The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I love how sportswriters and analysts are playing up the Tampa Bay/New England Sunday night game like it's some kind of soap opera. ESPN's Mike Greenberg even hailed it as the "game of the century." Give me a break. First of all, the storyline centers around two of the most boring personalities in all of sports - Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Also, while Brady is undoubtedly one of, if not the best to ever play the game at his position, there is now some debate as to how great of a coach Belichick actually is. In his 8 seasons without Tom Brady starting a majority of games for him, Bill Belichick's teams have gone a combined 62-74 in the regular season and 2-1 in one postseason appearance. On the flip-side, in 18 seasons with Tom Brady as his quarterback, Belichick's teams have gone 219-64 in the regular season and 30-11 in 17 playoff appearances, including 6 Super Bowl victories. What do sportswriters seriously expect to see on Sunday night, in a game featuri...

After the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams by the final score of 13-3 in Super Bowl LIII last night, as it was quarterback Tom Brady's 6th title, equalling Michael Jordan, the comparisons started pouring in faster than creepy robot commercials by TurboTax. "Is Tom Brady as dominant as Michael Jordan?" "Is Tom Brady the Michael Jordan of the NFL?" "Is Tom Brady the greatest athlete in history?" I've always despised GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) debates for many reasons. Most importantly, games evolve over the course of time, so it's virtually impossible to compare a player from the 1960s to a player from today. It's impossible to say with any certainty, "X player from the '60s would have put up Y number's in today's game while Z player from today would have put up XX numbers in the '60s." So how can we then ultimately decide who the better player was? Is it simply based on how they dominated the le...

While football is by far and away my favorite sport, the media's seemingly constant barrage of overreactions throughout the course of the season is enough to drive a sober person drunk. The main reason for this is, in football, teams play one game per week, whereas teams play multiple games every week in baseball, basketball, and hockey. So while a star player or team may have an awful game in baseball, basketball, or hockey, talk and overreactions are typically kept to a minimum, unless that player or team start going into an extended slump. In football, however, if a star player or team has an awful game, it tends to get talked about ad nauseam for a full week. Often times, these comments come across as extreme overreactions, which tend to get debunked a week or two later. Remember the New England Patriots just a year ago? After getting pummeled 41-14 by Kansas City on Monday night football to drop Bill Belichick's team to 2-2 on the season, many ESPN analysts said the Beli...

It seems that much of the talk this week surrounding the NFL has been with regard to coaches. So, I thought I'd put in my two cents on the hot topics of the week: 1) Is Bill Belichick and Tom Brady's successful run over? After the New England Patriots were dominated on Monday night against the Kansas City Chiefs, falling 41-14, which dropped them to 2-2 on the season, I can't tell you how many times analysts asked the question, "Is that it?" My response? Let's not jump the gun quite yet. While it's true that the Patriots have looked like anything but their old selves this season, they do play in the AFC (L)East and are currently tied for the division lead, alongside Buffalo and Miami. To start the year last season, while New England was 2-0, they had beaten the Buffalo Bills (who went on to be 6-10) and the New York Jets (8-8) by the combined score of 36-31 (average of 18.0 - 15.5), and many people were asking, "Is that it for Tom Brady and the...

Baltimore Ravens' Super Bowl-winning quarterback Joe Flacco is currently a free agent and some members of the media are claiming he should be the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL. While I think Baltimore would be wise to hang on to Flacco, especially given his great run in the playoffs this past season, I don't think the guy should be one of the top-paid quarterbacks in the league. Throughout his career to this point, Flacco has been fairly average as far as completion percentage goes and a little above average as far as quarterback rating is concerned. He has shown himself to be a capable starter, but has been aided a great deal by the talent around him: Tailback Ray Rice, fullback Vonta Leach, receivers Anquan Boldin, Jacoby Jones, and Torrey Smith, along with a top-notch defense. He's also been blessed with having a great coach in John Harbaugh. Following his great run through the playoffs and earning the Super Bowl MVP honor, Flacco deserves to receive a nice contrac...