My 2013 NFL Predictions

AFC East

1. Patriots 12-4

2. Dolphins 7-9

3. Jets 5-11

4. Bills 2-14

AFC North

1. Bengals 11-5

2. Ravens 10-6

3. Steelers 9-7

4. Browns 3-13

AFC South

1. Texans 11-5

2. Colts 8-8

3. Titans 5-11

4. Jaguars 5-11

AFC West:

1. Broncos 14-2

2. Chiefs 10-6

3. Chargers 6-10

4. Raiders 2-14

Wild Card: Ravens, Chiefs

  

NFC East

1. Giants 9-7

2. Cowboys 8-8

3. Eagles 8-8

4. Redskins 7-9

NFC North:

1. Packers 11-5

2. Bears 8-8

3. Vikings 7-9

4. Lions 6-10

NFC South:

1. Falcons 11-5

2. Saints 10-6

3. Buccaneers 5-11

4. Panthers 5-11

NFC West:

1. 49ers 13-3

2. Seahawks 12-4

3. Cardinals 6-10

4. Rams 3-13

Wild Card: Seahawks, Saints

Awards:

MVP: Peyton Manning (Broncos)

ROTY: Eddie Lacy (Packers)

DPOY: JJ Watt (Texans)

COTY: Andy Reid (Chiefs)

Five Dumbest Tweets from Arkansas Razorbacks Fans Today

This is going to be wildly unpopular, but I’m going to do it anyway.

I have perused through mass amounts of Arkansas Razorbacks fan tweets today regarding the Razorbacks opening week 34-14 win over Louisiana-Lafayette and have chosen the five dumbest tweets (plus, one honorable mention and two tweets that I liked). Now, there have probably been over one million tweets today regarding the Arkansas Razorbacks. I obviously can’t read every single one of them – most of them aren’t interesting anyway - so the chances that I’ve actually found the five dumbest tweets are pretty slim, but this is certainly a good sampling.

5. This was one of the BEST Saturdays I've had in a while! The hogs won, I got to eat wings, I got new undies and yoga pants from VS(: (@BbyGrl1024)

My Thoughts: This one’s pretty self-explanatory. A classic example of too much information. Also, doesn’t sound like it takes a whole lot to thrill @BbyGrl1024.

4. ARKANSAS RAZORBACKS SPANKED SOME LOUISIANA A** (@Iam4tography)

My Thoughts: A 20-point win does not qualify for “spanked some ass” territory. You have to win by at least four touchdowns to be in the “spanked some ass” league. Plus, a SEC team (even one that’s predicted to be toward the bottom of the conference) should beat Louisiana-Lafayette by more than 20 points. This wasn’t one of the easier “cupcake” matchups this week, by any means, but it’s still in “cupcake” territory.    

3. Brandon Mitchell broke his foot. Shouldn't have transferred from the hogs (@codyadcock22_)

My Thoughts: Yes, because football players don’t fracture their feet in Fayetteville. Foot fractures in the NCAA only occur in North Carolina.

2. Hogs down the Cajuns!!!! 34-14 Suck on that @KirkHerbstreit!!! #WPS #NeverYield (@Carter12Chris)

My Thoughts: This was the most popular topic of Hogs fan stupidity today. Apparently on one of the ESPN shows either last night or this morning ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit (a guy who seems to be well-respected in his business) predicted that Louisiana-Lafayette would upset the Razorbacks. This, of course, did not happen so Razorbacks fans took it upon themselves to taunt, name call and accuse Herbstreit of being bad at his job. Listen up, Hogs fans. Sports analysts get paid a lot of money to make predictions because they know what they are talking about and they use their experience, expertise, mixed in with objectivity to make reasoned predictions or opinions. These guys obviously aren’t always going to be accurate with their predictions. That doesn’t mean that they are bad at their job. That doesn’t mean you get the right to call them names. That doesn’t mean that they should have to apologize to you as a member of the fanbase. You shouldn’t be offended when somebody chooses your favorite sports team to lose. It’s just part of their job. It’s infuriating to read the hatred toward Herbstreit today from Hogs’ fans. I chose this one because it was typical of many of the posts, but the one Hogs fan who suggested that Herbstreit “eat a bag of ‘D’” for his wrong prediction has a special place in my dumbass fan hall of fame.  

1.       Lets get real here. Georgia sucks. Aaron Murray sucks. SEC east sucks. The hogs will go undefeated and win natty champ. (@jtommills_)

My Thoughts: My favorite type of sports fan is the delusional sports fan. All fan bases have them. The Razorbacks seem to stockpile them. This guy is the absolute definition of a delusional sports fan. He claims the Hogs will go undefeated and win the national championship. You can’t even take something that stupid seriously. This guy probably enjoyed one too many beers during the game. Arkansas has a fairly hard schedule this year and is also in basically a rebuilding year. These two aspects lead me to believe that the 2013 Razorbacks are somewhere around a .500 team, probably nothing better or worse. Good luck on that undefeated season and national championship.   

Just Missed: People all hype about Syria, I'm like #WPS (@KramnojRT)

My Thoughts: This guy certainly has his priorities straight. Screw, Syrians being gassed and whether or not the United States might take action and whether or not that action could potentially lead to a World War III scenario … the Hogs is playin’!

Just for good measure I might as well throw in the two best Razorbacks tweets I saw today:

My friend woke up from a coma , the Arkansas Razorbacks won the game , and I got $205 for my birthday. This night can't get better!! (@Madeesooon)

My Thoughts: That does sound like an exceptionally good day.

Fox News is not "fair & balanced". But Razorback Football offense appears to be. #WPS #NeverYield (@WooPigSumo)

My Thoughts: I pretty much like any excuse to bash Fox News and this is one of the more creative ones I’ve seen (though I do think it’s a little too early in the season to be raving about a team’s offense, especially against a Sun Belt team).

Fox Sports 1 Debuts with Good Sporting Events, Less Than Stellar Studio Shows

America’s newest cable network Fox Sports 1 (along with its far-less talked about sister channel Fox Sports 2) debuted in mid-August giving sports fans another option to the sports mega-giant that is the ESPN family of networks.

FS1 debuted on Saturday, August 17 with programming that far exceeds your typical sports network debut – a live NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race and a major Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) mixed martial arts fight featuring one of the sport’s biggest stars Chael Sonnen. That night the network also debuted “Fox Sports Live,” its competitor to ESPN’s nightly news and highlight show “SportsCenter.”

Over its first couple of weeks the network has continued to air live sporting events like soccer, boxing and more NASCAR and UFC and will continue to grow its live sporting events into the near future with college football starting up this week, Major League Baseball coming to the network in 2014 and both NASCAR’s premiere Sprint Cup Series and major golfing events like the U.S. Open coming in 2015.

There’s no doubt in my mind that FS1 is set when it comes to sporting events, if not already than certainly in the upcoming couple of years. This live programming will instantly boost FS1 to the second most watched cable sports network obviously behind ESPN, but ahead of competitors NBC Sports Network and CBS Sports Network, which have been around longer, but don’t really have major live sporting events.

Fox Sports 1’s biggest challenge early on is going to be trying to attract sports fans to its studio shows like its flagship program “Fox Sports Live.”

“Fox Sports Live” is a little bit of a mixed bag from the start. The show features two uniquely talented and funny co-anchors in Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole who’ve been immensely popular over the years on a Canadian version of “SportsCentre” that aired on Canada’s The Sports Network (TSN). The duo immediately rival any of the best anchors over at ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” which is saying quite a lot, but the show suffers from an unusual format. It’s almost two shows in one. It would be kind of like if ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and “First Take” melded into one. The highlights portion of the show is fine as is, but the panel discussion format hosted by former ESPN talent Charissa Thompson with past athletes Andy Roddick (tennis), Donovan McNabb (football), Ephraim Salaam (football), Gary Payton (basketball) and Gabe Kapler (baseball) as opinionists is out of whack.

The panel on Fox Sports Live is given the biggest topics of the day to debate and give their thoughts on, but it comes off as a little weird for sports fans to see a guy like Roddick talk about Alex Rodriguez on steroids or a guy like Payton talking about the latest story out of the NFL. Most fans seem to prefer actual experts on a particular sport talking about that sport, for instance Roddick talking about tennis or Payton talking about the NBA. It’s a unique idea the Fox Sports network executives had, essentially turning novice fans into panelists, but I’m not sure it will catch on.

As negative as that might sound about “Fox Sports Live,” it is actually the network’s strongest original show thus far. It frankly looks like Emmy Award winning material next to FS1’s other big original series “Crowd Goes Wild,” which airs Monday through Friday afternoon. “Crowd Goes Wild” is hosted by longtime television legend Regis Philbin, who was an awkward decision to host a show from the very beginning, but Fox Sports was likely looking for big name recognition to drive people to the show. Regis may well have driven people to the show, but the show itself has probably driven many of the viewers away. “Crowd Goes Wild” is also a panel show featuring former British sports television personality Georgie Thompson, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay, comedian Michael Kosta, former NFL player Trevor Pryce and has heavy social media aspects from Katie Nolan. Gay is really the only person who seems to have any business being on a show like this. Thompson tries her best to moderate the entire thing – though shouldn’t that be Regis’ job. Yes, but he’s obviously just the face/name of the show – but things are just too wacky and seemingly disjointed on the show. Kosta is instantly one of the most annoying figures on sports television trying to bring comedic aspects to the show, but failing almost every time. “Crowd Goes Wild” is like a really bad version of ESPN’s “SportsNation.”   

Fox Sports 1’s other programming is typical sports cable network stuff: NASCAR Race Hub (previously on the Speed Channel), Fox Soccer Daily, UFC Tonight and Fox Football Daily. All of these shows are like something you would see on ESPN and basically will draw people who either like the talking heads on these shows or who don’t care much for the ESPN counterparts, especially when it comes to Fox Football Daily.

Fox Sports 1 would be smart to add daily or nightly shows during the MLB and NBA season for fans of those sports, like ESPN has with “Baseball Tonight” and TNT has with “Inside the NBA,” but I’m not sure there are any plans to do so at this time.

Fox Sports 1, like all new television networks, simply needs time to grow more than anything else. If fans give the network that opportunity within a few years it might grow into a network capable of truly competing with ESPN, which is something all sports fans should want regardless of their feelings toward ESPN because competition leads to a better product all around.

If I were to grade FS1 on their first couple of weeks on the air on an A-to-F scale I would currently have to give it a decent C grade, which I’ll admit is mostly for their coverage of their live sporting events. The network does need to look into ways to improve upon their original studio shows, which I’m sure they will do if the ratings aren’t where the network thinks they should be. It’s probably way too early in the game to worry a whole lot about that right now. I have hopes Fox Sports 1 will continue to grow into the future and be a major player in the cable sports world. Only time will tell.  
 

Tony Stewart's Mortal and He Needed To Learn It

Safety workers load injured Tony Stewart into ambulance

The ever-stubborn Tony Stewart stood surrounded by a group of media and defiantly didn’t seem too concerned about his mortality.

“You mortals have got to learn. You guys need to watch more sprint car videos and stuff. It was not a big deal. It's starting to get annoying this week about that, so that was just an average sprint car wreck. When they wreck they get upside down like that. That was not a big deal." – Tony Stewart speaking to reporters at Pocono Raceway last Friday after flipping his sprint car twice in two weeks.

Less than four days later Stewart flipped his sprint car once again; this time at a dirt track in Oskaloosa, Iowa breaking his leg – both his tibia and fibula – and was transported to a local hospital where he underwent surgery. Two days later Stewart remains in a hospital waiting on a second surgery. The timetable for his return to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is undetermined, with many experts saying he could likely miss the remainder of the season. Despite his win earlier this season at Dover International Raceway and him currently being in one of the two wild card spots for the NASCAR Chase for the Championship playoffs he is certainly going to miss the Chase by falling out of the top 20 in points by missing multiple races.

I wonder if Tony Stewart still thinks he’s immortal.

Racer’s race is a phrase I’ve heard many times this week regarding Stewart both before and after the incident resulting in his injury. I understand this and when the word “racer” is thrown around it is Tony Stewart who comes to mind first, with all due respect to great champions like Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. However, I also understand that the more times a racer races the more times he puts himself at risk for injury or worse, especially when the extracurricular races he’s running are in equipment or at tracks that are seemingly more dangerous than the one’s he runs and runs at in his full-time job. It is the business of the driver, his team owner and his sponsors as to whether or not he should or shouldn’t run extra races throughout the season – and either decision is perfectly fine by me. All parties know the risks and should weigh them heavily when deciding. Stewart’s decision to run all of these races on the side is not something I would want to see him do if I were his car owner, which he happens to be for himself, or his sponsors, but that’s ultimately his business.

The part of Stewart’s “that was no big deal” quote to the press that I took umbrage too was “you mortals have got to learn.” Stewart has been no stranger to insert-foot-in-mouth comments over his career in motorsports and his hatred and condescension toward the media has been a recurring theme over his years in NASCAR. However, the term “mortals” – one that was likely flippantly used without much thought – came off as incredibly offensive given the recent sprint car accidents that took the lives of fellow NASCAR driver Jason Leffler and National Sprint Car Hall of Famer Kramer Williamson, who granted died after Stewart’s comments were made. I wonder if Leffler even crossed Stewart’s mind during his “mortals” comment? I wonder if Williamson crossed his mind in the days after? They should have.

Stewart knows all too well that wrecks like the ones he was in and walked away from and the one he was in that left him on a stretcher and on his way to a hospital bed are more than just “no big deal.” He knows that every time he puts on his helmet, straps in his belts and fires his engine that it could be the last time he ever does so. All racers know this. Most don’t seem to like to talk about it. However, I’ve never seen a racer as defiantly careless about it.

Tony Stewart will return to NASCAR, knowing him, probably sooner than many people think he will. Also, knowing him, he’ll probably return to sprint car racing at local dirt tracks around the country, too. He’ll probably even end up going end over end again at some point in one of the two. I say good for him. He’s proven time after time over the years that he’s one tough sonuvabitch. It’s a good part of his allure. It’s part of what makes him an all-time great.

I just hope this time spent in a hospital bed and out of the driver’s seat will get him thinking about stupid remarks like “you mortals have got to learn” and “it’s not a big deal.” Stewart was reminded Monday night in Iowa of his mortality – hopefully it’ll take.