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      ESPN releases “Ultimate Team Rankings” – Packers rank first, Bengals dead last

      June 17, 2011 /

      ESPN just released their “Ultimate Team Rankings,” where they rank the 122 professional sports franchises using eight categories: Bang For The Buck, Fan Relations, Ownership, Affordability, Stadium Experience, Players, Coaching and Title Track. (Click on the link above for more details on what these categories mean.)

      The Top 10:

      1. Green Bay Packers
      2. Tampa Bay Lightning
      3. New Orleans Saints
      4. Los Angeles Angels
      5. San Antonio Spurs
      6. Oklahoma City Thunder
      7. Pittsburgh Steelers
      8. Colorado Rockies
      9. Memphis Grizzlies
      10. Pittsburgh Penguins

      The Bottom Five:

      118. Minnesota Timberwolves
      119. Sacramento Kings
      120. Toronto Maple Leafs
      121. Washington Redskins
      122. Cincinnati Bengals

      Check out the full rankings.

      I’m not going to dive too deep into these rankings because I think they’re kind of silly. Are they fun to look at? Yeah, but so are pinwheels and I don’t want to break them down either. If you spend enough time, you can find a gripe about any team outside of the Packers. (It’s kind of hard to argue that they’re not the best franchise in sports right now across those eight categories, although somebody probably will – if they haven’t already, that is.)

      Take the Bengals for example. You look at the Bengals and there’s a reason why they’re ranked so low. Their ownership sucks, they haven’t won a playoff game in two decades and their quarterback just quit on them. But in the “Affordability” category, they dropped from 80th last year to 114th this year, yet their ticket prices didn’t change. Their coaches dropped from 60th to 114th, which seems excessive even given Brad Bratkowski’s failures as offensive coordinator last year. And their players (which is a category based on effort on the field and liability off it) are 122 out of 122? Once again I’m splitting hairs because they’re ranked No. 121, but how are the Pistons not 122 after they quit on their head coach last year?

      You get my point. These rankings are fun and they’re meant to be argued and debated, but I wouldn’t get too invested into the final numbers. I know there’s a lot of number-crunching that goes into some of the categories, but on a whole there’s a lot to be left up to interpretation.

      That said, I’ll bite: What teams do you think should be ranked higher or lower? No surprise, I think my SF Giants deserve to be higher. No. 32 seems a tad low for a World Series champion with a beautiful stadium and players that are extremely well liked by fans. San Francisco is an expensive city so the Giants lose a little ground in “Bang For The Buck” and “Affordability,” but I was surprised to see them ranked in the 30s. (Especially considering the Rockies are ranked eighth – eighth!)

      External Sports, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL

      Osi Umenyiora: Giants lied to me about contract

      June 16, 2011 /
      New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora (72) sacks Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler (6) in the first quarter of their National Football League game in East Rutherford, New Jersey, October 3, 2010. REUTERS/Ray Stubblebine (UNITED STATES – Tags: SPORT FOOTBALL)

      It wouldn’t be a NFL offseason if defensive end Osi Umenyiora weren’t upset at the New York Giants.

      In a sworn affidavit, Umenyiora plans to tell a federal court in Minnesota that the Giants reneged on a promise to renegotiate his contract. The affidavit will be used in the players’ antitrust suit against the owners.

      In this sworn affidavit, Umenyiora says (via ESPN.com): “(GM Jerry) Reese told me that two years from the start of the 2008 league year, if I was currently playing at a high level, we’d either renegotiate my current contract so that it would be equal to that of the top five defensive ends playing or I would be traded to a team that would do that.”

      Umenyiora goes on:

      “After about an hour of discussing my current contract, as well as the contracts of other defensive ends currently playing in the National Football League, Mr. Reese told me that two years from the start of the 2008 league year, if I was currently playing at a high level, we’d either renegotiate my current contract so that it would be equal to that of the top five defensive ends playing or I would be traded to a team that would do that.

      “Before leaving the meeting, I asked Mr. Reese twice if he was absolutely sure that would be the case. He then told me that he was an honest and church-going man and that he would not lie, which I believed to be the case. Under the penalty of perjury these statements are true and accurate.”

      It wouldn’t be right for me to comment on whether or not Reese and the Giants screwed Umenyiora out of a new contract because after all – how would I know? I wasn’t in the room, hiding behind the big fake plant in the corner taping the entire conversation. If Umenyiora says Reese is an honest church-going man who lied to him about his contract situation then so be it. Let the courts figure the mess out.

      But what I do know is that this isn’t good for the Giants. The last thing they want is for one of their players to question the credibility of the general manager. Umenyiora is essentially calling the general manager a liar, which doesn’t exactly bode well for a team that will try to recruit free agents when the lockout lifts. And considering Umenyiora has an inflated sense of his worth, it’s going to be hard for the Giants to find trade suitors this offseason if they wind up deciding to trade him.

      Furthermore, it’s not like Umenyiora has much leverage here. He’s 29, he still has two years remaining on his contract and he just had hip surgery. With 2010 first round pick Jason Pierre-Paul ready to assume a starting position in the next year or two, the Giants aren’t going to oblige and give Umenyiora a new contract – especially not now given all this sworn affidavit hoopla. Umenyiora’s pass rushing ability speaks for itself but he’s a one-dimensional player and one-dimensional players don’t command top-5 money at their positions.

      It’s clear that Umenyiora wants a new contract or wants out and quite frankly, he may want both. With that in mind, it may be time for the Giants and Umenyiora to officially part ways.

      External Sports, NFL

      LeBron clarifies post-Finals comments

      June 15, 2011 /
      Miami Heat’s LeBron James speaks during a media conference for the NBA Finals basketball series against the Dallas Mavericks in Dallas, Texas June 8, 2011. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson (UNITED STATES – Tags: SPORT BASKETBALL HEADSHOT)

      After Game 6, LeBron had this to say about the people that were rooting against the Heat:

      “All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today,” James said Sunday.

      “They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point.”

      To many, that sounded like LeBron was playing the “I’m richer/better than you” card, so at the end of the day, if you found any joy in the Heat’s struggles, you still have to go on with your day-to-day life while LeBron goes back to being a multi-millionaire. It was a clear shot at the “haters,” and it’s somewhat understandable that LeBron would want to lash out after all the criticism he has taken over the past couple of weeks.

      On Tuesday, LeBron clarified his statements.

      “Basically I was saying at the end of the day this season is over and — with all hatred — everyone else has to move on with their lives, good or bad. I do too,” James said.

      “It wasn’t saying I’m superior or better than anyone else, any man or woman on this planet, I’m not. I would never ever look at myself bigger than anyone who watched our game. It may have come off wrong but that wasn’t my intent.”

      Of course he thinks he’s better than the average American, but I’d suspect that, deep down, most professional athletes feel that way.

      What LeBron needs to understand is that he brought most of this criticism on himself. Had he announced his decision to sign with the Heat in the same way Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh did, he wouldn’t have been under nearly as much scrutiny as he was this summer. We still hold “The Decision” against him because it was an ego trip that tore the heart out of the city of Cleveland on national television. He may have had good intentions, but those intentions don’t matter.

      LeBron isn’t going to be able to move on until he accepts some responsibility for the hatred that is aimed his way. If he had come out and said that “The Decision” was a well-intentioned mistake and apologized to the city of Cleveland for the way he handled his announcement, it would go a long way in repairing his image.

      External Sports, NBA

      Are the lawyers preventing the players and owners from negotiating a CBA deal?

      June 15, 2011 /
      James Quinn (L) and Jeffrey Kessler (R), attorneys for the NFL Players Association enter a federal courthouse to resume court-ordered mediation regarding labor and revenue issues between the NFL and the NFL Players Association in Minneapolis, May 16, 2011. REUTERS/Eric Miller (UNITED STATES – Tags: SPORT FOOTBALL CRIME LAW BUSINESS)

      ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting that labor discussions between the players and owners “almost blew up” on Wednesday when lawyers were allowed back in the room.

      How close it got to that point is a matter of opinion. The moment may have come shortly after lawyers from both sides were brought back into the process at an undisclosed location in the Washington, D.C., area.

      As tensions rose and anger grew, two sources said NFLPA leader DeMaurice Smith instructed his lawyers to “stand down.”

      With the lawyers removed from the direct negotiations, the process was said to get back on track and to a good spot. The scenario is an example of just how tenuous these talks can be and how quickly they can be derailed.

      But it also is the ultimate proof that Smith and his players, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the owners, have taken the process out of the hands of the attorneys and demanded that they control it as the two sides try to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement.

      What’s interesting is that this is exactly what Vikings defensive end Jared Allen told me last week when I asked him his thoughts on the lockout: “Attorneys just seem to cause problems.”

      Granted, he laughed after he said it but it wasn’t the only time he mentioned how the lawyers were holding up the negotiation process. And in Schefter’s report, he mentions how during talks last winter, “many around the league worried that the lawyers were controlling the process.”

      Of course, this doesn’t mean that the only reason there isn’t a new CBA in place right now is because the attorneys are mucking everything up. Without completely understanding the full scope of the situation or having a front row seat to the labor discussions, we can only speculate as to what’s really going on. Not even Schefter, who is as tuned in as any NFL reporter, knows unequivocally what’s taking place behind closed doors.

      Let’s just hope that if the lawyers are causing problems, Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith will continue to step up to ensure that these talks continue to move forward. For the first time during this entire charade, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s not have anyone or anything derail that.

      External Sports, NFL

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