Thuggery, Ghetto Life, and Attitudes: Three More Arrests in the NFL This Week...

A lot of people, over the years, have criticized the NBA for being too "ghetto", and, of course, we had a politician decide to take a Twitter shot at the league, saying that, if two-thirds of the teams in the league folded, the only real difference would be a rise in street crime.

(Whether he said that about the players or the fans is another matter.)

But they don't seem to hold a candle to the NFL, where, this week, three more bastions of American Manhood have seen fit to get themselves in serious trouble:

• Chris Culliver of the 49ers, he of the "sweet stuff" homophobia comment before the Super Bowl against the Ravens, showed us (allegedly) how "sour" he wants things to be.  He has been arrested tonight on felony hit and run charges on a bicyclist.  In addition, he also faces weapons charges for producing a pair of brass knuckles against a witness to it who confronted him on the first felony.
• Ray Rice, speaking of the Ravens, was indicted by a grand jury on aggravated assault this week.  His alleged target is no real shock:  His fiance.  Casino in New Jersey, the aggravation coming from a TMZ video claimed to be of Rice taking an unconscious woman from the elevator at that casino.
• And then there's DeSean Jackson, now a free agent.  Why was he released?  According to the Eagles, Jackson has ties to the Southern California gang the Crips.  Jackson denies the claim.

Is this what it takes to be an NFL player, fealty-swearers?

Umm.... No.

Today's El Stupido goes to Fortune magazine, who recently rated the greatest leaders in the world...


and promptly rated Derek Jeter 11th.

You better enjoy this year's tournament...

... for if today's decision by the National Labor Relations Board stands, the NCAA is done in present form.

The Northwestern football team just won the right to unionize.

If anybody does not realize what this means, that means that, unless the school wins an appeal in court, football players (and almost certainly all athletes) will have the right to unionize and collective-bargain for pay, working conditions, etc.

Now, on surface, nothing wrong with that.

But it ends the NCAA model.

Keep an eye on this one.

Been a bit, so some odds and sods...

Been a while since I posted anything, so some quick shots on some stuff:

• Sean Avery was the first celebrity eliminated on this series of Dancing With the Stars, and the former Ranger antagonizer (probably most famous for getting a rule about goalie interference immediately put in during a playoff series after his antics during a power play) claims the producers wanted him out.

First off, no secret that the reality shows are rigged.

Second, you know the winner is going to be one of the skaters.  (Poor Danica McKellar, Drew Carey, and everyone else...)

Third, Sean Avery came across in the press photos as having the personality of a wooden plank.

• The NFL announced two rules changes today, and it's the one not in the headlines you need to worry about the most.

The headline one was that the NFL will now make a 15-yard penalty out of the practice of spiking the football over the crossbar.

Talk about "No Fun League" if you want, but they might as well just go to the high school and college rules at this point if they want to go there:  Anything short of handing the ball to the referee, getting congratulations from teammates, and heading to the sidelines is a penalty.

But it's the one snuck in underneath it in several articles on the subject that you need to worry about if you are a fealty-swearer who still is convinced the games are legitimate:

From Brian McCarthy, PR guy for the NFL on his Twitter:

Rule 15, Section 9, Article 3 is now amended to add the following:

"During the [on-field] review, the Referee will consult with designated members of the Officiating department at the League office Command Center."

Now, on surface, this wouldn't seem like much.  The NHL does this all the time.  Any real dispute on a goal is now said to "go to Toronto", where the league office reviews it.

There's a difference here, obviously.  The NHL's penchant for transparency in such matters is evident, as that Command Center in Toronto has it's own blog on the NHL's website stating, with the video, what the rule is and what the ruling was based on.

The NFL does not have transparency like that, and, given many of the utter bullshit calls which can come from replay reviews, one has to wonder if such Command Center communications in the NFL will actually be the marching orders as to the storyline the game will be played under, and/or who will win and who will lose.

So be afraid, people...  Be very afraid.

• Declan Hill, on his blog, has a very interesting set of perspectives on the Malaysian Air flight disappearance.

It's worth a read, for any number of reasons.

NFL and Seahag Video Journal -- How the League Made Seadderal "Champions"?

(Source:  Brian Tuohy News of Note page on his newly-redesigned website.)

Three videos from YouTube caught Brian Tuohy's eye a week or two back, giving a window into how the Seadderal Seahags and their 12th Man Cult "won" this year's Super Bowl in a clear demonstration of "What would you give for a championship?"

To give you an idea of just how deep the bullshit ran, I bring you, first, this very short video:




Richard Sherman is mic'ed up for Seattle vs. Washington, as is common practice for national broadcasts.

Marshawn Lynch (#24) says to Sherman:  "I think we can take this to the Super Bowl.  I know that."

No harm there.  Seattle was one of the favorites, and they honestly believed they could go all the way.

The issue is Sherman, who then immediately tells Lynch he is mic'ed, at which point Sherman attempts to nix the conversation.

Lynch didn't swear (until AFTER Sherman reveals he's mic'ed), and, in saying that he felt the Seahawks could go to the Super Bowl, didn't appear to say anything which indicates a problem otherwise.

So why does Sherman tell Lynch that he is mic'ed, trying to immediately nix the conversation?

The second video is significantly longer.  It is 15 minutes in length, and the Bay Area Comcast Sports Network has already tried to debunk this video.

It is a belief on the part of one 49ers fan that the fix was, in fact, in for the Seahawks.




Note the first thing the video says, because it's a contention I've held for a while now.  I'm not exactly 100% sure it started with the 9/11 Cheatriots (if it didn't, it started earlier than the last 15 years), but the big difference between this NFL and the earlier days(of Paul Hornung, the Namath Guarantee, Len Dawson, etc. and so forth and so on)  is that the league itself now has taken/is taking the action to ensure given outcomes, rather than players in business for themselves.

• Play One (1:03 of the video):  2:38 to go in the first quarter, San Francisco leads 3-0, Seattle's ball, 1st and 10 on the Seattle 36.  Wilson goes back, play-action, no one close to him when he fires the ball down the middle and his receiver gets pole-axed in what almost appears to be a high-low double-hit.  The flag comes in.

The video calls it shoulder-to-shoulder, and the replay at about 1:21-1:24 shows he's right..  It's a clear dirty hit, almost certainly penalizable and fineable (he was not fined, though) on San Francisco's #31, Donte Whitner (who, after his antics earlier in the year, certainly wasn't going to get any favors from the league).

The problem here is a common way the NFL rigs games:  Even if there's a call that can be made, the call they announce is NOT the call that actually occurred.  It certainly could've been 15 yards under most interpretations of "defenseless player", as it appears Whitner and another player execute a "Double Gousel" or somesuch on the Seattle player.

What it was NOT was what they called:  Helmet-to-helmet.

• Play Two (1:40):  Second quarter, 10:13 until halftime.  For the moment, the 49ers have scored a touchdown to go up 9-0.  As with all scores in the NFL, the play is automatically reviewed.  Anthony Dixon was ruled to have scored a touchdown as he leapt through the pile to get the ball to the end zone.  The reverse replay appears to show he's short, but nothing definitive.

The rule is simple:  For a call to be reversed, there must be unquestioned video evidence, and it appears neither angle shows where the ball is.  Intuitively, you would think Dixon was short, but do you have unquestioned evidence that was the case?  (He was touched by a Seattle lineman in flight, so he would be downed by contact.)

If not, the call must stand:  Touchdown.

The call is reversed.  4th and goal.  On the basis of WHAT irrefutable evidence, since you see the ball in neither angle, no one knows.

The call makes no difference on it's own balance:  San Francisco does get the touchdown (and Dixon does score it) on 4th down.  10-0 San Francisco.  But the video maker makes the point to file this one away.

• For a second reason as well:  San Francisco lost their best offensive lineman on the 4th down play to a season-ending injury.

Mike Iupati had to be helped from the field after the touchdown.  Broken leg -- broken fibula.

• Third play (3:01):  About :35 to go in the half, San Francisco leads 10-3, Seattle ball, 3rd and 8 at the SF 40.  Wilson, from the shotgun, is in trouble.  Russell Okung is claimed to have held a San Francisco rusher from getting to Wilson, which would've led to a far worse 3rd down.

Holding on every play, people.  If anything, again, file this away for a pattern.

• Fourth play (3:35):  Next play, 4th down.  San Francisco's Carlos Rogers commits a clear unnecessary roughness violation after the ball goes past Golden Tate, shoving Tate into the down marker after the ball went past them.

This is one I actually have to say benefitted San Francisco.  The ball is not dead until it hits the ground.  Rogers shoves Tate just as the ball hits the ground, should've been a live ball foul, 15 and a first down for the Hags.

Again, a key component of the play is missed.  The play was ending, but not over.

• Fifth play (4:44):  About 9 minutes or so to go in the 3rd quarter, game is now tied 10-10.  1st and 10 on the San Francisco 28.  This is briefly shown on NFL Films "All-Access Cam", and the FOX analyst says openly that Byron Maxwell of the Seahawks gets away with a hold on this play, but Michael Crabtree hauls it in anyway for a gain of 22 to midfield, on a drive which would yield San Francisco's final 7 points.

Again, file it away.

• Sixth play (5:10):  17-10 San Francisco, 6:29 in the third, ensuing kickoff.  Doug Baldwin gets 69 yards on the return to the San Francisco 33 -- that is, if you ignore a fairly blatant illegal block in the back (which the video maker says happens on effectively every long return).

This one's obvious.  Definitely push in the back to block him out of the way at the point of attack.

• Seventh play (5:42):  Still 17-10, ensuing drive from the kickoff return, Seattle is 3rd and 12 at the SF 22.  Wilson goes back to pass, and you don't see the angle very clearly at all, but the blitz gets to him and he dumps it off to an open wing for fourth down.

The rule on grounding is the quarterback, for his protection, can dump the ball out if he's outside the pocket -- outside the tackle box.

The ball appears to be on the near hashmark.  You're looking at the far end of the tackle box, which appears to be just inside the far hashmark (5:48).  When Wilson dumps the ball (6:24), he's between the hashmarks with distance to go.  Grounding, easily.  And it appears as if the FOX broadcast fouls up the angle rather severely to make it less obvious.

As a result of the no-call, Seattle gets a field goal for 17-13.

• Eighth play (6:35):  After a three-and-out on the next series, San Francisco kicks back to Seattle, where Chris Maragos creams the punter, and only gets called for running into the kicker.

If that's not roughing the kicker...  Maragos actually appears to target the lower part of the plant leg of the 49er punter, who was injured on the play and eliminated from the game.

So, not only is it Seattle's ball, and the penalty being declined, but now San Francisco is without their usual punter.

• Ninth play (7:49):  Next series for Seattle, 2nd and 5, Seattle 43, about 2:10 to go in the 3rd.  Marshawn Lynch is credited with a 6-yard gain and a first down.

He got nowhere close to even the 5 to gain for the first down.  It almost appears as if he should've been given 4 yards and a 3rd and 1.

Watch at about 8:13, from the first contact.  Lynch appears to be a yard-plus short of the first down, but the ball is actually spotted that, by the unofficial marker FOX provides, he almost is given two full yards more than he probably should've. FOX actually calls it third down, but the far side official, who had no angle on the ball whatsoever, puts the ball an entire ball-length past the unofficial marker.

• Tenth play (9:40):  The game-winning touchdown.  But the video maker wants you to see the game clock.  On the end of the play on 3rd and 22, 14:47 remains in the 4th quarter and it almost looks as if the official blowing the play dead doesn't know what to do.

After a Seattle timeout, 13:52 remains when the ball is snapped for 4th and 7, which would result in the final touchdown.

Do the math.  55 seconds have elapsed from when the last play was dead to the timeout being called.  In such a situation, the play clock begins at 40 and begins immediately at the end of the play.

The play clock was actually run properly to when it reached 17 seconds.  At that point, for some reason unexplained, the play clock was reset to 40, ran out, and THEN a time out was called by Seattle before the winning touchdown.

This was the play in which PEDte Carroll was convinced and talked out of the long field goal, and to go for the six.

• Tenth play, part two (10:33):  So it is 4th and 7 after the time out for Seattle, still down 17-13, 13:52 to go in the fourth, ball on the SF 35.  Video maker zooms in before the snap, and it should be obvious to everybody why.

Neither the tackle nor the guard on the far side of the field is even close to the line of scrimmage.  That's an illegal formation, and a blatant one which basically tips where the quarterback is probably going to buy time.

There was another problem here.  It is claimed the official blew the whistle (which would've been incorrect) once a 49er stepped into the neutral zone.  Should've been the prototypical "Free Play", but the whistle caused a number of the 49ers to stop.

• Eleventh play (11:03):  Now they're going to look at the play clock again.  11:12 to go as Colin Kaepernick gives the 49ers 3rd and 1 at the SF 34.  Delay of Game called at 10:36, 36 seconds later.

3rd and 6?  Sack, fumble, and the only reason it didn't turn into Seattle points was a fumble at the San Francisco 1.

Actually, two fumbles.

• Twelfth play (12:54):  Ensuing possession, 8:54 to go.  3rd and goal, SF 10.  This is the play everyone talks about.  Javon Kearse fumbles at the 1, San Francisco recovers.  Clear on the replay.

Or was it?  Instead of Bowman clearly holding the ball, they rule Marshawn Lynch recovered, 4th and goal at the 1...

... where Seattle fumbled it away.

But it's clear that the league was making few pretenses about who they wanted in the Super Bowl from the NFC.

And, once they got there...

A third video that got yanked by the NFL, as Tuohy proposed the other two would, talking about some weird body language and tackling in Met Life Stadium.

But please go ahead and tell us we're all fooling ourselves.

Fans Have Too Much License, and the NCAA Had Better Crack Down NOW...

"The fan is sacred, even as sports are. He pays the freight, thus he is an entitled being. The media people tell him this every day. Therefore, once within the arena, his emotions whetted by the Sports Syndrome, the fan adopts what John Stewart Mill found to be the classic confusion in the American thought process, the confusion between Liberty and License—a natural and probable consequence of which is fan violence."

-- Howard Cosell, I Never Played The Game, 1985

It was bad enough with the whole Marcus Smart incident.

There now appears to be a trend opening up, as the last few weeks have now seen a pair of NCAA Division I games have major fan incidents disrupting the proceedings.

February 27, 2014.  New Mexico State has just been defeated by Utah Valley, 66-61, in a game which broke the regular-season conference tie between the two schools.

At the end of the game, Utah Valley fans decided to storm the court, and this occurred:



Pissed off at the loss, KC Ross-Miller of New Mexico State threw the ball in an attempt to injure Holton Hunsaker of Utah Valley, the son of the coach.  As fingers were being pointed, the horn sounds, and Utah Valley's fans, apparently independent of the assault, attempted to storm the court to congratulate the team on their big win.

That's when this got ugly.

One New Mexico State player apparently throws a punch into the crowd, and a second New Mexico State player has to be forcibly yanked off the pile from joining him.  A Utah Valley fan retaliates with a punch of his own.

Seth Greenburg of ESPN called this inevitable.

All you need to know to have me agree with this is the quote I gave you above, from Howard Cosell, nearly 30 years ago.

It appears the only sanctions given were:

• Two games to Ross-Miller for the ball-throwing.
• One game to New Mexico State's Renaldo Dixon for throwing a punch into the crowd.

No sanctions to Utah Valley for any fan misconduct.

THIS is why these actions will continue until you get an incident which will dwarf the infamous "Malice in the Palace" riot.

And that leads us to the more recent incident, which reminds me of an situation I was involved in many years back which I discussed on a blog post regarding the Smart incident.

March 6, 2014.  Hawaii is playing California-Santa Barbara.

The Hawaii coach, feeling he just got jobbed, gets up off the bench and takes the court.  A technical foul is (correctly) called on him.

That's not the incident.

The video is on the Deadspin link (most all the YouTube direct videos are effectively ads for pirate-sport sites and the like by referring to the video off-site, and I'm not going to play that -- and ESPN didn't, as a function of discussion, put up a highlight video of their own on YouTube, leaving the same video on their own article on the incident).

A California-Santa Barbara fan then is able to walk down a flight of stairs, climb over the table on the other side of the court, walk onto the court, go all the way across the court to get in the face of the Hawaii coach, before being restrained, but he is actually able to get off the court and up the stairs before security can intervene.

Besides hideous security on the part of UCSB there, how is that not a technical foul on UCSB?  How is that not grounds for "Clear the Gym or Forfeit the Game"?

To give you an idea of how ridiculous things have gotten in American sports fandom:  In a non-scientific poll with the article, ESPN SportsNation asked whether the idiot should be expelled from UCSB.  Out of almost 30,000 votes as of the time I post this, over 40% of those polled believed he should not be expelled.

Wow.

Tanks For Nothing in the NBA, and Mark Cuban Making One Good Point Too Many -- Again...

(Blog Note: There are a couple subjects I would like to expound on, but, bluntly, they put me in a rather foul mood, and at least one of them (the Incognito situation/Wells Report) still appears to be a continuing fluid situation. Posts are still forthcoming, I hope...)

Sloan Conference Reveals More Than It Probably Should Have

Initial hat-tip to Brian Tuohy and his News of Note page (meaning, someone else may have tipped him off), but the new commissioner of the NBA may now have a bit of a public-relations problem here.

I don't think many of us have heard of the Sloan Conference on Sports Analytics, but the NBA took center-stage at it for some comments that were made in the first two days of the event.

First, on the Friday of the conference, the NBA's rule against “tanking” or not giving your best effort every night was exposed, once again, to be an abject farce.

The NBA is, to my knowledge, the only league in the country which can sanction teams for not putting out their best efforts, or deciding to rest players at inappropriate points (just ask the San Antonio Spurs for taking their best players and sending them home at the end of their long Rodeo Road-trip – which just happened to be a highly-anticipated national-network game against the Chosen Ones from Miami).

So imagine the shock when ESPN picked up on this story from the Sloan Conference about NBA teams tanking and looking, by the end of their season, at their draft position.

Imagine all this going on in a league where it is supposed to be a substantial penalty for any team or player not to give their best efforts every night...

• Jerry Colangelo admitted that he wanted the 2011-12 Toronto Raptors to get the #1 draft pick through tanking the season by going to a youth movement. His coach at the time put a stop to that.
  
• Stan Van Gundy openly stated, with the GM of the Philadelphia 76ers present, that the current 76ers roster was put out there specifically to lose, that the 76ers are embarrassing themselves and the NBA. (Bill Simmons covers this monstrosity here.) Van Gundy believes there is so much tanking going on that he would eliminate the entry draft entirely and allow all college players to become free agents.
  
• Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey also wants a change in the draft, because he believes that upwards of 2/3 of all the teams in the league are tanking by the end of last season – and that would then include at least six of the playoff teams (who wouldn't be in the lottery in the first place).
  

A lot of people are trying to come up with a solution. You already heard Van Gundy's solution. Another would be a rotation that each team would get the #1 pick once every 30 years. Charles Barkley would return the lottery back to it's original format: Every non-playoff team gets one equal shot at the #1 pick.

The fact is, if you have a GM out there who's saying even nearly half the playoff teams are tanking, then something really has to be done. The only realistic solution to tanking will never happen in a United States sports league: Promotion from the minor leagues, relegation from the top level.

Tanking would stop instantaneously if the worst team from each conference had to go down to AAA/D-League/whatever minor league the NFL would have/etc.

It's basically an off-shoot of the whole “We Sell Fantasy” situation. The fantasy of competition in a business setting would, if taken to the correct end, punish teams with crippling financial losses for continually losing, etc.

The problem is that the reality is that the poor teams and franchises are effectively constructed to be the Washington Generals, padding the statistics of the respective leagues' “Harlem Globetrotters”.

Hence, by this act, they are propped up as necessary evils, and that's one of the reasons that, frankly, unless you are a fan of one of the 4-6 relevant teams every year in the NBA, you have no business plopping down hard-earned money, because, chances are, your team is going to take a dive.

But that wasn't the only thing which should've raised eyebrows from the Sloan Conference.

Mark Cuban was at it again – with another great point that probably would blow up something major that no one (else) really wants to see happen.

It appears as if Mark Cuban is one of the growing number of people who see the NCAA's days as numbered.

Mark Cuban believes that, unless the NCAA changes from the “one and done” eligibility principle (that a player can go to the NBA after only one college season), that it's time for the NBA to go after those players who almost-certainly will be in the NBA in one season, making the D-League (where a player can go immediately the season after his 18^th birthday) more viable, visible, and a transition to professional basketball.

He's right. The problem is, at that point, you blow up the last remaining real reason for the continuance of the NCAA on a national stage – the March Madness Men's Basketball tournament.

Between the O'Bannon lawsuit (though some teeth have been taken out of that) and calls for unionizing players (such as Northwestern's football team), the NCAA may finally be on the way out. Cuban (who openly wants the NCAA destroyed) believes he can capitalize on this by ending the complete hypocrisy of student-athleticism in most of the major schools.

The main problem Cuban is going to have is the importance of retaining the social status quo. Even with a multi-conference coalition basically ru(i)n(n)ing college football, getting rid of the NCAA might well do away with many sports and many teams, even in the major-revenue sports. Also, it would probably get rid of a national institution which has gained almost-mythical proportions in the last 30 years or so.

(So much so that, for the first time, Warren Buffett and Quicken Loans are teaming with Yahoo! to provide the impossible prize for the impossible act. It is believed that no person has ever perfectly predicted the entire bracket for the main NCAA men's basketball tournament. If anyone in the Yahoo! contest can do so this year, they will win an annuity which will pay them ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

That's right: $1,000,000,000.00 .

And if you don't want to wait, you can take half that amount immediately. All you need is a perfect bracket. Har de har har har.)

Cuban is right, as he often is. The problem is he'd be getting rid of at least one national institution, and many local ones.