8:07 PMGregg Rosenthal of Pro Football Talk reports that Vince Lombardi's life story will soon be adapted into a Broadway Play. Let's just hope Hank Williams, Jr., gets nowhere near the score.
7:57 PMJudy Battista of the New York Times on missed tackles in the NFL: "One trend most exposes how poor tackling is. According to the N.F.L., there were 81 touchdowns of 50 yards or more through Week 8, the most since 1970, great for highlight reels, a nightmare for defenses."
7:36 PMLou Holtz observing Opposite Day on ESPN set today after Navy dominated Notre Dame during 23-14 victory in South Bend today: "It was obvious Notre Dame was the better football team."
7:17 PM Here's a thought: When watching the Yankees ticker-tape parade from one of the adjacent buildings looming over the route, don't toss documents out the window that contain people's social security numbers. Or meatballs.
Things are dire at quarterback for the Broncos. Oh, you probably already know this, seeing as how we wrote about it just yesterday. But for as disastrous as “Kyle Orton, starting quarterback with two healthy backups” sounds, the situation’s devolving into something far worse.
(”Hmmm, I can see the inside of my knuckle. Is that normal?”)
The problem with Orton is that he might not actually be healthy for Week 1. Oh, and the clear #2, Chris Simms, is also hurt for at least a month with a high ankle sprain. So now the starting quarterback for the Broncos is a late-round rookie. Check that; aside from a warm body they signed as an emergency rookie, he’s the only healthy quarterback.
So who came out ahead in the deal that sent Jay Cutler from the Broncos to the Bears? Easy answer so far: NBC. Sunday’s Bears-Broncos game scored a 7.3 overnight rating and 12 share; NBC’s highest-rated preseason game in five years. Read more…
Sure, Denver Bronco fans booed Jay Cutler with all their might last night when he returned to play against his old team for the first time, but the boos eventually faded to mild displeasure, and then the eventual realization by the home crowd that they are, in fact, really stuck with Kyle Orton. The Bears won the first half — when both guys played — 17-3, and won the game 27-17.
In other words, the Broncos are about to fade into oblivion, somewhere they really aren’t used to inhabiting. It just took last night’s game for it to finally sink in. Even the lady pictured above doesn’t really seem to have her heart in that sign. She’s quite clearly not lovin’ it. Chargers fans, meanwhile, are already clearing their weekends in January. They could probably take four games off this year and still win the AFC West.
Cutler, of course, played well last night for his new team despite all of the distractions and a concerted attempt by the Bronco defense to make things as tough as possible on him. Suddenly, the Bears are brimming with confidence heading into their opener at Green Bay, and thinking they might be able to duplicate their Super Bowl run a couple of years back — this time with a QB who isn’t allergic to footballs.
Orton, of course, didn’t even make it to halftime because he sliced his finger open on another player’s helmet. For what it’s worth, he actually played fairly well (12-for-16 for 96 yards). But this is a guy who the Bears really only grudgingly let be their starter because a better option wasn’t available. Are there even five other teams where he’d be the #1 guy?
FOX SPORTS’ Alex Marvez just comes right out and says the Broncos were fleeced in the trade, not only in the 50-cents-on-the-dollar they got in return, but because of the way coach Josh McDaniels and owner Pat Bowlen botched the whole situation from the start. Maybe Mike Shanahan had lost his way a little, but wouldn’t your average Bronco fan rather have him and Cutler than the McDaniel-Orton combo? Did it really have to come to this?
Well, at least you can look forward to some more scenes like this out at the local bars, Denver:
Some idiot blogger totally wrote off the Giants last week after they lost an excruciating game to the Rockies that dropped them four games back in the wild card hunt. In fact, all of the talk was about how Colorado might even run down the Dodgers when all was said and done. And no, I wasn’t the only one sticking the fork in San Francisco.
(Edgar Renteria: When your team just doesn’t care enough to find a better shortstop)
I knew, of course, that Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain would always give their team a chance to win. But I hadn’t counted on the sudden rejuvenation of Barry Zito. Since a meltdown against the Padres on July 18th that made me wonder if they’d find a way to get rid of him altogether, he’s posted a 1.92 ERA in his last nine starts. Throw in Jonathan Sanchez, whose ERA has been right around 3.00 since the beginning of July, and you’ve got the best starting pitching in baseball right now. Just think if they could hit!
Now, the Giants have to find a way to stay close over the next 10 days. The Rockies start a 10-game homestand on Tuesday and host the Mets, Diamondbacks, and Reds. San Francisco, on the other hand, travels to Philadelphia and Milwaukee before returning home to play the Padres.
(Yes, that is Zito not only tipping his cap, but also receiving applause)
• The US Open is starting today. An 18-year-old kid named Devin Britton won the NCAA championship this year, and his reward is a first-round match against Roger Federer. Let’s hope he handles the pressure better than Richie Tenenbaum did:
• TRUE HOOP has a great post about last week’s episode of “Mad Men,” which had a subplot dealing with the outrage about tearing down the old Penn Station to build Madison Square Garden in the 1960s, and how MSG is revered today as a sports venue:
Four decades later, it’s ironic that the building that was the bête noire of architectural preservationists has become the defining symbol of basketball preservationists — a receptacle for the sort of sentimentalism that fueled the opposition to its creation.
• 124th-ranked Heath Slocum drained a 20-footer to beat Tiger Woods, Padraig Harrington, and Ernie Els by a shot at the Barclays tournament in Jersey. Tiger missed a six-footer on the 18th that would’ve tied it. The real winner of the day, though, was former MLB hurler Heathcliff Slocumb, who I briefly thought about for the first time in 10 years.
(Think the Red Sox regret trading him for Varitek and Lowe?)
Jay Cutler knew that he’d have to return to Denver eventually, and that it probably wouldn’t be pretty. But the ritual burning and flushing of his old jersey? Somewhere, Cutler is looking at this photo, as a single tear rolls down his cheek. I hope you’re happy, Broncos fans.
It’s Jay Day everyone! The Bears at Broncos begins in two hours, as the prodigal son returns to Invesco Field, just as predicted in Old Testament. But this photo poses many questions. For example: Read more…
Okay, it’s come to this. Football season is so close, so close. We’re willing to discuss anything and everything about it in the meantime, even if it’s guys who haven’t played in about a decade.
In this case, we’re talking about John Elway - and don’t worry, this has nothing to do with his Nude Vodka. No, according to the DENVER POST, he got married yesterday, and it’s to someone of an unusual background: a former Raider Girl.
We don’t know everything about what Rick Reilly brings to the ESPN table, just that the man is overpaid. His $4 million salary could pay for, let’s say, 20 very good writers at $200,000 a pop, and it’s safe to say that 20 good writers would be able to cover far more for the WWL than Reilly’s oft-cliched columns. But whatever, ESPN knows more about running a sports media empire than we do.
But we digress. Reilly, for his faults, has tons of sources - part of being part of the national media for that long, we suppose - and we assume he’s as well-connected as anybody else on the ESPN Campus. But you’d think someone who’s swimming in Best Sportswriter awards would have a little more journalistic tact than what he just pulled on Denver Owner Pat Bowlen.
Unbeknownst to Marshall, Broncos team doctors are also mad scientists, and during practice the men were perfecting the chronomorphotron, which allows for travel backwards and forwards through time. Like you didn’t already know that. So after being sent off the field by coaches, Marshall wanders through a curiously empty locker room. He’s angry and looking for things to hit. He sees one stall with a closed door - most don’t even have doors - and the nameplate of a teammate he doesn’t recognize: “T. Machine.” He opens it, looking for things to throw. He finds a whole new world.
Inside the stall are dials, buttons, gadgets and gauges. Most importantly, there’s a panel on the inside of the door with date, latitude, and longitude. Marshall, thinking they’re sports scores or something, randomly tweaks everything in site before hitting “SEND.” This is his journey.
