. That is insane to fire three coaches that have brought so much success to one club. That would be like hiring and firing three super bowl winning coaches to put this in American terms.

Saturday, I watched West Ham play Chelsea and getting what they deserved, a 3-1 defeat to West Ham. Now the fans do not like Rafael Benítez, well maybe you should have stuck with a good thing.

Someone has to win the games and someone has to lose them. Sometimes you have to ride out the rocky moments and success will come.

Wiscosin Football: I was wrong

Near the end of the game with the big win 70-31 over Nebraska during the Big Ten Championship game I began to start thinking what I was going to say about the team in my next post. All I can say is this...

This is hard for me to say but.... I was wrong about Canada. When the chips were on the line, the offense came through. We rose to the occasion and overcame the loss earlier this season. We passed when we needed to, we ran... well... we ran all the time. The running game worked up the middle, to the left and to the right. If there would have been a fourth direction, I'm sure the offensive line would have blocked well in that direction.

Bielema did have the troops ready for this game, but if you think that I'm going to let him off the hook, you have another thing coming. I have been personally scarred by his bad decisions too many times in the past, there have been too many close games for me to recant my previous statements of firing Bielema. This win does help him move towards me not wanted him canned, but he is not there yet.

Canada might have pulled himself out of my dog house, but Bret, not yet. I need to see more from Bielema, I need to see more consistency, more big wins against big schools with decisions in the big spots.

The Rose Bowl will be interesting, with the long layover to the game, we will not surprise Stanford like we did to Nebraska tonight. We are going to run the ball and Stanford knows it. This game will most likely come down to the decision Bret makes in the week up to the game and during the game itself. The question is... Is he now up to it? Can he make the right call?

All we can do is wait and see. Congratulations to the 2012 Wisconsin Badgers on being Big Ten Championship and the Rose Bowl representative for a third year in a row.

On Wisconsin!

Mike Eaves and the no change offense

Today I would like to talk about another sore spot with Badgers athletics... The men's hockey program in particular Mike Eaves who was hired back in 2002. Now I understand that this guy who a National Championship back in 2005, but these were with players that were recruited or who could have had previous contact with Jeff Sauer.

This years struggles is of no surprise to me as Eaves has not changed the offensive scheme since being hired as the Badgers head coach. No team is surprised by the style the Badgers play and it has become easier and easier to beat the Badgers. We are not longer competitive against North Dakota, Colorado College, or Denver, we can't even beat Northern Michigan.

The power play strategy is laughable and makes you want to change the channel. In any given power play, you can expect a minute thirty of the two minutes spent trying to move the puck into the offensive zone by dumping the puck along the board only to have the penalty killing team just flip the puck back out. We only get one, maybe two chances to score and it has to change. Based on how the rest of the offense works, I call this the "Mike Eaves and the no change offense" for the past couple of years.

Now I understand that coaches can not win all the time, but if the other team knows how you will play them, you can never win. If Eaves can not change it up and start winning he will join Bielema on my coaches to go list.

NCAA to step up on violations, Ya Right

There is once news story that occurred back in October that I want to circle back to. The NCAA announced they were increasing the penalties and would punish coaches more for violations. I see this as more for show than a way to control the sports they oversee. Since the dawn of time, people have always have been trying to circumvent rules and when a rule is created, another loophole or way to circumvent is found.

This also occurs with the NCAA rules, cheating will still occur, coaches will just get better at cheating. There is no penalty that the NCAA can enforce that can deter cheating with the exception of the so called "Death Penalty". This would directly clean up the NCAA sports and reinstall confidence in college sports. No college want to see any of their money making sports cease as it would cut the revenue their athletic departments need.

The sad thing is, the NCAA will more than likely never enforce the Death Penalty for any revenue generating sport (Football and Men's Basketball and to a lesser degree Women's Basketball and Baseball) since this has a domino effect in today's cash grab world of college sports. If the NCAA would have to cancel all the games of one school, that is a loss of money for the other schools the violating school would have played which causes a shortfall in their budget, lost TV revenue, and lost money for the NCAA.

That is why we will never see the Death Penalty, the NCAA would rather see a games played and ban the teams from the bowl games or tournaments, since there are extra teams to take the violating teams place, there is no loss of revenue across multiple channels, just for the violating school. 

In this case, I don't know what the answer is to solve the problem. The head of the house (NCAA) does not want to punish the kids (Colleges) too hard that they resent them since the kids are the future and take care of the head of the house with their money, but the head of the house does not want child protective services (Government, Congress) to step in and toss the house.

What to do, what to do?

MLB rule changes

As I was scrolling through the internet, I found a good article on Sport Illustrated from Tom Verducci. The article is here.

NFL: Stuck in the Technicality's

As has been reported many times before and by this time I'm sure everybody is sick of hearing about, there was an interesting play during the Texans-Lions game on Thursday which has everybody up in arms. The Lions head coach throwing the challenge flag when nullified the review that was sure to come from the replay both.

I wish I would have started this blog before this season, because we saw this exact same thing occur during a Packers preseason game in which McCarthy attempted to challenge a turnover and was penalized 15 yards and the play was not reviewed. This should have been a major wake up call to the NFL that this needs to be addressed before a real game was affected, like on Thursday. Then again, the NFL was not thinking when using replacement officials so why would they use logic in this case?

The sad thing is, there is nothing the NFL will do about this until the season has completed because they say it is too difficult to implement a rule change mid-season. This is not a hard change, let coaches challenge in the final 2 minutes + OT, turnovers and touchdowns in addition to the replay offical being able to stop the game.

In reality, we are slowly progressing towards a college like replay system in which the replay offical can review all plays. So I say, lets just end the insanity and next season move to a college replay system.

We are so stuck in the detail of the rules, we forgot the reason replay was brought back.... To get the call RIGHT. Instead replay is creating more issues rather than preventing them,

My prediction for the next big gaff in the replay system? Field Goal over the upright. Since reply can only be used to determine if the ball crossed over the crossbar on Field Goal, we will have a kick that is called good (or no good) and the officials will call the opposite.

We have not heard the end of issues with the rules around replay. So until next time.....

Bret losses again, no surpises here

As we all know, Bielema once again lost on Saturday, this time to Penn State. Once again the offense slowed down to the grinding halt putting pressure on a defense that does not deserve this kind offensive game play.  I'm not personally shocked we did not win. I bet I can even predict what the talk in the half time locker room was like:

Matt Canada:  "We got them right we want them, lets just keep running. 1st down, Run; 2nd down, Run; 3rd and 8, Run"

Bret Bielema: "Ugggggggggg..... Sounds good, I trust you and your great play calling, I don't see Penn State making any adjustments in the 2nd half..... Uggggggggg.... Now can I get a burrito?"


Maybe a little exaggerated, but I'm sure I'm close the way the Badgers played in the second half. Sure we might have tied it up at the end of the 4th quarter, but the game should not have came down to overtime. Bielema does not realize that the other team make adjustments, and when the other team is of equal or greater talent, that could mean they could come back and win. Canada play calling does not make sense, he does not surprise the other team with the calls. In the second half of the Ohio State and Penn State games, the massive numbers of shifting players do not even fool the other team, the defense were just standing there since they knew it was just for show.

As I have said time and time again, FIRE BIELEMA before we are at the bottom and we are battling Indiana in close games. This will be a interesting Big Ten Championship game, if we are lucky we might keep it to a two score game at the end. From what I can tell, this will be the last Big Ten Championship game for Bielema for a long time as  Ohio State will be coming off their NCAA bans and there will be nothing between them until Penn State completes there bans unless Bielema is fired and the program is resurrected.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Turkey Day... And what am I having today? Swiss Steak... Go Figure

Bucks in First

Saturday, the Bucks won, which brought their record up to 6-2. I never thought that this season would have started this way. I know there is a long way to go, but 6-2 and in first place.

Bielema just does not get it

Another game against a good opponent for the Badgers and another loss. I'm not surprised anymore that Bret continues to sink the Badgers slowly to the bottom of the Big Ten. His poor choices continues to bring the Badger football program to ruin.

In spite of Bret's usual poor pregame preparations for Ohio State, the Badgers were able to drive the ball down the field in the final two minutes, even after some poor play calls, and score the game tying touchdown. But in spite of getting to overtime, our poor play calling comes back to plague us again especially with the run call on third down. Then on fourth down everybody except Bielema seemed to know that Ohio State was going to blitz, but do we account for that? Do we roll the QB out of the pocket? Nope and that is why Ohio State wins big games year after year, and all we get is goofy looks from Bielema.

Bielema does not know how to win the "Big Game" when the game is close and his choice will decide the outcome. The only way he has won up to this point if something usual occurs to tilt the advantage to Wisconsin (Running into the kicker for example) and not by a choice Bret has made.

Some of his poor choices were actually done a long time ago which are hurting them today. As noted in previous post, recruiting seems to a difficult thing for Bielema. This statement is no more true than at the WR position. All season, game after game, announcer after announcer kept saying that the receiver position was led by Abbrederis but we were waiting for someone to step up for next season. But game after game nobody has come to the front to step up for next season and nobody on the current team seems ready to step up to the top receiver position.

Who even wants to come to Wisconsin to play Wide Receiver for Bielema? Nobody, That is because he does not know how to properly use them, because he can not make a choice, because he does not get it. When you run the ball as much as he does, why would you want to play for Wisconsin? All you do play after play is block DB's or do 20 yard sprints with no hope of seeing the ball.

You would think in 7 years as the Badgers head coach, Bielema would have figured out how to win the "Big Game" in close situations, but to no avail. He is only 2-4 in bowl games by winning one with Alvarez's players and the other against a Miami team on the downfall. As I have mentioned before, I think it is time for Barry Alvarez to save the football program and remove Bielema has head coach. This would be a difficult choice for Alvarez since this hire was his choice and this would not reflect well on his decision making ability since there was not even a interview process for his replacement, but this is something that would need to be done to save the Football program as a whole.

If changes are not made soon, we will be at bottom of the Big Ten battling Indiana for the bottom position of the Legends division in front of a half full Camp Randell.

I don't know how much longer I can take this from Bielema week after week, year after year, close game loss after close game loss. More importantly, how much longer will the fans and boosters take this before change is demanded.                                                              

Braun second in MVP voting

Today it was announced that Buster Posey was the NL MVP with Ryan Braun in second place. Just think about that a minute... After all that Braun has been trough last off season to still come in second is just amazing. Posey deserved the award, but I was impress at how Braun finished in the voting.

GIF images 25 years old

I can not believe that GIF's are 25 years old.

NFL Tie Games: Nobody wins

Sunday we saw the rare feat of a tie game between the 49'ers and Rams after many missed opportunities. In the big four professional sports in America, only Football allows tie games in the regular season since the shootout rule was instituted in the NHL in 2005.

These ties zap the excitement out of what was a good game. It seems more and more that the NFL should go with a college football style of overtime. Fans really don't care about the plays it takes to go 50-60 yards to get in Field Goal range, they care about scoring and declaring a winner to the game. The NFL should just put the ball on the 25 yard line, give each team one possession and give the fans what they really want, scoring.

Overtime rules should remain the same for playoff games since those games today can not end in a tie. It is now time for the Competition Committee to review the overtime rules and stop the ability for NFL games to end in a tie

No Packers game today, what to do?

Badgers Football: A team full of false confidence

After watching the Badgers blowout victory over Indiana 62-14 I could not help but observe a false sense of confidence amidst a record setting day for the Wisconsin rushing game. Now I'm glad that we did run the ball as well as we did and did not play down to our opponent as the Packers seem to do from time to time, but it seems the game came with some undesired effects. There was a sense of false confidence in the overall coaching and play calling that will burn us in the remaining games this season.

During the second quarter with Wisconsin winning 17-0, Indiana was able to slow down the Wisconsin attack and force a couple of punts while scoring a touchdown themselves. With Wisconsin on the ropes with a 3rd and 16 after a couple of bad play calls, we are just trying to run the ball to prevent any bad plays in the long yardage situation, but James White is able to break a couple of tackles, make a couple of good moves and score a 69 yard Touchdown.

We had no right in the situation to be getting first down much less the touchdown given the down and yardage, but Matt Canada looks like a genius since the play worked so well. For the previous 3 drives, Indiana had been crashing the line with blitzes to stop the running attack which resulted in 3 punts and was on pace for 4 punts in a row. I noticed this occurring on the second drive that resulted in a punt.

Time and time again this season this situation occurred and all Canada needed to do was call the play action fake on 1st or 2nd down to the "hopefully" wide open receiver 10-12 yards down the field, but continues to run into the brick wall. This would allow the running game to continue without eight men in the box. Most of the time we unable to break this eight men in the box defense resulting in the offense struggling the rest of the game since we wait until 3rd and long when it is a obvious passing situation. This is how we operated under Paul Chryst with great success, but under Bret, the motto is "If it aint broke, then break it".

On Saturday, we saw the except to the rule, White was able to score, Wisconsin was able to run the ball after that on the deflated Indiana team and win the game. If we would have punted the ball, who knows what could have happened.

Indiana is a program still trying to pull itself off the bottom of the Big Ten. Still trying to figure out how to win the big game. If this kind of victory would have occurred against Nebraska or Michigan State, I would have said the run game is here to stay, but the run game has only been as good (or should I say as bad) as our opponent.

This running attack will not translate to success in future games. Just like the two previous games to the Michigan State game, smart coaches will stop the run first which will leave Wisconsin unproductive on offense. Bielema and Canada will go into the Ohio State game thinking they will be able to win the game by pounding the ball on the ground, but all they will get is a brick wall and have no idea on how to break the eight man in the box defense.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy that game today, I did enjoy watching Ball and White run all over the Indiana defense, and I'm happy that we will be playing in the Big Ten Championship game. My concern is how we take what we learned from this game along with what is on the tapes for Ohio State and formula a game plan. Under Alvarez, I knew a 62-14 win the previous week was not going to mess up the game planning the following week.

Badgers fans, enjoy the win this week, but don't expect Urban Meyer to allow the Badgers to just run all over the defense without making some kind of adjustment.

Packers Bye Week

This week the Packers are in their bye week, which means that I will have nothing to complain about when Monday rolls around.

Also, with the possible exception of the Super Bowl Sunday, is the busiest Sunday for stores in Wisconsin during the football season. I have no numbers to back that up, but being out and about during previous Packer Bye Weeks, there seems to be more people hanging out.

Tony Siragusa: Ohhhh my ears

I know this topic has most likely been written about many times before, but I figure it is now my turn to write about how bad Tony Siragusa is a sideline reporter for Fox.

While he was a good player, someone thought it was a good idea to give this guy a microphone and let him walk around the field letting us know stuff we already know or mindless dribble. The sad part is he does not do the things that normal sideline reports should be doing, get injury reports, sideline vibe and things not seen by the camera.

How to fix the issues? There is only one solution... Replace him. Usually I do not like to be this rash, but you are asking for trouble by keeping him on. Firing websites appear, blog posts are created, letters are written and when all else fails, people stop watching. The best example of this was with Sunday Night Baseball and Joe Morgan.

FOX, save yourself the trouble, help save my ears, stop the pain and let Tony go.

Rollercoaster Tycoon

I sit here playing Roller-coaster Tycoon and still enjoy this game after all these years. I guess the reason I enjoy it is because it is my escape from the world. It is so fake, it is escaping. I know it is only a game, but I enjoy the fake ride paid for by the fake people with the fake money. Well back to the game...

Baseball

When does baseball start again?

Winter

I know winter is coming when I have to put away the lawn mover and bring out the snow blower.

Taco's

If there is one thing I enjoy in life more than anything else, it is Taco's at El Mezcal.

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Facebook: A Game of Chess

I was thinking while on Facebook... How did it come to this? I sit here thinking what to post, who might see it, how it may be used, will the bishop take the knight and should I move my King... Oh wait I kind of drifted off there.... When I first signed I did not have to think. It was not this game of chess with every thought, picture and post. Now every post is checked and can be exploited if the wrong person sees or shares what you have wrote.

Facebook is a victim of its own success as everybody from friends to employers to information seekers use it as a one stop shop for get information against people who have something to lose. Now people that have past their college years now have to watch what they write or pay the ultimate penalties in life of losing their job, livelihood, family, ect.

Before Facebook, if you spoke something questionable, you could always say "You didn't hear me correctly" and life moves on. Now, with the way information moves so quickly, there is little to no time to retract a regrettable comment and since the comment gets stored away in the world of the internet, there is more risk than ever to no say anything. Nothing I have ever said has not hurt me if I have never said it.

So what did I post... Nothing

NFL in London? Think this one through

Another year, another game in London as New England played St. Louis and once again talk about putting a franchise overseas in London. This continues the thinking of expanding the game internationally for what the NFL thinks will make the sport an international game.

But one must think.... Is this the right move for the NFL? With the increased talk of player safety at all levels of the game along with some NFL teams having issues filling their home team stadium's, would the game hold up in the international sporting world?

As with any team that struggles in any sport, teams have issues getting people to attend the home matches. Putting a team in London means you have to compete with the national sport Soccer (or as they say Football). Overall, with the law of diminishing returns as the NFL loses it uniqueness to the British fans, less people will attend the games over the years with 8 home games a year. If this NFL team does not have a winning record, that will drive more fans away and all that will remain is the empty seats along with some worn out players that have to travel 3,500 - 5,500 miles for all roads games stateside.

Along with the above issues, there is one other thing to consider. How do you get the fans to attend your London NFL team instead of the established London Soccer teams? While most Soccer games in England are played on Saturday, there are a few "Good" games for Sunday. Who are the fans going to really care about? NFL or EPL? London alone has many winning established teams including but not limited to:

• Arsenal
• Chelsea
• Fulham
• QPR (Well... Maybe not a good team, but they are in London)
• Tottenham
• West Ham United

You also have to compete with some of the established lower level teams that would further draw fans away:

• Charlton
• Crystal Palace 
• Milwall
• Brentford
• Leyton Orient

With these issues present, the NFL should really question putting a team in Europe especially since the NFL has already had one failed venture with NFL Europe. Take care of your teams at home first, then think outside your domestic boarders.

Halloween

It's that time of the year again when I think... Show me the Candy! It's the second of two times a year a kid can indulge on chocolate with no guilt from parents, with the other being Easter. As an adult, you can eat candy/chocolate whenever when you want, but it still feels special at Halloween. Every so often I see or hear of a parent that punish their children with their unreasonable personal beliefs of Halloween by masking them from the good things that come with this day. All I want to do is give them some candy or chocolate if I was not afraid the parents would not go off on me because they think I'm corrupting their kids more then they have already. Speaking of eating chocolate, I think I will go now and consume some chocolate :)

Happy Halloween!

Dr. Pepper

As I sit here drinking my Dr. Pepper, I think... "Do I have a Forrest Gump Complex?". I have one with Lunch and Supper just about every day. Maybe if I start saying "Life is like a box of chocolates..." my first statement might hold true, but anyway... I take another sip.

Favorite Muppet Show Character

I was thinking today on the drive to work, what is my favorite Muppet Show character?

The Swedish Chef. I don't really why, I guess it is because he throws whatever is in his hands, his segments then end with disaster or chasing something like a chicken.

Bork, Bork, Bork!

Time to Fire Bret Bielema

This weeks loss to Michigan State sums up what I have been thinking for a long time. We can not progress with Bret Bielema as the Head Coach of the Wisconsin Badgers. He is incapable is making decisions for the team to win in close games and allows to be out coached or out coaches himself.

Many people say on other blogs or comments "But Bielema has a winning record and has taken the Badgers to two Rose Bowls, that's all you should need to see Bielema is our coach". I have come to the conclusion that he has won up to this point for two reasons. 1) He won with players from the Barry Alvarez era. 2) They still won despite his poor choices. Examples of the second reason would be:

• Cal Poly (Missed Cal Poly Extra Point)
• Arizona State (Blocked Extra Point)
• Northern Iowa (Ran out of time)
• Utah State (Missing Chip Shot FG)
• 2010 at Iowa (Iowa player stays inbounds not giving FG kicker a chance to win)
• 2007 at UNLV (Donovan with a great QB run at the end of game to win) 
• Big 10 Championship Game vs Michigan State (Roughing the Kicker penalty wipes out long return)

There are many other games that we have lost that should have been wins due to poor choices. The Michigan State game (or should I says all the previous Michigan State games) are proof Bielema is taking the Football program to a place we have not seen since before Alverez, in the before time, in the long long ago, when we were consistently at the bottom of the Big Ten. This drop to the bottom is not going to be a quick one.

With Bielema, we will slowly drop down the standings over a span of 5-7 years until we are at the same level with the likes of Indiana. Then we will replace Bielema, but the damage will have been done and will take another 20-30 years to reappear as a relevant team especially with the likes of Michigan, Penn State, and Ohio State paying signing, in the Big Ten, the bigger names in the country.

My logic behind this impending doom is the slow degradation of incoming talent that will (or in this case will not) play for Bielema. For example, lets look at the QB position starting with when Bielema first took over:

1. John Stocco - Very good QB, was able to run the offence and was a left over from the Alvarez era
2. Tyler Donovan - Also a good QB, backup to Stocco, but was able to run the offense and could run a little faster. Also left over from the Alvarez recruiting class.
3. Dustin Sherer/Allan Evridge - This is where the wheels starting falling off the bus. Both QB's not especially accurate with a slight edge to Evridge to run the offence, but when you have PJ Hill running the ball the way he did, who needs a good pass game?
4. Scott Tolzin - A slightly better passer than Dustin or Allen but not to the level of Stocco or Donovan. He did what he needed to do since the running game was once again dominate.
5. Russell Wilson - A lucky Free Agent pickup, very good passer and runner, but should not really count since Bielema did not recruit him from High School. He just got lucky he could not hit a baseball and NC State did not want him back.
6. Joe Brennan - In limited action, Brennan on every play looked like someone who just witnessed a large car crash and was still in shock. By just watching, you knew he was not going to improve. I don't know what Bielema saw on the recruiting tape, he must have been watching it with his eyes closed.
7. Danny O'Brien - Another Free Agent signing. For everything that was right about Wilson was wrong about O'Brien. Frankly I don't know what Bielema was thinking with this signing. This guy last year was 2-10 at Maryland with 7 TD's and 10 INT's. This guy appears to think the right decision then, 5 seconds later, decides to execute the decision , but by then it is too late. Once again Bielema must have watched the tapes with his eyes closed
8. Joel Stave - I'm giving this one an incomplete due to the limited playing time and the play sabotage by Offensive Coordinator Matt Canada. There is hope, but I want to see how he plays next year.

With the exception of #5 on the list if you look at the list from the top to the bottom, the talent level generally got worse and worse, a sign to Bielema is taking the program in the wrong direction. This lack of recruiting is seen heavily at WR, TE and somewhat at DE, CB, K, P. No division one program should struggle at Kicker or Punter.

To avoid this program being sunk to the bottom, the only right thing to do is to find a new coach to replace Bielema before it is too late.

Giants World Series Champions

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants on their World Series victory. It was all worth the $117 million they spent on payroll. I guess you can not win on the back of only two players (Fielder and Cabrera)

About Football (A.K.A Soocer)

In my first post of this blog I want to talk about a sport that is emerging here in American as the fifth sport behind the established Baseball, Basketball, American Football & Hockey. That sport is.... Soccer or in the rest of the world .... Football.

Today, I got up early to watch the Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton on ESPN with Ian Darke and Steve McManaman with the call. In my opinion, Ian Darke is the best Soccer announcer around that calls games for America. His ability to relate to the experienced fan and novice fan without talking down to them makes him the best in the business.

Overall this was a great 2-2 draw and a great comeback from Everton in the first half with exciting disallowed Liverpool goal at the end of the game. With that disallowed goal (which was an incorrect call), I've thought this would be a good time to put in words some ideas to  "modernized" the game of soccer and take the game from the 20th century to the 21st century.

A great step to modernize the game was taken place in the 20th century with the implementation of the Taylor Report and the formation of the Premier League in 1992, but watching Soccer now for the last 10 years, I've got a few additional ideas to ensure that the game is played and refereed correctly.

1. The use of a instant replay system. Now this could be completed in two phases:
1. The implementation of goal line technology to determine if the ball has completely crossed the goal line. This has been talked about lately with the possible use of GoalRef and Hawk-Eye. In my opinion, this should be implemented in time for the World Cup in Rio to avoid any more unnecessary and conversational calls. In this modern age of computer technology, I still don't understand why this has not been implemented. That would be like saying "We have computers, but our Bank is going to continue to track our customers with pencil and paper"
2. The implementation of an expanded replay system for other on the pitch calls. After the technology in sub point one is put into place for a couple of years, there should be a expansion to other areas of Soccer. Give the ability for each manager to challenge lets say two calls per game within a set amount of time (15 seconds of incident?) by informing the fourth official. This could be used for throw in's, corner kicks, goal kicks, foul in/out of the box, ect. I've too many games adversely affected due to an incorrect call that could be easily and quickly correctly.
2. The stopping of the clock during throw ins, after goals, injuries, ect. Since the start of soccer there has been a continuous running clock which, in my opinion, is an outdated function of the game. Back in the early days of soccer, it was a necessary function, due to the clock management technology of the day, but now a days time can be stop, started, added, subtracted with ease. This would resolve the issue with how much injury time to add to the game since the clock will not be running during these stops in the game. This would also relive the issue of players falling down with fake injuries late in big games since the clock will not be running during these blatant attempts to run out the game.
3. Give the referees PA mics. There are usually a few calls a game that leave me wondering "What was that call?". This would be a good time to give the referee a mic to announce to the crowd the call similarly to American  Football. This would take the mystery out of the close calls and could avoid some adverse reactions from the crowd in the long term if they understand the officials reason/call
4. Two referees on field. In American football, there is seven officials for 22 on field players. In basketball, there is 3 officials for 10 on court players. In baseball, there is 4 umpires for 10-13 on field players. In hockey, there is two referees for 12 on ice players. In soccer, there is one referee for 22 players.... one referee and with a playing surface as large as soccer, that is too difficult in today world to see and correctly call the plays on the pitch. It is time to add another referee to the pitch to get a different angle of the close plays. There can still be a "5th Official" which is today's 4th offical. American football, basketball, baseball and hockey have all expanded their number of officials over the years since the inception of their professional leagues, now it's time for top flight soccer leagues to do the same. They owe it to the players, coaches and most importantly, the fans.
5. Awarding more Yellow Cards for barking at Ref's. One thing I have noticed since watching soccer is the amount of complaining to the referees for calls/no calls. Not only does this look bad, it holds up the game. It is time to start issuing more cards for questioning the calls on the field by the use of loud verbal language or gestures. In American Football, if you bark, you will be out of place for the next play due to the play clock but officials do eject players for touching officials. In basketball, you get a technical foul. In hockey, you get a 2 minutes unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. In baseball, you get tossed out of the game from the over-zealous umpire, but that is a subject for a another blog post.

 I would think that with any of these changes, the game would move towards the 21st century and make the game more enjoyable for the players, coaches, officials, and fans.