This Year’s SEC Game of the Century

Ok, so stop me if you’ve heard this one before: fast, athletic, highly-ranked SEC team faces off against another fast, athletic, highly-raked SEC team in a game that, ostensibly, will determine which fast, athletic, highly-ranked SEC team will win the BCS Championship that year. Well folks it’s that time again; this Saturday, #1 ranked LSU takes on #2 ranked Alabama in what should be one of the better games that we’ll watch all year.

 

What to Watch:

• Neither team has a true playmaker at QB, so look for this to be a defensive battle, with a few tide-turning (no pun intended) plays that will be the difference
  
• Trent Richardson: It’s not up for debate; this guy is clearly the best offensive player in this game, and maybe the country. It’s pure power and speed; in space, he can either run you over or zip right by you. It’s not a stretch to say that he is a more talented player than the guy who preceded him (Mark Ingram, who, oh by the way, was a Heisman Trophy winner and 1^st round pick)
  
• Defense, defense, defense. These 2 teams are loaded on the defensive side of the ball, with both NFL size and speed at all positions. If you like to see guys flying around, then this is the game for you.
  

For now, enjoy the videos and get ready for some action this Saturday.

 

The Winning Formula

As we are already being bombarded with pre-super bowl commercials, its only appropriate for us at Sideline Slander to give our two cents on the upcoming Super Bowl XLV. Kudos goes out to both franchises for their consistent success. Green Bay deserves credit for showing that their success is not merely a product of a single franchise quarterback. They stood behind Aaron Rodgers when they knew it was the right thing to do and never had to look back. Pittsburg has shown the merits of its organization as Bill Cower handed the coaching reigns to Mike Tomlin with equal to, if not superior, coaching success. What is it that these teams have that eludes so many other franchises?

For Redskins fans in Washington, our season ended a long time ago and this week we had a rather timely reminder from our Owner as to why. Dan Snyder recently filed a lawsuit against the author of the awesomely poignant article “The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder” written almost three months ago for the Washington City Paper. It does not seem purely coincidental that Dan waited for his apology until this week. (You can support the Washington City Paper’s legal defense fund here if you agree that Dan Snyder is the worst owner in history).

Ownership is an integral part of any operation, but this is where the Packers really set themselves apart from every other franchise. The Packers are a publicly owned, not-for-profit organization as highlighted by the article “Those Non-Profit Packers” in The New Yorker. The NFL has made it abundantly clear that they can still make an obscene amount of money even if they do not play a single game next year, but it raises an interesting proposition. What if every team was owned by the fans?

These owners of the Packers are not multi-billionaires trying to suck their fans dry for every penny and do not receive any dividends, just the mere chance to be a part of something great. In Green Bay, volunteers run the concessions stands and sixty percent of proceeds are donated to local charities. When it snows, the fans volunteer their time to shovel out of the stadium.

There is a sense of loyalty there that is unmatched in any other NFL team and that is the vital component to having a successful franchise. Unfortunately, at the risk of losing billions of dollars, the NFL included the “Green Bay Rule” into the by-laws stating that a team cannot be owned by a non-profit or community owned entity.

If Egypt has taught us nothing else, the people have the power to choose and demand change. At the very least, we can refuse to pay an average price of $4,000 for a super bowl ticket. E Pluribus Unum.

BCS Title Game Recap

I’m sure I’m not breaking any news here, but last night Auburn won the BCS championship game last night with a win over Oregon on a last second field goal. On the surface of it, it seemed like everything you’d want in a championship game: big names on both sides (Cam Newton and LaMichael James), a close game throughout, plenty of skill and talent, and an outcome that was undecided until the end. However, when looking back on the game itself, I can’t help but to feel a bit cheated by it all.

In a match-up pitting two of the nations highest scoring offenses, the game was scoreless through the end of the 1st quarter, and ended up being a pretty low-scoring affair (22-19). Some of it was good defense, but a lot of it, was just plain rust. 2 early interceptions by Darron Thomas and 1 pick from Cam Newton pretty much stiffed any sort of momentum for either team and gave the game a sloppy feeling in the 1st quarter.

From the 2nd quarter on, the teams seemed to find a little bit of rhythm and you saw the big plays open up, but it was far from the shootout most expected.

I’m not going to go too much into summarizing the game because, like I said earlier, you can get that from pretty much any website. I’m just going to give you some of my observations and you can feel free to agree/disagree or otherwise voice your opinions in the comments section.

• Chip Kelly (Oregon’s coach) has some gigantic brass balls

Pictured: Chip Kelly's Scrotum

Even though they lost, I have to admire Chip Kelly’s lay it all on the table philosophy. In the span of about 2 quarters, he called for: a fake extra point, (with the holder and the kicker ran an option for a successful 2 point conversion), a kickoff return reverse (which almost got the return man killed and left them with horrible field position), calling for a long pass out of his own end zone, and a fake punt. Even though they lost, CK left no bullets in the chamber.

• Auburn was the better team (and it showed)

It took a little while to figure out, but right from the outset, it was clear that Auburn was a little bit faster and a lot bigger than Oregon. To their credit, the Ducks knew this too and played to their strengths, a lot of tricks, reverses, option reads, shovel passes, and screens to keep the Auburn D off balance.

• Nick Fairley made himself a lot of money last night

He absolutely dominated the Oregon offensive line and was constantly in the backfield harassing the quarterback and running backs. It was a Suh-ian performance and I came away very impressed. I hope he’s started looking for houses in the Charlotte area because I can’t see the Panthers not picking him #1 overall in the spring (especially since Andrew Luck said that he was coming back to school).

• There was no transcendent performance last night

I, like pretty much everyone else that tuned into the game, expected to see a shootout starring Cam Newton and LaMichael James. What we got instead was something completely different, as neither player really played all that well. LJ only had only 49 yards on 13 carries, and while Cam had a decent stat line (although only 64 rushing yards), it was far from the dominating performance that we’ve come to expect.

• It was all set up for a great ending, but there wasn’t quite the drama there should have been

Cam had a crucial fumble late in the 4th quarter that allowed Oregon to score a touchdown and 2 pt. conversion to tie the game at 19. This set up an almost too good to be true moment: The best quarterback in the country makes a crucial mistake that allows the other team to tie the game, gets the ball back with about 2 minutes to go. I was thinking of an epic drive by Cam Newton to will his team into field goal range for an attempt to win the national championship. Instead, we got the flukish 37 yard run by Michael Dyer that took them down to the Oregon 23. Everyone, including Dyer, thought that he was down, and by mere inches his knee had avoided hitting the turf and he was able to roll over the Oregon player and, after a 3 second pause with no whistle, run deep into Oregon territory before the Duck defenders realized what happened.

Then, after an explosion through the middle by Dyer, getting them down inside the 1 with timeouts and 30 seconds left, Auburn chose to run down the clock for a FG attempt that was shorter than an extra point. No suspense, right through the upright, game out.

What did you think of the game? Did it meet your expectations, could there have been more?

Say Hi to Our New Author

We are proud to introduce a new contributing author to the Sideline Slander Family. Say hello to “Shoot First Questions Later”.  In case you missed it, he published his first article previewing the weekend’s college football action. We hope you enjoy his work and keep your eyes open for his articles in the future.

Sex and Chad Johnson’s Cereal

Chad OchoCinco Johnson has some sort of cereal endorsement. No, he is not on a Wheaties’ box but he is apparently depicted on the box of Kroger‘s generic Cheerio knock off cereal with the clever name “OchoCinco’s”. Not only is he on a knock off cereal box but someone forgot to double-check the information printed on the product. His intentions were good, part of the proceeds from the sales of his cereal benefit Feed the Children. There was also a phone number on the box to connect callers to an operator at Feed the Children who would take their donation. Someone copied the number down incorrectly and it connected callers to a phone-sex line instead.

Imagine, you are gathered around the phone with your family preparing to call and make a donation to this worthy cause. Instead of hearing, “Hello you’ve reached Feed the Children. How can we help you?” you hear the low raspy sex imbued voice of a female operator greeting you with, “Hey big boy, thanks for calling the hotline, how can we serve you?” This happened to a family in Ohio. The mother who called in had a very mild reaction to it all:

We don’t need anything to give our Bengals a bad name, especially Chad.

That’s one way to look at it. Kroger has pulled all of these boxes off the shelf and promised to double-check all of the phone numbers they put on their products from now on.

Related Articles

• Chad Ochocinco’s Cereal Mix-up Promotes Phone Sex Line (hellobeautiful.com)
• Chad Ochocinco Cereal Promotes Phone Sex Line (huffingtonpost.com)

Michael Vick Named the Starter in Philly

Coach Andy Reid has named Mike Vick as the Philadelphia Eagle’s starting quarterback officially ending putting the Kevin Kolb era on hold before it ever started. When questioned, Coach Reid made it clear that this decision has nothing to do with Kolb’s injury but with the extremely high level that Vick is playing at right now:

When someone is playing at the level Michael Vick is playing, you have to give him an opportunity. This isn’t about Kevin Kolb‘s play. You’re talking about Michael Vick as one the best quarterbacks in the NFL right now. Kevin is fine. It’s not an injury-related issue.

Despite his apparent excitement and enthusiasm for Vick, behind the scenes it took a lot to get Reid to make this move and go with Vick. Some reports indicate that Reid wanted to go back to Kolb but came to this decision after consultation with some of his other coaches, front office staff and game film which exposed the gaping holes in Philly’s offensive line that Vick was much more adept at handling.

I really hope this guy tears it up this season. He served 18 months in jail, lost nearly $130 million and people are still talking about him like he has not redeemed himself. He did not accidentally shoot and kill someone with a shotgun, run over a pedestrian while driving drunk or defraud billions from unsuspecting investors. He was involved with some people who fought dogs. No one so much as batted an eyelid when Martha Stewart was released from federal prison and jumped right back into the kitchen. This man has done everything he can to turn things around and deserves this opportunity.

Related Articles

• Philadelphia Eagles: Andy Reid Changes His Mind, Names Michael Vick the Starter (bleacherreport.com)
• Michael Vick: How Starting Vick Could Lead to The Disintegration of The Eagles (bleacherreport.com)
• Reid’s move to Vick in best interest of all, including Kolb (cbssports.com)
• Reid switches gears, picks Vick over Kolb as Eagles’ QB (nfl.com)

Reggie Bush Forfeits 2005 Heisman

At least he has a picture with it

One of my best friends and fellow blogger Kim had some interesting insights into Reggie Bush‘s decision. Here they are:

1) This whole thing makes me so mad. It’s so dumb and really sad that Reggie forfeited his Heisman b/c first of all, the Heisman is awarded to the best college player right? So what does his personal finances — whether he received gifts, etc. have to do with that. He was still the best player that year and ALSO regardless of all that, this is totally NOT his fault. When you take a kid who’s not used to being showered with gifts and attention (like most college athletes, or students in general), and all of a sudden he is, of course he’s going to accept them.

Shame on the agents (or the schools for letting it happen) out there, not the athletes. They don’t know any better — regardless of whether he was professional or college level, he was still a kid at that time (and i mean seriously, he still kind of is). Not to say they shouldnt’ take responsibility — but i mean, yea there are legal ramifications (perhaps), it shouldn’t affect awards he received five years ago. Further, it’s not like a morally repugnant crime — he didn’t kill anybody, he didn’t take performance enhancing drugs (which kind of is morally repugnant in the sports world). he earned it bottom line.

2) Why the hell would Vince Young accept that trophy (which i haven’t read much ab what the Heisman trophy trust plans to do, but I don’t see why they would award it to him either like “in retrospect” — that’s dumb). He didn’t deserve it (although that’s questionable to some people I’m sure), but at least, he didn’t actually WIN it. Is it really that great to tell your future grandchildren, grandaddy was second place so he didn’t ACTUALLY win it, but it was awarded to him by default b/c the first guy (who really WAS the best) was mismanaged and received all these gifts he wasn’t supposed to receive. So yea granddaddy has a Heisman, even though he didn’t actually get the most votes. Reggie bush won that year. He was the BEST. Just b/c all this other legal/ethical stuff is coming in, it doesn’t mean that all of a sudden Vince Young was the best that year. He wasn’t — he was second best.

Thanks for the insight Kim. What do you all think about this mess? It’s a pretty crappy situation for everyone involved. What does the Heisman have to do with kids receiving improper gifts anyways? Reggie Bush tore it up that year regardless…

Make sure to check out Kim’s articles on her food blog over at Crispy on the Outside.

Related Articles

• Reggie Bush forfeits 2005 Heisman Trophy (abclocal.go.com)
• Reggie Bush Forfeits Heisman Trophy Amid Controversy: Report (huffingtonpost.com)
• Reggie Bush will forfeit his 2005 Heisman Trophy (sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
• Heisman Trophy History: Former Trojan Reggie Bush to Forfeit Honor (bleacherreport.com)

A Little Housekeeping

We here at Sideline Slander are constantly looking for ways to make our website more accessible in order to reach a larger audience and facilitate discussion with and between readers. To that end we have established a few new outlets to reach you all. We now have an official twitter feed. Please follow it @ http://twitter.com/SidelineSlander. We’ll be providing running commentary on any games or other sporting events that we happen to be watching at the time so it will be pretty lively. Check us out and join the discussion.

We have also established a Facebook page that we will update regularly with pictures, stories and links for you all to enjoy. Make sure to “Like” it and return often: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sideline-Slander. We are using these tools to make it easier for you to access our stories and to provide additional content for you all to enjoy including articles, websites, blogs and anything else we come across. We hope that you support these new outlets and will follow them in the future.

Guns, Dope, Airports and Athletes

All professional sports leagues need to have yearly seminars for their players on what and what not to bring to airports with them. These guys do a lot of traveling with and without the team and could definitely benefit from some extra advice. This seminar would not cover things like packing  toiletries in your carry on bags that meet the size limit or packing efficiently. It would basically list the types of illicit articles that they cannot bring on planes, explain the strong chances that they will get caught and the potential consequences of their actions. Things like drugs, loads of cash, guns, criminal charges and league fines and suspensions would be covered.

Rick Ross Shaun Rogers

Most recently Shaun Brown of the Cleveland Browns was arrested for trying to carry a loaded gun through airport security. The league handed him a $300,000 fine on Monday but will not suspend him for any games. He has already agreed to go through a diversion program and won’t be prosecuted for the crime.

Sebastian Telfair also feels the need to pack heat on planes. He boarded his team’s charter flight with a gun in his pillowcase. This was still pretty dumb but at least he wasn’t walking around the public part of the airport with his piece… Since then he’s had a few more run ins with the law involving firearms.

Most of us remember when Damon Stoudamire was caught trying to smuggle weed through an airport metal detector. What you might not remember is that he wrapped this weed in tin foil and put it in his carry on luggage! I’m sure the x-ray machine lit that up quite nicely for the TSA officials to search.

These guys obviously need some guidance on what type of things they can bring to the airport. For the more advanced students, they could move on to the general course called Staying up While Locked Down and study the Jock’s Guide to Getting Arrested in Men’s Journal. My favorite is #1:

1. MAKE SURE YOU DON’T SUCK

Before you go out and start committing crimes, it’s important to first make sure you’re at least slightly better than the 30 or 40 guys the team’s assistant GM could instantly pull off some practice squad to replace you.

This is solid advice. If you are a third stringer on pretty much any professional sports team you better not get in trouble. If so you’ll be on the next thing smoking as you watch practice team player X take your spot. Another helpful piece of advice is not to commit weird crimes. DUIs and misdemeanor possession charges are one thing but peeping Tom’s and sexual abusers will not be tolerated. Hopefully the league commissioners are reading this article will take my advice. Contact me and I’d be more than happy to run a couple free sessions.

Doctor and Player Cheat in Rugby Match

From the BBC:

“A doctor has said she is “very ashamed” of cutting the lip of Harlequins rugby player Tom Williams to help him pretend he was injured during a match.

A General Medical Council (GMC) panel heard Williams asked Dr Wendy Chapman to cut him after he bit into a fake blood capsule to come off the pitch. The “Bloodgate” incident allowed a goal-kicker to be brought on in the Heineken Cup tie with Leinster. Dr Chapman told the hearing there was “no justification” for her actions “This is a very huge game and they cheated”.

I'm Cut!

At the end of the day. She was the one who decided to cut the player’s lip and make it look like he sustained a real injury. She could have said no but chose not too and her actions had a significant impact on the outcome of the game.

Harlequins were losing 6-5 in the quarter-final clash at the Stoop, Twickenham, when Williams bit the fake blood capsule. The deceit engineered a “blood replacement”, which allowed a substituted specialist kicker back on to the field in the closing minutes of the tie in April 2009.

Dr Chapman described the moment she realised she had been duped. “I was horrified, just horrified. This is a very huge game and they cheated,” she said. “I was very ashamed that I gave into the pressure.”

This sounds like some pretty egregious conduct on the part of the player the team and especially the doctor who essentially injured her patient purposefully. This goes against the heart of the medical profession and the Hippocratic Oath that doctors must take. I don’t know too much about rugby but it sounds this fake injury directly changed the outcome of the game by allowing the substitution of the specialist kicker which lead to the tie. All of these people should be banned from the sport for at least a few years.