I love sports, but that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. Here are ten things that drive me crazy on a regular basis, in order of increasing stupidity:
10. The scoring system in tennis
Love? 15? 30? 40? Deuce? Actually, I kind of like “deuce.” But why not just go to four, win by two. It’s the exact same thing and a lot easier to follow when you’ve already thrown back a couple of Bloody Marys.
9. The overkill of NASCAR
Does it really take 500 laps to figure out which car and driver are the fastest? Here’s an idea: Make every race 50 to 100 laps and limit the number of pit stops. Every decision will be magnified and second-guessed and strategy will become an even bigger part of the sport.
8. Offsides (in soccer and hockey)
Anytime that you have defenders trying to encourage offsides calls by pulling up as they run/skate back to protect their goal, it’s not a good thing. There’s no offsides in basketball and it works just fine. When Randy Moss outruns a cornerback, play doesn’t stop because he has a clear path to the endzone. Why not reward anticipation and speed, and make soccer and hockey that much more exciting by creating a flurry of one-on-one situations between the striker/forward and the goalie?
I’ll never forget that LSU-Kentucky game from 2002. I was sitting in a hotel room and someone was about to turn off the TV so we could head out for the afternoon and that play unfolded. We all stood in that hotel room for 15 more minutes in shock about what happened.
Ah, the modern man – just who and what is he? If he were rich, would he prefer a sports car or SUV? What is his favorite sporting event of the year? Does he fantasize about his girlfriend’s friend? (Yes please!)
AskMen.com put together a cool feature that delves into figuring out who the modern man is by polling over 50,000 of its readers with questions like the ones above.
The 2009 Great Male Survey rolls out over the next four weeks and discusses a series of poll questions ranging from sports, cars and entertainment to dating and lifestyle. To check out The 2009 Great Male Survey, click the link provided.
Here’s one of the sports questions that was asked (along with the results):
Q. Who is the hottest female associated with sports?
32% – Erin Andrews
28% – Maria Sharapova
17% – Danica Patrick
13% – Ana Ivanovic
10% – Natalie Gulbis
Some of the other sports questions include: What is your favorite sporting event of the year? Does gambling factor into your love of the NFL? Does fantasy football factor into your love for the NFL? Who is your top pick for your 2009-2010 NFL fantasy football team?
The results to the questions are pretty interesting and entertaining so be sure to check them out, along with the poll results for the questions in the other topics.
It’s always been tradition that the team that wins the Super Bowl is invited to the White House every year. But Steelers’ linebacker James Harrison will pass on the visit once again this year, just as he did when Pittsburgh won the Super Bowl in 2006.
“This is how I feel — if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don’t win the Super Bowl. As far as I’m concerned, he [Obama] would’ve invited Arizona if they had won,” said Harrison.
Harrison also skipped the Steelers’ visit to the White House in 2006 following their victory in Super Bowl XL.
Harrison is getting way too deep with this line of thinking. If a team wins the Super Bowl, then they get invited to the White House. End of story. I guess on some level I understand his point of view in that every NFL player should have the chance to visit our nation’s capital regardless of whether or not they win the Super Bowl, but his overall stance on this subject is weird.
Plus, history was made this year when Obama was voted in – why wouldn’t you want to participate in that? I would think he would want to tell his grandchildren some day that he met the our first black president instead of saying, “Well, I could have met President Obama, kids. But he would have invited the Cardinals had they won and that just doesn’t sit right with me.” Oooookay.
Ross Tucker at Sports Illustrated has a new column up about the rumors going around about a London Super Bowl in the near future. He writes:
For the loyal hometown fans, a regular season game is one of the eight glorious days that they look forward to and pay good money for every year. The Super Bowl, on the other hand, is already an outrageously expensive neutral site game. It is pretty much mainly high rollers paying top dollar for the tickets at this point anyway. How many true fans of the teams playing in the game really go to the Super Bowl? The vast majority watch it on TV and wouldn’t be affected at all by a move abroad, assuming issues like weather, field conditions and kickoff time can be worked out.
I suppose it makes a lot of sense to try and create a more international market for the sport of American football. Mr. Tucker writes elsewhere in his article that basketball and baseball have had “exponential” increases in popularity overseas, and of course the NFL would want to cash in too. A few regular season games have already been held across the pond and the attendance has been pretty high, more than 83,000 for the Saints/Chargers game last year at Wembley Stadium, but the Super Bowl is another beast entirely.
Having the Super Bowl in London give a lot of people a knee-jerk “the NFL is screwing me again!” reaction, but the truth is that this is capitalism straight up. Just because the NFL is on top in terms of popularity in America, that popularity does not extend to other countries in the least. In fact the London games thus far have seemed more like freak shows for people interested in seeing giant Yanks smashing each other for a few hours rather than opening people up to a new and intricate sport.
Speaking from personal experience as an English teacher in Los Angeles, even those people living a few miles from any given USC game or a remote click’s distance from watching the sport have no interest in it. The reasons I’ve been given from my mainly Korean students (with some Japanese, Russians, Chinese, and Bulgarians as well) is that American football is not a sport that can be picked up from simple observation. The penalties can be very frustrating for them and the point values really throw people off too.
I’m not saying it’d be impossible for them to learn the rules (I’ve taught classes proving the exact opposite), but it does show the inability to learn the game passively, or casually. Especially for people whose grasp of the English language is tenuous at best, the rules and intricacies of football seem nonexistent or indecipherable. It’d take one heck of a push by the NFL to break through that barrier. But if any league can become insinuated into a culture, I think the NFL can.
In fact, they may want to start with video games (that’s how I learned hockey). It’s easy to figure out a sport when you can repeat a specific action as many times as you want. Considering the popularity of gaming systems in Europe, it’d be an obvious step to get the next Madden game out there as prominently as possible. Just an idea…
- BUSTED COVERAGE has photos of the USC Song Girls attending the Swim With Mike charity fundraiser.
- SPORTSBYBROOKS reports that NBC is claiming a loss of $45 million due to its coverage of Super Bowl XLIII.
- DEADSPIN has footage of Miss California blowing her chance at winning the Miss America pageant by giving an undiplomatic answer to the same-sex marriage question. The real question is — why are we asking our beauty queens to comment on such things?
- EVERY DAY SHOULD BE SATURDAY has the audio from the now-infamous internet broadcasting team that covered the Southern Miss spring football game. The commentary features discussion of sexual acts and the n-word. Awesome.
- DEADSPIN has a photo of the woman who allegedly tried to extort Louisville head coach Rick Pitino.
Thanks in part to veteran leader Kurt Warner, the Arizona Cardinals rose from the ashes of being one of the worst franchises in the history of sports to become 2008 NFC Champions and their magical ride was supposed to end with a victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII. Obviously it didn’t happen, and in their latest ‘toon, the guys at Bang! Cartoons illustrate what they would have liked to have seen in ‘Zona’s locker room after the game.
If you liked that cartoon, click here to check out more Bang! Cartoons.
7. Arizona’s Three Goal Line Stands
Who would’ve thought Arizona would have three goal line stands? Granted, Pittsburgh’s short yardage running game is subpar but Arizona’s run defense was mediocre in the regular season…
6. Controversial Officiating
I already talked about Roethlisberger’s near touchdown. There were other close plays that will be debated by sports fans for years to come…
5. Two Great QB Performances from Possible Hall of Famers
Neither team could run, so they had to go with the pass. This could’ve been an ugly game if the quarterbacks threw too many incompletions but both Warner and Roethlisberger came to play…
4. The Longest Play in Super Bowl History
The Cardinals were one yard from paydirt with 18 seconds left in the first half. They had no timeouts but it was first down. They could’ve taken a couple shots in the end zone. However, they only got one play because Harrison stepped in front of a Warner pass and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown. Until this play, Warner was 15 for 16 with five touchdowns in the red zone for the 2009 playoffs…
3. Fitzgerald’s Insane Second Half
Fitzgerald proved that you can’t keep a good man down. His only reception in the first half was in the two minute warning. But in the second half, he exploded with 6 receptions, 112 yards, and 2 touchdowns…
2. The Greatest Super Bowl Comeback Ever… Almost
The greatest comeback was in Super Bowl XXII. The Washington Redskins trailed the Denver Broncos 10-0 at the start of the second quarter, but scored 35 unanswered points to put the game away…
1. Big Ben Does His Best Joe Montana Imitation
…you can’t have an instant classic Super Bowl game without a late game winning drive. (Okay, there’s the Titans vs Rams game but that’s the exception.)…
The article goes into more detail explaining every reason, so make sure to check out the link above to view the entire piece.
The reasons listed above are pretty compelling. Yes, Super Bowl XLIII had several great moments (Harrison’s interception, Fitzgerald’s big play, Holmes’ TD catch). But for me, the game was sloppy on a whole, uneventful in the first half outside of Harrison’s touchdown, and often controversial at times. I thought it was one of the greatest fourth quarters of any Super Bowl played, but not one of the greatest games.
If you want to be technical, I think Brainz.org is right – it was an instant classic. But so many people are coining XLIII the best Super Bowl ever played and I don’t think it even tops two other Bowls in the same decade (Super Bowl XLII between the Giants and Patriots and Super Bowl XXXXVIII between the Panthers and Patriots).
- Redskins’ running back Clinton Portis doesn’t like the idea of the Pro Bowl being moved to Miami next year because, “there’s going to be people getting DUIs.” As crazy as it sounds, Portis might have a point. (SPORTSbyBROOKS.com)
- FanIQ.com has video of what Santonio Holmes’ touchdown catch in the Super Bowl would look like on Tecmo Super Bowl.
- If the Patriots decided to not franchise tag quarterback Matt Cassel and allow him to walk, the Arrowhead Addict speculates he could eventually wind up in Kansas City with former New England front office guru Scott Pioli.
- Deadspin has video of two high school scorekeepers fighting over the number of fouls a player had. And they say hockey dads are crazy…
- The Love of Sports ranks the top 5 offensive rookies from the 2008 NFL season. (Videos included)
From the looks of that second picture, it appears to me that he stuck both feet into the ground and therefore it was a touchdown. The top picture (which some media publications are using to prove that Holmes didn’t get two feet in), was likely taken either before or after the second photo. In fact, if you look at the first and third photos, Holmes has a piece of the turf stuck in his shoe. In the second photo, the turf appears to be absent, which would indicate that the first and third photos were shot after the second photo and therefore Holmes got his right foot down.
Later I’ll be reopening the JFK case by looking at evidence photos, so make sure to stop back.
