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“QBs-Always on the Clock”

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The memory is so vivid.

Every time I see a big hit on an NFL quarterback, I wonder how they ever get up. Wonder how they feel the next day. Wonder about the cumulative effect.

Philip Rivers, the tower of strength at quarterback for the Chargers, is day-to-day, trying to recover from 3-wicked hits in the Sunday loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Built as big as an Oak Tree, Rivers has had just 2-major injuries in his career.

A torn knee ligament, repaired by surgery, just prior to the Patriots playoff game years back. And a chest-back injury two years ago that plagued him at the end of the season into the off season.

it has been remarkable considering how many 40-sack seasons he has had…and how many 80-plus additional hit campaigns he has had.

He will remain in concussion protocol till probably the end of the week.

He was victimized by a fluke high-low hit at the end of the first quarter against the Jags. He was hit high, almost bumped, in the front chest area. As he was falling backward, he was wiped out by a low, back to the legs hit, when a Jaguars pass rusher coming from behind, was blocked into the quarterback by Russell Okung.

No flag, because that was incidental, but violent contact. Rivers was flipped over backwards, and all 6-6 of him landed on his back and on the back of his head. He was jolted. Rolled over. Took his helmet off, and you could tell he was badly shaken.

He came right back out the next series, and showed no effects.

In the 2nd half, he took a head on chest hit on a blitz. He stayed in there, made the pass, took the blow.

Then in overtime, on an interception return, he became the tackler, lowering his head to stop a Jaguars TD return at his own 2-yard line. Rivers put his helmet down, and so did the return man.

Helmet to helmet, it was violent.

It was not till overnight, the next morning, Rivers complications arose. He has not publicly discussed them yet, but you can imagine, headaches, nausea, light headedness. Hopefully it has not lingered.

But when I see that happening to a Bolts quarterback, I have flashbacks, to the one big hit that Chargers QB-Stan Humphries took.

The courageous stay in the pocket, mad bomber of a QB, the guy who had driven the Bolts to the Super Bowl, always traded the big shot to make the big play.

In one snap it was all over. In a game against a bad Bengals team, Cincinnati linebacker Reinard Wilson ran full bore, unblocked, stampeded right over Humphries.

The quarterbacks back of the head, hit the cold turf in Cincinnati. Concussion. Bad concussion. Never to play the rest of the season concussion. Never to play again, career ending concussion.

I’ll never forget the glazed look on his eyes on the plane flight home. The black eyes that developed. And the sadness we all felt when the complications just would not go away.

Rivers, like Humphries, like every other QB on a Sunday in the pocket, is always on the clock.

It’s part of the big-bad NFL. You wish you could make the game safer for those guys, but you cannot.

You hope the outcome for #17 is better than the outcome for #12.

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“Baseball Awards-High & Wide”

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Wow, this was like a moving strike zone some of the home plate umpires employ.

This vote for Manager of the Year, by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

They were all over the place, and when we got to the final out, the final vote, there were surprises. They voted for the underdog.

Torey Lovullo of the Arizona Diamondbacks, ran away with the balloting for National League bench boss of they year. He took a 93-loss team and made it a 93-win season in Phoenix. He did it despite some major injuries to a couple of key everyday players. He got the benefit of his GM making a bold trade to rent home run hitter JD Martinez.

He got 18-first place votes.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who started the season without his pitching ace Clayton Kershaw, ended the season without vested veteran Adrian Gonzalez, and managed thru an array of DL stints involving starting pitching, was second, but got just 5-votes.

He coaxed a consistent season out of Yasiel Puig. Tolerated a terrible season from former rookie of the year Joc Pederson, and the injury to Corey Seager.

That despite watching his team go thru a (57-11) stretch at midseason …survive a (1-16) pothole…then sprint into the/World Series, he didn’t merit much consideration..

Bud Black, who had the Rockies in the pennant race thru July got 3-votes to finish third.

Over in the American League, it was much the same.

Paul Molitor took a 103-loss Minnesota Twins team to the Wildcard game before the season ended. He found a bunch of young bats, got by with a journeyman starter and rookie right-hander having good seasons on the mound.

Monitor, in danger of getting fired last year, got 18-votes.

The popular Terry Francona, with a great lineup and very good pitching staff wound up second with 11-votes for the very strong summer in Cleveland..

AJ Hinch, whose Astros were blazing hot for half a season, then played home run derby the the playoffs, and won the World Series, got one, that is right ‘1’ first place vote.

Granted the BWAA votes only on regular season accomplishment. Maybe post-season should be considered and you canst your vote the day after the World Series is over.

But it is stunning that winning 103 games in a season and pile-driving thru the playoffs to the Fall Classic, wouldn’t merit stronger consideration.

No argument with the jobs done in Arizona and Minnesota. Just saying the accomplishments at Dodgers Stadium and Minute Maid Park, seemed much more creditable.

Dave Roberts and AJ Hinch had great seasons. They probably deserved more respect in the post-season votes.

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“Baseball Free Agency-Bidding Dollars-Yen”

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This will be a fascinating couple of weeks with baseball free agency upon us.

Not just to see where Arizona Diamondbacks slugger JD Martinez winds up, or what the price tag will be on Dodgers starting pitcher Yu Darvish.

But the real gem in the bidding process will be for 6’4 Japanese superstar Shoehi Otani, full-time DH…part-time pitcher…across the board superstar.

It is a different era in international baseball now, with the new Interantional cap for free agents.

The Nippon Ham Fighters will be ‘posting’ Omani within the next couple of weeks.

He falls under a different set of rules for free agents, different than the escpees from Cuba, or the teenage sensations from the Latin America countries.

MLB teams will have to bid 20M to get the chance to make a contract offer to Omani. It’s called a ‘posting fee’….and once the 20M amount is posted, Otani will then be able to listen to offers from any major league club. Nippon gets the posting fee. The player gets the signing bonus and multi year contract with future earnings expected to grow.

But because of the new rules, Otani will not become part of a bidding war. He will remain under the new International Cap rules just effected a couple of years ago.

The max contract he can get from any team will be a 3.5M-signing bonus, spread out over the years of the contract.

But there will be a limit on how many teams can sign him to the max. If you are the Dodgers-Yankees-Red Sox, or even the Padres, and you have exceeded the international cap the last couple of years, the max contract you can offer is 300,000 bonus.

All the other teams, approximately 17-could go as high as the 3M figure, if they wanted to spend all their cap money on one player.

Otani could have stayed in Japan two more years, and would have been a total free agent at age 25, and the cap rules would not apply. But he wants to come to the US now.

Outside of the great veteran Ichuro Suzuki, there have been few from Japan who have made an impact as an everyday player.

Hideo Nomo and Dice Matsuzaka are among the pitchers who had very good success in MLB, as have Yu Darvish and Kenta Maeda, but none became superstars.

Otani might be the first. A right-handed pitcher with a 100mph fastball, he has gone (42-15) over the last three years. When not pitching, he was a DH-outfielder, and hit (.323) for the Ham Fighters on days he was not pitching.

And so questions spreading from the continental US to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Does he want to play in the American League?

Will he demand he be allowed to be a true two position players…DH and pitcher?

Would he go to a New York or Boston, where his signing would be buffeted by marketing side deals that could rake in more money?

Does he want to be a Dodger or a Giant, where the Aisan-American community would embrace him, with franchises that have had great success with Japanese-Korean players?

Does he go with a small market team, where the visibility and pressure would be a lot less?

Will a team allow him to be a two position player, in a sport where we have not had that since the 1950s, in the era of a Bob Lemon?

He has hired the well know “CAA” agency to rep him. Their rep, big dollar deals.

But he is a humble, religious, team-driven guy.

Get your conversion table out, dollars-to-yen, ERA-to-OPS…and get ready for a fascinating couple of weeks to determine where the next star from Japan winds up.

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“Chargers Football-Same Old-Same Old”

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The second half of the Chargers season has started just like the beginning of the season.

A poor performance, across the board, and another loss, after we all expected a possible win.

For the record, the Chargers are now (3-6), and all that is new, seems to be plagued by all the old problems.

Here goes a checklist of what I saw.

SPECIAL TEAMS…Not so special once again, a problem that has gone on unstopped for 3-years. George Stewart, who once ran special teams for the Steelers in the Bill Cowher era, has a team in last place in most every category. He has not coached special teams since 1999-why was he hired?

PENALTIES….This week’s goats were kids Rayshawn Jenkins and Michael Davis, who keep picking up flags. They wipe out big gains with bad blocks. Or they commit fouls that tack on yardage for other guy.

FAKE KICKS…The Bolts got caught standing naked as Jacksonville ripped off a 56-yard TD run on a fake punt.

TIGHT ENDS …Where was Hunter Henry in the game plan vs the Jaguars? MIA, hardly ever targeted, and Antonio Gates virtually ignored. Just when you think Henry could be as dangerous-productive as Rob Gronkowski, he does not get targeted.

KID RUNNING BACK…It’s taken Ken Whisenhnunt half a season to find a replacement for all the things Danny Woodhead used to bring to the table. It was a breakout game for the rookie Austin Eckler, but then again, a costly fumble let the Jags back in the game.

DROPS-DROPS-DROPS…Happened again. Tyrell Williams dropped an open TD pass that could have blown the game open. And S-Tre Boston dropped another surge-fire pick six, but he is a defensive back.

ODD MISTAKE…Joey Bosa plays so hard, and for an odd time, he stepped over the line, with the late hit, throw to the ground, of QB-Blake Bortels. You can forgive him for being all out all the time.

DUMB MISTAKES…Tre Boston picks off a pass and starts dancing and steps out of bounds, rather than running up the field with the idea of burning the clock. Not too smart.

CLOCK MANAGEMENT….Hey we are only 9-games into the season. Delay of game flag after penalties. Burned timeouts. Undisciplined mental penalties. It happened opening game in September. Still happening in November. Not very smart leadership is there?

DENZEL DO IT…Quite a first game back for Denzel Perryman. He was everywhere making plays the whole first half, but ran out of gas in the second half. Need him on the field all the time.

HAUNTED AGAIN…In same old Chargers fashion, they get put down by someone they got rid of. This time, erratic K-Josh Lambo comes back and bangs home two late field goals, to tie it, then win it. Never ends.

TWO MINUTE WARNING…That was as ugly-bad-wild as you could imagine. The final two minutes of the game. The Ekeler fumble. The two Tre Boston interceptions off Bortels. The two taunting penalties, flags of stupidity by the Jags. The Bosa roughing he passer penalty.

SCOREBOARD DOES NOT LIE….The Chargers are now (13-31) dating back two and a half years. Anybody believe this team is improving? They now have 14-one touchdown losses in the last year and a half.

COACHING EQUATION…Is this team any better with Anthony Lynn, than it was Mike McCoy? The big issue, everyone of the offensive coordinators the Spanos family has hired have failed as head coaches. Ownership is a problem too, isn’ t it.

FIGHT FOR LA….Ha-Ha. Rams now (7-2) and look for real. Chargers seem forever a failure, with an aging quarterback. Another non playoff season for the Bolts.

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“College Basketball-Roll the Ball Onto the Floor”

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A new era at one place. A new season at the other. Both very important times as they open the college hoops season this weekend.

A new era at San Diego State, as Brian Dutcher replaces the iconic Steve Fisher.

A new season at the University of San Diego for coach Lamont Smith, where they are trying to stop the losing spree.

Important seasons for both schools, for very different reasons.

For the first time in a long time, there is no preseason rating in the polls for San Diego State, where 20-win seasons, even a (30-3) camp again, and annual March Madness invites were the norm.

Now Dutcher, who sat next to a great one in Fisher, for nearly two decades, gets to do it his way.

Now Smith, who has suffered thru two horrible seasons of losses, has his own team, loaded with a couple of years of recruits, needing wins maybe to save his job.

The Aztecs welcome in highly regarded USF-transfer guard Devin Watson, giving SDSU possibly the best threesome in any backcourt in the conference, and maybe even on the West Coast.

The Aztecs season will hinge though on consistent play, scoring and rebounding, from Malik Pope and quality minutes from transfer center Kam Rooks.

They know they will get quality performances from Watson, Trey Kell and Jeremy Hensley. They need a breakout season from some big man, whether that is the highly touted freshman Jalen McDaniels, or the afore-mentioned Pope, whose career has been like the stock-market, up and down. It might be unfair to call him an under achiever, but he surely is not what we hoped for when he first arrived.

Maybe a growth year from 3-point shooter Max Montana, or consistency from Missouri transfer Monti Gil-Caesar can make a difference, because the two transfers have been more disappointing that reliable contributors.

At USD, the horrors should be over.

It’s been painful to watch the program stagger in recent years. Smith’s teams were undermanned for two straight seasons. He had to sit and take it, and it included 3-of the worst beatings USD ever has ever suffered, at the likes of Gonzaga and BYU and St. Mary’s.

He’s recruited guards like Olin Carter, who can shoot, score and make plays. Now he has talent coming in, in droves.

Now for the first time, he has bulk, in 6’8-banger Alex Floresca from St-Louis…and 6-8 grinder Xavier Pineiro, grinder transfer from Portland State.

Finally tough guy Cam Neubauer, who had to do it all last year, has some muscle help alongside him.

Add in 3-young bigs, 6’10…6’11 and 7’…all likely to be cornerstones a year from now while learning about what the West Coast Conference is like this winter.

USD has players from Germany, Austria and Belarus on board too. Call it the Gonzaga plan. Now we wait to see if they can grow into the type of player Gonzaga has.

Dutcher’s team will be up-tempo and fast. They will play defense. Can they score enough if they have to go into set offenses? Can they get points from somebody besides those over-worked guards?.

Smith’s team will be much more physical to counter act what goes on in the conference. Can they stay out of foul trouble and stay in games?

Big years for both. SDSU cannot afford to slip into mediocrity. USD has to climb out of this horrible athletic abyss.

Roll that ball onto the floor. The Aztecs start tonight. The Toreros start on Sunday.

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