“College Football-A New Term-1 & Done”

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That came to an end quickly, but then again, maybe not in that place, for that place is unlike many others in college football.

Oregon begins the morning looking for a new head coach, after the Ducks fired Mark Helfrich, following a dreadful season in Eugene.

Yes (4-8) at a place like Oregon is not acceptable, not when you consider all the success that they have grown to accept.

It was the place where Rich Brooks led the Ducks out of oblivion, by getting them a few winning seasons.

It’s where Mike Belotti installed a superb spread offense that was the foundation of great success and changed the whole conference..

It was where Chip Kelly put that video game offense into place, and made the Pacific Northwest a destination point for quarterbacks, speed receivers and running backs. They came from Hawaii and Texas and Florida to wear those colors.

It was where the Ducks ran up scores on everyone, every year. And where Phil Knight funded facilities that made even NFL teams jealous.

But it unravelled quickly.

Helfrich won with Kelly’s players early, but when Marcus Mariota graduated, it crashed and burned quickly.

Oregon tried to go the graduate quarterback route. Last year it was the one season for Eastern Washington transfer Vern Adams. This year it was supposed to be Montana State transfer Dakota Prukop.

It failed badly, leaving Oregon without a trigger man for the bazooka type offenses they were supposed to run.

And defense, never a Ducks strength, worsened, with games in which Oregon gave up 600-yards or more.

And people never forgot, what Oregon did during the glory years. They ran up scores at Autzen Stadium against the once proud program. And people around the Pac 12-cheered about the payback the Ducks program got.

As good as they had it, as snazzy as their Green-Lemon-Silver uniform combs looked, thanks to Nike, Oregon became Public Enemy #1 on the West Coast.

They fell to Nebraska, got outgunned by Cal, Washington State put up (655) yards on them, and then Washington ran up 70-points and another (650) yards in offense infront of the home fans..

It was a horror show 5-game losing streak, and Oregon became the victim of “what goes around, comes around.”

Money is obviously no object. It will cost them 11.6M to get rid of Helfrich.

It will still be a destination point for a coach who loves wide open offense, and can you say Dale Holgorson of West Virginia amongst others?.

In an era where you better win, every year, Oregon now becomes the post
er child for excess in college football. Great facilities, great records, great fan and booster support.

You name them, Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma, the elite programs, with all the things most others dream of.

But now in the Willamette Valley, something else has taken place on the beautiful evergreen tree lined campus.

Oregon has now become known for something else. College Football adopts the basketball terminology.

You better not have one bad season, for their might not be another.

Mark Helfrich just round that out.

Oregon becomes football’s “one and done” school.

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“NFL Player-Leaves Game-Finds Self”

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It was only 1-sentence in a waiver wire story. Jason Brown, a former starter center with the Baltimore Ravens and St. Louis Rams, retires.

That was it.

It could have been just a typical story of a veteran player, beset by injuries, whose time was up Or a player done in by the salary cap, replaced by a younger player. Or a player who lost his desire to go on any further.

Happens all the time in the NFL, maybe the most transient form of employments in all of sports, unless you are a star quarterback, or a superstar player.

Roster moves are like the sun, players leave, like the sun comes up.

Except in the case of Jason Brown, longtime NFL center.

He walked away from the NFL with alot of money. He walked away from 37M that was left on his contract.

He walked away to become a farmer in North Carolina.

He walked away to do charity work, growing food for the hungry, and helping the handicapped.

A pretty good football player, whose life and values suddenly changed. Rated as the top interior offensive lineman when he became a high priced NFL free agent. A warrior, a captain, and a quality citizen.

Not by a torn knee ligament or a concussion, not by virtue of stud coming in to replace him via the NFL draft, but because of death.

The death of his brother, killed in Afghanistan.

It changes his value system. It drove him to want to do something on behalf of the fallen soldier. He wanted to give back.

So he spent his money to buy and build a farm And on that farm, he plants crops, tills the soil from sunrise to sunset, employs the handicaps, and gives back to his town and national charities.

He wanted to make a difference after his fallen brother made a difference defending the country.

In an era where we have to deal with the quirks of Colin Kaeperneck, the troubles of Greg Hardy, the struggles of the Cleveland Browns, and the NFL handing out stiff fines daily for cheapshots to celebration penalties, Jason Brown has found himself.

He’s found peace, prosperity and purpose. A devout Christian, who made his mark in the dirty business of playing offensive line in the NFL trenches.

That one sentence statement about his career on the waiver wire doesn’t tell you much about the man and his new mission.

A fascinating story about life’s priorities, once he decided his football life was over.

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“The Wild West-The AFC West”

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Nobody is giving an inch as we head to the final month of the NFL season.

The AFC-West continues to be a war-zone, and the teams at the top are refusing to give ground.

And the team at the bottom is winning, but cannot make up any ground.

Such is life for the Chargers, who annually dig themselves a hole early in the season, and more times than not, recently, just cannot catch up.

The Chargers have overcome the seige of injuries that crushed their skill players early in the season.

They staggered to mid-season after a terrible (1-4) start. They are winning the back half of much easier schedule.

But it still leaves them terribly behind the 8-Ball heading to the final month of the season.

The Raiders are now (9-2) and have earned it. They’ve won 6-road games this year, and beaten some pretty explosive teams at home.

The Kansas City Chiefs, despite an anemic offense, play it close to the vest, live off their defense, and find ways to win, unsexy as it might be.

Denver varies week to week. You never know if Trevor Siemian will be a scared deer in headlights or a big time player. Much depends whether he is playing at home-or on the road, witness last night’s wild overtime game with Kansas City.

Yes the Chargers could have a say to who becomes a wild card team, because they do get the Raiders and Chiefs at Qualcomm Stadium before this is over. But likely, not them.

But they need help, and no-one has stepped up to beat the Broncos nor the Chiefs in out of division games.

And of course, you never quite know how really good the Chargers are. Just when you you think they are putting it together, a Miami shows up and turfs them at home.

Attendance is off 11,000-per game…and could be the lowest average since the (1-15) season in 2000. You average 55,000, after getting as high as 68,000 in the Martyball era, that’s quite a dropoff.

Mike McCoy’s team cannot rely on home fan support either. Chargers fans are selling their tickets. Just look at how many fans showing up wearing Orange or Black when Denver-Oakland roll into town.

The Bolts get a suddenly dynamic Tampa Bay young QB-Jameis Winston next Sunday. He does make plays, does take chances. Shall be fun to see Joey Bosa introduce himself to the Bucs quarterback next Sunday.

But in the end, unless something drastic happens involving Denver or Kansas City, like losing a game or two they shouldn’t, it does not appear the Chargers are going to catch the rest of the division.

they put themselves into this position. They might be able to get out of it…sadly…again.

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“Chargers-How Far Do They Have To Go?”

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So I sat there like many of you did, and watched Thanksgiving Day NFL football

I saw explosive plays, big sacks, big pass plays, chunk runs, and lots of pressures on quarterbacks.

And I thought to myself, neither of these teams, the Cowboys nor Redskins, looks anything like the Chargers.

We respect and admire all the things quarterback Philip Rivers has accomplished. He expect superb things going forward from running back Melvin Gordon. We have seen flashes from defensive end Joey Bosa.

But that’s it. That’s all the Chargers really have.

Rivers is superior to Dak Prescott and Kirk Cousins.

Gordon and Ezekiel Elliot seem so strong you think they could have great careers.

Bosa is on a fast track.

But tell me the truth.

Do you see a Dez Bryant on the Chargers roster?

Do you seen anything in the Chargers offensive line that might resemble Tyronn Smith, Doug Free, Zach Martin or Travis Fredricks?

Is there really a Jason Witten coming off the Chargers line of scrimmage as a down the field tight end?

There was Ryan Kerrigan creating havoc for Washington coming off the edge, making more plays than the Chargers linebackers have made in 4-weeks.

Josh Norman is a culture unto himself. No one in San Diego’s secondary that combines all the dynamics Norman brings.

See Sean Lee run, see him tackle, see him make plays inside. You don’t see that from anyone on the San Diego side at that inside backer spot.

No, the Chargers are not equal to a team that has now won 10-games in a row.

You may not like Jerry Jones, risk taker, fast talker, hands on owner. But you’d have to agree he and his people have done a pretty good job building this team.

At least a heck of a lot better than the Spanos-Telesco teams has built in San Diego.

Thanksgiving Day football drove home the point how far behind the Chargers from being good, being dominant, being first place like.

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“Happy Thanksgiving”

“Strange Way to Do Businees”

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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.

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