Jets' fans should curb expectations

Favre will be rethinking his decision to continue playing.

It would be really easy for me to make my triumphant return to the "Wide, Wide World" with a rant about Brett Favre’s long odds of succeeding with the New York Jets being a result of the Jets’ lack of offensive playmakers and 4-12 record last season. However, this piece will be limited to Brett Favre’s shortcomings and why he was likely destined to fail no matter where he ended up.

So many NFL fans, especially those residing within 500 miles of Lambeau Field, thought since Favre had another great season in 2007 that he would automatically play that way for the short remainder of his career.

People better think twice about that. As stellar as Favre was for during the first 9 years of his career, the second half of Favre’s career has been a mixed bag of the good, the bad and the ugly.

In the two seasons prior to 2007, Favre threw 47 interceptions and just 38 touchdowns. While his quarterback rating of 95.7 in 2007 was impressive, his rating has been in the seventies more times since 2000 (4) than in the nineties (3). Favre has turned into a great quarterback that is now only great sometimes.

In 2005, then Packers’ head coach Mike Sherman allowed Favre to stay away from all of the team’s mini-camps, OTA’s and off-season workouts. He was hoping that the time away from the team would have Favre chomping at the bit to return. When he did, the result was a 4-12, 29 interception season.

Now Favre must learn a new system, get familiar with new personnel and new coaches in a new city, all in less than a month. Having already missed the first two weeks of training camp layered on top of skipping an entire off-season of the aforementioned mini-camps, OTAs and off-season workouts, Favre’s first season as a New York Jet is already set up for failure.

Wallace's headband least of Bulls' problems

If the Bull's want to turn their season around, Wallace
and his new teammates must "band" together.

As if the Chicago Bulls struggles through the early part of the NBA season wasn't concern enough for head coach Scott Skiles, he must now deal with a malcontent in the locker room and on the floor. Off-season acquisition and reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year Ben Wallace was benched during Saturday night's Bulls' victory over the Knicks. While his recent poor play could've been reason enough to bench Wallace, it was his disregard for a team rule against wearing headbands that got him the chair.

On the heels of an embarrassing zero-point, zero-rebound, zero-steal, zero-block performance on Friday in which he spent much of the second half on the bench, Wallace took it upon himself to silently, but publicly, challenge head coach Scott Skiles on the Bulls team rule.

Despite being aware the headband rule all season, Wallace had his headband on at the start of Saturday's game against the Knicks. Skiles didn't notice until two minutes after tipoff, at which point he pulled Wallace for Malik Allen. Wallace headed to the bench and defiantly kept his headband on for nearly eight more minutes.

It's clear the honeymoon period in Chicago for Wallace and the Bulls is over. Wallace's acquisition this off-season made the Bulls one of the favorites to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals. The Bulls' 4-9 start has them tied for second worst record in the east and their defense has actually been worse than last year despite Wallace's presence.

Wallace has 60 million reasons over the next four years to fall in line with team rules that he was made aware of before inking his deal and considering his poor performance on the court, he really isn't in position to be challenging anything.

Green should lose job to performance not injury

Trent Green will start this Sunday against Oakland.

His first start since week 1.

In week 1 of the NFL season, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Trent Green took a vicious hit in a Chiefs loss to the Cincinatti Bengals as he began his slide on a quarterback scramble just a half-second late. Enter backup Damon Huard. All Huard has done as the Kansas City starter is go 5-3, post an 11-1 toucdown to interception ratio and become the fifth highest rated passer in the NFL.

This week, Green was cleared by team doctors to practice and play. On Wednesday, Chiefs' head coach Herm Edwards announced that Green would start this Sunday against the Raiders. Edwards had said weeks earlier that Green would start when he was healthy, believing that a quarterback shouldn't lose his starting job to injury.

Well maybe a quarterback shouldn't lose his job to an injury, but he should lose it to performance. It's highly unlikely that Green would've played better than Huard over the last eight weeks even if he hadn't been injured. So why change back now. Why gamble that a guy can play as good as the guy that's been in there when the guy that's been in there is already playing at such a high level?

Huard, as well as the rest of the Chiefs' offense, didn't play well against Miami last week. This perhaps gives Edwards the excuse he needs to throw Green back out there.
I couldn't disagree more with Edwards decision. For the best example of why sticking with the hot backup over the now-healthy starter, one just needs look at the New England Patriots. Would Bill Belichick have three Super Bowl rings if he thought the same way Edwards does?
I doubt it.

Cavs, James shouldn't downplay late game walkoff

Lebron James, 'The Chosen one', chose to leave the

floor before the game was over Tuesday night.

As a minor sprinkle of negative press flew towards LeBron James on Wednesday for allegedely walking off the court in the final seconds of overtime of the Cavaliers overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks Tuesday night, it seemed all that LeBron, his coach and the rest of the Cavaliers wanted to do is downplay the incident.

"It's not like I walked off the court and came to the locker room while there was still time left on the clock," James said before Thursday's game against Chicago. "I stood on the court the whole time, until the buzzer's end, I even said something to [Hawks guard] Joe Johnson on his way out.

"It was kind of frustrating for us to lose that game, but as far as quitting on my team or anything like that, it's crazy. If we would have won the game, it would have never been mentioned. Say if we was winning the game and I did the same thing. Would it have been mentioned? I don't think so."

Cavaliers coach Mike Brown backed his star, claiming he wasn't even aware of the incident until his son told him about the amount of press it was getting.

"We both understand there is a right way to do things," Brown said. "This business is the perception business and the right way to do it is to finish the game out on the court. It won't happen again."

Even LeBron's teammates claimed they weren't aware of the walkoff and defended their teammate by claiming he's not the only one who's ever left the floor of a game early.

"It's no big deal," forward Drew Gooden said. "LeBron is under such a microscope that every little thing he does gets noticed. I don't care what anybody says, at some point I'm sure Michael Jordan and Larry Bird walked off the floor with 13 seconds left."

The Cavs players and coaches can downplay this all they want, but it won't change the fact LeBron got off easy. If Rasheed Wallace or Ron Artest did this, we'd be talking about it for weeks.

All I can say is that I want Drew Gooden to provide me with the video of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Reggie Miller, or any other NBA great leaving the floor of any lopsided game that he wasn't ejected from. Drew, if you can find it, I'll give LeBron a pass.

The bottom line is that you won't find it. You can't find it. If Reggie Miller was the type of player to leave an NBA floor of an "already-decided", yet unfinished contest, one of his career's defining moments never would've taken place.

Miller scoring eight points in the final nine seconds against the Knicks in 1995, leaving the home crowd at Madison Square Garden utterly stunned is one of the great moments in NBA history. It never would've occurred if Miller had pulled what LeBron pulled on Tuesday night.

How many state champions do we need?

As the Arizona High School 4A and 5A regular seasons conclude this week, it kind of got me thinking about how much Friday Night Fever has changed over the last two years.

The 2004 Hamilton Huskies may have been the last state champions

in Arizona history.

On December 18, 2004, the Chandler Hamilton Huskies defeated the Glendale Mountain Ridge Mountain Lions 31-7 in the 5A State Championship football game. It was the second straight title for the Huskies and in the minds of many, it was the last true state championship game ever played in Arizona.

“With the realignment and new playoff system, most coaches and players feel that the days of crowning a true state champion are gone,” said Brian Cole, head coach at North Canyon High School. “Things were already broken up enough before the AIA turned it into alphabet soup.”

In 2005, the Arizona Interscholastic Association began the first year of realignment for high school football. The new system divided 4A and 5A schools into 4A-I, 4A-II and 5A-I, 5A-II brackets for the postseason. The regular season remained unchanged.

Teams from Division I and Division II could still be in the same region together and play against each other during the regular season, but once the state playoffs began, they were placed into separate brackets to determine four different state champions. This is all in addition to the small school titles awarded at the 1A, 2A and 3A levels.

The AIA instituted the new system as a long term solution to the increasing growth in Arizona that has new high schools starting new athletic programs every year, but does a system that awards state titles to four different schools of comparable size really work?

As it stands right now, any school with an enrollment of 950-1600 students is classified as a 4A-I school. Schools with a student body of 1601-1899 students are placed in 4A-II.In 5A, Division I schools have student enrollments between 1900 and 2500, while any schools with more than 2500 are Division II programs.

The AIA estimates the number of schools with a student enrollment of over 1899 will grow from 59 to over 75 by 2010. In 2006, two new high schools, in their inaugural year of varsity competition, will jump right into the 5A ranks. Boulder Creek High School in Surprise and Valley Vista High School in El Mirage will join the 5A Northwest Region.

In addition, three schools in 4A are expected to exceed the 4A enrollment limit and join the 5A conference in 2007. Copper Canyon High School and Raymond Kellis High School in Glendale and Liberty High School in Tucson are all schools with growing enrollment levels and are already over 1750 students. All three schools are scheduled to make the move to 5A in 2007.

In the meantime, this does little to pacify football coaches already fed up with the new system after only one season. The chief complaint that coaches have is with the Division I and Division II distinction only mattering during the playoffs. In all other instances, the divisions are combined.

Last season, two Northwest Region schools, the North Canyon Rattlers and the Mountain Ridge Mountain Lions played each other on the final day of the regular season. Both teams were 8-1 entering the game and the winner would claim the 2005 Northwest Region championship.

North Canyon defeated Mountain Ridge 21-13, but despite the fact that both are 5A schools and both play in the same region, when the state playoffs began, the Rattlers played in the 5A-II bracket while the Mountain Lions were seeded in the 5A-I bracket.

This is the most glaring example of the fundamental problem with the entire system. The AIA needs to decide if all of these schools are in the same division or not. Right now it's really all over the map. North Canyon was clearly good enough to compete in the 5A-I playoffs, but they never got the chance because their enrollment was 85 students less than Mountain Ridge's.

The lack of distinction between Division I and Division II schools carries over to issues off the field. When the 2005 AIA All-State offensive and defensive teams were named following last season, only two teams were named, one for 4A and one for 5A.

So, while the AIA doubled the amount of opportunities for teams to compete in the playoffs, they refused to increase the amount of opportunities for players to earn All-State honors.
It doesn't make a lot of sense.

So as another Arizona high school football post-season approaches, the AIA will prepare itself to crown seven state champions for the second year in a row.

Notre Dame complaining about the BCS is BS

Weis won't get any sympathy from college football

fans for its slide in the BCS standings this week.

I may have resisted the urge to take shots at the BCS last week, but that certainly won't stop me from taking shots at somebody else for doing the same thing. Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis sounded off this week when his 11th-ranked Fighting Irish were jumped by two teams in the BCS standings.

"One of the teams (Tennessee) that jumped us had the same game that we had. They're down, they're playing at home and they win by a field goal," Weis said. "Another team (Florida) that jumped us wasn't even playing. They were home

eating cheeseburgers and they end up jumping us. That befuddles me."

The "jump" left Notre Dame ranked 9th in the BCS standings. The top eight teams in the standings are guaranteed a BCS bowl bid and the $4.5 million that comes with it.

While this is only Weis' second year at Notre Dame after coaching in the NFL for 15 years, this is no excuse for his whining. What Weis must realize is that his Irish are universally the most loved,hated, feared and admired team in college football.

Notre Dame, with its exclusive network television contract and rich history is already viewed as an institution of privilege. The Irish are viewed as a team that has gotten all the breaks over the years. They're seen as a team that gets favorable rankings and undeserved bowl bids on an annual basis just because of who they are. Weis' complaints certainly won't help improve that image.

The most notable example of this occurred in 1994. The Irish finished the regular season with a mediocre 6-4-1 record and yet still got invited to play in the Fiesta Bowl. A game they decisively lost to Colorado 41-24. This prompted a reoccurring joke that was heard all over sports talk radio that bowl season...

What's the difference between Notre Dame and Corn Flakes? Corn Flakes belong in a bowl.

What Weis needs to realize is that his team's chances of getting a BCS bowl bid will take care of themselves as long as the Irish take care of business on the field. If the Irish manage to finish the season with only one loss and defeat 3rd-ranked USC on the road, Notre Dame will not only get a BCS bowl bid, but the may even have a shot at the national championship game.

Did you know?

As I prepared to blog about sports again this week, I realized earlier today, there isn't a whole lot to go off about this week. I thought about doing a rant about how in NCAA football, the BCS is B.S., as the first 2006 BCS rankings came out this week, but I want to save that for when we get closer to bowl season. I thought about discussing the typical "Cardinal-ness" of Arizona's collapse against the Chicago Bears on monday night, but after four days, there's nothing new to say. So, I just decided to go in a completely new direction.

This blog will simply be the informative kind. I will astound and amaze by presenting sports facts and figures that even the most ardent sports fans may find hard to believe. It will all be done by asking...did you know?

Did you know that during the Chicago Bulls six championship runs in the 1990s, they weren't pushed to a seventh game in the NBA Finals even once?

Did you know that Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Kevin Garnett and Steve Nash are the only NBA MVPs that have never won an NBA Championship?

Did you know that quarterback greats such as Terry Bradshaw, John Elway, Johnny Unitas and Troy Aikman DO NOT rank among the top 20 of all-time in QB rating?

Did you know that the first player in NFL history to catch 80 or more passes in three consecutive seasons was a tight-end? The Los Angeles Raiders' Todd Christensen (see photo above) pulled of the feat from 1984-1986.

Did you know that Bill Buckner, a former Cub, wore a Chicago Cubs batting glove under his mitt when Mookie Wilson's grounder went through his legs in the 1986 World Series? Perhaps battling two franchise curses at the same time?

Did you know that former Philadelphia Athletics and Boston Red Sox pitcher, Al Benton, is the only player in major league history to pitch to both Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle?

Did you know that there are five shared team names among the four major professional sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL)? Cardinals, Panthers, Giants, Rangers and Kings.

Did you know that Steelers vs. Cowboys is the only Super Bowl matchup to occur three times?

Be honest, how much of this stuff did you know before reading this blog?