NFL Quiz: 1) Who is the #2 rusher behind Walter Payton for the Chicago Bears, lifetime? 2) What two Kansas City Chiefs backs rushed for over 6,000 yards in their career? 3) Name the four Cincinnati running backs to rush for over 5,000 yards. [None of the seven are still active, but all played in the last 25 years.] Answers below.
NFL Bits
–The Giants’ Eli Manning, in passing for 400 yards against the Cowboys, hit 4,105 on the season, thus becoming the Giants’ single-season record holder (Kerry Collins had 4,073 in 2002).
So with three games to go, add Manning to the list of Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady potentially on their way to surpassing Dan Marino’s record of 5,084 yards in a season (1984), though Manning, at 316 yards per game is on pace for 5,032.
Manning also ran his consecutive start streak to 116. Incredibly, only Brett Favre (297) and Peyton Manning (208) have posted longer streaks.
But wait…there’s more! Manning now has 14 fourth-quarter touchdown passes this season, tied for the most in a season in NFL history.
Brees needs to just average 239 yards per game in his final three contests to beat Marino. Brady needs to average 270. Rodgers, though, now needs to average 320. [Manning 326.]
–The Dolphins fired Tony Sparano, hours after the Chiefs fired Todd Haley (Jacksonville having dismissed Jack Del Rio about two weeks earlier). All three sucked. End of story.
–I’ve written of this topic before, that being George Blanda, but Chase Stuart of the New York Times had a piece on Tuesday worth mentioning in light of Tebowmania. It was back in 1970 that the 43-year-old Blanda captivated a nation with “so many late-game heroics that the Maxwell Club named him the most outstanding player of the season. As with Tebow, Blanda’s clutch play was hard to fathom. He had such an impact on important situations that he was named the AFC offensive player of the year by UPI despite throwing only 55 passes.
“Like Tebow, Blanda was an afterthought in the season’s first few weeks. In 1970, he served as the team’s kicker and backup quarterback, but started receiving attention in Week 6. He came off the bench and helped lead the Raiders to a victory over the Steelers. With 12 passes, Blanda gained 148 yards and threw for three touchdowns as Oakland won, 31-14.
“The next week, Daryle Lamonica was back in charge, but it was Blanda who stole the show again. The Raiders trailed the Chiefs, 17-14, in the final seconds, but a Blanda field-goal try was true from 48 yards to salvage a tie (in 1970, the NFL had not yet adopted overtime for regular-season games). In 1970, kickers made 41 percent of attempts from 40 to 49 yards and 23 percent from 50 yards and over.”
In Week 8 against the Browns, the Raiders trailed the Browns, 20-13, in the final minutes when Blanda came off the bench again. In an era when 80-yard drives weren’t the norm, Blanda drove the length of the field, culminating in a 14-yard touchdown strike to Warren Wells to tie the score at 20. Then, in the final seconds, Blanda booted a 52-yard field goal to produce one of the more shocking comebacks of the season.
In Week 9, the Raiders faced the Broncos. “Oakland trailed, 19-17, late in the fourth quarter when Blanda was summoned from the bench. He was an efficient 4 for 6 for 80 yards, and hit Fred Biletnikoff for a 20-yard touchdown to win the game.
“Could Blanda do it for a fifth week in a row? Oakland and San Diego were knotted at 14-14 entering the fourth quarter. Blanda connected on a short field goal early in the quarter to give the Raiders the lead, but that was no way to pump up the ratings. The Chargers tied it, 17-17, and Lamonica responded by driving the Raiders down the field. With just seven seconds remaining, Blanda again came through with a short field goal to ensure victory.
“For five weeks in a row, Blanda wowed professional football fans. His story and his large following had nothing to do with religion or a storied college career. It was about age. America loved that a 43-year-old could dominate professional football. Blanda was nine years older than his coach, John Madden.”
Alas, in the playoffs, Blanda’s miracle run ended against the Baltimore Colts. Lamonica was knocked out in the first half, with the Raiders down 10-0. Blanda kicked a 48-yard field goal, and then connected on a touchdown pass to Biletnikoff to tie the game at 10-10. But the Colts took a 20-10 lead into the fourth quarter. Blanda connected with Wells to make it 20-17 and set up another comeback, but Johnny Unitas and Ray Perkins hooked up on a 68-yard score that gave Baltimore a 27-17 lead and that’s how it ended, Blanda throwing two interceptions late.
–Every game is key for the Jets down the stretch but in traveling to Philadelphia to face the 5-8 Eagles, they are playing a team they have never beaten…0-8 all time. Jets fans will be on pins and needles.
“1,000 to 1…Preseason betting odds of the Colts going 0-16, a $10 wager taken up by just one anonymous California bettor, who stands to win $10,000 if Indy finishes winless.”
College Basketball
AP Poll
1. Syracuse
2. Ohio State
3. Kentucky
4. Louisville
5. North Carolina
6. Baylor
7. Duke
8. Xavier
9. UConn
10. Missouri
24. Murray State…beat Memphis…could go undefeated …really…and should that happen would be a #3 seed… just sayin’. Heck, just booked a trip to Murray, Kentucky for February to catch a Racers game. [Had no clue where Murray, Ky., was until I did so. You fly to Nashville.]
And not for nuthin’ but my 2010-11 favorite, the San Diego State Aztecs, are 9-2, having lost only to Baylor and Creighton, the latter when they were ranked and by just two points. Steve Fisher lost four starters off last year’s team but through the magic of transfers, largely, just keeps the program going. And that’s why I have pulled out the Aztecwear again and am recommitting myself to the team. [Murray State is just for the experience. Not buying Racerswear ahead of going there.] I sure as heck have nothing to root for when it comes to Wake Forest. And as for the ACC overall, beyond UNC and Duke, the conference is worse than bad.
But the other day I wasn’t able to comment on the fight in last Saturday’s Cincinnati-Xavier contest, one of the ugliest in memory, so I need to catch up on this. Eight players from both teams (four and four) were suspended, including Cincy forward Yancy Gates who got a six-game suspension for throwing punches, including a rainmaker to Xavier’s Kenny Frease’s face, causing a gash below his left eye.
For their part, Xavier suspended superstar point guard Tu Holloway for one game, who now becomes a late “Jerk of the Year” candidate for instigating the action.
No doubt, these inter-city rivals were trash talking the entire night, the fight occurring with just nine seconds to go in a 76-53 blowout as Xavier remained undefeated. But it was Holloway who trash talked the Cincinnati bench as he walked by in those closing seconds. Holloway was upset that in comments leading up to the game, a Cincy player said Holloway wouldn’t start on the Bearcats.
So Holloway is blasting the Cincy bench when one of the players pushed him and the benches cleared. Holloway then said this after the game:
“I was just saying it’s my city right here. I’m cut from a different cloth. None of them guys on that team is like me, so I don’t understand. I felt disrespected for them guys to come at me and talk like that, so I let the whole staff over there and let their players know that none of them is like me. That’s when it started.”
Holloway added it wasn’t the first time there was an altercation in the rivalry.
“That’s what you’re going to see from Xavier and Cincinnati. We got disrespected a little bit before the game, guys calling us out. We’re a tougher team. We’re grown men over here. We’ve got a whole bunch of gangsters in the locker room – not thugs, but tough guys on the court. And we went out there and zipped them up at the end of the game.”
Unbelievable. Holloway just told you, in essence, that if he had had a gun on him at that moment, he would have started shooting…because, after all, he was disrespected! That’s the excuse all the inner city youth who blow each other away use.
Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said angrily after the game:
“Guys need to grow up. There is zero excuse for that in basketball. You’ve got to learn how to win on one side, you’ve got to learn how to lose on the other side.”
After the game he told his players to remove their jerseys because he was so upset at what happened.
“We represent an institution of higher learning. It’s way more important than basketball games. I made everybody take their jersey off, and they will not put it on again until they have a full understanding of where they go to school and what the university stands for and how lucky they are to even be there, let alone have a scholarship.” [ESPN.com]
NBA’s Bouncing Ball
So Chris Paul appeared to be headed to the Los Angeles Clippers but that deal fell apart. The Clippers were prepared to give New Orleans star guard Eric Gordon, center Chris Kaman and Minnesota’s unprotected No. 1 pick in the June draft. Then Los Angeles was asked to part with Al-Farouq Aminu and Eric Bledsoe, but L.A. said no. Instead, they signed Chauncey Billups, ex- of the Knicks, though he is threatening to retire.
And now it appears that Dwight Howard may stay in Orlando, at least for now. “I love this city and there’s no place I’d rather be than Orlando.”
I can think of a lot of places I’d rather be than Orlando (no offense to my Florida friends); like Paris, Singapore, Deadwood, South Dakota, Chicago, New York….
[As I go to post, Paul to the Lakers, and Howard to the Nets, are being resurrected as potential moves. By the way, since when did Chris Paul become a combination of Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and Walt Frazier?]
Tuesday night I was watching the local sportscaster do a bit from Knicks training camp and I thought, ‘what a mess.’ They are trying to cram everything into a two-week pre-season, but I’ll let the AP’s Brian Mahoney take it from here. He sums up the chaos perfectly.
“The lockout ended, and the NBA’s woes were just beginning. Dwight Howard asked to be traded. Chris Paul was dealt to the Lakers, it seemed, until the league decided he wasn’t. So the Lakers made another trade, which Kobe Bryant hated.
“He was referring to feelings about terms of the new collective bargaining agreement, which in some ways are so similar to the old ones that it’s fair to wonder exactly what was the point of the five-month lockout?
“But he might as well have been talking about the superstars who want new homes, the critics blistering Commissioner David Stern for forcing one to stay put, or team officials charged with having clubs ready to play by Christmas under bizarre circumstances.
“ ‘It’s just too bad, it really is. It’s not reflective right now of the great product we had, you know?’ former coach and ABC/ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy said. ‘It’s one thing to have a summer and fall of strife due to labor negotiations. It’s another to be seen as an organization that’s in disarray once you settle that.’
“Van Gundy blames money, the natural place to start. Owners will save plenty by getting players to agree to a 12 percent reduction in salary costs in the new deal. But in doing so in time to salvage a substantial season, they conceded on many issues that were necessary to create the competitive balance they said they craved.
“So Paul and Howard are trying to force their way from small markets to big, just as Carmelo Anthony did last year, and there’s no guaranteed mechanism to stop them.
Ball Bits
—Albert Pujols’ wife, Deidre, told a radio station with ties to the St. Louis Cardinals that the couple was prepared to take less money to stay in St. Louis, but that they were offended when the team offered a five-year deal.
But that’s a lie! Going back to before the opening of spring training, when Pujols announced he wouldn’t discuss his then pending free agency until the season was over, the Cardinals had an eight-year, $200 million deal on the table (Bar Chat 2/17/11), and then last offered 10 years (9+1) and $210 million before he accepted the Angels’ 10-year, $254 million deal.
Deidre said, “The offer that people have seen on television I want to tell you what, listeners especially, had that offer been given to us with a guarantee, we would have the (Cardinals) bird on our back.”
Then she said: “When it all came down, I was mad. I was mad at God because I felt like all the signs that had been being played out through the baseball field, our foundation, our restaurant, the Down Syndrome Center, my relationships, my home, my family close. I mean, we had no reason, not one reason, to want to leave. People were deceived by the numbers.”
Deidre Pujols added that the negative reaction in St. Louis over her husband’s decision to sign with the Angels has been striking.
“Albert has never lied. People are like, ‘Oh, we thought we knew who he was.’ Well, we thought we knew who they were,” she told the station.
“The city of St. Louis has absolutely been deceived and I have never seen hatred spread so fast and I understand why. Let me say that Albert and I never, not one time, ever made plans to leave this city.”
Oh just shut up! Here I am, a freakin’ Mets fan, and I would defend the people of St. Louis and Cardinals’ ownership to the hilt. Albert already had more money than he’d ever need, the Cardinals made a tremendously fair offer for a player whose best years are behind him, and he’s such an idiot, a guy who had become a surly jerk (with a clueless wife), that he threw it all away for what will amount to about $4 million extra a year?! $25 million instead of a paltry $21 million!
I have nothing against the Angels, who it’s always been said run a class organization, but boy do I hope Albert Pujols falls flat on his face. And seeing as the Mets may not make a World Series the rest of my years on the planet, I’d love to see the Cards match up against the Angels and Albert fan with the bases loaded in the ninth, Angels down one in Game Seven in St. Louis.
What you have seen with Albert Pujols is the very worst in today’s sports. And now with Ryan Braun going down to an off the charts PED reading, we’ll never know about Albert, will we? Despite all his Braun-like denials, was he really clean?
As I concluded last time, though, the real winners are the Cards, who would have been stuck with this guy’s contract.
Actually, I always liked their cap, come to think of it. Might be takin’ a road trip to St. Louis this summer, except I don’t like Bud. That’s a problem.
[My Mets were forced to take a bridge loan of $40 million from an unknown major bank about six weeks ago, which just came to light the other day; this after borrowing $25 million from Major League Baseball last year, which they have been unable to repay as yet.]
Back to Braun, MLB is 13-0 in its appeals process for PED suspensions, and according to the collective bargaining agreement, “a player cannot satisfy his burden by merely denying that he intentionally used a prohibited substance; the player must provide objective evidence in support of his denial.” The league does not have to show “intent, fault, negligence or knowing use of a Prohibited Substance on the Player’s part to establish such a violation.” [Teri Thompson / New York Daily News]
So when Braun inevitably loses, seeing how much MLB, including Commissioner Bud Selig, supported Braun in the past, it’s a huge setback for the game, whether this seems apparent to the average fan today or not.
–Already it’s happened. The Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby is out indefinitely with a return of concussion-like symptoms after he collided with a teammate on Dec. 5. Crosby had played in eight games since returning from his dual concussions of last January. Thankfully, it doesn’t appear to be as serious as last time.
–The Star-Ledger’s Jarrett Renshaw did an extensive review of the Rutgers University athletic program and among the ugly findings was that the school generated only $7.75 million in ticket sales for its football games this year, yet it pays head coach Greg Schiano over $2.5 million. No wonder why in 2010, the athletic program, overall, reported a loss of $26.8 million, “a figure that ranks it among the 10 highest operating losses in major programs in the country. The loss was covered by $8.44 million in student fees and $18.4 million from the school’s general fund.”
The football program itself lost $2.86 million, net, in 2010.
Women’s basketball lost $2.9 million last year, even though it’s normally a top 25 program, owing in no small part to C. Vivian Stringer’s $1.3 million salary as head coach. For women’s hoops!!
–Golf Magazine polled 50 PGA Tour caddies, the majority of whom (54%), by the way, have witnessed a Tour pro cheating.
Is Steve Williams overrated? Yes: 50% No: 46%
Have you ever been hit on or proposed to by a female fan?
Yes: 52% No: 48%
Right: 50% Left: 24% Middle/depends: 16% I don’t vote: 10%
–I forgot to tell you last time that on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, there are more than a few alligators. In fact, just about 25 yards from the clubhouse is a big pond, alongside the tenth tee, where we saw five gators. Heck, Dr. W. said they are normally in hibernation by December, but not these guys. We got within about ten feet of one big sucker, about seven-feet in length, and I’ll post the photos somewhere later.
The thing is, during the PGA Championship, I don’t know what the course is going to do with all the gators. You want to keep a few of ‘em around for television, but the swamps all over the course will be kind of dangerous that time of year, plus there are all manner of poisonous snakes. Dr. W. told me a 12-year-old area boy was recently killed by an Eastern Diamondback.
Anyway, I thought of this because the doctor and I were talking about the old wildlife shows of our youth, like “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” and some of you may recall there was a scandal involving shows of that ilk; as in some of the scenes, we learned, were shot in zoos, or someone’s back yard, rather than in, say, Africa. So the shows were forced to put up a disclaimer at the end:
“These scenes, whether actual or created, depict authenticated facts.”
And so it is that today there is a big scandal in the U.K., specifically with the BBC and Sir David Attenborough’s popular series “Frozen Planet.”
It turns out the veteran broadcaster filmed a polar bear tending her newborn cubs in a zoo, not in the wild as he wanted viewers to believe. When the truth came out, Attenborough said he did it his way for “the safety of the animal.”
“If you had tried to put a camera in the wild in a polar bear den, she would either have killed the cub or she would have killed the cameraman, one or the other.”
The BBC says it didn’t cover anything up and that the program’s website explains: “The problem for us is that (polar bears give birth) underneath the snow in these dens of ice. There is absolutely no way that we can get our cameras down there; it would just be completely impractical.”
But even this doesn’t say it was filmed at a German zoo, nor does the television commentary, spliced with scenes from the wild, come close to explaining it.
And this just in. One of the two cubs filmed ended up dying in captivity, which isn’t noted anywhere by Attenborough.
“A teenage boy was eaten alive by piranhas after leaping into a river infested with the flesh-eating fish in northeastern Bolivia.
“The 18-year-old man was drunk when he jumped out of a canoe….
“Police suspect that the man had committed suicide because he was a fisherman in the region who knew the Yata River well.
“Despite their fearsome reputation, fatal attacks by piranhas on humans are rare.”
Bull. This is yet another insertion by the International Tourism Cartel (ITC). They say the same thing with regards to shark attacks, which are underreported by 6,000-fold. Piranhas, by our estimation here at Bar Chat (using our 1980 Cray supercomputer), are responsible for 96,000 deaths a year.
–“Dog” has nothing to fear in terms of its top slot on the All-Species List, but they need to pick up their performance in Australia. As reported by Anna Patty of the Sydney Morning Herald:
“An increasing number of people searched for drugs but not found to be carrying them after being identified by police sniffer dogs are being charged or cautioned for angry outbursts against police.
“The failure of a record 80 percent of sniffer dog searches this year has also raised questions about the potential for legal challenges against police by people not found to be carrying drugs.”
Police say they will continue to use the dogs, who are good at sniffing out explosives.
But I think the dogs could perhaps be getting a bad rap. As in the dogs may have sniffed out performance-enhancing drugs, not the more traditional variety. Make the targets run a 100-meter dash in the airport and you’ll find out who is juicing.
By the way, in light of the fact I did three minutes better in my road race last Saturday than two years earlier, Johnny Mac asked me if I was juicing. I told him no, but just between us, I’m worried how the post-race test will come out when examined by the World Doping Agency. I’m told my agent will receive the results Christmas Eve, which could be embarrassing as I sit around the dinner table with my parents that night, guzzling adult beverages.
“(Editor), why is there an agent from the World Doping Agency sitting in a car in our driveway?”
–Fellow Wake Forest alum Phil W. says he wishes Chris Paul would ask the NBA to send him back to Deaconland so that we could turn him down.
–Here’s a late entrant for “Dirtball of the Year.” [As well as “Idiot of the Year” hardware.]
From Brookville Pa. and The Post and Courier out of Charleston:
“Authorities in northwestern Pennsylvania said a man published an obituary for his living mother in a ploy to get paid bereavement time off from work.
“Relatives called the Jeffersonian Democrat newspaper after the obit appeared to report the woman was actually alive and well. Police charged 45-year-old Scott Bennett on Tuesday with disorderly conduct.”
—Miley Cyrus claims she did not, repeat, not, have a boob job.
Top 3 songs for the week 12/15/84: #1 “Out Of Touch” (Daryl Hall / John Oates…OK) #2 “The Wild Boys” (Duran Duran…never got into these guys, sorry) #3 “Like A Virgin” (Madonna…Madge looked a little better back then…but now she’s Super Bowl bound…hope she doesn’t break her hip)…and…#4 “I Feel For You” (Chaka Khan…Ckaka Khan Chaka Khan…) #5 “Sea Of Love” (The Honeydrippers… depressing…depressing decade for music…) #6 “No More Lonely Nights” (Paul McCartney…Sir Paul obviously did far better) #7 “Cool It Now” (New Edition…whatever) #8 “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” (Wham!…tune hasn’t aged well…the height of blowdom) #9 “We Belong” (Pat Benatar…takes an interminable amount of time to get going…like, C’mon, got a bus to catch, for cryin’ out loud!) #10 “All Through The Night” (Cyndi Lauper…I guess if you were about to waterboard me and the only way I could prevent it was to choose one Lauper song, I’d probably go with this one. Otherwise, I’d go ahead with the waterboarding because it couldn’t be any worse than being forced to listen to her. She’s in the same class as Blondie and Laura Branigan for me.)
NFL Quiz Answers: 1) Neal Anderson is #2 in rushing behind Walter Payton for Chicago with 6,166 yards, 1986-93. 2) Priest Holmes (6,070…2001-2007) and Larry Johnson (6,015…2003-2009) are #1 and #2 for Kansas City. 3) Four Bengals backs with 5,000 yards: Corey Dillon (8,061…1997-2009), James Brooks* (6,447…1984-91), Rudi Johnson (5,742…2002-2007), Pete Johnson (5,421…1977-83).
*I consider James Brooks to be one of the more underrated offensive forces in the history of the game.
