Chargers bite the dust

Haha. YES!!!!!!!!



And then what happens at the end of the game but LT freaking out. I thought he was acting like a whiny little punk, not wanting to talk to anybody, but it turns out that he was pissed the Patriots disrespected his field. I guess I can see that. But still. Win a freakin' playoff game!! Haha, I'm so happy. It's all I have as a Raiders fan, you have to understand. So eat it, Chargers fans. Eat it, taste it, and flavor it. Don't sample it, eat the whole dang thing.

Here's the money quote: "Anytime you're in the playoffs and lose, and certainly I have plenty of experience at it, there's a disappointment," Schottenheimer said.

Reds keep Ross, Wilson

The Reds agreed to a 2-year, $4.5 million deal with catcher David Ross. That's not bad money. I just doubt he can replicate his stats from last year. But he was definitely a decent guy. I hope he can still swing his bat and help out Arroyo and others. In other news that is not great, the Reds gave Paul Wilson a minor-leage contract. Never a big fan of Wilson, but there's no doubting that he's a quality man. I just don't like him pitching and that's a large part of what he does. Maybe it won't amount to anything, we'll see.

Justice for Brodeur

Brodeur back for ninth All-Star game

You're dang right. As well he should be. He won't be starting, Ryan Miller will do that, but he will be there. And he might just win the game. I'm proud of him and his amazing year, and he deserves to be there. Great job, Marty!

Also representing the Devils is defenseman Brian Rafalski. Go get 'em, Ralf!

Injustice towards Brodeur

Yahoo! Sports has their "fantasy hockey" standouts or whatever on their main page at all times. And I was going to check it because Broduer is in there all the time dominating, and he has dominated recently, doing pretty dang well. Well, I found Broduer. In the "NOT' section under who is hot and who is not!!! What a joke! But here it is in all of its proof. Please direct your anger mail to anybody but me.

Devils 2, Thrashers 1 | Devils 2, Islanders 1 (Overtime)

Well, I am back from Indiana and what do I see? Pretty much the same as the previous post, one of my good teams winning two straight games in nail-biting fashion. The first didn't go to overtime, but could have. The second one wasn't supposed to go into overtime, but it did. And the Devils walk away with 4 points out of a possible 4. I hate giving any points to divisional foes, but 1 point isn't so bad I suppose. But what did I tell you? It's that dang last-second trickery again. Brodeur (or the team) is having troubles with the late minutes/seconds of the third period. They need to work on that IMMEDIATELY. But hey, they have been doing dang good. Tomorrow night is the HATED Rangers. Come on, NJD!! Don't let me down! You haven't yet. Except once, maybe.

Mavericks, 115, Pacers 113 (Overtime) | Mavericks 97, Raptors 96

Well, I've been away a few days. And what do the Mavericks do? Pull off two incredibly narrow wins, complete with crazy nail-biting finishes. When it's all said and done, Dallas stands at an amazing 31-8, four games out in front of the Spurs for the division lead. Nowitzki carries the lead with huge games in points, and Josh Howard scores the game-winner against the Toronto Raptors. Good enough for me.

A genius BCS solution?

I don't mean to pat myself on the back, but I couldn't sleep last night and in so doing, my mind was racing with thoughts and one of them allowed me to solve the BCS Bowl Games/Playoff Scenario.

You keep the Bowl Games intact. Keep the five biggies. Sugar, Rose, Orange, Fiesta, and Championship Game. Then you take the winners of those 5 games and put them in a playoff, giving the winner of the Championship Game a bye. The rankings are by adjusted seeding - so the two middle teams play each other and the team with the highest seed (not counting the #1 seed, winner of the Championship game) faces the lowest seed. Then the #1 team gets another bye while the two victors fight it out, with the winner getting a shot at the #1 seed. I know it's not perfect, with the #1 getting two byes after "winning" the championship game. But it would be sweet. Take a look.

USC def. Michigan (Rose)
Boise State def. Oklahoma (Fiesta)
LSU def. Notre Dame (Sugar)
Louisville def. Wake Forest (Orange)
Florida def. Ohio State (Championship)

Florida is #1
USC is top rank, Louisville is lowest
Boise State & LSU are the middle teams

Say USC wins and LSU wins. Then LSU wins again. Then it's LSU vs. Florida for the REAL title.

That's it. That's how it works.

Or, if you prefer, Florida and Ohio State never play each other. They just get a #1-#2 rank and they both get byes. Then it's the same setup with the other games: USC vs. Louisville, Boise State vs. LSU. Florida, being #1 gets the middle game winner (LSU) and Ohio State, being #2 faces the likely highest winner (USC) and then it's Florida vs. LSU and Ohio State vs. USC. Then, if Florida and Ohio State win those games, we have a REAL CHAMPIONSHIP.

Can you follow? I did. And it changed my life. Pass it along to the BCS. I only want $50,000 for rights.

Lancaster signs off. We'll miss ya.

The Jim Bowden Pipeline

The Cincinnati-D.C. train keeps a-chuggin' along. Brandon Claussen, oft-used pitcher for the Reds over the recent years went to our nation's capital. I liked the guy, he performed well sometimes and othertimes not so much. That's the case for every pitcher we've had lately, though they err on the negative side more often than not. I was just high on him because he came from the Yankees and as much as I hate the Bronx Bombers, they usually know what they're doing with pitching. And he was pretty decent with him. Oh well. So long, Pickle Man.

Ray Guy a Finalist for the Hall of Fame

Long overdue.

He was the punter for the Raiders, and hands down the best punter in the history of the NFL. But is a punter worthy of the Hall of Fame? That's a hard call. Is Ray Guy worthy of the Hall of Fame? A slightly different question, and one that leads more to an affirmative answer. I don't know if he's got a legitimate shot or not. I thought the list looked relatively weak, but there are some star names on it and of the names on the list,

"Dent, Grimm, Guy, Hickerson, Irvin, Kuechenberg, Monk, Derrick Thomas, Thurman Thomas, Wehrli, and Zimmerman have all been finalists in previous years."

So those guys might be favored. But hey, at least Ray Guy has a chance.

Reds moves

Schoenweiss went to the Mets. I liked that guy, so that's sad.

The Reds got infielder Jeff Keppinger from the Royals in exchange for pitcher Russ Haltiwanger. Most of Kepp's time was in the minors and he put up decent numbers. Still don't know what the need is, but Haltiwanger I've never heard of, and he may not amount to much. The roster move bothers me as Kepp coming in meant Ray Olmedo is out. I like Ray. He works hard and is a fast guy. A good worker. Looks like he might not be around anymore, which is sad.

Shawn says it's no biggie.

Mama says she might miss Olmedo. I hope he doesn't leave!!!

Tom wonders what the crap is going on, and factors Brendan Harris into the equation.

Not big news. Just stuff.

Blues 3, Devils 2

This one was pretty dang embarassing. I mean, it wasn't a bad game, just a team that is so dang easy to beat.

The scary part? John F called this game. He said that the Devils should rest Brodeur for this game with Marty needed for the big ones coming up. That was evident when Brodeur was not on top of his game, as Clemmensen could have given up 3 goals and it would have been expected. It just seemed that this game was pissed away when it could have been salvaged, pardon my language there. Also, John F called it when he said the Devils have a disturbing trend of playing down to the level of their competition and waiting for them to act so they can simply react. Maybe I made up that last part, but it seemed to make sense. Anyway, both of those things were key factors in the game. So congrats to that man because he nailed it. Sadly, he nailed two key negative things, and when negative things happen, negativity happens and then you lose to a crappy team like the Blues. Ah well.

The weird part? One of the kids on my dorm floor is in love with the St. Louis Blues. We talked the first couple weeks of school back in August and then haven't really talked since. He came in my room LAST NIGHT to use my microwave and then heard the hockey game on the radio and checked it out for a while as the Blues won. It was annoying, but at least he wasn't in my face about it. It's just weird because the Devils hardly ever play the Blues. Incredibly weird timing.

Sad game. We'll get over it.

Mavericks 99, Blazers 74

Bad. Poor. Not fun.

You'd think I was describing the Portland TrailBlazers, and in a way, I am. But I was actually describing the Mavericks. They played this game pretty poorly almost all the way through, and they still wind up with a 25-point win. This is the stuff of legend. The defense clamped down and the Blazers couldn't hit the broadside of a universe last night. It's nice to know that when the Mavs don't look that great, they can still pull it off in convincing fashion.

Nowitzki was a non-factor, as Jason Terry and Josh Howard led the way, with their modest contributions of 20 and 17 points respectively. 3-pointers was the story of this game as they helped the Mavs pull away at key times, and kept the Blazers from getting anywhere close. Dallas was 10 for 16, as Devean George went on his usual 0 for whatever night, this time only 0 for 1. What is up with that guy? It seems I check the box scores and George has maybe a few points, but mostly has no points and shoots tons of 3's and doesn't make any of them. It's kind of annoying. I guess they pay him to play defense. I'll take that. Anyway, Portland didn't make a single 3-pointer. And they shot it 11 times. Wow. Hardly ever will you see a stat like that. It certainly helped the Mavs win, and contributed to the team shooting under 40% for the game. Sad. The Mavs barely won the rebounding matchup, but they did thanks to Dampier who played a huge chunk of time in this one. Still only came away with 2 points, but whatever.

Not a biggie. A game they couldn't lose. And by that, I mean it was impossible for them to lose. They sort of tried for a while, but realized it wouldn't be a great idea.

P.O.D. and the Chargers

I suppose this is Raiders related, but it gets the yellow. Because this is about one of my favorite bands of all-time, Payable on Death, and one of my least favorite sports teams of all time, the San Diego Chargers. Being from the Sandy Egg, P.O.D. likes the Chargers. And they are performing at a Chargers playoff rally and writing a new "theme song" for the Chargers. I found this out on their MySpace page.

"P.O.D. will be performing today at the San Diego Chargers Playoff Power Rally which runs from 3PM to 6:30PM in the Qualcomm Stadium Parking Lot (Section F2) in San Diego. The band is out to support the San Diego Chargers by recording a theme song for the team. "Turns out the song is blowing up in Southern Cali and is already being played in the stadium at the games," the band stated in their official newsletter. Fans can check out the "Charger Anthem" right here! Details are being worked out to get the "Chargers Anthem" available on iTunes soon!"

This saddens me.

Check out this post

If you're into the Devils just a little smidge, read John's post over at In Lou We Trust. He breaks down the All-Star selections today, which I noticed making my rounds this morning. Didn't see any Devils. I really expected only one of them to be there. That would be Martin Brodeur, who I expect to see every year. Hard to argue against Ryan Miller, my second-favorite goalie. Easier to argue when Brodeur has been better than this guy, but hard to ignore Buffalo's success in last year's playoffs when Miller was dominant with his unorthodox and in-your-face style. And hard to ignore Buffalo's domination this year. But, like John says, Brodeur will be in the All-Star game. There's no way to leave the guy off the list. He's a beast. There's also links to a couple articles that you should read, they are worth your time. One in particular, which we Devils fans get a lot of, the BORING trap defense. I'll admit, it bores me sometimes, but it's more complex than it looks. And guess what? It gets the FREAKIN' JOB DONE. So eat it, because you sure as heck can't beat it.

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Asomugha named second team All-Pro

Good for him. He earned it. Too bad his team didn't.

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Mavericks 108, Jazz 105

Crazy game right there. The Mavs were down at halftime, and that's not a good sign when you're playing a tough Utah team at home where they are even better. But Stackhouse went nuts and killed everybody in the face and then yelled at everyone else, and Dirk went crazy in a different way, by scoring 38 points. That was helped by the fact that he took 15 shots from the free throw line, making 13 of them. The Mavs scored on 53% of their shots, which is one of their highest tallies on the road, so that no doubt helped. Mr. Consistent, Josh Howard, had his usual 21 points and 9 boards. After being really solid for a while, Dampier has fallen off the map. Solid contributions from the guards again tonight, Jason Terry and Devin Harris still playing well. For Utah, it was Carlos Boozer as everyone could expect throwing in 29 points. But he didn't really dominate, which is a good thing. Extremely tough road trip, Spurs-Lakers-Jazz. Winning two out of three was a great victory, it would be almost unheard of in recent years except for the fact that the Jazz came out of nowhere this year. Hosting the Portland TokeBlazers tonight.

Reds odds & ends

Lancaster at the Cincy Post does some work. The big talk is what of the rotation? Homer Bailey or no? The guy's first name is HOMER and he's a pitcher, which is funny I suppose, but he's dang good. I've made the case to not rush him, so that's what Cincy brass will do. Harang & Arroyo will do well. Milton I don't care for and he will give me plenty of reasons why in this upcoming year. Lohse was suprisingly solid for a while, but probably won't be that good. I hope he becomes a pleasant surprise. I like El Lizard for a spot, though he tanked late last year. Victor Santos, 5-9 with a 5.40 ERA for Pittsburgh last year, is also in the mix. I don't know about that one. He's a proven pitcher, but he loses games and the Reds roughed him up. But he could be alright.

They're also talked to the season-enders on the DL - Mercker, Wilson, and Gordo. Mercker is solid, but expendable now. Gordo would be great to have back, as he could anchor the 9th inning like he did for a little bit last summer. Paul Wilson?? Does anyone remember his Opening Day 2004?? Because that was a joke. And he hasn't been good since. I want this guy outta here.

That's probably it.

If you live in Sark, are you a Sarkisian?

A lot of articles out there about Steve Sarkisian, USC QB Coach and Former Oakland Raiders QB Coach. One article was funny, talking about how he left USC to be with the Raiders and then started to miss winning games, so he went back to USC. YEAH SHUT UP!!!! Alright.

This guy intrigues me more than before. And there was a good take by somebody saying that people should prefer Sarkisian over Ryan, because what Rob Ryan does is defense and he does it dang well and he should be able to focus on just that instead of everything else that goes with head coaching. A valid point. Sarkisian is clearly the front-runner, but that's simply because he's the only prominent name that's interviewed thus far. But he seems like a better choice than before, which is fun.

A future post - the thing nobody wants to talk about, but I will. What if the defense....................?

Article: Prudential paying $105.3M for naming rights on Devils arena

That name is cool with me. I like Continental Airlines Arena, but that's just because I'm comfortable with it. The problem with stadiums, as has been the case since maybe the mid-90's or so, is that more and more until almost all of them are taken over entirely by corporations and so the stadium name changes. So instead of having a fun stadium name, it's named after a company. Thankfully there are still Fenway & Wrigley out there and a couple others. But "The Prudential Center" is a pretty good name. It's obviously named after Prudential, Inc. which has the rock. Which is cool because they mention calling it "The Rock" in the article as does Tom Lycan at his blog. But Tom was well ahead of the curve, doing it back on December 21. I dig it.

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