Saturday, July 21, 2012

Small sponsor patches in the NBA are hardly a big deal

Years ago, back when I was still in high school, I was really into Adbusters and Naomi Klein and signed up for a course called Media Studies, taught by a new teacher called Ms. Bell, who was the kind of person who used to reprimand people for buying shirts with logos on them: why would you pay to be a billboard, she’d ask them, it’s supposed to go the other way around.

I thought of her when I heard about the NBA’s plan to put ads on jerseys.

The NBA’s plan is to out a small sponsor logo on the uniform, a patch “inches above the heart”, as a Bloomberg report so colorfully puts it. That report estimates these patches will bring in something like $100 million a season, which is pretty good money but nothing compared to some deals the NBA already has in place. Both TNT and ESPN pay over $900 million a year for broadcasting rights, for instance.

And it’s not exactly like the league is hemorrhaging money, either: 15 teams lost money in the 2010-11 season, but the collective bargaining agreement shifted revenue towards owners, meaning they’re not really out that much. So it’s not exactly as if the league needs this patch money, but who ever turned down free cash?

The reaction to this has been surprising to me: a blatantly unscientific poll on Bleacher Report has over 75 per cent of people against it, saying the NBA is “selling out,” a phrase I’m sure I understand in this context: how can someone making mega amounts of cash be not selling out? And the Bleacher Report article raises a good point: teams already play in million-dollar arenas named after corporate sponsors.

But it goes a little deeper than that, and I’m not sure people quite realize it.

Jack McCallum’s new history on the Dream Team repeats a story about Michael Jordan I’ve been fascinated by since I first heard about it years ago: when the team won gold, they were required to go to the podium wearing a certain jacket, part of a sponsorship deal. Reebok made the jackets and Jordan is a Nike guy. Jordan resolved this situation with an artfully clever solution, draping a flag over his shoulder and covering up the logo Reebok had so thoughtfully placed in a prominent spot.

Anybody who thinks that jersey-making companies don’t place their logo in a conspicuous spot is kidding nobody. The NBA has it’s logo on one shoulder, in a spot where it’s sure to be in every photo. The NHL likewise has one right at the neck of the jersey. If you buy a jersey, be it a Dream Team throwback or a Tyreke Evans road jersey, there’s a little logo on the other shoulder. You may not notice it, but you’re already advertising a company when you wear one.

In advertising, there’s a concept called effective frequency. Essentially, it expresses the number of times somebody needs to see an ad before it takes effect. My favorite take is Thomas Smith’s from 1885, which says it’ll take 20 views. Simply put, just seeing an ad once isn’t effective.

The NBA isn’t the first league to put ads on jerseys. It’s a staple in Europe, where ads on the field and on the players take the place of commercial breaks. Here in North America, they’re just on players in the CFL and sometimes own entire soccer teams.

And here’s the rub: they didn’t mean the league sold out, they didn’t ruin the play. Honestly, they’re something one doesn’t even notice: last time I saw a CFL game in person, I couldn’t make out players nameplates, let alone a small patch. It works better on TV (where everything is already sponsored anyway) and even better in print, when a patch is immortalized in a photograph.

It’s honestly a drop in the bucket of the exposure we all get to advertising everyday. As a society, we’re bombarded with ads every day, most of it unconsciously. From product placement to billboards on buses to a Subway logo on the score ticker, they’re everywhere. Having a small patch on a jersey is hardly a tipping point.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Jack McCallum's Dream Team and the basketball book pantheon


I finished Jack McCallum’s new book about the Dream Team today. It’s a good read – look for a review at The Good Point and maybe elsewhere sometime soon – and I enjoyed it a lot.

There’s one thing about it, though, that keeps nagging at the back of my mind: how often McCallum turns to other authors. It’s not something he does often, but every so often he quotes a passage from Jackie MacMullan’s When the Game Was Ours or Bill Simmons The Book of Basketball and occasionally from something else. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just kind of a weird thing to me. After all, he interviewed Magic Johnson, so why is he using a quote of his from another book?

That’s a minor thing, but it got me thinking about those books. And once I started with that, I went a little further and looked at all the basketball books I own and thinking about the ones I’ve read and how they all compare. What follows is a few words about my favorite basketball books and if I'd recommend them over Dream Team

A Season on the Brink – John Feinstein

I suppose this is the definitive book about college hoops – it’s certainly the best known one, anyway – and for good reason: Feinstein’s long look at a still-incendiary Bobby Knight is occasionally breathtaking, and not in a positive way. Knight was a destructive force: everyone probably has a mental snapshot of him tossing a chair across the court and maybe feels that he’s an irritable guy, but as I remember this book – it’s been a few years since I read it – Knight comes like a tyrant, not the gruff guy he sometimes seems like on ESPN.

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? Yes, especially if you like college hoops.

Heaven is a Playground – Rick Telander

Another one I read a long time ago, back when I read something like four or five sports books a month. While writing this, Telander spent something like an entire summer living in New York and hanging out on concrete courts around people like Fly Williams and Albert King. It’s a good read, even if it’s depressing: the abject poverty, the drugs just off to the side of the court – a memorable scene has a player turning down something that looks like orange juice: methadone – and the divide between Telander and the kids that can’t be bridged all add up after a while.

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? Nope. It’s good, but not quite as good and it’s a little dated to boot.

The Last Shot – Darcy Frey

Here, Frey spends time in Coney Island, an outpost of despair. His book is tragic, with one of the principals dying and it’s most successful figure is Stephon Marbury, whose career is nothing if not checkered. I remember reading this on a bus, riding back from Moncton to Oshawa, and plowing through it in one sitting. It’s a powerful book, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s right up there with Hoop Dreams.

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? It’s a tough one, but I would: this is one of favorite sports reads.

The Miracle of St. Anthony – Adrian Wojnarowski
This is another one about basketball in the inner city, although this is more of an upper than the two previous. Here Wojnarowski spends time around Bob Hurley, coach at a school in New Jersey, and looks at how the program keeps kids out of gangs, wins games and now single-minded Hurley is: as he approaches his 800th win, a top ranking in the country and has games televised, his teams practice in a gym that’s falling apart, in a school struggling to make ends meet. I remember enjoying the hell out of this one.

But I wouldn’t recommend it over Dream Team, especially if you’re familiar with the PBS documentary on Hurley.

Loose Balls – Terry Pluto

I’ve written about this book before, as has pretty much everyone else ever – so chances are you know how good this one is: it’s pretty much the benchmark for oral histories, a book that manages to be both illuminating (especially in how the league was formed) and entertaining (any of the Marvin Williams stories, for instance). Would I recommend it over Dream Team? Yes, in a heartbeat.

Wilt – Wilt Chamberlain and David Shaw

Written before Wilt decided to do things like attempt to play pro volleyball, coach in the ABA (and in pretty rad pants) and claim he slept with 10,000 women. This is more about his earlier years, ranging from his time at Kansas to tangling with Bill Russell in the postseason. And he doesn’t hold back, either, talking frankly about discrimination and how much he didn’t like his coaches, throwing some of them under the bus. Also he was and Nixon were friends?

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? No. It’s a fun biography (his second one is even crazier), but it’s not a good a read.

Playing for Keeps – David Halberstam

Maybe the definitive Michael Jordan bio will never be written, given how private he seems to be and how much everyone likes him. But this work by Halberstam comes damn close: it’s a detailed look a the first two phases of Jordan’s career, ending with the 1998 championship run, and was the first place I remember hearing a lot of Jordan lore: Larry Bird’s quote after Jordan scored 62 in the playoffs, the flag draped over a Reebok logo, the gambling debts, etc. Like pretty much everything Halberstam wrote, it’s packed with research, well written and really enjoyable, even if Jordan didn’t really take part in it. It’s another one I’d recommend over Dream Team.

Seven Seconds or Less – Jack McCallum

His book previous to Dream Team is also good and arguably better: McCallum spent a season on the bench with the Suns, embedded and researching for this book, and was there for a wild playoff run that forms the backbone of this: a back-and-forth seven game series against the Lakers, a chippy series against the Clippers and them running out of gas against Dallas in a memorable conference final. His portraits of players like the moody, enigmatic Amare Stoudemire, the insecure Shaun Marion and the irreplaceable Steve Nash really push this book over the top: it’d have been easy to write something about how much fun this team was to watch, but he went further into how this team ticked. Would I recommend it over Dream Team? Definitely, yeah: it’s maybe my favorite basketball book.

The Breaks of the Game – David Halberstam

Another one I haven’t read in a while, although I can remember where I bought it (a little hole-in-the-wall store in downtown Oshawa) which is more than I can say for most of my books. It claims it’s a season-long look at the 1978 Portland Trail Blazers, although it’s really more than that: it’s a look at the NBA as it’s in trouble and struggling to stay alive. It wasn’t just the drug problem, which everyone points to now: Halberstam points to reasons like ABC Sports losing the contract and deciding to crush the league’s ratings by running made-for-TV sports at the same time. It’s enjoyable, another of my favorites and it’s back in print, too! I had a hell of a time finding a copy back when it was still OOP. Another I’d recommend over Dream Team and would especially recommend reading right before, if only to appreciate where the league had to overcome before it could get to the Olympics.

Let Me Tell You A Story – Red Auerbach and John Feinstein

Red never wrote an autobiography, so it’s nice that something like this came out: Feinstein hung around the legendary figure for a while and was able to get some stories about the golden years of the league out of him. It’s a fun read, especially enjoyable if you’re into either the Celtics or basketball history, but it’s a lesser effort from Feinstein and never really rises beyond “Here’s Red telling some cool stories in each chapter.” I wouldn’t recommend it over Dream Team.

The Free Darko Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac

A dark horse for best basketball book of the last decade, the first Free Darko book is a collection of profiles, infographics and the occasional illustration that’s dripping with insight, wit and charm. Granted, those sound like empty review words, but it’s a book which is equally funny and informative. It goes into why a temper is good for Ron Artest, into Kobe Bryant’s intense drive for perfection and why Vince Carter is unfairly maligned (and not just by Toronto). But it also is packed with good gags, like Isiah Rider applying for a job at Starbucks, rankings of How Euro various countries are and the wisdom of Rasheed Wallace. I’m torn if I’d recommend it over Dream Team, though: there’s a sort of implied knowledge here, that you know this book is half tongue in cheek but also really damn clever. If you don’t remember Free Darko, chances are this book isn’t for you.

The Book of Basketball – Bill Simmons

A gargantuan book, a huge ranking of players and seasons by someone who’s maybe incapable of writing short columns. The Book of Basketball was probably designed more to start arguments than to resolve them, and I suppose it does that pretty damn well since I disagree with a bunch of stuff here, but when read front to back, it’s a struggle to get through. Not only because it’s so long, not only because so much of what Simmons argues seems to be arbitrary (but aren’t all rankings?) but because he keeps making porn and sex jokes and it frankly gets a little weird after a while. Still, gotta admire the effort and there’s a good bibliography of basketball books in the back.

Would I recommend it over Dream Team? No, because it’s really just way too much of a thing. It’s a great thing to pick up once in a while and work your way through – much like another huge book, the Norton Anthology of World Literature – but it’s something of a slog.

That pretty much covers the basketball books I own and have read, although there’s a few other good ones I’m not going into detail over since I don’t have them handy: Pistol by Mark Kriegel, Tall Tales by Terry Pluto, Red and Me by Bill Russell and Alan Steinberg.

Whatever you do, don’t read that one Paul Shirley wrote, it’s self-obsessed trash and he’s pretty scummy to boot.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Final thoughts on Joe Paterno, the Freeh Report and Penn State


A while ago, when Joe Paterno died, I wrote a few wordsabout him, his legacy and the series of horrific crimes that took place at Penn State. That was then. Now, in the light of the just-released Freeh Report, all those words seem so hopelessly naïve, even if I still agree with what I said.

The essentials of what I wrote I still agree with: Paterno was tested by what happened and he shrank from the challenge. His failings should define his career at Penn State. But the scope of what happened, the depth of his knowledge and the amount of people that could have done something, anything, and didn’t, is staggering.

When Paterno died, the question was what he knew. Back in January, we knew he’d reported allegations of Sandusky’s behavior to his bosses but hadn’t gone to the police. That likely was in 2002, two years after Sandusky retired. Before his death, Paterno released a statement, reading in part: “I did what I was supposed to do,” a statement true only in the broadest legal sense and not at all in even the barest moral sense.

But the report offers a more disturbing picture of a school where nobody wanted to rock the boat and incur the displeasure of Paterno. In 1998, a story about Sandusky abusing children came to Penn State officials and the police. But Sandusky was never prosecuted and the only action taken was a warning for Sandusky to not to take children into showers anymore. Two years later, a janitor saw Sandusky with another child in the showers, but didn’t do anything for fear of his job.

To me, most damning of all is how Paterno knew about Sandusky as far back as 1998. One might remember how he told Sally Jenkins quite the opposite in his final interview. To wit: “You know it wasn’t like it was something everybody in the building knew about… nobody knew about it.” But the report contains emails where people mention telling Paterno, that he’s curious for more information. Page 51 of the Freeh report damns the Penn State coach, saying he knew “everything that was going on.” It wasn’t until earlier this year, nearly 14 years later, that Sandusky was convicted of any crime.

Paterno fancied himself as something of a student of the classics, especially Virgil. I recently read another work out of the Roman Empire that seems closer: Procopius’ Secret Histories. There, the Byzantine historian lays out the misdeeds of Justinian and Theodora, the hell that was their reign: gangs in the streets, people put to death for the most minor indiscretions – Edward Gibbon once reckoned something like 100 million died during their reign – and a culture of fear and excess, where if you crossed either of them, you vanished, and if you pleased them you could get away with anything.

But even that's something of a stretch in the light of the Freeh report. The implications it'll have on the future of Penn State are almost beyond reckoning: never before in college football has anything like happened. The closest I can think of is the abuses that happened at Maple Leaf Gardens decades ago. But the cynicism isn't quite there, that those abuses were overlooked for the same selfish reasons: winning games, keeping a program clean-looking, protecting the legacy of a famous and longtime coach. 

I think the report bears it bluntly: there's never been anything quite like this before. If we're lucky, there never again will be.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Good Point: The re-invention of the NBA through the Western Conference Finals

Over at The Good Point, I weigh in on the NBA's Western Conference Final and especially on how the San Antonio Spurs have changed from a boring, borderline unlikable team into one of the most exciting and compelling in basketball. To wit:
Don’t make the mistake of sleeping on this Spurs team. Yes, Duncan is old, as at 3, he’s older than everyone on the Thunder, save Derek Fisher. They don’t have the same star power Oklahoma City does. Durant finished second in MVP voting, Parker a distant fifth and Duncan picked up one fourth-place vote. Yet they roared into the postseason with the top seed in the west with the best SRS in their conference and were tied with the Bulls for the best record in the NBA.
Still, it’s more than that. It’s taken years, but the Spurs have emerged as one of the most enjoyable teams in the league. It wasn’t too long ago that the Spurs played a style of basketball usually called boring: Duncan backing into the post, a half spin, a bank shot that rattles in. Their most recent championship was a Finals sweep of the LeBron-led Cavs, where the Spurs scored around 80 points per game. They were a team easy to dislike and easy to hate, especially after bloodying Steve Nash.
Click here to read the whole thing! 

Stanley Cup Final prediction

That was a hell of a layoff, wasn't it? The New Jersey Devils haven't played since last Friday and the LA Kings haven't since last Tuesday, a nine-day break. If one's the kind of person who believes in things like momentum or they're on a roll or whatever, you better not bust those phrases out after game one since you can't have momentum when you haven't moved in almost a week.

Still, these playoff have been all sorts of fun and I'm not really looking forward to them ending. The last round was somewhat anticlimactic, with series that didn't feel especially close, but there was still some great moments. To wit: game six of the Rangers/Devils series, where the Rangers had chances in overtime but just couldn't get it to happen. I hate to break everything to a simple line like this, but it genuinely feels like New York just ran out of gas: this was a great regular season team who admittedly did struggle in the first two rounds. It took them seven games to get past both the Capitols and Senators and those were two teams way below them statistically. Like the OT in game six showed, they just didn't have the horses to keep pace with (let alone pass) a team like the Devils.

And what then to make of the Coyotes? They fell back to Earth pretty quickly in the Western Final, being held to two goals or less in the first three games and Mike Smith was lit up by a team that's not especially noteworthy on the offensive end; after all, it was Jonathan Quick's goaltending that's gotten LA to the final (but more on that in a second). They looked like a different team than the one that crushed Nashville and even the one that held Chicago back in the first round. It felt different than the Eastern Final, though: they just ran into a team solidly better than them. Sure, the Kings were an eight seed, but how many people really think it was a tremendous upset?

Anyway there's only one series left, so here's my last prediction for the NHL Playoffs.

Stanley Cup Final: (6) New Jersey Devils v. (8) Los Angeles Kings


I have a feeling that when people, years from now, look back at these playoffs, it's going to look like a series of upsets and upsets with two teams meeting in the finals that nobody would really call the two best teams in the NHL. After all, the final pits a eight seed against a six seed: this is not exactly a final anyone would have expected back at the All-Star break.

Thing is, these playoffs have shown the Kings to be best team in the west, with Quick looking like the best playoff goalie since Martin Brodeur's heyday. His 1.54 GAA is 33rd best of any goalie in the playoffs, ever and that, his Save Percentage (.946) are better than anything Brodeur had in his trips to the Finals and is right up there with legendary Cup runs by Bernie Parent (1.89 in 1975), Ken Dryden (1.55 in 1977) and Dominik Hasek (1.77, ..939 in 1999). And like them, he seems impregnable: more than any goalie I can think of since Hasek, he just feels like someone who's on all the time.

True, he hasn't quite been tested like Dryden, Hasek or even Brodeur were in their best years - one hesitates before calling the 2012 Phoenix Coyotes a team on the same level as, say, the 1975 Buffalo Sabres - but still, these Kings have upset every team they've faced, including the two best teams in the NHL this regular season. And what's more, they're doing it quickly: they've lost twice this postseason, once to Vancouver and once to Phoenix.

Meanwhile, the Devils have pulled upsets of their own: they beat the Rangers in six, winning the last three in a row, and made short work of a high-scoring Flyers team. Although Brodeur is getting a ton of credit - and with his best stats since his 2003 Cup run, it's not wholly undeserved - don't look past the rest of the team: Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk and Travis Zajac each have seven playoff goals and Kovalchuk's 18 points leads all playoff scorers. This is a much fuller team than the Devils are known for; they're usually winning in a high scoring game, not in a 1-0 overtime finish. But still, look at their goal differential: LA has a +19, New Jersey +9. While it's true the Devils can score, they're also being scored upon.

And to me, that's a crucial difference: not only the Kings have lost just two games, but they've shut down some very good offenses along the way. If this is a short series, and my gut tells me it will be, it plays right into the Kings favor: they might not score often, but they keep the score low and don't need more than two or three goals. Indeed, they've scored ten fewer goals than the Devils and still have a much larger goal differential.

Los Angeles in five. 
Conn Smythe winner: Jonathan Quick


Last round: Two of two! Even nailed the number of games!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Good Point: Pujols with a few holes in his bat

My latest for The Good Point takes a look at three of the American League's biggest bats - Jose Bautista, Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols - and how each has started the 2012 season, be it on fire, slowly or not at all.

From my piece:

Back on May 6, the Toronto Blue Jays lost to the LA Angels, 4-3. It wasn’t exactly the most memorable game except for one at-bat. In the bottom of the 5th, on a 2-2 pitch, Albert Pujols hit his first dinger of 2012, a shot to left over the head of Eric Thames.
It was Pujols, you may remember, that was one of the marquee signings of the 2012 offseason. He signed with Los Angeles for an astronomical sum: $254 million over 10 years, the second-highest contract in MLB history. And this season has not been kind to him.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Monday, May 14, 2012

NHL Round Three Predictions

There's a few things I'm going to wake away from the second round of the NHL playoffs


  • Dale Hunter did a pretty alright job and his exit isn't a good thing for the Capitols. They went into the playoffs as a low seed and upset Boston in the opening round, in a pretty good seven game series. And then they took the Rangers - arguably the best team still in the playoffs - to seven games, including a gutty win in game six. They played a wildly different style of hockey than they had under Bruce Boudreau, a much slower game that kept Alex Ovechkin on the bench. An article I read over the weekend asked if this was the start of a new style of hockey: keeping the scorer on the bench until you need a goal. I'm leaning towards no, but I wonder of Ovechkin's name will be tied to Hunter's abrupt leave. Were there problems behind closed doors? Did Ovechkin pull a Dwight Howard - it's either him or me, chief? I have no idea. But I'm curious to see what happens next for the Caps, and if they'll go back to what worked for them in the regular season, if not the postseason.
  • The Devils continue to surprise me. Not just in a "now they play fast" sense, but in a "who saw this coming?" kind of way. And this is from someone who picked them to roar past the Flyers. Marty Brodeur is ancient at this point, but is putting up some of his best postseason numbers. His GAA of 2.04 is the lowest it's been since before the lockout (and since the Devils championship run of 2003, actually) while his Save Percentage of .920 is better than it's been in a while. Meanwhile Ilya Kovalchuk's 12 points is second-best among all active playoff scorers. This isn't a team to sleep on.
  • Speaking of goalies, Kings netminder Jonathan Quick is putting together one hell of a Conn Smythe resume: he leads all goalies with a 1.59 GAA, a .947 Save Percentage (not to mention nine wins, a product of me not posting this in time). These Kings are in interesting team to watch: they've blown away two very good teams in St. Louis and Vancouver, lead Phoenix one game to zip and remind me a lot of the 2006 Oilers, a team all but carried by Dwayne Roloson and Fernando Pisani to the seventh game of the finals (and would have won, I think, if Roloson didn't get hurt).
There's more I could write about: Phoenix looking really good against Nashville (does this mean Chicago was much better than I thought?; the Blues folding like a cheap card table; the Rangers were lucky to gut out a tough series; etc. It's a testament to how good these playoffs have been that I could write more words than you'd want to read. I've certainly been enjoying them. Picks follow the jump.

Friday, April 27, 2012

NHL Playoff Second Round Picks

Given how insane and unpredictable the first round was, I feel pretty confident in my picks. I nailed one of the series - Blues over Sharks in five - and picked the right team in a few others: the Rangers, Devils and Coyotes all moved on. And I'll admit, I was completely, 100 per cent wrong in my Canucks-in-four pick. Although did anyone see the Kings just obliterating the team with the NHL's best record?

What's interesting to me is how close the first round was. 16 games went into overtime, with three of those going to a second OT. Altogether, 32 games were decided by one goal! I don't remember there ever being a first round this exciting, this close and this much fun to watch. And yes, I'm including 1993, the best NHL postseason ever. It sets a high bar for the second round. Picks follow the jump.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Flashfact: The Insane, amazing and dirty-as-hell first round

My latest for Flashfact is on the first week of NHL Playoff action, which ranged from the amazing to the insane to the dirty-as-fuck.

One thing I didn't mention for space reasons is the Blues/Sharks series. It's been close, with some fun and exciting finishes but I'm digging CBC trying to find a fully-bearded Jon Hamm in the private boxes. It's been a while since the Blues seemed this noteworthy.

But that's hardly the only thing. From my piece:
What the hell am I supposed to make of the NHL playoffs thus far? On one hand, we have some of the dirtiest series in years, some of the worst hits I can remember and at least a couple good games that went completely off the rails.
But on the other hand, the hockey has been ridiculously exciting, especially with regards to the amount of overtime, and ratings are up across the board. All of these series have been exciting to watch. So why is everyone calling them the dirtiest playoffs ever?
They led with hockey on Pardon the Interruption the other day, which almost never happens, even during the Stanley Cup Finals. But Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon didn’t talk about the overtimes, high-scoring offences or Backstrom’s laser-guided wrister against Boston. They talked about Sidney Crosby playing with a glove, about a basket full of dirty hits and brawling and wondered if the league is out of control.
Click here to read the whole thing! 

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Flashfact: Hollywood, from top to bottom and back again

My latest for Flashfact looks at Robert Evans' memoir of being one of Hollywood's most colourful figures. You might remember The Kid Stays in the Picture as a pretty good documentary, but it's a fun read with way, way more details than the movie.

But as I wrote over there, his candor is what makes this book so much fun to read. He's not out to glamorize himself or try and correct an image problem. He doesn't seem to give a shit and almost never holds back, least not on himself. From my piece:
Evans drops names, takes credit for successes and points fingers like it’s going out of style. Anyone with an ego like his should have written a book only half this fun. It’s saving grace is Evans attitude towards himself: he’s never shy about his fuck-ups over the years. His candor is surprising. He’s more than willing to explain what he did wrong and to call himself out on it; watch how often he calls something his biggest mistake.
I enjoyed the hell out of this book, even as he praised scummy people like Henry Kissinger - no small feat. Click here to read the whole thing at Flashfact.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Good Point: Love for MVP? Plus NHL Playoff Picks!

My latest for The Good Point looks at why Kevin Love is getting attention in the NBA's Most Valuable Player race, despite being outplayed in almost every way by LeBron James. To wit:
By almost any standard basketball metric, LeBron James is the best player in the NBA right now. He has the highest Player Efficiency Rating at 30.7 and 12.2 Win Shares; best in the league. On his own team, he’s putting up better numbers than the other 60 percent of the big three, especially in shooting stats like True Shooting or Effective Field Goal percentages.
In other words, James is putting up better numbers than anyone in the league, is the best player on his team, itself one of the NBA’s best. This guy should be a shoo-in for MVP, right?
So why is Kevin Love getting to much attention right now?
 Click here to read the whole thing!

And while you're here, click here to read my Good Point review of Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding!

Finally, my annual NHL Playoff picks follow the jump.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Flashfact: Remembering Bert Sugar

When Bert Sugar died last weekend, the sportswriting world didn't just lose a colourful character, it lost a unique voice: someone who knew professional sports are hype and bullshit and wasn't afraid to fill his copy with clever jokes. In an age where a backup quarterback commands a press scrum so large they have hold a media conference on a practice field, his less-than-serious while knowing almost everything attitude will be missed.

From my short piece at Flashfact:

I can’t help but wonder if there’s some kind of cosmic connection at work in New York these days. On Sunday, Bert Sugar – the last remnant of the Golden Age of Sports Writing – died at 75. On Monday, Jets quarterback Tim Tebow was introduced to a crowd so large it wouldn’t fit into the media room, forcing the presser to be held on the practice squad. As Vonnegut wrote, so it goes.
Sugar was a reminder of the past, of a long-gone print media sports writing type. He was something of a character, a half-made-up, half-for-real man in his fedora, suit and ever-present cigar. He looked like he could have stepped out of one of the old volumes of sports writing and I half expect to see his byline among the long-dead writers in the great anthology No Cheering in the Press Box.

Read the whole story by clicking here.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Further dispatches from the bottom of the sporting world

It was Brian Burke who said a chanting crowd helped push Ron Wilson out of the Air Canada Centre and onto what I assume is a golf course. It was not a parade of columnists, not a cavalcade of callers into Sportsnet Radio 590 or TSN 1050, not a trending topic on Twitter. It was the crowd.

For a long time the crowd at the ACC has been a joke, even among Leaf fans. The lower bowl, with it's outrageous pricing, years-long waiting list for season tickets and more tweed than Brooks Brothers, is a haven of Bay Street peoples. The season-seats bought by corporations who can write them off as an expense - to treat clients, natch - are what is pointed to by those who say Toronto is a losing team and cannot change. Never will change. These people will always buy tickets, supporting the team without any regard for the on-ice talent.

But what happens when even these crowds begin to boo?

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Good Point: Linsanity and Carmadness

The people at The Good Point were nice enough to let me use a word that doesn't exist in my headline: Carmadness.

I have a few ideas and one I go back to often is the hype and hyperbole of the sports section. Right now, the best example of this is happening in New York, where a seven-game win streak ushered in Linsanity and made Mike D'Antoni some kind of savant for letting Jeremy Lin run amok. And then came a cold streak and D'Antoni resigning amidst claims that Carmelo Anthony wanted him out.

It's a nice story. It's something you can spin into three, five, a whole week's worth of columns. But it's not very accurate and blaming the coach or an individual player is blaming the wrong person. And it's not just a basketball thing, either: just look at the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Anyway, read the whole thing by clicking here.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Flashfact: Slanted and Enchanted, 20 years later

Want to feel old for a second? Pavement's debut album turns 20 later this year; it's old enough to get drunk in Canada. Has it really been that long since Stephen Malkmus and Spiral Stairs first popped up?

Slanted and Enchanted is one of my favorite albums (although I think Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is their best album) and it's the kind of music that will always have an audience: young college people looking for something different that isn't really all that different, really. For all their little tricks and tweaks, Pavement is a pretty normal-sounding band under all the distorted guitars.

And that's a good thing: in the decade or so since Pavement stopped recording new music, Malkmus' solo career has been more or less pretty good, but they're not quite as reckless or dangerous: just compare his solo track Dark Wave to Pavement's Perfume-V. Pavement's earlier stuff rocks a little harder and cares a little less. From my essay:
[Slanted and Enchanted] is alternately noisy, loud, obtuse and catchy. The guitars slink, they’re noisy and screechy. However, Pavement’s pop sensibilities are never far from the surface. There isn’t anything resembling a sing-along here, but by today’s standards, any one of these songs could be slipped into a radio playlist without anyone batting an eye. 
And when it comes to how Pavement sounds 20 years on, how much they sound like the mainstream is something to think about.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

The Good Point: Durant and Westbrook...

I was thinking about the NBA's MVP race a few days ago and wondered: can your team be too good for you to be the MVP?

It depends on how you define MVP: does it go to the league's best overall player, or to the player who means the most to their team? If one player completely outclasses another statistically, can he still be less valuable?

I guess what I'm really asking is: will Russell Westbrook cost Kevin Durant a MVP award? From my article:
This season, the Oklahoma City Thunder may be the NBA’s best team. They’ve got the best record in the competitive Western Conference and are among the NBA’s best teams in advanced stats like SRS (third with 6.40) or offensive rating (second, with 108.6). This is happening largely thanks to two young stars: Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
Their game styles may not completely mesh, but they’re working well together this year. Only a few weeks ago, they combined for an amazing box score in a win over Denver.  Durant scored 51, Westbrook scored 40, plus nine assists, and Serge Ibaka picked up a triple double: 14 points, 11 blocks and 15 rebounds. Most teams would be lucky to have one player with this level of talent. That the Thunder have two is amazing.
Click here to read the whole thing.

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Flashfact: The Secret History of Bootleg Records

I used to go this record store in Barrie, a grimy little place on Clapperton, that sold all kinds of stuff: used CDs, LPs, counterfeits, CD-R-sourced bootlegs, everything. It was a really great place, I bought some really interesting stuff - things I've never seen since, at least at a reasonable price - there: Rhino's old DIY series, the original LP of Frank Zappa at the Fillmore East, Rykodisc's reissues of David Bowie's catalogue, those IRS issues of REM's first few albums with bonus tracks. The guy in charge was cool, too: an aging hippie who kept a giant sword behind the counter to deal with shoplifters.

But it was the bootlegs that really got me: those weird little things with odd covers, questionable sound quality and stuff inside I never dreamed existed, let alone hearing. Finding out about these was to find a new world of music. For a teenage me, looking for a little more than just the official releases, this place was amazing.

That store's gone now and so is the old hippie. The industry's changed so much in the past decade it barely resembles what I barely knew growing up: we don't have a CD store here in town anymore and only ones within an hours drive are chains like HMV or Sunrise. Bootlegs are more or less gone now.

Which is partly why Clinton Heylin's book on the history of bootlegs - The Great White Wonders - was so interesting to me: it's a history of that shady industry, why it started, how it kept going even as the RIAA tried to crush it and what it did to the entire industry. From my review at Flashfact:

When Heylin is recounting the history of bootlegs, it makes for great reading: enterprising people sneaking intentionally-mislabelled tapes into mastering studios, running truckloads of illicit LPs around at night to shady figures and trying to keep one or two steps ahead of the FBI and RIAA. It’s a little like reading about Robin Hood, or at least someone who swindled a bunch of rich people and got away with it.
Click here to read the whole thing!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Flashfact: 100 years later, Sunshine Sketches still resonates

This is kind of a two-fold thing for me: it was a chance to finally get around to reading Sunshine Sketches, a book that defines Orillia: from the Leacock retirement home to the Mariposa Market where I eat breakfast once or twice a week. And the book was good, better than I thought it'd be.

The other thing is for me: this is kind of a warmup piece for something in the future, which doesn't have a home yet. While waiting for that to come up, please give this essay a read:

There was a billboard here in town with his face, a quote about how the harder he worked, the luckier he got. Stephen Leacock occupies this town, his legacy a major influence.
When he wrote what would become his most endearing book, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, he said it wasn’t any one town, but any small town, on either coast. And while his characters are everyone, in a town that could be anywhere in Ontario, Orillia has taken it as it’s own; businesses use names like Ossawippi and Mariposa and there’s even a museum dedicated to his works.
I’ve lived here for most of my life but until recently, I’d never bothered to read his book. I expected some similarities between Orillia and Mariposa but I didn’t expect to enjoy the book so much.
Click here to read the whole thing.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Toronto Review of Books: A Look into Baseball's Golden Age

The Toronto Review of Books published a short essay of mine on one a very good baseball book: Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, a oral history of baseball in the first half of the 20th century.


In 26 chapters, each adapted from extensive interviews, Ritter’s book covers the first half of the last century, the golden age of baseball. Moving fom Tommy Leach, who started in the 19th century, to Hank Greenberg, who played until 1947, each chapter is like an informal conversation with an athlete looking back on their career. It’s a telling record of the growth of a major sport.
I didn't have room for it in the essay, but one thing I found interesting in this book was the players talking about life after baseball. These were people who spent their youth playing pro sports in a age where you didn't get a lot of money or respect for doing so. Some of them got mundane day jobs, others hung on the outer fringes of teams as scouts or the like. One guy went blind, another went to Japan to help introduce baseball. It's fascinating stuff.

Anyway, click here to read the whole thing.

Monday, February 20, 2012

The Good Point: Sonics - There and back again

My latest for The Good Point is about a team that doesn't exist anymore.

Okay, that's a little misleading. This is also about the Sacramento Kings, haunted by arena issues and the ghost of the Sonics. But Seattle is very much in the forefront here, too: from arena talk of this own, an owner willing to spend vast sums of his own money and the green and gold, showing up in the background of games everywhere in the NBA.

It seemed oddly fitting when the Sacramento Kings hosted Oklahoma City on Feb. 9. The former Sonics were playing a team whose owners are looking for a new arena and blogs asking – maybe even telling fans to chant and bring flyers that read “HERE-WE-STAY,” hoping TNT’s national audience would hear it on their only national TV appearance.
The game sold out and enough people wore dark colors that Kevin Harlan called it a blackout. When the Kings roared to an 11-2 lead, the crowd erupted in a frenzy.  It was hard not to think back to the 2002 playoffs. It would be a real shame if the Kings left town. Unfortunately, that’s a real possibility.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

When losing isn't a bad thing: A postcard from Toronto

How long was Rasual Butler holding the ball for? Was it for a a full five seconds? Less? More? There’s a report he asked the referee to count out loud, which probably wasn’t enough. And for what it’s worth, he shouldered the blame, but that’s not what people will remember: they’ll remember him standing there, getting the ball for the first time all game, for what the NBA would later rule was 5.8 seconds, failing to get the ball in bounds.

That’s not fair to Butler, and it's the wrong thing to take from Sunday's game; which was, even after 48 minutes, exactly the best kind of game the Raptors could have played this season.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Flashfact: Lana Del Ray, marked for death

Ripping off one of my favorite Lester Bangs headlines only felt appropriate for this, and not only because it also riffed on the name of Del Rey's album. 


In at least a few ways the cycle around Del Rey's debut, which hasn't been out very long but feels like it's happened for months, is emblematic of music criticism right now as a whole: people rush to judge someone who's almost designed to be quickly judged. A question like  "Is Lana Del Rey constructed by people to sell records?" isn't what people should be asking. The question should be if it's worth listening to, context removed. 


The short answer: it's not bad, but it's not great either:


Google her name for a novel about postmodern hype and public relations. Listen to her album to be lulled to sleep. Watch her videos on YouTube to look into a cold display counter at a seafood market. She is a lot of things, all of them so concurrent to now: perhaps manufactured and coldly indifferent on stage but oddly compelling and worth looking at, even if only to grasp what lessons there are here.


For the long answer, and some thoughts on why it doesn't matter if she's constructed to sell records,  click here to read the full post at Flashfact.org

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

The Good Point: Is Andrea Bargnani the NBA's most improved player?

There aren't many storylines - which aren't even a thing, really - around the Toronto Raptors, but there's one that I couldn't get out of my mind: what's happened to Andrea Bargnani this year. Over at The Good Point, I explain how he's changed from a black hole and why it matters:
In a year marked by some bad teams, the Toronto Raptors are one of the worst. This is not a new thing. They’ve been bad for years, with a defense more porous than Havarti cheese. Last year, they regularly allowed 120 per game, sometimes as much as 140. You don’t have to know basketball to know that’s bad. 
The stats bear that out: the 2011 Raptors allowed the fifth most points per game, the fourth-lowest SRS and lost the third-most games in the league. And Andrea Bargnani, their much-maligned star, finished the season with just 2.6 Win Shares and a 16.4 PER, despite playing the second-most minutes on the team. 
Things aren’t much better for the Raptors this season. They dropped eight in a row in January, are 8-16 and have the league’s second-lowest points scored per game (86.8). And that’s mostly because of Bargnani. I mean it in a good way.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Tim Thomas' politics are a load of puck

We’re living in strange times. The 24 hour news cycle has been shortened to a half-hour wheel, the Internet demands 140 characters content now, now, now and there’s always, always a news hole to fill.

It means that even the most mundane becomes newsworthy.

Take the flap in Montreal, where Canadiens head coach Randy Cunneyworth takes flak for not speaking one language in a city that speaks two. Does it really matter? The team speaks English, the league conducts business in English but a wing of the local media and a large segment of the city’s population doesn’t. Never mind that the coach doesn’t actually talk to fans and that Cunneyworth could always bring a translator to media scrums. The Montreal media pounded that story and soon, it was drawing international attention.

And even now, weeks later, it’s still in the news cycles, thanks to some comments by Jaroslav Spacek. In Quebec, hockey has always had a strain of politics to it. And now, politics has met the puck head-on.

The Good Point: Joe Paterno - Legacy or Lunacy?

When Joe Paterno died, the easy reach was to was say he was killed by the scandal that enveloped Penn State, or to say he was hounded by an irate media. I'm not sure what the proper response is: he was a man with a mythic legacy. Being a head football coach at any major Division One school is as close to having a Supreme Leader as North America gets; as a society we give these people the mythic qualities that the poet Virgil gave to Aeneas. 


Given that Paterno was a student of Virgil, comparing him to ancient tragedy seems apt: his career ended from his own mistake, one transgression so odious it should overshadow everything else. From The Good Point:


Joe Paterno died on Saturday evening at the age of 85. He was coach of Penn State’s football program between 1966 and 2011, a span of 45 years. He both appeared in and won more bowl games than any other coach.
Yet he’ll be remembered for something else completely.
When someone is part of a program for as long as Paterno was at Penn State, the immediate question is one of legacy. It’s a fair question: he was a coach for a long time; his teams went undefeated five times, won three Big 10 championships and two national championships. His career, as a whole, is one of the better coaching careers in all of sports, not just college football.
And it’s all going to be overshadowed.


Friday, January 13, 2012

The Good Point: The Passion Player

Tim Tebow is polarizing like nobody else in sports. He simultaneously represents everything overwrought about pro sports - the moralizing, the forced storylines, the hype and hyperbole - while at the same time, representing everything to love: the come-from-behind victory, the modest victor, the genuine person.


The cliche is Love Him or Hate Him, but with Tebow there's preciously little room between the two extremes: it's hard to find anyone in the middle ground. We all know the person who's drinking the flavor-aid on him and we all know the person who loathes him. But are these two opinions based solely on Tebow - or on preconceived notions from somewhere else entirely?


There’s nobody in sports right now as polarizing, decisive or cool as Tim Tebow. It’s not just a question of religion, politics or even quarterbacking. The divide he creates is more than that; it’s more personal.
I have a friend who, in most other cases, is a rational person. She is not the kind who jumps headfirst into anything or considers alternative viewpoints and has worked as an insurance adjuster. But she hates Tebow. She thinks he’s arrogant, overrated and a fluke. She uses the phrase “Sheblow” to refer to the quarterback. She is not alone, but we disagree.

Monday, January 09, 2012

Raw post: Notes from a wild wild-card weekend

Texans / Bengals
  • I spent most of this game working my day job, so only some sporadic notes:
  • Dalton picked off and it’s returned for a score by JJ Watt. Everybody on twitter makes stupid puns like WATT A CATCH and WATT IS POWERED UP and I open a bottle of Russian Standard, prepared to drink myself into oblivion.
  • Tom Hammond is doing the play by play for this game, I keep wishing his brother Daryl was in the booth too
  • The game starts pretty cool, both sides trading blows. The Bengals actually look good and are moving around on the Texans, but miss a couple field goals. As the second quarter winds down, the Bengals look like crap; by game’s end, they’re smelling like it too.
  • Dalton is a young QB, he plays like a rookie. He makes occasional nice plays but for the most part, he looks lost. Also he’s a ginger, but isn’t inspiring a bunch of lame jokes on twitter, for which I’m eternally thankful.
  • Houston, though, looks really good, especially on defence. I find this surprising, since I always think of the Texans as a team that scores a shitload of points and allows almost as many. They made good stops, though, and kicked into high gear in the second half.
  • Game theme:

Detroit / New Orleans
  • Detroit takes it in early in the first, looks good.
  • Brees first play is a huge pass for like 35 yards. They move upfield but fumble. It’d be really cool if the Saints fall apart in another opening-round game
  • Cris Collinsworth is impressed by Stafford’s game calling, overlooks the presence of an offensive coordinator
  • Deep into the second quarter, New Orleans still hasn’t punted.
  • Good call, after review at end of second. Colston made a good try, but it wasn’t a catch. But it wasn’t a penalty either; a pretty weak call. Detroit makes a good stop and holds the Saints to a field goal after a first and goal at the six-yard-line
  • Pierre Thomas has had a couple of solid runs. Brees comes out throwing deep on Detroit; Meachem drops a sure TD, then Henderson catches and runs one in from 41 yards out. The Saints came out firing.
  • The Lions are playing a cool kind of defence where they don’t tackle
  • Brees to Colston, for 40 yards. Another huge catch, yet another deep pass on the Lions defence, and a play later it’s a 10-point lead
  • Stafford chucking it, too. Throws a high, arcing pass to Calvin Johnson, who has to slow down to catch it; a 42-yard gain, sticks ‘em right by the goal line. On third and goal, Stafford makes a risky move: fake handoff (complete with a jumping RB) as he rolls out and runs to end zone, diving and sticking the ball out ahead of him. Refs call it a TD, gets reviewed and held up.
  • “today this lions team means so much to detroit” cris collinsworth, a modern day heraclitus
  • People are going to mention Brees passing for mega-yards, but Pierre Thomas having a great game on the ground, too. He’s busting tackles all over.
  • Another huge pass, this time to Meachem for a 56 yard, walk-in score. Detroit’s defence is non-existent.
  • Detroit’s down huge, midway thru 4th, and its looking bad. Stafford could - will? - throw for 400 yards and still lose this game; detroit’s going to allow like 600. Still, Calvin Johnson catches his 12th pass, this time for a score, and it’s 28-38 Saints.
  • This is the better game of the two, but it’s not been a tremendous game, either.
  • Brees just chucks it downfield again to Meachem. Feels like a routine, or a game of techmo bowl where you just constantly use a play with a fly route. Also Dadboner’s twitter is going crazy which is nice
  • The Saints just blowing away the Lions in the second half. What did they find out at halftime? That Detroit’s secondary doesn’t know how to tackle? They’ve scored 35 points in the second half. Their defence makes a token play, picking off Stafford with about three minutes left, and it’s basically over
  • “Unable to match points with Drew Brees tonight,” says Cris
  • New Orleans doesn’t punt all game; every second half possession ends in a TD - except the last one, when they ran out the clock deep in Detroit’s end; if they wanted to score, I bet they could have.

Atlanta /  New York Giants
  • Joe Buck and Troy calling this game; does that make it America’s Game of the Week of the Century??
  • Just noticed that Eli’s captain patch is all lit up, like he’s caught 100 rings and in Super Saijin Mode or w/e
  • A few minutes into the first and both sides have punted more than New Orleans did last night. Each side with two straight three-and-out. I guess you could call this a defensive struggle, but my gut’s telling me it’s because both teams aren’t any damn good
  • Eli to Ballard on the first play of the Giants third possession results in the first first down of this game. We’re only seven minutes into the game before the offense shows up. they punt. the falcons pick up their first on their next possession, too
  • I was kind of hoping this would be the exciting match this weekend: yesterday’s games were blowouts and the later game tonight pits two great defences against each other, which will probably translate to a 7-3 final. Kind of surprised at the lack of offence here.
  • Falcons putting together a nice drive, not testing the Giants defence really, but picking their spots. They go for it on 4th and inches, which I think you should always do, and are just short, maybe by like an inch? (fun note: only possession of the first half where they don’t punt it away! except a hail mary at the end of the 2nd, which shouldn’t count)
  • And just like that, the Falcons get their first points: a falling Eli chucks one away from inside the end zone; it’s intentional grounding and is ruled a safety. Falcons are heating up!
  • Jacobs puts his head down and rushes for eight (about 8 left in 2nd). First run of his today that stands out to me; he tries it again on second down and it doesn’t work. Still, the Giants are putting a nice drive together, for once. A few plays later, he busts out a HUGE run. On the replay they cut together different angles for the run, which is kind of neat. The Giants have a 4th and inches and they go for it: handoff to Jacobs, who spins and picks up a couple. 46 with a nice block, too. Next play, Eli throws to Nicks, who makes a off-balance, spinning grab for the first TD of the day. 7-2 Giants.
  • At one point, near the two-minute warning, this is the sequence: play, commercial, play, commercial, play, punt, commercial. GOTTA GET THOSE ADS IN.
  • Halftime score: 7-2, New York. Both offenses are struggling, although they have put together a few nice drives. Eli’s had some nice plays, but a couple of boneheaded ones, too. Jacobs have looked really good. On the Falcons? Well, they’re not awful, I guess. Matt Ryan is 13 of 19 for 98 yards, no scores and a 80.6 QB rating; Manning is 10 of 14 for 60, one score and 103.3 (and a safety). Jacobs has more yards on the ground (48) than Atlanta does (37).
  • a few giants get hurt when they collide. One, Ross, goes to the lockers.
  • first big play of the second half: bradshaw explodes to his right, is hauled down around the five after picking up 30 yards! Giants running game is on today, they’re just pounding it. It’ll be neat to see the time of possession. This run leads to a field goal, 10-2 NY. As Fox goes to commercial, their replay shows Coughlin throwing his hands in the air, flippant
  • Atlanta goes for it on another 4th down and turns it over on downs a second time. Cue an endless string of coaches saying “never go for it”
  • This leads to a Manning pass to Nicks, who finds a seam, busts past like three guys and runs in a score. It was a shortish pass up the middle and Nicks was wide open + had an angle where nobody was really able to catch him. 72 yards pass + run!
  • The Falcons are not doing it in short yardage. On third and short, they get stuff, so they punt it away. Turner not having a good game on the ground.
  • Giants game coming together. Eli gets tons of time to throw a deep one to Manningham in the end zone, for a 27-yard score. We’re entering blowout territory, 24-2 Giants. Eli is now 19 of 28, for three scores, 241 yards and a QB rating of 130.2(!). The Giants offence is just blowing away the Falcons right now; Atlanta’s offence is sputtering, especially in short yardage
  • I spent most of the fourth looking at used cars. Atlanta had a cool three-and-out that lasted less than a minute, the Giants marched all over and missed a chip shot FG and then the Falcons put together a drive for the 2-minute warning.
  • Final thoughts: another case where one team just dominated. More than that, Atlanta’s offence just didn’t have it today. they couldn’t get anything done. on drives they failed on short yardage situations and their running game was non-existant. as a passer, ryan wasn’t awful - certainly not as bad as some tebow games - but he’s still only a midlevel qb, still not as great as he looked as a rookie. the big question coming into next week is going to be if the giants are for real (maybe) and if so, are they a legit super bowl contender? they get this benefit from 2007, when they ripped through the playoffs, sneaking past green bay in ot to make the super bowl. this is not that team, they’re not as good. I think they’ll give green bay a good test, especially on the ground, but won’t pull it out.

Pittsburgh / Denver
  • Kind of weird feeling that Pittsburgh, the better team on paper, is away here to a Broncos team that fell backwards into the playoffs.
  • Feeling weird about this one: Ben’s hurt, which limits Pit’s offence. And Denver’s defence wins them games. Other side of ball: Tebow, who’s looked bad in wins and worse in losses, facing one of the league’s best defences. It’s going to be a rough game, but maybe the first close one of the weekend.
  • “should be a most exciting game,” says Nantz. Well, by law of averages, maybe...
  • I like this side-by-side video they show of a pre-and post-ankle injury Roethlisburger throwing and how his motion has changed. kind of odd to use so early in game, but nice they went to the effort
  • Miller making some great catches early on, including one for 33 yards. Opening drive stalls around the denver 40, will kick a long FG, makes it.
  • Through the first, 6-0 Pittsburgh. Denver with two three and out, plus one drive that runs through the quarter.
  • Harrison comes in low for a hit, probably destroys Decker’s knee. I don’t think it’s a really dirty hit, but with Harrison’s rep, he’s going to get fined like a million dollars.
  • Tebow tests the Pitt secondary, throws a deep pass to Thomas, with Ike Taylor right on top of him. Good toss, especially for tebow, even better catch. He again throws deep, to Eddie Royal, for a 30-yard score. Denver leads, 7-6
  • Next poessession, Roethlisburger throws deep for Wallace, a 52 yard catch - but denver challenges and gets it overturned. I wonder if it’s a gamechanger? Crowd loves that ruling. Three drops by Pitts receivers, notes Simms. Drive sputters, Pittsburgh punts.
  • Injuries mounting for Steelers. Not good, especially with the team already banged up.
  • Tebow lets out out, a 57-yard throw to Thomas, who beats Taylor (again). He’s found something he likes, wonder if Pittsburgh will mix up secondary for second half. Tebow rushes it in himself; Tebow time knows no bounds.
  • Next, Tebow takes some savage hits, he’s getting pounded. He throws a pick, is hit hard again. Denver takes over inside the 20, Tebow throws to end zone, Troy nearly picks it off... and Pittsburgh gets a roughing the passer and this could be over, folks. Denver kicks a FG, 17-6.
  • New series: Ben picked, but a flag - offside on defence - so it doesn’t stand. Still, though. He’s hurt, can’t do anything. Pull him, put in Batch. they won’t and they’ll die by the sword. They punt away.
  • Another big pass by Tebow, 40 yards to Fells. Tebow’s looking great - albeit against an injured, sinking team. It’s 20-6, now, with all 20 in the second quarter. Steelers falling apart: Ben fumbles a snap, recovers but loses 23 yards. Pittsburgh melting, like something inside a steel mill. Cower asks if resting Ben at season’s end would have been better. I’m inclined to agree.
  • Halftime thoughts: Pittsburgh beat up, wonder what changes they’ll make. Ben’s hurt, too hurt I think to warrant staying in. And Denver’s taking advantage of Pittsburgh’s battered defence, exploiting how they play Tebow. You can’t let him run amok, but he’s also making good throws. Give credit to his receivers, too: Thomas with over 100 yards.
  • Tebow: 5 of 11 for 185 yards, 1 TD pass, one TD rush, 122.3 QB rating ; Ben’s 11 of 23 for 134 yards, no scores, one pick and a QB rating of 48.1
  • Second half for the Steelers offence opens with some weird plays, include a backwards pass that was almost a fumble. Simms explains that a forward pass has to go forward and causes a minor twitter avalanche. Then, the Steelers start moving: a pass for 18, then another... #33 - Redman - rushes down to the end zone, is dragged down, fumbles, but was maybe across the goal line? Going upstairs for a review. On the TV replay, Redman looks like he was down before the goal line, which makes it neither a fumble or a TD. After review, it’s called a first and goal from the one-half yard line. Wallace makes a run to his right, from around the line, into the end zone. 13-20, Denver.
  • Heath Miller with some nice blocks on this drive, too. They’re down a weapon w/him blocking, but he’s helping curb a tough defence rush.
  • Next Denver possession: Tebow escapes a sack, rushes away for a gain. Then he uncorks a deep one thats way off. Then rushes for another first. Ike Taylor is called out again by Simms. As third ends, they’re moving, right down into Pittsburgh’s red zone. Denver kicks a FG, 23-13.
  • As fourth opens, Pittsburgh is looking better on offence. That’s a positive. They’re not as good on defence, allowing a drive of 63 yards. That’s bad. The Broncos are chewing up time on offense. Might not be enough time for a two-score comeback.
  • Redman making some good runs. Just tears off one for 28. Next play, Ben rolls out to his right, super slowly. Somehow he isn’t sacked (throw is incomplete). Pittsburgh kicks a FG, cuts it to 23-16.
  • Tebow getting rushed, shakes off a tackle, moves to his left and fucks up a lob pass + misses an open reciever. Next pass, tho, complete to Thomas (over Taylor!) for a first down and 15 yards. But next play, Willis McGahee fumbles and turns it over! Denver challeges (why wouldn’t they?)
  • McGahee to this point had an okay game. 50 yards on 16 carries. But fumble costs not only possessions, but a timeout and their last challenge. Hope it was worth it.
  • Ben makes a quick pass, Sanders spins around a defender, makes it 3rd and one. Redman pounds it across, first down. Under six to play. Ben rushes and moves like he’s the tin man. Redman: another first down. He’s pounding it up. Ben throws a deep one, to a double-teamed Wallace. It’s just about picked off by Bailey - “shoulda had it,” says Simms - but isn’t. Steelers timeout.
  • Ben to pass, has all kinds of time, rushes out of pocket. Throws deep to end zone, complete! to Cotchery! Tie game with 3:43 left!
  • Open the twitter gates: “Tebow time” say all. He makes a big pass, for 17 yards, to Fells. They run it down to two-minute warning.
  • Never let this be understated: today, Tebow’s been impossible to sack. He just ran away from like three tackles, out of the pocket and got ball off. He just saved 10 yards. But on 3rd and 8, his pass is short.
  • Ben takes over deep in his own end. He has time, tries to move and is sacked. clock running, again with time, throws up middle to Brown, clock running, 33 seconds left. He throws outside to Sanders, picks up 18 and they stop the clock. 29 seconds left, Suisham is warming up on sideline. His career long is 52 yards. The catch to Sanders is amazing, a falling forward grab, an eight on the difficulty scale.
  • Ben is rushed again, fumbles and they’re lucky to still have it. But it’s second and 21, no timeouts left. On own 44. Ben’s deep toss to Ward is batted away, over the head of Wallace too. Flag on 3rd down, delay of game. A short toss to Redman, who goes out of bounds at about the 50. Suisham not going to kick, Ben to pass and he’s sacked. We go to overtime!
  • Ben’s blitzed by five guys, hit down by 91.
  • This is the first playoff OT under the new rules, the college style one. First play is a huge pass, ran in for a score. The camera catches Tebow kneeing, in prayer. Of course. it’s an 80 yard play. There was nobody from the steelers in the middle, and it was a footrace. Ike Taylor was stiff-armed and nobody came close. Thomas was a total beast today, Tebow had a hell of a game. The most yards against the Steelers defence this year.
  • Basically, what a game! It was about as exciting as you could have asked for. A hell of a finish, a great second half.
  • Final thoughts: Steelers defence looked bad, really bad. Ike Taylor was called out so many times it’s unreal, but he’s not alone. Tebow’s not a phenomenal passer, but he looked like one today, maybe playing the best game of his career. Certainly played the most exciting one.
  • And what about Ben, the other hyped QB? He was okay, I suppose, although he looked a tad slow. In the second half he put it together, as the Steelers came back to tie the game. But look at Redman, who rushed for 121 yards, a career high. Look at Heath Milller, who picked up 60 yards receiving and did a hell of a lot of blocking, too. I wouldn’t call it a flukely loss, but it’s one where Tebow’s abilities at QB meshed well with Pittsburgh’s flaws. It’s not every game where he’ll throw this many yards and expose the secondary.
  • Final Score: 29-23, Denver