Falling Off a Cliff

Bloomberg Business Week has an interesting article on ESPN and cord cutting, something I've posted about before. It includes a graph that shows the subscriber numbers falling off a cliff. ESPN though appears to be doubling-down on protecting the cable bundle. Their main problem? Cost. According to that article Game of Thrones costs HBO about $100 million for a season. ESPN pays that just for one MNF game. It's hard to believe that's going to go well for ESPN in the end. They probably can't afford to give people a lower-cost option for consuming ESPN content, but ESPN is a pretty awful deal compared to... well, pretty much everything.

Spider-Man: Homecoming Trailer

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Justice League

 I post this not because I'm excited but rather because I think it's interesting. Batman v Superman was awful. This... doesn't look a whole lot better. Those costumes? Ugh.  It'll make a lot of money though.

No Good Deed

Inappropriate, some bad language, but still pretty funny:

Two-Time Galaxy Savers

Boom!

I love this poster.

Avengers + Spider-Man + GotG = Infinity War

Iron Fist

Political Football

I'm not a Patriots fan but this one time it doesn't bother me much that they won. Why? Well, this article pretty well sums it up. Even though I avoided most media in the week leading up to the Super Bowl I was still aware that various sports personalities criticizing Brady and the rest for having ties to Trump. I find this despicable. I still don't like Brady or the Patriots but he made all the right people angry, and that's something.

Nate's On To Something

FiveThirtyEights Nate Silver is on to something. He has an interesting article about "Power-Pairing" and used the Big Ten as the example of how that would have looked for 2016.

The Tri-Valley Conference already does something like this for basketball. The TVC consists of the East, West, and Central. So, at two different times in every team's schedule, they do a sort of "power-pairing" with another side of the conference. For example, on Friday, Jan. 6, the #1 team in the TVC-East will play the #1 team in the TVC-Central. Then, on Friday Feb. 3, the #1 team in the TVC-West will play the #1 team in the TVC-Central. And, on Friday, Feb. 24, the #1 team in the TVC-East will play the #1 team in the TVC-West. (Obviously the same is done for every team seeded #2-#7.)

He's right, it would definitely be a logistics/transportation nightmare. Plus, you may not know very long in advance who that team would be.

But, I like the direction Silver is going and I've been screaming it for the past 2 years...get rid of the divisions. It's too risky or ends up not mattering anyway. If Florida beats Alabama in the SEC Title game, that should not give a 4 loss Florida team the right to get in the Final 4 of the playoffs. Or, PSU wins and doesn't get in anyway.

Do I necessarily want to use that extra weekend for the opportunity to expand to an 8 team playoff? No. Look at this year. Clemson and Alabama are the two best teams. End of discussion. Six more teams would have said the same thing. Could FSU or USC or Oklahoma have made it interesting? Yup.

?

I had a thought today: Maybe part of the NFL ratings drop is that people are sick of seeing the same teams over and over? I can watch four games today and I'm sure you can guess the main teams that are being featured. Of course it's Green Bay, New England, and Dallas. The Green Bay and New England games have been practically unwatchable because the commentators spend all their time sucking up to Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. Yes, they're very good quarterbacks, but these guys sound like teenage girls fawning over their favorite pop star. Maybe if we had a little more variety and the commentators could act like adults it would help.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Marvel Movie Rankings, Post-Strange

1a.Captain America: Civil War
1b. Guardians of the Galaxy
1c. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Avengers
5. Iron Man
6. Doctor Strange
7. Iron Man 3
8. Avengers: Age of Ultron
9. Thor
10. Captain America: The First Avenger
11. Ant-Man
12. Iron Man 2
13. Thor: The Dark World
14. The Incredible Hulk

Thoughts on Doctor Strange

A few thoughts on Doctor Strange:

-Benedict Cumberbatch is terrific, as you might expect. Marvel wanted a big name for this project and you can see why. Strange suffers more than most Marvel heroes as he becomes a hero and Cumberbatch makes the most of it.

-In the trailers I thought Cumberbatch's American accent might have sounded a bit off. I didn't feel that way watching the movie so it may have just been my brain reacting to the fact that he didn't sound like Sherlock.

-The visuals are the most obviously outstanding part of the movie. Kaleidoscopic would be the best way to describe most of them. Some of the scenes shown in trailers have drawn comparisons to Inception but the whole movie goes far beyond that. There are also a lot of trippy visuals drawn straight out of the original comics drawn by Steve Ditko:

-Because of that it's probably worth seeing this in 3D. I didn't last night but I might later.

-The story bears some obvious similarities to Thor and Iron Man but it is notably different than either. I think there's a lot more depth to the story and themes than you might pick up at first so a second viewing is probably in order.

-Kaecilius, the villain of the movie, has a well-developed point of view and reasonable motivations though I think a lot of people will dismiss him as not being memorable enough.

-There's a vague suggestion that the magic in this movie has some connection to science but it still works as magic, though it's Jedi-like hand-waving and not spoken spells.

-Overall I would put this in my second tier of Marvel movies, somewhere below GotG, Winter Solider, and Civil War.

-Both the mid-credit and post-credit scenes are worth watching. The mid-credit scene ties into the next Thor movie and the post-credit scene is for a Strange sequel.

621,000

That's how many subscribers ESPN lost in October. Outkick The Coverage has a fantastic article about this and it's well worth reading the whole thing. The short version is ESPN is bleeding subscribers at an alarming rate and within five years they could be facing some serious financial issues. That's really interesting as ESPN is the heart of the current cable system and distribution of most sports. If ESPN fails or has to make major changes we're going to be living in a dramatically different world when it comes to sports.

The other interesting question is: Why? A few thoughts:

1. The most obvious answer is people are cutting the cord in record numbers. Some don't care about sports anyway, others (like me) do care but just can't justify the extra cost. This isn't changing anytime soon.

2. Another issue is ESPN has become more openly political and specifically left-wing in their coverage, though most ESPN personalities would deny that. I think this matters but I'm not sure how much.

3. Protests by players in various sports doesn't help. Any one thing may not matter a lot but I think all of it taken together and added to these other factors can definitely push people over the edge.

4. I haven't watched the network very often lately but my impression is just about everything that's not an actual sports broadcast is worse than it used to be, though possibly I'm just old or thinking the past was better than it was. I've been particularly unimpressed with SportsCenter, aside from the SVP version. Most of these shows must be cheap to produce but if they're not keeping people interested, or even driving them away, it's an issue.

5. In trying to wring every drop of revenue from sporting events the commercials have gotten ridiculous. An NFL game can barely keep my interest anymore because of all the commercial interruptions.

The Escape

 Back in 2001 BMW made The Hire, a series of short films (~10 min each) shown on their website starring Clive Owen as The Driver, various new BMWs, and many notable actors. This was quite something at the time (YouTube was still four years away) and the films were very popular. BMW is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the films with a new one, which is definitely worth a watch:

GotG Vol. 2 Sneak Peek

Iron Fist

Uniform Spotlight

I didn't notice any particularly notable uniforms or helmets yesterday (Louisville's mettalic helmets were nice enough but pretty normal at this point) but I did notice something odd about Notre Dame's uniforms: Their pants.

Seeing a football player with sweaty pants isn't unusual but it's particularly noticeable on ND's pants. and kind of gross. A lot of the players looked like this at kickoff. You'd think Under Armour would be able to come up with gold pants that didn't make it look like the players peed themselves before going on the field.

Uniform Spotlight

Yesterday there were a few college football uniforms I thought were worthy of mention. First, while VT collapsed in the Battle at Bristol, they looked great doing it in their Hokie Stone uniforms:

That's much better than what they usually sport and in any other week it would be the coolest uniform, but this week Air Force showed up in these:

In case it's not clear why these are great, here's a better look at the helmet:

If the shark teeth alone aren't awesome enough, the specific design comes from the A-10 Warthog (which, ironically, the Air Force is intent on killing):

There's no point in having a "coolest helmet" competition anymore because Air Force already won.

Movie Reviews

Had a chance to see a few movies lately. While on the cruise ship, they apparently have a couple theaters on board. I mean, why not? So, I took the kids to the 10:30 pm showing of "Finding Dory" in 3D. I believe that was my first 3D experience other than IMAX stuff at amusement parks. Both were okay. The movie and the 3D. I guess I expected more images in the film to feel like they were coming at me. I'm a big fan of "Finding Nemo" and "Dory" didn't meet the same enjoyment. But again, kids loved it and it was free. I'm probably not going to look for a 3D experience any time soon though. Seemed overrated.

The next night they had an 11 pm showing for "Captain America: Civil War." I knew there would be a chance I'd fall asleep around 1 am, but it was worth the risk. My wife actually left around 12:15 am to go back to the stateroom for bed. Great movie. I couldn't remember how many post-credit scenes there would be, so I stayed for the mid-credit scene. 99% of the audience left after the mid-credit scene, so I thought they knew more than I did. Man, at 1:25 am, it felt like forever to get to the very end of the credits, just for the slim possibility of another scene. But I stuck it out, me and 3 other people, for the Spidey tease.

On the flight from ATL to Orlando we had a geeked out tech plane. Tons of free movies to watch. The problem is it's only about a one hour flight once you get going. It's pretty pointless to start a new movie. At least they let you start watching during the taxi portion of the flight, pre-takeoff and post-landing. (That can buy you almost another 20 minutes of the movie.) But, they rudely interrupt the movie every time the Captain or stewardess feels the need to explain something. I chose "The Revenant." I knew this would not be a movie for the wife and children, even though they are sitting right next to me, but hey, that's why they invented headphones...and why you have your own "Zootopia" to watch in front of you. Like I was saying, I only made it about 40 minutes into the movie but well worth it. A week later on the flight back from Orlando to ATL, pretty much the exact same plane...so, you guessed it, que up "The Revenant!" Yup, another 40 minutes. Now I just need to rent it for $3 so I can watch the last 60 minutes. Yes, I chose a 2 hour 36 minute movie that I knew would be impossible to finish...and strain my eyes on a 7 or 8 inch screen. Side note: On the flight back, the option to watch "Batman vs Superman" was available. Didn't feel like I could watch 40 minutes of two different movies and not even get half the story.

Back on land, and in CC, I had a little time to catch up on some "classics" because my wife was out of town. She's not a big fan of black and white movies, so this was my chance. Ever since I saw "12 Angry Men" about 15 years ago, I've kind of put that as the gold standard for classics. It's better than "Casablanca" and "Gone With the Wind." Dave W. let me borrow "Rear Window." It's an Alfred Hitchcock classic that I've always heard about but hadn't seen. Then, I've had "To Kill A Mockingbird" queued up for a long time on Netflix, so I finally had the time to watch it. I'd say "12 Angry Men" is still better than both and I'd give a slight edge to "Mockingbird" over "Rear Window."

Finally, we watched "Spotlight" a few nights ago. Again, another movie that I had queued up. I knew it won a bunch of awards, but that can be misleading because sometimes those aren't the types of movies I like. I'd say it was worth watching on Netflix. Not sure I'd see it in a theater, but I'd probably rent it.

That's all for now. Feel free to send me some recommendations, especially Netflix stuff. I'd still like to rent "The Martian" and a few others...and finish "The Revenant."

Oh, and, I've been watching a lot of stand up comedy by Tom Segura lately...without my wife. Lots of bad language, but not necessarily a dirty or crude joke/story teller. Just bad language. The Mike Tyson story at the end of his "Mostly Stories" show was really good.

?

I know this is a little late, but serious question: How do Michigan fans feel about uniforms that have a basketball player logo on them? I think if MSU did the same thing, even if it was supposed to be some giant deal and a major help with recruits I wouldn't like it.

Doctor Strange

How far is too far?

I've been asking myself this since the news came out earlier in the week that there have been discussions about eliminating the kickoff in college football. So far I've been supportive of most of the changes made in the name of player safety, largely because I think a lot of the things that have been eliminated are the result of bad fundamental football to begin with and the game is still essentially the same. Eliminating the kickoff is the sort of change that makes me wonder how far you can go before it's not really same sport anymore, or more importantly, will I still want to watch?

Defenders

Iron Fist

Luke Cage

454'

#Tigers' Cabrera goes really deep https://t.co/PSVuI4ClCg

— FOX Sports Detroit (@FOXSportsDet) June 21, 2016

Today's NBA

I really don't pay attention or follow the NBA. Mostly because it's boring to watch and I don't have cable. I did watch a little bit of Kobe's final game. I mean he is the GREATEST Laker ever...right behind Wilt, Kareem, Shaq, Magic, George Mikan... The short amount of time I did watch was painful. I think he started out 0-6. But then he did heat up and I went to bed at halftime wondering if he could get to 40. I told myself yes. Then I thought about 50. I said no way. I wake up to 60!!! You don't retire dropping 60 in your last game. That would be the equivalent of LaDainian Tomlinson rushing for 250 yards in his last game.

Moving on. Because of the chase for history and how unbelievable Steph Curry's range is, I have followed a lot more than normal because the Warriors were incredible. A few nights ago in game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, Klay Tompson hit 11-3's in the game, a new playoff record. Do you know how many 3-pointers the Celtics-Lakers combined to make in game 7 of the 1987 Finals?
...
...
...
0.

How about this? Steph Curry made 402 3-pointers...HIMSELF this season!

The 1980-1981 LA Lakers were 17-94 on 3-point attempts...as a TEAM! That's 82 games.

The 1981-1982 Champion LA Lakers were 13-94 on 3-point attempts as a TEAM.


I'd say the NBA has changed. Is it better than 5 years ago which basically consisted of dunks? Now it's 3's.

Z93 The SOFT Station

Z93 has just gotten softer the past two years. I rarely listen, but it's still in my presets just to see if there's some GnR, ACDC, etc. playing. But I've noticed it's not as much of a "Rock" station as it claims to be. Case in point, I was listening the other day and a Bon Jovi song came on. I can't really think of ANY Bon Jovi song worthy of Z93's playlist, but nonetheless, "Shot Through the Heart" apparently made the cut.

But yes, it's still just as dirty and raunchy...and lame in the mornings.

Upcoming Marvel Releases

Here's the current schedule, though it's probably fair to say all of this is subject to change based on the success of various films.

Doctor Strange: 11/4/16
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: 5/5/17
Spider-Man: Homecoming: 7/7/17
Thor: Ragnarok: 11/3/17
Black Panther: 2/16/18
Avengers: Infinity War Part 1: 5/4/18 (This title may change.)
Ant-Man and the Wasp: 7/6/18
Captain Marvel: 3/8/19
Avengers: Infinity War Part 2: 5/3/19
Inhumans: TBD, moved from July 2019
Untitled Movie: 5/1/20
Untitled Movie: 7/10/20
Untitled Movie: 11/6/20

Marvel Rankings, Phase 3

My current rankings of the MCU movies. I think. It's really tough to decide, especially at the top.

1a.Captain America: Civil War
1b. Guardians of the Galaxy
1c. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Avengers
5. Iron Man 3
6. Iron Man
7. Avengers: Age of Ultron
8. Thor
9. Captain America: The First Avenger
10. Ant-Man
11. Iron Man 2
12. Thor: The Dark World
13. The Incredible Hulk

Thoughts on Civil War

I meant to post these earlier but I really wanted to see the movie a second time to help focus my thoughts and some scheduling issues pushed that back. Anyway, some impressions from the movie:

-The movie is very good. I might have to think on this a bit yet but I think it's probably in a tie for the top spot.

-As for tone, I'd say this is about 65% Winter Soldier and 35% Age of Ultron. There's definitely a lot of the slightly darker and more serious feel of Winter Soldier but the extended cast and much of the humor feels like an Avengers movie.

-The action is top-notch. The main fight scene between all the heroes at the airport is the best piece of superhero action committed to film so far. Bucky also has a bit with a motorcycle earlier in the film which is one of the coolest scenes in the whole MCU.

-Ant-Man steals the show. And when he's not stealing it Spider-Man is.

-I never realized how far off the previous versions of Spider-Man were until Tom Holland showed up. He's great and his scenes with Robert Downey Jr. are fantastic.

-Black Panther is quite good too. I was unsure about him but now I'm really interested to see what they do with him in his solo film.

-Considering how stuffed with characters this film is it's amazing that everyone gets some attention, and it manages to do so without feeling overstuffed like Age of Ultron did. The screenwriters deserve a lot of credit.

-I know people are calling this Avengers 2.5 but it really is a Cap movie first, though it's fair to say Stark is the co-lead. 

-The interactions between Falcon and the Winter Soldier are especially good. These are some of my favorite moments from the movie.

-The villain in this is pretty low-key but I think he's effective and interesting. Certainly he's one of the best villains Marvel has done, though that's not necessarily huge praise.

-The final fight in the movie is brutal.

-There is a scene after the credits. It's fun but not essential if you're pressed for time or need to use the restroom, which is possible since the movie is 2 hours and 26 minutes long.

Fantasy Football

Fantasy football is back at Yahoo, so check your email for an invite.

Doctor Strange

Ant Man meets Captain America

Rogue One

Despite being a huge Star Wars fan I was completely uninterested in The Force Awakens, but this movie could be interesting.

?

Would we look at coaches and players in sports differently if their individual sports had catchy names for their semifinal games like the NCAA does? If Izzo's team had advanced to the Final Four and lost instead of throwing up all over themselves in their first game it would have been hailed as an achievement and mentioned every time Izzo's bio was discussed. Dantonio won't get that kind of credit for making it to the football "Final Four" and losing. The same thing is true in the NFL, just ask the Buffalo Bills how much credit they get for winning AFC Championships. Peyton Manning could chime in on the subject too. Even Tom Brady could comment on the idea that going 4-0 in the Super Bowl is somehow better than making it to 6 Super Bowls and losing 2. Are we just dumb about this kind of thing?

Civil War

Being a Lions Fan Sucks

I'm not sure how else to respond to the official news that Calvin Johnson is retiring. I don't blame Megatron for the decision but seeing another Hall of Fame caliber player cut their career short is even more depressing than all the losing.

Daredevil Season Two Part Two

Daredevil: Season Two

Australia Day

 Another funny Deadpool ad. There's a little language at the end.

QB Results 2015

I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the fantasy results for quarterback this year. First, the top ten quarterback taken with the round and pick noted:

1. Aaron Rodgers 2-5
2. Andrew Luck 2-8
3. Tom Brady 3-2
4. Peyton Manning 4-6
5. Russell Wilson 4-10
6. Drew Brees 5-4
7. Ben Roethlisberger 6-1
8. Matt Ryan 7-7
9. Tony Romo 7-8
10. Cam Newton 7-9

And here are the top ten quarterbacks in scoring:

1. Cam Newton  497.45
2. Tom Brady  463.60
3. Russell Wilson  444.50
4. Blake Bortles  430.40
5. Carson Palmer  425.95
6. Drew Brees  416.90
7. Eli Manning  401.90
8. Aaron Rodgers  401.45
9. Matthew Stafford  396.60
10. Kirk Cousins  393.10

I think it's fascinating that only five of the top picks ended up top ten in scoring. I guess it's better odds than picking a quarterback in the real draft though.

Marketing

 I'm not sure if Deadpool is going to be any good or not but I do appreciate all the work Ryan Reynolds is doing to promote it. From Instagram:

#caturday

A photo posted by Ryan Reynolds (@vancityreynolds) on Jan 9, 2016 at 10:25am PST

This is also pretty funny:

A photo posted by Ryan Reynolds (@vancityreynolds) on Jan 11, 2016 at 12:30pm PST

Deadpool

It begins.

The Lions have a new general manager, Bob Quinn, formerly director of scouting for the New England Patriots. I suppose bringing in someone from such a respected franchise should be encouraging but I find myself wary. First, I think the success of Tom Brady and, to a lesser extent, Julian Edelman gives an inflated impression of the Patriots' drafting prowess. Here's the history. Obviously they have their fair share of hits but I'm not sure the overall record is quite as impressive as people would think. Second, Bill Belichick is the only one who's been able to make the Patriots system work. So far none of his assistants or former executives from the organization have been able to replicate anything near the success he has had. What do you think the chances are that the Lions are the ones who learn all the right lessons?

Captain America: Civil War

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Stafford Agonistes

I haven't found much interesting to blog about for a while but the Lions pathetic performance Sunday and the benching of Matt Stafford is exactly the fuel I needed to light the fire. Stafford was awful and today I see an article in the Detroit News arguing that the Lions should trade Stafford. Okay, great, then what's your plan? I'll list the starting NFL QBs and tell you if they would be an improvement if the Lions could somehow obtain them.

Tyrod Taylor: No.
Ryan Tannehill: Not really.
Tom Brady: Obviously yes.
Ryan Fitzpatrick: No.
Joe Flacco: Maybe?
Andy Dalton: Yeah, I guess.
Josh McCown: No.
Ben Roethlisberger: Yes.
Brian Hoyer: No.
Andrew Luck: Yes.
Blake Bortles: No, at least not yet.
Marcus Mariota: Not right now.
Peyton Manning: At this point? No.
Alex Smith: Unless you really love the short pass, no.
Derek Carr: No.
Philip Rivers: Yes.
Tony Romo: Yes.
Eli Manning: I guess?
Sam Bradford: I don't think so.
Kirk Cousins: I love the guy, but no.
Jay Cutler: The older version of Stafford? No.
Aaron Rodgers: Emphatic yes.
Teddy Bridgewater: No.
Matt Ryan: Yes.
Cam Newton: Uh, maybe?
Drew Brees: I'm thinking no at this point.
Jameis Winston: Definitely not right now.
Carson Palmer: Yes.
Colin Kaepernick: No.
Russell Wilson: Yes.
Nick Foles: No.

So that's ten QBs that would be an improvement, maybe slightly more if you grade differently. And the draft? Here's an article on the success rate of first-round QBs that pegs the number at 38% or 36% depending on how you measure success. That seems about right to me. So whatever Stafford's problems are, the chances are that dumping him would cause the Lions to be worse at the position. I'm sure that's not a popular opinion in Detroit right now but it's worth keeping in mind.

?

Feelings on the Tigers potentially trading David Price? Personally, I think that if they get rid of their ace, even if it's understandable, it will lead to the Tigers being mediocre for an extended period of time.

Thoughts on Ant-Man

A few thoughts after seeing Ant-Man last night:

-I liked it. It's a little weird but I think that's good given the concept. The most obvious comparison would be Guardians of the Galaxy because of the comedy, weirdness, and a wise-cracking leading man but they are quite different movies. This is a superhero action comedy heist movie with a side of father-daughter drama.

-The shrinking and miniature effects work well so this doesn't end up looking like the actor is on a set with bunch of ridiculous oversized props like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. If you don't have problems accepting the idea of a shrinking hero it looks pretty cool.

-If ants freak you out don't watch this movie. I thought they might downplay that part of the character but they definitely did not. You might even develop an emotional attachment to one.

 -I thought all the actors did a good job. I don't think Rudd will see his profile raised quite as much as Chris Pratt did but I think he was well-cast and played the character perfectly. Michael Douglas was good in the mentor role. Evangeline Lilly is more than a token love interest (though obviously she is ridiculously cute) and has good scenes with all of the main characters. And of course she knows martial arts, because doesn't every woman in the Marvel universe know martial arts? Corey Stoll isn't the most memorable villain, but he does get enough screen time to develop the character as more than just someone to fight in the finale.

-There is a supporting character who does somewhat steal the scenes he's in. I thought he was just short of being annoying; your opinion may differ.

-If you like connections to the other movies there are more than a few here, some being pretty important to the story. One Avenger plays a notable role.

-There are mid-credit and post credit scenes. Both are worth watching.

Sports Time Travel

There was a fascinating discussion on SVP & Russillo today about sports in different eras. The premise, thought up by Russillo, was imagining a modern person playing sports in a previous time period. Russillo used himself as an example. He's about 6' 1" and 230 lbs and wondered how he would fare in comparison to the players of the 1884 World Series Champion Providence Grays. Here's their roster. The tallest player on the roster was 5' 11" and the heaviest was 190 lbs. Russillo argued that he, being a decent athlete though not one that played any college or pro sports, would be able to hold his own. Van Pelt was skeptical. I'm inclined to agree with Russillo. They did agree that the people of 1884 would probably think the nearly 6' 7" Van Pelt was some kind of circus freak.

"No shield. No armor. No problem."

Marvel wants you to know Ant-Man is part of the MCU:

However, I think the Russian poster is cooler:

Bandwagon Fans

I hope no one gets injured jumping off the Tigers bandwagon.

I do believe if something doesn't change soon, one of the coaches in the hitting department will be the first head to roll. Wally Joyner? I think Ausmus gets two full seasons and then it's Ron Gardenhire time.

To me, the pitching (starting and bullpen) have done enough or overachieved. It's the clutch hitting that has been absent. The hitting that matters with two outs and multiple runners on base. Too many double plays. Nick C. is the first one on my trading block. Nice defensive player, but not hitting like a 3rd baseman.

Helmet Sensors

There's an interesting article at Yahoo about the NFL and helmet sensors. The technology hasn't been perfected yet but it can yield useful data. The main sticking point? The union. Basically, they want the players to have access to the data for health purposes, but they still want to be able to sue the NFL even after they've been shown they might be damaging their health.

SVP & Russillo Ending

My day took an awful turn earlier in the week when I heard that SVP & Russillo will be ending at some unspecified point in the future as Van Pelt is going to be the host of a midnight Sportscenter that will apparently be something like a late night show. Now if that idea has any chance of working I think SVP is the one to pull it off, but I'm probably not going to be able to watch it and it won't make up for missing out on what has often been the best three hours of my weekdays. Where else can you get gold like this?



The other problem is that Russillo's contract is ending soon to so it's a question as to whether he will be continuing on the show or at ESPN at all. Russillo has become my favorite ESPN personality so if he sticks around I think a new show would still be good (though I'm not crazy about the suggestions I've seen for co-hosts) but if he leaves there's going to be a giant hole in my afternoons and it's going to be a lot tougher to get through those spreadsheets.

College Football Post-Season

With more talk about the Power 5 and the College Football Playoffs, I wanted to add my opinion on helping decide the "Final 4." I think conferences should actually go away from divisions. Just go back to how it used to be and at the end of the 8 or 9 game conference schedule, the top 2 teams play for the Conference Championship. If it's a repeat game, so be it.

For example, this year, OSU and MSU were clearly the two best teams in the conference. But instead, Wisconsin was the team from the West Division that qualified for the Title game. It was a blow out.

In the SEC, Alabama and Missouri played for the Title. In both conferences, the winner was going to automatically be in the Final 4 and deservedly so...but that's assuming OSU and Alabama win. What if Wisconsin and/or Missouri would have won? Disaster. If Missouri or Wisconsin would have won, would either team have been in the Final 4? No way. In that case, a team from those conferences (MSU or Miss St.) could have been selected for the Final 4...and neither would have played in a Conference Title game.

Shouldn't a championship game be the top 2 teams? Having divisions does not ever guarantee a balanced conference. So why do something so flawed? The B1G East and the SEC West were top heavy. Eliminating divisions allows more flexibility to send the top 2 teams.

If you want disaster, then allow a weaker division to send it's #1 team to the Title game to screw things up.

"If it don't fit, acquit."

I'm not sure the punishment fits the crime. Wait, no, I'm sure it does not and we all know this will be appealed and probably knocked down to 2 games.

Brady is going to drop Tecmo Super Bowl-like numbers on the Colts when he returns Week 6 at the Colts. You can imagine Al Michaels is going crazy right now because he knows it will be the SNF game of the week on NBC. HUGE ratings. Unfortunately for him, it will not mark Brady's return because he'll be back sooner than 4 games.  Nice knowing you Indy.

I believe Brady is guilty and lied. I'm still wondering why the equipment managers seemed to be jerks about deflating the balls. I read something about exchanged text messages requesting favors from Brady for doing this for him. Like signed footballs, cleats, etc. Really? It's that big of a deal he has to give you signed merchandise? My goodness. Do you work for the Patriots or the CIA? Aren't you all on the same team? Don't you all have the same goal, TO WIN?!? Why are you equipment managers being so uptight? Your star player wants a little air let out of the ball. JUST DO IT! Who do you think you are? Isn't your job to help prepare and get your team whatever it takes to win a game? It's the freakin' AFC Championship! Now, I do realize these texts may have actually taken place in October or November, which is obviously far from the AFC Title game, and was probably going on all year, especially cold weather games, not just the AFC Title game.

But, just so I'm clear, tell me what Tom Brady actually DID to the balls. Was Tom Brady the one who deflated the footballs? If he's not...

Crime and Punishment

It should go without saying that I'm not a fan of Tom Brady or the Patriots. I absolutely think he was involved in breaking the rules and then he lied about it. If he had come clean back before the Super Bowl I probably would have been satisfied with a "small" fine, maybe $50,000 or so? Since he lied about it I think a one-game suspension and a fine would have been reasonable. But a $1 million fine, a four-game suspension, a first-round draft pick, and a fourth-round draft pick? That's harsh. It doesn't bother me, and after listening to ex-players talk about this story over the past few months I'm convinced they're all a bunch of dirty cheaters and it is satisfying to see a major penalty for even a minor infraction, but it's still harsh.

?

Did Michigan fans actually get angry at this statement by Mark Dantonio?

"Hey, we just work at it. Right now, we’re selling results. I’ve said this over and over. We’re selling results. Other people are selling hope."

Seriously?

Captain America: Civil War

Marvel announced today that principal photography has begun on Captain America: Civil War. In the announcement they listed the cast:

Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon
Paul Bettany as The Vision
Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
Don Cheadle as Jim Rhodes/War Machine
Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch
Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man
Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther
Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter/Agent 13
Daniel Brühl (character not named, reportedly Baron Zemo)
Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow/Crossbones
William Hurt as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross
Martin Freeman

So, yes, Avengers 2.5 would seem to be an apt description.

What does a total lack of self-awareness look like?

It looks like this:

Looking back: 2010 NFL Draft

People like to grade the NFL draft the moment it happens, but I rarely see much follow-up in the 3-5 year window where we actually have a pretty good idea how things worked out. So in that spirit here's a link to the results of the 2010 draft. How did Detroit do? The Lions drafted six players. None of them are still on the roster. Three of them are still in the league. Suh obviously had his issues but is considered one of, if not the best, to play his position. Jahvid best showed promise but multiple concussions at a time when the league started freaking out about such things ended his career. Jason Fox is a backup tackle and Willie Young is a decent DE for the Bears now. I'm not sure how you would end up grading that. One Hall-of-Famer for five years and not much else, is that maybe a C?

'15 Lions Draft

I don't have the issues I did last year with the Lions draft picks but there are two that leave me scratching my heard: RB Ameer Abdullah and FB Michael Burton. Abdullah was a great college RB, but he has a propensity to fumble and when I saw him play against a great college defense he disappeared. Obviously I would have preferred they wait and take Langford later, but Spartan bias aside I was also hoping for Coleman out of Indiana. The problem with Burton is simple: Who drafts a fullback in 2015?

Thoughts on Age of Ultron

Some thoughts on Age of Ultron, I'll add to it after a second viewing as I was doing a lot of analyzing and not enough watching the first time around:

-I didn't stay all the way to the end to confirm, but everything I've read says there is no post-credits scene, only a mid-credit scene, so no need to hang around through everything. After the purple guy you're good to go.

-It will be a bit before I'm sure on my ranking, but as of right now I'd put this slightly below my top tier of Marvel films (GotG, Winter Soldier, Avengers). I might revise that up. The main challenge for this movie are giant expectations; even if it's great it can still fall short.

-I like Ultron and think he's the best MCU villain since Loki. They went to great lengths to make his robot face expressive which works well considering he has much more personality than you might expect from a robot. I just wish there was more of him, which is a common complaint for the movie as a whole.

-The dynamic of the team together makes the movie. They come across as seasoned pros who are completely confident in one another and comfortable together. I could probably watch an entire movie of Avengers down time.

-Hawkeye is great in the movie and makes up for his lack of time in Avengers. There are some revelations about him that are surprising.

-There's a Banner-Romanoff thing going on that I'm not sure about. As dumb as it sounds, I think it mostly bugs me because she was wearing a Hawkeye necklace in Winter Soldier.

-Vision is terrific, though it is weird to hear the voice coming from an actual actor. The scene that convinces the Avengers to trust him is really clever and got a great reaction from the crowd.

-I didn't expect the guy who refused to launch the helicarriers in Winter Soldier to show up again, but there he is. Good for him.

-I thought the music let the movie down a bit. There were a few scenes that I thought really called for the Avengers theme to be strong and loud and it wasn't really there.

-Hulk vs. Hulkbuster is cool, though some of the impact is taken away because so much of the fight has been in trailers. That true of a lot of the cool scenes.

-I've seen some people complain about too much CG in this movie. I'm not sure how you do it without a lot of CG, but there are a few issues. There's definitely some dodgy CG in the opening scene. The action is probably the least clear of any of the MCU movies so many times you don't get to really appreciate what's going on.

-No one likes change, but the last scene of the movie did get me excited for whatever happens next.

A few more thoughts after a second viewing:

-The action seemed a little bit clearer than the first time, though the theater was so full I practically had my nose pressed to the screen so I guess some small details were bigger.

-Again, I really love Hawkeye in this movie. "No one would know..." is one of my favorite bits of the whole film. I do wish he had a dog at the farm though, as in the current comic:

-I think the humor in this movie is just about right, maybe overdone slightly.

-Nice to see a green tractor in the movie.

-I often don't care much for the audience at a movie but the one today was pretty good. The audible gasp in the theater during the scene with the Vision that I mentioned earlier was cool.

-Now I can say the film goes in the top tier of Marvel films for me. It's not quite at the top, but it does feel like the arrow is pointing upwards.

Becoming Captain America

Esquire has an interesting article up about Chris Evans and how playing Captain America has altered the course of his career. I think that's especially notable because I remember reading (can't find the article at the moment) that Evans really struggled with the decision to take the role, fearing that he wouldn't be up to the pressure of expectations and the extra notoriety. Needless to say, I think he's managed it and now it's really difficult to imagine anyone else playing the role.

Safe or Out?

Here's the situation. Runner is stealing 2nd base. Catcher throws to second baseman making the tag.

Safe or Out?


I called...SAFE...and didn't hear JACK SQUAT from ANYONE! Normally if you blow or miss a call, you will hear about it in a variety of ways: a complaint, body language (arms go up in the air like "What the ...?," a deep sigh of disbelief, etc. NOTHING. I asked my home plate umpire later if the coach for Bad Axe said anything. He said Bob said "Nice call Nate" from the dugout. "He knew his player missed the tag."

In my judgement, the second baseman put down the tag, but pulled up the glove before the runner slid into the tag. Glove went right over his body. Safe.

Spartans 2015 Uniforms

MSU unveiled updated uniforms for the new season today:

I'm not a fan of the alternate look, but the regular uniforms do seem to be an improvement. At least Nike's kept their ridiculous obsession with bronze to only the alternate uniform as it's been removed from the other two. I'd prefer all-green not to be the standard for home games instead of green jerseys with white pants but I guess someone has decided single color outfits are cool. The helmets are now metallic instead of flat green, which I like. In the end, I guess if you can get through a Nike redesign without something eye-meltingly awful you can call it good.

77

I'm not much of an NBA fan but I do hear a lot about if since I listen to SVP & Russillo all the time. Luckily, they generally make it interesting even for non-fans. A story they mentioned the other day got my attention. Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors apparently regularly shoots 100 3-point shots in practice. On Tuesday he made the first 77 in a row, then 94 of 100 total. That would be unreal even for free throws, it's absolutely ridiculous for 3-pointers. I'm not sure I can even wrap my mind around being that good at something that difficult.

Ant-Man

Izzo Best Ever?

If a UM fan isn't proof enough, take it from the guys over at FiveThirtyEight. Great statistical look at just how much Izzo overachieves every year. Basically he wins 3 games more in the tourney than his seed typically performs. Great read.

His and Hers

I've noticed lately that "Mike and Mike" use the hosts of "His and Hers" often on the show. Sometimes they are guests, sometimes they host. Is it just part of their programming, or deep down is the show ("His and Hers") struggling so they are trying to boost their audience and hope ratings go up. I have no idea and I haven't watched any of their shows, but it just seems odd how often they are included into "Mike and Mike," a show that easily stands on its own.

?

How do you feel about professional athletes from a region showing up at tourney games and rooting for local college teams that they didn't play for? Say, for instance, Aaron Rodgers being a big Badgers supporter or Matthew Stafford at MSU's game last night? As a Spartan I'm happy to have the Lions QB support the team, but as they beat the Bulldogs in the first game of this run I'm not sure I'd be quite so cool with it if I was a Georgia alum.

"How can you possibly stop me?"

The Ultimate Marvel Marathon

Did you hear about AMC's Ultimate Marvel Marathon? In select theaters (Kansas City, New York, Anaheim, and Orlando, judging by the information on the page) starting on Wednesday, April 29 at 6pm they are going to show ALL of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies ending with Age of Ultron at 7pm the next day. I'll admit this sounds kind of cool but I can't imagine sitting the in theater through eleven movies in a row. I might do a similar thing myself, but I'll spread it out over multiple days in the comfort of my own living room.

NBA Combine

I don't really care about the NBA, but this took way too long to be figured out. You keep hearing about how much the "one-and-done" hurts the college game/business/product, etc., but at the end of the day, I never felt anyone was really trying to find a solution. In fact, I think I'd put a lot of the blame on the NCAA. It was always my belief that their precious NCAA rules is what was the biggest problem, and agents.

I think the NBA Combine idea is a no-brainer and can't believe it took this long to put one together. If an underclassman doesn't get invited to the combine, guess what, you're going back to college. That's a pretty big clue. They said about 60-70 will get invited. This still probably isn't the perfect solution, but it's a great start. This is too big of a decision without providing the right resources for students and their families to make the best decision. There should have always been more communication from the NBA to the potential players in the draft about their draft chances and position.

I never thought the NCAA tried hard to keep their athletes. It's like they wanted them to hire an agent so they could say, "Oh, sorry, you've hired an agent, so your NCAA eligibility is done."

I don't care so much about the age of a player. I just feel the system wasn't set up properly to help kids make a better decision to declare for the NBA. All it took was some guy on the street to say, "Oh yeah, go for it. You're good enough," and then they never ended up being a top pick or even a 1st rounder.

By the way, it doesn't seem to bother anyone when 18-19 year olds are playing professional tennis, golf, baseball, etc. But, if they are in the NBA, different story. "Wait a second, you're too young to be making millions of dollars." But it's okay in other sports...which also happens to be more of a "white" sport. Then again, those sports are performance sports. They get paid because of their performance. That's how all sports should be. Or, everyone should be on a 1-year contract. Good luck with that headache. Then again, that would make trades and especially free agency a lot more interesting.

!

This NFL offseason is insane.

Daredevil

"I'll take that from them first."

Coincidence?

Want to hear something strange? Yesterday I was looking up some information on Transformers toys as I'm thinking about buying some for the nephews. This was the main one I was reading about:

This morning I went shopping at Wal-mart and saw a semi in the parking lot that looked almost exactly the same, which is especially weird since there aren't a lot of cab over trucks currently in use and gray and purple isn't a common color combination.

Sports Analytics

There's been some great articles and videos on espn.com from Nate Silver and the boys over at fivethirtyeight.com, especially this one and this one ranking all the teams from the four major sports.. They've got some great research on what teams are the best in crunching sports data and which teams, like the Jim Leyland Tigers, just throw the advanced research in the trash. They rank all the teams from the four major sports and break them down into categories.

In our last two years of coaching varsity baseball, we decided to use a mom to do all of our score booking duties in the dugout. She had done it the past two years on JV since her son was on the team. I was obviously a little reluctant to give up my old-fashioned scorebook for an app called GameChanger, not to mention a mom sitting in our dugout as we made fun of our players (and occasionally drank shots of hard liquor to get us through the bad nights).

I don't have the time or patience on an iPad to fully explain how I utilized the GameChanger app to gain research and information on our opponents, especially in our post-season successes, but I made it very clear to our scorebook mom that she will NEVER make our team site accessible to ANYONE but her and I. Only two people was going to have access! Again, without getting into a lot of details, knowing what I was able to do with other teams stats, I did not want other coaches to do to me what I was doing to them. It was all legal, they were just idiots for making it public information for anyone who had a GameChanger account. Now, not all teams used GameChanger...well, I don't want to give too many secrets away. Just believe me when I say I'm a big believer in sabermetrics. We without a doubt won baseball games because I put the time into combing through as many stats as possible to gain an advantage.

It also helped that I had a post-season, night-before-tournament ritual of watching "Moneyball" before going to bed. Actually, I just couldn't sleep.

?

How do the more serious baseball fans feel about MLB's pace-of-play rule changes? I don't watch a ton of baseball as the Tigers are never on here, but when I do I almost always watch something else at the same time because of the pace of the game. I've found I can pretty easily follow a movie and a game at the same time because of all the down time. I don't see any real drawbacks to the changes and it might get me to watch slightly more.

Inappropriate...but still Awesome

As a parent of two little girls and someone who will not watch this movie, (nor will I watch "Fifty Shades of Grey") this is still funny to imagine happening.

Seriously. Can you imagine taking your kids to see "Spongebob" and at the same time some chick is tied up naked? How do you explain that one to the innocent eyes?

Spider-Man Returns to Marvel

You've probably heard this by now, but if you haven't, Spider-Man is joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man, so the movies they have made previously were not connected to what Marvel Studios was doing with the properties they were in control of, but that changes now. Spider-Man will appear in a Marvel film, most likely Captain America: Civil War, then have his own movie on July 28, 2017 co-produced by Sony and Marvel Studios. Rumors suggest that this will be a reboot for Spider-Man with a new actor playing the role and the last two movies discarded, which is probably for the best since the last movie was garbage.

Confession

Like Tiger Woods, I sometimes have trouble activating my glutes.

Daredevil

RE: Super Bowl Thoughts

This video and the story on the same page is exactly how I feel about the Marshawn Lynch media situation. Talking to the media is part of the job of a high-profile (millionaire) athlete. It comes with the territory. Deal with it. For once, I really enjoyed hearing what Steven A. Smith had to say. I thought it was spot on.

Going into the game, I would not have been surprised by either team winning, but I expected a close game. NE might not win, but you're not blowing out Brady-Belichick. I kinda leaned towards the Pats. You just knew all this talk and "distractions" about Deflategate was only going to fire them up and motivate them even more. I think it worked against the Seachickens.

Again, Seattle is a great team, but I had a hard time seeing Brady-Belichick get beat for a 3rd time in the SB. To me, it was more of the Brady-Belichick factor, not how good Seattle's defense is.

Watching the game at Big Daddy's, we were all yelling for the Pats to let Seattle score. You knew they would, so you're better off getting the ball back with :40 seconds, one Timeout, and only needing a FG. As we're all being arm-chair quarterbacks, at that moment, Wilson threw the pick. Unbelievable play and play-call.

Give the ball to Lynch. Or, design any number of plays involving Wilson scrambling for a running TD. Neither one was going to be stopped. It felt as if Carroll out-coached himself in the situation and didn't want to score too easily/quickly.

Great game.

Super Bowl Thoughts

A few thoughts on the Super Bowl:

-I'm not sure which annoys me more, Marshawn Lynch or his defenders. The job of an NFL player entails more than just playing football on Sunday. Lynch doesn't like talking to the media? Cool. I hate giving presentations, but when my boss tells me I need to give a presentation I do it because it's part of my job and I'm a professional. Lynch needs to grow up instead of being a petulant child.

-I've yet to see anyone who complains that players shouldn't have to talk to the media provide a coherent explanation of exactly how that would work.

-I also can't help but roll my eyes at the hypocrisy of the people whining about the media and the NFL while voraciously consuming every bit of news about the game. Get over yourselves.

-No strong feelings about who will win this one. If I had to pick I'd probably go with the Seahawks but I could easily see it going the other way. Either outcome is going to make for ridiculous commentary on Monday so I'm basically rooting for casualties.

ODB

Check out the video of ODB and Brees setting the record for one-handed catches.

More importantly, near the end of the video they show a different view of the mountains in the background. I (hope) believe that is Camelback Mountain or Piestewa Peak (formally known as Squaw Peak). I climbed both of those last summer.

Melissa Stark

Again, half listening to "Mike and Mike" this morning, they were talking about the NFL Network set to have a 10 hour Super Bowl pre-game show. Greeny proceeded to say something along the lines of "Melissa Stark better get well hydrated."

Just hearing Melissa Stark took me back to some fun memories in high school and college.

Tecmo Super Bowl Tournament

When researching David Fulcher, I found a wiki page for him. The picture they used had a captain that read: "David Fulcher at the 2008 Midwest Tecmo Super Bowl Tournament."

What?!?! So I did some more digging and found these websites:

Midwest Tecmo Super Bowl Tourament...in Detroit LAST weekend! What are the odds of that?

The Rules  Can't bring your own controller. Dang. But you can change your playbook.

http://knobbe.org/

http://www.tecmomadison.com/

Have to admit...I'm interested in going to a tourney, even though I haven't played in about 5 years.

Tecmo Super Bowl Reference

It wasn't actually a TSB reference, but this morning on "Mike and Mike," Golic was talking about some guys in the secondary from the Seahawks and made a comparison to an opponent, David Fulcher, that he played against. He said Fulcher was pretty big for a Safety.

When I heard David Fulcher, millions of Bengals moments flooded me and all our Tecmo tournaments and our Thursday lunch time battles. And yes, when he was "Excellent" on the game, he didn't tackle, he just ran people over.

Took me back 15-20 years.

I HAD THE JETS!

As predicted...

Deflate-Gate

This story has to be the opening sketch for this week's SNL, right? There at least has to be a Vegas prop bet for how many times they will say something like "Brady likes to shrink his balls" or "Belichick wants Brady to shrink his balls." I agree with Mark Brunell that "there's not an equipment manager in the NFL, on his own initiative, that would deflate a ball without the starting QB's approval." No starting QB would let an equipment manager play with his balls. See SNL, it's that simple. You can't screw this up.

I can't believe ESPN/NFL doesn't just bring in the equipment mangers and question them...and then they can plead ignorance.

When Tom Brady gets his shrine in Canton, I want a deflated ball next to him.

I hope Brady and the Pats bury the Seachickens.

Super Bets

This is a great story. Chris Pratt (Star-Lord) and Chris Evans (Captain America) have placed a bet on the Super Bowl. The loser appears in costume at a children's hospital in the opposite city. There's nothing not to like about it.

Instant Awesome

Can you imagine this? You run the steps only to find Rocky waiting at the top saying "You're making me look bad!"

Awesome.