What in the name of Don Mattingly is going on with the perennially underachieving playoff performing L.A. Dodgers. In his fifth season, Mattingly continues to underwhelm with a 7-10 record in the postseason and seems befuddled with strategy, lineup management and pitching changes. Now he benches Chase Utley in Game 2 despite Utley appealing his suspension and Utley’s solid career numbers against Mets pitcher Matt Harvey.
Mattingly should have been ousted last season after losing in the first round to St. Louis. The Dodgers hired Andrew Friedman from Tampa Bay and had a perfect opportunity to land Friedman’s partner in crime and managerial whiz Joe Maddon, but the Dodgers were blindly loyal to Mattingly and once again are suffering the consequences. A $300 million dollar payroll should yield better results and certainly deserves someone who can lead the troops. Dodgers Nation now turns its eyes to Clayton Kershaw to avoid back-to-back first round exits as they trail 2-1.
Speaking of bad coaches, Andy Reid’s conservative approach is killing Kansas City, who just lost Jamaal Charles for the season. Take off the shackles Andy and let Alex Smith throw the ball downfield. Defenses don’t respect your passing game and you finally have some decent weapons with Jeremy Maclin and Travis Kelce (sorry Dwayne “Butterfingers” Bowe). When you lose a home game to the Bears, there are real problems.
The Cincinnati Bengals just secured their biggest regular season win in a long time against a desperate Seattle Seahawks team. Everyone is waiting for the Bengals and Andy Dalton to fold but quite the opposite happened. Cincy rallied from a 17-point deficit in the second half and won in overtime. The Bengals are healthy on defense and have a new weapon in Tyler Eifert to complement A.J. Green which is a long time coming.
Meanwhile, those same Seahawks (2-3) have a test of their own this coming week when they host the undefeated Carolina Panthers who will have had two weeks to prepare.
Did anybody predict the Buccaneers and Jaguars combining for 69 points this week? Talk about upside-down.
Paging the Detroit Lions? An 0-5 start is bringing back memories of many hapless Lions teams, but three straight games against arguably the three best current NFL defenses in the Broncos, Seahawks and Cardinals didn’t help. Maybe a home game against the Bears this week will.
The Broncos defense might have to win a Superbowl for Peyton Manning. Either that or a matchup with an inferior Chicago Bears team again.
Brandon Weeden is getting benched in favor of Matt Cassel? Jerry Jones told us last week that we won’t see a more gifted passer than Weeden. Jones has such a great track record as GM that I almost believed him.
So the Patriots finally get to take out their anger on the Indianapolis Colts. Pats players and fans alike have had this game circled and with the Colts track record of being humiliated by the Patriots, this would appear to be no contest. But rest assured Andrew Luck will play despite Coach Chuck Pagano’s posturing and the Colts have quite a bit to prove themselves as they have slept walk through the season offensively and they are awful defensively. The Patriots win but the game will be much closer than people expect. Perhaps if the Colts win this game/or even come close, they will raise another non-championship banner?
Looks like there is another NFL scandal brewing. Last night in the Pittsburgh Steelers – San Diego Chargers game, the San Diego clock operator let 18 seconds run off the clock after a touchback with under three minutes remaining. None of the officiating staff or either team’s coaching staffs noticed. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said “All’s well that ends well”. It appears Tomlin has a different perspective when a glitch during an NFL game (ie headset malfunction) benefits the Steelers. Well at least he is consistent?
Hockey season is one week old and the Boston Bruins look like an absolute train wreck. For all the fuss about losing Milan Lucic, Dougie Hamilton and Reilly Smith in the offseason, the two moves that will haunt them for years to come are trading goalie Martin Jones to the San Jose Sharks who I believe is a number one goalie and not trading Tuukka Rask to free up salary space to attract an elite scorer. The Bruins have as much goalie depth as any team in the NHL.
Poor form by L.A. Clippers coach Doc Rivers for putting down Golden State’s championship by saying they got lucky because the Warriors avoided playing the Clippers and Spurs on the way to winning the West. The reason why the Warriors didn’t play the Clippers is because they choked a 3-1 lead away against Houston and Warriors guard Klay Thompson said it best “Look at our record against the Clippers last year…we smacked them.” Doc is better than that.
Antonio Cromartie called Odell Beckham a one year wonder. Can’t wait to hear Beckham’s retort when he finds out that Cromartie has fathered TWELVE children with nine mothers! Other standout family men include Ray Lewis (6 kids-4 mothers-1 murder), former Lions safety Bennie Blades (6 kids-6 mothers – 1 bazooka at a strip club), Kenny Anderson (7 kids- 5 mothers – 9 teams), Shawn Kemp (7 kids – 6 mothers – lots of food) and Mike Tyson (8 kids – unknown amount of mothers and a chewed off piece of ear). But the all-time winner for kids/mothers combo is former Bills running back Travis Henry with 11 kids and 10 mothers. Oh Henry!
