Who better than us to pass judgment on athletes? You rely on us for it, and we aim to please. Here’s another edition of Studs & Duds.
STUD: Saints and Colts. They haven’t always made it look easy, but both teams are 10-0. The Colts streak is particularly impressive as they’ve managed to win despite not playing really well for a stretch of games.
DUD: Joe Flacco. The Ravens’ 2nd year QB threw an inexcusable interception inside the 20 with less than 3 minutes left and down 2 points. A field goal was good enough to win; he did the one thing he couldn’t afford to do.
DUD: Mark Sanchez. A few weeks after a 5 interception game, Sanchez threw 4 Sunday against the Patriots. One was returned for 6. He’s regressed as the season has gone on, and the rookie growing pains are costing the Jets games.
STUD: Syracuse hoops. 2 dominating performances in Madison Square Garden last week. Beat #12 Cal and #4 North Carolina by a combined 38 points.
DUD: New Jersey Nets. At 0-13, they’re just 4 games away from tying the worst start in NBA history, and they’re headed on a 4-game road trip to the West Coast. They’re so bad, the team ran a “10 is Enough” promotion after they’re 10th loss. Ouch.
STUD: Jimmy Johnson. We don’t know much about NASCAR, but we do know that winning 4 straight championships is probably really good. The dude is dominant.
DUD: Charlie Weis. 7 games into his first year, the school prez and AD gave him a 5 year contract extension through 2015. 5 years later, he’s got a worse record than both Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham had in their tenures. And with Jim Harbaugh having so much success at Stanford, Notre Dame can’t pull the whole “we have trouble recruiting because we have such high academic standards” card.
STUD: The old guy in purple. 213 yards on 22-of-25 passing with 4 TD and 0 INT on Sunday. That brings his season totals to 21 TD and just 3 INT (or 1 fewer than Mark Sanchez’s total this week).
DUD: The Denver Broncos. The NFL’s best story through 6 weeks has looked awful losing its last 4 games.
STUD: Tom Brady. Looking like Brady circa 2007.
WE'RE IN THE KNOW, SO YOU'RE IN THE KNOW
Week 8: 3-3 Season: 3-3
A week off after 7 straight weeks off to start the season. We’ll admit that we’re getting a little lazy around here. But spending the past month watching baseball’s playoffs during the week and college football every weekend, we chose to save the few good relationships we had left and take a week off.
Here’s what we like in Week 10.
Philadelphia (+2.5) at SAN DIEGO: Philly has the better offense, better defense and special teams. The Chargers have the worst rushing attack in the NFL. We like the Eagles to win straight up so it’s a no-brainer for us to take the points.
WASHINGTON (+4) vs. Denver: Washington has notably underperformed, but the numbers point in their direction this week. Teams 4+ games below .500 are 111-53-1 ATS, and bad teams that have scored 17 or fewer points three straight games are 96-39 ATS. We’ll trust the numbers and take the points.
MINNESOTA (-16.5) vs. Detroit: We normally stay away from large spreads – and this one is huge – but we have no confidence in Detroit on the road, especially against one of the NFL’s best all-around teams.
Dallas (-2.5) at GREEN BAY: We just sacked Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers is good, but the Packers aren’t. Green Bay’s wins this year came against Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis and Cleveland. Not exactly competition that’s lighting up the world. Dallas is playing well. We’ll give the points.
MIAMI (-9.5) vs. Tampa Bay Tampa Bay is bad. They’re on the road. And they’re 2-8 ATS in the past 10 games. Miami is better than Green Bay. We just don’t see a repeat of last week’s upset.
That’s what we like this week. As always, bet with your head. Not over it.
An easy one today. This highlight almost rendered us speechless. Welcome Elizabeth Lambert. You’re officially TJR’s All-Time Biggest Loser. We could just as easily add everyone who allowed this to happen. Her coach. Her teammates. The referees. Amazingly, only one card was issued all game.
Buy: The Yankees. Baseball’s two best teams met in the World Series for the first time in a long time, and the best team won. We continue to be astounded by the brilliance of Mariano Rivera. It’s well beyond words at this point.
Sell: Chemistry as the main factor for the Yankees return to the top. It played a big role, sure, but they got big pitching performances when they needed them throughout the postseason. The importance of AJ Burnett’s lights-out performance in Game 2 against the Phillies can’t be understated.
Buy: Regardless of what happens from now until their contracts run out, the signings of CC, AJ and Tex should always be considered a success. We don’t buy into the Steinbrenner Doctrine’s win or failure policy. Their signings led to a championship. That’s enough for us to consider them successful.
Buy: Joe Girardi. Driving home just hours after managing the Yankees to a world championship, Girardi stopped to help a car crash victim. Pretty cool story.
Sell: World Series MVP Hideki Matsui playing in the majors next year. He can’t play the field anymore, and he’ll get more money from teams in Japan. What better way to head back to Tokyo than with a shiny new ring and an MVP trophy.
Sell: The Yankees signing free agent OF Matt Holliday. He’s 29, a 3-time All-Star, and plays hard every day. But the Yankees still have a lot of years left on big contracts. A-Rod (8). Tex (7). Sabathia (6). Burnett (4). And an extension for Jeter after next season. They’ll want flexibility. So bet on them signing a vet (maybe Damon) for a year while grooming top prospect Austin Jackson. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll make a splash in free agency a year or 2 from now.
We’ve never claimed to be the smartest group of people on the planet, but even we noticed something wrong with an ad The Philadelphia Inquirer ran in this morning’s (Monday) issue.
As you can plainly see, the Macy’s ad reads “Congratulations Phillies! Back-to-Back Champs!”.
There’s only 1 small problem with that. The Phillies haven’t won the World Series yet. And down 3 games-to-1, they can’t win it unless they take the Yankees to Game 7 this Thursday.
Headlines set to run this week include:
“Merry Christmas!”
“Tiger Woods wins 2010 Masters!”
“Universal Healthcare Bill Passes in Both Houses of Congress”
Is it us or has Fox gotten a little carried away with the split-screen shots during this World Series? We caught an early glimpse of tonight’s coverage.
Some strong statements made this week in college football, both good and bad. Florida chewed up Georgia. Texas rolled over Oklahoma State in Stillwater. Oregon took USC behind the woodshed, and Iowa used a huge 4th quarter to whoop Indiana.
Disappointing weekend for fans expecting to watch some good games as the scores show.
#6 TCU 41 – UNLV 0
#7 Boise State 45 – San Jose State 7
#8 Cincinnati 28 – Syracuse 7
#9 LSU 42 – Tulane 0
#11 Georgia Tech 56 – Vanderbilt 31
You get the point, right? So with another week in the books, there’s a shakeup at the top of our power rankings.
Florida: The Gators made sure Georgia’s miserable season continued on Sunday with a 41-17 beating in Jacksonville. The annual contest is dubbed The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, but the only ones partying were the folks from Gainesville. Florida still has question marks especially at wide receiver, but the defense is solid and there’s too much talent for them to falter before facing Bama in the SEC Championship Game.
Texas: We’ve been waiting for a statement game from the Longhorns all year long, and they finally gave it to us on Saturday. Sure, Oklahoma State was playing without its biggest weapon, but not even Dez Bryant would have made a difference in this one. The defense returned to picks for TDs, and at 41-7, the game was over before the 4th quarter started. With their biggest tests out of the way, we’d be shocked if Texas didn’t waltz into the National Championship Game.
Alabama: Last week’s close win raised some question marks, and Texas’ convincing win on the road moves them up for now. I still think Bama has a great shot to beat Florida in the SEC Championship Game. They’re defense is the best in the country, and they can run the ball with anyone. That wins a lot of football games.
Oregon: Wow. Last week we said USC’s defense “has cracks”. Turns out they’re gaping holes. Oregon put up 613 yards of offense including 391 on the ground in dismantling the Trojans. Everybody watching – from the fans to the broadcasters to the coaches and players – knew they could do whatever they wanted to with the ball. USC had no chance of stopping them. Give the Ducks credit. After the opening loss to Boise State and the ugliness afterward, they’ve proven they’re a damn good football team.
Stay tuned for TJR’s NFL Power Rankings coming later in the week.
Better late than never right? So we took a bunch of weeks off, but after such a good run last year we figured we deserved it. Here’s a few picks we like for this week.
Seattle (+9.5) at DALLAS: The Cowboys are the better team no matter how you analyze the numbers, but big home favorites are just 60-142-3 against the spread (ATS). The Seahawks defense gets a little healthier and keeps it close in Jerry World.
St. Louis (+4) at DETROIT: Both of these teams are baaad, and history shows that when two bad teams play it’s best to take the road team (especially in a non-division game 68-36-2 ATS), which in this case is the Rams.
CHICAGO (-13) vs. Cleveland: All the math points to the Browns covering, including a 76-21 ATS record for road underdog bounce-back situations like this one. But the bottom line is this: we just don’t believe in the Browns. So give the points in this one.
INDIANAPOLIS (-11.5) vs. San Francisco: The Niners offense is a big question mark with Alex Smith at the helm. He was good in 1 half against the Texans, but that’s not enough evidence to assume it will continue. The Niners defense has been average to this point while the Colts defense has played really well. We’ll take Peyton Manning and give the points.
Green Bay (-3.5) vs. Minnesota: The first matchup in Minnesota should have gone Green Bay’s way, but the Vikings pulled out the win at home. The Green Bay defense is much better than people realize, and we’ll take Aaron Rodgers throwing to Greg Jennings and Donald Driver over the Vikings secondary all day.
Miami (+3.5) at NY Jets: Miami won the first matchup at home. This one is sure to be close given that it’s an inter-division game and with the Jets missing DT Kris Jenkins, the bet here is that the Dolphins continue to run over the Jets. Take the points.
Those are the games we like this week. And as we always say, bet with your head and not over it.
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