The NFL is facing it’s first season since 2005 where there doesn’t appear to be the juggernaut team that is clear and away the best team. Everyone has their weaknesses, and there is a group of 8 to 10 teams that legitimately might win the Super Bowl right now. Some might prefer that one team claim clear and present domination over all others, but I like the NFL better when there is uncertainty. (The exception to this rule is when the Broncos are the clear and present juggernaut, which hasn’t happened for awhile.) So, here is my lastest attempt to make sense of the land of the senseless, the NFL landscape as we approach Week 5.

I got your juggernaut right here.

Craig Dodge bringing us Troy Aikman like advice, such as you need to score more than the other team to win.

Craig Dodge, question me if you want to die.

I know the NFL likes parity, but wow! Only 3 undefeated teams after just 3 weeks, even more odd is that the Chiefs are one of the three. We are nearly to the quarter pole, and if you think you have any idea who the best teams are, you’re an idiot. I pride myself on being an idiot, so here is where I say the power lies. List is subject to change, lots and lots of change…

1. Steelers (3-0) – Before the season started, people were worried how bad this team would be without Roethlisberger for the first month. With the defense that appears back to 2008 standards, it appears the concerns were overstated, and they only figure to get better when their big oaf of a quarterback comes back from suspension.

2. Packers (2-1) – I can’t kill the Packers too much for losing in Chicago to the undefeated Bears with a revved up Monday Night crowd. That’s tough sledding against your biggest rival. I still think at the end of the season that Green Bay will be better than Chicago, though.

3. Saints (2-1) – How many Saints fans are pulling a “What have you done for us lately?” routine with kicker Garrett Hartley? “Sure you nailed a pressure kick against the Vikings to get us into the Super Bowl, hit 3 kicks of over 40 yards in the Super Bowl, AND executed a successful onside kick to start the second half of the Super Bowl, but now you’re going to shank a 29 yard kick to win a game in overtime? You suck, Hartley!” Apparently even the Saints themselves are pulling this, as they are looking into new kickers, pro sports everybody!

4. Colts (2-1) – You wouldn’t know it from the stats, as on paper, Peyton Manning had a big day against the Broncos. However, if you watched the game. (And I was there, so I was definitely watching.) He seemed a little off. Also, the defense tightened up when the absolutely needed to, but Kyle Orton was moving the ball with ease in between the 20 yard lines.

5. Bears (3-0) – Huge win against the Pack. I’m not a big fan of the Bears, but those throwback uniforms they were wearing Monday night were pimp. They looked like the coolest High School team ever.

6. Jets (2-1) – Team Manic-Depressive. Two weeks ago, they looked like they had hit rock bottom after losing to the Ravens and looking dreadful. Now both the Jets and their fans are making plans to be in Dallas in February. I’d feel better if they were a little more consistent, but I have to admit that they are much better thus far through three games than I was anticipating at the outset of the year.

The Jets defense is unbreakable, much like the DUI ignition lock Braylon Edwards will now have in his car.

7. Ravens (2-1) – Baltimore righted the ship against Cleveland…sort of. I was expecting them to win by a bit more, and was surprised that Cleveland scored 17 against their defense. I feel like we’ll know a lot more about them after next week against the Steelers.

8. Falcons (2-1) – This team has been solid this year, and I am believing in them, but how many of their fans are experiencing Vick regret?

9. Texans (2-1) – The Texans were sort of playing with house money against Dallas after starting 2-0 and getting a win against their nemesis the Colts, but I still thought they were going to win the battle of Texas due to the inferiority complex that comes with being the Cowboys little brother. They are still out to a good start, and clearly that game meant more to the Cowboys, but I think a contender puts their foot down on the struggling Cowpokes.

10. Patriots (2-1) – The Pats will need to win every game 42-35 by the looks of it. Bill Belichick’s team is defense optional.

11. Bengals (2-1) – After getting killed by New England in week 1, Cincy has kind of slipped below the radar, but they are there lurking right now.

This is apparently the image Carson Palmer sees in his head when he is about to throw a football.

12. Eagles (2-1) – Best story of the first month so far has to be the redemption of Michael Vick. Playing well doesn’t mean he’s turned into a good person, but at least he’s fun to watch again…and really, when it comes to sports, that’s mostly what matters. I’m all for having guys with good character, but at the end of the day this is entertainment, not a morality play.

13. Cowboys (1-2) – Wow did Wade Phillips need that win. I feel like the Cowboys are about to go out and string together a bunch of wins now. This team may be dumb, but they are also talented.

14. Vikings (1-2) – The Lions came to town at just the right time. Minnesota now needs to go out and beat someone impressive. Brett Favre is still likely to regret coming back this season.

15. Chiefs (3-0) – The Chiefs have had a nice little start, but let’s not get too overly excited about beating the 49ers, Chargers, and Browns.

16. Titans (2-1) – The perfect cure for Vince Young’s quarterback woes is coming…a home date against the Broncos defense!

17. Dolphins (2-1) – What a terrific game against the Jets on Sunday night. For once, everyone was cheering FOR Miami. Once basketball season rolls around, that will change quickly.

If Craig Dodge thinks Sunday night was the first time people ever cheered for Miami, he is mistaken.

18. Seahawks (2-1) – Perhaps this will be the first team in NFL history that bases most of it’s offense on Kickoff returns. Not a strategy I would associate with a champion, but it sure worked on Sunday.

19. Chargers (1-2) – Is this the typical early season malaise, or are the Chargers actually not that good anymore?

The only thing uglier than San Diego's performance this year is Norv Turner's face.

20. Cardinals (2-1) – I am baffled that this team is over .500. Talk about something I don’t expect to last. I’d put more stock in a BP popularity resurgence in Louisiana than in the Cards right now.

21. Giants (1-2) – That opening season romp over the Panthers seems less impressive now that the Panthers look about as fierce as a wet noodle and the Giants have getting obliterated ever since.

22. Redskins (1-2) – I think the reason that the Eagles may have been so quick to dump McNabb to a division rival is because they knew he just isn’t very good anymore. Skins still have some hope, but Shanahan will need to do better than losing by two touchdowns to the Rams.

23. Jaguars (1-2) – This team has flat out sucked since opening the season win versus Denver. It’s gotta be tough to find reasons to put on teal and root for this team if you live in Northeast Florida.

24. Buccaneers (2-1) – You knew they wouldn’t stay undefeated TOO long. This is a young team that has the opportunity to grow and get better this year, but they have a long way to go before they are contending.

25. Broncos (1-2) – The Broncos are playing hard for Josh McDaniels, which is a good sign. They don’t seem like they are going to get blown out much, but I can sure see them losing a lot of relatively close games.

26. Rams (1-2) – The Rams beat Washington by two touchdowns. Wait…What?

27. Lions (0-3) – Perhaps the best 0-3 team in America!

28. Raiders (1-2) – Every year I think, this is the year the Raiders finally won’t completely suck. Every year I am wrong.

29. 49ers (0-3) – Mike Singletary’s team looks lost. Perhaps he should moon them and see what happens?

Mike Singletary is so intense, it looks like he stands on the sideline and thinks of ways to kill people without getting caught.

30. Browns (0-3) – Well, at least it appears safe to say that they won the Peyton Hills for Brady Quinn trade. The Browns will take whatever wins they can get.

31. Panthers (0-3) – Masters of the thirteen point loss. They are three for three in losing by thirteen this season thus far.

32. Bills (0-3) – This is too depressing to even mock. I’m sorry, Buffalo. You deserve better.

The matches kicked off with another Friday showdown for Bayern Munich in their first away game of the season. This time they were against new boys, FC Kaiserlautern. Munich started brightly and were pushing hard for an early goal which should have come courtesy of Thomas Muller who was set free inside the box thanks to some fine team play but he failed to convert the opportunity.

There was no doubt that Bayern were dominating but Kaiserlautern were playing strong counter attack football and they opened the scoring in the 36th minute with a high drive into the corner by Ivo Ilicevic. The home fans were ecstatic and thanks to some high adrenaline racing through their veins the boys added another within a minute thanks to Srdjan Lakic.  2-0!

Although the second half brought more Bayern pressure they seemed to lack the spark in front of goal and couldn’t get their act together and the big lavish Bavarian stars crashed to their first defeat of the campaign.

On Saturday it was a battle of the numbers as Schalke 04 played host to Hannover 96. This should have been a relevatively easy affair for the home team but as we all know, affairs can get messy- just ask the England team.

Hannover’s manager is Mirko Slomka, a man that was recently dismissed by Schalke. This was his first trip back to the Vetlins Arena since he received his marching orders and it was one for him to cherish for many moons to come.

Schalke started well and had a goal disallowed as the corner that preceded Jefferson Farfan’s attempt was judged to have gone out of play en route to his head. Raul showed some sparkle and backheeled to set up German-born, U.S international Jermaine Jones, who squandered the chance.

It was Hannover who took the lead however when Konstantin Rauch placed the ball past German Number 1, Manuel Neuer. After half-time, Hannover doubled their lead thanks to Abdellaoue converting a rebound.

Schalke looked out of sorts but with 10 minutes to go, the controversial Jones  (he once told a German sports mag that he hoped there were no gay players in the Bundesliga) pulled one back. However, it was all too little too late as Schalke kept up their 100% losing streak this season.

New signing Diego shone on his return to the Bundesliga but he couldn’t help his new boss (comedy character Steve McClaren) get his first league win with Wolfsburg as they threw away a 3 goal lead to lose 3-4 on home soil to 1. FSV Mainz.

Werder Bremen beat sorry 1. FC Koln 4-2 and that scoreline does not incidate the dominance Bremen had. On this evidence Cologne really need to pull their socks up or they will be the next big German city without a team in the Bundesliga.

At the other end of the table, Hamburger SV are looking good for a strong finish and a possible title challenge this season after a convincing away win against Frankfurt with that man van Nistelrooy showing even in his advancing years he has much to offer.

In the other Saturday afternoon game, Freiburg beat Nurnberg 2-1 away from home.

Saturday evening brought St. Pauli hosting Hoffenheim. Both teams played attacking football from the off (proving this ain’t Italy) and each had a number of chances but couldn’t convert them due to some good goalkeeping and poor finishing. Hoffenheim eventually got the winner with just 3 minutes of the 90 to go thanks to an Isaac Vorsah strike off the back of a corner. A bitter blow for the Hamburgers of St. Pauli.

On Sunday there was a 9, yes count them, NINE, goal thriller between Bayern Leverkusen and Borussia Monchengladbach (try saying that after one too many).

Home boys Leverkusen struggled after European exploits earlier in the week and their defence showed more holes than a pair of Kurt Cobain’s jeans. Despite bringing Ballack and Hyypia into the staring line up they couldn’t prevent themselves going into the break 3-1 down. The second half was no better and after just 10 minutes of the second half they found themselves 3 goals behind. Vidal scored a penalty to bring it back to 4-2 but then Monchengladbach made it 6-2 in the next 10 minutes before Kiessling scored a consolation in the 70th to make it 6-3  and that is how it ended.

The last game of the weekend featured Borussia Dortmund travelling to Stuttgart and winning comfortably. Stuttgart got off to the worst possible start as the human liablity that is Khalid Boulahrouz put a Marcel Schmelzer cross into his own net. Then on the 26th minute Lucas Barrios made it two, thanks to a poor clearance by Georg Niedermeier and by half time it was 3-0 to Dortmund due to a mix up between Ulreich and Niedermeier. Stuttgart got better in the second half but could only claw back 1 goal courtesy of Cacau. It ended 3-1.

Here are the big incoming transfers before the window closed at the end of the business day on August 31st:

Diego: Juventus to Wolfsburg- €15.5m

Klass Jan Huntelaar: Milan to Schalke- €14m

Gylfi Sigurdsson: Reading to Hoffenheim €8.9m

DaMarcus Beasley: Rangers to Hannover 96- Free

Mauro Camoranesi: Juventus to Stuttgart- Free

Mickeal Silvestre: Arsenal to Werder Bremen- Free

For all those statos out there who want to know the details that most find dull head over to the Bundesliga site at: www.bundesliga.de. Don’t stress it can be put in to English.

See you after the International break.

Mark.

www.soundcloud.com/popcampaign.

This article is Hof tested, and Hof approved.

After the excitement of Germany’s performance in this summers World Cup, everyone has waited for the new domestic season with baited breath and this weekend that wait was finally over with the commencement of the latest installment of the Bundesliga, now in it’s 48^th season.

Ok, so Oezil and Khedira  made the big money moves to La Liga and the main managerial excitement involved ex-England flop Steve “Man with an Umbrella” McLaren (Wiki it) taking over at VfLWolfsburg. This is the man, lest we forget, that within a matter of months of taking over at former club FC Twente was talking in broken English during an interview (Youtube it for laughs). It’s not all doom and gloom though, Ballack (Chelsea to Bayer Leverkusen, free) is back and that coupled with the arrival of Raul (Real Madrid to Schalke 04, free) is bound to keep the entertainment levels high in one of the biggest Football Leagues in the world.

The opening match kicked off on Friday night and pitted reigning champions Bayern Munich against 08-09 champs, Wolfsburg. It was the first match in charge for the aforementioned McLaren and there ain’t no bigger baptism of fire than this. 69,000 crammed into the Alliance Arena to watch a Bayern team that boasts absolutely no changes from last season other than the return of German World Cup medalist Toni Kroos from Leverkusen (obviously now surplus to requirements with the above Ballack switch). This is in stark contrast to Wolfsburg who splashed the cash this summer, spending in excess of €19m.

Bayern got off to a flier thanks to a fine finish from Golden Boot winner Thomas Mueller after just 9 minutes. Munich continued to press with some fine play by Ribery showing no signs that his impending court trial is affecting his performance on the pitch. Bayern dominated until half time and could have went in 2 or 3 ahead if they had taken their chances. After the break, Wolfsburg were a changed side. They suddenly had a swagger and a will to win the game. After several missed chances (mainly thanks to some sloppy Bayern defending) they finally equalised in the 55^th minute from a corner received successfully by the head of Edin Dzeko. The match then could have gone either way. Both teams made a couple of changes to try shake things up but it looked set for a draw, until, in the 92^nd minute, Bavarian local hero, Bastian Schweinsteiger connected at the far post to a Ribery cross that sealed Wolfsburg’s fate. The stadium exploded as Bayern tasted sweet victory and Wolfsburg suffered a cruel fate. Their pain was no better explained than via the replayed television coverage of McLaren throwing his water bottle down in anger and mouthing an obscenity in perfect English.

Franck Ribery prepares to enter the game.

Saturday afternoon brought with it the emergence of funf neu (5 new) matches. The rise of 1899 Hoffenheim in German Football is a true David vs Goliath story and one that fairytales are written about. They continued their ascendance to the top of the game with a convincing 4-1 victory over SV Werder Bremen who are clearly at a bit of a loss with the departure of Oezil. It all started so well for Bremen who were awarded a penalty after just 3 minutes due to a handball by Marvin Compper. Captain Torsten Frings stepped up and made no mistake from the spot. However,  Hoffenheim are not a team that allows a silly thing like having a tiny population of just 3,300 to stop them competing with the big boys in the Bundesliga and in turn they showed what they are all about by equalising in the 20^th minute and then banging in three more in the space of eight minutes before Half-Time. Bremen couldn’t get back into it after that and were showing clear signs of fatigue after their impressive 3-1 victory in the Champions League Play-Off in mid-week against Sampdoria. It finished 4-1 Hoffenheim.

Newly promoted St. Pauli and 1. FC Kaiserlautern both won their first games back in the top flight 3-1. It is the first time that the new boys have both won their opening fixtures in Bundesliga history.

Kaiserlautern’s victims were 1.FC Koln (who played with just 10 men for 88 minutes of the match due to the sending off of Yousseff Mohammed) and St. Pauli saw away SC Freiburg with relative ease.

In 1997/1998 season, Kaiserlautern beat Bayern Munich in their opening fixture and went on to win the league becoming the first newly promoted team to do so in the Bundesliga. They will be hoping for a repeat this time round but in reality staying up would be a good achievement for both these sides this year.

In the other matches on Saturday afternoon, Borussia Moenchengladbach drew 1-1 with 1.FC Nurnberg and Hannover 96 beat Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1.

Saturday evening brought the Bundesliga debut of Raul with Hamburger SV vs Schalke 04. HSV dominated the first half and should have been ahead at the break when Ruud Van Nistelrooy hammered the crossbar with a free kick leaving Neuer to make a fantastic save by denying the rebound by Elia. However, just a minute after the break, Van Nistelrooy did score after a dream cross by Elia on the left wing. Soon after, around the 60 minute mark, Hoewedes was sent off for Schalke and things looked like caving in on them until on the 80^th minute when Farfan netted from an Ivan Rakitic free-kick. However, they couldn’t hold on for the draw and Van Nistelrooy pounced again 3 minutes later to seal their fate and hand victory to Hamburg.

On Sunday afternoon, 1.FSV Mainz shocked Stuttgart after goals from their new strike duo of Allagui and Rasmussen after Stuttgart’s Cacau missed a penalty and that evening Bayer Leverkusen sealed a 2-0 away victory against Borussia Dortmund with goals from Barnetta and Renat-Augusto which meant a happy return to the Bundesliga for Michael Ballack after four years away.

For those of you who love a good stat here are the details of all the games this weekend:

20.08.10          20:30   FC Bayern München   2          :           1 VfL Wolfsburg

Mueller (9’)        Dzeko (55’)

Schweinsteiger (90’+1)

Line-ups:

FC Bayern: Butt – Lahm, van Buyten, Badstuber, Contento – van Bommel, Schweinsteiger – Müller, Kroos (Pranjic 73′), Ribery – Klose (Gomez 74′)

Wolfsburg: Benaglio – Pekarik (Misimovic 46′), Kjaer, Barzagli, Schäfer – Riether, Josue – Ziani (Dejagah 77′), Cicero, Mandzukic (Grafite 88′) – Dzeko

Attendance in the Allianz Arena: 69,000

Bookings: 4 Yellow Cards: Mark Van Bommel (BM 33’) Peter Pekarik (VfL W 43’), Cicero ( VfL W 62’) Andrea Barzagli (VfL W 66’)

——————————————————————————————————-

21.08.10          15:30   1899 Hoffenheim         4 : 1    SV Werder Bremen    4:1 (4:1)

Demba Ba (20’)            Torsten Frings (3’ PEN)

Peniel Kokou Mlapa (37’)

Vedad Ibjsevic (41’)

Sejad Salihovic (43’)

Line-ups:

1899: Starke – Beck, Vorsah, Simunic, Compper (Eichner 72′) – Weis, Gustavo, Salihovic – Mlapa (Thomalla 77′), Ibisevic, Ba (Vukcevic 62′)

Bremen: Wiese – Fritz, Mertesacker, Prödl, Pasanen – Frings – Borowski (Wagner 73′), Hunt (Marin 46′), Bargfrede – Pizarro, Almeida (Arnautovic 23′)

Attendance: 13,000 (Rhein-Neckar-Arena)

Bookings: 3 Yellow Cards: Tim Borowski ( WB 10’) Clemens Fritz (WB 66’)                   Christian Eichner (H 89’)

——————————————————————————————————-

21.08.10          15:30   Borussia M’gladbach  1 : 1    1. FC Nürnberg

Idrissou (31′)             Hegeler (15′)

Line Ups:

Mönchengladbach: Bailly – Levels, Brouwers, Dante, Daems – Bradley, Marx – Reus, Arango (Hermann 83′) – Matmour (Bobadilla 64′), Idrissou

Nürnberg: Schäfer – Judt, Wolf, Nilsson, Pinola (Bieler 67′) – Hegeler, Simons – Ekici (Eigler 73′), Gündogan, Bunjaku (Frantz 86′) – Schieber

Attendance: 42,202 (Borussia Park)

Bookings: 2 Yellows Cards: Filip Daems (BM 80’)  Raphael Schaefer (FCN 86’)

—————————————————————————————————–

21.08.10          15:30   1. FC Köln      1: 3      1. FC Kaiserslautern

Novakovic (8′)    Lakic (70′)

Lakic (84′)

Ilicevic (88′)

Line Ups:
Köln: Mondragon – Brecko, McKenna, Mohamad, Salger  Petit (Ehret 86′) – Lanig, Jajalo  Yalcin (Pezzoni 14′) – Novakovic, Podolski (Freis 78′)

Lautern: Sippel – Dick, Amedick, Rodnei, Bugera (Jessen 46′) – Tiffert, Bilek  Kirch (Ilicevic 46′), Moravek (Nemenc 78′) – Lakic, Hoffer

Attendance: 49,200 (RheinEnergieStadion)

Bookings: 1 Red Card : Mohamad (FCKo 2′)

3 Yellow Cards: Lukas Podolski (FCKo 78’) Florian Dick (FCKa 37’) Leon Jessen (FCKa 56’)

21.08.10          15:30   SC Freiburg     1  :  3   FC St. Pauli

Cisse (78′)          Boll (83′)

Sukuta-Pasu (89′)

Bartels (90+1′)

Line Ups:

Freiburg: Pouplin  Mujdza (Williams 46′), Barth, Butscher, Bastians – Schuster Caligiuri (Nicu 56′), Makiadi, Rosenthal (Reisinger 89′), Jäger – Cisse

Pauli: Hain – Rothenbach, Thorandt, Zambrano, Oczipka – Boll, Lehmann – Bruns (M. Kruse 58′), Hennings (Bartels 68′), Naki (Sukuta-Pasu 80′) – Ebbers

Attendance: 24,000 (sold out – Badenova-Stadion)

Bookings: NONE

—————————————————————————————————–

21.08.10          15:30   Hannover 96   2: 1      Eintracht Frankfurt

Rausch (21′)              Köhler (27′)

Ya Konan (75′)

Line Ups:

Hannover: Fromlowitz – Cherundolo, Haggui, Pogatetz, Schulz – Pinto, Schmiedebach (Stindl 85′) – Carlitos (Stoppelkamp 3′), Rausch (Djakpa 74′) – Abdellaoue, Ya Konan

Frankfurt: Nikolov – Jung, Franz, Russ, Tzavellas (Korkmaz 65′) – Meier, Schwegler (Caio 78′) – Ochs, Köhler – Gekas (Halil Altintop 60′), Amanatidis

Attendance: 37,212 (AWD-Arena)

Bookings:  1 Yellow Card: Georgios Tzavellas (F 62’)

—————————————————————————————————–

21.08.10          18:30   Hamburger SV            2: 1      FC Schalke 04

van Nistelrooy (46′ & 83’)                      Farfan (80′)

Line Ups:

HSV: Demel, Westermann, Mathijsen, Jansen (Rincon 77′) – Jarolim, Ze Roberto – Pitroipa, Petric (Guerrero 70′), Elia (Kacar 79′) – van Nistelrooy

Schalke: Neuer – Matip (Uchida 59′), Höwedes, Metzelder, Hao – Papadopoulos (Schmitz 49′), Jones – Farfan, Rakitic – Raul (Moritz 63′)), Edu

Attendance: 55,000 (Imtech Arena)

Bookings: 4 Yellow Cards and 1 Red: van Nistelrooy (H 47’) Ze Roberto (H 84’) Benedikt Höwedes  (FCS 53’)  Benedikt Höwedes (FCS 60′ 2^nd Yellow > RED)

—————————————————————————————————–

22.08.10          15:30   1. FSV Mainz 05         2: 0      VfB Stuttgart

Allagui (26′)

Rasmussen (47′)

Line Ups:

Mainz: Wetklo – Zabavnik, Svensson, Noveski, Fuchs – Holtby (Simak 89′), Karhan (Caligiuri 67′), Polanski – Soto – Allagui, Rasmussen (Szalai 72′)

VfB: Ulreich – Degen (Harnik 67′), Boulahrouz, 6 Niedermeier, Molinaro – Gentner, Kuzmanovic – Gebhart (Audel 57′), Träsch – Cacau, Marica (Pogrebnyak 75′)

Attendance: 20,300 (sold out – Bruchwegstadion)

Bookings: 5 Yellow Cards: Mainz: Bo Svensson (M 18’) Radoslav Zabavnik (M 20’) Christian Fuchs (M 38’) Christian Wetklo (M 70’) Georg Niedermeier (S 90+3)

—————————————————————————————————

22.08.10  17:30           Borussia Dortmund  0 : 2        Bayer 04 Leverkusen

Tranquillo Barnetta (19′)

Renato Augusto (22′)

Line Ups:

BVB: Weidenfeller – Owomoyela (Rangelow 77′), Subotic, Hummels, Schmelzer – Kehl (Lewandowski 63′), Sahin – Großkreutz (Piszczek 67′), Kagawa, Götze – Barrios

Bayer: Adler – Castro, Reinartz, Hyypiä, Kadlec – Ballack, Vidal (Balitsch 81′) – Augusto (Schwaab 81′), Barnetta (L. Bender 76′) – Derdiyok, Kießling

Attendance: 73,300 (Signal-Iduna-Park)

Goals: 0-1 Bookings: NONE

——————————————————————————————————-

And finally looking forward to next weeks Bundesliga Matches:

Date                                        Home              Away

27.08.10          20:30   1. FC Kaiserslautern : FC Bayern München

28.08.10          15:30   FC Schalke 04 : Hannover 96

28.08.10          15:30   SV Werder Bremen    : 1. FC Köln

28.08.10          15:30   VfL Wolfsburg           : 1. FSV Mainz 05

28.08.10          15:30   Eintracht Frankfurt     : Hamburger SV

28.08.10          15:30   1. FC Nürnberg           : SC Freiburg

28.08.10          18:30   FC St. Pauli     : 1899 Hoffenheim

29.08.10          15:30   Bayer 04 Leverkusen : Borussia M’gladbach

29.08.10          17:30   VfB Stuttgart : Borussia Dortmund

Long old column this time round. Sorry about that. I also need to say sorry for the ridiculous amount of time since the last London Chronicles turfed up here. You see, I try to get them out every other week except in the last 6 weeks I have given up sleeping, leaving the house, smiling and bathroom breaks due to a ridiculously busy spell working. Without a word of a lie, I thought that it had been 2 weeks since I last updated ya’ll about what was going down in the hood, yo. Instead, it has been a month. I’m sorry, I’ll do better and if I see you at the bar I’ll get you a drink. Anyway, that is enough humility for one evening. Shall we progress? We have an awful lot to get through today…

It is well known that the English apologize through the medium of sorrycats.

The Table Don’t Lie

I’ve long said that, based on my vast experience playing Football Manager (my current game is in 2034 with over 26 day’s playing time logged…), the last 10 games of the season are when you decide your fate. The first 10 are a gauge of where you are, the next 18 are just trying to stay afloat and then with 10 to go you see who you are fighting with. With that in mind, lets have a good look at all the battles.

The race for the title comes down to Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. Currently, Chelsea are out on top with 61 points, one more than United and three more than Arsenal. Right now who wins is anyone’s guess. Chelsea may be in the lead but are struggling, United may be hot on their heels but are completely riding the genius that is Wayne Rooney and Arsenal have been struggling but are about to come into an easy spell of games. Honestly, although I backed Chelsea a few months back, this has now gotten too close to call. This will come down to the last 3 games, with all 3 teams still in it.

The battle for forth place and the final Champions League spot, too, is still up for grabs. Currently Spurs and Manchester City are tied with 49 points, although City have a game in hand. One point behind them is Liverpool and four points behind are Aston Villa. I have to admit, Liverpool have done an epic job of getting back into the battle but I think that the climb may have taken too much out of them. Sadly, Villa too look like they may slip away once again after doing the same thing last season – getting close then not being able to win at the business end of the season. End of the day, this should come down to Spurs, Liverpool and Man City and, much like the title race, it will be a last 3 game decision.

In the relegation zone, Portsmouth are so far gone they have asked for their ‘balloon’ payments to be given out early. For the other two drop-spots, though, there are 7 teams within 4 points of each other. A couple of wins here or there, a few injuries and unlucky losses, and any of them could find themselves back in the Championship. Once more, in one of the closest Prem seasons ever, we won’t know who is going down until the magical 3 games to go marker either.

The battles may be established with 10 or 11 games to go, but the winners and losers are far from decided here.

Chelsea Players Can’t Keep It In Their Pants

Chelsea has traditionally been one of those clubs a bit like the Dallas Cowboys teams of the early 1990′s – yeah, they get up to an awful lot of mischief but very much behind closed doors. They only do it to let off a bit of the steam that being a dominant force creates. Well, recently their dominance has dropped off a bit and their mischief has turned into full blown scandal.

In the last few weeks, there have been two Chelsea players caught playing away from home – John Terry and Ashley Cole. Both of them, though, under different circumstances.

Let’s start with Ashley Cole, who I should point out I cannot stand. I can’t stand the fact that he said things to a ref, things that I don’t think even the free-loving Senior Elevation would let me repeat, during a game which was on a gameday used to promote fair play. Also, I cannot stand the fact that he said in all seriousness that he felt ‘physically sick’ when he found out Arsenal were only going to offer him £60,000 ($110,000) a week base salary. Then, he couldn’t understand why the entire British public, who based on the average wage would take about two and a half years to earn what he turned his nose at for a weekly pay packet, turned against him.

Anyway, he also has this to come home to. The lovely Mrs. Cheryl Cole.

I can't believe I've taken this long to post a picture of Cheryl Cole.

Yeah, I know. Personally, I’d never leave the house if I was married to her. But, still he was caught sleeping around. The thing is, Chelsea don’t particularly care that Cole was sleeping around. What they care about is that he was doing it on team time, getting aides to sneak girls into his hotel rooms before away matches. Apparently, that crime has cost him between £200,000 ($350,000)to £400,000 ($700,000) in fines (depending on who you trust) and may even get him sold to Barcelona or Real Madrid in the summer. Thing is, with Ashley Cole, that is just one guy being a complete and utter blithering idiot.

What John Terry did, though, was much much worse. I’m not usually one to be serious in any way, shape or form but frankly I don’t really want to make fun of JT’s fall from grace. Basically, the story goes like this:

First things first, John Terry is married with two kids. Keep that in mind as you read on. One day, all of the papers get into a tizzy because it turns out that Terry had tried to gag a story that was going to be published by The Sun. Everyone then wants to know what it was, and it turns out that what he tried to keep secret was that he was having an affair. Not a one night stand or sending some flirty texts, but an actual pre-meditated affair. Then it came out that the affair was with a French underwear model – Vanessa Perroncel. An affair that lead to her falling pregnant, and Terry paying for an abortion and giving her some hush money. Oh yeah, did I mention that Perroncel is actually the ex-girlfriend of Terry’s former best friend and Chelsea team mate Wayne Bridge? Oh yeah, did I mention that she is also the mother of Wayne Bridge’s child?

As soon as that stuff hit the fan, Terry was stripped of the England captaincy by Fabio Capello (which was duly handed over to Rio Ferdinand) and all sorts of rumours started to spring out of the woodwork, many of which are just scuttlebutt and I won’t repeat here. A quick Google, though, of what Terry has been up to should open your eyes a bit more.

To begin with, Terry seemed to be doing an excellent job of compartmentalising his life. His play, which had been drab all season, actually picked up a bit and he seemed motivated to just throw himself at football. That lasted for about two games. Since then, he has single handedly cost Chelsea about three games (that I can think of off the top of my head) and been a complete and utter liability. John Terry is in meltdown. Although publicly his wife forgave him after about a week, I’m sure all too many of us know that you cannot forgive that kind of stuff that quick.

Right now, John Terry needs to get his act together fast, and for two reasons. The first is that Chelsea are looking vulnerable as ever, have a few injuries around the team and have a few players suspended after their nightmare 4-2 home loss to Manchester City. The second is his England future may hang in the balance.

Fabio Capello has in no uncertain terms made sure that everyone knows that they are playing on his team based on form alone, not intangibles such as how much they earn and how many endorsements they have. John Terry may be a great leader, that is something I will never take away from him, but right now he is one of the worst central defenders in England. With the likes of (off the top of my head) Ryan Shawcross, Jonathan Woodgate, Garry Cahil, Matt Upson (despite a wobbly start against Egypt last night), Joleen Lescott and Phil Jagielka all gunning for World Cup places, along with wiley vetrans such as Wed Brown and Senior Elevation’s favourite Sol Campbell, Terry needs to show over the last 16 games or so of his season that he is still a quality centre back.

Another ‘upside’ to not taking Terry is that it means England could take Wayne Bridge. Bridge pulled out of the England squad for the friendly against Egypt because, basically, he could not stand the thought of being on a team with John Terry. Ashley Cole is currently England’s stand out number one left back, but he has a broken ankle and is in the fight of his professional life to get fit in time to go to South Africa. One setback and he is not making the plane. Wayne Bridge, who also hilariously snubbed John Terry’s handshake when his Man City side beat Chelsea 4-2 the other day, would then become more valuable than John Terry based on the two players’ current form.

No matter what way you look at it, John Terry has fucked up something fierce. The next 12 weeks or so will be the biggest in his life.

Portsmouth FC, We Hardly Knew Thee

Where to begin… Portsmouth look like they have fought off a winding up order, that would have seen them be put completely out of business (i.e. no relegation or anything, just disappear off of the map) but are still going to go into Administration. For any of you who don’t know, allow me to elaborate what that means.

Administration is when a business is so riddled with debt and unable to turn a profit, it can either voluntarily or by order of the courts be put under the control of a special kind of accountant – an Administrator. Their sole job is, in this instance, not to think about on the field success or the club’s needs or jobs or anything like that, they have to strip away assets, slice the wage bill and do anything in their power to pay off debts and get the business back to a somewhat normal state. I’ve actually worked for no less than three companies who have gone into administration and let me tell you something, it sucks.

Without a word of a lie, this was the conversation I had with an Administrator when I was last laid off from an office based role -

“So, how would you justify your role here?”
“Well, the last marketing campaign I ran only had a budget of £7,500 but I managed to bring in a total of £115,000 worth of investment, saving saving £11,500 worth of commission being paid out as the leads were generated in house. Oh, and did I mention that I did all of that with just a £7.5k budget?”
“You’re fired.”

Okay, they didn’t get all Donald Trump on me right then and there, but still the point remains the same.

Anyway, Portsmouth are in Administration as this special accountant person tries to strip away at the wage bill and assets and stuff in order to make Portsmouth FC once again a viable business. Except, seeing as this is Portsmouth, they can’t even do that right. The UK Government has ordered the Administrator to stop what he is doing as apparently he is just a friend of the current owner (I’ve lost track of who the fuck owns that club right now) and is only there to help him get his money back. An Administrator has to be impartial, you see. So you can’t just appoint your mate to go in and sort it out.

Look, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Portsmouth are a rotten club up top. Their players play with so much heart and passion it makes the whole thing actually kind of tragic, but it really does show that no matter how much those on the pitch are willing to lay on the line in order to help a cause, those who sit in the boardroom eating prawn sandwiches are willing to cock it all up again.

Aaron Ramsey, Ryan Shawcross and the Tackle Of Doom

Take a look at this video (Warning: It is not pretty)

Eurgh. Yucky, right? That video is of Stoke FC defender Ryan Shawcross breaking the leg of Arsenal’s attacking midfielder Aaron Ramsey. It does not make for pleasant viewing. Still, and I know this will probably come as a shock to you, I have an opinion on it.

After it happened, Arsene Wenger went on and on about how his Arsenal players are targeted for rough treatment because they are perceived as a physically weak team. He said that the fact that three of his players – Diaby, Edu and now Ramsey – had had their legs broken in sickening fashion over the last 3 years was proof.

Sorry, Mr Wenger, that isn’t what happened up there with Shawcross and Ramsey. What happened between those two is an absolute tragedy.

Ryan Shawcross is just 22 years old. Ramsey is only 19. Both of them are at the very beginning of their careers and both of them, hopefully, have another 10 – 15 years left playing good football. I’m a big fan of Ryan Shawcross (he is the linchpin of my Fantasy Football defence) and, just as Stoke manager Tony Pulis repeatedly said, that kid does not have a bad bone in his body. You want to see a tackle where someone went out to deliberately injure someone, go see what Roy Keane did to Alf-Ingre Haaland. Keane ended Haaland’s career on the spot, and then said later in his autobiography that is exactly 100% what he wanted and intended to do. All Ryan Shawcross did was get just upfield enough with the ball to be in slightly unfamiliar territory and, when he saw an Arsenal player go for it after it had gotten just out of his reach, try and kick it. The shame was that that player was the lightening fast Ramsey, who had been able to move the ball on and so instead just got a kick in the shin for his troubles – a kick hard enough to shatter his leg.

When Shawcross saw what he had done, he was in tears. That is not the way that a man reacts after he has set out to deliberately hurt another man. It is an absolute tragedy for Shawcross, as that moment will haunt him for the rest of his life, and it is an even bigger tragedy for Ramsey as his career will now hang in the balance. Sometimes players bounce back from broken legs. Sometimes they don’t. Either way, two young careers were irrevocably changed that day. That is all that really matters in the end.

Manchester United Clearly Fellated Their Bank Manager

I wonder if that section title will make it past Senior Elevation’s Red Pen Of Editing Doom? Oh well, let’s hope…

search Google for "happy bank manager"

Just weeks after announcing that they owed the banks over £700m, Manchester United have announced that they now only owe just over £500m. Don’t get me wrong, that is still an absolutely ridiculous amount of debt, one which is still skirting close to the $1bn mark and one that is enough to buy an NFL franchise\build a new stadium\pay for a night of passion with Olivia Wilde\etc. but it is at least smaller.

Despite the reduction in debt, though, Manchester United fans are still hell bent on removing the Glazer family from office. There are currently two movements with their aims set on achieving this.

The first is a fan movement. Whenever you watch United on the telly, you will see a number of fans shunning the traditional red colours of the club and instead sporting Green and Gold scarves. The Green and Gold, you see, were the colours of Nuneaton Heath, the team who morphed into Mancester United about 100 years ago after (this should sound familiar) running up debts and needing to be rescued. Although this movement will only really serve a purpose as a very prominent show of discontent amongst the United faithful, it will at least keep the topic hot.

The second movement is where United fans hope change will actually come from. A group of prominent Manchester based businessmen (much like those who transformed Nuneaton Heath into Manchester United all those generations ago) who call themselves ‘The Red Knights’ are looking to buy the club. Now, the Glazer family have said that they just plain and simple won’t sell but the cool thing here is that if The Red Knights table an offer, the Glazer’s are legally bound to sit down and listen to it. Amongst the numbers of The Red Knights are the likes of Goldman Sachs accountants and millionaires, so these guys mean business. This will be a story that could be interesting to play out.

Quickies

Now, time for a few quick stories that don’t deserve their own headings, but still who I think should be covered.

Firstly, in case any of you did not see the Manchester United vs AC Milan match in the Champions League a few weeks ago – watch it. It is a perfect summation of everything that is right with European football as two styles collided in spectacular fashion.

It looks like Liverpool could be saved from themselves by an unlikely source – Juventus. Apparently, Rafa Benitez is wanted mainly by Juventus, but also a few other prominent continental clubs, to take over as manager. This would be fantastic for Liverpool as quite often Rafa is the main problem with that team – his style of football tactics and coaching are perfect for the European game. However, as anyone will tell you, The Premiership is a different kettle of fish entirely. Rafa has been in charge for long enough to prove that he will not win The Premiership and the contract he is tied down with means the club can’t afford to fire him. Having another team poach him away is an ideal solution.

Finally, for the first time in about 712 years the Football Association saw some sense and quickly shot down proposals to use a Playoff system to decide the 4th spot for the Champions League. Good for them. The point of The Premiership is that it is a league – there is no need for a knockout post-season as every club in England already gets at least 2 knock out tournaments a year to enter. As soon as you start throwing a knockout tournament for the 4th Champions League spot, you might as well start doing it for the 3rd Relegation spot as well. It could have been the start of a very slippery slope and all just to get some extra TV revenue. Happily, though, for once the FA’s integrity could not be bought.

England Squad For South Africa

I’m going to start sliding these in here from now until the World Cup, mainly just for me. You’re more than welcome to read them, though. I’m going to start laying out who should be on the pitch for England’s opening World Cup game on the 12th of June against the good old US of A. It’ll be fun, I promise.

Joe Hart – Hart is definitely the best English goalkeeper around at the moment, except he has zero meaningful international experience. Capello will be faced with a tough choice here – go with James or Green and have an experienced, albeit beatable, option or go with Hart who has no experience but has been a brick wall for Birmingham this season.

Wayne Bridge – Bridge is picked here by default. I really think that with everything going on in Ashley Cole’s private life, namely the fact his marriage is as good as dead, his rehabilitation from injury will seriously suffer. That could well mean that Bridge is the automatic replacement.

John Terry – Terry will find his form and him and Bridge will sort things out like men do. They will sit on opposite ends of a table with a bottle of scotch each and not leave until they have at least come to a workable arrangement.

Rio Ferdinand – Is the England captain. So, yeah… d’urh!

Glen Johnson – The only serviceable right back England have.

Aaron Lennon – Capello is in love with Lennon’s speed, and is willing to look past his questionable final product. He’ll start up the right, although share time with Sir David of Beckham deep in games.

Frank Lampard – Like it or lump it, Fat Frank is deeply entrenched in England’s centre. He ‘aint going nowhere.

Gareth Barry – For some reason known only to Fabio Capello, Gareth Barry is worthy of a spot in the middle of England’s team despite the fact he can’t pass, can’t shoot and can’t tackle. He is, in all fairness, very good at annoying people from Birmingham though.

Steven Gerrard – Barry in the middle means Gerrard will be plonked out on the left of midfield again. Left midfield is the one position that England has always struggled to produce at, as shown by every England manager in the last 10 year’s decision to just stick Gerrard out there, probably wasting the international career of a very talented attacking midfielder.

Peter Crouch – I don’t care what his club stats say, how much game time he gets at Spurs or if Defoe is actually outscoring him. Play this man for England. He scored 2 goals against Egypt on Wednesday night and is the leading single-season goalscorer for England. He gets goals at the International level so for the love of god play him. There is one slight downside, though, and that is that some referees in major International tournaments give free kicks against him whenever he tries to head the ball as he is so fucking tall his elbows automatically go in other people’s faces.

Wayne Rooney – Assuming that he doesn’t break his foot (it is a well known fact to all those who know it well that the most important player for England before a World Cup breaks their foot), he will not only be the star of England but also the entire tournament. Written off as either someone who had hit a glass ceiling or, even worse, been a disappointment, just last year, Rooney has thrived since Cristiano Ronaldo left United for Spain. He, along with Evra and Giggs, is the heart and soul of Manchester United and will now have to carry England on his young shoulders as well.

Well, that is all from me. I promise I won’t leave it so long next time. Blame the evil bastards who expect me to actually do work on time. I do.

Welcome to the first edition of my rants about things that matter.  I’ll address mainly MMA and why I think it sucks that PRIDE doesn’t exist anymore.  I’ll also keep some mention of pro wrestling, mainly WWE, and why I think it sucks that Linda McMahon is running for Senate.  Once in awhile I’ll talk about other things that matter, like the return of The Manning Face.  Super Bowl XLIV will mark the return to reality for all of the Manning family not named Archie, who has seen his two sons and the team he loves win three of the last four Super Bowls.  Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, move over.  Archie Manning is in the house.

Speaking of old people who have managed to stay famous for far too long, Hulk Hogan’s return to burying young, talented pro wrestlers has taken a new twist in TNA.  He’s put the weight of destroying an entire wrestling promotion on his shoulders, which isn’t smart since I don’t know if his hip can support the weight.  Bringing along such esteemed talent as Orlando Jordan along for the ride makes it all the more embarrassing for a company trying to compete with the McMahon empire over at WWE.

Hulk Hogan has indicated that he wants to bring The Macho Man into TNA. No word on whether Dixie Carter has any teenage daughters for him to rape.

What’s that?  The McMahon empire is down to Vincent, Stephanie, and Terra Ryzing?  With Shane McMahon feeling like doing something else with his life, and Linda McMahon’s innate desire to run as a Republican in Connecticut we are down to three.  Well, this doesn’t seem like a terrible thing since the only creative forces in WWE are named Vincent, Kennedy, and McMahon but something hasn’t seemed right recently.  Oh yeah, family friendly.  In a desperate attempt to clean up their act so that whoever faces Linda in the GOP primaries won’t have fuel to mock her with they have tried becoming a product that is acceptable for the whole family to watch.  This of course means that the average pro wrestling fan, who is somewhere in the thirties, has to stomach smiling John Cena high-fiving little kids and big mean pantless Randy Orton not doing anything to draw the ire of the crowd besides being the only reason Cody Rhodes has airtime.  I will continue these rants later, and instead leave you with a clip expressing what a real crowd-favorite does.

As for MMA, what a long strange trip it’s been.  Saturday could not have possibly been the first time UFC legends Randy Couture and Mark Coleman faced off in the Octagon, but it was.  This was sort of a dream match for UFC fans, only it happened ten years too late.  A variety of reasons played into this being the first time they have headlined a PPV against one another, but at the combined age of 91 it seemed that those reasons should have been used to explain in twenty years why they never faced each other.  Randy Couture, who is closing in on 47, hasn’t looked washed-up even against Brock Lesnar and Minotauro.  A much-needed drop in weight class has revitalized his career, at least until he loses against Machida or Shogun in the fall.

However, Mark Coleman reached his peak as a fighter ten years ago.  He has used his successes in the early days of UFC and his initial success in PRIDE to carry on for a decade in headlining bouts against the best MMA has to offer.  In his fights against the cream of the crop, Coleman has always tasted defeat.  Since 2001 he has beaten Allan Goes, Don Frye, Milco Voorn, and most-recently Stephan Bonnar.  His victory over Mauricio Rua in 2006 was the fortunate result of a broken arm.  UFC 93 showed what would have happened without that injury.  It isn’t that Coleman has a legacy to protect, all but the oldest of MMA fans think of him as some washed-up legend trying to hang on for far too long.  It’s simply that Coleman is wasting his time trying to stick around.  Up next he could become a sacrificial lamb to Kimbo Slice, or a sacrificial lamb to any number of guys over at Strikeforce.  A fight with Tito could be on the table, but what would anyone gain from that?  Tito could punch Coleman into retirement or Mark could win and then decide he can stay around a bit longer.

Is Mark Coleman the Rickey Jackson of the UFC Hall of Fame or is Rickey Jackson the Mark Coleman of the NFL Hall of Fame?

Saturday could have served as the closure to Coleman’s career.  Despite looking lost for the six minutes the fight lasted, he at long last was standing in the Octagon with the legendary Randy Couture.  He could have thanked the fans of MMA for all their support, he could have had the crowd cheer him in the main event of a PPV.  Instead Mark Coleman’s career looks set to conclude in a preliminary bout against some also-ran in 2013.  He took his one chance to leave gracefully from a sport whose fans know so little about him and is instead working on becoming someone where fans will remember him as that old guy who refused to quit.

Here is how the power lies…among the two teams that are left, with a little bonus blurb on the two teams that weren’t quite good enough to make it to the Super Bowl. Enjoy the big game on Sunday, and remember to savor it, as we won’t see meaningful NFL football again until early September.

1. Colts – Things were starting to compound on Indianapolis. The Jets had put together an 80 yard bomb to Braylon Edwards and a great trick play where Brad Smith faked an option run and pulled back and launched a 45 yard strike (okay, it floated like a duck, perhaps strike isn’t the right word, but it was complete) to Jerricho Cotchery which led to another touchdown. The Jets were up 17-6, and looked for all the world like they had an excellent shot to shock the world and somehow make it all the way to the Super Bowl. The Colts had just seen a 48 yard Jay Feely Field Goal split the uprights, and there were only two minutes remaining in the half. Things looked bleak, but then in strode Number Eighteen. Just like that, after rifling his way down the field with three completions to Austin Collie in less than a minute the last one resulting in a touchdown. BAM, Peyton Manning was suddenly in control of the game, and despite the fact that the Jets were up at the half, they were finished.

You could tell the exact moment that Manning clicked into gear…it was a ridiculously accurate bomb right down the middle of the field to Austin Collie for 46 yards that broke the Jets spirit. After that play, the game was over, Manning decided that the Colts were going to the Super Bowl. He just decided it, and no one could argue. Peyton Manning has that rare ability to absolutely end a game in the second quarter with a cool confidence that destroys his opponents. The Jets still technically led the game 17-6, but you could stick a fork in them at that moment, because Manning was going to win, you could feel it. The second half unfolded exactly as expected, and the Jets ended up getting trounced by a 30-17 final score. It wasn’t really a blowout, as the Jets held a double digit lead at one point, and were within 3 in the fourth, but it wasn’t exactly NOT an upset either because at no time from the moment Manning dissected the Jets secondary for 46 yards did I think the Jets had even a remote chance of winning the game. The Colts dominated from that point on.

The reason that the Colts must be listed as the Super Bowl favorite and the team at the top of the final Vertically Striped power rankings of the season is the quarterback. Drew Brees put up superior numbers, and he is a great quarterback in his own right. However, I have never seen Drew end a game in the 2nd quarter while trailing by 11. I know it sounds hokey, but Peyton Manning totally did that in the AFC Championship. It’s silly to ascribe super powers to mortal athletes, but there is something about the confidence that Manning possesses that puts him into the rarified air of a player like Michael Jordan…someone who is just a winner, someone who will not allow his team to lose. Take Manning off of these Colts, and they are a middle of the road team that may or may not make the postseason. With Peyton, the Colts are clearly the team to beat. He’s that important, and he is the sole reason that I have to place the Colts as number 1 in this week leading up to the big game with all the Roman numerals.

2. Saints – This team is exciting, and fast paced and fun. When they are on their game offensively, I have seen few teams who can keep up with their fast flying ways. They have a city that has spiritually rallied around them, and the Saints probably mean more to New Orleans right now than any professional team means to any community in the world. If you have a soul, and you aren’t a Colts fan, I have a hard time understanding how you could not be pulling for this team. The Saints are the spirit and symbol of a place that was ravaged by a horrible hurricane and are trying to fight their way back. Yes, I’m cheering for the black and gold on Sunday.

However, despite the good vibes and spiritual optimism surrounding this team, they are still a group of football players who have to make it happen on the field on Sunday. In that regard, the Saints make me a little nervous. Clearly, they’re a stud team, but their defense is middling, and their offense is a lot like a Ferrari…when it’s engine is roaring it can fly, but it can be a bit temperamental, and sometimes it needs to go into the garage for repair. Against the Vikings, the Saints as a team rode a wave of crowd support and enjoyed the benefit of being plus four in the turnover differential. Had the Vikings not coughed the ball up five times, likely Minnesota and Brett Favre would be in Miami getting ready to figure out a way to try and beat the Colts. Even with those advantages, the Saints also needed boneheaded mistakes from the Vikings and a beneficial coin flip in order to win the NFC Championship.

The Saints are a very good team, and they have a shot against the Colts in XLIV. (Check back to VerticallyStripedSocks.com on Friday to find out how much of a shot I think they have.) However, they are an underdog for a reason, and when there are only two teams left, someone has to be number two in the rankings. That lot falls on the Saints, but for this week, I join a chorus of zealots in Louisiana and with optimism and hope scream, “Who Dat?” (Hopefully NFL Properties doesn’t charge me royalties for saying as much.)

Thanks for coming, Best of luck to you all next year. (Except, of course, for you Mr. Favre.)

Vikings – I was watching the final quarter of the Saints-Vikings NFC Championship from the same restaurant that I saw the Giants-Packers NFC Championship two years earlier. Amazingly enough, the same exact thing happened…Just when it appeared that Brett Favre was on the cusp on qualifying his team for the Super Bowl, he threw up a terrible interception and ended his teams season. I was bummed two years previous, as I wanted the Packers to make it, but this year I was ecstatic. The people of Minnesota deserve better. After watching four Super Bowl losses (all before my time) and then seeing their chances to make Super Bowl 33 get blown by a shanked field goal against the Falcons in 1998, and seeing their team get throttled by the Giants 41-0 a few years later in another NFC Championship, those people have suffered too much already. With all apologies to those poor people of Minnesota, I was extremely happy. Favre is who we thought he was, and it only took until the final minutes of the NFC Championship for him to finally reveal himself. Now it’s on to another edition of the Brett Favre “will he or won’t he” retirement tease. Favre has proven over the past half-decade that he is a championship caliber Hamlet imitator, and now the fans in Minneapolis will get to live out his indecision for months. For now, he says he is “Very unlikely to return.” If you believe that will be the last word before a simple retirement announcement in a few weeks, you simply haven’t been paying attention to recent history. He’s playing well enough to come back, and it’s hard to deny that the NFL is more interesting when he’s around. I guess despite the fact that I love rooting against the guy, I do kind of hope he comes back.

Jets – If you’re the Jets, there is no way possible for you to feel bad about your season. You were able to sneak into the playoffs, and then make the most of it by improbably winning a couple of games and playing admirably in the AFC Championship. You have the lovable and bombastic (and fat) Rex Ryan as your leader, and things seem to be pretty positive. If Mark Sanchez can continue to develop in this system and avoid eating hot dogs on the sideline, the future looks bright in the city so nice they named it twice. Not to mention the stellar way that the Jets played defense this season. They probably weren’t good enough to achieve to the level that they did, but they did it anyway. New York, New York indeed! Start spreading the news! (All that positivity and chances are excellent that they go 6-10 next season…after all, this is the NFL.)

No time for a fun and quirky entrance segway this week. Far too much to get done to go through the motions of foreplay. Have a quirky image to enjoy, and lets get down to business.

“I'm a chilling out naked kinda guy, I tried turning it on while standing underneath. Bad times...”

Manchester United And The Amazing Sinking Finances

Oh Malcolm Glazer, thou art one heartless bitch. Also, if you don’t like financial stuff just skip this  bit. I won’t take it personally, I promise.

One of the biggest stories of the last few weeks in the Premiership has been the financial state of one of English football’s, and probably the world’s, biggest clubs – Manchester United. When the Glazer family, who have done such a wonderful (sic) job of running the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, decided to expand their sporting empire to the Premiership, they chose Manchester United.

At the time, this move was met with a mixture of fear, dread and loathing by Manchester United fans who were all very angry at the fact the Glazer’s weren’t buying the club in the sense that Chelsea or Manchester City have been bought, where the owners had the cash lying around down the backs of their sofas. Oh no, the Glazers were buying the club by borrowing the money to buy it. That meant they took out a £500m odd loan out against the club and an extra £200m or so in personal loans, meaning that the day they bought the last share of Manchester United stock to take ownership, the club was in debt by about £700m. That is about $1.15bn.

Just take a second for those figures to sink in.

“The Manchester United Accountant on one of their more 'with it' days”

Manchester United owe around seven hundred million pounds. Or, if you make the lifestyle choice to be American, they owe one point one five BILLION dollars to various banks and hedge funds. That is absolutely staggering. That is unheard of. The club’s debt could buy an NFL franchise or pay one week of the Yankee’s payroll. It may even be enough to feed John Goodman for a month.

When the Glazers announced their evil plans to take United in 2003 (they completed the sale in 2005), there were fierce fan protests. There is even a football club called FC United that plays in the lower leagues of English football that was set up by disgruntled fans who vowed to give up the Red Devils. Anti-Glazer chants were sung in the stands and everyone who supported the club were all very upset indeed.

Then, things didn’t really change. Revenue went up on the business end of the club, the team on the field stayed at the top and won trophies and the worries were swept under the carpet. Consider it like a wife who finds a saucy text message on her husbands phone from another woman but then chooses to ignore it, taking ignorance over confronting the issue. Well, in the last few weeks the wife has found a few more messages, a thong in the car and a strange rash on her husband’s doodad. Metaphorically speaking, of course…

A few days ago, Manchester United released their financial figures for the last year and it painted a grim picture. Overall, the club made a profit of around £40m, not a bad achievement, but that was a very misleading figure. That profit included money from Ronaldo’s £80m transfer to Real Mardid. Without his sale, the club would have fallen another £40m into debt.

The reason that the club would have fallen another £40m into debt? The interest rates on the £700m\$1.15bn loans that the Glazers took out to pay for the club.

Please leave a comment at the bottom of this article if you know any good bounty hunters.

Let’s hugely simplify just what is happening to Manchester United here. Obviously, the intricate financial details that you have to put together to build up all that debt are a little bit more advanced than the scenario that I’m about to put forward but, hey, I ‘aint no banker, yo.

Let’s say that you wanted something, but couldn’t quite afford it. For the sake of argument, lets say you wanted to go on vacation with all your friends to Las Vegas, except you couldn’t afford on your current bank balance. So, lets say that rather than save up and buy your tickets, you just scrape together your spending money and put the flights on a credit card with the intention to pay them off gradually afterwards. Well, as we all know in Vegas you do dumb things so by the time that you’ve lost a few times at blackjack (“The dealer is showing a 6, double down baby!”), realised that your home game poker skills don’t stand up to proper rounders and drunkenly stuck a few bottles of whiskey on said credit card, you end up owing a lot. For the sake of maths, lets say you end up owing around $1,000.

You get home from  your little trip and after several scalding hot showers to get the dirt off of you, you realise “Holy crap, I owe $1,000!” Its not that bad, you think, things will keep on ticking over the same way they always do. Except you forgot that the interest rate on the credit card means that you can only afford to pay that off, meaning the $1,000 doesn’t budge. Then with the interest building up, the $1,000 starts to grow, generating more interest. All in all, looking back that bottle of whiskey and drunken idea that you could somehow count cards seems more and more foolish.

That is the situation Manchester United are in. The interest rates on the loans, which are around 10% for the £500m bank loans and 16% for the £200m hedge fund loans, are crippling the club. They can barely afford to pay those off. Throw in penalties for not moving the sum, interest rate hikes on certain dates and the fact that any top club still needs to invest whatever cash it has in players and it means that Manchester United are broke.

Finally, the Glazers are starting to do something about it, though. They have recently raised £504m from private investors to clear some of the debts and cut the interest rate (the private bonds have an interest rate of about 8%, significantly less than the banks charge) which should alleviate some of the suffering, but it may be too little too late. Right now, there are two options for United on the road ahead

Option one is that a nice big rich group who have cash reserves buy them. They can clear the debts in one foul swoop, pay the Glazers a few hundred million quid in profit and have the cash reserves to buy players. There have been rumblings about even some of United’s wealthier fans doing this option, but the Glazers appear to be poo-pooing that option on site, saying they are in it for the ‘long run’. The ‘long run’ probably referring to the long run down the table to League One…

Option two is that the Glazers stay in control. United badly need player investment – namely, a new winger, goalkeeper, right back, striker and midfielder – but they won’t get it to the quality needed while still wrestling with £700m worth of debt, even at lower interest rates. More worryingly, Real Madrid and Barcelona are beginning to target United’s talismanic Wayne Rooney, reportedly offering around £70m for his services. If he has to go to help the debt problem…

No matter what way you look at it, United are in financial dire straights. United have got to now hope and pray to either a) keep winning on the pitch to keep the creditors at bay, or b) huge private investment. It is just that simple.

Lets see how Liverpool are doing, eh?

Right, enough of writing depressing things about Manchester United. Let’s check in on another team whose fortunes could be on the slide – Liverpool.

“There is an obvious reason for the similar poses between Rafa and the Manchester United Accountant.

Last time we stopped by Rafa’s merry gang of hop alongs, things weren’t exactly hunky dory. They were well out of the race for a Champions League spot, out of this year’s Champions League and generally looking miserable. Has anything changed?

Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that they are playing a little bit better and are beginning to belly slide up the table a little bit. But, in a much bigger way, no – they are nowhere near where they should be and aren’t exactly showing the quality needing to break through.

Liverpool’s performances have been gradually getting better in the league, despite being unceremoniously dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship side Reading. When they beat Spurs 2-0 the other day, I would have said it was a proper turning point. Rather than a one off result, Rafa could have said “Look, we lost on the opening day to this team and struggled. Now we have beaten them, so we are that much better than we were. Let’s go forward with this.”

Instead, they drew 0-0 with relegation contenders Wolves in their next league game.

Currently, Liverpool are in 5^th place in the league and are just 3 points off of Spurs, who currently occupy that precious 4^th Champions League spot. However, on equal points with them in 5^th are Manchester City, who look absolutely rejuvenated under Mancini’s reign. City also have 2 games in hand, meaning that all of a sudden Liverpool could once more be 6 points off the Champions League pace. It is ridiculous counting Liverpool in the title chase at this stage as well  – they are 11 points off of 3^rd place alone.

Also just behind them are Aston Villa, one point back with one game in hand.

Liverpool, though, are still injury plagued with Gerard and Torres still picking up injuries regularly, with the later currently out for a month following a minor knee operation. If Liverpool do not qualify for this year’s Champions League they will have hell keeping those two stars at the club, and if they don’t it could be the start of a steady decline – Liverpool have been torrid without them.

Although I may make it seem this way, it really isn’t all doom and gloom for Liverpool. They have dragged themselves back over the last 8 games or so from a situation where a bottom half finish was more than conceivable to being back in the Champions League conversation. As a team, they have much more experience at that level than the likes of Spurs and Aston Villa and have a more gelled team than Manchester City. There is still a chance that they can avoid an internal apocalypse and qualify for next year’s premier European competition, but that is all it is – a chance.

Comings and Goings

There have been three important comings and goings so far since the last London Chronicles. Let’s have a little look shall we?

Owen Coyle boltin’ to Bolton

Former Burnley boss has Coyle has jumped ship back over to Bolton, this time to take on the club as manager. I really like this move for Bolton – they currently don’t have a lot going for them and those are the conditions that Coyle thrives under. His Burnley side, before they got promoted this season, were already feared after knocking out numerous Premier League teams in cup competitions. With him at the reigns, hopefully Bolton can pick up where they left off when Sam Allardyce left the club.

Eidur Gudjohnsen to Spurs

This move I can’t really understand, but who am I to second guess the genius that is Harry Redknapp? Spurs are pretty stacked at the striker position with Keane, Defoe and Crouch and have some talented wingers in Modric and Lennon. They don’t really need Gudjohnsen, who has always been a little bit over rated anyway. However, I suppose you could argue that if they really want to be a top 4 team they need top cover for key positions, and that was what the former Chelsea and Barcelona attacker will give them.

Robinho to Santos

This one broke literally as I was checking the Premiership table on the BBC website to see just where Liverpool were after last night’s games. Manchester City’s record signing – Brazilian striker Robinho – has left the City of Manchester stadium to go on loan at his former club Santos back home in Brazil.

“When asked about his move, Robinho said 'Baaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! Money money money money waaaaaaaaah!”

Although a few top European teams wanted him, I can understand Robinho’s move back to Brazil. That way he doesn’t end up playing for a potential rival and he is in the spotlight in his home country during a World Cup year. Also, as the move is only a 6 month loan, he could potentially be back with his head in the right place for next year’s campaign.

There is a much bigger story to this though. When Robinho snubbed Chelsea in favour of Manchester City and their newly acquired riches, his motivation was pure and simple – money. Nobody turns down Chelsea for Manchester City if they want silverware, or at least they didn’t at the time. Getting Robinho was important for City as it showed they had transfer market muscle. However, it never really worked out – he often sulked, underperformed and ran back to Brazil for ‘injury treatment’ whenever he got out of bed a little bit too fast.

Robinho was a mercantile player – not caring who he played for, just wanting the single biggest pay packet. There is nothing completely wrong with that – professional athletes have maybe an 18 year career with only about 10 of those years to make some serious wedge. You can’t blame them for wanting to make the most money to live off of that they can.

Still, they rarely work out and can often be very expensive mistakes for clubs. Once the honeymoon period of being paid £100k a week wears off, and somehow it does, they are often left at an uncompetitive club and the amazing drive that pushed them to become elite athletes kicks in in a major way. They become all uppity, sulky and end up kicking up a fuss.

Although nothing will stop clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City or Chelsea from trying to gazump other team’s transfers by offering more money to club and player, hopefully the continued failure of players like Robinho will strongly discourage it.

Also, although slightly small in newsworthiness, is the fact that Sol Campbell is back with Arsenal after 3 and a half seasons (or so, I think…). Although this is a landmark occurance as it is the first time Wenger has re-signed a player he has let go, an honour not even Patrick Viera can claim, it has been an open secret in football for months. Since the Notts County Experiment came to a shuddering halt and Sol left after one game, he made it clear lower league football or MLS (sorry, Senior Elevation) wasn’t really of interest to him. He has been training with Arsenal to keep his fitness up and so it is a natural step he returns to the club to offer some much needed experience and leadership to a young team.

I bet you $50 that less than half of the people who clicked on this page are still reading

To quote the prophet Springer, now time for my final thought.

At my day job, as unfortunately I don’t just hang around Elevation HQ drinking beer and playing some serious MW2 the whole time (or at all…), I cover an awful lot of gambling news stories. Three this year alone have caught my eye for all the wrong reasons.

1)      The Chinese Football Association head being questioned over corruption, and investigators saying that if they punished everyone involved with soccer corruption then it would put the country’s football industry out of business.

2)      Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Critterton pulling guns on each other over a poker debt.

3)      Wolves calling in not one but two gambling addiction experts to work with their squad.

Now, I’m not one of these sorts who harp on about the evils of wealth. I love money. If I had a chance, I’d have all the money I could get my grubby little mits on. I enjoy being able to buy shit, go places and do stuff. I would very much like a new car, a new house, three more holidays a year and trophy wife. However, I sadly only have just about enough to live on.

*plays world’s smallest violin*

Anyway, you know who does have an awful lot of money? Footballers. And not just the £75k a week sorts. What people don’t quite realise is just how much money athletes have. A few years ago, I was working in the marketing department for an investment property firm and one of the sales guys ran into our little corner of the office that was full of Spongebob Squarepants posters and LolCats print offs (go into your marketing department at work and it will be very  much the same) absolutely over the moon because he had gotten a sales meeting with a League 1 footballing side. We all looked at him a little bit sideways, until he pointed the following out.

Even in League one, the 3^rd tier of English football, wages of £1,000 a week for squad players and £5,000+ a week for decent players are not uncommon. That is sweet FA when compared to Cristiano Ronaldo’s £200k a week or Rio Ferdinand’s £125k a week, but in the real world terms £5,000 is still an insane amount of money. That is a wage of £260,000 a year. Chuck on bonuses and players are realistically, even at that level, bringing in around £300,000 a year. Sure, that isn’t live-off-it-the-rest-of-your-life scratch, but you would be hard pushed to find a regular job where 21 – 34 year olds are paid £300k.

Anyway, I’ve gone off the point a bit. A lot of footballers have a lot of money is what I’m trying to say. And, despite the expectations placed upon them, footballers are human. Any human with a lot of disposable income does one of five things with it – drinks it, smokes it, snorts it, injects it, gambles it.

The first four of those aren’t exactly options for top calibre footballers, but the last one is. Like it or not, hush hush or not, football has a massive gambling culture attached. From the famous England national team ‘poker schools’ to players and managers owning race horses, injured players sitting at home gambling all day to those who can’t stay away from the tables, it happens. Worryingly, an awful lot of players also bet on football.

I’m not attacking gambling here either – I love poker and blackjack, perhaps too much – but trying to make the following point. Currently, all these young guys who have more money than god and a playboy lifestyle. This can all too easily lead to corruption – as in the China case, or even Italian football as seen a few years back -, to to inter squad problems – as documented by Arenas and Critterton – or to addictions, as shown by the amount of gambling addiction specialists brought in by some clubs and the need for clinics like Sporting Chance in London, which does admirable work treating gambling addictions amongst pro athletes anonymously.

Finances in football are at a stage where even lower league players in major markets are amongst some of the highest paid of the population. I’m not saying that they should be prohibited from gambling, it is plain wrong to tell people how they should spend their money, but already this year I’ve seen three shocking sports gambling stories. Surely, it is time for FIFA\UEFA\The FA to start looking in to the gambling culture in their sport, not leaving it up to clubs and flimsy regulations like “Oh, yeah, offer them help if they need it.”

Until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other.

Ah yes, the Christmas break has come and gone, and my residence in East Germany is back to its old and depressing state.  No more markets, no more lights and candles, no more wreaths, nothing.  About the only thing a good Catholic like myself can look forward to is Lent, in which we give something up to be closer to God, like chocolate or McDonald’s.  Of course we don’t understand why not eating M&Ms or Big Macs makes us better Christians, but hey, if Jesus can survive in the desert for 40 days, I can avoid the golden arches.

However, in all of Germany there is one beacon of hope shining brighter than anything on the horizon, and that my friends, is the start of the second half of the Bundesliga.  It seems to me that the major sports in America could take a really good lesson from this break.  The players get a month and a half off from major competitions during the holidays (granted there are scrimmages and practices), and then for the fans it’s like finding an un-opened Christmas present about a month late in January.  And if you ask me, the fact that we can look forward to soccer being played again for the next 18 weeks is even better than Ralphie getting a Red Rider BeeBee gun (with a built in compass!!).

Yes, the season has arrived, and one can see all throughout the country that kids to adults are discussing the fall champion, which is basically the team with the most points at the end of the first half, and whether or not they will be able to hold on for the rest of the season to first place.  What does it mean to be fall champion?  Well, nothing.  For example, last year’s “Herbstmeister” was Hoffenheim.  The young squad freshly promoted to the 1. Bundesliga and looking to become only the second team ever to be promoted one year and then win the title the next.  However, the talented Hoffenheimer’s offense cooled off, and their average at best defense was unable to keep them afloat throughout the second half of the season, keeping F.C. Kaiserslautern’s record of promotion to title a one man show.  Hoffenheim’s fall from power is nothing new, however, as it can often seem that the fall champion has too much pressure with a constant target on its back, as if everyone believes they are going to be caught eventually.

We see this in American sports too.  I know I have personally seen my Detroit Tigers fall from grace in the American League Central or God knows how many times it seems the New York Yankees seem to pour the pressure on the Red Sox for the AL East playoff spot after the All-Star Break.  I believe this year both the Broncos and Giants started very strong in their respective seasons, only to completely trip and fall flat on their face once halfway into the NFL Season.  So, I want to partially caution those who have only followed the Bundesliga maybe this year or only for a couple seasons that if you are a Bayer Leverkusen fan, do not start betting your life savings that this is your year.  That being said, let’s look at the teams at the top, the teams at the bottom, a few surprises in the middle, and maybe what they all can do to hold the first spot, to rise above, or maybe just to stay in the first league!

Bayer Leverkusen celebrating with their sweet mascot.

1. Bayer Leverkusen 04, Place: 1. Bayer Leverkusen, the team without a town in many ways.  The name, Bayer, is world renowned for its medicine, and it is no wonder where the squad gets its money from in order to field great players both in the past and present.  However, due to the small size of Leverkusen combined with the much greater size of the bigger cities in the area, the team never really has a massive following.  In addition, the boys from Leverkusen seem to always fall short towards the end of the season, stumbling to a second, third, or fourth place finish.  The boys from Leverkusen have simply been completely outgunning their competition with a goal differential of +22 (35 for /15 against), the best in the league.  Having one of the two German national team keepers does not hurt either as Adler has performed wonderfully.  The young gun on loan from Bayern, Kroos, has looked phenomenal this season so far, and he, along with scoring machine Kießling, are looking to smooth out those end of the season bumps and earn Leverkusen a Bundesliga title.
2. FC Schalke 04, Place:  2. FC Schalke, also probably my least favorite team in the Bundesliga next to Bayern, has seen a rise in the level of play from their top forward, Mr. Kevin Kuranyi.  This year he has cut off his awful hair and surprisingly, along with his lisp and terrible facial hair, he is not so bad to watch on the pitch anymore.  He has already tailed 10 goals and 3 assists, maybe looking to avenge his stumbles over the past couple seasons.  Schalke’s coach, the legend Felix Magath, has to be one of the key reasons for this team’s success so far.  He has brought the winning formula from Wolfsburg and it looks like all his players are singing and humming his tune perfectly.  If Schalke stays tough, look for Leverkusen to begin to slip as the blue boys out of Gelsenkirchen rise to the top.
3. FC Bayern, Place: 3. FC Bayern, the class of the league (they certainly pay enough for it) has found its stride going into the second half of the season.  A lack luster performance from the back line, a drama between new Dutch Coach Van Gaal and the Italian striker Luca Toni, and a handful of injuries including Ribery and Robben had made Bayern look more than fragile at the beginning.  Top forwards Olic and Gomez have filled their scoring shoes, however, and kept Germany’s most well known club afloat during much of the season.  The perennial power has risen to the top again and with Ribery almost fully recovered and Toni shipped off to Italy, the Bavarian squad simply needs to keep on pace for another run at the German title.
4. Hamburger Sport Verein (HSV), Place: 4. The Hamburger Sport Verein (HSV) has shown glimpses of both greatness and weakness in the first half of the season.  Thanks to strong play from Zé Roberto and the Croatian Petric, the club has held strong to the upper ranks of the league.  No doubt the arrival of Ruud Van “the Man” Nistelrooy is going to stir things up for the club from the north.  Buying a strong Dutchman has worked in the past for the Hamburger and they believe that V. Nistelrooy still has a couple good seasons left in him, as they will be relying on him heavily to keep up a steady amount of scoring for a push towards the number one spot.  I do not know how much I buy into this purchase as a great solution, but it is definitely going to put a lot more eyes on Hamburg this season.

Another Dutchman who speaks German, it’s like they used to be the same country!

1. VfL Wolfsburg, Place:  8. Wolfsburg, and how the champions have fallen.  Just this week the coach of the squad, Armin Veh, was let go as the “Wolfe” are looking for a new strategy.  The green squad best known for their duo of Bosnians, Dzeko and Misimovic, needs answers and needs them fast.  Currently sitting in 10^th place, they are going to need to learn some consistency if they have any hope of making the UEFA cup qualification spot.  This team, although it has underperformed, is not to be underestimated in the least.  Look for the new coach to stir up the defense, focus on some system fundamentals, and get this championship squad back on track.
2. 1.F.C Cologne, Place: 12. 1. F.C Cologne needs to be in the discussion every time because this year is the “Return of the Prince”.  Prince Podolski that is.  Although he has had some assists and even a goal himself, the German national team striker has simply not amassed the production that the fans, and this writer, had hoped.  Cologne ended the first half of the season on a great note, defeating Nuremberg 3:0 at home, and in the past week beat last year’s champions Wolfsburg 3:2.  They are near the bottom of point production among all teams, which is a mystery given the two former 2. Bundesliga goal “kings” (the king is the player who scores the most goals in the league for a season).   Although I have no fear of them being relegated, unless some consistency in offensive production is found, the “Kölner” and their new head coach Saldo are going to have to rethink how Podolski can better be used.
3. VfbStuttgart, Place:  15^th. Stuttgart has been in a mess the entire season.  Up until recently the normally strong Schwäbisch squad was in the relegation zone, and with very little signs of life that they would get out.  They remain in the bottom pack, and I recall even Frank Beckenbauer commenting on a Sky Sports review show that, “he does not understand how a talented team can make so many mistakes and not get the job done.”  Thank you Kaizer.  I only add the facts, this team has underperformed not so much against the top level players, but with the middle to bottom dwellers.  They are in serious need of motivation when it comes to playing the lower tier.
4. Hannover 96, Place: 14. Hannover 96 experienced a great loss this year losing their starting keeper, captain, and leader Robert Enke.  Since the tragic event, the team’s mediocre season has had nothing but a steady downhill path.  They are currently lying in the relegation zone with more questions than answers.  The entire team, from goalie, defenders, midfielders, strikers and even the coaching staff needs to find a way to get this squad, who is undoubtedly closer off the field, more focused on the field.   Although I cannot imagine the heavy loss and burden that is likely still fresh in the minds of this team, Hannover would do Mr. Enke a great tribute by fighting hard and staying in the first league.  I do not believe that this team lacks the physical capability, but I do question its mental strength going through this second half.
5. 1. F.C Nuremberg, Place: 17. My beloved F.C. Nuremberg is currently sitting quite alone in the second to last position, and although the relegation zone is expected by the experts, it has been a joy to watch the young star Abert Bujanku play this season.  He has already cashed in 9 goals for a club that is not on the scoreboard too much, and he gives hope to “Club” fans every time he touches the ball.  With the exit of Peer Kluge to Schalke and a widening gap between staying in the first league and dropping back down, FCN will need to pick up single points against all the big boys it can, and have decisive victories over key components battle in the relegation area, such as Berlin, Stuttgart, and Hannover.
6. Hertha Berlin, Place: 18. Last, and yes least, is the capital’s own squad Hertha Berlin.  The team with the DB on its chest has found only a total of 10 points even up until last week, grabbing a tie against M’gladbach.  The Berliner showed signs of life winning their first game in the second half and then adding one point last week, but let us not forget that Hertha BSC won its first game of the fall season as well.  Frankly, I have no idea and I do not believe anyone who says they have an idea of what will happen to this squad at the end of the season, but it just depends on which team shows up on game day.  This is a group of players that did so well last year right up until the very end, and this year has looked like shadow of its former self.  The Jury is out and will continue to be for the next few weeks, so best keep watching.

Well there you have it, my round up of 10 squads, their position at the turn, what has happened so far, and maybe a few ideas of what could happen.  I have no crystal ball so I really do not know what is going to happen, but even if I could, I think I would rather just wait and watch it unfold.  Be back in a few weeks, and if you want me to write up a short summary, in case I did not already, of your team’s first half review, chances, and my own thoughts to what they need to do, just leave it in the comments.  As for now, I have to pretend to be a student again.  Peace!

Colts 27   Jets 14
Vikes 35  Saints 21

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This is officially the home stretch. Only two games this weekend, and the winners go to the big game with the Roman numbering system. This is the most painful weekend to lose, because ultimately you’re forgotten, but the sting of losing hurts the most when you were thisclose to making the Super Bowl. So clearly, a lot is at stake here. This is one of my favorite weekends of the sporting calendar, as the games are so important, and often they are very good. Hopefully we get two good games, but I’m doubtful, as the Jets are prominently involved in one. I don’t know what it is about Gang Green, but whenever the Jets play, the games take on a sloppy, sticky feel, as if the entire football game has been doused with maple syrup or something. I want the Jets to win because the underdog story is fun, but the Super Bowl will be better if the Colts are involved. As for the NFC, no matter who wins, we should get a good Super Bowl rep, so hopefully that means the Saints…because, well, Brett Favre. Here are the results that I divined from my clearly cloudy crystal ball:

New York Jets at Indianapolis: Is anyone else struck by how ridiculous it is that the New York Jets are one of the last four teams still playing? This team has certainly has been lucky, having the last five field goals attempted against them all be missed is bizarre, and the fact that they weren’t down by twenty at halftime against the Chargers is crazy…they were getting destroyed in that game, only the Chargers somehow kept getting just stopped by the Jets. I guess that’s the whole point of playing defense, but some serious luck was involved.

Well, the luck ends this weekend. Matt Sanchez has not been playing all that well, perhaps you can win one game or maybe rarely even two with a subpar quarterback, but I don’t think you can win a championship with a quarterback who was widely considered to have potential that he has clearly not yet reached. The defense is good, and the running game has been solid, but if the Jets are somehow able to win, they might be the weakest team to ever reach the Super Bowl.

Contrast the Jets with a team that hasn’t lost a game in which they clearly tried to win since last year’s playoffs. The Colts are strong, Peyton Manning is one of the best quarterbacks of all time, and the Colts suffocated a team from Baltimore last week that is the mirror image of the Jets. The Ravens had a questionable quarterback, a great running game, and a strong swarming defense…and they lost 20-3. The Jets are in for a similar fate.

I’m cheering for New York, because Rex Ryan is terribly interesting and who doesn’t like a fat boisterous coach. Plus the idea of the chaos that would ensue as the Jets faithful try to figure out a world where their team is actually in the Super Bowl appeals to me…we could potentially see some Jets fans heads explode with confusion. Sadly, I don’t think it’s meant to be. Not even close. Colts 33 Jets 13

Minnesota at New Orleans: This game to me is a coin flip, and is there any doubt that this game is the more anticipated contest of the weekend? Although both of these teams kind of stumbled to the finish in the regular season, the idea that the momentum you bring to the playoffs took a major hit last week, as despite both teams bringing very little “Mo” into their first postseason contests, they both dispatched their first round foes with ease. The Vikings throttled the Cowboys, and the Saints easily eliminated the Cardinals. So now, unlike the AFC, the two teams in the NFC that looked like the class of the Conference for the lion share of the regular season will be battling for the NFC spot in XLIV, which is how it should be.

The Vikings defensive line is scary when it gets rolling, and they were rolling against Tony Romo and the Cowboys last week. The Saints offense will rely on Drew Brees making quick smart decisions, which he is pretty good at doing. The Vikings offense also looked good, although Adrian Peterson has not been quite as good as advertised this year. Of course, he was advertised as making blind men see and turning water into wine…so he may have been slightly over-hyped.

Long time readers will know that I have a dislike of Brett Favre, so that clearly colors my Vikings predictions. I don’t want the Vikes winning, and that is only because of Brett. The franchise has great and long-suffering fans who have lost four Super Bowls and deserve their share of happiness, but I just don’t want that happiness to be delivered by Favre. The Saints have never been any further than they are right now, and it would be fun to see the people of New Orleans relish in a Super Bowl. They would certainly celebrate appropriately…especially since I get the impression that the Saints mean just a little bit more than they should to the city. (A fact which I really enjoy and endears Saints fans to me, by the way.) This game is very close, I could see it going in any direction. I can see either team winning by blowout, and I can see either team winning a close game. I’m hoping for the close game, since there have been precious few of those in this postseason, and I have a feeling the early game will continue the tradition of crappy postseason football this year. Since I have no feel for who will win, but I have a definite rooting interest, I’m going to go with my heart. Saints 31 Vikings 28

My Picks Scorecard:

Last Week: 2-2
Regular Season: 161-95
Playoffs: 4-4
Playoffs Against the Spread: 3-5
Year to Date: 165-99

Baltimore at Indianapolis – (Sportsbook.com Line: Colts by 6.5) On March 29th, 1984 the Colts abandoned Baltimore in the middle of the night bound for Indianapolis because they feared that the State of Maryland would pass a bill allowing the state to seize control of the team from owner Robert Irsay declaring eminent domain. The city of Baltimore was left without an NFL franchise for 11 years, and to this day if Baltimore residents learn that your last name is Irsay there is a slight chance that you’ll take a beating. Now, of course, that story is ancient history, and many of the players who will play in the game on Sunday weren’t even alive yet; but you know the fans who had the Colts ripped from them would take an extra measure of pleasure in eliminating the Colts in their first postseason game.

The Ravens are a strange team, early in the season their defense looked suspect, but Joe Flacco was running an offense that was firing, and they were winning. The aging defense has since put it together pretty well, and against the Patriots on Sunday, they looked like world beaters. However, Joe Flacco completed only four passes on the day. The Patriots couldn’t stop Ray Rice and Willis McGahee, so the Ravens decided that they wouldn’t even bother throwing the ball. Baltimore was staked to a large early lead, and pretty much coasted to the finish in Foxborough. The Ravens are good, but they will probably need Flacco to look like a legitimate NFL QB this weekend, and I don’t know if he can do that right now, which is going to make it tough on Baltimore.

The Colts lost their last two regular season games, which were entirely meaningless to them and to be fair they barely put forth any effort at all. Much like the Saints, we will see whether or not that rest is going to be a problem for the Colts or not. I think they may struggle a little bit early, but I just keep looking at the quarterback matchup and I can’t see Flacco outdueling Manning. That huge disadvantage for the Ravens is enough to make me think that the Ravens just aren’t going to be able to win. Colts 27 Ravens 14

Dallas at Minnesota – (Sportsbook.com Line: Vikings by 2.5) The Cowboys are rolling, Minnesota limped into the playoffs, Brett Favre has a recent history of falling apart in the late season and playoffs. The Vikings offensive line has been dreadful over the past month and a half, Adrian Peterson is a stud, but even he has had some struggles recently. The Vikings strike me as the stereotypical bye team that flops out of the playoffs in their first game. Tony Romo has been great lately, the Cowboys defense is playing at a ridiculously high level and despite the fact that Wade Phillips and his elastic neck skin will be coaching the Cowboys, I think Dallas advances on to the Conference Championship.

By the way, I have a huge grudge against Brett Favre, so all of my Vikings predictions need to be looked at through that prism. I let my disgust with Favre color my predictions, so if the Vikings slaughter Dallas…I’m blaming Brett Favre for clouding my vision. I’m blatantly and loudly cheering for the Dallas Cowboys…especially since they helped me win a bet last weekend. (The bet was for pride and avatar power, not for money, but I was still very pleased that they won.) Cowboys 33 Vikings 30

New York Jets at San Diego – (Sportsbook.com Line: Chargers by 7) – I do think the Chargers win at home against the Jets, but there are a few red flags for their playoff opener. The Chargers were 20th in the league against the run, and they are going up against the top ranked rushing offense in the league this season. Plus, the Jets had the top rated pass defense in the whole league, and all the Chargers do is pass. San Diego’s running game was ranked 31st in the league this year. The Jets strengths matchup pretty well against the Chargers, which makes the Jets far from the ideal matchup for San Diego, but I think their overall talent level is high enough to carry San Diego to a win. Plus, Mark Sanchez is going to need to complete more than the 12 passes he completed against the Bengals to carry the Jets past the Chargers. I just don’t know if he has it in him. Chargers 38 Jets 19

My Picks Scorecard:

Last Week: 2-2
Regular Season: 161-95
Playoffs: 2-2
Playoffs Against the Spread: 2-2
Year to Date: 163-97

New York Jets at Cincinnati – (Sportsbook.com Line: Bengals by 2.5) I feel like Vizzini in the “Princess Bride” trying to discern whether the Jets or the Bengals contain the Iocane powder. “On one hand, the Jets have a rookie quarterback and got lucky with the schedule or else they would never have made the playoffs, So I can clearly not choose the Jets in front of me. On the other hand, the Jets have a ton of confidence after just lambasting the Bengals only days ago, so I can clearly not choose the Bengals in front of you. Of course, only a great fool chooses a rookie quarterback on the road in the playoffs, I am not a great fool, so I clearly cannot choose the Jets in front of me!” Cue the Man in Black, “So you’ve made your decision then?” Me: “Not remotely! Because the Bengals come from Cincinnati, as everyone knows, the Cincinnati Bengals are entirely populated with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as the Bengals are not trusted by me. So clearly, I cannot select the Bengals in front of you! (Truly I have a dizzying intellect.) If you think I’m just stalling right now, you’re absolutely right, although I don’t think that the teams are going to give anything away in the next few days leading up to this game so I choose…“What in the world can that be!” Okay, so I am clueless on this game. I have no feel at all for what I think is going to happen in this game but I’m taking New York. Truth be told, I hate both of these teams, and I’m playing the Jets on a slight hunch. Although, I suspect that the Bengals and the Jets both contain Iocane Powder. Jets 17 Bengals 14

Baltimore at New England – (Sportsbook.com Line: Patriots by 3) No Wes Welker, a Tom Brady who is not completely healthy, a Randy Moss who may or may not care, a Bill Belichick that has been roundly criticized for being unorthodox…it feels like the Pats are ripe for an upset. The Ravens played them close earlier this year in New England, and surely Ray Lewis and company are not going to be intimidated going North into that environment. This FEELS like a game that the Ravens could pull out. However, I just have a gut feeling that the Pats are going to make a little bit of noise this postseason. It feels like a game the Ravens could win, but won’t due to their propensity to do stupid things. Plus, as sketchy as the Patriots have looked away from Foxborough (their only road wins this season were against the Bills and the Buccaneers, and the Bucs game was a neutral site) it is worth noting that they are undefeated in Massachusetts. The very human Pats still have enough magic to win a first round game and I think they will. Patriots 23 Ravens 13

Philadelphia at Dallas – (Sportsbook.com Line: Cowboys by 4) The Eagles had everything to play for this past Sunday in Dallas, had they defeated the Cowboys they would have earned the 2nd seed and a bye in the NFC. With everything to play for, they still got waxed 24-0.The Cowboys throttled them in every way, and while clearly the Eagles had a bad game…perhaps their hot finish was more of a mirage than an actual impressive streak. In their late season six game win streak they beat a bunch of teams that were either sorry teams all year or who were slumping to the finish. The Bears, Falcons, Redskins, Giants, 49ers and Broncos were not impressing anyone late in the year, and so I feel like the Eagles are somewhat of a paper tiger. The Cowboys have already taken down the Eagles twice this season, and I see no reason why they don’t do it a third time. The Cowboys finished with a three game win streak against the Saints, Redskins and Eagles…a more impressive set of victories than the Eagles to be sure. Tony Romo has caught fire, and the Cowboys just seem ready to finally win their first playoff game since 1996. Cowboys 37 Eagles 20

Green Bay at Arizona – (Sportsbook.com Line: Pick) This is the third game of the first round that is a rematch of the final game of the season. The Packers absolutely destroyed the Cardinals 33-7 on Sunday, but unlike the Eagles who had something to play for, Arizona was locked in to their position, and had zero reason to put forth an effort. They played an extremely vanilla game, and I think that there is every reason to believe that this contest will be much more competitive. Kurt Warner should play longer than just the first quarter, and I feel like Arizona is going to try this time…call it a hunch. However, even though I think the game will be much more competitive, I still think the end result will be the same. Aaron Rodgers is rolling, the defense has been pretty good lately except for one game in Pittsburgh, and I just feel like Green Bay is primed to move on. The Cardinals had their insane run last year, and I don’t think lightning strikes twice in two years in the NFC. The fact that I picked the Packers to win it all doesn’t hurt either when it comes to my final prediction. Random thought while picking this game: Pack or Cards sounds an awful lot like Pack of Cards…I have no idea what that means, though. Packers 30 Cardinals 23

Late in the NFL season making picks gets tricky, as not everyone puts forth their best effort. Some teams have everything to play for such as the Jets, Ravens, Eagles, and Cowboys. Other teams have zero reason to play hard such as the Colts, Saints, Bengals (maybe), and Chargers. Still other teams just don’t care anymore…see the Seahawks, Lions and Redskins. Finally, some teams have nothing to play for but pride, but seem to be playing hard anyway…such as the Titans, Buccaneers, and Panthers. In this difficult landscape, I venture forth…trying to bring home a decent season of predicting. It’s been a good season for me when it comes to making guesses about the NFL. I am still alive in the eliminator game of which I am taking part, I am in first place out of 50 some guys making picks against the spread each week, and I just won the championship in the 16 team fantasy football league made up of guys from Dameshek.com.

Indianapolis at Buffalo – How weird is the final week of the 2009 NFL season? The Bills are favored over the Colts. When you factor in that the Colts have exactly zero to play for, and it’s likely that Curtis Painter will be behind center for the lion share of this game for Indy, it makes more sense. Still…doesn’t it seem like the Colts backups should beat the Bills starters? In a game that is completely impossible to predict…here is a prediction. Colts 20 Bills 14

Jacksonville at Cleveland – Improbably the Cleveland Browns are riding a three game win streak. Jacksonville has to be down in the dumps after blowing a chance to make the playoffs, but seriously, there was no reason the Jags should have been sniffing the playoffs. In one of the crazier developments to end the season, I’m going to say the Browns go out feeling good about themselves by improbably winning their fourth straight game. If you told me a month ago that I’d be picking Cleveland to finish with a four game win streak, I’d have told you to lay off the crackpipe. Browns 21 Jaguars 10

San Francisco at Saint Louis – Week 17 is a land of uncertainty. In these uncertain times, it’s good to know that the Rams are truly putrid. In a game that I feel so confident about that I’m sure to be wrong, but I’m going to pick it anyway. 49ers 30 Rams 7

Pittsburgh at Miami – The heart wants the Dolphins because that would be better for the Broncos. The head says that the Steelers are back, winning two tough games versus the Packers and Ravens after their late season swoon placed them in the unlikely position of being nearly eliminated. Heart wins on this prediction, Go Fins! Dolphins 24 Steelers 21

New York Giants at Minnesota – Do I take the slumping team that is eliminated or the slumping team that is in contention for the 2 seed? The Vikings have more to lose, obviously, so they may be tight. However, with as crappy as the Gigantics looked in the Giants Stadium Finale last week losing 41-9 to Carolina, I can’t in good conscious pick New York. Vikings 30 Giants 17

Atlanta at Tampa Bay – The Bucs are another crappy team that has decided to soar late in the season. They went into Seattle and crushed the Seahawks, then more impressively toppled the Saints in New Orleans the next week. With that kind of momentum, why not pick Tampa to keep up the hot streak? Especially since it’s not exactly like the Falcons are world beaters. Buccaneers 22 Falcons 19

New Orleans at Carolina – I’m feeling better and better about the Saints as they currently remind me of the 1998 Denver Broncos team that also started out 13-0, lost two straight games, and then finished up by polishing off a division rival (the Seahawks) before going on a rampage in the playoffs and sweeping to a Super Bowl Championship. I think Drew Brees has a similar run in him. The playoffs are totally unpredictable, and though the Saints are on a tiny slump, I think they right the ship in Carolina and get things in order for a deep playoff run. Saints 24 Panthers 17

New England at Houston – I’m definitely pulling for the Texans to win here and have their first ever winning season, but I don’t know if they have what it takes to take down a Patriots team that would probably like to be a 3 seed over a 4 seed. Patriots 27 Texans 13

Chicago at Detroit – The Bears actually looked solid against the Vikings winning on Monday night, so I’m going to guess that they can at least approximate what they showed six days earlier in the friendly confines of Detroit’s Ford Field…where almost everyone leaves happy except the home team. If the Lions keep improving by 2 games each season, they’ll be a .500 team by 2012! Bears 27 Lions 0

Baltimore at Oakland – The Raiders ruined the Broncos season two weeks ago in Denver, and now when the Broncos could use their help, I’m guessing they get stomped. Stupid Raiders. Ravens 34 Raiders 10

Green Bay at Arizona – Chances are good that these two teams will be facing off again next week in Arizona with a lot more on the line. Not sure how much they want to show each other, as this will feel more like a warm-up than an actual game. Both of these teams have made the postseason, and there are some interesting scenarios for the Cards that could include them getting a bye, but it’s unlikely, and I’m guessing this game will be pretty vanilla. Packers 13 Cardinals 10

Washington at San Diego – I feel like the Redskins are going to continue not trying for a head coach that is going to be cleaning out his office on Monday or Tuesday. “Thanks for the memories, Jim Zorn. Here’s one final beatdown to remember us by, with love, -The Redskins” Chargers 27 Redskins 6

Tennessee at Seattle – The Seahawks clearly don’t care about this season anymore, and I think the Titans want to finish at .500 to put a final stamp on their recovery from an 0-6 hole. Titans 29 Seahawks 20

Philadelphia at Dallas – This should be the best game of the weekend, and the winner gets the NFC East crown. Both of these teams look to be peaking as the playoffs come into view. I’ll call for overtime to decide this contest which should be an exciting one. I say the Cowboys get it done and avenge their season ending thumping at the hands of the Eagles last year. Cowboys 30 Eagles 27 (in OT)

Kansas City at Denver – In a second half of the season marked by indignities, the Broncos avoid what would be the worst mark on their record of all by taking down the very untalented Chiefs at home in a game that may or may not mean something for Denver. Broncos 26 Chiefs 13
Cincinnati at New York Jets – Hopefully this game means something for Cincinnati by the time it rolls around on Sunday Night, as I really don’t want the Jets to make the playoffs on the strength of two late season wins against teams that aren’t trying. Bengals 20 Jets 16

My Picks Scorecard:

Last Week: 8-8
Season to Date: 152-88

The Website: www.verticallystripedsocks.com

Atlanta at New York Jets – This game is more important for the Jet Set than the Dirty Birds. The Falcons are questionable enough even without having Matt Ryan and Michael Turner officially listed that way on the injury list. Chris Redman has looked surprisingly effective filling in for Matty Ice, but there is too many things pointing against Atlanta. Jets 20 Falcons 13
San Francisco at Philadelphia – Lost in the hoopla of the national media saying that the Eagles are back and a team to be reckoned with is the fact that they gave up 38 points and over 500 yards of offense to the Giants in that win. Sure, they scored 45 points, but at some point during a championship run you have to stop somebody, right? Well, if you want to get better at stopping people, the 49ers are probably a good team to play against. They aren’t exactly exploding with offensive threats. Eagles 30 49ers 21

at this point, Randy "The Ram" Robinson puts up a better fight than the St. Louis Rams.

New England at Buffalo – The Patriots are getting dragged through the mud as a bunch of underachievers and a team that is past it’s prime and looking for a soft place to fall. I think reports their demise may be a bit over exaggerated, as I have a hard time seeing them missing the playoffs to a team like the Jets or the Dolphins, and they should slaughter a middling Bills team no matter where the game is played. Randy Moss may have starting acting like Randy Moss and quitting on plays, but there is still enough talent in New England to get them to the playoffs. It may be a short visit to the postseason, but they’ll be there, and they’ll definitely show up enough to put away the Bills. Patriots 23 Bills 13
Chicago at Baltimore – The Ravens are the team I predict will be flying high by the time they reach the playoffs, I have them running the table and rising all the way to the 5th seed in the AFC where they will put the Patriots out of there misery before finally having their season end either in Indianapolis or San Diego. The Bears are not bound for such glory, as they are probably going to finish 6-10. I’m guessing no one will commission a large statue of Jay Cutler in Chicago this offseason. I don’t see this game being very competitive. Ravens 29 Bears 13

Miami at Tennessee – This is a pretty good game, the Dolphins have a shot at the playoffs, but they really need this one. The Titans have a tiny shot, but if it’s going to happen they absolutely MUST win this game. Both of these teams are pretty hot right now, and even though I don’t think either will make the postseason, this may be the most competitive game of the week. Titans 19 Dolphins 16

Cleveland at Kansas City – This is the worst game of the week, and possibly the worst game of the year. What I want to do is predict a 0-0 tie as neither team deserves to win or to even score in this game. I’m not going to pick a tie, but I do think I’ll predict an epically bad field goal battle. Chiefs 9
Browns 6

Something you will not see in the Browns-KC game.

Arizona at Detroit – The Cardinals lost a horrible game in San Francisco on Monday night. However, they only lost 24-9 despite turning the ball over 7 times. No team is going to win a game in which they turn over the ball seven times, and only losing by 15 in that scenario is not overly terrible. The Lions are flat out bad, and Arizona is due to get back on track. Cardinals 27 Lions 17
Oakland at Denver – The Broncos played admirably against the Colts in Indianapolis last week, and they now come home to face a terrible team starting a third string quarterback. Last year the Raiders came into Denver as a huge underdog and thumped the Broncos 31-10, that is not happening again. This Raiders team is not good enough to beat the Broncos on Sunday, I firmly believe the Broncos will win big. In fact, let’s just use that same score from last season in reverse. Broncos 31 Raiders 10

Cincinnati at San Diego – The Bengals offense is just not good enough for me to take them seriously as a major contender in the AFC. It will be interesting to see what the impact of the sudden death of teammate Chris Henry will have on Cincy as these types of things can sometimes energize teams. However, I don’t know if that will be enough to get the Bengals over the hump against a really good San Diego team. The Chargers are good enough to win the whole thing, and they haven’t lost in December in a long time. They’ll take care of business against Cincy and all but wrap up the 2nd seed in the process. Chargers 33 Bengals 19

Green Bay at Pittsburgh – The defending champs are all but finished for the season, they’ve lost five straight games, and I’ll be greatly surprised if it isn’t six in a row by the time Sunday’s game with the Packers is over. Green Bay is surging and look ready to roll into the postseason, a matchup in December in Pittsburgh looked like a heck of a game back in October, but now it looks more like a dud. I’m guessing the Steelers actually make a decent game out of this one, but I think they lose in the end. Packers 24 Steelers 21

The Steelers have put up the worst title defense since Tim Sylvia lost his heavyweight title to a 43 year old Randy Couture at UFC 68.

Tampa Bay at Seattle – The Seahawks are not a good team at all, but they occasionally explode and destroy really bad teams when they are playing at home. Tampa definitely qualifies as a really bad team, and I think the Hawks get their last win of the season in blowout fashion once again Seahawks 31 Buccaneers 3

Minnesota at Carolina – This feels like the kind of game that the Vikes don’t really need and that Carolina will be playing as if it were their Super Bowl. Brett Favre has played one bad game in December, so why not one more? In a bit of a surprise I’ll take Carolina. Panthers 26 Vikings 23

New York Giants at Washington – The Redskins are bad, but they can be frisky. The Giants have definitely cooled since their fast start, and now desperately need wins to have a shot at the playoffs. I think the G-men win this one out of necessity and the Redskins lose as Jim Zorn plays out the string until his inevitable firing that will occur the day after the season ends. Giants 28 Redskins 24

My Picks Scorecard:

Last Week: 12-4
Season to Date: 134-74

Playoff Preview: Here are my projections for the NFL playoff seedings.
Only one change this week in the playoff projections, I now have the Eagles in the 3 slot in the NFC and the Cardinals in the 4 slot. The AFC remains unchanged.

AFC:

1. Colts
2. Chargers
3. Bengals
4. Patriots
5. Ravens
6. Broncos

NFC:

1. Saints
2. Vikings
3. Eagles
4. Cardinals
5. Packers
6. Giants

Try and get him to pull a Michael Richards.

Greetings from New York City.  It’s been awhile since you have heard from me and I apologize.  Since the last piece the following things have happened:

The Giants have collapsed, going from best team in NFC to thank heaven for the Cowboys and December.  The Jets have lost a bunch of games that they should have won and won some games they should have lost.  Mark Sanchez refuses to slide feet first for whatever reason.  Both teams are still in the playoff hunt.

The Rangers couldn’t score if they brought prostitutes to the prom.  They started off hot again but seem to win only when Gaborik scores twice.  After a terrible start the Knicks have been playing much better.  Please disregard the 48 three pointers they threw up last night against the Bulls, completely playing into their hands.  They are moving the ball much better and are committing to defense and have played much better since benching Nate Robinson.

The Mets must be gearing up for the summer of Lebron just like the Knicks, because they aren’t doing a damn thing since the hot stove season started.  The New York media hasn’t been kind to Mr. Minaya.  He didn’t have the minor league chips to acquire Roy Halladay and John Lackey isn’t Hispanic so he didn’t go after him.  Not signing Lackey might turn out to be a good thing, however.  The Angels aren’t exactly a team rich in starting pitching.  Why would they let their ace go like that?  There is speculation that Jason Bay will make his way to Queens but wants a 5 year deal, while the Mets will not bid against themselves and are staying put at 4 years.

Omar Minaya's preferred starting lineup.

That leaves us with one team.  The World Champion New York Yankees.  I am not sure as to whether you are supposed to capitalize the W and C in world champions but who cares?  It was one game later than I predicted on this site but they got it done anyway.  They just acquired All Star CF Curtis Granderson and let World Series MVP Hideki Matsui go to Anaheim.  Today, they signed oft injured first baseman Nick Johnson to be their DH and bat second.  That would probably signal the end of Johnny Damon’s time here in pinstripes.  The Yankees still need another starting pitcher.  I know he had a bad year but releasing Chien Mien-Wang is a big mistake in my eyes.  The man won 19 games two years in a row and he is just as much a question mark as any other starting pitcher that is available in free agency now.

Nick Johnson is coming to town, this place better be ready to deal with all his injuries.

The St. Johns Red Storm are off to a really good start.  No one still cares.  It’s been so long since they mattered that they need to probably beat a couple of good teams to get people to start talking about them.  15 year senior Anthony Mason Jr., son of former Knick Anthony Mason (duh) is out for a little while but I still think they will do well until he gets back.

This game between the Jets and the Falcons can be very dangerous for Gang Green.  The Colts loom on the schedule next week and with no Matt Ryan or Micheal Turner scheduled to play the Jets can overlook them this week.  They are in no way guaranteed a playoff spot, and with the Colts and Bengals being the last two teams on the schedule they really need this W.  Darrelle Revis should be the defensive player of the year this season.  No WR has a good game against this guy and is the biggest reason why the Jets defense is number one in the league.

The Giants get the best last place team of this decade, the Washington Redskins on Monday Night.   After gift wrapping a game to the Eagles last week the Giants need this victory.  The Cowboys pay undefeated New Orleans on Saturday so they should be playing to pass the Cowboys for the last wild card spot.  I see both the Giants and the Jets winning this week.  Both games will be tough though.

Random thoughts.

If I hear that Empire State of Mine record by Jay-Z one more time I am going to start taking hostages.

You think Mike D’Antoni  regrets coming here?

All this talk about why would Lebron James want to play with the Knicks? That supporting cast is no good.  Name one guy on the Cavs outside of King James that scares you.  Put Al Harrington on Cleveland and it’s a different series against Orlando.

Thomas Jones is the most underappreciated athlete in New York.

Who is loving Tiger Woods more than David Letterman right now?

Hide the women, Tiger and Letterman are coming to your town!

The Atlanta Braves might be a problem in the NL East next year. Likewise the Seattle Mariners in the AL West.

They are planning to cut free metro cards for students here to save money.  What if they stopped giving free passes to those who work for the MTA? Or those who used to work for them? Or what if they made a better effort to stop people from jumping on the back of the bus without paying? Has to be a better option.

Tyreke Evans is already a top 15 player in the NBA.

Facebook I am convinced is a cult. Everyone always seems so damn happy.

Bret Hart in the WWE? Are they really that afraid of TNA?

Click the picture for Elevation's interview with wrestling legend Bret Hart

Keep playing like this Jared Jeffries and I will never say anything bad about you again.  Most likely because you will not be playing here.

Lastly, I want to wish a happy retirement to Charlie Gibson.  You are the best at what you do.

Short article I know.  But I will be back much sooner than last time and will have another top ten list.

To hell with being PC.  Merry Christmas.