Let's start with the NFL.
Minnesota Vikings fans should be going after the head of Brad Childress. I've said it since I started living here - "The Tiny General", as a friend of mine refers to him, is not a good coach. He is a systematic coach. As long as the system is working, he looks fine. But when the system cracks or breaks down, he looks like he's at a total loss. At least he was fiery enough after the game to call out Favre, who is playing like a senior citizen. But let's take a look at what I thought was a critical moment in that game, moreso than all three of Favre's picks - and don't get me wrong, I love to villainize Favre at this point in his prolonged career, but he did not break this game to me. But when Childress hung it up with 20 seconds left in the 2nd quarter and 2 timeouts, I thought he gave up the game. In the immortal words of Herm Edwards - "Helloooooo! You play to win the game!" Brad Childress did not play to win the game. You do not give up at the end of the 2nd quarter, not when you have a quarterback who, senior citizen or not, still has a cannon and can throw it up to Randy Moss or Percy Harvin. When you hang it up right there and then, it tells me that you're afraid. It says you don't trust your offense. It says you're not playing to win. It says you're in damage control. Watching Pardon the Interruption today, Michael Wilbon was after Childress and said that if he ran the Vikings, Childress is in his office today and he's telling him that if he ever gives up on a drive like that, he's fired. I can't agree more. What stuns me right now is that the rest of the national media is overlooking this and instead feeding the attention-monger that is Brett Favre. Who is, by the way, as washed up as I've ever thought he is. I can't believe he's happy to be back this season at this point. If the Vikings want to win, they need to bring in T-Jack now and see what he's got, because beyond Childress's inane play-calling, Favre is making too many mistakes at critical moments.
In other coaching news, someone needs to slap Mike Singletary with some reality. I want to like him. I want to see him succeed. He was a great player and I think he could be a good coach. But he's starting to remind me of Rod Marinelli in the 2008 Lions 0-16 campaign. Every week, the same mantra to the press and every week, the same sad result on the field. For him to declare, after losing to the Carolina Panthers, that the 49ers could still make the playoffs, is a statement so steeped in denial that it just blew me away. It might be mathematically true, but that's the case for the Browns, Lions and Panthers too - but their coaches know what they're working with. And while you never want to publicly give up, you still can't pretend things are something they're not. And if you keep losing and keep coming out and saying the same thing, it tells me that you're out of ideas, you're out of tools and you're probably out of a job at the end of the season. Like Marinelli, I think Singletary will make a great LB coach (as he was in San Francisco) or, hopefully, a great defensive coordinator. But I'm starting to think the entire scope of the game, as a head coach, is too much for him to handle. On that note, anyone else laughing about the NFL giving England a game between the 49ers and Broncos next week? Which team lucked out with losing that home game this year?
Great World Series coming up, folks. Giants/Rangers looks good to me. I hope the fans prove the MLB wrong and watch it. I think this is a better series than if the Phillies or Yankees made it - the Rangers look great and Cliff Lee is, hands down, the best playoff pitcher in the game right now. As for the Giants, I'm glad to see Tim Lincecum in the Series. I look forward to this matchup, which is likely to be a pitching gauntlet all the way through. That's baseball, folks. Just like good football is about defense, good baseball is about pitching. I look forward to this Series matchup and even if you're not a fan of either team, I think Cliff Lee is must-watch TV at this point. On that note, I'm predicting the Rangers in 6.
Meanwhile, in college football, another #1 fell and now Auburn has leapfrogged a few teams to get to the top spot. I have trouble seeing Auburn stay undefeated. As much as I want to see Michigan State up there, I likewise don't think they'll stay undefeated. I think the only team likely to stay on that path is Oregon, which looks like they're in another class entirely from everyone else. What makes this year interesting is that as a new titan falls every week, Boise State or TCU inch closer and closer to a BCS Championship berth, if only because there aren't enough undefeated teams left to keep them out. And good for that! Let's get one of them into the championship because then the argument ends - either they win and prove they belong, or they lose and that will hang over them for the rest of time, insofar as the BCS exists. I've got my fingers crossed that we see one of them in the BCS Championship... hoisting a trophy at the end.
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