College Football Playoffs-Expected More-Got Less”

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It was a great college football season. What we saw New Year’s Eve was less the sparkling.

The field is set for College Football Championship game, Alabama-vs-Clemson, but the semi-finals weren’t very exciting.

We knew Alabama-Michigan State would be a defensive war, and it was. It was a slugfest, it was not sexy. The Tide took apart the Spartans offense. QB-Connor Cook was under pressure all night, and for every decent pass he hit, and he had yt throw alot after his team fell behind, he misfired on lots of others.

Running back LJ Scott, one of the really good power backs in the Big 10-had Tide defenders all over him. There were few big gains.

Michigan State slugged it out too against the Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry, making the near 2,000-yard tailback work hard for the tough yards he got.

Quarterback Jake Coker was efficient, made some decent throws, but won’t scare anybody as a pocket passer. More pedestrian than pro star.

Alabama is that good, perennially loaded with NFL draft picks. Michigan State pushed the rock up the hill as well as they could, but did not have enough bullets in the offensive gun to make enough plays. The Tide’s defense just suffocated MSU’s offense, taking the air out of the game.

Clemson went wild against Oklahoma, a dynamic game, if you like the color Orange, a disappointing day if you were on the Sooner Schooner.

Deshaun Watson, the super sophomore, continued what he did all ACC-season, make plays with his legs, so he would make plays with his arm. The real surprise was the ferocious Clemson defense, which swarmed the run lanes, and chase Bob Stoops’ quarterback.

Baker Mayfield, who had awesome numbers throwing the ball in the Big 12, was all over the place, throwing it, missing it, especially when the game got out of hand.

Of course OU lost superb running back Joe Mixon with a neck injury, and his co-tailback Sam Perine was dinged up too with leg and knee issues.

The Sooners defense had plenty of time to prepare for the diversity of the Clemson QB-but never put a lid on him.

So Watson and the Tigers, meet Nick Saban the Roll-Tide defense in a couple of weeks for the national championship game. Something just doesn’t feel right about this matchup.

Yes they earned it, but hopefully the finals will be better than last night’s semi-finals, which I thought were boring, and a downturn from what we saw Saturday-by-Saturday during the regular season.

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“Holiday Bowl-No Holiday for USC”

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It was fierce, it was well-fought, it was a Wisconsin win and a USC-Trojans loss.

Yes, they may be off probation, but Southern Cal’s loss in the Holiday Bowls to the Big 10-Badgers showed a couple of things to the screaming-howling mob of fans at Qualcomm Stadium.

There’s lots of work to be done at Heritage Hall on the SC campus.

Wisconsin beat down the Trojans. The Badgers, known forever for their road-grader offensive line and full power run game, came out throwing, and kept throwing all night. In the face of a pretty strong SC pass rush, Badgers QB-Joel Stave kept completing passes. He got kicked in the facemask by accident, and probably broke his nose in the 4th quarter, but came right back, to manage his way to victory.

They surprised USC by throwing for (217)-yards in the win.

Wisconsin blitzed and blitzed and blitzed SC-QB Cody Kessler. He never had much time, never found much rhythm, and overthrew JuJu Smith-Schuster three times when the young receiver was open on deep patterns. When your quarterback keeps getting hit, they start to unload early, to get the ball away. Kessler did not have accuracy on a cold-brisk night in Mission Valley, because the heat was so hot on him.

The vaunted Trojans run game just never got going either, much of it because the Wisconsin blitz package clogged up run lanes, when not chasing Kessler around the field.

And even with officials mis-calls on plays, one that should have been a Badgers TD, Kessler still couldn’t move his team into position for a last second long distance field goal.

Wisconsin is for real. Their only losses were to Alabama, Iowa and Michigan State, and you know where those three teams are playing this weekend, don’t you?

For SC, they lose the quarterback, who goes to the NFL. Their top defender Sa’i Cravens, the linebacker-defensive end, is filing for the draft too. They lose offensive lineman and guys in the defensive front.

Clay Helton will have a full assortment of scholarships to use, but there will be missing pieces. SC winds up at (8-6), not all that impressive considering all the skill talent they have on the roster.

The fans got a good game, network television had a great finish, because it went to the final possession before the Badgers held on downs, even though it was 2:15am-on the East Coast when it finally ended.

Great game, just not a great finish to the USC season. Wisconsin enjoyed their Holiday Bowl trip to San Diego.   Southern Cal, may have beaten UCLA earlier in the month, but have six losses around their neck, that symbolize they are not back yet.  Not much of a Holiday for the Trojans on this visit.

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“Let the Bleed Out Begin”

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We don’t have to wait for ‘Black Monday’ to get here.

The Philadelphia Eagles beat everyone to the punch on ‘Takeout Tuesday’ with the surprise, stealth firing of Chip Kelly as coach, just 5-days before they were to play the final game of a lousy (6-9) football season.

Kelly, who was going to revolutionize the NFL upon his arrival, was done in by a player revolt, by his heavy handed policies, and his back room back stabbing. That spectacular run he had with the Oregon Ducks didn’t really translate that well on the NFL landscape.

The smartest man in the room was going to run a Video Game offense, no one could stop. He was going to forever change the sports nutrition and the lifestyle of players thru a scientific process. He was going to make the right player decisions as it relates to the talent level on the roster.

The end result was a (26-23) record, but a downturn that saw the guys wearing Midnight Green turn to back, losing games, and losing faith in his leadership ability. They dropped 12-of-their last 19 games dating back to last December.

He went thru 3-starting quarterbacks in less than 3-years. Nick Foles had one mystical season, then fell apart, leading to his departure. Sam Bradford,coming off two knee surgeries, labored with turnovers, hits, and plain struggled in what they were running.

Kelly, the so-called smartest man in the room, got rid of Foles, traded away LeSean McCoy, ran off DeSean Jackson, made no effort to re-sign Jeremy Maclin, and blew out two offensive guards.

His defenses were blown off the field, giving up 40-points or more three times in their late season spiral.

What he ran was unconventional, caught teams by surprise, but in the end, it went the way of lots of other gimmick packages. The run and shoot, the pistol, the power I, were all figured out in due time, by NFL coaches. You see enough of it on video, you can defend it. It all caught up with him.

Kelly may resurface in another NFL job, maybe with the Colts, where there is Andrew Luck, or in Tennessee, home of Marcus Mariota. He will need a special style of quarterback to run his package, and those guys seem few and far between.

Maybe he sits and collects money for a year, visits many of his coaching friends, and goes back to college next year, where the turnover rate goes up and up. There surely will be more quality jobs next year, much like there were this year at Florida, Georgia, Virginia Tech, South Carolina, USC and other spots.

In the end, the smart guy outsmarted himself, thinking his system could beat the years and years of experience defensive coordinators have looking at Xs and Os. Mr. Smarty-Pants didn’t prove to very good at player evaluations either, leaving behind, an ill-fitting offense, and a terrible defense.

Kelly joins Steve Spurrier, Butch Davis,Lou Holtz, Bobby Petrino, Barry Switzer, Nick Saban and others, who came with fanfare, left as failures. Not everyone can be a Jimmy Johnson. Chip Kelly sure wasn’t.

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“Family-Different Meanings-Different People”

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You can use the word family to describe many situations. What happens in your home. How a pro sports organization describes its operation.

But in this case, the use of the word ‘family’ seems fraudulent, after what happened Monday at Chargers Park.

The NFL team slapped its defensive captain Eric Weddle with a 10,000-fine, for breaking a club rule, in the final home game two weeks ago when they played Miami.

Weddle, who is ailing with a groin injury, elected not to go to the locker-room at halftime with his teammates, while the team was up (23-0) to the Dolphins. Playing his final home game before he becomes a free agent, Weddle elected to stand near the end-zone to watch one of his daughters perform a dance routine before the 62,000-fans at Qualcomm Stadium.

In a season of losses and injuries, yes Weddle violated protocol and team rules. Maybe he should have asked for permission. Maybe it would have been granted, maybe it wouldn’t have.

Then he was placed on Injured Reserve, taking him out of the Broncos game on Sunday, with the Chargers saying they needed to clear roster space to get healthy bodies on the practice field.

Added to it all, the club announced Weddle could not fly with the team to the final game in Denver, because there was not any room for the 15-IR players the club has on that list.

But there is a history of ill-will that has boiled all season long, the aftermath of Weddle’s unhappiness when the club decided not to offer him a contract extension from his 8M a year package before the season began. Edgy comments, borderline nastiness from the player, arrogance from the organization.

It brings us back to the word ‘family’, the Chargers like to throw around in public. GM-Tom Telesco, upon taking the job, mentioned it time and time again, that things would change from what they were before, before being the AJ Smith era.

But Team Spanos has this history of bad endings with lots of people, star players, front office execs, media and broadcasters.

It’s Dan Fouts calling a retirement press conference at his Rancho Santa Fe home with no salute from the Spanos family has he exited his career, one that eventually took him to Canton and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

It’s the dispatching of linebacker Junior Seau to Miami. It was the release of Rodney Harrison, who wound up playing so well in New England. Add to that the elimination of LaDainian Tomlinson, who wound up with the Jets. The public denouncement of Donnie Edwards, the shadowy insinuations about Stan Humphries and his career ending concussion. The lowball treatment of then star receiver Vincent Jackson; the elimination of Darren Sproles; and the handling of the Drew Brees talks.

Add in how things ended for the last three successful coaches that wore the Lightning Bolt, Don Coreyll, Bobby Ross and Marty Schottenheimer. Winners treated badly by an ownership group that has a history of losing, 22-non-winning seasons in 31-years of operation. Those guys were the leaders of the football family.

It seems the way they do things over at the Fortress, on a career-by-career basis that really sheds light on who the ownership is, what the corporate philosophy is, and their inability to do anything right by the players who have given so much to the franchise, and the community.

So just remember Eric Weddle’s treatment, when you think of people on the 2nd floor at Chargers Park, and somebody over there uses the ‘family’ phrase again. Just another name to add to the list of how things ended badly, because ownership allows it to be done that way.

Oh I’m sure they will trot out the phrase ‘family’ again sometime soon. Maybe we have the wrong interpertation.

‘Family’ means anythiing-everything when the benefactor is someone named Spanos is attached to it.

‘Family’ does not extend to its star players nor past coaches. Sadly.

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“A Vote to Hire-Fire”

 
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The misery is almost over for this San Diego Chargers football team.
They delivered Christmas Eve gifts to the Oakland Raiders on Thursday night, giving San Diego’s fans a lump of coal that read (4-11) this season, and (0-5) in the AFC West.

The records are awful, so is the team, and many think the leadership ranks right up their too in the standings. And now the question, what to do?

Dad is surely not going to fire son. There’s nothing wrong with nepotism, if you are on the receiving end, just ask John Spanos, whose VP-job is safe.

 
The GM was given a 3-year contract extension before the season began, after what many thought was a pretty good off season of drafting and signings.

 
It didn’t work out, with all these injuries, and the inability to find the right system for the top draft pick, running back Melvin Gordon. The free agents for the most part failed.

 
And where do you place coach Mike McCoy in the ‘blame game’ of all this.

 
He coaches the players given to him. He is the creator of the offense. His people call the plays in an anemic offense, and a struggling defense. His philosophy for sure.

 
McCoy is now (23-26) in his nearly 3-year run. Is it all his fault?

 
This year has been a nightmare. As of this morning, the Chargers have 15-losses by 7-points or less in his three campaigns. It’s all a bottom line business-did you win-did you lose? As Bill Parcells would say, ‘no medals for trying’.

 
So you wonder if McCoy has the creative juice to find a way to will his team to victory. His quarterback has that history, but maybe it is Philip River’s will to win that kept games so close.

 
Of course there have been 9-double digit losses during McCoy’s run too. Some really hidious beatings at home included. You cannot forget (33-3) to the Chiefs, and the (37-6) deficit they had to the Raiders, and a (37-0) trashing to Miami.

 
Lost too in the setbacks the last two years, the flashy no-huddle offense they had in year one. Those pages didn’t fall out of the playbook, they just don’t have the talent to run lots of that stuff now. Running Jevontee Herndon and Donnie Inman out there as your starters does that to your playbook.

 
They remain married to the (3-4) defense, but don’t have the front to dominate, and the young linebacking corps has been learning on the jobs. Lots of big 10-plus runs, lots of 20-yard passing plays too against John Pagano’s crew.

 
And then the injuries. The numbers are staggering. Of the top 60-players they had on the opening day roster, 27-of them have sustained major injuries.

 
6-of-the top 7-offensive lineman have had significant injuries, concussions, knees, ankles, and many of them with multiple injuries.

 
And the concussion syndrome, 15-concussions this year, leading the NFL in that category.

 
So what do the Bolts do? You can fire McCoy, but what percentage of all this is his fault.

 
They owe him a year, and should give him a year to fix the mess. 3-weeks ago, he said ‘we take ownership of this mess’. If so, give him 2016 to fix this mess.

 
He may be loyal to his staff, and that’s great, but he may go down with the ship if he keeps Frank Reich as offensive coordiantor and Pagano on the defensive side.

 
They must draft a nose tackle and an offensive tackle. They are going to have two picks in the top 35-most likely. They hope to get hurt people healthy.

 
This is not all McCoy’s fault, but he shares the blame. If they’re not firing the VP of football ops, nor the GM, then they shouldn’t fire the coach either, not for another year.

 
McCoy has to prove however, he can become a Mike McCarthy, or reinvent a team like Andy Reid. He must also prove he is not Eric Mangini nor Kevin Gilbride.

 
Give him 2016. Give him next year.

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