Sports Agenda For Wednesday 10/2/13
Top Stories:
The Fins come back to earth after Monday's demolition at the hands of the Saints, but are they overrated? The Buccaneers are a mess and there's only one way out. College football attendance is down this year, even in the SEC, Savannah State can explain why. And, what would a government shutdown be without a special comment?
Quote of the Day:
"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." – John Kenneth Galbraith
Miami Dolphins: (next game, Sunday vs. Baltimore)
It took me a day to digest everything that happened on Monday night between the Dolphins and the Government Shutdown.
The Dolphins were exposed for being a bit of smoke and mirrors on offense.
Primarily, the smoke and mirrors were in pass protection.
Tannehill has been sacked 18 times this season including Monday night's debacle.
Projecting that out over 16 games has him getting sacked 72 times this year, or roughly double what he took last year.
Make no mistake, no quarterback can survive that kind of punishment.
True, some of it is on him for holding the ball a little too long, but still, I'd say the majority are from poor line play and bad blocking from running backs.
When Tannehill has time, he picks defenses apart throughout the game.
When he doesn't, he looks like David Carr trying to avoid getting killed.
That's problem number one for the Fins to fix.
Problem number two is in the secondary where anyone not covered by Brent Grimes is wide open.
Seriously, how many times can Jimmy Graham and Darren Sproles get open in a game?
Brees completed 77 percent of his passes on Monday, 77%!!!
That's better than college football good and he did it against an NFL defense.
I know Cameron Wake was out, but Jordan got no pressure and it was just an obliteration by New Orleans.
At least the defense stopped the run, but that was about the only thing that went right for Miami.
Now, Baltimore comes to town with a small, fast running back who likes to catch the ball out of the backfield.
Ruh-roh Scooby.
On the bright side, Joe Flacco threw five picks against backups last week in Buffalo, so yknow, maybe the Fins can capitalize.
Plus, Baltimore has no threat from the tight end position, which always helps Miami.
I'll put it like this for Miami right now…
If they get to the bye week with a 4-1 record…that's a HUGE success for the first part of the season.
Assuming the Fins can handle the Bills and Jets, that's 8 wins right there.
But with the Fins team right now, that's a big assumption.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers:
Speaking of messes, one needs to just go up to Tampa Bay to see a complete cluster….
The team still won't make a decision on quarterback Josh Freeman and things are getting really ugly.
Someone associated with the team leaked that Freeman was in the NFL's substance abuse program.
He came forward and revealed why and what he takes and that he voluntarily put himself in the program.
Freeman has been benched and was told not to come to team meetings and was put in a luxury box for the last game.
His teammates said they felt bad for him and that Freeman hasn't said anything negative to teammates.
His replacement struggled in his first start and the Bucs are 0-4 and just 1-9 in their last 10 games.
The Bucs have called every team in the league trying to trade Freeman, but no one is dumb enough to give them anything in return.
That leaves them with three options: 1. Hope a team loses a starting quarterback; 2. Cut Freeman and eat his $6.44 million salary; 3. Try to suspend him for conduct detrimental to the team
It all comes back to head coach Greg Schiano and let's face it, he's in over his head in the NFL.
He couldn't build a consistent winner at Rutgers and he's failed to do the same in Tampa Bay.
Sooner or later, if I'm the Bucs GM, I send Freeman and Schiano to the unemployment line and start over.
College Football:
Read an interesting analysis yesterday that found college football attendance is down by roughly 2,000 fans per game.
Some teams, like USC, have seen attendance drop by nearly 23 percent from last year.
Now, part of it is a team like USC laying more eggs than a farm full of hens.
But it's also because of games like we've seen the last few weeks like: Miami vs. Savannah State, FSU vs. Behtune-Cookman, etc, etc.
No one likes to go to a blowout, especially when it's still in the 80s and 90s in most of the prime college football towns.
Put a good game up there, read Miami vs. Florida, and attendance isn't a problem.
And make no mistake, next year when the selection committee is looking at teams, they'll give a lot more weight to a team that maybe lost by 3 points to a top 10 school than a team that beat an FCS school by 50.
Trust me, as conference play gets rolling for almost every team this week, attendance and the games will get much better.
And now, a brief pause from sports for a special comment on the government shutdown:
Writing about sports and politics is at times fascinating and fun (see the Miami Heat, Super Bowl, Presidential elections, Elections, etc) and at other times mind-numbing (polling, Miami Marlins losing, etc).
Then there comes something that defies all logic and common sense that just befuddles the mind.
That's where we are with the government shutdown right now.
Here's how we got here from all of the reporting that's been done by the National Review, National Journal, and other political sites.
A small group of about 30-40 House of Representatives Republicans have been convinced by Senator Ted Cruz and a few others that they can rewrite how divided government works by holding the nation's economy hostage to get what they couldn't get through a normal election.
The small group is backed by powerful outside groups who also feel that elections don't matter and that the only way to govern is their way.
Now, between the small group in the House and the outside groups, plus talk radio and the tea party, a group of about 50-60 other House members are afraid to stand against them, even when common sense tells them to do so.
The group exercises its power over the House leadership who bow to that power for fear of losing their own jobs and the House tries to force the hand of the Senate and President to bow to its political will.
It's called legislating by terrorism or hostage taking.
The thing is, when you decide to take a hostage, the only way you can properly win your concessions is if you're willing to shoot that hostage.
Previously, President Obama and Senate Democrats have been willing to give-in to this hostage taking to save the economy and the nation in general.
They've given trillions of dollars in spending and other concessions to keep the government running in the past few years.
But it has to stop at some point. The nation can't go from crisis to crisis and keep its standing in the world economy and the geopolitical sphere.
Here's a letter from the president, let's see if you can identify which one:
"What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices. In this they are attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum."
That was a quote from Abraham Lincoln pre-Civil War, but it sounds like it could come from today.
Make no mistake, this is government by blackmail and an attack on the constitutional order of the United States.
I wonder sometimes if it's because some in the GOP don't believe in the legitimacy of the President and members of the opposing party.
It strikes me that this course of action is trying to nullify the president, much in the way the GOP tried to nullify the last president through impeachment.
On one side, President Obama allowed his bill to go through both chambers of Congress, which passed it. It was signed by the President. The Supreme Court upheld it. President Obama ran on the law and won another term.
On the other side, a group that lost two straight Senate and Presidential elections and lost the popular vote in the House, but believes it has the right to circumvent the normal legislative process to achieve its policy goals.
Because of that, there can be no compromise from the White House or the Senate.
If the White House and Senate give in to the demands of the government by blackmail, it runs the risk of fundamentally reshaping our government for a generation.
Ironically, the party that routinely wraps itself in the cloak of the constitution is the one threatening to blow up the constitutional order.
