Month: January 2009 (Page 8 of 61)

      Top 10 Failed Super Bowl Ads

      January 28, 2009 /

      RealClearSports.com ranks the top 10 failed Super Bowl ads:

      #3 Napster – 2005
      Everyone remembers Napster when it was the cool, albeit illegal, way to download music. Few remember it’s failed attempt to be a legitimate entity (which surprisingly still exists).

      #2 Sales Genie – 2007
      Further proof that ads featuring Pandas with stereotypical (and offensive) Chinese accents don’t work.

      #1 Silestone – 2005
      Jim McMahon, Mike Ditka, William “Refrigerator” Perry and Dennis Rodman. What is this star-studded ad for? Countertops and baths, of course!

      What always amazes me is that someone actually had to pitch these ideas and they were accepted. Someone actually had to say, “Yeah! That’s a great idea – let’s run with it!”

      Not only that, but they had to say, “Yeah! That’s a great idea – let’s run with it! And spend millions of dollars on it…”

      NFL, Super Bowl

      Fitzgerald contract story overblown?

      January 28, 2009 /

      On Tuesday, a report surfaced that Cardinals’ wideout Larry Fitzgerald was willing to restructure his contract in efforts to keep teammate Anquan Boldin in Arizona. But apparently that story was a bit overblown.

      From Rotoworld      :

      Larry FitzgeraldAsked about possibly restructuring his contract Wednesday, Larry Fitzgerald said, “I don’t know where that came from.”

      Fitzgerald spoke to Rotoworld’s Gregg Rosenthal among a media throng Wednesday morning and seemed perplexed by the story, but didn’t exactly shoot it down. “Someone asked me if I’d be willing to do something to help the team and I said absolutely. … This is an amazing feeling and I’ll do anything I have to do to get back to this point.” It sounds like Fitzgerald is open to the possibility, but he was just answering a question vaguely. Ultimately, his agent will have the biggest say in the matter and probably hopes Fitz will decline to discuss the matter more publicly.

      Okay, so apparently some overzealous reporter ran with a story that didn’t exist. It was a nice idea and maybe it’ll still happen, but for now the Boldin-contract situation is still as much of a mess as it was in preseason.

      According to ESPN.com, Cardinals’ GM Rod Graves says he plans to meet with Boldin after the season in attempts to resolve the issue. But money talks in the end and if the team doesn’t pony up, this situation won’t be resolved any time soon.

      NFL, Super Bowl

      Tennessee’s Kiffin pissing off fellow SEC coaches

      January 28, 2009 /

      Lane Kiffin hasn’t even held the Tennessee head-coaching job for three months and already he’s managed to tick off fellow SEC coaches Urban Meyer (Florida), Nick Saban (Alabama), Steve Spurrier (South Carolina) and Mark Richt (Georgia).

      That kind of preaching-to-the-choir comment fit perfectly into the rhetoric of his first press conference. I doubt it got much of a rise in Gainesville, since the Gators have owned the Vols in recent seasons.

      What really irked Florida Coach Urban Meyer was that Kiffin continued to attempt to hire — unsuccessfully, as it turned out — receivers coach Billy Gonzales while the Gators were preparing for the national championship game.

      More recently, Kiffin has gotten on the nerves of Alabama Coach Nick Saban to the extent that Saban is asking players who already have committed to the Crimson Tide not to take official visits to UT.
      This is in response to Kiffin’s hiring of Lance Thompson off Saban’s staff. Thompson, considered Alabama’s best recruiter, got a big raise to jump to the Vols just two weeks before signing day.
      Considering that UT is a combined 1-6 since Meyer and Saban arrived at Florida and Alabama, you have to take your victories wherever you can find them.

      And don’t forget that Kiffin also has tugged on Steve Spurrier’s visor. First Kiffin hired his brother-in-law, David Reaves, off the South Carolina staff. Then Kiffin and Spurrier exchanged comments in the press about recruiting.

      While we’re at it, Kiffin also threw a $400,000 offer at super recruiter Rodney Garner in an attempt to lure him off Mark Richt’s staff at Georgia. Garner chose to stay at Georgia.

      For those keeping score, Kiffin has kicked sand at Meyer, Saban, Spurrier and Richt. It’s no coincidence that those are the coaches of the four most important opponents on UT’s schedule every year. Those are also four programs that the Vols must match in recruiting if they are to regain relevance in the SEC.

      Obviously this is all part of Kiffin’s plan to breathe a little life into a Tennessee program that could use a shot in the arm. Is he going about it the right way? Probably not, although that won’t matter if he wins.

      If pissing off your fellow conference coaches motivates the program and players, then go for it. But if nothing changes and the Vols get flattened by all of these teams next year, then Kiffin is just going to look like a pompous ass who got what was coming to him.

      College Football

      Bill Simmons: Manny Ramirez is underrated

      January 28, 2009 /

      ESPN.com’s “Sports Guy” Bill Simmons writes that Manny Ramirez is vastly underrated.

      Manny Ramirez…Forget the sheer entertainment value that comes from following Manny on a daily basis. Just look at the stats. He’s three quality seasons away—90 HRs, 300 RBIs, 550 hits and a .900 OPS—from becoming the greatest righthanded hitter ever. Add those to his career numbers, and he’s sitting in the top 10 in career OPS and slugging, the top three in RBIs, the top seven in homers and closing in on 3,000 hits. And no one who saw him in all his Ruthian glory with the Dodgers last summer or reach base 24 of 36 times in October can honestly say he’s washed up. Say he tanked it in Boston, but only after you concede that he played 22 of 24 games for them in July and had the best offensive month of anyone on a team he was allegedly quitting on.

      Whatever. The guy was created to hit baseballs. Even at 36, he can perform this task at an abnormally high level, make any decent team good and any good team great. And yet nobody wants him after his messy divorce with Boston—a divorce that, by the way, the Red Sox cannot escape without blame. Manny gave them seven quality years and two titles, and they yanked him around in Year 8. No, he didn’t handle it well; I’m not sure I would have handled it well either.

      So he’s spent the winter sitting on the open market like a sofa on Craigslist. The Angels, who need him more than anyone, claim they’re fine with Juan Rivera. Really? Juan Rivera? That’s what you’re telling your fans? I don’t get it.

      All I can tell you is this: Manny is immensely fun to watch day in and day out. He’s a monster offensive force, a historic one, even. And he is exceedingly, incredibly available. He will draw fans to any ballpark, and nobody is interested. You can say it’s because he’s a cancer; I say it’s because he’s unequivocally underrated. He will soon find a team and prove one of us right.

      And it’s going to be me.

      To me, underrated means that a player is better than what is perceived of him by the general public. (The general public being fans and the media.)

      Therefore, Manny isn’t underrated. Everyone knows he’s one of the best hitters baseball has ever seen and everyone knows that his offensive numbers are phenomenal. If people only focused on his goofy behavior and his bad defense, then I would say that he’s underrated. But they don’t. The majority of the public always rushes to say that Manny is an offensive juggernaut.

      Simmons is reaching here and what’s funny is that he’s setting himself up for a future column. He knows a determined Manny will produce next season no matter where he ends up and when he does, Simmons can say, “See! I told you this guy was underrated!”

      No, he’s always been that good. Everyone knows that.

      MLB

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