Category: External Sports (Page 73 of 821)

Fade Material: NFL Week 2 Predictions

September 18, 2011 / Anthony Stalter

Not a great start last week but not bad either. I hit the Eagles and Bengals but the Colts never arrived in Houston and the Titans fell short in Jacksonville. I’ll try harder today…

Cardinals @ Redskins, 1:00PM ET
Cam Newton was incredible in his debut but Arizona’s defense was sofffffft. Now the Cardinals have to hop a flight cross-country to play a Redskins team that didn’t have to move after playing at home last week. While the situation is built like a house of cards, Rex Grossman played well last Sunday against the Giants and I think he’ll carry that confidence into today. The Cardinals are just 1-6 against the spread in their last seven road games and 1-7 ATS in their last eight games as a road underdog. The Redskins, meanwhile, are 4-0-1 ATS in their last five games overall and 3-0-1 ATS in their last four games versus the NFC.
THE PICK: REDSKINS –4

Browns @ Colts, 1:00PM ET
Apparently I’m a glutton for punishment because I’m right back on the Colts this week after their brutal performance in Week 1. It just doesn’t sit right with me that Indy is a 1-point home underdog against a Browns team that got drubbed by the Bengals at home last Sunday. Kerry Collins looked like crap-o-la in Houston but he should have an easier time this Sunday against Cleveland. The underdog is 3-1-1 against the spread in the last five meetings between these two teams while the Browns are 0-5 against the spread in their last five games versus the AFC.
THE PICK: COLTS +1

External Sports, Free Picks, NFL

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NBA labor negotiations update

September 17, 2011 / John Paulsen

Henry Abbott of TrueHoop has been covering the NBA labor negotiations. Here’s what happened on Tuesday:

The players say they were ready to make what they thought was a very meaningful economic offer to the owners. But before they did, they wanted to know that the soft cap would remain.
In response to that, the owners did what both sides have done many times, and left the bargaining table to confer among themselves. (At CBA meetings, both sides typically have “caucus rooms” for just this purpose.) The owners huddled for three hours before deciding they would not respond to the players’ offer. Meeting over.
Later, the careful Stern decided to share with the public that the 11 owners in the room were not unified on how to handle the players’ offer:
“As you might guess, I don’t know how many owners we had, but we had as many views … We were not unanimous in every aspect of it. But all of the owners were completely unified in the view that we needed a system that at the end of the day allowed 30 teams to compete. And we went back to the players and said that although we have some ideas, we’ve been talking to each other, agreeing, disagreeing, coming up with everything that we possibly could to see if there was still time to save the season, it actually didn’t make sense for us to respond to their non-negotiable demand that everything remain the same that it was, and that we’d be best off going back and reporting to our respective sides at the meetings we’d have on Thursday.”

On Thursday, after his meeting with the owners, this is what Stern had to say:

“It is the view of the board and the committee that an individual team salary cap, as opposed to a league-wide salary cap, is preferred and the better way to go. But as we told the union, and will continue to tell them, everything is negotiable.”
“The vast majority of owners are in favor of a hard cap system. Having said that, they have authorized the committee to be willing to negotiate on all points, and the committee is.”
“I get reports that the union is coming out of their meeting today unified. We think that’s a good thing. We would like to negotiate with a strong union capable of delivering a deal.”
“The clock is ticking, but it hasn’t struck midnight yet. We’ve got time to do what needs to be done, and we’d like to do it, actually.”
“There’s nothing scheduled right this minute because we’re traveling back to New York and I assume the union is traveling back to New York. But we’ll both be in New York starting [Friday] and it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some conversation that was going on.”

It sounds like there is a sense of urgency right now in an attempt to get the season started on time, but I wonder if that’s going to go away once/if everyone realizes that it isn’t going to happen.

If I had to guess, I’d still bet that we miss a month or two of the season, though it doesn’t seem like the two sides are as far apart as they once were.

External Sports, NBA

NBA lockout

Fade Material: College Football Week 3 Predictions

September 17, 2011 / Anthony Stalter

Well, go figure. I change the name of this column to “Fade Material” and then I start handing out winning picks. If I knew that was all I had to do, I would have changed the title years ago and avoided all the years of .500 or below predictions.

After a 3-1 performance in Week 1, I finished 3-0-1 with my Week 2 picks. Georgia was a push against South Carolina but TCU, Alabama and BYU had no problems covering. I’m still looking for my first sweep of the season, so let’s see if we can’t nail it this week. (Although I admit to having reservations about “Road Test Weekend.” There are some tough games on the board…)

Auburn @ Clemson, 12:00PM ET
Everyone keeps waiting for Auburn to lose and all they’ve done the past two weeks is pull wins out of their backsides. The No. 19 Tigers find themselves once again as underdogs, this time against an unranked Clemson team. Nobody can ever quite figure out Clemson, which either plays the game of its life or sinks to the level of its competition. They’re 1-4 against the spread in their last five home games and 3-7 ATS in their last 10 versus the SEC, while Auburn is 4-1 ATS in their last five road games. Auburn is also 6-0 ATS versus a team with a winning record and 4-0 ATS in their last four games an underdog. I think the Tigers of Auburn keeps this within a field goal, making that 3.5-point spread highly attractive.
THE PICK: AUBURN TIGERS +3.5

Ohio State @ Miami, 7:30PM ET
The Buckeyes face their first road test under new head coach Luke Fickell and while they didn’t look particularly sharp against Toledo last week at home, I like OSU to win outright tonight. They’ll face a quarterback in Jacory Harris, who is coming off a one-game suspension and who was unimpressive against Oho State last year. He threw four interceptions, including three in the first half alone. Granted, that was a different Buckeyes team last season but the defense is still solid and I expect them to give Harris trouble again this time around. The Buckeyes are 11-3 against the number in all games over the last two seasons and 14-4 ATS in road games in September since 1992.
THE PICK: OHIO STATE BUCKEYES +2.5

College Football, External Sports

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With Michael Vick and the Eagles coming to town, it’s statement time for the Falcons

September 16, 2011 / Anthony Stalter

Week 2 is a little early for statement games but the Falcons may be the exception.

There were a handful of media members who predicted Atlanta to reach the Super Bowl this season, none more prominent than SI’s Peter King. But if the Falcons don’t believe they’re ready to take the next step then why should anyone else? Their brutal performance in Chicago last weekend followed an 0-4 preseason, which followed a 48-21 loss to the Packers in last year’s playoffs. Super Bowl? How about this team bothers winning a game of importance first?

Things don’t get any easier for the Falcons this Sunday night when Michael Vick and the Eagles come to town. ESPN has had a field day with the “Whose house is it?” topic, but the Falcons should be more concerned with starting 0-2 than trying to figure out whether Vick or Matt Ryan’s name should be on the doorknocker. Atlanta has lost four straight to Philadelphia and eight of its last nine to the Eagles, including two playoff games. To suggest Andy Reid has had the Falcons’ number over the years would be an understatement.

But Atlanta can change all that this weekend. The sloppiness that they exhibited in last Sunday’s loss to the Bears was rather uncharacteristic of the Mike Smith-led Falcons over the last three years. Thus, I expect Atlanta to play with more focus and pride this weekend.

But focus and pride are just two ingredients that this team is missing right now. They could also use a dash of attitude, swagger and aggressiveness. Their quarterback is seemingly ready to join the elite but he hesitates to throw downfield. Their offensive coordinator was viewed as a head-coaching candidate late last season but his conservative playcalling is befuddling with the amount of weapons the Falcons posses on offense. Their head coach was once a defensive coordinator in Jacksonville but thus far, he and his current DC can’t figure out the coverage woes that the secondary and linebacker corps is having. (Save for corner Brent Grimes, who has emerged as one of the team’s top playmakers.)

In other words, this team is a small mess right now – not a Super Bowl contender. But it’s not like the Falcons don’t have talent. On the contrary – this team is stacked. They have a slew of playmakers on offense, a ton of potential on defense, and thanks to the recent additions of James Sanders and Kelvin Hayden, plenty of depth as well.

With that in mind, the Falcons can’t allow this game to be about Vick and his heroic homecoming. After all, if they’re going to play second fiddle to him in their own stadium, then they might as well lay down for the rest of the NFC powers as well. This game needs to be about making a statement. This needs to be about beating an opponent that has had their number and stomping out the cloud of doubt that is starting to form around them.

A loss to the Eagles this Sunday isn’t going to eliminate the Falcons from the playoffs. But it wouldn’t kill them to have a sense of urgency right now either.

External Sports, NFL

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Prince Fielder unlikely to return to Brewers in 2012

September 15, 2011 / Anthony Stalter

In a recent interview with TBS, impending free agent Prince Fielder said that 2011 will “probably” be his final year in Milwaukee.

From Rotoworld.com:

“I’m signed for this year, but being real about it, it is probably the last year,” said Fielder. Of course, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who has followed this situation. Fielder, who is represented by Scott Boras, is likely to demand a contract north of $100 million this winter. The Brewers have managed to lock up Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks and Corey Hart to multi-year deals, but the 27-year-old first baseman will almost certainly be out of their price range.

As Rotoworld points out, it isn’t surprising to hear Fielder say that this will likely be his final year with the Brewers. But with Milwaukee on the verge of a postseason berth, it must be disappointing and frustration news for Brewer fans nonetheless. This should be an exciting time for the city of Milwaukee – and it is. But sooner or later reality has to set in that No. 28 won’t be in a Brewer uniform next season.

With both Fielder and Albert Pujols set to hit the open market, things are going to get interesting this winter.

External Sports, MLB

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Category: External Sports (Page 73 of 821)

Fade Material: NFL Week 2 Predictions

NBA labor negotiations update

Fade Material: College Football Week 3 Predictions

With Michael Vick and the Eagles coming to town, it’s statement time for the Falcons

Prince Fielder unlikely to return to Brewers in 2012

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