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“March Madness-April Ending”

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This will be a very different weekend from what we have seen in years gone by.

This NCAA Final 4-War will be all about coaches, game plans, defense, veteran players and grit.

We won’t be talking about ‘1-and-Done’…shoe companies…or slush-fund-academic scandals.

In a most unlikely month of March, we didn’t have that many Cindarellas. We hardly has any upsets.

We did have 3-of the #1-seeds in the 4-regions sent home.

No Duke. No Coach K. No Zion Williamson. No how many of his kids are filing for the draft. They can watch at home with John Calipuri, Roy Williams, Bill Self and a host of others.

Come Saturday, this will be about Xs and Os…matchups…defenses…3-point shooters and old school basketball.

Virginia plays Auburn in what will be a test of style. UVA just grinds you down. Every opponent possession is like life and death, so hard to score against the Cavaliers. Texas Tech wants to dictate tempo, push the ball, shoot lots of threes.

Bruce Pearl and Tony Bennett are at opposite ends of the personality spectrum. Pearl, flamboyant, in his Orange Ties, with guards Bryce Brown and Jared Harper, and a team that hit 318-shots behind the arc. But they force alot of turnovers too, which is why they run so much.

Tony Bennett demands you play tough at one of the floor, and you play disciplined once you have the ball, yet he’s got shooters in Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome and DJ Harper. You can’t win if you can’t score and the Cavs hold people to 41% shooting in the tourney. And Bennett has had 6-days to prepare for this.

Auburn is no fluke. You don’t get here if you don’t beat Kansas-North Carolina and then Kentucky. They earned this.

Michigan State-Texas Tech is a test of wills. Both teams will beat you up with an in your face defense. These two teams will bang bodies in an endurance test. Somebody might not score 50-in this semifinal game.

Tom Izzo is on a mission, to win his 2nd NCAA title, though he has been part of Final 4-weekends forever coming out of East Lansing.

Chris Beard is now a known commodity for how rugged his defenders are inside and out are with the Red Raiders.

The Spartans can be dynamic with freshman Aaron Harper and his big game ability and with a pretty good inside contingent of Xavier Tillman and Nick Ward.

The Red Raiders go as Jarrett Culver and Cassius Winter go, and they will go get it done inside. Somebody will pound it into the paint, and bet someone gets punched in the paint.

Tech won 3-blowout games, then choked away Gonzaga’s offense in a stunning display of mean street basketball in the tourney..

The Spartans have reeled off a (14-1) spurt including sending Duke home early.

Who wins. I pick Virginia’s style to take out Auburn’s sizzle. I think Izzo’s lifetime of experience is huge against the upstart Beard.

Come Monday night, Thomas Jefferson would be proud. Picking UVA to win over Michigan State in a street fight.

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“Opinions-Here & There on Manny-Ball”

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Thoughts about some of the storylines I am looking at.

MANNY MACHADO….’Reputation precedes you”. Big uproar nationwide about what happened in the Tuesday night incident with Arizona C-John Paul Ryan.

The home plate umpire called him out for interfering with the catcher on a short pop foul ball that drifted down the first base line.

It appears Machado-Murphy may have clicked feet coming out of the batters box. Both were spinning, looking up at the ball. The foot contact seemed incidental to me, but because Machado was out of the batters box, his momentum caused that, there seemed to be the slightest contact.

Murphy didn’t stumble, in fact he took 5-steps down the line tracking the fly ball as both he and Machado looked into the sky.

What happened next was the bigger issue.

Mach ado threw his bat down the first base line and he started to jog to the base. He threw it parallel to the path Murphy was running, and if the wind had blown the ball a bit further, the catcher would have stepped on the bat.

All types of questions now swirl I want you to consider.

The foot contact seemed accidental?.

The bat toss to me seemed intentional didn’t it?

Explain to me why Machado just stood there looking up at the pop up, which started in fair ground, why was he not running it out?

Did the umpire make a mistake prejudging Machado for interference, because the whole world knows his 2-intentional incidents on the base paths in last year’s World Series?

Is Machado wrong for uttering a statement in the clubhouse, ‘it’s just baseball’…the same cop out excuse he used last year after the ugly playoff incidents?

Is he aware he might not be given the ‘benefit of the doubt’ going forward in any type of incidents?

Is he putting himself at risk by this type of style of play, remembering that legendary P-Pedro Martinez had a reputation for dirty play for throwing at hitters regardless of the situation?

Words like cheap stunt…bush league…dirty player…resurfaced almost immediately.

Machado. Great talent-no doubt…tainted personality-maybe?

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You’re a baseball fan, you tell me what you think. Email me thru my website.

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“Death of a Football League”

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The idea, the concept, was exceptional.

The execution of the debut of the league was flawed and then fatal.

And so the AAF-Alliance of American Football, has folded its operation, never getting to the finish line of its first ever season.

The AAF winds up in the cemetary alongside the XFL, the USFL, NFL Europe, the World Football League, all who launched as spring leagues, but just never gained long term traction.

The death, or suspension of the AAF, wasn’t the fault of Roger Goodell or the NFL, though they didn’t seem interested in taking steps to possibly configure how they could help.

Impulsive owner Tom Dundon, who stepped into fund the spring league, just two weeks into its debut, walked away after multiples of meetings with the NFL Union as to how to get an agreement for player acquisitions for the 2020 season. First came the Memo that the players were to leave all facilities at 5pm on Tuesday. Front office employees were told they would leave Wednesday at 5pm.

Estimates are the AAF lost 70M in 4-months of operation. The 3-week joint training camps in San Antonio, and the 8-weeks of football just completed.

All this happened because the original lead investor, Reggie Fowler, who once bid on the Minnesota Vikings ownership, put in only 28M of the 175M he promised and was gone by weekend one of the schedule. Paychecks for the 2nd week were late, and then football people found there were problems with health insurance coverage. Exit Fowler, enter Dundon.

It happened so quickly. San Antonio players were pulled off the field in mid practice. Orlando’s players were sent home before meetings. Memphis players were in a team meeting. The San Diego Fleet we’re headed into a team meeting, instead were told turn in your playbook.

Even a brilliant football leader like Bill Polian, could not work magic with his former employers, the NFL, to find a bridge to guarantee a better quality of players for next year, though Polian seemed shocked that Dundon made the decision ‘unilaterally’ without input from other board members, which included Polian..

The idea of a spring league to develop players carries great merit. We saw enormous quality growth in the style of play from from week 1-thru-week 8, in lots of the games.

But the glaring reality is this, there are over 2800 players under NFL contracts for the 2020 season…the established rosters and all those signed to futures contracts, who will be in OTA camps as soon as the draft is over.

That means when you saw San Diego Fleet QB-Mike Bercovici making plays, he was probably player #2801 on the planet, unsigned, and available to play here. Whether he, or injured starter Philip Nelson ever wind up in an NFL camp is debatable.

Some dedicated players are out in the street, not even getting the full 70,000-they were promised in year one of what was supposed to a 3-year deal to come play in the AAF.

But it’s more than Mike Martz, the Fleet head coach, or ex Chargers exec Billy DeVanney in Atlanta, or Steve Spurrier in Orlando out of jobs.

The accident report says 8-head coaches…75-assistant coaches, spree 20-key execs…50-trainers and equipment people….and over 175-team employees who worked in the front offices. And that doesn’t count the some 30-people that worked around the league front office.

A lot of people invested a lot with hopes this could be something special.

Why are funeral services being planned for the 8-franchises and the league?

Sources told me Charlie Ebersole, the founder, and Polian wanted to launch this year to try and beat the XFL start planned for the 2020 season. But in doing so, they were overwhelmed by the cost factor.

Stadium leases ran high in lots of cities. Player’s health insurance was overwhelming. Travel via charter was a tidal wave of expense. The joint training camp bills ran very high for the 400 or so players in camp.

Was there a solution that could have been reached? The NFL was not going to give players to the league to experiment with.

The Union had huge issues about pay structure, and health benefits. Pension benefits and service time towards free agency. Who would pay for long term rehab for injured players. And the risk of injury, always a part of the game. Complex things you don’t resolve in one or two meetings, because if you give something, your union wants something back.

The concept made great sense. Take a young 3rd string quarterback, give him good coaching under the likes of Dennis Erickson, Rick Neuhisel, Martz, Spurrier….put him in a football regimen for 10-weeks and watch him grow;

Tell me young QB’s named Josh Dobbs, Mason Rudolph, CJ Beathard, Sean Mannion, Bryce Petty and even Cardale Jones-Geno Smith, wouldn’t have benefited.

But the Union held firm they were going to make AAF-approval a ‘bargaining chip’ and if they were going to let young developmental kids go play in the spring, the quiet time leading up to the draft, they had to have something from the NFL owners, and it never happened.

Dundon comes away a bad guy for putting money into it, and then turning the light out. I thought his decision to do this now, was wrong. Finish the season, continue to talk to both sides in the spring into the summer, and see long term if you find a common ground.

Of course, it’s not my money, and going another 4-weeks, regular season and the two playoff weekends, would have cost another 30M or so, on top of the 70M already down the drain.

An NFL exec told me he expected the league to lose 100M-not very far off that figure. Another exec said there would be a rush of interest in week one, and then interest would drop off. It did. Here came the Cactus League-Grapefruit Circuit, March Madness, and the NFL combine.

The mistakes leadership made were significant, aside from the cost factor. The teams hardly marketed themselves in the community, as witnessed by the San Diego Fleet doing very little to establish buzz.

Attendance was dismal in half the cities, when you saw crowds of 5, 8, 11,000 on most weekends.

The NFL, burned badly by the long run-cost fatal NFL Europe, with losses of 800M over the years, did not see itself fit to take on enormous cost of a new spring league. Whatever investors that might have been, were chased away by empty seats, no name players, and the reality the AAF-was-MIA on sports fans radar in most cities.

Don’t expect the XFL to be any different if and when it launches.

The San Diego Fleet joins teams like the Scottish Claymores…Memphis Southmen…the Hawaiians…New Jersey Generals…and Memphis Maniax, all who drowned in red-ink in other spring leagues.

The AAF had a good idea, they just couldn’t execute it, and a busy American sports fan didn’t seem interested in seeing a Mike Bercovici type player in the spring time.

And that’s too bad, because the coaches and players worked so hard to put on a good show.

RIP-AAF.

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“Chargers–QB Vacancy Coming Soon”

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It happened once, and it was bad.

It happened again and it was worse.

The Chargers cannot allow it to happen a third time.

It’s about the future at the most important position in the modern day NFL, the quarterback slot.

History cannot be repeated.

Dan Fouts, the triggerman during the Air Coryell era, saw the team grow old and fall apart around him. His spirit was always there, but the talent level around him had vacated.

The era of Wes Chandler, John Jefferson, Charley Joiner, Kellen Winslow, Chuck Muncie, James Brooks, Lionel James, ended very quickly.

All that was left behind was an aging Dan Fouts, and no way to get better.

He retired after the 1987-season, where a 6-game losing streak knocked the team out of the playoffs. He retired shortly there after.

I remember is courage, toughness, blood on his uniform, trying to play with calf injuries those final Sundays, getting pounded as the team lost and lost.

The Chargers went thru 17-quarterbacks from that point on, drafting them, signing free agents, picking guys up off waivers.

Finally Stan Humphries arrived and became the triggerman of the team that wound up going to the Super Bowl.

But it ended too quickly for him. His Super Bowl team, decimated by injuries, could not protect him. 1-play, 1-sack, 1-bad concussion, and he walked away with symptoms that would linger for a year. He got hurt in 1997, retired right after that.

I’ll never forget the sight of doctors sitting with Humphries on the team plane coming off from Cincinnati, hours after the fatal concussion. Two black eyes and a pounding headache.

The damage to his franchise would last forever. It took another 17-quarterbacks under contract over some really bad years, before the team turned the corner.

The litany of names who started games for the Chargers in the post-Fouts era was staggering. Mark Vlasic, Tom Flick, Billy Joe Tolliver and so many others. It was fruitless.

The cavalcade of replacements following Humphries was embarrassing. Sean Salisbury, Bob Gagliano, Craig Whelihan, utterly hopeless..

Bad seasons followed bad seasons. Even high draft picks washed out, as evidence by the disaster that Ryan Leaf turned into.

If you lived and breathed with this team, you know how horrible it was, post Dan and after Stan.

You never forget 7-interceptions games, a (1-15) passing performance, a (33-0) blowout.

They had a chance at Michael Vick but flipped draft picks with Atlanta and Arizona.

They finally found a bright light talent, who bloomed into a star coming out of Purdue.

Drew Brees competitive spirit stopped the bleeding. Philip Rivers enormous talent has brought the franchise back.

But now Tom Telesco faces the same set of issues that past GMs, Steve Ortmeyer and Bobby Beathard faced. How do you replace Hall of Famer?

The Chargers have a unique opportunity in a couple of weeks. They probably won’t have the chance to draft a future star QB because they are so far back in the first round.

But because of the potential of QB-Kyler Murray at the top of the draft board, and the dynamics of Dwayne Haskins talents in an ever-changing NFL playbook, a young quarterback has come available.

Arizona, with the top pick, is enamored the Oklahoma sensation Kyler Murray. So much so, they are shopping last year’s 1st round draft pick, the ex-UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen.

Flashy, abrasive, strong of arm, and a free spirit leader,, he was amazingly productive at UCLA, with a not-so good cast around him.

Discount everything about his rookie season with the Cardinals, where the offensive line was a mess, most of the skill players deficient, and the coaching staff worse. Incoming coach Cliff Kingsbury has a choice, install a new offense and use your picks to put people around Rosen, or trade Rosen, take Murray and add draft picks.

Interesting to see what Telesco’s metrics on Rosen might be. Big, strong, athletic and fiery, a bunch of the traits Rivers developed in San Diego and has shown in two years in Los Angeles.

Would you trade your late 2nd round pick for Rosen in a straight up deal?.

Knowing you need more help at defense, are you better served to draft from the truckload of defensive lineman and linebackers in a defense heavy draft in rounds one and two?

I won’t say the Bolts are living on borrowed time. Rivers has had one surgery in a decade and a half star-studded career. He’s taken tons of hits, is tough as an old oak tree, but you know age, and propensity of hurts when the odometer hits 200,000-miles or age 35. But he has been lucky.

Of course, so has Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning, staying away from catastrophic hurts. The wear and tear world catches up to quarterbacks.

The Chargers have been living on borrowed time in one sense. If they ever had to live a season with Geno Smith, Cardale Jones, Kellen Clements, or even newly acquired Tyrod Taylor, things would change in Boltville.

Good luck thinking you could get to the playoffs with any of them.

Time for Tom Terrific to take a serious look at this potential trade. If they had him ranked high coming out of UCLA, then maybe time to trade for Rosen, groom him for the next couple of years working with Rivers, and then give him the keys to the franchise.

Anything is better than going thru the 17-different QBs fans had to look at post-Danny Boy….or the 17-who came and tried to play after Humphries left.

Vacancy coming soon at the Bolts most important position. Might be a good opportunity to address it now, rather than face a real crisis later.

Josh Rosen, better than any of the alternatives out there right now.

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“Facts-Figures-Firing Shots”

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PADRES…Quite a start to the season…huge crowds…dazzling pitching performances by the Kiddie Korps starting rotation….In the first 4-games of the season, Eric Lauer-Joey Lucchesi-Nick Margevicius-Chris Paddack combined for a (0.85-ERA)…(21-inn-2R-12H-22K).. in the Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday starts….Add in the Chris Paddack start on Sunday, and the average age of the Padres rotation (23.2) years old….Like I said Kiddie Korps.

IAN KINSLER…Superb glue guy….plays hard…knows how to win…has gone from awful teams in Detroit-Texas and wound up on World Series Red Sox team..now in San Diego.

PETCO PARK….Hey Dean Spanos, you should have been there for the Padres-Giants series…Electricity in the stands…sellouts…real buzz…just like NFL playoff games you used to have in San Diego, but don’t now with the Chargers in futbol stadium you play football in.

CHARGERS QUARTERBACK…Rumors out of New York-Giants and Chargers talking about a trade for QB-Josh Rosen as heir apparent to Philip Rivers…Would cost the Bolts their 2nd round pick….Might be worth locking down the future for the day when Rivers completes his Hall of Fame career.

SAN DIEGO FLEET…Despite having the 2nd best passing game in the AAF-Mike Martz team is sinking because of turnovers by his quarterbacks. Mike Bercovici (5TD-9 Int) this year as a starter, and the Fleet’s 3-QBs have combined for 13-picks in this (3-5) season..now looking at missing playoffs.

STRIKE FORCE…Indoor football league team has had a horrid start, now (0-5) under Burt Grossman as coach. Have fired GM, Player Personnel Director, both coordinators, and a chunk of the roster…Grossman getting some of his type of players on the roster so there is still hope they will win some games before this is done, but his QB-Derek Bernard has turnover issues too, 11-picks in first 5-games.

MARCH MADNESS…Pt Loma Nazarene got to the finals of the Division II-tourney but wound up losing in the final 2-minutes to (38-0) Northwest Missouri State….Tremendous season for 6’8-transfer F-Daulton Hommes from Western Washington…hoping he comes back for another year.

AZTECS ERA OVER….Jalen McDaniels is going to the NBA draft, leaving behind a very young roster without a lot of game breakers…You hate to say it, but the SDSU program right now is not what it was under Steve Fisher, and this is now Brian Dutcher’s teams.

USD…A fine couple of years for the Toreros thanks to the transfers who came in, Isaiah Pineiro and Isaiah Wright and the veteran recruit Ollin Carter. But where do they go now that those careers are over?

GULLS…Hoping we don’t have a repeat of last spring, when the Gulls faded so badly at the end of the season, they missed a sure playoff spot. They have gone from 2nd to 4th now, and may have to fight to stay in that final playoff spot. Anaheim Ducks roster callups have really hampered the team chemistry. Get ready to say goodbye to coach Dallas Eakins. I believe he deserves the Anaheim Ducks coaching job this summer, teacher-mentor-leader.

KINGS-DUCKS…Cut from the same cloth…Lots of injuries…Lots of age….Lots of bad contracts…though the Ducks have a good crop of bumper draft picks who appear close to becoming regulars in the NHL. The two teams this year have won 62-of a combined 158-games (62-77-19).

LAKERS….The season is over despite two weeks left in the schedule…LeBron James is taking his game (injured groin) to the bench for the rest of the season. His stats (27PPG) seem solid, but everything else is wrong with his team. His demeanor, his attitude, his shrugs, his distancing from the coach is a bad look for the team.

SCOREBOARD….The Lakers with LeBron James went (28-27)….(7-15) in games missed. Since his Christmas Day injury (15-28).

BLAME GAME…Finishing the year crippled, without LeBron-Brandon Ingram-Lonzo Ball-Josh Hart, all knocked out by surgeries and injuries destroyed the potential of the team. A bench bunch that was poor falls to the front door of Magic Johnson-Rob Pelinka as the decision makers. So will the likely coaching change in two weeks.

LUKE-LOSER….I wrote in September in training camp, we would see whose team it was this year, Luke Walton’s or LeBron James’. Now with insinuations LeBron wants his former Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue hired, guess we have the answer.

BIG PICTURE…It takes time to put a team together. LeBron’s first year in Cleveland, first year in Miami, and now this first year in LA have all been rocky. Bigger question, can they lure a name free agent to come play with LeBron this offseason? Does Kevin Durant want to be part of this? Kawhi Leonard? I doubt it. The Lakers are (34-43) and for all the money spent and the arrival of King James, they are just 1-game better in the standings than the garbage they put on the floor last year.

ACROSS THE HALL…The LA Clippers, in rebuild mode, with 2-max contracts to give this summer, are headed to the playoffs. Doc Rivers team, with maybe the best scoring bench in the NBA, has won 12-of-14 sprinting into spring. What if they wind up with Kawhi-and-KD?

PARENT FROM HELL…So how’s it all working out for LaVar Ball and his sons, and his Baller Brand Business.? Nice due diligence, hiring a friend to be CEO of your shoe company, and now having your son fire him after the CEO was questioned about 1.5M in missing funds from Baller Brand. LaVar didn’t know his friend had done 7-years in prison for pilfering 4M from other investors a decade ago? LaVar-‘Stay in yo lane’.

INNOCENT VICTIM…It’s been a hard two years for Lonzo Ball. His last game with UCLA, that NCAA tourney game, he scored all of 5-points and had the audacity in the lockeroom, minutes after the loss to say he was going to the NBA. Now in two seasons, four significant injuries and as much time on the NBA injured list as on the active roster. Lonzo still has time to grow and get healthy. He needs to be away from his father for sure.

THE STADIUM…Lost in the opening of baseball and March Madness, the power struggle between the Mayor and his City Council over the land sale price for San Diego State’s purchase of the 132-acres at SDCCU in Mission Valley….Mayor Kevin Faulconer has imposed a blackout, and signed a deal with the school and his negotiating team that no one will speak until the package is negotiated and put up for a City Council vote. And that means City Council is shutout from being part of the talks. Faulconer has always preached ‘in the best interest of the taxpayers’, so we shall see what the price tag per acre turns out to be. ‘In the best interest’ didn’t keep the Chargers here, though that was the doing of the selfish Spanos family more than anything.

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