“Happy Thanksgiving”

“Strange Way to Do Businees”

-0-

It’s late in the season and the Chargers are struggling to stay in the playoff race.

It’s early in the off season and the Padres haven’t done very much to improve on their near 100-loss season of last summer.

Off the field, it’s also been strange too.

Voted down in the stadium measure, the Chargers are dropping hints to their favored out of town media “LA is a real possibility-their hand may be forced”.

You’d think Dean Spanos would have learned from last year’s failed ‘scorched earth policy’, that no one in this town is going to be bullied into giving a rich man a new football stadium.

Why bring up LA again, when it’s not really a viable option? Why not use the olive branch that is out there, to patch up bad relationships, to see if downtown can be re-visited, or whether something creative at the Qualcomm sight can be made to work to benefit all?

As the team staggers to the finish line, with another likely non-playoff season, we see the diminished fan support. The (1-15) season was 15-years ago, and the Chargers are home attendance is threatening to bottom out close to what they had that horrific year.

The Bolts are averaging (55,819) fans a game at home, with lots of out of town guests buying up tickets. Look at the club seats and sky boxes, and see how emtpy they are.

That 2000-nightmare of a season saw the franchise draw an average of 54,182 per home game. Ah the Ryan Leaf era of error.

Failing to win, trying to intimidate the fans to vote ‘yes’, and the nine month seige of negativity spewed by Mark Fabiani, has hurt the Spanos family name and the relationships in this town.

An unpopular coach, who remains on the job, hasn’t helped either.

The Padres have ridden an emotional roller-coaster of good news, bad news, high expectations and failed experiences.

The bad season was followed by the bad ending to the job status of President-CEO Mike Dee.

Then a month after he was axed, comes this generic press release, in which both sides compliment each other over their failed relationships.

Of course no one wants to comment about why you’d send this release out the night before Thanksgiving, when you buried Dee a month earlier.

Truth be, Dee probably threatened unlawful termination, and the Padres threatened to sue him for some of his business transactions. Yes there are pretty steamy rumors out there about the reasons for the parting.

And no 3-sentence press release will make that history go away.

And then the Padres decided to change their uniforms for 2017, but do so without a press conference for the media, using only social media to tell the fans, bland blue and white is what they’ll wear, probably to match the bland roster they will put on the field.

A chance to get some good publicity, and this is how you handle an opportunity, by locking out the key local media, so you can put stuff out on twitter.

Oh by the way, keeping score at home, by a vote of 96%-to-4%, fans taking part in my CW-6 twitter poll, were aghast at the new look uniforms, and the decision to remove the popular blue-gold and white uniforms, unveiled last year.

This is the same ownership group that fought the decision on ‘bring back the brown’ for a couple of season. Now fans are wearing the original colors all over town.

And much like the Chargers, we are still suffering the spillover from the ouija board roster moves in the 2-and-half year reign of GM-AJ Preller.

Who knows what December will bring to the Padres, but anything has to be better than what we have seen the last 18-months.

You just wonder.

All these rich people, successful in other business ventures, Spanos, Fowler, Seidler, why do they keep doing things the way they do things with the franchises they own?.

Strange way to do business, when your business in the NFL and MLB seems to be floundering.

-0-

-0-

“Who Made the Mistake”

-0-

I sit there and watch the games on the Fox Soccer Channel.

I am enthralled by the flair they play with in South America, at distant places like River Plate and Rio.

I know the world dominance of FC-Barcelona, Juventus and others.

I am so impressed with the grinding demanding style they play in places like Bayern Munich.

And I know the heritage of places like Arsenal, Manchester City, Man U and what they do in England.

And yet, with the huge population we have, with the resources we have, with the training facilities we have, the US is still not a national soccer power.

1950-when the US shocked the world with a global soccer win, was a long, long corner kick ago.

The demise of the Team USA-World Cup coach Jurgen Klinsmann did not come as a surprise. He was a free spirit, eclectic, dynamic and dysfunctional. .

His credentials in Germany on the world stage spoke well of his abilities on the pitch. But it never translated to success here in the US.

We do not have the snipers like you would find if your name was Messi.

We don’t have the personalities of Wayne Rooney.

We don’t have the flair of a Chicharito-Javier Hernandez.

We have MLS, our outdoor game, as a training ground for young talent, but we are never generating greatness.

Anyone ever remember Freddy Adu? Anybody to replace our legend Landon Donovan?. Anyone seen the next coming of goalie Tim Howard?.

Klinsmann had ideas and ideas. He changed things match to match. He had some flashes of success, but never was there continuity in whatever the game plan was.

He got Team USA to a knockout round in the World Cup, thank you Donovan and Clint Dempsey.

But he failed so badly in Gold Cup games, and whatever progress was made years ago, seemed to disappear in the back to back opening losses earlier this month in World Cup qualifying.

Even his (55-27-16) record with the American side failed to protect him from this firing, because you never could figure out what he would do, or say next, and how it was supposed to link to what he did or said four months prior.

Bruce Arena will leave the LA Galaxy and join Team USA, and has four months to find the right mix of players, upfront and on the back end, before the next round of qualifying begins.

The fatality list of coaches abroad is soccer is amazing. Mexico fires coaches annually and has had little success.

Look at the heads on the chopping block yearly in the English Premeir League.

Just waiting to Team USA soccer to become a global power. Don’t know when, how and with whom.

Just know I will be watching the Fox Soccer Channel till something wearing Red-White-and Blue surfaces to tell me ‘we have arrived’.

I thought Klinsmann would have been the one to deliver the message. Not the right guy, and we’ve never had a right guy to fix US soccer.

-0-

-0-

“Bad News Bears”

-0-

Your name is John Fox, and you have to ask what has happened to your career?

Successful in Carolina before parting ways.

Success in Denver before it all came apart.

Now in Chicago, it seems to be the worst of the worst, with no way to make it better.

Hard to imagine the career of a pretty good coach has gone so far off track.

Da Bears, not the Chicago Bears of Mike Ditka. Surely not the Monsters of the Midway era either..

You can find the Chicago Bears buried in the basement of the NFL standings, with a record of (2-8).

You coach a team that keeps losing all its top players, the few really good ones you have been given.

Alshon Jeffrey, the big money receiver, beset by injuries, now serving a 4-game drug suspension.

Kevin White, the other highly regarded receiver, never got on the field last year, with ankle injuries, and has been out more than in the lineup this year.

They’ve just lost all everything offensive tackle Klye Long with surgeries for two different injuries.

There is no running game, for ailments have taken top young back Jeremy Langford out of the lineup, and ownership took Matt Forte off the roster, rather than trying to re-sign him.

The center went down with a season ending injury early. The tight end, Zach Miller, went down with a season ending injury on Sunday.

2-of the 3-starting front on defense are out, the big blow being NT-Eddie Goldman.

Top linebacker Jerrell Freeman just go hit with a 4-game drug suspension,.and hot rookie Leonard Floyd had a scary neck injury this past weekend.

You jettisoned popular and trustworthy kicker Robbie Gould also in a money move as the season began.

And oh yeah, your quarterback is Jay Cutler, he of million dollar arm, ten-cent brain, with faulty leadership skills. And his backup, Brian Hoyer is gone for the year hurt also.

John Fox, his team staggering at (2-8) after last year’s horrid first season.

Don’t know what he did to deserve all this, but his careeer sure has gotten away from him.

And oh yes, winter weather is coming too.

Bad time to be a Bears fan. Worse time to be the coach of “Dah Bears”.

-0-

-0-

“Aztecs Lose More Than Just a Game”

-0-

It was a testament to fortitude, to toughness, to desire.

But it turned out to be a gut-wrenching loss, after it looked like it would be an emotional high of a win.

San Diego State’s worst fears happened Saturday afternoon in Memorial Stadium in Laramie, when the Aztecs lost (34-33) to Wyoming.

Pushed all over the field, beat up with injuries to their defense, and done in by the altitude, State was on the brink of being blown out in the second half.

But the spirit of its two tough guy running backs, the grit of its young sophomore quarterback, put them in a position to win.

Christian Chapman drove his team 99-yards in (:67) for a TD, that gave them the chance to win as time expired with a point after play.

All this after Rashaad Penny and Juwann Washington had earlier returned kickoffs for 93 and 97-yards, to get the Aztecs back into the game.

All this after the defense was riddled for (487Y) by Wyoming’s do everything quarterback Josh Allen and running back Brian Hill. The Cowboys had an amazing (84-58) edge in plays run against SDSU’s nationally fifth ranked defense.

But the hope died on the point after play.

Rocky Long and Jeff Horton could have gone for a slam dunk point after kick to tie it, and force the game to overtime.

But SDSU’s defense was gassed. Long did not want them back on the field.

He went for broke, knowing his team was going to be in the Mountain West conference title game in two weeks, regardless of what happened in the cold-thin air in Laramie.

Going for the win made sense, the play call did not.

Neither Penny nor DJ Pumphrey got the ball at the two yard line. There was not pass to the end zone to their developing tight end or one of their receivers.

Instead, Chapman tried a rollout-throwback to his fullback, who was blanketed by coverage.

Deflection, incompletion, game over. Wyoming wins. SDSU loses.

But it was a costly gamble Rocky Long and Jeff Horton took.

The loss cost them home field advantage for the Mountain West Championship game. It puts them back on the road in two weeks, either back in Laramie, or at Boise State, depending what happens in the final game of the season next Saturday.

Wyo goes to New Mexico, and that won’t be easy. Boise is in Colorado Springs against Air Force.

Regardless, you can bet playing on the blue carpet in Boise won’t be easy. And it surely won’t be 47-degrees in Laramie two Saturday’s from now.

The gamble is costly also, because it wiped out the potential of a shot at a New Year’s Day game in the Cotton Bowl, one that is worth more than 6M to the Aztecs program.

It doesn’t ruin a really good season. It doesn’t tarnish all the great things Rocky Long has brought to Montezuma Mesa.

But this program got to where it is on the talents of Pumphrey and the explosiveness of Penny. Not lettting them try to win the game for you, after all they did all year, makes no sense.

Go for the win in Laramie? Yes. Agree with the decision Don’t agree with the play-call.

The kids deserved the chance to do it with their explosive stars touching the ball. The brilliant coaches made a mistake.

And in the end, the Aztecs lost more than just a game at Wyoming.

-0-

Click here

-0-

“Chargers-Saying Nothing-But-Saying Something”

-0-

The Chargers won’t lose this weekend, because they are not playing.

But if you look at the fan turnout at the Q for recent home games, you are struck by a couple of things.

Lots of empty seats in the 2nd deck, the most expensive seats in the house, and lots of noise from fans wearing the other team’s colors. That has become a common happening in recent years.

There’s Mike McCoy telling us on Monday’s how much he likes his team, how hard they work, the good job done by the coaches.

All this in the wake of 5-fourth quarter collapses, in which they had leads, and lost them.

But according to Coach Cliche, all is well at Chargers Park.

And then GM-Tom Telesco, grilled by the media about the state of the team, refuses to do anything except give us the obvious.

To quote the Chargers GM…

Tough losses in the fourth quarter of games.

We have uncovered some really good young players.

We’ll get our injured players back next year and add them to what we have found this year.

The players play hard for the head coach.

The head coach has done a tremendous job getting all the young players, and the so many new players, ready, in short order to get them on the field.

That’s right. It’s all what he said, and all he had to say. It seems the decision is already made, there will be a 5th year with Mike McCoy.

All this despite a (4-6) record this season. All this despite a 4th straight year without a playoff berth. All this despite a (9-21) record since early in the 2014 season. All this despite a (1-10) record against teams in the AFC-West.

Reading between the lines, it appears the GM, and the organization are going to stay with this guy as head coach, despite poor records, floundering attendance, and another likely last place finish.

The Chargers say nothing, and like on the field, get nothing accomplished either.

Not much accountability these days at Chargers Park. Not much credibility either.

What do you think?